My Diary...

Vote for this Foundation

2010-06-18T17:51:00.001-07:00

South Indian Meal - Tamil Style

2010-02-25T15:29:00.000-08:00

Rice
Appalam
Rava Kesari (Sweet)
Jangiri (Sweet)
Banana Chips
Banana
Picke
Salt
Vendaikai Kootu
Keerai Kootu
Cabbage Poriyal
Sambar
Rasam
Vathal Kuzhambu
Curd
Water

May B......

2010-02-24T15:49:00.000-08:00

MAY BE

Maybe. . we were supposed to meet the
wrong people before meeting the right
one so that, when we finally meet the
right person, we will know how to be
grateful for that gift.

Maybe . . . it is true that we don't
know what we have until we lose it,
but it is also true that we don't know
what we have been missing until it
arrives.

Maybe . . . the brightest future will
always be based on a forgotten past;
after all, you can't go on
successfully in life until you let go
of your past mistakes, failures and
heartaches.

Maybe . . you should hope for enough
happiness to make you sweet, enough
trials to make you strong, enough
sorrow to keep you human, and enough
hope to make you happy.

Maybe . . . the happiest of people
don't necessarily have the best of
everything; they just make the most of
everything that comes along their way.

Maybe .. . . the best kind of friend is
the kind you can sit on a porch and
swing with, never say a word, and then
walk away feeling like it was the best
conversation you've ever had.

Maybe . . . happiness waits for all
those who cry, all those who hurt, all
those who have searched, and all those
who have tried, for only they can
appreciate the importance of all the
people who have touched their lives.

May be . . you should do something nice
for someone every single day, even if
it is simply to leave them alone.

Maybe . . . there are moments in life
when you miss someone -- a parent, a
spouse, a friend, a child -- so much
that you just want to pick them from
your dreams and hug them for real, so
that once they are around you
appreciate them more.

Maybe & giving someone all your love
is never an assurance that they will
love you back. Don't expect love in
return; just wait for it to grow in
their heart; but, if it doesn't, be
content that it grew in yours.

Maybe .. . . you should dream what you
want to dream; go where you want to
go, be what you want to be, because
you have only one life and one chance
to do all the things you dream of, and
want to do.

"Life is only travelled ONCE; Todays MOMENT becomes Tomorrows MEMORY.
Enjoy every moment, good or bad, because the GIFT of LIFE is LIFE itself&."

Try Positive Thinking

Don't wear a frown, try positive thinking, Laugh at your troubles instead....

Free Heart Surgery for kids

2010-02-23T14:57:00.001-08:00

Wish u all a wonderful, happy and prosperous New Year

2009-12-31T11:37:00.000-08:00

As this year concludes and a new one is about to start, here's some inspiration for all my readers:

With every ending comes also a new beginning.
With every disappointment comes a new opportunity for success.
With every mistake comes a new and valuable lesson to be learned.
With every setback comes a new position from which to move forward.

With every frustration comes the energy to move to a higher level of achievement.
With every challenge comes a new strategy for taking action.

With every time of darkness comes the chance to make a real difference by shining your own special light.
With every sadness comes a deeper appreciation for the joys that life can hold.

With every difficulty comes a new level of strength to be gained.
With every loss comes an increased determination to win.

Though life has many pitfalls and problems, there is a positive side to every one of them.
Choose to see and live that positive reality, and no problem will be a problem for long.

Risks of H1N1 Flu for Patients With Neuro Issues

2009-12-24T09:59:00.000-08:00

Planning for a disabled child. Some tips

2009-12-11T10:22:00.000-08:00

Bought a Home this Year ? Read On...

2009-12-11T10:16:00.001-08:00

http://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/home-ownership/7116.html

http://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/tax-planning-and-checklists/7124.html

Devdutt Pattanaik: East vs west -- the myths that mystify

2009-12-04T16:16:00.000-08:00

A Ketogenic mom's Thanksgiving

2009-12-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

I was laughing out loud reading this mail from a special mom . She is called the ketogenic mom . You may now be wondering what or who is a ketogenic mom ? . A ketogenic mom in my definition is a mom who has been deprived of her rights to feed her child the food of her/child's likings. She is forced to follow a protocol wherein you pump in fat into a baby's system (diagram explains) . Sad.... but nothing else can be done coz anti-epileptic medications don't work on some children.

So, here it goes..

The things I am thankful for this thanksgiving season.

I am thankful that I will spend extra time tomorrow preparing a meal that is specially tailored for my son.

I am thankful that he will not be eating turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, diner rolls, creamed corn, and pumpkin pie.

Also thankful for the time it will take me to weigh each food item in his meal.

Yes, I am thankful for the added stress of having to pack and bring his own special meal to the family gathering.

Thankful also that with the busy day I have to remember to give his vitamins and supplements that this diet lacks.

In addition I am thankful that my family will make comments on the portion size and large intake of fat my son will consume.

Very thankful that I will again get to explain the diet and how it works.

Of course I am thankful that I will have to tell my grandma that NO he cannot have "just one bite". (Even though I have told her many times)

Extremely thankful for my husband who supports us with this diet, and the many questions he has since he does not understand how it all works yet. (Yes it has been 8 months)

However, what I am most thankful for is the things I will not worry about at our family thanksgiving.

Thankful that I will not be worried about giving meds throughout the day because my son in now med free.

Even more thankful that I will not be worried about seizures this holiday season, which makes this our BEST thanksgiving EVER!

I have so much to be thankful for this thanksgiving season, it makes all the extra time and stress so worth it to see my beautiful son doing so well on the keto diet.

So I am thankful for the keto diet and the improvements my son has made on it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and thank you to everyone on this site for all your advice, you have helped our family have success on this diet.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Imagine the plight of this mom

Few months ago she took her child to a store and you know the keto kids are always hungry because they have to stick to a meal schedule and can not eat variety of foods. Everything is weighed and calibrated. If the child sneaks in something, everything will go for a toss . When the mom was busy shopping this child moved over to the pet section and ate a dog biscuit. The mom got panicked , ran to the cash register and asked them whether the Dog biscuit contain any carbs :-) . Gosh, she was not worried whether it was ok to eat a dog biscuit :-( .

Want to know more about ketogenic diet, visit the following websites

http://www.charliefoundation.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet
http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/answerplace/Medical/treatment/diet/

Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se

2009-11-29T20:35:00.000-08:00

Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se Maine Dekha Jo Saanware

from the window of my eyes, when I saw, O dear one

Tum Door Nazar Aaye Badi Door Nazar Aaye

I saw you far, I saw you very far

Band Karke Jharokhon Ko Zara Baithee Jo Sochne

when I closed windows of my eyes and sat thinking

Man Mein Tumhi Muskaye Man Mein Tumhi Muskaye

I saw you smiling in my heart, I saw you smiling

Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se

Ek Man Tha Mere Paas Woh Ab Khone Laga Hai

I had a heart but now I am losing that

Paakar Tujhe Hai Mujhe Kuchh Hone Laga Hai

I feel uneasy after meeting you

Ek Tere Bharose Pe Sab Baithee Hoon Bhool Ke

I am sitting ignoring everything just for you

Yoon Hi Umar Guzar Jaye Tere Saath Guzar Jaye

let life just pass like that, let life pass with you

Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se

Jeeti Hoon Tujhe Dekh Ke Marti Hoon Tumhi Pe

I live looking at you, I die for you

Tum Ho Jahan Saajan Meri Duniya Hai Wahin Pe

wherever you are my love, my world is there only

Din Raat Dua Maange Mera Man Tere Waaste

my heart asks for blessings for you day and night

Kabhi Apni Ummeedon Ka Kahin Phool Na Murjhaye

let flower of our hopes not wither away

Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se

Maein Jab Se Tere Pyar Ke Rangon Mein Rangi Hoon

since when I am coloured in colour of your love

Jaagte Hue Soi Nahin Neendon Mein Jagi Hoon

I cannot sleep and wake up while asleep

Mere Pyar Bhare Sapne Kahin Koi Na Chheen Le

that someone may snatch my lovely dreams

Man Soch Ke Ghabraye Yahi Soch Ke Ghabraye

my heart shudders at this thought

Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se

Another Beautiful Song

2009-11-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

Wish I had a daughter who could sing like her... :-(

Enjoy!!!

Lyrics
------
Heere moti main na chaahoo
main toh chaahoo samgam tera
main toh teri saiyyan
tu hai mera ....saiyyan ... saiyyan

tu jo chhoo le pyaar se
aaraam se mar jaaoo
aaja chanda bahoo mein
tujh mein hi gum ho jaaoo ...
main ... tere naam mein kho jaaoo
saiyyan ... saiyyan

mere din khushi se jhoome gaaye raate
pal pal mujhe dubaaye jaate jaate
tujhe jeet jeet haaroo
yeh praan praan varoo
hay aise main nihaaroo
teri aartee utaaroo
tere naam se jude hai saare naate
saiyyan ... saiyyan

banke maala prem ki tere tan pe jhar jhar jaaoo
baithoo naiya preet ki
sansaar se thar jaaoo

tere pyaar se tar jaaoo
saiyyan ... saiyyan

yeh naram naram nasha hai...badhtajaaye
koi pyaar se ghungatiya deta udaaye
ab baawra hua mann
jag ho gaya hai roshan
yeh nayee nayee suhaagan
ho gayee hia teri jogan

koi prem ki pujaarun mandir sajaaye
saiyyan ... saiyyan
heere moti main na chaahoo
main toh chaahoo samgam tera
main na jaanu
tu hi jaane
main toh teri
tu hai mera
main na jaanu
tu hi jaane
main toh teri
tu hai mera
main toh teri ............ tu hai mera

Translation
-----------

I don’t wish for riches
I wish only for your love
I’m yours, dear
you’re mine....saiyyan ... saiyyan (dear)

If you touch me
i can die in peace in love
Dear, come into my arms
I long to melt within you
I wish ... I could lose myself in your entirety
saiyyan ... saiyyan

my days are lively with joy- my nights sing
they make me lost every passing moment
I’ve lost myself as I win you
Now I live just for you
I wish I could look at you forever
I wish I could worship your image
All my relations begin with you
saiyyan ... saiyyan

I wish I could fall upon your body like a garland
I wish I could sail in love
Across the universe
I wish I could sail through this life in your love…
saiyyan ... saiyyan

This is soft warm addiction… and it keeps on rising
I wish you could wake me like never
My heart has now known madness
My world has lighted up
Like a new bride
I’ve become yours, my love

As you adorn my temple with your love
saiyyan ... saiyyan
I don’t wish for riches
I want you-
I don’t know anything more
perhaps, you know…
I just know that I’m all yours-
And that you’re mine…
I just know that I’m all yours,
And you’re mine.
I know I’m all yours
And you’re mine, only mine…

Live in California ? More tax withholdings from Nov :-(

2009-11-13T16:55:00.000-08:00

This month, anyone paid a wage in California should notice a few dollars missing from their paychecks.

For some the annoyance stirs fear that withholding more for income taxes might hinder the economic recovery.

"It's not a good thing," said David Pacheco, an electrician who lives in Riverside. "I think it's unfair. They're already taking enough money, don't you think?"

Starting Nov. 1, California employers are required to withhold 10 percent more in state income taxes to help ease the state's budget problems. Wage earners will get the withholding back either through a tax refund or a reduction in the balance due when they file their taxes April 15.

Scott Willsea, CEO of PayCare Inc., a payroll service in Riverside, sent out a letter to his clients notifying them of the withholding before it took effect. Nonetheless, he still received calls from clients who either didn't read the letter or didn't understand that the withholding is not a tax increase.

He expressed concerns that small businesses were not notified by the state of the change and could face fines if they have not implemented the withholding in their payroll. He said most payroll services did not learn of the withholding until recently.

"The lion's share of employers in the Southern California area are under 100 employees, and most don't outsource payroll," Willsea said. "Those would be the people who would be at the highest risk for not being in compliance."

A single person earning $34,000 a year, claiming one allowance, will see withholding bump up by $1.67 a week. A married couple earning $145,000 annually with no allowances will see a difference of $16.90 a week.

For those living paycheck to paycheck, the withholding could seem like a burden. There has been speculation that consumers may curb their holiday shopping as a result.

Debbie Boeddeker, a state employee who works in Riverside, opposes the 10 percent increase.

"They should lower taxes, so people will spend more money and stimulate the economy," she said.

Karlene Bond, also a state employee, said she agreed because a number of government agencies have already implemented furloughs. The additional withholding will likely hit people hard, she said.

"It's not going to help any," Bond said. "It's just a short-term loan for the government. It doesn't solve any of the problems with government spending."

Michelle Elliott, who owns the Orange Blossom Cafe with her husband, James, said the withholding increase for their six employees' paychecks hadn't been a problem because they use a payroll service.

Her father, Les W. Rood, who works as the cafe's support staff, said he opposes the withholding and would prefer to see an increase in sales tax combined with a decrease in income tax and business tax.

"It's a proven fact when you drop income tax and when you drop business tax, you raise money because people have more money to spend," he said. "It's amazing we have educated people in our government who don't know this."

http://www.edd.ca.gov/pdf_pub_ctr/de4.pdf

The Power Of Love...

2009-11-13T15:40:00.001-08:00

The whispers in the morning
Of lovers sleeping tight
Are rolling like thunder now
As I look in your eyes
I hold on to your body
And feel each move you make
Your voice is warm and tender
A love that I could not forsake

'Cause I am your lady
And you are my man
Whenever you reach for me
I'll do all that I can

Lost is how I'm feeling, lying in your arms
When the world outside's too
Much to take
That all ends when I'm with you
Even though there may be times
It seems I'm far away
Never wonder where I am
'Cause I am always by your side

'Cause I am your lady
And you are my man
Whenever you reach for me
I'll do all that I can

We're heading for something
Somewhere I've never been
Sometimes I am frightened
But I'm ready to learn
Of the power of love

The sound of your heart beating
Made it clear
Suddenly the feeling that I can't go on
Is light years away

'Cause I am your lady
And you are my man
Whenever you reach for me
I'll do all that I can

We're heading for something
Somewhere I've never been
Sometimes I am frightened
But I'm ready to learn
Of the power of love

Anjali is finally getting married :-)

2009-11-13T10:50:00.001-08:00

It was a tough journey for her but she made it. I wonder sometimes why life can not be made easier. After all what is there in marrying a man of your choice ?. At one point, I was proposing her she run away!!! . That didn't happen and things are now straightened out . It took a long time though. Not sure what else is waiting for them but Iam glad things are through. Have a married happy life Choti Bahu (Zee TV Serial). Wish you the very best!!!

Have you been watching this serial called Choti Bahu ? I am somehow into this serial now because I saw one day my wife jumping over a fence ( a stack of bags on the floor) when this serial was going to start and wondered what is in it that made her jump :-)

Title song from that serial

Are you an OCI Card Holder ?

2009-11-10T19:45:00.000-08:00

Please check with the Indian Consulate for more information. This message was passed on to me from a forum.

IMPORTANT NOTICE TO OCI CARD HOLDERS

OCI card holders traveling to India are advised to carry the Passport containing U Visa sticker and OCI Card to avoid problems at Immigration check points in India. In case registered OCI has obtained a new passport, kindly ensure to carry the passport containing U Visa sticker, new passport and OCI document during all visits to India. ALTERNATIVELY Miscellaneous Services can be availed for transfer of U Visa sticker to new passport. However, before applying for Misc Services kindly read the instructions posted under “OCI Misc Service” particularly the processing period. Since applications are processed in the order of their receipt in the Consulate, this service cannot be expedited.

Tum Itna Jo Muskura Rahe Ho ?

2009-11-06T15:18:00.000-08:00

Do you like this song ?

Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho
Kya gam hai jisko chhupa rahe ho
Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho

Aankhon mein nami, Hansi labon par
Kya haal hai, Kya dikha rahe ho

Ban jayenge zahar peete peete
Yeh ashk jo peeye ja rahe ho

Jin zakhmon ko waqt bhar chala hai
Tum kyon unhi chhede ja rahe ho

Rekhaon ka khel hai muquddar
Rekhaon se maat kha rahe ho

Translation

------------

You're smiling too much much,
What sorrow are you hiding?
You're smiling too much much.

Your eyes are moist, but lips are smiling,
What are you feeling, what are you portraying?

They will become poison while drinking,
the tears that you continue to drink.

Wounds, which have been filled by time,
Why are you trying to draw fresh blood?

Destiny is a game of the palm,
You're suffering defeat at its hands.

Is your life like climbing a Mountain ?

2009-11-02T13:11:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, a friend of mine in our India Development center pinged me and said she is upset that her friend has committed suicide and pointed me to this article. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Woman-techie-hangs-self/articleshow/5140011.cms .

God I read this and was shocked to know that she has a 4 month old baby. I wondered what could be the reason for her to commit this ? Was she undergoing some postpartum depression or was she murdered ? Who was at home ? Didn't she think about her baby ? Gosh, it is so painful.

I believe there is nothing in this world that can not be solved. There is always some solution . May be not the perfect one . It is also possible that you may not find the right solution and FAIL. It is perfectly OK to fail. I think even the person called GOD fails these days.

We talked quite a bit about it and I advised her not to do what her friend has done even if life takes her to the brim.

Don't forget to enjoy your life . It is beautiful. Pain is always a part of this life. You can not avoid that... Enjoy the work week and this song too. Rock like this girl :-)

I can almost see it
That dream I'm dreaming but
There's a voice inside my head sayin,
You'll never reach it,
Every step I'm taking,
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking but I
Got to keep trying
Got to keep my head held high

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes you going to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what?s waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing,
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes they knock me down but
No I'm not breaking
I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm going to remember most yeah
Just got to keep going
And I,
I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on, cause

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm going to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes you going to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

Keep on moving
Keep climbing
Keep the faith baby
It's all about
It's all about
The climb
Keep the faith
Keep your faith

What is Life to You ? Is it Like an Ice Cream ?

2009-10-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

LIFE
Life is like an ice-cream,
so enjoy it before it melts-
Life is like a cricket match,
so win it before it ends-

Life is like an aeroplane
so fly high before it lands-
Life is like a story book
so enjoy it by reading-

Life is gifted to u by God
Life is what u can change
Its life what people destroy
And life is what they remake...

Life is like a magic show
It can bring tears and smile- together
Life is like a puppet show
And we are all its puppets...

Life, makes us happy
Life, gives us sorrow
Its life that we have got
should not be wasted...

So, enjoy life before it melts-
And win it before it ends-
'Cause life is so precious.......

Why do we shout in Anger ?

2009-10-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

A saint asked his disciples, "'Why do we shout in anger? Why do people shout at each other when they are upset?"
The disciples thought for a while, then one of them said, 'Because we lose our calm, we shout.'

'But, why to shout when the other person is just next to you?' asked the saint. 'Isn't it possible to speak to him or her with a soft voice? Why do you shout at a person when you're angry?' The Disciples gave some other answers but none of them satisfied the saint.

Finally he explained, 'When two people are angry with each other, their hearts get distanced. To cover that distance they need to shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they get, the louder they will have to shout to bridge that great distance.' Then the saint asked, 'What happens when two people fall in love? They don't shout at each other but talk softly, why? Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is very less...'

The saint continued, 'When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that's all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.'

MORAL:
If you get into an argument do not let your hearts get distanced from each other, do not use words that will create more distance with each other, else there will come a time when the distance is so great, that you won't be able to bridge the gap

Maintain the Health of your Brain

2009-10-22T15:28:00.000-07:00

Experts say that if you really want to ward off dementia, you need to start taking care of your "bean" in your 30s and 40s - or even earlier.

"More and more research is suggesting that lifestyle is very important to your brain's health," says Dr. Paul Nussbaum, a neuropsychologist and an adjunct associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine ..

"If you want to live a long, healthy life, then many of us need to start as early as we can."
So what can you do to beef up your brain - and possibly ward off dementia? Nussbaum, who recently gave a speech on the topic for the Winter Park ( Fla. ) Health Foundation, offers 20 tips that may help.

1. Join clubs or organizations that need volunteers.
If you start volunteering now, you won't feel lost and unneeded after you retire.

2. Develop a hobby or two.
Hobbies help you develop a robust brain because you're trying something new and complex.

3. Practice writing with your non-dominant hand several minutes everyday.
This will exercise the opposite side of your brain and fire up those neurons.

4. Take dance lessons.
In a study of nearly 500 people, dancing was the only regular physical activity associated with a significant decrease in the incidence of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. The people who danced three or four times a week showed 76 percent less incidence of dementia than those who danced only once a week or not at all.

5. Need a hobby? Start gardening.
Researchers in New Zealand found that, of 1,000 people, those who gardened regularly were less likely to suffer from dementia.! Not only does gardening reduce stress, but gardeners use their brains to plan gardens; they use visual and spatial reasoning to lay out a garden.

6. Buy a pedometer and walk 10,000 steps a day.
Walking daily can reduce the risk of dementia because cardiovascular health is important to maintain blood flow to the brain.

7. Read and write daily.
Reading stimulates a wide variety of brain areas that process and store information. Likewise, writing (not copying) stimulates many areas of the brain as well.

8. Start knitting.
Using both hands works both sides of your brain. And it's a stress reducer.

9. Learn a new language.
Whether it's a foreign language or sign language,you are working your brain by making it go back and forth between one language and the other. A researcher in England found that being bilingual seemed to delay symptoms of Alzheimer's disease for four years. (And some research suggests that the earlier a child learns sign language, the higher his IQ - and people with high IQs are less likely to have dementia. So start them early.)

10. Play board games such as Scrabble and Monopoly. (ahh, Books & Straights, and mahjong too!!)
Not only are you taxing your brain, you're socializing too. (Playing solo games, such as solitaire or online computer brain games can be helpful, but Nussbaum prefers games that encourage you to socialize too.)

11. Take classes throughout your lifetime.
Learning produces structural and chemical changes in the brain, and education appears to help people live longer. Brain researchers have found that people with advanced degrees live longer - and if they do have Alzheimer's, it often becomes apparent only in the very later stages of the disease.

12. Listen to classical music.
A growing volume of research suggests that music may hard wire the brain, building links between the two hemispheres. Any kind of music may work, but there's some research that shows positive effects for classical music, though researchers don't understand why.

13. Learn a musical instrument.
It may be harder than it was when you were a kid, but you'll be developing a dormant part of your brain.

14. Travel.
When you travel (whether it's to a distant vacation spot or on a different route across town), you're forcing your brain to navigate a new and complex environment. A study of London taxi drivers found experienced drivers had larger brains because they have to store lots of information about locations and how to navigate there.

15. Pray.
Daily prayer appears to help your immune system.. And people who attend a formal worship service regularly live longer and report happier, healthier lives.

16. Learn to meditate.
It's important for your brain that you learn to shut out the stresses of everyday life.

17. Get enough sleep.
Studies have shown a link between interrupted sleep and dementia.

18. Eat more foods containing omega-3 fatty acids:
Salmon, sardines, tuna, ocean trout, mackerel, or herring, plus walnuts (which are higher in omega 3s than salmon), and flaxseed. Flaxseed oil, cod liver oil, and walnut oil are good sources too.

19. Eat more fruits and vegetables.
Antioxidants in fruits and vegetables mop up some of the damage caused by free radicals, one of the leading killers of brain cells.

20. Eat at least one meal a day with family and friends.
You'll slow down, socialize, and research shows you'll eat healthier food than if you ate alone or on the go

Does your Name start with an "N" ?

2009-10-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

This could be true!

You are emotional and intense When involved in a relationship, you Throw your entire being into it. Nothing stops you; there are no holds barred. You are all-consuming and crave someone who is equally passionate and intense. You believe in total freedom You are willing to try anything and everything. Your supply of energy is inexhaustible. You want to be pampered and know how to pamper your mate. You also enjoy mothering your mate. You often have the greatest love affairs all by yourself, in your head. You are very imaginative.

Maine poocha chand se .......

2009-10-16T13:54:00.000-07:00

Enjoy this song on this friday :16th of OCT 2009

Swarit singing on Little Champs . So cute...

The original song:

If you are someone who doesn't understand hindi like me , following translation might help :-(

Maine poocha chand se               I asked the moon thus
Ke dekha hai kahin                  Have you ever seen
Mere yaar sa haseen                 One as gorgeous as my love
Chand ne kaha chandini ki kasam     The moon said: I swear on the moonlight
Nahin, nahin, nahin                 No, No, No.

O! Maine ye hijaab tera doonda      Oh! I searched for this bashfulness of yours
Har jagah shabaab tera doonda       This youth of yours I searched everywhere
Kaliyon se misaal teri poochi       I asked the blossoms[if they knew] anyone like you
Phoolon mein javaab tera doonda     And the flowers to match you [in your beauty]
Maine poocha baag se                I asked the garden
Phalak ho ya zameen                 Be it in the heavens or on earth
Aisa phool hai kaheen               Is there a flower as beautiful [as my love]
Baag ne kaha, har kali ki kasam     The garden said, I swear on every flower
Nahin, Nahin, Nahin                 No, No, No



O! Chaal hai ke mauj ki ravaani     Oh! Is this a gait or [like] a flow of ecstacy?
Zulf hain ke raat ki kahaani        Are these your tresses or the story of the night?
Hont hain ke aa-iney kanval ke      Are these lips or [do they] mirror the lotuses?
Aankh hain ke maikadon ki raani     Are these eyes or the queen of a wine-house?
Maine poocha jaam se                I asked the goblet
Phalak ho ya zameen                 Be it in the heavens or on earth
Aisi mai bhi hai kaheen             Is there an intoxicant as beautiful [as my love]
Jaam ne kaha, maikashi ki kasam     The goblet said, I swear by the joy of inebriation
Nahin, Nahin, Nahin                 No, No, No



O! Khoobsoorati jo tune paayee      Oh! This beauty that you were blessed with,
Lutt gayee khuda ki bass khudayee   God was thus deprived of all his godliness.
Mir ki ghazal kahoon tuje mein      Shall I liken you to the ghazal of Mir?
Ya kahoon Khayyam ki Rubayee        Or to the Rubaiyyat of Khayyam?
Main jo poochoon shayaron se        When I ask the poets thus
Aisa dilnashin, koi sher hai kaheen Such a dear sher, have you ever read?
Shaayar kahe, shaayari ki kasam     The poets said, we swear by our poetry
Nahin, Nahin, Nahin                 No, No, No



Maine poocha chand se               I asked the moon thus
Ke dekha hai kahin                  Have you ever seen
Mere yaar sa haseen                 One as gorgeous as my love
Chand ne kaha chandini ki kasam     The moon said: I swear on the moonlight
Nahin, nahin, nahin                 No, No, No.

Kabhi Kabhi mere dil mein

2009-10-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

Do you love this song ? This song is superb and makes me so emotional.... Enjoy!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTBBAddvJu8

From the Movie

Listen to a CETIIAN Singing

Lyrics and Translation

Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hain
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges...

Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hain
Ke jaise tujhko banaaya gaya hain mere liye
Tu abse pehle sitaaron mein bas rahi thi kahin
Tujhe zameen pe bulaaya gaya hain mere liye
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges
That it's like you have been created just for me.
Before, you dwelled among the stars somewhere
And now, you have been called down to the earth just for me

Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hain
Ke ye badan, ye nigaahen, meri amaanat hain
Ye gesuoon ki ghani chhaaon hain meri khaatir
Ye honth aur ye baahen meri amaanat hain
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges
That this body, these eyes, are mine to treasure
As if the shade beneath these tresses is meant for me
And these lips and these arms are mine to treasure

Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hain
Ke jaise bajti hain shehnaaiyan si raahon mein
Suhaag raat hain ghunghat uthaa raha hoon main
Simat rahi hain tu sharmaa ke apni baahon mein
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges
That it seems like wedding instruments are trumpeting around us.
As if it's our wedding night and I'm lifting your veil
And you are shyly surrendering yourself in my embrace.

Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hain
Ke jaise tu mujhe chaahengi umra bhar yunhi
Utthegi meri taraf pyar ki nazar yunhi
Main jaanta hoon ke tu gair hai, magar yunhi
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges
That it's like you will love me forever like this
That in my direction, this loving gaze will always look up like this,
I know that you are not meant for me, but still, just like this.

Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hain...
Sometimes, in my heart a feeling emerges...

Something Nice to Read

2009-09-25T16:45:00.000-07:00

The Pretty Lady
Once upon a time a big monk and a little monk were traveling together. They came to the bank of a river and found the bridge was damaged. They had to wade across the river. There was a pretty lady who was stuck at the damaged bridge and couldn't cross the river. The big monk offered to carry her across the river on his back. The lady accepted. The little monk was shocked by the move of the big monk. "How can big brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all intimacy with females?" thought the little monk. But he kept quiet. The big monk carried the lady across the river and the small monk followed unhappily. When they crossed the river, the big monk let the lady down and they parted ways with her.
All along the way for several miles, the little monk was very unhappy with the act of the big monk. He was making up all kinds of acussations about big monk in his head. This got him madder and madder. But he still kept quiet. And the big monk had no inclination to explain his situation. Finally, at a rest point many hours later, the little monk could not stand it any further, he burst out angrily at the big monk. "How can you claim yourself a devout monk, when you seize the first opportunity to touch a female, especially when she is very pretty? All your teachings to me make you a big hypocrite The big monk looked surprised and said, "I had put down the pretty lady at the river bank many hours ago, how come you are still carrying her along?"
[This very old Chinese Zen story reflects the thinking of many people today. We encounter many unpleasant things in our life, they irritate us and they make us angry. Sometimes, they cause us a lot of hurt, sometimes they cause us to be bitter or jealous .. But like the little monk, we are not willing to let them go away.We keep on carrying the baggage of the "pretty lady" with us. We let them keep on coming back to hurt us, make us angry, make us bitter and cause us a lot of agony.Why? Simply because we are not willing to put down or let go of the baggage of the "pretty lady". We should let go of the pretty lady immediately after crossing the river, that is after the unpleasant event is over.This will immediately remove all our agonies.There is no need to be further hurt by the unpleasant event after it is over.]

************ ********* ********* *********
The Turtles
A turtle family decided to go on a picnic. the turtles, being naturally slow about things, took seven years to prepare for their outing. Finally the turtle family left home looking for a suitable place. During the second year of their journey they found a place ideal for them at last!
For about six months they cleaned the area, unpacked the picnic basket, and completed the arrangements. Then they discovered they had forgotten the salt. A picnic without salt would be a disaster, they all agreed. After a lengthy discussion, the youngest turtle was chosen to retrieve the salt from home. Although he was the fastest of the slow moving turtles, the little turtle whined, cried, and wobbled in his shell. He agreed to go on one condition: that no one would eat until he returned. The family consented and the little turtle left.
Three years passed and the little turtle had not returned. Five years...six years... then on the seventh year of his absence, the oldest turtle could no longer contain his hunger. He announced that he was going to eat and begun to unwrap a sandwich.
At that point the little turtle suddenly popped out from behind a tree shouting, "See! I knew you wouldn't wait. Now I am not going to go get the salt."

[Some of us waste our time waiting for people to live up to our expectations. We are so concerned about what others are doing that we don't do anything ourselves.]

************ ********* ********* *********
The Frogs
A farmer came into town and asked the owner of a restaurant if he could use a million frog legs. The restaurant owner was shocked and asked the man where he could get so many frog legs! The farmer replied, "There is a pond near my house that is full of frogs - millions of them. They all croak all night long and they are about to make me crazy!" So the restaurant owner and the farmer made an agreement that the farmer would deliver frogs to the restaurant, five hundred at a time for the next several weeks.
The first week, the farmer returned to the restaurant looking rather sheepish, with two scrawny little frogs. The restaurant owner said, "Well... where are all the frogs?" The farmer said, "I was mistaken. There were only these two frogs in the pond. But they sure were making a lot of noise!"

[ Next time you hear somebody criticizing or making fun of you, remember, it's probably just a couple of noisy frogs. Also remember that problems always seem bigger in the dark. Have you ever laid in your bed at night worrying about things which seem almost overwhelming like a million frogs croaking? Chances are pretty good that when the morning comes, and you take a closer look, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.]

A Pet Dog's 10 commandments

2009-08-15T11:19:00.000-07:00

1.My life is likely to last 10-15 years. Any separation from you is likely to be painful.

2. Give me time to understand what you want of me.

3. Place your trust in me. It is crucial for my well-being.

4. Don't be angry with me for long and don't lock me up as punishment. You have your work, your friends, your entertainment, but I have only you.

5. Talk to me. Even if I don't understand your words, I do understand your voice when speaking to me.

6. Be aware that however you treat me, I will never forget it.

7. Before you hit me, before you strike me, remember that I could hurt you, and yet I choose not to bite you.

8. Before you scold me for being lazy or uncooperative, ask yourself if something might be bothering me. Perhaps I'm not getting the right food, I have been in the sun too long, or my heart might be getting old or weak.

9. Please take care of me when I grow old. You too, will grow old.

10. On the ultimate difficult journey, go with me, please. Never say you can't bear to watch. Don't make me face this alone. Everything is easier for me if you are there because I love you so.

~Take a moment today to thank God for your pets. Enjoy and take good care of them.

Life would be a much duller, less joyful experience without God's critters.

Something about Pisces Woman I read on the Net

2009-07-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

She likes to be in a dream world than to be in reality. She is weak and sensitive when it's come to "Love". She can cry if her best friend is breaking up, and she can be over excited when her friend gets a new boy friend who is a good looking and rich even it is nothing concerned her at all. You might be surprise to see that she is shy just because she is in love. More or less it will be in Pisces woman. She loves small animal and gifted in training animals.

She has sixth senses and she can guess what will happen next, it's her nature. Even she has a good sixth senses, she can not pick or foreseen her own choice of lover. She can not tell if she meet a sincere guy or a one night stand guy.

She likes to buy and pick her! own cloths. She likes to dress cute and be cute. Pisces woman tend to be a good looking woman and she has a nice skin. Her hands and feet are small and soft. Pisces woman loves to shop for shoes as if she collects them. She is a hot lady that everyone wants her. Whether she has a man in her life or not, she will never try to over powered any man. It's not even in her thought.

She thinks man can handle things better, and she will make her man feel that way. She is an easy going person, so being with her is easy. She is a confident woman and likes to make people who stay with her happy. She knows how to please and how to comfort a man. If something is wrong, she will try to make other people belief that it's must be because of someone else, not because of her love one. She will not push her man to be ambition but to make him feel like he should be happy with the way he is ! now. She is happy with you for what you are now.

A Pisces woman, if she has a bad childhood, she will always remember it and it will make her a very unhappy person. She will pity herself and feel sorry for herself. She tends to hurt herself with out knowing it and so vulnerable to drugs (real drugs or just sleeping pills). She has many choices and you can never tell which path she going to take. If you love her, then hold her tight because she never knows why she did what she did or what she will do next.

A complex character. You may think she is a shy innocent type and can not hurt anyone, then you are wrong. You might think she is a fragile person who needs protection, wrong again. She has been through a lot, a tough cookie. She is a dreamer and love the word "Love", so she is the type who will buy gift for anyone for any occasion, especially if it is a gift for wedding or an anniversary even for someone who she does not know so well.

Be very careful if fall in love with Pisces woman. She can be a total different person before and after. She can be an angle before and later a witch, but everyone is not perfect, right? She will be soft and gentle most of the time, so not to worry. She is emotional and extremely sensitive when she frequently got hurt. She is the type who can cry her heart out.

She can have a secret fear inside, when she says she does not need anyone. She badly needs someone to protect her, but sometimes she can hide that feeling by being stubborn. She likes to hide her shyness and her weakness from her enemy. She does not like to follow any fixed rules. She can be a good housewife if you know how to handle her.

Many men will ask to marry her because she is a 100% woman. If she wants to be sweet, she is a real angels

Someone's experience of raising a child with special needs!

2009-06-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

When you're going to have a baby, its like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans: the Coliseum, Michelangelo' s David, the gondolas in Venice. you may learn some handy phrases in Italian. its all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. you pack your bags and off you go. several hours later, the plane lands. the stewardess comes in and says, " Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy!I'm suppose to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. and you must learn a whole new language. and you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. Its slower-paced then Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has wind mills-and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandt's.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for te rest of your life, you will say, "yes, That's where i was supposed to go. That's what i had planned"

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't know who wrote this .................but so nice!!!

Transferring a house out of Trust

2009-04-10T00:47:00.000-07:00

Our house is in our trust. (I hope I describe the terminology correctly.). We are doing refinance for the house, and need to transfer the house out of the trust. What is the procedure to do that? How long does it take? And how much is the fee?

Responses:
=======================
Our situation was that - we forgot to tell our refi agent that our house is newly placed under the trust. The agent has the old record that the house is under our names until the final stage they found out. They sent a notary public to our home to sign one docuemnt (I believe only one- pull it out and then transfer it back immediately). After the closing, we receive two deeds (one for transferring it out, one for putting it back to the trust). We did not pay any extra penny on this because of our negligence.

=======================
All you need to do is to get a form from the County Assessor office and fill it out and turn it back to them. As long as the owners remain the same, there is no tax involved. You may have to pay $6 fee.

========================

You don't need to do anything beforehand. Your title/escrow company will do that as part of the refi closing. Living trust is very common nowadays, so banks and title compnaies know what to do.

If you want to put it back into the trust after the refi, you can ask the title company to do it (extra charge) or prepare the deed for you to file it yourself.

========================
your title company for refinance should be able to do it.

========================
I was in the same situation and I did not have to take the house out of trust for doing refinancing. All the
documents refer to the trust and list myself and my wife as the trustee of the trust. Just send your trust
document to your escrow and they will make the proper documentation.

=========================
The same thing happened to us. There was no procedure involved and no fee. In fact
all I remember is our loan agent telling us that the home ownership has to be temporarily moved
out of the trust and that my husband and myself will be listed as the homeowners and not the
trust. May be we signed a paper to acknowledge that(don't remember though). But ours was a revocable trust, so we
had the right to make any changes. I am pretty sure you don't have to pay anything or so any
significant paper work to do this. Pls check with your agent. He/She should know.

=========================
I checked with our attorney before. You should be able to refinance or even sell your house without transferring it out of the living trust.
We haven't refinance but we sold our house without any issue even it was held under the name of the trust.

=========================
Your can use a quitclaim deed to transfer the house from your trust to yourself. However, I recently refinanced and we didn't have any issue with the house under a living trust. Are you sure it is necessary?

=========================
the mortgage agent should be able to do this for you at no cost to you. They can take it out of trust, refi, then put it back into the trust.

=========================
You should not need to move your house out of the trust if you don't want to. You should talk to a good escrow officer about this.

H1-B Doc requirements at HYD consultate

2009-03-10T03:00:00.001-07:00

http://hyderabad.usconsulate.gov/handl.html

For Dance Lovers in Bangalore

2009-03-10T02:08:00.000-07:00

This is an AD . I have not verified the authenticity but thought it will be useful to dance lovers in Bangalore.

Dear Dance Lovers ,,,,

Latino Rhythms Proudly presents " Rhythms" , A festival of Dance forms.....

LR present to you first of its kind and a Unique Dance Festival with workshops on different forms of dances happening at our studio in Jayangar , Platinum bodies on the 27th,28th and 29th of march ( a long weekend ). These workshops will have different forms of dances that you could choose from ,,, Find below the agenda of the workshop ..

27th Mar :
10- 12 : Beginners Jive by Nidhi and Akshay
12- 1 : Lunch
1- 3 : Basic bachata by john and Nidhi
3-5 : Basic Rueda : john
5-7 : Basic Salsa, Amuda

28th mar :

10-12, : Jive Level 2 , John and nidhi
12-1 : Lunch
1-3 : Bachata level 2 john and nidhi
3-5 : Rueda Level 2 John
5-7 : Salsa level 2 john and Nidhi

29 th mar :
10-12 : Jive level 3 with Lifts and Tricks ; John and Nidhi
12-1 : lunch
1-3 : Bachata level 3 John and nidhi
3-5 : rueda Level 3 advanced , john and Nidhi
5-7 : Salsa Level 3 wid spin techniques and styling for men and ladies by John and nidhi ,

Fee : Single Guys and Girls : Rs 200 ( Per workshop per person )
Couples: Rs 150 ( Per workshop per person )

For Reg email jalatino@gmail.com

or call 98454 33370 or 9844101440

To know more abt us ,
please visit www.latinorhythms.in

Bush says:I would have done some things differently

2009-01-16T03:50:00.000-08:00

Bangalore Useful

2009-01-16T01:06:00.000-08:00

Here are some useful info for Bangaloreans

Check your traffic violation and payonline

Cooks
------
Koramanagala/BTM

Cook Name : Keshav
Mobile : 9741500971

Cook Name :Sathya
Mobile: 9945091351

Sarjapur, Suncity, ORR

Cook Name :Roma
Mobile: 9972731956

JP Nagar. Jaya Nagar and BTM

Cook Name : Suman
Mobile : 9845698648

Cook Name : Ramesh
Mobile 9739150314

Near Forum Mall
Cook Name : Nirakaar
Mobile : 9886267907

Bangalore passport office

http://rpobangalore.gov.in

Bangalore Local Tours

KSTDC has some Bangalore sightseeing daytrips that you can choose from:

http://kstdc.net/Tours.htm

They also seem to have Taxi options apart from Buses.

You might want to contact them and find out the places they cover:

http://kstdc.net/ContactUs.htm

Satyam version of Johny Johny Yes Papa

2009-01-13T01:12:00.001-08:00

Received this today on AIM

Raju Raju
Yes baba
Cheating us
No baba
Telling Lies
No baba
Open the balance sheet
HA HA HA

A Great Note I Read Today

2009-01-13T00:53:00.000-08:00

A Great note for all to read it will take 3 minutes to read this and change your thinking

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.

Every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by.

Although the other man couldn't hear the band - he could see it. In his mind's eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

Days and weeks passed.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside.

He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed.

It faced a blank wall. The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.

She said, "Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you."

Epilogue:

There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations.

Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled.

If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can't buy.

"Today is a gift, that's why it is called the present."

Do Vaccinations cause Autism ?

2009-01-08T00:46:00.000-08:00

Read this article http://www.livehealthwise.com/custom_content/44915_vaccines__autism.html

Can Autism be detected in the womb ? Read this article http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Health__Science/Autism_can_be_detected_in_womb/articleshow/3970196.cms

I know of nobody who is purely Autistic or purely neurotypical. Even God had some Autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin." ~ Jerry Newport

True Mothers Love

2009-01-06T23:49:00.000-08:00

Found this from a mailing list.

That Is How Mothers Protect You

And look at all the fathers just watching the fun !!! No wonder they say motherhood & apple pie can't go wrong.......

My Pranic Healer says you don't have to go to a church or a temple to worship some GOD. Get up in the morning and think about your mother and say thanks for everything she has done for you...She is the first God you should worship.

Be Considerate to Others this Year and in the Yrs to come

2009-01-06T03:32:00.000-08:00

Few days ago, I was rushing back from work and on reaching the ground floor of our apartment, I found two well dressed individuals with laptop bags ( must be software engineers) bashing ( by words ) up our apartment security guy. This guy came in as a replacement for the old one and may be in his teens. I went past them and stood near the elevator and was listening in to the conversation. One of this gentleman was blasting him by asking " Do you know how to speak properly ?" . " Do you understand Hindi etc ?" . He was trying to reply something to them but his reply was not clear. I just noticed that and went upstairs. Few days later, met this security person at the basement parking and when I was in front of him, he showed Namaste and said Good Morning but it was evening!. So, there is definitely some issue with him and his speech is not clear either. I took a 100 Rs note from my pocket and gave it to him. He was extremely happy!!!.

I felt that it was inappropriate for those two gentleman to bash him up. Sometimes these kids are forced to become security because of the poor economic situations in their home. The previous security guy was telling me that he is from Assam and was forced to come to Bangalore and work for Rs 3000/- a month. He could not continue his studies and parents had lots of debt.

Now, this boy has speech issues. I feel that God has showered us with so much gifts, we should help them somehow and bring them up in life.

Another incident that happened in the Bangalore airport few months ago is an autistic boy slapping a girl when she refused to give him a shake hand. He is not an adult and just wanted to shake hands with her. I don't know what was wrong with that. She complained to the airline and they were not allowed to board the aircraft :-( .

After last week's autism conference in Bangalore and speaking to few parents who were present, I now realize that if there is any indication that a child is going to have a serious disability, it is better to not have that child or if you have one already, do everything you can at your disposal to prepare them to be independent . This world does not respect disabled people. India specially doesn't have a place for the disabled. It does not mean that disabled people are not intelligent. Some of them are much intelligent than us but they wouldn't know the basics required to live in this world.

BTW, It was a conference on ABA ( Applied Behavior Analysis ) by Smitha Awasthi. If you don't know her, she is the only ABA certified professional in India. Spends her on money, travels around the world and do everything she can for a better future for the differently abled.

How Lucky We Are ?

2009-01-06T02:33:00.000-08:00

Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting
married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence
the saying, Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water..

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying It's raining cats and dogs.

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more
thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance way. Hence the saying a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold
overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old..

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew
the fat.. Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the
family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would
have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.

And that's the truth...Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

Educate someone. Share these facts with a friend.

Another X'mas passed by

2008-12-26T03:24:00.000-08:00

and my Unni got a nice gift, a beautiful star ( filled with lots of hopes. We hung the star for him in the balcony and he seemed to like it much. Children are so innocent and they watch these kind of things with so much curiosity. I love to see that!.

As you know, Christmas is a very special festival for Christians all over the world. During our childhood days, we use to go for singing carols all around our village in the night. There was no distinction between a Hindu or a Christian home. Went everywhere we were welcomed. As children, we used to specially look out for homes that serve snacks and kattan kappy ( black coffee) and sing a bonus song for them :-) .

My Dad is the only one who goes to church for the midnight mass. I think he used to go to a famous church at Piravom and do kurbana for all of us. During this time, we will be snoring under the blanket and you know the winter nights are much nicer to sleep!. By the time we wake up, mom is all ready with Kallappam and variety of meat specialities. The elder one in the family cut the cake. Hmm, I miss those good old days!.

For Grandma, Star is a must in the home and she will be happy if we burst some crackers. She is a hardborn Chrisitan and really want to celebrate Christmas in a big way. She passed away couple of years ago at 104 just two days after the Christmas day!

Missed Christmas this time as well as we were all down with flu...Hoping to celebrate next time!.

Wish all of u a Merry X'mas and a Happy New Year! ( Belated )

Enjoy this beautiful song!

2008-12-18T01:36:00.000-08:00

Weekend is around, holidays are coming. Let's forget about Bush ( last x'mas in office) , courageous Iraqi journalist ( spending x'mas in jail), Saudi businessman ( waiting to buy the shoes for $10 million), mico employee ( now in terror watch list) and me who wrote that Iam a fan of Bush . This is the right time to sit back and enjoy this beautiful song from the movie masoom.

Lyrics for the song
------------------

tujhase naaraaz nahi zindagi, hairaan hoon main
o hairaan hoon main
tere masoom savalon se pareshaan hooN main
o pareshaan hoon main

jeene ke liye socha hi na tha, dard sambhalane honge
muskuraoon to, muskurane ke karz utaarne honge
muskuraoon kabhi to lagata hai
jaise hontonn pe karz rakhaa hai
tujhase ...

aaj agar bhar ayi hai, boondein baras jaayengi
kal kya pata inke liye aakhen taras jayengi
jaane kahan gum kahan khoya
ek aansu chhupake rakha tha
tujhase ...

zindagi tere gum ne hamain rishte naye samajhaye
mile jo hamain dhoop main mile chhaanv ke thande saaye

o tujhase ...

-------------------------------------------------------------

If you are one like me who doesn't understand Hindi, here is a translation:

I am not upset with you, life.. I am astonished
I am distressed by your innocent questions
I did not think that in order to live, I would have to take care of woes...
To smile, I would have to take on the debt of smiling
If I were to smile, it seems that I would have to incure this debt upon my lips
Today, if my eyes fill with tears, then they will fall...
Who knows whom these eyes will wait for tomorrow...
Who knows where I lost...
The one tear I had kept hidden...
Life, your sorrows have taught us new bonds...
Whomever you shall meet in the sunlight, you will feel the cool shade of love...

and if you have a son, don't forget to whisper in his ears " I love you!"

Did you miss this news/video ?

2008-12-15T03:45:00.000-08:00

An Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at Bush when he was addressing the media in Iraq. It is amazing to see how the president (alert) ducked himself from being hit. Watch it for yourself.

Iam a fan of George Bush although I do not agree to his decision on going war with Iraq. He is a man with so much determination and courage. A leader should be like him in my opinion.

Baby Steps Towards a Spiritual Journey

2008-12-12T00:56:00.000-08:00

Read this Interesting article from Economic Times of India. Click on the image...

Art of Giving

2008-12-09T03:14:00.000-08:00

i
I read this interesting mail now and thought of sharing. It goes like this:

The Art of Giving

"Rivers do not drink their own water, nor do trees eat their own fruit, nor do rain clouds eat the grains reared by them.
The wealth of the noble is used solely for the benefit of others"
Even after accepting that giving is good and that one must learn to give, several questions need to be answered.

The first question is: When should one give?
We all know the famous incident from Mahabharat. Yudhisthir, asks a beggar seeking alms to come the next day.
On this, Bhim rejoices, that Yudhisthir his brother, has conquered death! For he is sure that he will be around tomorrow to give. Yudhisthir gets the message.
One does not know really whether one will be there tomorrow to give!
The time to give therefore is now.

The next question is: How much to give?
One recalls the famous incident from history. Rana Pratap was reeling after defeat from the Moghals. He had lost his army, he had lost his wealth, and most important he had lost hope, his will to fight. At that time in his darkest hour, his erstwhile minister Bhamasha came seeking him and placed his entire fortune at the disposal of Rana Pratap. With this, Rana Pratap raised an army and lived to fight another day..
Give as much as you can!

The next question is: What to give?
It is not only money that can be given. It could be a flower or even a smile.
It is not how much one gives but how one gives that really matters. When you give a smile to a stranger, that may be the only good thing received by him in days and weeks!
You can give anything but you must give with your heart!

One also needs answer to this question: Whom to give to?
Many times we avoid giving by finding fault with the person who is seeking.
However, being judgmental and rejecting a person on the presumption that he may not be the most deserving is not justified.
Give without being judgmental!

Next we have to answer: How to give?
Coming to the manner of giving, one has to ensure that the receiver does not feel humiliated, nor the giver feels proud by giving.
Charity without publicity and fanfare is the highest form of charity.

While giving let not the recipient feel small or humiliated. After all what we give never really belonged to us. We come to this world with nothing and will go with nothing. The thing gifted was only with us for a temporary period. Why then take pride in giving away something that really did not belong to us?

Give with grace and with a feeling of gratitude.

What should one feel after giving?
We all know the story of Eklavya. When Dronacharya asked him for his right thumb as "Guru Dakshina" he unhesitatingly cut off the thumb and gave it to Dronacharya.
There is a little known sequel to this story. Eklavya was asked whether he ever regretted the act of giving away his thumb. He replied, and the reply has to be believed to be true, as it was asked to him when he was dying:
His reply was "Yes! I regretted this only once in my life. It was when the Pandavas were coming in to kill Dronacharya who was broken hearted on the false news of death of his son Ashwathama and had stopped fighting. It was then that I regretted the loss of my thumb. If the thumb was there, no one could have dared hurt my Guru!"

The message to us is clear: Give and never regret giving!
(There is also the lesson from Dronacharya's life - he asked for so much that it killed him in the end.)

And the last question is: How much should we provide for our heirs?
Ask yourself, 'are we taking away from them the gift of work'? - A source of happiness!
Warren Buffett gives the answer:
Leave your kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing!

In learning the Art of Giving, I would conclude by quoting Sant Kabir:
"When the wealth in the house increases,
When water fills a boat,
Throw them out with both hands! "
This is the wise thing to do.

A Smile, A Good Morning, How R U ? . Does it cost anything ?

2008-12-08T23:12:00.000-08:00

I feel that these days people rarely smile, say a good morning or ask how you are doing etc ?. Everyone is so busy in their own world and I feel very disturbed. Having lived in the United States, Iam used to these greetings even from strangers and I used to feel angry that they don't mean anything and just say " Hi", " How are you doing", "How was your weekend ?" etc etc. Now, being in Bangalore I want someone to tell me a "hi" or give me a smile at the least in the mornings :-) .

I think it is just the culture difference here. People don't necessarily interact with you if they don't know you well. Does that hold true for everyone ?. Not really. Following is an incident that happened in our apartment complex when we moved in. I had a lot of items to shift from MILs house and was doing this over a period of several weeks. One day, I brought all the big suitcases and unloaded them in front of the apartment complex . Since the lift ( elevator ) can not carry more than one at a time, I chose to leave them there for sometime. In the mean time , one of the resident from her ( lets call her deep) apartment window saw the name on one of the bag ( Usha Murali ) and was calling out to the security to ask if the new resident is a malayali. In the meantime I was at the spot and this lady got embarassed that I heard what she was asking. I told her in malayalam that Usha Murali ( Name sounds mallu ) is my wife but she is not a malayali . She smiled and started conversing with me. During that brief conversation, she told me everything about the apartment( she rents, doesn't own) , where she buys groceries including fish ( she asked me if I eat fish) , about her husband (is a business man) , her kid, her maid ( asked me if I need one) and I shared my details with her as well...It was a useful brief conversation and so nice of her that she shared things that are important for me.

Now, Iam almost done shifting things and was upstairs. There comes my neighbors ( lets call him "Ram" and his wife "Push" ) and he looked like someone I know from 12 yrs ago. Is it him ?. No, It is not. I said "hi" to him but he was bit reluctant to say "Hi". Wasn't sure whether to say "hi" to his wife. They both looked very reserved. I told them that Iam going to be your neighbor and lives in 2** . He said "Ok" and immediately asked me whether Iam a batchelor or I had a family. I said "family". I think he was relieved ( looks like batchelors are not preferred ) . Then he said, Iam in a bit hurry and will talk to you later on. He pushed off and the wife just closed the door. Hmm, that is not a good sign and may be this is the first time we are meeting, things might improve later on... I think that was just a wish...

I asked Usha if "Push ( This is the short term we use for her) " came anytime and said "hi" to you. She said, yeah one day she knocked the door and had a chat with me. She was asking many questions and giving me tips on how to live better in this apartment. Some of the things she said were following:

Keep the trash outside the apartment by 8:30 AM in the morning
Do not leave the footwear outside the apartment ( Rats may eat them off) . I realized later that it is not the rat. She doesn't want to see a footwear first in the morning.
Do not sleep with head facing North.(Hmm, I never cared abt such things)
Do not give more money to the maids that come ( Otherwise she will also be forced to raise the salary)
How come you are putting Kolam outside the home ? ( She heard from someone that a X'an family( ie me) will be coming to stay at 2** ?

and much more. It is quite interesting how "Push" and "Deep" approached the new residents.

May be I deviated a bit from what I wanted to say with my story but it is important to greet people. It doesn't take much time but can lighten up someone's day.

Few years ago, I was in Hyderabad on an official visit and I was so bored on the weekend and wanted to go somewhere. Thought I will take a bus but the bus I wanted never arrived. So, was standing in the bus stop and saw this oldman trying to cross the road ( Idiotic drivers in India never cares). None stopped and he was doing all sorts of acrobatics to cross the road. Although, I was worried thinking someone would hit him, couldn't control my laugh. After crossing the road successfully, he came to me, held my hand and asked me " Why I was smiling ?". I replied, I couldn't stop laughing seeing the way you were trying to cross the road. He then said " I finally made it" but you know your smile made my day. It was so nice to listen to what he said.

So, friends keep smiling. It costs nothing but brings immense joy to you and the ones around u.

Do you share the best you have with your friend ?

2008-12-03T00:30:00.000-08:00

It is long since I wrote anything in my diary. Everyday, I would think that I should pen something but gets exhausted end of the day and no mood to write. So, here is something that I wanted to share with you since long time. This happened in the month of June 2008 . We had planned to rent our home in East Palo Alto and I had just one week to vacate the home. My list of tasks included selling the unwanted items, packing what is required, moving the rest to a storage and finally clean up the home It was a hectic week and none to help. Usha and Nipun were in India. Also, I have to find a place to stay . Hmm... Lot of things on my plate. I wasn't tensed and as always remained cool. I did what I could within a week and everything left was moved to a public storage close by. Now, the fun starts. Where would I stay ?.

That is when God send his angel to help me out. One of my friend had plans to visit India in the month of June and I had asked him If I could stay for few days in their apt when they are away. He gladly accepted and even had food prepared for me the day they left. So nice of them. I visited the apartment to have my dinner, cleaned up the plates and returned home ( renting starts the next week) . Then, the day came when Iam suppose to start my stay at their home. I visited the apartment in the evening and found an envelope stuck to the door. Looked at it and it is from the apartment management. I thought my friend may not have paid the month's rent and it could be the remainder. Picked it up , opened the door , went in and opened the envelope. Was shocked to see the message. It said " There are three illegal occupants in this apartment . Please contact the apartment management immediately". Hmm, I came out of the apartment in the next minute and decided to send an e-mail to my friend who is away in India. Didn't God send the me the right angel ?. Don't worry. He won't let you walk alone during difficult times. He always have a backup plan and send me the next angel.

The new angel had invited me for dinner that night and soon after this episode I rushed to her home. They have a beautiful 4 bedroom independent home and I thought to my self, may be this is the place God wants me to stay. I wasn't very sure because I wasn't keeping good contact with them and they have two children to take care and now they have to accommodate me as well. Won't that be too much ?. Had dinner and we were chatting and chatting . I was not sure whether to tell them this episode. May be I shouldn't. Push off and stay in a motel, Inn or somewhere close to my office but I thought for a while and decided to tell them . They told me that I could stay there for how long ever I want. So nice... but still I wasn't very comfortable. I felt guilty that Iam asking for help when Iam in dire need ? . Thought about it a bit and may be this will be an opportunity to renew lost friendship and my selfish part of the heart kept saying, may be this is the right time to save some $ and also continue to get home cooked food.

I agreed that I will stay here tonight, go to office tomorrow and then decide. They agreed to my proposal. Next day morning, I spoke to this angel and told her that I would stay here only if I can be of any help to you and I truly want to live as a member of your family. I wanted this because If I become a nuisance to them, I would loose the little friendship that I already have. They all agreed and we signed the agreement :-) .

From them on we started our life as a family. During the night, I could hear the younger one crying because he doesn't want to sleep in the crib. Sometimes he even choose to stand and sleep :-) . BTW, he was undergoing sleep training.

In the morning, Iam the first one to wake up, then comes angel, closely followed by the elder one , her hubby and the younger one. I make Tea in the mornings. Sit and chat with the angel for sometime until all wakes up. At the same time, she will be making something for the breakfast pack our lunch boxes etc etc. Me and her hubby carpooled to the office. Life went on like that. My director use to be jealous knowing the privileges I had

We went to several restaurants, children's play areas, malls etc etc. It was a very cool life. Also, I enjoyed being with the children. I read books for them, watched children programs and the days passed just like that.

Stayed close to one and half months at their home .Finally the day arrived that I was to leave for India. All of them came with me to the airport and we sat and talked till it was time for me to leave. I was very sad to leave them knowing that I have more important things to take care back home.

One of the funny or nice remark the angel made on the last day " She felt like she got a new Girl Friend". Ha Ha Ha.... I felt the same dear angel!.

So loving family... God Bless them.

Always share the best you have with someone else. Iam sure, God will shower you with more...

Malayali kills wife in NJ Church

2008-11-24T02:11:00.000-08:00

Today's online edition of times of India carried this article " Indian immigrant kills wife in NJ Church". On reading the article further, I was shocked to learn it was a malayali who committed the crime. He went all the way from Sacramento in California to New Jersey and executed his estranged wife in a holy place. She chose to go away but still he killed her :-( . May be there is some serious issue between them but does that guarantee him to take her life ?

These kinds of incidents ( techie kills wife for lover, Man admits to killing family) are becoming common these days. I think our world is growing into a place filled with impatient people. In my opinion, there is nothing in this world that can not be resolved but it does require people to understand each other. something not as I wrote. You have to give up a lot to have perfect harmony and need to have lot of patience. This doesn't mean that you have to be a slave to someone. You have your needs and always make the other aware of it.

In my opinion, there is plenty of help available in this world. So, don't hesitate to ask someone how you could resolve an issue. There may be situations where you can not come to a reconciliation and if you think it is impossible to continue, there is a simple solution. What is it ? .You simply walk away. Isn't that beautiful ? . Do not hurt each other, share all your wealth, come to terms on what you can not share and let the other have their way.

As one of my Sainik school friend rightly said " Ninakku Ninte Vazhi, Enikku Ente Vazhi" ( You go your way, I go my way :-).

ABC reports that he is still on the loose and may be armed.

I always feel good talking to special mom's

2008-11-20T04:15:00.000-08:00

Few days ago, I was on my desk doing some work and suddenly a message popped from a special mom whom I had met with when I was in California. I call her a special mom. If you still don't know how God select such mom's, read this article. They have very special skills that a normal mom may not possess. I was shocked to see her child and was speechless for few minutes. I went there so that I could share the pain that she and her family is going through. Could see the fear, anxiety and helplessness in their eyes. Left their home after half an hour wishing them good luck and Iam glad we are still in touch.

Was so happy to receive her message and we exchanged notes on how things are going. It is always nice to share the notes on what is being tried and whether things are under control. She was a bit depressed as the last medication she was hopeful also did not work but I could see that there is lot of change in her. She is more stronger and is dealing with the situation rather than being in denial. Started working, bought a nice home and is moving on with her life. At the same time doing the best she can for her child. Nice!!!

Read somewhere recently that special mom's will always be in tension thinking "when will hell break loose next time ?" and may never have an opportunity like other mom's to plan a soccer tournament or go select a Halloween costume for their child. In my opinion, a disability should never stop one from doing anything but there are always limits to what one can do. Never compare as your child is a unique one in this world !.

Some of the other interesting things I learned from special mom's:

A child with special needs will always be with you forever. They will never go away from you unlike the other children
Such mom's don't have to worry about what syllabus ( ICSE/CBSE) or school they go to. They always have a special syllabus and a special school.

Cool isn't it ?

So, how can you be happy in life ?

If you want to be happy for an hour, take a nap.

If you want to be happy for a day, go fishing.

If you want to be happy for a month, go on a honeymoon.

If you want to be happy for a year, inherit a fortune.

If you want to be happy for a lifetime, teach children with disabilities.

Manager tells me that I should write technical blogs as well

2008-11-19T23:06:00.000-08:00

My manager has mandated that for every feature we add in the product, an article no longer than one page must be published to alert our customer community. Seems like a good idea .Here is what I wrote:

http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2008/11/oracle_connection_manager_certified_with_oracle_e-business_suite_release_12.html

My Technical Profile:

http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2008/11/introducing_noby_joseph_guest_author.html

Moving from US to INDIA ( Packing/Shipping) Tips

2008-10-27T00:35:00.000-07:00

Finally you made that decision in your life which many call as "moving for good." . Iam not sure whether it is good or bad but if you think that is the right decision, you should go ahead and do it. Iam sure your friends are going to raise their eyebrows which meant " Are you crazy ?" .

Don't get discouraged as people move out for different reasons and no two situations are going to be the same but you should definitely spend a good amount of time exploring on the following:

Why am I going and what are the compelling reasons ?
What is in store for me in India ?
What aspects of the Indian life you like the most ?
Where do you plan to live ?
Will you be able to have a similar or comparable social circle ?

There are plenty of things like this to ponder and I suggest you take a piece of paper and write down what you miss and what you gain and arrive at a good decision. In this article, Iam more interested in covering the real physical move and how to plan. Here you go.

Go around your home and make a list of items that you must want to ship. This can be a difficult task as what you think important is not important to your wife and vice versa.
Check whether you get similar items with comparable price/quality in your destination location. Remember quality is a big issue in India and prices are higher too. You may get similar things but not the same.
After making the list try to sell or donate as much items as you can. Please remember that many in the US are not interested to pay a high price for second hand goods. Your furniture may be as important as your baby to you but none is going to recognize that. So, plan it appropriately.
Get rid of heavy items like television sets, refrigerators, washers, driers and any other electronic items that you don't think is useful to you in India. Indian customs will charge money even for used electronic items . Also remember the voltage difference ( 110 Vs 220). I have not yet found a good voltage converter yet here.
You can carry your furnitures if you like them. It is very expensive to buy good furnitures here and Iam not sure of the quality either. They import these from countries like Malaysia and assemble it here. Wood work is so bad. Ask them, what wood is used . They have a standard response. " Rubber wood sir or teak wood" .
At this point, you may be ready to get an estimate from a moving company. Call at least three different carriers and ask them for a quote. You may have to provide them with a list of things that you intend to carry. Based on this they give you a quote. Please remember that it is just a quote. So, you may want to invite them home to get an accurate picture.
The shipping company use the following methods after determining how much goods you have to ship
LCL - stands for "Less container load" when your shipment doesn't require a full container to ship
FCL - stands for " Full container load" when your shipment needs either a 20 ft or 40 ft container.
If you do not have much to ship, always go for less container load. The advantage of LCL is that it is less costly compared to FCL and may get shipped soon. FCL shipment has to wait for a container to become available. FCL is sometimes tough in this economy condition as there is imbalance in the export/import business. The disadvantage of LCL is that your goods will get shipped with cargo from other customers which can be commercial or personal. So, there are chances of mishandling and loss. You may not have to worry much as they do what is called as palletization (Putting a thick wooden wrap around your shipment) so that it will not get mixed with other goods.
Get quote for both LCL and FCL from the shipping company. If you think you have more goods, always go for FCL and try to share the container with a friend who might also be moving. Search in google for people who are planning to leave at the same time as you.
The next thing is to visit stores like U-Haul( my fav and cheap) , Home Depot, Public Storage etc to buy packing materials. You must buy the following:
Storage boxes: Do not be stingy. Buy boxes with good strength. Your shipment has to reach all the way from US to India and there will be intermediate terminals where the shipment may get unloaded . For example a shipment from SFO to BLR will get unloaded at Singapore and then comes to Chennai port. From there, it travels by road to the container corporation yard at WhiteField Bangalore.
Forgot to tell you an important thing, " Buy boxes with same dimension" . Imagine if you are being asked to palletize a shipment with different sized boxes. Sure, they will do it but it will cost you more $$$.
Labels: To mark your destination address and to number the boxes
Markers
Tape : To seal your boxes . Buy the one with an adhesive on the paper not the plastic
Now you are ready to pack. Take a piece of paper and pencil and start writing down what you are filling in each box. It is important to do this because without a packing list, customs won't clear your goods for shipment. Also estimate the value of each item placed in the box. This is required to get an estimate of how much insurance you should buy for the shipment.
Start numbering the boxes like 1 OF X . Do not write the number X yet as you don't know how many boxes you will be shipping.
Do not pack heavy items in one box. Distribute over several. Items that may break should be packed with care.
Do not pack important things like jewellery, important documents, currencies etc in the boxes.
Do not pack flammable liquids and things that could potentially explode.

Once you know the size of your shipment, decide on whether to do LCL or FCL. FCL is good if you have more items to ship and chances of it getting mixed with other goods are minimal.

Please pack your things neatly. Once it arrives in India, local agents do not handle things well. They still carry the boxes on their back and dump it into your home.

That is pretty much about packing. Please take the help of moving company to pack expensive things like electronics or furnitures. There are various types of shipping 1) Door to Door 2) Door to port 3) Port to Port etc. Choose whichever is convenient to you. Door to Door may be the best but it costs more.

Typically a shipment from United States to India takes atleast 6-8 weeks depending on container availability. So, do not ship anything you need urgently in the container. Once the shipment arrives, your clearing agent in India will call you. You have to fill up some clearance forms and make a visit to the customs office along with your clearing agent. Don't have to worry much as the clearing agents pay bribe ( every signature costs Rs 500) to get things cleared but be prepared to pay some duty.

Happy shipping and hope for the best.

You think they filled in what you asked for ?

2008-10-23T05:30:00.000-07:00

Not really. This is an incident that happened to me twice already in a three week window. You may be wondering why Iam writing all these negative things about a city that you and I live in. It is not because Iam not able to adjust here but Iam upset about what our country is falling into. It makes me sad that we don't have human values in us any more.

It could be that we software engineers are part of this mess. We earn a lot compared to others and buy into assets that we don't really need and bump up the price of properties in Bangalore. Is it worth ?. I don't think so but why we do it ?. It is just because if we don't buy, someone else will buy it :-) . We don't care whether it is worth or there is a slum nearby or there are proper roads or clean water. It is just that if you don't buy, someone else will do it. In fact we are making the poor more poorer and they resort to things that Iam going to explain below.

This has happened to me twice already and they are targetting me again...Last week I was driving home on the inner ring road and it was raining heavily. I knew that Iam running low on gasoline and need to get to the next pump available on this road. Luckily found one and got in. I know from the previous week's experience that I need to be careful. Got down from the car, stood near the petrol pumping station and asked the attendant to fill gasoline for Rs 1000/- . Suddenly another man appeared from nowhere and asked, " cash or credit" ? . I said cash. Sir look at the meter. It is "ZERO" and he did something. Suddenly the meter jumped to Rs 200/- . I asked him why you are filling for Rs 200 when I want gasoline for Rs 1000. He replied, Oh sir, I didn't hear that and would fill in for another for Rs 800/- . I replied that you need to show me Rs 1000 on the meter. Then only Iam going to pay. He understood that I caught him and made a big noise there. So, another gentleman came and asked him to put for another 200. Hmm, strange...

This is how they cheat and make money. why do you think they cheat ?. It is because they don't have enough money to live in a city like Bangalore and raise a family. I feel pity for them. At the same time, I do not want to pay for what I didn't get. There are so many things like this going on here. My suggestion:

not sit in your vehicle and ask the attendant to pump fuel.
Get down and watch the meter carefully that it reads "0"
Do not get distracted by anything else. Concentrate on the meter. This makes them feel that you are a well aware customer and they won't get the tendency to cheat you. People are well trained to distract you with questions like card or cash, Shall I put more so that we can round off etc etc.
Pay only after they complete the job. If you are paying by card, walk with them till the swipe machine, make sure they do the job correctly. You never know what they will do with your card.
Find out if there are any self service gasoline stations. I pumped gas for 10 yrs in the US on my own and feel very disturbed to see such things. May be there are no self-serve gasoline stations here.

I found some interesting discussion in an internal mailing list. One guy explained the following. This is very technical. Since we are innovative, we produce the best results. I felt that two eyes are not enough to watch over them :-) .

This incident happened to me today at the ****** ****** Petrol station.
Please read on, I am sure you have not seen this one till now. No magic in this trick.
The pump can be manipulated with an extra master meter( meter1 below); very technical.

I took my car to 2nd pump . This one has a electronic billing meter+printer attached to it. This electronic meter has a small green-colored display that Flushes "FILLING IN"
once you start filling. I call this meter as meter1 for better explanation. I asked for Standard Petrol, Auto-cut.

The guy came and reset the meter1 pressing the clear button. Now he lift up the Nozzle and resets the meter (pressing the handle, this meter is the standard one of seven-segment type, I name it as meter2) so it resets to a zero and he proudly shows me that the meter is showing zero. Now he started asking something whether card or cash kind of. While I was answering, he put a small cloth (1/6th size of a standard napkin) under the handle (pushed for reseting) of meter2 and entered 255 in 1st meter. I did not notice that the cloth is of so importance as I thought it must be for cleaning the handle.

I asked him what he is doing and started arguing, another (good) attendant came in and rebuked existing one and removed that small cloth from handle and asked him to reset to zero. Now I know what role that small cloth was playing.He pressed the 'clear' on meter1 and started filling the tank. It got auto-cut and he pressed a button of meter1 to take the printout. It came out printed.

I told owner what happened and the owner rebuked him. I checked the bill reaching office, I see there is a reading- Nozzle: 255.

I am not sure if that's the 255 what the guy entered and I got a petrol of less Rs 255.
Because, with all these he did not pressed the handle of the meter2 to reset, only cleared the meter1 and started filling. I need to refill in the same pump once more to check what does "Nozzle:255" means.

Lady Candidates need Not apply

2008-10-22T04:58:00.000-07:00

Have Passion!

A good read...

It was probably the April of 1974. Bangalore was getting warm and gulmohars were blooming at the IISc campus. I was the only girl in my postgraduate department and was staying At the ladies' hostel. Other girls were pursuing research in different departments of Science.

I was looking forward to going abroad to complete a Doctorate in computerscience. I had been offered scholarships from Universities in the US ... I had not thought of taking up a job in India .

One day, while on the way to my hostel from our Lecture-hall complex, I saw an advertisement on the notice board. It was a standard job-requirement notice from the famous automobile company Telco (now Tata Motors).... It stated that the company required young, bright engineers, hardworking and with an excellent academic background, etc. At the bottom was a small line: 'Lady Candidates need Not apply.'

I read it and was very upset. For the first time in my life I was up against gender discrimination.
Though I was not keen on taking up the job, I saw it as a challenge. I had done extremely well i academics, better than most of my male peers... Little did I know then that in real life academic
Excellence is not enough to be successful?

After reading the notice I went fuming to my room. I decided to inform the topmost person in Telco's management about the injustice the company was perpetrating. I got a postcard and started to write, but there was a problem: I did not know who headed Telco I thought it must be one of the Tatas. I knew JRD Tata was the head of the Tata Group; I had seen his pictures in
Newspapers (actually, Sumant Moolgaokar was the company's chairman then) I took the card, addressed it to JRD and started writing. To this day I remember clearly what I wrote.
'The great Tatas have always been pioneers. They are the people who started the basic infrastructure industries in India , such as iron and steel, chemicals, textiles and locomotives they have cared for higher education in India since 1900 and they were responsible for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science. Fortunately, I study there. But I am surprised
how a company such as Telco is discriminating on the basis of gender.'

I posted the letter and forgot about it. Less than 10 days later, I received a telegram stating that I had to appear for an interview at Telco's Pune facility at the company's expense. I was taken aback by the telegram. My hostel mate told me I should use the opportunity to go to Pune free of cost and buy them the famous Pune saris for cheap! I collected Rs30 each from
everyone who wanted a sari when I look back, I feel like laughing at the reasons for my going, but back then they seemed good enough to make the trip.

It was my first visit to Pune and I immediately fell in love with the city. To this day it remains dear to me.. I feel as much at home in Pune as I do in Hubli, my hometown. The place changed my Life in so many ways. As directed, I went to Telco's Pimpri office for the interview. There were six people on the panel and I realized then that this was serious business. 'This is the girl who wrote to JRD,' I heard somebody whisper as soon as I entered the room. By then I knew for sure that I would not get the job. The realization abolished all fear from my mind, so I was
rather cool while The interview was being conducted.

Even before the interview started, I reckoned the panel was biased, so I told them, rather impolitely, 'I hope this is only a technical interview.' They were taken aback by my rudeness, and even today I am ashamed about my attitude. The panel asked me technical questions and Ianswered all of them.

Then an elderly gentleman with an affectionate voice told me, 'Do you know why we said lady candidates need not apply? The reason is that we have never employed any ladies on the shop floor. This is not a co-Ed college; this is a factory. When it comes to academics, you are a first ranker throughout. We appreciate that, but people like you should work in research laboratories.
I was a young girl from small-town Hubli. My world had been a limited place. I did not know the ways of large corporate houses and their difficulties, so I answered, 'But you must start somewhere, otherwise no woman will ever be able to work in your factories.'

Finally, after a long interview, I was told I had been successful. So this was what the future had in store for me. Never had I thought I would take up a job in Pune. I met a shy young man from Karnataka there, we became good friends and we got married. It was only after joining Telco that I realized who JRD was: the uncrowned king of Indian industry.. Now I was scared, but I did not get to meet him till I was transferred to Bombay. One day I had to show some reports to
Moolgaokar, our chairman, who we all knew as SM.. I was in his office on the first floor of Bombay House (the Tata headquarters) when, suddenly JRD walked in. That was the first time I saw 'appro JRD'. Appro means 'our' in Gujarati. This was the affectionate term by which people at Bombay House called him.

I was feeling very nervous, remembering my postcard episode. SM introduced me nicely, 'Jeh (that's what his close associates called him), this young woman is an engineer and that too a postgraduate. She is the first woman to work on the Telco shop floor.' JRD looked at me. I
was praying he would not ask me any questions about my interview (or the postcard that preceded it). Thankfully, he didn't. Instead, he remarked. 'It is nice that girls are getting into engineering in our country. By the way, what is your name?'

'When I joined Telco I was Sudha Kulkarni, Sir,' I replied. 'Now I am Sudha
Murthy.' He smiled and > kindly smile and started a discussion with SM. As for me, I almost ran out of the room.

After that I used to see JRD on and off. He was the Tata Group chairman and I was merely an engineer. There was nothing that we had in common. I was in awe of him. One day I was waiting for Murthy, my husband, to pick me up after office hours. To my surprise I saw JRD standing next to me. I did not know how to react. Yet again I started worrying about that postcard. Looking back, I realize JRD had forgotten about it. It must have been a small incident
for him, but not so for me.
>
> 'Young lady, why are you here?' he asked. 'Office time is over.' I said,
> 'Sir, I'm waiting for my husband to come and pick me up.' JRD said, 'It is
> getting dark and there's no one in the corridor.
> I'll wait with you till your husband comes..'
>
> I was quite used to waiting for Murthy, but having JRD waiting alongside
> made me extremely uncomfortable. I was nervous. Out of the corner of my eye
> I looked at him. He wore a simple white pant and shirt. He was old, yet
> his face was glowing. There wasn't any air of superiority
> about him. I was thinking, 'Look at this person. He is a chairman, a
> well-respected man in our country and he is waiting for the sake of an
> ordinary employee.'
>
> Then I saw Murthy and I rushed out. JRD called and said, 'Young lady, tell
> your husband never to make his wife wait again.' In 1982 I had to resign
> from my job at Telco. I was reluctant to go, but I really did not have
> a choice. I was coming down the steps of Bombay House after wrapping up my
> final settlement when I saw JRD coming up. He was absorbed in thought. I
> wanted to say goodbye to him, so I stopped. He saw me and paused.
>
> Gently, he said, 'So what are you doing, Mrs. Kulkarni?' (That was the way
> he always addressed me..) 'Sir, I am leaving Telco.'
>
> 'Where are you going?' he asked. 'Pune, Sir. My husband is starting a
> company called Infosys and I'm shifting to Pune.'
>
> 'Oh! And what will you do when you are successful.'
>
> 'Sir, I don't know whether we will be successful.' 'Never start with
> diffidence,' he advised me always start with confidence. When you
> are successful you must give back to society. Society gives us so much; we
> must reciprocate. Wish you all the best.'
>
> Then JRD continued walking up the stairs. I stood there for what seemed like
> a millennium. That was the last time I saw him alive.
>
> Many years later I met Ratan Tata in the same Bombay House, occupying the
> chair JRD once did. I told him of my many sweet memories of working with
> Telco. Later, he wrote to me, 'It was nice hearing about Jeh from you. The
> sad part is that he's not alive to see you today.'
>
> I consider JRD a great man because, despite being an extremely busy person,
> he valued one postcard written by a young girl seeking justice. He must have
> received thousands of letters everyday. He could have thrown mine away, but
> he didn't do that. He respected the intentions of that unknown girl, who had
> neither influence nor money, and gave her an opportunity in his company. He
> did not merely give her a job; he changed her life and mindset forever.
>
> Close to 50 per cent of the students in today's engineering colleges are
> girls. And there are women on the shop floor in many industry segments. I
> see these changes and I think of JRD. If at all time stops and asks me what
> I want from life, I would say I wish JRD were alive today to see how the
> company we started has grown. He would have enjoyed it wholeheartedly.
>
> My love and respect for the House of Tata remains undiminished by the
> passage of time. I always looked up to JRD. I saw him as a role model for
> his simplicity, his generosity, his kindness and the care he took of
> his employees. Those blue eyes always reminded me of the sky; they had the
> same vastness and magnificence.
>
> (Sudha Murthy is a widely published writer and chairperson of the Infosys
> Foundation involved in a number of social development initiatives. Infosys
> chairman Narayana Murthy is her husband.)
>
> Article sourced from: Lasting Legacies (Tata Review- Special Commemorative
> Issue 2004), brought out by the house of Tatas to commemorate the 100th
> birth anniversary of JRD
> Tata on July 29,2004.

Standing in Queue. Is that difficult ?

2008-10-22T03:40:00.001-07:00

Yes it is... Two days ago, I had been to Sukhsagar in Koramangala to get some breakfast. I didn't have the time to go inside the restaurant and order and thought of using their darshini ( mini fast food ) . As a responsible Indian citizen, I stood in line just behind the guy who was paying cash at the counter ( You need to pay before getting your food) thinking that it is my turn next. Suddenly a guy came from nowhere, jumped the line and started ordering. I told him with respect to stand in line and follow the queue. Hmm, this guy was so furious and started yelling " Queue, what Queue ?". He made a big fuss and laughed pointing me to his friends and saying this person is asking me to stand in queue. The guy at the counter never said a word to him and he gladly accepted his order. I was so furious but couldn't do anything rather than accepting what this gentlemen did. I have seen this at many places in Bangalore. They never like to stay in queue or be patiently seated until they are called. Everyone will be standing near the counter just like the flies sitting on an open jackfruit.

I feel that we are never taught the importance of being in a queue whereas if you have lived in any western countries, you will get to know what a queue really means . Does living in western countries really change people ?. Not really. Few years ago, I was on an official trip to Hyderabad office and Lufthansa lands at Beagumpet airport just before midnight. We are all tired and standing in queue for the immigration clearance and suddenly I see a family of five cutting all the lines and going straight to the immigration officer. Hmm, strange. People started shouting at them but they acted as if they never heard. An immigration officer came and clarified to the people who shouted that "it works sometimes like this here". None could say anything.

Unfortunately the queue system does not work here. If you follow rules, you will loose the game. So, do exactly as they do. If there is a queue, follow it otherwise fight.

True story about a senior/friend of mine

2008-10-16T02:51:00.001-07:00

I hope you have read my previous post on Is there anything called as unconditional love ? . If not, I suggest you read that first before reading this post :-) . In the last days of my stay in the United States, I happened to meet few senior friends of mine from Sainik School. I knew they were in California but never got a chance or make myself available so that we could meet Anyways, we met finally and had a lot to talk.

One of the complaints that I hear from the spouse of Sainik School mates is that when there is a get together, all boys go into a corner or somewhere and start chatting about their school life . They never stop and we are totally ignored :-( . It was true when we met up in California . There were no spouses to complain but it was a common friend of us ( guy ) from college of engineering who complained. He said the same thing and later he told that you guys are so attached and he was so happy about it. In Sainik school, we meet up at age of 9yrs ( very tender) and from then on we are together in everything. We wake up at 5:30 AM, go for PT, go to school, play, dine, sleep etc under the same roof and we are like a family. We don't have parents but just friends :-) They are our life...

I still remember a mom reminding me " Mone, the friendship that you have in your school days are the best and you should always treasure them". I felt she is right. Her son is one of my close friend from school and we were just like lovers in school ( Don't mistake me).

Unfortunately I didn't feel the same with the friends from Engineering College Trivandrum. I tried :-( .

Now, let's get to the real story. This was told to me at the getto we had and it is about a senior friend of mine. When at school, he used to have this peculiar problem of loosing hair from some part of his head. It was kind of advantageous for him, as in Sainik School, we are not allowed to grow long hair. It is all shaved up from behind :-) .

We were puzzled what is going on with his hair. He used to wear a special cap to cover up the loss. Years passed by and i heard few years ago that he was doing well somewhere but now I hear that he is affected by a disorder that can not be cured. I was shocked to hear this. Muscles and bones in his body shrinks and I believe it is called Muscular Atrophy . His legs and hands are like a small stick now and his organs are shrinking as well. What a bad luck for a 35 yr old man. He can not move from one place to another without external help and his mobility is completely affected. Someone has to literally lift or carry him. Unfortunately the hair loss was a sign of this disorder.

He doesn't have anyone else but just friends to take care of him. His parents doesn't want to do anything for him as they believe in superstition and thinks that it is some "Sarpa visha baadha"
He currently stays with a friend and now his batch mates got him a small scooter that disabled people can drive.

The best part is he still works with a firm and an NRI married him knowing his illness.

I couldn't believe that. Iam so happy she is giving a life for him fully knowing his abilities Let's wish him good luck and hope God prolong his life as much as he can...

Is there anything called as unconditional love ?

2008-10-16T02:39:00.000-07:00

I doubt... I think only God can love his people unconditionally. None else. That is my experience but may be Iam wrong . This story is about an American soldier planning to return home from battlefield. Read on..

This is told about a soldier who was finally coming home from the war. He called his parents from San Francisco. 'Mom and Dad, I'm coming home, but I've a favour to ask. I have a friend I'd like to bring home with me.' 'Sure,' they replied, 'we'd love to meet him.'
'There's something you should know the son continued, 'he was hurt pretty badly in the fighting. He stepped on a land mind and lost an arm and a leg. He has nowhere else to go, and I want him to come live with us.' 'I'm sorry to hear that, son. Maybe we can help him find somewhere to live.' 'No, Mom and Dad, I want him to live with us.' 'Son,' said the father, 'you don't know what you're asking. Someone with such a handicap would be a terrible burden on us. We have our own lives to live, and we can't let something like this interfere with our lives. I think you should just come home and forget about this guy. He'll find a way to live on his own.' At that point, the son hung up the phone. The parents heard nothing more from him.
A few days later, however, they received a call from the San Francisco police.
Their son had died after falling from a building, they were told.The police believed it was suicide. The grief-stricken parents flew to San Francisco and were taken to the city
morgue to identify the body of their son. They recognized him, but to their horror they also discovered something they didn't know, their son had only one arm and one leg.

The parents in this story are like many of us. We find it easy to love those who are good-looking or fun to have around, but we don't like people who inconvenience to us or make us feel uncomfortable. We would rather stay away from people who aren't as healthy, beautiful, or smart as we are. Thankfully, there's someone who won't treat us that way.
Someone who loves us with an unconditional love that welcomes us into the forever family, regardless of how messed up we are.

Tonight, before you tuck yourself in for the night, say a little prayer for the strength you need to accept people as they are, and to help us all be more understanding of those who are different from us!!! There's a miracle called Friendship that dwells in the heart. You don't know how it happens or when it gets started but you know the special lift it always brings and you realize that Friendship is a most precious gift! Friends are a very rare jewel, indeed.
They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share a word of praise, and they always want to open their hearts to us.

Oru Ummaye kurichu makan ezhuthiya katha

2008-10-16T02:29:00.000-07:00

Death of the American Dream: Indian kills family of five, self in LA

2008-10-08T04:28:00.000-07:00

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3568703.cms

This was the highlight today in Times of India published from Bangalore. It was in the front page and can catch anyone's attention . Not sure why they didn't publish something nice in the front page instead of this gruesome murder. I believe this was in the front page because it is an incident that happened in the United States of America and more over American economy is on a downward trend and the newspaper wanted to highlight this is the cause for his death.

In my opinion, It is not. It just contributed to his act. There are many Indians living in America without issues even though the economy is in bad shape. I can only say that he did not plan for his future. He played with the money and lost everything . The newspaper also says that he is a product of IIT , well educated, MBA from somewhere and blah blah blah. Does any of this matter at all ?. I doubt. He could have been a good human being.

When you are living in such a country, you got to really plan otherwise you will be in deep shit. I compare life there to a conveyor belt. If it keeps rotating without interruption, it is well and good otherwise your life will be a mess.

I feel so sorry for the children. They didn't get a chance to live. So innocent and they didn't know what their papa is into. A responsible wife could have kept a tab on his financial deals. May be she is unaware or is equally involved or may be he is controlling or may be she doesn't work and can not question the one who earns ? . Who knows ?. They only know what went wrong in their family. There is no point in discussing now but we can do some analysis and learn from it so that it doesn't happen to us.

Never play in the stock market or anywhere else with your hard earned money. What I mean by this is that you shouldn't buy stocks with money you need for buying bread. If you have excess money, go for it. Warren buffet says that he buys when others sell and he sells when others buy. So, this is the right time.
There could be situations in life where you feel like ending your life. Think that there is always a way. That is how Iam living now. Never commit suicide. I have told my wife that even if I become a beggar, I will not take my life.
In the same way, you don't have the right to take anyone else's life. You may be part of the creation process but it is God who gives the real life.
Always teach children the value of money. Do not give everything they ask for. These days, they get everything they need unlike in our times. I had to wait several months to get a pair of good leather shoes :-( .

There is more to write but I have to leave for home. The most important message I want to convey to all those who live in United States and elsewhere. " Learn to live in a hut and a bungalow". You will never do what this man did to his family.

Lastly, speaking of American economy, I read somewhere that you can buy a home in America these days ( not in CA but Detroit ) with the price of ticket you pay for flying to India. Hmm, that is the scary part of it. So, one has to be really careful.

Take Care

Are you diabetic ?

2008-10-07T22:26:00.001-07:00

May be you should try this. Read this from a mailing list . Haven't tried this myself as Iam not diabetic yet :-) . All I can say is, it is very simple and won't do any harm. Also, please remember to keep the okra in the refrigerator for next days cooking.

Please note that another name for Lady Finger (Bhindi ) is " OKRA ".

Last month in one of TV program I learnt of a treatment of Sugar (Diabetes). Since I am diabetic, I tried it and it was very useful and my Sugar is in control now. In fact I have already reduced my medicine.

Take two pieces of Lady Finger (Bhindi) and remove/cut both ends of each piece. Also put a small cut in the middle and put these two pieces in glass of water. Cover the glass and keep it at room temperature during night. Early morning, before breakfast simply remove two pieces of lady finger (bhindi) from the glass and drink that water.

Keep doing it on daily basis.

Within two weeks, you will see remarkable results in reduction of your SUGAR.

My sister has got rid of her diabetes. She was on Insulin for a few years, but after taking the lady fingers every morning for a few months, she has stopped Insulin but continues to take the lady fingers everyday. But she chops the lady fingers into fine pieces in the night, adds the water and drinks it all up the next morning. Please. try it as it will not do you any harm even if it does not do much good to you, but U have to keep taking it for a few months before U see results, as most
cases might be chronic.

The Wonders of Coconut Oil

2008-10-05T06:53:00.001-07:00


Bruce Fife, N.D. Source: http://www.americanchronicle.com September 24, 2008

If I asked you which dietary oil provides the widest range of health benefits, what would be your answer? What oil can help protect you from heart disease, improve your digestion, increase your energy level, strengthen your immune system, and enhance your over all health? If I told you the answer is coconut oil, would you be surprised? Most people are. Once mistakenly believed to be bad for the heart because of its saturated fat content, coconut oil is now known to contain a unique form of saturated fat that actually helps prevent heart attacks, stroke, and hardening of the arteries as well as provide many other health benefits. Asian and Polynesian people who rely on coconut and coconut oil as a part of their daily diet have the lowest heart disease rates in the world. Some of these people get as much as 50 percent of their total daily calories as saturated fat, primarily from coconut oil. If coconut oil caused heart disease, as some people used to believe, these islanders would have all died off centuries ago. Those populations who consume large quantities of coconut oil have remarkably good cardiovascular health. Absent are the heart attacks and strokes characteristic in Western countries where coconut oil is rarely used. What many people don't realize is that there are many different types of saturated fat, just as there are different types of polyunsaturated fat. Each has a different effect on the body. The saturated fat in coconut oil is unlike the fat found in meat or even other vegetable fats. It is identical to a special group of fats found in human breast milk called medium-chain fatty acids (MCFA) also referred to as medium-chain triglycerides (MCT). These special fatty acids have been shown to stimulate the metabolism, improve digestion, strengthen the immune system, and protect against bacterial, viral, and fungal infections as well as protect the heart and arteries from the conditions that cause heart disease. For these and other reasons, coconut oil, in one form or another, has routinely been used commercial baby formulas. One of the major differences between MCFA and other fats is the way in which they are digested and metabolized.. Most all fats in our diet whether they are saturated or unsaturated are in the form of large molecules called long-chain fatty acids (LCFA). Both vegetable oils and animal fats are composed almost entirely of long-chain fatty acids (LCFA). The medium-chain fatty acids (MCFA) in coconut are much smaller in size. The size makes a big difference. The large LCFA are digested slowly. As they are absorbed through the intestinal wall they are combined into bundles of fat and protein called lipoproteins. These lipoproteins are sent into the bloodstream to be distributed throughout the body. These are the fats that end up on artery walls and fill up fat cells. MCFA, on the other hand, are so small that they don't need pancreatic enzymes for digestion and are quickly absorbed and channeled directly to the liver rather than the bloodstream. In the liver they are used as fuel to produce energy. Therefore, they don't circulate in the bloodstream to the degree that other fats do. Consequently, they don't collect on artery walls or contribute to hardening of the arteries and don't collect in fat cells or contribute to weight gain. They are used to produce energy not arterial plaque and not body fat. The fact that the fatty acids in coconut oil are used as fuel to generate energy, rather than put into storage like other fats, provides many remarkable health benefits. The most obvious is a boost in energy. The energy boost is not like the kick you get from caffeine, it's more subtle but longer lasting. It is most noticeable as an increase in endurance. This effect is accumulative, that is, energy level increases with daily use. Studies have shown when athletes are given MCFA during training their performance and endurance improves. For this reason, coconut oil or fractionated coconut oil (also called MCT oil) is added to many sports drinks and energy bars. Nature puts MCFA in breast milk for many reasons. Its ability to be quickly digested for use as energy is an important one. This feature allows for enhanced nutrient absorption compared with other fats. Most all other fats in our diet are composed of long-chain fatty acids (LCFA).. Soybean, corn, canola, olive and other cooking oils are composed entirely of LCFA. Because of the larger size of the LCFA, they are much more difficult to digest. Infants cannot yet digest and metabolize LCFA effectively. Therefore, easily digestible MCFA are essential to a baby's survival. That is one reason why coconut oil or MCT oil is added to infant formula. MCFA are not only important to infants, but for older children and adults as well. Because it is easy to digest, coconut oil has been a lifesaver for many people. It is used medicinally in special food preparations for those who suffer digestive disorders and have trouble digesting fats. For this reason, it is also used for the treatment of malnutrition. Since it is rapidly absorbed, it can deliver quick nourishment without putting excessive strain on the digestive and enzyme systems, and helps conserve the body's energy that would normally be expended in digesting other fats. Medium-chain fatty acids also improve the absorption of many other nutrients.. The absorption of minerals (particularly calcium and magnesium), B vitamins, fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K and beta-carotene) and also amino acids have been found to increase when infants are fed a diet containing coconut oil. Patients suffering from vitamin B deficiencies have been helped simply by giving them coconut oil. The oil itself doesn't supply any B vitamins but enhances the absorption of the vitamins already in the diet. Coconut oil has also been used to enhance utilization and retention of calcium and magnesium when a deficiency of these minerals exists. This is especially true in the case of rickets, which involves a vitamin D deficiency and the demineralization of the bones. Children suffering from rickets have recovered simply by adding coconut oil to their diet. For those who are concerned about developing osteoporosis as they get older, coconut oil may also be useful in helping to slow down this degenerative process by improving mineral absorption. It's no wonder nature put MCFA in breast milk. The unique fatty acids are easy to digest, supply a source of quick energy, support thyroid function (which enhances healing and immune system function), and improves nutrient absorption. In addition, medical research indicates coconut oil may be useful in protecting against heart disease, breast and colon cancer, liver disease, kidney disease, Crohn's disease, epilepsy, candida, herpes, influenza, and numerous other infectious diseases. Fortunately, babies aren't the only ones who can benefit from MCFA. We can enjoy all of the benefits of MCFA by adding coconut oil to our diets. Dr. Bruce Fife, N.D. is the director of the Coconut Research Center and author of over 20 books including The Coconut Oil Miracle and Coconut Cures. These and other books by Dr. Fife are available at www.piccadillybooks.com. # Link to original story here.

Talks Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

2008-10-04T08:34:00.000-07:00

This is a talk that a researcher was giving on the brain. Oddly enough she was researching the brain when she herself had a stroke to the left side and describes in detail how differently the two halves of her brain processed her environment, as her stroke was occurring. Her left half was drifting in and out of function.

Six Food Mistakes Parents Make

2008-10-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here’s a look at six common mistakes parents make when feeding their children.

1. Sending Children Out of the Kitchen

It is understandable that parents don’t want children close to hot stoves, boiling water and sharp knives. But studies suggest that involving children in meal preparation is an important first step in getting them to try new foods.

2. Pressuring Them to Take a Bite

Demanding that a child eat at least one bite of everything is likely to backfire. Studies show that children react negatively when parents pressure them to eat foods, even if the pressure offers a reward.

3. Keeping “Good Stuff” Out of Reach

Parents worry that children will binge on treats, so they often put them out of sight or on a high shelf. But a large body of research shows that if a parent restricts a food, children just want it more.

4. Dieting in Front of Your Children

Kids are tuned into their parents’ eating preferences and are far more likely to try foods if they see their mother or father eating them. Parents who are trying to lose weight should be aware of how their dieting habits can influence a child’s perceptions about food and healthful eating.
5. Serving Boring Vegetables

Calorie-counting parents often serve plain steamed vegetables, so it’s no wonder children are reluctant to eat them. Nutritionists say parents shouldn’t be afraid to dress up the vegetables.

6. Giving Up Too Soon

Eating preferences often change. Parents should keep preparing a variety of healthful foods and putting them on the table, even if a child refuses to take a bite. In young children, it may take 10 or more attempts over several months to introduce a food.

Sources:

New York Times September 14, 2008

Twelve years ago someone said that I can not be a good businessman

2008-09-29T02:44:00.000-07:00

In the Engineering college days, I used to stay in a lodge at Sreekariyam . There were many folks from our college staying in the same lodge. As we didn't a home to call on our own, we ended up eating all our meals in near by restaurants. We were always cash strapped and had accounts in these hotels. Could pay up only when our dear parents send cheque at the end of every month. Such was our life in the college days.

While waiting for our hot food, I had this habit of going through the menu ( only some had it), counting the number of people in the restaurant, calculate the total capacity and come up with a rough figure on how much this hotel owner could make in a day :-) . I used to do this for most of the restaurants. Finally my friends got tired of me. They used to tell me that I have a typical achayan mentality and warned me to stop bothering them with these calculations.

Finally one day, a friend of mine commented that I can not be a good businessman at all. Hmm, all these days, I was giving you figures and hints on how to do business and now you are telling me that I can not be a good businessman. I asked him why he is saying that ?. He replied that "If I put up a store, people are going to tell you "kadam" for what they buy and you will never ask them to repay the debt". Hmm, I said "No Way". I know how to get my money back. Then he went on to say that I am not a strong person, can not negotiate and can't do crooked things involved in the business. I said "Ok Ok" as it was a straight blow on my face and we chose to discuss something else useful.

Now, you might be wondering why I wrote this incident . I kind of feel what he said was TRUE. Recently, I was trying to sell items in the united states( moving to India) and people came up with all sorts of bargain. The first person was a chinese girl who came to get monu's swing. He used to like that a lot but thought that has outgrown and won't be useful to him anymore. Also, transporting to India costs a lot of money. So, this girl started examining and came up with some funny things like , there is some dust here, scratch here etc etc. I said this swing never had any problem and the cloth is washable if at all there is some dust you see. She started conversing with her husband in chinese to get the price reduced. Girls are always like that. They want the best at a lower price. Finally I gave up and reduced the price. They paid me and took away the swing. I told them finally that if they are not happy with the swing, please bring it back and I will pay you back the money. Isn't that how good businessman operate ?.

Then a Lebanese lady came and started going around the house and picked up things she likes. She also wanted price reduced for all what she picked up. I couldn't say anything to her. She got the best deal I believe...

There were three interesting people whom I met during this whole exercise. One is a malayali couple whom I really admire. They took a number of things from me and never bargained. They perfectly knew what Iam going through. I felt guilty and told them that you need to pay only this much amount ( 200 less than the asking price) . They said "NO" and gave the cheque for the full amount immediately. Finally I accepted and they came with the truck next day.

God bless them in abundance as you said " It is in giving that you receive" .

Next was a Muslim lady from France. She works as a bar tender. A very nice person and she fell in love with my car and paid the exact asking price. She saw the car in the evening and came with a cashier's cheque in the morning. I hope she enjoy her drive and also be careful ( works in bar :-)) .

The last one was an American lady from a town called Redbluff in California. She fell in love with the dining table and told me that she never found one like that anywhere. She e-mailed me quiet a few times and was happy to know that Iam from Kerala. She is a fan of "Amma" and visits her ashram in the bay area. Found another American who loves India so much.

To conclude, I think that if I ever do some business, my clients will never go home unhappy. I will make sure they get what they want and keep coming back!!!.

Enjoy your day.

Life is too short and friends are too few

2008-09-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting story and I see this myself after having been lived in a developing/developed country. The story goes like this:

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, 'How was the trip?'

'It was great, Dad.'

'Did you see how poor people live?' the father asked.

'Oh yeah,' said the son.

'So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?' asked the father

The son answered:

'I saw that we have one dog and they had four.

We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.

We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.

Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.

We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.

We buy our food, but they grow theirs.

We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.'

The boy's father was speechless.

Then his son added, 'Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.'

Isn't perspective a wonderful thing?

Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don't have.

Appreciate every single thing you have, especially your friends!

Driving in Bangalore

2008-09-26T03:47:00.000-07:00

Driving in Bangalore nowadays is not easy for anyone who has never driven here or learned driving in a foreign country and trying to drive here now. Lack of proper directions and signals ( no google/yahoo maps) adds to the misery. There is absolutely no control on how someone drives here. They never follow lane discipline. Lanes are marked just for the heck of it. I don't know why they should waste money and labor on doing this. I have seen even educated ones driving on the center of the lane even if there is enough space to fit inside a lane. In my opinion, there should only be one lane in both the directions atleast inside the city. There should be proper exit and entry points at required spots. Atleast this way, they may learn because there is no option to overtake from left, right, center etc. Even people drive on the sidewalks these days as there is no space on the road :-( .

Signals doesn't have any meaning at all. Sometimes they do if a cop is standing with a notebook writing down the numbers of people who violate the signal. There are cameras installed on major intersections as the results of latest SUMI activities. Not sure whether it is helping at all to fine people who violate signals. In the earlier days, I use to wait for the red signal to become green to proceed. If you do this, there is a possibility that someone will bang you from behind or you may become deaf one day from the honking of the driver behind you. Sometimes you can not complain on the drivers because the signals themselves don't work. They stay RED forever :-) .

At the signals, it is a long wait too. There are hijdas posted in major intersections. Iam always scared of them and close the window on approaching a junction.

Another thing I find is that everyone here is in a rush to go somewhere. If you keep a little space between the vehicles, it will be occupied in the next second. I dunno where these people are rushing to. I happen to go to GK Vale one day to get a picture done. It was urgent and the shop opens sharp 10 AM. You go there at 10 AM, I find only the security and the receptionist . None else. The man operating the unit that process pictures only arrives at 11:30 AM. Then it takes 45 mins to warm up the machine . Strange. What is the fun in opening the store at 10 AM ?.

Also, one can drive in any fashion they like in Bangalore. You may not get hit as others will be watching you. Just keep going... A drive of 8M takes an hour or more in usual morning hrs . This is the maximum speed. So, always go ahead of time otherwise you will be late to your meetings and your counterparts in the western countries are going to get upset with you.

Now, Can someone tell me why people don't follow any rules here ?. Rules are just meant to remain in the books. I feel it is because there is no incentive given to one who follow rules. It is high time they think about this. Our children are learning by looking at how we do things. They are watching they will not make a mistake and do exactly what you did.

Beware of Phishing e-mails.

2008-09-24T00:16:00.000-07:00

There are a number phishing e-mails these days send out from locations like Nigeria . They are targeting people who do regular netbanking. RBI has recently published warnings on all major news papers about this scam. These e-mails look as if they are send from your bank and look like the one shown in the pic. Never click on such links and provide any information being asked. Even if you have something to be changed, it may be worth walking to the bank or calling the customer service on phone. Also, watch out for any URLs that are not secure. You will see "https" in the protocol field for any secure transaction. Alternatively check the right hand bottom of your browser for a lock box icon.

What happens if you provide the information being asked ?

All the money in your account will be transferred to an unknown account using third party transfer. Your password will be changed and all alerts from it will get blocked.

What to do if you unknowingly clicked ?

Inform the bank as soon as possible.

Read more on it : http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/2978899.cms

Isn't it better to marry a female GOI employee ?

2008-09-22T02:02:00.000-07:00

Recently I came across an interesting article in Times of India which leads me to believe that parents of prospective grooms will now be now looking for a high paid female GOI (Govt of India) employee . NRIs and Software engineers are going to see their market value going down. Markets for NRIs are already down as many andhraites are no longer looking for NRI grooms :-( .

The article said " Govt of India increased maternity leave for its employees to six months and also has given clearance of paid leave for two years to take care of children" The beauty of this scheme is that the two years leave can be taken anytime before the child reaches 18 yrs of age. Isn't this fabulous ?. The next point is that they can not be penalized in seniority during the time of absence from work. Iam sure your unmarried friends are not going to be very happy with this rule.

This benefit I feel is really stupid. I do support the 6 month maternity leave but two yrs paid leave is too much to bear. Also, what is the incentive for the MEN ?. Are we talking about gender equality here ? . One thing I can see is, this incentive might indirectly reduce the number of female infanticides going on in the country.

Read more on this : http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200809170201.htm

Anjali is sad and need advice

2008-09-19T01:58:00.001-07:00

Back In Bangalore, I got an opportunity to speak to my friend Anjali. I know Anjali for few years now and her life is plagued with a myriad of problems. She is bit sad and depressed with what is going on in her life. The first problem being a "LOVE AFFAIR" that she is into. Anjali and her BF don't have any issues but her parents and siblings are hell bent on preventing them from getting married. I guess the boy is ok and his side too. As far as I know, they both belong to the same religion but has some difference in the caste. Also the boy is younger to Anjali. You may wonder whether this is an issue in India still ?. A country boasting about economic progress, unity in diversity, cultural heritage, blah blah still hold on to the caste system ?. Yep. They do. Regarding age, my CEO married a girl 36 yrs younger to him. Don't they live happily ?. Indian parents might be thinking how can a man be younger to his wife ?. Won't he become inferior or will he have power to control her ? .Hmm..

Anjali has tried her best to convince the parents that Mr. XYZ is the man that she wants to marry but her family doesn't think the same way. She tried out everything possible except running away or going to a register office. I tried to give her some advice . She shot some of them down.

I said if you have tried every ammunition available at your disposal, friendly discussions etc, next best thing to do is to go to a register office, get married, move to a different city and live . Never hate your parents, Keep in touch with them, After some years they may understand you and invite you both back to their home. Haven't you heard some one saying. listen to experienced people ?

She replied that she will never do that. I love my parents and I can not do what you say. I asked her back, do you know if they love you ?. If so, why not they accept the man you like ?. She says "caste and age ". My BP went high on hearing that reply and I knew she is never going to accept my proposal.

Anjali may land into other issues if she choose to go her way. What if the man who marry her divorce her ?. What if a new fresh set of issues come into their life which they have anticipated. If the parents come to know, won't they blame her ?

The next suggestion from me was to leave everything the way it is and see if time can change things. Anjali replied that she will get older and can not have kids etc etc and the boy can not wait either. Hmm, tough. I said in America, they think about getting married either when they are 12-15 yrs old or when they cross 40. They think about children at age of 45. May be Indian women can not think of all those but it is still doable. There is a lady from my home town ( muvattupuzha) who had a baby( IVF) at 60+ yrs old.

Then we went on to explore whether Anjali can forget him and marry someone else.
Anjali said she can never do that. Can he marry someone else so that you know he is gone and something may workout that way ?. She replied, she doesn't know. Their parents are searching. I asked if she did ask him and then she says, Yes and he also has the same answer as mine. Hmm, they are in deep love and not ready for any alternative.

We continued our discussion further and I could understand that following are the thoughts in her mind:

She will not disobey her parents
She will not do register marriage or run away from home
She wants blessings from her parents for the marriage
She wants a social marriage
She will not marry anyone else other than him

Isn't this tough one to solve ?. I could have fixed a bug in the application code much faster than fixing her life. I didn't loose patience. Continued on... I gave her the final suggestion to stay single as long as you can. Staying single is not a bad idea at all but will you feel safe ?. India is not a country where a single women, a divorcee or a window can afford to stay single. Not because of the money. Safety is the main concern. Your neighbors ( will keep telling others that u r single) , people on the street etc can harass you. So, why don't you considering moving to a country like United States. In my opnion, that is the best country for such people. None will bother you. You earn good salary and you do what you want... She doesn't like United States.

Why don't you move over to Singapore if being close to home makes you feel better. Anjali decided that for now, she is not going anywhere. So, Anjali will live in Bangalore for now. Then we discussed what other issues that Anjali may encounter beside safety ?.

People will go around you telling you failed in love and is staying single . May be if a man comes to know, he will not give you the first vote because of their inability to understand that you are the BEST.
Your friends and colleagues will get married. You may not be able to tolerate that and becomes sad. You may choose not to attend but how long will you keep ignoring ?. India being a well knit society, people invite friends, neighbors, people on the street etc for marriage these days. Larger the number, merrier the marriage.
You will see couples holding hands and walking on the street.
Once they are married, after few months pass, friends will send you pictures of their babies . Won't you get sad ?

Lot of issues to deal with. I finally told Anjali to build a good friends circle. You should be very careful when you choose friends. The ideal friends may be ones who are like you and staying single, divorced, widows or people who have lots of problems in life and need help. You should be able to trust them and they should be willing to love you no matter what you are. it is tough. One of my friend was recently telling that people here discriminate even based on the car , mobile, place where you live etc.

Finally, You may not be able to have a child on your own ( there are many in the orphanages if you care) . Never forget that you have a life that God gave you . Enjoy every moment with what you have and don't keep worrying about what you don't have...

Finally, what can Anjali do. Any thoughts ?

Waiting on a Friend for Lunch...

2008-09-04T03:50:00.000-07:00

I learned something new today while waiting on a friend for lunch. Ordered a grilled veggie sandwich ( Rs 10 and Nice) and went over to the back of the canteen to grab a seat. People here typically start their lunch at 1 or 2 PM. Hmm, that is too late for me comparing the 12 PM lunch time in the US.

My sandwich was ready in no time and I was sitting there waiting for my friend to show up. From the corner I could see him talking to someone on the cell and thought, may be another customer call is in progress. I couldn't resist the hunger and moreover couldn't stand other people having their lunch. After sometime he showed up with his food and explained to me what he was doing on the phone.

He said that he was getting calls from relatives and friends wishing him on the festival. I was curious. What festival is it ?. Ganesha festival ?. Wasn't it yesterday ?. No. This festival is different from others he said. On this day, we forgive others and ask for forgiveness from whom we have sinned against. Hmm.... Interesting, I told him. I went further to ask him whether it is possible at all to practice this in this world ?. He said, that is what his religion teaches and he tries his best. I did not leave him and asked him the next question. So, how do you say you forgive them ?. Is it like " I forgive you for what sin you have done against me ". Does people listen at all ?. He shook his head...

Isn't it interesting ?. How many of us can forgive people who troubled us and has the mindset to call them and say " I apologize" or I have forgiven your sins ?. Good if we could practice it.

I chose to leave things at that and we continued our lunch... :-)

Something Interesting I read today!!

2008-08-27T04:22:00.001-07:00

Every Morning in Africa a deer wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every Morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest deer or it will starve to death.

SO

It doesn't matter if you are a lion or a deer. when the sun comes up, you'd better be running!!!!!

Good Morning Bangalore!

2008-08-26T03:17:00.000-07:00

Wondering how a typical day starts in Bangalore ?. Read on... Following is what I found so far in the little street that I live in. This may not be applicable in other steets of Bangalore.

People wake up early in the morning.
If you are surrounded by Hindu or Brahmin families, you can hear them chanting mantras and the bells ringing to wake up their God. This may not be soothing to the ears of the youth these days. One of my neighbor switched on a loud volume of rock music to counter it.
Walk out of the door, you will see maids running around trying to finish up their job. They start their work with washing the front porch of the home and put "kolam" in front of the house. These maids work in different houses and make 300-500 Rs per month for an hour worth of work. One such comes to my house as well. She knocks the door exactly at 6 AM :-( .
You can then see the security guards from the apartment building washing the cars. You can get your car washed for as low as 10 Rs a Day. They finish washing the car in one bucket of water. Never seen such a thing anywhere else.
You can see the elders in the family going for morning walk. Most of them have a stick in hand to turn away the stray dogs in the street.
You can also see milkman and newspaper boys delivering to the homes. They have progressed and no longer use bicycles ( not health conscious) but motorized vehicles . They haven't yet progressed to the US style of delivering news papers from cars. No worry, Tata's Nano car is coming.
Then comes the children going to school. All in uniforms unlike in the United States. They have a heavy backpack as if they are going for some trekking or something. Some do carry their younger ones also along.

Last but not the least, you will see caring spouses along with children see of their husbands off to work which is a rare sight in the United States :-( .

Today I found a Malayali girl ( Engineering Student) wearing the dress code for engineering lab ( Blue shirt and a blue trouser) driving a Honda City and zoooooooming off to college. Hmm, I found it hard to convince my father to get me a two wheeler during my engineering college days. Sriram's TVS was the only option. :-)

Life lessons from Michael Phelps

2008-08-20T02:59:00.000-07:00

Rediif Article

At 23, Michael Fred Phelps has become an international sporting sensation.

The young American swimmer has smashed seven world records and won eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics , the first athlete ever to secure first place so many times at a single Olympics Games. Given his success, it's easy to slot Phelps into the 'born achievers' category -- at 23, he's established a glorious career doing what he loves best, he's a millionaire, a world record-holder and the pride of his nation.

But hold on a minute -- is Michael Phelps really a born achiever?

He may beg to differ. At the age of seven Phelps, the youngest of three children, was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. For those not familiar with the condition, ADHD is a childhood condition characterised by constant activity, impulsive behaviour and the inability to focus one's attention on anything for a short span of time. ADHD is treated with therapy and medication, but is not classified as curable -- as per information on the website WebMd.com, about 60 percent of afflicted kids carry the condition into adulthood.

To help release his pent-up energy and to emulate his older sisters who were also accomplished swimmers, Phelps took up swimming, starting to outshine his peers right from the start.

At the age of nine, Michael's parents divorced. His mother brought up all three children single-handedly, encouraging them to follow their dreams at all costs -- one middle-school teacher even told Michael's mother he would never be a success.But successful Phelps is, and how.

Yes, there are the occasional set-backs. Like the time back in 2004 when Phelps, then 19, was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. He was under the legal drinking age limit of 21 in any case and to top it he was driving in an inebriated state. A repentant Phelps pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months probation, saying in court, "I recognise the seriousness of this mistake. I've learned from this mistake and will continue learning from this mistake for the rest of my life." So who is Michael Phelps? He was a regular kid who struggled with an irregular condition and the divorce of his parents. He's young, he excels at what he does and like the rest of us, slips up once in a while.

And what life lessons do his struggles and successes hold for us?

Deal with your own issues effectively -- Michael certainly dealt with ADHD and his parents' divorce that way. His mother helped him cope up with his condition and channeled his energy into what he loved.

Cut out the drama -- Michael's story is inspirational but at the same time, neither the young man nor his family have exploited their experiences to sensationalise his life. They've told it like it is.

Zero in on your strengths and overcome your weaknesses -- He was less than an average student at school, but Michael was a passionate and dedicated student of his sport. The young swimmer is known to have studied tapes of his races over and over, zeroing in on mistakes and working towards bettering himself constantly. Excellent is still not good enough.

Remain focused on your goals -- At the Athens Olympics back in 2004, Phelps was beaten by teammate Ian Crocker beat in the 100m butterfly. He put up a poster of Crocker in his room to motivate him and keeps a list of his career goals beside his bed.

Pursue what you love with passion and put in a genuine effort -- Phelps' dedication to swimming was apparent back when he was nine and began to break national records in his age group. His commitment to what he does has grown with him. It's not just his career and his unbelievable performance at the Olympics that classify Phelps as a winner -- it's his story of inspiration that makes him a real champion, a youth icon, somebody to look up to.

Have you heard of Commander Selvam ?

2008-08-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

He does not belong to the military of any country but claims himself as a real messenger of God. You might be familiar with this man if you have closely followed the advertisements in the free Indian magazines that are placed in the grocery stores. He can resolve any problems you may have
right from marriage issues to any severe ailments. See, how he does these magic from the following videos:

The I-Team: The Swami, Part 1
The I-Team: The Swami, Part 2
Yanthra, Thanthra and Manthra

What to do after an auto-accident ?

2008-08-13T10:46:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was traveling with a friend of mine in her car and suddenly heard a loud bang on the car from behind. Both of us were wearing seat belts but with the impact, we were thrown forward. I was wondering what happened and we see a Taxi car behind. He hit us so hard. I have observed that the taxi drivers in the United States drive so fast. Not sure why ?. I guess they have to make their livelihood and wants more business. Anyways, the driver who hit us was a gentleman. He came out of the car and said Sorry and was ready to share his insurance and drivers license information. What a gentleman ? . He accepted his fault, promptly shared his information and was willing to help. We never had seconds thoughts and didn't bother to check the validity of his insurance and moreover we were so confident that we never bothered to take a picture or bother to call police. we then left the scene and my friend reported the accident to her insurance.

Few days later, she gets a call from her insurance saying that they are not able to locate the actual person who was driving the car. They got hold of the person who owns the car but he doesn't want to own responsibility. He says that he doesn't know which driver drove his car that day. Strange isn't it ? . Yeah, in the United States, you can always choose to remain quiet and you are not guilty until proven. Tough job. The car remains in the same state and her husband says " It is her fault since she didn't note down required information" . True but who will think at that moment a gentleman like him would lie ?.

So, be careful. Farmer's insurance says that you should do the following:

Auto Accidents are unexpected and stressful. Even the most careful drivers may be involved.

Prepare the trunk of your car for a possible accident as well by making sure you have a set of cones, warning triangles or emergency flares. Make sure you also have:

A pen
A card with relevant medical information for you and your family.

What to do after an auto accident:

Stay as calm as possible.
Check for injuries. Life and health are more important than damage to vehicles. When in doubt, call an ambulance.
If the accident is minor and there are no serious injuries, move cars to a safe place, rather than risk being in moving traffic.
Turn on hazard lights. If warranted, and possible, use cones, warning triangles or flares for safety.
Call the police, even if the accident is minor.
Notify your insurance agent about the accident immediately.
Don't sign any document unless it is for the police or insurance agent
Make immediate notes about the accident including the specific damages to all vehicles involved. If the name on the auto registration and/or insurance policy is different from the name of the driver, establish the relationship and jot it down. Get witness information, if possible, as well.
Be polite, but don't tell the other drivers or the police that the accident was your fault, even if you think it was. Likewise, do not accuse the other drivers of being at fault at this time. Everyone is usually shaken up immediately after an accident, and it is wise to state only the facts. Limit your discussion of the accident to the insurance agent and the police. Even if the facts are embarrassing or detrimental to you, be truthful.
If you have a camera handy, and it is safe to do so, it may be helpful to photograph the accident scene.
If possible, do not leave the accident scene before the police officers and other drivers do.
Finally, remember that while getting the facts is very important, investigating the accident should be left to the police officers and the insurance companies.

AND

Don't call your husband and wait for him to tell what you should do :-)

If you are in India, you may not have to follow these rules. You take insurance in India to fix your car yourself if others hit you :-) . They are free to hit anytime and it never gets into any record.

Trust your instincts always...

2008-08-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

Read this story from a mom who proves the point that your doctor is not always the GOD. There are some instincts as parents we get and do believe in it.

On another note, recently I was closing on a home loan and the damn paper they send me never wants to print in the portrait mode. Every time I print, it goes the landscape way. Finally I got tired, got it notarized and send by overnight Fedex to Florida. The next day, I got an e-mail saying " Legal documents can not be accepted if printed in a Landscape format and you need to redo the whole thing ". Hmmm, actually I had an instinct that they may not accept it but still I went ahead thus loosing close to 50 dollars :-( . If you don't act on your instinct, you could loose more.

Here is the story:

This is a scary story, a cautionary tale.

It's the kind of story that, a year ago, I would have turned away from because, after all, what did a story about a sick baby have to do with me?

When Zach was born, he was perfect. His Apgars were 9.9. He was 7 pounds, 4 ounces and 21 inches long. He had fine blond hair and those murky blue infant eyes that look like the bottom of the ocean. He breastfed easily, and he grew. He did all the things he was supposed to do, at all the right times. He smiled at 7 weeks. Rolled over at 12.

When we visited Zach's pediatrician for his once-a-month well-baby visit, her favorite word, when asked any question, was normal. She'd say it in a singsong voice. It became a joke between my husband and me. Normal, normal, normal, David and I would sing as we left her office.

I can pinpoint the day we stopped singing normal so happily: It was a weekend afternoon in early fall. We were sitting at the kitchen table, interviewing a babysitter, and I had Zach, then 6 months old, in my arms. Suddenly he flung his arms up, and his eyes rolled back slightly. It looked like something I had read about in the baby books, the "Moro reflex" common in many infants, except that he repeated the gesture a half-dozen times. Something rumbled in my gut. I called the pediatrician the next day.

"He did something strange," I said, describing the incident.

Normal, she said. Absolutely normal. She sounded rushed. But when I got off the phone, I felt relieved. That was exactly what I'd wanted to hear. She was a top-notch pediatrician, a graduate of one of the best medical schools in the country. She was affiliated with one of the top hospitals in our city and had a burgeoning practice. If she wasn't worried about what I had described to her, why should I be?

But the little gestures continued. Not every few hours, not even every day, but once in a while. The jerk of the arms upward. The slight roll of the eyes. And although I didn't notice it at the time, Zach was slowing down a bit. He had stopped rolling over as much, and he seemed nowhere near ready to sit up by himself. But these are not the kinds of things that necessarily worry you as a parent. They happen slowly, incrementally. You think, My baby is tired. He's mastered that skill, so he's not doing it anymore. He's a chubby baby -- maybe that's why he isn't sitting up.

A week went by. I had a sick feeling whenever I thought about the expression on Zach's face when these incidents would happen. I called the doctor again. This time, when she called me back and heard that I was again reporting the same thing, her voice developed an edge, so slight that I thought I might be imagining it.

"I'm really not worried about this," she said. "Look. If he's still doing it when he's eight months, we'll check into it."

The incidents became more frequent. Every day now. In the morning, on the changing table, he would fling his arms up 10, 20 times. David and I talked about it often. We tried to figure it out. Maybe it was a delayed Moro reflex. It seemed to happen when he was tired. Babies have immature nervous systems, we'd say. We comforted ourselves and attempted to think of answers.

And then one morning, on the changing table, it happened more intensely than ever before, and I shouted to David to grab the video camera. He ran and got it and began to film Zach as his arms raised themselves in a jerky motion and his eyes fluttered backward. I called the doctor, my heart pounding. I made up an excuse because I believed she wouldn't make time to see us for this thing I had already called her about twice in the past two weeks, something that she -- without examining our baby or asking a single question -- had already dismissed. I said that I wanted to bring Zach in because he was running a fever and had a cough. She couldn't very well say no to that.

We walked into the doctor's office armed with our camcorder. She was young, with a frenzied manner; each time we had seen her since Zach's birth, she had walked into the office and quickly glanced down at the open chart to see who we were and what our baby's name was. There was no sense of memory or connection. I had noticed this but had attributed it to managed care and a busy practice.

"What's this?" she asked, eyeing the camcorder and our baby.

"We've videotaped those gestures," I said, my voice shaking. I wasn't even sure whether she remembered what I was talking about. "I want you to see it for yourself."

David turned on the camera, and he and the doctor squinted at the digital film of our baby on the small screen attached.

"That's what you mean?" she asked, pointing. "I really think that's nothing."

Something in me snapped. Now I should say here that I am not a particularly forceful person. I tend to apologize for being in the way if someone pushes past me on the street. I am shy and soft-spoken. I blush easily and have been known to stammer. But at that moment, I stood up in the doctor's office and said, "I'm not leaving here until you call a neurologist. I want Zach to be seen by a neurologist. Today."

To this day I don't know what possessed me. I suppose it was a kind of mother's instinct. I'm not sure I had ever believed in it before, that old adage that mothers simply know.

"I'll see what I can do," she said with a sigh. I suppose it was the videotape that did it. In this age of malpractice paranoia, she couldn't afford to take the chance that something was in fact wrong, because now we were armed with proof. So David and I waited in her office for a half hour. The whole time, he held me and I wept. It was as if I already knew that something awful was happening.

We were given an appointment with a pediatric neurologist for that afternoon. There's nothing like a hysterical mother in a pediatrician's waiting room to make things happen. She wanted to get rid of me -- and fast. We had a few hours to kill, so we walked to Gymboree and bought Zach some onesies, socks, and a fleece outfit for the winter. A week before, I had been a normal mother of a normal child who would shop for infant clothes or take my baby to the playground with the sense that all was right with the world. But now I found myself in a fog. Socks seemed poignant. The onesies made me want to cry. I started bargaining with God. Please, let it be nothing. Let there be some logical explanation, I silently pleaded.

The moment I saw the pediatric neurologist -- a man in his 50s with salt-and-pepper hair and thick glasses -- poke his head around the corner and motion us into his office, I knew we were in good hands. "Let's take a look at him," he said, laying Zach down on the examining table. And whenever in my life, whatever moment in the future I wonder whether there's a God, I will think back to this: Zach, who had been having these episodes once or twice a day, had an episode right there on the neurologist's table. I watched the doctor's kind face, his eyes, and whatever glimmer of hope I'd held on to that this would be nothing faded away.

"We're going to do an EEG this evening," he said, calling in his nurse, arranging for a technician to come into the office after-hours.

There is a transparent veil that separates the healthy from the sick, the good life from the one that goes suddenly and terribly wrong. In any given second, that veil can open up and swallow you. Of course, most of us never think about this, because if we did, we wouldn't get out of bed. My little family and I went through that veil, like Alice through the looking glass, on that brisk fall evening.

After Zach was taken in for his EEG, a long time went by before the doctor called us back into his office. He wasn't smiling. He pulled his chair around to the front of his desk so that he was sitting near us.

"Well, we've got our answer. And it isn't the one we'd hoped for," he said. And then he gave us the diagnosis: infantile spasms (I.S.). Something we'd never heard of, a rare seizure disorder that affects about seven out of a million babies. The statistics were impossible to comprehend. When you find yourself on the wrong side of a statistic like that, the whole world does a spin around the moon. Gravity shifts.

"What does this mean?" asked David. I was holding Zach. His hair was greasy from the goo they use to conduct the electricity for the EEG. He was sleeping, and he looked peaceful.

"We don't know," answered the doctor. "We know very little about this condition."

"What's the worst-case scenario?" asked David.

"Brain damage," said the doctor.

David's face seemed to disintegrate, caving in with terror and grief.

The doctor immediately turned to treatment options. There were basically two: His first choice was Vigabatrin, a drug that had not been approved by the FDA, even though it showed quite a bit of success in stopping the seizures. The doctor recommended Vigabatrin as the first line of attack because the only other option, a steroid given by injection three times a day, was a far worse choice. He described it to us as sheer hell for the parents.

Before we even knew what was happening, his nurse was on the phone to a pharmacy in Canada, which would send us the drug by Federal Express within a couple of days. In the meantime, the nurse had also called another family in our city who had a child on Vigabatrin. The parents agreed to lend us some, and we said we'd drive by to pick it up in an hour. We pulled up to their building, one I had passed a hundred times before, and David took the elevator up to their floor, where a woman met him at the door with an envelope containing a week's worth of the drug.

That night, Zach started taking the Vigabatrin, which was a powder we sprinkled on his food. Within two days, his seizures were almost entirely gone. Within a week, they had ceased completely.

We went online and tried to find out everything we could about infantile spasms. There have been few studies on I.S., none in this country. The most comprehensive studies were in Finland and Norway. The information was bleak.

Nearly all babies with I.S. are diagnosed between 6 months and a year. The condition itself is finite -- it goes away as suddenly as it came, provided that there's no underlying cause. But the seizures themselves cause grave problems presumably because the resulting electrical activity damages the developing infant brain. The stories I read on the web were of babies who weren't walking or talking by age 2. Who were blind or deaf. Almost all were mentally impaired. Ninety percent of infants with I.S. suffer some sort of developmental damage, ranging from mild retardation to a complete physical breakdown.

Every night I sat at the computer, willing the Internet to give me different, more hopeful information. I could not find one single story of a complete recovery. The most I could find out was that early diagnosis -- along with a quick response to the medication -- is the best indicator of recovery. The sooner the disorder is caught, the more likely the seizures will not have accrued to the point where they're injuring the brain.

A few days into this, it occurred to me that Zach's pediatrician had never called. No phone call to see how he was doing. No phone call of commiseration, just simply to say that she was thinking of us. This was a doctor who had examined him on the day he was born and who had seen him probably ten times since then. And she just simply vanished. I suppose she was afraid we might be angry with her. I suppose she was afraid we would sue.

As I write this, it's six months later, Zach has just turned 1, and I am a believer in miracles. Zach has been seizure-free since going on the Vigabatrin. He is crawling, pulling up, cruising, and saying "Dada" and "Mama"; he's a smiling, perfect handful of a baby boy. He is still on the medicine, which we give him five times a day, but he will be weaned off it slowly, starting soon.

His neurologist has called this a "save." He believes that Zach is going to be one of the rare lucky ones. All underlying causes have been ruled out. Zach has had an MRI and a huge amount of blood work done. There is simply nothing wrong with him. We will never know why he got infantile spasms. There are theories ranging from the DPT vaccination to pesticides to something congenital. The truth is, nobody knows.

There are a lot of factors that have to do with Zach's recovery -- and even as I think "recovery," I catch my breath. It will probably be years before I am truly able to rejoin the world of "normal mothers." Will I ever sit on a park bench next to other mothers, watching our children play in the sandbox, and feel that I am one of them? I don't know. I certainly hope so. But there will probably always be a part of me that will shiver over Zach.

He was responsive to the medicine, which was a piece of luck. And apparently we caught it early. But when I think of those two weeks when I was calling his pediatrician and listening to her dismiss my concerns -- clearly she thought I was a hysterical mother, that all mothers are hysterical mothers -- I am filled with rage. On the one hand, this is a rare condition, and it's understandable that she would have deemed it unlikely that a baby in her practice would have I.S. After all, the odds are about seven in a million.

But on the other hand, Zach's symptoms -- slightly slowed development, the seizures themselves at precisely the right age for the onset -- should never have been dismissed. And she dismissed them. With a wave of the hand, she nearly relegated my son to a life of pain and profound difficulty. If I saw her on the street, I don't know what I would do.

So I am doing what I can by telling my story. Trust your instincts. If you believe something is wrong with your child, get it checked out. Don't be polite. Make a fuss. Do whatever you need to do to be heard. Doctors do not like to make referrals. It isn't good for their standing with their HMOs. I can only put it this plainly: If I had listened to my doctor, if I had waited until Zach was 8 months old before looking deeper into his condition, he most likely would be braindamaged. This beautiful, curious, intelligent little boy would have had his life forever compromised.

I was raised to be a good girl, to be polite and accommodating, especially to authority figures like doctors. But of all the things I have ever done in my life, the thing of which I am most proud is standing in the middle of that doctor's waiting room with tears streaming down my face, demanding that my baby be seen by a specialist. I may have looked like a lunatic. I may have appeared to be hysterical. But on that day, I saved my baby's life.

I couldn't resist....

2008-07-30T23:09:00.000-07:00

After a 9 - 10 PM meeting, I need a song like this to sleep....:-) .Song for my Nipun Kutty and Usha .

ariyathe ariyathe ennile ennil nee ennile ennil nee kavithayaay vannu thulumpi anubhoothi dhanyamam shadwuala bhoomiyil navaneetha chandrika pongi
ariyathe ariyathe ennile ennil nee ennile ennil nee kavithayaay vannu thulumpi

ozhukivannathununna kattinte chundukal maduram vilambunna yaamam ozhukivannathununna kattinte chundukal maduram vilambunna yaamam oru mulam kaadinte romaharshangalil
pranayam thudikkunna yaamam pranayam thudikkunna yaamam
ariyathe ariyathe ennile ennil nee ennile ennil nee kavithayaay vannu thulumpi padachalanangalil parirambanangalil paade marnnu njan ninnu padachalanangalil parirambanangalil paade marnnu njan ninnu azhakardramayithu gopura seemakal aashakal thaane thurannu ashaakal thaane thurannu ariyathe ariyathe ennile ennil nee ennile ennil nee kavithayaay vannu thulumpi anubhoothi dhanyamam shadwuala bhoomiyil navaneetha chandrika pongi ariyathe ariyathe ennile ennil nee ennile ennil nee kavithaay vannu t

Time to enjoy a beautiful song

2008-07-30T20:55:00.000-07:00

Ennu varum nee ennu varum nee
Ente nila panthalil veruthe ente kina panthalil
Veruthe kanan veruthe irikkan veruthe veruthe chirikkan
Thammil veruthe veruthe mindan

Neeyillenkil nee varillenkil enthinen karalin sneham
Veruthe enthinen nenchil moham
Manamayi neeyen manasilillathe
Enthinu poovin chantham enthinu ravin chantham
(ennuvarum)
Ormmayilennum omanippoo njan
Thammil kanda nimisham
Nammal aadyam kanda nimisham
Oro nokkilum oro vakkilum ardham thonniya nimisham
Aayiram ardham thonniya nimisham
(ennuvarum)

What does your doctor test ?

2008-07-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

From:

http://healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=617832

About your Lab Test

http://www.labtestsonline.org/

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FRIDAY, July 25 (HealthDay News) -- For many Americans, the meanings of various lab tests have long been the Bermuda Triangle of health care: poorly explained and often mysterious.

Enter a nonprofit Web site from the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) called Lab Tests Online. It offers patients easy access to detailed but consumer-friendly information on lab work and test results.

"Traditional lab medicine has been an invisible component of health care," observed George Linzer, executive producer of the Web site. "It's just like when you turn the light on: You really don't know all that's transpiring between that action and the light turning on in your room. Similarly, we go to our doctors, and they take our blood, and we get results back -- but often without much of an explanation from the physician or nurse or even the lab itself about what's just happened. We don't understand the process."

"But now we're in a culture where the consumer is really taking more responsibility for their care," added Linzer. "So, this Web site does just one thing: It focuses exclusively on providing up-to-date, evidence-based information on lab tests that's been vetted by representatives from just about every major lab organization in the country. No other Web site does that."

If numbers are any indication, the public education effort -- supported by 19 of the leading lab organizations in the United States and Canada -- has been a notable success. The site routinely experiences more than 1 million hits per month, and, by this fall, a total of 50 million visitors will be expected to have logged on for a free crash course on what a blood and fluid work-up really means.

On the home page, users can seek out information on the why, when and how of about 250 of the most common lab tests; scroll through lay-term language explanations of a range of conditions and diseases; and review outlines for general screening protocols and recommendations according to patient age. The site also offers the latest news regarding lab test innovations.

In addition to providing links to other mostly governmental and non-commercial sites, patients can also pose specific questions to a volunteer staff of lab scientists -- getting a response within 24 to 72 hours.

The site's popularity has led the AACC to establish other sites around the world. Currently, local versions are active in the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Poland. Future sites are in development for Greece, the Czech Republic and Portugal.

"Our experience is that regardless of where people are and what medical system they encounter, they want more information than simply a doctor telling them 'We need to do such and such tests' or 'Your tests are normal,' " explained Dr. D. Robert Dufour, an emeritus professor of pathology at George Washington University Medical Center and the Web site's international liaison editor.

"And we get a lot of comments from users who say they're not getting enough time with their doctor to discuss the issue," he added. "So, they're anxious while waiting for their results and anxious when they get them. And this site helps to relieve some of that anxiety, by telling people what certain tests are used for, when they're ordered, factors that might affect interpretation, what results mean and, more importantly, what they don't mean."

Dufour noted that although the site is written for the lay public in mind, they've found that one-quarter to one-third of users are, in fact, health-care professionals.

"And we actually have a lot of doctors who are referring patients to the site," noted Linzer. "And as a consequence, we've gotten comments back from patients that now that they have this information, they are able to go and talk more intelligently to their doctors. So, we think, in the end, that this is a site that both patients and doctors have come to appreciate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What does your doctor test, Find out: http://www.labtestsonline.org/

One-to-One Aides. When you need it ?

2008-07-27T18:36:00.000-07:00

One-to-One Aides
By Wayne Steedman, Esq.

A somewhat commonly requested service for a child with disabilities is a "one-to-one aide." Parents who request this service are often times frustrated by the school system's response. Even when a school system agrees to the parents' request, parents may nevertheless find themselves less than satisfied with the results. Therefore, it is important for parents to be clear about exactly what they want for their child, how to get it, and what they expect the outcome to be.

Defining the Term "One-to-One Aide."

As the old saying goes, it is never safe to assume. This warning applies equally to making assumptions about what constitutes a one-to-one aide. It is important to clarify whether the child needs a single individual assigned to him or her throughout the day, or whether the child could be successful with several individuals who rotate through. If the child's IEP does not specify a single individual dedicated to working with the child, the result could be any one of a number of combinations. Clarify also in what settings the aide will be needed. That is, does the child need the aide throughout the course of the day, or are there only specific classes or times in which the aide is needed? The classroom teacher must also be informed of the aide's assignment and not "pull" the aide from the assigned child to work with another child or group. The child may only need the aide for transitions (class change, etc.), in which case the issue of ensuring that the child does not miss class time while waiting for the aide to arrive must be addressed. It is doubtful that a school would hire an aide only for transitions. Rather, the school would most likely rely on existing personnel. However, existing personnel likely have other duties which could interfere with providing a timely transition for the student. Having a child leave class early or arrive late to the next class, even if that is identified as an accommodation in the child's IEP, is not acceptable according to the United States Department of Education. Thus, parents and school personnel must be clear about what they mean when they agree that the child requires a one-to-one aide.

Defining the Role of the One-to-One Aide.

As with defining the term, there should be no assumptions about the role of the one-to-one aide. One-to-one aides are assigned to children for a variety of reasons: behavior management, instructional support, activities of daily living (i.e., toileting, dressing, hygiene, etc.), social skills training, task redirection, discreet trial training, etc. The fact is, if the child needs the support of a one-to-one aide in order to receive a free appropriate public education, the aide should be assigned no matter what the task.

Qualifications of the One-to-One Aide.

One of the thorniest issues relating to one-to-one aides is the qualifications of the aide. It is here that a word of caution must be noted: "Be careful what you wish for." Not surprising, parents want an individual highly skilled and qualified to be the aide. Although cost is not supposed to be a deciding factor, school systems face a significant added expense when an aide is hired. The Supreme Court ruled in Cedar Rapids Community School District v. Garrett F., that even a small school district could not refuse a quadriplegic child a one-to-one nurse because of costs. Notwithstanding Garrett F., cost is bound to be a factor, albeit, an unmentioned one, whenever the qualifications of a one-to-one aide are debated. Some school systems hire aides whom they pay minimum wage and offer no benefits. It is doubtful that a truly qualified individual could be hired under such conditions. Hiring decisions generally do not fall within the purview of the IDEA. Thus, hearing officers and courts are reluctant to even consider a challenge to an aide's qualifications, that is, unless it is clear that the aide must have specific skills or knowledge in order for the child to receive a free appropriate public education. So, for example, an aide who is expected to implement a program of applied behavioral analysis (ABA) to an autistic child will require specific training and ongoing supervision. Similarly, an aide who is expected to provide instructional support will need skill and knowledge in the specific teaching methodologies employed by the classroom teacher(s). Parents' success in obtaining an aide with the qualifications they consider necessary will turn on how specific the IEP is in defining the child's needs and how clearly the aide's role is defined in addressing those needs.

How do Parents Make a Case for a One-to-One Aide?

The rule to remember in seeking any service, program, or placement is that a school district is only required to provide those services, program, or placement necessary to enable the child to receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE). The IEP is the vehicle by which a FAPE is delivered. Thus, the IEP must identify special education, related services, and supplementary aids and services necessary to ensure the provision of a FAPE. A one-to-one aide has been identified as a related service as well as a supplementary aid or service. How it is identified seems hardly worthy of debate; more importantly is how it is decided to include a one-to-one aide in the IEP. Generally, such a decision is based upon the child's needs. Needs are determined by an evaluation of the child. An evaluation consists of standardized assessments, parent input, classroom observations, teacher input, etc. The evaluation is the foundation upon which the IEP is built. Without a thorough and comprehensive evaluation, the IEP will almost assuredly be inadequate to meet the child's needs. Thus, it is the evaluation which will define not only the child's needs, but ultimately the services, program and placement the child will receive.

Because inordinate weight is often vested in the standardized assessments, it is important to review any assessments very carefully and seek clarification if you do not understand any aspect of the report. It is far too difficult to adequately review an assessment during the course of an IEP meeting. Therefore, it is advisable to obtain the report(s) in advance of the meeting. (The same is true of any draft IEP.) If you believe that the assessments completed by the school system are insufficient or inaccurate, you may obtain a private assessment. The school system is required to "consider" any private evaluations you provide them. Keep in mind "consider" does not mean accept or embrace. However, if a school system rejects the recommendations contained in a privately obtained assessment, it must state the reasons. The importance of a classroom observation as a part of the private evaluation cannot be overstated. This can be performed by the individual conducting the assessment, or by an educational consultant. More than one observation and consultation with the classroom teacher are strongly recommended. This provides more sources of information and gives greater weight to the recommendations flowing from the evaluation. You may also request an independent educational evaluation to be completed at the school system's expense. If you do, the school system must either agree to your request or request a Due Process Hearing to defend the accuracy of it's assessment(s) . The bottom line is that whether your child needs a one-to-one aide will often be determined by the results of the evaluation whether completed by the school system or obtained privately. So be sure the evaluation provides a complete description of you child's educational needs.

Wayne Steedman, Esq. is a partner in the law firm of Callegary & Steedman, P.A. His practice is devoted primarily to the representation of children with disabilities. In addition to his law degree, Mr. Steedman has a Masters degree in social work from the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Prior to practicing law, Mr. Steedman was in charge of the clinical treatment program at the Forbush School at Shepherd Pratt Hospital where he was employed for more than 20 years. Additionally he served for approximately ten years as a Due Process Hearing officer in special education cases.. To contact Mr. Steedman, please send an e-mail to steedman@specialchi ld.com or visit his website at http://www.callegar ysteedman. com.

The Legal Files are provided by Special Child, The Resource Foundation for Children with Challenges, and Callegary & Steedman, P.A., for general information only. The information presented at this site should not be construed to be formal legal advice nor the formation of a lawyer/client relationship. Persons accessing this site are encouraged to seek independent counsel for advice regarding their individual legal issues.

IAF pilot to IIT students during a Seminar on Human Relations

2008-07-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

Venkatesh Balasubramaniam describes how his gesture of booking an air ticket for his father, his maiden flight, brought forth a rush of emotions and made him (Venkatesh) realize that how much we all take for granted when it comes to our parents.

My parents left for our native place on Thursday and we went to the airport to see them off. In fact, my father had never traveled by air before, so I just took this opportunity to make him experience the same.

In spite of being asked to book tickets by train, I got them tickets on Jet Airways. The moment I handed over the tickets to him, he was surprised to see that I had booked them by air. The excitement was very apparent on his face, waiting for the time of travel. Just like a school
boy, he was preparing himself on that day and we all went to the airport, right from using the trolley for his luggage, the baggage check-in and asking for a window seat and waiting restlessly for the security check-in to happen. He was thoroughly enjoying himself and I, too, was overcome with joy watching him experience all these things. As they were about to go in for the security check-in, he walked up to me with tears in his eyes and thanked me. He became very emotional and it was not as if I had done something great but the fact that this meant a
great deal to him.

When he said thanks, I told him there was no need to thank me. But later, thinking about the entire incident, I looked back at my life. As a child, how many dreams our parents have made come true. Without understanding the financial situation, we ask for cricket bats, dresses,
toys, outings, etc. Irrespective of their affordability, they have catered to all our needs. Did we ever think about the sacrifices they had to make to accommodate many of our wishes? Did we ever say thanks for all that they have done for us? Same way, today when it comes to our
children, we always think that we should put them in a good school. Regardless of the amount of donation, we will ensure that we will have to give the child the best, theme parks, toys, etc. But we tend to forget that our parents have sacrificed a lot for our sake to see us happy, so it is our responsibility to ensure that their dreams are realized and what they failed to see when they were young. It is our responsibility to ensure that they experience all those and their life
is complete. Many times, when my parents had asked me some questions, I have actually answered back without patience. When my daughter asks me something, I have been very polite in answering. Now I realize how they would have felt at those moments.

Let us realize that old age is a second childhood and just as we take care of our children, the same attention and same care needs to be given to our parents and elders. Rather than my dad saying thank you to me, I would want to say sorry for making him wait so long for this small dream. I do realize how much he has sacrificed for my sake and I will do my best to give the best possible attention to all their wishes. Just because they are old does not mean that they will have to give up everything and keep sacrificing for their grandchildren also. They have wishes, too.

Take care of your Parents.
THEY BROUGHT US INTO THIS WORLD,
GAVE US ALL THEY HAD AND
MADE US WHAT WE ARE.
THEY ARE PRECIOUS.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometimes our parents do not disclose their wishes to us . They might say things like " Why do I need that in this old age ?" . They are not used to the habit of saying " I Want it" . They want to save more and more and I dunno for whom. At one point, my mom was telling me that " she never thought, she would be able to see television in her life" :-) .

My Question is : What if our old parents do not understand our needs ?. What to do in such a situation ?. Listen to them and be unhappy or do what you like ?. Tough one ...

The 'eight don't asks' for the chinese Olympics

2008-07-22T16:45:00.000-07:00

From http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcb_china/20080722/wl_mcb_china/theeightdontasksoftheolympics

Posters are appearing around Beijing guiding locals about how to interact with the (few) foreigners coming for the Summer Games.

The posters instruct residents on the “eight don’t asks” when chatting with foreign guests. Here’s a rough translation, courtesy of the Peaceful Rise blog:

Don’t ask about income or expenses, don’t ask about age, don’t ask about love life or marriage, don’t ask about health, don’t ask about someone’s home or address, don’t ask about personal experience, don’t ask about religious beliefs or political views, don’t ask what someone does.

So what is one to ask? Maybe the relative merits of fencing versus marathon swimming?

Now, for the foreigners out there, here’s the No. 1 dud question to ask a Chinese person. It’s a question that will draw a blank, non-comprehending stare:

“Hey, pal, tell me about your president. Is he doing a good job?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reference for olympics in India.

Should you tell your child about his/her illness ?

2008-07-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

This is a tough one to handle specially if the child is gifted with a serious illness that is going to be with them for life. I watched this movie Taare Zameen Par ( partially) and the movie is about a child that fell into the autistic spectrum of disorders and having difficulty to cope up in this competitive world. This movie taught me that it is very important for a parent to understand a child's illness and help him get over it. It is an UPHILL task and this might require discussing the issue with them. Recently I came across a mail in Indians mailing list and it said " How do I disclose a Pet's death ( Dog ) to my children ?" . Hmm, it was so important for that parent to disclose a Dog's death. Hmm, in our country we never cared.

My take on this topic is, If the child is affected with something that is going to be there for life, it is better to make him/her aware of it and help them as much as you can to get over it. Also, the parent should bring their bar of expectations to a very low level. Even a small smile from your child may then make you happy.

Another side effect of not disclosing such a thing is that your child will never trust you if they come to know about it from someone else or they come to know themselves.
They will start suspecting about everything else that you didn't tell them. Mmmm, Much dangerous.

Hepatitis B Vaccine. Things to Ponder...

2008-07-13T20:53:00.000-07:00

Should you vaccinate your baby ?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/06/19/ep.vaccines/index.html

Hepatitis B Vaccine: Good for 'Newborn' Prostitutes and Drug Users, but Who Else?

by Dr. Gregory Damato, Ph.D. (see all articles by this author)

(NaturalNews) The Hepatitis B (Hep B) vaccine is considered one of the most controversial vaccines in the pediatric vaccination schedule. Why are we giving it to newborns and what are the adverse reactions associated with such an early vaccination?

What is Hep B?

Hep B is a very rare disease caused by the Hep B virus which primarily affects the liver and is principally spread through the blood. Hep B may lead to chronic infection and cirrhosis (scarring) which may then progress to liver cancer. Approximately .2% of the population in America currently have Hep B, leaving 99.8% of the population free of this virus. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), approximately .001 percent of all infants under the age of one year will contract Hep B and 95 percent of them will recover on their own and never contract the virus again. In the U.S. in 2005, only five children under the age of five were reported to have been infected with Hep B (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, March 30, 2007). Furthermore, the U.S. continues to have the lowest recorded levels of Hepatitis in the world. According to the October 31, 1997 MMWR published by the CDC, "Hepatitis B continues to decline in most states, primarily because of a decrease in the number of cases among injecting drug users and, to a lesser extent, among both homosexuals and heterosexuals of both sexes."

How do you get Hep B?

Hep B is transmitted from bodily fluids that are contaminated with the virus. This can be done through unprotected sex, contaminated needles, blood transfusions or vertical transmission from mother to child.

What is the Hep B Vaccine?

In November of 1991, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the CDC recommended the universal vaccination of Hep B to every newborn in the U.S. There are currently two types of genetically engineered hepatitis B vaccines licensed for use in the U.S.: Merck's Recombivax HB® (each 0.5 mL dose contains 5 mcg of hepatitis B surface antigen with formaldehyde, and .5mg of aluminum (potassium aluminum sulfate)[1] and GlaxoSmithKline's Engerix-B® (each 0.5 mL dose contains 10 mcg of hepatitis B surface antigen adsorbed on 0.25 mg aluminum as aluminum hydroxide, sodium chloride, disodium phosphate dihydrate, and sodium dihydrogen phosphate dihydrate [2].

When is the Hep B Vaccine Given?

The Hep B vaccine is the first vaccine given to newborns and is injected within 12 hours of birth. The CDC then recommends a second injection at one to two months of age and a third vaccination between six and 18 months (regardless of manufacturer).

Why is the Hep B Vaccine Given?

This vaccine is given because of fear, lack of knowledge and corporate greed from the vaccine manufacturers. Merck generates over $1 billion worth of revenue from this vaccine alone. Most hospitals allow for screening of Hep B in mothers prior to birth, but many do not do this. Even if the mother tests positive for Hep B, there is only a 5% probability that the virus will be passed from mother to child. We are ostensibly injecting helpless newborns (nearly 1 million per year in the U.S.) with this vaccine with the false belief that every mother already has Hep B and if they don't, we will be protecting the future generation of promiscuous teens and drug users. The CDC and FDA know that drug users and prostitutes will not get the vaccine themselves and therefore it is better to vaccinate these potential drug users and hookers when they are born. The CDC and Merck have collaborated to misinterpret and skew the number of cases of Hepatitis B in the U.S. They say each year up to 320,000 new cases occur, yet the CDC documents report that only 10,000 new cases occur. Even of these 10,000 cases, 95 percent (or 9,500) will recover on their own and forever have natural immunity. This type of misinformation and fear tactics are nothing new to Big Pharma, for it is fear that allows one to control the masses and as a corollary, numerous infants and families have forever been harmed.

Adverse Reactions to Hep B?

Accurate data on adverse reactions to the Hep B vaccine are very difficult to come by due to scarcity or lack of reporting by many physicians as well as blocked reporting data from the CDC. The most recent and complete data from the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) and government agencies (CDC, FDA) are from July, 1990 to October 1999 and include 24,775 adverse reactions. These reactions include 439 deaths and 9,673 emergency room visits. These reactions have included, arthritis [3, 4]; skin disorders [5]; compromised immunity and autoimmune disease [6]; neurological damage; vision loss and rare eye disorders such as optic neuritis [7] and epitheliopathy [8]; blood disorders [9]; diabetes [10]; damage to liver and kidneys [11]; severe vomiting, diarrhoea and death [12].

Because the reporting of adverse events to VAERS is completely voluntary, up to 96 to 99 percent of these reactions are never reported [13]. Realistically, the number of adverse events following Hep B vaccination from 1990 to 1999 would be somewhere around 2.5 million (24,775 multiplied by 99). In addition to the above adverse reactions, additional severe reactions have been reported from Merck and GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals which include: edema of the heart, chest discomfort, Guillain-Barre syndrome, fever, hearing damage, bronchial spasms, hair loss, encephalitis, multiple sclerosis, seizures, herpes zoster, Bells palsy, rash, visual impairments and anaphylaxis [1, 2]. In October of 1998, France became the first country to effectively ban the Hep B vaccine given to children due to an increase in child arthritis, multiple sclerosis symptoms and other serious adverse reactions.

From the above evidence we can conclude that if you wish to groom your children to become future drug users who share needles or prostitutes (or quite possibly both) then the risks of contracting Hep B may outweigh the risks of receiving one of the many adverse reactions. But, if you are a responsible parent and believe that your child is extremely unlikely to come in contact with Hep B through such risky behavior (especially as a newborn or infant), then clearly this vaccine is unwarranted. Furthermore, it is safe to say that this vaccine should be removed from the American Academy of Pediatrics infant vaccination schedule to prevent further damage and death to our children. Interestingly enough, up to 87% of pediatricians believe that the Hep B vaccine is totally unnecessary for newborns [14]. It seems that the Hep B vaccine may be warranted in only the most exceptional of circumstances much later on in life, but it has no place being anywhere near our 12 hour old children with a very immature and underdeveloped immune system.

References:

1.Merck & Co., I., Recombivax HB Hepatitis B Vaccine (Recombinant) Issued: December 2007. Product insert from vaccine manufacturer.

2.GlaxoSmithKline, Engerix-B [Hepatitis B Vaccine (Recombinant)] Issued: December 2006. Product insert from vaccine manufacturer.

3.Pope, J.E., et al., The development of rheumatoid arthritis after recombinant hepatitis B vaccination. Journal of Rheumatology, 1998. 25(9): p. 1687-1693.

4.Sibilia, J. and J. Maillefert, Vaccination and rheumatoid arthritis. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, 2002. 61(7): p. 575-576.

5.Usman, A., et al., Lichenoid eruption following hepatitis B vaccination: first North American case report. Pediatric Dermatology, 2001. 18(2): p. 123-126.

6.Biron, P., et al., Myasthenia Gravis after general anesthesia and hepatitis B vaccine. Archives of Internal Medicine, 1988. 148(12): p. 2685.

7.Achiron, L.R., Postinfectious hepatitis B optic neuritis. Optometry and Vision Science, 1994. 71(1): p. 53-56.

8.Brezin, A.P., et al., Acute posterior multifocal placoid pigment epitheliopathy after hepatitis b vaccination. Archives of Ophthalmology, 1995. 113(3): p. 297-300.

9.Ronchi, F., et al., Thrombocytopenic purpura as adverse reaction to recombinant hepatitis B vaccine. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 1998. 78(3): p. 273-274.

10.Classen, J.B., Childhood immunisation and diabetes mellitus. New Zealand Medical Journal, 1996. 109(1022): p. 195.

11.Islek, I., et al., Nephrotic syndrome following hepatitis B vaccination. Pediatric Nephrology, 2000. 14(1): p. 89-90.

12.Duclos, P., Adverse events after hepatitis B vaccination. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 1992. 147(7): p. 1023-1026.

13.Rosenthal, S. and R. Chen, The reporting sensitivities of two passive surveillance systems for vaccine adverse events. American Journal of Public Health, 1995. 85: p. 1706-1709.

14.Freed, G.L., et al., Reactions of pediatricians to a new Centers for Disease Control recommendation for universal immunization of infants with hepatitis B vaccine. Pediatrics, 1993. 91(4): p. 699-702.

About the author

Dr. Gregory Damato enjoys a vegan lifestyle while residing in Perth, Western Australia and runs a Quantum Biofeedback clinic treating various clients ranging from autism to cancer. He is currently authoring a book for parents educating on the dangers of vaccines, chemical toxicity in toys, the effects of EMFs and EMRs and other hidden dangers and ways to combat rising childhood illness and neurological disease by naturally building immunity, detoxification, nutrition and energetic medicine. His website is: www.quantumenergywellness.com

Moving to India for Good or Bad ( How much you need ? )

2008-07-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

I found these interesting articles on the net on moving to India .

1. Living in Mumbai and Other Cities

http://lemonandice.typepad.com/lemonandice/2006/10/moving_to_india_2.html

2. Informal Salary Survey in Hyderabad

http://hyderabad.mylifemysite.com/hyderabad-salary-survey-informal-survey-of-friends-recruiters-and-others-in-my-professional-network-110.html

3. Why you shouldn't move to Bangalore

http://r2blore.blogspot.com/2006/11/why-not-to-choose-bangalore.html

4. More Salary Discussions

http://www.r2iclubforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=220&page=4

This is something everyone is INTERESTED. SALARY........................

I came to realize during my 33 yrs of life that there is no other best place in the world than my small village. Clean Air, Plenty of Water, Greenery, Caring Human Beings and Peaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace.

If you see any good articles on moving to India , please don't hesitate to share with me.

Indian workers can get Social Security money back

2008-07-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

Over $1 billion contributed to Social Security by part-time Indian workers can get refunded after 3 years

From http://www.indianexpress.com/story/332763.html

New Delhi, July 7: With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government finally moving forward on the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Bush administration is also demonstrating its keenness to resolve other crucial bilateral issues in India’s interest. A long-standing Indian demand for a social security pact that allows Indian workers stationed in the US to bring back their contributions to the US Social Security system on their return to India, is close to being met.

Over $1 billion of contributions to the US Social Security Fund are made annually by an estimated 80,000 “detached workers” from India working on consultancy and onsite assignments — each one has to contribute at the rate of 15% of basic salary. However, when they return to India, these contributions are forfeited as the minimum period to qualify for pension benefits in the US is 10 years (the same is true of India as well).

After a series of meetings between Indian officials and the US Social Security Administration as well as a senior White House official in Washington last week, Indian workers’ annual donations to the US social security fund — which currently has a $4.1 trillion deficit — may finally come to an end.

“We are close to sealing the pact. Indian workers who spend three years in the US would get a refund of their contributions to the US pension system. Moreover, the pension will also be portable — once a worker completes the qualifying period of 10 years, the pension will be payable in either country,” a senior government official said.

The US has such “social security totalisation” pacts with 22 countries, whereby workers who spend three years in the US hold on to their pension benefits as the 10-year qualifying period takes into account the time spent by workers in their original country’s pension system. India has recently signed such deals with Belgium and Germany.

“If both US and India have bilaterals with a third country, the totalisation and portability principles will apply in those cases as well. So a worker could spend 4 years in India, 3 years in US and 3 years elsewhere, without losing retirement funds,” the official added. Bilateral talks on the issue had intensified after Singh and Bush issued the joint statement on July 18, 2005 to move towards a new strategic relationship. Last December, the US Social Security Secretary visited New Delhi, but little progress was made. Under Section 233 of US social security laws, international agreements may only be arrived at with countries with a “generally applicable” social insurance or pension system.

Between December 2007 and now, India has made some progress on this front which it convinced the US administration about. The Unorganised Sector Workers’ Social Security Bill has been introduced in Parliament as well as reviewed by a standing committee. The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana has also been kicked off.

“It has been an intractable wall we have been chipping away at for years, but this time, we feel they are convinced that there is a sound social security sytem in India,” the official said. If India succeeds in formalizing the pact, it will be only the second Asian country after South Korea to do so. Once signed, the US President will have to report the deal to the Congress with a report on the estimated number of individuals affected and its effect on the Social Security fund’s flows

Cause of Sudden Blindness

2008-07-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

Sudden Blindness (A New Strain of Maladies
============ ========= ========= ========= ====

One day, your vision suddenly falls to nearly zero sight. What
happened? You may have a "Retinal Disease". Millions of people around
the world especially those who are over 50 years old are affected
from this dreadful eye disease.

In the case of Mr. Machida, 45 years old, he noticed that he suddenly
had hard time reading newspapers. All the characters are blurred with
his eyes. He visited his family physician, but was told that he just
needs some rest. He rested for three days but noticed no improvement
with his eyesight, so he decided to visit an ophthalmologist. There
he was told that he would be blind if he leaves it the way it is for
another week or so. So he was treated with "laser photocoagulation" .

We think that loss of vision usually gets worse gradually. But there
are cases where sudden loss of vision occurs within a few weeks to a
month. It is recommended that you take an eye exam at least once a
year.

## What are the causes of vision loss?

1. Lens – light-focusing part of the eye
2. Retina – receives the image from the lens
3. Optic nerves – sends the image to the brain

The most common causes of vision loss among the elderly are cataract
and glaucoma. While cataract is caused by the cloudy lens of the eye,
loss of vision in glaucoma is caused by optic nerve problems due to
abnormally high pressure within the eyeball.

However, in the case of Mr. Machida, it was neither cataract nor
glaucoma but a retinal disease.

## Macular Degeneration

At the center of the retina is a small depression from 2.5 to 3 mm in
diameter. This is known as the yellow spot, or "macula", one of the
most vital parts of the eye. Progressive destruction of the macula
will result to "Macular Degeneration" that impairs central vision,
which can make reading and driving impossible.

Why do we need immediate clinical diagnosis? Because it might lead to
total blindness caused by retinal bleeding.

## How to know the symptoms?

Some people experience strange eyesight such as difficulties to see
one particular direction, difficulties to see someone's face or look
as if the person you are talking is faceless, and difficulties to see
the center of a particular sight.

It is dangerous to think that these are all caused by stress,
tiredness, or lack of sleep.

If you experience such strange phenomena with your eyesight, we
recommend you to consult an ophthalmologist immediately.

## The Amsler Grid Test

One of the simplest methods to monitor the health of your macula that
you can do by yourself is the "Amsler Grid Test". The Amsler Grid is
a pattern (either white grid lines on a black background or black
grid lines on a white background) consisting of intersecting lines
(similar to graph paper) with a black or white dot in the middle.

The Amsler Grid can be seen here:
http://www.pyroener gen.com/articles 08/images/ amsler-grid. gif

How to use an Amsler Grid (repeat for each eye):

Note: If you wear reading glasses, be sure to have them on.

1. Focus at the center dot on the grid with one eye at a time,
covering the other eye with your hand.
2. As you continue to look at the center dot, check to see that all
the surrounding lines are straight and all the squares are evenly
spaced with no missing areas.
3. If any area on the grid appears bent, distorted, blurred,
discolored, or missing, contact your ophthalmologist immediately.

We recommend that you print this Amsler Grid for your eye checkup.

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -
About the Author:
Junji Takano is a Japanese health researcher involved in
investigating the cause of various diseases since 1960. In 1968, he
invented Pyro-Energen, the first electromedicine device that
eradicates viral diseases, cancer, and diseases of unknown cause
effectively without side effects.
Free newsletter: http://www.pyroener gen.com/newslett er.htm
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -

Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as the entire
article remains the same as well as the resource box.

What else is happening in Bengaluru ?

2008-07-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

The next day, I glanced through Times of India and the headline says there is a new govt. headed by BJP taking office. The new CM proclaimed that he will wear Dhoti to the swearing in ceremony, he will arrest all criminal and corrupt ministers and bring them to justice. What a great news but nothing about helping the poor or bringing good sanitation and water for the people of Karnataka. I was least interested and turned over to page 3. Page 3 gives news on all the murders and thefts. Stay at home mom's are still being cheated by people who claim they can polish their Gold jewellery and make it more appealing. Hmm, finally they run away with it. I see at the least one news every day on this.

Robbers are way laying people. There are organized gangs who stand by the side of the road and shout " hey, you tyre is deflated" or make some other comments, divert people's attention and steal things from the car.

Life for a single women is no better. There are murders happening every other day.

Thiefs are not stealing in 100's anymore . They only deal with Lakhs as the former doesn't have any value in Bengaluru.

Do you know what Bengaluru means ?

Whenever you think life is unfair. Think again

2008-06-25T17:50:00.000-07:00

I know it is easy to say but hard to follow. May be this will boost your spirit if you think life gave you unpleasant experiences. Sometimes I doubt whether a person named "GOD" exists.For this, my mom calls me " Alpa Viswasi" :-( .

My name is Nick Vujicic and I give God the Glory for how He has used my testimony to touch thousands of hearts around the world! I was born without limbs and doctors have no medical explanation for this birth 'defect'. As you can imagine, I was faced with many challenges and obstacles.

'Consider it pure joy, my Brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.'

'And we know that in all things God works for the best for those who love Him.' That verse spoke to my heart and convicted me to the point where that I know that there is no such thing as luck, chance or coincidence that these 'bad' things happen in our life.

I now see that Glory revealed as He is using me just the way I am and in ways others can't be used. I am now twenty-three years old and have completed a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Financial Planning and Accounting. I am also a motivational speaker and love to go out and share my story and testimony wherever opportunities become available. I have developed talks to relate to and encourage students through topics that challenge today's teenagers. I am also a speaker in the corporate sector.

I have a passion for reaching out to youth and keep myself available for whatever God wants me to do, and wherever He leads, I follow.

I have many dreams and goals that I have set to achieve in my life. I want to become the best witness I can be of God's Love and Hope , to become an international inspirational speaker and be used as a vessel in both Christian and non-Christian venues. I want to become financially independent by the age o! f 25, th rough real estate investments, to modify a car for me to drive and to be interviewed and share my story on the ' Oprah Winfrey Show '! Writing several best-selling books has been one of my dreams and I hope to finish writing my first by the end of the year. It will be called 'No Arms, No Legs, No Worries!'

The awesome thing about the Power of God, is that if we want to do something for God, instead of focusing on our capability, concentrate on our availability for we know that it is God through us and we can't do anything without Him. Once we make ourselves available for God's work, guess whose capabilities we rely on? God's!

May the Lord Bless you
*THIS CHALLENGING MESSAGE IS GOING AROUND THE WORLD
What ever be your situation in your life be thankful to GOD till the END........

Travelling to Bangalore (Bengaluru)

2008-06-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

It is long time since I blogged something. I was extremely busy planning our move to India. Finally we have made that decision to go back to the place where we came from. Wanted to do this few years ago but things kept us pushing till this time. USCIS was kind enough to do all the paper work required for Usha's move in two weeks. I was under so much tension whether it will go through because if it doesn't, she has to come back here again. God willing and the INS officer understanding our situation and me preparing a bullet proof set of documents and explanation, everything went as planned.

Friend of ours dropped us to the airport and we were on a flight to India. Reached Bangalore on time and we landed in the new airport. This airport is really huge compared to the HAL owned one.
It is very far from the city. Earlier, we had to commute only 5 KM from usha's home. Now, it is 10 times the distance. The only option was to catch a taxi in the night. Costed around 1300 Rs. Took us around an hour to reach home with no traffic.

Reached home and jumped into the room where Nipun Kutty was sleeping. He was sleeping facing downwards. I was told that this is his new sleeping style. After sometime, he turned around but did not open the eyes. Waited till morning to see him properly. :-). He had lot of hair and has changed much since I saw him last time. Gave him a little kiss/hug, went upstairs to catch some sleep.

More details later on...

How to deal with Hurt ?

2008-05-18T23:27:00.000-07:00

I was in church today and the pastor told a very good story about a women who kept track of things that he did to hurt her . She showed him a book that had every single instances of hurt caused by him with date and time. Hmm, interesting. I was thinking to myself. Wasn't I like her at one point of time in my life ?. Yes, I was. I had a dairy which I used to maintain that contained instances of where people hurt me and at the same time the good things they did . This diary I used to maintain from school days and it became filled with more details during my engineering college days. That is when I met with folks from the other side :-) . It took some time and experiences with different people for me to understand that it is of no use writing these things. Finally I decided to throw those diaries in the Karamana River ( Trivandrum) and I did it.

That is a small story...

I learned two things today on how to deal with HURT

1. You can release it ----> This will be the path to peace

2.You can rehearse it -----> This will keep hurting you on and on until you die.

You can choose either 1 or 2 . My recommendation will be to go with 1.

Also Bible says:

Mathew Chapter: "Forgive us our sins...just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us" . Peter read this and asked Jesus " Lord how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me ?. Up to Seven Times "? .

Jesus answered, : " Not Seven times, but 77 times !"

A Pillow That Can Make You Healthy and Sleep Well

2008-05-18T22:10:00.000-07:00

A Pillow That Can Make You Healthy and Sleep Well
============ ========= ========= ========= ========= =

There are many stores in Japan where they only sell pillows. We never
realized that pillows alone can make money in business. Pillow Talk,
a comedy movie in 1959 featuring Doris Day, Rock Hudson, and Tony
Randall is back again.

There are inns and hotels in Japan where you can choose your type of
pillow. Interestingly enough, according to various clinical studies
done by some universities in Japan, the right size and softness of
pillow can influence your health and intelligence. Do you believe
that?

***Trivia:** Did you know that elephants and giraffes use substitute
pillow? Elephants gather grass and use it as a pillow. In the case of
giraffe, they usually sleep while standing, but when they want to
rest well, they use their own hip as a pillow.*

Well, let's try to find the most suitable pillow for you and me.

A rich man, Mr. Sakai, was suffering from backache, shoulder pains,
migraine, and stress, especially when he wakes up every morning. He
thought of his pillow might be giving him problem when he saw a
signboard of "PILLOW STORE" in Paris. He entered the store and bought
a soft pillow, which costs 120 dollars, but the result was not as
much as he expected.

When he came back home in Tokyo from a long trip abroad, he
immediately went to his family clinic for health diagnosis. He was
diagnosed with "Occipital Neuralgia". He was suggested that its cause
was due to poor sleeping position and angle.

All of us have seven cervical vertebrae bones as seen in the below
illustration.

http://www.pyroener gen.com/articles 08/images/ cervical- vertebrae-
bones.jpg

There are spaces between these intervertebral discs where hundreds of
nerves are passing, extending to brain, arms, shoulder, and other
parts of the body.

It is, therefore, necessary to have a good rest around the neck to
have a comfortable passage for nerves during your sleep.

Failure to sleep well may create symptoms of occipital nerve pain,
such as headache, shoulder pain, stiff neck, and numbness around the
arms.

Well, what is the right angle for the head, neck, and shoulder during
your sleep? Is there any clinical or scientific way to measure it?
Yes, it exists scientifically.

It is a place we call "outer space" or "space" where there is no
gravity at all. However, it is impossible to create such space in our
home. We tried to find a possible way to create such.

You have heard about the "Dead Sea", a salt lake on the border
between Israel and Jordan. The water in the lake is nearly 10 times
saltier than ordinary seawater. Even you do not know how to swim, you
will be floating. Doctors believe that you can be in most relaxed
position while you are floating in this kind of water just like you
are floating in outer space.

http://www.pyroener gen.com/articles 08/images/ pillow1.jpg
http://www.pyroener gen.com/articles 08/images/ pillow1.gif

According to some orthopedists, a pillow positioned into a certain
angle could reduce stiff shoulder, headache, and backache, and many
pillow makers believe in it. Our own studies done with the
cooperation of a medical university students and doctors showed the
very same result.

To simulate the experience with floating in salty water, like that of
Dead Sea or in the outer space without gravity, the angle of pillow
to neck was about 15 degrees. You can check the degree with a simple
protractor you used when you were in your geometry class.

http://www.pyroener gen.com/articles 08/images/ pillow2.gif
http://www.pyroener gen.com/articles 08/images/ pillow3.gif

We tried to analyze the structure of the intervertebral disc using
CAT scanner, and the answer came to be that 15 degrees is one of the
best positions compare to other angles or degrees.

Of course, there are people who are more comfortable with other
angles, but this is on isolated cases.

How about the hardness of the pillow? Use an ordinary bath towel that
have just the right hardness. We do not recommend using a very soft
pillow like that of feather or sheep fur. Just a simple cotton pillow
is the best in our experiments.

##TOSSING AND TURNING IN BED AT NIGHT

What is the main reason of tossing and turning in bed at night? When
you sleep in face up position, the body pressure is well-balanced and
have a good blood circulation.

When you sleep in your side, then the body pressure is one-sided.
Temperature of the bottom side rises higher, and then the blood flow
will be unbalanced.

To correct the body temperature and blood flow, the brain will send
signal to toss and turn the body to properly balance the blood flow.
Now, you understand why your body toss and turn during sleep.

Naturally, if the body tosses and turns while sleeping, the body
loses its energy for it, and you will feel tiredness when you wake
up. Tiredness appears as headache, stiff neck, backache, and stress.

Well, let us make a sample pillow for good night sleep, which may
even stop snoring. An old hardened pillow, thickness of about 1 to 1½
inches, rolled with a new bath towel will do.

Height of the pillow should be about 15 degrees to your neck.

http://www.pyroener gen.com/articles 08/images/ 15-degrees. jpg

With this position, most people sleep well and get healthier than
ever before.

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About the Author:
Junji Takano is a Japanese health researcher involved in
investigating the cause of various diseases since 1960. In 1968, he
invented Pyro-Energen, the first electromedicine device that
eradicates viral diseases, cancer, and diseases of unknown cause
effectively without side effects.
Free newsletter: http://www.pyroener gen.com/newslett er.htm
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