No Content, No Fuss: Category family

Core stability exercising

anil@recoil.org (Anil Madhavapeddy) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:57:00 +0100

It's been a wierd exercise year; I went from hard-core powerlifting (go 220lb bench!), to playing a lot of badminton and tennis, and then ending off the PhD era with breaking my knee (details not suitable for blog publication).

As anyone it's happened to knows, a knee injury is really annoying to recover from as it feels really "wobbly" for ages and can't quite be trusted. I've been doing physio on it myself for about half a year now, and can finally run around for 5km or so without too much discomfort, although yoga and Capoeria are perhaps a few more months away.

But then, the Forrest Gump-class runner and ex-officemate Alex Ho pointed out these amazing exercises by the captain of the CUH&H running team in Cambridge. They all emphasise smooth movement and core strength without the need for heavy weights, so can be done while travelling as well. So highly recommended, that even little Ajay (right) is trying them out!

Recipe: chana masala

anil@recoil.org (Anil Madhavapeddy) — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 14:29:51 +0100

Well, Nick posted his mum's Cashew Nut recipe, so after my mum cooked dinner for some friends here in Cambridge, I asked her for her famous Chana Masala recipe! And here it is...

Ingredients

1 Chick peas (tins or fresh)
1 Onion (medium size)
1 Tomato (chopped tins or fresh)
1 Cinnamon (small one inch piece)
2 Cloves
Ground cumin (1/2 tea spoon)
Ground coriander (1 tea spoon)
Chilly powder or green chillies
Cashew nuts (handful)
Salt
1/4 spoon of tamarind paste
Chopped fresh coriander leaves (1 tbsp)
Cooking oil (2 tbsp)
1 tea spoon of ginger and garlic paste

Preparation

Heat the oil in sauce pan to medium heat and add cinnamon, cloves and cashew nuts. Add chopped onions and fry them till they are golden brown. Now add ground cumin, coriander, chilly powder and chillies, salt, garlic and ginger paste. Cook them on low heat for a few minutes until you get a nice aroma, and then add the rest of the ingredients and let it cook for a few more minutes. Serve it hot with poori or chapathi.

Continent Hopping

avsm — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 15:55:09 +0100

I'm back in Los Angeles, just in time for the one week in Southern California when it rains. Ah well ... at least it's warm! Had a good flight over on Air New Zealand's business class cabin, which had fantastic service much better than British Airways' Club World. Meanwhile, here is a short selection of photographs taken over the last few days.

Evening supper at Selwyn Formal Hall

Hanging with Nick and Jasper on High Street Kensington

3000 miles later in Costco, Anand poses with a Bowflex

Living it up "Top Gun" style

avsm — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 14:34:36 +0100

Just returned from an excellent trip to Los Angeles, where I checked out Anand and Jyothsna's brand new house in Camarillo. I picked a good weekend to show up, as the Kush Games company picnic was on that weekend, resulting in a great few hours of beach volleyball being played. Ahh, maybe California isn't so bad after all...

And on returning to Cambridge, I discover that the latest in-thing from the local crazy Canadian is improving grip strength by doing extreme pullups with some ridged climbing holds slung over a fire escape. Check out the exciting pictures of Alex Ho and myself in action below! There is hot competition between Kieran Mansley and myself, mainly because my hard-earnt benchpress-specialised pecs only get in the way for pullups!

Anand shoots it low, I take it high!

3000 miles later, hanging out in Cambridge

Alex hangs with zen-like calm

Back to the cold!

avsm — Tue, 07 Jan 2003 11:59:00 +0000

Anand and I came back from India a few days ago, spent New Year's Eve in Belfast, and I've jetted back to frosty Cambridge now!
The trip to India was fun, if improbably busy (involving a lot of train and car travel to see a lot of relatives). Pictures will arrive as soon as I've unpacked my digicam and found my CompactFlash interface - I even took some videos with my IXUS from various dodgy taxis and autorickshaws.
But for now, Dave, Rich and I have to finish our paper for HotOS 2003. Back to the grind...

Jetting off East

avsm — Mon, 16 Dec 2002 17:23:00 +0000

Anand and I are off to India tommorrow for 2 weeks! The flight is via Dubai, so hopefully there'll be a good opportunity to go shopping in the el-cheapo Middle-east. Gonna take my digital camera to India, so lots of pictures will go up when I'm back.
Also, Nick has been testing out Movable Type as a replacement engine for Scribe (instead of LiveJournal). LiveJournal is great, but really geared up for big installations, which we definitely aren't.

Currently bench-pressing: 75kg