Ramanan's Musings

Obituary for "Hat" The proud and gallant head-covering made of woven straw met a grizzly end on Oct 17th, 2008 at approximately 3pm near Los Banos, California. "Hat" as it was affectionately called, had a very happy life right from when its owner, Ramanan purchased it at Disney World, Orlando, Florida on July 1st, 2003 for the princely sum of $14.99. A veteran of many campaigns over the years, "Hat" was cherised and loved by its owner. "Hat" had survived many trips to the wilderness (even a trip to New York) but it meets its match in the hands (and teeth) of a pudgy and pugnacious (and possibly hungry) eight month old strapped to a car seat in the back seat of a Volkswagen Passat station wagon. "Hat" succumbed to the brutal attack somewhere between the towns of Madera and Los Banos on highway 152 (heading west) and was the only casualty in an otherwise wonderful 5 day trip to Yosemite and Bass Lake. "Hat" is survived by owner,

I spent most of yesterday uploading pictures of Adith's eighth month and pics from our recent trip to Yosemite to the popular flickr web site. Dont ask me why flickr is popular cause I wasnt very happy with their interface. Okay - they do have some nice tools to help with the uploading but organizing the pictures wasnt very intuitive. How do I sort the pictures in a group pool? If someone knows do let me know. After much soul searching, the mrs and I have decided to splurge on a new iMac - the one with the 24" screen. Hopefully the new Apple computer will come with some decent applications for photo editing and perusal.

It has been a while since I made time to pen a few thoughts. A _lot_ has happened in the last few months that has left me emotionally drained. Here are a few salient features from the past ... My parents made the pilgrimage all the way from Chennai to the west coast of California in the end of April' 2008 to visit their first grandchild (A). Airline travel is getting to be a big pain these days what with the new baggage regulations and the fuel surcharges. The flying time from MAA to SJC is a grueling 19 hours - enough to shrivel up a bonny lad of 18. Imagine what this does to travel weary grandparents aged 65. The weather in sunny California is not what it used to be. It was May but the weather was averaging a chilly 60 degrees Fahrenheit much to the discomfort of my parents who are used to 20 years of steady 85 degree Fahrenheit Chennai temperature . Due to the chilly weather, my father suffered a mild heart attach - or a myocardial infraction to those of you savvy in medical l

Since Jofus has taken a (hopefully, only a) temporary vacation from blogging, here is a snappy Indian ad from the folks at Vodafone. I do realize that they are focussed on only selling you something but such an ad does raise one's spirits. Dont google for the song - i already looked. The song was written and sung exclusively for the ad but it sounds like it is loosely based on the "Rising Sun" title song from the movie "Casino".

Most of you would have heard about global warming and even have done your bit to reduce your personal contribution to global warming but what I found out about global dimming scared me pretty bad. The irony could not be more explicit - I am cradling the sleeping Adith and watching the PBS special about global dimming. While I encourage all you to real all about it at the aforementioned link, here is the short summary. We all know that global warming is raising the global temperature and is caused chiefly by greenhouse gases - so far so good. But do you also know that a second type of pollution (particle pollution) actually causes a cooling effect (and hence termed as global dimming or dimming the sun by man-made clouds) and therefore hiding the real impact of the greenhouse gases. Particle pollution is caused by factories, airplanes etc. With the advent of carbon scrubbing technologies, particle pollution is being reduced significantly in the developed world. But in the short term, it

Dang it!! Yet another idea that the Batman (you can run but you cant hide), Jofus and I only talked about several years ago has been implemented. I refer to the neat " Shelfari " (virtual bookshelf) website. Look to the right and you will see my virtual bookshelf. Dig a little deeper and you will find a wonderfully put together website that enables friends/groups to share their past, present and future reading lists. The site of course is helpfully interlinked with Blogger, Amazon etc and stands a real chance of becoming yet another successful "social" networking product.

I just finished reading Eric Schlosser's seminal book titled "Fast Food Nation - The Dark Side of the All-American Meal". In my opinion this is one of the two best books on how we should live and eat after we inform ourselves about the food that we eat - the other book in this genre being Micheal Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. In the afterword, Eric makes a very honest assessment of our current way of life that I found to be very chilling in its prediction. Given my previous post about the amorality of businesses, I though the following was something I should share. Excerpt from Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: " The history of the 20th century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The 21st will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power. The great challenge now facing countries throughout the world is how to find a proper balance between the efficiency and the amorality of the market. Over t

Since Adith pretty much dictates my life these days, I changed the color and template of this blog to a shiny baby blue :). Hope you all dont object. It has been a fleeting three weeks since Adith's birth and I have not found the time to document these past few weeks. I am back at work this week. Isnt it a cruel world where the mother gets 6 months maternity leave and the dad gets one measly week. Anyway, I managed to go to work one day and then worked from home the next four days. This in order to ease the transition for the family is what I told my manager. But it was really to ease my transition to the daily grind :). Adith received his SSN today and this meant that we could apply for his passport. 2 passport size pictures, application form and Adith's birth certificate are all that are required. We drag the baby to the local Kinkos only to find out that they dont take passport pics of babies - too hard they say!! Take the baby to a professional studio was the recommended a

Yes - he is finally here. A arrived into this world loudly complaining about being squeezed through the birth canal even though it took him only a few minutes from the beginning to the end of the "squeezing" part of the process. A arrived three weeks early catching everyone by surprise. He is a cute tiny little guy but is very active and very curious about the new world that he has descended into. With each day, I think his lungs and stomach are growing exponentially (at least it sounds this way). It is amazing how these little guys can pack it away and then download it all into the diaper. A is averaging about 8 diapers a day and so since he is two weeks old now, thats 112 diapers and counting :). As new parents, the first few hours are exhilarating. We are the proud parents of this darling boy and everything is new and exciting. Fast forward a couple of days and the proud parents are still happy and delirious but more due to the fatigue rather than anything else :). I must

Read this article . I cant believe how out of proportion the "Harbhajan-Monkey" episode is being blown up in the media. This is crass sensationalism!! Now we have Indians questioning the racist tendencies of Indians. Please - Indians suffer from a whole host of maladies and/or quirks but racism isnt one of them. The day we call preference for the white skin, racism, then we better call all the women in the world who want to be super-models, racists too :). Harbhajan probably did call Symonds a "monkey" but I dont think he did it because he is racist. I think he did it because that is what needles Symonds. Calling Symonds a whole bunch of proper insults would not have unsettled him :). All these types of insults only unsettle the Indians (and the Aussies are very fluent with these types of insults). Bhajji did what any good antagonist would do. When faced with a strong enemy, find the weakness and go for the jugular :). Disclaimer: This piece in no way condones what

With reference to the incidents described by Joe in his post , it is really funny to see how this world turns. Heckling the batsman is okay as long as one does not make racist comments but one is free to use all other forms of insults. The Aussies certainly look like poor sportsmen for taking something that should have been settled on the field and making a mountain out of a mole hill. It painted them in a very poor light. Ponting's legacy will forever be tainted by these incidents. He will not depart the game with the same respect and adulation that Waugh commanded on his retirement. Gilly's timing of his retirement announcement might have something to do with him trying to distance himself from this team as soon as possible. He was certainly one of the old school warriors of the Steve Waugh generation and would not have liked where this team was headed. But of course he is too much a team man to say this in a public forum. Now on to the fun part - nerves of steel and a sound

Here is a hilarious youtube special ... Enjoy .... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFaeJhcOOt4

Year 2007 - it is gone - part of history now. It went by so fast that it took me until Jan 1st, 2008 to reflect on the year. Overall, it has been a very interesting year although the start of 2007 was a little traumatic for me. January had me in a new role in a new job and led to some stressful times at the start of the year. But challenges are part and parcel of life and I survived to tell the tale. G3 got a new IPOD in February on our 4th wedding anniversary (isnt it amazing how materialistic we can get when I mention that the acquisition of a new IPOD is the highlight of the month :)). The month of May was when the in-laws arrived in the US for their first visit just in time to attend G3's graduation. She received a Bachelors in Computer Science from SJSU. June was when G3 gave me the most earth-shattering news - I was going to be a daddy in about 39 weeks!! July was when we all made a very nice visit to Niagara Falls and stayed at a gorgeous Victorian bed-and-breakfast. Septemb