resident evil

As my boys play the new Resident Evil #7 game, I have been laying around battling the evil bugs that have taken up residence in my body. Soon after reaching work on Monday I started feeling bad with my throat hurting and my head throbbing. I went to the company health clinic, but they did not help much. On Monday night my throat felt like I drank gasoline and threw a light match in my mouth. I did not get much sleep that night. The next day my head felt like someone was hitting it with hammers. My chest felt like a NFL lineman was sitting on my chest. In the afternoon I could not take it any more and went to our local family doctor. She had mercy on me and gave me antibiotics. By the time it turned dust my throat was on fire again. I tried gargling salt water, cough drops, some magic mouthwash stuff and nothing really helped. On Wednesday night I started cough uncontrollably. I moved into our guest room so my wife could actually get some sleep even though I had little hope of getting any myself. As the night progressed my whole body started hurting. My neck, my back and then my kidneys. When I got up in the morning I could only hope the medicine would start working so I could feel better. Finally after a morning nap I started to feel slightly better. Who knows when the evil residents will decide to leave, but I can hope that occurs sometime tonight.

Aradhna in Raleigh NC

For the last several months I have been planning on Aradhna coming for a visit to the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle in NC. I ran an ad in the local Indian magazine called Saathee for the last three months. I ran the same ad in the local Indian movie theater called Galaxy Cinema. For the last couple of weeks before the event, the same as was run on Nazar TV, which shows Bollywood videos from 3-4pm each Sunday afternoon. Lastly, the NC State radio station has Indian music from 10-noon each Sunday morning on WKNC for a program called Geet Bazaar so they announced the Aradhna concert also. It took work and money to do this. So on Sunday night five days before the concert, I get a call from the president of the Hindu temple telling me I could not have the concert at the temple which was where all of the ads listed as the location of the event. So I have to make a mad rush to find another place in less than a week. It was very stressful to say the least. I felt like I wasted my time and money and energy. We finally decided to have the concert in the same location for both Friday and Saturday night on the NC State campus in the middle of the graduate housing buildings. I invited all of my Indian friends to the new location and was very disappointed when not a single friend of my showed up. On Saturday morning, the Aradhna tabla player told me the house would be packed for the second night and it was hard for me to believe it after the sparse crowd the first night. Sure enough the crowd kept picking up as time went along and before I knew it the whole room was full. That was a great feeling although quite different from my disappointment the night before. Because the crowd was excited, the band fed off the energy and the performance was special in many ways. On Sunday morning, I drove two of the band members to WKNC radio studios to meet Afroz Taz and John Caldwell as both of them had been in India and had not responded to my emails. I was beginning to panic that yet another planned event was going to backfire. We decided to drive to the studio and just show up. Thankfully, Afroz was there waiting for us. They had a short but great 10 minute session and sang parts of two songs. On Sunday afternoon we had several friends over to meet the band at our house. Our kids were so happy to attempt to play Chris' sitar and then play Rock Band with them. A sad start but a strong finish.

Andrew's drawings

Latest award winning drawings by our middle son, Andrew. It is a shame to be so good and not enjoy doing it. This weekend, I actually heard hints that he wanted to go to art school one day. That is the problem with being a teenager, you are trying to discover what you want to do with your life.

relaxing weekend

Friday was one of the worst days I have had at work in a long time. It seemed like everything I touched failed to work correctly. I tried to fix one problem and and would cause another. My co-worker was on vacation and obviously could not provide me with the wisdom I needed to solve the many problems I was causing. I was very frustrated by the time I got home. Plus I was running out of options in finding an audio engineer for the upcoming Aradhna concert. At least when I got home and checked my personal email account, I found a couple of people offered to help with the sound, so by the end of the day I had good news to make me feel better about my bad day at work.


Just last weekend it was snowing and was under 20 degrees, but this weekend the temperatures rose to 80 degrees. That was quite the 60 degree temperature difference in just a few days time. That meant it was time to get outside and mess around. I cleaned up the garage to celebrate the warm weather and then washed both of our vehicles. Not too exciting, but then the big event came on Sunday afternoon. I finally took the time to mount the painting of the children on our living room ceiling. We put it on a wall so the kids would not have to see it all of the time but my wife and I could look at it as often as we wanted to. Since it is so large we did not want it to be in our faces all of the time. It looks very nice up around 10 feet from the floor on the wall I filled in. I took a photo of the painting on the wall with our new $17 Logitech webcam which we used to talk using Skype with our son in Korea last night.

This is the meaning of the words on the painting:

Prema milana ko nai-na tarase
The eyes long to be united in love
Ghaayala mana tori nagari aawata
Wounded hearts come to your city
Saba eka chana mei swaagata paawata
All, in an instant, find welcome

Google Chrome vs. Safari 4

I have been using Google Chrome at home and at work since it was released. Today I tried using Safari 4 for the first time. I really like the Google Chrome "most visited" page as I can see what the page looked like last time I visited it. Plus it remembers the most frequently visited pages. The challenge in Safari 4 was customizing their "top sites" to have the same site I had in Google Chrome. It was definitely hard but I finally accomplished it. Two of the web sites I added will not generate previews, one of them being Bank of America's site, which I find really odd. CSS 3 is the secret behind both of these web browsers. Webkit is used in both of these web browsers as well as used within Flex/AIR. The thing I have always liked about Safari is the built-in RSS reader available in the menu bar. Nice to see iTunes CoverFlow being used for Bookmarks. At least they have a new style carousel for the "top sites" page that just looks too cool. You can make a tab become a separate window but I could not find a way to re-attach it. I find Google Chrome annoying on how easy it is to make a tab become an extra window but at least they have an easy way to just drag the window back as a tab. Somehow several times a day accidentally detach a Google Chrome tab as a new window. I am glad I don't have this problem with Safari 4. I have had Safari installed on Windows for a long time but only used it to double check browser compatibility as I found the fonts looked really odd on Windows. I found the CSS checker interesting as it shows how lacking IE and Firefox are and how far they have yet to go to catch up. For now I am a Safari 4 convert.

Kwangju, South Korea

This is a blog about the place in South Korea where my wife grew up. Her maiden name is Dietrick:

Kwangju, South Korea

This is the house where my wife grew up:

Valentine's weekend

The last two days seemed like a long weekend, but in this case it was a good thing. At lunch time yesterday as I was talking to a friend I have known for almost 30 years, the mail woman rang the doorbell. I initially ignored her as I was on the phone and I thought someone else would get the door. Then she knock on the door leading to the garage in desperation. I walked out the front door and found her in the garage. She said I had to sign so she was determined to find me. She had the painting of the family as it arrived from India on Valentine's Day! I handed it to my wife and on opening it we noticed the painted was folded and had creases in it, which was the only thing wrong with it. Everyone had to make comments about it as they all saw the canvas laying on the floor. This morning I searched on the web to figure out how to re-stretch the oil painting to fix the creases. I found a useful video by artist Michael Bell which was on this wikiHow site. I found a couple of sites that sold canvas stretchers, which are really specialized pieces of wood. Then I found this site that explains how to make your own. My middle son and I followed these and now we have a stretched canvas, which is still creased, but at least it is mounted properly.



Yesterday afternoon my wife and I went to see Billu Barber for our anniversary entertainment. Since it had Shah Rukh Khan, we expected to be entertained. We have recently had no such things happening as we watched rental Indian movies. The new ones coming out are just not that good. This one on the other hand had us laughing like crazy near the middle and crying at the end only like King Khan can do. Plus it had a a couple of great points. Billu was very poor and felt ashamed to bother the famous movie star who was his childhood friend. Everyone else wanted to take advantage of them both. Billu's family had to decide if it really matter whether they met the famous movie star when they would always have their father. As usual I would much rather see a movie with a point than just be entertained. I feel like I did not waste my time every time we leave the Indian movie theater. I cannot say the same for other movies.

Aradhna @ Raleigh

book moved

This blog uses Blogger, so I decided today to use WordPress for my book blog: 50 year adventure

full Army day

Yesterday was an interesting day. It was not good and it was not bad, just interesting. I seldom get angry, but that is how I started my day off. On the final day before our oldest son was to leave for South Korea with the Army, at 9am I was wondering why he was not home. The week since we brought him back from Ft. Jackson in Columbia, SC was not the best of weeks. When we arrived after lunch last Thursday, he was home only until the evening when he newly acquired "girlfriend" picked him up in front of our house. She did not come in but parked by the mailbox out of view of the front of the house and call him by cell phone to come out to leave. On Saturday he returned to our house for a little over an hour before he took off again with the same girl for East Carolina University (ECU), where she attends. He returned home on Tuesday afternoon and said a hand full of words all day long to his mother and only mumbled a couple of words to me that evening. He looked and acted exhausted. He packed all day Wednesday and on Thursday night left again with the same girl. We hardly saw him all week and when we did he was not happy at all. His siblings also wondered where he was as they wanted to see him. My wife drove all the way to pick him up on Friday night but he said he wanted to say longer. Last that night he called us to say he had a great meal with his girl friend and her parents, which was not what my wife wanted to hear. I don't know what we expected but it was not that kind of week with our son before he left for South Korea. So when he called at 9:30am yesterday wanting a ride because his friends would not bring him home, that did not make me feel all warm and fuzzy. When we reached the apartment where he was staying with his long time bud, I decided it was time to get angry, which is something I almost never do. Probably not the best time to do so, but I had to preach to him the importance of family over supposed "friends". Who is there for him when he needs help or money? Family not his friends. Who picks him up all of the time when he don't feel like it? Family not his friends. Who forgives him always? Family. After ranting for 30 minutes I have no idea if any of it sank in. What I really didn't like was that this was the same thing we had been doing for years with him and the change I thought I had seen when he first joined the Army was gone and he had reverted to bad habits in a moments notice. Am I perfect? No. Is my wife perfect? No. That had nothing to do with it.

By the time we got home I felt emotionally exhausted and we all let him pack and get ready instead of spending time with him. My wife did not tell him that her parents had canceled their trip to our house to take him out to eat the day before and had considered driving up yesterday. They were excited as he was being stationed in the country they spent 25 years of their life. At 1pm when he asked me to help him start and file his taxes, what did I do? Because he is part of our family, of course I helped him. We sat down and completed his taxes using TurboTax in around 1 and 1/2 hours. We left the house at 3pm with hugs from his siblings. He wanted one last Cook Out hamburger, so we stopped along the way. As we drove out of the parking lot, he looked in the bag and found they gave him a BLT instead. It is hard getting in and out of that location, but he drove around and went back into the slowest line - of course. It was 3:45pm and I was getting a bit worried about the flight which was to take off in our hour. Since it was Saturday I did not have to think about heavy traffic, so I drove as fast as I could and we parked in the nearly vacant lot to the new terminal at RDU. At 4pm we were at the ticket counter with a very helpful woman as there was no line at all. Since we were the parents of our military son, we got special passes to go through security to wait with him at the gate. After 20 minutes he boarded and we were off. It was more of a relief than a tear jerking affair, which is not the way we envisioned our parting. He was after all leaving to go to the place where his mother and my wife grew up her whole life. My wife stayed up late thinking he would call her from LA airport before taking off in Korean Air, but the call never came. I was just glad to go to bed as I was tired from our emotional day. It did not help that our youngest son woke me up at 3am, but that is a whole different story not worth talking about.

A.I.T.

A.I.T. stands for Advanced Individual Training. Our oldest son graduated from his heavy vehicle mechanic A.I.T. this morning. We once again read and heard about the Army Ethos:

    I will always place the mission first
    I will never accept defeat
    I will never quit
    I will never leave a fallen comrade

We watched this film on the Army Ethos.

I like these four values as I could apply them to work or our family. How about saying "I will always place my family first"? Or how about "I will never leave a fallen family member"? How about "I will always place others first before myself"? Wow, that sounds like a Bible verse. The more I hear about the Army values, I like them. Of course no one is perfect now are any of the graduates today able to achieve all of the Army creed, but it certainly is a worthy goal.

Maybe if they hear them enough they will believe them.
Does hearing them all of the time make them true?

Yet another day of driving four hours home so for me plenty of time to think about these things. Of course today was a whole lot better than yesterday when we parked on I-95 north of Fayetteville for around an hour and a half waiting for a wreck to be cleaned off the interstate. We actually turned off the vehicle as we were at a complete stand still for that long. After driving again we pulled off the road to got the Burger King and I took over driving and when I got back on I went the wrong direction, so we lost twenty miles going north instead of south. We finally arrived at 11pm and we were all tired. We got the graduation ceremonies early at 8am and true to the Army motto of "hurry up and wait", that is what we did for an hour. By the time we got into the chapel, we discovered the batteries were dead on our camera. Fortunately, the woman sitting next to us kindly took photos of Nathan for us and said she would send them to us.

Nathan @ AIT graduation

snow

Not only did Obama become the 44th president yesterday, but it snowed over five inches at our house. Because of the snow I was able to watch the first presidental inauguration that I ever remember watching. There certainly was a lot of hype over it this year, so it was nice to watch on the TV from our living room. It would not have been fun in any way to be among the two million people in person. To see the event which was only five hours north of us when we were snowed in was interesting. It looked cold but it was sunning and bright for the big day, which was nice for them. It was many years since we all as a family had a snow day of this magnitude. I found a weather web site that shows all of the recent snows in the Raleigh NC area. We were in Apex NC for the January 2000 snow and our young kids loved every minute of the 20" snow fall. There was a very large hill outside our subdivision leading down to Highway 55, so I walked the boys down and we slid on cardboard boxes for sleds. There was no one on the road so we had snow fun for a long time. The next month we moved to Fuquay Varina and in 2002 was the next big snow. We had a long sloping hill behind our house going down to Johnson Pond below. We bought two red plastic snow boards that provided endless entertainment that year. Previously we built a quarter pipe skateboard ramp and the boys moved that to the top of the hill to launch them even faster down the hill. We were in San Antonio TX for the 2004 snow in this area, so the snow yesterday was our first since 2002. We had no hill this year, so we walked back into the woods behind our house to see the amazing underbrush and trees full of snow. Today was the second day the kids were out of school so they built a snow man to have fun. We have some really nice icicles hanging from the gutters at the back of our house which have grown even longer today. I guess this is what happens when you don't see snow or ice very often as the little things amuse us.

snow 2009

Famly Painting

For my wife's birthday this year, I had a movie poster artist in India paint the children through a friend of mine who is living in India. This is the resulting painting which is 6 ft x 4ft.

crazy day

Yesterday was a perfect illustration of a day that thankfully does not happen very often, but when it does you are glad it is over by the end of the day. I woke up at 5:20 AM to a sound in the kitchen below us. When I reached downstairs I saw my oldest son finishing off his cooking of eggs for breakfast and was sitting down to eat them. He told me he wanted to get back to his Army schedule. I went back upstairs and fell back asleep. I got up at 7:30 and started working on my autobiography, which continued all morning long. I am now writing about my experiences while in Belgium before I went to India. My writing has slowed down the past couple of days as I kept a detailed journal while in Belgium, so I am trying to summarize a few stories from my journal instead of writing from memory or duplicating my journal. My oldest son decided to go back to sleep so besides my wife I did not see any children all morning long.

For a couple of days our refrigerator was not working properly. The freezer part was as cold as the non-freezer part normally should be. We took it as an opportunity to clean the inside of the refrigerator and threw about half of the contents away. The very first thing on Monday, I called M & H Appliance which had helped us in the past with our dryer. The technician finally showed up yesterday around noon. He took off the inside wall of the freezer to reveal the coils which were completely covered with ice crystals. He got out his trusty commercial hair dryer and after fifteen minutes had the coils completely deiced. He popped off the heater part under the coils and found it was broken. Since he had a spare part in his truck, we had a working refrigerator in under an hour and it only cost me $150.

Then the children all started waking up around noon. Our oldest came down and complained about his throat being sore and his ear hurting. He asked me what he should do about it. Then after my great advice of taking proper rest with plenty of fluids, he wanted to know where his mother was as he wanted a ride to his friends to celebrate New Years's Day. He repeated the same set of questions about his sickness and needing a ride, which to both of us parents were mutually exclusive requests. Kids.

Then I get a call from a friend of one of our sons who was suspecting pot smoking and wanted to know if we suspected the same thing. Of course you want to believe the best of your kids but having lived through many teenagers, we knew that could hazardous to our mental health to completely trust teenagers in this day and time. I went to search the music shed for a missing cell phone and I found a glass bong hidden in one of the guitar amps! My day was not getting better over time. When I approached one of my other son's about it as I told him I was going to break it, he told me not to as it was his friend's. Kids.

On Monday I had taken my middle son to get his driver's license as he had lost it due to his poor grades in school. That is a good thing about the North Carolina under eighteen driver policies that if you fail any classes in school you loose your driver privileges. As a parent you don't have to argue with your children, it is the law. Well your kids can still argue of course, but we have the written law in our favor. We went to the local DMV and found out that to get your driver's license you have to have proof of insurance. I called our car insurance and of course they took him of our policy since he lost his license. I had him reinstated so we could get his license only to learn that by doing so he double our existing cost of car insurance by $100 per month. My wife and I decided that he would have to pay for that in order to get his license. Without a job he cannot pay for it. Without a license it may be hard to get a job. Round and round it goes. Then I told my son all of this and he said he needed a cell phone before he could get a job to pay his part of the insurance in order to get his driver's license. At least he had Christmas money to pay for his own cell phone. Kids.

The only good news for the day was that during this week for the first time in many years all of the kids have been in our bonus room playing Guitar Hero, Rock Band and lifting weights together. It was a shock to see them all together, but definitely a good thing. SO they can enjoy each other after all.

My wife and I ended the day trying to watch an Indian movie that was pretty bad so we shut of the movie after thirty minutes and called it a day. Life in the fast lane with kids can be tiring!

18th Greek birthday

Yesterday was our middle son's 18th birthday. We try to eat out so my wife does not have to cook a special meal for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We have eaten in several different places. One year while in Arizona visiting my mother in Tucson, we searched everywhere to find some place open where we could eat. We finally found an authentic Mexican restaurant that was open and enjoyed the food a lot. One year while in San Antonio we ate at the best Thai restaurant in the whole city. It is the best Thai food I have ever eaten. This year, our son wanted to eat traditional southern cooking, but we could not find a place that was open. We decided at the last minute to eat Greek food. I had heard people at work talk about two of the best Greek places to eat. The one closest to work was not open so we picked the other one. We were a bit sceptical when we arrived at the restaurant as no one else was there, but we were early since we wanted to attend the Christmas Eve service at church later in the evening. It was fun eating something none of us had had in an authentic restaurant. We topped off the meal with one of the best desserts any of us had eaten, which was a raspberry cream cake. It came with a single candle on it. The name of the place was Mythos Mediterranian Bistro.

Aradhna in Raleigh NC

love & movies

In the past week we have watched two Indian movies. Last night we saw Rab ne bana di Jodi. I have been looking forward to seeing it since my birthday in the middle of November. On that day we were in the shop where we rent Indian movies for home viewing. The $1 rental fee for each movie has to be the best entertainment value of anything you can possibly do for that amount of money. On the end of the counter was a holographic poster for the movie was saw last night. It was advertising the soundtrack for the movie. I asked the owner if I could have it and of course he gave it to me, since we are friends. The next day I put the poster on my office door at work. I typically don't close my door as I want people to feel free to come in and see me at any time, but for the last month I have closed my door so everyone walking by could be amazed at my poster. If move your head slowly side to side you can see the actor and actress change from traditional dress to modern bollywood style clothes. I was wondering as we waited for the movie to begin if I would have to remove the poster from my door, which would have to happen if the movie was bad. We were not disappointed as the movie was great. That is why I love Indian movies as there is always a clear point and both love and GOD has to be mentioned. I have to add this movie to my favorite list near the top. The other thing I wish I had done over the last few years was to record all of my favorite quotes from the movies we had watched.

The movie we watched last week was Slum Dog Millionaire. It was about love as well but the movie was actually rated "R" because of some of the violent content that was not appropriate for children. For me this was about the "real" India and not the fairy tell world of Bollywood that sometimes illustrates the ideal that people can hold onto in order to escape from this "real" world. Plus I got to see Mumbai and India like I remember it. I like movies that show choices we all have to make and the results of those choices. Some choose a dark path and reap what they sow. Others want to choose the right path that actually helps people, but sometimes it is just too hard to do. Even though both of these movies had love as the foundation, they were very different in content. The best thing I like about watching Indian movies is that it makes me think about my life and what is important as well as talk to my wife about what love really means.

food in Army

On the first night that our oldest son was home for the Christmas holidays, my wife fixed meat pot pie, which was always our son's favorite. I was really very tasty and nearly perfect in every way. As we sat at the table, he asked if this was all we were having. This was kind of odd since we have always eaten like this with simple but nutritious meals. Last year at this time, when he came home, he was starving from living on his own and a home cooked meal was all he dreamed about. So I asked him why he spoke like this about his mother's wonderful cooking and what the food was like in the Army. He told us of their multiple course meals three times a day. There were many varieties of everything to choose from at every meal. He did not overeat but always looked forward to each meal and made the decision at that time as to what he fill his plate with. He was select a meat, a couple of vegetable sides, always dessert. He was describing a super buffet selection for every meal. No wonder our single dish meal was a bit too simple for him.

finals week

This week has been the week of finals.

I finally finished my Hindi class after almost two years of studying and attending weekly classes with a co-worker who taught the class using Rupert Snell's book called "Teach Yourself Hindi". Now I can read and write the Devanagari script used for Hindi. This next year I want to practice my talking skills, which means I need to start working on extending my vocabulary also.

I finally completed the season in the competitive volleyball league at work during lunch time. We lost the very last game in the finals to come in second place. It was fun playing with such great volleyball players and I learned a lot and am now a better player because of it. That is true in most sports, in that if you play with people better than you then you will improve over time. Every time I enjoyed watching my teammates set the ball perfectly and then watch as one of the other players would spike it with so much power. It is just fun to watch good people play.

This is my final week of work for 2008. The company I work for closes their office the last week of December, which really means every one gets an extra week of vacation every year, which is very nice! I plan on finishing the first section of my new book and hopefully finish all of the sections up until I went to India. I need to find the journals that I kept during that time and review them to figure out what I need to say. That was the most important time of my life so it may be hard to condense it down to something reasonable - it may be a book in itself!

van pool

Several years ago I started carpooling when a neighbor invited me to join an existing carpool. Because all three of us lived in the same small community, it was very easy and convenient to share a ride. After riding for two months, I left the company that I worked for to pursue other opportunities in another state.

When I returned to that same company, I had forgotten about that first carpool. But after I bumped into the same person later in the building where I work, we decided to start carpooling again - just the two of us. This time I was motivated more by the price of gas and the rising cost of my auto maintenance bills. After I had commuted to work alone for over a year, it was getting boring, even though I listened to all kinds of music, occasional audio books, or language-learning lessons. I thought I’d miss these if I started riding with someone else, but I was willing to give it up to save money on gas. Because I was an early-morning person, finding a parking spot at my building at work wasn’t a problem. But it crossed my mind that I might have to walk further each day if I arrived at work later! Another motivating factor: I had worked for the Saudi Arabian national oil company for a couple of years. Seeing money flow freely from the U.S. to the Middle East due to our oil dependency just seemed so unnecessary. I had seen first-hand the amazing wealth it was creating, so I thought I could do my small part by joining a carpool and maybe one day helping others do it too.

Once we started carpooling, we found others interested in joining us who had carpooled previously. Through word of mouth, we found a few more people each month. Initially, some rode only a few times each week, while the rest of us faithfully rode to and from work every day.

An early concern we each had was how to run errands during the week at lunch when we each drove only about one day a week. This required a bit of advance planning because we had to condense everything into a single day. But within a month after deciding to alternate driving, we had a good working system. Anyone having to stay late or go in early simply didn’t carpool. Anyone needing to drive on a certain day to service her or his car or to see the doctor simply volunteered to be the designated driver. To be fair, we devised a simple spreadsheet to record drivers and riders each day and week. Each day on the way home we’d talk and determine who wasn’t riding and who would drive the next day. After a couple of months of alternating drivers during the week, I was driving only once a week. So, instead of spending $65 per week on gas, I was now paying only $65 per month. My only challenge was convincing my wife to get up 30 minutes earlier to take our kids to school, which used to be my daily duty and privilege.

From the very start we considered getting a Triangle Transit Authority (TTA) van because that would mean even less car maintenance for each driver. Many months later, we had more people than would fit into a single vehicle. As the number of people increased, it became harder to balance and maintain fair driving arrangements. But as it turned out, that was actually a nice problem to have. Once we reached six regular carpoolers, we figured it should be pretty simple to find more riders. We had all seen the benefits of ride-sharing, so it seemed obvious that others would jump at the chance to save money on gas. Because TTA paid for all gas and maintenance, we need only to find enough riders to fill a 12-passenger van. The more who joined, the lower our individual cost. We posted flyers in break rooms at work to get the word out about our vanpool and asked those we knew who lived along our route if they’d like to join. At that point a fellow carpooler showed me how to create a list of company employees who lived nearby by using a utility to locate people by town name. Using this, I could find potential riders who lived as far from work as I did who might want to join us. As a result of our efforts, we now have nine people in our vanpool, and we thought this article might entice others to start their own carpools.

Some of the real benefits I have seen can be understood from something that happened to me early on. After entering my car one rainy afternoon, I found I couldn’t start my car. I didn’t have a cell phone, but my fellow carpooler did, so he called security at work. Literally, within minutes, security arrived and jump-started my car so that we could pick up other riders at other buildings at work. Not only did I find a new friend to help me in a time of need, I never knew that security could do such things. Now that we have our preferred vanpool parking spot at our building, I never worry about my car not starting. I also have plenty of new friends on whom I know I can count when I need them. My 30-45 minute commute now goes by so quickly every day as we talk about each other's life experiences and learn all kinds of things in general. I think one of the best lessons I’ve learned is how kind and considerate people are at work, which is not something I can say about other places I’ve worked. Instead of being totally immersed in my current project and the technical abilities of those I work with, from our rides together to and from work I’ve learned that people have lived though and survived personal experiences similar to mine. I feel like I learn something new every ride, so that’s pretty good too. After seven months of ride-sharing, I now miss the days that I don’t vanpool.

Rajastan

There is something that is alluring about Rajastan. I have driven through most of that state in northern India. On the surface it is just one big dry hot desert, which is very dusty. Even after 30 years I can still remember things about it as it is so unique in all of India. I recall driving through the villages and you could easily tell when you have left one and entered another. In one village all of the men would be wearing yellow turbans, in the next they would all be wearing bring red ones and in the next they would be wearing green. The buildings everywhere matched the drab yellow brown sand with few trees in sight, but then you would see the women wearing the most bright colored saris and the men with their colored turbans. An occasional camel would be seen pulling a two wheeled cart. Every now and then you would see an amazing castle on a rocky hill that is centuries old. The hills are nothing more than huge boulders. I have spent the night with friends in the pink city of Jaipur and the blue city of Jodhpur. Driven past the Jal Mahal outside Jaipur, the Mehrangarh Fort on the hill outside of Jodhpur and the Taj Lake Palace on a lake outside Udaipur. So many fascinating and enchanting places to see, so it is no wonder that foreign tourists want to go there.



That is not want I had originally intended to write about today, but the origin of my thoughts was a movie was saw last night called Nanhe Jaisalmer. I have been watching Indian movies since we lived in Saudi in the late '80s, where the local Qatar TV station showed the weekly Thursday night Indian movie. Since the weekend was Thursday and Friday, this was the equivalent on our Saturday night, so I stayed up late watching the movie which ended around midnight. Now we rent Indian movies at a local Indian store. In all of those years and the unknown number of movies I have seen, it still amazes me at now uplifting they are and a true learning experience for me. Of course it really helps that I have lived to see many of the places in India where they shoot the films, but still the culture is so fascinating to me that I learn something new about the culture with every movie I see. I enjoyed the music in "Nanhe" and there were so many wonderful one liners. Just a great family movie with a good story and wholesome point. Who can complain about that?

Army II

Since our son could not leave the Army base without us signing him out, we ventured back to South Carolina for our Thanksgiving break this year. On the first night we stayed at a very nice Homewood Suites Hotel on the west side of Columbia. It was a pretty long drive from the Army base which was on the east side of Columbia, but it was a much nicer part of town to be staying in. Our son wanted to shop for civilian clothes, so we found a mall on the northwest part of Columbia where we joined the masses of people shopping on Black Friday. I have no idea about the rest of the county, but at this mall on this day it was wall to wall people. So many people, in fact, it was hard to get around inside the mall in some places. The mall was very nice and fairly new and our son quickly found a store called Buckle that willingly took his $200 and gave him little in return. I have never enjoyed shopping and the only good thing this time was that I did not have to spend money. We even went into the really high end store Abercrombie & Finch just for looking around as we suffered from sticker shock and quickly left, besides the fact that the store was so dark you could hardly see the prices and the music so loud you could not hear yourself think.

On the second night, we went back to the location where we stayed the last time for his boot camp graduation ceremonies. It is right next to the Army base, but the area is not very nice. When we got to the hotel, our son told us that his sergeant told them to all stay away from the Waffle House next to our hotel. That was odd orders, but then we heard the details on why this was so. Apparently the Army had tracked found the location where some of the soldiers had bought cocaine and it was at this very same Waffle House. We have eaten in one of them and decided not to make this a first time for us!

On the last day in Columbia we had a mission to find a phone that could be used no matter where he would be stationed. He is listed as going to South Korea, but we learned that it could change many times between now and when he ships out on March 1st. For South Korea and Japan they use very high frequencies, so basically the only phones that would work with local service in those countries are the high end PDA phones. The Apple iPhone will not work there on local service, but he really liked the touch screen phones in the AT&T store. After playing with every phone in the store for over an hour, he finally found a phone he liked, but it turned out to be one that would not work in Asia. He finally decided on the LG Incite 3g phone. He enjoyed playing with it the rest of the day, in taking photos of everything and finding wireless networks and chatting. Sounds like a mobile computer to me!

family and food

Yesterday was the first time we have not had our whole family together for our traditional Thanksgiving Day meal. Our oldest son could not get off the Army base so we are going down there to see him today. For the last week we had hoped he would be able to come home, but on Tuesday night we learned that no one was able to leave. Our next to oldest son is in California and everyone left in the house talked to him by phone yesterday. He was going to try to have a meal with those in the school who remained, one from Pennsylvania and one from Michigan. He is so out-going that life is an adventure for him, of which this is yet another one.

This year we decided to deep fry a turkey. We first tried doing it ourselves two years ago and it was the best turkey we ever had. It is messy and a bit expensive but the oldest son in house suggested we do it again. Last time we followed Alton Brown's recipe and it worked out for us. It is really very easy to do as it just takes some patience. We even followed his directions on how to build a turkey derrick. But this time the turkey derrick did not fly as my son told me "that is for 60 year olds". I guess after being two years older he had not gained wisdom but had become more daring. All went well without the turkey derrick as we did not have any exploding turkeys to report or old burns. We have read stories of people trying to deep fry turkeys that were still frozen and they shoot out of the fryer, literally exploding. This year after the 35 minute frying had been completed, we decided to do a couple of tests after turning off the propane flames. We threw a frozen chicken nugget in the 350 degree peanut oil. When it did not shoot out, we tried throwing in a frozen bread biscuit. The chicken nugget and biscuit popped up to the top of the oil after a couple of minutes. When we still did not get the affect, we threw in 5 ice cubes. Suddenly things got really interesting. Previously the oil surface was quite calm but now it starting bubbling profusely. So ice definitely is a bad idea with hot boiling oil. Our last experiment was putting in ice cream as we had heard that at the NC State Fair they offer fried ice cream. Apparently there is a science in getting that to work as throwing it n just made the ice cream melt right away. This sounds like we wasted a lot of time playing around, but after removing the turkey from the hot oil, you have to let it sit for 30 minutes to finish cooking and that is when we messed around with the oil.

A final word about our meal. In the morning my wife spent hours preparing the food. She did comment that it did seem odd to spend so much time on food that is finished off in minutes. I told her that some people actually enjoy the act of cooking in itself. I just like how our family gets together around the table and sits and talks. Something that is not natural for teenagers! My wife took hours to make from scratch the following foods : bread stuffing, cream corn, sweet potatoes, cranberry relish, baked apples, pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie. What a wonderful cook I married. All of that and she did not feel very good as she had a cold. It never fails to amaze me how she can cook when not feeling good and it always tastes perfect.

Mumbai mess

Having watched hours of news coverage on the Mumbai 9/11 terrorist attacks in the past couple of days, it is so sad to see how a few crazy people can cause such pain and grief. I don't like my idealist view of India being manipulated by people with no brains. We recently watched several Bollywood movies on terrorists in India as it is a hot topic even before this disaster. I still think the best way to deal with such horrible situations is to not allow terrorists to force us to change our lives as that makes them win.

stationed in South Korea

We found out this morning that our oldest son will be stationed in north of Seoul, South Korea for his first year after his training completes in January, 2009. This is really interesting news since my wife grew up her whole life in South Korea! We would have never imagined that our son would go there to live. Here are some links to Dongducheon, South Korea for Camp Casey, where he will be living:



Map of Army bases in South Korea
Map of Army bases near Camp Casey
West map of Camp Casey
East map of Camp Casey
Bridge outside Camp Casey
Weather at Camp Caasey
Map of Dongducheon
Details on the area
Subway to Seoul

wallyball

Yesterday during lunch I ventured into the exciting world of wallyball. That sounds very close to volleyball when you speak it in public conversation. I had heard about it for several years and finally found someone who would let me play. We played two-on-two inside a racquetball court with the next tied to the walls at the half way point within the court. At first I had no idea what to expect after I had the rules explained to me. Besides the fact that a racquetball court echoes like crazy, I was not sure I heard the rules correctly. Once we started playing it was pretty obvious how I should be playing, but it was another thing all together on how to actually do it. The ball has a rubber outside and is slightly smaller than a volleyball and bounces like a huge racquetball. I quickly learned that I should not try to block shots at the net as that left the court wide open for my teammate, which was too large an area to cover for one person. It was hard hitting the ball just right so it bounced off our opponent's side walls but not our opponent's back wall. This was especially true of serving. The surprising thing to me was how quickly I was sweating and I got a great work out. This is an interesting video that shows how the best people play wallyball.

what "Knopp" means to me

Some events in your life are memorable for a very long time and some you want to forget as soon as they happen. For me, the recent passing away of the patriarch of the Knopp family helped bring back so many wonderful memories. I can honestly say that my whole life would not be what it is today without knowing the Knopp family.

My life was a constant downward spiral for many years after my parents got divorced at my young ripe age of 14. When I had no where else to turn, I forced myself on a couple who attended church at the Knopp's house. At the lowest point of my life, I decided to take a chance and attend the Knopp home church. I had very long hair, which for me was definitely a sign of rebellion that I wanted to portrait to others. I had no idea what to wear to their church or whether I would be accepted with my long hair, but I was desperate enough to try and see what happened. I mainly went because I had just finished reading a book by Haralan Popov and he was speaking at the church that day. The primary reason Popov appealed to me was I had recently read The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski and was fascinated with how communism destroyed people. It is interesting how events just seem ordained to happen sometimes. It felt pretty strange attending a church in someone's home and even more odd that I did not know them at all, but desperate times lead to desperate measures. That very afternoon I decided that the way I was running my life was not working out very good for me and that I needed divine intervention. I really had nothing to loose as I was pretty miserable, so I was willing to take a chance. It is the best decision I have ever made and it changed my life forever. For me it was a miracle.

For that entire summer I attended church either at the Knopp's or with my mother. I quickly felt like the Knopps were a family I had always wanted to have but never had. I remember eating lunch at the Knopp home on several Sundays and observing the family interactions. People were always more important than possessions or time. It seemed like I could stay as long as I needed to - just like a home. Before I left to go at VaTech I had a bond that is hard for me to put into words with my adopted Knopp family. To be accepted for who you are instead of what comes out of your mouth or what you look like is such a great thing. I had no reason to be loved by this family as I had nothing useful to offer them. Sounds like the definition of true love to me. After completing my first full year at VaTech, I wanted to actually do something with my life to help others instead of how I had lived my first 20 years only for myself. The Knopps helped support me the whole two years I was in India, which is yet another reason I am eternally grateful.

When I returned from India, I had no idea where I would stay upon returning to VaTech. Yet again the Knopps came to my rescue. At VaTech, I roomed with two of the Knopp sons where we shared an apartment together. I could not have asked for better roommates as we had a great time together. We had a common hobby in playing basketball and we spent many fun hours every week enjoying ourselves and getting exercise. I met my wife to-be early in that school year and when we secretly got married in February, my perfect roommates graciously allowed us to live with them temporarily. They also helped force us to find our own place to live, which was the best advice they could have given us.

The best memory I have of Papa Knopp was on a visit to their home after we got married. Over lunch I asked Papa what his secret was to raising such great children as I needed advice before we had our own kids. He looked at me and said it was the only the grace of GOD. At the time I was really disappointed as I wanted "the" secret. After having five children and two of them already gone from our house, I fully understand what he meant. Some people who seem to have it all together have all kinds of problems with their kids. Other who have terrible families, somehow the kids rise above the horrible conditions and make something out of their lives for the good of others.

The second best memory I have of Papa Knopp was told by his sons, my college roommates. When I asked them what they thought made him a great father, they told me of a time when Papa lost his temper as the nine sons were getting a bit wild on a long road trip. He pulled over the car and apologized to them all immediately afterwards. Just two weeks ago when I talked to Papa Knopp one final time, he told me that so many good things had happened in his home but he could only attribute it to him being a willing servant and nothing more.

The most lasting impression I have of the Knopp family is how every time I visit their home I feel more encouraged upon leaving than when I arrived. Some people become old and crusty with age, but Mama and Papa just seemed to get better over time. I have to attribute it to their positive attitude of finding the good things that GOD has done for us. If only I could do the same.

Tribute to Papa Knopp: http://sites.google.com/site/papaknopp/

Josh Hamilton

Last night my wife and I went to see Josh Hamilton and his wife speak at Hope Community Church. It was really more like an interview than him speaking the whole time. He was not feeling well so his wife spoke more than half of the time. It was pretty amazing to hear of his wife standing behind him through all of his drug addiction problems, which he finally overcame two years ago. My wife bought me his autobiography Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back. I opened it at 10am this morning and read it straight through, until I finished it at 4pm this afternoon. Having read a couple of books by ex-drug addicts, I must say that this is my favorite one. It is one thing to overcome addictions and it is another to thrive and do something useful with your life.

I am not really a huge fan of baseball as it was my least favorite sport when I was growing up. In my first job out of college, my best friend was a huge Houston Astros fan, so I would often watch games with him when they were on TV. Other than that I seldom watch baseball on TV now or even read about it in the newspaper. A couple of years ago when the Astros made it to the playoffs, I watched with my youngest son just for old times sake. The real reason I wanted to go see Josh Hamilton was that I had read parts of his story in the local newspaper. Also one of his early little league coaches worked with me by testing the code I wrote for work purposes. He would tell me stories of Josh's greatness as he saw him in his youth. Another reason to see him was that I had heard he had fallen for a drug addiction for many years and finally gotten out of it the last couple of years. During lunch at work one day, I heard about his great home run derby feat during all star weekend this year, so it was a great transformation that had taken place.

family matters

We saw an Indian movie that we really liked last night called Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, which means "Sometimes happy, sometimes sad". It is about how a family interacts with each other. A son obeying his parents and when he does not, how the consequences affect everyone for many years. His father setup a marriage for him and he decided to follow his feelings of love for a "common" woman that broke up the family. Such great family values that apply half way around the world to our family. It never ceases to amaze me how such a different culture has so many applicable wonderful traits that are valuable for us as a family. I don't even have to try hard to favor Indian culture as it just comes naturally somehow to a Virginia country boy like me.

diwali #2

Last night we attended our company wide Diwali festivities at the local Hindu temple. In past years it was held in the temple hall, but this year because of a scheduling conflict it was held in the main hall that could hold at least 1000 people. The sound system was absolutely amazing and the Indian music sounded wonderful. The event started at 6:30pm and we arrived early at 6:20pm. For all of the times I have been in India and knew better, still for some odd reason I forgot Indian Standard Time. When we got there, a good friend of mine who was the master of ceremonies for the evening was the only one there! At least I got to talk to him for a good 20 minutes as we are always too busy at work for a relaxing conversation like that. At 7:15pm there was but a hand full of people present, a couple of them I knew so there was plenty of time to talk. This event for me is all about talking to friends from work, some of which I never get the chance to talk to about non-work related things. Two of the people I talked to are in my own group and I seldom get any time to talk to them. That is sad, but I took advantage of the time last night and had a great time.

teenager notice

TEENAGERS!
Are you tired of being harassed by your parents?
ACT NOW!

Move out,
get a paid job,
& pay your own way
while you still know everything!

it's all about family

This has been one constant driving trip for me this weekend. First we all drove to Columbia, SC as a family and then I drove to Dayton, VA to pick up my mother who was visiting my sister. On the way to Dayton I stopped in Staunton, VA to see the family of my roommates from the good old days at VaTech. Driving through the orange colored Blue Ridge mountains, I wondered if anyone would be home at the Knopps or if anyone would remember me. I feel like they are my family for many reasons. There are nine boys in the family and two of them were my roommates. These roommates saw my wife and I get married and helped us so much those first three months. We had so much in common as we loved to play basketball for hours at the VaTech gym and at home when we were together in Staunton. They were the rock strong family when my family was falling apart at the cracks. When I needed support, they were always there for me. With Mama Knopp close to 89 and Papa Knopp close to 95 and it is hard to tell how much longer they will grace the earth with their presence. I mean "grace" as that is the absolutely best word for them. You just want to be around them in hopes that something will rub off! Mama's body may be falling apart but her mind is simply amazing. If I had just half of her memory at 70 I would be a happy camper. Lastly, it is not that the whole family of 9 boys, 20+ grandchildren, 20+ great-grandchildren are perfect, it is how they are constantly learning how to be more like Jesus Christ as a family. Simply amazing to me.

On my way up the Shenadoah valley to see my sister, I saw the Mennonite region of Virgina as that is where my sister lives. Huge dairy farms with black horse and buggy's outside each home with some homes having many bicycles park along the barns. You could see horse dung on the road as I weaved along the curvy country road. Occasionally I would see someone on a bicycle. These are not racing bikes but simple bicycles with baskets on both sides of the back to hold groceries. As a kid I could remember going through the country side around Harrisonburg and seeing the mennonite people, so I got used to seeing them, but after many years it was odd but brought back good memories.


On the way back home with my mother, we stopped to see a childhood friend of hers who had been her playmate since being in the same crib. She had just turned 80 and mom wanted to see her. That is amazing to see someone remain friends for 80 years. They did not dwell so much on the past as just wanted to talk about each other's family and what was going on now. They had both been through much adversity and had the battle wounds to show for it, but knew they would be friends to the end of their life on earth.

On the 5 hour drive home, one of the conversations between my mother and I was about her brother Claude, since he had served in the military for 30 years. He had joined the Marines when he was 16 years old and served in WWII, Korean War and Vietnam. He retired after 30 years of service, most of the latter years as a chef for officers. I remember visiting him many times as I liked to spend the night with them and eat some of the best food that ever entered my stomach. He smoked like crazy and drank tons as well, but was the nicest uncle I could ask for. The last time I saw him, he was on the verge dying of cancer and was really a skeleton with skin draped over his bones. It was a very sad time for me. I remember going to his funeral and crying for a very long time. It is the only funeral I have attended so far.

proud Army parents

It certainly was an emotional two days watching our boy become a man. Maybe he should have become a man sooner or learned lessons the easy way, but for now all we can say is that we are proud parents of our new man. Sometimes it is just too hard to put into words how we feel and this is just such a case. We told him how proud we were of him and he said that we were not as proud of him as he was of himself. He said he did things he never imagined he was capable of completing. His master drill sergeant told him they could quit any time and the final night before his graduation, he told them he was on a mission to make someone not graduate. One of the fellows completed his physical training on the morning of family day (our son told us this fellow's first two mile run on entering camp was in 29 minutes and he had to complete it in 16 minutes to graduate) and if he had not completed it he would have not graduated and would have had to tell his parents to not come. He did graduate by the way! There were people from all over the USA there to see this manly sons. I knew almost nothing about the military when we went to Columbia, SC this weekend. I dislike war and cannot imagine having to kill someone, but I have to say that having seen my son turn into a man was the highlight of my life as a father so far. I really like the Army values and creed as they are great values for anyone to have. The regiment commander read these out loud at the graduation ceremonies and all 460 of the graduates yelled the creed in unison at the end before parading off the field - also quite and emotional experience. Our son is part of the 165th infantry brigade, 3rd battalion, 34th infantry regiment, company "B". The regiment is called "Rock Force" and his company is called the "Hell Hounds".

Army Values

Loyalty - Bear true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit, and other Soldiers
Duty - Fulfill your obligations
Respect - Treat people as they should be treated
Selfless Service - Put the welfare of the nation, the Army, and your subordinates before your own
Honor - Live up to all of the Army values
Integrity - Do what's right, legally and morally
Personal Courage - Face fear, danger, or adversity (Physical or Moral)

The Soldier's Creed

I am an American Soldier.
I am a Warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of the United States and live the Army Values.
I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough,
trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.
I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.
I am an expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage and destroy the enemies of
the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.

I am an American Soldier.

Army

So last night we left our home to spend the night in Columbia, SC so we could get up bright and early to attend the family day presentation at 9am this morning. We got there early to avoid the traffic, but just as we arrived at the Fort Jackson exit we could see a huge accident on the other side of the freeway. We found the Hilton field where the event started and I was not able to sit on the metal bleachers as they were so cold and I decided to stand. We got there at 8am as it was to begin at 9am. At 8:30 they announced that due to the accident they would start at 9:30 instead. At 9:30 they announced it would start at 10am and that there was a fatality and 6 cars involved in the accident. As the sun rose it did get warm enough to actually sit on the bench finally. After a couple of people spoke to open the festivities, we started clapping as we were prompted to do. There were around 15 colored smoke bombs set off in the woods across from the stands. Then all of the sudden all of the soldiers ran across the field into position on the field in front of the stands. We sat in front of the "B" company which was the platoon our son was a part of. It was pretty emotional for my wife and I so of course we had to cry, even though we could not even figure out which one was our son. We were all dismissed and allowed to go onto the field to find our son. Quite the emotional experience as it had been 10 weeks since he left the house a boy and today we saw a man in front of us!

Some of the things we heard from talking to him are:

• He craved M&Ms, ice cream and Starbucks coffee


• First cup of coffee was really special for him


• Listening to his iPod was the highlight of his day


• He bought a cross to wear


• Toughest thing for him was dealing with people - he hated every one in his platoon and it was mutual for everyone


• Second hardest thing was camping for seven days in cold


• Third hardest thing was crawling in huge field with 1000's of soldiers while live fire was being shot over his head


• Fourth hardest thing was having to go through gas mask tests


• Fifth hardest thing was to throw live grenades


• He appreciates the small things in life a whole lot more now

Some other interesting tidbits of his life over the past couple of months. Out of the 52 total people in his platoon, 12 are women. When he left our house he could not run 100 yards without getting winded and having to stop for breath as he smoked heavily for many years. For his physical training, he was able to run two miles in 13:40, which is totally amazing to me - I am not sure I could run two miles that fast! The longest march they did was 12 miles in 3 hours with 85 pound backpacks. Training constantly changes every time they do boot camp. Now the drill sargents are not allow to hit or touch new recruits and cannot get up into their face except for specific reasons. If you fight you get sent off the base for good. If you disobey orders three times for the same thing you go home. Of the 512 people who started only 460 finished and are graduating tomorrow. Our son is so glad he has completed the boot camp and admitted this evening that he is so much better off for doing so. He also told us he felt strange being among civilians, not marching in a line, and talking about common things.

cricket tournament

Today was the end of the cricket season for me as I play all summer long to get ready for the local annual AID cricket tournament. This year I was on a different team from last year. Two of the same players from last years's team were on this year's team but all of the other were new. I found out this morning that all of them but one were from Gujarat. My Hindi lessons don't do much good in that situation I am afraid. We had fun playing cricket and talking on the side lines in between and during games. We lost pretty bad, but it was not about winning for us. Last year I got involved as my previous team got very serious during play and I definitely did not want to do that again. I bowled the last game today and that was definitely fun as two of their best hitters hit balls that were caught in the field and thus were out of the game. In that same game when I batted I stayed in longer than I normally do and actually go a hold of one ball and hit it over the fence into the field next to ours for a 6. It was good to end on that note as I got to know more Indians that I enjoy being around and having fun playing cricket.

These are photos from the AID cricket tournament. There are a couple of them of our team members:

Diwali

Today was the local Diwali Festival. We have attended this celebration around many times previously. In the past few years our daughter accompanied us, but this year my wife and I went by ourselves as are not cool any more I suppose. At the Diwali last year, our oldest son went with us also as he had just moved into his own house down the road from where they have the festival. What a difference a year makes as that was the beginning of all kinds of trouble for us. This year he is nearly at the end of his Army boot camp and a totally different person from last year, which is a great thing.


For me, this year was the best Diwali ever as we met and talked to several Indian friends the five hours we were there. We went early so we could see the younger kids dance as they are he cutest things ever in their Indian saris. I talked to a co-worker who designed all of the backdrops for the stage and the main logo when we first arrived. I had been wanting to talk to him outside of work for some time. Of course I had to stop by and see the man who we rent all of our Indian videos from as he always recognizes me. It was not that hard in past Diwali ceremonies, but this year there seemed to be many more white faces in the crowd. Next I met the husband of a co-worker who I had met last year at a company Diwali party. As I was talking to him I spotted a next door neighbor of ours when we first moved to this area. I watched where he sat with his wife and without being too rude, quickly went over and started talking to him. We saw him a couple of years ago with his family at another local Indian event but had not seen him since. Right as we were leaving I saw another co-worker who I play cricket with and of course had to stop and talk to him for an extended period of time. For me this is a perfect way to spend an afternoon, talking with Indian friends and getting to know them better. Makes me want to go back to India!

best 3D Flash sites

While I am working on lists, I have to give my top 10 list of 3D graphics sites I have seen:

1. eco da zoo


2. Roxik Max2007


3. Roxik toy


4. Barcinski-JeanJean


5. Fat Man Collective


6. Cheatham Lane


7. Lamberta


8. Cristof Echard


9. Orange 8


10. Mr. Doob depth-of-field

sports day

Yesterday was one of the most athletic days of my life. I played volleyball on my company team during lunch and since we lost the match and I did not do very good, I decided to go for a 3 mile run to "cool" off. When I got home my youngest son wanted to play tennis so we took off for the courts and played for over an hour. On arriving at the tennis court, he noticed the Indian cricket equipment I had in my trunk, so I had to show him how to play after we finished playing tennis. I decided to take off today and not do any exercise as my old body needed a break.

favorite Indian movies

This is the list of my wife and my favorite Indian movies that we have watched over the last couple of years. I still think watching Indian movies are the cheapest and best forms of entertainment on the planet today. We can rent these at the local Indian movie store for $1 each.

Taara Zameen Par
Vivah
Jodhaa Akbar
Bride and Prejudice
Black
Provoked
Eklavya
Guru
Bend it like Beckham
Chak ed India
Dor
Paheli
Veer Zaara
Iqbal
Lagaan
Pinjar
Hum Tumhara Hain Sanam
Swades
Dil se
Pardes
Hum Dil de Chuke Sanam
Fanaa
Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge
Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham
Nanhe Jaisalmer
Rab ne bana di Jodi

A really good set of links on Indian movies can be found here: Highest Grossing Bollwood movies

beach

It seems like an odd time of the year to go to the beach since it is almost October, but the water temperature was very pleasant yesterday. The two youngest children went with us to attend their mother's sister's birthday party at their grandmother's which is at the beach. That sounds much more complicated than it really is. The kids and I went to the beach yesterday afternoon as it was a perfect day for such activity. When we reached the crest of the sand dunes and looked at the Atlantic ocean, we saw some very large waves. Of course my youngest son was very excited to see such huge waves as he had never seen waves of this size in person. My daughter was a bit apprehensive at the size of the waves. I stood on the sandy shore watching them for around 15 minutes before they came out of the water and insisted I come in with them. I don't recall the last time I had been in the ocean with waves that were way over my head. I think most of the waves had to be over 8' tall. With the powerful rip currents and undertow we lasted 30 minutes before calling it a day. The fight with the waves was a loosing battle. I tried body surfing a couple of times and that was a huge mistake as the waves were so strong that they just tossed me around flipping me over and over several times. The deciding factor on us leaving, beside the fact that we were tired from the fights with the waves, was that my daughter had a huge wave hit her, flipping her several times and making her sea sick. She says she blacked out and felt pretty sick, so we called it a day. Although on leaving my son said he hoped the waves were still big today as he wanted to go back. When we got back to his grand mother's house, we heard that the huge waves were being caused by a tropical depression in the Atlantic ocean. I was kind of wandering why so much of the beach sand had been eroded as it was the very same place my wife and I had been a month ago and yet the beach looked very narrow with a small cliff going down into the water.

virus

Although my middle son had a virus the last couple of days and still does not feel well, a much worse kind of Trojan virus landed on our Windows Vista laptop. It just makes me want to throw it away and get an Apple MacBook. We just don't have the money to buy a new one since most of our money went with my next to oldest son to school in California. I just upgraded my Norton Anti-Virus two weekends ago and somehow it got on the laptop anyway. What made it even more painful was that Norton could not remove it. I clicked the "Get Help" button and put into an on-line chat program. From there, the Norton support person was able to take control of our laptop from who knows where. He deleted all of the temporary files and then rebooted my laptop. When the laptop came back up, it then reconnected him using chat to my computer. Then the virus attached itself to a movie I had made with Window Movie Maker, which I found and deleted it. Then after two more reboots, the virus was gone. I had several tracking cookies that also were deleted that had been plaguing me for a while also. In all I lost two hours of my day dealing with a virus I have no idea how it got on the laptop.