Twenty one years ago, Eric from Formulated Solutions reached out to me to design a website. First it was just a small Flash-based product brochure, then another with multiple product lines, then his main company site, and then a full e-commerce site with a PayPal shopping cart and customer portal. In 2004, I moved to Florida to work full time at FS, and steadily the company went from just 20-30 employees to 700+ at last count.

With growth, came complexity. At first we made products for tanning salons but soon after we got into personal care products, sunscreens, aerosols, and eventually high-volume brand-name pharmaceutical products. The web apps I built in 2002, running on PHP3, over time got upgraded and extended to run a full ERP system with MRP, planning, inventory, warehousing, quality, and project management modules used by hundreds of employees across multiple sites 24/7.

I made so many friends at Formulated over the years that more than half the contacts in my phone are tagged FS. I am making new friends here in Woodstock now but there's no way anyone can take the place of Eric, Brian, Kelly, Linda, David, Sandra, Jeff... I could keep listing names but you get the idea. When I look back, I can only recall the good memories of my years at FS despite the many, many stressful days I know we slogged through.

While I look back at these years with fondness and pride, due to Juliet's ongoing treatments, I have had a very hard time last few years to continue to take care of the FS systems. So this Monday, I said my last good byes and asked the IT team to turn off my access. It was bittersweet for sure. I will miss the camaraderie but I look forward to spending more time with Juliet now. Instead of doing our groceries online, I want to take her to local farmers markets for fresh produce. Instead of fast food, I want to prepare healthier meals with her.

I know not what the future holds but I know my past is full of trust, support, and love during my tenure at FS. I hope to build on that for the rest of my life. And Eric, thanks for taking a chance on me. It was a hell of a ride!

Last year, our focus was on setting up the inside of our house. We spent most of the year under construction with dust and debris covering one room or other. We continued the construction earlier this year and finally had everything done by mid May, just over a month ago. Since then, our focus has been outdoors, especially since the weather has been nice here.

Both Juliet and I were pretty familiar with the natural flora of Florida but we have almost no knowledge of the vegetation here in the mid-west. Last month we were fortunate to have Mr. Ders Anderson, president of The Land Conservancy of McHenry County stop by and educate us on the plants we have around our house. He pointed out a number of invasive species that we should eradicate, lest they snuff out the native plants. He showed me the healthy sedges we have and suggested we should plant more. Sedges look like grass but they're not grass. Rushes also look like grass, but they are neither grass, nor sedges. Here's how to tell them apart:

Sedges have edges,
    Rushes are round,
Grasses have nodes
    from the top to the ground.

I am not deeply into gardening or growing my own vegetables but I respect others who are. For my taste, I just want native, non-invasive vegetation around me so that we can help local wildlife, including birds, bees, and all sorts of insects and worms. And above all, I don't want the invasive species take over the native ones. So we're learning as much as we can, so that hopefully over the years, we can become a refuge for countless migratory birds and butterflies as well as a shelter for fireflies, humming birds, and rare plants.

We ushered in the new year last night with fireworks and champagne (well, sparkling juice for the kids). I couldn't believe it but both Naveen and Leela stayed up and were super excited. Today our au pair Josi took them both on a play date with another local au pair who takes care of two kids, about the same age as Naveen and Leela. Juliet and I had a relaxing New Year's Day and started season 3 of Emily in Paris on Netflix.

Yesterday our new neighbors Blaire and Mike left us a small gift basket for celebrations, along with ingredients for what they said was a Danish celebration tradition — rye bread, boiled eggs, and herring with onions — for Smørrebrød. Apparently it tasted great though I was barely able to stand the smell, still being vegetarian and all. We miss our wonderful neighbors Bevv, Brian, and Mike in Florida and it felt good to be welcomed here in Woodstock.

In just a little over a year, Juliet has made so many friends here and I have reconnected with so many of my family and relatives. The kids are thoroughly loving the school and daycare here. Of course the cold winter weather can't hold a candle to the wonderful sunny days Florida's having right now but this just feels home to me. I love snuggling up in bed with a warm cup of coffee and catching up on the phone with friends, watching cartoons with kids, or just talking with Juliet.

Last year I didn't make any specific resolutions but instead tried to form new habits. I started reading a lot more and I drastically improved my diet. This year I'm hoping to continue those and add routine exercise to the list. We spent 9 out of the 12 months under construction last year and I am hoping this year we will get to enjoy the fruits of our labor of dust and noise.

As I've grown older, I've noticed I have become a lot more accepting of things as they happen instead of doing everything to stick to plans and freaking out when they don't. Of course I'm always going to plan to the best of my abilities but life throws so many curve balls, it's best to just accept when unexpected things happen. Here's to a new year for all of us to learn and grow, love and forgive, live and cherish!

My cats Giga and Tera were born 18 years ago today. Happy Birthday Giga! I miss Tera so much and I know Giga does too because after her passing, he has been so much more affectionate with our Chihuahua Lady Bug. In cat years, Giga's a spry 126 years old, though he is jumping and running less these days. Lady Bug is probably 15-17 years old and more docile too. We adopted her in 2010 from someone who didn't know her age but despite a ton of health issues years ago, she has recovered well.

We left Florida last winter after rehoming most of our pets that we could not bring to Illinois - our goats, chickens, tortoises etc. It has been a lot less stress for me but like Juliet and the kids, I do miss walking into the yard to pet them. And now with only aging Giga and Lady Bug, when at one time we had 4 devious cats and 2 loud dogs on top of the rest of the petting zoo, things are a lot calmer, quieter, maybe even a bit morose.

You read about life in books. You watch movies and shows about characters living their lives. But you never step back and think of your own life as just another story in the encyclopedia of homo-sapiens. While everyone sees themselves as the main character in their own lives and some even talk and write about themselves in depth, we rarely see ourselves as simply another tiny human going about our short lives doing typical human things. But the more I think about our pets, especially the ones no longer with us, the more I realize how much I am fulfilling my role as a standard-issue human-being. I pet the cat, I feed the dog, I throw a ball towards my child, I move heavy things for my wife. I am human adult.

In a world where people are hustling for fame and fortune, struggling to make a name for themselves, and striving to achieve productivity goals, I am patting myself on my back having taken a single celebratory cat photo earlier today. Not because I can't be productive or am done with goals but rather because thinking about my pets connects me to the saga of humanity while inventorying my achievements and failures singles me out and makes me feel isolated, unique.

Thinking of myself as unique and special with the agency to determine my destiny is exhausting. Accepting that I am human #106,839,249,965 going about my silly little life is relaxing and frankly, cute in a metaphysical way. There's no checklist of activities humans need to do to qualify as valid human and getting 100% in some exam or making $X of money would definitely not be on that list. But if there was such a list, getting nuzzled by a fuzzy cat should be on it, along with burning your tongue because you bit into food that was still too hot and staying up way past your bedtime because you enjoy the present company. These are human things, these little incidents, events, and activities weave the narrative of our lives. Pets, friends, family, love, kids, breeze, rain, that little bit of dirt still left over no matter how many times you try to sweep it into the pan with the broom — these tell the tale of our lives.

We love to read stories, play stories, watch stories, hear stories, and make up stories. And every single story is about life. There are no stories of rivers just flowing, molecules just colliding, and numbers just incrementing. Stories are about life. And life, when viewed through the eyes of a master storyteller with a penchant for small wonders, becomes ever so fulfilling. The passage of time, the grief of losing loved ones, the ennui of navigating human institutions — these hurt, stress, and aggravate me on an individual level but they make me feel like I am checking all the items on the being-human to-do list when I take a step back and observe.

Today I took a step back to observe. Tomorrow I have a ton of meetings and chores. C’est la vie.

After Juliet was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2020, we were struggling to just take care of her medical treatments, let alone raise an infant and a preschool kid during the COVID-19 pandemic. At a friend's advice, I contacted Cultural Care Au Pair and we came across Adele's profile on their site. We reached out to her with our story and she said she was more than excited to be a part of our lives. It's been over a year since we first talked to Adele and today I'd like to thank her for everything she has done for us and beyond.

It is so easy for us to start listing off the wonderful things about Adele - she is kind, always helpful, trustworthy, reliable, and so much more. But simple adjectives cannot capture the extent to which she has positively impacted our life in these few short months. She brought us wonderful gifts and candies from her home in South Africa and got into our family's routine almost instantly. Naveen absolutely adores her and Leela snuggles up to her all day. She took over the day-to-day childcare responsibilities, giving Juliet and I the opportunity to find a new home in a cooler climate that would help with her recovery. Adele absolutely surprised us by saying she would love to help us relocate and would extend her stay to make sure we're fully settled in!

We knew Adele always went the extra mile to take care of our kids but this went above and beyond our expectations of what anyone would do for us. She could have taken the easy route and looked for a new family since we were leaving sunny Florida but instead she chose to sign up for extended cross-country trips, uncomfortable road-side hotel rooms, living out of carry-on luggage, and unpredictable schedule, all while taking care of the kids as gently and calmly as she did before.

I am not exaggerating when I say without Adele, Juliet would still be struggling daily from MS side-effects due to Florida's high humidity. We could not have found our new house near in Woodstock, IL and moved here without Adele's help and for that, we will be eternally grateful to her.

Adele is definitely the big sister for both our kids. They look up to her for advise, assistance, and activities. It didn't take us long to know that she was such an amazing person. The first week she was here, we went out as a family and before I even got out of the car, she was assisting Juliet with her walking cane. It was not much but it showed us her values, upbringing, and morals. That is exactly the person we want our kids to emulate.

She told us early on that one of her goals was to explore US and make new friends so we have always encouraged her to take time off, travel, and meet new people. In that spirit, we took her to all the places she wanted to visit and then some - Florida's Space Coast to watch SpaceX launch at 4am, kayaking in Weekiwachee Springs, long weekend in Disney, NASA Rocket Center in Huntsville, underground tour in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and explored a number of parks and museums like Selby Gardens, Georgia Aquarium, and Clearwater Aquarium. She has already been to California, Arizona, and Nevada with friends from Cultural Care and she is going to NYC next week with friends.

Adele has already done so much for us, our goal now is to make sure she has a million great memories of her 18-months in the US.

So we've been in our new house in Woodstock for only a week and turns out we won T-Mobile's free home internet service for a year! While in Florida, I read about T-Mobile selecting Woodstock, IL as the winner of their 'Hometown Techover' challenge, basically they picked a small town among thousands from across the US to upgrade their infrastructure to 5G internet for cellphone and home use. And as part of the winning town, 100 local families were randomly selected to get free internet, TV, and some other goodies. As a new resident of Woodstock, we happen to be one of these 100.

Maybe it's a coincidence but I read about this challenge a few months ago while we were still in Florida because I was trying to find a backup internet provider in addition to the primary Comcast Xfinity service. I saw T-Mobile was going to start offering 5G in Woodstock but they had not rolled it out yet. Since I work remotely and cannot be without internet for long, I definitely want to have a backup in case my primary internet is down.

Hah! And this might sound like I'm making this up for effect but just after I typed the above sentence an hour ago, Comcast went down! If I had T-Mobile 5G at home service as a backup, my router would have switched to it transparently and I may not even have noticed for the most part. I believe it will be a month or so before I receive the new equipment. Santa is going to be nice to me for Christmas this year!

Here's me (in Mammoth Cave t-shirt) holding a giant winner banner. Always wanted to do this! Another check off my bucket list.

It's been a while since I last wrote about the little things in life and my, what a surprising turn of events these past 3 months have been. Forget about the frivolities of happiness, passion, and creativity that I mused about in June. July brought my whole family face-to-face with jarring life and death decisions.

My brother-in-law Aashish started experiencing severe neurological symptoms and MRI showed he had a 4cm tumor-like mass in his brain. My parents flew to my sister's home in Hyderabad and after a sleepless week of doctors visits and diagnostic plans, we were convinced that the best recourse was immediate brain surgery. And shockingly enough, the surgery showed it was not a tumor but rather a sphenoid fungal ball – basically sinus infection that went haywire and ended up creating a golf-ball sized mass in his brain!

On the night Aashish returned home from a successful surgery, my octogenarian grandma started having seizures that lasted 72 hours! So my parents, who were already away from their home in Kolkata, now spent two weeks in hospital in 12-hour alternating day/night shifts, watching over her. While this was going on, Juliet's MS symptoms started getting drastically worse due to Florida heat. So my parents were in hospital with grandma, my sister was in and out of hospitals with her husband, and I was beside Juliet 24/7 while poring over MRIs and lab reports for the whole family.

August started with good news. Aashish was feeling better post-surgery. My grandma's condition stabilized and my parents managed to fly her home. And Juliet had some good evenings when it got cooler though she was in bed most days. And that's when I decided it was time for change. I resumed my search for a home in a cooler place and on August 10th, I got the whole family in the van and drove up north to the quaint little city of Woodstock, Illinois on the outskirts of Chicago. I knew I had found our dream home but before we bought it, I wanted Juliet to see it for herself. And honestly, we knew it was the right one the moment we pulled into the driveway.

We immediately put an offer on the house and the sellers accepted it. We stayed near Chicago for a week to finalize home inspections etc. and get a feel for the area. Illinois was about 15ºF cooler than Florida and Juliet was full of energy the whole time. On the way down to Florida, I booked a ranger-guided accessible tour of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. We went 280ft down a large elevator, directly into the cave system, where the temperature is always a cool 54ºF. I expected Juliet to freeze but instead she absolutely loved it! MS does weird things. That just reinforced my belief that Illinois is the right move for us, despite the freezing winters.

We got home to Florida, started planning the big move, and after a month of non-stop mortgage, insurance, and legal paperwork, finally bought the house in late September. We are permanently moving to Woodstock in a couple of weeks! Part of the reason we waited to move was Juliet's early-October infusion of MS treatment, Ocrevus. She did great with it this time around and is recovering well.

As we are planning our move, my parents are also moving from Kolkata, West Bengal to Vadodara, Gujarat. My dad has lived in Kolkata since birth and so this is a pretty big move for him, especially since they will be moving out of my childhood home. But it will be a good move because they will be closer to family, be in a community that caters to seniors, and have a more active lifestyle with gardens, pool, and clubhouse right outside their doorstep. On a complete unrelated note, my sister is also moving to their new home in Bangalore in a few months.

Next few weeks are going to be insane for me, especially since I'm coordinating the packing, loading, moving, and unloading the entire home, along with selling our Florida home, and flying the whole family and many of our pets to Chicago. Among the things we will miss the most about Florida are the pets we cannot take with us. Today I held back my tears and gave our goats Marco and Polo away to a friend of a friend. She also took Naveen's two chickens Day/Night and Pretty. Our friend Megan will take the three Sulcata tortoises. Juliet and I spent the last decade creating a mini-zoo in our backyard and it is heartbreaking to see it slowly disperse. I want to say c’est la vie but since I actively took the decision to give them away, it's hard not to blame myself instead of just life. But I know it is the right decision because right now my focus needs to be on Juliet and the kids. And we're already taking our chihuahua Ladybug, cats Giga & Tera, birds Echo, Mango, and still-unnamed-after-5-years male Gouldian finch, and Rosie the red-foot tortoise. So we will still have a tiny-mini-zoo. Ladybug is over 15-years-old and Giga & Tera are over 17! I don't think I'm prepared for what's most likely coming in the next year or so.

Over the past decade, my family has had a lot of issues with health, work, school, childcare etc. and it has been hard for everyone to relate to each other because my parents don't have much experience with adoption and I don't have much experience with my brother-in-law's graduate studies. But July started us on a path of shared experiences. All of us had to deal with a household member with neurological issues and decipher MRIs. Then August got all of us looking for our next house. Followed by September of planning the big moves. October I'm moving. November probably my parents. And hopefully Q1 2022 my sister. We'll all have new addresses, new neighbors, new doctors, new favorite restaurants, and new experiences.

We know we're not out of the woods just yet. My grandma needs 24/7 nursing care. Aashish is waiting for the next set of MRIs to reassure us that his anti-fungal meds are working. And Juliet has more bad days than good for now. But things are looking up. She's lived in Florida all her life but is excited to explore the mid-west with our kids. So many new parks and museums to check out! So many corn-mazes and hayrides to go on! So many vacations and tours to enjoy!

I blinked and it was suddenly February. 2021. I was just about done with putting away Christmas decorations. Moments after our Thanksgiving dinner. I blinked and suddenly there were multiple successful vaccines for COVID-19. I had just shot a funny video with Naveen about six feet of social distancing before the lock downs started. I blinked and Leela is walking across the room already. I was just holding her for the first time in the hospital in Arizona. I blinked and I was forty. I was just getting started with college, just moved to Florida, just met Juliet.

I don't really have any insights or revelations to share here. Just sitting here, in awe of the passage of time. Life is so surprising that I cannot even imagine the future a few years from now. The next blink and I could be 60, 75, on my last breath. Everyday I fulfill my role as a husband, parent, son, friend, programmer. I walk around thinking I am *this* or I am *that*. But as I write this, only thing I can honestly say is that I am moving through time, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly; always in control of my actions, mostly in control of my emotions, though rarely in control of my destiny. I like to pretend I am an active participant in this life but every time I blink, I wonder how did I get here. It's like that feeling you get when you are driving home from work for the 1874th time and are on auto-pilot right until you pull into the garage.

On a day to day basis, I make decisions with my full attention. I always try to be present in the moment. And yet when I look at the date, the 'year' figure seems wrong. It can't really be 2021, right? I mean I just had my 5th wedding anniversary in 2013. Just 2005 when I bought my first house. Just 1999 before the Y2K bug. This is not a matter of regret, unmet expectations, or what-if scenarios. This is me wondering how I made it through all of that already. I'm halfway through the ride. And it's accelerating with every blink.

After I helped Juliet get into bed tonight, I asked if there was anything else she wanted. She replied "I just want to feel normal." I laughed "It's 2020 honey, there's no such thing as 'normal' anymore for anyone."

It's been a month since she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and her recovery has been slow but steady. She's seen multiple neurologists, taken additional MRIs, got her blood drawn on at least five different occasions, had multiple optical tests at ophthalmologist, gone to physical and occupational therapy twice every week, all while trudging along with a walker and wearing an N95 mask. Immunodeficiency is no joke.

She is scheduled for a Friday morning infusion of Ocrevus, a disease-modifying drug, pending insurance approval. Otherwise next week or so. She will remain on this drug for life but the great thing is, after the initial two doses, it's only twice a year infusion instead of multiple pills every day. In best-case scenario, she will regain almost all of her past strength and abilities over the next few months and not experience severe MS flareups again, at least not for decades. Hopefully by then, there will be even better treatments available.

While we're plodding through the medical quagmires, we're doing our best to not let any of this effect the kids. Naveen is doing well with virtual school, thanks to his wonderful kindergarten teacher, Ms. Lintz. Leela is 10 months already and has been crawling all over the house this week. She is starting to pull herself up to stand and though she has the strength, she's still learning how to balance herself. Watching Leela smile every time Naveen walks into the room makes us appreciate how lucky we are, regardless of how we feel on a day to day basis.

To help ease some of our childcare and housekeeping stress, I've been looking for assistance for the past month. Juliet's bestie Rebecca has been an absolute angel, dropping everything to come assist us the moment we need anything. Our neighbor Brian has taken Juliet to PT/OT when I haven't been able to. Juliet's cousin KD drove over earlier this month from Orlando and stayed with us for a week and she is coming back again for a couple of more weeks. Many of our friends and families from out-of-state have vehemently offered to stay with us and help out but unfortunately due to higher risk of infection inherent to any long-distance travel, I've had to refuse their assistance. Even my parents wish to fly back to Florida but I cannot let them take that risk. So in addition to childcare help from Rebecca and KD, I've signed up with a daily housekeeping service, at least for the next month or two. They wear a mask, clean the busy areas of the house, and help a bit with dishes and laundry as needed. Additionally, I have found a new babysitter who also has experience dealing with medical issues. She will start full-time in October.

This past month has been exhausting for both Juliet and me and I don't think I've ever needed more help in my life. And yet, despite me needing help, literally everyone we know offering to help, and us being open to accepting the help, it still took a whole month of sleep-deprivation to sort it all out. I am optimistic that by October, I will have a much better routine and get plenty of rest nightly. But it's crazy how much worse this whole process was made due to the pandemic.

In the absence of COVID, my parents would have flown in immediately to take over childcare. It would also be easier for them since Naveen would have gone to school and Leela would be in daycare on weekdays. I would have focused my attention 100% on to Juliet's medical care. She still would have worn a mask everywhere due to being immunocompromised but the risk to her health would be much lower. And if my parents needed a break, we could've called any of the babysitters we've worked with in the past. Instead, we're needlessly going through everything I've written in the paragraphs above. While many young and otherwise healthy people can afford to take the risk of contracting Coronavirus, we cannot. I cannot bear to take Juliet to the ER again. I'd say I'm doing a pretty decent job holding everything together right now in spite of everything, but I simply cannot bear to take Juliet to the ER again. I just can't.

So until there is an effective vaccine, we're going to have to keep isolating, keep wearing masks in public, keep Naveen enrolled in virtual-school, keep Leela out of daycare, and keep counting our blessings.

Leela turns six months old today! She is healthy, smiling, and surprisingly easy to care for. Naveen is doing well, especially now that Juliet bought him a tiny indoors trampoline to jump on all day. We've been at home for 7 weeks now and keeping ourselves busy. Four days a week, we attend an online martial arts class hosted by our friends Maria & Megan at Mt. Song. Naveen's been playing Terraria on his Kindle and I've been catching up on last few years of DC superheroes shows on Netflix.

Not to say that things are all peachy. It is definitely a detriment to both the kids that they have nobody else their age to play with at this time and might not for another few months. Juliet has started getting Naveen to exchange letters with his friends. She is pretty social and outgoing herself and hasn't seen her friends in a while too so I'm sure it's been hard on her. Not much has changed for me since I barely go out to meet people in person; most of my socializing is online or on the phone so I'm the least impacted.

As to my thoughts on how the virus will further spread or die out - no idea. I've been keeping an eye on it since late December when it was just a rumor. We now know so much about it but it is still not enough. We don't know which medicines help and at what stage of the infection. We don't know if lack of Vitamin D has a material impact on severity. We don't know if most people already have it. We don't know if there will be another wave or two. We don't know if there will be a vaccine in a year or two. We don't know which country is doing is right for the long term - Sweden or Singapore.

What I do know is that we know a lot about seasonal flu. We have vaccines, procedures and protocols, and a century of painful experience and medical knowledge. And yet seasonal flu kills tens of thousands of people each year. This variant of coronavirus is new, unlike other common viruses, and as of yet, incurable. So regardless of whether it's r_o factor is higher or lower than flu, there are far too many unknowns for anyone to predict months out. We can extrapolate infection case counts for a few days or week but beyond that, nobody knows. We can look at community infection rates and suggest mitigation efforts but we cannot predict how people will adhere to them. Anyone who says anything concrete is just giving their best opinion. Will it go away after everything reopens? Nobody knows. Will it caught a million deaths by end of 2020? Nobody knows.

It is common for there to be world-wide issues that affect everyone that nobody knows how to predict. That's been the standard of our experience for millennia. Nobody knew when the World Wars would end. Nobody knows when the next big earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, or volcanic eruption will be. Nobody knows what price of oil will be in three years. Our entire society is built on not knowing something but working very hard to find out. That's what we humans do. We say "I dunno but..." and then we figure it out a decade later. Our problem isn't that people don't know. Our problem is people who don't know but claim they do. It is totally ok to be cautious at this time because we really don't know. And frankly, since we don't know, it is also ok for others to have different outlook than you, provided they are based on something resembling reality.

My long term outlook of coronavirus is that we will either have a decent enough vaccine or a pretty reliable treatment procedure. Along with the seasonal flu, we will have seasonal COVID cases but they will be fewer in number. Unlike SARS, I don't think coronavirus will be contained and eliminated from general population since it has already spread so much. So it will be closer to swine flu or norovirus. Billions of people with none to mild symptoms, tens of thousands of deaths annually. If my suspicious are correct, then it won't matter if countries chose the Singapore route of "test-everyone and wear masks" or Sweden route of "keep elderly safe but everyone else keep working" except to flatten the hospitalization curve.

Right now most places have indeed flattened the curve but I think that might give people a false sense of safety. People in countries like Vietnam and New Zealand who now have close to zero cases might think their country avoided the COVID pandemic completely. But until there is a vaccine, there is no guarantee that they won't become the next hot spot after reopening their borders to tourists. Contrast that with Florida that is already reopening and most likely will have an uptick in cases over the summer. A year from now almost all Floridians will either be immune from COVID or some unfortunately dead. So in 2021 summer who will have a better tourist season? Vietnam or NZ which could be a coronavirus zone or Florida which already went through the worst?

These are just opinions, like everyone else. Nobody knows and so all I can say is stay safe, stay healthy, and try not to lick handrails!

Last week, we went to court to attend the final adoption hearing for our baby girl Leela. Due to the numerous state-wide cancellations in light of COVID-19, it turned out to be a private, memorable event. We met with our wonderful attorney, walked into the court as a complete family, baby Leela in arms, Naveen rocking a Super-Brother cape, and met the judge who heard our case. It was a brief 5-minute affair and at the end of it, the judge declared that Leela is now recognized by the State of Florida to be a part of our family in every single way that Naveen is. My parents were there with us to share the culmination of what I can only describe as a four-year journey towards becoming the family that Juliet and I dreamed of, so many years ago.

A couple of days after the court date, my parents were on the flight back to India, just in time before India imposed travel restrictions. This past Thursday I found myself alone at home with the two kids, looking up virtual museum tours. Juliet's been home last couple of days and I finally got some time to catch up on my projects.

Originally I had planned on taking the kids to museums, libraries, and nature parks every day after my parents left for India but now, I'm just staying home with the kids until the situation changes. I do worry about Juliet since she works in ENT/surgery and they're running out of protective gear at the hospital. But honestly, I am more proud of her than worried because right now, the world needs people like her to keep going into work and taking care of everyone.

Before kids, I always remarked that while I spend my days making things green and red in Excel, she's out there performing live-saving surgeries. Now I could say that while I spend my days playing lego and cuddling babies, she's out there fighting a global pandemic. 2020 has been an interesting year.

A couple of hours ago as we were all getting ready for bed, all of our phones started buzzing with a National Weather Service Tornado Warning. We took the kids and rushed into an indoors bathroom and stayed there from 10:40pm until 11:05pm, wondering how far the tornado was. I was able to view our outdoors cameras on my phone and the rain was coming down heavy. We could hear the wind pick up speed around 10:45pm. Thankfully for us, everything quieted down by 10:55pm and a quick backyard inspection showed no trees down. I'll have to do a thorough walk-through tomorrow and make sure no roof tiles were damaged. We're 4 months away from the hurricane season in Florida but the unexpected alert from a winter thunderstorm felt no less severe.

I heard on the news that there were people injured from downed trees a few miles away from us. Coincidentally just earlier today I messaged my lawn guy to trim down some branches that are starting to hunch near our garage. Such is life in evergreen Florida.

It's been four weeks since I started homeschooling Naveen. While I had very modest expectations to begin with, I can honestly say that even my wildest expectations would not compare to how great the past month has been. We've been to more museums, libraries, art galleries, parks, and family events in four weeks than the four years since he was born! I had a handful of measurable goals before we started and he has made progress on all of them.

First and foremost was his weight. Having had an unexpectedly large growth spurt earlier this year, his weight was too low compared to his height. In just four weeks, he's gained three solid pounds! Another improvement is his physical endurance. He would often get tired and not have enough energy to run around. I've been taking him on long hikes and regular classes for gymnastics and swimming. Yesterday he swam freestyle over 100m on his own! I learned how to swim at age 11-12 I believe, so that's a pretty solid distance for a kid under 5. I didn't have any academic goals for him but he has started reading science books on his own now, so that's a bonus.

All of his progress aside, the most uncertain aspect of homeschooling was not how well he would do but how well I could manage it. Turns out, I can. I absolutely love it and want more. I look forward to going on our little 'adventures' daily, even if we just go to the neighborhood park. I don't think I've lost much weight but I've definitely increased my walking endurance. Since I still have a lot of stressful 'grownup' things to handle besides the kid, it's not like I'm living a life of peaceful retirement in sunny Florida. But for a working chump like me, it is as close as it can be.

Exactly fifteen years ago, to the day, I started working at a small cosmetics manufacturing company here in Florida. I am so glad that I did. Not a day has gone by since when I haven't learned something new. Having expanded into pharmaceutical manufacturing, the company has grown substantially and so have my responsibilities. I have made many life-long wonderful friends here and learned to become a mature, dependable person.

There is no way I could have predicted in early 2000s that this is where my path would take me but looking back at everything I've experienced, I have no regrets. Best thing I ever did for my career was make an awkward phone call in 2004 right in the middle of RutgersFest to my website client, asking if he maybe, sort of, just in case needed a full-time programmer. I'm glad he did.

We are ok, our friends are ok, and our house is ok, just some minor yard/fence damage. My biggest fears did not pan out but Irma got really close and did a significant amount of damage in surrounding areas. We heard that a number of huge oak trees fell in our neighborhood but thankfully away from the houses. Most of our county is without electricity and Internet. We are waiting to drive back to Florida once we get power and clean water. Until then we have friends watching our house. I'm fairly certain I will write more once we return.

We left our house at 1am Thursday and drove 16 hours non-stop through back-country roads to a rental log-cabin in the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. We are safe and have enough gas and supplies to last us weeks. Naveen was great during the drive and we all have been spending some much needed family-time together.

We're trying our best to act normal but I can't stop thinking about all of our friends back home. Almost everyone we know stayed back. And now there is Irma, a Category 5 Hurricane, headed straight for the west-coast of Florida. This feels unreal. A week ago Juliet took Naveen to Disney while I finished up some work and now the entire state of Florida is under a Hurricane warning, unsure of what is going to remain standing next week. This feels unreal. Four days ago Miami was supposed to be the epicenter of devastation and now it's going to be my county across the state. This feels unreal.

I am not worried for us. I am worried for literally everyone we know. It is one thing to hear about an acquaintance who got into an accident. It is entirely something else to watch weather announcements get morbid by the hour, as everyone who told me "Oh it's nothing" slowly admit "Maybe I should evacuate" to now saying "I am scared and don't know what to do."

People are telling me to be positive and hope for the best but all I see is a time bomb counting down. Unless Irma drastically changes direction or loses strength, catastrophe is imminent. I've been hoping I'm wrong for a week now but the storm continues to reinforce my worst fears. All my life I've hated being wrong but right now I am wishing harder than ever that I am wrong. It's only September but all I want for Christmas is running water, electricity, and functional roadways for all of Florida.

I'm safe but I'm pretty far from ok.

We are leaving in a few minutes, driving up straight to a cabin in North Carolina. We have someone taking care of the house and some pets that cannot travel safely on such a long drive. Right now there are three active hurricanes around Florida: Irma and Jose in the Atlantic and Katia in the Gulf of Mexico. While Tampa Bay is not directly in Irma's path, we live very close to the Gulf and our house and yard is barely 6-8 feet above sea level. If Irma somehow ends up on the west coast of Florida, staying would be catastrophic.

All we can hope is that Irma misses Florida and does not do much damage elsewhere. Here's hoping we are just being unnecessarily cautious and get an unplanned 7-day vacation in a log cabin instead of well, literally anything else.

Hurricane Irma is currently a Category 4 Hurricane with wind speeds of 140mph (225kmh) in the Atlantic Ocean. According to most of the spaghetti models, it will make landfall in South Florida on Sunday, September 10th. I've been in Florida for 13 years now. This is the most concerned I have ever been about a hurricane and I was seriously scared the first season of hurricanes I experienced when I moved here in 2004. I hope I am wrong about this one but I don't plan on finding out in a flooded house. We're planning to evacuate unless the storm suddenly loses steam or changes direction. I will post updates here as we find out more.

We had an amazing time in Kolkata, India last week celebrating my dad's 60th birthday. It was a very short but fun-filled trip and the memories we made will last a lifetime. Earlier this year my dad said that he wanted to come visit us in Florida for the summer but I wasn't too keen on that because that would mean he would be away from all of his friends and family on his 60th birthday. So instead I suggested that we have a party in India and invite everyone.

It took about 6 months of intense planning and organization (his favorite activities) and last week about 60 of his closest friends and family arrived at Sun City Resort in Mandarmoni for a weekend of fantastic food and fun activities. From private water-park hours to foot massages on the beach, he planned countless activities to entertain everyone from kids and young adults to my 85-year old grandmother. The only thing I didn't let him plan is the game show that my sister Roshni, my wife Juliet, and I put together for all the guests last Saturday evening.

Over the past 3-4 months, I developed a customizable game-show app that runs in any modern web browser, does not need internet access, and displays videos, gifs, and team score on a separate monitor that can be hooked up to a projector. During the main event, Juliet was controlling the app from a laptop while my sister and I were walking around the room with wireless mics, coordinating the games. The games could have easily been played without the app but having a big-screen that showed funny videos, played background music, and displayed team member names and scores enhanced the audience's experience. Kind of like how well-made PowerPoint presentation can improve a product demo.

We pitted our dad against our mom in a "Race to the Big 60" and played 7 rounds of games (6 of them made by Juliet, remainder by yours truly). During each round, 3-5 guests would randomly be selected to join my dad's team and similar number to my mom's. Then we would explain the rules, Juliet would start the timer, and the conference room would erupt into a pandemonium. I am so happy that every single guest excitedly got up to play and many were trying to influence the game play from the audience. While I would love to take credit for the extraordinary audience participation, looking back it is clear that the simple reason everyone was so excited to join in was because they love my dad and this was a celebration of his lifelong friendship, generosity, and genuine affection for everyone he has ever met.

Juliet and I spent a lot of time making each game and thinking about what we could add or remove to make it more exciting, not just for the players but also the audience. For instance, in the "Auditions for Indian Idol" game where 4 members of a team sing 20 songs out loud and their 5th team member standing 10 feet away has to identify the song, we gave all the members of the audience birthday noisemakers (whistles, horns etc.). What transpired during that game can only be described as raucous cacophony.

In the end, my mom's team won narrowly by 2 points. After the game, many of his friends took the mic and shared memories and stories about him. The most wonderful gift he received was from a friend's daughter-in-law Purvi - a beautiful album of family photos with handwritten notes by all of us. Juliet and I gave him a set of custom-etched Jenga blocks and asked the guests to write a few words on each block to remind them of their friendship and love when they play the game.

Beside the games and fun activities, this was a huge experience for us because it was Naveen's first trip to India and the first time I got to hold my sister's son Aayansh in my hands. And naturally, this was the first time Naveen and Aayansh met. There were lots of cute/funny incidents but my favorite is when Naveen woke up in the middle of the night and started to pat Aayansh's back just like I do when I try to put Naveen to sleep.

So much happened during the short time we were in India that it is impossible for me to write down everything. But the most important thing that happened is that my dad spent an exciting and memorable weekend with the people closest to him and I got to see him insanely happy.

I am having a hard time coming to terms with the passage of time. It's been 17 years since I moved to America, 13 since I moved to Florida, 9 since I got married, 5 since we moved to our current house, and 2 since our son was born. I feel like in the blink of an eye, those numbers will go up by a decade and I will be left wondering where all the time went and if I made the days count.

Things have been a bit rough last few months. My dry-cough returned in March and persisted until April, when I broke my left wrist (5th metacarpal fracture). I got surgery about 2 weeks ago and have had gnarly metal spikes poking out of my hand. Being a lefty, it has made things a bit difficult. Earlier this year we lost our cat Pearl and last night we lost our ever-so-loving Chihuahua Jack to old age.

Jack came into my life when Juliet moved in with me 9 years ago. He was Juliet's baby and she took him everywhere with her. Even though I was never a huge dog person, Jack became a part of my life and I grew to love him like my own child. I spent countless hours securing our fence so he wouldn't get lost in the neighborhood, installed cameras all around my house to find him when he inadvertently managed to do it anyway, setup a raised-loft in his cage for comfort and hygiene, and installed a heater on a separate electric circuit in the porch to keep him warm in the winter. Last night, with the help of my friend Carlos, we laid down Jack to rest. All of us, including his best friend Ladybug will miss him dearly.

I often tell myself "This too shall pass" when things are tough and remind myself the same exact thing to ground myself when life is great. But the one thing I never realized is that the more I say it, the more time passes and I never prepared myself for decades flying by.

Today I went paddleboarding for the first time when we went to the local beach for one of Juliet's friend's husband's birthday party. The Gulf is finally warm enough to swim in and Naveen had a blast playing on the sand as waves came ashore. Before we went to the beach, I played table-tennis with my dad for an hour and then jumped in the pool for a couple of hours. Six hours of Florida fun in a single day!

Tomorrow my mom's brother, Ruskin Mama, and his family are flying down to Tampa. We'll hopefully go to some touristy places and get some pre-summer shopping done. It was cold for far too long. I'm glad summer is almost here.

The weather has been gorgeous here in Florida for the past few days and we're making the most of it. Naveen is just over a year old now and has become relatively adept at walking so we can finally do more outdoors activities. Juliet takes him to the local park regularly and today I joined them. We didn't go out much last week because she was sick with a seasonal bug so we were all happy to be out today.

Naveen is learning to talk and babbles a lot whenever he is excited. He has started to point at things and looks at his big colorful beach ball whenever I yell "Ball!" It's amazing to see him learn new things by the day. Last week he was scared of slides and today he was pushing himself down them repeatedly.

My parents are coming back to stay with us next month and I know they are counting down the days. We can't wait for them to see Naveen walking and talking. And Juliet and I could probably use another romantic weekend by the beach.

Today is 2/2, which is two twos. It's a Tuesday, and the year (2,16) consists of only powers of two. It's also threesday: 33rd day of the year with 333 days left in this leap year, so 33/333.

It's a beautiful day outside here in sunny Florida and my bird Echo has been singing non-stop all morning. After a whole month of cold weather with heavy rainfall during which our roof started leaking, our porch got smelly, and my son, wife, and I got sick multiple times with different annoying seasonal bugs, things appear to be going back to normal. The roofing guy just left after making the necessary fixes, the porch smell has all but disappeared, and I haven't coughed once in 24 hours.

It may seem trifling but annoyances like these add to my stress and my mind keeps dwelling on them until I do something about them. But since most of these take time to resolve, there's not much I can to do except wait. That is until I found out a way to trick my mind. I came up with two simple lists: Chaos and Fun. I spent a few minutes and added a bunch of things to my fun list - solving puzzles, playing Wii U, visiting nature parks etc. Then I added everything that was bothering me to the Chaos list - Roof leak, porch smell, my cough, unfinished paperwork that I keep pushing off etc.

Now, whenever something repeatedly bugs me and causes me stress, I immediately add it to the Chaos list and then, pick something from the Fun list to do next. The last thing that stressed me out was the mess of electric cables in our living room, compounded by my frayed laptop charger cord. I'm trying to work and the cords keep getting in the way and my laptop keeps losing charge. So I added "living room electric cords" to my Chaos list and instantly felt happy that I realized it was just an annoyance, not some life-altering trauma. Then I thumbed down the Fun list and picked something I'd like to do next: "Write a blog entry". And here I am, not stressing about electric cords but instead sharing this one trick I found that can make your life just as glorious as mine.

If you are like me and live by a Todo list or detailed calendar, the Chaos and Fun lists easily merge into the daily routine. When I notice something is causing tiny amount of chaos in my life and add it to the Chaos list, I also immediately make a note in my Todo list to fix it at some point in the near future. This way, come Thursday, when I might not be in the middle of being stressed out by electric cords, I can actually solve that problem with an open mind i.e. buy new cords or move furniture around to organize the cables etc.

I call this a mind trick because I am definitely trying to trick my mind into feeling happy and less stressed even though sometimes it feels there is chaos all around me. It works for me for multiple reasons. The moment I note it down, I feel like I did something positive right away, especially if I add the fix-it-task to my Todo list. Then doing something from the Fun list immediately distracts me from whatever it was that bothered me. And I can freely allow myself to be distracted because the thing that was bothering me is not lost in the fog of my mind but rather in an organized list that I can review later. And the best part is reviewing the Chaos list later. I've been jotting things down into my Chaos list for about a year now and despite things feeling completely chaotic all year with our newborn, family, social events, pets, and house issues, the list has never had more than 7 items simultaneously. Compared to my Fun list with double the items, the chaos seems minor. And that's the entire point of this - clear my mind of the repeated annoyances and make handling them seem almost trivial.

Now that the health insurance open enrollment period has officially started, it is time for me to decide how sick my son and I plan on being between January 1st and December 31st of 2016.

If I decide that we will not fall sick, get injured, or use any emergency medical care, then I will go with cheapest insurance plan where I can have a Health-Savings-Account. For us here in Tampa Bay Florida, the cost is $400/month and we have to bear 100% of all medical costs up to $12900/year before insurance pays anything. This means if we both get really sick, even though we decided well in advance not to, we will pay a total of $17700 for the year for the insurance plan and out-of-pocket medical costs.

If I decide that one or both of us will fall moderately sick and have to see our doctors a few times but still not get in an accident, require an operation, or be rushed to the Emergency Room, then I will buy a Silver Plan that costs about $500/month and we only have to pay $30 to see our primary doctors and $75 to see most specialists. If we decide to change our mind in the future and get into an unscheduled accident or choose to get a major surgery without planning in advance, we will pay a total of $17200 for the year for the insurance plan and out-of-pocket medical costs.

If I decide that one or both of us will fall severely ill, get in an accident, require an operation, or be frequently rushed to the Emergency Room, then I will buy a Gold Plan that costs about $585/month and we only have to pay $10 to see our primary doctors and $40 to see most specialists. When we finally get into our scheduled accident or elect for major surgery, we will pay a total of $17000 for the year for the insurance plan and out-of-pocket medical costs.

The beauty of the health insurance market is that it doesn't matter how correctly I decide my future health conditions, the worst case condition is about the same for almost all the plans - between $15000 and $20000 per year for a 35 year old male and his 9 month old son. That is, if both my son and I are in a major accident or we get sick for a prolonged time and require hospitalization, we will pay about the same amount regardless of the insurance plan I pick.

Deciding the best case is what health insurance is all about. If I correctly decide that we will not have to go to the hospital all year and we stick to our decision no matter what, we only pay the low monthly cost of $400 and can squirrel away over $6000 into a Health-Savings-Account, which we can use in a later year when we decide to get sick or be injured. Too bad, only the lower cost plans enable you to save into a Health-Savings-Account. If I incorrectly decide that we will get a little sick and see an ENT or two a few times but instead we remain perfectly healthy throughout the year, then I just wasted $100/month in extra insurance that I didn't use and cannot get back.

You might have read all of the above and wondered why I keep using the word 'decide' instead of 'guess' or 'predict'. That is because I use guess and predict to denote market risk, where you can gain or lose depending on how the future turns out, for example the stock market or even elections. You can make educated guesses and predict the outcome. But I feel very dirty trying to bet on the health of my infant son. Of the thousands of spreadsheets I have made in my life, the only one that made me feel sick to my core is the one in which I had four different rows of his predicted health, the best-suited insurance plans, and the corresponding premiums.

By definition, a health insurance market with competing insurance agencies requires me to take a gamble on our future health. But from my son's point of view, I am not gambling. I am deciding. I am deciding whether I should pay higher monthly insurance premium or not. If I do, we don't have to wonder if his fever is high enough to go to doctor - we can just go if he feels warm enough because it only costs us $10 to see the pediatrician. But if I decide to opt for a low premium plan, then going to the doctor costs $125 every time and we don't want to do that unless it is a real medical issue.

There is now a financial incentive for everyone to diagnose themselves. The more you want to diagnose yourself, the lower the cost of your health insurance plan will be, especially since the worst-case is about the same for all the plans. So yes, I am 'deciding' if we plan on being healthy or not next year. The cheaper plans that don't cover anything until you first pay over $12000 in medical costs, require you to self-diagnose everything and work well for healthy people who won't need to go to doctors. The expensive plans make doctors visits cheaper so you rarely have to second guess yourself and work well for people who have health issues. What I am deciding now is which group I want to belong to next year. Once I have that answer, then I have to make sure my doctor, my son's doctor, and most of the specialists we have seen (e.g. ENT) accept the specific plan from the selected insurance company.

And that my friends is why it takes me a month to decide.

After two months of staying with us, my parents left today. We had a great time traveling around Florida and just spending time with each other. They got used to our home zoo and Juliet and I got used to having nightly dinner chats with them. Now the house is back to being empty but only for a few more months! Juliet is doing well and the baby-boy-in-belly is quite active. With the due date getting closer and holidays coming up, life's going to get a lot busier for both of us.

What a busy weekend we had! Juliet and I are both halfway between introverted and extroverted. We love entertaining friends and family but we can only do that comfortably in small groups for a few hours at a time. We have been trying to plan a 50-60 people party at our house for three months now but have not made any progress yet. While we haven't been able to pick a date due to circumstances beyond our control (landscaping guys took too long, house projects got delayed because of damaged shipments etc.), I think even if everything was lined up perfectly, we would still be hesitant to get started because we're just not the big-party-for-no-reason kind of people.

In the meantime, we have been inviting all of our friends to come visit us any time they want. Coincidentally, a dozen folks visited us this weekend and it was awesome. It felt like Diwali back in India! My godson Jackson, his mom, and his cousin visited us Saturday morning so they could play with our home zoo. Then my buddy Brian came over for some serious table-tennis time, followed by Juliet's friend Karen and her three kids. Sunday morning my friend from Philadelphia Megan and her husband Chris dropped by to spend an idle day by the pool. In the evening, our friends Cary and Laura stopped by to bid us farewell before they move to Arizona this coming week.

Ten years and a week ago, I moved to Florida with the help of my buddy Arthur. For the past week, I have been trying to come up with something meaningful to write about the whole decade that passed by - words of wisdom, lessons learned, top 10 most embarrassing moments - anything to summarize the ten years of life I have built here. But now I realize that is pointless because it doesn't matter if I'm still driving the same car I bought in 2004 (I am!) or gained weight (15lbs/7kgs, mostly due to my awesome beard) or have lost friends or made new ones (who hasn't?). Life happens to all of us and while I made mistakes and learned or didn't learn from them, so did everyone else in their own respective lives. All I know is that ten years ago I was alone in the whole state of Florida and this weekend I couldn't find one minute of alone time to write this entry.

It's finally getting cold here in Florida. Past few winters, I spent a lot of time bringing the tortoises and other critters indoors during cold nights and taking them out on sunny days. Each time I brought them in, I spent a lot of time cleaning their indoor enclosures daily. After getting tired of that earlier this year, I decided to modernize my zoo and bought four infrared heat lamps with reflectors and two thermostats. Though it was hooked up months ago, today is the first time I turned the system on and I'm ecstatic to say it's working perfectly!

The tortoises and ducks are being kept warm at 70F-80F (20-25C) in their outdoor enclosures and I don't have to wake up at odd hours in the night and early morning to check up on them. I made sure that the lamps were installed at a safe height and the circuitry was completely sheltered from rain. Additionally, since these are infrared lamps, they don't shine bright or interfere with the animals' sleeping cycles.

In the large scale of things, putting a couple of lamps is not a big deal but the relief I get from not having to worry about the temperature each night is worth it. Of course, tonight I've been behaving like a kid and keep checking the heat lamps every few hours just so I can feel giddy whenever I sense the warmth on my hands.

Life's going on as usual down here in Florida. I've been keeping myself busy with a variety of computer, house, and home zoo projects. Now that Juliet has a predictable work schedule, we've been spending a lot more time together doing typical married-couple things. We went to the farmer's market on Saturday and bought fresh fruits and vegetables. We're cooking more at home and living a pretty healthy lifestyle (except for my late night programming sessions).

I've already written about not writing more often before so no point in repeating myself but it's not the lack of time that has kept me from updating my 'blog - it's my state of mind. There are just too many things I can write about but don't know if I should even bother. Had Snowden, Syria, or Sequester happened a decade ago, I would've written numerous passages elucidating my thoughts and expressing my cynicism on every topic. But now it feels pointless to write about things I have no direct involvement in. Everyone is getting their news from the Internet today, no point in being one more source of textual drivel.

Even though we are all affected by the news indirectly, my opinion on each matter no longer compels me to stand up on a pulpit and yell them out loud for everyone to hear. My opinions have not gotten any milder, just my desire to voice them publicly. I wonder if this has anything to do with age/maturity or rather my current lifestyle, which is very laid back and full of non-stressful creative outlets. Do I (a) spend an hour writing about what the morality of doing X is, (b) go out for an evening walk with the missus, or (c) build a gravity-drain for the duck pond so it is easier to clean up? I used to choose (a) but now I'm choosing (b) and (c) a lot more often.

In a way, I am happy I don't have much to write about lately. It means everything is alright within and without my head. And if I really feel like typing furiously at the keyboard, I'll avoid online debates and channel that energy into writing something positive on my 'blog. Till next time!

I have been pretty quiet lately, not just on my 'blog but also socially. While things have been quite busy between research, work projects, and house projects, my silence has not been for a want of time. Over the years, I've scheduled my life so that I have ample time to relax and unwind every day. I think my recent taciturn attitude has more to do with a gradual but noticeable change in my mindset about life, legacy, and lore.

When I started this 'blog over a decade ago, I had an exuberant desire to share, contribute, talk, discuss, and vent. I don't think my enthusiasm has waned but rather my definition of what it means to share. Sharing no longer means uploading photos, videos, and stories online. Sharing means giving someone a wonderful memory. Whether it is a small gift or a fun-filled weekend driving around Florida, I am just happy to be there with my loved ones.

I think the only reason I still continue to write my 'blog is because I've never forced myself to write. I write when I want to and because I want to. It is not an obligation to the world but an outlet for me. Today, after over a month, I felt the urge to spew some drivel and here you are, sportingly bearing every word of it. Here's hoping the fodder for my next update will be genuine excitement and not ennui.

It's a gorgeous winter day here in Florida. Perfect weather, sunny skies, and best of all, someone else made a mistake in my favor. I went to the county services to file some paperwork and they made a mistake. Since they could not reverse the transaction, they offered to provide me two future services at no charge. Now I don't go around looking for free deals or figure out ways to beat the system; not worth the effort in most cases. But I do appreciate those "Bank Error in Your Favor. Collect $200" instances because more often than not, the error is not in my favor and I have to waste a lot of time correcting someone else's fault.

On the topic of fault, having written quite a few business software applications, I have a tremendous amount of empathy for clerical workers and customer service personnel. Not just because they have to face irate customers and frantic callers on a daily basis but rather because their fault is not usually theirs. I do not blame the clerk today for processing my paperwork incorrectly when she clicked A instead of B. All humans make mistakes. I fault the developers of the system who do not provide her a way to fix the mistake by reversing the transaction with minimal effort.

In defense of the developers, it is not always easy to build an "undo" transaction in every system and there is a significant cost associated with reversing entries that have already been posted. Instead of having just two types of transactions "purchase" and "sales", you now need two more - "purchase return" and "sales return". If you were selling ID tags with serial numbers, now you need "undo issue" and "undo payment" transactions. These additional types of transactions have to be included in every screen, journal, table, and report, increasing the cost of development.

Since I have yet to come across a software development project with infinite budget, usually the features that get cut are the ones that would help reverse human errors. Instead of paying for an expensive undo button, administrators prefer to provide additional training to the users so they do not make mistakes. But humans always make mistakes. And when they cannot fix it, the feeling of helplessness causes low morale, irritability, and overall loss in productivity. If you see a long line and stressed out customer service personnel, be nice to them because the fault is most likely not entirely theirs, even when they type 3 instead of 2.

Today is the US Election day and since I can't vote yet, I've decided to cast my ballot in a more delicious way. A local bakery here in Florida: Frida's Cafe is selling Obama and Romney cookies. According to the owner Frida, their election day cookie sales correctly predicted the elections in 2000, 2004, and 2008. I can't wait till Juliet gets home so we can go "vote". After the election results come in tonight, I will post if their cookie-sales-based predictions were correct or not.

Edit at 11:50pm: Frida's cookie sales predicted Obama won (Obama 2750 cookies, Romney 2470 cookies). And now all the TV channels are calling the election a victory for Obama. So Frida's cookie sales continue their successful streak of prediction.

My cousin Priya visited us this weekend and we had a blast travelling all over Central Florida. We went to Universal Studios - Harry Potter, sipped wine at John's Pass, kayaked down the Weeki Wachee river, visited the Salvador Dali Museum in downtown St. Petersburg, took a stroll through Florida Botanical Gardens, and got our feet wet at Indian Rocks Beach. Here's the photo gallery.

Flying back to Florida tonight after spending an exciting, family-fun filled three weeks in India. Should be home in about 31-32 hours from now.

I can't wait to see my family again. It's been over a year and a half since I last saw them. Since then we've all personally gone through many major life changes - from my grandpa passing away and my dad's significant health improvements to my sister moving to Mumbai and Juliet becoming a Surgical PA. We talk on the phone and Skype almost daily so I don't think we missed any major events but it's the small things that I look forward to hearing about in person.

On a day-to-day basis, I feel time passes really, really slowly. We're still getting work done in the new house and so many things remain for us to fix and deal with. But in aggregate, it flies and stops for nobody. I feel like I just moved to the US, just graduated, just moved to Florida, just started working at my first real job, just got married, just adopted a zoo-full of pets, just bought two houses, and just started working on KType.

Funny how summarizing a decade-worth of life lived into a single sentence makes me realize how often I deal with things that will never make it into the summary for the next decade. Does it really matter if I spend an extra $50 for low-sone, high CFM exhaust fans for the new house or should I just get the run-of-the-mill model? In the long term, who cares! But when I see my family, that is exactly the kind of conversations I hope to have with them. I'm tired of discussing life-changing events with them on the phone. It's time for trivial jibber-jabber.

I just realized that I live in a peninsula in a peninsula in a peninsula. My neighborhood of Bay Pines is a peninsula within the Pinellas County which is a peninsula in the state of Florida which is a large peninsula.

Juliet and I went to Savannah, Georgia this Labor Day Weekend with our friend Sandra and her daughter (our goddaughter) and here are the photos. I had visited Savannah twice before to see my friend Vu but it wasn't until this weekend that I took the time to fully appreciate the city's cultural and socio-political origins.

After a wonderful walk through the Oatland Island Wildlife Center on Sunday, the girls went shopping around Ellis Square while I decided to read some short stories and poetry by the fountains. I came across one of the most haunting poems I've ever read - Seven Twilights by Conrad Aiken and felt compelled to dig deeper into his life. He was born in Savannah in 1889 and when he was a small boy, his father killed his mother and committed suicide himself. This tragedy had a profound impact on his development and writings. Saturday night we took a "ghost tour" around the city during which our guide told us about numerous Savannah residents who had tragically died of malaria or spousal-abuse centuries ago and haunt the old houses to this day. The Aiken name was missing from the roster, though the writing thoroughly conveyed the message.

With a huge immigrant population of Haitians and Irish during the 18th and 19th centuries, Savannah developed its own flavor of Americana literature, art, and architecture, much like New Orleans in Louisiana and St. Augustine in Florida. The city was founded in 1733 by Gen. Oglethorpe and laid out around four open squares intended to provide space for military exercises. The layout was also a reaction against the cramped conditions that fueled the Great Fire of London in 1666. By 1851 there were twenty four squares in the city.

The house we rented was next to Forsyth Park, which was featured heavily in the bestselling book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Sunday evening we watched the haunting movie version, starring Kevin Spacey, John Cusack, and Jude Law. The story was set against a backdrop of the traditional Southern social elites in the early 1980s and portrayed elements from voodoo beliefs and alternative lifestyles that are as much a part of Savannah's culture as the ghost tours and historic church congregations.

While there is no single incident during the entire trip that I can point out as haunting, I left the city with a feeling of tragic nostalgia. It didn't matter that the city today is a vibrant port-city or is just one of the many cities around the country with a rich history. In the course of a few days, I had witnessed the birth and death of generations. Time had either wiped clean or set in stone the dreams and nightmares of men and beasts alike. As I reflected upon my own mortality and unfulfilled dreams by the fountains of Ellis Square, Juliet walked up to me and gave me a tight hug. She said "I missed you" and I replied "I missed you too. Now let's go home."

It has been almost a year since I took a long walk to determine the course for the rest of my life and I feel it's time for some retrospection. Last year, I decided to leave my promising job as the Director of IT at a fast-growing pharmaceutical manufacturing company in Florida so I could work on KType full-time. KType is my independent and self-funded research project to improve communication for people with speech & motor disabilities by creating low-cost, customizable software and hardware tools.

Giving up a rising career at a growing company was no easy decision for me and a part of me will always wonder what if I hadn't taken the road-less-traveled-by. When I started working on KType, Juliet was studying hard for her final semester at graduate school, we had tons of debt and barely any savings, and I had absolutely no idea if KType could even be built with the requirements I had in mind. A year later, Juliet is now a surgical PA having graduated at the top of her class, we have paid down our debt considerably and even saved a little, and I have a fully-functional KType prototype that I'm excited to have potential users try out very soon.

Though I am constantly making progress, I know I still have a long way to go. The primary goal of the KType project is to help others communicate and I feel disappointed in myself to say that despite a year's worth of R&D, I still haven't helped improve anyone's life yet. But that's going to change now. Over the next few weeks, I will reach out to local hospitals, special-needs schools, and nursing homes to find potential users for KType. Last year I resolved to make KType. This year I resolve to share KType.

To say that I am extremely nervous about all of this is an understatement. But if I can help even one person, I will consider KType to be a success. If you know someone who cannot speak nor type because of paralysis, injuries, ALS, cerebral palsy, muscle spasms, or other neurological causes, please feel free to contact me.

I wish I could blog while kayaking. Some of my best thoughts come to me when I'm zipping through the water in my kayak. When picking kayaking locations, I always fall into the trap of grass is greener on the other side - the further away the destination, the more beautiful and fun I think it will be. Alas it is not always so. I went paddling down the Alafia River on Friday, about a 90-minute drive each way. The median water-depth was barely six inches and the eight-mile trip over numerous rocky rapids took about three gruesome hours. While it was pretty, it did not rank among my best paddles.

Last night I made plans to paddle three miles out to an island in the Gulf, about two hours away from my home, but this morning I didn't feel like driving that much. So I went to Lake Seminole Park, where Juliet and I take our puppies all the time, hardly something I consider a great kayaking destination. But this morning I was surprisingly proven wrong. I had a great time paddling five miles in about 80 minutes. It made me realize that to have a great time, you don't always need the best views, the perfect weather, or the optimal gear but rather a good-enough mix of all of them. While Lake Seminole is littered with houses on the western flank, the eastern shoreline is a nature preserve with lots of shady trees, seagrass, and wading birds. While early-morning (6-7am) is often my favorite time to paddle, 10am can still be fun.

With the cool sea breeze blowing over the lake, I paddled by seagrass that rose 10 feet over the water. The wind picked up and nudged my kayak towards the waterfowl habitat. I skimmed over water-lilies and sent many a wood-ducks fluttering away. I paddled past dilapidated wooden docks and under the 102^nd Avenue bridge that rumbled when cars raced across, a hundred feet above me. I saw, heard, and felt everything distinctly and consciously. A fish jumped out of water here and a pelican splashed into the water there. You could call this a typical Florida paddling trip but for reasons I can't explain, it was akin to meditation for me.

This past weekend Juliet and I drove up to Atlanta to attend a traditional Vietnamese wedding of my Rutgers buddy Vu. We had a great time there and I got to hang out with a lot of Rutgers grads, including my friend Tony Yang. Saturday morning we took a tour of the awesome Tanglewood Miniature Farm in Atlanta where we got to feed and play with lots of little animals like goats, sheep, and alpacas.

On Sunday, we visited a wonderful couple we met earlier this year on our cruise to Mexico, Brian and Caroline. Brian cooked a delicious veggie sandwich for us while Caroline gave us some real-life parenting tips. We're hoping to see them again soon when they visit Florida with their kids.

We're planning on doing some more traveling before Juliet starts working in May. I have a lot of interesting places mapped out. I'll write about and post photos as we make these little trips.

Tomorrow I'm going camping with Juliet. This will be our first camping trip together. If she's enjoy this trip, I'll take her kayak-camping on the many islands around Florida. I booked a tent-site at Highlands Hammock park, about two hours away from our home. We'll take lots of pics and I'll post them when we get back. Tonight we're going to a comedy show. It'll be a fun-filled weekend.

I just did my final chores for 2010. I cleaned up all the animals, cleaned out our Florida Room, made all the phone calls to companies (bank, credit card etc.) that I had been pushing off for a while, and finalized the paperwork for our cruise to Mexico in January. Year 2010 is almost over and I'm looking forward to 2011. Happy New Year everyone!

I'm so proud of my wife. Juliet had her last finals today and got an A. In the last two and a half years, she's had over a hundred exams and in every single class she got an A. Her GPA is 4.0 and she'll be the valedictorian of her graduating class. Her graduation ceremony is this Saturday and I can't wait to see her get up on the stage. I'll post pics soon after.

Next month she'll take the Florida board exams to be certified to work as Physician Assistant. The day after that I'm taking her on a cruise to Mexico. That's her graduation gift :)

I'm 928 miles from home on the western border of Louisiana, driving for the rest of the day listening to Hindi music. It'll be the final stretch of my 6000 miles journey from St. Petersburg, Florida to Salt Lake City, Utah and back. Surprisingly, I'm still not tired and I do not mind the long drive one bit. We took over 4,000 pictures and I plan on going through them as soon as possible. I'll probably upload the best 200 or so into 5-6 different albums. Vacation is serious business.

We're camping in Holbrook, Arizona tonight after having driven through New Mexico over the past two days. I drove from St. Pete, Florida to Houston, Texas via Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. I've been taking pictures all the way and once Arthur and Chris met us up in El Paso, they took over the photography department. In New Mexico, we visited White Sands desert, Cibola National Forest, Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and Chaco Canyon. In Arizona, we visited Petrified Forest (part of Painted Desert) and will be going to Meteor Crater and Grand Canyon tomorrow.

We're taking so many pictures that I'm afraid it'll take me a week to just go through them. I'm certain I'll upload it all here as soon as possible. We have 3 more nights of camping before we get to Salt Lake City, Utah. I'm so excited that I can't sleep.

Friday, July 9th was my last day at Formulated Solutions as a full-time employee and I had a very hard time controlling myself from becoming emotional during office hours. I came to Florida six years ago and spent the best years of my 20's working very closely with some really great people. I've made long-life friends here and am hoping to keep the friendships alive for the rest of my life. My boss Eric has always been more like a close elder brother than a distant authority figure. His father Thomas, brothers Brian and Kris, and business partner Ken have been a constant source of support for my work, ideas, and dreams. I will miss daily lunches with Kelly, Sandra, Jim, and Tyler. I will miss those complex accounting meetings with Vinnie where we tried to simulate 6 months of accounting transactions and their effects on the Balance Sheet in our heads. I will certainly miss discussing big database changes with David, Jim, and Linda.

It was not an easy task for me to give my resignation to Eric and I am very happy that he was supportive of my decision. I was never treated like some random employee; from the first day till last, I was treated like one of the partners. I made every decision, in the IT department and beyond, with complete freedom. So even the thought of resigning was difficult. However, in order to achieve my goals of academic research, financial independence, and personal growth, I had to do what my heart and mind told me. I resigned with the promise that I will forever be a friend and be there whenever I'm needed. Calling my last day a bitter-sweet experience is putting it mildly.

July has been tough. My grandpa (Dad's dad in India) has been on life-support for almost a week now. He's 77 years old and has suffered from multiple strokes and diabetes for years now. The doctors issued a "Do not resuscitate" order for him yesterday. I talk to my family in India a couple of times a day but there has not been any change in his condition. There's not much to talk about. I'm so glad that Juliet and I met both my grandparents last month.

I've been pretty busy with work and things are only going to get tougher over the next 3-6 months. Juliet is working hard to graduate in December and in the meantime, I'm planning on paying off all of my student loans. I'm on the path to change my life such that starting 2011, I can concentrate on research. Not much else to say except wish me luck.

We went to the beach an hour ago. The water is warm yet soothing. I'm afraid the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is going to ruin the ecosystem here. A single hurricane that hits the Florida panhandle and pulls in the oil eastward, would be enough to destroy the hundreds of beaches, mangrove forests, and marine and plant life along the entire west coast of Florida for years to come. Here's hoping that doesn't happen.

We had an amazingly awesome time in India and just got back to our home in Florida. I'm so exhausted after the 44 hour journey back. I'm also kinda sick from the change in weather, temperature, food, and water. Hopefully I won't get any sicker. I will write more soon.

I am in my childhood home. Juliet is unpacking my bags while my dad and sister are questioning why I brought so many shoes. This is the weirdest feeling I've experienced in a while. It's like my two worlds have come together in a dream land of sorts. On one hand I feel completely at home with my family, talking and chatting in Gujarati. On the other, Juliet's here with me and we are packing and unpacking stuff all day like we are on a vacation to the Florida Keys.

I met my cousin Keval for the first time in over 5 years this weekend and he looks so much better. His recovery from the multiple brain surgeries between 2004-2006 has been nothing short of miraculous. He is able to move his right hand and communicates using an alphabet chart. There has to be a more comfortable way for him to communicate better using technology.

Today Juliet and I will get the final measurements taken for our wedding garments. We also have to check out our hotel rooms and the venues for all the different events. It will be a busy two weeks but I am so excited.  

My friend Arthur came down to Florida this weekend. Friday evening Juliet and I picked him up from the airport and we all went to Ybor City. We spent hours at Gameworks and saw the hilarious comedian Brian Posehn. Saturday we spent the whole day at Busch Gardens and watched movies all evening. It was raining heavily Sunday morning so Juliet made some yummy breakfast (yay muffins) and we just chilled around the house for a few hours watching The IT Crowd. We dropped Arthur off at the airport in the afternoon and didn't do much the rest of the day. It was a great weekend and I hope we get more guests in the future so we can do this all over again.

We're back from our long weekend in the Florida Keys and here are the photos. We had an awesome time in Key West and in addition to visiting the Hemingway House and Butterfly Conservatory, we took an airboat tour in the Everglades and visited Miccosukee Native American village. I'm pretty tired after eight hours of driving and have a pretty busy week ahead so it's time to get off the computer and relax.

2010 is just two weeks away and life is moving along swimmingly. School is almost over, work is going well, and the pets are healthy and cuddly at home. 2009 was a very stressful year for both Juliet and I because of school, work, travel, and immigration. We hope to end the year with a relaxing weekend down in the Florida Keys. I can't wait.

One of the things occupying my free time these days is independent research. I've been researching about computer vision for some time now and have started to learn about various algorithms that enable computers to detect faces, eyes, cars, and other objects. I've always been fascinated by image recognition and have lately been spending a few hours every other evening reading research papers on the subject. I don't have much to share at the moment but I'm fairly certain that I will be talking more about this topic in the coming months. My goal for 2010 is to dedicate a significant portion of my free time to independent research so that I will be well-prepared when I get into a PhD program.

I am 39,000 feet high up in a plane connected to the Internet. I couldn't wait to get online so I could write a few words about my race and I'm glad American Airlines has Wi-Fi now. As my track sheet says, I stopped after running 50 miles out of the 100 miles that I signed up for. After four months of intense training and considerable preparation, I ended up with a DNF - Did Not Finish. Ever since I ran my first mile in April, I had been dreading the acronym DNF. To me that sounded like failure and lack of preparation. Till the day before the race, I was terrified of ending up with an embarrassing DNF - oh the shame! And then I ran 50 miles for about 24 hours in 10,000 feet altitude and 35F temperature through mountains, jungles, and canyons paved with loose rocks, tree roots, and extremely steep slopes.

One of the greatest feelings in your life is completely and absolutely surprising yourself about your own abilities. The fear of DNF is gone and replaced by the sheer excitement of what I was able to accomplish when the odds were so severely stacked up against me. I live at sea-level in Florida, run on absolutely flat, paved, marked trail in 100F temperature with high humidity. The Grand Teton Race trail was the complete opposite and I was in no way prepared for such rocky trails and high altitude. I knew I was not training appropriately but till I actually saw the mountain trails in person, I had no idea how unprepared I was. But I couldn't give up. I was here to run an ultramarathon and I was not going to stop until I did. After 50 miles (80 kms), my feet couldn't take it anymore and I happily DNF'ed.

I have blisters on all of my ten toes, both heels, and sides of both feet. This sounds bad but the best thing is that other than my soles, I have absolutely no fatigue, muscle pain, or weakness in my entire body. This makes me extremely excited because that means my body can take 50 miles and a lot more without any engine troubles - I just need better tires. I was glad to feel completely healthy (except for my feet) because that means my exercise regimen in Florida was good. During the race I managed my food, electrolyte, and fluid intake well, I was in full control over my mind and actions, and even after 24 hours, I could have kept going.

I know I did not get a medal for finishing this time but I got more than enough encouragement to keep on running from the tons of wonderful athletes, ultramarathoners, volunteers, and race organizers. They pushed me throughout the course and kept my spirits and energy high. My friend Arthur was my pacer and flew up from NJ to make sure I kept moving forward and helped me with everything from gear, nutrition, and medical assistance. At the same time, my friend Vishal in India, Tamara in NJ, my boss Eric in Florida, and my parents and sister in India kept tracking my progress and sending me encouraging words. My family, friends, and coworkers encouraged me before, during, and after the race and that is more than I can ever ask for.

The one person who probably suffered more than me during my entire training was Juliet. For the past four months, I refused to do anything fun on Friday nights because I had to wake up early on Saturdays. Every Saturday morning I would go out running and leave her alone at home with all of the house and pet chores. Every Sunday I would sit around and be lazy so I could "recover from my long run." She encouraged me to keep training no matter how little progress I seemed to make early on. She bought most of my gear, set up the food and drinks for my runs, and even came out a few times to train with me on some of my shorter runs. And during my race, every time I returned to the base aid station after a loop, Arthur would tell me Juliet called up and said she sends me her love.

After the race, everyone asked me what my next ultra will be. Ultrarunners are serious addicts! They made lots of suggestions, especially races that I can train for while living in Florida. I would absolutely love to do more races but I don't know if I can anytime soon because of the huge time and money commitment that even short races take up. I'm taking a break from running for at least a week or two so my feet can heal up. After that, who knows. I want to get back into kayaking again and probably build something fun like our aviary in the backyard. My school starts tomorrow and I have a pretty big project at work that I need to concentrate on. I don't know how the other ultramarathoners do it but it is definitely not easy to train for one race after other. One thing I know for certain is that I loved the wonderful experience I had during this race and would most definitely do something like this again in the future when I have ample time to train. Thanks everyone for the love and support. Next time I'll bring home a medal.

Tomorrow is the big race and once the race starts, you can track my progress here. To say that I am overwhelmed would be an understatement. Yesterday Arthur and I hiked up to the top of Fred's Mountain and back down just to get an idea of how tough the race is. During the race, I have to hike up and down Fred's Mountain four times. It is extremely rocky and I almost slipped many times. I think doing it the first time will be ok but I have no idea how I'll do it at 1am after I have been running for 19 hours straight. This is no doubt the craziest thing I have ever signed up for voluntarily.

I met a lot of people in the last few days and everyone is extremely friendly and encouraging. Some of them are doing the 100-miler, while most are in the 50-mile and 26.2-mile marathons. Now that I have seen how utterly difficult the track is, I have no idea how far I can go within the 36 hours. All I know is that I am going to keep walking, running, jogging, and crawling till I either finish or get disqualified for being too slow. I trained as hard as I possibly could have and there is no way I could have prepared for such high elevations and rocky terrain in Florida. So now, all I can do is give this race the very best I can. My next 'blog post will be once the race is over. Wish me luck.

I'm in Alta, Wyoming at the Grand Targhee Resort (street view). I had a long day yesterday traveling from Florida to Wyoming but am fully relaxed now. I have three more days before the Grand Teton Ultramarathon begins. Hopefully, my body will acclimate to the high altitude and the thin air before the race. I'm eating lots of fruits, foods rich in iron, and drinking lots of orange juice. That should help boost my red-blood cell count and help me breathe better here.

There are very few people here right now and not much to do other than sit outside and admire the gorgeous vistas. I plan on taking lots of pictures but I don't think I can upload them till I get home next week. I would love to go for a long walk in the wilderness right now but I'm saving my energy and muscles for the really long walk this Saturday and Sunday. Once my race begins on Saturday 6am, you can track my progress here. I added this same link to the '100-mile race' button in the top-left of my 'blog, right under my name/logo.

I did not know that Florida had two time zones. I am currently sitting on Juliet's bed in a cute little apartment in the Florida State Hospital campus in Chattahoochee where she will be staying for the next six weeks. She is here for her first clinical rotation; the concentration is psychiatry. After this she has seven other rotations in seven different fields and hospitals over the next year and a half. If this past year of school was intensive and stressful, the next one for her will be extensive and adventurous.

Chattahoochee is a five-hour drive from our home in St. Petersburg and the clocks here run an hour behind. It is a quaint little town with a rich local history. The long drive into the town through the scenic rolling hills and narrow lanes reminded me of Wyoming where we eloped to last year for our wedding and honeymoon. Who knew that a year later I would be dropping her off in a remote town for a month and a half with such a heavy heart. I'm incidentally leaving for the same mountains and canyons of Wyoming in a few days for my ultramarathon. I really wish she could have come with me but this clinical rotation is a huge opportunity for her career and I wouldn't want anything less than that for her.

Yesterday was the "White Coat ceremony" at her university where the teachers officially gave students in her class their medical white coats as a rite of passage, thus bestowing upon them the responsibility and trust that is expected of a medical care professional. It was a short and sweet procession and Juliet was awarded a scholarship for being the top student in her class. I cannot put into words the amount of effort and dedication that she put into her studies over the past year and was immensely proud to see her hard work being rewarded in front of hundreds of students and their family and friends. Most students in graduate and post-graduate programs, including yours truly, just do enough to get decent grades so they can move on to the next course. Not Juliet. She gave every lecture, class, lab, quiz, test, and exam her utmost best. While her eighteen-hour study days drove both her and me crazy, I realized that very soon she will make a genuinely caring and brilliant Physician Assistant. I am very proud of her and so happy that she is in my life.

Our friend Sandra and her daughter Madison were also at the ceremony and took lots of photos. We celebrated the night with some yummy Hibachi and crashed early. We packed both our cars this morning with all the things Juliet will need for the next six weeks and drove up to Chattahoochee. Once I get back home, I will try to put some of the pictures from her ceremony online. Right now I'm stuck in a small town without any wired Internet access and am using a laptop tethered to a cellphone to write this 'blog entry. And Juliet just prepared some dinner for me so my tummy says good bye Internet!

Annoyances add up over time. A month ago, our garbage disposal broke. Last night a supporting post under our bed broke (insert weight-gain joke here). Over the past few months, our bathroom sink started draining slower and slower. Sometime last week the screen from one of the windows in our Florida room became detached. Over time, the lack of space in our kitchen started to bug us more and more.

Having a busy life, these things tend to get swept under the rug because who has time to fix it. However, they continue to be annoyances and the stress adds up. Finally, on wonderfully productive days like today, I wake up and make a list of everything wrong in the house that bugs me. Then I buy whatever is necessary to fix every single problem. And then I fix it, at least for the time being. I feel so accomplished now that we packed up and put away our dining table; the kitchen finally has good walking space. We've only used the dining table thrice in the past year so it's not really a big sacrifice. I also made a small pen for Jack the Chihuahua so he can stay in the kitchen all day and not run around the house chasing cats.

Our house was in chaos till this morning and finally everything is coming together. Juliet vacuumed and cleaned up the house and I fixed the garbage disposal, Florida room screen, bathroom sink, and the bed. Now, we can relax for the day, have a good meal, and watch some TV.

I ran 36 miles today. I jogged the last 8 of those miles with the famous 64-year-old Flip-Flop Man of Florida, Larry Perrier. I had pretty much given up at the 28-mile mark because of the heat and swollen feet and called Juliet to come pick me up. Out of nowhere, Larry showed up next to me and guessed that I was training for an ultra-marathon, probably my first 100. He said it looked like I had been running since 6-7am and had covered about 30 miles or so miles. I told Juliet that I'll get home on my own. For the next 8 miles he talked about everything from running to macroeconomics. We discussed the joys of running in the rain, the annoyance of noisy lawnmowers, and the bargaining power of Russia in the international oil market.

He is certainly a man who follows nobody rules. It was amusing that there I was, with all my running gear, hydration pack with electrolyte solution, gel packs, heart-rate monitor, and expensive shoes talking to someone in flip-flops, carrying nothing except for a cane and some food in a plastic bag. I have been doing my best to follow all the guidelines to safely and properly train for my race and there he was, just walking as if 40 miles is no big deal. Here's a short film that a couple of students from University of Florida made about Larry.

He asked me about my running experiences and issues. I mentioned about the recurring pain on the bottom of my soles and he said it's probably Plantar Fasciitis. That's why I was about to give up at the 28-mile mark today - my feet hurt so bad I was trudging along at a 3 mile per hour pace. "It's just pain" he said, "It won't go away but you'll get used to it." Just hearing that made me feel better and I ran 8 miles with him. He said I look like the kinda guy who will do a 100 miles one or twice just to prove it to myself and then I would switch to some other equally strenuous physical activity. I was floored by his ability to read me so accurately.

We parted ways when we got near my neighborhood. He said he runs into a lot of people on a regular basis and hopes that we cross paths some day again, maybe tomorrow, maybe 2011. I hope so too.

Yesterday, I ran the longest distance I ever have in my entire life - 35 miles (56 kms) in a little under 11 hours. To train for the 100 mile Grand Teton Ultramarathon in September, I have been running 20+ miles every Saturday for over a month now. Most people I know run considerably faster than me though they can only run 3-10 miles at most. While millions of people run marathons each year, very few run distances beyond 50 miles. Ultrarunning, or running further than the 26.2 miles of a marathon, is a whole different experience and requires a unique set of training, capabilities, and strategies. Since many of my friends and family have been asking me about the experience, I'll post an FAQ of everything I've learned in the past few months.

Q: Um, why are you trying to run ONE HUNDRED MILES?!

Because I suck at running. In fact, I run so slow that last weekend during a 3.3 mile Adventure Run, I finished 321st out of 331 runners. I was slower than 97% of the Marine Corps Marathon finishers in 2004 and the fastest mile I've ever ran was a little over 10 minutes. Most people who can run a mile, can run it in under 8 minutes easily. I can't. However, just because you suck at something doesn't mean you give up. Instead, you do it as much as you can. So while I can't run faster, I try to run further. Three months ago when I thought about running 100 miles, it seemed like an impossible goal and it seems even harder today because now I actually know how difficult it is to run for half a day non-stop. I want to run because I feel it's something I just can't do and wasn't made to do. Proving myself wrong is my favorite hobby. Running, kayaking, or sailing are just the means.

Q: Can anyone run 100 miles? Don't you need to be in peak physical condition to run that far?

If you can run 10 miles, you can run 10 miles, 10 times. However, you can only run 100 miles if you train right. You don't have to be in great physical condition and I'll be the first one to confess that I'm not. You do have to spend a lot of hours actually running though. Most people don't have that kind of time, energy, or desire.

Q: Do you think you will run 100 miles successfully?

I don't know. I try not to think about the result. I believe there are three steps to every bold ambition. First, is to have the drive and courage to dream big. Second, is preparation - putting in the time and effort to reach the goal. And third is the result - crossing the finishing line. No matter what the goal, we have control over the first two. I signed up for a 100 mile race and I am putting myself through the gruelling training. I don't know if I will finish or not because anything can happen before or during the race. I want to start the race knowing that I prepared to the best of my abilities.

Q: How long will you take to run 100 miles?

As per the race rules, the 100 miles must be completed within a span of 36 hours. That's a pace of 2.8 miles per hour or 21 minutes per mile. I am hoping to finish in about 30 hours, with an average of 18 minutes per mile. I don't intend to sleep and hopefully will not stop for more than a few minutes per aid station. My comfortable long-distance pace is 15 minutes per mile so an upper limit of 18 minutes per mile is quite conservative.

Q: How does a person run non-stop for so long?

Running for 30+ hours non-stop means your body has to be able to do its normal functions without any interruptions. So breathing, digesting, growing hair and beard, healing wounds, fighting diseases and allergies, everything must go on continuously the whole time. The goal for me is to make my body feel relaxed like it is sitting on the sofa watching TV the whole time I am running up and down mountains. And there is only one way to do that - run long distances without stressing my body out and get my body used to it. If I am exhausted after running 25 miles, I cannot run the other 75 miles easily. But if I ran 25 miles as if it was just a minor jog, I will be much more capable of running another 25 and then another 25.

Marathon runners train very differently than ultramarathoners. They aim for speed and strength. They push their body to the limit from the first mile right until they cross the finishing line. Ultramarathoners are in no hurry to get anywhere. The saying goes that "the secret to running an ultramarathon is to start slow and then slow down." Often many good marathoners fail to finish ultras because they push themselves too hard early on.

I am incapable of running fast so I don't have much of a problem with this. I just have to make sure I don't slow down too much. I jog at a speed that feels natural and comfortable to me though it's such a slow pace that people walk right past me! However, it is a pace that I have learned to maintain. I can keep moving at that pace as if I am sitting on the sofa watching TV. When most people want to get in shape and start running, they try to run too fast too soon and end up getting side stitch (sharp pain on the sides) or worse, injure themselves. The trick is to just run slower and further. You will burn a lot more calories if you can run three more miles a day than run 10% faster.

Q: How fit are you?

Not that fit. At 5'8" tall, currently weighing 177 lbs (80 kgs), I am technically overweight with a BMI of 27. I still have a relatively high body-fat ratio (18%) and don't look muscular or skinny. I am just like your average computer programmer in every shape and form.

I did lose about 15 lbs (7 kgs) in the first two months of training but haven't lost any weight since. I actually gain a few pounds every weekend because I like to eat a lot during my long runs. I can't bench-press much nor can I lift a lot of weight. Truth be told, I don't act, look, or feel like a guy who just ran 35 miles.

Q: So then how did you run 35 miles?

By not stopping when I wanted to and stopping when I had to. Ultrarunning is 99% mental and 1% MENTAL. The body is never in control and the mind must never lose control. I had been mentally preparing myself for a 40 mile run for over two weeks. I expected to run 40 miles in 12 hours after running 20 miles in 6 hours multiple times. This is the same pace I expect to maintain for my race. From the first mile early yesterday morning till the last mile at sunset, I kept a running inventory of all of my body parts and the condition they were in. It's like a video game where you keep an eye on all your soldiers, ammo, and equipment and make sure they are all taken care of for optimal performance.

Just because my feet hurt, doesn't mean I stop. Barely into the second mile, my left foot sent a message to the brain, "I'm in pain! Stop!" Had my brain listened to it, I would have run a total of 1.2 miles yesterday. Instead, my brain ran an analysis on the left foot's real-time condition and came to the conclusion that though the left foot is indeed in pain, it is stable, not on the verge of breakdown, and in no way severely in pain. So I kept running.

Over the course of the next 23 miles (8 hours), the temperature (feels like) rose from 83F (28C) to over 108F (42C) with humidity hovering at 65%. My feet, legs, arms, shoulders were all in pain but it was bearable. However, my brain decided it was too hot to continue at a good pace in this heat so I went home and relaxed for two hours in the shade. Once the temperature outside fell, I ran another 12 miles in 3 hours. At the slow pace I was going right before I stopped, I couldn't have completed 12 miles in 5 hours. My body was completely cool with pushing forward but my brain thought better. Stopping actually made me go faster. Had it not been for the high temperature earlier in the day, I could have easily gone 40 miles non-stop but there is no point in running 40 this week in blistering weather and being sick for the next month because of it.

Q: All of the above sounds horrible! Will your race be like this?

Trust me, the above felt much more horrible in person. Hopefully, the race will be quite different. I live in Florida at an altitude of 20 feet and this has been an excruciatingly hot summer. The race is in the Grand Teton area in Wyoming at 8,000 feet altitude with average daytime high of 70F (21C) and nighttime low of 40F (4C). Instead of this heat, I will actually be bundling up for most of the run. However, that also means running with more gear and dealing with low-oxygen at high altitudes.

I am planning to arrive at the race venue 4-5 days ahead of the race so my body can get acclimated to the altitude. After I donated blood a month ago, I had a first-hand experience of trying to run with 20% lower oxygen in my bloodstream. It's not going to be easy but I think I can manage, especially if I can stand to run in 108F heat. The other challenge is that the race will go up mountain peaks and down canyons while Florida is pretty flat. That's where gym training helps. I've been doing Stair Master and Elliptical machines at the gym for 2-3 hour durations at moderate speed to build my leg muscles up. Also I cross a lot of pedestrian bridges during my long runs and that gives me some training with steep inclines.

In reality, nothing can prepare me for the race as well as training on the actual race course. Since I work and live in Florida and Wyoming is a four-hour flight away from me, I just have to do whatever I can.

Q: What do you eat/drink these days? What about during the runs?

I have a pretty healthy vegetarian diet and have started to eat a little more protein than I am used to. I've been a vegetarian since birth in India and don't see any reason to change. I eat lots of fresh vegetables and fruits, drink tons of V8 V-Fusion, and avoid fatty or high-carb foods. Unlike runners who bulk up on high-carb foods right before a marathon, ultrarunners eat steadily throughout the runs.

Yesterday, I ate two foot-long veggie sub-sandwiches over the course of 11 hours. I eat one Powerbar Gel every 30-45 minutes. I drink water constantly (one sip every 15-60 seconds). I have a hydration pack that I fill up with Gatorade and sip it every 2-3 minutes. Sometimes I feel like I run solely to justify my hedonistic appetite for sugar. Of course, eating and drinking so much also means I have to take more bathroom breaks than normal but that is a good thing because it is clear evidence that my body is functioning properly and not shutting down or falling into starvation mode.

Q: Aren't you afraid of collapsing from heat strokes or worse?

Of course, I'm worried about heat strokes and thousands of other things that can go wrong during a long run. That's why I constantly check my heart rate, temperature, vision, balance, breathing, sweat-rate/salt-loss, fluid-intake, and skin irritation. One of the key lessons I have learned from my training is that nearly every bad condition is avoidable if detected early enough. A stitch in time saves nine is nowhere truer than in endurance activities like ultra-races.

If I so much as feel a pinch in any of my toes, I stop, adjust my shoes, socks, and insoles till everything feels right, and then continue. The mindset during a marathon is to continue non-stop at any cost. That's great when you have to run for another 2-3 hours but completely breaks down when you have 28 hours to go. It was actually pretty tough for me to change my mind about this because I constantly feel like I am slowing down my pace if I stop. Turns out, over the course of 11 hours, I only stopped for about 14 minutes total for the various adjustments to my shoes, socks, hydration pack, shorts, hat, headband, and water bottle. Failing to adjust any of these could have caused me to lose balance and fall, get blisters or skin abrasions, or in case of hat, headband, and water bottle, get a heat-stroke and pass out.

The most fun I had yesterday was stopping at every mile or so, filling up my bottle at a water fountain, and drenching my entire body in cool water over and over. It took only about 45-60 seconds but I gained that by running considerably faster. As a side-benefit, I avoided heat strokes and didn't collapse from exhaustion.

Q: Does the kind of gear you have matter? Won't any pair of shoes and water-bottle do?

The right gear is extremely critical! Every little piece of gear on your body will rub up against your skin constantly and drive you crazy. On some of my runs, I have desperately longed for a piece of string or rubber-band so I could keep some part of my shoe lace or hydration pack strap from moving in an annoying way. Whatever you choose, it has to be extremely comfortable and durable. This doesn't mean I spent $500 for a water-bottle but it does mean that I tried four $7 bottles till I found one that I liked and that worked well. Same with shoes, headband, and I'm afraid hydration pack. The one I have leaked during my run, causing a liter of Gatorade to flow down my shirt, shorts, and feet into my shoes and socks, making my blisters worse. I didn't even realize it till I got home for my break because my entire body was drenched by water and sweat. These are the kind of things that happen 7.5 hours into a run.

Q: Other than your long runs, what else do you need to do?

I have a pretty busy work week and have classes/homework couple of weeknights so my exercise regimen during the week isn't too intense. I try to mix in different activities to make sure I don't just exercise my feet. I swim an hour or two a week and train on Stair Master and Elliptical. I don't like running on the treadmill and prefer to train my calves, glutes, hamstrings, and quads with targeted exercises. I do some weight training with low weights and sets of 100-300 lifts. I also stretch a lot on days I feel too lazy to go to the gym. And at least twice a week I go running in the morning for 2-6 miles. The funny thing is that my long runs have trained me so well that I can recover from two hours of Stair Master within minutes.

Q: What does your wife have to say about all of this?

She knew I was a determined guy with odd ambitions before she married me so she has learned to just live with all of this. She fully supports me in all of my goals, as non-conventional they may be. She is in medical school to be a PA and studies take up most of her weekend hours. I use the same hours to train for my long runs so it works out quite well. She also makes my life much easier by buying most of my running gear and supplies for me. Oh and she picks me up when I decide that 108F is too hot to run and I'm four miles away from home. I don't think I give her enough credit for it but she's extremely supportive of my training though she keeps mentioning every now and then that I'm stupid for putting myself through this mess. Due to her school schedule, I doubt she'll be able to come to Wyoming for my race but if my weekend runs are any indication, I know I will be thinking of her every mile (mostly hoping that she'll come pick me up and take me home already.)

I ran 20 miles (32 km) yesterday in a little over five hours. After the run, my feet hurt for a few hours but overall I felt fine. Right now I feel almost completely recovered with only a slight amount of soreness in my muscles. I used to think that if you trained well for running long-distances, you should have minimum amount of pain and soreness. Now I think it is not the amount of pain but rather how soon my body overcomes it so I can go do it again. I think this philosophy applies to life too. The faster you can recover from a setback, the stronger you will be.

I'm off to donate some blood now and later will spend some time in the jacuzzi and sauna at the gym. I have to train breathing in low-oxygen environments and the closest thing to that in Florida is a sauna.

I'm so tired from a long-drive back from St. Augustine. Past ten days have been quite exciting. My family from New Jersey visited us and we spent three days traveling around Florida. We went kayaking in Silver Springs, indoor skydiving in Orlando, and gaming in Ybor City, Tampa. After they flew back to Jersey, Juliet and I have been taking little trips locally. Yesterday we went to Orlando to see her grandma and I decided to surprise her with a mini-vacation in St. Augustine as it was only an hour away from Orlando.

We spent the entire morning today walking around the old fort and the historic village of St. Augustine. I bought her a cute little pearl ring and we had some delicious chocolate fudge. After some yummy Mexican food we drove back home. Instead of going through the busy interstate highways, I picked smaller country roads that cut through forests and quaint old towns. It only took half an hour extra to get home but the scenery was most certainly worth it.

Neither Juliet nor I had school this past week so we were able to watch movies every other night. Star Trek is awesome, Angels & Demons is ok, and Meet The Robinsons is decent. Now it's back to busy life. Her school starts tomorrow and mine the week after. Work's keeping me busy and I have a couple of personal projects that I want to get back into. Often when I'm driving to work or school, I think of the days when I used to write longer 'blog entries. While I miss those days, I wouldn't trade wonderful days like today for anything in the world (except maybe a trip to India to see my family). It's good night for me and back to running tomorrow.

For the past three weeks, I have been running six miles or more almost daily and have lost about 12 lbs (5kgs). I'm training for the Grand Teton 100-mile Ultramarathon in September. This is a 100-mile (161 km) race through mountains, canyons, and forests in Wyoming and has to be completed within 36 hours. Regular marathons are 26.2 miles (42 km) and most people finish in 4-6 hours. Ultramarathons are races longer than marathons and most ultramarathoners run the 100 miles non-stop. At the pace I am training, this would mean running, jogging, and walking for over 24 hours non-stop. By no means is this a minor challenge for me, physically and mentally.

I am crazy not stupid so I understand that in order to even attempt to run 100 miles, proper training is a must. Training includes running, walking, proper eating, and lots of cross-training. Since I live in Florida at sea-level, my body will have to work much harder to persevere at the high altitudes. Additionally, the terrain here is mostly flat whereas the actual trail requires runners to go up and down thousands of feet every few miles. This means lots of StairMaster training at the gym. Personally I am not interested in going to a gym and would much rather run outdoors but the lack of steep hills in Florida means I have to train my quads indoors.

Running an ultra is different from running a 10K or even a marathon. After all, a 100-mile ultra is like four back-to-back marathons. When training for a regular marathon, speed and timing matters. In an ultra, the pace and endurance matter the most. The saying goes, "to run an ultramarathon, start slow and then slow down." I can't run fast but I can run slow forever, which is why I have been very excited for the past few weeks. Ultramarathon seems to fit my style of running a lot better than regular marathons.

When training for ultras, long runs make or break your race. The only way my body can run 100 miles in 36 hours is if it is used to running 50 miles in 16-17 hours or 25 miles in 6-7 hours. This means, before I run for 100 miles, I have to try running 30-50 mile distances on weekends, on top of running 5-10 miles per weekday. If I just run four miles a day, no matter how fast, I won't be able to run the ultra because my body will not learn how to adjust to 6-12 hours of continuous running. The key is to make your body feel as comfortable as possible when running or jogging. A big part of my training is to learn to eat, drink, and relax while running slowly but steadily.

Work, school, and life at home keeps me busy enough and now I am planning to run 70-100 miles a week for the next four months. This will seriously reduce the time I spend goofing off online. However, it will give me a lot of time to listen to good music and audio books, especially on Saturdays when I go for my long runs. Maybe I can blog while running.

Juliet and I went to Boyd Hill Nature Preserve in south St. Petersburg today. It was a gorgeous Florida winter day and here are some photos of our hike. Earlier in the day, we both donated blood. Both of our blood type is A+ and it's usually in high demand. After our nature hike, we went to Home Depot and got some stuff to build a covered enclosure for our tortoise Herbert in the backyard. It took under an hour to build it all and I'll post pictures of that tomorrow. We're going out with Sandra tonight to an art show downtown in a few minutes.

It's been about a week since we returned from our 2,900 mile-long road-trip from Florida to New York via Atlanta, Virginia, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. I don't have all the pictures of the trip yet but here are some of the photos from my camera. Everyone we spent time with took photos with their own cams so it will take some time for me to collect them all.

After hitting New Jersey, we went to New York to see the family of my maternal uncle Kaushik Mama. I hadn't seen them for over four years and it was wonderful talking to Priyanka and Jenesha about our pets and my kayaking trips. We stopped by Arthur's house for the night on the way back from New York and saw my friends Tim and Michele the next morning. Right after that we left for Florida and I drove non-stop for twenty-seven hours with only three hours of stops in between. Surprisingly, I was not much tired after the drive and wouldn't mind doing long road-trips like this again.

We listened to a bunch of audio books during the long drives and I think that is what really kept me awake. Listening to music, no matter how loud and upbeat, makes me lose focus after a while even if I try to sing-along. Listening to interesting stories on audio books kept me awake and eager to hear the next sentence, paragraph, and chapter. Before I knew it, I had driven 400 miles across three states. Overall, this was a wonderful trip and I hope to have tons more all across the US with Juliet in the future.

Our classes will resume in a week or two. We have a few more days to relax before things get chaotic and stressful. Neither of us has a spring or summer break so that means we'll pretty much be studying non-stop from January to December with at most a 2-3 day break in between. The only rest we'll have is one evening here and another Saturday morning there when we can spend some time away from studies and with each other. Hopefully sxsw 2009 will be a fun get away for us. We're going out tonight to hang out with a few people and then I'm working on some of my projects tomorrow. And so begins 2009.

Juliet and I are in my aunt's house in North Brunswick, NJ right now. We left Florida on Friday December 19th at 10am and went to see her grandma in Deltona, FL. After that we drove to Atlanta, GA to see my friend Heather and her boyfriend Sean. We saw the famed Bodies exhibition and another very unique but eye-opening exhibition, Dialog in the Dark. I highly recommend both of these, especially the latter. We drove to Alexandria, VA from Atlanta to see my cousin Purvi and her husband Allen. We went to the Botanical Gardens in Washington DC and had some surprisingly wonderful Ethiopian food. We drove next to Philadelphia, PA and chilled with my friend Megan and her husband Chris for a few hours. It was pretty good to see her again after over two years. Finally we drove to North Brunswick, NJ and got to my aunt's house on 11pm on Sunday, December 21st almost perfectly as planned.

Earlier today we went to a local shopping center for a few hours and then went to a pub in New Brunswick, close to Rutgers University. There we had a few drinks with my friends Tamara, Syed, and Arthur. It was great seeing them after a long time and finally we topped off the evening with some truly greasy food from the infamous Grease Trucks on College Avenue.

Of course, the best part of the last few days is just seeing and talking to all of my friends and family whom I don't get to see on a regular basis though we do keep in touch online or over the phone. I'd say the best thing in life is spending time with loved ones and there's no better way to do it than drive 1,500 miles across the country and making it actually happen. By the way, it is 1,500 miles or 2,900 kilometers from the north Indian city of Srinagar to Kanyakumari, the southern tip of India. Next up on our list is New York City, Queens, Maryland, and whatever else may tickle our fancy. It is pretty exhausting but meeting everyone makes up for the tiredness. We still have another 1,500 miles to get back to Florida so we're going to need all of the energy we can get.

I've been quite busy past few months. My first semester in business school is over and Juliet's done with her exams for now too. This was the first weekend in over four months when we didn't have homework, papers, presentation, exams, or projects due. So we took some much needed time off and went to the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. This weekend Tay and I also launched a new website that we had been working on for two months, The Laugh Button. It's a simple website with non-stop stand-up comedy by hundreds of famous comedians like George Carlin, Bill Cosby, and Mitch Hedberg. You can try the Random Comedy page while you do other work.

Juliet and I are leaving for New Jersey at the end of this week. We're very excited! I will post more details of our travels once we get going.

I'm sitting outside in our Florida room next to Juliet, huddled in a blanket, studying on my laptop. I can see our three turtles, Loch, Ness, and Wolf swim around in the two aquariums along with the fishes and Giga keeps looking for ways to escape back into the house. The gliders Paxil and Rita are asleep and so is Herbert the tortoise. Jack, Tera, and Cookie are inside the house, probably asleep.

We went to Treasure Island beach yesterday for a stroll and had wonderful Thai food for lunch. We watched The Score last night. A two-hour movie is pretty much all the time we can spare to sit in front of a TV without starting to worry about projects, papers, and exams these days. She keeps glancing over to read what I'm typing and I keep hiding it from her. The sounds one hears in this room are soothing - the pitter-patter of the water in both the aquariums, chirping of morning birds perched on eaves and evergreen boughs, wind-chimes swaying in the winter breeze, and leaves rustling in the wind - it's quite a relaxing environment if you can tune out the infrequent automobile noises.

I have to write a six-page paper by noon and have more school assignments after that. I also have to work on a website with Tay whenever he hops online. Juliet has two exams this week. I got 97/100 in my Accounting exam last week. I cared tremendously about my grades back in undergraduate college but now I don't give much value to grades. The new things I am learning are valuable enough without me fretting over grades. It's back to reality for me now, i.e. the six-page paper that I have to write in a little over two hours.

A lot of people have been asking me what this whole "economy in crisis" situation really is. How can banks in the world's most prosperous countries run out of money? Is it because the houses were overvalued? Is it because the people aren't saving? Or is it because of a variety of reasons like health-costs, unemployment, inflation, gas prices, or political instability? On the surface, it would seem prudent to say that it is a deadly combination of all of the above that's causing the financial crisis. We hear statistics being quoted on the news constantly that inflation rose, unemployment rose, new-home sales fell, auto-sales fell, and stock prices crashed. As I see it, these are the effects of the financial crisis not the causes. The causes are far too murky and boring in details for the average person to identify and enumerate. Luckily for you, I have all the time in the world and I love talking in metaphors instead of confusing finance terms when explaining something, so here it goes.

We have to remember that at every level of business and economy, different people are looking at different pieces of information. What you and I hear in the news is what the media has decided is the information most relevant to us. So unemployment, foreclosures, inflation, and most importantly gas prices are the things we hear as the cause of the crisis. This is the same information that the industry leaders, lobbyists, and politicians use to tell us why the bailout was necessary. However, this is not the information they are all personally looking at. Warren Buffet has sailed steady through enough business cycles to not flinch at above-average foreclosures or rising oil prices. What he sees and bases his decisions on, is an entirely different zoo of numbers.

One of the most seemingly benign creatures that is and will considerably affect the economy of the entire world is "Credit Default Swap" (CDS). Economists and some smart people (pdf) have been warning against CDS for a while but nobody seemed to care. After all, what is CDS and why would it ever affect anyone not involved in big-business? Here's how I explained CDS to a friend. The names and figures are merely for illustration and not accurate.

A few years ago, Lehman Brothers bought certified poop for $10,000 dollars and asked American International Group (AIG) to insure them for up to $10,000 in case the poop starts to stink. AIG took $100/year in insurance premium and said "Sure! Why not? This $100/year premium sounds wonderful." Thereafter the executives at Lehman and AIG proceeded to pay themselves $50 because man, this is an awesome deal! Now you have to remember that the folks at AIG were a smart bunch and didn't really want to ever pay $10,000 to Lehman or the ten others like Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley that they had similar contracts with. So, they got Bank of America (BoA) to insure them for up to $100,000 for only $500/year in case they ever had to pay off anyone. Bank of America obviously said "Sure! Why not? This $500/year premium sounds wonderful. " Thereafter the executives at AIG and BoA proceeded to pay themselves $250 because man, this is an awesome deal! And just like AIG, BoA bundled up 10 of these $100,000 contracts and found themselves yet another insurer. Sometimes, they would even go back to AIG to get them to insure $1,000,000 for $1,000/year!

Now a few years later, Lehman's poop surprisingly starts to stink. So does the poop that Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley bought. AIG has to pay up now. So AIG goes to BoA for the money, which goes to Barclays which goes to a subsidiary of AIG and that's when AIG puts its hands up in the air and says "OMG! I have no money! Somebody help me!" Lehman and Merrill Lynch go belly up. All the companies start to freak out because everyone's certified poop starts to stink, they cannot resell the poop to anyone, and nobody can pay them for the stinky poop even though they had insurance in the form of CDS against it.

Now multiply all the above numbers by something like a billion and that's where we are at currently. The total amount of money currently outstanding in CDS is over $54 TRILLION. To give a slight perspective on that, the amount of money that the entire nation of US spends on buying everything from food to houses to electronics to airplanes to space telescopes to rebuilding Iraq is $13 trillion a year a.k.a. the US GDP. The entire world GDP is $54 trillion and the CDS is currently slightly more than that. And this CDS is outstanding against just a handful of financial companies around the world.

The top-level executives see this figure and realize that a pretty big chunk of $54 trillion worth of CDS would have to be paid if every piece of certified poop starts to stink. If that ever happens, every company even remotely involved in CDS will go belly up just like Lehman Brothers. So they get the daddy governments to fix this mess they have gotten themselves into. The bailout that Wall Street has now won is nothing more than a $2 can of air-freshener they hope will mask the stench for a little longer. While $850 billion is a huge number, it is still only 0.17% of the entire CDS. This means if even 1% of CDS has to be paid, the companies will bleed money. If you have 100 pieces of certified poop, guess what percent will eventually start to stink? The executives at all these companies know that answer and are justifiably worried.

Now I have to add a big disclaimer that not all companies were as mind-numbingly dimwitted as those that have already gone belly up or are on the verge of. Some were instead pretty smart and actually bought CDS against these companies so in case these companies went belly up, they actually got money! Then there were companies that bought CDS against dirty socks and used towels which may not stink as bad as poop but still aren't sweet-smelling roses from the fertile lands of Bulgaria. And obviously there were many companies that bought CDS against those sweet-smelling roses in the rare case that the smell went away. So in reality the $54 trillion CDS is a mix of the good, the bad, and the despicably smelly. While nobody really knows the exact breakdown of the good vs. bad CDS currently, it can be easily understood that the bad chunk must be large enough for the entire financial sector to lose sleep and shirts.

Failing CDSs are just one part of this financial train-wreck. The larger part is of course the certified poop, known in more respectable circles as Collateralized debt obligation (CDO) and Mortgage-backed security (MBS), often backing some arcane Structured investment vehicle (SIV). MBS is the part that involves housing market, mortgages, and foreclosures. CDO is what magnifies the problems of faulty MBS exponentially. And SIV is what banks did to enable them to continue lending beyond their legal limits. So when I said above that Lehman Brothers bought $10,000 of poop, what I really meant is that they bought share in a bundle of house mortgages for a lump-sum of $10,000 in the form of a CDO, a CDO of a CDO, or a SIV backed by a CDO of a CDO backed by MBS. Even to me all of this sounds like a bunch of random letters thrown in without making much sense.

When I bought my house in 2005, I borrowed about $150,000 from a local bank here in Florida. They checked my credit history and determined that I was financially responsible enough to pay my loan for the next 30 years. However, dealing with all my payments is a chore because sometimes I want to pay extra, sometimes I want to pay a little early, and sometimes I want them to give me a detail of why my insurance and taxes requirements were increased. The local bank really doesn't want to deal with me and tens of others like me so they bundled up my mortgage with those of others and called up Citibank. Citibank did not care much about the quality of the mortgages it was buying from my bank because the executives who arranged these deals got paid on the potential revenues from this deal without taking into consideration the risk involved. Now Citibank bought ten mortgages from my bank, ten from another, and ten from another. Soon enough, they had a hundred mortgages that they expected to make a lot of money from over the course of three to thirty years. Now being smart like all these financial wizards are, they decided to do something productive with this money. Enter the insidious SIV, the infamous MBS, and the inscrutable CDO.

Thanks to the few remaining decent banking regulations, Citibank cannot loan out a lot of money if it does not have enough deposits. When Citibank bought my mortgage, it basically loaned out money to me and since I don't have any deposit in Citibank, I reduced their ability to loan more people more money. So the Citibank wizards decided to create a separate company, say CitiSIV which bought all the mortgages from Citibank. CitiSIV being a brand new company had no money so it borrowed a ton of money from the open market at low interest rates to pay Citibank for the mortgages. The lenders in the open market gave money to CitiSIV because after all, it's Citibank and everybody knows they are AAA rated. CitiSIV borrows money at low market rates but collects higher interest from the home mortgage payments. So CitiSIV make money. Then Citibank charges CitiSIV for loan origination and transaction fees so the money ends up back with Citibank. Not surprisingly, all of this is perfectly legal.

Now Citibank has a lot of money and none of the loans on its files. This means it can loan out a lot of money now and start the SIV cycle all over again by creating CitiSIV2. And there is where certified poop comes in. Lehman Brothers gave $10,000 to CitiSIV so CitiSIV could buy mortgages from Citibank and pay interest to Lehman Brothers. These mortgages that CitiSIV bought are now certified poop because the homeowners can no longer pay the mortgage. Why can't they pay the mortgage? Because most people, unlike me, bought houses much bigger than what they could afford and at variable interest rates that have now sky-rocketed, making it impossible to justify home-ownership with respect to renting. So there are a lot more foreclosures now. The mortgages that CitiSIV holds are not going to be all paid back and are effectively worthless. Why did people buy homes they couldn't afford? Because the local mortgage banks let them and even preyed on them.

While I know a bit about complex financial transactions from my background in Economics, most people don't and shouldn't be expected to. School teachers, research scientists, and office workers may know everything about their own fields but not much about ARMs, LIBOR, or HELOC. Most people can be expected to be moderately smart about their finances but that doesn't mean they know everything. What these borrowers weren't informed three to five years ago is that adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) and interest-only mortgages are only for those who know exactly how to invest their money. Selling ARM to an office manager was like selling drag-racing car to a soccer mom - both can only end in disasters. This means, the local mortgage companies loaned money to people who couldn't afford it after a couple of years. Why? Because they made money on sales and not on long-term payments. Real-estate agents and mortgage brokers got hefty commissions every time a house was sold so why should they care if the person who bought the house couldn't afford it?

Here is the wonderful game of hot-potato that has resulted in the current crisis. The home-owner didn't risk much when they bought the house because they got to "own" a fancy house without any down payment and could now potentially borrow money against this house. The mortgage broker did not risk his money, the mortgage bank did. The bank did risk money but only for a short time because it bundled up a bunch of these mortgages and sold them to Citibank. Citibank didn't worry about the risk because it sold SIVs against the mortgages. The people who bought the SIVs, say Lehman Brothers, didn't worry about the risky SIVs because they had AIG write CDS against these risky purchases. AIG didn't have to worry because BoA has insured them against all of these risky CDSs. BoA has no worries because Barclays has them insured. Barclays has nothing to worry about because AIG has them covered. So in the end, we have more money involved than most minds can fathom, resting on transfer of risk from one entity to another, all of it relying on the promise of the music-teacher who makes $25,000 a year that starting 2009 when his mortgage readjusts, he can pay $2,000 in mortgage payments a month.

This is how screwed up things are. And apparently $850 billion can help make things better. The politicians claim that $850 billion will be used to buy the bad mortgages from companies like CitiSIV/Citibank, sit on them for a few years, and then once the financial crisis is over, sell them back to companies like Citibank for a profit to the taxpayers. You would have to be brain-dead to even for a second think that somehow the bad mortgages will become valuable in a few years once the crisis is over. The music-teacher is not going to make $115,000 in a few years and will not be able to afford $2,000 a month in mortgage anytime soon. The bad mortgages will remain bad and significant portions of them will not be bought back from the US Government at a cost to taxpayers.

The solution to all of this? Suck it up. Let bad companies go bankrupt. Let bad investors lose all their money. Let investment bankers, mortgage brokers, and insurance underwriters be fired. And unfortunately, let people lose the houses they cannot realistically afford. If the government wants to help, they should first help those in dire need.

There is no painless way to heal a gaping wound but to stitch it up and bear the pain once. The sad thing about good economic policy is that it takes a while to take lasting effects and it makes a lot of people miserable in the short-term. Bad economic policy tries to help a few people immediately while making everyone else miserable in the long-term. $850 billion is nothing compared to how much it will cost to try to "fix" this crisis by throwing money at it. A lot can be done to improve the situation by giving direct help to the homeowners and small business owners who actually need it. Not much will be done by giving money to the same exact banks that took foolish risks, lost money, and begged the government for handouts. The bailout will infuse the markets with additional cash, reduce the value of the dollar, and once again, encourage bad investments because no investment is risky if the government is willing to bail companies out with taxpayer money.

Just think about it. You pay taxes. The government is taking that money and giving it to the banks. Now the banks will lend you money to buy a car. You will pay interest on that money, a part of which is actually your own money that you paid in taxes. You will pay interest to use some of your own money! This isn't some exaggerated doomsday scenario. This is right now. The bailout bill has passed and next month when I want to go buy a car, I will pay interest to borrow some of my own money. Meanwhile, the CEOs of all these companies will continue to get stock options, unlimited perks, and golden parachutes. Who said life is fair?

I had a pretty busy weekend. On Friday, Juliet and I went to see Tropic Thunder (one word review: hilarious) and then went to Tampa to hang out with her school friends at a bar/nightclub. Early morning Saturday (that would be about 11am), we signed up for a joint bank account. I can't believe I procrastinated so long to get that done. That brings me to the main activity of my weekend, a new application I'm still working on called untodos that learns about your personality and helps you manage your todo list based on your quirks. If every person is unique and quirky, then why does every task planning software treat us all the same? untodos learns about your personality and tries to assist you in better managing your life todos. It won't replace Outlook and complex calendaring software for everyone but I know it will help me sort out the tons of things I have to do in life. It's not fully done yet but do let me know what you think of it so far. It's completely functional and usable, just doesn't have the "smart" features yet. You are welcome to check it out for yourself and sign up for a free account.

Amidst all the programming, we also watched Spiderman 3, played with the gliders, had lots of yummy foods, and just sat in the Florida room for hours watching the turtles, and talked about life in general. Our lives are exhausting but good. I just have to make sure I don't lose sight of the good things while chasing the important ones. Hopefully, untodos will help me with that.

We finally got our sugar gliders! Here are some pictures of little Paxil & Rita Lynn (both girls). Paxil is the younger one, very calm, loves to cuddle, and jumps into your shirt pockets. Rita Lynn (or Ritalin) is very hyper and jumps around like crazy, especially on your back. Juliet loves Paxil and Rita Lynn is my baby. What can I say... I like crazy girls! Here's a video of Rita Lynn climbing all over me:

Sugar Gliders are similar to flying squirrels in that they can glide from one tree branch to another and are native to Australia and other Oceanic countries. Personally, I am very much against keeping exotic pets because I believe all creatures should roam free in their natural habitats and putting them in cages is cruel. However, I also believe in rescuing animals that cannot survive on their own in the wild or ones that would be a threat to native species if let outside their natural habitats. A coworker of mine gave me Paxil and Rita Lynn because her sugar gliders bred and she couldn't take care of six little flying possums. Juliet and I love animals and we had some extra space in the Florida room to setup a nice cage. The gliders have a lifespan of about fifteen years and we hope to give them a nice caring home.

This brings the total number of creatures in our house to eleven. Starting from the oldest to youngest: me, Juliet, Cookie (Juliet's boy cat), Giga (my boy cat), Tera (my girl cat), Jack (Juliet's boy puppy), Herbert (Juliet's tortoise), Loch & Ness (Juliet's musk turtles), and Rita Lynn & Paxil (our sugar gliders).

It's an awesome feeling to put back your tools after a job well done. I spent yesterday afternoon doing tons of fixups and cleanups around the house. My kayak rack is ready and looks pretty stable. It should hold up well in heavy winds because each of the two wood posts is buried four feet underground. I cleaned the carport and the backyard patio. Later, Juliet and I moved her sofa from my computer room to the newly-empty Florida room where my kayaks used to be. We moved some of her boxes to the Florida room too.

The house looks much neater and we have a lot more space now. We still have a lot more things to do before we can sit back comfortably. She has to paint the kayak rack and I have to find a tarp to cover it. We need to arrange the stuff in Florida room and find a cage for our potential new pets. I also have to combine our cellphones, find a wireless HD media-player for the TV, and get back into programming.

Our Yellowstone Wedding/Honeymoon is almost over. We leave for Florida on July 31st and have only one day of sightseeing left. I know I will miss the gorgeous weather and amazing landscapes of Yellowstone. Here are some of my favorite Yellowstone scenery photos. If you missed it, here are the pics from the ceremony, the preparation for the wedding, and some shots of Juliet and I in our wedding attire at gorgeous settings all over Yellowstone.

Day before yesterday Juliet and I went to the court and got our marriage license. We have 60 days to get married somewhere in Florida though our planned date is around the last week of July. Immediately after getting the license, we celebrated by going to Florida Blood Services to donate blood. I donated my 8th pint of blood (making me a Gallon Donor) and signed both of us up for platelet donations in two weeks.

Her trip to UK to meet my parents was as good as it could have been. They loved her and she loved them :) Here are the pictures of Juliet in London with my parents. This is my favorite pic of my bride-to-be :)

I like breakups. I encourage resignations. I highly recommend divorces. I love it when a miserable situation comes to an end. If things are not going well, despite everything you try, there is no shame in saying goodbye amicably and moving on. Almost everyone I know hates all of the above and dreads the uncomfortable feeling of the final, awkward farewell. Be it your job, relationship, or academic career, if you are absolutely certain that things will not change for the better, I will always be the first person to tell you to quit. I will also tell you repeatedly not to burn bridges on your way out.

Quitting is not for losers. Quitting is for those who are pragmatic enough to realize that it is ridiculous to be in a situation where you have no control and have no way to improve your conditions. It is a show of strength to terminate successfully, not a sign of weakness. Quitting amicably is a sign of wisdom and prudence. Hurting the other person should not be the ultimate goal when culminating a sombre saga. Walking away unscathed so you can move on to bigger, better, happier things is what quitting is all about.

Nobody says give up at the first, second, or even the nineteenth hurdle you stumble upon. Everything worth doing takes a lot of work from all the persons involved. However, at some point, you will know that you have reached your limit. Staying in the situation any longer just means you are losing your chance to try something else. The opportunity cost of being stuck in a rut is incomprehensible until you realize that you consciously chose not to take some simple actions like picking up the phone or writing a short letter, and instead left yourself be subjected to continued stress, turmoil, and the gradual demise of hope.

Certainly, major changes in life take time, effort, and planning. Not everyone can deal with abrupt changes or easily let go of people and places they once loved dearly. But you have to get the ball rolling. I genuinely admire a person who gives her or his very best to make things work but is not afraid to walk away if the situation is verily hopeless. There are some things you can change with persistence and diligence, there are some you cannot. Staying in an abusive marriage is worse than the worst divorce. Working for a manager who contemptuously derides you despite your best efforts is worse than the worst resignations. "I Quit" is the most powerful two-word phrase you can utter when someone is ruthlessly abusing your selflessness.

What I am really saying is that all my friends should quit their jobs, break up with their significant others, sell their domiciles, and move to St. Petersburg, Florida so I have more people to kayak with on weekends :)

Last night at 11:30pm, I got home from a superb kayaking trip with 60 paddlers down in the Florida Everglades. I found out about the trip on the Green Wave forum and immediately decided I'm going. Friday evening after work, I got home, strapped my kayak on to my car, packed some food and clothes, and headed South. I never have to pack anything other than food and clothes because everything I could never need for camping and kayaking is already in my car at all times - US/Florida Atlas, tent, sleeping bag, pillow, beach chairs, beach umbrella (eh eh eh), kayak paddle, seat, straps, paper towels, and a plastic bucket for wet clothes and trash.

I passed Everglades City at about 11pm and found my camping site in a few minutes. I setup my tent and went to sleep. I could hear frogs croaking all night in the wilderness. I woke up at around 6:20am and drove over to the Everglades Park Range Station kayak ramp near the south tip of Everglades City and met a bunch of people putting in at the same time. We paddled about 6 miles to Indian Key out in the Gulf. We meandered to many a coves along the way, catching glimpses of porpoises, herons, and ospreys. Linzy, Lindsay, and I walked around the island and saw an amazing number of whelks, conchs, tulip shells, and dried corals. There was a big lunch grill but I don't like to eat much during long hauls. After lunch, we paddled for a few miles, found a small strip of sand on a mangrove island, and shored our kayaks. A quick dip in the water cooled us three down for the rest of the paddle. We got back to the put-in at about 3:30pm. I went back to my camping site, showered, checked out, and headed back to Triad's in Everglades City for dinner.

It was pretty neat talking to a bunch of young and old kayakers about their favorites places to paddle to. I sat across from a retired captain and his daughter Jen. Many of the older kayakers are into paddle-fishing and while that's something I don't do, it was still interesting to hear them talk passionately about it. I met a few guys that actually designed these kayaks and write articles for kayak magazines. The funny thing was that I've been to more places than many of the seasoned pros mainly because I like going to a new place every time. Oh and the old captain paid for my dinner and I didn't even know or got a chance to thank him! They left early so later when I asked for my check, the waitress said "oh you're paid for."

I drove home, threw the trash, hung out the wet clothes to dry, and went to bed. Today will be yet another lazy Sunday.

Laura and I went to some gorgeous places last couple of days. Yesterday afternoon we walked through the Florida Botanical Gardens and spent all of today on Sanibel & Captiva Islands - about four hours walking along the nature trails through J. N. Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge. Tomorrow we're going to Tay's parents' house for Thanksgiving Dinner. It's movie time now.

I kayaked a distance of 26.2 miles today on the Suwannee River at Manatee Springs. Add to that five hours of driving and not enough sleep and you'll see why I'm about to pass out. The "not enough sleep" bit was thanks to Tay and his gang for some random drunken swimming pool fun last night in Gainesville. I didn't want to drive over three hours to Manatee Springs early in the morning so I drove to Gainesville last night and stayed over at Tay's. The Springs are a little over an hour west of Gainesville. The source of the Suwannee River is the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia and it flows down into the Gulf of Mexico. "Instead of palm-fringed beaches, life here is defined by swamp forests, wetlands, and the clean freshwater of the 197 springs that flow into the Suwannee along its 245 miles journey to the Gulf of Mexico" - Florida Springs.

I still can't believe I kayaked the entire length of a marathon. Took me eight hours of paddling and I stopped in between for another 30 minutes. It was very windy during my up-river trip and that slowed me down considerably. On flat-water without wind, I was doing 4 mph easily on my kayak that is pretty wide and not really meant for speed. Here's a rough map of the river section that I paddled up and back.

My entire body hurts but I'm guessing it's the "good" kind of pain. I have no plans for tomorrow except chilling at home. It's bed time for me now.

Now this is what I call a kickass weekend. Friday after work, I drove up to Atlanta, Georgia (8-hour drive). After only four hours of sleep at Heather's friend Winston's place, nine of us drove up to Nantahala in North Carolina to go whitewater kayaking. I borrowed Winston's sit-inside kayak as mine is a sit-on-top. It was a four hour paddle from the top to the base of the trail and most of the course was Class II with number of Class III rapids. It was one of the most adventurous things I've ever done as was evident from my yells of excitement most of the way down. At the very end, I lost complete control after jumping off the five foot fall and flipped my kayak upside-down. Good thing I was wearing a body-suit, life-vest, helmet, and grip shoes so within seconds I was out of the water, safe and sound. It took four people to get my water-filled kayak out of the water though. All in all, good times.

We drove through some beautiful scenery on the way back to Atlanta from Nantahala. We were very close to the Blue Ridge Parkway, regarded as one of the most scenic routes in the world. I want to go all across the Blue Ridge some day. Back in Atlanta, we had some good food and crashed at Heather's friend Jacob's house for the night. Finally after a much needed good night's sleep, I woke up, and left for home around noon. I wasn't too interested in driving down the busy Interstate-75 so as soon as I entered Florida, I took an exit for a smaller country highway and drove home through smaller, prettier roads. On the way I passed Ichetucknee Springs, Suwannee River, Homosassa Springs, Crystal River, and Weeki Wachee Springs. I definitely want to paddle down Ichetucknee and Suwannee sometime soon.

I got home around 9pm, uploaded some of the pics from this weekend here: Nantahala Whitewater Kayaking. Heather, Catherine, and John took more pics and I'll add them to this gallery as I get them.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about my low-consumption lifestyle i.e. I rarely buy something unless I actually need it (food, shelter) or it actually improves the quality of my life (kayak, night out with friends). I feel vindicated that New York Times just published an article titled "In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich." It begins with the story of a couple living in the fabled Silicon Valley (where we went/won) and have a net worth of $3.5m yet feel they are not well off enough. Their house is worth $1.3m but just because they are surrounded by people much wealthier than them (it's California after all), they feel poor. And people ask me why I don't move to the Valley.

Here's my favorite quote from the article: "I ask myself all the time," Ms. Baranski confessed, "why I do this." They go on to explain "that she must stick with it if they are to continue to live the life they enjoy here." On the surface, it's so easy to diagnose the problem here as greed, keeping up with the neighbors, or just mere pride and ostentation. But these are not stupid people we're talking about. These are self-made entrepreneurs, hard-working middle and upper management types with a Masters degree and contacts in every industry. These are the smart kids of 70's and early 80's who left their little homes in the country and moved to California for a bright future. Therein lies the problem.

They're no longer chasing their own dreams. They're just trudging along the path they're told leads to the American Dream. The desire to make it big and having the drive to do whatever it takes, is indeed the prerequisite for living the American Dream. I have nothing but praise for creative individuals who'll take a big risk to make something wonderful. However, there's a difference between "try try till you succeed" and eking a miserable living till some day you luckily hit it big.

To me, these once-promising people are just the more hard-working version of the lottery addicts who buy a $10 ticket every single day hoping to hit that $65m jackpot. I guess when I see things this way, I don't feel so bad for them. It's hard to. They're 20-50-100x wealthier than me and yet they whine and worry about whether $5m will be enough money for them to retire. It will be enough if they decide to move to Cape Coral, Florida and buy a $1m house right on the beach with their own dock. It won't be enough if they find out that their neighbor's house is worth $2m. And it will never be enough if they think that another $5m on top of their $5m is what will make them truly secure financially.

Earlier this week Tay and I went to Silicon Valley, California to participate in Mashup Camp 4 (pics here). A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience.

We showed off Chime.TV (as a video mashup that combines top 10 video websites) and people loved it so much, we were voted the Best Mashup and won 1st prize (wearing my reddit t-shirt)! Here's ZDNet interviewing Taylor to show off our mashup entry (video here). Our kickass webhost for Chime.TV, SingleHop also interviewed us earlier this week. Highly recommend them for the great 24/7 dedicated support and an awesome performance/price ratio.

It was a great experience to visit Silicon Valley for my first time ever and meet so many brilliant people. I met some pretty smart folks from the development teams of AOL, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, YouTube, and more. My super-crazy-smart college buddy Tim dropped by too. I had a lot of fun hanging out with Tay's friends at eventful - Chris & Nate and also John & Liz.

I haven't been online much after we got back. Yesterday I went to Busch Gardens with my friend Heather and her roomie Bonnie. We saw a lot of cool birds and animals but it rained soooo hard that all rides were canceled. We ended up returning home early and just watched a couple of movies instead. Good thing about Busch Gardens is that Florida residents can come in multiple times for free once they buy an annual pass for just $5 more that of course I did.

It's my lazy Sunday afternoon now and I'm just relaxing and unwinding after a pretty exciting week. Time to sit back and just enjoy Chime.TV now.

For the last few days, I've been contemplating taking up a new hobby/sport. I love kayaking a lot and hope to continue paddling for the foreseeable future. However, I feel I've reached a plateau of my skills and excitement level. The only things I can do now to get that rush of adrenaline back is (1) paddle even longer distances or, (2) try whitewater kayaking. The problem with (1: long distance) is that, well, it takes a lot of time to get the OMG-THIS-IS-CRAZY rush. Anything under four hours has now become regular paddling so I'd have to be out in the water for 6-7-8 hours just to get the ecstasy that I once got from a two-hour paddle. And being in Florida (2: whitewater) is not possible on a regular basis as it would involve long out-of-state drives.

I have serious doubts over my physical abilities at extreme sports and am pretty sure I'll suck at whatever I decide to try. Add poor hand-eye coordination to having almost no balance, and you'll see why I'll not be training for the X-Sports anytime soon. Nevertheless, it is this realization that I am indeed at the bottom of the class in almost every sport or physical activity, that has forever pushed me to try new things. If I'm not afraid of being really, really bad, why not shamelessly give everything a try? Over the years, I've had 6-12 months of experience rowing, jetskiing, marathon running, and kayaking. I'm somewhere between the beginner and intermediate level in all of these and frankly, don't feel the necessity or the desire to become an expert. Otherwise I'd still be rowing and would have never experienced the thrill of kayaking for 7 hours.

Now I'm hoping to find something new and fun. I have an inkling of what I want to pick up but I'm still fidgeting over the specifics. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.

One of the things I love about a kayaking trip is the long drive to and from the water. I often pick a single real-life incident and slowly generalize the matter, as if back-tracking to its source. On my drive to the Oscar Scherer Park in Osprey, Florida to kayak earlier today, I wondered why a close friend of mine gets offended whenever I ask her how some plan will work out. It was irritating me because she loves to answer why something happened yet doesn't like it when I ask how something will function. It occurred to me that depending on your personality, you fit into one or maybe two of the following types:

• Why Personality: The Why people want to know the reason for every incident and everyone's action. These are the psychologists and philosophers. They love to delve deep into the root cause of events to determine whether there exist logical bases for the same. Generally smart and inquisitive by nature.
• How Personality: The How's are the engineers, the scientists, the mechanics of the world. They could care less WHY the Universe exists, all they want to know is how did the Big Bang happen? And how does white light break into the colors of rainbow when it passes through a prism. You may think that many of the scientific questions are Why's, like "Why does an apple fall down and not up?" instead of How's. However, for a scientist, "Why" doesn't really say anything unless you can describe "How." We know "Why" the apple falls down: Due to Gravity. But till date, we don't know "How" gravity works and hence this area of Physics still has ample room for discovery. The How's are just as smart as the Why's and much more practical in nature.
• What/Where/When Personality: These are the folks that are living it up. They don't care Why or How, and instead just want to know what's going on, where's it going on, and when do they show up with a 6-pack of beer. The world is full of them and it's a good thing - they live in the moment and get things done. Most of the people you know fit into this personality. Next time you hang out with them, don't try to talk philosophy or calculus. Just raise the glass and have a drink.
• Who Personality: Of all the people I despise, I'd say the one thing most of them have in common is that they are always looking to put the blame on someone else. Who ate my cake? Who stole my ideas? Who told you that you can use my computer? If you know someone that begins half of their questions with "Who," I'd advice you to stay away from them. "Who" knows how they'll get you in trouble some day.

I'm mostly "How" and a little bit of "Why." I become the "What/Where/When" type every now and then though I do my best to never become a "Who." I'm pretty certain my friend is "Why" and hence loves to explain "Why" something happened. However, she just doesn't understand that other people may want to know specifically "How" she intends to make her plans work. I think that now that I've realized this, it will be easier now for me to deal with persons of different types.

So which one are you?

Last week I received an email from journalist Aaron Rutkoff at The Wall Street Journal Online for a phone interview to discuss my US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud app. We had a good chat over the weekend and for a limited-time, you can read his article about my work at: Web Site Tracks a History Of Presidential Buzzwords. If the link doesn't work anymore (since WSJ is a subscription-site), let me know.

I'm quite pleased at how clearly and sincerely Aaron wrote about this project and my motivation for developing it. Having had a few "interesting" experiences with media folks in the past, I honestly have so much respect for the WSJ because of how friendly and genuinely interested in my work he was. I think I showed off a bit too much about my kayaking while we chatted, him being in the freezing New York City and me living in sunny Florida :)

It's way past my bed-time now but here's hoping the link stays up free for a few days so my family and friends can read it all, since it's not available in print.

Last two weeks have been pretty hectic for me. Lots of little and big things happening that have changed my life in ways beyond what I feel comfortable discussing openly. No matter how neurotic life has seemed lately, I keep catching myself saying "It's OK, we'll get there."

I don't realize it most of the times but often when I'm going through different phases in life, my inner voice keeps chanting little slogans that push me along. Right now, it is "We'll get there" and last year when I was sick for months on end, it was "No worries. We be good." When I was training for hours in the Florida sun for the marathon it was the mushy "What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger."

Chanting religious mantras isn't something I do in my everyday life and never really felt comfortable praying to a divine entity to help me through my personal issues. However, somehow I feel much better saying these little catchy slogans. Most of these are simple phrases that I probably said once to someone and then kept repeating over and over because they made me feel better and pushed me on. I could say that while these slogans don't fuel my inner-strength, they keep the engines well oiled and flowing smooth so when I need to muster up some courage, I'm always ready. After all, the journey may seem a little long-winded today but it's ok, we'll get there.

I just brought some chocolates and assorted candies to work. I like it when others bring donuts and bagels. The beautiful Florida winter is here. Soon it'll be the holiday season and even more fattening foods. I want to kayak down to Caladesi Island for a sunset again. Maybe camp out there for a night.

Oh another really fun project at work. So I couldn't be more excited!

I can't even begin to express how tired I am from the looooong day of kayaking today. I went down to Pine Island near Fort Myers and kayaked over 13 miles in EXTREMELY windy weather to Cape Haze. The waves started at two and three feet but after about four hours, they rose to nearly five feet! My kayak floats 8 inches above the water and my head stands barely three feet high when I'm paddling. I had to look UP two feet as the crazy waves crashed into me one after another. This wasn't a typical ocean kayaking trip - this was as close to whitewater kayaking as I can experience in Florida. I had to continuously negotiate the waves in order to stay afloat and not be drenched.

All in all, one of the best kayaking days ever. I don't think I can take this much physical stress regularly but once in a while, I'd love to be in waters this rough. Hopefully not for six-seven hours non-stop like today. Oh and here are the Pine Island - Cape Haze kayaking pictures.

It's finally getting cold here in Florida. I went to Myakka River on Saturday and here's my pics from a nice 4-hour morning paddle.

On Sunday I started an online web-comic: Calm Down! I'd always wanted to write my own comic strip but never felt talented or funny enough. I always thought it's really difficult and needs a lot of creativity and artistic effort to get started. Having been a fan of xkcd for a few months now, I figured if he can do it, so can I! Though in reality, I just wanted to do something for myself. It doesn't really matter to me if most people don't find my stuff funny or give a damn about it. For me it's just a learning process. Maybe if I keep at it, it might actually become funnier and poignant.

The Calm Down! comic strip has a male and female character and the layout/format is pretty much fixed, with only the title and captions for the three frames changing. I drew the initial stick-figure characters and later my friend Tony drew me two very cute characters. The language is quite informal and the subject matter is just about anything that pops into my head - from stupid boy-girl jokes to linguistic paradoxes. I think the comic's audience is pretty limited and definitely doesn't have a mass family-values-type appeal. Even some of my good friends don't find it funny so I'm aware of it's niche appeal.

I'd say the male is bookish-smart yet childish while the female is matured, rational, and grounded in reality. I will probably write a new strip every other day and as time goes by, I hope to develop the characters into ones you could relate to and somewhat take a liking to. It will be a slow but hopefully fun journey.

Monday night, I went to The Castle in Ybor City, Tampa to chill with Sandra. I wasn't prepared to dance and neither was I dressed in the night-club-black, but she coaxed me into dancing for almost three hours! I got home, went to bed, worked all day, and here I am finally turning on the heater in my house.

I'm in Savannah, Georgia right now visiting my friend Vu. It was a long drive and on the way I stopped by Gainesville, Florida for some good dinner with Taylor & Kaela. I'm here in Georgia till tomorrow and then driving back home. Tay just left his on-campus job for a better web designing job and Vu just bought a new house here. It's kinda cool seeing your friends grow out of college and get on with the next phases of their life.

Just got back from an hour of kayaking at Lake Seminole, about a three minute drive from my house. I figure I could go to places around my house 2-3 times a week for quick workouts and check out the pretty places across Florida 2-3 times a month for my little nature adventure trips. One hour of stringent paddling every other day will improve my technique. Longer trips I take across the state will help boost my stamina and let me take pretty pictures.

Now, I cook something up and relax. Not going anywhere tomorrow or day after. This is my stay-at-home-and-do-chores weekend. Lots of little things to do - laundry, lawn mowing, cleaning etc.

In other news, I got a replacement cellphone and everything is working again. I lost only a handful of contact numbers and it's not really a big deal.

I went to Wekiwa River today for what was supposed to be a relaxing kayaking trip after my intense 10mile one last week. Long story short, I ended up kayaking over 11 miles today and the trail was not easy at all, mostly due to the tons of trees that blocked the path downstream. In numerous instances, I had to get out of the kayak, climp atop a log, carry/pull the kayak over the log, then get back in without overturning the kayak. Not a walk in the park by any means. Divine, nevertheless.

Wekiwa was definitely the wildest trail I've been to so far, I guess mostly because nature had truly taken over most of the trail. Unless the path is cleared, I don't think I want to go there again. It's just not much fun trying to cross over dead trees. I got a few minor cuts & bruises too. But I finally got someone to take a picture of me in my kayak :)

For today's adventure, I woke up at 4.45am, left home by 5.45am, got into the water at King's Landing (in Kelly's Park, Apopka, Florida) by 8.15am, got out at 2.15pm after 11 miles, and reached home around 6.45pm. So about six hours of driving and six hours of kayaking - I got more exercise today than the day I ran my marathon. That makes for a very tired Chirag. If I go out next week, I really want it to be relaxing and not as physically intensive.

Here's the pics from my kayak trip today to Silver River - Silver Springs in Ocala, Florida. I woke up this morning at 5am, left house by 6.10am, got to the kayak launch around 8.10am, kayaked 10 miles from 8.30am - 1.30pm, drove back to my town by 3.45pm, bought some groceries, went to Home Depot to buy grass seeds, got home around 5.15pm, cleaned & rinsed my carport, washed my kayak, washed my car, cleaned my backporch, showered at around 7.45pm, folded my laundry, uploaded and captioned the pics from today's trip, had dinner, and here I am posting this 'blog entry. I can't even begin to explain how tired I am right now. I have so much to say about today, but no energy. In short, this was the most beautiful nature trip I've ever taken. Hopefully more details tomorrow when I regain some strength.

I have come to the sad realization that I apparently have the worst choice in everything. Every single thing. Ever. If I like it, then it sucks. It can be anything - music, movies, actors, actresses, sports, books, or food. If I so much as mention it to my friends that "Hey! This 'x' is good..." it is met with the juggernaut punch of "Ewwwwww! 'X' SUCKS!"

The list of things that I like and for some reason the people I know don't, is pretty damn long. From Jon Stewart and Johnny Depp to Scarlett Johansson and Uma Thurman, from Annie Hall and 007 series to Zoolander and Sin City, from Aerosmith and Cake to Queen and Coldplay. It does not matter whether Annie Hall is Woody Allen's greatest cinematic achievement till date, the very fact that I casually mentioned it a friend online, means it stinks. Who cares if Sin City is quite possibly the best rendition of a comic to a movie that still maintains the comic-book aura, the mere fact that Chirag Mehta in Florida, USA uttered the phrase "Wow! Sin City is superb!" means people have to absolutely bring it down.

The statistical odds of me unknowingly liking everything that is critically "bad" are very very low. If indeed I can like the suckiest of the sucky out there, I can make a lot of money by immediately betting on my dislikes. No. I don't think I have a case of bad taste in all there is to be. The problem is you. Yes, you. You pretend to hate every single thing that's popular because it's so much easier to say "'X' is an over-rated hack' and "'X' is too long and boring." It's ok though. Not your fault completely. Here's what really happened.

As a society, we've been trained well to listen to the view of the elite few and shape our views and likings according to theirs. So when Roger Ebert praises a film, we walk in expecting it to be good. Nothing wrong so far. His film reviews are unbiased and quite accurate and his words are in fact worth their weight in gold. The problem is not whether Ebert does and does not like something. The problem is our innate desire to be elite. After all, our society has been structured to respect and revere the elite.

It so happens unfortunately, our peers identify us by the choices we make, not why we make them. Consequently, if we want our fellow beings to respect us and be in awe of our choices, it is paramount that we pick everything that a commoner wouldn't. It is cool to be different. Corollary, it is uncool to choose like a plebeian. Instead of doing what the elite do to become an elite ourselves, we start liking things that we think the real elites like. We form a mirage of what the elites might like and start liking those things. You know, that raw-sounding underground band that only you know of? Oh and that foreign film with blue blood instead of red?

Now that you have wedged yourself between the layers of unique-taste and appreciating-the-underrated, it's time to start defending your high and mighty position. A friend mentions Sin City is great and you have to mention that Frank Miller doesn't know how to bring life to his characters, "They're so two-dimensional." Well no sheetrock Sherlock, it's a comic on paper! While I understand that everyone has the right to critique everything that they know nothing about, that doesn't mean you start hating anything that doesn't meet your precise definition of what might be good.

Having read a million online profiles and met tons of people, I've come to the conclusion that while everyone is different and has different tastes, once they fit in with a certain clique or stereotype, they choose pretty much just like everyone else in the group. In their view, the stereotype they're trying to fit into is the coolest, the most elite. So they have to like what other people with that stereotype like. Even the people that do not want to fit into a stereotype have similar choices. Odds are, if you like Fight Club, you also like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. If you like Futurama, you also like Amelie. Odds, not certainly. Odds are fairly good that if you hate They Might Be Giants, you also hate Monty Python.

I don't need to hear your excuse for hating anything. I doubt Monty Python will get any funnier because you have a different idea of how they should have acted out their skits. Truth is, most people hate things because it is cool to hate them. And what's cooler to hate than the popular? If it's popular, it means the commoners like it. If the stupid common people like it, you certainly don't want anything to do with it.

Try mentioning to anyone with even a slight pride, that you listen to the Billboard Top 40 songs and they'll frown upon you. "Ewww! How can you listen to that crap?! I only listen to the classic Beatles songs." Guess what? Beatles topped all those Top charts. You may or may not have better taste than me, but you certainly are trying hard to pretend like you do.

I doubt that I'm ever going to get people to appreciate the genius of Peter Sellers or the wonders of Tom Waits, so I'm going to do the only thing I can to avenge the insults I bore. From now on, everything anyone says is good, I'm gonna hate it. For absolutely no reason other than the fact that YOU like it. Once I've made it clear I hate it, I'll make up intelligent-sounding bourgeoisie-denigrating reasons to prove my point. You may now walk away in awe of me and leave me plum full of my elitist self.

It's good to be a beach bum. I wallowed in the ocean for over an hour today, warm water, gentle breeze, and good company. Chilled with my friend Gem who drove up from Manatee County. We laid out in the sun (technically in the shade under my beach umbrella) for a while, drinking soda, and talking about different things. I love talking to people that actually have something to say beyond what People and Cosmo tell them to. Gem moved to Florida from New Orleans last year after Hurricane Katrina. While I talked about Katrina as a national disaster last year, I never thought I'd actually meet someone directly affected by it.

It was human nature and common sense for me to think that every single person who went through Katrina would be deeply affected by it. It was, however, a big mistake on my part to automatically assume that every single person affected, would be devastated by it. She moved here while every single person she knew scattered all over the country. It's hard enough losing a friend or two, so one would think that a change this big would destroy a person's sanity. I don't recall her exact words but she said something along the lines of "Change is not a big deal when everything changes."

In a twisted way, that is so true. If you have a strict routine and even a minor step changes, you get disturbed and have to undo the change or try hard to adapt to it. Yet when the routine no longer exists or changes to drastically you cannot change it, you have to create a new routine or evolve to embrace the new. In a way, my move from India to New Jersey and then from NJ to Florida is kinda like that. Things changed so drastically I barely had time to realize how much impact the new surroundings were having on me.

Well, for dinner, we had some Pad Thai at Thai AM-2 restaurant on the beach, though I missed the taste of Siam Garden in downtown St. Pete. I can't wait to go there again sometime. Just relaxing now watching Comedy Central with Giga passed out on my lap.

Just got back from my friend Megan's wedding in Pennsylvania! CONGRATS MEGS AND CHRIS!!!!! Such an eventful and packed weekend that I am still not over the excitement. First of all, this was my first time ever seeing Megan in person and yet we felt like we'd been friends forever. Well, technically we have; known her online via Fark.com for over five years now. Chris turned out to be even cooler and much more fun than I thought. I mean I didn't know much about him to expect anything. I kept thinking he reminded me very strongly of someone famous and then it hit me... Abhishek Bachchan - famous Indian actor. I mean it's weird to be reminded of movie stars when you meet real people but the resemblance, especially the walk and body language, was uncanny. Megan was definitely the life of the entire party... laughing and dancing every other minute.

The party for me started at the Tampa Airport on Friday afternoon. Having gone to work early on Friday and leaving early, I was already tired by the time I passed through the dreadded airport security. I sit down at this Mexican food place and ask the waiter for the biggest margarita and the biggest bowl of nachos they have. Next thing I know I'm in Philadelphia. I freshened up at my hotel (which did NOT look as polished as the picture makes it out to be) and decided to take a walk around Center City, Philadelphia. I took a few pictures and just kept noticing the little unique identity marks of the city. I noticed rows of houses sharing common walls, kinda like San Fran, but with buckets of flowers hanging from the front windows.

At 9:30pm, I finally got to meet Megan! First time I see her in person and she's looking gorgeous in a bridal dress. It's kinda cooler than meeting someone at Walmart. Also met her friend Wade & Lisa, and of course, the groom Chris. We had wine and vodka, talked for a few hours, and parted ways. Next morning, i.e. Saturday, I had some continental breakfast, Meg/Chris picked me up, and we drove to Chris' Aunt Kathy's house in the middle of the beautiful rolling hills of Pennsylvania Country. Quite possibly one of the most beautiful landscaping I've ever seen in my life with waterfall, and all sorts of trees and plants, which of course is easily explained by the fact that Chris' uncle, Tom, runs a landscaping business. Oh and their neighbors had ostriches. Yes, OSTRICHES!

I met their families as they slowly arrived and we started setting up the tables under the big (30ft x 60ft) tent in the backyard. Good thing everything was pretty much setup by the time we got there and all we had to do was put up the lights and set up the bar. Gee, I wonder who took it upon himself to make sure the bar was setup right :-P Around 4pm, the guests started pouring in. The most relaxing aspect of this party was the attire - casual - jeans 'n shirt! It was more like a big bar-b-que party than some formal wedding occasion. As the sun set, it started getting cold, and Tom got his son Luke to build a HUGE campfire. I think the fire lasted from 8pm to 3am! And I made sure it kept me warm - I mean I've so gotten used to the warm Florida weather now...

As the evening progressed, most of the older guests left, leaving us kids behind. The music was on, the fire was warm, and the drinksa' floweth. I made my special California Sunset mixed drink for Chris and got two more orders for it. As I tell everyone, I'm a computer guy by mind but a bartender by heart. Around midnight, we setup our tents under the big tent - to keep us warm and protected from the harsh winds. Oh yeah, I took a tent on the plane! It was hilarious because the airport people kept looking at me funny when they saw I'm getting on a plane so I can camp out.

Sunday morning was the familiar post-party lazy-wake up chore. Got up, folded my tent, and showed all my mad sleeping-bag folding trickzzz to Megan & Chris. We had some pancakes for breakfast, packed up our stuff, said good-bye to the twenty new people I met, and drove to Chris' grandfather's house. And that is where I think I saw the most memorable country-side - in the little town of Embreeville Mill near the historic Brandywine River. I don't know much about American history but from what I learnt, every other house in this area was built sometime in 1700's and Chris' ancestors owned acres and acres of land. They were one of the first few canners in the country - canned the mushrooms that rural Pennsylvania is so famous for. It kinda reminds me of my ancestors in India because my grandparents and their parents grew up in the same family house in the village that their parents did. It doesn't matter where in the world you were three hundred years ago, life wasn't too different.

As I walked around Chris' grandpa's house, I noticed the exterior walls were TWO FEET THICK! Chris' dad (harbor-master of Longboat Key Marina in Sarasota, FL and the only other Floridian) said it took four years to actually build this house sometime in 1770's. The construction was rock-solid and the design was rustic yet timeless. The cold-as-ice wine-cellar was probably my favorite part of the house. We saw wild goats right outside their front-door and I was told by everyone to NEVER mess with a male goat - as if that was on my list of 50-things I wanna do or something :)

One of the guests at the wedding was Richard Chalfont, a famous painter. I talked to him at the party and later learnt his gift to the newly-wed couple was a beautiful painting of houses previously owned by Chris' family. Pretty amazing stuff.

After about an hour or so, we left to drop me off at a nearby train-station so I could get to the airport on time. Neat thing how the Philly airport is so well-connected to the local trains. Didn't have a problem at all. But man... the good-bye to Meg & Chris was sad... I told them normally this is the moment I say "alright guys, see you next weekend..." or "give me a call if you wanna hang out sometime..." but I doubt that's possible. It's amazing how close I felt to them as friends, even though it was my first time seeing both of them. Anyways, my train arrived on time, I got to the airport on time, and landed at Tampa after two flights, almost on time. I won't say the return trip was uneventful because there were far too many annoying people, unbearable noises, and frustrating incidents for it to be uneventful. However, I'm home now, safe and sound, and more excited than ever to get back to work tomorrow after my mini-weekend-get-away-to-Philly.

I had a kickass time with Taylor this weekend. We went to eat at random places, went to bars, played pool, went to Univ. of Florida campus, chilled all Saturday at a coffee place playing Scrabble, watched Greg the Bunny episodes for hours, drove around the city of Gainesville stopping at junk yards and antique places, and also did some brainstorming about computers and technology. The drive to Gainesville from St. Pete and back was gorgeous too. The weather's beautiful, and I-75 is actually nice for an Interstate Highway. Takes only about two hours each way.

When I got home, Tera jumped into my lap and rubbed her head all over my face and neck. Then Giga walked over from my livin room, put his head on my foot, and started purring. All in all a great weekend. And next weekend's gonna be amazingly fun too - going to visit my soon-to-be-married-friend Megan in Philly! Can't wait!

So far this year, I've been to India (for my sister's wedding), Houston - Texas, Plant City - Florida Strawberry Festival, kayaking in Fort De Soto, camping in Lake Okeechobee, and now Gainesville. On my plate for the upcoming months is Philadelphia - Pennsylvania, Raleigh - North Carolina, Savannah - Georgia, Chattanooga - Tennessee, and Seattle - Washington. Let's see which ones I get to actually visit.

I also want to drive down to beaches in South Florida. Only problem is that I don't know anyone down there. I guess it's time I made some new friends :)

Today is a special evening for me. For the first time in my life, I've cooked a meal that I can't stop eating. I made some veggie biryani using my own recipe and it turned out so good I'm jealous of my own cooking skills. I got chick peas, green beans, green peas, jalapenos, mushrooms, corn, tomatoes, onion, and garlic mixed in rice with lots of different spices, from cinnamon to Indian masalas. I'm glad I made enough to last me for two more days :)

Anyways, so OMG! Tuesday night kayaking camping trip was AWESOME!!! I don't remember ever having THAT much fun within such a short amount of time. I left from work at around 4:30pm on Tuesday and drove down to Univ. of South Florida in downtown St. Pete. Including me, there were 11 people (6 guys/ 5 girls) and the only one I knew was Mike. The folks at USF Marina already had the kayaks and camping gear loaded on to Mike's truck. Night before, I had my car packed for the camping - two sleeping bags, extra pair of clothes, lots of supplies, Pop Tarts, and Robitussin 151 ;-) We drove down to this point right above Fort De Soto, parked our vehicles, and unloaded the kayaks. We loaded the kayaks with camping stuff and pushed the kayaks into the ocean around sunset. And that was just the beginning of the good times.

It got dark in a matter of minutes and behind us we saw the full moon rising up in the sky, almost yellow like turmeric. The water was pretty shallow and pretty calm. Imagine being in the middle of nowhere, pitch dark, save for the glow of the moon, leaving behind a trail of wispy moonbeams in your wake, as you gently paddle towards invisible shores. And then getting stuck in a sandbar! OUCH! Pretty much all of us hit the sandbars about 1.5 miles into the ocean. We got out of our kayaks and dragged them for well over a hundred yards till the water was 18 inches deep again. If you want to feel the pain, try dragging your sofa from one corner of the room to the other. Now do it a hundred times over, in darkness, in the middle of the ocean, with seaweeds wrapping around your legs, uphill, both ways. Yeah.

So we finally got to the island and man was I tired. Two miles is a far enough distance to row in itself, let alone on a weeknight when you worked all day, had almost no sleep the night before due to the excitement from the anticipation of the trip, and had no clue where you were going. Once on the shore, we unpacked, set up the tents, and Mike lit a bonfire :) Pretty soon there were smores, burnt Pop Tarts, and lots of spirits going around. I tell you, ten shots of 151 can really hit you like a rock. I've forgotten more crazy things I've done after inebriating myself than most people can even remember doing. Next up, were dirty camp-fire games. Let's say I was cow, some girl was TT, Mike was ex, some other girl was [censored], this cool guy Chris was sloppy, and more [censored] [censored] [censored]. A few more games later we sat around the fire just talking and doing stupid stuff. I think I kinda remember pushing Mike and some girl (?) into the ocean and thereby drenching myself completely (no wonder I woke up next morning missing my t-shirt.) I sat by the fire discussing random stuff with Chris and a few others then went into my tent, which I had to share with some cute girl whose name I can't remember and who kept kicking me allllll night.

Well not all night because I'd only been asleep for four hours when I heard the bastardly spawns of Satan circling over our tents. Apparently the birds on the beach love food and will shriek noisily till they scavenge off every last little morsel of leftovers strewed about on the beach by drunk kids the night before. Basically, I couldn't sleep anymore because they were too loud and it got too bright too soon. Oh yeah, the best part - a cold front moved in from the ocean at around 1am, so it got really cold really fast - cold and windy. Joy joy. We remained huddled in our tents till about 7am when I finally got out and started hunting for all my stuff missing from the night before - like my t-shirt and garden shovel (which by the way was very helpful for fishing out food from the fire, thank you very much Ms. Teresa.)

We packed the tents, loaded the kayaks up and sailed into the ocean, only this time, against winds gusting at over 30mph. The only thing on our side was light, so we could actually see where we were going. What took a mere 45mins the night before, took well over an hour because the wind kept turning around the kayaks as we (or at least I) paddled into it. One neat thing that Mike screamed at me from over in his kayak was that if I rode directly in the direction of the wind, it would turn my kayak around less. Makes sense too. Except I had to keep paddling 3x as more with my right hand; me being unsymmetrically lefty strength-wise. I got the workout I'd been needing for the past year and a half.

I had trouble believeing it but we actually made it to the shore, though a quarter of a mile away from where we parked our cars, as I didn't have the time nor the energy to kayak further. Mike and I went to get our cars, leaving Chris and Natalia in-charge of the kayaks with all our stuff on it. And like stupid boys usually do stupid things, Mike and I decided to sprint the last hundred or so yards up to the car, on wild grass, barefoot. It was only later in the day that we both independently noticed the damage done to our soles. Anyways, loading the kayaks up was another chore and we had to drive down to Fort De Soto to pick up camping stuff from another guy with us who kayaked to a different beach. Finally, Teresa, Zach, and I were on the way back to civilization!

I dropped them off at USF, cleaned up and changed there, spotted Mike on the road, and drove up to my work. Yeah, what did you think? I was gonna take a day off? Hell no! Real men do ALL of the above after eight straight hours of work and then get back to another eight straight hours of finger-breaking manual labor of pushing buttons, on an empty stomach no less. Oddly enough, since I wasn't tired mentally despite being dead physically, I actually managed to complete the final section of a new system I was building at work. I had been toiling away at this one piece of programming puzzle for well over three and a half days because no matter what I tried, I couldn't come up with a simple and easy way to show what I wanted. Turns out ten-shots of 151 later, I think like Buddha.

In the book of my life, this trip is definitely under the "Painfully Fun" chapter. I lost 2lbs in one night and feel so much more back in shape. My muscles hurt, my upper-body feels raw, and I've never felt this optimistic about finally acquiring some chiseled abs. Oh yeah, that was my New Year's resolution - gotta get me some abs! I do good things when I drink. That night I was sitting in some shady parking lot downtown with Tay, Kaela, and friends, gulping Champagne from a plastic cup. We asked each other what our NY resolutions were. Everyone said something deep and meaningful like "I want to see the world" or "I want to be more spontaneous," whereas I said "Abs! I want abs. This year, before December 31. I need some of those abs everyone's showing off." Everyone laughed and said "Ha! Good goal. Best of luck."

I've lost 11lbs since then, mostly from my spare-tire. My goal is to lose the tire entirely by end of June. Then come six months of freestyle exercises of all sorts - my revolutionary workout system: SH Ovelling, ab workouts, kayaking, and probably swimming. As long as I can spend 5-6 hours a week outside, I think I'll be good. Oh I know, too many plans, not enough time and energy.

I have a lot of time though, mostly past sundown. Those I spend relaxing around the house, torturing my evil kids, cooking up yummy biryani dishes. And with that I conclude this unnecessarily lengthy prattle of nothingness that pours heaps of salty drivel atop the sweet Chocolate Souffle of scintillating knowledge that is the Internet.

Happy B'day Vishal! I'm pretty sure I called him last night all wasted and don't remember much other than the shouting and Lanie saying something too... Hmm. So, this weekend's been great so far. Friday night Liz, Dave, Vance, and Rodrick came over. We watched Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and just chilled. Early Saturday morning, Liz and I went to Perkins for some good ol' hearty American breakfast. We picked up Vance from the Super WalMart parking lot and drove up to Plant City for the Florida Strawberry Festival. It's basically a big fair with rides, games, food, and music.

Instead of $9 entrance fees, we all donated blood and got in for free. I donate blood normally anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. I'm just one more donation away from becoming a Gallon Donor! That's 3.78 liters! Now once inside the fair, we started going on different rides. After getting on what was quite possibly the scariest ride of my life, I ended up drinking a LOT of root beer and got a mad sugar rush. I got home around 3pm and passed out till about 7pm.

Mike called me around 8pm and said he's coming over. He brought over his computer so I could install a bigger hard drive on it. Meanwhile Lanie called and we told her to get some food on her way to my house. An hour later, we were baking veggie pizza and making iced-drinks in my kitchen. While consuming lots of yummy drinks, we watched what's quite possibly the most messed up math movie ever, Pi - story of a paranoid mathematician who sees patterns in the world, is chased by stockbrokers and religious leaders, and ends up resorting to Trepanation by drilling a hole in his head. Yeah.

I woke up early this morning and Mike & Lanie left a little while ago. I just mentioned to my friend that after donating blood, getting into crazy rides, imbibing lots of sugar, followed by copious amounts of liquor, "I think there's some blood in my alcohol stream." Good times. Now, I rest for a little while before I hope to go Kayaking with Mike & Lanie.

My backyard projects have begun. Tonight I got rid of a very nasty bush with lotsa weeds growing within it. I got one Brazilian Pepper Tree in the far corner and it's pretty wild too. While it grows beautifully in South America, it is pretty much an invasive species in Florida and rarely welcome. Once I've got rid of all the weed and unwanted bushes from my backyard, I'm going to get on with my big plan.

Here's my 5-step process for the next two months: (1) Clear (2) Level (3) Seed (4) Garden (5) Landscape. As mentioned above, first I have to clear the yard from all the wild growth. Then I gotta buy truckloads of junk dirt, fill dirt, topsoil, and potting soil - four different types of soil for different areas of the yard. Once I spread the dirt everywhere it's needed, it's time to seed the lawn with new grass seeds. Still not sure what type of grass I want and am open to trying something interesting. While the grass is growing, I will plant a vegetable garden around the edges of my backyard. This will give my property a nice boundary, reduce the size of lawn I have to mow, provide fresh vegetables for me to eat, and of course, a cheap way for me to have a useful healthy garden. I don't like flowers and they're too much work. Vegetables like basil, peppers, and tomatoes grow pretty well in this area - especially since I have some good shade in my backyard too. Finally, after I've marked off the different areas, I can start landscaping and building. I want to get lots of marble rocks and colorful stones. And finally I want to start building structures and items out of wood. I'm not sure exactly what but I'd absolutely love to have a nice bench under my big Ficus tree. A bench, some Bamboo chimes, and if my plans work out well, a simple self-made gazebo.

Basically, when my parents come visit me next year, I want them to enjoy living at my house and feel as close to nature as they possibly can. And instead of paying some company $15,000 to do all this for me, I'm gonna spend a few hours every day and more on weekends getting it done myself. Hopefully this will give me lots of exercise, stress-relief, and a break from computers, TV, and slacking off.

Yesterday totally kicked ass. My friend Avni picked me up at around 11am and we went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. We watched an hour-long IMax documentary titled "The Mystery of the Nile" (or was it the Monsters of the Nile?). The film was about a group of researchers who, for the first time in the world, successfully sailed from the source of the Blue Nile to the Mediterranean Sea in about 114 days.

Next up was the butterfly/rainforest display where you could walk through three levels of indoors rainforest environment, surrounded by the most colorful butterflies you've ever seen. One even landed on me! I think there's pictures but who cares about pictures when you're having a good time. We got a little hungry after that so she took me to Maggiano's in The Galleria area for lunch. We drove through downtown (and saw the Enron buildings!) then back to the museum for another IMax movie - Roar, story of wild Kalahari lions. After that we hung around the museum and saw a lot of interesting collections.

I had dinner with my cousin/uncle Rajan Bhai and his wife. We just chilled and talked about India and later called my dad and mom too. Went to bed around midnight and just woke up a bit ago. It is pretty damn cold here. I can't wait till it gets nice and warm in Florida, so I can finally go out into the ocean.

Hurricane season isn't here yet but that doesn't mean the rains will stop. It rained in my city so bad today that the roof of a major store caved in with many people under it. Good thing nobody got seriously hurt. I was very anxious about my home as the roof above my Florida room (sun room) needs fixing. I got home and discovered that it leaked a little but nothing major. I received my new mailbox but I doubt the rain's gonna clear by tomorrow for me to set it up. I'm so excited about it though - it's my first slightly big project in my house!

At work we kept getting major power fluctuations and I had to turn off all the computers and electronic devices. So I didn't get much computer work done today and instead used the time to organize my office. After we moved in early January, my priority was to get everyone else up and running. Then right afterwards, I went to India for two weeks so my office was still unorganized. Finally today I set things straight, opened all the boxes, located all my computer stuff, and put them in my desk/shelves/drawers. Anyways, the joke of the day is that I've never been so tired by NOT working all day :)

I'm back home in Florida! The entire journey from Kolkata, India to Tampa, Florida took over 40 hours but the good thing is that I got enough sleep and am not too tired. Now I'm cleaning my house, doing the laundry etc. And petting my kitties.

Word of the day: Hectic! Fifteen more guests flew in today. The guest houses are now being occupied and we have twenty or so guests coming in tomorrow by train. My dad has tabulated the arrival dates, room allocation etc. for all the guests so it's quite well organized. My Alpesh Mama (mom's cousin) will be coming in too! It's been years since I saw him.

Yesterday we didn't do much except go out for dinner to a Rajasthani Restaurant: Teej. The decoration was simply unbelievable. All the walls and ceilings were finely hand-painted - took them six months to complete the paint job! The food was exactly what I was craving for - tasty, spicy, and very filling! It was so heavy that today I'm not gonna eat anything, maybe fruits at most.

Tomorrow is the first official day of ceremonies - Grah-Shanti in the morning and Zara Hat Ke Quiz Show & Dance Floor in the evening. My dad's working so hard it makes me wonder where he's getting all his energy from. As for me, it's very different than what I was once used to. He had trained me to organize activities & events, deal with different types of guests, salesmen, workers, and of course put forth the best show possible. Now though, I feel quite incapable of executing everything up to his standards. I think the synchronicity of event planning and execution between him and myself peaked about six years ago when we organized the Yagna. Ever since I moved to US, I've slowly lost my people-skills, I guess because I'm no longer working daily in the market face-to-face with all sorts of people.

Ok back to present. My dad & cousin are setting aside the gifts for tomorrow. Every time a guest arrives from outside the city of Kolkata, they get presented with real leather wallets and purses with their names etched in golden ink. The initial few guests also received flower bouquets. As my dad is getting the gifts ready, I'm making multiple copies of the important phone numbers list - from the cell#s of all the six chauffeurs to the contact numbers for the five venues, guest houses etc. I didn't really expect my little sister's wedding to be on such a huge scale. So it's quite overwhelming.

One thing I realized amongst all this chaos (especially when you sleep in a different bed every night and shower in a different bathroom each morning) is that little things you never thought much about previously, now make you feel at "home." Like the Woody's HeadWax Web that I've been using for months now (no, this isn't paid product placement, I just LOVE it that much). Or the familiar menu system of any Nokia cellphone that I use in US, also extremely popular here in India. Little things like this, make me feel comfortable when so many unfamiliar things happen at the same time.

In addition to all the fun things, a lot of things obviously happen that make me go what the $^$#%?! For instance, I don't know or remember many of the guests that are arriving because I probably met them when I was 12, but they know everything about me. So of course, they force me to play the guess-game. You know, they come up to me in front of five people and asked "Guess who am I?" And I stare at the 70-yr old grandma point-blank and do my best to not say "Laquisha?" It's tough holding back sarcasm and substituting it with respect when you know for sure that they know you're not gonna recognize them and are doing it just to make you feel embarrassed in public. Of course, it's just harmless fun but sometimes I really want to speak my mind. But then I have to stop myself because I'm not in Florida right now. And in India, you NEVER speak your mind to elders, especially if they're older than your parents.

Lunch time now, fruits for me. I really can't eat any more Indian food. I want milk and cereal!

It's not supposed to be cold, gray, and rainy in Florida in winter!

The chores for the day are done. Change kitty litter, wash car, look hot :) In fact, this is the first time I washed my car myself since I got it in June '04. I got it washed once early this year when I got it serviced. Since I mostly drive on paved roads and it rains to much in Florida, my car gets nature-washes quite often. Been a while since it rained heavily here so it was about time I cleaned it. It was kinda cool. Washing my car on my own driveway. It's a special type of feeling.

And now for some R&R.

Disclaimer: It saddens me to write this 'blog entry because I know my family will read it and won't like many parts of it. Sorry but you won't be able to use this 'blog entry to show off my success to everyone. I haven't run a marathon today and I haven't written any software this week that'll change the Internet. But it makes me happy to write this because I think it's time for a reality check for myself and for everyone that I love.

The Game: It's a little game I call Big Picture vs. Small Picture. This is not about truth vs. false. In this game everything is true for only true facts are admissible. I can testify that nothing in the following statements is even remotely false. So let's get started.

The Small Picture: Even though I have a great job in US, I hardly have any savings. I can't send any monetary gifts back home to India for my only sister's wedding in January 2006, even though my cousin in UK pretty much paid for his sister's wedding and more. In fact, I spend more money on my cats than I send back to India. Any time my relatives in US ask me to come visit them for holidays, I decline saying I'm saving up to buy tickets to India for my sister's wedding. I admit to them that if I don't save each month, I won't be able to pay for the India trip. Whenever someone suggests that I get arranged married like my sister, one of my first excuses is that I can't afford to marry. Word gets around and now, I'm officially broke in the eyes of my family & relatives.

I wasn't always "broke". In fact, three years ago back in college, I was supposed to be doing pretty well with my high-paying student job. Just earlier this year when I went to India I was even seen as what you might say... "rich!" But for some reason, not anymore.

Immediate Analysis: If you just look at the small picture, and it is in fact quite true, clearly then it would seem that I must be bad at managing money and/or I don't care enough about my family in India to chip in for even a small part of my loving sister's wedding expenses. Somewhere in the last few months I went from being pretty "well off" to living "paycheck to paycheck" and since I am in full control of my fiscal habits, I'm the one to blame. Thankfully, my parents are very understanding and have never demanded anything from me. Never ever. For this and more, I love them more than any son can. Nevertheless, it appears to all that I'm reckless and failing. Hmm. Let's look at this scenario from a different altitude.

The Big Picture: In this round, we forget all the pesky details of day-to-day life and think BIG. A little over five years ago I came to US with a dream... the ever-so-romanticized American Dream. After years of reluctance, my dad finally, at the behest of my lovely sis, told me to go forth and conquer the world. I'm sure he didn't expect me to wage military wars on the entire world, but instead wished me best of luck to achieve everything I wanted in my life. I flew in to the magical land of the United States of America all cheery-eyed and dreamy. My mom and grandma were glad that their kid was finally going to get good higher education - after all who doesn't want an esteemed PhD dork in their family?

I spent four years in Rutgers New Jersey, half of them living with my aunt and uncle who still do their best to support me whenever they can. Two bachelor degrees with highest honors later, I moved to sunny Florida for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to head the IT department of a small-but-rapidly-growing company. Now that I was finally living on my own, I could do things I've always wanted! A three-pc home-network? Check. True bachelor-style bean bags? Check. Cute little pets that my sister and I have wanted since childhood? Check! Everything's great. I go to India in April '05 and everyone is happy for me. I'm a success!

I notice real-estate prices in my area go through the roof, especially the properties near the Gulf. It's either buy now or be priced out of the housing market for decades. Having realized that without physical assets, creditors in US don't care about you at all, I pooled all my resources together for the big buy. In two short months, I bought a cute little house near the beach. Now next year when I try to consolidate my three variable-interest (eeek) student loans, banks will not reject me outright because I shall be in possession of the revered home equity.

Immediate Analysis: Big dreams necessitate disciplined efforts and uncompromising patience. It took some time but it appears to anyone that I've managed to fulfill quite a number of academic, economic, and personal goals. Overall, things are great if you ask me. No bad marriage, no expulsion from college, no criminal charges, no pending lawsuits, no housing troubles, no bad debts, no employment issues, and no chronic illnesses. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping things stay just as good. I'm one lucky son of a gun. So... if everything is this peachy, what's with the pesky details I mentioned in the small picture above? It's all about the proper focus.

a. Focus - Adjustable: You need a telescope to look at distant planets. You need an electron microscope to research how to better fabricate the carbon-nanotube fibers that strengthen the structure of the spacecraft that will get you to these distant planets. Notice the complexities between the two sentences. Dreaming, big-picture satellite viewing is simple. Even though it requires planning, experience, and wisdom, it won't get your hands messy. On the other hand, doing it, living in the nitty-gritties of actually implementing something is a dirty job. We dream in big screen but alas we live in the small picture. And the day you stop adjusting your focus is when you're stuck living a life you cannot take control of.

Very often, people, including yours truly, get so entrenched in one view, that they fail to see things for what they really are. While immediate events have immediate consequences, they also have long-term effects. How we handle situations in the short term impacts what will happen in the long term. My dad once told me that intelligence is the measure of how long does it take a person to walk into a room and understand everything that went on, is going on, and will go on. I propose a corollary that intelligence is the measure of how long it takes a person to switch from small picture to big picture and vice versa. What does this have to do with me you ask? Let's see.

b. Focus - Sticky: The problem with changing focus is that it doesn't want to change. We don't like to see things differently than we already do. It goes outside our comfort zone. You can get a new pair of running shoes today but it's so much more comfortable to spend that money on junk food and sit back & watch TV all evening instead of months of persistent training for a marathon. Notwithstanding my trifling excuses, I can buy a plane ticket to anywhere in the US today and have a great time with my family & relatives. It is so much better than putting $150/month extra towards the principal on my home mortgage. I used to be so free with my money; back in college when my primary goal was getting a degree. But I have to constantly get into the big picture view and remind myself that now I'm in the hardwork and struggle phase of life - these are the years I need to be saving up for the next phase of my life - graduate studies.

Selective Sacrifices: Nobody's saying that I need to give up on enjoying my life in order to maybe some day achieve my ambitions. If you saw me at the BBQ party at my house this weekend, you'd very well know I'm not giving up on any fun. However, I have given up on the extravagant lifestyle that I so lavishly savored during my pre-mortgage era. No more $500 impulse shopping bills and no more $100 on martinis. Just like no more cheese and pizzas till my health is back to my doctor's approved standards.

You cannot sacrifice today for tomorrow and you cannot spend everything today and have nothing for tomorrow. It's a delicate balance between the two and the sooner a person realizes this, the better. For me, a house is an investment. I was more than happy living in the 100 sq.ft. bunker in New Jersey. I don't need a mansion to keep me happy. To me, my house means that instead of spending and giving away like the young grasshoppa, I'm saving like the ant. Adhering to ancient wisdom is a GOODâ„¢ thing.

Consequences for me: It's great that I have a house because when I decide to go for my PhD years from now and devote 5-6 years of my life to science, I will have a pool of savings I can rely on, without having to worry about food and next month's rent. Many people pursue PhDs right after their Bachelors, mostly living like poor college students throughout the course. I didn't want to. I wanted a break between BSc and PhD. I want real-world experience. I want to know that some day my research and inventions will actually make a difference. Hence, I'm glad to have a job where I face production scenarios every single day that demand novel theoretical solutions.

I've said this over a hundred times already that if I cared about money, I'd be selling plastic granules in Kolkata right now. It is a very respectful trade and many people I know back home live happily every after with their families by engaging in wholesale businesses. However, it is just... NOT ME. I'm a student of science, always was, always will be. Till the day I died I would regret the 8-10 hours a day I spent trading because that is not what I wanted to do. My problem is that while I can remind myself this on a regular basis, everyone around me forgets it. Then I get compared to my cousin in UK, whom I love dearly, but have entirely different ambitions in life from. His noble ambition, from my personal knowledge, was to provide the best standard of living for his family. He woke up each day knowing that he needs to make ends meet for his family and that it is up to him now. He is my personal hero because on an absolute scale, what he does requires a lot more dedication and perseverance than what I do.

Consequences for my family: If my parents wanted the same thing from me as my cousin, they would have made it very clear from day one that my aim in life should be to send $x to India every single month. But they didn't. They told me to get the best education I could and fulfill all of my dreams. They supported me throughout and I'm happy that they did. Yet, every now and then, people question if they did the right thing, if I am doing the right thing, if I still love my own family, if Brazil is going to win the next World Cup Soccer. People question, people talk, people raise unfounded doubts, and above all, people make mountains out of mole hills. That's what people do. And that is when things go sour. And that is why I feel so compelled to write a pretty revealing personal 'blog entry like this one to make things perfectly clear.

I feel like I've always been lucid and honest to my family and relatives, in fact, to pretty much everyone that asks me a question upfront. I never lie about serious issues though I may lie about how many girls I've kissed ;)

Honest Ramblings: I feel excited to tell my family every other day that OMG I LOVE YOU. There is nobody else in the world I love more than you guys. If something unfortunate happened tomorrow and my family needed anything, I would take the next flight to India to help out (after notifying my work of course; not gonna run away boss man! Don't worry). But I wonder, since when did I become a BAD son? I thought I was doing everything right in life - in the big picture sense. I never said I was perfect and I was pretty much pathetic during the months of August-October this year when I was down with god knows every illness known to pirates in the 1700s.

Penultimate Moanings & Whinings: It's no surprise that a single person living alone, far away from all family and friends, will get pretty down and depressive when faced with prolonged chronic illnesses that prohibit all forms of social interactions. In English, that means hell ya, I was sick, alone, and did I mention sick?! Of course, I was sad and weak. I couldn't even hang out with my friends! I'd have to be pretty crazy in the head to actually enjoy any of that. Worst of all, I spent all my savings on medical bills and ended up breaking my promise to my sister that I'll do my best to send her a small gift soon. I'm sad that I broke a promise but I'm crushed that people treat me like it's my fault that I had all these medical expenses. Ok... so I don't have an extra $1000 lying around anymore. Does that mean I'm a loser or a weak person altogether and need support from every person who walks by just to hold myself together in life? HELL NO!

The Winner: Life's a game. It's a balancing act - between truth and false, good and evil, right and wrong, big picture and small picture. Who's the winner in the match Big Picture vs. Small Picture? Neither side exactly. Only the ones who can juggle the two fluently will "win" the so-called game of life.

Sometimes, people stop juggling. If the people who love me the most, don't stand back and take a look but instead suspect my intentions, capabilities, and strength, it's gonna be an uphill climb. I can never stop loving them but I'm kind of disheartened that the ones closest to me assumed that I've somehow forgotten what's important. I don't think at this age and stage in life I have to give any explanations on why I spent $300 treating my cat's bleeding foot. I don't expect anyone to understand WHY I like my cats, but I do expect them to not to criticize me for the day to day decisions I make in my life.

It comes down to the classic "I'm old enough" debate now. I'm old enough to know what I'm doing so please stop judging, taunting, and sneaking in remarks about what I do or not do. If I'm about to make a major decision, I will always ask the people I look up to. For instance, I had a long chat with my dad late last year about buying a house. Taking his advice, I didn't buy a house then. However, I revisited the issue a few months later when my situation had changed and ended up buying a house that I realize is an even better fit for me. I'm not saying I made absolutely the most perfect decision ever (man... my roof still needs repairs). I just like to think that I made the most sensible decision given the circumstances and stood firmly by it after weighing in the positive and negative consequences. The positive consequences being that I'll build equity that will help me later in life and the negative being that I won't have lot of free money lying around every month anymore.

If you've read this far then it's only natural that I thank you for paying attention and listening to what I had to say. Know in your heart that I love you more than anything in the world and that I will do anything possible when the need be. But if there is no crisis, then why not let me pursue my dreams and have some fun on the way? And for flying spaghetti monster's sake, stop worrying about me! I'm doing pretty damn well.

PS: Please send me money. I've been eating cat food for two weeks and have no money to feed myself or my cats now.

PPS: Just kidding about the cat food. I'm still a vegetarian :)

PPPS: Don't forget the money!

Oh mannnnnnnnnn! Yesterday was another awesome Florida day. Woke up, went to the beach with Liz & their new roommate Josh. Went shopping in the evening and then around 7pm everyone came over to my house for backyard BBQ. Just six people (Liz & Dave, Josh, Jose & Nichole, and me) but man... it was awesome. I can't believe we finished my bottle of Finlandia and Goldschlager! I'm feeling VERY tipsy right now. I need more rest. Hehe. All in all, it was awesome especially because I had veggie kababs.

I am officially a Florida Beach Bum :) I've been to the beach every single day of this week! Today was awesome. Packed up some food and drinks and chilled all day at the beach with Liz. OMG the water was brrrrrr cold! I never thought sea-water could get colder than the water in my fridge. I'm so proud of all my beach gear - big sun umbrella, chairs, ice box, beach towels... all of which are always in my car so I can do this any day.

Now that I'm finally able to enjoy going out and doing stuff, the beach is my #1 favorite place to go to - it's gorgeous, fun, and absolutely free. We had dinner at this cool place on John's Pass called the Sculley's on the Boardwalk. Kinda pricy but oh-so delicious. Just got home, all tired and sleepy. I know it's kinda early but man, leisure is hard work *grin*

What still amazes me is how lucky I am to be in this place, so close to such a wonderful tourist-y spot. I mean people from all over the country save money all year so they can come down and spend a few days one mile from where I live all year. I always whine that I never get a real vacation, mainly because I end up visiting family and thus using my vacation days. But you know, if you already live next to a real vacation destination, it's just as good. I mean I don't have to sleep in a weird hotel room or rent a car or get lost in a new place. I already know where everything is and how to get there. And after a long day out, I can just come home and pass out in my own bed. Life's finally getting better after months of sickness :)

Tonight was fun. I had so many kids come to my house for trick-or-treating. It was awesome. I still have a lot of candy left over, but I did give away a hell lot of candy too. And I gave the nice expensive stuff so the kids were like 'ooooooo this is good candy!' I even had a glowing pumpkin sitting on the tree stumps outside my Florida room so everyone could see I had candy. I think about 35-40 kids came over trick-or-treating between 7pm and 9pm. Fun stuff. Anyways, time to hit the sack.

Anyone who cares whether or not there is a Housing Bubble in the US real-estate market right now should read The Fool. There's a big discussion over at Fark with many saying there is no bubble outside of a few places and many saying it is nation-wide.

A housing-bubble is when everyone is buying homes at prices higher than what they're really worth. Now obviously, the physical price of construction a house is pretty much the same anywhere in a large country like US except in remote locations like mountains because shipping and construction is more expensive there. So if a two-bedroom/one-bathroom house in middle of Kansas is $50,000 then it should be the same in New York, California, and Florida. Of course it is not, mostly because of the L-word - location, location, location. The location the house is built in, determines how expensive the house will be and if the location happens to be in a rich-neighborhood in Hamptons or Beverly Hills, even a moderate 6,000 sq. ft. house will be close to millions. The same house in rural Indiana would be way below, and with probably ten times more acreage.

I bought my house in June for around $150k on a 30-year fixed mortgage. This means that for the next 30-years, I will pay a fixed monthly amount to the bank and at the end of 30-years, I will own this house fully and won't have to pay anything to live here, other than taxes etc. Now suppose I pay $1,000 a month in mortgage in year 2005. That means even in year 2015 when my salary will be hopefully much higher because of inflation and job promotion, I will still be paying a fixed $1,000 per month. Due to the fixed nature of monthly mortgage payment and rising salary, paying monthly mortgage should become easier and easier every year. This happens when you get a 30-year fixed mortgage. Of course, I could still sell the house anytime and move to a different neighborhood and choose to rent or own property again. But if nothing changes, I pay a fixed mortgage a month and gradually build equity.

Equity is my share of the house mortgage that I've paid up, added to the increase in house value since I bought it. Suppose I bought a house 10 years ago for $100,000 and have paid $40,000 towards the mortgage principal. Now suppose I can sell the same house today for $250,000. Then my equity is $40,000 + ($250,000 - $100,000) = $190,000.

Notice how I said "mortgage principal" and not "mortgage." There's a difference. These fixed x-year loan mortgages work on an amortization basis. Amortization is when you borrow some money (called principal) and instead of just paying interest each month/year, you also pay part of the original principal. So suppose you borrow $100,000 from a bank to buy a house at fixed 6% annual interest, then each month, you have to pay $100,000 x 6% / 12 = $500 interest. This is just the interest. If you pay $600 each month, then the $100 above your $500 interest goes towards paying off your principal. So if after the first month, you paid $600, then $500 goes towards interest on $100,000, while the $100 goes towards reducing $100,000 to $99,900. Now in the second month, you only have to pay interest on the principal of $99,900. This means if you still pay $600, your interest will be LESS than $500 and your payment towards the principal will be MORE than $100. Each month you will be paying less interest and more principal. Your last payment will go 100% towards the principal and no more interest. Then you will have paid off the loan.

However, if each month you only pay $500, that is your exact interest, then you still owe the bank exactly $100,000 at the end of every month, year, or decade. And when your loan term ends, you have to somehow find $100,000 to return to the bank! And THAT is the mistake everyone is making right now, buying expensive houses on short-term interest-only loans.

Interest-only loans are great if you KNOW what the hell you're doing with every last penny you have. If you are a common person who is better at welding cast-iron or programming in PHP, you most probably aren't too good with making the most out of your interest-only loan. However, the problem is that when you were thinking of buying a house and realized that every house you want is out of your price-range, your mortgage-lender/bank suggested that you go with interest-only loans. At that time, you wanted a two-bedroom/one-bathroom house in a nice neighborhood but could only afford $1200 a month. Since every house was $200,000 or above, your monthly mortgage on 30-year fixed would be over $2,000. However, if you went with interest-only loans, then you could in fact pay just the interest on $200,000 and live in your dream house! The mortgage broker said "Don't worry! After 3/5/10 years when you have to pay the full principal of $200,000 in ONE day, you can just sell this house for way over $200,000 and buy another one that's even bigger with the extra money you make. Or you can just refinance when the interest-rate falls lower and get an even better deal."

Except that, interest rates right now are about the lowest they're gonna get unless US economy changes drastically. And that you will only be able to pay off the interest-only loan if in fact your house will be worth more than $200,000 after 3/5/10 years. So what happens if three years after you bought the house on a variable interest-only ARM 3/1 loan, the real-estate market crashes and the interest rates shoot up? You get totally screwed. And that is what everyone is afraid of right now.

If there is in fact a housing bubble, then at some point in the near future, it will pop. When the housing bubble pops, nobody will be able to sell a house for a profit. Normally, that would be fine because if you don't make a profit, you don't get screwed - you just don't get the extra money you were hoping to get. However, if you were RELYING on that profit to not be screwed, because you had an interest-only loan, then well, when there's no profit, you are royally screwed. Bankruptcy and foreclosures will abound. And that's what everyone is afraid of. The realtors selling houses will try to maintain face, saying there is no bubble. They say it is localized to only specific places and not nation-wide.

I honestly hope they are right. Because if they're not, many people are going to be, literally, homeless.

Dave & Liz came over for dinner and made some tasty beans 'n rice :) Even though I can't cook for my life, I have friends who can, so it all works out. Plus I have all the kitchen utensils, spices, and the food stuff. Watched some Comedy Central after that and just about to go to bed. Things are getting chilly here in Florida. It's all good :)

I think this is the first time in my life that the "Law" is actually working in my favor (so far so good). My car's windshield cracked pretty badly from a falling branch at work today. I drove it home but it's not that safe to keep driving around with a windshield that can collapse anytime. I called up my insurance company and they're gonna fix it tomorrow between 8am-12pm. Hopefully I won't miss much work. Well Hurricane Wilma passed over us without much damage. It was just bad-luck that my windshield cracked. It's the end of October and hurricane season ends on November 30th. However since we have a cold front coming, I don't think there's gonna be any hurricanes in the next week or so.

The funniest part was listening to the weather today. Weather-folks are known for never being too strong and never being absolutely precise. I was kinda amused to hear the weatherman on radio say: "Chances of rain today: 100%. Chances of rain tomorrow: 0%."

Anyways, had some food Indian food today at India-Grill down on Central Ave. with my friend Lanie. She's fun to chill with but because she's busy working on nights and weekends, our schedules seldom match. Lunch works though because both of us are free and my work is near her house. I'm just glad that so many people in Florida love Indian food :)

Had a fun evening. After an awesome day at work (Ive been working on some really cool web-programming-stuff), I went to the St. Petes State Theater to see Veruca Salt with my friend Liz. Her boyfriend's out of town and I'd promised her that we'd do something fun. The music was pretty good and we shared a large cheese pizza. Liz was born and raised in the area so it's kinda funny that everywhere we went, she ran into people she knew from somewhere. And since she's so friendly, I get to meet all her friends. I miss that, running into people. I've moved so often to so many different places that I rarely run into anyone I know. I don't even know the last time I ran into someone.

Anyways, the big news now is Hurricane Wilma. Wilma's supposed to hit Florida within two days. I don't think I will have to evacuate but I'm gonna be prepared. It just sucks that we're gonna be hit by a hurricane so late in October! I thought the hurricane season was over for now. Guess not. If Wilma's gonna go on the LBAR (pink) path as predicted then I just might have to go and buy wood and board up my house - too many glass windows all around. I'm just hoping that it goes further south without causing any damage.

I just found out that the one of the two lime trees in my backyard is orange! I think the one is key-lime but my friend Lynn says it's tangerine. Wikipedia says, "Lime is actually an ambiguous term in the context of fruit, referring to a number of different citruses with typically round, green to yellow fruits.. generally containing sour pulp, and frequently associated with the lemon." The fruits are not ripe yet but once they are, I'll pick them and probably make something good with them. Who knows, maybe Key Lime Pie!

I think I have a pretty interesting set of vegetation around my house - three Mexican Fan Palm Trees, Orange Tree, Key-Lime/Tangerine Tree, Aloe Vera, and a few other trees I don't know much about. I need to start taking more care of the yard. Now that my health's getting better, I will be able to. Plus soon it's going to get cooler and much more pleasant. Here's to another Florida "Fall" and "Winter."

Exactly a week ago I casually mentioned that there was another hurricane on the horizon and wondered how it would shape up. Not even in my worst nightmares could I have witnessed the devastation that Hurricane Katrina has caused in the last five days. It was a Category Four hurricane when it hit the coast of the state of Louisiana on the gulf coast above the Gulf of Mexico.

Before it hit Louisiana, it passed through South-Eastern Florida as a Category One hurricane and it slowly gained strength sitting above the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexco. By last Thursday, everyone knew this was going to be a major hurricane with wind speeds of above 150 mph. My friend Kathleen called it the classic book case - the perfect example of a storm - something students decades from now will be learning in classrooms, on how it formed, how it gained strength, how it moved with tremendous force, and finally, how is destroyed every shred of civilization on half the gulf coast.

As many are already saying, this is going to effect pretty much every person in the US in a very short period of time. Katrina was not a typical storm or minor hurricane that ruined a few neighborhoods and took a few lives. Katrina is absolutely one of the largest natural disasters US has ever faced and the aftermath of this on society, politics, and the economy will be very horrendous.

Let's begin with the area most affected by Katrina - the City of New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA). Majority of the city of NOLA lies about ten feet below sea-level. And as you can see in this map, NOLA is bordered by two major lakes, a river, and the Gulf of Mexico. On top of it, the city is literally shaped like a bowl. It was no surprise to anyone that if the city was hit by a major hurricane, the bowl would fill up with water and there would be no way of draining the water because the sea-level is actually higher than the city.

And then it happened. Katrina hit slightly east of NOLA, barely missing the city, but the damage was done. The levees and barriers that block the river, lake, and sea-waters from flooding the city neighborhoods broke from the sheer water pressure. When a hurricane makes landfall, the ocean swells upwards and sea-water rushes inland. This is different from the kind of tsunami that hit South East-Asia late last year. Tsunamis travel very very fast, hundreds of mile an hour, and shock the coast with their impact, kinda like slapping someone really hard, sometimes multiple times, but then pulling away instantly. Storm surge is when the sea-water floods inland because of the suction created by winds on the water-body, as a result of which, the water does not recede back into the ocean as long as the winds persist. A storm surge is like sitting on someone's chest and gradually applying more and more pressure till their ribs burst and getting up slowly afterwards. Of course, both are just as ravaging to human livelihood.

So now you have a bowl-shaped city of over 1.3 million (13 lac) residents that got filled with water. There just isn't any way out other than physically pumping all the water back into the ocean and lakes - a process which will take months and months. For the first time since the San Fransisco Earthquake & Fire of 1906 has a major city been absolutely ruined like this. Eighty-percent of NOLA is still underwater and it will continue to remain so.

NOLA isn't the only city affected by Katrina. Hundreds of cities and small towns were affected. From the looks of it, Waveland, Mississippi, located north-east of NOLA was affected the worst as pretty much every house in the town is levelled. The town is no more. There are no houses or buildings standing, no electric poles upright, the trees have been uprooted or snapped into pieces, and for all intensive purposes, zipcode 39576 is non-existant henceforth. And this is but one of the hundreds of towns directly affected. WalMart has closed 123 stores and UPS has suspended shipment to 900 zipcodes indefinitely. This is about three to four percent of the entire country of US.

The immediate economic impact is something people always feared - rising price of gasoline - petrol & diesel. I purchased gas at $2.599/gallon yesterday and it's above $3/gallon today in my city. Elsewhere, people are paying upgrades of $5/gallon and many small towns in states like North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and even Wisconsin have run out of gas. It is no secret that the entire economy of US relies very heavily on gas and rising prices could mean economic depression. The Port of Southern Louisiana is the largest port in the US, fifth-largest in the world.

Here is something that has blown my wits away. Back in June of this year, FX Network aired a mock-umentary titled "Oil Storm" (thanks Eric!) The synopsis of the story is that sometime around the Labor Day weekend (that is the coming weekend), a Category 6 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico slams into Louisiana, crushing the city of New Orleans and crippling the vital pipleline for refined oil that is Port Fourchon (more details). The movie "examines the ripple effect of that event and the ensuing cascade of disasters associated with it..." Basically, the first part of the movie about the hurricane has already come true and the next part, about oil prices is already coming true. You can read the synopsis yourself to see how the story unfolds and ends, but the scary thing is, back when the movie aired, everyone was mocking, insulting, and criticizing it. Now, not so much. Nobody believed that a hurricane could drown NOLA, cut off the nation's oil pipeline, or set the oil rigs afloat. Yet that is what happened. This time truth is eerily exactly like fiction.

The damage to public and private infrastructure is only overshadowed by the utter senseless degradation of human lives. Right now, hundreds of thousands of people in NOLA area are thirsty, hungry, have no shelter, and are being terrorized by street gangs. Reporter Anya Kamenetz writes, "the city of New Orleans has a 34 percent poverty rate, triple the national average. It's about 70 percent black. White flight, first to Jefferson Parish and then across Lake Pontchartrain, to the North Shore, has accomplished the desired aim of de facto segregation in the public schools, which are 93 percent black in Orleans Parish and some of the worst in the country." Now, the aftermath of the hurricane is not only a humanitarian issue but also a racial one. Right-and-left people are debating whether the US Federal Govt. is doing enough or not, whether the National Guard would have been moved to NOLA for support any faster if there was a higher percentage of white citizens.

Yahoo! has managed to stir up some controvery regarding two pictures captioned slightly differently. They even issued a public statement and removed one of the pictures. Apparently, the caption under the very dark skinned person said " A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans" while a picture of two light skinned persons was captioned, "Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store..." So dark people "loot" while fair people "find" right? The photographer of the second picture disagrees but for now, the issue has raised many a question.

Since eighty-percent of NOLA is currently underwater, some places as deep as twenty-feet, the only pictures and videos available of most areas are from helicopters. While thousands of people are being bussed from the drier areas in NOLA to nearby cities like Houston, Texas, there are thousands of people still stuck in their houses. Hundreds of dead bodies are floating on the streets and rescue workers can't do anything because they first have to help the victims who are still alive.

Any attempt to compare Katrina with the tsunami of 2004 is looked down upon right now because there was a tremendous loss of life in the latter. Additionally, tsunami was unpredictable while the weather channels along with the National Hurricane Center were blasting warnings for days before Katrina made landfall, giving people enough time to evacuate. Moreover, damages from tsunamis were not preventable while majority of the infrastructure destruction of Katrina could have been prevented as everyone knew the geography of NOLA and the nearby regions. And yet, I think there is a similarity despite what people say. The similarity is that poor people suffered. While they all knew about Katrina, there was little most of them could do. Many of the inner-city poor renters didn't have a car and the city of NOLA failed to provide public transporation to evacuate. So for no fault of their own, they were stuck. Sure, many of them might have intentionally chosen to hunker down and stay at home instead of going away, but now, they're all homeless.

NOLA has had near-hits many-a-time but this was the final blow. There is no City of New Orleans, Louisiana anymore. They will have to rebuild, almost from scratch. And so will the hundreds of towns with millions of people. It's hard to imagine that over a million people now have no homes, no jobs, no schools, and no life whatsoever. Everything will have to start from scratch. For the young it's not impossible but for people who have worked their entire lives to finally own a house, it's all gone. Sure, insurance will pay but what about the neighborhood. It's not there anymore. I'd love to see NOLA back on it's feet again but I highly doubt the Mardi Gras celebrations in 2006 (if at all) will be as carefree as this year's.

(I had written about seven more detailed paragraphs after this but due to a stupid mistake, I lost everything below this, hence rewriting it major parts of it. It always bums me out when I'm writing a long 'blog entry and lose part of it. I will fix the blog to not do this tomorrow but for now, I have to live with it. And since I'm too tired to rewrite everything, here's a summary of what I had written before.)

The political aspect of this entire disaster is no less complex. The Federal Emergency Management Agency had to halt all rescue operations in NOLA because of the danger to the lives of the rescuers. Violence has erupted in parts of the city with random acts of looting, rape, street-shooting, and sniper attacks. It's hard to believe but this is US and it seems like the Dark Ages. FEMA is not without controversy itself with two inexperienced directors, demotion from cabinet status, and refusal of funds to NOLA to strengthen the levees.

Louisiana is also holds half the world's supply of zinc and is a major manufacturer of industrial chemicals. There will be inflation in the short-term and dollar will fall in the ForEx markets. Oil will continue to rise for some time and a big part of US trade will be impacted, as LA is the primary port for US. Things aren't going to be pretty for the next few months and rebuilding will take a lot of time. People are dying on the streets, children are waddling through chest-high water, covered in feces, and dead bodies are floating everywhere. The biggest fear is the possibility of a pandemic of water-borne diseases.

I'm sure if anyone wants to learn more about the disaster there are a million places online to read from and hundreds of TV shows to watch. This was just a review of what I've heard, remotely seen, and learnt about Katrina and its aftermath. And here's hoping I never have to write such an entry again, though I think that's impossible. Nature is wild and very very powerful.

Yet another wonderful Florida day. I feel so relaxed and at home. Work was busy but exciting overall. Got home and watched a little TV and now online. Looks like we're gonna have another hurricane but let's see how it shapes up.

Well house A/C is fixed. The roof in the Florida Room isn't leaking anymore but still needs repairs. My car's seats are dry. And I managed to redo all of the things at work that I lost due to database crash. Things are back to being normal. Almost.

Exactly one year ago on this day, I arrived at Saint Petersburg, Florida with my friend Arthur. It's been quite a year, so many new things I'd never experienced before. I remember I was so scared when I first came here. I didn't know anyone, I didn't know any place. I didn't even have my kitties! Well, one year later, I am so much happier and content. Things couldn't have been better. Thanks to everyone who's made a difference in my life.

Looks like the hurricane season is back. Tropical Storm Arlene is heading for the Florida panhandle / Alabama area and hopefully will miss us by hundreds of miles. However, considering it's still huge and moving very slowly, my entire weekend is pretty much hosed. It's raining outside and doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon. Guess I can sit back and just eat something hot.

Things are pretty dull otherwise. Dull isn't bad necessarily, in fact, I happen to like it quite a bit. I like the fact that I don't have to work or study all weekends. I like how I don't have any major chores or big personal projects to complete. It's the ease and lack of tension that I absolutely love. I come home, play with the kitties, watch a little TV, read stuff online, go to bed, and sleep pretty peacefully. I guess I'll never really get rid of my constant nightmares but otherwise, things are good. I know my daily schedule seems pretty dull and I realize that it actually is, but it's a stress-free dull and not a stretch of depressive doldrums where I find myself stuck in life or something.

Hopefully life will get pretty interesting once I get a house. I don't want to jinx anything so I'm not going to show pictures or write a lot about the house that I'm going to buy soon. Let's see how it goes.

I was just listening to one standup comedian after another on this lazy Florida afternoon and I almost choked on my food. George Bush is listed under "Top Artist" on the "Comedy" section in Napster. Turns out, he is credited as the lead comedian in the comedy album BushSpeak: The Curious Wit & Wisdom of George W. Bush. I listened to the whole album and it was pretty much what the album claims and I had already expected - full of foot-in-mouth quotes by the W. If you have Napster or can find this album somewhere, check it out. Some prized quotes from the collection by Bush:

• "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."
• "War Is A Dangerous Place."
• "I couldn't imagine someone like Osama Bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah..."
• More here...

The last few days have been pretty interesting. Friday, instead of working all day, my entire company, from shipping guy to production planner, from the owners to the newest employees, all went for a one-day meeting/seminar/thinktank to this place run by the St. Petersburg College. There we spent the day learning about what we do, what every person in our company does, and most importantly, what do we do as a company - where we stand in the market, what our core competencies are etc, and how to brand our company. We formed small teams and worked on similar projects for 30 minutes and made charts, designs, and collages on whiteboards. Everything was documented and by Monday, we'll be able to see it all online. All in all, a pretty fun day where a lot of the employees, including myself, learnt a lot more about the company, especially what everyone else in the company thinks about the company.

Last night at 11:45pm I was about to head to bed when Linda 'n Brian called me. We went to AppleBees and two hours later I had downed six Long Island Ice Teas (my favorite drink ever) and pretty much passed out on Brian's couch. Alcohol is good for you once in a while. I woke up @ 11am feeling pretty normal and came home to get clean.

I'm going over back to Brian's now and then we're gonna go jetskiing :) It'll be my first time ever. God I love Florida! The weather is gorgeous and every other car has a boat towing behind it. Looks like I'll 99% get the house I like and hopefully I'll move in by June end unless some major problems occur. Crossing my fingers that everything goes well, in two months you'll be seeing a lotta pics of the new chir.ag bunker, well it's more like a tiki. Yeah, that sounds corny enough for it to be cool - The chir.ag tiki :-P

I'm at a cybercafe in the Mumbai/Bombay Airport where access to the net is pretty cheap Rs. 60/hour ($1.25/hour). It's quite fast too - hope my dad could get a connection like this at home. It'll take some time but I'm sure they'll get it. Once my home in Calcutta/Kolkata has broadband connection then I can use something like Vonage to call them everyday at local phone charges and not international. Can't wait till that day.

So my flight was delayed as I expected. Had it been on time, I'd be in the plane already. Now I fly off at 11:20am. I checked in all my luggage and will hopefully disembark at the Newark, NJ Airport at 8:25pm tonight via Paris. Kinda sucks that I don't get to check out the Paris airport as the plane just sits on the runway for refuelling. My plane lands at 8:25pm and my connecting flight departs at 8:10pm. So unless I pull off some James Bond 007 moves and transfer from one plane to another mid-air, I'm definitely going to miss my connecting flights to Tampa via Atlanta. AirIndia here in Mumbai said that since it's their fault that the flight's being delayed, they will make sure that I get a decent accomodation and proper connecting flights to my destination.

For some stupendous reason there is no flight from Newark NJ to Tampa FL airports after 10pm tonight till 8am tomorrow. I was ready to get on a 11pm flight if available but they could only reserve me for two 8am flights. My reservation isn't confirmed either but hopefully by the time I'm in Newark tonight, they'll have it partially figured out. The journey that was supposed to take less than 24 hours is now gonna be longer than 36 hours but I'll get to sleep in a hotel overnight in NJ now.

I'll call my aunt/uncle in NJ to see if they wanna visit but I wonder if they can make it all the way to Newark airport on such a short notice. Anyways, I'll prolly be so tired after two long flights and the immigration checks etc. that I'll want to sleep till 6am tomorrow. I have my US Visa on my passport and I'm crossing my fingers that there are no problems.

I had a great time here with my family after almost three years of separation. Now I'm ready to face the new challenges at my work and career. While it's great living in US, there is one major drawback - you slowly forget everything you aspired to be; India reinforces your primal aspirations. Life in US is like slowly dissolving in a warm feel-good quicksand of acid - you don't know you're melting away molecule-by-molecule. India is a quick slap on the back that reminds you that you need to hold your breath, flap your arms, and get the hell out of the quicksand. In other words, before I left India for the US, I had a very keen interest in furthering my academic career and studying till my hair is grey. After getting a job, getting a car, finding a nice apartment, the fire within slowly dies down. One becomes lax about fulfilling the original dreams.

And just one 15-day trip to India drilled the whole academic-career thing back into my head. And not just the academic, the desire to work harder and smarter is stronger now more than ever. I want to make the systems my company needs and I want to make them smart, robust (I know, cliched), and scalable (I know, very much cliched). I want to be twice or thrice as productive as I was in the last few months. Hell I was barely productive in the last two weeks before I left for India because I was soooooooooooo stressed out about the outcome of my visa interview. But thankfully, I got the visa and now I have to accomplish what I desperately need to. There's new ideas to be thought of, there's new systems to be created, and there's a lot more effort to be put into every segment of my life.

One thing I would have regretted had I not got my visa is that I did not travel enough. I sit at home on weekends doing minor chores or idling away in front of the TV when I could be out, seeing the country. Seeing the world's not an easy thing on an Indian passport but I can damn well go around the US at least once a month. Off the top of my head, I need to go to Boston, Washington, NY, California, Vegas, and once again to Salt Lake City. I have a friend or two in each of these places that I need to visit. I think now I'll try to save up each month and look out for specials and cheap tickets online from Tampa to all of these places and god knows where else - after all there's a Fark party somewhere every weekend.

Having the thoughts about India vs. US fresh in my mind, I want to write a long 'blog entry or essay about the differences and similarities in the economy, culture, and the social environment in both the places. I know, there's probably a thousand books on this subject but I bet each of them mentions that every Indian has an elephant/cow/snake in his house and every couple in US fights till they divorce. Both are gross generalizations though hold some amount of truth. Indians do worship the cow and Americans do divorce a lot more than rest of the world. But we don't have a family cow in Kolkata and over 75% of my US friends' parents are still together or were very close till one of them passed away. What I mean by the differences are minor but relevant things on how they see the same events/things differently - divorce is a sad event in US but it's a traumatic and often life-ending event in India. Divorcees get to remarry in US but rarely in India. At restaurants, 5% is a big tip in India and 15% is a small or mediocre one in US.

And yet, the people are the same. My friends in US love me as much as the ones in India. That is something I find very hard to believe. I still can't believe my friends Vishal & Chetan stood out in the rain/sun for hours in 2000 when I first went to the US Consulate in Kolkata to get my student visa. And I still can't believe Arthur drove all the way from NJ to FL with me to help me settle down in Florida with almost all of my luggage from NJ. People amaze me sometimes.

Oh and on a closing note, CONGRATSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS to my sister for her TV Interview on Tazaa TV Kolkata last week! I don't know why she kept attributing her success and knowledge to me - I didn't teach her anything - she learnt it all herself! And yet on TV she kept saying I was her idol and taught her everything. I'd say the major credit goes to my parents and only partially to me.

By God I love my boss Eric, his bro Brian, and my awesome friend Jessica. Eric helped me setup all my paperwork after work hours and Brian and Jessica helped me pack! I didn't even touch ONE thing! It's kinda amazing how quickly Brian got everything setup and ready to go... I love Florida...

This is one of those days when I internalize the world around me into a single pixel of concentrated anxiety. Outside, it's a calm beautiful Florida west-coast nigh but inside my mind there's a storm brewing. It's hard to explain to everyone and pretty much everyone I've talked to dismiss me as being over-analytical. But it's not their life which nervously balances on the delicate fulcrum of a simple true/false questionnaire. It's not you or them who'll be affected by the change. It's me. Or rather, it could be me.

So I spent this entire weekend trying to discover the world's first 30-digit Keith Number with no luck. It's kinda like Fibonacci Numbers. Basically, take any number and write out it's digits. Say we pick the number "123" and then write out 1,2,3. Now add all the digits up and put the sum at the end of the list. 1+2+3 = 6, so now the new list is 1,2,3,6. Now drop the first number and add the rest and put it at the end of the list again. Drop "1" and add 2+3+6 = 11. So now we have 2,3,6,11. Of course, you can keep doing this till infinity. Now the fun part happens when you pick a number like 197. Let's see: 1,9,7. Then 1+9+7 = 17. So we get 1,9,7,17. Dropping "1" and adding the rest we get 9+7+17 = 33. Drop 9 and adding 7+17+33, we get 57. Then next we get 17+33+57 = 107. Next we get 33+57+107 = 197 -> The same number we started with!

So if we get the same number as we started with, then it is a Keith Number. There are only two 3-digit Keith Numbers - 197 and 742. There are six 2-digit KNs - 14, 19, 28, 47, 61, 75. Try it for 47 -> 4,7,11,18,29,47! But it doesn't work for any other numbers. 48 -> 4,8,12,20,32,52... No "48" in this list. A few 4-digit KNs are: 1104, 1537, 2208, 2580 etc.

Keith Numbers are very rare and only about 90 of them are known. The largest known Keith Number is 988242310393860390066911414 (27-digits long). We don't even know if there are infinitely many Keith Numbers (though it seems so). There is no award or anything for finding new large Keith Numbers but there is a huge prize (and worldwide glory) for finding out a simple method for generating all Keith Numbers easily. Basically, the problem of finding Keith Numbers can be likened to solving the Knapsack Problem. Of course, if you solve the Knapsack Problem with a simple method, then you've just discovered a method for solving the P=NP problem which has a $1million award from Clay Mathematics Institute.

While I don't understand the whole P=NP problem as clearly as I want, I do understand it enough to be amazed by it. The biggest mystery in computer science right now is whether P is equal to NP or not. So what is P and NP? First of all, Computer Science (my primary major in college) is not about how to make PowerPoint presentations or write financial database software for the stock exchange. In the simplest terms, Computer Science is very much like pure Mathematics - studying problems and solving them using simple equations. Of course, if it was just solving math problems, then it would be called Math and not CompSci.

Computer Science normally deals with a different type of problems, that which involve a lot of calculation and especially estimating the time it takes to calculate. E.g., if someone gives you 10 different business cards, how do you sort them alphabetically by a person's name? Well one simple way is to put all the cards on a table and go through the list and pick out the ones that begin with A, then B, then C till you are done. You basically went through a list of 10 cards, 26 times (A to Z - 26 letters). Of course, you'd be a lot less than that, since everytime you pick a card, there's one less left in the pile. Anyways, this is a very simple sorting algorithm. Computer Science deals with sorting algorithms a lot.

Another thing is searching. If someone gives you 10 business cards and says find "Chirag Mehta." Well, you'll have to go through 10 cards at most to find mine. If it's a one-time thing then it's fine but if you often have to find a business card from a bunch of business cards, you're much better off alphabetizing them once, so that next time someone asks for "Steve Buscemi", you can directly jump to the "S" pile instead of going through all the cards. Computer Science also deals with searching and inventing better methods to find stuff from a bunch of stuff. This is why people love Google so much - it makes easy to find stuff, using their own special search methods. You just type in "flying pigs" and it looks through billions upon billions of documents to find pages which have the phrase "flying pigs" in it and returns those pages within milliseconds. Amazing isn't it!

So what does all of this have to do with P=NP problem and the million-dollar award? Well, after decades of research, computer scientists have found out that there are some problems like searching, sorting etc. whose answers can be solved within a fixed amount of time - seconds, hours, days, centuries whatever. Basically, if someone tells you to find "Chirag Mehta" from 1000 business cards, and you can read 10 a minute, it'll take you 100 minutes at most to find the card. If it was 1000 billion cards, it would take you 100 billion minutes. So the problem of searching has a fixed execution time and it can be very accurately estimated. Same goes with sorting.

However, there are tons of other problems out there, where we can't even estimate how long it's going to take to solve the problem, let alone solve the problem itself. For example, let's look at the Travelling Salesman Problem. Suppose you have to go on a business trip to 3 cities and you can go from any city to any city, what is the cheapest round-trip route that visits each city once and returns to your home city? In other words, if you live in Mumbai, and have to go to London, Beijing, and Los Angeles, what is the cheapest round-trip route that will visit each city once and end up at Mumbai? Of course, you'd need a list of all the airfares, say Mumbai to London (or back) = $100, Mumbai to Beijing = $50, Mumbai to Los Angeles = $200, London to Beijing = $50, London to Los Angeles = $100, Beijing to Los Angeles = $150. Let's assume the reverse fare is same in all the cases, so London to Mumbai equals Mumbai to London equals $100. Currently there is no way accurately find the cheapest route without going through all the combinations (Mumbai-London-Beijing-LA-Mumbai, Mumbai-Beijing-LA-London-Mumbai, Mumbai-LA-London-Beijing-Mumbai etc.)

So you think what's the big deal about having a simple computer go through all the 20-25 combinations and finding the best? Actually no big deal, until you increase the cities from 5 to 50. Or 50 to 5000. Then even the largest supercomputers in the world combined would take centuries to find the solution. Basically, there exists no way to predetermine how long it will take to solve the travelling salesman problem for x cities. We can't say if x = 5, then it'll take 5 seconds and if x = 10, it'll take 10 seconds. We can't even say if x = 5, then it'll take 25 seconds and if x = 10, it will take 100 seconds. Truth is, we don't know. Of course, if you are British Airways, you do want to know, otherwise how else are you going to schedule the flight route of 500 airplanes around 200 airports around the world? Even though the perfect solution doesn't exist, computers can do a pretty good job of going through a billion or so combinations and finding out the best routes. Yes, they cannot go through all the possible combinations, but in practical cases, going through a few million combinations results is pretty good, say as opposed to the 1950s when all the flight pattern/routing was done manually! Without the special flight-routing computers, the whole airline industry would be in chaos because nobody would be able to schedule flights between cities where there is most demand, most people, highest airfare etc.

While the airlines are using computers to plan flight routes, they are doing it as best as they possibly can, not absolutely the best. It's like me going out and asking 100 girls on a date and deciding to marry the one I think is the best. This doesn't mean she is "the one" because I did not ask the other 3 billion girls. It just means she's the best of the ones I asked. Similarly, airlines plan their flights out of the 10 billion combinations instead of the 10000000 trillion possible options. Still 10 billion is better than 100,000. And yet, it is not as good as 10000000 trillion. So there is absolutely a LOT of room for improvement.

Another similar problem called the Bin-Packing Problem, which is closely related to the Cookie-Cutter Problem. If you have 10 items and you need to pack them into 3 bins, such that no bin weighs more than 100lbs, what is the best way to do it? Of course, trial-and-error might work with 10 items and 3 bins, but what if you are the world's largest steel manufacturing company and want to make sure that you can ship the most amount of steel bars of different sizes into trucks while never putting more than 10 tons per truck and of course not overflowing any truck's container. Or if you are my mom and are making cookies. You make a big rectangle piece of dough and then use a cutter to cut fancy cookie shapes. How do you make sure you use as much of the dough as possible and not waste any? Or if you are the world's biggest cookie company and have the same problem. How do you solve it?

Turns out, there is no exact "optimal" way to solve this problem in a fixed or predictable amount of time. In other words, there is no polynomial time method to solve any of these problems. And now comes the beauty of computer science -> all of these problems, from finding Keith Numbers to Knapsack Problem, to Travelling Salesman Problem to Cookie-Cutter Problem can all be solved if even one of them is solved! Oh and the game of Minesweeper also falls into this list. So if you can find a perfect way to beat Minesweeper each time, guess what... you've just solved the world's greatest computer science problem and would most likely get the $1mllion award.

Well I've still not explained what P=NP really means. P means that the problem is easy to solve. Easy doesn't mean you can do it in your head. Easy means it is possible to do it in a fixed time, like searching, sorting etc. NP means that a solution to a problem is easy to verify. That is, if someone gives you a Keith Number, you can easily check in a specific amount of time whether it is a Keith Number or not. Or whether the flight-route from Mumbai-London-Los-Angeles-Beijing-Mumbai covers all the 3 cities and starts/ends at Mumbai. So what we don't know, is whether problems that are easy to verify can be solved easily or not. That is whether NP = P. Currently there is no known method for solving any of the problems I stated above in a fixed/predetermined amount of time.

Most scientists believe that P is not equal to NP and a lot of them believe that given the current state of knowledge in computer science and mathematics, we can't really answer this question. We need to learn a lot more and look at this P=NP problem from the different angle in order to solve it. Maybe that's where computers that work using Quantum Mechanics could help. I don't know much about Quantum Computing so I guess that I can take care of next weekend :)

Hope you enjoyed my little computer science introduction course. Oh and according to my calculations, looking for a 30-digit Keith Number involves going through about 10^30 (10 followed by 30 zeroes) numbers. Currently, I can verify over a hundred 30-digit numbers per second, about 10 million a day. That's 10^7. So it will take me 10^30/10^7 = 10^23 days to find all the 30-digit Keith Numbers. Suppose a million people join me in finding the 30-digit KNs, and 1 million computers run my software, it'll still take 10^23/10^7 = 10^16 days. Which is about twice the age of the Universe! Of course, if we involve all the 1 billion computers on this planet, and instead of doing 10 million a day, find a way to speed it up to 100 billion a day on each computer, then it'll take 10^30/10^11/10^9 = 10^10 days, which is still approximately 27 million years.

So how the hell am I gonna find a 30-digit Keith Number (if it even exists)? By pure luck :) My program just randomly generates 30 digit numbers and tests to see if they are KN or not. It has gone through about 8 million 30-digit numbers already. Of course that's like looking into a bucket of seawater from the Florida coast order to find the pearl necklace you threw into the Indian Ocean a million years ago. There's a VERY high probability that you won't find anything, but hey... who knows, you just might!

Oh and also I think there's more chance of me winning the World's Largest Powerball Lottery than finding a 30-digit Keith Number, even though I haven't even purchased a lottery ticket! But I guess it's good for my computer since it's getting some good exercise now :)

After my friends Art 'n Michele left Florida in mid January, I thought my problems with Disney were over. Turns out, I couldn't be more wrong. I said it once and I would like to repeat this again: Walt Disney Travel Company Sucks Monkey Ass! They have absolutely the WORST customer service that I've experienced in US ever. Everytime I've talked to them, they have been completely arrogant, extremely uncooperative, and overall a bunch of jerks.

Basically, they billed me $61 more than they should have and are telling me to wait 2 months to get my money back! The only way I can get my money back sooner is if I return the original documentation they sent me. Of course, once I do that, I no longer have any proof that I should be getting my $61. Other than trying to sue them, the only sane thing I can do is just wait for 2 months. THIS is what happens when a company grows too big - they can afford to treat their customers like crap and actually get away with it.

I didn't go into the details of the whole nightmare before, but basically, I booked my Disney tickets + hotel via them around Jan 5-7th. It was gonna cost me $520-something. An absolutely horrible woman from the company called me a few days later to tell me that the hotel I had booked and paid for was overbooked and they were cancelling my reservation. After going through a LOT of convincing that I really needed a hotel, she finally moved my reservation to a hotel outside of Disney, that turned out to be awful. But fine, I didn't care. I'm gonna go have fun with my friends.

The lady told me my tickets will be at Disney when I get there. When we got to Magic Kingdom in Disney, of course my tickets weren't there. They were at the hotel where we were gonna sleep at night! Took us about 45 minutes of convincing the guys at the Disney entrance to let us in. They called the hotel, got some confirmation numbers, and finally gave us our tickets. Once inside Disney, we had a great time.

But of course, the hotel was run by a bunch of total retards. When we got to our hotel, they did not have our tickets to Disney for the next day. The room was stinky, the beds were uncomfortable, but whatever, I was with friends and even though it was waaaay overpriced, I didn't care. I was told that they will locate my Disney tickets by morning. I'm sure you can already guess that by morning, the tickets were still missing. I went to the hotel reservation desk and turns out, the genius lady who gave the ticket confirmation number to Disney the day before, decided to TEAR MY NEXT DAY'S TICKETS! According to her, now that the package was opened, it had to be destroyed by their policy. But she assured us to no extent, that our tickets could now be instantly issued at Disney. I didn't trust her at all, but well we had no choice.

After arriving at Epcot Center on Jan 16th (it was FREEZING cold that day), it came to me as no surprise that my tickets weren't there at Disney and they could not seem to re-issue them. I was not in their database. Well at least the lady at the counter from Casablanca, Morocco was very nice and helpful. So I think me and my friends waited for over an hour to get our tickets and finally get in. Well, so we finally got in and pretty much enjoyed the rest of the day.

My friends came here all the way from New Jersey and the whole point of the vacation was that we wanted to spend some time together and have fun. During the course of the whole mayhem, I did not whine or freak out about the absolute lack of service. I swear anyone in my position would have created a major scene. But once again, I was with friends and we were there to enjoy and not fight.

So as I stated above, after my friends left, I thought, phew, the nightmare with Disneyi s over, until an hour ago when I got my credit card statement by email. Turns out, Walt Disney Travel Company (which is a part of Disney) charged me $61 more than they should. They charged me for the original hotel instead of the hell hole they put us in. Now, they are not going to return me my own money for a whole month more.

I could technically dispute the charge on my credit card and make it harder on their part or I can just wait for a month or two till they return my money. I somehow think I have a lot better things to do than screw with them anymore. I'm sure if I had nothing to do all day, I'd fight with them and teach them a lesson but now I'm just so sick of them, I don't wanna deal with them anymore. I've already forgotten about my money so if they ever pay me back, it'll be like I found money in one of my old coat pockets. Though $61 can't even pay for my weekly grocery bills these days. Ha!

Happy New Year everyone! I just got back from an awesome mini-vacation to the Florida Keys with Brian and Linda. We had a great room next to a swimming pool, facing the beach. We drove down to see my friend Bruce (from my old job at Rutgers, NJ). It was great seeing him and both Brian and Linda loved meeting Bruce and his wife. We had a few drinks and left back to our hotel. Later that night we went to Holiday Isle to usher in the new year. Next day we rented a small motor boat and went into the ocean for over four hours. I anchored down the boat next to a small mangrove island and we had lunch. Later that night we drove down to Key West, picking up my friend Tim on the way. Walked downtown, shopped a bit, had a few drinks, and drove back to our hotel. Woke up this morning, got ready, and drove back to St. Petes. That was in short our mini-vacation to the Keys. A lotta fun packed into a short span of three days :) I feel so refreshed and ready to get back to work tomorrow.

Here's the year 2004 in keywords that affected my life: Graduation, Florida, Job, Car, Apartment, Marathon, and Kittens. Other than these, I think everything else was just like any typical year...

Just realized - today is exactly six months since I moved to Florida! Here's to an awesome half-year!

I live right next to the Florida Blood Services and pass by it everytime I leave my apartment. After 5+ months of ignoring the big "PLEASE DONATE" sign, I finally got the courage to go in and donate blood. I think what pulled me in today was the smaller sign saying: "A+ Blood Critically Needed." That's my type. So I figured, shopping can wait a bit. I walked in and met the nicest bunch of people. I found my blood pressure is pretty good (100/70) too. I donated half a liter of blood and hopefully it'll help someone in need. And best of all I got a free movie ticket, a free pass to the Salvador Dali museum in downtown St. Petes, and a buncha snacks. My next donation date is Jan 21, 2005 and hopefully I'll go there to donate again.

Anyways, I bought a buncha crap from Walmart (ketchup, kitty litter, spices etc.). It wasn't as crowded as I expected it to be. Now I'm home and have two more days of nothing to do. Life is good. I like this relaxed schedule. My buddy Taylor is in town. Might chill with him soon...

You know nothing much happens in my life when I don't 'blog. Lately it's been the same routine. Wake up, go to work, come home, play with Giga and Tera, go to bed, wake up in the middle of the night because Tera is purring RIGHT NEXT TO MY EARS, try to sleep, wake up again because Giga is licking my hands, try to sleep, rinse, repeat. But no matter what, I love it. It's been so long since I was genuinely so happy. I look forward to coming home every single day.

Anyways, last night was pretty good. My friend Jessica was going to hit the bars in Tampa with her friend Dana from Kentucky. I drove up to O'Briens and waited as the crowd slowly poured in. Not a lot of casual drinkers on a Monday night - mostly the addicts stroll in ;) Anyways, we just talked about random stuff and had drinks for hours and hours. At two we decided it was time to eat something. Went to IHop next doors and had some good midnight snack. I went to bed around 3am. Woke up at 6am with the worst headache ever! I don't think it was the three Long-Island Ice-Teas though. It was just the total lack of sleep.

So all day at work I was walking around like a zombie. I got home today at 5:30pm and went straight to bed. I took a 4 hour nap and here I am now. My whole sleep pattern is so foobared. It's hard to party and be regular at the same time... It's either I grow up and be all matured and hit the bed exact time every night OR I just live my life and go out and do stuff whenever the opportunity presents itself. Tomorrow, work ends at 12pm for Thanksgiving Vacation and hopefully the coworkers and yours truly are going to sneak into multiple movies ;) Things are great overall. I don't remember last time I was so relaxed about life in general.

Only one major news - I'm making this REALLLLLLY big software for my work starting January. It will take me 6-9 months just to write the basic modules. However, once it's in place, it'll make a BIGGGGG difference to how we operate on a day-to-day basis. There's a lot of cool things I've planned for this software. Let's see if I can create all the features... And that's the news from St. Petersburg, Florida. Back to you Alex.

It's officially 5 months since I left Jersey. Oh how I miss my friends/family yet don't miss the icky gray weather. It's a bright sunny morning here in St. Petes, Florida and that's the way I like it :)

Bonnie, Charley, Frances, Ivan, and now Jeanne. Five major hurricanes, one state.

Phrases I didn't know before coming to Florida: Hunker down, Feeder Bands, Hurricane Force Gusts, Tropical Depression, Landfall, Storm Surge, Sustained Winds.

I have true friends here in Florida too. Go figure! I told my awesome friend Lynn that I wasn't feeling to well and she instantly drove over to chill with me! How cool is that? She made me feel so loved :)

My boss forwarded this to me:

Subject: Letter to Ivan

Dear Ivan:

Hey, how's it going out there near Barbados?

Listen, lots of us here in Southwest Florida have been talking about your scheduled visit.

Now, please don't take this the wrong way. We like spectacular forces of nature as well as the next guy. We realize that Florida and hurricanes go together like country music and drunken driving. We don't want to mess with tradition.

And we know you hurricanes recharge the aquifers, provide an exhilarating break in the stifling heat of late summer, and give neighbors a chance to bond. The economic boost you give to Home Depot alone is enough to make up for whatever inconvenience is to be expected.

So normally you would be as welcome as a gang of Harley riders during Bike Week.

But may I say that this year the timing of your tentatively scheduled arrival seems less than ideal.

You know that visitors start to wear out their welcome after a few days. And too many visitors in a row can also wear down a host and hostess. That, I'm sorry to say, is pretty much the position we Floridians find ourselves in just now.

Your cousin Charley blew through a few weeks ago and, to be blunt, he was less than mannerly. He zoomed in like a hyperactive toddler, leaving the proverbial path of destruction, except that it was no proverb. And then he was gone without so much as a see-ya-later.

Charley was a leave-wet-towels-on-the-floor, never-pick-up-a-tab kind of guest. He inspired some grumbling, and picking up after him has been a real chore. You should have seen Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte, Arcadia and Wauchula.

At least Charley didn't stay long. But just when we were starting to get things almost back to normal, Frances sauntered in.

I don't mean to be crass, but she was HUGE. When she hung around the state, she hung around the state, you know what I mean?

And you know how some guests just don't leave? That's Frances. Even when we were looking at our watches and yawning and singing "The Party's Over" she just stayed and stayed.

Some of us who hadn't really rolled out the red carpet for Charley decided to prepare a lot more for Frances, and maybe we just tired ourselves out. And then she stalled and arrived late, which is always irritating.

She wasn't as wild as Charley, I'll admit. Those rumors about Frances possibly becoming a Category 5 turned out to be overblown hype. But she just sort of oozed through. I went to bed Sunday night and woke up thinking she'd be long gone at last, but she was still here Monday morning!

So a lot of us here are thinking that enough is enough for one year. Actually, the experience of almost back-to-back hurricanes has some people talking about canceling hurricane season entirely.

Don't worry. Floridians won't go that far. But we may consider moving hurricane season to a nicer time of year. I know hurricanes like it hot, but doing without air conditioning would be a lot nicer in November, or maybe March, so as not to interfere with football season.

I mean, did you see where Frances actually caused the postponement of a Gator football game? People will put up with a lot, but let's be reasonable here.

Some are saying we should limit the number of hurricanes allowed into Florida in one year. There might be some debate about whether the limit should be one or two, but there is wide agreement that three is too many.

So, Ivan, here's the point: Florida's famous hospitality is pretty much tapped out just now. Our enthusiasm for big winds and rains, and for TV reporters gushing forth with excited descriptions of it all, has bogged down like a riding lawnmower in the swamp that used to be my back yard.

As I said, it is nothing personal, Ivan, but what would you say to making alternate travel plans?

I understand that Bermuda is lovely this time of year.

Hurricane Ivan is coming. Of course. The THIRD hurricane in one month to hit Florida. Yay!

I bring bad luck to Florida. For the first time in the history of USA, there are gonna be two category 4 hurricanes within a duration of one month! We just dodged Hurricane Charley a few weeks ago and now the new threat is Hurricane Frances! While it's exact path is not known yet, we know it's going to hit Florida late Friday night. After that it's anybody's guess. Let's see what happens.

Quote for the night: "You know you're a nerd when you hear CAT5 Hurricane and can't stop thinking about Ethernet Cables." - Chirag

WE ARE SCREWED. The hurricane is 99% going to hit my county the worst. Winds will be upto 115 mph, 4"-8" rain, 10ft storm surge!!! The eye of the hurricane is supposed to hit land exactly where I live! Such an event hasn't happened in decades and just two months after I move to Florida (tomorrow being the two month anniversary), we get hit by a major category 3 hurricane.

Over 800, 000 people are being evacuated in my county!!! There is no regular gasoline available - had to buy premium grade. I've filled my bath tub with water just in case there is no water for the next few days. Half the people in my apartment complex have left. I guess the other half like me are ignoring the mandatory evacuation. I'm gonna stay in my apartment and weather the storm. My two biggest worries are my car and computer. If there is a storm surge in 10 feet, my car is absolutely screwed. Storm surge is when the ocean level rises and rushes inland. So basically with the predicted 10 feet storm surge, my car will be under 4-6 feet of water!!!

I've stocked so much food that I can survive for months. I have water and my UPS has enough juice to power a light for a couple of hours. Since the storm is hitting land 2-4pm tomorrow, it's slightly better than a midnight storm.

They say "if you don't like the weather in Florida, just wait five minutes, it'll change." I hope they're true and tomorrow turns out to be a no biggie. I really don't want this storm to hit us.

I just found this hurricane map. You wanna know where I live? Exactly in the path of the hurricane, where the black line touches the coast of Florida! From what I can make out of the news, we're basically screwed.

In the news right now: "A state of emergency was declared for all of Florida on Thursday as the one-two punch of a tropical storm and then a hurricane raged closer, the first time the state has faced such a potentially messy plight in almost 98 years." Basically, there are TWO hurricanes that are coming towards Florida right now and should hit the land by tomorrow afternoon. Some are predicting serious disastrous weather while others are saying it's just a normal hurricane. No matter what it is, it's gonna be scary. I just hope my computer is safe :)

Oh and there's no way I'm getting my new furniture this weekend :(

This is going to be a very different 'blog entry than usual. For the first time in four years I'm regretting my decision to come to the United States of America. This isn't something that has been nagging me for weeks or months. This isn't something that is troubling me a lot. But it is something that I think differentiates what I think of myself and what people see me as. Right now everyone who knows me, thinks I am on the way to 'success,' whatever success is. They see me as standing on my own two feet, set in life with respect to career and education, and on my way to making it big. I'm not denying the fact that in four years I got two BS degrees, worked 3 different jobs, found an apartment and a car, and settled down in Florida. What I disagree with, is everyone's definition of "set-in-life."

Four years ago when I left India, I had the love of my family and friends right next to me 24/7. I had a pretty good job at my dad's friend's company (Rajda) and if I had stuck there, I'd prolly be "set" by now. Or maybe not. Who knows. But anyways, in this last four years, while I've gained a lot of material things, I've also lost a lot of important things. Right now I'm living in the middle of nowhere and know nobody. No family, no friends, no love. It's as if I suddenly woke up and everybody I knew had disappeared. I walk out of my house and I just see rows and rows of strangers. I smile at them and our interaction often ends after they smile back.

My work life is great. I can't believe I actually found such a homely loving company to work at. I think that has been my experience since I came to US. I find the greatest people to work with, those who truly appreciate my efforts, skills, and experience, while on the other hand, my social life has been full of disappointment and worst-nightmares-coming-true. When I finally made a bunch of great friends in Jersey, I moved on to Florida where I'm back to zero.

What I HATE right now is everyone from Jersey telling me to go out and make new friends. How exactly am I supposed to do that? It was easy in college, you just make friends talking in class or living in dorms. It's absolutely different out in the real world. I can't just walk upto a bunch of people and expect them to befriend me. So ya, things get kinda lonely on weekend here. I dunno why I'm so angry right now. I think it's most probably because I couldn't go running today.

So anyways, back to regretting coming to US. Yes I'm having doubts right now. Why? Because in four years, nothing has improved, rather gotten worse. I'm alone, single, and far away from everyone who loves me. Don't email me saying I should deal with it because I chose to take this step. I already know that everything I did, I did it consciously and with enough forethought. But what I'm realizing now, is that I over-estimated my capacity to deal with loneliness. I thought I blossom in solitude. Turns out, after a while being alone 24/7 gets kinda crazy.

Picture this, I came into my apartment at 6pm on Friday. Next time I get to go out of my apartment is 8am Monday. In that duration, I've seen no people. There's nothing to do when it's raining so bad outside. I'm literally house-arrested and it's one of the worst feelings ever. My dad's probably smiling right now, thinking I told you to stay in India. Maybe he really was right. America is a great country and I have nothing to say against it. But right now, I'm holding on to a shattered American Dream. I'm probably decades away from money, power, fame, and love. Isn't that what constitutes the American Dream? Somewhere in the middle of all this, is lost my desire to further my education. Maybe that's what is bothering me so much. I love the working man's life, the routine, the schedules, the meetings, but I also miss the learning, the new people, the well-versed teachers.

I know this 'blog entry is all over the place and I'm probably not thinking straight right now. But I dunno what to make of all this. Is this really what I came to US for? Sure, I have a great place to live, but I had it 4 years ago too. Sure I have a nice car, but I had it when I turned 18. So I work in a great place, hell I loved Rajda a lot too. I never complained. So why exactly did I leave India... I don't know... Somebody please remind me why I am here...

Maybe I'm just very homesick right now. It's been over two years since I saw my family. I think it's just that. I miss them a lot and there's nobody here to make me forget about them. Before I start crying I must end this 'blog right away.

A good day at work really boosts my confidence level. However, I think confidence is something that should come out from within and not be affected by good or bad days. Growing up, I used to think that there will come a day when I'll realize that yes, I've grown up now. Yet till now I feel just like a kid. I do what most grown ups do and I'd like to think that my maturity level is appropriate to my age but in my heart, I still feel like a kid. Now I don't mean the poetic notion of there being a child in every adult's heart. I mean I still haven't come to terms with the fact that I am 23, living by myself, working full-time. I feel like I belong in school, reading and writing.

Maybe that's my problem. A decade and a half of studies and I'm subconsciously unwilling to leave it all behind me. My mind's accustomed to looming homeworks and due papers. Somehow the freedom of being an independent adult is alien to me. Of course, I enjoy every minute of it. It rocks that I don't have to stay up late nights pouring over annoying classes I never wanted to take anyway. It's awesome that I can watch as much TV as I want without one bit of guilt arising. And best of all, I love the pace of life here in Florida - not too fast, not too slow.

My friend Erik is thoroughly enjoying being a small cog in a very big corporate machine. I, on the other hand, have selected to be an integral part in a small firm. Like he says, everything I do has a direct impact on the day-to-day workings of the company (or so I hope). That is in essence why I think I moved down to Florida. I cannot let myself be lost amidst the aisle of cubicles in a Big Apple behemoth. I'd rather get my tiny office in the middle of nowhere and slowly grow till I am satisfied.

Oh well, stuff like that takes time and years of effeort. But days like today make me believe in myself.

I've realized that often times I "find" myself while I do the most mundane chores. I was just ironing my work clothes, listening to songs on the radio, when suddenly something hit me. For a moment I was in sync with the world and the universe. As boring as ironing is, for a flick second I pressed the perfect crease and knew everything is going alright.

Why do I wonder if everything is going alright or not? I don't know. I guess I'm still confused about my life long goals. I told my boss that one of my goals was to keep learning throughout my life. I guess that goal will be fulfilled in time but in the meantime, I wonder if I'm going on the right track. Right now I have everything new - new job, new apartment, new car, new soocer cleats... but is this what I really want? I don't know. From the point of view of others I most probably have it "set" but I personally don't know. I love my work and try to spend as much time and energy as I can doing my bit to turn our company into a major success. But other than that, where am I going...

For some reason I don't feel like making new softwares and personal websites anymore. I guess it's cuz that's what I do at work for 8-9 hrs a day. What I do enjoy lately is cooking real simple stuff - from boiling potatoes to making pasta. I'm a miserably bad cook but I still find it pleasing to come home after a long day at work and cook up small meal. My running is going so-so. Last week was great but this week after the soccer practice on Monday, I've been too sore to run. This morning I ran 1.5 miles in 16 minutes. At 6:30 tonight I'm going to play some more soccer with Brian.

All in all, this is my life. Wake up, go to work, run/soccer, cook, chat with friends from Jersey, go to bed. Rinse, repeat. Weekends are slightly more relaxed. Yesterday I swam in the pool while I did my laundry. Then went to Walmart for some groceries (mostly fruits and vegetables). I guess I'm as settled as I could've been in just over a month.

But I do miss home. Hell I don't even know where is home - India or Jersey because I miss both equally. I don't think I'll make as many friends here in Florida as I made in Jersey simply because that was a college environment. But I'm hopeful. I met a buncha nice folks already, from Brian and Scott at work to Lynn, Heather, Ursula, and Dan. Who knows, someday I might even meet that special someone.

Till then I know what I have to do... You guessed it right - iron my frigging clothes! I still have 5 pants and 12 shorts to iron. So I better get back to it...

One month in Florida!!!!!!!! Had a long day at work today. Work's going good so far. Yesterday I went to play soccer with my boss, his brother, and their friend. Today I went to the beach with Lynn :) I'm still sore from the soccer game yesterday. Gotta run 4 miles tomorrow. That's my life in short. It's going good and quite fast. I can't believe one month is over already...

Here's a brief summary of an exciting day. I went to the Clearwater Beach today with Arthur. While in the sea we met a gorgeous 22 year old ex-waitress/stripper named Crystal. We talked and swam for almost two hours and then me and Art headed back home. Now I know you're thinking what-the-hell but it's true. We wanted to stay longer but Arthur had to pick up his car from the service department before five.

MasterCard Ad follows: Parking - $4, Lunch - $20, Gasoline - $2, Meeting a bikini-clad stripper on a beach - Priceless... There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there're the Florida Beaches.

Here's to a new way of life...!

I'm in Florida! Arrived here safe and sound with my awesome buddy Arthur. He's helping me move in and buy all the necessary stuff that I need to live. Tomorrow we go buy me a car! Hopefuly.

Last night out with Mason and his buddy Alex to the Delilahs club was amazing. I have no idea why we didn't go there before.

Anyways, I'm living @ my aunt's house now and just packing for Florida. Not much is going on in my life except counting days till June 12. I already have a place I want to move into in Florida and hopefully I'll get a car as soon as I get there. Wish me luck and send me an email :) I may not reply soon but I'll try my best.

What a wonderful day. My cute lil friend Linda picked me up from work and we went to Bertucci's for lunch. It has been a long time since I last talked to her. The amazing thing is she got me newspapers from China and Hong Kong! My collection is growing steadily thanks to my amazing friends :)

During lunch my Dad called up, telling me to wish my Mom a happy birthday. Of course I did all excitedly. I even got Linda to say Happy B'day to my mom :) Boy was my dad jealous or what!

After lunch I didn't feel like going home so we hit up the movies right next door. We saw The Day After Tomorrow which I thought was a pretty good flick. A lot of people have rated it bad for trifling reasons. Over all, it was an entertaining movie and while the story was quite improbable, it isn't entirely impossible.

Anyways, after a nice lunch and movie, I got back home and here I am. Hope I get to see her again sometime. Who knows, maybe in Florida...

The bunker is no more. I've setup myself at my aunt's house for 2 weeks and then to Florida. Went to Atlantic City with family last night. Lost $30 but had a lot of fun. Now I know why Donald Trump is so rich. Hehe. Anyways, I have so much packing/unpacking to do before I get to St. Petes.

Henceforth, I am officially a graduate of Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Today was my graduation ceremony. I graduated with the highest honors in Computer Science and Economics and was awarded one of six Honors Scholars distinctions. My aunt, uncle, cousins Sneh and Sagar were there to see me finally achieve what I've been working hard at for four long years. My buddy Arthur graduated with me too! Neeeeeeeew Brunswick!!!!! Home of the Scarrrrrrrrlet Knights!!!!!! By God we did it man. We did it :)

Nobody in this world could have topped my success today, except my sweet little cousin Sneh. She participated in the Miss India NJ/PA/DE competition and she won the Runner's Up title! Her answer to the judge's question was frankly 100 times better than I could have ever come up with in such spontaneous circumstances. Congrats Sneh!!!

So here I am, all set to visit my Kaushik Mama (Uncle) in Queens, NY tomorrow. Haven't seen them for months now. I most definitely want to meet them once before I move to Florida.

Today is the one year anniversary of moving into my bunker :) Here's to one amazing year in a tiny little place that has provided me shelter for months and many a peaceful days. Oh bunker I love thee like thou art a palace for the richest of the kings :) And coincidentally just today I got a call from the manager of my new apartment in Florida! Hopefully everything's gonna work out now *crossing my fingers*.

I haven't 'blogged in a while because I don't have much to say. Today I feel an urge to share. A lot of changes are going to happen in my life now that I've completed my undergraduate studies. I'm graduating with BS in Comp Sci, BA in Econ, Math minor, Honors College. Hopefully my GPA's gonna be 3.9+ since I already got 3 A's and 1 B; the results of my Math class are not out yet. I don't have terribly high student loans and if my calculations are correct (thankfully they often are), they should be paid up within 12 months.

On June 12th I leave for Florida, an entirely new life. It's extremely scary and challenging. My client/boss called me up the other day telling me how excited he is that I am joining his firm. I have big plans for his company too and I know how to get them in place but I'm gonna be the only one doing all the IT work. So things are definitely going to be tough. I'm only 23 but the responsibilities are that of someone with 15 years of experience. Leaving all your friends, family, people at existing job, and going to a new place, new job, working with new people - honestly it's a big change. But, it only feels big when I think about it. If I don't think about how much of a change it is, it feels trifling - so I'm just moving to Florida to work for my client. No biggie. Hehe. From your point-of-view I'm sure it appears that way, Chirag making the big bucks and having a great job. From my point-of-view it is coming home everyday from a great day at work but having nobody to talk to.

Hopefully I'll make new friends in the kickass place that I'm moving to. Get this... it's a 1020 sq.ft. apartment with patio/balcony, two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, huge livingroom, walk-in closets for only $625/month! I'm paying over $500 for a TINY one-bedroom, bathroom apartment in Jersey. Gotta love Florida. And I'm getting a two-bedroom apartment because you can come and stay with me if you come to Florida. Yes you, whoever you are, you're welcome to my humble apartment :)

So I got an A in my research but still have a lot of work to complete. I hope to continue my work-relationship with my professor but I don't know if that's going to be easy long-distance. Oh and I'm not giving up my dreams of Masters (or MBA) and PhD. That is definitely coming in the next few years.

Right now I'm talking to my sister online. She's the best sister in the world and we all know it :)

In one month, I will be moving to Florida with my buddy Arthur the Awsom-O. Last night was fun. Met Art's girlfriend Kate at her house and chilled with her friends. I had enough drinks but as usual, none of it affected me. Before we went to Kate's house, we stopped by at Art's, and his dad offered me an imported Polish beer - now THAT was strong :) I'm not a beer person and so it hits me quite hard.

Anyways, have my research to complete now. Working on a site as usual. Life's going ok I guess. Talked to my family a couple of times in past few days. Missing them a lot. Especially for my graduation.

Quote for the day: "I've successfully assimilated alcohol into my blood stream as a valuable nutrient." - Chirag

Yesterday was one of the most amazing days of my life. If I wasn't so busy with studying for finals I'd write out in detail exactly what I did. I chilled with 25-30 different friends in just one day! From a frat party to concert to late night sing-alongs... I can't believe how much happened in just one day. And I even met a nice girl but well since I'm going to Florida soon, I doubt anything's gonna come out of it. All in all I had a great time at Rutgers Fest with all of my friends.

Now for finals.

As usual, sudden change of plans. I'm going to start my job in Florida as soon as I possibly can. That means sometime around June. It's gonna be tough but I'll manage. Oh and I seriously need to start saving (and making) money now.

Here comes the long overdue lengthy 'blog entry. Lately I've been busy with too many things in my "real" life. So as you must have heard it by now, I have a job offer in St. Petersburg, Florida. My client wants to hire me full-time and will take care of my work visa (H1B etc.) requirements. The salary is good and my responsibilities are managable (or so I think). Here's what I've been upto:

Took a JetBlue flight to Florida on Friday night at 6:55pm. My online friend Taylor picked me up from the airport and brought me to his home. Turns out, just like his online persona, Tay is a real cool guy and despite his warning that in two days we'd be hating each other, we're still great friends; REAL friends now, not ONLINE anymore. After all, once I move to Florida, he's probably going to be one of a handful of people I know. So it's in my best interest to be nice to him *grin*

Next morning was the main interview with my client. It's always better to be over-dressed than under-dressed said Tay's dad. So over-dressed in a suit I went to my client's office, courtesy of Tay and his white pickup (more on the pickup truck later). Now about my client and soon to be boss... He is one of those people that you can instantly see made his own wealth from scratch. Very well-spoken and big-heart, he welcomed me into his office building like I owned it. My quite casual interview went on for the next six hours! My uncle had told me managerial positions aren't given by short 'n stout IQ tests but rather by long active personal examinations. Basically my client wanted to see whether my personality would fit in with his company or not.

To my pleasure, he thought I would fit in great and wants me to start working as soon as I graduate. I have a couple of commitments in Jersey (my work, my new apartment lease etc.) due to which I might be slightly delayed. But otherwise I'm trying to relocate as soon as I can. After all, Florida is beautiful and the work environment was great. Having been brought up in an mini-entreprenueral environment, I feel more at home as a manager in a small firm than a widget in a behemoth corporation. My dad owns his business and while I never said I want to inherit his particular business or form some startup with VCs etc., I've always looked at my work as if I own it. There is a spectrum of mentalities when it comes to responsibilities and I lie on one end, treating my work as if the outcome affects my whole company directly. At the other end of the band are most people who would love to get a job in Microsoft and Morgan Stanley - their work affects their bonuses. In between are people who partly care about the company and partly care about their packages. It's not about which mentality is right or wrong, it's more about can you find a place where you can fit in. Given my entreprenueral mentality, I think I'd fit better into a small company with broader responsibilities than in a large company with extremely specific job requirements. The big companies are doing fine without me. It's the small company where I can actually make a difference as well as learn what hard work and sleepless nights are all about. So yes, I'm fully aware my new job isn't going to be a cakewalk by any standards. Unless I interpreted things wrongly, it's going to be very difficult and I have a lot of goals to achieve in a very short time. Oh well, I've managed before and can do it again. The only difference this time is that now I know I must take care of my health before anything else.

During the interview I met one of my client's coolest employees and we went to lunch to The Dish. Interesting concept - you collect any amount of vegetables, fruits, mushrooms etc. in a bowl and sauces in another bowl and hand it over to the cook. Right in front of you they heat it all up together on a HUGE stove and hand it back to you. It was one of the best things I've ever eaten! Who knew broccoli could ever taste this good. Just thinking about The Dish makes me hungry. After lunch the interview continued and my client's wife walked in sometime around 3pm.

Now here's the critical part. Since the beginning of the interview, I was also interviewing my client in my head. I wanted to be sure that I was going to work at a place where the atmosphere was professional, systematic, and yet had some amount of homeliness and familial values. While my client proved to me within the first hour that his company is strong and growing, I still wasn't sure whether the work environment would be comfortable enough. I don't mind strict suit and tie formalities but being alone in this country for years to come, I want to work in a place which I can call home, simply because after work I gotta go back to an empty nest, obviously not home. And then one question she asked got rid of every doubt I had: "How is your cousin?" I'm just amazed that my client told her about Keval and that she remembered. It meant a lot to me. That's when I realized I'd found a new home and moving to Florida would be just like moving from my home in Calcutta to my aunt's home in Jersey.

Interview ended at 4:30pm and Tay being the coolest guy ever picked me up. One phone call after next, I estimate I spent $50 just one phone calls in that one day to inform everyone close to me that I am "gainfully" employed now. Tay's stepmom cooked some awesome Fettuccine Alfredo with vegetables for us for dinner and suggested a good comedy club we could go to. She basically knows every nook 'n cranny of the state. I told Taylor that people like her are the duct-tape that hold our society together, like my grandma and aunt, they take care of everyone and everything simply because they feel like they must. This is what I did at the Coconut Comedy Club: One Margarita, two Margarita, Motorcyle, Floor! Just kidding! I wasn't drunk at all. Seriously. No really. Trust me. I swear!!!!!!

Anyways, next morning we left for Universal Studios early and enjoyed about 5 rides/shows in 5 hours. It had been a while since I had just let loose and got the hell scared out of me - Back to the Future was the best. And then after the rides I kicked some Tay-butt in Ice Hockey and he danced like a chicken while playing Dance Dance Extreme Revolution Version XVII or something like that. As funny as he looked while doing it, I gotta admit there's NO way I can move that fast - not even if there's a gun on my head. So props to him.

The last ride that scared the HELL outta me was in his pickup truck from Universal Studios to the airport - the gas tank was EMPTY!!! There were no gas stations in sight and inside my head I was literally going crazy. I tried to stay as calm as I can but I knew something was gonna go wrong - after all my trip had been so wonderful and nothing is perfect ever! I'm gonna miss the flight! I'm gonna miss the stupid flight! Urghhhhhhh! Thankfully we found a gas station before the tank ran out and the ride to the airport thereafter was pretty smooth.

The only sad part was saying bye to him at the airport and early that morning, to his family. But the good thing is I'm moving to Florida and will be seeing more of them. Then the sad part will be saying bye to EVERYONE IN JERSEY!!! I admit it already - I'm gonna cry. I'll cry when I leave my present work and cry when I leave my friends and most of all when I leave my aunt's home. This is gonna suck major. Oh well, I'm a cruel bastard who keeps doing this to people ALL the time!

I got the job in Florida! I will write everything about my visit to Florida in detail as soon as I have some time.

Waking up early morning and 'blogging seems too comfortable. I don't have to think about what I want to write or wonder if I really have the time for it. Yes I do. It's 7:15am and my world is just waking up so I have enough time. I hope I go to bed early everynight to wake up this time everyday. At least I had a night of peaceful sleep. Weird (but not bad) dreams though. Also the exam yesterday was quite bad. Let's see where my grades end up.

The main thing going on right now is my Florida trip. One of my clients asked me to work for him and he wants to sponsor me with a work permit etc. He has a small but growing company and is in the process of selecting his management team. If I join, I am hopefully going to become the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) when the company makes it big. After seeing his enthusiasm and hopefulness, I feel working independently for a small firm in Florida is better than slaving away under a behemoth in NYC. And to say the least, the beaches are hot! I am flying down to Florida on 9th April and returning back on 11th. I'll stay over at my buddy Taylor's place and we'll go to Universal Studios, time-permitting. The all-day interview will be on April 10th and if things go well, I will be joining them in early 2005.

If I do move to Florida, a lot of major changes will happen in my life. First of all, I'll be alone for the second time in my life. Here in Jersey I always have my family. The only three people I somewhat know in Florida (via the Web) are Tay, Derek, and my client. My non-work plans are pretty big once I'm there. Eventually I intend to live somewhere between work and University of Florida. I will try to get into a CS Grad program at UF and wi'll be driving 100's of miles each day from home to work and school. But within two years I should get my Masters. Also I might go for an MBA as it will definitely help out with my work. The time I will have for myself will be the weekends when I will take my car (of course) and drive all over everywhere. That is the thing I'm most excited about - freedom from a suffocating existence of being stuck in just one place (hint: 4 years in New Brunswick, New Jersey).

While Chime will never die, things will most probably slow down on the web-front, especially since I will be working for my largest client so that part of work will be moved into my 9-5 schedule. Best of all, once I get my work permit/visa, I can become the legal owner of Chime Softwares Ltd., instead of my aunt. As always, if things work out as planned, I could be making more than enough within two years and will be able to tell my dad to take a break even BEFORE July 10th 2007 (his predetermined date of retirement).

Another thing that'll happen is that I would be able to go to India at least twice a year! I could end up being one of those rich successful young entreprenuers! But then again, the 9-5 job I'm seeking isn't all that glamorous though it's in the glamour industry - making tanning products. Who said Indians can't do EVERYTHING! It'll be quite funny if I'm the only Indian guy in all of their gatherings. Everybody's gonna be like: What's HE doing here! He already HAS the perfect tan :) Go Desis!

Anyways, it will be a slow, slightly routine-ridden job I think but I hope to make it unböring somehow. I'll try NOT to postpone my graduate studies because everyone knows once you get on to the career path, it's impossilbe to get back into studies. So I'll make sure that doesn't happen to me. I want my PhD eventually as always.

I don't know where life's gonna take me next but I'm sure it'll be somewhere good. It might get lonely but then I'm always good at making new friends and since I'll have the time, I'll find some fun activities to do. Only bad thing about Florida is the heat. But I'll manage. Or not. But I'll deal I'm sure. Who knows, once I have a home, car, and a good job, I might want to settle down too! Nothing's sure though except that if I get this job, my 'blog entries will be slightly more interesting.

Internet friends rock! I'm flying to Florida for a job interview and staying over at my friend Taylor's house :) He's even gonna come pick me up and drive me around! Woohoo I'm so excited!

It's not everyday that you get a phone call from a sleazy spammer. I was just filling out some forms and this random guy (apparently) from Miami, Florida calls me up. He asked about my BotBlock service, or rather how to override it. Turns out he wants to pay me "any amount you want" to make a software that can bypass the image-verification (CAPTCHA) used by TicketMaster. He told me his "competition" was overtaking him and he was willing to pay me $5,000 to make such an application. Best of all, if I was feeling lonely, he could send me a hot woman any time of the day. I politely told him, "I'm sorry Sir but I think I'll have to hang up now. Please do not call again."

The world of mafia and money launderers of the yester years used to be a world of machismo, bravado, and to a certain extent glamour. While the neighborhood mobster is mostly a thing of the past, street-corner spammers are dime a dozen and each is trying every under-handed trick to oust the other. There is nothing smooth or sauve about trying to peddle cheap sexual aids or promote low-budget vacations to islands that don't exist. I think even the spammers themselves will agree that they are almost the scum of the planet, slightly above child molestors and rapists.

Tonight I had this guy asking me if I could write a ground-breaking software (image recognition is not cakewalk) so he can hoarde tickets illegally and spam mailboxes around the world with filth. Of course I said NO! I will never EVER on any conditions do anything to promote spam. Hell I wrote BotBlock to prevent it! Come to think of it, the genius asked me how to bypass BotBlock! I wanted to say, "What the hell do you think I am??? As dumb as you???" But then, last thing I want to do is piss off a spammer who will only enjoy harassing me. So I just acted polite and hung up.

I have a decent job and a bright career to look foward to so even the slightest dealings with these tarts will taint me forever. But what about the recently laid off, newly-married programmer who has bills, loans, and rent to pay? That's the guy to watch out for. I think the blame lies not only with these slimy spammers but also with smart programmers without jobs. It's no wonder so many hackers (well crackers) are from Russia, where the minds are young and bright but their future is bleak and dark. I'm pretty certain that the spammers are already working in tandem with programmers from all over the world but I wonder if there's anything anyone can do to stop them. Well other than making better blocking and filtering software. I think I'll stick to that for now.

Back to my forms and paperwork.

I'm still reading the Diamond story and must admit it's one heck of an adventure. The plot involves a US Vietnam General, genius Russian scientists, top diamond cartels from Belgium, corporate executives from De Beers, research scientists from Univ. of Florida. Add in a little blood and you have a Hollywood blockbuster!

Belgium... My friend Arpan is in Belgium right now. I talked to him just a few days ago. He's in the diamond business too. Still learning the tricks of the trade but he's honest and hard-working, so I'm sure eventually he'll hit the diamond mine :) Shout out to Arps! Hey buddy! Hope life's good in Antwerp.