Alameda Creek Trail

Whenever we travel or visit places, I always think of writing about it... more like maintaining a travelogue... I take photos and think of captions but I never get to actually blog it!

This is my first attempt on blogging it...

Last weekend, we went on a hike on the Alameda Creek Trail.

We parked our car at the Niles Old Canyon Road parking lot.

We did not walk for long! We might have touched the 1.5 mile mark and took a U-turn to where we started.

The trail is paved and has the Alameda creek on one side.

There wasn't much water in the creek and many rocks/pebbles that were supposed to be underwater, were exposed and gleaming in the sun.

The trail is lined with trees on both the sides.

The trail passes under bridges as well. We went under three of them!

While we walked, we saw a couple of fruit-laden trees. Does that look like an orange tree?

Let us get in closer...

No they ain't oranges! I don't even know what trees they were. The color of the fruit/berries were ranging from green to orange to pink.

I could not help spending a lot of time near these trees... 

I was taking a lot of pictures of them... I kind-of became obsessed with them... Okay... Okay... I wont bore you more with more of these pictures... Here is a different plant. It looked like a cactus, but the leaves were not that of cactus.

There was date palm tree as well on the bank of the creek.

There was line of eucalyptus trees. Suffering from a blocked nose? Just walk by these trees; Their characteristic smell is sure clear up your nose!

I found another tree with branches growing downwards and swaying in the breeze. Beyond this tree there is a railroad crossing. We touch that point and took a U-turn.

Beyond the creek, we could see the hills, now covered with dried-grass and brown in color.

The hills are lot more beautiful during spring. The grass is green then and the hills look green and full of life.

It was a sunny bright day... And I was walking hand-in-hand with V... Ah! What a fulfilling day it was!

This wont be my last visit... I will surely come back again and again... I may probably try to cover longer distances on the trail!

Here is the link to more details about the trail along with map 

Story of Send

Google has many different ways to rouse our interest. On special days, the Google logo in search is different and it makes us spend a little more time on finding out the significance of the day.

Today when I open the gmail page to login, I see a link for “The Story of Send” (http://www.google.com/green/storyofsend/desktop/) to tell us what happens to our email after we hit the SEND button. It is very interesting to watch/read. Check it out! :)

A Quarter

While I was checking in Google where to find rolls of quarters, I chanced upon something new.

It always happens. You are looking for information about something in the internet and you see a somewhat unrelated page in the search results. It catches your eye and you are now browsing on a completely different topic.

Oh where was I? Yes, I was talking about what I found out today. Junk silver. This is the name given to some of the coins that have silver in them and these were minted around 1900s. I read that the quarters minted before 1964 had 90% silver in them and that each quarter is worth $6.25. Imagine having 10 of those. We will be $60 richer! :-)

I also came to know that these coins are very easily found. Sometimes even in a roll of quarters or when we try to get quarters in laundromat! Just this today, I changed a ten dollar note to quarters at our bus station. I also had a half-roll of quarters in my purse. Thus, a treasure hunt started right at my office desk. I dumped the pile of quarters onto the table and started checking the years on them. The closest that I have, is a 1965-quarter. Just by one year I lost $6 of profit (Each of the silver quarter is worth $6.25, remember?)

Now I am looking at the well-worn 1965 quarter and may be if I stare at it hard enough and long enough, the 5 in the 1965 may change to 4! Oh well! We all know that can’t happen! :-)

A Patdown

In the airport, we are all accustomed to going through the security cube, lift our arms, wait for the machine to scan us, then move out and wait for the approval before we can proceed out and collect our carry-on bags.

This time at the security check, I was asked to wait and was told that I would get a patdown.. But where? They wanted to check my hair and plait more closely. The security lady was holding my plait and kind of pulling it a little and expressed a surprise saying how thick my plait was. She could not believe I had such long and thick hair. Needless to say, I was flattered! :-)

Terrace in the basement

The Food Court in Trumbull Mall is called "Dining Terrace"... but it is located in the lowest level of the building... more like in the basement! 

Notice the direction of the arrow next to "Dining Terrace"! A terrace in the basement! Funny no? :-)

Divine Accident

Found this quote in my today’s iGoogle page:

 

"The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing, it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of Divine accident."

- Sir Hugh Walpoe

This widget gets the quotes from http://quotesandlines.com/

I am so accustomed to viewing the iGoogle page everyday, I will surely miss it. Why do they have to retire this product?

The King's Speech

I wanted to blog this last week but could not find time to do it. So here it is... as is; no changes done.

 

Last night I decided to sleep early but a movie on TV kept me up way past midnight.The King’s Speech! The (real) story of a king who struggles with his stammering and how he overcomes his problem with the help of a speech therapist. This is the third time I am watching the movie. May be it is the story; may be it is their performances; may be it is the way it is shot; I do not know. But all I know is: it touches my heart.

Watch it, if you haven’t watched yet and if you have already watched, you know you want to watch it another time! :)