Ramanan's Musings

Beezees, Beezees - seems this is A's favorite word these days and no he is not a Bee Gees fan. This is A's version of the word "Bicycle" :). Yes, we have joined the biking nation. The Mrs has a brand new Raleigh 7-speed bike while I purchased the very slick looking Trek Allant . A has a very cool child seat on which he lords over the Mrs. directing her to pedal faster :). I havent been bicycling for a _looong_ time. The last time I remember bicycling was when I was 16 and enjoyed pedalling furiously to go to school at Vidya Mandir, Luz, Chennai. I used to go from Besant Nagar to Luz in about 40 minutes - a distance of about 7.3 kms. Well here is the route: View Larger Map

I seem to have very little time for myself these days given the tight schedules at work, the backyard construction project, and the tight schedules at home and so new posts will be few and far between this new year. It has finally happened. The good citizens of US of A have elected a Democrat president who seems to have a conscience. But it remains to be seen if he can undo the damage caused by the exiting plutocrat . Much is expected of him and if the first few days are anything to go by, hope still exists for this land of opportunity. This small glimmer of hope is the only thing that is keeping severe depression at bay. Every where you turn, it is bad news followed by more bad news. I can now imagine what Frodo must have felt at the base of Mount Doom. In all this turmoil, our little family has found a safe harbour in the eye of the storm. Our days are spent wondering what new trick our little boy is going to learn or what new car seat to buy. A is keeping us focused on his needs ...

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 ...