28 June 2020

Marketing gone awry?

This goes back a few weeks when Sharmila and I had this debate about distilled water. She had bought distilled water to make coffee at home. We get our water from our well and it can sometimes clog up small appliances because of very small debris.

I was arguing the case that we should not be drinking distilled water. Any water we drink needs to have some amount of minerals etc. Which is why all the cities process the water and add certain elements before it is sent out to the house taps. I also have very severe doubts if the water she bought is truly distilled – that would make the water very costly. It is probably super filtered or something.

Yesterday, when picking up water at the Kroger near our hotel, I noticed “Distilled Water” was the only thing left in the shelves (in the big size container I was looking for). What caught my eye was the marketing twist the label had.

It did state that it is produced by steam distillation. I can’t still fathom the costs of all the energy required to boil the water and then cool it back again after capturing the vapors.

But what made me laugh was mentioning that the source was “Deep Wells”. I suspect to give you a sense of pure and cold water?

My question was – How does it matter? You are distilling the water. The source can be from anywhere in this world – the output will be exactly the same. It is DISTILLED water. It will have no other molecule than H2O. You can boil dirt water and distill it and get exactly the same product.

But I guess these are the days of marketing. We have seen Smart Water, Vitamin Water … Why else would we pay exorbitant prices for tap water put in a bottle rather than have it from a tap?

Category: Musings | LEAVE A COMMENT
28 June 2020

Did you know there is a blue circle?

Usually I get to a green circle on the outer ring on the left set of dials every night. That means I got my 7-8 hour of sleep. Once in a while, I get a yellow if I do not get enough sleep. And in some rare cases, I get a red – especially in long flights because of the disturbed sleep.

On Friday, I woke up after a good night’s sleep. But was somehow not totally feeling well. After driving to Hilton Head, I slept off in the hotel bed for another long bout resulting in getting nearly twelve hours of sleep for the day.

Felt better after it. Also noticed that the Apple Watch sleep ring had turned bright blue! I had no idea that there was another color for the rings!

Category: Musings | LEAVE A COMMENT
28 June 2020

This is a special blog – my 6,000th!!

Taking a break from blogging from my vacation posts to post this one. This is my 6,000th post. What started as a journey of just wanting to write down my learnings from work life during a year off (second one) then morphed into running adventure logs and then a journal for intersection points and eventually became just a place to write down my reflections of moments of my life. And hopefully not forget how to put English words together to form comprehensible sentences.

I remember my biggest fear when I had started blogging. I had a feeling people start doing these things with a lot of gusto and then the energy peters out rapidly. The question I had for myself was how long would I be able to keep up my energy. I believe I have found an answer to that question.

Fifteen years of blogging. That would mean, I have posted a little over one post a day! Some might suggest that is too much! I think they would be right!!

I hope they are right. Life would be nothing if you did not do a few things here and there that people would be critical about.

Category: Musings | LEAVE A COMMENT
28 June 2020

That was a daddy daughter first time!

Went around the island in bicycles. I have not biked in a very long time (30 years)? Nikita took to it very quickly. I had some difficulty in getting the bike to slow down or stop. These rental bikes have no brakes. Took me a few minutes and hobbling down a bridge, desperately trying with my two feet on the ground to slow down to realize that all I had to do is try pedaling in reverse!! Thereafter, it was all smooth sailing.

Next up – motorbiking together?

28 June 2020

Ice cream time!

The three of us went to pick up some stuff from the nearby grocery store. There was an ice cream store (Kilwins?) there that is apparently a very famous brand. I know that they are very famous because

(*) First, Nikita told me so!
(*) Second, there was a long queue outside

Never been a big ice cream guy myself. But I guess vacations are about exceptions. We sat on a bench by the roadside enjoying our icecreams!

28 June 2020

Guess who ran into a friend from school on the beach?

I remember seven years back, we were vacationing here and Natasha ran into some school friends of hers on the beach. In fact, I think they split from us to go dine by themselves and Nikita, Sharmila and myself had a Hibachi dinner that night.

Almost an action replay this time! Nikita ran into Grace from her current class! They had a good time in the ocean (when the sharks were not around) and in the pool (when the sharks strolled by)…

28 June 2020

Checking out the waters…

First there were a few dolphins that swam by. And then five sharks came by and drove everybody off the water. The sharks were barely visible. Talking to the life guard, I found out that they take a hint from those birds (brown pelicans?). They usually stay 300 yards away from the shore.

When shark – usually small ones – come near the shore, they drive all the fish towards the shore. The birds follow the fish and come up almost to the shore. We saw something we have never seen before. A boat load of fish – I mean a whole lot of them – were jumping up from the water level and then splashing back again making it look like there was a rainfall happening there. Of course, the birds had a great time scooping them up.

28 June 2020

Have you heard of the dust storm that has made it from Africa to the USA?

One thing I did not realize is that most of the hurricanes we get on the East Coast actually originate from over Sahara and make it westward picking up steam on the Atlantic.

Another thing I had not realized is that dust storms make it to the USA by the same route! This year, there has been a particularly dense and strong one. It crossed the Caribbean last week and came into USA this weekend. As you can see the skies are hazy and the air quality in Hilton Head is fairly bad. Apparently, the dust is going to make its way to some parts of Ohio and Indiana even!