live and let live

Visited the beautiful Butterflies exhibt in San Diego Wild Animal Park [link]

I still remember the front page of Malayala Manorama [wiki], on Jul 13, 1998, the day after India’s second ASLV[wiki] rocket launch failed. ISRO[Indian Space Research Organization] failed to place a 150 kg satellite in to 250 miles perigee. Almost everyone in India following the news was really frustrated at that time. It was before the fall of the Berlin wall, achievements in space were considered as a matter of great national pride. I am not saying it is not a matter of national pride in India now, but I am not seeing the level of enthusiasm accompanied with previous launches. It is already off as the main story in the Indian news sites. My friends in India offered a different perspective on the subject, when I contacted them last night. I will publish those as an update to this blog entry.

Here is the video of launch.

Interesting albeit alarming slide presentation from Sequoia capital about status of the venture capital industry and also the current economic situation.

A lot happening these days. Since Sunday night I was asking myself this question. What should I write about next ?

In the news

• US Elections
• Financial Crisis
• Tata Nano situation in India[World's cheapest car production running into political realities in India]

Technology stories caught my eye.

• Nokia 5800 Express Music Launch
• Canon and Nikon DSLR fight [Canon EOS 40D vs Nikon D90, Canon EOS 50D vs Nikon D300]
• Facebook vs Orkut [More of my friends are signing up in  the "new" facebook]
• Nintendo DSi [not sure why two "0.3" megapixel cameras are needed in a 2009 product]

Again I am affected by the Paradox of Choice[a phrase I learned from a wonderful TED presentation I saw several months ago].

But this time my choice was made easier by the news coming out of Wall Street for past four days. Stocks are down for several days in row. Some think it will come back, my take is deleveraging is going to put downward pressure on stocks for while. I will write more about my economic theory in coming days.

Every year San Diego Malayali’s [ Malayali - Wikipedia ] gather in Poway Lake for annual picnic. This year we had a fun filled picnic. There was great barbecue, burgers, drinks, chips, salsa and a whole lot of other foods and fun games for kids and big kids. The day was cold, but that did not hinder the fun or the spirit of San Diego Malayalis, but it sure made lighting charcoal a little difficult. Saju was in front with his makeshift fan get that cold charcoal on fire. After some very yummy food, we were ready for serious games.

Meet the organizers.

Bejoy
Bejoy organized the event and coordinated the food.

Prince [In the front]. The CEO of Kerala Events. He will not like us giving him credit, he is too humble to accept the importance of the role he plays in organizing these Kerala events. In September we had a wonderful Onam celebration in Poway community hall in which Prince played the central role.

Sreelal[left], Saju[second from left] , Rajeev[second from right] and Mohan[right]

Sreelal – Sreelal was the game coordinator, and was responsible for making sure that event was fun filled.

Saju – what can I say, he wore many hats, he was the chief cheer leader, food innovator coming up with new recipes on the fly and also he clicked most of the pictures you see.

California Chicken topped with curry leaves, a recipe Saju specially created for Poway Picnic

Volley Ball Game

Since I wasn’t one of the organizers, I do not know a lot of others who made this picnic possible. Thanks to everyone who worked hard to make this happen. The chicken marinades were very yummy. Also special thanks to Michael who brought tons curry leaves to share with everyone, I hear that is becoming an annual tradition as well.

Link to the gallery is here [Kerala Picnic]. There are lot of other pictures in Google Picasa as well but listed as private, in case you want see those send me a message using comments.

Full disclosure: I work for Nokia US, but this is my personal opinion, NOT Nokia’s.

Nokia 5800 Express Music is released, and it got glowing reviews in the internet. The features I found appealing are

- Touch Screen with haptics

- 3.2 megapixel camera with video recording. After using N95 I can’t think of using a phone without a good camera. 5800 has one, albeit 3.2 megapixel.

- Swappable battery

- 8 GB Memory, expandable up to 16 more with memory cards

- Easy sharing of photos with flickr and ovi

Ash started going to first grade this October. Never thought I would have to deal with a possible bullying situation this early in his school life. Thursday I came home from work, to find Ash very sad and tending his swollen lips. The whole situation started when Ash was waiting in the school lunch line, another kid Josh[name changed, bully kids need privacy too] cut in front of him. Tit for tat, Ash cut in front of him, but Josh did it again, and Ash duly responded. Not to be outdone, Josh pulled Ash into the ground, giving him a broken lip. Deeps was called to the school, Principal explained her the sequence of events. She took the sad and upset Ash home early. Josh was assigned the last position in the lunch line for the rest of the week. Deeps and I decided pass this as a random incident, as these are first graders. Sometimes kids do push each other playfully.

The next day passed without any incident, or we thought so.  Over the weekend, I asked Ash how his Friday lunch went. Initially he tried to ignore the question. I persisted, then he reluctantly informed me that he skipped the Friday lunch as Josh asked him not to stand in the line. Josh also warned Ash he may get kicked too.

I wasn’t sure how to handle this. Josh is a much bigger kid physically. Ash is 5 and Josh is 7, so I can understand why he feels intimidated. Even if they are of the same size, Ash is not an aggressive personality.

Now that I have to teach my son to handle situations like this, I did some reading online. Most of the advise goes like this.

- teach the affected kid to be assertive in a non confrontational way

- teach him/her to walk away from conflicts

- inform school authorities

Looks like good advise to me, so I did all these. Now I am eagerly hoping that it makes some positive impact here.

To be continued ..

Unofficial N95 and iPhone 3g comparison ad created by my colleagues

I love to see new places. I try to  visit some new place in San Diego on weekends. Now I am having a problem. Suddenly running out of options. This morning I did a Google search to find out where I can go today. As good as Google is, no help from Google this time.

San Diego Zoo – Been there

Wild Animal Park – Been there

Sea World – Been there

Balboa Park – Been there

San Diego Harbor – Been there

Old Town San Diego – Been there

Mission Bay Park – Been there

La Jolla – Been there

Beaches – Visited all of them

Point Loma – Been there

Gaslamp Quarter – Been there

The only place major attraction in San Diego I haven’t been to is Legoland. I heard a lot of mixed reviews from people who went there, so not sure whether I want to go there.

Any suggestions ?

Just looked at Yahoo News and learned that an agreement is reached on the 700 billion bailout deal. Even though politicians on both sides of the aisle agreed on the deal, I am yet to find a person who believes bailing out financial insistutions who made bad judgements is a good idea. I can’t fathom this idea of capitalism on the way up, and socialism on the way down. Still I think the options of the government are limited at this time, maybe a deal is better than doing nothing.