Hearts and Action Figures

For Valentine's Day I made Joe a little heart pillow out of felt leftover from the Christmas Contest. Joe gave me a Shah Rukh Khan action figure (with two outfits!). He will join Jack Bauer in our ever increasing collection (we now have two) of action figures.

Gifts from the heart:

felt heart SRK action figure

The heart is about 4.5 inches tall. SRK is about 12 inches tall.

Detention of a god!

I am somewhat horrified that the most popular actor in the world - my friend ShahRukh Khan - was detained at the Newark airport for almost 2 hours.

detained

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/15/indian.actor/index.html?iref=newssearch

Flag Day

I did a new modified triathalon on Sunday. We did a 14 mile bike ride in the morning. I did a half mile swim with a little bit of sun bathing mid-day. And then the third triathalon event was Flagtography. We have many emabassies within walking distance. Joe informs me that the area is called International Chancery Center. Anyway it was a nice warm breezy day.

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Ethiopia and Jordan

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State Department and Bangladesh

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Israel and Egypt

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Slovakia and Austria

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Brunei and United Arab Emirates

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Pakistan and Malaysia

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Nigeria with Egypt in the distance and some flags at the University of the District of Columbia

We do not have cable but our building just recently upgraded their antenna so we get many HD and analog channels. It will never be as good as cable especially since many of the stations come and go but Sunday I was very surprised to see ShahRukh Khan on a talk show on my TV.

shahrukhonmytv

A Day of Mostly Eating

We spent Saturday morning in the studio while Maja went to the theater to get everything oganized for a run-through. There was a television crew at the studio to film class (with Dana's and John's dancers and me) and rehearsal.

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Some of John's dancers. Here's Vijay on the left - a good dancer with a nice moustache and pony tail, then Vasanth - the best dancer in the company, Nanda - another good dancer who wore cool sunglasses, Johnson in the back - he was awesome helping me bargain with the tailor and Sachin - an aeronautics engineering student.


Before going back to the hotel we stopped at a little store near the studio where I bought a lacey white blouse for $5. We had lunch back at the hotel at Meenam where I had the Indian equivalent of the Pu Pu Platter - Vegatable Thali. It was actually quite good. I also had lassi!

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The company coming out of the clothing store (note the lack of sidewalks) and lunch


I took out my iPhone to calculate how much to pay for the bill and the manager and his waiters (there are usually twice as many waiters than in the US - all men) were all over it. I showed them some of features and used it to take a picture
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Things were not going well at the theater so there was no run-through although everyone sat around at the hotel waiting for it.

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Shah Rukh Khan on TV and on the street, the Shiva temple in the hotel parking lot and a view from the room

When the word came that there was no theater time it was time for dinner so Tati, Miyako and I went to dinner at the other Indian restaurant at the hotel. I had aloo gobi (potatoes and cauliflower), Tati had a stuffed green banana dish and Miyako had a cheese and veggie kabob which she threw up later.
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Car talk

Today Joe and I were doing our Rockville shopping run - bike shop, container store, frame store, grocery shopping. We get in and out of the car a lot on these trips. In one parking lot I chatted for over ten minutes with a nice Chinese woman about my car. I gave her the usual information - price, MPG, and showed her the trunk. She is a journalist for a newspaper published for the DC Chinese community. Before we said goodbye she gave us some tips on getting discounts at local Chinese restaurants. She says she really wants a Mini but her husband is very skeptical.

Shah Rukh Khan appeared on the front page of the Washington Post Arts section in a bathtub. Apparently there is an unauthorized biography out about SRK. I am there.

My uncle Austin sent me an drawing for my birthday. I am honored.

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When I was on vacation on Edisto my parents' car was hit by a flying tire that flew off a truck that passed them. My parents missed their party and they will be without their "good car" for a while but other than that everything turned out OK.

Here are two pictures. The fireman that was directing traffic reminded me of Vito of the Sopranos.
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And we've been doing 4-way video chatting on Sunday nights. It's not perfect - there are echos and audio sync issues - but as you can see it is still fun.

My Visit with the Queen

The Queen of England visited Goddard Space Flight Center today. There was a welcoming ceremony for which 200 people were picked by lottery to attend. My friend Saima and my jazzercize teacher Nadine got in. I was not so lucky. I only got to see her from about a block away as she walked from building 3 where she talked to the astronauts on the Space Station to Building 8 where the ceremony took place.

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The queen walked from the right side of the picture (above left) to a building off camera on the left. Luckily she was wearing bright yellow/green otherwise I may not have known which one was her. Note the Secret Service guy on the roof in the movie below.

[will add movie later]

Seeing the Queen at work was not nearly as cool as seeing and talking to Shah Rukh Khan at work but it's all good.