These two bright objects are hard to miss in the morning sky these days. They are seen in the southeastern sky before sunrise. Due to their brightness, they are visible even as the sky starts to lighten up. On Friday, Feb 1st, they will appear to be at their closest point (less than 1deg.). Don’t miss the spectacular sight. Here is more information.
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Came back from Hindustan over the weekend. I had a such a nice time for two weeks, I didn’t realize that it was time to come back. It feels good to be back with my babies. It was precious to see the happiness on their faces to see me.
The journey back home was very uneventful. Non-stop flight from Mumbai to New York was about half full and I had a whole bench of three seats to myself. I could make full use of them to lie down through most of the travel time. First class treatment in economy class fare. Who would complain about that?
Other than meeting with parents, friends and relatives to eat about 5-6 meals every day, there were just a few mentionable things I did.
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| Lohgad 01-2008 |
After eating a meal at one of Mumbai’s fanciest hotels, The Orchid, on the night before, I was treated to simple zunaka-bhakar for lunch at Hotel Baba at the foot of Lohgad. After the arduous hike in cool weather, freshly made hot zunaka-bhakar with onions and pickles was just heavenly.
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| Parag 2008 Thane trip |
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This was my time on Air India and It was one of the best airline experiences ever. Direct flight from New York to Mumbai takes only 13 hours and 40 minutes. This route is serviced by new Boeing 777 planes that are really nice. Lots of legroom, the seats are comfortable and are equiped with personal on-demand video service. I had unlimited and uninterrupted access to TV after a long long time and I made full use of it. Other than about 4-5 hours of sleep, I was watching it constantly.
Here are the movies that I watched:
The best part about all these hindi movies was that they were edited to remove all the songs and made to fit in less than 2 hours. It was just perfect. All the three movies had Boman Irani. He seemed much better than Kader Khan and Johny Lever. Maybe, after a few more movies, he will become unbearable too. Also, two of them had Vidya Balan. She looked quite good. Probably one of the best of the newer actresses in Bollywood.
Looking forward to watching a few more movies on my way back on the 25th.
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In my opinion, credit cards shoule be used only for emergencies and convenience. One should use them only if the balance can be paid off at the end of each month. Otherwise, the bank makes too much money. As it is, the banks pay very little interest on savings. Paying them back in interest on unnecessary credit card debt is plain waste of money. Using a credit card to buy $3000 high-definition TV that you don’t really need and then, paying interest on it month after month is just not prudent. Carrying balance is OK in case of emergencies or some special situations such as the one described below.
Last year, I received an offer from a credit card to borrow money at a special rate of 0.99% for 6 months, before it was reset to the usual 15%. I decided to take the offer and borrowed $21,000. Out of that sum, $10,000 were put in a savings account that yielded 5% interest and the rest $11,000 were invested in a closed-end fund, ING Prime Rate (PPR) that had a dividend yield of 6-7% and paid dividend monthly. After 3 months, I sold the (1500) shares of PPR at $0.27 profit per share and put the proceeds into the savings account. Five months after borrowing the money, I paid it back in full.
One obvious caveat: The credit card was not used for any other purpose during this time.
My costs for this whole deal:
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Money I received in five months:
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Return on investment: $710 on $195 = 364% in five months or annualised return of 873%.
On top of this return, the satisfaction of making money at the expense of a bank that sends out these lures to trap people is just priceless.
I guess the bankers liked the whole transaction as well. They have increased my credit limit and sent another offer with the interest rate of 2.9% till Aug. 2008. I think I’ll wait for a few months for their teaser rate to drop a little more before playing the same game again.
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Earlier this week, my reusable insulated coffee cup with University of Nebraska Medical Center insignia broke. Over the years, it helped me avoid using thousands of paper and plastic coffee cups. I had bought it when I left Omaha, NE after finishing graduate school. I can’t believe that it actually happened 11 years ago. I defended my thesis on Dec. 7th, 1996, submitted the final version to the University on the 10th and received the much-coveted piece of paper that conferred the Ph.D. degree on me, on the 19th of Dec. during the Fall graduation ceremony along with 3 other students from my department.
Wonder where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing, in another 11 years. Probably making another nostalgic post about a degree that I received 22 years ago. 
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Yesterday, it was time for the bimonthly blood donation drive at work. Usually, my hemoglobin is well above the 12.5 gm/dl limit required to be eligible for donation. When the nurse tested it yesterday, it was 12. Upon retest, it was 11.4. So, she brought her supervisor to repeat the test and then, it came out to be 14.4 gm/dl which is in the normal range for me. Don’t know if it was the inexperience of the first nurse or some glitch with the machine that were responsible those lower readings. After several pokes for the hemoglobin test and registration, I had to wait awhile before they could put the big needle into me. During this time, one woman fainted on the bed half way through her donation. Another man finished his donation with a big bruise developing at the puncture site. Watching all this drama, I was getting skeptical about the donation, but fortunately there were no problems for me. I was done in 5 minutes.
This will be my first and last donation of 2008. After my India trip next week, American Red Cross will not take my blood for one year. In the 1990’s this deferral period used to be a six months but, later increased to one year.
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On Saturday night, I made paav-bhaaji after a long time. While we filled ourselves with the stew…
V: I had paav-bhaaji in India a couple of times, but none was as good as this.
Me: That is because I made this with a lot of love.
V: Oh yeah! It is just oozing…
Me: like pus from a boil
Then, we continued eating more of that love-infested goodness without skipping a beat.
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Adit was a very happy boy last week as it was his birthday and Santa dropped by too. He received a lot of presents from us, but my favorite ones were sent by his Sujitkaka.
These cars must have been very popular lately. I wanted to buy more and had a hard time finding them online. Finally, found what I wanted at Mad Cat Toys.These beautiful and minimalistic mechanical critters are designed by Chico Bicalho. They walk around and make sparks. There is a whole series of these things. I should try to get all the rest of them.
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More than a couple of years ago, I invested in my first IPO:: Morningstar, Inc (MORN). I was very excited to see a 55% profit in just one month, but decided to keep the stock for longer term rather than a short term gain. Today, one share of MORN trades at $75.84 compared to my buying price of $18.50. That amounts to a profit of about 310%. I should have bought more shares when it was still in the 20’s two years ago.
My second IPO investment was in Interactive Brokers (IBKR) in May 2007. It hasn’t done anywhere near as well as MORN, but right now, I have about 7% profit in 7 months. That is a 12% annual return. Not bad!!!
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