Rites of passage

If you are from Vanatu and you go through a rite of passage odds are there is a vine tied to your feet and you are going to take a 80 foot fall..

However, if you are born to a geek the rite of passage might simply be the handing of a Scientific Calculator from your dad..

Yes! My daughter is now a fifth grader and today was her first day of school. The back to school list said "Scientific Calculator" and she insisted on buying one at target as part of the "back to school" shopping ritual last week.

"Naansense!" said daddy in his typical Tamil accent. We shall have a small ritual at home where Jr. will get the keys to geekdom!

Problem was the calculator which was dad's first (the family's first for that matter) was a 1989 vintage Casio and it has been sleeping in dad's collection of memorabilia in a shoebox for the last 12 or so years.

Today the old "Novino" batteries purchased someplace in Varanasi in early nineties was replaced with some Kirkland batteries from Costco and the thing powered up!

Hat's off to Casio for making something this good. There was no battery leak in the battery compartment either! So a big thanks to Novino also for making some amazing batteries!

Jr. was happy that she gets to use the same calculator as daddy! Daddy is so proud that Jr. is using a Scientific calculator in fifth grade when he used it for his freshman year in college!

It is a win-win!

Parks and more Parks

My parents have settled in comfortably to their new routine in the last 20 days. This is their old routine modified to constraints we impose on them here. They have been very sportive about it. The 9 year gap since their last trip, their brushes with death with severe medical conditions, living  a few years where other folks have to drive them around in India..... these have softened the impact of issues that were huge on their last trip.

We have been taking them with us to local grocery stores, costco, etc. and to the few birthday parties that we have been invited to in the last two weeks. Most of them have been in parks as the weather outside is great. My mother loves it although she cannot walk. She had triple knee surgery thanks to some really bad (read contaminated) operating theaters in India and if she walks for 30 minutes, she is done walking for the day.

Nevertheless, we are happy to see her walk from the parking lot to the picnic bench and back. Dad is just so happy to be able to walk in a park instead of our own backyard, which in his words is still a big improvement compared to the traffic and bustle in a major metro in India.

Took a few pictures in the park today. This is the first picture of them I am taking in a year.

Going back to shooting high key shots, something I love !

There is no photoshopping here, no background. Just flood the exposure on the background to white out everything and still get the face.. it is like a process optimization exercise in semiconductor world where you find a narrow process window between exposure, shutter speed and ISO to get this magic shot!

Time to wrap up the weekend and get back the busy routine!

ps. My apologies for messing up Blog readers. Still learning on Squarespace. There was a checkbox on top that changes the post from WYSIWYG to Raw HTML and I had the wrong setting.. 

Jr. plays the Sax

Jr. has been learning the Alto Sax this year. They had their first performance for parents.

It is an expensive but beautiful instrument. Thankfully they allow us to rent on a monthly fee and if we rent for enough months we get to buy it! (Reminds you of Bama Vijayam, doesn't it?)

Took this HDR picture of the Alto Sax a few months ago..

Here is a video of her practicing at home after her first two classes..

Considering that we don't get to see her practice at home often (San's complaint that the thing is too loud!) and are limited to once a week, she did very well!

The plan is to encourage her better going forward...

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Wagle ki duniya

When we went shopping for clothes, as soon as we landed in India, my thoughts on getting the kids matching outfits got a very critical response from the Mrs..

You are like Wagle in Wagle ki Duniya! Do you remember how he dressed his kids in matching outfits?

The comment initially drew a big blank from me because the time this serial was being telecast, yours truly was working hard to earn the title of "star maggu" in school and college. Nevertheless, my reasoning was apparently the same as Mr. Wagle! Save money by reducing cloth wastage! Per crude back of the receipt book calculations of three different Chennai tailors, one can save anywhere from .2 to .4 meters of cloth to stitch two salwars if you buy the "same" cloth for both girls.

After these critical looks and comments, we mutually agreed to do Wagle with a twist. Same pattern cloth, different color or design for the two girls. We get some level of matching but lose the cost saving bit.

Here is the first in a series of photos of the semi-matching outfits...

More photos over the next few weeks..

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Time Traaavellll....

Blogging has become a luxury with the busy work schedule and the new early to bed, early to rise routine for the last 8 weeks..

Was going through old blog posts to see what we were doing last year same time and http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifsaw this post..

Last weekend saw us rearrange the kids closet and suddenly realized that both these pieces were still there! One was to be a hand me down to the little one and the other one was a fight to the end for the donate pile. Our kids will put top notch lawyers to shame when it comes to making a case for keeping their old clothes.

As usual, could not resist the temptation to do another juxtapose photo..

They really enjoyed dressing up and posing for this one!

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