Responsibility 101

Jr. went to Great America for a day to perform as part of her school band. They were done by 11AM and the rest of the day was play time till the school bus dropped them back at 7:30 PM. She "termited" us (kept pressuring us till we gave in) to pay 60 dollars for this outing! 

Around noon, something falls into her eye. She tries cleaning it with water and no luck. Given a choice between calling us ASAP and telling us she has something in her eye, or continuing to go on rides with her classmates and attempting 6 more washing eye routines all with no success, she choose the latter. 

To top things off, she develops light sensitivity and to solve that problem, buys herself a dark 5$ sunglass of poor quality that makes it worse if anything. When she stepped down from that school bus all teary eyed and in dark sunglasses, our first thought was "did someone abuse our daughter?". Once we got the full story and saw how bad her eye was, we knew how the rest of the evening was going to go..

Spent the rest of our evening in ER, mostly waiting. Finally when our turn came, they put a numbing drops into her eye, put a dye in there, looked at it under a powerful scope, found the thing under her eyelid and pulled it out. By the time though, the damage was done and the white of her eye was bloodied. 

So we came home with antibiotic ointments and a moping Jr. 

This morning I was talking to my mother on the phone and told her about the experience while Jr. was listening in. Then I mentioned that "if she had called us as soon as it happened we could have solved this earlier, with a lot less drama and for 20$ copay instead of 250$ emergency visit". 

Jr. was upset over this. She tells me "it is my eyes we are talking about! you are upset over 250$ vs. 20$?"

That kind of pushed me over the edge because I don't think she understands how difficult it is to make 250$ vs. 20$.  The fact that she is my number one concern doesn't change. The fact that I bring this up is to worry about a daughter who doesn't undertand the value of money. 

Then she came up with "it is not like you didn't have accidents when you were my age! Paati(grandma) told me all the stories about how you got hurt so many times doing stupid things!".. I muttered something to the effect of "good that she doesn't have a FB account or I will not be able to have any conversation with my kids"

True. True. Very true. I almost ruined our Poonal ceremony by falling off a parapet wall and getting stitches on the back of my head and that is just at the top of a long list of things. To my credit, I promptly told my parents or grand parents or any nearby relative of my stupidity, so they could take timely action!

It is not easy to have Responsibility 101 conversations with kids, given they know everything already! Wonder why a kid smart enough to argue with me on technicalities is not making the right choice when it concerns her own eye?!

The good news is that she is doing fine now and her eyes have cleared out. Good enough to go to school tomorrow. I am also happy  that this happened while I was in town or it would have been very difficult for San to handle on her own!

For my part, I did apologize to Jr. if I sounded like the money was more important than her eyes. For her part, she has promised to be more responsible and call us ASAP when it comes to any medical emergencies! 

Lets see how the promises go..

Waxing, Tampons and the power of ideas

Yes, Yes.. it is one of those posts that is Kryptonite for some of my friends.. brings all those taboo blog topics into one single post! 

Most of you saw my recent rant on Facebook about switching to Nike swimwear instead of my tried and trusted Dolphin shorts, for Bikram Yoga class and the disastrous side effects of ripping hair off.  Given that I was one step shy of becoming Sanjay Ramaswami, and gave valuable feedback to the shorts industry, there are still not that many good options for Men's yoga shorts.

Earlier this week, my classmate suggested : Why not wear a "komanam" and do yoga?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, a "komanam" or "langot" is just the way people in India used to wear a cloth folded into a string around the waist. It is probably the oldest known design for an underwear that was also the "only wear", and fit a multi purpose design and functionality for

- poor men who could not afford anything more

- saints and monks who have given up everything and wanted to show they "minimized" on material comforts

- default clothing for kids 

- athletic wear for wrestlers, fighters and Yoga practitioners

While searching for why my grandfather was the last one in our family to wear this, and how the VIP Frenchie/ Jockey has dinosaured the Komanam in South India, came across many interesting links. Some of these links while educational, may not be considered safe for work.

Also learned that this was the best way to protect wrestlers from "rupturing their groins". Why would anyone indulge in an activity that would potentially rupture their groins? is beyond me.  Anyway, lets move on..

If you look at Yogis whose name has made it to the western world, you can see that the lowest common denominator for apparel from Thirumalai Krishnamacharya, BKS Iyengar (man had same style from his 30's to 90's) , Pattabhi Jois, Baba Ramdev, Bishnu Ghosh, and my favorite , or a group of Yogis (this one is from 2013), the choice seems to be either a "Komanam" aka "Langot" or a speedo! 

In order of preference for a hot yoga class, suggest men go as close to the right as possible. Refer picture below that shows three things I have worn to class with the first two making it very difficult.

Now what does my friends suggestion have to do with tampons and the power of ideas?

There is a back story from 2009. It started with an India trip and accupuncture. Hindsight being 20/20 or better, that might not have been required if I had found hot yoga earlier! Two classes would have fixed it. Think the hot lamp did as much work as the needles and the voltages.  

The accupuncture only fixed it temporarily. Within a few months, my feet started hurting. So off I went to the hospital and they said my foot was flat and the "arch" was disappearing. Then we had to go measure the flatness of the foot and get new customized inserts for the shoes, socks with elastic in them, etc.. None of that was helping anyone except the hospital and the shoe store. Part of the problem was that I could not wear these sneakers at work, especially given the formal wear didn't go with the sneakers!

Then a colleague saw me limping and said "why don't you take a tampon and put it in your shoes?".

Came home and thought about it. Hmm.. tampons in your shoes? Why not? Then I realized that Sanitary napkins would be a better bet, given they have a sticker which can be used to stick it to the sole and I can custom cut them to any shape!

When San came home that evening, I asked her "Can you give me a sanitary napkin?"

Her reaction was a kodak moment. It is not everyday that your hubby asks you for a sanitary napkin. Being lost for words, she pointed me to a cabinet.

Took a napkin, cut it in two pieces to match what would have been my arch and nicely stuck the two pieces into the shoes after peeling off the sticker. The next day I went to work with my napkin fixed formal shoes and was walking comfortably. Why not? It was like walking on a cotton cloud! Guess the added benefit to doing this was that any extra moisture inside the shoes is absorbed by the napkin and it makes for a more comfortable walking experience. 

This went on for two days and I told my colleage "By the way, thanks for your idea! It has changed my life" .. He spit out his coffee. Apparently he was being sarcastic and was joking. I told him that he has no idea, how good his ideas are, because he doesn't take them seriously. 

There is also a lesson in this for inventors. Patent the idea, even if you never plan to put it in practice or implement it. Some other guy like me, who is not afraid to try those ideas, might come along and actually put it in practice and it might work, very well! 

Well, now you know the back story of why giving me ideas comes with its pros and cons.. 

Might actually try them!

When the hairline receedeth

A clump of hair was caught in the hood of the jacket after coming back from one of those deep freeze long haul flights. Turns out the hair that is already clinging on for dear life is easily uprooted, much like the stumps after a batsman misses a Malinga yorker. 

Unfortunately, I cannot come up with an analogy for the gray hair. 

So there were two choices.. start to dye the hair and comb what is left acros the head or get rid of it.

It was an easy decision. Nothing says "Do I look like I give a $hit" like a Tibetian Monk look. 

Jr. also decided to join in the haircut experience with me. So we took some prefies and postfies.

Looks like I have aged 2 years in the first half of 2015. Now it feels like some huge burden has been removed!

Jr. looks a lot younger than she is. At first she was complaining and all teary eyed because of her "new look". Then she realized it is easier to manage this hair and it does look cute and was all smiles. 

They are all getting used to my new look though.

On the plus side, my smile is widening now with the hairline. So we are all good!

Bringing things up to..

Let us say that a forty year old person gets sick and goes to the hospital. The doctors admit the person in the hospital and they bring him/her out of sickness to a recovery point after working very hard on the patient.

Then the patient's relatives tell the doctor "it is not enough if you bring him/her to this level or even to the same level of health before the person was sick. The new requirement for a healthy forty year old has now been set. So please keep him/her in the hospital till the person is able to run a marathon, have 20/20 vision and also meets these new list of requirements" and they hand the doctor a list.. 

Would that make sense?

Let us now take another simpler case. Your car tail lights stop working. You find out that it is a fused bulb after taking it to the local auto repair shop. You ask that person to replace the bulb and hand you back the car. The repairman goes "whoa whoa whoa.. stop it right there! you cannot just replace that bulb with a another filament bulb. The energy standards have changed now in the last ten years. you have to put in an LED lamp that meets the lastest energy rating.  Also, the bulb housing in the car is only for a filament lamp. You have to gut part of the insides of the car just to make this lamp change, as that is the only way to meet the current standard"

Would that make sense? 

Maybe it does to some people. It does not to me!

Yesterday I made grand plans to come home a little early and write something for work, go to yoga, take a nice shower (since the previous night the shower had turned cold midway) only to find out that our water heater had started leaking and it was pretty much broken. We had to replace it in short notice. 

Just going into that area to shut off the inlet water and drain the tank, cost me a nights sleep thanks to all that dust that had accumulated in that closet over the last 8 years! 

Here was how the typical conversation went with the plumbers :

Can you replace the heater?

P: yes we can within 24 hours. but they dont sell the 40 gallons any more. they sell 38 or 48 gallons. 

What is the difference ?

P: not much. you get the same pressure etc. some government requirement to save the 2 gallons somewhere!

How much is the heater and install ?

P: (quotes us a number that is way more than what the cost of heater at home depot is + a normal labor rate for install, given it is a 3 hour job)

Why so much?

P: you see these connecting hoses, braces, etc. etc. We have to bring all these upto code. Looks like this was done 8 years ago. The codes are different now. Let me show you this book. you have to cut this piping, weld this tubing, go underground, above ground, blah blah blah.. and that is why it is an extra grand

But it was working fine till yesterday and it was installed 10 years ago by the previous house owner. We had to change the connects when we upgraded the house. All I want is to get the same thing back. 

P: Sorry Sir. We have to bring this up to code! It is the law. we are licensed and this is how we will do it so it will pass the permitting.

Given the "Law", we had no choice but to go with the cheapest quote that still did the new tubing, piping stuff. That pretty much took out the saturday morning routine. 

On the bright side, we now have hot water again.

On the dark side, I went into a rage on hearing about this "bringing up to code.." stuff. At this rate we have to tear down the whole house again every 10 years in the name of "bringing it up"

Competing for eyeball time

It is not just the Googles, Facebook's and Amazon's that are basing their business on trying to get a share of our viewing times.

Every precious nano second where your eyes are target towards any screen, now count for real $. 

So much that there are technologies out there that actually read your cell phones vibration (from the gyro) and tell the source of what you are looking at, data about how long you looked at it, glanced at it, or just plain skipped through it.. all this from how you held your phone or iPad while viewing a page!

That is not where it stops. We like in a world where our kids are labeled "post-google" which means they grew up with the internet. So this stuff rolls over.

Three weeks ago, I had a picture of the little one as my screen saver. 

Last week Jr. comes to me in the evening, snaps her hands in front of my face and says 

"booyaah! There, I now have proof!"

Me: Please stop with this booyaah agressiveness. I dont know what it means. What proof do you have of what?

Jr. : I have more proof that you love her (little one) more than you love me!

Me : It does not matter how much proof you think you have. I KNOW that I love you both the same.

Jr. : She was on your screen saver for two weeks. Then you knew I realized it and changed your screen saver to my picture and it was not even a pretty picture. That too I was on it for 2 days. now it is a picture of both of us and she says she is cuter in that picture than me! so there you go.. Booyah! 

Me : !!!!!

Now we need a software that does facial recognition and devotes equal screensaver time for the two kids. Added plus if the kids can rate your screensaver, let you know how cute they think they look in those pictures etc. etc.

We live in a world where things are measured like never before! There is more data being collected than can be analyzed with any reasonable value. 

In case you are wondering, here are the pictures of Jr. and the final joint picture where LO is supposedly cuter..

Go figure!

Now don't get me started on the Chromecast screensaver that runs on the big screen TV in the living room...