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.

Seeing and Listening

Due to the fact that my new office is located in downtown Austin I have started to take the bus to work. The reasons 'for' are plenty and I have not bothered with the reasons against :-). The 'for' reasons include , saving on gas, more reading time, less stressful commute, saving on downtown parking... like I said a lot.

While in the bus I noticed a "Jack Brown" dry cleaner store. The store was closed but there was a window washer at work and I could not take my eyes of him. He was so meticulous in his attention to detail, making sure that he cleaned the blade of his wiper between every wipe. It reminded me that sometimes a job well done is its own reward. I design software for a living and more often than not I get frustrated with mundane tasks but seeing that clean sparkling window was a cool reminder to the power of commitment.

I get of the bus and am waiting to cross the street. The light turns red, a car pulls to a stop and as I am crossing, I see this man run from the other direction straight to the car, the window rolls down, they smile at each other and the running man gives a package to the car driver and takes of. The windows roll up and the car drives away. My mind started to race at the possibilities of what happened there :-)

All in all, i like taking the bus. It is teaching me to observe again. Hopefully listening will follow.

Biking to work -- getting closer to making it happen

I bought a used R900 R900 (thanks Nick) last night. It is a 2002 bike that belonged to an ex-triathlete. My friend Drew helped me get it :-), thanks Drew.

Psyched! wish me luck as I try to get used to it. I am hoping to use it to get to work on a regular basis!

President makes a fashion statement

bush
Originally uploaded by a.ma.r

Black monogrammed socks and black crocs....ugh very presidential

kiva.org

It is a startup organized at enabling people from wealthy countries to lend small amounts of cash (micro-finance) to entrepreneurs in the poorer nations. It is a beautiful concept and I hope it can stay free of corruption, scandal and abuse long enough for people to realize that a business when focussed on the right vision can be a powerful tool for transformation.

Check it out -> www.kiva.org

call centers - cart before the horse?

I just got of the phone with an Amex representative. I am fairly confident that she is an Indian woman and most likely working out of a call center in India. Quite impressive since it means she is doing the evening or the night shift and I appreciate her willingness to work at odd hours.
During our conversation, she read my address back to me and recited a 6 or 7 digit zip code for me. I of course corrected my address. I am not bothered by this as much as piqued by this. Call centers, BPO's and the companies that hire them work hard to mask the fact that these employees are not from the US. So the intensive training program on American culture and accent. This is a no win game that I believe focuses on the wrong thing.

I don't care that her accent is excellent as much as I care that she does not realize that US has a 5 digit zip code. I find it amusing that call center reps are being trained to hide their identity and act instead of being trained on the "serving" end of "customer service". If he/she realises that I am trying to "change my address" and helps me get it done with courtesy and clarity then I don't care how authentic the accent is.

--disclaimer--
I understand that there are more than enough customers who are comforted by a familiar accent. I do buy the need for accent training but I think it should follow good service training not precede it.
--disclaimer--

how NOT to practice customer service

In the unorganized world of moving there are victims who move and the movers who facilitate these situations. These are their stories.
Da Ding...

Quick version: we moved successfully last week :-) Praise God.

Longer version: We had some hiccups. One of which was moving company "Quality Movers" (henceforth referred to as QM) calling me on Saturday to get the address for the move. But I had never confirmed with QM only got a quote from them. I had signed up with "Minor Moving" (henceforth = MM) to do the actual move.
In their defense, I never explicitly called and told QM that I was not using their services after getting the quote but that is not the same as confirming. So I apologized for the confusion and thanked them for their call and told them that I had picked another company. Few minutes later i get a call back from the same woman at QM who gave me the original quote, she starts the conversation with

• "i heard the movers tried to get your address and you declined, what is up?" not in a friendly tone of voice either.
• i explain to her that i never confirmed with them and i am sorry for the confusion but i was not using them.
• she then proceeds to challenge me on the strength of my memory. i once again point out that i am not calling her a liar, just that sometimes two sides end up with different take on past events. I tell her again that I did not intentionally set out to spoil her day and i am sorry for the unfortunate turn of events but i have somebody else lined up.
• at this point her voice gets louder, tinged with sarcasm and she asks me if i am usually this confused :-)

So I could either have been rude in return or see how far she is willing to lose her cool and discredit her company. I opt for the latter.

• I let that pass and tell her that the conversation is no longer productive and I am sorry for her troubles.
• She explains to me the amount of trouble I have caused her and she asks me what moving company i went with?
• I tell her I went MM, to which she takes a few seconds and then comes back with "Hah, I just found out that the movers you choose lost their license with Texas board of xxx (don't remember). Looks like you made a great choice.. i hope you are happy".

wow! ...... what could have be done differently here? Let me see

• Never call your customer when you are heated up and angry (even if they are wrong). Never do this!
• Remember customers are typically not for single transaction. On average, for any company,I am willing to bet that most customer will make multiple transactions over their life time. So take the time to educate the customer or understand their context so you can win their business next time.
  
• If things are not looking good, try to your best to blow their expectations away by reacting differently. For instance, if QM had called me back and said they were sorry to lose my business but still wished me a great move and gave me good moving tips. You bet I am going to bend over backwards to give them business from my friends.

.....little patience before picking the phone to call me would have made such a difference......

C&O Trattoria - Good Eats

I am in LA working with a client. My team and I headed out to C&O Trattoria last night for dinner on recommendation. It is a great Italian place located right next to the beach at Marina Del Ray. They have pretty darn good food, house wine served on the honour system and nightly sing alongs. All in all, what a good Italian dining experience should be :-).

The only way this evening could have been a better was if I had my wife with me :)

like it or not fame brings questions

My brother sent me this link. It is an article about LeBron deciding to take a "time-out" on a petition started by one of his team mates. This is a petition condemning China for its passive support of the Genocide in Darfur.
To be fair -- "I don't have enough information to sign this" is a reasonable response.... if you are NOT a international athlete with a 90million $ Nike deal and the ability and influence to embarrass the Chinese government by signing the petition. Sadly for LeBron the rules are different. Taking a "time-out" is apparently not an acceptable option for him. Welcome to the world of the modern multi-million dollar athletes, they have to be the best at their sport, talk kids out of drugs, promote the best footwear to the world and be the best world diplomats money can buy. Good luck LeBron.

well done tx gas service

The texas gas company that takes care of my natural gas needs has this really neat phone service. You call their 800 number and if you are not immediately connected they tell you how long the wait time is and give you a call back option, i.e. you enter your phone number and name and hang up. Within the time they promised, you get a call back and talk to a live customer service agent :)I am digging this use of technology and not having to stay on hold

I hope more companies follow their lead :)