Update on 12/24 – finally updated the photos. They have come out really well!
Here’s one of the sunset – http://tinyurl.com/ArnabPicsSunsetGC. And another one of the highway along the hauntingly beautiful landscape – http://tinyurl.com/ArnabHighwayGC.

View the full smugmug gallery: http://tinyurl.com/ArnabAlbumGC

This weekend we (Maa, Ujwala and me) are off to Grand Coulee Dam – the biggest concrete dam in North America – generates about 6500 Mega Watts – the highest for any dam in the world.

The drive from Seattle is beautiful – it passes through the Seattle hills/lakes, the Snoqualmie area (water falls, snow-capped mountains and passes), beautiful farm-lands and then on to the arid eastern Washinton area. The route follows the Columbia river and there are some really amazing viewpoints over the gorges along the way. There is a sound and laser show on the dam every evening from 8:30 PM (May-September) – the lasers use the dam as the screen! It is supposedly the largest such sound and light show in the world! The Columbia rivers history is depicted – so all that this weekend.

and the trip weather looks good: weatherbonk link

Now I seriously didn’t expect this from Apple. I was so-waiting for the 2.1 update to iPhone – and iTunes couldn’t install it or me!

Go Apple!

Update after fighting for 20 min or so:
I did a restart of Windows and iTunes – still got the same error.

iTunes documentation says I might need to upgrade my iTunes. So I go and click Check for latest version – and hey I am already on the latest one (iTunes 8).

Then I tried to upgrade iPhone to 2.1 again – and this time it worked. I have to agree to one of my colleagues – is Apple going the Microsoft way???

Went to the Mariners game vs the Yankees last night. Was at Safeco Field, right next to my office.

It was a win-win for me any way, cause I love the Yankees and cause of the NY connection; and of course Mariners are from Seattle! Mariners don’t win often (and this season had not won any yet) – however they command a lot of local support.

Matter of fact, A-Rod was getting booed big time (A-Rod used to play at the start of his career with the Mariners). I was on the handful side of the Yankees supporters, with a Yanks t-shirt and all…

And guess what – Mariners won 3-1… Their yound pitcher Morrow was awesome… read more here.

On the whole – loved it. The atmosphere was awesome… and so was the view of Seattle as a backdrop against the ballpark – with the sunset and everything.

Here are a couple of pics, one before sunset and one at night…