The Wait...

Coming back from White plains to atl, couple weeks back. flight was almost 4 hours delayed due to thunderstorms in charlotte area.

Finally took off, and as we flew over the thunderstorm, sun was low and got to see some amazing light displays. Took many pics, but most did not even come anywhere close to the real thing. Below is one of the better pictures I got.

A Growing Head !

Was reading the barry bonds steroids trials, and one fact that keeps coming up (besides his increased muscle mass) is how much his head has grown, allegedly due to steroids.

This got me thinking about how much some of our Malayalam movie stars' heads have grown over time (with absolutely no gain in muscle mass - must be special steroids!!). They all start out pretty normal, and one or two big hits (movie hits, not injections) later, the head starts to grow. The eyes, nose and mouth stay exactly where they originally were, and the face puffs up around them. Here is a small illustration of this phenom using my vast and extensive powerpoint skills (which happen to be the basis of my livelihood too!!).

It has been quite difficult to find some young pictures of some of the actors I had in mind. Here is my small study:

I could not find an old image of lalu alex, but the picture below is the perfect example of the expansion phenomenon :)

Authentic Tortillas

The storyline on the package talked about how, in ancient times, mexican women hand rolled tortillas from wheat or corn....

The ingredients list had an entirely different storyline...

Lost .. !

And found..!!

Memphis airport seems to have a lot of folks losing stuff - or maybe they are small enough to PA everything they find...just in the last half hour..

Passenger who left their mobile phone @ tsa checkpoint...(No surprise)

Passenger who left a USB stick @ tsa checkpoint...(Tsa is really trying hard!!)

Passenger who left a red lunch box at the delta ticket counter...(Get this off my desk!!)

Inbound passenger from charlotte who left a black jacket in the aircraft come back to gate and collect item...

Inbound passenger from xxx wearing a black jacket and glasses - please come back and collect your bag at gate xx...(Did that passenger pick up the jacket and leave the bag now??)

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On Site | Off Site | Off Shore...

when my engineering buddies say they are "off-shore" - they really are offshore (as in AT SEA)

and for all my IT & BPO buddies...that means they are "on-site" and not "off-site" and DEFINITELY NOT "off-shore"

are we clear??

Stress Gadgets

This post started out as a small side discussion in today's meeting with some customer reps. One of them forgot their blackberry in the car, and came in to the meeting. She was pretty restless for some time, and finally blurted out "am sorry, i left the phone in the car...its not like am expecting any calls or e-mails or anything...its just making me nervous..."

Got me thinking about all that these gadgets meant to ease our life and are just adding to our stress levels :)

The "smart phone" came into my work life about 6 years back. It was wonderful, I could check mails while on the road, reply, take action whatever! But I also started reading e-mails on Saturday, that i would only have seen on Monday morning...and there was more work hanging in the back of the mind over the weekend....and most times ended up with me finishing it off during the weekend just to get it off my head....it also reminded me in the middle of an important meeting.."you have an email...better read it now... it will be too late by the time you are done with this meeting" - took years to take control...now i have profiles set up...where the little beast cannot even blink its nasty LED if i don't want it to :))

Working from home also started out good...no commute..no dressing up for work...but then, work and "homework" started to blend in till nothing was clear no more - ended up with 12-14 hour work days and lots of pending house work, and frayed nerves....that took a great deal of discipline to set up a proper work day and limits...but then travel picked up, and there was/is hardly a chance to work from home - thats an entirely different post on its own...

The DVR was another great invention..now I could record ALL my shows, I did not have to miss any...and watch it any time. It took just 3 weeks for ALL my shows to fill up the massive storage...and now about 40 shows i would have missed without a thought...were lying piled up in the DVR...it was starting to delete the older episodes...and I was getting tense about NOT being able to watch stuff I would have cared less about...! threw the dvr away...even disconnected cable the day i realized there was nobody watching it at home :)

Even silly things add up...my "old" airline sends me a notice about how many miles are about to expire..and that i could subscribe to all these wonderful magazines to use up the miles...and now there are unread magazines piling up on my desk...and i got tv guide magazine that tells me what NOT to miss each day...and am getting worried about missing these shows they told me NOT to miss...solved that particular problem quite easily...just toss the tv guide magazine straight into trash when it arrives....or just hand it over to my little girl..she will shred it in no time...

:)

that reminds me...i got a little girl...and a wonderful wife...and life is really good :))

Blurry!!

After our new office phones came in:
My boss: how come your phone takes better pics than mine? Mine comes out all blurred
Me: what were you clicking?
Boss: some folks dancing in the dark
Me: !!!
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The Miami (Dress) Code

Office folks dinner at a restaurant in Miami Beach. I actually called up and asked if it was okay to wear my flip-flops to the restaurant. Heard someone LOL'ing out there. Figured out what was wrong when walking to the place....Next time, I would call up and ask only if it was "hey, am still in my suit and tie, will you guys let me in ??"

Baggage !!

Our flight landed, and there was a line in the jetway, waiting for the "planeside baggage".

An old couple walked out from the plane and seeing the line, the gentleman asked "why are you waiting? Is the door closed?"

Someone in the line went "we are waiting for our bags, if you have your own baggage, please go ahead"

Old gentleman's reply: "hey, don't you talk about my wife like that!"

:)

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travel week..!!

Last week was my "whurstest" travel week so far....excluding my first trip to US from chennai - back then i did not know you have to keep the office travel agent in check !

Mar 19-Mar 26

24 hrs travel | 9.5 hrs sleep | 12 hrs meetings | 7 hrs sleep | 8 hrs meeting | 9 hrs travel | 9 hrs sleep | 4 hrs meeting | 7 hrs sleep | 6 hrs travel | 7 hrs sleep | 8 hrs meeting | 5 hrs sleep | supposed to be 26 hrs travel bk home | but the last leg the tow truck's tow bar broke - damaged the nose gear - stuck on tarmac for 3 hours in JFK | then flight circled over ATL for 2.5 hours unable to land in heavy thunderstorms | diverted to jacksonville before fuel ran out | slept 4 hours on airport floor | 1 hour flight back to ATL !! :))

And the other one -

The first trip to US - the office travel agent booked me MAA-BOM-CDG-EWR-ATL-LFT - a total of 48 hours just from take-off to touchdown and not counting the time i started from home or got to hotel !!

a sensational switch

Asianet news LIVE coverage of world cup:
Anchor trying all he can to create extra SENSATION on top of a sensational innings by sehwag..

Listeners calling in to express their opinions...anchor switching lines and topics faster than sehwag could swing his bat...

one conversation...
Anchor: "ഇനി നമുക്ക് ദുര്‍ബനില്‍ നിന്നും വിളിക്കുന്ന സുരേഷിനോട് സംസാരിക്കാം, സുരേഷ്, എന്തൊക്കെ ആണ് പറയാന്‍ ഉള്ളത്?" ("Let us now talk to suresh from durban. Suresh - what do you have to say")
Suresh: "നല്ല innings, sachin ഇല്ല എന്നൊരു വിഷമം" ("great innings by india, sad that sachin is not playing")
Anchor: "നാട്ടില്‍ അച്ഛനും അമ്മയും ഒക്കെ cricket കാണുന്നുണ്ടോ?" ("Are your parents watching cricket back home?"
Suresh: "അച്ഛനും അമ്മയും ഇപ്പോള്‍ ജീവിച്ചിരിപ്പില്ല" ("my parents are not alive")
Anchor: "ശരി, ഇനി നമുക്ക് സിങ്ങപോരില്‍ നിന്നും വിളിക്കുന്ന വിനോദ് ലൈനിലുണ്ട്..വിനോദിനോട്‌ സംസാരിക്കാം..വിനോദ് എന്താണ് പറയാനുള്ളത്?."("Ok, we have vinod from singapore on line...let us talk to him..vinod, what do you have to say?"
!!!

more warnings !

i remember writing about some silly product warnings (to avoid lawsuits) like the small needle with "do not swallow" written on it..here is a new one i stumbled upon last week...

on the phone i have "car talk" and "wait wait don't tell me" podcasts downloaded, for listening to at airports / flights etc. - recently on a long drive, i connected it to the car AUX ..and my usual listening volume was not loud enuf for the car input - so cranked the phone volume all the way up...and it stopped playing...

at the next stop, i looked at the phone, and there was this disclaimer on screen "Warning - you have enabled super sound boost on the phone. This can severely damage your hearing. If you want to continue, please read and agree to this message.." followed by some warnings from surgeon general or someone like that....!!!

makes one wonder where we are headed ??