If you are ever in the Rochester, NY area and have some time to kill, I highly recommend visiting the nearby Letchworth State Park. It is less than a hours drive from Rochester and is (as the brochure states) “the grand canyon of the east”. It covers an area of ~27K acres and has a varied landscape. You can enjoy a peaceful picnic in the lush green meadows, hike in the forest or get awed by a train running ~100 feet up in the air over a waterfall. The park was not crowded and is not as “commercialized” as the nearby world famous Niagara Falls. Here are some pictures from my recent trip to the park.
Receipe for beerakaya royyalu (Shrimp with Ridged Gourd). This dish is mainly cooked in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh. Meat and vegetables are usually not mixed in Andhra dishes..so I thought this one deserves a blog entry.
Ingredients :
Shrimp (uncooked, medium size)
Beera Kaya (Ridged Gourd.. you can get it at an Indian grocery)
Red Onions
Red Chilli Powder
Salt
Ginger Garlic Paste
Coconut Milk (check out the ethnic aisle in any grocery)
Cloves
Cardamoms
Cilantro
Garam Masala (ground spices..another thing you can get at an Indian grocery)
Vegetable Oil
Preperation :
Peel and cut the ridged gourd into medium sized cubes and the onions into small pieces.
Cook the shrimp (2lbs) in coconut milk (3 tablespoons) and ginger garlic paste (2 teaspoons) without adding any water for ~20 minutes. There is no need to add water, since the shrimp has a lot of water in it. This process helps with cooking the shrimp and elimninating the “fishy” odour.
Heat some vegetable oil in a skillet and fry the cloves, cardamoms. Add the onions after a couple of minutes.
When the onions turn golden, add the shrimp.
Add some more ginger garlic, red chilli powder and salt
Wait for a couple of minutes and add the ridge gourd
Let the whole disk cook for ~15 minutes (let the water evaporate).
Add the garam masala and cilantro
Serve hot with rice.
Visuals :
Shrimp being boiled with coconut milk and ginger garlic
You have to be an immigrant to the USA, to understand this .
My friend, Hareesh, sent this posting on an online forum related to immigration matters
I am so HAPPY today. My lawyer told me that my daughter can sponsor both me and my wife once she is 18. She is only 3 now, so thats 15 years away only. It would have taken 20+ years with my EB2-based case (PD May 2008). I am so HAPPY today.
If you are looking for a place to have a small get together
{OR}
Take your significant other on a special date
Just trying to impress a girl/guy
{AND}
It is summer
Check out the private sail charters offered on Lake Michigan. Unlike the giant cruise boats that you can get onto, at the Navy Pier, these trips offer a more intimate and unique experience. The gaint cruise boats are for the tourists .
I got to take a trip on one of the sail boats this weekend. The Red Witch, name of the boat we sailed on, is a topsail schooner. Unfortunately, we were not able to raise the sails, since the owners were waiting on an updated “certification” for a new engine they installed this year. But we still got spend a couple of hours on the lake. We brought our own food and drinks, so it was like a picnic on the lake. You can get information on booking tickets with them at http://www.redwitch.com/.
If you are ever in Chicago and looking to get some great breakfast or good cuban sandwiches, try out the 90 Miles Cuban Cafe at 3101 North Clybourn, Chicago, IL 60618. I was looking for a place to get some brunch today and Rich recommended that we go to this cafe. I really liked the decor and the simple menu. The food was visually pleasing and tasty. Here are some pictures of the food (credited to Rich).
I just discovered that the plastic/metal thingys placed in men’s shirt collars to make them stand up are called collar stays . I discovered that during a recent trip to Kohl’s.. Here’s how the conversation looked like
Me : hmm.. you know those things in the collar.. that make them stiff.. you know..those things!!
Clerk : What things?
Me : Well.. those things that are made of plastic and white in color.. you know…those things.
Clerk : Oh..Sir.. “those things” are called “Collar Stays”
Me : Thank you.. I feel enlightened now
BTW.. IMHO.. every gentleman should have some spare collar stays in his kit. And you can get them for cheap on Amazon.
For my record…here’s a snippet of perl code that can be called as a sub function to unmount a partition in Linux. The magic is in the line “grep m{$mountPoint}, qx{/bin/mount}”, which essentially lets you check if the partition is already mounted or not.
sub UnMountVolume($)
{
my $mountPoint = $_[0];
print "Unmounting $mountPoint\n";
# Check if the mount point exists
if ( grep m{$mountPoint}, qx{/bin/mount} )
{
#Let's try to unmount it
system("/bin/umount $mountPoint");
}
else
{
print "$mountPoint is not mounted, so didn't have to do anything\n";
}
}
As with any perl code, I am sure there are a tons of ways to do this in a more efficient and “cool” way.
.
