Thoughts

Pumpkin Bread with No Eggs

2010-11-25T12:11:00.000-08:00

I wanted to try a pumpkin bread with no eggs in it. I got a recipie from Allrecipies.com. This is a very good website for bread recipies and I have had mostly success with it. I made some modifications to the spice mix to suite to my taste (and the ingrediants that I have at my home). So here it goes.

Ingredients
0.5 cup chopped pecans
1.75 cups all-purpose flour
1 cups packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoons baking soda
0.5 teaspoon salt
1.0 teaspoon ground cloves
1.0 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardomom
1 cups pumpkin puree
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup flaked coconut

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 8x4 inch loaf pans.
2. Toast pecans in a saute pan until lightly browned. Set aside to cool.
3.In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, white sugar, baking soda, salt, clove, cinnamon, and cardomom. Add the pumpkin puree, oil, and coconut milk, and mix until all of the flour is absorbed. Fold in the flaked coconut and toasted walnuts. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans.
4.Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven, and cover loaves tightly with foil. Allow to steam for 10 minutes. Remove foil, and turn out onto a cooling rack. Tent loosely with the foil, and allow to cool completely.

Pumpkin Bread

2010-10-31T20:55:00.000-07:00

Made pumpkin bread. Its called the downeast maine pumpkin bread. The link for the original recipie can be for from here. I modified it a bit to make it a little more interesting and spicy. Its more like a cake than bread. Came out very well.
Ingredients
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
2.5 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground Cardomom
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1.5 teaspoon vanilla

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.
2.In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.
3.Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Concert by Grigory Goryachev (Aka Grisha)

2009-03-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

Today, Myself, Anu, Deena and Peng-Fei attended a classical/flamenco guitar concert by Grisha. It was an amazing experience. A very talented and a genius of a guitarist. Got two of his CD's (with his autograph) and a photograph with him. A memorabilia that I will treasure. More about the guitarist at this link.

Asparagus Soup

2008-02-24T14:42:00.001-08:00

So, we bought asparagus from the grocery store today. Harish told me that asparagus is used for soups. Since I had no idea how to make the soup, I search the internet for a recipe. The first two hits in google gave me recipes that invariably required something with meat in it. Then we got this link.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fresh-Asparagus-Soup/Detail.aspx
The recipe has got rave reviews, so thought will try it out. We did not have vegetable broth and we had red onions instead of yellow onions. So we did make some change to the original recipe. This is the modified recipe.

1. Asparagus spears (one bunch)
2. Red Onion - 1
3. Yogurt - one cup (4-5 table spoons)
4. Salt and Pepper
5. One table spoon of vegetable oil.
6. Two table spoon of rice flour or all purpose flour.
7. Two table spoon of lemon juice.
7. Blender

All quantities are approximate. If you find something is less, add more of that ;-). If you think something is more, put in more water ;-).

Put the oil in a pan and as the oil heats up, put in the onion and wait till the onion turns light brown. Next put in the asparagus and let it cook for about a minute. Dont let the asparagus become brown. Then put in a 2 cups of water, salt and pepper according to taste and the flour. Let the mixture cook till the asparagus is cooked. Then in a blender, put in the yogurt and add cooked vegetables into the blender. Blend till you get a nice smooth thick mixture. Add the lemon juice at the end. Enjoy ;-).

Life

2007-11-25T16:20:00.000-08:00

I will be graduating pretty soon and moving on to the next stage in life. Till now I had a clear goal in life, ie., to finish up my studies. That was pretty much my goal all through my life, as my parents were very keen on me completing my studies. But now that I am graduating and moving on to next stage in life (work etc), I have to seek new goals in life. The more I was thinking about the goals in life, the more I was thinking about life in general. I had a conversation with a very close friend of mine about this topic and that set into motion a through process that went on for sometime and this is what I could conclude.

The ultimate truth is that change is the only thing that is permanent in life. I have heard this statement, I have read books on it and I have thought about it. But I did not understand the implication of the statement until about 2 days back.

The day we are born the biological clock has started to tick. After every second, we are closer to leaving this world. There is no reason to believe that our stay in this world is permanent. All people who were born 200 years ago are no longer among us and 200 years from today I wont be alive*. After the initial panic of "realizing" this obvious truth, I understood that so many things in life that I take for granted is actually very precious that I cannot afford to waste. As a simple example, the breaths I take every moment in life. There is no joy in me for every breadth that I take. It is so "mundane" and common that suddenly it is no longer very interesting to enjoy the fact that I am alive and that it is actually a very nice feeling to experience each breadth in. There are few times when I am happy about the fact that I am breathing fine. I am sure as a new born baby, I would have been very happy (and relieved) to finally breath for the first time and fill my tiny lungs with life giving oxygen. When I workout or run for some distance, every breath I take after I stop excercising would be a very welcome experience. In my swimming class, when I was "drowning" in a five feet of water (I am almost 6 feet), the breadth after of air (instead of water) was very enjoyable. If I was suffering from cold and if the medicine relieves my blocked nose cavity, I would be very happy to breath normally. I am sure during the last days of my life, I would be happy for the fact that I am actually alive and breathing and scared of the thought that I might fail to take the next breath. Apart from these occasions, I do not think much about the fact that I am breathing normally and that I am alive.

If such a fundamental thing such as breathing is not permanent in life, then everything that we experience in life is not permanent. If we have such a thought process, so many simple things in life now suddenly become very interesting, important and a reason to celebrate. For example, simple things like the time that I spend with my friends, the joy of eating good food and writing my PhD thesis has now become moments to enjoy and savor.

This thought process brought me to a new state of mind. Every moment in life is precious and reason to be happy about. There is no reason to be unhappy in life. Because the very fact that I am living, is something that should be perceived with great joy. No matter in what situation I am in, I have to enjoy the moment. Because once the moment is gone, it never comes back. Our life is a journey in a one way street that terminates at the end. Dwelling on things that make us sad only takes away the time when we can be happy in this terminating journey.

Footnote:
*Medical science could alter the way cell grows and degenerate, making everlasting life a reality. Since that has not happened till now, and less likely to happen in my life time, I will assume that I am not going to benefit from it.

Egurukula

2007-11-13T10:10:00.000-08:00

Me and my friend anand have started this website called egurukula.org. Its a website that is intended to see if internet can help technical education. This is the first version of the site. Hopefully students would find it useful. Depending on the feedback we plan to expand it further.

Not So Quick Sambar

2007-04-12T14:04:00.000-07:00

My mom taught how to cook this version of sambar. I tried it out and found it to be really good. So thought it will be good idea to share it. Note that this sambar requires about 3 different vessels and a blender (Mixie). So it takes more time and effort to make than the quick sambar which i had posted earlier. But this tastes so much better than quick sambar that it is worth the effort.

The sambar described below will be enough for 4-5 servings. Things that are required:
1. Coriander seeds (Also known as meti seeds) - one cup
2. Dried Red Chillies - 8-10
3. Coconut - one cup
4. Onion - Diced one cup
5. Okra (Also known as ladies finger)- 2 cups
6. Tamarind
7. Dal
8. Salt

Fry coriander seeds and dried red chillies in 2 Tablespoon oil till the coriander seeds become brown in color. Put the fried mixture and coconut in a blender and grind it till it becomes a smooth paste. Cook Dal in a pressure cooker. In a seperate pan, fry onion in 2 table spoons of oil till it turns golden brown. Add Okra into it and fry it till its reasonably cooked and crisp. Add tamrind, salt, the cooked dal and the blended mixture into the fried onions and okra. Switch off the heat once the sambar starts to boil. You have a very tasty sambar!!.

Wizards of Technology

2006-11-14T23:19:00.000-08:00

I got introduced to podcasting about 9 months back. One podcast that I regularly listen to is Wizards of Technology by Digital Bill, from "the Binary Bunker" in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I regularly read Slashdot, so the tech news in his podcast is mostly not new to me. But it was fun listening to him and the way he puts things was very interesting. He has a warm voice and a sense of humor that makes you come back to his podcast. There were times when I would wait for the next episode, just to listen to him. For some days, there were no new episodes. Then I got caught up with work and dint check the podcast for two months or so. Today, when I was searching for his podcast, I came to know that he expired on 4th Sept, 2006. It was a great shock for me. I never in my wildest imagination thought that this would have happened. I felt like I had lost a good friend, although I have never met him. He was just 47 years old. Rest in peace Bill.

My Second Guitar Recording

2006-11-12T15:24:00.000-08:00

I am learning to play classical guitar from the book "The Student Repertoire Series Vol. 1 (Classical Guitar) by Lawrence Ferrara". This song is titled Ode To Joy. The music for this song is set by Ludwig van Beethoven. I learnt how to play this piece about 2 weeks back. You can find the recording in this link. http://www.cs.umn.edu/~skodak/guitar/OdeToJoy.wav. I recorded it using a standard mic (the one that you use to chat over the web) and windows sound recorder. So the recording is not great. Still, I hope you will find it enjoyable.

Blogging from airport

2006-11-08T15:08:00.000-08:00

I am sitting near TCBY ice cream shop in Phoenix International airport, waiting for my flight to Monterey Bay. I am going to Monterey bay for 2 days to attend a conference. Its a 4 hour wait at Phoenix. So thought will check to see if I can logon to the internet. Luckily Phoenix airport have free wireless internet connection. Since this is the first time I am using free wireless at an airport, I thought I should make a blog entry to mark the day. In other words, I am bored, have nothing to do but wait, so thought will kill sometime by writing a blog entry ;-).

Biking

2006-08-06T22:53:00.000-07:00

I like to Bike. It is interesting and gives me an opportunity to loose some weight. Generally I feel good when I bike. I used to own a mountain bike, but its gear mechanism gave away 2 weeks back. The bike shop person told me to get a new bike as its not worth repairing this one. I got a bike from the shop. Its kind of an expensive bike, but definitely much better than my mountain bike. Since I did invest some money in the bike, I thought I better start using it more than just for biking to and from office ( I am working as a summer intern at Folsom, CA). I came across a site that gives lots of details on biking and bike touring. This is the link to the website
http://www.bicycletouring101.com/index.html
Lots of interesting information is available in the website. After reading the articles, I am now thinking of going for a short tour before the end of this month. Lets see.

Interesting perspective on Love by Bryan Adams

2006-06-01T15:56:00.002-07:00

I am sure you would have heard this song by Bryan Adams. If not I encourage you too hear the song. Particularly if you are in love. This song caught my ears due to two reasons. For the starting classical guitar in it and for this line "Then when you find yourself lying helpless in her arms ...". I can imagine what the singer really means, its something that gives me a different feeling. I just cannot express that in words. Is that what we call love??

I have put the lyrics below (courtesy Sammy).

Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?
( Bryan Adams )

To really love a woman,
To understand her,
You've got to know her deep inside ...
Hear every thought,
See every dream,
And give her wings when she wants to fly.
Then when you find yourself lying helpless in her arms ...
You know you really love a woman

When you love a woman,
You tell her that she's really wanted.
When you love a woman,
You tell her that she's the one.
She needs somebody, to tell her that it's gonna last forever.
So tell me have you ever really ... really, really ever loved a woman?

To really love a woman,
Let her hold you,
Till you know how she needs to be touched.
You've got to breathe her, really taste her,
Till you can feel her in your blood.
And when you see your unborn children in her eyes ...
You know you really love a woman.

When you love a woman,
You tell her that she's really wanted.
When you love a woman,
You tell her that she's the one.
She needs somebody, to tell her that it's gonna last forever.
So tell me have you ever really ... really, really ever loved a woman?

You've got to give her some faith,
Hold her tight, a little tenderness.
You've got to treat her right.
She will be there for you taking good care of you ...
You really gotta love your woman.

And when you find yourself lying helpless in her arms,
You know you really love a woman.

When you love a woman,
You tell her that she's really wanted.
When you love a woman,
You tell her that she's the one.
She needs somebody, to tell her that it's gonna last forever.
So tell me have you ever really ... really, really ever loved a woman?
So tell me have you ever really ... really, really ever loved a woman?

So tell me have you ever really ... really, really ever loved a woman?

Documentary of Feynman

2006-04-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

A very interesting documentary about a very interesting person. A must see. My favorite quote from the documentary

"I was always been rather very one sided about science, when I was younger I concentrated almost all my effort on it. I didnt have time to learn and dint have patience to learn humanities. ... I am really still a very one sided person and dont know a great deal. I have a limited intelligence and used it in a particular direction." - Dr RP Feynman

Fiber to the Village

2006-04-09T23:56:00.000-07:00

Raj Reddy is a Professor of Computer science in CMU. More about him here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Reddy

He is leading a project on Fiber to Village. It is a very interesting project. More details about this project can be got from his presentation that he gave in stanford. The video can be found in this link.

Aksharotsav 2006 Videos

2006-03-13T22:42:00.000-08:00

The video of our play (The first 2 scenes, the rest is coming soon). You can get the script here

Amazing Physics Text Book

2006-03-05T07:55:00.000-08:00

If you want to learn more about physics and mathematics and want to have fun in doing so, visit MotionMountain.com. It will be worth your time.

Aksharotsav 2006

2006-03-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

Its 4 days after Aks-2006. I acted in the play. Lots of rehersals in the past month. I wont say I enjoyed every rehersal. I had my share of annoyances during the rehersals. But on the whole, the work paid off, people liked the play. The script was a work done by a genius -Shwetlena. Amazing script, and the time from when I read the script, I knew it would be a sure-fire hit, unless ofcourse, we screwed it big time. But as someone said, luck favours the prepared mind and during the show, we dint forget the dialouges or stopped in the middle for the other person to respond.

Now a days, I feel there is a void in my life without rehersals. Hopefully next year too there would be a wonderful script and I will play a part in the play. Photos of the play and video's will be uploaded shortly.

Thoughts on Marriage

2006-03-02T18:54:00.000-08:00

Now, I am not married. The sad thing is I dont even have a girl friend. Some people might think that I am lucky here ;). I came to know about a chinese joke, that marriage is like a fort. People who are outside the fort, want to get in while people inside wants to get out. Jokes apart, marriage is one of the most important decision that one takes in ones life. In a mailing list that I am subscribed to, there was a discussion about marriage and why the divorce rates in India is getting higher. Many people have different opinions of the whole concept of divorce. Since I have my own opinion, I thought I should voice it over.

There could be many reasons for a divorce. Alcholism, cheating spouse, physically absuing husband/wife etc etc are sure fire case for a divorce, if it cannot be mended with some effort from the family/friends/oneself. There is no point in living with a cheating/physically absuing spouse. Ofcourse, the child gets affected due to the divorce, but then it is a casuality which one has to take into account when one takes such decisions.

The other type of In the case of ego problems, like spouse is more successful than one self, problems with in-laws etc. These are completely avoidable. Most of the problem boils down to ones ego/miscommunication/expectations. When one gets married, one should be ready to compromise on many things, including things that are dear to oneself like ego. One has to open up and talk about problems currently affecting their lives. Each person had the right to have their own belief/opinions. Expecting ones spouse to act according to ones wishes is a gauranteed path to trouble. I for one believe that we have only one life to live and every problem has a good solution. There is no point in waging a "silent" war with ones spouse and screw ones life. If there is a hint of a problem, talk it out and resolve it then and there. Each one has to learn the boudaries after which anything told or done will affect the other person in an adverse way.

Live happy, make a mark in this world, eat and sleep well and enjoy life. There are so many things to do in life and waging a "silent" war with ones spouse is the thing for which no energy should be spent.

PS: A related post of mine "Problems with in-laws" also refers to this kind of problem

My first Guitar Recording

2006-02-06T20:30:00.000-08:00

I have been playing Classical Guitar for the past 6 months now. I recorded today the first piece that I learnt. You can get the *.mp3 file from http://www.cs.umn.edu/~skodak/guitar/guliani.mp3. The piece is composed by Mauro Giuliani. Enjoy!! and do leave your comments.

Quick "Rasam"

2006-01-28T20:08:00.000-08:00

Since the previous post was on Quick Sambar, I thought I will post another "curry" dish. This time its Rasam. The trick is, I am not going to use any "Rasam Podi" to make rasam. Now you should be thinking that, isnt it easier to make rasam with rasam podi. Now why is this grad student posting such a "tough" sounding rasam. Well, I will post the recipie and you can be the judge. Now on the recipie.

Things that you need:
Blender or a "Mixie".
Tomatoes: 3-4
Garlic: 6-8 cloves
Tamarind Paste: One teaspoon full (If you have tamarind instead of tamarind paste, make it the size of a "half" table tennis ball and dissolve it in water)
Black Pepper: 2 Teaspoon full (This is not pepper powder, its whole black pepper)
Asafoetida Powder*: Quarter Teaspoon full
Jeera: 2 Teaspoon full
Dhania Leaves also known as "Kotha Malli" in Tamil.
* Asafoetida is also known as "Kayam" in Malayalam or "Perungayam" in Tamil. Its also known as LG (after the company that makes it).

All quantities said above are approximate. Try it out and if you feel something is lacking, add some more of that. If something has gone "overboard" add some water to compensate the effect.

Cooking Instructions:
Put everything in the blender, add a little bit water, salt to taste and grind the mixture to a pulp. Heat oil in a seperate vessel and put mustard and "Karuvepilai" into it. Once the mustard starts busting, put the blended mixture into it. Allow it to boil. Once it starts boiling, stop cooking. For garnishing put chopped dhania leaves into it. Tasty rasam is ready.

Quick "Sambar"

2005-10-20T21:03:00.000-07:00

I thought I will document a "quick" way to make sambar. For those who dont know what sambar is, it is a curry made with lentils and vegetables. It is generally had with rice and is one of the "evergreen" dish made in south india. There are many ways to make a tasty sambar. But, I can say with confidence, that no recipie can be as simple as this one. Deena, my ex-roomie, a bachelor and an ex-grad student, came up with this amazing new way of making sambar. I have written the recipie below.

Things that you absolutely need:
Pressure Cooker or Pressure Pan
Toor Dal (lentil)
Water
Any vegetable (if its cut, frozen vegetable, its better ;-) )
Salt
Sambar Powder
Tamrind Paste

Things that are optional.
Turmeric powder
One medium sized Onion
One tomato
Chilli Powder.

Recipie:

Put everything in the pressure cooker. Use your judgement and taste to find out the quantity of salt, sambar power, turmeric and chilli powder. One table spoon of tamrind paste should be sufficient. Add necessary amount of water. Cook it till you hear 4 "whistles" and then switch off the cooker. Leave the steam in the cooker for 15 mins. Open the cooker, mix everything. The sambar is ready. Preparation time is < 2 mins. Cooking time is typically about 30-45 mins. There is no oil used in the recipie and its very healthy.

Hints:
A combination of carrots and onions makes a great sambar.

Enjoy.

Spam Comments

2005-10-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

I am not sure how many of your face these problems. I am getting spam comments in my blog. Ads for porn sites are the most common. Some are about sites for calling cards. I have an automatic notification setup for every comment posted. Still it is a hassel to delete all these comments. At some point in time, I hope the blog sites can identify such comments and delete them automatically. More like checking spam emails.

Trigonometry

2005-10-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

I am rediscovering Trigonometry, thanks to the book by Prof. Wildberger (Divine Proportions - Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry). I always had this problem of understanding angles. Since this was taught at a time when we were asked to "learn" the concepts and "remember" it rather than understand it, I never actually got the concept. Once in college, trigonometry was considered "elementary" and hence was assumed to be known by the students. This created serious problems for me in understanding subjects like Signal Processing, Electromagmetics etc. I came to know about this book from an article in slashdot. The authors idea of "demistifying" trigonometry caught my attention and I immediately ordered the book. I got the book two days back and I am in the process of learning the subject "from scratch". I hope in my second attempt, I will learn it better.

Problems with In-Laws

2005-08-12T00:29:00.000-07:00

Since most of my undergrad classmates will be getting married in a year or so and since I still have a hope that one day I will finish my PhD and get married, I thought to write about this persistant problem - the problems in the family due to in-laws. One common problem is the "misunderstandings" between the girl and her mother-in-law. I am talking about well educated people here. Families who do not give or demand dowry. Money is not the problem. Everything looks wonderful at the beginning. Then slowly things take an "about turn". The girl would have told something about the mother-in-law that she dint actually mean to say or vice-versa and thats enough to start a life long struggle. In between them is the guy, who would want to side with both his parents and his wife, but for some reason can never find a perfect balance. Its a pititable state. In most cases, a simple open-hearted talk between the girl and the mother-in-law and a few apologies could solve the problem. Once they try and understand each others "emotional boundary" and they take care not to cross those, most problems would never recur. But this rarely happens. The "feud" continues for a long time. By the time, they understand one another and "like" each other, the "good old days" are long gone.

Classical Music

2005-07-23T21:21:00.000-07:00

I am fond of instrumental music, hence the reason for making "attempts" to learn how to play guitar. Its about a month since I bought my classical guitar. My attempts to learn the guitar dint work. I always found some other work to do instead of practicing. I decided today that without an instructor, my guitar learning will go no where. Today I found an instructor in Folsom area. Have sent him an email. You can listen to his music here. My aim is to "play" the instrument by the time I finish my PhD. Lets see how it goes.

Problems in life

2005-07-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

Its very natural that we experience a lot of problems in our work life and personal life. Some of these problems, we think it just too big and we tend to worry about it a lot. Most of the time these problems are big only for that period. As life goes on, things settle down and later when we think about those problems, they look very small.

Now think about people with disability. They have to live with their disability for their whole life. I have seen a lot of people who cope up with their disability and lead a normal life. For some people, living every day is a struggle. They never give up and we have a lot to learn from them. Many of our problems would be nothing when compared to theirs, but we still make a huge fuss about it and worry a lot.

Something to think about.

Some thoughts on Silicon Valley of India

2005-07-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

People compare Bangalore to Silicon Valley in California. Silicon Valley in the US, is a place where innovation rule the show. Companies like Intel, Google, HP, Xerox brought innovative products to the market which profoundly affected the way people live in this world. Its all about startups. Research and innovation is the key. On the other hand, Bangalore is best known for its IT Services. IT services, although brings in lots of jobs in India, is far from something which could be called "innovative". I havent heard much about Indian Software companies that makes products like Microsoft. Its more like "manual work" outsourced to India, to tap in cheap labor. This is further reiterated by the BPO industry in India. I am definitely not against IT services or BPO industry. They bring in lots of jobs and good standard of living to people. Without that, most of our engineers would be unemployed (I used to work in IT Service industry). But this is a "service" sector and because of that our economy is highly dependent on the economies to whome we provide "service". This was clearly seen during the economic slump in the west in 2001-2003 time frame, where there were literally no jobs in IT Industry in Bangalore. A repeat of that would be devastating.

I have heard of people speculating that the next "internet like revolution" is in Bioinformatics and Genomics. We have missed the Electronics Revolution in the 70's, we are providing "service" in the internet revolution. Lets hope we do more intellectual work and bring in innovative products/solutions in the next big wave - Bioinformatics and Genomics industry. I hope one day, there is something called "Indian Dream" and many people open startups in pursuing this dream.

The South Asian

2005-07-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine is maintaining this website. www.thesouthasian.org You can find interesting articles in that website. One particular article is a journal about Education in India. Interesting Read

Guitar

2005-06-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

I fell in love with this instrument about one and half years back. I own a rock guitar and love to play it. I have moved to california to join Intel for 6 months. I drove to this place and it was fun, but the car was jam packed with all the luggage, that there was no space for a delicate instrument like a guitar. I decided to buy one once I came here. So today, I got one guitar from the guitar center. Its a Yamaha classical guitar. It was love at first sight experience for me. Well, actually it was an "expensive" love at first sight. But then, when it comes to this guitar, I was partially blind when it came to price. Now I have to "make up" for this spending and learn how to play it very well. You never know, I might one day make it to the stage ;)

Learning a Language

2005-06-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

I was discussing with a friend of mine about how fast a child can learn a language and how it become progressively difficult to learn a new language as we become older. He had an interesting perspective in that. He said, a child does take a lot of time to learn a new language, if u think about it a little more carefully. A child has nothing else to do in the first 3 years of life other than to learn the language. Everything else is taken care of by the parents. And the parents simply keep training the child to learn the language, when ever the child is awake. This means its a 12 hour training class a day for the first 3 years of life, with everything else take care of. Also, the child does not know anything else, so he has no option other than to follow the parents and learn the language. As we grow up, we have lot more stuff to do in life like job, TV, family etc and hence it takes us a lot longer to learn a new langauge.

I found this observation interesting.

Road Trip report (Minneapolis To Folsom)

2005-05-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

The road trip from Minneapolis to Folsom was simply great. We touched 8 states in 3 days covering 700 miles a day. The trip was initially planned for 4 days, but we managed to finish it in 3 days, thanks to the "high speeds" allowed by some states and the total lack of policemen in colorado. People were driving crazy in the rockies. Generally when its hilly, we tend to slow down. This was not the case in colorado. People were zipping past us and since we dint want anyone hit us from behind, we had to keep up with their pace. Its often said that people drive crazy in california. That is true. Minivans and SUV's which are generally considered "unstable" at high speeds were zipping past us. We were travelling in a Ford Mustang - a sports car. We were supposed to go fast!!. The average speed in california highways is 80-85 miles per hour. No idea why there are signs on the highway informing the drivers that the speed in 70 Miles per hour. I guess the drivers are partially blind when it comes to reading signs. And what about truckers?? I believe the truck drivers think their Truck is a "little" bigger than a car and hence they can compete with the cars and SUV's on the road when it comes to speeding.

On the whole it was a fun trip. I would definitely like to make many such trips across the rockies in colorado, the canyons of Utah and the vast expanse of "nothingness" of Nevada.

One more week

2005-05-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

One more week for my road trip to california. We are planning a 4 day 3 night trip, going past, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California with night halts at Nebraska, Colorado and Nevada. There are some beautiful photos of Rockies along I-70 which makes me all the more excited about the trip. Some of the photos can be seen at

http://protophoto.com/subject.html?subject_id=314

That said, There is one problem. Looks like cingular has very bad coverage at some part of the route. I think I might have to get a verizon phone before I leave for the trip. Was thinking of switching over to verizon for sometime now, but dint think I will switch over for this reason.

Revisiting Quickstar

2005-05-05T22:47:00.000-07:00

On Sept 2004, I had written a post on quickstar. After about a month I saw lots of comments for that blog. People have written down their experience with Quickstar. Its worth a read. The reason for my page getting so many hits is because if you search for "quickstar" in google, this blog is the third link. The same case with another of my blog, "Reliance India call". Checkout these two blogs at

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/archives/koda0009/blogthoughts/2004_09.html

Small things in life

2005-04-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

Winter is almost finished in this part of the country. Today the weather was like that of blore during the evenings. Very cloudy and slight drizzle. Walking on the bridge over the mississipi river is a great experience. Simple things in life. At times I feel that it is these simple things in life which makes "life" worth living. The smell on the air after it rains, having hot tea and "Bajji" ( a "hot" indian dish) during a rainy day, seeing a serious comedy (aka Vijayakanth's movie) along with friends with ample stuff to eat, sitting in a coffee shop reading a book unrelated to my EE degree, Listening to the birds and the sounds of the waves in the beach etc etc. The list is endless. I guess when u r a student u will have time to think about all these. As life proceeds, I am not sure if we would get time "to stop and enjoy the smell of roses". Anyways, One another "little thing" is in the agenda for me. I am planning to "drive" from minneapolis to california along with one of my friends. We are planning to go via South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado Rockies before turning to Utah, Nevada and California. Its a 5 day trip and I hope to click a lot of snaps along the way.

More on X=X+1 Syndrome

2005-03-23T10:36:00.000-08:00

Interesting article on this subject
http://www.garamchai.com/XPlusOne.htm

Back to Childhood

2005-03-16T18:39:00.000-08:00

Today, I felt I am back to my childhood. When I was a kid, the only english music cassette in my house was "Boney M". I used to listen to that repeatedly, till the cassette gave up one day. After that I dont remember hearing that cassette again till today. I am bad at maintaining CD's or cassette so dint want to buy one. But today I am listening to the same music, thanks to Rhapsody. This is a cool music service from Real networks. For a very small monthly fee, one can stream any song/album which is there in their database ondemand. The monthly fees which I pay is $3 per month (thats with a student discount), which i think is very small considering their vast online collection. The application is very good and the quality of music is awesome. I highly recommend you to try it out.

X=X+1 Syndrome

2005-03-14T22:00:00.000-08:00

I am not sure how popular this syndrome is. I read about this syndrome just before I came to US for my higher studies. The syndrome goes like this. You come to US for studies or for a job. Settle here. Like the standard of living and the money which you earn. You get married, your spouse gets a job here, you have kids. They like it here, grow up as american kids. Now you are a kind of person who resolved to come back to India. You are patriotic and you love your country. But going back now seems to be less of an option as you think of your carear, money and most importantly your kids, they like the US. You think its better for them to live here and lead a good life. Time goes by, its 10 years since you got married and settled in the US. Now you think of going back. You have enough money, but something tells you, you should postpone your return to next year. You are in the middle of a big raise in your carear and you dont want to spoil that. You are ambitious and you want to achieve a good position in the company and in your life. This is definitely not the time to think about returning to India. This happens every year when you think about it. And time runs by, you are living in the US for the past 25 years. The x=x+1 syndrome was with you for the past 15 years. You postpone your trip everytime you think about it. After 25 years, you can never go back. All your friends are settled in different places. You have new friends here and no friends back in India. All your relatives whome you knew 25 years ago are all old or not living anymore. A new generation of relatives are in and you dont know any of them. For them you are "someone who went and settled in the US". Most probably a story told to them by their parents and relatives whome you knew when you left to US. You cannot relate to the new generation. In short you have no one whome you can say "you are close to them" in India. On the other hand you cannot say US is your country, afterall you were not born here. Deep down in your heart you are still Indian. In the end you feel you lost your roots.

Is this good or bad? Is this real or a fiction? Has this happened to people settled here? Is there a different ending for this story?

A Social Problem?

2005-03-08T20:03:00.000-08:00

Which Industry offers the best paying job in India and opportunity for growth? Software Industry and BPO aka Call Center. Its very common to see people who graduated after 1998 in India, to be employed in a software Industry. Now a days working in a BPO is also a very attractive option. They pay well. One has to burn their ass and work long nights, but then thats ok considering the fact that it pays well and its a white collar job. This is all fine when one is a bachelor. But what will be the scenario after marriage? Typically the guy and the gal will be working in some software company. They both will have different deadlines and different schedules. At times they might not have time to meet each other and talk to each other for days together. If one person is working in a Call Center, then the situation is even worse.

This problem is different from what would have been seen in the families of the 1980's and early 1990's. In that period if both the parents work they most probably would have held a 9-5 job. The timing of work was humane and they would have got time to meet each other and talk to each other.

But now its not like that. How will this inhuman work timings and pressure affect the marriage? How will this irregular timings of work of the parents affect their Kids? Will their childhood be happy? How about their marriage? Would this be a contributing factor for increase in the divorce rate seen in India now? Are we facing a social problem with long term effects here?

Oscars

2005-02-27T22:32:00.000-08:00

The best documentry award goes to the one based on the life's of children born to prostitutes in the infamous brothels of Calcutta. It is interesting to note that the life's of these children, whome we seldom think about, is brought to the world's attention by this documentry. I wonder if this would change the life's of those children. May be I am ignorant here, but there was one such Tamil movie (Mahanadhi) which was released some years back, which was a hit movie in India. I am not sure if that made any change to the lifes of those people. I still wonder what can be done to solve this problem of this magnitude.

Another important thing about this year's awards is that Million Dollar Baby won 4 awards, including best director, best actress, best movie and best supporting actor. It was surprising to me that this movie was shot in just 37 days (somthing like a hindi movie, back in the bollywood). Hats off to Clint Eastwood.

ASIMO

2005-02-26T15:09:00.000-08:00

I am sure most of you would have heard about ASIMO, The Humanoid (Human like Robo) from Honda. It was great to see it live. The Honda team was at my University to demonstrate the amazing capabilities of this 4 feet tall, 115 pounds wonder machine. It can walk forwards, backwards, understand gestures, climb stairs and now it can even run (Jog actually). 15 years of research. I salute the team of engineers who toiled their way through to create this wonder machine. After seeing it in action, I believe that one day Humanoid's will become common in households. If internet is possible, this should also be. Its just a matter of time. Look here for videos of Asimov.

One week after the Play

2005-02-26T07:54:00.000-08:00

Its one week after acting in a Play. The play was a part of Aksharotsav-2005, an annual event conducted by AID-Minnesota Chapter. I am just coming back to reality and realizing that the play is really over and there is no need to go to rehersals anymore. On the whole it was a fun filled experience. Met many new people and got some good friends. The most important part was, there was a scene in the play which was modelled as a "musical" and yours truly was asked to sing and dance in the stage. For the first time in my life, more than 200+ people "had" to sit in the audience and watch me sing and dance on the stage. The very thought of that amused me. Being a "bathroom" singer, such a responsibility was truly an honor and I was happy to execute it. I wouldnt say I dint make any mistakes, but then on the whole I dint perform bad, so thats what counts.
The music was composed by Mukesh and he also played the guitar live during the play. This was a very "experimental" portion of the play, as you would have gussed. Till now this was never attempted in any play for this event. The musical part of the play went very well and people appreciated our efforts.

The photos of the play can be found

here

I hope to get more snaps and put it on the web.

Now back to reality, the reality called "grad life of research".

Skiing

2005-01-30T08:23:00.000-08:00

Had gone to ski yesterday. It was awesome. Initially when we saw the slopes, we thought 'man this is our end'. Surprisingly, It was not that difficult. I found skiing less difficult when comparing to roller blading. Anyways, it was 3 hours of non-stop fun. We were a group of 7 people and I was the first one to fall down, when our instructor asked us to list one leg and try to balance. After that, out trainer asked us to go up a slope, by walking like a duck. Man for every step I took, I was 3 step sliding down. It took me about 15 mins and lots of help from my instrutor to go up about 10 feet. At one point me and my roomie were stuck in a tree. After that there was no going back. Skiing down slope was easy, skiing up slope was tiring like hell.

Final recommendation-> if you have a chance to go skiing, dont miss it.

Peas at 5.30

2005-01-21T18:03:00.000-08:00

I got a chance to watch this german movie. The english equivalent of the title is "Peas at 5.30". Ofcourse there were subtitles in the movie. This is romantic comedy revolving around a theater director who lost his eye sight in an accident and a teacher from a rehabilitation center for blind , who herself is blind from her birth. The movie takes you from germany to russia and back. It is shot in unusual places and the comedy is very good in the movie. A different experience altogether. The music is awesome and reminded me of the score in "Kill Bill -Vol 1". A must watch movie

Acting

2005-01-17T09:39:00.000-08:00

I got a chance to act in a drama for Aksharotsav. This is an annual event conducted by AID-MN, to spread the good word about AID and its activities. Rehersals start next wednesday. Hope to have a good time.

Moving over from my school website

2005-01-09T22:08:00.000-08:00

I decided to move over from the blog site hosted at my school to a more familiar place.