It has been a long time since I posted any new photo albums to my website. Things have been just that crazy. But I finally managed to figure out how to host the albums on flickr and use them in my website, so that adding new albums will become easier in the future, thereby preventing these kind of delays again.

Anyway, I added 8 new albums to the ‘Life As We Know It‘ section: “Day at NY Aquarium”, “Barry-Tina Brunch”, “Hudson Waterfront Park”, “1 Day, 2 Parties”, “Day in the City”, “U2 Concert”, “2009 World Series” and “Halloween 2009″. I also added 2 new albums to the ‘Family Scrapbook‘ section: “Astha’s Wedding” and “Sonu-Manish Visit”. So check them out. Now I just need to add an album from our Vancouver trip and I’ll be all caught up.

We arrived in San Juan in the evening after a fun couple of days in Ponce and San German. Our hotel was the Caribe Hilton, and I have to say that it is one of the best beach resorts I have ever visited, despite not being an all-inclusive. The room was great, and the hotel has so many amenities for adults and especially children (it didn’t mean much to us this time, but I can see their value). Most important, there was a swim up pool bar and drinks service on the beach.

The next two days were spent relaxing on the hotels private beach, and enjoying the sun and the ocean. We had a great ocean view room, and between that, the ocean-side daybeds, the hammocks and the beach chairs, our itinerary was mostly set.

We did take some time out to wander off the hotel property and visit Old San Juan. It is a small (deceptively tiring to walk though because of all the uphill streets) area that is chock full of historic sites and buildings. Unfortunately, we underestimated the time it would take to explore it all, and had to skip quite a few things.

We took a walk along Constitution Avenue, which has some really great looking buildings (like the Puerto Rican legislative building), to get to the old walled city. We then took a stroll on the esplanade called Paseo de la Princesa that follows the city walls and the oceanfront. There was a really great photo exhibition called “Earth From Above” that had been set up on it. We also saw some great sculptures and fountains. And, of course, we got to admire the old walls that were once part of the most impregnable fortress in the New World.

Within the walls we came across some great piazzas, historic buildings (including a building that houses the Academy of Music and Art that was originally built as an insane asylum) and statues commemorating events in Puerto Rican history (the funniest was a statue that commemorates a time in 1797 when British soldiers mistook a religious procession for the arrival of Spanish reinforcements and fled).

Dinner was an interesting experience. We met up with all the others in the evening, without an idea of where to eat. We just picked a place called Ostra Cosa near the old Cathedral. The proprietor, Alberto, decided to spice things up by ordering for us instead of letting us pick the dishes. He spent a lot of time initially chatting with us and learning what we liked, and then he just sent out one great dish after another. The ceviche was especially good.

Later, we walked around a little bit to enjoy the night sights. The trend of fantastically lit up buildings continued in Old San Juan as well, the best being City Hall (photo below).

That was it for our journey through Puerto Rico. The trip was way too short, and there was so much more that we wanted to do. We will definitely be making our way back there, once Arav is a little older and can appreciate it. Need to give ourselves enough time to savor the beach, the history and the beauty of the island.

Website Updates: I added photo albums for our Puerto Rico trip and our Napa Valley trip to my website. Both can be found in the Travel Journal section. Keep in mind that the Napa Valley album is actually titled “Wine Country”. Reflects my hope to add more photographs to it when we make our way back there, and when we do a trip up to Sonoma.

It’s a bit late due to my trip to California last week, but I can finally recap what a great week I had before I left. My Best Sports Week Ever consisted of my first ever visit to the US Open where I watched Federer stretched to 5 sets, going to the New York Giants home opener where they celebrated their win in Superbowl XLII and taking a tour of Yankee Stadium before it shuts its doors forever at the end of the season. A great combination of rare sports related activities that just happened to converge on the same week of my life. I uploaded the photographs to the ‘Life As We Know It‘ section of my website, along with the photos from our visit to Princeton earlier in the week. Check them out.

Another spurt of late night activity has led to some more albums being added to my website.

Added new albums called “Papa’s Birthday”, “Short Hills Mall” and “At the Jersey Shore” to the ‘Family Scrapbook‘ section.

Also added new albums called “NYC Waterfalls” and “Catalyst San Diego” to the ‘Life As We Know It‘ section.

There’s a new tourist attraction in New York City – four waterfalls that seem to have sprung out of nowhere to captivate the imagination of the city.

Okay, so maybe they didn’t exactly spring out of nowhere. Olafur Eliasson’s work cost a lot of money and took a lot of engineering to put together. But the result is quite captivating. “The New York City Waterfalls” may be one of the largest works of public art ever put together in the urban landscape, but it is quite New York in its feel. It combines the sheer engineering prowess that created Manhattan in its current form with the waters that define the island. The falls recall something of nature in a city where nature is not natural at all. The Brooklyn Bridge waterfall is simply beautiful, shimmering in the night, one more jewel on our city’s grand dame.

We took a Circle Line cruise last night that took us on a tour of all the waterfalls. It was our birthday present for Tanu’s dad. The cruise was pretty short, but being able to “visit” all the falls, and see them up close and from different angles was pretty cool. I put the photographs in the ‘Life As We Know It‘ section of my website. Check them out.

Added new albums called “Arav Smiles” and “Life with Nana-Nani” to the ‘Family Scrapbook‘ section.

Also added some photographs to the existing albums “Hanging with Arav” (photo 5). “Memorial Day Weekend” (photo 16) and “Arav Solo Shots” (11 – 16).

It’s been a while, but I have uploaded some new albums to our website. I added new albums called “Hanging with Arav”, “South Street Seaport”, “Papa-Mummy Anniv 08″ and “Memorial Day Weekend” to the ‘Family Scrapbook‘ section. Also added some photographs (7 through 10) to the existing album “Arav Solo Shots”.

In this internet age, new parents have another task to add to their already long to-do list – ensuring the proper presence of their kid on the web. Arav is well on his way in this regard. His arrival has already been noted not just in this blog, but in Ranjeet’s blog as well. His photographs are on my website already, as well as on my flickr and facebook pages. And we have already registered his email address and domain name.

Now that I have adjusted a little to my new life schedule, I have been able to spend some time to make a major structural change to my website, forced on me by his arrival. Tanu recommended the change in anticipation of the many, many photographs we will be taking, and the desire of the grandparents and cousins to get to them easily. I have broken out the albums related to our family life (which will now be dominated by Arav) into a new section of my website. The section is called ‘Family Scrapbook‘, and the latest album in it is a set of photographs from Arav’s first full week at home. It is definitely the first of many. Check it out.

Yesterday turned out to be a jam-packed, special day for us. Arav got discharged from the hospital, and we got to bring him home. We were prepared, or so we thought.

First, in the morning, I had issues trying to get the car seat attached. My Passat is supposed to support the LATCH system, but try as I might, I could not find the connectors to attach the seat to. After 50 minutes of struggling with the seat cushions, reading the car manual and trying all manner of things, I ended up using the seat belt to tie it down. That ordeal made us late getting to the hospital. But at least it worked in whatever manner it needed to.

At the hospital, we found Arav ready to go home. The discharge process took about 4 hours though, what with all the paperwork and having to feed Arav in between. Our experience at Beth Israel has been really good. All the physicians and nurses were really good, and really helped us with lots of advice, tips and general encouragement. So we came there feeling pretty good about our abilities. But then the nurse assigned to Arav for the discharge process turned out to be really unhelpful. So much so that whatever reserves of confidence we had built up got completely destroyed. One nurse can make a huge difference. Our attempts to get someone else to help us were thwarted by the fact that it was a really busy day for them with lots of babies being handled.

When we got home, Tanu’s mom gave Arav a proper (and traditional) welcome, after which we settled down to the task of getting Arav settled into his new home. And that is when chaos ensued. Some phrase about the best laid plans comes to mind…

And the peaceful Arav we encountered at the hospital has disappeared. As soon as he got home, the munchkin decided that he was going to show everyone who is really in charge. He’s been making all of us run around, and has kept Tanu and me up most of the night. He refuses to sleep in the crib, and will only sleep if one of us is holding him close. Feeding is a chore, and I won’t even talk about the other stuff. Let’s just say that this morning finds us tired, a little frazzled, and pretty unsure about being able to get through what lies ahead.

Photographs: I added photographs from this MAJOR event in our life to the ‘Special Occasions‘ section of my website, under the album “The Birth of Arav”.

Joining the continuing series of public art installations at Rockefeller Center is Electric Fountain by Tim Noble and Sue Webster. This hulking structure sits in the same spot occupied every winter by the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, overlooking the rink and the statue of Poseidon. I saw the thing being put together last week when I was walking home from work, and was interested in seeing how it would turn out. And it turned out pretty decent.

The structure is an attempt to evoke a fountain of light, as thousands of blue LEDs and neon tubing try to create the illusion of light flowing, splashing and pooling like water in a real fountain. The effect, on a wet and rainy night, was pretty cool, though not spectacular. I mean, with Times Square just a few blocks, this light show manages to look interesting but not that extraordinary. The good thing was that because of the rain, we managed to see it without too many crowds around it.

Electric Fountain is going to be illuminating the Rockefeller Center plaza through April 4th, so check it out if you are going to be around. If you aren’t, you can check out some of the photographs I took by checking out the album “Electric Fountain” on my Life As We Know It page.