tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184387252024-03-13T21:26:40.507-07:00Bi-Yearly MusingsMuthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-28880797499091459422008-04-15T19:56:00.000-07:002008-04-15T21:04:54.599-07:00Healthcare-Around the World.I saw this really interesting documentary on PBS on how some of the richest nations in the world handle healthcare for their citizens. And it wasn't surprising that the US ranked the last among them in terms of cost, service and efficiency.<br />These are some of the points that I gathered from the documentary. If I had enough time, I would have probably organized it a little better.<br /><br />Looking at the countries that were covered in the program: Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland, this was the common traits that the healthcare system all possesed:<br />1) Insurance Companies have to accept everyone and they cannot make profit from basic services.<br />2) Everyone needs to buy insurance, either through their employee or through the government and the unemployed get free insurance.<br />3) All the Doctors and hospital have fixed prices for everything, 1 hospital can't charge a different amount for the same procedure compared to other hospitals.<br />4) Nobody goes bankrupt from paying their hospital bills compared to about 700,000 people in the US.<br />5) There are no gatekeepers, which means you don't have to see your GP(general practitioner) before you can see your cardiologist or gastroentrologist.<br />6) The downside, well if you can call that, is doctors and hospitals don't make much money as compared to the US.<br />7) The insurance providers strived to keep their operating costs down, for all the countries it was in the low single digits whereas in the US, it is around 22 %.<br />8) The proportion of GDP follows the same script as well, it was in the single digit for all these countries whereas in the US it was almost double at 16%.<br /><br />Now the features of the healthcare systems in each of this countries:-<br /><br />1) Great Britain- You get no bill from the doctor/hospital. Everything is covered by taxes. They focus more on preventive medicines since there's no ulterior motive to make money from you when you are sick.<br /><br />2)Japan- The government sets the prices of all the treatments thus maintaining control over the healthcare costs. Everyone is covered by insurance, either by work insurance or community insurance. They have the longest life expectancy and the lowest infant mortality rate.<br /><br />3) Germany :- Everyone is offered healthcare and while the 90% of the population choose the national system, the rich get to opt out and can pay their bills on their own. The insurance pays for everything even for spas and ballet dancing :)<br />The waiting time to see a doctor or getting a procedure done is faster than Britain but slower than Japan. Pregnant women pay nothing and copay is about 10 euros every 3 months. Medical providers and sickness funds negotiate to keep the prices down. Drugs are cheap since they negotiate as a single entity thus reducing the scope of negotiations.<br /><br />4) Taiwan:- They turned out to be the smartest of the whole bunch and compared the healthcare policies of all the good systems and took the best policies out of each. Every citizen has a smart card which contains all the health records(If you visit more than 15 times, you are audited) and all the medical bill goes to the national insurer.<br /><br />5) Switzerland:- They had a system very similar to the US but in 1994 they held a referendum to change their system which passed by a wafer-thin majority.(lucky them!!).The insurance providers cannot pick and choose on whom they provide insurance to. The providers make their profits by trying to keep their operating costs down and trying to attract new customers.<br /><br />I am going to end this by quoting what one of my friend told me the first time I was in the US and when I was planning to visit a Doctor for a slight fever, which is sad but true. "Don't go to the doctor or the hospital unless you really feel if you are going to die'.<br /><br />-Muthu.Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-78310390169276896222007-12-05T06:28:00.000-08:002007-12-05T10:46:14.347-08:00Crossing Roads.<div style="text-align: justify;">I came back to Bombay yesterday after an official trip to Bangalore for a week. When I came to Bombay 10 days ago, I was too scared to cross roads but after visiting Bangalore, I think I can cross roads in Bombay with my eyes closed :). Yes the traffic in Bangalore is so bad that it has to be seen to be believed. Every day that I was there I saw one kind of accident or the other. Even the car that I was travelling in got hit on the side one day. If the favourite topic of conversation in Minnesota is about the weather then it's all about traffic in Bangalore, everybody has a story to share or know someone who have been in an accident. If I start to compare Bombay and Bangalore, the first thing that comes to my mind is the number of 2 wheelers that I saw on the road and the number of cars with single occupancy in Bangalore compared to Bombay where most people prefer to travel in buses or trains. The public transportation in Bangalore is not that developed from what I have heard from the locals there. The city still seems to be coming to terms with the rapid influx of people into the city and I must say people with lot of spending power who can buy bikes/cars and would rather travel in rickshaws/taxis rather than use the buses. The state government is trying to fix it by launching a metro rail and coming up with various ways to resolve the traffic issue but it seems there are in a catch-up mode, the moment they complete some new roads/flyovers, its already saturated by the growing number of vehicles. Bombay had the same issue about 3-4 years ago, but they got a huge grant from the World Bank and a wise dude from the World Bank imposed a condition to not furnish any more funds unless they showed substantial improvement triggering the development of wide roads. On a side note I have heard people say Bangalore has a fantastic night-life, unless I missed something and not if you consider the period from 7 to 10 pm as night-life, there's nothing else to do after 10. The whole city seems dead after 10.30 whereas in Bombay everything seems to start after that.<br />I am off to my native place Tirunelveli tomorrow, not sure how long I can stay there without getting bored. Am loading up on a couple of books 'The World is Flat' by Thomas Friedman, the book that everybody in business school is supposed to have read and 'Freakonomics' which is considered to be an interesting read.<br /><br />-Muthu.<br /></div>Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-23813871841478222822007-11-20T14:55:00.000-08:002007-11-20T15:02:32.377-08:00All set to go.I am all set to go to India after about 18 months now and did I need this vacation really bad. I haven't taken a vacation this entire year trying to save up all my vacation days for this trip. But my vacation doesn't start officially till Dec-5. <br />It's kind of hard to go during Christmas since it's the time of the year where you see bright lights, christmas carols and everybody seems to be happy and having a good time. Also will be breaking my routine of going to NY for Christmas for the 3rd straight year but I made up for it by visiting NY in October.<br />Back to my vacation schedule, have to go to Bangalore on an official trip for a week and then back to Bombay for a day and then fly back with my parents to my native-place in Tirunelveli. My folks are sure going to be excited seeing me after a long gap and also to travel in a plane for the first time in their life. I had to book a Air Deccan flight but I wish I could have taken them on a better airline like Kingfisher or Jet Airways. Trivandrum which is in Kerala doesn't have lot of options and it's kind of funny that it's closer to my place which is in Tamilnadu, a different state. But the way things are happening in the aerospace industry it won't be long before there is a connecting flight to Tirunelveli, asking for a direct flight will be too much.<br />Can't end this post before mentioning the shopping that I have done. Had to study for an exam till the very last moment so didn't got much time to shop. I still managed to buy a Sony DVD Handycam, IPod Touch(it's really sleek), couple of noise-cancelling headphones, memory cards and the customary chocolates.<br />I am going to be back on Jan-21 and start my Spring semester the same week and with 3+2 classes back to back, will be really busy in the spring and the summer.<br />Happy Thanksgiving, Christmas and a happy new year to anyone who reads this post which I doubt there are many :)<br /><br />-Muthu.Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-489172176145358852007-10-25T19:38:00.000-07:002007-10-25T20:00:55.092-07:00What is Woot?I am trying to get some shopping done before leaving for India and was on the lookout for a good mp3 player. During my search, I chanced upon this website <a href="http://www.woot.com">www.woot.com</a><br />This is not a traditional website like Amazon or buy.com. You can't search for products to buy here, you buy what they give you. They usually have a deal once every day some of which are pretty good and some ordinary stuff, based on what I have seen till now. And during the course of the day, they introduce items in really small quantity, so the first ones who get to the site are the big winners while the rest of them wait and watch for the next big deal. And true to its quirky nature and the way they operate, they actually have a 'Bag O'Crap' sale which sells for a buck plus 5$ shipping. It can contain total random stuff but has been rumoured to contain expensive electronic items as well. <br />It seems to be a pretty good strategy creating a sense of artificial scarcity and selling stuff that people would rather think about for a long time to buy. Since you don't have much time to think you are basically put into a situation where you buy stuff that you actually don't need, just because it's a good deal.<br /><br />I think the classes at the U are beginning to pay off, I can relate to some of the stuff that they teach, to what these guys at woot.com are doing and to some of the business scenarios taking place in the real world. Although most of the strategies and techniques used by this businesses don't look standard, they are definitely variations of things that have already been done and I guess that's how you create a killer business or product by constantly innovating and doing something which other's have not.<br />In the meanwhile, waiting for the next deal to appear on Woot!!!<br /><br /><br />-Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-86550118912648416772007-09-20T22:36:00.000-07:002007-09-21T00:13:59.436-07:00I love Google Docs.<div style="text-align: justify;">I have been using Google Docs for quite a while now but have just begun to realize its true potential. And I think it is the best thing that has happened to me in a while, in terms of technology. I use 3 different laptops, 1 is my work laptop, the other is the big, clunky Dell Inspiron and my new Sony Vaio with Windows Vista on it. Why don't I get rid of my Dell Brick, well Vista doesn't support any of my webcam or image editing software. I am digressing here.<br />To make a long story short, I use any 1 of the 3 machines to do my school work. And before Google Docs came along I would have to use a flash drive to copy stuff around and then merge the copy, which was a big pain. But now I just log into my google account, create a word document, spreadsheet or even a presentation now, which I haven't tried extensively since it just came out a week ago. And any time I work on a different laptop I just need to be online to access my copy.<br />It has got some really cool features where you can export them into different formats or look at the version history. Although it doesn't provide all the options that Microsoft Office provides, I guess people don't even use about 90 % of the options that MS Office provides for their day-to-day work.<br />Although Google Docs is trying to replace Microsoft Office in the long run, I am not sure how successful that strategy is going to be. How many people do you know would like to store their documents online especially confidential office documents? And even if Google provides an offline storage there will still be skeptics around who would wonder how come such a thing is free.<br /><br />-Muthu...</div>Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-17043618702488389882007-09-07T23:23:00.000-07:002007-09-08T08:49:13.295-07:00iPhone Price Cut - Apple Faux Pas??<div style="text-align: justify;">Apple cut the price of the iPhone by 200 $ just after 10 weeks of its much hyped launch. I don't own a iPhone but it would have given me a bad feeling if I had bought it at its original price. Ever wondered how the latest model comes out or the price goes down immediately after you have bought a product. That's life but the price cut by Apple would have been too much to take even for hard-core Apple loyalists. After a huge backlash against the price cut and the feeling of being punished for being an early adopter, Apple decided to give a $100 credit to the people who bought the iPhone at the original price. Talk about a clever plan, you give the money and make them spend on Apple products again. Nice !!<br />Now back to the price cut announced by Steve Jobs, was it a shrewd move or a hasty one. Considering how Steve Jobs helped Apple bounce back from its heady days of being an innovative but low profitable company to the current profitable chic consumer electronic company, this price cut seems to be part of a long winded strategy to get more people to buy iPhone's as possible. The quickly approaching holiday season could be another factor behind it. I had read an article sometimes back on how cheap it is to manufacture an iPod or a iPhone. It approximately costs around 1/3 the price of the actual product and the costs goes even lower considering the economies of scale. So Apple still makes boatloads of money after the price cut it announces for its products every season.<br />Only time will tell, if this price cut had a short-term damage to its reputation due to the negative publicity or increases Apple's profitability and market share in the next few years. I bet on the later.<br /><br />-Muthu...<br /></div>Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-36620737265118769342007-09-06T11:02:00.001-07:002008-08-07T21:33:46.027-07:00Decisions, Decisions.<div style="text-align: justify;">I am part of a club called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toastmasters_International">'ToastMasters'</a>. The name of our club is McKToast and we meet every Wednesday in a conference room in my office to practice our speaking skills and listen to some great speeches. We have contests from time to time in different categories such as 'Inspirational', 'Humor', 'Tall-tale' etc. This week we had a humorous speech contest and I signed up for it. Although I had a week to prepare, I was really busy and decided to drop out but the organizers forced me to give a speech and I had to write up something in a day and hardly any time to rehearse my speech. The idea behind me choosing the topic was that my colleague and friends here are really curious on how the marriage process works in India. So I decided to do some reading and based on that and my own experience, decided to give a speech on how marriages are arranged in India. I have exaggerated the speech in some places to get some laughs out of the audience.<br /><br />Here is the transcript of my speech.<br /><br /> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Decisions, Decisions </span><br /></div><br />There are a lot of decisions in your life that you dread about making. Paper or plastic, regular Coke or diet Coke, salad or a burger, Playstation or XBox. For me choosing between KungPao-chicken and Sesame Chicken at Village wok was the last important decision that I had to make. And always wanting to take the safer option I asked my friend to order the Sesame chicken while I ordered the Kung-Pao chicken.<br /><br />I would be lying if I said getting married is not on my mind, no matter how much I try to forget it, people make a point to keep reminding me at every opportunity that they get. I talk to my parents and there are absolutely no pleasantries such as hello or how are you doing, they cut to the chase and start talking about the girls that they are planning to line up for me. I will be lucky if they don’t show up at the airport with the girls and force me to pick one at that moment.<br /><br />I mention about my trip to India and people start asking oh you are going to get married, I wish I had a dollar every time somebody asked me that. Also I wish I knew myself if I was going to get married, I would wear a T-shirt that mentioned it.<br /><br />I am extremely lucky in the sense that my parents are liberal in the way they approach the marriage process but not liberal enough for me to get married to a blonde girl, there goes my teen fantasy. I won’t even go into details on how marriages are fixed in different communities unless you have an entire week to listen to me. But in general they consist of the following steps with some differences here and there:<br /><br />1. Broadcasting Availability:-<br /><br /> This usually happens by spreading the news among family and friends that the boy or girl has reached the marriageable age. With the advancement of technology, online matrimony sites play an important role now. This are not dating sites, I repeat not a dating site, people who are ready to commit to marriages are the only people who sign up at this sites and it is not uncommon for the first contact to be made by the parents of the bride/groom instead of the person who is going to get married.<br /><br /> And everybody wants the perfect man/woman. For guys, the girl should be a stunner, smart but humble, down to earth, and definitely a good cook while for girls the guys needs to be financially secure(translate that to working abroad), have a good sense of humor, no smoking/drinking and extremely understandable.<br /><br /> I have never seen a profile which says I am short-tempered or I don’t get along with people which makes it all the more important for the people to talk to each other and also the next process is supposed to predict the future problems that the couple might have.<br /><br />Now onto the second step:-<br /><br />2. Horoscope Matching:-<br /><br />This is the most important step in the marriage process. It doesn’t matter if the persons who are going to get married have absolutely nothing in common, but if the horoscope matches, everything is supposed to be good and they have the go-ahead to move onto the next step which I will explain shortly. But all hell breaks loose if the horoscope doesn’t match, it’s a straight rejection after that without taking into considerations any other factors. Astrologers play an important role in identifying what matches and doesn’t match and their word is the last word. But if the persons involved decide to get married with the horoscope mismatch, anything bad that happens after that to anybody on the face of the earth, you are responsible, America attacked Iraq, your fault, Pluto is not a planet anymore, your fault, you get the idea and this is all since you didn’t listen to your elders and got married to the person with the bad horoscope.<br /><br />To be fair, the way that it’s justified is that more marriages end in divorce in the western world since the horoscopes are never matched compared to India where horoscopes match are a must.<br /><br />3. Getting to know part :-<br /><br />This starts with exchanging the pictures and setting up a date where the boy’s family visits the girl’s family. This is preceded by background inquiries which I can tell you is more detailed than the background checks that the Dept. of Homeland Security carries out. It involves finding out about the person’s educational qualifications, job positions, character, the test whether the guy smokes/drinks or not is a favorite. I still remember the day when I was entrusted the important responsibility of checking the educational qualification of a guy for my cousin’s proposal. I was briefed before meeting the guy and I was supposed to speak only in English with him and my uncle was to observe how the poor guy responded. Talk about an interrogation.<br /><br />4. Engagement:-<br /><br />Once all the getting to know part is done, the couple gets engaged and hopefully gets a chance to meet without the full family in attendance. The all important astrologer comes into picture again to choose the auspicious date for the marriage.<br /><br /><br />I think no matter what happens everyone can probably relate to this quote which the great ‘Anonymous’ wrote. He has more quotes attributed to him than anyone else.<br /><br />“Getting married is very much like going to a restaurant with friends.<br />You order what you want then when you see what the other person has, you wish you had ordered that.”<br /><br />Here is an audio recording of my speech which one of the club members was kind enough to record.<br /><embed src="http://static.boomp3.com/player.swf?song=bzszhmt7n_q" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="200" height="20" allowScriptAccess="always" align="middle"></embed><br />I did improvise a little and the lack of rehearsal shows in some places. I am not sure how humorous it was but I did get a second place prize for it.<br /><br />-Muthu.</div>Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-73409354582184402492007-08-23T20:06:00.000-07:002007-08-23T20:22:36.674-07:00Retired Hurt.I was really looking forward to make most of the break that I had before school starts but looks like it's not going to be that good. I sprained my ankle today playing racquetball and it's starting to swell up. I don't have a good history with ankle injuries. I twisted my ankle real bad about 4 years ago and it took a long time to heal. It's crazy on how things that are supposed to happen, happen. I had already finished my quota of a hour of exercise a day by going to my Pilates class at work. So I was just going to practice a little racquetball and was about to leave before I decided to play a single game. I usually focus really hard on the game but was distracted by some personal thoughts which I can't disclose :) so I was trying to go in one direction with my feet in the opposite direction and plop-(well that wasn't the actual sound but you get the idea)-sprained my ankle.<br />I don't think I need to see a doctor yet and am going to just let it heal on its own.<br />Had big plans of going to the State Fair this saturday, instead will have to rest my heels on my comfy couch watching the 'Planet Earth' DVD's that I have been hooked onto recently.<br /><br />-Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-23405474632059585582007-08-21T19:40:00.000-07:002007-08-21T19:49:04.155-07:00Caste/ Sub-Caste Ahhh..Anytime one of my friends over here start asking me about the caste system, I try to give them the canned explanation that there are many castes in India, sub-castes, the basis that they have been divided on, blah blah blah. Although I can't say that I know everything about the caste system, atleast I had my caste/subcaste figured out or that's what I thought. Wrong. As a matter of fact I don't know much about my caste or to be precise, my sub-caste. All this time I have been thinking that I belong to the 'Konar' sub-caste which happens to be my surname as well. But after talking to my parents last week, I realized that 'Konar' is actually my caste and my sub-caste is called 'PuthukkanNatar'. Am I glad that I didn't take that as my surname. 'Muthukumar Konar' sounds mouthfull enough, imagine introducing yourself as 'Muthukumar Konar PuthukkanNatar' or writing that on every application forms that I have ever filled up :)<br /><br />You learn something new everyday and this is what I learned on that particular day.<br /><br />-Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-8709490735893716332007-08-20T22:09:00.000-07:002007-08-20T22:17:37.614-07:00'Daily Musings' changed to 'Bi-Yearly Musings'One of my colleague at work has been giving me a hard time about the title of my blog 'Daily Musings' and rightly so, since I haven't updated my blog for a while now.<br />So I am going to officially change the title to 'Bi-Yearly Musings' till I start blogging more frequently.<br />I just got done with my Summer Semester and since I like to challenge myself sometimes, I took 2 accounting courses at once--BIG MISTAKE. I am glad that I got done and although I haven't got the grades back, I will be happy with whatever I get.<br />My next semester starts on Sep-5 and it's a non-stop 10 week grind after that. I am hoping to make the most of the break that I have before school starts again.<br /><br />-Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-862506649457357862007-03-17T14:02:00.000-07:002007-03-17T16:10:22.667-07:00India LOSE to Bangladesh (Pakistan Lose to Ireland)What a Day! Would anyone have believed this before the World Cup started?<br />Today being St. Patrick's day, the Irish didn't need another reason to celebrate but their cricket team pulled out a stunner and defeated Pakistan causing them to crash out of the world cup and there is a pretty good chance India might be following them.<br /><br />Every Indian cricket fan's worst nightmare has come true. India lost to Bangladesh in the first match of the cricket world cup. And I had the misfortune of watching it live (maybe buffering) on StreamBox. This online service has the CBN channel which has cricket on it. It is really bad and I probably saw about 20 mins real-time and the rest was just stop and go transmission.<br /><br />Back to the match, India's much vaunted batting line-up crumbled and scored a pathetic total of 191. Bangladesh never looked in trouble chasing the score and they were helped by some really indifferent Indian bowling and fielding. This doesn't look like a team which is here to win anything, they almost gave up before it even started. There was no enthusiasm at all. Now they have been put into a situation where they need to win all their remaining group matches against Bermuda(they must be fancing their chances now) and against the in-form Sri Lanka.<br /><br />There is a real chance of India bowing out of the World Cup before the Super-8. What a disaster that's going to be? I feel sorry for the people who had booked their tickets to the Caribbean expecting to watch the much hyped India-Pakistan match on April-15. That's not going to happen now. A Bangladesh-Ireland match looks more likely now.<br /><br />India have dug themselves into a big hole and they don't have anybody to blame but themselves. It's going to take a minor miracle for them to dig out of this hole. Or else be prepared to see people burning effigies of Indian cricketers on the road.<br />I just hope that nothing of this sort happens and they make into the Super-8 and to the semi-finals.<br /><br />-Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-26256875176458509882006-12-10T01:53:00.000-08:002006-12-10T02:21:23.285-08:00Accepted at the Carlson School of Management.Last week I got accepted for the Part-Time MBA program at University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management which is ranked between 5 and 12 in different rankings for it's Part-Time MBA program. The classes start in January and am really excited on going back to school after about 5 years. I was planning to do a MBA for a couple of years now but couldn't get myself to do it. Finally in August I decided to take the plunge. First was the GMAT and TOEFL. I had exactly 63 days for my GMAT exam and to make matters worse I couldn't get a TOEFL appointment in Minneapolis and had to go all the way to Duluth for the exam. GMAT just tests your high school maths fundamentals but the way the questions are phrased can make your head spin and the English section is tricky as it could be. After slogging for those 2 months, sleeping for less than 4 hours each day and missing a lot of fun stuff, I scored a respectable 570 on my GMAT. In addition to the GMAT, I had to prepare my admission package for the U. That involved writing some really focussed essays. Thanks to my friends and colleagues who provided valuable inputs, I felt my essays were strong and projected a good idea on what I am and what I wanted to achieve. After the GMAT was done, I had to write the TOEFL a week later. I was a bit confident on this and the only thing I was focusing on was on getting a real good score so that it made a good impact on my admission package. I had to wait a good 3-4 weeks for the TOEFL score to arrive and the admissions committee to make a decision. A couple of weeks later, I got my TOEFL score and it was 107/120 which is in the 95th percentile. I was really nervous waiting for the decision since I didn't want to go to any other school or write the GMAT once again. Like in the movies, I would open my snail mailbox and wait for the letter to see if I have been accepted or not. The university actually sent me an email informing that I have been accepted. That was one of the happiest moments of my life. Normally you slog hard to accomplish difficult things and when you accomplish it, it makes all that effort worthwhile.<br />My first classes starts in the second week of January and I am really excited about learning new things and meeting new people.<br /><br />-Muthu.Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-19938161729468166272006-11-20T21:14:00.000-08:002006-11-20T21:24:59.284-08:00Coincidence!Seinfeld 7 is releasing on DVD tomorrow. It is one of my favourite shows and one of the best written shows ever. A couple of days ago Michael Richards, the guy who played the kranky 'Kramer' on the show made absolutely disgusting racist remarks in a comedy club show. He lost his cool after being heckled by some audience members. <br />A day before the official DVD release Jerry Seinfeld comes on the 'The Late Show' with Dave Letterman show promoting the Season 7 DVD and has Michael Richards via satellite make an apology for his remarks. It was a mockery of an apology and had some audience laughing in the background. Why would you come on a comedy show and make an apology, hard to tell?<br />I don't believe in conspiracy theories but if I let my brain cells go wild, would there be a coincidence between 'Kramer's remarks and the release of the DVD. I hope, not.<br /><br />-Muthu.Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-71940670736693762392006-10-28T18:49:00.000-07:002006-10-28T19:11:54.523-07:00Life's not fair.Have you ever had the feeling that life's not fair? I just realized that and in a really bad way this week. On monday, I hit a car in the parking lot, first of all I was really careless and totally misjudged and scraped the other car near the rear bumper. Although nobody saw me hit the car, but wanting to do the right thing, I left a note with my name and number. The other car's owner gave me a call and we resolved the matter with my insurance paying for the damages and the end result that my insurance is going up for atleast 3 years. I was satisfied that I did what I would expect other's to do if my car had been hit by somebody else. But no, that's not the case. I went to Walmart today and to get over my new fear of parking I parked my car in a secluded area. After I was done with my shopping, I went back to my car and saw this real big dent in the side of my car, just above the rear wheel. And was there a note? NO. Whoever hit my car just took off. That really sucks.<br />So a week ago I had a car which looked fine and now it looks bruised and battered from all sides. <br /><br />-Muthu.Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-1152717416519497422006-07-12T08:06:00.000-07:002006-10-19T17:47:54.579-07:00Salaam Bombay!!!Salute to the resilient Mumbaikars who put behind the dastardly acts carried out by some cowards to disrupt the life of innocent people going about their day to day lives. No matter what this terrorists SOB's do, the city is going to bounce back. It pains me a lot seeing the news and pictures of people moaning for their near and dear ones. This people had nothing to do with it, God bless their souls.<br />This letter got forwarded to me by some of my friends :<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Dear Terrorist,<br /><br />Even if you are not reading this we don't care. Time and again you tried to disturb us and disrupt our life - killing innocent civilians by planting bombs in trains, buses and cars. You have tried hard to bring death and destruction, cause panic and fear and create communal disharmony but everytime you were disgustingly unsuccessful. Do you know how we pass our life in Mumbai? How much it takes for us to earn that single rupee? If you wanted to give us a shock then we are sorry to say that you failed miserably in your ulterior motives. Better look elsewere, not here.<br /><br />We are not Hindus and Muslims or Gujaratis and Marathis or Punjabis and Bengaliies. Nor do we distinguish ourselves as owners or workers, govt. employees or private employees. WE ARE MUMBAIKERS (Bombay-ites, if you like). We will not allow you to disrupt our life like this. On the last few occassions when you struck (including the 7 deadly blasts in a single day killing over 250 people and injuring 500+ in 1993), we went to work next day in full strength. This time we cleared everything within a few hours and were back to normal - the vendors placing their next order, businessmen finalizing the next deals and the office workers rushing to catch the next train. (Yes the same train you targetted)<br /><br />Fathom this: Within 3 hours of the blasts, long queues of blood donating volunteers were seen outside various hospital, where most of the injured were admitted. By 12 midnight, the hospital had to issue a notification that blood banks were full and they didn't require any more blood. The next day, attendance at schools and office was close to 100%, trains & buses were packed to the brim, the crowds were back. <br />The city has simply dusted itself off and moved one - perhaps with greater vigour.<br /><br />We are Mumbaikers and we live like brothers in times like this. So, do not dare to threaten us with your crackers. The spirit of Mumbai is very strong and can not be harmed.<br /><br />With Love,<br />From the people of Bombay </span><br /><br /><br />I am proud to say I am one of the Mumbaiker's and although I am not physically there my heart and soul is with them.<br /><br />-Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-1152594131194795522006-07-10T21:27:00.000-07:002006-10-19T17:47:54.505-07:00My Time at Agrawal Classes.Today I talked to an old friend of mine Kiran Pai after about 9 years, who I had met at Agrawal Classes during the boot-camp for our 12th Std exams and never saw him or talked to him after that till we met on Orkut a couple of weeks ago. It was fun remembering the old times and talking about what has happened in the last 9 years since we talked. I was really glad that I got a chance to speak to him.<br /><br />It all seemed like yesterday when I got my admission in Agrawal's. I am not sure now but at that time it was like trying to get into Harvard or MIT with them having their own merit list of students that they gave admissions to. I remember at that time seeing some parents literally begging with the staff members to give them the admission forms but it didn't help. It was like a boot-camp where you had to go every day from 7 in the morning to 1.30 in the afternoon every day during the summer break. They would have made everybody stay the whole day but since they didn't have any class-rooms with them being in a place like Dadar they were forced to have two classes in the morning and evening. They had tried and tested techniques that they had practised over the years to churn out toppers one after the other. No matter students of which college came in the merit list, they had one thing in common, they used to be all from Agrawals. <br />They had legendary notes written by eminent professors which made you a celebrity in your class since everybody wanted to photocopy them. There was this one prof who actually asked you to learn by heart all the math formulaes and would fire questions one after the other and if you didn't answer them, actually made you to write them 100 times. One prof who liked to show off his skills by writing all the logarithmic values without looking at the log table. I still don't know how he used to do that, maybe he was so used to write the same stuff so many times on the white board that he remembered all of them.<br />And one prof who could go on a real tangent if you got him started on the Indian Political system. He used to have one of the most entertaining classes which we all used to really enjoy. <br /><br />And Agru's had this really hard exams from time to time and they used to send the results along with the actual papers by post to your home address. That didn't make such good reading and I used to have a hard time convincing my parents that the exams were really hard. And coming back to my old friend Kiran, he always had scores in single digits and me in the low tens and we always used to have a good time discussing about them.<br />It was an enjoyable experience which took a lot of effort and hard-work but paid-off in the end and got me 96% which was a pretty good score at that time.<br />Also it brought back some old memories, things that just stay in your mind, the struggle, the effort which played a part in the journey to reach where you are.<br /> <br />-Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-1152510060457620382006-07-09T21:04:00.000-07:002006-10-19T17:47:54.403-07:00Italy are the Champions!!!64 matches, 30 days, 310 yellow cards , 28 red cards and 147 goals later, Italy are the world champions and a legend is disgraced.<br /><br />In what was one of the most exciting matches of the whole tournament, Italy came on top against France overcoming their dismal records in penalty-shootouts and winning their fourth world cup after they won in 1934, 1938 and 1982. Italy were lucky that it went into penalties considering that they were dead-tired and were barely moving in the second half of extra-time. All this thanks to a thoughtless act by a legend Zinedine Zidane who before the match was assured of a place among the legends Pele, Beckenbauer, Maradona, Cruyff regardless of whether France won the world cup or not. What was he thinking? No matter what Materrazi did or said to him there was no reason for head-butting somebody in the middle of a game and a game as important as a world cup final.That one act just changes everything. Now whenever somebody talks of Zizou, they are not going to remember him by the sublime skills that he displayed in the years gone by but by this single moment of madness which was the turning point of the entire game. Without their midfield warriors Zizou, Viera, Ribery and Henry France looked lost and beaten even before the penalties. This is not the first time that Zizou has lost his cool. He head-butted a SV Hamburg player once and got sent-off in the 2002 WC stamping on the back of a Saudi Arabia player. He had a chance to redeem himself and he did by carrying France to the finals and almost to their second World Cup. But after this he won't get a chance again since he has already announced his retirement from international and club football. I really hope that the world forgives him for this and he can rightfully take his place among the legends. Even Maradona had the "Hand of God" thing but nobody holds it against him.<br />Coming back to the match it was a wonderful display of football with both the teams attacking and defending really well. France were really coming into their own in the midfield and were for me the team who really deserved to win. But this was Italy's world cup to win and they displayed their never-die attitude by coming back from a goal down and hanging on to take the game to penalties. Also they have to thank their goalie Buffon who was outstanding in the entire tournament and made a unbelievable save against Zidane during extra-time which might have caused some of Zizou's frustration.<br />Italy with a record of 3-0 in penalties in their previous world cup games and having lost the 1994 world cup to Brazil on penalties, did nothing wrong in the penalty shootout and scored all their 5 penalties to clinch the title. <br />One man who made a difference for Italy in their knockout games was Fabian Grosso who got a penalty against Australia which Francesco Totti scored in the 2nd round match, scored the 1st goal against Germany in the dying minutes and was fitting that he scored the final penalty. <br />This win came timely for the Azurris considering that 13 of the 23 players play for the 4 teams Juventus, AC Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina that are being investigated for their role in referree-fixing for some of the Serie-A matches. Most of this players are expected to switch to the other big teams in the Premiership and the La-Liga. I hope that Manchester UTD, my favourite club team can get some of them particularly Gattuso who has made statements in the past about playing for ManU.<br /><br />My All-Star team for this world cup is:<br /><br />Gianluggi Buffon (GK) (Italy)<br />Roberto Ayala (Def) (Argentina)<br />Fabio Cannavaro (Def) (Italy)<br />Philip Lahm (Def) (Germany)<br />Lilian Thuram (Def) (France)<br />Zinedine Zidane (MF) (France)<br />Germaine Gattuso (MF) (Italy)<br />Joe Cole (MF) (England)<br />Maxi Rodriguez (MF) (Argentina)<br />Thierry Henry (F) (France)<br />Miroslav Klose (F) (Germany)<br /><br />Coach: Marcelo Lippi<br /><br />Best of 2006 World Cup:<br /><br />Goal : Maxi Rodriguez (Argentina)<br />Match: Italy V/S France<br />Team : Italy<br />Player: Fabio Cannavaro (Italy)<br /><br />This concludes my posting for this world cup. The next world cup is going to be held in South Africa in the year 2010. Till then, I am going to continue posting about my favourite team Manchester United.<br />Till then, Enjoy...<br /><br />-Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-1151451226271619202006-06-27T15:47:00.000-07:002006-10-19T17:47:54.212-07:00World Cup Fever - 3Nostradamus was wrong!!!<br /><br />"In the sixth month of 2006 the King of Spain will cross the Pyreness with his troops. The legions of Beelzebub will battle him in central Europe but the evil ones will suffer doom and destruction. The Holy Grail will then come, like the King, to Spain."<br />This is what Nostradamus say in one of his prophecies which was referred in all of the major Spanish newspapers with respect to the chances of the Spanish team.<br /><br />Obviously that hasn't been fulfilled and Spain lost to France in the 2nd round continuing their legacy of under-achievement. France did very well and with no pressure on them to win they pulled out a rabbit from the hat and beat Spain with their experience.<br />Brazil and England did enough to win without playing to the level that can win a world cup.<br />Argentina left it pretty late relying on an extra-time wonder-goal from Maxi Rodriguez to win it against Mexico.<br />Germany did it in the first 12 minutes and Sweden were left picking up the pieces for the rest of the game.<br />Switzerland and Ukraine played out one of the worst games of the world cup with neither of the team wanting to take any chances and Ukraine winning in a scrappy penalty-shootout.<br /><br />Portugal and Holland played out one of the most amazing games I have ever seen and it's not the quality of the game that I am talking about but rather the lack of it. There was no sportsmanship from any of the players and the referee just made it worse by flashing cards like crazy. No wonder it equalled the record for the highest number of yellow cards in a match (16) and broke the record for the most number of red cards (4).<br /><br />This is the line-up for the quarter-finals:<br /><br />Germany V/s Argentina<br />Italy V/s Ukraine<br />England V/s Portugal<br />Brazil V/s France<br /><br />I personally would like to see a Argentina v/s Brazil final with Argentina winning.<br />But with Germany playing at home and peaking at the right time, they will be tough to beat.<br />Italy should have it relatively easy against Ukraine.<br />England have been outsmarted by Scolari, the Portugal coach, twice before and are my favourites to do it again.<br />Brazil v/s France should be an interesting match and will come down to whoever controls the midfield well. The world's best midfielders would be in that match with Ronaldinho, Kaka, Zidane and Viera playing for their respective teams.<br /><br />Best of :<br /><br />Goals : Maxi Rodriguez (Argentina)<br />Match : France V/s Spain<br />Team : France<br />Player : Lukas Podolski (Germany)<br />Coach : Luiz Felipe Scolari (Portugal)<br /><br />I am off to San Francisco this weekend and am not sure if I will be able to watch the games, but I am sure gonna try.<br /><br />Enjoy!!!<br /><br />-Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-1150401850858573132006-06-15T13:01:00.000-07:002006-10-19T17:47:54.141-07:00World Cup Fever - 2All the teams in the world cup have finished playing their first group games. So which team is hot and which is not?<br />Spain seems to be the hottest team not only because of the number of goals they scored again Ukraine but in the way they scored it. They looked really impressive, their touches on the ball, passing and finishing. Brilliant. And which team totally sucked. Surprise it was not one of the African nations who made their debuts but France, the winner of the 1998 World Cup. It wasn't hard to believe by the way they played that they hadn't scored a goal since the 1998 Final when Emmanuel Petit scored a goal in the final minutes. Zidane, Barthez, Makelele all came out of retirements to help France qualify for the World Cup and I think that's the best they can do. They are going to struggle to reach the second-round and it will take a minor miracle for them<br />to go any further than that. They had class players like Henry, Viera, Zizou etc but they couldn't string together a single pass.<br />And Franc Ribery, boy o boy, is he really overrated, i think so, he was being talked about being the next Zidane and of possibly replacing Zidane in some of the games and bring Zidane as a sub. His skills seemed to be OK but his vision and finishing was pedestrian to say the least.<br /><br />Brazil won their game against Croatia. It wasn't a great effort but they got it done. They will have to improve a lot though against Australia who are on a high after scoring 3 goals(their first ever in the WC) in the dying minutes of that thrilling game against Japan.<br /><br />The second set of group games have started and I just watched England labouring to a hard fought win against Trinidad & Tobago(2-0). And they did only because the Trinidadians were tired. If things happen as they are happening now and Ecuador(who incidentally qualified to the second round for the first time) manage to get a draw against Germany, England will face Germany in the second round. What a match that's going to be?<br /><br />My "Best Of" series continues :<br /><br />Goal: Kaka (Brazil)<br />Team: Spain<br />Player: David Villa(Spain)<br />Coach: Luis Aragones(Spain)<br />Match: Australia V/S Japan<br /><br />One of my colleague send me this interesting article about the difference between the soccer balls used in this tournament and why goalkeepers don't like it.<br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060612/sc_space/whygoalieshatethenewworldcupsoccerball;_ylt=AgMpqheV1LTB5oh6_NhptH">http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060612/sc_space/</a><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060612/sc_space/whygoalieshatethenewworldcupsoccerball;_ylt=AgMpqheV1LTB5oh6_NhptH">whygoalieshatethenewworldcupsoccerball</a><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060612/sc_space/whygoalieshatethenewworldcupsoccerball;_ylt=AgMpqheV1LTB5oh6_NhptH">;_ylt=AgMpqheV1LTB5oh6_NhptH<br />EiANEA;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NmhocGZ1BHNlYwMxNzAw</a><br /><br />So don't blame the goalie.<br /><br />Enjoy!!<br /><br />--Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-1150085876869164862006-06-11T20:33:00.000-07:002006-10-19T17:47:54.064-07:00World Cup Fever -1Finally, I get a chance to post about something which really excites me. Before you start getting any ideas, let me say it's regarding the World Cup Soccer going on in Germany. It has taken me some time to say "Soccer" since people have a funny look on their face when I talk about the "football" game in Germany.<br />So who seems to be the favourite this time around.<br />Looking at some of the group games as of Sunday June,11, Netherlands seemed to be the most impressive team with Argentina a close behind. Although I really like England and would like them to do well, they have a real problem with the strikers that they have now. They have 4 strikers now but in reality its about one and a half, with Wayne Rooney injured and Theo Walcott with his inexperience. That leaves Peter Crouch as the only fully fit striker and a half-fit Michael Owen(who was substituted at the 55th min). An interesting statistic about Wayne Rooney is that he didn't score a single goal in any of the qualifying matches.<br />And about Argentina, my favourite team to win the World Cup, they have a couple of missing players Javier Zanetti and Walter Samuels who did really well in the last world cup and are really impressive in their respective leagues. Argentina didn't have any offense on the right flank, all the attack seemed to be coming from the middle and the left with Riquelme doing a really impressive job. But my main worry is what if Riquelme gets injured, booked or has a rough day who is going to command the midfield. Lionel Messi seems to be the answer but he is coming off a bad injury and would be a shadow of himself before he was injured.<br />This is my observation from the last few games about what was the most impressive in the following categories:<br />Best Team : Netherlands<br />Best Player: Arjen Robben<br />Best Match: Sweden V/S Trinidad<br />Best Coach: Leo Beenhakker(Trinidad & Tobago) For the offensive substitutions that he made when they were playing with 10 men.<br />I am going to post my thoughts and update the list very often till the world cup is over.<br />Till then, enjoy.<br /><br />--Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-1139781915365111952006-02-12T13:34:00.000-08:002006-10-19T17:47:53.991-07:00Indian Olympic Lethargy.In the Winter Olympics that is being held in Turin, Italy, I was watching the Luge event which is a small one- or two - person sled <span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span>on which one sleighs supine(upward facing position) and feet-first. Steering is done by flexing the sled's runners or pulling straps attached to the sled's runners<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span>. Luge is also the name of the sport<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport" title="Sport"></a> which involves racing with such sleds. And there is an Indian sportperson called Shiva Keshavan who finished 25th in the competition. Looking at his story it really made me wonder how the Indian sports official can make life really hard for a guy instead of encouraging him. He boycotted the opening ceremony where he was supposed to be the flag-bearer and which is a really big honour for somebody representing the country as he was being given a hard-time by the officials who were accompanying him. With the discrimination that the government and the corporate industry makes towards other sports compared to cricket, I wasn't really surprised that they do the same with the Winter Olympics team considering the fact that most of the population in India have never seen snow in their entire life. It's a shame that India with a population of more than a billion can never win anything big in any of the major competitions.<br />Is it government lethargy, lack of sponsorship from the corporate world or just the indifference of the general population to any sport other than cricket?<br />In a related story, when Jennifer Heil of Canada won a gold medal in the Women's Mogul event(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogul_%28skiing%29) she thanked J.D. Miller, a Montreal hedge fund manager who pooled a team of two ski coaches, four trainers and a sports psychologist to work with Heil so that she can reach the ultimate pinnacle in the sport and she did it. How many people like this would we find in India who would do the same thing.<br />Your guess is as good as mine. If things continue like this, I won't be surprised if India doesn't win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics in a million years unless they introduce "Ice Kabaddi" in the winter olympics any time sooner.<br /><br />--Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-1138598416271071442006-01-29T21:08:00.000-08:002006-10-19T17:47:53.919-07:00Videos on Google.I was surfing the web and found a real cool video on a guy's blog. It surprisingly looked very similar to the videos posted on google and wait a minute, it was. Google now allows you to have links of video on your site and they give you the code that you need to embed on your site for it.<br />Although I liked the quantity of videos that I could find on it, it seemed strange that when you say download the video, it just downloads a 1 kb file containing the information and which can be played only on the special Google Video Player. This forces you to be connected to the net whenever you want to watch the videos. I am not sure how the "paid" video service work, if they allow you to download the entire videos or if it's the same thing. I guess if it's not then it's not worth buying those videos which don't come cheap ranging in costs from $ 1.99 to 5.95 and maybe more. I hope someday Google finds another way to recoup the money that the market expects them to make and puts it under so much pressure so that they reduce the money they charge for these videos and also make available some of the videos free.<br /><br />This is the test for my first link to a Google video link.<br />A clip about Funniest Goals...<br /><br /><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?videoUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fvp.video.google.com%2Fvideodownload%3Fversion%3D0%26secureurl%3DiQAAAP6puPQ3QFBS2skbyYD-UlT8zXdvMjL3rilqIoo1suv_rUi0LsQmov8CpyO2d0-_nlb5iddKO6MfLdlMMbgmuZyU0i3gOZg2aG4FT8bjEBjH3GcZxWQYkOy7engVvbwl5CYajpBbTT6BzrKhgfyp6ztNsxZQQJLVwXUIcsHjgwvyj-l7DmrTGGSAjK8RgfQzew%26sigh%3DJHwO0DVDEwgjFdYs5vVYeP-85hA%26begin%3D0%26len%3D42999%26docid%3D-2837653667812060183&thumbnailUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2FThumbnailServer%3Fcontentid%3Dc5824f4ff121e28%26second%3D5%26itag%3Dw320%26urlcreated%3D1138597601%26sigh%3DGl2WOZ7Dj9B6y_vHoUh3A8lM5Z4&amp;amp;playerId=-2837653667812060183&playerMode=embedded" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" scale="noScale" wmode="window" salign="TL" align="center">Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-1136785785633282742006-01-08T21:43:00.000-08:002006-10-19T17:47:53.846-07:00Cool Anagram Site.I have always been interested in word puzzles and anagrams. Just found out this really cool site which takes a word and gives you all the anagrams of that particular word.<br /><pre><a href="http://wordsmith.org/anagram/">Internet Anagram Server</a> </pre><h3>What is an Anagram?</h3> anagram (<b>an</b>-a-gram) <a href="http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.wav"></a><p> noun </p><ul> A word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase. For example, <i>Elvis</i> to <i>Lives</i>. </ul> verb tr., intr. <ul> To rearrange letters in such a way. To anagrammatize.</ul>Check it out.<br /><br />-Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-1135668069070742472005-12-26T23:03:00.000-08:002006-10-19T17:47:53.770-07:00Finally...another post and a License to Drive.I am a real lazy person. I keep reminding myself to update my blog everyday warning that nobody will ever visit it again unless I keep on updating it.<br />Lot of things have happended since i did my last posting. I finally got my Driver's License on my first attempt(I am really proud to say that) which i thought i never would. I did that although it was not without some drama. This might make sense to somebody who has actually driven on the snow and how it feels. Sometimes it literally feels if your car is on skates. Anyway I had it planned on Nov.15 which turned out be a really bad day with snow showers and all and postponed it to the 30th of November. I don't know what i was thinking when i did that. Was i expecting the weather to all clear up and the sun to come up considering it is my third consecutive winter in Minnesota and what happens during that particular period. I have no idea why i did that. To say the least it did snow during that period and the whole ground was covered with snow. Thanks to my good friend Vinu Antony who was kind enough to tutor me and who drove me to the driving exam station. As soon as i was in there, i knew i was going to get it done no matter what. People had warned me that the driving examiners usually fail drivers in their first attempt. But i was determined not to allow that to undermine my confidence. The driving test was a breeze where i finished all my driving manoevures under the watchfull eye of the examiner. Nothing felt as sweet as when he asked me to do a lane parking and said "You have passed". That was the highest point in my brief driving experience.<br />Also congratulations to my friend Vinu and his wife Mini who were blessed with a beautiful baby boy Prince Vinu on Nov. 18.<br /><br />--Muthu...Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18438725.post-1130665531753724222005-10-30T01:25:00.000-08:002006-10-19T17:47:53.679-07:00Day of Moving.Today has been a long hard day of moving and unmoving stuff.<br />If its the end of the month and you see lot of furniture around, you know people are moving.<br />A couple of my friends were moving out and asked for my help in moving and cleaning in their apartment. I have gained a reputation for being the guy who can tell you how to get rid of stains from the carpets/walls or what to use to clean, etc. I think if you have to move in and out of 6 apartments in 18 months you kind of learn all this stuff(But I have settled down now). And to get your security deposit for the apartments after you vacate is no mean feat. Once you have cleaned up, the landlady/caretaker will have an inspection and inform you if you are going to get your money back or not. These inspections were more nerve wracking than the Viva's I have given in my college days(And Believe me those used to be really bad). But nothing is more satisfying than getting your whole deposit back. The thing that i have learned is if you are going to clean up you either clean up the whole thing 100% or don't clean up at all. Once the caretaker gets a small stain on the carpet or an unclean closet you can be pretty sure that they are going to charge you through the roof for it.<br />That's the advice that i give to all my friends when they move out.<br />And finally not to mention all the things that are moved out mainly the furniture and the mad rush to claim it.<br />I think I will wait for another day to write about the relationship between moving out and furniture in the garbage cans.<br />One of my good friend is going to India tomorrow and so i had planned to send a video recording of me driving a car. I am sure it doesn't sound like a big deal but I think it will be for my parents and my sister when they see me driving my Honda Accord 1998.<br />I have promised one of my neighbour that I will help him move.<br />Oh my back hurts!!!!Muthu Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16368966507664352655noreply@blogger.com1