Tag Archive: Personal

To Freeze or Not to Freeze?

August 6, 2007 at 11:27 pm · Filed under Adventure, Personal

I love the cold. I love snow and ice. I hate hot weather with a passion. And I have been to parts of the world where thermometers do not mean much (mostly because they would crack and break, of course).

Given this and my penchant for adventure, I had given my name for an expedition to the Arctic. I was put on the waiting list since it was quite obviously an expedition that was much in demand. What more, it was in the winter — just who wouldn’t want to be in the Arctic in the winter, with the Northern Lights, polar bears and the simply gorgeous weather with all that snow?

So, last evening I get a call from the Earth Watch Institute telling me that a position had opened up in the expedition and asking me if I would be interested in going. The only downside of course would be that it would put me back by a good chunk of money (you know, all that equipment and doing things up there costs money).

And here I am, with my snowy dilemma. To freeze or not to freeze? At the end of the whole thing, it would be about two weeks out there and I would be more than a few dollars poorer.

On the other hand, I get to go to a place where few people have been. The downside of course is the age old conundrum between desirability and affordability, as Akshay puts it.

So, my dear readers. Do I spend money to spend days out in the snow, at -50 c, freeze my sorry ass, work on some interesting but tiring stuff, watch the northern lights but wake up at unearthly hours — or do I just give in and hope that something else comes along in the future?

Proselytisation and Spam

December 11, 2006 at 1:49 pm · Filed under Humour, Personal

Lately, I have been receiving a lot of messages from people looking to spread the word of God (their version of this God character, anyway).

Sometimes, I think that this is all a great conspiracy of sorts because these “devotees” do not seem to spare any medium whatsoever.

Lana’s Christmas Gift — Casio Pathfinder

December 7, 2006 at 3:41 pm · Filed under Mountaineering, Personal, Technology, Toys

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

~H2G2, DNA

As you all know, I love mountaineering, rock climbing and a plethora of other extreme outdoor sports. So, I have always wanted a Casio Pathfinder, which is an awesome watch with such features as digital compass, altimeter, barometer and thermometer.

So this Christmas, Delana has gotten me this fantastic and very useful (not to mention possibly life-saving) Christmas gift. Yup, a Casio Pathfinder.

Karthik's spankin' new Casio Pathfinder

The model that I got is the PAG70-1V, which was one of the two models that I had wanted. This watch is totally fantastic. I am totally thrilled and excited, this little baby has got a tonne of cool features and works amazingly well. And I think that Digital Watches really are a neat idea.

Yay!

Coffee, Tee or Me?

November 19, 2006 at 6:51 pm · Filed under Mountaineering, Personal

Here is a tee-shirt that was made with a picture of me climbing — the blurred part on the top left is the name of the project, and the blurred part on the bottom left is the name of the company. :)

Karthik on a tee

The pictures is from the series of pictures taken during one of my El Dorado Canyon climbs.

And I will autogaph your personal tee for just twenty donkeys (female only, I want lots of donkey-babies).

Astrophysics

November 17, 2006 at 2:25 am · Filed under Personal

So, lately I have been considering going back to school to do a Ph.D. in Physics, part-time to begin with.

Casio Pathfinder

October 12, 2006 at 11:30 pm · Filed under Adventure, Personal, Technology

Here’s my dream watch (not that it’s particularly expensive, I just haven’t found a good enough occasion to get it) — the Casio Pathfinder PAG70-1V.

Casio Pathfinder PAG80T-7V

It has a bunch of features that I’ve always wanted when I am out there — Digital Compass, Altimeter, Barometer and Thermometer.

On top of everything, it works at low temperatures (-10ºC/14ºF) and has a few other cool features such as the Auto EL Backlight and is Solar Powered.

Can you say drool?

Would someone please think of the trees?

August 20, 2006 at 11:42 pm · Filed under Books

Not that I have all that many books, but I’ve been recently trying to update my compilation of books that I own.

So, here is the list of books that I own for your reading pleasure (horrible pun, I know).

The list is not entirely complete, and I still have a couple of hundred books in storage that I want to add to the list. And of course, I buy a few books every week, so no list is ever going to be up-to-date.

At this point, the count is at 461. It’s not a particularly impressive number to me, but apparently it is to some people — just last week, I had a visitor ask me if they could take a photograph of my book collection.

And on this note, I’d definitely appreciate any suggested readings that you folks may have based on what passes for my reading preferences.

Update: This one is for The Cydonian — just figured you might be interested in looking at the autographed D. Adams book. ;-)

So long and thanks for all the fish

So long and thanks for all the fish