Random rants..

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Yet another shooting. How many more until they finally decide to ban guns? Again, it was the same media rigmarole complete with psychologists and police superintendents. I mean, looks like there is simply no value for lives anymore. The worst thing is there were certain "experts" giving "brilliant" ideas like how everyone should carry a gun to protect themselves.

Yup. I feel perfectly safe now {rolls her eyes}..

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I feel sick and tired of the ongoing US presidential campaign. It feels like its been on forever. What I am even more tired of is the media (surprise, surprise :-p). Initially they declared that Rudy Giuliani was the ultimate Republican nominee. The guy's vanished without a trace now. Looks like its Hillary Clinton's turn next. Gimme a break! The media come up with some silly poll daily one way or another. Next day its a total reversal of opinions! Its like watching the weather channel :-p. I can't believe there's still 10 more months of this to take..

Torture on..

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Who is going to be president doesn't really matter. Nothing is going to change for a person like me who's on a H4 visa. I wonder how they came up with that one. Ok a person on H1 visa will work but his/her spouse will not have basic rights! Crazy! I feel worse when a person who's not even qualified gets a good job, where as the first question I get asked in an interview is "Do you have sponsorship?". Once I say that I'm on H4, thats the end of the interview. Atleast give me a chance, verify if I'm talented before you write me off! I have always wanted to take a sabbatical when I had a kid, but it still stings when somebody else gets a H1 sponsorship. It makes me think that maybe I am not as good as I think I am.

But hey thats life..

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Lastly there's been this song in my head for the past 3 days. I don't mean it in a good way. I sort of liked it when I first listened to it. But it went into my head and has been playing in a repeat mode for 3 days now! I hate it, but I can't get it out of my head. My head aches :(. It reminds me of a Seinfeld episode called "The Jacket" in which George keeps singing this song -

Jerry - "What is that song?"

George - "Oh, it's from Les Miserables. I went to see it last week. I can't get it out of my head. I just keep singing it over and over. It just comes out. I have no control over it. I'm singing it on elevators, buses. I sing it infront of clients. It's taking over my life.

Jerry - You know, Schumann went mad from that. (Trying to scare George) He went crazy from one note. He couldn't get it out of his head. I think it was an A. He kept repeating it over and over again. He had to be institutionalized.

I am already going mad..

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Like dis and like dat!

I know its been a long time. Well maybe all the blogging I've done for more than 2 years is finally getting to me. I just don't feel like typing a post. Its not that I don't have anything to say. In fact I have a list of topics hanging on for a while now. Yet, somehow I'm just not able to make myself to get off my lazy butt (:-D) and type stuff. Maybe the lazy bug has bitten me for good. Or maybe I wanted to be bitten bad ;-). Anyways, now that I have recovered a bit, I thought I'll finish atleast a post before I get the next laziness dose :-D.

Today, 13th May 2007, is the 2nd anniversary of my coming to US. Last year I actually celebrated the day by being in India! :). This time our trip to India has been on hold due to some reasons. Hopefully we will be going sometime soon. But this post is not about that. When I first came here to US, I had written a post on my likes and dislikes about this place. Have any of them changed for the better? Or have they persisted to be the same? Find out in this new edition of "Dis I like" " :-D.

1) Cost of Stuff:

I've stopped converting dollars to rupees. Well, last year when I was in India, I was actually converting rupees to dollars ;-). It still sucks when you have to pay 4 dollars for a guava here (they are a bit rare) and I do start calculating that I'm paying more than 180 rupees for a stupid guava :-p. Well, I guess, old converting habits never die ;-) :-p.

2) Sunset at 9 PM:

When I actually mentioned this in June 2005, I still hadn't discovered the miraculous "effects" of day-light saving yet. Just 4 months later I was complaining about the sun setting at 5PM!! Isn't anything normal here?? Even after 2 years, I can't claim to have gotten adjusted to such a major fluctuation in daylight every 6 months. And nope, still don't like it :-p.

3) Restaurant food:

Hmmm there have been a bit of changes in this area. Mainly because of 2 south Indian restaurants that have cropped up in our area. Moreover whats very surprising is that we are able to find Indian restaurants most places we travel to. So that means good food for atleast once a day ;-). I also love that the Tacobell people replace all meat with beans without raising their eye-brows, or that the Fazoli people (Italian food chain) mix various kinds of pasta with vegetarian sauces/toppings though they do raise their eye-brows at the "no-meat" instruction :-p or the basic fact that the Burger King people actually have a veggie burger option unlike the infamous McDonalds who don't have any whatsoever (except the plain bun they give you when you say "no meat" :-p). My all time favourite is the Pizza Hut's Veggie Lovers pizza, but it still sucks that you don't have varieties in any of these :(. Its still not like I can go out and eat a bhel puri on road side. But atleast I have some options when I do want to go out. Summing up, it means my opinion is sorta neutral now :).

4) Ulta (reverse) driving:

I've done a full 360 degree turn (ulta myself :-D) on this. I don't really mind it anymore. In fact I like driving here more than I do in India. Yes, there are accidents here too when some crazy people don't follow the rules. But most of the time rules are followed and that makes driving a pleasure than a guessing game of death. I like it that people leave space for emergency vehicles rather than follow it like mad to get out of the traffic. I like it that if God forbid, I'm in an emergency situation, I'll get medical help as soon as possible. I like not having to change gears and cruising at top speeds on highways which are probably still unattainable in India :(.

5) Self help is the best help policy:

I absolutely hate it, though I vaccum only once a week. The dish washing gets to me, so I try and push that work to Sri all the time and I consider myself very successful at that ;-) :-D. Not only that, but whats worse is that, you have to put the petrol into your car, you even blow air to its tyres! You haul your stuff when you are changing houses. You mow your lawn, trim the bushes and dig up earth for plants. I don't really mind the last part too much, because I'm the one who wants to garden :). But I still get mad at people in India who complain about their maids and don't know how lucky they are :-p.

6) Wooden Houses:

Yup, now I'm totally scared about this! I mean what with the mad tornadoes which demolished whole towns in Kansas and the wild fires in Florida and California, I wonder why people even bother building wooden houses. I mean, are you crazy?? Maybe a brick and stone house will surivive a tornado better than a starving wooden house! Oh well, maybe they will fall faster and cause more injury than the wooden houses, who knows :-p. But there has to be something else than a wooden house, surely!

Thats it! Those were the dislikes I had. I really don't have anything to add to that! My likes haven't really changed. I love the State resort/recreation parks, the hugggge shopping malls (though I usually only window shop as the prices are wayyyyyyy crazy!), the fresh fruits, veggies, milk, curd, the strangers greeting each other policy, the traffic rules, the radio stations, multiplexes and planned roads. I have to add the libraries to this list. I have read more books than I ever have and have had all kinds of helpful books for my TOEFL as well as GMAT studies :). The best thing is that if a book is not available in the Government library, you can actually ask for an Inter-library loan. They'll get it for you for some time! How wonderful can it get :))! I also like it that I can wear anything I want here without being afraid of being constantly stared at. Not that I cross any limits ;-). No American stares at you, but there are Indians here who still do, especially older ones who are visiting. Whats with old Indian men and all that staring?? Crazy, I tell you :-p.

One more thing I like is the safety factor. Well, it maybe limited to my town, but it is extremely safe here. There are no robberies as far as I know and its great that you can just lock up and leave unlike India where you have to have somebody sleeping over at your house even if you are out for a day :-p. Also its really wonderful to have the emergency help 911-dialling if you are in trouble of any sorts. Though I don't really have a personal experience, I have heard they respond very quickly and are there in your house over a matter of minutes (as the nearest police officer/ambulance/fire engine is displatched). This is the reason most old people also have no worries here. They don't really need children around as they have 911 for all emergency situations. I do like the way the elderly live here. I mean, in India, as soon as they get old, they start saying Raama-Krishna and begin their theertha-yaathras ;-). Here its totally opposite. They have their new stylish cars and couples go for long vacations. They go shopping on their own, go to gyms, workout and basically lead a life free of responsibilities :-D. And somehow I love the idea of the sheer ability to do that :).

One more thing I like is that you are able to find everything for anything you want to do. For example, I like gardening and most malls have an entire section dedicated to gardening. You get everything, but you have to do everything yourself. Same is the case with plumbing/car repair or whatever. If you are really into the self-thing, then this is the perfect place to be. In fact some people here like to build their own houses (I mean, everything literally) and you get every item thats required in home-related malls! You don't really have to go to a hardware store for some bolts and nuts and then head over to a paint store for paint. Everything is available under one roof and there are even knowledgeable people who can help you out :).

Looks like my likes have gone up pretty drastically ;-). But what I still dislike most about US is not having my family and friends around me and that kinda negates all that I like about this place. I miss not being able to land at my parents house whenever I want though the technology is so great that I am able to see them online one or more times a week. But just seeing is not enough. I want to touch and hug them whenever I want which is still not possible technologically :-p :(. I dislike not being able to walk into a friend's house. I miss just catching up anywhere with a friend and talking for hours forgetting all sense of time. I still am not able to go out and make friends here in US for making-friends-sake. I really don't understand this rule of deliberately making friends just because somebody is from the same country as you. I mean, do you go and introduce yourself to everyone you meet in a market in India? Why then you do the same when you are in another country? Suddenly a fellow countryman stranger is better than an American stranger? Weird!

Sri doesn't have any Indian colleagues and I'm not a very social person. Though I have met a couple of Sri's American colleagues, they are mainly acquaintances and not friends really (for one thing the age difference is usually too much :-D, for another we do not share common interests). Moreover due to my intense dislike of making friends with Indian strangers here, I don't really have any so-called "friends" here. Except my real friends who are spread over the country so wide that I cannot really visit them. Maybe that'll change sometime. Maybe I'll change. Maybe next time I write a post on this "came to US" anniversary, I'll have some more good things to say. But right now, here I am, this is me..

Shooting saga continued..

Much discussion has been going on about the shooting a few days ago. First of all, Cho Seung-hui sent a tape/pictures of himself to a NBC (he's supposed to have posted the package between the shootings!). So there has been much talking on whether the news channels should show the videos or not (well, all of the channels played them non-stop the first day they were released and the next day declared that they were sympathetic to the victims' families and stopped playing them). One point of view being that people should know why he did it while the opposite saying that showing the video might influence other people into following in his footsteps. God! Its TV for heaven's sake. If you don't want to watch, there is a power-off button, in case you didn't know!

Secondly, people have been saying how mentally ill Cho was. How mentally, he was a boiling cauldron ready to explode. And what we can do to recognize such mental illness in some kids and stop them from harming other people. Gimme a break! How do you determine somebody's mental health? Just because somebody is depressed, can you lock them up? Everybody is a bit crazy in their own way. What's the measure of this "craziness"?? What if a very decent person, behaving normally, suddenly heads off into a shooting rampage? What'll be the explanation of that then?? The kids play violent video games and watch more violence on TV and in movies. Why don't you discuss about that? Why don't you say they are corrupting the children and make a move to stop those?

Thirdly it seems now there is a paranoia about Oriental men. They are being looked at suspiciously just like Middle eastern people were after 9/11 (they are still being looked at like that at present). People are nuts! What happened to the fact that it was Americans who did all the shooting and raping in the Katrina incident? So will you be scared of your neighbour eh? Won't get out of the house? What about yourself? How can you trust "you"?? Again, the media is having a field day interviewing Oriental men on whether they are being discriminated against. They try to exploit every fear a person can ever have and actually succeed in spreading more panic!

What people don't seem to be discussing a lot is about Gun control. Do you know how easy it is to get a gun in the state of Virginia? All that is needed is a driver's licence and no criminal record! Can you believe that! I can go and get a gun without being asked any questions! And I haven't even seen a real gun (except some in museums and movies :-\) and have no clue how to operate one! But I can buy one if I feel like it! A 16-year old gets a DL here. So if he/she has no past criminal record, they can walk into a gun shop and walk out with a gun. Its totally unbelievable! But nobody wants to talk about changing that. Why? Is that because all these gun manufacturers "feed" the Government?

The media can talk, talk and talk more but end up accomplishing nothing. I really feel irritated whenever they say "Oh the police had arrested him before but they never realized..." or interview a roommate to ask "And you never thought this guy could be like this?". The roommates are not psychics, nor are the police miracle workers! I know some introverted people, doesn't mean they are killers! Tomorrow even if one of them turns out to be a killer, how am I supposed to know? Guess work? The worse part is none of this talk is going to change the fact for the 32 people who died and their grieving families. Philosophically you can say their time was up or whatever. But the pain of a loved one taken away, is only felt by the one who has lost them...

May the victims' souls rest in peace..

Land of dreams??????

• Gunman slaughters more than 30



• More than 30 people were killed Monday in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, according to university officials -- making it the deadliest school shooting incident in U.S. history. Virginia Tech President Charles Steger called the killings "a tragedy of monumental proportions."



• Gunman identified as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old English major from South Korea.



• Ballistics tests show one of the guns found was used in the dorm and classroom building shootings

Taken from CNN.

Land of dreams, land of opportunities, became a land of tragedy yesterday for so many students. The main question on most of the people's minds is "Why?". Why does a young student want to kill same-aged students? Why? Why so much rage? Why make innocents the victims of this rage?

It seems it all started yesterday April 16th 2007 morning at about 7:15 AM when police recieved a call about 2 shootings at the West Ambler Johnston Hall at Virginia Tech University. They barricaded that hall, but based on the initial information decided that it was something related to domestic shooting. Hence the campus wasn't closed and the students weren't informed, so that campus life could go on as normal. But later at 9:15 AM, again shootings were heard at Norris Hall (the engineering department). Police stormed in to discover the shooter had shot many students (31 of them died, others have multiple injuries) and himself in the end. Though there have been shootings at schools in the past, this is the bloodiest and highest in body count.

It seems there wasn't a shooting victim that didn't have less than three bullet wounds in them. God!! I still don't understand the rage that could have caused such a terrible tragedy. I mean, how can anyone do such a thing! I don't "get" it!

Imagine the situation of the parents. The victims were all mostly young students (some were professors), dreaming so many dreams for the future and building the required foundation for a wonderful life. Its always difficult when a young life is taken. Not that the old aren't important. But the young people hadn't even "lived" their lives. Two people, one a professor and the other a student of Indian origin passed away in this incident (yesterday according to an Indian newspaper, no Indians died and hence this is an update..). Its even more difficult for the parents of international students. First of all, most of these students are on financial aid, so their parents may not be that strong financially. Moreover there are hassles of visa. Though there is an emergency visa available, imagine going to the consulate for visa stamping at a time when your child is dead on the other side of the world!All in all what a waste of lives!

The media, as usual, is having a field day! They are interviewing students, police and have even brought in their security analysts to "analyse" the situation. They are also repeatedly playing videos of the campus and interivewing family members of the victims again and again! The Don Imus racial slur controversy, the Anna Nicole's baby's father identity and the Iraq war tragedy, that were overwhelmingly overpoweringly present all over the TV just 2 days ago, are not to be seen at all now. Just shows how the media use a tragedy to increase their own ratings. Its outrageous! I'm sure next they'll interview a pschychologist to determine the mind-state of the killer, some other University president who'll probably talk about what they are doing to protect the students, another police superintendent for tips on how to protect yourself if a killer is out in the hall and so on. Heck! They'll probably even get a gun specialist to show how easy it is to buy and use a gun, in the process influence other young future killers! They'll milk it for all its worth and I'm sort of disgusted with the whole thing right now.

This is not the first time a shooting has happened in the school. In this particular case, the shooter was a South Korean. But there have been other cases where twelve students and a teacher were killed because of 2 American teenagers shooting them (Columbine High School Massacre, Colorado). There was even another story where a 12-year old kid shot another 12-year old friend accidentally! Why are the guns so "accessible"?? Why the heck? How can a young 12-year old get his/her hands on a gun and even know how to operate it??? Aren't the parents looking at what their kids are doing? Or are the kids so sneaky that they are fooling their parents into thinking that they are innocent??

I don't understand it. The government schools here are the best, providing all sorts of facilities to the kids (unlike the Indian government schools which are practically sheds). Free education is given to kids until the age of 16. Free transportation is provided in the form of buses. There are even road rules around these buses to protect the kids from traffic hazards. The private schools are strictly for the elite rich. Despite all sort of convenience, why do the children move towards drugs and violence? Is it a case of too much good? There are children struggling to come up in other parts of the world, but here, though they have everything, why do they get into all things "bad"??

Few years ago there was a huggge rise in number of deaths of kids due to Choking game. The game involves strangling one self to induce near unconsciousness by restriction of the supply of oxygen to the brain. The instructions (a step-by-step guide) for this particular dangerous game were freely available on the internet in non-child-restricted websites. The worse thing was that the parents were clueless about this particular game while it was a "hot" new trend at schools. It seems it gives a "high" like a drug. The parents usually found out about it only when their children ended up dead (most of the times this was thought to be suicide!!). Whats a parent to do in such a case? Again the children have everything here, yet it seems 250 to 1,000 young people die in the United States each year playing some variant of this choking game! Crazy, I tell you!

Recently there was another report of a 17 year old boy not only smoking pot (marijuana) himself, but giving it to his 2- year old and 5-year old nephews to smoke too. A 2 year old smoking pot!! Whats the world coming to? The little boys weren't even aware of what they were doing, but shouldn't a 17-year old know what the effects of smoking, moreover smoking marijuana are? The guy was not only guilty of handing it out to the little boys, but of taking a video of this for his obvious enjoyment! The young children were literally staggering due to the drug effects!

Also, there have been cases of child molesting by priests, how more horrible can it get? A man who you trust with the kids might be the one who ends up harming them, scarring them for life! If even a God's place like a church isn't safe then what place is? If a protector becomes a predator, whats a child to do? Whats a parent to do?

Land of dreams eh? Looke like its certainly not for the children! No place in the world is probably safe for kids, but this is literally scary! How can parents not be worried about their children in this kind of environment? Not that it happens everywhere in US, but the instances are so many, that its frightening. Even if you trust your child enough that he/she will not get involved with drugs and the choking game, whats the guarantee that he/she will not be shot by a classmate? Obviously all students cannot be made to wear bullet proof vests or the campus security can't be so serious as to check all the students for guns daily (well, maybe it will be after such a "massacre" as they are calling it). Yes, there have to be changes brought in terms of gun accessibility. Yes, there has to be education provided to the children on ill-effects of such trends.

Meanwhile, I guess all parents can do is to do their best to inform children of all hazards and leave the rest to fate and God..

A dark tale!

For the first time since Sri and I have been in the US (Sri has been off/on here for more than 5 years and I have been here almost 2 years now), we faced a power outage!! This miracle, errr, catastrophe happened on Friday the 9th March 2007 evening :-D. We were watching yet another of the many telugu movies we watch now and then and boom!! Everything went dark literally! The strangest coincidence was that just that morning, I was telling my mom about how disadvantageous a power cut could be here in US!

Well, the candles which until now had just been used for decoration/aromatic purposes, suddenly were thrust into a "real" use and I must say, they lived upto the expectation :-D. I ventured out and saw that there was darkness all the way in all the blocks towards our right, but towards our left, there was light after a couple of blocks. It was nice to see the night sky without the ever-present illumination of the street-lights. I pestered Sri into taking me on a drive for a quest to the end of darkness. Well, what I meant was to find out the other end to the power outage. So we drove around the dimensions of where the power cut had happened and to our surprise we found that even Sri's office had the power cut and the factory next to it had about 3 fire-engines around. We could only guess that it may have been the reason for the outage as such.

Power outage is certainly not a common occurence here in US. In India, its a day-to-day experience. And that makes me go into a flash back mode as usual :-D. In our house, before the invasion of the all-powerful invertor that is, if a power outage happened at evenings, we always used sit outside and talk. Talk a lot, sometimes sing old hindi songs and even later, Darsh would bring his accoustic guitar out and we'd have a nice time singing soft english songs :). It was so pleasurable. But it was a different story altogether if the current didn't come back within the sleep time. Especially during summers. It'd be too hot + mosquitoes would have a field day during the night and sleep would become impossible ;-).

Here in US, the windows are almost always closed and there are hardly any mosquitoes in the cities. So no problem there. Its not summer yet and its still pretty cold. We took out a couple of blankets for that. But the major problem is not any of these. In the US, atleast in our house, everything, every damn thing works on electricity. No electricity means no cooking (we have an electric cooking range), no hot water, food might get spoiled ('cause no fridge), house is too hot/cold (no air conditioning) and the garage door won't even open as its automated!! Thankfully we had eaten something in the evening, so we were not really hungry. And since the power outage hadn't spread to the whole town, we could still go out and eat. But imagine situations like the recent tornadoes and heavy snowfall power outages. There's no way to even cook and eat unless you have a gas connection (its costly and some people do have that, but not many). There's no way to boil water!!

What I mean is that people who seldom face a power outage are hardly prepared for it. Hardly any shops own generators here unlike in India where even a kaakana angadi is prepared with some candles/emergency lights. While in India, every building that towers more than 2 stories, has an elevator and subsequently a generator (though using it or not depends on "other" conditions ;-) :-D), here though there are multi-storied buildings, hardly any of them have generators (This became a major problem in New Orleans, Katrina incident). Hardly anybody is prepared for such an event. Even us who have braved many power-cuts in India, were hardly ready. I mean, yes the power-cut wasn't wide-spread, but had it been, we could have probably survived (with raw food) for a day or two, thats it! Later we'd probably have had to drive around to a different place which had power and stay there until power would be restored here. I guess people take things for granted sometimes and some places ;-).

So we talked for sometime regarding anything and everything and called the electricity company several times, only to hear an automated message saying "There is a power outage affecting about 1300 customers in North Lexington. Our resources are working on it currently and hope to restore it soon". After about 3 hours of this "dark"ness, during which Sri even saw a shooting star, boo hoo I missed it :(, we decided to end the day and go to sleep. We still were wondering how we'd face the next day if the electricity decided not to show up, when the lights came back! It was "fun" only because it lasted only for 3 hours :).

The next day I found out that the power outage had been caused by a raccoon of all things!! Thats the reason we have a saying in Kannada saying "Moorthi chikkadaadaru Keerthi doddadu" meaning that "Though an idol might be small, its fame maybe big". Holds good for the raccoon which kept 1300 people in darkness for 3 full hours! :-D.

Privacy, anyone?

The title of the post may seem kind of hypocritical, since I am flaunting most of my "privacy" in my blog here :-D. But well, I actually do have limits, I share lots of things about myself here, but there are lots other things which I don't really write about. I have a clear distinction about what is private and what can be made public. Thats a line I don't cross and don't intend to cross. But this post is not really about that..

Its about Google. Google has really brought about revolutionary changes in the matter of search and later maps/directions, searching for items for sale (Froogle), Blogging (Blogger), high storage capacity with Gmail and recently Google Videos. I have no complaints about any of these. In fact I'm highly appreciative.

I use google in my daily life so much, its like a virtual encyclopedia to me. Be it recipes, matter for my blog (:-D), day-to-day concerns, Google can find a solution to absolutely anything. I don't use Gmail much, other than to store some data, but I have watched videos on Google Videos, Shopped on Froogle and obviously blogged (a lot!!) on Blogger :-D. The most use we have had is out of Google Maps. All the trips that we have taken here in US, especially road trips, have involved Google maps in the planning. Its so easy to get directions, take print-outs and later follow those to the destinations. Thats how we find Indian restaurants at every place we go :-D.

Recently Google Maps updated their database to include streets, roads and place names of all major cities in India (well, its been 2 months, I am getting to write the post now :-D). Well, the "curious" me just had to see for myself and I really had a nice time exploring Bangalore, especially using the Satellite option. Before I put up any Bangalore photos, first a satellite snap of our house in US.




As you can see "A" hits the spot. This is not really a recent photo, as now there are houses in front of ours.

The next snap is of Bangalore:



I know it looks very shabby, but there's lot of construction work going on in the area (the grey areas are all under constuctiion buildings). "B" is my parents' place and "C" is our new flat which is, as of now, missing us :-D.
The only snap remaining is of Hyderabad:



"D" indicates my in-laws' place :-D. Its so nice to have a software that has information about any place in the world. Its almost as if we are next to each other :).

Here comes the "but". I wonder where it will all lead to. I mean, now its satellite snaps, will it be live satellite coverage in the future? It sounds kind of exciting, I know, but its also a high intrusion of privacy. Reminds me of the movie "Enemy of the State". If something like Google maps is being given to the public, maybe they already have the surveilance technology in National secret agencies! Kinda scary, isn't it? You never know who might be watching you. And its definitely not God ;-).

Its not that I have anything to hide. No, I am not a spy (I'm sure many of you were relieved to hear that ;-) :-D). But somehow the whole thing feels weird. Maybe it won't later when the technology will be available for public. I mean, had anyone told me about 10 years ago that I would write my journal online, where any person in the world would be able to read it, I'd certainly have called them "crazy" :-D. So maybe, people's perceptions of privacy change all the time. If the technology actually becomes available while I'm alive, who knows, I might even have a satellite live on my blog to indicate where I am currently ;-) :-D.

Boring hoardings :-p

Whenever you are on a freeway in US, one of the most common boards you'll see almost before every exit is this:




The reason is pretty obvious. There are thousands of McDonald's in US. So many that almost every exit has one. Unlike India that is. In India, McDonald's is considered sophisticated what with only 1 or 2 each in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore (well, my info is limited to that, don't know if there are more :-p). So going to McDonald's is considered a big affair :-p. But in US, you have a McDonald's per galli galli. Its more like our pani puri gaadis. You have one in every street kind of a scenario.

So basically, if, say, there are 10 exits on a freeway, 9 of them are sure to have a McDonald's. Then pray what's the point in wasting so much money in 9 hoardings such as above? Its cheaper to put one hoarding before the exit that doesn't have the McDonald's. Something like this:




Hehehe :-D. My hands have been itching to do something like this ever since I saw the 1st board :-p :-D. By the way, if you are a McDonald's representative who is impressed with my idea and want to steal it, let me tell you buddy, that this idea is copyrighted :-p. If you really want it, then you can give me atleast some percentage of the money you've been wasting away on all the unwanted hoardings :-p ;-) :-D.

Its a bird, Its a plane...

Its not superman either. And I haven't seen the new Superman movie, so this is not a review either :-p.




Nope, its not a comet :-p :-D. And I'm talking about the line in the middle. The blur on the right side of the photo is that of my camera on the window of the car as I took this photo when we were driving.

Ok ok I'll not keep you in suspense any longer (if you ever were :-p), its actually an American military jet. This is one of my favourite sights here in US, on a clear sunny day. In the mornings/evenings sometimes, I've seen as many as 5 jets (simultaneously!!) in the sky! And the trail they leave is beautiful :).

And I'm talking about only that small town we are in, i.e Lexington. Imagine how many jets must fly all over US every hour, every day!! So what are so many jets doing in the sky? Practice run ofcourse ;-). Every day every hour they practice. No matter whether the sky is sunny or cloudy, though you can't really see them when its cloudy..

So you want to know why they are using up so much fuel daily? Don't you get it? Its a kind of investment. They get all the fuel back and more, when they bomb a middle-east country and occupy the fuel resources anyways :-p. Seriously speaking, I know the fuel variant for jets is different, but more purification of the same results in the fuel used by vehicles. So imagine, when other Americans (and Indians who live in America and have cars) are paying more and more towards fuel (the excuse being that there is a middle-east crisis :-p), there are jets flying all over the place for practice!!! Can you believe that? Better believe it!!

A country has to spend some amount on its security, I agree. God knows, the situation is like that these days. There's trouble in the air and I can smell it hehehehe ;-) :-D. But what about the people of the country? Or what about the people of some other oil country who are bombed given the weapons-of-mass-destruction excuse? Nobody cares.

Anyways the Americans are fuel junkies. Every house has as many cars as the number of members in the household. Fuel prices don't seem to matter to most people. "So what if there's a fuel price rise?" seems to be the general attitude. People crib about it but they don't stop taking their cars out. A very few travel by buses. Hence there are not many buses provided from point-to-point. Even in New York, though it is a traffic hell, people prefer to travel by their own cars. People seldom take the connecting trains. Though in the city, people do use the subway.

So the only people affected are the ones who are being bombed. No wonder they form their own groups and scheme ways of terrorizing America. As it been said many times by many others before "If Americans bomb other countries, its termed as looking for weapons of mass destruction (or some other equivalent term) and if others try to return the favour, then its termed Terrorism". Weird :-p.

Anyways I don't even know why the topic of fuel/terrorism came up. I wanted to write a post about the patterns and thats it. Looks like I got carried away with so many other things. The situation is sad. Until the people themselves realize the value of the fuel (The BP CEO argues that there's no shortage and its all rumours circulated by the government!!), cars and jets will keep moving on roads and skies, err, respectively :). And Americans will go on bombing the oil countries using other sweet terms. And yup, there will be so called "terrorism".

But you know what? I still like the patterns the jets make ;-). I guess thats the true meaning of complacence...

Save me from daylight saving :-p

Just a few months back, when I wrote the Hmm Dis I Like post, one of my friends Soum quipped about my disliking the sunset at 9 PM and said "Just wait until its winter". God, you were so right yaar!! Just last week the sun had started to rise at about 7 AM and set at about 6:30 PM. I thought it was just right. Then these Americans had to do it. The daylight saving ended and the time got advanced by 1 hour. Now the sun rises at 6 AM, but sets at bloody 5:30 PM!!! Have you ever heard of total darkness at 6 PM in the evening?? If you haven't, you are hearing it now :-p.

Daylight saving does have a good purpose.

"Daylight Saving Time "makes" the sun "set" one hour later and therefore reduces the period between sunset and bedtime by one hour. This means that less electricity would be used for lighting and appliances late in the day."

And it is usually from the first sunday of April to the last sunday of October. If you are interested, more details are here. The problem is not when the daylight saving is implemented (Yeah, yeah, I did crib about the 9 PM sunset :-p), but when it ends. Its a sudden change. It seems life all around you is going on like it was but you have advanced an hour. In 2 words, it feels like "Jet lag" :-p.

Since sunday (that's when day light saving ended), its been bad. I don't feel sleepy at the right time, but I feel sleepy when I'm not supposed to. In total, I feel like I'm just not getting enough sleep :(. Sri even says that he feels hungry at odd hours!! Yeah I am getting slowly adjusted to the change, but I can't help but crib about it. After all that's what my blog is for ;-).

Sri tells me its only going to get worse. Come winter, its gonna be dark throughout. I am sorta worried about my work more than anything else. I work from home and the only place in our house which has tubelights is the kitchen. I can't put the computer table in the kitchen. The hall has only bulbs, which do not provide sufficient light. So, obviously need to work a way to get light into my home ;-). We are planning to buy a couple of fluorescent lights in the near future...

But its still a beautiful world. There's fall everywhere, but the leaves have already started falling. Reminds me of the beautiful Louis Armstrong song "What A Wonderful World". You really got to listen to it, if you haven't heard it yet. You can listen to it online here.

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world

One wonderful song that makes me feel good to be alive :). No matter what, daylight saving or not!! :-D :-D :-D

What you shouldn't blog...

Literally stumbled upon a whole controversy when I was just glancing at some blog. Before you read my instructions on what not to blog, first you require the prelude in chronological order. I suggest you read through all of these (I know its a bloody lot, but you really need the background before making assumptions). So here are the events:

• The beginning - an article carried by JAM Magazine about IIPM whose editor is Rashmi Bansal.


• Gaurav Sabnis, a regular blogger reads the above and writes a post, like we bloggers regularly tend to do ;-).


• Gaurav gets a legal notice!!


• It reaches up to the level of Gaurav's employer IBM and he decides to resign voluntarily!!


• Varna another blogger, mentions Gaurav's post and gets a legal notice!!


• It has become a bloggers vs. IIPM movement now :-D


• Latest update is that NDTV calls it "fascinating story, which has not just raised questions about claims made by private educational institutions but also about laws governing internet privacy. " :-o!!

Ok the history over. Now my post. Tips on what you shouldn't blog:

• Don't refer to a magazine article in any part of your post. You never know who might come up and sue you ;-).


• If some other blogger is posting references to a magazine article, please don't ever support him/her and mention him/her in your post. Oooooooooops looks like I'm doing exactly that!! Hellllllllllp, I might get a legal notice anytime!! For people who want to send legal notice, please post it as a comment to this post as I've not given my email Id anywhere on my blog :-p. Look at me being considerate :-D.


• If you don't support the blogger above and want to register and post, don't ever post like this stupid guy here :-p. "Mummy, Mummy, my school is very nice, I even got a chocolate" anyone?? Sheeeeeeeesh!!


• Well, looking at the points above, I think you shouldn't even blog at all!!


• Also, if you read all my points and still want to go ahead and post, then don't worry, 1000's of bloggers including me will support you :).

If you ask my personal opinion, I think the whole thing is silly. IIPM instead of neglecting the whole thing, negligently put its ass on fire by giving it importance. Now even TVs are picking up the story. Ab IIPM ka kya hoga? Tch tch tch!! Poor Rashmi , Gaurav and Varna are being attacked at personal level, which I think is absolutely shameful and so do 1000's of other bloggers who are supporting them. Go people!! You guys rock!!

But I sort of pity the poor students studying in the pitiful institute. I mean, it really shows how worried they are if they are willing to burn the one and only laptop given to them by the institute :-p (Me being devilish >:) ).............

Car Wash :))

After a happy Time zone crossing, a worrying fire alarm, now its time again for a happy car wash incident :)

Sri wanted to get the car automatically washed on Friday itself after work. But he remembered that I had shown enthusiasm in seeing a car wash and so insisted that we are going on saturday together. So sweet :). Since we had movie plans in the evening, we decided to leave about 2 hours early (we didn't know how much time it would take). We bought the tickets to the movie on the way and reached the car wash at about 3:30 PM :)

From the outside, it looked as shabby as an Indian garage, but it was a bit more clean :). Sri asked for a deluxe exterior wash and was directed to another place where a man was standing with a hose. I admit I was a bit disappointed on seeing him. Is it gonna be only manual and not as shown in the movies? :-D But he simply washed off some major dirt, removed the radio antenna from the car, gave it us and waved us off. The car was directed to a building and I knew then that it was gonna be just like the movies :-D. As soon as we reached the inside of the building, Sri had to maneuver the car onto a conveyor belt! He simply switched the engine off and we aaram se started moving on the conveyor belt.

The first step was hosing down the car. We had obviously made sure that all windows and doors of the car were closed (otherwise we'd have an interior wash and an unwanted bath as well :-p). There were about 4 guys who sprayed the car from all the sides with soap water. Bechaare, all were drenched totally. But I absolutely loved the concept. Imagine to a kid who loves playing with water, that would be the ultimate job :-D.

After the soapwater spray,the conveyor belt moved to a huge mop like thing which was moving to and fro and was scrubbing every part of the car. At one point of time, it was covering the whole car and it was looking something like an octupus with 100s of legs :-D. I even grinned, pretended to be scared and said dramatically, "Help! help! There's a monster on the car". Sri also seemed delighted at the whole thing :). This process continued with more water spraying and scrubbing.

The next step was pouring water on the car like crazy!! It was as if we were sitting in the car during heavy rain. You can't drive as you can see absolutely nothing :-D. Next, we went towards 3 spinning bottle-brush-like brushes which were moving to and fro ominously. They rubbed the the car from the sides. I guess they were for rubbing the car a little dry. But I am not sure :)

At this point of time Sri had to start the car again, get off the conveyor belt and was directed to a place where 4 more guys were waiting to towel dry the car. They towelled the whole outside of the car and wiped the inside glasses clean. Our Nissan Sentra was dry, shiny, clean and looked like new after the vigourous towel-drying :-D. The whole process took only about 5 min (:-D) and 8 dollars, but was a whole lot fun :). I have already asked Sri to pull me along whenever he goes for a car wash again :).

The only problem was that we still had more than 1.5 hours for the movie. But that turned to my advantage as we did some window-shopping and had delicious ColdStone icecream :). My German Chocolate Cake flavoured icecream with pecans and brownies was awesome!! Later we went to the movie which was Jodie Foster's Flightplan and I absolutely loved it :). We also had dinner at an Italian restaurant :).

Now you may wonder, why I enjoy such small, not-very-important things like a car wash. Its because I believe that such little fun moments make up life. We are so busy with the bigger aspects of life that such small moments are squashed like ants, unnoticed and then forgotten. But I don't want my life to be like that. The wonder I feel at these small things is comparable to the wonder that a child feels at seeing new things. And this is the wonder that keeps me young at heart, that makes me more lively and keeps me alive :). Hehehe, Sri even calls me an "enthu cutlet" seeing the way I enjoy these moments :). One bit of advice from Prof. Deepthi - Treasure little moments in your life and you'll see that unhappiness is suddenly a smaller factor, the reason simply being that there are many more happy moments :).

Alrighty, that's enough of my blabber. Wish you all a very happy day filled with many many little fun moments :).

Crossing milestones err.. time zones :-D

Another experience I just had to blog about :) You may think, this girl has run out of topics and is talking about crossing time zones? If you are a person living in U.S, you'd have already crossed many time zones while flying to U.S from India. So you'll be definitely thinking 'What's the big deal? :-p" :). The fun I'm talking about is not crossing time zones on a plane, but by land :-D

I never knew until last Friday that Kentucky state itself has 2 timezones. Most of Eastern KY comes under Eastern Time zone (indicated by blue colour in the picture below), but there are some parts of western KY that fall under the Central Time zone (indicated by green colour).



We drove to one place called Rough river in Western KY which falls into the central time zone last saturday. There is no border/toll post or anything as such to indicate the timezone change.Its simply a board stating the place and the time zone below it (I'm getting tired of repeating time zone again and again, so short form -> TZ). As soon as you cross the TZ from east to west, VOILA!! You have gained one hour!! :-D Reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin's dad explains the theory of relativity to Calvin. Click on the pic to see the big pic :)




Sri told me that the TZ are not exactly according to longitudes. Yeah if they made it that way, probably cities would have had different TZ, or maybe colonies and even houses!! Imagine one part of your house is one hour ahead of the other part :)) Hehehehee :-D. Even now some people maybe facing problems due to this. After all, people do stay in one town and sometimes work in another. Imagine if the 2 towns are in different TZ :-D Say the office is west and house is in the east. A person going to work at 9:30 will actually be leaving his home at 10 or so. And when coming back say he leaves his office at 5:30 in the evening, he'll probably reach his house only at 7!! Would be maddening, would it not? :-D

That maybe the reason why the TZ lines are curved. Each city has probably chosen which TZ it'll adopt and has stuck to it! Hmmm the things I get to think and blog about. Well, I'll leave you to contemplate about this one. Will be back next time with another weirdo topic :))

Ina Mina Katrina..

I think the first named hurricane I ever heard of was Ivan. I remember wondering what's the big deal about a person called Ivan destroying something. It was only later I realized that Ivan was not a person but a hurricane. I really thought naming a storm was a stupid practice. Imagine!! If the practice ever reached India, the tsunami would probably be named as "Kaali maata" or the earthquake in Gujarat would probably be something like "Shiv Tandav" ;-) :-D But later I did some research and found a reason for the naming here:

Reason to Name Hurricanes

Yeah I did change my mind about the naming factor after reading the article :)

There have been many hurricanes/named storms in US. Recent ones we know of are Charley, Ivan and Jeanne in 2004, Arlene, Dennis, Emily, Franklin, Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katrina and Ophelia till now in 2005. Since september is supposedly the peak for hurricanes, there are surely more to come. But none of them have been like Katrina before...

Katrina exposed another harsh truth about US, the first one being exposed by the 9/11 WTC incident. The response was pretty pathetic and this time George Bush couldn't repeat his all-time favourite dialogue "The United states of America will stand united against all terrorism" :-D Sadly, a natural disaster can in no way be named as an act of terrorism, even Bush doesn't have the power to call God a terrorist. In a way, I'm pretty sure the real terrorists must have been really happy. They didn't have to do anything this time and there was utter chaos!! But I was surprised when Bush said "I'll take the responsibility" :-D. Man, its late, but good. You atleast now realize that you are responsible for something. And that vacation at your ranch in Texas isn't your only responsibility :-p. The News channels really had a field day with his statement ;-). They actually made it sound as if Bush was the cause of Katrina :-D.

I recently got this mail from a friend. I dunno how many of the so-called facts are actually facts, but here it is:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Orleans vs. Aamchi Mumbai

Inches of rain in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina... 18
Inches of rain in Mumbai (July 27th).... 37.1


Population of New Orleans... 484,674
Population of Mumbai.... 12,622,500


Deaths in New Orleans within 48 hours of Katrina...100
Deaths in Mumbai within 48 hours of rain.. 37.


Number of people to be evacuated in New orleans... entire city (almost)
Number of people evacuated in Mumbai...10,000


Cases of shooting and violence in New Orleans...Countless
Cases of shooting and violence in Mumbai.. NONE


Time taken for US army to reach New Orleans... 48 hours
Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach Mumbai...12 hours


Status 48 hours later: New Orleans is still waiting for relief, army
and electricty.
Status 48 hours later: Mumbai is back on its feet and its business is as
usual


USA: World's most developed nation
India: Third world country

Oops!! Did i get the last fact wrong???

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even though the rains in Mumbai cannot be compared to Katrina, the fact is that the response here in US was sluggish to say the least :-p. Is it really necessary that a governor ask specifically for a particular kind of help, when the whole country has a huge warning being flashed from all sides about the hurricane? Ok they might not have had a warning for the 9/11 incident (I still cannot believe that), but hello? You had one clear and bright here!!!

First of all, I don't understand building a city like New Orleans. According to them the simple steps to create a city seem to be:

1) Find a pit between a high huge river and another high lake.
2) Make sure this place is near the sea from where storms/hurricanes can come anytime.
3) Construct pathetic levees for the river and the lake.
4) Build a city that's completely below the water level of both the river and the lake.
5) Live in the city and declare "I'm safe :)".

I really don't understand why they are rebuilding the city either. Now that they know how unsafe it is, why rebuild and again invite another disaster to happen? Most of the people have already been shifted to other places, being given jobs, shelter and they probably won't want to come back once the city is "rebuilt". Why not keep the city as it is as a "New Orleans Memorial" as they did for WTC :-D? Jokes apart, if they are definite about rebuilding, then they must make sure that the levees this time are higher and stronger than the Great wall of China...

The problem with the people here in US is that they depend too much on the Government. "The Government didn't send us buses, the Government didn't make sure we were all evacuated, the Government didn't get us food and water at the right time" etc etc and etc. I know people in India too depend on the government, but its usually only for the compensation they get later ;-) But this is too much! C'mon, 2 days before the hurricane struck, the warnings were being issued. There were evacuations ordered. What do these people expect? That someone should come, check each and every house, if there are people push them into a bus and carry them out of the city??? Roof top evacuations were being telecasted after the storm and I remember people begging to be rescued. They didn't listen to the warning, did nothing to avoid the hurricane and want to be rescued? Sheeeeeeesh!! Even worse than this was the way the people behaved when put in the superdome! Rapes!! God!! A man is in a life and death situation and all he can think of raping a woman who is in the same situation as him? Its totally outrageous and unacceptable behaviour!! God, why did you make men this way? Is there any logic in looting people and raping women where you should probably be helping them out? And yup, they can always claim that "The Government locked us up in the superdome and didn't monitor us"!! I guess people are animals, if they are not in a controlled situation, they return to the ancestral monkey behaviour :-p Quod Erat Demonstrandum from Katrina!

The other problem I've found is too many good facilities. They say "Too much of something is not good" and thats precisely the problem in US. The electricity is continuous and there are no power cuts. So none of the buildings have generators!! In India, I think there's a stipulation that every building with a lift should have generators (I am not sure but I think so). Heck, most of the upper middle class families have invertors for their houses. I know its due to the common power cuts, but its good. In a way, we are prepared for emergencies :) Here most of them do not. Because they are oh-so-confident about the power. No wonder the whole Los Angeles city stopped working at the recent power outage. Moreover everything else depends on electricity. I heard one of the news channels actually issue a warning saying "Don't use any of the food in cans which have been outside the fridge for than 4 hours". The food last only 4 hours without electricity? :-o? What the heck?? So if I'm stranded in my house without electricity, I can't even eat the food in the house after 4 hours?? What's the use of storing food then? I just don't have the words to express my disgust here..

My heart went out to the many people who were sitting in front of the superdome waiting for help. There were children, old people, new mothers with babies and nothing was being done for them. I really hope that Katrina is a lesson learnt and things are much more smooth if a disaster strikes again (God Forbid!). We are in mid-US and the chances of us being attacked by a storm is pretty less (but Lexington it seems, is a tornado prone area, just my luck :-p :-D). But there are millions of people living on the coastline who may be hit any time by a hurricane. Hopefully next time, may all of them have the intelligence to get out of the storm path when warned and stay away until its all quiet, calm and safe again :)

Hmm Dis I like!

Well, today is exactly a month since I landed in U.S, the "Land of Dreams" as one of my very good friends calls it (not my land of dreams, thank you very much :-p). So I thought why not have a post which talks about what I like/dislike about this place. Lets start with the dislikes so that I can leave what I like for last :-D

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Dislike 1 - Cost of stuff:

Man!! Its a costly world. I know the dollar-to-rupee conversion plays a major part here but I can't help but crib about it. Can you blame me when a Rs. 20 coconut in India costs more than 3 times here? The cost at Walmart ranges b/w $1.5 to $1.7. If you are ready to compromise the quality, you can go for a $0.99 one in an Indian store, but believe me the quality sucks! Everything from a small peanut to huge furniture seems to cost a fortune. I know, I know that we also earn in dollars, but we don't earn in millions of dollars :-p It'll just take a bit more time to get adjusted. I have also stopped noting the price for stuff I really want, just so that my mind doesn't get boggled :-D

Dislike 2 - Sunset at 9 PM:

It drives me crazy!! The sun is high up in the sky at 8:30 in the night! Doesn't seem like night at all :-p Ok does it atleast rise late to compensate? Nope it promptly does so at 5:45 AM whether you want it to or not :-p

Dislike 3 - Restaurant food:

In one word - SAD!! No spice, no khaara, just bland-tasting stuff you just have to keep on munching to finish eating :-p Spice for these people implies salt and pepper! I have been to several restaurants so far and have eaten at various joints during our trip to Florida. U.S restaurants are NOT a place for vegetarians. Mexican and Italian restaurants are ok, Indian restaurants pretty good, but American is quite pathetic. If you ask for a burger with no meat, you know what you get? Its cheese and some veggies within 2 buns. No patti. If you get a vegetarian patti, its like eating a tyre (not that I have actually eaten a tyre but I have eaten a vegetarian patti :-p). People here seem to live on meat - they eat all sorts of meats and drink hell lot of cola. More than they drink water! I was really surprised at little kids aged less than 6 years being offered cola. Hello!! Cola's not very good for health, people!! And they seem to think salads compensate. Atleast are the salads eatable? Bland stuff again! But life certainly seems better for non-vegetarians here. Yet, I'm gonnu stick to vegetarianism though I am already tired of saying "no meat" at every eating joint :-p

Dislike 4 - Ulta (reverse) driving:

Oh God!! I'll never get over it!! The steering wheel at the left side of the car rather than the right. Driving on the right side of the road rather than left. Free right instead of free left. Why do Americans always have to do exactly the opposite of what the rest of the world does? :-p When I first landed in airport, Sri had come to pick me up. When he went to sit in the car, he obviously went to the left of the car. I almost shouted "Hey pal, that's my seat" :-D Till sometime back, it was almost a constant struggle to find my seat-belt because I'd always look for it on the wrong side. Whenever Sri would suddenly take a free right, I'd be scared out of my wits!! I am a bit used to it now. But doesn't mean I like it :-p Also, I tried my hand at driving here once. Thankfully, our car is an autogear! I dunno what I'd have done if the gears had been manual and had to be put by the right hand that too in the reverse order!!

Dislike 5 - Self help is best help policy:

Clean up the house, wash utensils, clothes, whatever you do, do it on your own! Yeah it does make me self-reliable, but hello!! Doesn't mean I have to like it ;-) Self-help is not out of choice. Its usually due to a cost factor. Labour is hell lot costly and household paid help come with a millionaires-only-tag :-D That reminds me, I still have to wash the utensils from today morning's breakfast :(

Dislike 6 - Wooden Houses:

Houses are made of wood here and not of brick and mortar!! Ok my house is strong. Ok it hasn't cracked anywhere yet. Ok its not easily breakable. But I'm still scared that

A strong wind will blow
and away my wooden house will go.
Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooosh
and craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash!!
It hasn't happened till now, I know
but who knows what's in store tomorrow?

**************************************************************

That's about it for the dislikes. I still might have many but I think I've covered the major cribs. So lets head right on to the likes. I like zis part :)

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Like 1 - State resort/recreation parks:

I love them!! I have already visited 3 parks till now for treks (Will be writing a lengthy picture-pretty blog on that :-D) and I'm just crazy about them. Unused land with forests/caves/river/lakes are all converted into state resort/recreation parks with hiking trails. There are also lodges/cottages and picnic areas created so that its convenient for those who want to camp and stay overnight. The main thing is each and every one of them I have been to till now are maintained very well. There are no charges for hiking, but obviously there are fees for lodging/using the resort facilities like swimming pools/golf courses etc. Special events/tours have fees as well. I basically liked this innovative way of protecting nature, but not restricting people from enjoying it :) Wish its done in India. I have trekked to quite a few spots there too. But its just a self-trek or a group trek. There are no hiking trails as such. It'd be great if such a system is implemented in India. There are so many forests being exploited mercilessly, anything remotely like this will probably save the ecosystem to a great extent and encourage more people to go back to nature :)

Like 2 - Huggggggggge Shopping Malls:

They are huggggggggge and they are awesome! Its really difficult to think of a thing that's not available in one of these malls. The Walmart near my home is something like the whole Jayanagar 4th block in Bangalore put under one roof :) The malls are very easy to get lost in, as Jerry Seinfeld puts it "When a man walks into a supermarket, its with a sense of purpose. But after 10 min you find the same man thinking 'What am I doing in this aisle? Why did I come here?'" :-D You get groceries, clothes, cosmetics, medicines and what not!! And you know what's even more amazing? There are supermarkets wholly dedicated to babies, pets, toys, bedrooms, bathrooms and even maternity!!! Nevertheless, totally cooooooooool :)

Like 3 - Fresh fruits, veggies, milk and curd:

There's no milkman pinging you in the early hours of the morning and making you swear. And, no, you don't have to ferment milk to get curd :-D Milk is available in cans, only problem being that its branded with an expiry date :-p Curd (or as these people say Yogurt) is so thick and again available in cartons. Only restriction being that you buy plain yogurt and not a flavoured one or you'll end up eating vanilla/strawberry/what-not-berry tasting curd :-D As for fruits, I just adore the variety of fresh fruits available - bananas, grapes, apples, pears, cherries, peaches, cantaloupes, wow!! Cost, again, should be scrupulously unnoticed and avoided at all cost :-D Vegetables are the same. You might not get some Indian veggies, which are easily available in the Indian store but whatever is available is really fresh and kept fresh. There are also frozen veggies available, but somehow I felt they are a bit too soggy for my liking. I did like the frozen chopped mixed veggies which means I don't have to look for veggies and chop them up when I am preparing pulav or any rice which requires mixed veggies. All in all, freshies me like :)

Like 4 - Strangers greeting each other:

I absolutely love the concept of 2 total strangers saying hello or smiling at each other. Everybody greets the other, no matter you know the other person or not. Say hello and you can forget the person ever existed or that you ever met him/her. But the gesture in itself is, I think, really nice :) Not very surprisingly, the case is not same with Indians living here. I have seen several Indians in the Indian store, but have never seen anyone greeting a Indian stranger or me for that matter. I guess its because we are a bit more reserved and I can't really complain as I have not greeted any Indians either {grins sheepishly}. Ought to cultivate this good habit :)

Like 5 - Traffic Rules:

Strange but true! I really like the traffic rules they have in place here and what's wonderful about it is that every driver follows the rules. Be it the speed limits, stop signs or signals. Everyone has to follow the rules! Ofcourse there's the "OR-ELSE" factor. If you break the rules, you are given a ticket and its like a "mera-baap-chor-he" tattoo on your arm :-D :)). I would like to mention some of the rules, which I think are really cool. You drive straight and nobody can cut across you. People who want to turn into a road have to first give way to the ones already on the road. Simple, but we Indians never do so in India (me too :-D Been there done that :-D). Also, I like how these people slow down at a siren - be it an ambulance, fire-engine or a police vehicle. Its a rule but they follow it!! And how pedestrians always come first :) If a person is walking across a road, even if there are 100s of vehicles on that road going at more than 50 miles per hour, the vehicles HAVE to stop/slow down for the person. Right now I'm a pedestrian, so I think the rule is cool. After sometime, once I get into driving, maybe it won't be that "cool" anymore :-D

Like 6 - Radio stations/Multiplexes/Planned Roads etc:

Last but not the least are miscellaneous things like radio stations, multiplex theatres and planned roads :) There are so many radio stations - rock, country, pop, rap, top 100s and so on, all English. Moreover, these stations unlike Indian ones, don't have city limits. Say, if you are crossing Kentucky border to Tennessee, then a Tennessee station immediately takes over! Super or what!! And as for the multiplex theatres, I have been to 2 till now. Watched "The longest yard" 2 weeks ago and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" last week. Enjoyed both. The first one I had been to had only 8 theatres but the second one had more than 12!! And all are pretty big and not at all cramped :) More cool than this - NO intermissions :-D Only regret is there are no theatres in Lexington playing Hindi movies :( But you never know, there maybe one coming up soon :)

I also love the planned roads here. The freeways are exactly as they are named - free. That means absolutely no signals :-D The exit roads from the free ways are all flyovers planned in such a way that they join the roads they are supposed to join without any interruptions :) Also in between the lanes with traffic in opposite directions, there is enough space left for any future road extension requirements. Most of the roads have more that 2 lanes in each direction. Even road work happens without the whole road being closed. But the only sad thing is that Kentucky roads are not very smooth and there are dents here and there. According to Sri, these are the worst roads in the whole of U.S :-D But for a person coming from Bannerghatta road, this is way better ;-)

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Ok, so I like all these. But what I like most of all about U.S, is that the person I like best lives here - my Sri. Hmmm all the other likes and dislikes become so, so, so negligible when compared to this major like ;-) :)

The Superwoman syndrome

Long time no see dear blog! Sorry, was away for a wedding :)

So what's all this superwoman syndrome about? Its a woman, namely me, saying "I can handle everything" :-p. "Don't worry, I will take care of that", I say to Sri. Am I saying I am making false claims to my hubby? Nope, I do handle things to a great extent. But it doesn't mean I am doing it easily. Its NOT a cake-walk for me. Most of the things end up leaving a physical strain and more importantly, an emotional strain on me. The physical strain, I can deal with. But the emotional part is a bit difficult... Hmmm no wonder people tell me that I've gone down a bit after Sri left for U.S ;-).

I don't know whether I ought to be cribbing about the whole thing as such. Its me who WANTS to handle everything. Its me who really likes being responsible. Its me who believes that if I let others handle things, then they might not handle it too well. Its me who wants to be appreciated when the things I handle get completed efficiently. Its me who feels proud when things do get done. But sadly, its also me who suffers through tension and anguish for all the things I handle.

Exactly what I'm trying to convey here is a lecture to myself on taking it easy. "Take it cool" says Sri. But he's not the one "handling" things here :-p Its me who's been dumped with everything since he's gone. I know I need to relax, but there's so much to be done that I can't help but worry about. Actually, cribbing about it in my blog is a good way to relax :-D Ok ok from now on I'll try to "be cool" {adds this item on her list of things to be handled} :-D

HEY, I'M NO SUPERWOMAN!!! But I'm getting there ;-)

Parents' place?????

Now that I have started blogging, I seem to have lots of matter to write about. I only hope the enthu is not just a beginner's excitement and will continue to remain throughout my life :).

Yesterday Sri (My dearest hubby - Sriram) and me had been to my parents' place (note the usage - have a paragraph about this later) to have dinner with them and to say bye to my cousin Rohith who came down from Melbourne just for the wedding. Darsh (Darshan - My bro) and Rohi were busy burning CDs - videos and stuff that Rohi wanted to take with him. Darsh plays guitar (has a band of his own called Black Earth - I dunno why these bands have these sad names) and Sri listened to him play for the first time and was suitably impressed :-D Later we had dinner - assorted items from cakes (which I had taken) and biscuit ambode (a Mangalorean dish) to mosaru vade (again a special item) were eaten with comments from "Oh wow" to "I'm full, no thanks" :) We didn't go to the airport to drop Rohi. Mom, Dad and Darsh did. I packed up some of the clothes (haven't yet shifted them all to my new home) and we left. That's it.

Now coming to the concept of "Parents' place" - This concept/usage is still strange and bewildering to me. I guess all Indian girls getting married will go through the same thing but I can't help but rant about it. The major change that a girl goes through once she is married is that her previous "home" now becomes her "Parents' place" and the house that she lives in with her hubby becomes her current "home". I still don't get why a daughter is married and sent away, while the son can happily live in his "home" for his lifetime :-p Not that they actually do ;-) My parents have never treated me or my brother any different, there was never any gender-bias at home. Yet they have to follow the so-called society traditions and send the beloved daughter away. Everyone has to follow the culture and those who don't automatically are deemed "misfit". Well, who am I to talk about such things? I am not too much of a rebel either ;-) I have married and come to my hubby's place, haven't I? I am just a simple gal (yeah right :-p) writing about the changes I'm going through. Both my home and my parents' place are still "home" to me. But sometimes, just sometimes, I really wish I could go back to where I was....

Today being Wednesday, beligge beligge (beligge is morning in Kannada) I had a conference call to attend. I honestly hate these calls and I don't care who's reading this :-p The calls, according to me are "Much ado about nothing"!!! Anyways now I'm at office typing away at my blog and checking mails (a S/W engineer's usual job :-D). Hopefully the day will go well.