Last week was a busy week. We also had the little one doing her summer recital as part of Galina Andre's music school. It was in a nice theater in downtown San Jose.
She has improved a lot, now that she plays the violin every day in school. Before she was only taking lessons once a week and practicing twice a week. Now that it is a daily thing, she has more confidence and we can see the transformation from a shy hesitant kid to someone who goes for it!
She made me very proud. I am sure there will be videos from the music school.. I took a few videos of the final group perfromances and they are below.
Glad she likes the school and glad she loves to play! Makes my day to watch her practice on her own without me having to sit there and turn pages on the notebook or be the stand for no reason!
Last weekend, our plan was to go see the super bloom of flowers that is moving north over the California hillsides. This thing was so huge it was visible from space, per reports from the missus!
We went on a day trip with the cousins to do multiple things.. Have a trip with family after a long time, go see the elephant seals at Point Reyes and catch the flowers on the hillsides. We did all three..
The view from the elephant seal lookout trail was amazing. You could see the seals nursing pups and the visibility was great.
you can see the seals basking in the bottom of the picture.. thousands of them!
Here is a slideshow of the views from the trail in HDR..
There was a fourth thing that was on the cards.. Take a picture of San in the fields of flowers.. Call it the DDLJ Kajol shot if you will.. I had to work with winds that could knock you over (my cap flew off in the wind and had to be retrieved!) and it was difficult to hold the camera steady. It was bright and sunny, but you want to understand the concept of wind chill, you should visit Point Reyes!
The photos in a sea of flowers with the sea in the background were not a roaring success, but it got a "satisfactory" grade!
A slide show of the seals and the seal colony.
And a few videos .. some timelapse of the waves at the lookout and others of the seals and their noises!
Strongly recommend this for a day trip in early May!
The last four days I have been getting sicker by the day and still managing work till it got to a breaking point on Friday morning. Simply could not get out of bed. Busy work days and no Yoga for four days did not help either.
Called in sick and slept through most of Friday. At bedtime, told wife and kids that come what may, yours truly is going to wake up at 5AM and do yoga. The alarm was set and off we went to bed.
Was still spitting out phlegm and as I walk to the bathroom, hear a car screech at high speed followed by a loud bang, a bright flash that lit up the entire house. Immediately power was out and all our emergency night lamps went on.
I ran out thinking someone may have crashed into our house itself and if there were going to be falling electric poles, the family had to run. It was also occuring to me that the folks in the vehicle might need help.
Ran out and saw a car had missed our garage but crashed into the electric pole. I yelled out to the guy in the car and he managed to open the door and stumble outside. Kept yelling to him to move away from the car, but he was not listening. There was transformer oil leaking from the top and his car was fuming from the airbags.
Meanwhile I keep trying to call 911 from my home phone and nothing happens. Then it strikes me that no power, no internet and it is a Vonage VOIP phone! Run back to the bedroom to grab my cell and wife says "dont go out.. sounded like a gun shot".. Told her a guy has crashed his car and ran out again and this time reached 911. They promptly send a few cops, fire trucks, PG&E and there was lot of action.
Turned out the guy was not sober and there were live wires that almost reached the ground! Good thing the cop told me to stay back and took the guy back. After watching the person go through a sobriety test and being taken away in handcuffs, then came the tow trucks, the spill cleanup crew, and more cops. Finally went to bed at 3AM knowing power was not going to be restored anytime soon.
Went to one of the guys and asked him "can I take my car out of the driveway in a few hours?" and he gives me the look!
They had put some absorbent stuff all outside our driveway to get all the stuff that leaked from the blown transformer.
So yoga in the morning was out. Yoga in the afternoon was also out. Finally got out of the house for an evening class and came back feeling good. We still did not have power and the wife wisely adviced me to shower at BYSJ before coming home.
After 18 plus hours of non stop work, the guys got power back to us 20 mintues ago!
Thanked the guys for their service. These guys are our true heroes!
Life is always interesting in the Narayanan household...
