In Pursuit of Wisdom

I am reading Isaac Asimov's autobiography I.Asimov: A Memoir with immense interest. In the first quarter of the book, I came into a short chapter called Chess. I can't resist myself but share it with you here - Failure at physical sports has never bothered me...What bothered me, though, was my failure at chess. When I was quite young and had a checkerboard, but no chess pieces, I read books on the game and learned the various moves. I then cut out cardboard squares on which I drew the symbols for the various pieces, and tried to play games with myself. Eventually I managed to persuade my father to get me real chessmen. Then I taught my sister the moves and played the game with her. Both of us played very clumsily indeed.  My brother, Stanley, who watched us play, learned the moves and, eventually, asked if he might play. Ever the indulgent older brother, I said, "Sure," and prepared to beat the pants off him. The trouble was that in the f...

Last week I finished Nine Tomorrows by Isaac Asimov which I bought along with a bunch of other books recently from Half Price Books, Fremont. One of the short stories there is The Last Question which Asimov wrote in 1956 and rates it as one of his most favorites. The story is such a master piece by the grand master of science fiction writer that I find my vocabulary falling short to praise it! It shows Asimov's depth and breadth of ideas and his love for twists! I took the whole weekend to get out of the aura of this story and yet haven't succeeded completely (the proof is that I am writing this blog post early in the morning while late for my son's school and my office)! I can't help but share with you the story here in case you wish to read it but forget because everyday life will keep you distracted from reading such a novelty and brilliance! Here is an HTML version of it - http://reviewsonly.blogspot.com/2011/08/last-question-by-isaac-asimov-1956.html Let me k...

Last Sunday, 2nd August, we 9 people hiked Sunol Wilderness. This was my second hiking and a beautiful and scenic one. From Bay Area Bangladeshi Hikers Group it was the third hike . As per Hasinur's information the details are given below. Hiking Trail: Sunol Wilderness - Vista Grande Distance: 6.1 miles, Loop Hiking Time: 3 to 4 hours Elevation Gain/Loss: +/- 1600 feet Difficulty Level: Difficult In a weekday before this hike, we guys went to Union City Sports Authority and bought half pant, t-short, cap and shoe. I liked my Columbia hiking shoe very much and Shahriar also picked the same brand. We reached the Sunol Regional Park at 7:15 AM and started the trail at 7:45 after waiting for Nitol, Gajendra and Nitol's Indian colleague. They came in a separate car and parked we missed each other as mobile network doesn't work in that area. So they took a different trail in the same area and finished before us. To see the picture of the hike, please have a look here - http://p...

Bangladesh has defeated West Indies by 95 runs in the first test match of the 2 test series in their Caribbean tour. This is Bangladesh's second test match win in almost 10 years of its test cricket history. It's true that most of the regular West Indies players didn't play this game due to their financial issues with the West Indies cricket board. But even then the team that played has played well enough to generate a very interesting and competitive Test cricket match. I have followed most of the 4th and 5th day plays of the match and I can say definitely that it was a very competitive match with the win swinging over West Indies and Bangladesh side alternately everyday. Tamim Iqbal (128) was declared Man of the Match due to the only century in all the 4 innings in this match. For Bengali readers, see Tamim's match winning knock being compared with his brother Nafees Iqbal and Uncle Akram Khan's innings in a newspaper article at http://www.ittefaq.com/content/20...

I am writing from Golden Grove Hyatt Regency North Tower which is adjacent to Disneyland, Anaheim. I, Shusmita and Ahyan started from Fremont around 6 PM Friday and it took approximately 6 hours to drive the 400 miles to here. Shusmita gave a very good break to me by driving around 2 and half hours of this chunk. Saturday (yesterday) morning I attended the Silva Method Basic Lecture Series (BLS) by Hans DeJong at the 2nd floor of the same hotel. Earlier in January I took the Silva Life Systems seminar in Sacramento under Steven Protopappas and hence this re-take course was free for me with a nominal sitting fee of $35. For those of my readers who are not familiar with the terms meditation, mind control, silva method - please have a quick glance at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silva_method . Meanwhile, Shusmita and Ahyan went to Disneyland with the Hyatt shuttle bus to avoid parking hassles. They enjoyed the whole day there although it was tough on her to handle Ahyan and the strolle...