Katrina

Somebody said that the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and surrounding states was our tsunami. It is indeed. The stories out of New Orleans are heartbreaking. Mother Nature can be cruel, but when you actually witness the sweep of its destructive force, it is humbling and mortifying.

The face that tells a story

Ever since the reorg at work I haven't been a happy camper. I am doing work that I am not interested in. Unsurprisingly I am not in a happy frame of mind. This morning, a colleague and I were talking about some issue at work. She left, then returned and asked me if everything was ok.

I laughed and said I was fine. "Why ?" I asked, curious to know why she had sprung the question on me .

"You seem kind of down. You are not your usual self." she said.

I thought I did a pretty good job of hiding my feelings. Not this time. I am still surprised though that my face provided such a revealing window into my mind.

Reducing junk mail

Are you tired of those incessant pre-approved credit card offers that flood your mailbox? I am! I recently heard about 1-888-OPTOUT that one can call and expunge your name from the pre-approved list of the four largest credit rating agencies. They also have a website that offers the same service. I recommend using the website because it offers an option to permanently remove your name from their lists. This option was conspicuously missing when I called the number.

Changing story

This story contradicts initial reports about the circumstances surrounding the unfortunate death of the Brazilian man in a London subway in the aftermath of the terrorist bombings in July. At the time of the incident, there were several reports that said that the Brazilian man was dressed in a bulky coat that aroused suspicion on a hot day. They also said that he ran when confronted. Video footage now shows that the man was wearing a denim jacket and was walking normally(even stopping to pick up a newspaper) .

I am conflicted over this story. On the one hand, I can understand how a harried London police force beseiged by two terrorist bombings and trying hard to chase down leads and suspects made mistakes. But in my view there is no excuse for them bending the truth even when the truth is uncomfortable. They have stuck to their original report and refuse to admit that they deliberately misled the public. That behavior does not inspire confidence and should be punished.

A new toy

I checked out the features. I wondered if it was worth the expense. I contemplated whether it was worth the indulgence. I dilly-dallied. I slept on it overnight afraid I was making an impulsive decision. I could not resist. The next day I went back and bought this. All that handwringing over that, you say? Well, some folks are just wired differently.

Tough week

We had a reorg this week. Saying goodbye to colleagues with whom you developed a kinship of sorts isn't easy. I knew something was in the works when my boss kept evading persistent questions about allocating resources to the project I am working on.

In my previous company there were seven layoffs during my time there. Each time there was a layoff, you wondered if you were on the "list". After the fact there was a sense of relief that you survived but it was also tempered with a sense of sadness as you bid other colleagues goodbye. Going to the office knowing that a layoff was due that day was no fun. Each time I go through this process, I am humbled by the thought that it could have been me packing my boxes and leaving.

There were some very good people with years of good experience who were let go. You wonder sometimes how they decided on who to lay off. Was it arbitrary or did they have some criteria?

It must be tough for the guys who have been let go. One guy just had a baby. Fortunately his wife works as well. So they have something to fall back on. There are others who are in more dire circumstances because of their visa status.

I went around and talked to the folks I could meet. I tried to cheer them up and asked them to keep their spirits up. I am fairly new in the company and I wonder if they looked at me and said how come he stays and I am let go?

Brook's law

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. I work in software and this makes perfect sense.

Terror lands in Bangladesh

There are reports that there were 350 simultaneous explosions across Bangladesh this morning. Granted Bangladesh is a tiny nation, but it still called for some coordination. I doubt you'd hear much about this in the media. After all Bangladesh is no Iraq.

Hybrids

Hybrid cars have intrigued me ever since they made their debut a few years ago. If they made economic sense, I was ready to entertain thoughts about buying one. But I am not convinced that hybrids (at least those available today) are economically viable. One more article that makes the same point. Mind check quote:

"Hybrids make great sense if you want to make a statement," adds Champion. "If you purely want to save money, they’re a little less defensible.”

Going up and up and up....

At the dinner table this weekend, the discussion turned to the surging oil and gasoline prices. Soon an accusatory finger was pointed at Bush and his oil company buddies. Many of my friends are vehemently opposed to the war and that disgust spills over into other topics. A more rational view of why oil prices have relentlessly plowed forward in the past year is presented here.

Weight loss

I lost a lot of weight in the winter of 2000. I wish I had a blog then, because I can't quite remember how I did it. I lost about 25-30 pounds in a matter of a month and a half and was pretty successful at keeping the weight off by watching my diet and working out at the gym at least 3 times a week. Late last year I started feeling really lethargic and stopped going to the gym. That continued till the first half of this year. Not surprisingly, I have put back 10 pounds. I started going to the gym again since May, but I haven't had any success yet in shedding weight.

I don't believe in the diet pills etc. I think the whole diet industry is a big sham. I think what works is proper diet and exercise. If you consume less than what you expend, then you will lose weight. I am pretty good with my diet in the morning, but I tend to be weak in the evenings when I get home. I have the urge to munch on something that I succumb to. Proper diet is all about staying mentally strong and disciplined. I have got to return to that mode if I want to get back to my ideal weight.

Peter Jennings

My father lived here in the 70's and talked fondly of Walter Cronkite. When I got here, Walter Cronkite was long gone. I sampled Tom, Dan and Peter during my first year splitting my time between the three before I finally chose Peter. There was something about his delivery that was calming and reassuring that I thought the other two lacked. He was smart, suave and polished; nobody would have guessed that he dropped out of high school. Somebody said this morning that his style was conversational. I couldn't agree more. Everytime he came on the tube, I listened, because I thought I'd learn something new. I''ll miss Peter.

A team

We have work to do and people who can do it. We plan and assign tasks to people. But there are some people who'd rather do something else. They want to do something else because they are bored. They want to do something new. They want to grow and be better. Who can argue with that?

Letting people do whatever they want to do would cause chaos. More importantly some work would be left undone because there is always something that nobody wants to do. We want them to do the work because we need to get the work done. There are deadlines to meet, sales to fulfill and bills to be paid.

So we try to convince people why they should do the work they do not want to do. We reach for the right words and the right message until we succeed.

But we want people to be happy doing the work they are assigned to do. If people are unhappy, they will move on. We'd like to prevent that. A trained resource is better than an untrained resource that we have to pour more time and money into. So we prepare a plan to help people transition and work on something they really want to do.

Welcome to the challenges of running a team.

My encounter with a flying snake.

Our house is at the bottom of a hill. On two sides of our property are roads; one that leads up the hill and another that runs perpendicular to the first. At the intersection of the two roads is a bustling corner full of shops selling sweets, pastries, snacks and tea. At either end of the intersection are bus stops. At any time of the day, there is a busy collection of folks sipping tea, snacking or just waiting for public transport.

The edge of our property is lined with huge trees. There is one that I am particularly fond of. Apart from being easy to climb, it has a perfect perch from where I can enjoy an unlimited view of the road that goes up the hill.

My mom worked at the local college which stood at the top of the hill. It is a twenty minute walk and she walked to work and back every day until she retired some fifteen years ago.

Every evening around the time mom was slated to come home from work, I sat on my perch. I waited patiently, watching people walk by on the streets, get down from the bus or buy sundry items at the shops. At first I was a source of amusement to the folks passing by but soon I became a fixture on the tree and people grew used to seeing me there everyday.

Each day, when I saw mom emerge in the distance, I called out to her happily until she waved back. When she reached the front gate, I used to climb down and run to embrace her. As I said, I did that everyday as a kid.

One day, I was up on the tree as usual when I saw folks gesturing toward me. I paid no heed. Then an acquaintance happened to be passing by and asked me to gently climb down the tree. I obeyed. Someone had noticed a flying snake jump from tree to tree. It had landed on my tree and was barely a foot above my head. It was a fortuitous escape.

For a few days, I abandoned the tree and found a different spot to wait for mom to come home. But nothing compared to my tree and I returned a week later to my favorite perch.

The concrete path

There is a concrete driveway of sorts that goes around our house in India. When it rains, it gets slippery and can be quite treacherous to walk on. It has been raining a lot lately.

Which reminds me of an incident that occurred when I was still in high school . It was a dank and gloomy day with dark clouds dominating the sky. It had been raining off and on for a few days and that particular day, it had rained quite heavily. The concrete path was wet.

A friend of my father was visiting us that day. He was a tall and lanky man with a balding head. My father and he sat in the front porch, shielded from the rain, engaged in conversation. At some point the rain stopped and our guest stepped out on to the concrete path, to pluck a fragrant flower that he had spied on a tree in our garden.

To the unsuspecting visitor, the path was fairly benign. My father and I knew better and we warned his friend to be mindful of his steps. Our warnings were of no avail. For the next thing we heard was a sickening thud. He had slipped and lost his footing and had fallen back on his head.

I ran to assist him, which was probably not the most prudent thing to do considering how slippery the concrete path was. He lay on his back and for a moment I feared the worst. We rushed him to a doctor, but after a few minutes of incoherence he seemed to regain his composure and was back on his feet.

There are some incidents from the past that stay with you and I cannot explain why. This happened some twenty years ago. And it is something I remember in vivid detail today.

Dosas

A friend of mine invited us over to his house on the weekend. For dinner he served us the yummiest dosas I have had in the northern hemisphere. It was prepared with a generous dollop of ghee that probably added to the taste and surely upped my cholesterol.

Dosas are hard to prepare. It takes a while to prepare the dough. You got to soak ingredients for 8 hours or more, then grind it into a paste and then let the dough ferment. Femme was inspired enough to try it. Tonight is D-day and I can't wait to go home and see how her dosas have turned out.

Update 8/3: They turned out real good.

A lack of resources

The project that I am currently on is like most projects I have been on during my ten years in the software field. There's lots to do and very few people to do it. Management however has found a couple of resources that they think we can use. Anytime someone offers to help, we jump at the chance. But this offer comes with a caveat.

"Use them for two weeks." says management.

"There is nothing substantial that they can do in two weeks. We need folks full time." we say in response.

"Two weeks is all you got for now" says management.

So we scratch our heads trying to figure out how we can make the best use of the two folks we have at our disposal.

Two weeks is no help at all. It is more trouble than help. But try telling that to management.