6 years of Coffee - Blog - Love - Hangout!

Another year went by! This is the first time ever that I am writing my blog while sitting in my laboratory. It turns out, the experiment is such that I am bored waiting for the computation to end. But, anyways, I am here to tell you about another amazing year for my blog. On February 5, Coffee - Blog - Love - Hangout turned 6! How cool is that? In this last year, there are many things I have reflected upon in my writings. Aah, I wished I had written more, but, you know, how this works. Right now I am in a more relaxed state of mind, so let me think of the wonderful moments in the last one year, that I have shared on my blog.

The year 2011 began with the rumors of a new iPhone Nano, which of course never became a reality. But what is amazing here is the anticipation of a "then Apple fanboy-me" who was crazy to hear about the successor to the iPhone 4. February-March 2011 saw me take my second visit to India to meet my family and friends. It was also the cricket world cup time. I had the opportunity to enjoy a few games in the comfort of my home while my mother made some delicious ("delicious" is an understatement here, mind it) food for me. I had a wonderful trip. I visited Calcutta (yes, I like the name the original way) with my parents and sister. That is where we celebrated my parents 26th marriage anniversary. I was disappointed that I could spend only a couple days with my sweet sister. We then returned to Bhopal, where my father lives now. I enjoyed a tour of the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (Indira Gandhi Museum of Mankind), Bhopal, where my father currently holds the position of the director. After a few days of enjoying the "maa-ke-haath-ka-khaana", I traveled to Bombay (yes, Bombay it is) to visit my friends and cousin. This was my first "proper" visit to Bombay. I just loved the atmosphere, the people, the places, the food, and of course, the Indian Naval Service's (INS) dock. We were lucky to get a tour of one of the newest ships INS procured; all thanks to my cousin- Lieutenant Commander Mainak Mishra. The trip also included a short trip of my hometown- Hyderabad. On the whole, it was a great trip with lots of travel, food and fun! I was also privileged to make a short special trip to meet Amrutha and visit her family. I just love Hyderabad! Who doesn't?

So, I was back to Rapid City in mid-march and I enjoyed watching the rest of the world cup matches and was thrilled to watch team India lift the world cup. Soon to follow was the NFL season. In  September, the New Orleans Saints opened the NFL regular season with a game against the defending champions from the 2010 season, the Packers. I bought an iPhone 4 for myself and was enjoying the hype surrounding the iPhone 4S/5. But, after Apple released the iPhone 4S and its iCloud services, I was not very impressed by the iPhone anymore. I wanted change, for the better. And the change came in the form of Windows Phone. I was sick of trying to jailbreak, and install custom themes, and all other s**t you need to do to make the iPhone work for you the way you want it to.On September 14, my father received the Presidential Award from the president of India Smt. Pratibha Patil, on Hindi Divas for his contribution to the Museum of Mankind. What a proud moment that was! We are proud of you , Dad!

On January 2, 2012, on Monday Night Football, Saints quarterback Drew Brees broke the NFL record for the highest passing yardage in a single season of 5087 previously held by Dan Marino. What a moment it was! Later, the Saints had the best NFL season in many years, to advance to the wildcard round and then the divisional playoffs but fell to the San Francisco 49ers. The New York Giants later went to defeat the New England Patriots to win the Vince Lombardi Superbowl XLVI trophy on February 5.

Well, it seems like that was a long summary of the last year. What's interesting is that if you have all such events documented in the blog, it then becomes easy to recollect those memories later. I have always enjoyed this journey with Coffee - Blog - Love - Hangout and I thank all my readers for the support throughout, and especially for reading this unusually long post. I should now get back to my experiment. It is already 108 minutes, and the eTomo software is still reconstructing the 3D electron tomograph image of my nanofiber sample. Cheers!