In Pursuit of Wisdom

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).

The 22nd to 24th August weekend, I took my parents, wife and son to a road trip to Reno/Lake Tahoe and Yosemite. We started at Friday afternoon for Reno. My parents were amazed to see the big Grand Sierra hotel having casino, mall, theater inside. Saturday morning we drove for Lake Tahoe and missed the first cruise trip that we bought for 2 PM. But we could marginally catch the 2:PM Queen Marina cruise instead using that same ticket. This 2 and half hours cruise was relaxing to us. It gave hard time to me to get out of Lake Tahoe and reach Yosemite as we started at 5 and mobile GPS was showing confused directions and eventually died out of battery. I got the 2 iPhones just a day before this trip and so I still didn't have car charger with me. We reached Yosemite after midnight where Ezaz was already there with his parents and family. On the way we lost directions in Tioga Pass at midnight and I enjoyed the uncertainty and the adventure. We roamed around a little in Yosemite the Sun...

I took my parents to further north in California in first weekend of August. Shahriar and his parents joined us from Klamath Falls in Shasta Lake and Dam in 2nd August Saturday. That night we saw Sundial Bridge before going back to Holiday Inn, Redding hotel where I booked 2 rooms for us. The next morning we say Burney Falls and Lassen Volcanic Park. One the way back home I lost roads in Mount Shasta and the car fuel went down with no mobile or GPS coverage for a while. But at last we have returned safely with an approx 700 miles trip. It was a good one! Here are some of the pictures - http://picasaweb.google.com/shusmita/ShastaTourWithBabaMa010808