Point Reyes

I visited Point Reyes last saturday and had been wanting to write a post about the place. I have already gone there a couple of times only to see the place completely covered in fog. This time it was different and I really got to see how beautiful Point Reyes really is. Even before I start I want to make it clear that no amount of words can truly describe the beauty of Point Reyes.

My parents-in-law are here and we've been wanting to take them to Point Reyes for a while now. This saturday since weather seemed fine I looked at the Point Reyes Cam to make sure that the weather and visibility were good in Point Reyes. Most of the times weather and visibility are great until the visitor center but the Point Reyes light house would be covered with fog. It really helps to see the cam before you leave your home.

Ideally early morning trips should be made to Point Reyes its mainly because the place lies to the west it might be more pleasant in the morning and would have correct amount of light for photography. Photos that are taken in the light house close to evening tend to get overexposed. The other reason is that if you are travelling from San Jose then you need to travel via SFO and as the day progresses the traffic near SFO gets worse.

Anyways if you are lucky with traffic then it takes about a couple of hours to get there. On your way you get to see the Golden Gate Bridge and the drive gets pretty scenic from that point onwards. Further down from the Golden Gate is the Muir Woods National Monument and Park which is where most of the traffic is usually headed. Further down is the Muir beach overlook which is a very beautiful spot where you can see some base-end stations that were used during World War II. Once you cross Muir beach overlook its some more windy roads and you get to Stinson Beach. As you drive further down you get to flat lands lined with backwaters on one side. You just continue on Hwy1 and you finally reach Bear Valley in Point Reyes.

Muir Beach Overlook - View towards San Francisco

Muir Beach Overlook - view of the opposite side.

At the visitor center you pick up the map and head wherever you feel like going. Right when you step out of your car you realize that you are in a secluded place thats far far away from the daily commotion. There's a sense of peace that embraces you. Next to the visitor center is the Earthquake Trail. Its a fairly short trail that takes you through the San Andreas Fault Zone. On your hike you get to see the fence that moved 20 ft apart during the earthquake.

Beach as seen on our way to Light House

The map pretty much has all the beaches and trails listed. But most people usually end up at the historic light house. On your way to the Lighthouse you see Ranches and other beaches, various rock formations and different species of trees. Once you cross Ranches M to A you get closer to the light house. Winds are a lot stronger near the lighthouse and the hike to the lighthouse is 300ft downhill. The view of the lighthouse is spectacular. It was constructed in 1870 and is no longer functional. But the original structure is being preserved and maintined in mint condition. The path that leads to the lighthouse is a flight of stairs that have support rails on either side. You get to see the ocean on either side. You could see the small rocks and different types of birds resting on them on your hike to the light house. The ranger gives a small explanation about the light house mainly about its construction and how it was used.

The Light house

Another View of Light House


Ship and the deer as seen.


Sunset

In addition there are several beaches some offer a calm shoreline and others are usually rough mainly due to the rock formations. Apart from the beaches and light house the whole landscape of Point Reyes is just breathtaking. The valleys, small water bodies, rocks, dense forests with deers running around. The different colors of the ocean at different points is just so wonderful to see.

Because of the early sunset we had to start heading back home earlier than on a typical summer day. But overall I enjoyed every minute I was there in Point Reyes. If you really need a weekend getaway or a quiet day in the wilderness to just zone out then Point Reyes might be the place to go. Even thought its just 1 hr drive from the city you almost feel like you are in some place far far away.

Caress Body Wash, Tahitian Renewal Review

When I was shopping at Target this weekend I came across a deal on Caress body wash products. They had two of the Caress Tahitian Renewal Body wash and one Caress Brazilian body wash combo for $9. I had been using Caress Moroccan body wash for a while now and I decided to try the Tahitian body wash.

I was mainly tempted to try this product solely because of its pomegranate content. Its cool that this body wash is both moisturizing and exfoliating as well.

Now my take on this body wash: Despite being an exfoliating body wash it does lather well and doesn't seem to strip the moisture from the skin completely. It does exfoliate the skin mildly but that wouldn't be enough to completely ignore your regular exfoliation procedure. It did make my skin softer and my skin felt great all day. Overall my skin definitely felt soft and supple. Infact, I really liked it better than the Caress Moroccan body wash. This one did really smell great, it was a very refreshing smell and it smelt mostly that of pomegranate.

If you are looking at a mostly balanced body wash this might work for you, but if you are keen on deep exfoliation and stuff then this is not the one, some microdermabrasion creams might be the way to go. Also to note, if your skin tends to be dry then this body wash might not work for you.

I'm not going to list out all the ingredients here, but all I would say is that the pomegranate and coconut fragrance seem the most dominant and you can feel the ground pomegranate seeds. As a finishing note, I should say that this body wash does do what it promises to do and that is exfoliate and moisturize at the same time (ofcourse the extent of moisturizing or exfoliation is just not good enough to replace your existing exfoliant or moisturizer).

Sun Puts Tech Layoffs Over 20,000 So Far This Month (Oodle and Rearden Also Join Our Tracker)

I just came across this article and decided to post it.

Sun Puts Tech Layoffs Over 20,000 So Far This Month (Oodle and Rearden Also Join Our Tracker)

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Marriage

I read this artcile "Sooner Vs. Later: Is there an ideal age for first marriage", it was quite interesting to see how people prefer to get married later as opposed to getting married in their teens or in their 20s. This article talks about Americans and at what age do they prefer to get married.

During the course of reading this article I was reminded of my dinner with my husband at Amici's in Mountain View, CA. We both love the place and have gone there before our marriage. Last friday we happened to be there and it was quite amazing that both of us told the other person how free we felt despite getting married. I was delighted to know that the feeling was mutual.

I come from India and I know that people there give a lot more importance to marriage. It's not very uncommon to see girls getting married when they are still in college. Not only that a lot of the marriages tend to be arranged marriages as well. Essentially you get married at an early age and start living with a stranger and then try to get to know him and his family. To be honest, I personally feel that it's a bit too much to take when you are in your late teens or just barely 20.

I personally feel that youngsters should be given 2 to 3 years upon completion of their studies to figure out who they really are and what they really want. In my case, the two years after my graduation helped me understand myself a lot better. When you are still in school, you mainly tend to worry about your career and you hardly ever think about marriage. But once you settle down in a job it gives you a lot of time to really think about what you really want. In fact its during that time of life that you really discover who you are as a person.

I'm not against arranged marriage but I totally dislike when there's more than 3-4 years of difference in ages of the bride and groom. In my opinion the closer the ages are it becomes easier to accept the other person as an equal. I can't imagine being in early 20s and marrying someone 8-10 years older than myself. I know women who are in such marriages and say they are super happy but I have my own doubts as its one thing to be truly happy and its totally different to convince yourself that you can't be any happier.

The whole idea of making a long term commitment with an unknown person seems pretty outdated. I'd rather stay single and wake up unhappy a few mornings rather than get married to a wrong person and be unhappy the whole time. Even when you are having an arranged marriage, I think its more important to have a long enough courtship period. The courtship period really helps the bride and the groom to get to know each other really well. In addition, if things don't go well you're better off with breaking that engagement than breaking your marriage.

I had 1 year between my engagement and marriage and time went by so quickly and during that period not only did i get to know my spouse better but his family also. By the time I got married I didn't feel like a total stranger and the transition was easier. There were people who were cynical and were trying to convince me to get married within the next 2-3 months. In fact, one person even suggested that I get married secretively in US (When I'm publicly engaged why should I secretly get married!!!). According to them once engaged its tough to control your urges, in all honesty any disciplined child would know about self-control.

Well, anyways I personally feel that a person should get married only when they feel they are ready (be it teenage or late 20s) and are confident that this relationship with the other person will take them somewhere(not to the courts!!). This is one decision that you need to make for yourself disregarding the pressure from others. We all want to get married just once in life and there's really nothing wrong in taking time to make that decision.

Wax Museum

I visited the Wax Museum in San Francisco yesterday. I went with my family to San Francisco mainly to see the Golden gate bridge. It was a wonderful evening in SFO with clear skies and the golden gate looked so beautiful. Anyways, since we had some time we decided we'll go to the Wax Museum.

Right at the beginning we saw Tiger Woods, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and none of them looked real :(, already disappointed we went in to see if there was anything better. As we walked down the stairs to see the other exhibits we first came across Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet's Titanic exhibit. That's easily the worst replica of Kate Winslet that you can see...It looked nothing like her.

As we kept walking there were lots and lots of exhibits. The exhibits were mostly of presidents, world leaders, dictators, actors, scientists, artists, poets and religious figures.

My favorite wax figure was that of Adolf Hitler, it looked so real and scary. The other nice ones were that of Yasser Arafat that again looked pretty real. Benjamin Franklin and Einstein looked good too. Vladimir Putin was good as well. Cleopatra looked great but then I don't know how that compares to the real one. Eddie Murphy and John Travolta looked nice and realistic. In all honesty nothing looked better than Hitler.

Now the really bad ones were their depiction of hindusim, the religious figures didn't have names and their jewellery and clothing didn't do any justice as well. With regard to christianity Jesus preaching everyone was subaverage but the last supper was okay. With regard to other religion there was nothing breathtaking about them and I cannot critic them as I don't know anything about them.

Then we walked down to the section were egyptian mummy exhibits were kept. It was nice to see the details of the tomb and amount of work that must have been put into making these exhibits. They were good but not my favorite.

Then came the horror section that I completely skipped...but it was so awesome to see the floor with pools of blood (red colored wax really), it sort of looks real until to see it really close.

Now I got to see the sports figures Barry bonds, lance armstrong and stuff...it was okie. After this was the hollywood stars, IMO nicole kidman and marilyn monroe were good but everything else was subaverage. The worst was that of Britney Spears again it looked nothing like her. Now for the hollywood men, Keanu Reeves from Matrix looked okay from distance. The real good exhibits were that of Travolta and Eddie Murphy. The really bad exhibits were that of Governator and Clint Eastwood.

Once this section was over there was a bunch of exhibits for western actors and stuff...and then there were some exhibits for some of the famous paintings like the mona lisa. These were interesting to see but I'm sure I won't remember seeing them.

Overall I would say it was an interesting time pass. It was a lot of fun especially since I visited in a group and not just by myself. I'll post the pics sometime soon.

Crickler

I play the Crickler puzzle on the Washington Post every single day. I've always liked games that test your word power. The game is sort of interesting in the way that its really not a crossword puzzle but is as interesting as one. I really like the way "y" in included in set of vowels just to add a little complexity.

For those of you who are interested in trying out this game you can start by playing the demo game that gets you oriented on how the game is to be played.

I like to play only the Vocabulary, Crossword and the daily news puzzles but there are a few more for the ones that couldn't get enough Crickler.

I hope you guys like it as much as I do...happy crickler solving :)