Friday, February 27, 2009

Air travel

Why are there suddenly so many flight accidents during past few weeks? - weather and non weather related!

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

United States

Was watching the Border security and Patrol program on the tele yesterday. Always knew that at the Mexico-US border they hire Spanish and Spanish speaking officers so its easy to communicate with illegal immigrants trying to enter the United States. They showed a bunch of Mexican-American officers capturing Mexicans trying to illegally enter US. These group of people arrested were handcuffed and made sit on the road in a group. All of them with their head bent to avoid the camera from capturing their faces. Sigh! more than the illegal immigrants I actually felt sorry for those Mexican officers. Here they were; working for another country /representing US and were having to arrest their own countrymen/Mexicans and prevent them from entering the US. I am sure they dont see it that way, most of the times atleast. But well doesent it prick your conscience even though you know what your countrymen are doing is not right?
I wonder what it is in United States that people are actually willing to risk, to that extent? Not sure if its a good thing or a bad thing. Should we be appreciating the courage of these people, their ambition to get out of the current not-so-great life? Or mock at their foolishness? Ah! who are we to judge.... but the person who organized the adventure to the Mexicans apparently charged them $20 per head. Thus the more the risk the cheaper it is to enter the US.
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Obama's first speech addressing the Congress was pretty good I thought. Tried to stay awake to watch Bobby Jindal's after that and that didnt quite happen. It resembled a paid commercial and was unimpressive.

Monday, February 23, 2009

This and That..!

Its pretty cool that A. R. Rahman won the Oscar. Though some or most of us feel that some of his earlier work in Indian movies was better in comparison. Oh well!! .....
After avoiding for months and putting it off, my husband bought me an I-Phone this weekend.
I am not just that into phones. But I certainly like this new gadget :)

Thursday, February 19, 2009

V' day and Notting Hill

DH and I are not into Valentines day. It just so happened that ages ago when we dated in India we happend to have a good time around that time as that was his first visit from the US back then. So it just brings back memories. But since we have got married I realized that almost every Valentines day, the movie Notting Hill plays on the tele and we watch it, almost religiously and enjoy it! Whether its first thing in the morning or last thing that night!






Oh and of course...








Just realized it this year ; Hmm we almost can create a tradition out of it now!

Telemarketing

I am usually a patient person with Telemarketers and Market Researchers. I did a part time job as the latter when studying in New Zealand. Need I say more. Though Telemarketers can get more troublesome since they are trying to sell something. Life of a Market Researcher is not too bad. Other than that the surverys can get a bit too long and you get grumpy people every now and then.
Its been a week now and this Indian Telemarketer from Global Tele link services has been harassing me to buy their calling card/service for long distance calls. He called me on a weekday and I asked him to call back on a weekend. At that point I wasnt sure if he was trying to sell me something or take a survey. When he called back I patiently heard him and politely explained I will not be interested as I am happy with my provider now and even if this new service is cheaper I simply cannot bother. His tone changed he wasnt convinced with my response he says For x amount of dollars you are getting 500 minutes what else do you want? And I should try his service simulatenously with the service I am using and I can switch if I like completely later. Thats it I couldnt take it I said thats my decision and choice and I dont want his service. If at a later point I want to change I will surely visit their website and try it. Thank you and I hung up. He still kept calling me twice after that and I was bugged - that guy dosent get it?
Another person from that same company called 2 days back and I let it out on him that they are 'harassing' me at odd times - such as 9:30pm. I hate when I get calls after 8pm or so. And if I do get a late call I really get worried especially if its a number from India that pops up. With your whole family and friends in another country its uncomfortable and uneasy. And that follows by a night without sleep, I am light sleeper and that worry would have usually driven most of my sleep.
Today I received the call from the original guy again and I said I wanted to talk to his supervisor or Manager and dude just hung up!
Phew!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Yawwwn!

I seriously master the art of lazying around. It comes so naturally to me. The clock keeps ticking and I would have wasted hours on the net or on the tele. Been doing it for past couple of days and not feeling guilty about it either. Today I am in a mood for hindi soaps, Zee being the only loser channel on Comcast I will while away watching the saans-bahu crap! Just for today and only today!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Dreams..

Last night DH suddenly woke up and turned on the lights middle of the night. I was barely able to open my eyes and asked him what happened. I was so fast asleep and in a confused state I started talking to him in Konkani (he dosent completely understand my mother tounge unfortunately and we speak in Hing-lish). But he already figured out what I was saying and he said he had a dream as if there was a puppy in our bed. Thats it I couldnt sleep after that. Eyes were burning and couldnt even check what the time was but I know it must have been 2-3am, yet I couldnt sleep.
Sometimes dreams feel so real, so damn real as if its actually happening. It has happened to me several times before. Unfortunately nothing as cute as a puppy on the bed [ :-)]. In fact there was a period when I would have a recurring dream. I even knew I was dreaming in that dream and I am telling myself 'this will end now, this will end now', its only a dream!. Isnt that kind of strange?.
Also the fact that in the 'off-guard moments' you talk in your mother tounge (even if you speak 5 different languages :))
And yes finally my husbands' love for dogs has made it to the bedroom :)

Why did I suddenly remember this?

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
Charles Dickens :A Tale of Two Cities

Phew!

I finally made through most dreaded experience which I have been thinking about for weeks. Got my US work visa stamped at Vancouver. I have cribbed earlier about this and each time experience gets only worse. Dealing with DOS or USCIS is painful. My interview was on a Wednesday. I had flown into Seattle Monday night (BTW Deval Patrick, Governer of MA was in the same flight as me on Jetblue) and taken the Greyhound to Vancouver on Tuesday(Greyhound and my trips to Canada - hopefully this is the last one :)) It took 4-5 hours on the bus to get there. I had to take the Sky Train to get to that part of downtown where my hotel was booked. First thing you notice about Vancouver is undoubtedly the scenic views. Beautiful snow capped mountains as a backdrop to the downtown. Its picture perfect. Unfortunately there were quite a few beggars - people seemed to attribute the warmer weather as the reason. As soon as I would reach out for coins for the sky train someone would attack me for a dollar! And I am somehow afraid of beggars. Yes! one of the many things I fear in life, so it was not very pleasent in that sense.
My interview was a disaster, everything that could go wrong went wrong. The Visa Officer was a Fraud Prevention Manager and he just let it all out on me. Basically I lived through the typical Murthy dot com forum case/scenario. I had booked the hotel for only 2 days so I extended in another hotel for 4 days. The previous hotel was not in a comfortable location for me. By this time I couldnt take it; 3 days had passed and I requested my DH to come down and be with me for the weekend as I could not re-enter US and asked him to get extra clothes etc for me. I was basically close to implementing Plan B (and I was secretly relieved). As soon as the weekend passed things changed dramatically. I had provided the additional documents requested on Monday and the Officer called me and asked me to drop my Passport for the visa next day. In a day my visa was processed as if nothing had ever happened and before I knew we were driving back to Seattle on Tuesday. So it took a whole week for the process. Probably if someone reads my post might claim I just complain a lot, but hey I am human and in fact this post dosent justify my experience completely. I do not want it to actually. My experience was much worse than I state here.
After this experience my Plan B has only become more firm now and actually become my Plan A. It will happen very soon. I hope it does!

God & Destiny - you both owe me now! come on! :)

Saturday, February 7, 2009

So the cookie crumbles...?

Unpredictable: The economy. What to say on so many job losses everyday, hype or no hype.
Overdone: Landing of the plane on Hudson. I understand it was heroic, but.....(yawn!)
Overestimated: Truth always triumps?