Simple pleasures....

The kiddo and I have gone biking a few times over the last month. A couple of times we went out in the morning - around 7:30. Whenever I tell him, let's go biking in the morning (say at 6:30 AM), he probably doesn't sleep in the night. He just waits until it's 6:30 to come and wake me up.

I feel sad that I have been neglecting his enthusiasm to go biking. Like this week....

Friday night:
"Let's go biking at 8:00 AM"
"Coool!!"
"Be sure not to wake up before 8:00 or wake me up before 7:30...ok??"
"OK!" (still very excited)

Saturday morning 8:00 AM
"It's 8:00 let's go"
"Aah come lie down besides me for some time"

One hour later
"Now it's too hot outside...may be we'll go in the evening?"

Very stupid of me. I'll do better next time.

The pics here are from one such early morning biking trip, probably around 7:30. He bikes pretty well (probably got it from his dad). We biked around 6 miles that day and he (we) thoroughly enjoyed it. I had taken my camera with me and I was clicking some pics while biking (yeah yeah shame on me for being so irresponsible!!)

Yahoo in Maliboo or Malibu in Yahu?

Isn't this the dumbest thing ever? An ad of Chevy Malibu occupying the whole background when I try to access Yahoo Mail?

Borderline desperation, IMO. Is yahoo ready to fall? Has it already fallen? According to Alexa, yahoo now falls in a distant fifth position in terms of usage.

Once upon a time, it was THE place to go to for emails, web searches, shopping, news, etc. (at least for me). Now a days, only reason I go there is to check an occasional email that may land there from a contact or an online account that I've been lazy enough not to update with my current id (gmail).

Anyways, my rant was about the background image. Bing always has had one, at least since I started using it (from the Live days)....but it has been some pretty neat photographs which as sometimes very interesting. Google very recently introduced Background images....but they feel very out of place imo. Google looks very neat in plain white background....please please please always keep it option to have a background....and NEVER show me a Chevy Malibu when I go to search for "Underwear sizing guidelines"

Diss-Qualifiers....

I'm sorry........but....
I don't mean to offend you....but....
I don't mean to sound disrespectful...but...

I don't want to start an argument....but...
I will regret saying this later...but...
I don't know how else to put this...but...

Don't take this the wrong way....but...
I don't know how to say this....but...
I don't want to sound difficult...but...

I hate to sound negative...but...
I know you are going to hate this....but...
I know you will not like this....but...

...your shirt stinks more than a sweaty dog
...is that photoshopped?
...why is that so dark?

...it's not you, it's me.
...it's not personal, it's professional.
...I really need that thing done by end of day today.

...do you always add so much oil when you cook?
...is it meant to be this raw?
...why does this taste so stale?

...I don't really care about the issues you have been facing
...are you expecting? (or are you just getting fatter?)
...can you get that kid to stop crying?
...when are you guys planning on leaving?

...is this post done or will you keep typing????

Casting couch....

Drawing a blank.

I have this habit of starting off posts and leaving them as drafts, forever at times. This is one such post - Casting Couch. I'm not sure when I created the post with this title nor can I recollect what this was going to be about. Kinda funny when I think about it - hmmm....casting couch.....Was it about a real casting couch?? (Yeah, I wish!). Was it about some java class casting? (I bet not).... Was it about a pic of our sofa? (Too dirty to display)....

Then, what was it about? How will I ever know? I have been thinking about it even while I have been typing this up....but can't remember. I'm guessing it might be some pic or joke or something I had found somewhere that I was attempting to link to and left it for later.

On a completely off-topic note, I ordered a new lens (well, it's a used lens but new for me) yesterday. I'm pretty excited about it. Am waiting for it to arrive. It's not something I can make any use of inside the house for sure. Now, only if I can find the time to go shooting with it.

Graduation....

Done with the bottles and graduated on to the sippy cups...yay!! As of last month, the kiddos have transitioned to sippy cups. Gone are the days of endless brushing and cleaning of bottles and nipples. Oh, yes, and the countless number of liners!

Sometimes I wish I was in the baby gadget business. Must be quite easy to make money by suckering n00b parents....

- Emotional Blackmailing - Do you really want to feed your first born child from that Made In China bottle?? Is your child not worth the extra $10,000 that you would spend on this Taj Mahal of feeding cups???

It has automatic backflow prevention and it automatically throttles the milk flow - just point the bottle towards your baby's mouth and it's robotic arm will automatically align it with her cheeks and lip. It even has a safety release valve that automatically burps the baby too!

Oh, did I mention, it automatically washes, rinses and dries itself too???

- 72 Million Star Safety Rating - What? You gotta be kidding when you say you have not heard about this ErgoCargo Car seat. It should not even be called a carseat but the federal safety regulations make us call it that.

It's in fact a Fully-automated Oscilloscopic Octahedrally-tethered Logic Enabled Device (FOOLED).
Just drop your baby in it while you are standing. No need to bend and strain your back - the triple gelled and pneumatic shock absorbers gently envelop the baby into the shell. The robotic arms (yes robotic arms again) align all the 8 belts (remember it is octahedrally tethered!) over the baby and lock into place by themselves.

And then the device  legs protrude out and walk by itself and lock itself into the car....all at the touch of a button, of this 829 button full functional remote control!!

- Sleepless in Seattle - Disruptive sleeping pattern? We have the tool right for you. This Nano-Nanny activates itself as soon as you put your baby in the crib. It has a database of 30,000 lullabies to put the baby and her parents to sleep.

These velvet laced belts will keep the baby tied to the bed in case she tries to climb out. The dual robotic arms (don't ask) will gently pat the baby to sleep - it can be pre-programmed with these 58 patting motions.

Those earmuffs you ask? Well, those are for you - sometimes technology cannot do everything for you, can it?

(50mm, f/1.8, 1/40sec, iso1600)

Hissssnake in zeee backyardsssss

Found this snake in our backyard the other day. Although, supposedly, it's very common to see snakes around here, this was the first time I saw one and I was quite startled.

I was in my own world doing some yard work that I did not even notice this guy at first. I was probably around 3-4 feet from him; it was probably a good thing I did not see him then or I might have screamed like a girl. I actually saw him a few mins later when I was walking back with a trash bag. There he was relaxing in the sun, all 5 ft of him, probably had come for some frog for dinner (which we see quite a few of in the backyard).

What did I do? I ran back in to grab my camera to snap some pics of this little guy. I just had my 50mm and I did not bother to change it. I hurriedly came back but he was no longer in his original position. He was ready to go hunting or find a place without a hyper-excited snake noob disturbing his beauty bask. I manged to get a couple of pics before he was all gone. It was not in the best angle - mind you I was scared and did not want to get too close to this guy nor did I have a zoom lens on.

Once I got back in, I tried to identify the type of snake - What's the first question that comes to mind? Yeah, is/was it poisonous? What's the next one -- Does it bite? Duh, yeah it would bite, but I was also aware that most of the snakes found in the urban areas are the non-venomous types. There are some pretty good resources online to help identify the species of a snake. I used this site to help I identify my new-found friend - http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/herpetology/fl-guide/snakekey.htm

From what I could tell based on this pic and the questionnaire on that site, it was a Southern black racer. I was probably right, it was visiting ys to feast on some of the frogs that we have been seeing a lot of. More info on the racer here

DND DND DND DND

Sign outside this guys' cube....

DO NOT DISTURB. Get the message? No? How about now? No?? How about now? How about now? How about now? How about now? How about now?

I sit pretty close to him and I whisper all the time...just to make sure I don't disturb him. I remove my shoes and walk on my socks just to make sure my steps are not too loud to grab his attention. More so, I don't even get to gurgle on my straw when I sip on my coke!

May be one of these days,  I just take the kiddo's toy horn and walk by his desk tomorrow and honk. Wonder he will actually get disturbed?

May be everytime I pass by his desk (his cube is at the end of the aisle), I say *Beep Beep* and run away. Wonder he will actually be disturbed?

Disclaimer (in case he ever reads it and comes to beat me up) - He is a pretty decent guy...he is just a collector of fine things and has probably been collecting these Do Not Disturb signs from every person who has left this place over the last few years)

Magnolia blooms

We have this huge mature Magnolia tree outside our house. It's around 30 feet high and around 15 feet wide and has large green leaves. The tree is beautiful and dense with large dark green leaves.

All year long, it bears no flowers, its just a huge leafy tree. However just for 2 weeks every year, the Magnolia flowers blossom. It's that time of the year now. The whole tree is filled with these beautiful white Magnolia flowers.

These flowers are HUGE in size ...in fact HUGE in everything....size, perfume and  of course pollen. The sad part is once the blossom they don't last very long. They wither and fall off within a day or two, three at max.

The kiddo likes to pluck the flowers from the low hanging branches and bring them home and set them in a cup of water. Within half a day or so, they open up and bloom completely.....exposing the entire anatomy of the flower. May be our science teacher should have used these flowers to explain Calyx, Corolla, etc..etc...instead of the black and white pictures of our science text books.

The second pic has my blackberry resting against the flower...just to give a sense of size. The flower in it's full bloom is more than twice the size of my blackberry. Now, that is huge. Imagine wearing one of them on your head; or a garland of these around your neck!

Unfortunately, it's just a matter of days before all the flowers wither and fall...and in a month after that, they bear fruits (I think they are fruits, or seed pods or something). That's when comes the task of picking the remains - of the flowers, the leaves and the fruit. Until then, it's time to enjoy nature in it's fragrant glory

When things are just not going your way....

Saw this pic somewhere and found it funny yet true at times...made me wonder...

There are those days, weeks and months...
When no matter how hard you try and no matter how you turn...
You do all the right things and press all the right buttons...
You plan the next steps and make the right moves...
When things start to pile; they never seem to relax...
You are looking for a break; all you get's a breakdown...
You wonder what you did and ponder what you didn't.
Then you realize and then you awaken;
Twas just a game of tetris and the floor wasn't even

How many engineers does it take...?

How many Engineers does it take to replace a Ceiling Fan?

-- One to go buy a nice new fan on sale from Costco 

-- One to click some pics of the old fan in attempt to post them on classifieds

-- One to take down the old ceiling fan

-- One to try mounting the new Costco fan only to realize it uses a different mount

-- One to further realize that the Costco fan once assembled couldn't be easily dismantled

-- One to pack up the round peg of the fan  in the square hole of the box with the rod hanging out

-- One to go to Lowes to buy the same brand fan as the existing one

-- One to try mounting the Lowes fan only to realize it uses a third kind of "slightly" different mount

-- One to consider replacing the outlet box after realizing it took almost 4 hours the last time

-- One to give up on the supposedly mini project and decide to call an electrician

-- One to call the electrician.....the Electrician who comes and installs the new fan in less than 30 minutes start to finish

-- One to have his ego seriously hurt, smashed and hung over the new ceiling fan

-- One to pay the electrician more to install than it took to purchase the fan

-- One to post this blog post and go to sleep.

Oh by the way...

Oh by the way, Hi! Been quite a while....

Silly Bandz

"Do you like these silly bandz"
"Yes"
"Why do you like them?"
"Because they are cool"
"Why are they cool?"
"Because everyone has them"
"You remember we had talked the other day about not copying others blindly?"
"Yeah................but I really like these bands"

A cloudy, windy, rainy day...

I don't feel like typing much at all these days. So much so that I have been slacking on sending out work related emails too!

Back on topic - for some reason, I really like this pic. Is it because of the lone palm tree swaying freely on this cold, windy, rainy, chilly day? Is it the busy clouds behind? Is it the colors or the lack thereof? I don't know but as a whole it feels peaceful...

Slow down today...

A piece of unwrapped, unsolicited advice that I'm sure I can use.

I'll keep the candy, you can have the advice!

Kseniya Simonova's sand animation

Saw this earlier today, thought I should post it here...



continues here...

Mood Swings....

Saving the world, one flush at a time...

Woohoo! All the restrooms in our office recently got upgraded to WATER FREE urinals!

Woohoo! No more forgetting to flush!!

Woohoo! The new urinal itself is ergonomic, sleek and sexy!

Woohoo! It's touchfree and hygenic (although we did not have to touch the older one's either...)

Woohoo! No more feeling guilty about global warming and ozone layer depletion everytime you flush half a gallon of water with your 50ml of  pee!

Woohoo! No more having to think twice about going to pee on the hour, every hour!

Woohoo! My personal public urinal at work saves 40,000 gallons of fresh water per urinal per year!

Woohoo! I was so intrigued about how it works that I had to google it up!

Woohoo! I so wanted to share it with the world (well...at least the 6.25 visitors of my blog) that I took a pic of it with my blackberry while at it!

Woohoo! I'm saving the world, one flush (skipped) at a time.

Other side of the oatmeal...

Bumped into this site - www.theoatmeal.com the other day. Found it to be pretty witty, humorous and mildly informative at the same time. I wish he was around to write the textbooks while I was in school.

He mentions that his website is a one-man operation. Seems to be a very creative guy with some top notch illustration skills. Here's an excerpt (most of his work is in the form of images). This one's is from 15'ish things to know about coffee

(Slightly off-topic....I get my culinary lessons from Alton Brown)

Jump-starting the new year...

It's starting to get cold here in Florida. December was a very mild month, milder than the December of 08. After many days of highs in the 70's and lows in the 60's the mercury has dropped now with 30's for lows and 50's for highs. "Hahaha" the 6 inch thick fur coat clad farmer in Lonetree, ND might laugh at me and cry at the same time, while looking through his window at the sidewalks covered in a foot of snow, but the fact still remains, your body gets used to the Floridian warmth. And for us Mumbaites, it feels right at home.

Back on topic; the battery on wifey's car which was purchased from Costco a little over a year back died this morning. It was dead, dead as a doornail, no, deader than the phone line after not paying the phone bills for 6 months. I tried jump-starting it with the battery on my bus, which is probably twice the capacity as the one on wifey's car. No luck. I tried leaving the jumper cables on and the bus running for over half an hour. No go.

I gave up and started my frantic search for the sales receipt for this battery. Drawer 1 messed up, not there. Drawer 2 digged into, nope. Drawer 3 which was almost empty was still strip searched and felt around but in vain. It wasn't in the drawers, it wasn't in the files, it wasn't in my wallet which still had a Free lunch coupon from 2006.

Giving up, I called Costco and asked them whether they would still honor the warranty if I have lost my receipt. The lady on the phone was pretty pleasant. She said it's not a big deal and that they can look it up using my member Id. She asked me to get the battery to their returns desk and they would take care of it. Duh, I probably should have called her before spending an hour searching for the receipt.

Removing the battery from the car was very straightforward, especially since I had installed it just a year back. The first time was a real pain in the rear but that's a story for some other time. Loading the battery on the bus, I left for Costco

The warranty replacement process was a cake walk. Basically, there was no warranty replacement! The lady at the returns desk explained to me that all I have to do is return the battery at her desk and then go buy a new one. Sweet!! A new battery and an all new 3 year replacement warranty for at least 20 bucks cheaper than the cheapest comparable battery in other places. She also told me that the price on the battery has gone down 3 bucks since the time I bought it last year.

So basically, I got a new battery, 3 dollars back and a brand new warranty, no questions asked. That's customer service. Why did the battery die within a year? The question still remains. Was it a cheap quality battery in the first place? Is there something else wrong with the car? Alternator not doing its job may be? Will it break down again tomorrow or next week? Only time will tell. For now, it's Thank you Costco you have earned yet another loyal customer.

www.hailshapes.com

Happy New Year!

I had bought this domain a few months back when they had it on sale for 99 cents. Thought I'll configure this blog to point to www.hailshapes.com

Woohoo!

London Dreams

These days, I rarely get to watch a movie from start to finish in one go. However, yesterday I watched this 2.5 hour long movie, London Dreams, in around 4.5 hours.


I am not "current" or may also be that this movie did not do so well at the box office, I had not heard of this movie until earlier this week when I had bumped into it while aimlessly browsing the web. However, it was good enough for me to stay up until 2:00 in the night to finish the movie. (Not that I need much of a reason to stay up late into the night)

What I did not like?
Not a long list but just a couple of things worth mentioning...

The end sucked donkey balls. Reminded me of Hyderabad Blues. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone bumping into this post who has not watched the movie but I'll just say that sometimes people just take a huge dump on a story just to get to a happy ending. If this was based on a book, probably the director or someone decided that it was too gloomy of an end so he decided to screw it up and try to make it look colorful and lively while sucking the life out of it.


What else? Well, it wasn't anything close to reality. Not sure if it was meant to be close to reality, probably not. But, some things felt like a musician's version of Rajinikanth jumping off the 4th floor of a building, shooting 6 bullets from his revolver which ricochet various things killing 10 baddies, landing a roundhouse kick on the main baddie and rescuing the princess.

Anything else? Yes. Salman Khan. He is not 20 anymore. He is probably 50 and should act like one right about now. It was fun 15 years back in Andaz Apna Apna with Aamir Khan. It is not fun watching him do the same old antics anymore.

Now...for what I liked?
THE MUSIC. In two words, it was aww some! In one word, ENERGIZING. I am listening to it while typing this post and it just rocks. (Shola Shola is currently playing) I don't listen to a lot of music but I have the illusion of having the ear for good music. Yes. Energizing is the word to describe it. It makes you want to put some earphones on and go run a few miles. If you don't have this in your collection, get out and buy a CD or download it to your ipod or hunt for a torrent or something.

I loved all the songs, however, Barson Yaaron was a real powerhouse especially the later half of the song. Man ko ati bhavey saiiyan was also pretty decent but not one of the best. Shankar sang it very well. Shola Shola was my least favorite but it was still much better than 80% of the songs I've heard in the recent. I did not care much for the remixes at all. It beats me why one would want to put teriyaki sauce and hummus in a really well made pav bhaji.

After today, I've a freshly ignited respect for Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy in particular and good music in general. This is a CD that will probably be playing in my bus for the next 2 weeks. 

I wish I listened to more music, more good music. Thank you S-E-L, I just ran 20 miles. In spirit.

Almost a year since...

Its been almost a year since I started this blog. I have not been very regular at posting - sometimes many a week while other times, a month between. Looking back, it has been a good year. May be one of these days I'll post a synopsis of the year that has gone by.

Enough blabbering.

Uggh. I miss my camera :(

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrgcorporateantivirusuxxxxxhhhhh!!!!!!

"Sorry but I need to screw-up your morning and start running the weekly scan now"
"Umm...can you start a little later"
No response...
"Hello? Can you start a little later please?"
"Uhh...sure! I'll be glad to start later. How much later? One hour or three hours?"
"3 hours please"
"Suuuure! Give me 2 hours to pause what I'm doing"
"WTF#*%&"
No response...
Exactly 3 hours 0 mins 0 secs later (an hour after it actually paused #*%&#)...
"Aha! Thought I forgot about it eh? Gotta start the weekly scan now"
"I'm in the middle of something. Can you please start a little later??"
"Aww whatheck....one hour or three hours?"
"One hour should do"
"Suuuuuure! Give me 2 hours to pause what I'm doing. But remember this is your last snooze!"
"WTF#*%&"
No response...
Exactly 1 hour later (10 mins after it actually paused)...
"Point of no return! Ready or not....I'm starting the weekly scan now."
"Oh well, go ahead. I'll take a coffee break. How long can a weekly scan take any ways"
2 hours and 6 coffee breaks later
"Ding! I'm done!! No threats detected"
Great! I've my laptop all for myself!!

10 minutes later
"Time to start your monthly virus scan"
$#^@&$#&#@!%@%&$%$%!$#@!

Asparagus anyone?

Made some Asparagus yesterday, thought I'd share some with you. For those who like asparagus, they're on sale at Publix for $1.59/lb. They are usually around $3.50/lb.

Recipe? Sure! It's pretty simple...

You need:
Around a pound of Asparagus
4 cloves of Garlic - chopped
Fresh ground black pepper
2 tsp Extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

They are safe!

The fishies look pretty ok now!!! They are not upside down floating at the top of the tank anymore. They still seem a little sluggish and the Daddy Fish still wants to hang out at the top of the tank but they are both right side up and don't seem like they are half-dead anymore.