Madras Kappi

I was born in Srilliviputtur( birth place of famous hindu god Andal) a small town in the southern part of TamilNadu but was brought up in chennai famously called as Madras and very very famous for Madras kappi. What is Madras Kappi? Coffee made from Coffee beans(powder) and chicory with lot of milk with coffee allowed to be filtered overnight just by gravity. My mom makes very very good Filter coffee or Madras kappi to be called. Aroma of she making coffee in the morning can definitely wake you up. I miss those days when I had a filter coffee in hand and reading Hindu Newspaper sports page in the morning. My dad use to scold us badly for directly going to the sports page in the Paper, we never heard his words on that. I don’t think people will have so much patience to make filter coffee in this modern world. Todays world is Instant world right from coffee to making instant Idli. I guess Filter coffee will be soon added to the extinction list.

40 to 31 in 1 year

I wasn’t into running till last June 2007. I went for my vacation to India in May. I was quite heavy then weighing 220 pounds( 100 kgs). I got quite a few nice comments about my looks and how heavy I am from my so called friends and relations. I was very very upset about one of my old volleyball colleague’s comment asking on when is my marriage and I look like a 29-30 year old guy. I wasn’t a heavy guy in college, it all happened after I joined cognizant for work, due to heavy coffee drinking, food and no exercise helped me ballon from 72 kgs to 100 kgs within 2 ½ years. After coming to US in December 2005, the un-healthy life style continued, my fondness for choclate and with no one to curtail me from not eating it didn’t help me either. One Hershey or Mars bar for a snack in evening was too much for my body. I did not realise that I was getting heavy for a long time reason being, people who are around me are also heavier. Only after going to India I realized how heavy I am, my mom wasn’t happy either with my weight. She had her reasons to worry, child hood friend of mine had his first heart attack at the age of 24 thanks to high cholestrol and heavy weight. I did not have a clue on how to reduce my weight but I had a motivation that I have to reduce my weight.

I have never run for a long distance in my life. Longest as far as I remember was 400 metres race in high school and in that too I ran for first 300 metres and walked for the remaining 100 metres, I finished the race though. I was very active kid in high school, I played volleyball for school but that doesn’t require much moving around or running, I participated in shotput, discus throw and javelin throw in zonal/school district competition. I use to go in my bicyle to school( still remember the day when my dad bought me my first bi-cycle, I was so proud as if I was the king of the world), I have to ride 5kms one-way, It kept me really really slim. After returning back to US I started thinking on how to reduce my weight then I realized what I did when I was in High school, so I got a confidence that I can reduce my weight. I asked for suggestions from people who have decreased there weight. One of my client Systems analyst was weighed a whopping 380 pounds, he decreased his weight from 380 to 220 pounds in 1 year. He had some good motivation for decreasing his weight, he has a small passport size photo of when he was heavy on his desk. He advised me to have my photo in which I am looking heavy on my desktop as wallpaper and the moment I see that I will be off to working out. Actually his idea did really motivate me. I thought of just jotting down Some of the tips what I learned from other people who have decreased weight and what I did to decrease my weight . I chose running for decreasing my weight since it was the fastest and healthiest way suggested by my doctor
• Buy a weighing machine and weigh yourself daily morning and evening.
• Buy a Nice running shoes, probaly you have to shell out somewhere around 80-100$ on a running shoe, but it definitely does worth it.
• Buy some good branded play dry t-shirts. I hate wearing cotton when I am running, cotton t-shirts or shorts absorbs sweat and becomes heavy in the course of running and made me to feel tired. Play dry t-shirts evaporate the sweat and helps in running.
• Buy some play dry shorts. It helps in running similar to play dry t-shirts.
• Keep yourself hydrated when you are running. I prefer water.
• Buy 4 or 5 head bands to use for running. Lot of people have aversion towards using head bands. Head bands helps in absorbing the sweat from the head and prevents it from dripping down to the face. It feels lot better to run with a Head band. It does worth to spend some 4 to 5 4 on a head band.
• If you are starting to run for the first time in the tread mill then start with a speed of 4.5 or 5 Miles per hour and run for around 5 mins @ the start. Then start increasing the timing slowly. After a week if you are feeling comfortable with running at 4.5 miles per hour then increase it to 4.8 and try running for the same time.
• Most of the gyms have TV nowadays, try to find a nice show for the time you are running, go to the gym for seeing the show and run when you are watching the show. I like seeing Everybody Loves Raymond, I use to align my running time when the show comes on TV. It will keep me occupied.
• If you are using some music player when you are running get a nice wristband or arm band for the music player, it helps in the natural free flowing hand motion when running. Holding the music player in hand or in pocket made me conscious about the presence of music player and I would concentrate on not dropping it on the floor than actually running.
• Lot of motivation and will power is needed for running daily, lot of times I wont feel like running at all but the moment I switch on my laptop and see the wallpaper I will be off to running.
• You may not see the weight loss results immediately. Donot lose hope, it happened a lot with my friends, they will run for a week and if they don’t see result then they will stop running.
• I feel lot confident about myself after decreasing my weight, I am able to do lot of outdoor activities, my endurance has increased a lot.

Now you maye be wondering on why I kept such a blog heading, it is my waist size. I was 40 inches in June 2007 and I am 31 inches now.

Myself in June 2007




Myself in May 2008

Google Analytics

If you are an avid blogger and with lot of people visiting your blog then this is something that you have to add to your site. It is yet another wonderful product from Google. It gives you a good idea on which geography, which ISP you get hits for your blog, what is the users language preference. It does provide some good reports and clickable maps on the User Visit information. Due to privacy concerns Google Analytics does not give preference for tracking IP Addresses. Tool is free till 5 million hits to your page per month. Adding the Google analytics tracking to your blog is very easy, just copy paste the JavaScript (with tracking application info) to the blog.

I love my pulsar

Only major decision i took against my dads advice was buying a pulsar in 2005 Feb. Though I drove the bike only for 10 months, I really fell in love with my sweet pulsar, funny part was my dad started liking my pulsar better than any other Bike, he is driving it now in India, I dont regret buying pulsar against my dads advice.Iam not new to driving mopeds/bikes, I started driving my dads Bajaj M80( we are bajaj family, all the 3 mopeds/bikes in my house was bajaj) when i was in the 5th standard. I love driving my pulsar early in the morning, wearing my Ferrari Stickered Helmet( was red in color, most of my friends dont like my helmet,but i love my helmet though) with my helmets visor up, fresh air hitting the face, that was heaven.It was 27 kms drive from my house to Tidel Park, I use to make it in 40 mins in the morning. I still have that love for Bikes, but being in scranton, even I buy a good one , I can drive only for 4 months in a year and remaining 8 months the bike has to be in the garage.I feel like buying a Bike If I am moving to some other warmer place.

Ven Pongal

I am a big fan of Ven Pongal, I did not have a proper ven pongal since I came to US. Lady luck shined on us, new friend of mine who moved from India to Scranton a month back offered to cook Ven Pongal for us(in total 5 of us) yesterday night. It all started when we were planning on what to do on saturday night. We searched for proper pressure cooker and all the required ingredients to be added and finally started cooking @around 9.45 in the night( not bad for a saturday night). Then there was a discussion on what chutney to be made for pongal, cocunut chutney was decided on vote. Green chilli and Pepper for pongal had to be borrowed from my friends apartment. I had a wish that pongal will be good with chutney and sambar too, that combination is just too awesome. Lady luck again smiled on us again, one of my friend who was there had made sambar in afternoon, we brought that in and made some adjustments( liquified it to some extent) for pongal. MMMMMMMMMMMM it was yummy, it was worth spending sometime on cooking pongal and eating it, i was taken back to India when my mom use to make pongal on sunday morning. Thanks to our chief cook Jagadish for making the pongal so yummy.

Long Time!!!!!

I did lot of traveling from the time I wrote my last blog. I am not an avid blogger, but lot of outdoor activity has kept me away from blogging for a long time.

Trip to Vegas

I went to Vegas with some of my friends, it was hell lot of fun. While going to Vegas, the flight landed ahead of time in Vegas, wow what a surprise, it never happens in US. While returning back it was on time and I reached office on time. We stayed in different casinos on different nights to get a feel of the casino. Some of my friends were introduced to gambling and they where just hooked on the slot machines. Most of the time in the Casino or sight seeing went in taking profile
pics :), thanks to Navin a great photographer( made me to look good in the photos).
The amazing part is the desert has been converted into such a booming place, interiors of some of the casinos were mind blowing. We went to a show called Le Reeve( Dreams in French) , though I couldnt understand the essence of the show, the acrobatics in the show was too good. I definitely want to take my parents to the show when they come to US.

Trip to Chicago

I did not plan for the next long trip but it just happened immediately after my visit to vegas, I and 5 of my friends went on a road trip from Scranton (actually 4 of them drove from Hartford, CT) to Chicago. Wow it was lot of fun on the road, got to know them better. I went to Chicago to see my school friend Kasi, he is a real nerd, we visited lot of museums. I did like Chicago a lot, it is a windy city, the skyline is just awesome, in most of the movies the skyline that is been shown is the chicago skyline. I bumped into some of my old friends in Chicago downtown, quite a lot of change from the last time I saw them. Drive back from Chicago to Scranton was good, though I could not drive both ways since I am an underage (below 25) driver, stupid rental car companies here does not allow underage drivers to drive the car.

I am looking forward my next trip soon...

5K Race

I was lying low for sometime, after my injury scare while playing volleyball. I started running around the lake scranton again after the pain in my right ankle reduced, though i had support for my wrist. My office colleague informed me about a 5K memorial run on April 19th, organized as part of the Carbondale YMCA( Old and Historical town in PA). I was excited the moment i heard about that. I wanted to run in the race but wasnt sure on whether my ankle would be ok for running. I ran around lake scranton on friday(april 18th) to check whether my ankle is ok for running. I couldnt complete the full run, yet i decided to run on saturday.

Race Day

I was there for registration sharply on time, 7.30 in the morning. Whenever I am on time nothing else will happen on time. There was a fund raiser event for YMCA and there were lot of politicians giving long and lengthy speech. Politicians are the same everywhere. Race that was suppose to start at 9.15 in the morning started at 10.15. Temperature was also high on 90F. I gulped in a bottle of gatorade before the start of the race. There were lot of people who ran in the race. The moment race started people were sprinting as if they are running in a 100 or 200 meters which is very bad for a long distance running. There were cops and volunteer regulating traffic around the race route and people cheering us all the way to the end. Lot of people dropped out in the middle of the race. I completed 1 mile in 8 mins and 10 seconds, my office colleague had to stop in between for a minute since her knee started giving trouble. I finished my 2nd mile in 17 mins and 20 seconds. The last leg of the race was the tough one with one long up hill , i struggled but somehow managed to finish the run in 27 mins and 20 seconds. I was happy on finishing the race and I was placed at 52 among 588 people who ran in the race. It was not bad for somone who has never run in such a long distance race before.