The Best... reason to jump out of an airplane:
Skydiving!
So a bunch of friends, Suja and I went to Skydive Houston in October... Suja wasn't planning on going, but after the first group went, she reversed her decision, and I'm sure she's glad she did. Skydiving is one of the most amazing experiences ever, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone even remotely considering it.
Freefalling from a few thousand feet in the air for about a minute...
The Best... of the Music
So this won't really be just about music that came out in 2007, but about the music I started checking out as well, and some nice concerts too...
Paul Simon. I saw The Graduate a few years back, so this year wasn't my first experience with Simon and his friend/enemy Art Garfunkel, but this time I immersed myself into Simon's works, both solo and as part of the 'Simon and Garfunkel' duo, and I can't stop swimming in it... Simon's chameleon-like ability to swerve from folk-duo to zydeco to South Africa to um... spacey-electronic-stuff (w/ Brian Eno on his newest album Suprise) has amazed me and made me want more...
RHCP. The Chili Peps came to town in March, and Suja, Justin, Shibu and myself went to the Toyota Center to seem them and opener Gnarls Barkley. Fast forward 3 hrs later, after a 30 minute hazy psychedelic jam session between Flea, John Frusciante, and Chad Smith and the most we could do was just sit in our seats and stare at an empty stage for what seemed like a week. You could not ask for a more amazing concert - it had everything... great songs, incredible performers (both opener and headliner). At the end of their jam-a-thon, Frusciante got on the mic and said something close to "Thank you so much for that - for a few minutes I forgot you all existed"... Gladly, I can say that wasn't the case for us
Stevie Wonder. My mission concert-wise is to catch as many of my favorite 'legends' of music before they stop touring, and Stevie Wonder started that off... great night, even though it started off real slow, the last 45 mins was like a 'greatest hits' run of songs that brought the house down..
The Best... way to get a free ride
Worked on my second year at BOT, and things have been great... I feel really lucky to have a great group of guys to work with and it helps to feel really relaxed. I was able to take a few trips last year for work, which included Bossier City, LA (for testing at the Baker Hughes test rig there), Blacksburg, VA (for campus recruiting at Virginia Tech) and also made it all the way out to Esbjerg, Denmark, for a 2-day meeting on one of the tools I've been designing. All of the trips have been fun and educational so far, and hopefully I'll be able to go on a few more this year as well. I've already got a 2-week trip planned to go to the North Sea off of Denmark in February to see my first tool get installed on a rig out there... it'll be cold.
The Best... of the Best
Getting married!
A beautiful day to start a wonderful life...
