What's My Pirate Name

My pirate name is:

Iron Harry Read

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. Even through many pirates have a reputation for not being the brightest souls on earth, you defy the sterotypes. You've got taste and education. Arr!

A new blog!!!!

All these days I was using my old blog for all my posts. I decided that it probably would be better if I split the blogs into two different blogs depending on their contents. The old blog would be basically a technical blog with a lot posts on my efforts with Linux. This blog would be more of a personal blog. I will bring all those posts to this and delete them from there.

Hours before Openzone US reunion

Just a few hours before I leave for the Openzone US reunion. I am flying United and guess what United air/flight crew decided that plan to go on random strikes. I hope that they don't strike or cause any delays to my trip. I am not hoping that any others face the delays. This is the July 4^th weekend and over 4 million people travel by air this weekend. Please don't spoil their trip.

Six of us were supposed to meet up. We already have one drop out because of deadlines. I hope that it the remaining five can make it without any hassles. The plan is to make a road trip. Drive to Grand Canyon through Zion and Bryce Canyon (if time permits). Stay over night at Grand Canyon and then head back to Las Vegas. Spend the day there and then head back to our respective places.

United please don't pour water on our plans. Strike like a week from now or something.

US Reunion - part 1

Whenever you organize anything which involves a lot of people coming from different places you expect some glitches. After the initial starting trouble that we had the entire trip was really awesome. The people who were meeting up initially were Biplab (aka billi), Debjit (aka dabba), Narayanan (aka nari), Vivek (aka khassi) and myself (aka madda). Dabba couldn't make it because of deadlines that he had to meet. Hats off to billi for renting a car and driving down to Vegas when he couldn't make the trip initially after he couldn't board his flight. I will try to cover the entire trip to the best of my knowledge. Since I am trying to cover this in detail this will be 4-part series of the reunion. Will start with part 1 of the 4 part series.

Trips plan was to meet up at Las Vegas, spend the night there checking the Vegas night life on the first day. Get up early and leave for Zion National park and after spending time at Zion National park head out to Bryce Canyon if time permitted. Then head to Grand Canyon South Rim either directly from Zion National park or from Bryce Canyon depending on if we made the trip to Bryce Canyon or not. After spending the early part of sunday at Grand Canyon we were to head back to Las Vegas and reach Vegas on sunday night. Have fun on sunday night at Vegas. We were staying at Stratosphere so we had to do the rides there. After that spend time in the casinos check out the time Las Vegas night life. Get up as early as we could and then check out the casinos during the day and then probably catch some show if possible and then head to the airport and back to our respective places.

Night 1 was when we all got together at Las Vegas airport. When I arrived at the airport everyone else other than billi had already arrived, and we were just getting done with the process of renting out the SUV which boka had rented out earlier. After renting the car we headed out to are hotel. We went and checked into the hotel for the night. We decided that we should get something to eat as we were all really hungry after the long travel, thanks for the US airlines not providing food in the long distance flights. After grabbing something to eat we decided that we should crash as people had already had a long day.

US Reunion - part 2

Day 2 was initially to head out to Zion National park as soon as we got up. Since billi was going to join us late it was decided that we would leave as soon as he gets to Vegas. Billi initially had planned to wake up as early as 4:00 in the morning and start driving from Phoenix, AZ to Vegas, so that he would make it to Vegas around the time we got up and would be ready to leave. We got up as early as we could and decided that we should probably go around the strip while we waited for billi. As expected billi never left Phoenix till it was probably 8:00 so we had a lot of time to kill. We decided that we should go and check out Death Valley, since we had some time in hand. After having breakfast at IHOP we headed out towards Death Valley. On the way we managed to get hold of billi on the phone and figured out that he would be reaching Vegas in and hour or so. We scrapped the idea of Death Valley just check some place near by called Lee canyon. We don't know if we made it to Lee Canyon or not we stopped en route for some photo sessions. We took some interesting photos there and then headed back to Vegas to pick up billi from the airport and head to Zion National park, we met up with billi at the Avis rental.

Now that all the people had arrived it was time to start the pre-planned trip of the reunion, we started our drive towards Zion National park. We headed out on I-15 N drove probably like a 120 miles or so and then took UT-9 via exit 16 and headed on that towards the park following the signs. UT-9 goes through the park. The drive through Zion National park is a toast to the eye. Its just amazing how nature could have carved up all those sights. As we were driving through we were contemplating on if we should go and check out Bryce Canyon or not. We wanted to catch the sunset at Bryce Canyon. Luckily we got to decide if we wanted to head to Bryce Canyon before we reached junction US-89. At the junction with US-89 we turned left on to US-89 N at the stop sign. We kept following the signs for the park and turned right on to UT-12. We drove UT-12 for probably less than 10 minutes and turned right onto UT-63 and followed the signs into the park. We kept driving along till we saw sign which pointed us towards the sunset point. We turned left and drove to the parking lot and what we saw there is beyond describable. There are no words to describe what we saw up there at Bryce canyon. Probably the photos would just give you brief idea of what to expect.

After spending sometime taking photos it was decided to head back as it was a long drive to Grand Canyon from Bryce Canyon, nearly 6 hours. We took UT-63 to UT-12 and then UT-12 to US-89. Its a long drive on US-89 S all the way to Cameron. But if you look at an atlas you will find that if you take US-89 Alt you could shorten the drive by like 50 miles which would mean an hour of drive. Saving an hours drive in such a long drive is something you would love. At Kanab city you need to take US-89 Alt S instead of following US-89 S. We were really hungry by then and well were really lucky to find a Pizza Hut open that late and we all dug into our food. After eating we were all really feeling better and decided to hit the road again. We took the US-89 Alt all the way to Jacob Lake and from there kept following it till it merged onto US-89 and then we followed US-89 S all the way to Cameron. The drive to US-89 Alt is really awesome its a narrow winding road most of the way. Hats off to boka to drive us through it really quickly. Once we reached Cameron, we followed US-89 S to junction AZ-64. We turned right onto AZ-64 W and kept following the signs towards Grand Canyon. AZ-64 takes you inside the Grand Canyon National park. We followed AZ-64 W onto AZ-64 S and headed to Tusayan which is a small town just outside Grand Canyon National park, we had our hotel reservation there. En route to the hotel through the park we nearly hit a huge deer, it was probably a moose, anyway who cares it was huge and scary. It was really a close call, a near miss, well driven boka!!! We checked in into our hotel for the night, or should I say for the morning. It was decided that we would all crash after seeing the sun rise. It was decided that we would be playing 29. I decided that I would crash for sometime till we were to head out to the park to check the sunrise, as I had to drive the way back to Las Vegas. The others I guess played 29 till it was time to leave to check out the sunrise.

US Reunion - part 3

Day 3 started by all of us going to watch the sunrise at Grand Canyon. The mornings are pretty cold at Grand Canyon so it would have been nice if we all had some kind of warm clothes to wear, which we had none. We drove to the Mather point which is the first point once you enter Grand Canyon National park. A lot of people had got there ahead of us, it was pretty crowded. Its really awesome to view the canyon in the early hours. The clouds hanging low in the canyon, a really a very pretty sight. We soon got to see the sunrise over the north rim. We had our hotel located near the south rim of the canyon. The sunrise was over really quick and we went ahead took some photos early in the morning with the sun in the background and then headed back to hotel to get our long due shut eye, this was a much awaited event.

We woke up early, surprisingly, and headed out to grab some complimentary breakfast. The time we got there I guess it was the closing time for the breakfast, we ate whatever we got and could. After our breakfast we all changed and checked out of the hotel and decided to spend some time at Grand Canyon. We drove into the park, there was really a long line to get into the park. Once we got into the park we searched for parking spot to park the SUV. After parking we just went around the trail along the rim for sometime. We were all awed at the expanse of the canyon and its beauty. Nature is truly the best artist around and there is no parallel it what it can accomplish, true its a long process, but its surely worth the wait. After taking photographs at the canyon we decided that it was time to leave.

We grabbed some lunch at Tusayan so that we wouldn't need to halt anywhere on the way and head directly to Las Vegas without any stops. We followed AZ-64 S towards Williams, as we neared Williams we saw the signs for I-40 and we merged onto I-40 W. We kept driving on I-40 W for quite sometime probably like over 100 miles. We exited I-40 W onto US-93 N towards Las Vegas via exit 48. US-93 N takes you over the famed Hoover dam. The travel across Hoover dam was exceptionally slow due to construction. Once we crossed Hoover dam it just took us another half hour or so before we exited US-93 N towards Las Vegas Blvd. Once we got onto Las Vegas Blvd we had to drive till we got to Stratosphere which wasn't very long. We checked into Stratosphere, we took the option of a late check-out paying a little extra. When we into the room we found that we had an awesome view of the parking garage, were complaining about it all the while. We decided that we should not waste time and we all got refreshed. As we were getting ready to head out to check out the rides we saw fireworks taking place from the top of the parking garage. We had great view of the fireworks because of the parking garage, and we complaining about it. It was just awesome to see the fireworks so close. Damn we hated the glass window else we could have taken some great photographs of the fireworks.

After we saw the fireworks from the room we all got dressed up and decided go for the rides. After we got the tickets for the rides we had to wait in an exceptionally long line to get past the security so that we could get to the top of the Stratosphere Tower. Once we go to the top of the tower the view of the Sin City was really awesome. You could just see lights for miles and miles, its really an amazing view. The rides atop the Stratosphere tower are Insanity, X Scream, High Roller and Big Shot. Let me just give you a brief description of these rides.

• Insanity is a ride in which there is an arm that extends out over the edge of the Tower with you hanging from it. The arm then starts to spins us and then moves all of us to an angle of 70 degrees. Basically we are all facing the Las Vegas city as the arms spins faster and faster. Its really fun ride, can take your breadth away if you can look sideways towards the city rather than keep looking down.
• X Scream is ride in which we are propelled over the edge of the Stratosphere Tower and dangled over the strip. You are then pulled back and propelled out again. The ride is really worth it only if you get the first two seats, else its not that fun a ride.
• Big Shot is the ride in which you are catapulted up the towers mast, you are supposed to experience 4G's of force as you reach the top. This ride is really exhilarating. The free fall down is totally different experience. Its probably one of the best rides and everyone should experience it.
• High Roller is basically a roller coaster ride around the Tower. Its probably not the best ride if you don't sit on the outer edge and watch the city spin by you. That experience is worth it, if you get inner seat its pretty much a waste.

After we were done with the rides we were just starved we went search for some food. We dug into are food and we felt so relieved. Initially there was confusion as usual as what we wanted to do. There were a bunch of us who wanted to go and crash and there were couple of us willing to go and check out the city in the night. Well the city is best seen in the night. We hit a couple of casinos at Treasure Island and Mirage. We lost some money but by the end of it we were really tired. After driving back to Stratosphere we went ahead and crashed.

US Reunion - part 4

Day 4 started with us getting up pretty late, it was good that we had taken the late check-out option. We all got dressed up and decided to check out the various casinos. We decided that we would first go and check out the Venetian's Grand Canal Shoppes. We drove to Venetian and parked the SUV there. You have a carnival like atmosphere with street performers and costumed entertainers. Its a must see if you are at Las Vegas. From Venetian we headed out to the Caesar's Palace. At Caesar's Palace you should check the Forum Shops for the Exotic Cars at Caesar's Palace and feast yours with the mint condition collectible cars. At the shop I saw my favorite Ferrari flag that I always wanted to buy. But alas as fate had in store that was the only piece that they had that was on their wall and they were unwilling to part with it. After checking out the cars we headed out towards the famed Bellagio, Ocean's 11 fame. While you are at Bellagio don't miss out on the Bellagio fountains, there is a fountain show every 15 mins, its a must see after dark to get the true effect of the lights, music and water. While still at Bellagio don't forget to check the famed Bellagio lobby for its glass work and the Bellagio botanical garden.

As soon as we exited the Bellagio lobby there was the sinking feeling that our reunion was coming to an end and we had to part ways. Boka and nari had an earlier flight to catch and they decided to catch a cab from Bellagio and head to the airport. Like the earlier reunion which took place in Chicago (August 2003, correct me if I am wrong), the finishing touches to the reunion was given by khassi in his favorite Azzu bhai style interview. "Boys performed well you know" (just picture khassi saying it the Azzu bhai way). As we parted ways the famous five were reduced to the lonely three musketeers of billi, khassi and myself.

The three of us decided that we should keep the torch burning so went across the road to check out Aladdin. We just wandered around inside Aladdin and then moved on to Paris where we spent very little time. As we came out of Paris we had a glimpse of Bellagio fountain show. We hoped to catch the next show. We waited for sometime and the show just didn't seen to start, we decided to head on towards Treasure Island and hoped that we would be able to catch the Treasure Island show "Sirens of TI". We were in time for the show and we got to see the show. I don't want to describe the show and spoil it. You need to see it for yourself to enjoy the show. I would say its one show that you shouldn't miss while you are at Vegas.

After we were done with watching the show at Treasure Island we went across the street into Venetian and then hunted for the SUV that we had parked there and drove back to the Hertz rental at the airport dropped the SUV there and headed to the terminal. After getting our boarding passes we slowly moved towards security gates. It was the end of the reunion that took over a month to plan with all the logistics in place so that nothing would go wrong. I guess the main reason for the success of this reunion would be the detailed planning that we put into. Despite the initial glitches the planning that we had in place saw to it that it was one enjoyable reunion. All good things come to an end, so came the end to our reunion. Well it was fate that khassi and I had the same flight out to Dulles airport. So technically the reunion ended at Dulles airport when I had to board my flight and I started my walk towards the gate.

This was the saga of the Openzone US Chapter Reunion 2005. I am sure that by this time you would be bored to death. The idea of being so detailed was that if in the future we decide that we should retrace these very steps we would have guide present which would surely make our job easier.