Blog of Parag

Know your WTO

Take the following quiz at BBC to find out how much do you really know about World Trade and WTO. My score was pathetic, not that I claim to know a lot about WTO, but, many answers surprised me totally.

BBC NEWS | Business | Quiz: What's the deal with trade?

Happy Republic Day

I had seen this video for Jana Gana Mana quite a few years ago on TV. Found it on Google video. One of best of AR Rahman.

Anniversary presents

It was a nice day yesterday. We couldn't really go out and celebrate with a 4 week baby in tow. Celebrations are deferred by 6 months and we will celebrate our 10.5th anniversary in July.

I gave V these ear rings and she gave me a spa package for 1 hour deep tissue massage with pedicure and manicure. This will be my first trip to a spa and I don't know what to expect. But, it is the first step towards becoming metrosexual. yeah, BABY, yeah!!!

The best present though was from Ashwini. She pooped in the toilet for the first time ever. She was so excited and proud of her creation that she didn't want to flush it. She made sure that everyone in the house gazed at it, commented on it and told her how proud we were of her for making poopy before finally flushing it away. I think this is good progress towards her freedom from diapers.

Ten years and counting...

When fun is being had, time just flies by. I can't believe that V married me 10 years ago on this day, Jan 25th and we are still married after all these crazy years. Life during these 10 years just seems like a blur, especially last 3, during which we increased the size of our family by 100%. But, I have immensely enjoyed every moment of it. Hope to make posts like this every decade for a long time to come.

Here are some photos of us during these 10 years in a chronological order. We first met each other in August of 1987, almost 18 and half years ago. Couldn't find any photos from the 80's. Will have to dig in some boxes stored in the basement.

Disneyland in 1993



in Austin, Tx; 1995



Our wedding in 1996



Our wedding in 1996



Camping trip to Lake Ontario in 1999



V's first camping trip to Grand Canyon in 2000



Rafting trip to Grand Canyon in 2002



Us getting buried in snow in 2003



Us with Ashwini in 2005

I didn't get time to scan the photos that were prints. In stead, I took digital pictures of those for posting here. So, the quality is not so good. Hopefully, all my photos will be in digital format sometime in the future.

Posted by Parag at 11:12 AM | Comments (3)

Meaning of Adit

I didn't think 'Adit' was an uncommon name, but have received several queries about its meaning.

Adit: pronounced as ädit, and means
1. The first


2. The Sun

The second meaning is the same as the longer version, Aditya. According to my mother, Adit is the prakrit version of Aditya which is a sanskrit word. We liked the shorter version better.

Center of the Milky Way

Have you ever wondered how our own galaxy, Milky Way, looks like? On a dark night, one can make out a swatch of shimmering cloud like Milky Way go across the sky. But, we can't see the center of the galaxy which is supposedly dense with stars and should be very bright. Our view of the center is obscured by clouds of gas and dust that is part of our galaxy. The image above is a mosaic of photos showing the center of the Milky Way, taken by Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared cameras. Click here for a higher resolution photo. The galactic center lies towards the constellation, Sagittarius and is about 26,000 light years away. We, in our solar system, truly live on the outer fringes of the galaxy.

Just think about it... Even at the speed of light, it will take us a lot more time than the period of documented human history on Earth, to reach the center of our own galaxy. There are many many billions of such galaxies in the Universe. Feel insignificant? Good. Remember that feeling next time you agonize and cry about your small little problems.

via, APOD

Brokeback mountain

I have heard a lot of good reviews about this movie. But, I am not going to watch it. I am very impressionable (if there is such word) and easily gullible to any kind of sales pitch. I don't want to confuse my mind with the ideas from the story of this movie. Larry David wrote exactly what I wanted to say in his NYTimes op-ed last week. Click on the link below to read his full article.

January 1, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Cowboys Are My Weakness
By LARRY DAVID

SOMEBODY had to write this, and it might as well be me. I haven't seen "Brokeback Mountain," nor do I have any intention of seeing it. In fact, cowboys would have to lasso me, drag me into the theater and tie me to the seat, and even then I would make every effort to close my eyes and cover my ears.

And I love gay people. Hey, I've got gay acquaintances. Good acquaintances, who know they can call me anytime if they had my phone number. I'm for gay marriage, gay divorce, gay this and gay that. I just don't want to watch two straight men, alone on the prairie, fall in love and kiss and hug and hold hands and whatnot. That's all.

Is that so terrible? Does that mean I'm homophobic? And if I am, well, then that's too bad. Because you can call me any name you want, but I'm still not going to that movie.

To my surprise, I have some straight friends who've not only seen the movie but liked it. "One of the best love stories ever," one gushed. Another went on, "Oh, my God, you completely forget that it's two men. You in particular will love it."

"Why me?"

"You just will, trust me."

But I don't trust him. If two cowboys, male icons who are 100 percent all-man, can succumb, what chance to do I have, half- to a quarter of a man, depending on whom I'm with at the time? I'm a very susceptible person, easily influenced, a natural-born follower with no sales-resistance. When I walk into a store, clerks wrestle one another trying to get to me first. My wife won't let me watch infomercials because of all the junk I've ordered that's now piled up in the garage. My medicine cabinet is filled with vitamins and bald cures.

So who's to say I won't become enamored with the whole gay business? Let's face it, there is some appeal there. I know I've always gotten along great with men. I never once paced in my room rehearsing what to say before asking a guy if he wanted to go to the movies. And I generally don't pay for men, which of course is their most appealing attribute.

And gay guys always seem like they're having a great time. At the Christmas party I went to, they were the only ones who sang. Boy that looked like fun. I would love to sing, but this weighty, self-conscious heterosexuality I'm saddled with won't permit it.

I just know if I saw that movie, the voice inside my head that delights in torturing me would have a field day. "You like those cowboys, don't you? They're kind of cute. Go ahead, admit it, they're cute. You can't fool me, gay man. Go ahead, stop fighting it. You're gay! You're gay!"

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

Larry David appears in the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

New Year's resolutions.

In my opinion, there is no sense in making New Year's resolutions. They are bound to fail just by the nature of their design. These resolutions are something that you want to do but aren't doing already. It invariably means that it is something that you don't enjoy doing. Just making a resolution doesn't change that fact and hence, one tries to follow the resolution for some time by forcing themselves to do something that they don't enjoy and eventually, stop doing it.

If it is an enjoyable activity, you'd be doing it already, you don't have to make a resolution about it.

So, quit fooling yourselves with the resolutions. Just don't make them. Accept the fact that there are some things that you don't like to do and you won't do them, no matter what.

Rose Bowl

Texas is the NCAA college football champion. Vince Young is a cool cat. It was a nice two-minute drill in the last 2 minutes that won the game for Texas. Leinert, Bush and company finally lost to Texas, 41-38. It was a great game to watch. Both the sides played their hearts out. Unfortunately, this is the end of college football season. Now, we'll have to wait 8 months till August to get all the excitement again.

All my bowl picks won their games except Rutgers which lost to Arizona State.

Matthew McConaughey is a f**king moron. I didn't care about his movies, but, it was just disgusting to see him do his stupidity on the field before the Texas - USC game in Rose Bowl. Ugh! In contrast, Lance Armstrong showed his support to the 'Horns in a dignified way.

Orange Bowl

It was a good game to watch last night between Penn State and Florida State. Penn State won 26-23 in what turned out to be a battle of defensive teams and missed field goals. Over the years, Bobby Bowden has had his share of kickers that missed critical field goals nleading to a loss. Last night was another repeat of that. The only difference was that the Penn State kicker, a freshman was doing badly as well. Finally, he put one in to win the game. I just love the games that go into overtime.

The combined age of the two head coaches was 155 years. With Joe Pa at young 79 and Bobby Bowden at 76, these are the top two winningest coaches in NCAA football. They coached against each other for the first time after a gap 15 years. Paterno is now 7-1 against Bowden. They both appeared for a short interview at the end of the game and didn't want to take any questions about retirement. The best quote was from Joe Paterno. He said this to Bobby Bowden as the game finally ended at 1 am, "I told him we're too old for this. It's almost past my bedtime."

Can't wait to watch Texas and USC in the Rose Bowl tonight. It is going to be a great offensive battle in contrast to Orange Bowl. Both the teams have very good offenses led by Texas' QB Vince Young and USC's RB Reggie Bush, this year's Heisman Trophy winner. I am rooting for the 'Horns. Can't have USC win three in a row.