my Pensive

Feb 2010

2010-02-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

Here in Columbia, Maryland now.. working on a new project. Trips back home every weekend. Staying away from family is tough but it has to be done for now.

There was a big snowstorm here this week.. almost 5 feet of snow in a week. Had to miss 2 days at work because of that. Hopefully this will be the end of the storms for this year. Can't wait for the winter to be over and get back to spring/summer mode.

Hoping we can visit India this year as well, really want to show India to Iresha and Simar(again). Going back home tonight.

trip to niagara falls

2009-08-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

Mom is here and kids are having a great time with her. Iresha's new favourite thing was Totoro till a few days ago, so we bought her a great big Totoro doll from amazon. The doll is so cute that everyone seems to love it. She was initially fascinated by it but seems to be disinterested now. Simar still loves it a lot.
Iresha's new favourite show is Super-Why which she calls susu-bye for some reason :) I think it has something to do with her potty training going on these days where she says susu aayi ai.

We went to Niagara falls this weekend and had a good time. Mom really like the falls and the maid of the mist ride. We also saw the made for Imax movie there. The surround system and the movie itself was quite impressive. Started late last night at 7pm and arrived home by 2:45. I had a tough time driving but the redbulls, orbitz and some radio helped me along.

Trying to find a contracting job these days here, not sure what the next few months will bring and where they will take us. Praying to God everyday that I find something local so we don't have to move out but nothing seems to be working out currently.

Little Iresha

2009-06-30T21:46:00.001-07:00

Iresha
Originally uploaded by daman sidhu

Here's a photo of Iresha taken in late June, 09.. she was all dressed up to go to a birthday party and i think this one came out the best amongst all the shots.

the lazy blogger returns again

2009-06-09T20:41:00.000-07:00

Yet again i type out a few words to prove that this is not a dead blogging page :)

Life has been moving at a steady pace.. the kids have been growing up quickly and Simar has started understanding and questioning everything that he sees and hears.

He has also noted down in his sharp little memory all the possible car brands that he sees and also which 'uncle'(my friends) owns which cars. His interest in bikes also is healthy enough for me to be a happy dad :D

Iresha is a real smart and cute little girl.. she knows what she wants and how to get it.. false crocodile tears is her biggest weapon but we are getting used to it now. He finger sucking has also reduced a lot and hopefully will be gone soon.

My Rocket has been in the shop from almost 2 months now.. a cam gear sheared off and fell into the block via the vales. The engine requires a complete rebuild. Im hoping they hurry the damn thing up and i get it before the summer gets over.. other wise id be really pissed.

Also a little tensed about visa related stuff etc and don't know what the next few months have in store for us once my current H1 runs out. Praying to God for a light at the end of the tunnel.

Its been a while

2008-12-03T08:36:00.001-08:00

Lot of stuff since i last posted.. Iresha grown up and is able to walk now.. she's turning cuter every day. Simar is in his terrible two's and can be a handful nowadays, but i think it will pass once he starts understanding more things. We had a fantastic trip to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks in Wyoming. There were layoffs at work.. with God's grace im still around. Bad financial times really.. hope it doesn't last too long into 2009.

been a while

2008-07-22T21:32:00.001-07:00

since i last posted.. i guess ive been busy with us having our hands full with the 2 kids..
nothing new though really.. im still addicted to warhawk(haven't bought a game since march- i cant believe it!) Still working out religiously too.

Juggling various things in life at once though enjoying it for the most part. Its great fun to watch Simar and Iresha grow up and see them a little different with each passing day :)
I haven't shot much though, so i should probably do that soon(Shweta keeps telling me that too).
We bought an outdoor grill and love cooking up chicken, fish and lamb kebabs for dinners :)
My cousin Ishinder is here these days, plan to check out Dark Knight with him tomorrow evening at IMAX. I have heard a lot of good things about the movie and hope ill be as excited after seeing the movie as i am before.

way past bedtime..

2008-05-03T03:44:00.000-07:00

I've been up almost the whole night with some production support issues at work.. something finally seems to have resolved now and we got the jobs going... man am i sleepy.. this changes the whole plans for today(or at least puts them in the late queue). yawn.. im out.. need to do more yardwork today.. aargh...
i got a new gemstone 7 channel amplifier for my HT, 400 watts X 7 and have Bi amped the mains.. sweet!!! The Dali's really shine in the mid and high range after moving to the Gemstone from B&K Reference!
Lets see, so the remaining stuff that i need to totally revamp my HT is..
a 1080p projector(prob a Sony VW40 or an Epson 1080)
another pair of Dalis Helicons(probably the bookshelf 300s for the sides) to move to a 7 channel setup from the 5 channel
a new pre processor that decodes all the new high def surr sound formats(im looking fwd to Cary cinema11a)
a new massive subwoofer- preferably the new Ultra 13 from SVS :)
and then i will be content(at least i think so now)..

over and out.. yawn..

Wednesday

2008-04-09T06:45:00.000-07:00

Finally a warmer day is predicted today :) thank God for that. I'm sick of the pathetic weather we've had this year.
I have my own photography website now, www.daman-sidhu.com. The basic site is up, ill probably do some changes to it soon.
Looking for GC related opening as i have very short time left to file my labor now.. hope something works out.
Iresha is also going to day care now, as is Simar.
Finally managed to jump start the bike last evening, hope to take it out for a spin today and take it to work tomorrow! yippie!!!

War-Crack

2008-04-05T20:20:00.000-07:00

Yes.. thats what they call an alternate(and more true name) to the game WarHawk on PS3. This game has me addicted to it like anything and i've got some friends on to it as well.

It's an online only game where you connect via internet and play against other players as a team. You can fly planes, tanks, jeeps or be on foot and have access to tons of features. Dog fight's are especially fun once you get the hang of it. The first few days i was just getting killed every other second, now im getting the hang of it a bit.

Im upto the rank of Sergeant now that has opened up a few character/plane customizations that is pretty cool. Our clan name is Bostonians and i'm hoping to kick some butt in the game with my other 2 friends who have just got it.

in absence

2008-04-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

I've been out of action from a long time now. Finally remembered that i had a blog today and decided to scribble a few updates..
- We had a great trip to the southwest in feb. I took some photos of grand canyon, monument valley and antelope canyons. Click on the photo to open up a slideshow of the set on Flickr.

- Shweta's mom is leaving for India tomorrow, so its upto us to handle both the kids. I'm hoping we are able to manage it(fingers crossed!)

- I'm down to 150 pounds, have finished my round of P90x. I'll probably start another round of it(I love this program!) in a couple of weeks.
- The dreaded winter seems to have gone away but the cold still lingers here.. the temperature is still mild in the 40's- 50's.
- Need to do them taxes.
- Need to get bikes battery recharged/replaced.
- Some other need to do's that i can't list here :)

Super Bowl Sunday!!!

2008-02-03T09:03:00.000-08:00

Man oh man are we excited over here :) The Patriots have reached Super Bowl and the kickoff is tonight at 6pm. We are playing New York Giants in the final and are hoping to go undefeated this season at 19-0!!

We are having a big super bowl party this evening with around 15 friends coming over. We are going to watch it on the big screen in basement with surround sound so it should be lot of excitement and fun! I'm sure there would be lot of nervous people here and we all would probably loose our voice by the time its over from shouting. Just hoping that we win this last one(finger's crossed). Super Sunday, here we come!!!

musings of january 16th

2008-01-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

Here's a photo of Iresha(from left) with Anika and Saveena!

So lets have a quick recap..
- Iresha is growing up and getting cuter by the day
- Simar is also growing up and showing sign's of terrible 2's now :P
- We had a great party last weekend for Iresha's first Lohri and Simar's second one. We also had Sukhmani Sahib paath at home thanking the Lord for the blessing of Iresha in our lives.
- Pats are in the AFC Championship game.. but against Chargers and not Colts as we all were thinking. I hope they win the game on sunday and also the superbowl. I'll be rooting for them! Go Pats!
- Planning a trip to California to see Grand Canyon, Vegas etc in Feb, hoping things work out. I would love to get out of this monotony of a life, its really been a while since we did anything..

New Movies..

2008-01-03T15:54:00.000-08:00

Ok here's a quick thought about the recent movie's i've seen.

Shoot 'em up : I had a BLAST watching this movie, though some people may not like it. It's kind of like Govinda meets Action movies, hilarious and non stop action throughout. Probably the most bullets ever fired on screen(yes even more than commando!). The stunts are completely over the top but the fact that the movie doesn't try to be pretentious makes it work. I plan to buy this movie on Blu-ray. Heck the movie even sends out a social message about gun laws in between all the violence. It's cheesy but i loved it!

The Kingdom: Very very good action movie that is totally opposite of Shoot em up. Very well crafted movie that delivers exciting action but also compels the viewer to think where we are headed. The last line's of the movie summed the whole thing up really.

Rescue Dawn: Brilliantly acted movie by one of the finest actors(i believe) we have in hollywood. Christian Bale shines in his role as a vietnam war prisoner. Fine performances by the other actor's as well. The movie doesn't get preachy and remains more of a personal saga for the crashed pilot rather than the whole nam war.

Taare Zameen Par: I would be hard pressed to choose my favourite bollywood movie of 2007, but this one would definetly be at the top of the list. Aamir Khan's first directorial venture is a brilliantly acted movie by the little kid and himself. It reminds us of the wonders of our childhood that we somehow seem to have forgotten as adults. Every single person in the hall seemed to have gone back to his/her childhood and remembering how precious those moments in our lives were. I'll be buying this as soon as it comes out on DVD. Great, great movie.

New Things!

2007-12-25T08:32:00.000-08:00

Started a new photoblog a couple of days ago. This one is solely targeted for my landscapes.
http://daman.shutterchance.com

Another new is that I finally started the P90X extreme workout program yesterday. This is going to go on for 90 days. Hopefully i'll be able to get some extreme results once the 90 days are over. The workout is very gruelling as i found out last evening, but i love challenges, so bring it on!

Christmas is here and it's a fascinating time to be in the US, everything is beautiful and decked up in red and gold and green. We had our first Christmas tree in our new house, Shweta really wanted one for the kids. Shweta has been busy shopping all weekend for everyone in the house and today we unwrap the presents(even though we know what they are now). Simar surely would be very excited as she's got a lot of different toys and games for him, this is his first Christmas celebration.

Things on my mind today..

2007-12-22T08:08:00.000-08:00

- when would this bloody winter end...
- how many more times would we have to shovel the damn driveway.. maybe we'll finally end up buying that snowblower..
- lot of work at office..
- need to charge my bikes battery.. the poor thing must be feeling left out since i haven't ridden her in 2 months and would probably have to wait another 3 months before i could.. when would this bloody winter end..
- i need to get out and shoot some landscapes.. my camera is picking up dust..
- why is the damn dish reception blown after a snowstorm, i hope i could catch the Pats- Dolphins game tomorrow... when would this damn winter end..
- would be starting out on a new workout program from monday- P90X, hope i can see some good results once i'm done with it.

2007-12-11T21:58:00.000-08:00

Found out that i can type in हिन्दी which is really cool। I must try to type in more words in हिन्दी one of these days.

These past few days have been lot of fun as well as hectic. What with the 2 kids in the house needing all the attention. Shweta and her mom do most of the kid management honestly and im grateful that her mom is here otherwise we would have been driven nuts by 2 kids constantly crying or shouting in the house.

Hopefully by the time mom goes back to India, Iresha would have grown up a bit and Simar would be more understanding about his little sister as well. At least that's our wishful thinking :)

We got a christmas tree today, would be cool to celebrate the first christmas in our new house with the kids :)

Coming to the new stuff I bought, here's a quick review

== I bought a couple of Diana Krall SACD albums and what can i say, I absolutely love the voice of the girl, its the next best female voice i've started loving after Norah Jones. I'm also getting more and more interested into Soft Jazz genre of music as well.

-- Eric Clapton's Slowhand on SACD which is a great album as well, i need more time to explore it in detail.

-- Zeppelin's Mothership which is a new album compilation of all their greatest hits. Some absolutely fabulous numbers on this 2 disc album.

--Boxset of all the 5 Harry Potter movies made till date on Blu Ray today, great packaging and the quality looks promising.

== Bourne Ultimatum that was a great action flick we had seen in theater. Hope to watch is soon in our basement theater.

== Die Hard all 4 movies on Blu ray(boxset), great video quality, cant want to hear it in surround sound.

-- Cars and Ratatouille, again stellar video quality and supposedly great sound quality in uncompressed PCM.

recent movies

2007-11-15T21:10:00.001-08:00

Quick list and review

Ratatouille - Great Pixar movie, one of the best though i still rate Incredibles and Cars above it. Maybe ill grow to love it more after repeated viewings.

Happy Feet - One time rental worth.

Frailty- Was recommended by a co worker. Very interesting premise and a twist in the end that i realized the next day after watching it :) Not for the light of the heart though.

Meet the Robinsons- First really good animation from non pixar branch of Disney. Looks fascinating in blu ray and a really good story to back it up.

In the Line of Fire - Great Clint Eastwood action movie, has all that you expect from him. One of the finest actors and directors ever.

Dhamaal (Bollywood): Laugh Riot, much watch and buy!

the little photographer

2007-11-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

Decided to post a recent picture of Simar. It's a very interesting phase he's going through right now. He's discovering lot of things and really picks up new things very quickly.

Amongst the other things that he goes after,probably his favorite is the camera. If he manages to see it even from the corner of his eye he would start shouting camera camera and throw a tantrum until he gets his hands on one :) He's even learnt to switch it on and take photos(mostly of ground where hes pointing normally). Thankfully this is the smaller compact camera of Shweta we are talking about and not my SLR :)

I do hope once he grows up he can appreciate and learn this form of art :) Here's a photo of him with Shweta's camera.

Pats win over Colts!

2007-11-04T22:46:00.000-08:00

Being a football fan(american football that is) i have been eagerly anticipating this matchup from quite a few months now. The best teams from both the divisions slug it out.. and what a slugfest it was!

The patriots were behind probably the first time at the end of 2nd quarter this whole season, but in the end our boys in blue and white pulled it off with a 24- 20 win over the Indy Colts. To give due credit to Colts, they are a very good team and after seeing today's game, im even more certain that when these 2 teams meet its really upto who plays better that day. But we pulled it off today and victory sure was sweet! So if we have to play against them in the AFC Championship well have them come over here instead of going to play in Mr Manning's safe zone of RCA Dome :) Bring it on baby!!

PS: With the Red Sox victory of last week we hit the jackpot with our day bed that we bought from Jordan's :)

Photos of Iresha

2007-11-04T22:26:00.000-08:00

Finally i have some photos of Iresha to post :)

This are the first batch of photos from our studio lighting setup in the basement that i tried out for the first time today. Hopefully i'll get better at studio lighting with time.

We are really thrilled with the addition of the little angel to our family and Simar just wants to play with her all the time. We have to control him and make sure he doesn't go overboard while trying to cuddle the 'baby' :)

The little angel has arrived!

2007-11-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

Finally!!!! She came exactly on the date the doctor predicted, not a day earlier or after. Our little daughter has finally arrived into this world as of November 1rst 2007 and its a very proud and special moment for the whole family.

Shweta has been in lot of discomfort from almost a month now with irregular contractions but last night the contractions were very intense and we knew that the moment had arrived at last :) She delivered our cute little baby girl at 3:33 am after we went into the hospital at around 12:45 am or so. The little one looks very much like Simar though she's an inch taller when born(20 inches/19 inches) and a little lighter than him(5 pound 11 ounces/6 pounds 5 ounces). It still has to sink in with us fully but there's a lot of work to be done around the house and hopefully we should be back at home by tomorrow. I thank the Lord Almighty for showering us with his blessings and a second bundle of joy and really hope that we can be good parents to both these lovely angels.

I'll try and post up photos of Iresha(yes that's probably gonna be her name) very soon!!!!

Yea babY!!!

2007-10-25T05:41:00.000-07:00

We finally managed to buy the speaker's that were on my wishlist from a long time!! I cannot say how excited i am at having these babies sitting in my home. They are one of the most beautiful speakers that i have ever seen and heard. We also managed to get a really good deal on them as they guy i bought them from needed to sell them to change his system.

Ah.. in all this excitement i haven't even mentioned the speaker type.. we've bought a pair of Danish made DALI Helicon 400's along with the matching Center Channel model C-200 in rosenut finish. Since these are 4 ohm speakers and my receiver's (marantz) amplification is for 6-8 ohms i won't be able to drive these with it as i was hoping.. so ill have to find a decent stereo amp to drive it once we can get some funds together. I'll post up some photo's of these babies as soon as i can.

Looking forward to

2007-10-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

There are quite a few things that im looking forward to currently in life..

First of course there's our little one due on 1rst November. Myself and Shweta are very anxious about it as the date draws closer. This being our second one though helps a bit, since we have gone through this whole process before. We just hope she's not delayed in arrival like Simar was 2 weeks late.

Next i'm looking forward to adding some new high end speakers to our home. A few months back we had extensively demo'ed some high end speaker offerings from Dali, B&W, Sonus-Faber, Dynaaudio, Theil, Ariel etc. and had finalized upon the Dali Helicon's for the home theater we plan to build in our basement. But as luck would have it we ran out of funds due to the new home etc.

But now Dali is going to upgrade that particular speaker line and up its cost by a considerable margin so Shweta has agreed to my proposal of getting them at a cheaper price while we can :) Let's see how this develops..

Then there's the studio lighting we ordered last week so that we can take some family photos at home and setup a temporary studio in the basement or one of our spare rooms. Since i've been mostly involved in landscape shooting i'm interested and excited to see how this would turn out. It sure would be a bit of learning process but i'm confident of picking up the technique's of studio lighting quickly since i've dabbled a bit in it before. The equipment arrives on monday via UPS so i'll be waiting :)

2007-10-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

Ah.. finally i manage to post again on my blog after forgetting it exists all together :)

It's mid October, fall is almost in full bloom here in Nashua. October chill has also set in. There's beauty all around, just wish i had some landscape subject's to shoot with my camera. I'm too lazy to go hunting around for photo op's these days and i really donot want to go out and shoot fall colors again this year just for the sake of it.

I had a lovely ride on the Rocket to work today morning in the fog. The misty weather brings out the contrasts in the leaf colors fully and they just pop out at you. GOD is a wonderful creator of all things.. thats what i think everytime i see the beauty around me. I also thank him for giving me the chance to witness and experience it as well.

On another note, we(Shweta and I) are very anxious these days about our second child and when she's arriving. We already had 2 false calls of labour and went to the hospital the first time too, only to find that the contractions stopped as soon as we reached the hospital :)

We still haven't finalized the name for the baby girl either.. its a toss up right now, i do prefer Iresha as a name and so does Shweta, but her brother and mom aren't so sure of it. Oh well, if nothing else comes up that catches our fancy, Iresha it would be :)

There are a couple of other things happening in life too that ill try and post in the next blog!
Adios Amigos!

2007-09-13T19:31:00.000-07:00

Finally i get the time to do another post. These days we are busy trying to find a name for our to-be baby girl and just cannot decide on one. If one person likes something, the other does'nt. Man, i hope we can zero down on at least a couple of names soon. When we decided on Simar's name we didn't have such difficulty.

Coming to what else is new in my life, i'm finally back totally into what was my passion in my college days and the intial few years out of college. Im back to blasting weights and hope to tone up soon. I used to weigh 216 pounds back in feb 07. From March I started out by doing cardio 40 minutes each day at high intensity and now in September i weigh 163 pounds having lost more than 50 pounds and back in decent shape. I still have a bit of belly fat left that i need to burn but im getting there. Going from plus 36 waist to a below 32 feels awesome though i have to change my wardrobe now :) I've started doing weight training finally combined with cardio excercises to burn the fat. It's a great feeling to get all those compliments and look and feel how i used to 6-7 years ago :) Here is a before and after photo for comparison!

2007-09-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at the countryside Maryland. This was a snapshot from a overlook enroute Deep Creek Lake, MD.

Trip to virginia & maryland

2007-09-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

A long weekend finally!! We took a trip to washington area to meet our cousin and do some sight seeing around. We took saturday early morning's flight and are finally back home on tuesday.

There were a few first's for me on this trip. I took my first jet ski ride.. i wasn't thrilled much as i was on the back seat and my cousin was riding the jet ski real hard. All the bouncing about and the thought of falling into the big lake at any moment didn't really appeal to me somehow. Moreover im not a big water person even though im a piscean (fish sign).

Simar managed to get covered in mud from top to bottom at the beach and had a great time. Another first for me was rock climbing. While this was a simulated one actually(tall wall at a park) i still had a good time at it. Having lost so many pounds of wieght helps a lot. I started with the easy climb and then finished the medium one as well.

We also visited Luray caverns in virginia that are millions of years old. Fascinating formations under the ground. Ill post a few pictures of it as well as others from the trip soon..

Simar rides papa's bike

2007-08-31T21:09:00.001-07:00

Simar takes his first ride on papa's Triumph Rocket III outside our home.

My First post!

2007-08-31T20:56:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since i typed anything coherent as i mostly write run-of-the-mill emails at work or do mechanical coding. This is my first post and I'm a bit skeptical of how long ill post at the blog, but I'm giving it a shot nevertheless.

I would describe myself as a daydreamer and romantic at heart. The world is beautiful and i want to explore it all. Thats why probably I'm very passionate about Motorcycles and Photography...

more to follow..