Hot Topic: Responsible Journalism

Headline : "USA May Be Set To Have Worst West Nile Virus For Years"

Facts pointing to this headline:

• The number of cases reported so far this year are four times higher than the equivalent period in 2006.
• Georgia has three times as many disease-transmitting mosquitoes this year, compared to 2006

So we could have had 4 cases reported in 06 and 16 so far in '07 but it is much better instead to say 4X MORE CASES IN 2007!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!


Is this a trend we are going to have to live with or is there a chance this will change?

Boston in pictures

Kim uploaded a bunch of pictures from our Boston trip written about here and here.

• Lovingly edited set of pics.
• All pics

She is good with a digital camera indeed :-)

Bizarre news

The title says it all,

Coolbaugh dead at 35 :Tulsa Drillers' first base coach killed by line drive

Ugh a young man survived by two sons and his wife. Sad :-/ I am curious about what the odds are of this happening?

Walk through Boston (continued)

Today was definitely a warmer day :-) We slept in and headed to Harvard square for a bit of brunch.

1. We ate at Zoey's which was great except they looked at me strange when I asked for Sourdough toast. Weird...
2. We came up a movie set on Harvard campus. It turns out that the movie is called "The Great Debaters" and it stars Denzel and Forrest Whitaker. No we did not get a glimpse of either of them.
3. We checked out the MIT campus and took a walk by theCharles river
4. We then went to the Boston Science museum and watched a really cool electricity show featuring tesla coils and van-de-graaf generators that generated some impressive lightings.

Hoping to get some good indian food for dinner tonight.
-amar

Walking our way through Boston

Kim and I decided to explore Boston on foot today :-). We have thoroughly enjoyed it so far. I wanted to share few of the Boston observations.

• This city is super walking friendly. Of all the big cities I have been to in the US (NY, SF, LA, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, DC, Seattle, Denver) Boston is the most walking friendly. We are also enjoying an unbelievably gorgeous day which tilts things in Boston's favor.
• We started from our hotel by the Haymarket T station (close to Faneuil hall) and walked over to Faneuil hall/Quincy market place. Wait, that is neither cool nor interesting, so ..
• Boston seems to have more Dunkin Donuts stores than Starbucks.
• There are over a 100 Italian restaurants/coffee shops/gelataria's lined up along two streets by the North End. We had dinner last night at Bricco's. I wanted Osso Bucco but apparently it is a winter dish.
  
• Boston was founded in 1637 ... so pretty darn old but such a good looking city.
• We walked right by the oldest restaurant in the country.
• I am from Austin but we were treated to 4 different street musicians as we meandered through Newbury street. The variety was great, from rock to country to jazz by a three students who study music at BerkeleyBerklee school of music. Boston seems to have a lot of good street music during the summer if what we encountered is not an exception.
• Newbury street runs parallel to Commonwealth and one is bohemian and shows a lot of the city's culture while the other speaks of power and wealth. Interesting juxtaposition. (Kim noticed this as we were walking through)
• Boston has some beautiful parks. We walked through one right by the Boston commons that was gorgeous.
• What else.... oh yeah we saw this kid in the park, he was holding a branch with a baby bird on it. The chick could not fly, tried to and fell on his bike, the mama was not coming down since this kid was holding the chick and did not know how to return it to its mother. It all worked out in the end.
• Newbury was interesting as well. We were having authentic Boston ice-cream when we noticed that 4 of the 5 people around us had the latest harry potter. Two of them were reading it and the other two were proud new owners. We promptly purchased our copy of course!
• There was a plaque at the park by the Boston Commons that had quotes from some of Boston's original settlers, it was a cool glimpse into the values and principles that were influential back in the days.
  
• We had a green peace group "keeping it real" next to us and trying to get people's attention. Then a LOUD noisy Ferrari pulled up, revved for the next 5 mins and slowly parked right next to them. Seemed oddly funny for some reason.
  
• As we walked by Louis Boston store, we noticed a gaggle of men. The objects of attention it turned out were a Bentley, a Ferrari, a CLS 500 and a Ducati parked next to each another. Good times !

Hoping to find some good food at Chinatown tonight! wish us luck.

It is not about me

There is a lot going on around me. Plus this article by Clay Shirky I read (10 mins back) got me thinking. I am hyper connected these days (relative to my preference not relative to the scoble standard). My dad is more connected to me thanks to my blog. But it is good to remember that my blog is a means to an end, it is not the end. Its goal is to help me stay connected with people not meet people so my blog is more relevant.
So anyway here is what is going with people i know/love/care

1. My wife is on her way right now to join me in Boston (sooner the better).
2. Eryn's horse fancy is moving closer to being a proud mama.
3. Tiffany is living it up in London.
4. Corbett is enjoying his new job and in general seems happier when Jen is with him than when she is not ;-) (which is rare these days)
5. Drew is a proud dad and man their kid is handsome.
6. Speaking of handsome kids, Moyer smith is making waves in the US
7. Krista is cramming away to reach her MBA goal....
8. John (i hope) is loving seattle, kicking butt at amazon and enjoying family with Thao and Issac.
9. The vyssotski's are keeping it real with alexie
10. My parents are busy with a typical Indian summer.
11. My brother is working his way to prepare for some major excitement in life.
    
12. (just realised i could be writing this post for another hour easy!)
    

holy focus changer batman .... gawd people are living such rich busy eventful lives :-). Not sure why I wanted to write this post but writing it has made it easy for me to take the focus of myself and my stressful life and enjoy the changes in my friends lives.


what is going on in your friends lives?

My wife took me to a movie

..and it was fun :-) We saw "Once" (imdb link). The plot outline is apparently

"A modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant and their eventful week, as they write, rehearse and record songs that tell their love story."

Does not quite do it justice though. You have to see it for yourself. Btw, if you enjoyed "Before Sunset". There is a pretty good chance you will like this one.

True Love vs Infatuation

Our friend Dr Thurman has been teaching on the difference between infatuation and "true" love at church. Obviously "true" is based on how Jesus/the Bible defines love between a husband and wife.

Lately I have been on the receiving end of a lot of true love from my wife :-). Life has been hectic and Kim and I have been crossing paths a lot. What is amazing is that through all of this, the marriage continues to beat with a steady rhythm and pulse. Almost like we are both off key with our respective instruments but the base is healthy and steady (except we are both contributing to the base so there is no separate drummer/base guitarist).

I am so grateful that we are not standing on a foundation of infatuation but on truth that says "true" love involves tremendous hard work, grace, forgiveness and humility. I am also grateful for my wife who finds ways to appreciate me and love me in spite of my best efforts ;-)

Thanks Kim

Zerse or Hobra ?

How to love your family remotely

I got a call last week from my grandmother with a request for some PC related help. She lives clean across town and it was late in the evening. I did not want to let her down so I ended up using copilot and spending the 5$ for the 24hr license. It worked great :-) and I was able to take care of her issue. But I was wondering if I could have done it even cheaper (sure there is vnc but it is not very grandmother friendly. It looks like I can using crossloop.

I am hoping to try it with my mom so she can read my wife's blog. Will let you know how it works out. This one should be a little trickier since my mom lives half way across the world and is on a dedicated DSL i think but not sure.

p.s you cannot hope to ever "completely" love someone remotely but that does not mean you stop trying.

Random notes from recently

Books read/reading

• Complications by Atul Gawande (in progress)
  
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman (re-read)
• Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (re-read)
  
• Eragon by Christopher Paolini
• Eldest by Christopher Paolini
• Total Truth by Nancy Pearcy (in progress)
  
• Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (in progress)
  
• Polar Shift by Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos
  

I think there are probably a few more but i am forgetting them. Work related reading would fall into this category but you need to follow my del.icio.us tags for that.

Movies from recent

• Transformers
  
• Pirates of the Caribbean by III
• Invincibles (repeat)
• Hot Fuzz
• Iron Man (partial)

Houses bought/sold/moved into

• One :-)

Job started/quit/getting used to

• One :-)

Living my life, loving my wife - priceless.