Blog of Parag

New family members

Please welcome 3 new members to our solar system. International Astronomical Union decided to bestow the status of 'planet' to three celestial bodies in our solar system:

• Ceres, the largest asteroid in the astorid belt between Mars and Jupiter


• Charon, which was considered as Pluto's moon, but it is upgraded due to its size. Now Pluto and Charon will be known as twin planets.


• Xena (aka "2003 UB313"), another icy planet like Pluto, but larger than Pluto, found in the Kuiper belt.

Here is what defines a planet according to IAU:

• The object must be in orbit around a star, but must not itself be a star


• It must have enough mass for the body's own gravity to pull it into a nearly spherical shape

Wipe out the old list of planets from your memory and commit this new one...

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Charon, and Xena.

This IAU decision couldn't have been more timely. Just yesterday, we were talking about making a chart of planets for Ashwini. She wants her own telescope and we set a condition that she has to know the list of planets before she can get it.

Sex: Everywhere we look

These days, it is so difficult to raise kids in a clean environment. We try to keep sex and violence out of the house by not watching much TV. We never put on Fox news, CNN, E!, Discovery or National Geographic channels while the kids are around. But, it seems like the world is hell bent on teaching them about birds and bees. Here are just a couple of examples...

On Saturday, we went to the zoo. It was Adit's first visit. The first ever zoo exhibit that he saw was of "African Wild Dogs". The mommy and daddy wild dogs promptly demonstrated their process of making baby wild dogs.

In Ashwini's Butterfly garden, the caterpillars turned into cocoons and finally metamorphosed into butterflies last Friday. Since yesterday, they have been showing us how to make eggs to make new caterpillars.

Wonder what we will witness next...

Crocs

Crocs: You gotta love 'em
We have two happy users in our house

Metamorphosis continues...

Ashwini's pets, the hungry caterpillars ate, ate and ate a lot of food and have turned from the larvae stage into the pupae stage. There are five chrysalides hanging from the top of the cup. We shall transfer them to the butterfly garden and wait for about a week to see them open.

Acura MDX

My impressions after driving first 1000 miles...

• It is a bloody gas-guzzler. After driving a compact sedan for 10 years, every time I fill up gas is a shock. High gas prices are adding to that. 17 to 19 mpg in the city and 22 mpg on one long mainly highway trip. That is quite pathetic considering what I was used to: 25 in city and 30 on highway. But, I knew what I was getting into when I bought an SUV. No use crying over it.
• I love all the gadgetry, especially the navigation system. It is very cool and an essential tool for every driver. Every car should include this as standard equipment.
• Bose sound system is quite good. In-dash 6 CD changer is very handy. I am also planning to get the dealer to install a iPod link to the sound system. The car came with 3 month subscription to XM satellite radio. I don't plan to extend that. Wasn't impressed by the music channels. Only ones I liked were Deep Tracks (Rock), Public Radio and BBC news. Considering the little amount of time I spend in the car, the monthly subscription is not worth it.
• Built-in bluetooth hands-free phone system rocks.
• The best part of all is that everything in the car works with voice commands: from controlling the A/C to sound system to navigation system. Just talk to the car and ask what you want done. It has some problem with my accent, but I am getting used to saying certain things a certain way for the car to understand. If it fails, I just ask Ashwini to say it, then the car understands. :)
• It runs fairly smoothly. The V6 engine with 253 hp and 5 speed automatic transmission is very quiet and powerful enough for the car. There is some road noise at high speeds, but it is nothing compared to what I was used to with the Jetta.
• I am not very pleased with the aesthetics of the car. The zebra wood accents are just horrendous. Don't know why people like these laminated wood pieces in the cars. To me, they are just unnecessarily expensive and look ugly, just like Paris Hilton. Even the leather interior doesn't look like the same quality as our other cars: VW Jetta and Volvo V70.
• The body doesn't seem as solid as our other cars. The doors are very light comparatively. Hope they have enough strength to withstand a crash.

Overall, I am very impressed with all the electronic gadgetry, engine and the ride. The body and interior is alright, but not great. Hopefully, I'll get used to it in a few months.

Let's set so double the killer delete select all...

Check out the video, if you haven't already:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkeC7HpsHxo

I don't know what everybody is complaining about. To me, Vista seems to be ready for delivery, judging from how buggy and reliable all the other Microsoft products are.

Ashwini's new pets

Recently, V bought a nice gift for Ashwini (and me). It is called, Butterfly Garden. The kit had a coupon to get live caterpillars by mail. They arrived here last Friday. We were all excited to see their life cycle unfold in front of our eyes. Here is Ashwini inspecting them very intently.

This is so exciting. Can't wait for them to make their cocoons. V says that sometimes she isn't sure who she buys some things for: Ashwini or me? This is one of them. :)

Mel

Mel Gibson is such a certifiable asshole.