9 March
2013
7 March
2013
Facebook account
This morning, as I was getting ready to leave for my run, I offered to drop Nikita at school on the way. Sharmila looked at me quizzically – I guess she wanted to know why this change of routine today. Honestly, for me, it was a spur of the moment thing. But I offered that I had recently read that we should spend twice the time and half the money with our kids. And for good measure threw in that I also read it should be the opposite with wives (twice the money and half the time). She just walked away shaking her head 🙂
Nikita, who by now had finished tying up her shoelaces, had this advice for her mom – “We should really cancel his Facebook account” 🙂 Touché!!
6 March
2013
Say what?
6 March
2013
Sad state!
The Gallup report on happy/sad (well being) index of states is out.
Montana is way up there! 6th happiest state!! Evidently all the three citizens of Montana are very happy with their lot.
And my home state Georgia is surrounded by chronically depressed people – Tennessee #47, Alabama #45, South Carolina #40 !! So much of Georgia is explained by the company we keep. No wonder it drives us to fry even our healthy food like green tomatoes 🙂
6 March
2013
Govt is open?
3 March
2013
Coooold!!!
2 March
2013
Stifle
27 February
2013
Mislabeled boxes
Puzzle time!!
That was a great trip to San Francisco. Lot of business done. Caught up with a few friends. Missed a lot more. Have to come back…Now for the five hour flight back….
Here is the customary puzzle on the way back.
There are three boxes – one has white color tennis balls (see story later in the post), another has yellow color tennis balls and the third has a mix of the two colors in it. They are labeled “White”, “Yellow” and “Mixed”. Here is one problem though – all of them are wrongly labeled!!!
You are allowed to pick one box – upon which, I will open it, pick the first ball that I can reach in to and show you the color.
You have to get all the right labels on the right boxes from that. How would you do that?
Usual rules of sending me personal message in FB with answer applies.
Now for the story – when we were growing up in India as a child, we used to play cricket (that was our winter sport, soccer being the summer sport). And we used tennis balls to play cricket – except we did not know they were tennis balls. In fact, I did not even know what tennis looked like till much later. I am not sure why but we used to call them “cambis” balls. And they were always white in color!!! I saw a traditional yellow color tennis ball way later in my life. Nowadays, I see my nephews play with yellow tennis balls all the time (although they still call it “cambis” ball).
26 February
2013
Only in San Fran!
So here we were – Sunjay Talele and myself walking down the street from one meeting to another in downtown San Francisco… and then we come across this 24 hour fitness place with glass panels. And inside were a gazillion women doing what I can only guess what Zumba looks like. As we were marveling at those womenfolk dancing at lunch hour, we noticed that the Zumba teacher was a very ebullient man!! From first looks we would not have blamed you for thinking that he might have borrowed the clothes he was wearing from one of his students 🙂 Only in San Francisco!!!
25 February
2013
India’s national game :-)
Couple of days back, I called up my mom – like I do every single morning. The mood at home – specially mom and my sister – was despondent, to say the least. My mom jumped straight from “How are you?” to lamenting that my niece lost one mark (got 99 out of 100) in her Computer test by messing up one question.
I know how hyper-competitive India is at school level – but I still tried to reason with my mom. I asked her how come nobody is celebrating the 99 questions my niece did get right. Why all the overwhelming attention to one single question she missed?
Trying to use reason with my mom in this context is like trying to explain calculus to a new born. When I pointed out that she is only 10 and that she can’t possibly know everything that is required of her, my mom’s response was – “So what? Which 10 year old does not know that the national game of India is football (soccer as we call here) and not cricket”. Then she commented on the effect of TV and constant cricket and how that is corrupting students.
But something else struck me. I asked her if it was a Computer test, why were they asking about national game of India? What had that got to do with Computers? My mom summarily dismissed this line of questioning and said for Computer Programming, you have to answer all these questions. I think, she forgets at times that I did Computer Science from IIT. 🙂 She also said that if I had the attitude that I have now when I was studying, I would have never made anything out of my life 🙂 By this time, my sister also came onboard and started talking about why these are standard questions for all Computer tests.
So, finally, I pulled up my last trump card. I asked them why did they feel that the niece should have written football (soccer) instead of cricket. I gently pointed them to the fact that (field) hockey has been the national game for India for a very long time.
Now that did trigger some memory cells in their minds. For the next three minutes I held the phone to my ear on this side and on the other side I could hear all sorts of discussions going on as confusion reigned supreme 🙂 Finally, my mom ended the call abruptly saying “We’ll talk later”. I am sure they were looking up all sorts of reference books 🙂
I did get a call from my niece that evening suggesting I am the best person in the whole wide world 🙂 🙂 Ah! All’s well that ends well 🙂