In Pursuit of Wisdom

Roton came at 11th November Tuesday from New York to visit California for a week. He just called me 2 days prior and hence I was not enough prepared to take day offs from office. But as Shusmita now knows driving, she was able to drive him around the neighborhood when I was in office. The very next day 12th November, I was working from home and we started for Napa Valley in the afternoon. Apparently Napa Valley seemed to be his most favorite place probably due to his long years of experience with restaurant jobs. After driving through Napa, we came back to Golden Gate Bridge at night. It was simply so foggy that we saw Golden Gate bridge hanging in the air like it's up in the heaven! It was simply too good... While coming driving through the San Francisco downtown, I was so sleepy that eventually at around 9:30 PM or a little later, I hit a truck from behind in front of Pier 9 just few blocks away from my office. My favorite Honda Civic's front side got completely damaged, the ...

Chess Olympiad Dresden 2008 has achieved the highest level of registration in history turning it into the biggest Chess Olympiad of all ages. After the final closing of the registration list on September the 19th there were more than 2000 active participants announced. It will be held from November the 12th till November the 25th in Dresden, Germany. A perfect place to play big chess events after a successful world chess championship match in Bonn, Germany last month. With 152 registered nations Dresden surpasses the previous Olympiad 2006 in Turin with 7 more countries. The participants distribute themselves to 275 teams, therefrom 156 in the main tournament including the second team of Germany and the teams of the deaf, correspondence chess players and blind persons. 119 women teams are starting. The very popular Susan Polgar's Popular Chess blog provided an entry today on the Bangladesh Chess Team that left for Germany to participate this big event. I was proud to see Banglades...

From Blogs The World Chess Championship started this October 14th in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn. The match consisted of twelve games between the defending Champion Anand (FIDE Rating 2783) of India vs the Challenger Kramnik (FIDE Rating 2772) of Russia. Anand and Kramnik started out peacefully with two interesting draws, after which the Indian player exploded to score three wins - in game 3, game 5, and game 6. Especially difficult for Kramnik were the two loses with black in the same line which basically have decided the outcome of the match in early stage. Although Kramnik managed to pull a win in 10th game and Anand drew 11th game today with white pieces to win the match at a 6.5 - 4.5 margin. The prize fund of 1.5 million Euro (approximately 2.35 million US Dollars) including taxes and FIDE license fees, and will be split equally between these 2 players. You can get a few more details on the match in the following links - I hav...

Last weekend we had 2 events to catch up with. We arranged Ahyan's 2nd birthday (with some delay) in our apartment's Recreation Center this 18th October Saturday. It was as usual a good gathering with my close buddies in the bay area. Here are few albums that hold some pictures of the events. http://picasaweb.google.com/ashikuzzaman/AhyanS2ndBirthdayAndHabibSConcert http://picasaweb.google.com/nitol.shabbir/HabibSConcertAtBayArea http://picasaweb.google.com/nainaahmad/BayAreaBangladeshAssociationEidLuncheonAndHabibSConcertInPaloAltoCA?authkey=O6q_vKwWG90# http://picasaweb.google.com/rhasinur/HabibConcert2008?authkey=VbAUXTVPKL4# The following day 19th was the BABA Eid Reunion where Habib's Concert show was the center of the attractions. There was not enough space to dance and hence at the last song of the day, Nitol first jumped into the stage momentarily followed by Shahriar. And yah, I joined them immediately after that taking the below video. Other than those, I had...

After a little more than 2 months stay in USA, my parents went back home to Bangladesh today. They had a schedule to go back yesterday but the flight got canceled due to a hurricane in Hong Kong and rescheduled to today. While it's sad to say good bye even if for a short while to your family, it's inevitable if you are living abroad. It was a pleasure to have them with me these days and traveling around USA with them. My father had some land and jakat related works pending back home, so they left before the Eid-Ul-Fitre. I wish they would have stayed until Ahyan's birthday next month but I understand their involvements back home are equally important. During his stay, my father became a popular person in my community and I knew he would be. I feel now coming to USA with job was a right decision for me and I have succeeded to fulfil my long cherished dream of showing them USA. Now it really doesn't matter to me if I further stay here or go back home or whatever. It would...

We started for our grand road trip of LA/San Diego/Las Vegas at 29th August Friday afternoon. We reached Los Angeles downtown before midnight and stayed in Ramada Inn. The next day we covered Universal Studio where we enjoyed Terminator 3D, Water World, Universal Studio Tour and Jurassic Park Tour. The most horrifying one was The Mummy Ride that I and Shusmita went for. It's simply terrible and breathtaking for it's speed, darkness, turns and reverse directions even though only for 5 minutes. We had our dinner Saturday night at Aladin where I got my Magi chicken corn soup packet that I couldn't get anywhere else in USA, not even in New York. The next day we drove to San Diego Sea World (120 miles from LA) and came back by night. This time we enjoyed the Shamu Whale show, Rope way and a ride to the height something similar to the ride we had in London 2 years back. Monday we started for Las Vegas from LA, a pleasant drive through the rocky desert. We reached a little early i...

At last my parents, I, Shusmita and Ahyan went to New York this summer. It was my 4th New York trip, the last time I came was in Winter 2007, not so long. The tough time was to get the proper air ticket at a very short time and getting leave from office. The good thing was we visited Niagara Falls in Buffallo and Washington D.C with Kakku (my Uncle in New York).