Checklist of things to do

This is a checklist of things that I want to do, and how much I have done. Of course, I will keep updating it as and when I learn skills or come across new things. This is just a random ordering and there is no priority.

1. Skydiving: costs 190$, this winter or next summer certainly

2. Fly a plane: flight license is too expensive, you can con them into taking the first few lessons for 120$. You are allowed to take-off, landing is certainly not allowed. Not before next summer.

3. Bungi jumping: costs 100$, not particular about it. Will see when it happens.

4. Ice skating: have done it once in Yosemite, even though I wasn’t good at it then. I should probably go there again now.

5. Roller Blading: have been doing it for quite a while now, can keep balance and move around without falling. Still needs improvement in braking and turning skills.

6. Learn swimming: have learnt enough that can jump into the big pool and do 50mts at a stretch. But I am still v. bad.

7. Paratrooping / Gliding / stuff like that: haven’t found out details about this, but this will also be done before getting the PhD.

8. Learn a musical instrument: Wanted to take a course at USC, funding and school policies come in the way. Will take up this course as soon as I get a fellowship (hopefully. Planning to apply next year).

9. Drive: So I have driven lots of cars. In LA itself, I have driven a Ford Mustang, a BMW Mini-Cooper, Hybrid Honda Civic, Toyato Matrix, Hybrid Toyota Prius, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Yaris. Rental companies zindabaad . However, a luxury AUDI is still in the list. My lab-mate has a BMW so hopefully that will also get covered. Another just bought a Mercedez so not before long, Mercedez will be in the list.

Long time driving dream: Lamborghini.

10. Ride a Chauffeur driven Limosuine: Already did this. Don’t ask the situation. It will be posted some day

11. Finish a PhD: Am on my way already.

12. Drive a BMW / Yamaha / Harley Davidson bike: estimated cost is around 300$ for license and another 60$ odd for rental. Not happening anytime soon though.

13. Go to a salsa class: cost 40$, waiting for some company and will do that right away .

14. Do scuba-diving on the coasts in Sydney.

15. Go to various places in the world: Paris, Rome, London, LA, Chicago already done. Athens on its way. Africa, South America and left. North-east India is a must. Kashmir is a must. Bangkok and Japan are lower down in priority. Sydney is expensive, otherwise it ranks higher. Switzerland will be later .

16. … to be continued.

Chronicles of my stay @ USA

So this post is to keep a log of travel I have done since I came to LA.

4th August, 2007: Came to LA, first time out side India while I was in my senses.

[don't remember date, I think 5th or 6th, went with my cousin] – Went to Santa Monica Beach for the first time.The Santa Monica beach is a good place to go. Nice, cool and windy, with lot of crowd and ice-cream stalls around. Santa Monica beach probably isn’t worth mentioning in this list, but wth, this is my blog . Manhattan beach is nicer though.

26th Dec – 31st Dec: This was the first *real trip* that I made since I came to LA. We went to Yosemite National Park, followed by Lake Tahoe, followed by San Francisco (including Santa Clara, Stanford, Berkeley) and spent the new year *sight-seeing* at the Santa Monica Beach. (checklist items: Trekking, Ice Skating)

11th May to 17th May, 2008: Portugal – This was my first Europe trip. AAMAS 2008 was scheduled at Estoril, Portugal. Estoril is a small place with the district of Lisbon. Lisbon is a small nice place, much closer to my home town Lucknow with all the small alleys. However, it is much cleaner and traffic is much more organized.

17th May to 20th May, 2008: Paris, France: Went to Paris, France just after the conference. Accompanying me were two of my friends, Christopher Portway (an undergrad at USC working in my research group at that time) and Rohan Monga (my friend from undergraduate who came to Lisbon for AAMAS as well).

Night of 20th May: Marseilles, France: Rohan and I took the super-fast TGV express train from Paris to Marseilles. Marseilles is a small-ish south eastern city of France. Objective to come to Marseilles was that the shore line to the ocean is visible and drive from there into Italy is beautiful.

Late night of 20th May: Marseilles, France to Florence, Italy: This trip was done in a bus. Eventful and nice trip, we were lucky in a way to be able to hop on to this bus.

21st May: Florence, Italy: The first town where we stopped in Italy. Small and nice place, you can walk across the city and see the standard tourist places in a day (Rohan and I were fast and enthusiastic walkers, may not be valid if you have some one like Bushi bhai walking with you )

21st May (night) to 25th May: Rome, Italy: A truly amazing city. Even though we were over-whelmed by the art we saw in Paris, old Rome is just amazing. IMHO, modern Rome looks boring after seeing the architectural beauty of Paris. There is nothing that compares with old Rome. Went to Vatican City on 24th. Vatican City is a nice place, IMHO the Sistine Chapel isn’t worth the 3-4 hours of standing in queue.

25th May, 2008: Came to New Delhi. HOME SWEET HOME. Finally met my cute nephew.

21st June to 22nd June, 2008: London, UK. Met my cousin and my friend’s sister’s family in UK. Took a long walk along Thames and took a ride on the London Eye.

23rd June, 2008: Back to LA and back to studies.

11th July to 17th July, 2008: Chicago: Went there for AAAI, 2008. Chicago is a very nice place. Saw for real the famous skyline. Met Amit Goyal, friend from undergrad.

2nd August to 3rd August: San Jose. Went there to meet my cousin and her 3 week old baby. On the way back, saw the Hertz Castle and huge Hertz Ranch. The ride along the Pacific coast highway is very very good.

16th August to 18th August: Las Vegas. My first Vegas trip. It was a fun trip, 4 of us went from LA and 3 friends of a friend came there directly. Apart from doing *stuff* @ LV, went to a couple of other places. Hoover Dam was good, acclaimed to be an engineering marvel, and certainly looks like that. Besides, scenes from Transformers were shot there . Went to the Nellis Air Force Base, and saw a training exercise from far. (IAF had also come there then).

Proposed future trips:

10th May to 15th May, 2009: Budapest, Hungary. AAMAS 2009. Plan to go there.

Hopefully will follow this trip up with a trip to Greece and Poland. If possible, the UK.

My First Post … and tipo !

hi all

so finally i m publishing my first post, which would have got delayed more but for tipo.

it is 2 o'clock in the night and i have a demo tomorrow morning, have to get up early. as early as 8:30 actually and when i have returned from CDE now… i saw the Great HuHa Kid, [CeG] *Butcher.Tipo, working and working seriously .

he is already the project admin of two projects on sourceforge ( too lazy/sleepy to put links ) and now he is developing a new Audio Player, one which will not only play ur audio files but also fetch Album Covers and lyrics of the songs from the net. Apart from that, he also plans to implement a Recommendation system (i hate wdkm ).

^:)^ ^:)^ to tipo