The road next to our office has been dug up & how. Its as if there was a rumour about some gold discovery underground. It pains me to know how many times the roads around us get dug up, covered only to be dug up again. There is no planning at all.

When will this end?

I was talking the other day with a colleague about Internet advertising and he complained about the fact that some of the traffic it brings in, is undesirable. Is there a way to avoid it? Actually its very akin to window shoppers or casual shoppers who walk into a store but never buy anything. Would you stop them? At times more people in a store attracts even more people. Eventually only a few would buy. But as long as you have the correct merchandising, some interesting offers etc., the conversion rates would be comfortable. Its very similar online as well. The rules pretty much stay the same.

Explaining things in plain English always helps the other person to understand the concept very well. This way I think the ability to retain that information is also quite high. A VC has started a nice series called MBA Mondays which explains concepts in lucid English. Check this article to know a bit about Compound Interest

Another gem I came across was sent by email by my friend MJ was a video explanation of how differential gears work. Check the video here. I had a tough time understanding this concept in college but the video tutorial makes it sound so easy.

As the adage goes, just KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)

Parenting: Bringing up Mansi has been the highlight of the year gone by. Snehal and me can’t imagine living a single day (for Snehal its probably a hour) without Mansi. Kids can be so selfless and stubborn at the same time. While each day we learn a bit more about parenting, we realize that there is so little we know about it. And that keeps us going and makes the journey very memorable

Startups: I am onto my 3rd startup, the second time around in the Internet space. Life in a startup is always very unpredictable but usually there is always a method in the madness. We’ve been doing pretty well at Quikr and hopefully the next year will be even better. Its a crucial year for us. Having spent nearly 90% of my career in startups, I continue to be amazed by the vibrancy of small companies. There is so little I know and so much to learn.

Technology: The tech industry keeps redefining the rules every 15 days (probably even faster) and it takes a herculean effort to keep pace. But thanks to the Internet its become a bit easier. Some blogs like Techcrunch have become the mecca of information. Email for example has undergone a huge transformation. I remember setting up the mail server at my 2nd job. It took us 5 months to get a domain and get things started with an archaic text only interface. The 2nd time around, 5 years later, we went with setting up MS exchange and burnt a huge hole in our IT Budget. The third time around, 2 years later, we partnered with Netcore to get things kicked off. We were up and running in 3-4 days. The fourth time around, 7 years later, we signed up for Google Apps. We were ready to go in 6 hours flat.

Reading: I can never get to an empty Google reader screen. I have 148 subscriptions and very little time to go through them. The more I add subscriptions, the less I am able to read. But I have my A List which I swear by and not a working day passes by before I have read the A list

Music: When I took a look at the Last.FM Best of 2009 List, I realized that the music industry has moved far ahead from where I left it at. Inspite of my 35 gig collection on my iPod, there is so much music still be experienced

Travel: The more we travel, the more we want to travel. There is so much of the world to see. This year we took a mini break to Kamshet, near Lonavala and did nothing. Nothing! No sight seeing, no reading nothing. We just played with our daughter, drank and ate good food. It was bliss.

Food/Drink: The more cuisines we experience, the more experiments we make with food. 2009 has been the year we, as a couple, discovered the joy of salads. The more single malts and beers I taste, I realize that there are so many single malts and beers left to taste.

On that note, 2009 has been a great year, here’s to hoping that 2010 brings with it more joy

Cheers!

Once I started earning, which was also the first time I bought my first CD, Eagles - Hell Freezes Over, is when I started buying some alternate music like INXS (they were not so popular until Hutchence killed himself).

My idea of exploring music was to pick movie soundtracks or borrow music from friends and then pick a CD of an artist which I liked. I discovered gems like Sarah Mclachlan, Alisson Krauss this way. The financial muscle gave me the liberty to experiment with artists (since buying albums was a big risk - what if all songs didn’t turn out to be good?). And thus began my experimentation while also stocking up on all the rock classics like U2, Floyd, Led Zep and such like.

15 years hence and my urge to experiment has dwindled. Call it old fashioned or anything but somehow I just like the old music barring some pursuits in Jazz (mostly instrumental). Guys like Dave Brubeck make an evening very memorable, more so if you are nursing a nice single malt. I have tried a few interesting artists like Andrea Bocelli, Micheal Buble but the list is very small. Its funny. These days I have much more spare money to buy music but I guess I’ve lost the ability to borrow/buy music which I can explore and then build on.

Hopefully I’ll be able to find some interesting music in 2010. Any suggestions?

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded

Considering that the doctors had given her outside of a 15% chance of battling the cardiac arrest, it is nothing less than a miracle that she’s made it back at an amazing pace. Her cardiologist is pleasantly surprised and is actually considering offering my Mom the brand ambassador role for his clinic (just kidding)

It is not easy to battle the pain, accept the fact that you have no memory of 14 days of your life, muster up the courage and strength to get back on your feet and prepare yourself for a second life. Not only has Mom done all of this, the fact that makes us immensely proud of her is that she’s done it with a smile. While she attributes the smile to constantly having her grandchildren around, we know that she’s made of something else.

She has inspired many, in every role that she has played in life. Daughter, wife, sister-in-law, teacher, mother, mother-in-law, social activist, philanthropist & grandmother. She has given it her best and handled each role with the same amount of dedication & love. All of this manifested in the entire world calling to check on her progress from the day she was hospitalized and many of family & friends offering prayers for her recovery.

By the grace of God, she is doing pretty well now and after a fairly hectic daily schedule before she was hospitalized, we are glad that Mom is finally agreeing to slow down, relax and start enjoying life. Her brain however continues to function at an abnormally fast pace, much to our amusement.

Here’s wishing many more Happy Birthdays for Mom

Posted by Wordmobi

It was an incredible experience being underwater & watching all the fish swimming so close. I got a wee bit uncomfortable towards the end and decided to bail out a few mins before the session ended. The video grab makes it great to relive those moments

The entire photo set is available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/basrur/sets/72157621967840887/detail/

There is a balloon seller who stands at the corner of the road near my Mom’s place. He is there every single day from 7:30 pm to 9 pm. A simple guy who is quite cordial and makes some amazing types of balloon. We usually buy a balloon or two from him whenever my nephew demands it.

For Mansi’s birthday, we wanted to put up some balloons and thought about him. So Snehal approached him a few days before with the offer of putting up about 30-40 odd balloons in the afternoon. He agreed and said he would come before 4 pm for sure. He requested for an advance. We agreed. But since he didn’t have any contact information we were a bit worried if he would pull a fast one on us. He said if he has taken money, he has given his word and won’t let us down.

On the day of Mansi’s birthday he didn’t turn up till 2 pm and that got us a bit worried since we were banking on him. Thankfully he rang the bell at about 3 pm and was very apologetic about the delay. We were quite fine with it since he had said that he would take about 20 minutes to blow 40 ballons.

So he came in, sat down on the floor and started blowing away. Upon a casual chat where I checked if was keeping very busy and therefore got late, he replied with a sad face that he lost his son the day before and was tied up with some last rites.

My jaw dropped and I was shocked. Did I hear him right? So I double checked. He repeated the same thing again with some more details. It turned out that his son went to help out to clean the drainage system for the muncipal authorities, slipped and got drowned in it.

Snehal heard him from the kitchen and came out with a expression of shock. We both stood there, looking at the ballon seller, in silence. We were in that state for over 2-3 minutes. I gathered the courage to tell him that it was really fine if he wanted to go back and the balloons were not really that important. But he insisted that his word was more important that anything. Since he had taken the money he didn’t want to let us down.

I cried. I wanted to touch his feet.

Moments like these make life worth living. God bless him with more happiness than he dreams of.

Animation Institute Bull Crap

Disney owns Pixar so they are technically one comapny.

And what does Disney & Pixar like animation companies mean? are there many of those? and in India?

These guys are kidding with the careers of the kids who sign up.