Railway at the top of the world...

I read this article on todays paper about the 1220 mile long railway link between Qinghai, China to Lhasa, Tibet and was amazed at the engineering marvel that went into planning and building this rail link. I immediately wanted to find more information on this link and found a very informative website dedicated to this. You can get a glimpse of the world records shattered by this rail link here. Now I have one more item on my wish list and you can guess what it is..

Amazon.com and Bill Maher...

If you are a Bill Maher fan like me and do not want to pay $15 a month for HBO to watch him, Amazon.com has come up with a weekly web show called Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher starting June 1 until end of August. Dont worry if you have missed it so far, they have it covered. They have archives of previous episodes from the Pilot to the current one on Amazon.com website. I watched the Pilot episode and it has Bill Maher all over it. He just cannot keep himself from being "Politically correct" although he is trying his best, I should say.. Thats what makes this show a must watch.. Have fun...

Nostalgia captured in frames...

There are some songs in movies that makes you think "Ahh.. that was once my life".. One such song that never fails to make me nostalgic is this one... Every time I see this song, I can recall my childhood in, which was once, a little town called Hosur. Some moments are still livid that I can relive them. I am hoping to one of these days..

For folks who cannot see the video above, you can view it here.

28 days of solitude...

Its amazing on how far people go in the name of adventure. Check out this adventurous woman who spent 28 days alone on a boat crossing the atlantic ocean from west to east.

A graduating student of Chelsea College of Art, London, Lia Ditton is also a professional sailor. Her first trans-Atlantic crossing from West to East was on a famous 60ft trimaran called 'Moxie' which had won a race called the OSTAR (Observer Single-Handed Transatlantic Race) in 1980.Inspired by this experience, Lia set out to enter her first solo race with a view to exploring the nature of solitude through articles of reflection, initially intended to be drawn onto the boat's interior.

During a hard crossing when only 18 of 43 entrants finished the 2005 Faraday Mill OSTAR, Lia sailed 'Shockwave', a 34ft trimaran, to finish 5th in class. She was the youngest competitor and the only woman to finish. Last counted, her articles of reflection were followed by an audience of over ten thousand readers.

She now has the boat hoisted out from the ocean and placed it on the courtyard of her college and is spending 28 days inside that boat to re-live the experience and share it with her friends and visitors. She has a daily blog going and a live webcam on her website.

My first date with Podcasting...

As usual, I have this new fascination for podcasting. So I decided to start a podcasting channel called Flat world Podcasts, thanks to Odeo. I debated a little bit about what I can podcast about. I was recently reading The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman for the second time(I have owned this book for quite some time now, thanks to my uncle, who presented this book for my '05 birthday). I was indeed quite fascinated by the details into which this book goes into, to prove how the general concept of a round world has now become a flat one unbeknown to a lot of people, including me. Over the past couple of weeks, I also came across a few podcasts which debated this flatness. These were from various sources and I wanted to find more such podcasts. Thats when it struck me as to why not start a podcasting channel that will aggregate all these various podcasts in one place that debates this flatness as described by Friedman. I know that this is a very narrow subject but I wanted to start with something small and build on it slowly. So for now, this channel will focus on aggregating podcasts that are available all over the place debating on flatness of world and anything remotely related to it.
I am also planning to do some interviews if possible on this flatness, from people who have read Friedman's book(and also who have not but has some opinions about it) and how they felt before and after reading that book. I have to do some groundwork for that before I go chasing for some opinions. Hopefully I can get around to do that soon. Until then hopefully I can do some justice to this channel. You can also access this podcasting channel by clicking on the little green Odeo icon to the right on my blog.

Blog(Pod)casting...

Odeo has come up with this cool concept of embedding a flash player in my blog from which I can listen to the Podcasts that I have subscribed in Odeo. It also lets my blog visitors listen to the podcasts that I have subscribed. Pretty cool stuff.. Of late Odeo has been coming up with neat little things like this which is very much blogger friendly. Over the past few months I have seen them harness the synergy between podcasting and blogging and giving the end users like us the ability to share our interests to a wider audience from a single portal like our blogs or personal web space. Keep up the good work Odeo!!!

P.S. You can sample the above feature in my blog where I have shared my Odeo subscription.

Is the world really flat???

An interesting discussion with Thomas L. Friedman, Op-Ed columnist, and Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. Many of you know about Friedman's popular book "The world is flat". Stiglitz seems to have a slightly different view on that... Its a 90 minute discussion. The panelists speak for the first 40 mins or so and then its a Q&A session. So make sure you have some time to listen to the entire discussion.

powered by ODEO

Stress and Diabetes...

Something new I learnt today.. Stress has a major influence on diabetes. If one is stressed, the cortisone and adrenaline level goes up which in turn blocks insulin from attacking the blood sugars thus raising your blood sugar levels. Pretty scary. Off late, I have seen stress being attributed to a lot of lifestyle diseases. Dealing with stress has become a huge money churner. With the fast paced lifestyle in today's world, there is a huge industry dealing with stress related ailments and their cure. Some questions that come to my mind are the following:

1. Is stress that difficult to deal with that we have to take professional help?
2. When one can bring upon stress to themselves how hard would it be to get rid of it by ourselves?
3. Where was this stress factor when I was growing up back in India?


Another spicy news: Turmeric has been found to be anti-inflammatory and there are now plans of selling them in capsules... No wonder our grandpas and grandmas had such a healthy lifestyle.

Snake dreams...

For the first, time that I can remember, I had a dream featuring snakes.. Lots of them tangled and hanging from a tree. It was pretty scary. I generally do not remember my dreams. Of late, I have been remembering a few and this one forced me to blog about it. I did some research on dreams about snakes. As usual there is a plethora of articles out on the world wide web and I decided to dig more into it if I get those dreams again.. I now have a new-found interest on researching about dreams..

Slovenia and the calculator...

Solvenia is the latest country that has got a green light to join the Euro Zone on January 1, 2007. Guess what the citizens of Slovenia will get as an enrollment gift..... A free calculator.. to do the Euro conversion. Couple of interesting facts about Slovenia..
1. 1 in 4 Slovenian is a pension earner.
2. Its the first ex-communist country to join the Euro Zone.

Candles please...

Its been 3 years since we moved into our home and for the first time yesterday evening we had a blackout. The power was out for nearly 2 hours. We were expecting guests, who by the way, are also visiting us for the first time and as they were pulling up on our driveway, the powere went off.
In no way we were prepared for a blackout. When you do not have a power cut for 3 years, how can one expect to be prepared for it? Luckily I remembered where we put our torchlight. It was not in the usual place we normally put it but luckily that morning I happened to glance at it and thought to myself that I should put that back to place. So I was able to feel my way to it and welcomed our guests with the torch light.
My wife is an avid collector of candles. I never understood how one could collect candles and so I used to make fun of her everytime she buys a candle. But those candles were the ones that came to our rescue yesterday. Luckily we had warmed the food just before the power went out. So we had to light candles all over the house and believe it or not, ended up having our first candle light dinner. Excellent food, great company and beautiful aromatic candles. A perfect setting for a romantic dinner except it was more of a family dinner which we had no regrets for.
So I have now started to look at candles with a new respect. Thanks Black out...

A first...

Officer: How are you doing today sir?
Me: Fine thanks!!!
Officer: I caught you doing 87 on my radar.
Me: Really!!!
Officer: Did you see me coming behing you?
Me: Yes..
Officer: Can I see your driving license please?
Me: Sure...
Officer: Is this a rental car?
Me: Yes...
Officer: Can I see the rental agreement then?
Me: Sure...
Officer: Will be right back..
Me: Sure...

The officer comes back after 10 mins

Officer: Here is your ticket and make sure to pay the $95 fine within 10 days
Me: Sure...
Officer: Where are you coming from
Me: Champaign....
Officer: Are you heading to O'hare?
Me: Yes...
Officer: Any questions for me?
Me: No.. Thanks for the ticket...
Officer: Drive safely...
Me: I will..

Thus got my first speeding ticket...