Adieu my lovely aunt !! I will miss you.

Risks and causes of oesophageal cancer

Today is a very sad day in my life, having lost my aunt Sajani ( Sajju - her pet name ( father's sister )) to oesophageal cancer. The word "Cancer" sends shivers down my spine, Its the word I dislike the most and feel this is something which no one should get, in any form, at any time of life.

Having seen a budding professional and one of my aunts succumb to lymphoma in front of my eyes a couple of years ago was more heart breaking than anything else. What pains more is the agony which the person has to go through when he/she knows well of what is going on within their body, a slow and painful destruction. 

I pray for my aunt for her soul rest in peace, and her family to have courage to go through this tragedy, something which has changed their lives and a gap which nobody will be able to fill. Sitting this far from them, unable to do anything, I pray for them with my whole heart.

She was diagnosed with cancer in its very advanced and possibly last stage around February this year. The place of tumour which was blocking her food pipe worsened it as she couldn't consume food and whatever she consumed couldn't reach her stomach in good quantity. I guess it just worsened from there on and she was fighting a losing battle.

She was a very caring person, and my very infrequent interactions with her were splendid. Since she lived in Rajasthan, meetings were limited to family functions or summer vacations. The best times I had was in 1998 when I went to attend a marriage in their family and stayed with them for 15 days or so. My liking for Rajasthan caught on from then, and I really cherish that stay there. So much fun. I got pampered like anything.

She was the best daughter-in-law for her family and one of the best persons I ever encountered.

Some memories of her will never go away, like her wedding gifts - glasses and plates etched with her name and year of marriage, her truly "Beaweri" accent of Rajasthani and hindi, her jovial nature.

God, rest her soul in peace and harmony and give strength to their family in this crisis. Amen !!

I will miss you Sajju Bhua . . . :( :(

Watch those H1-B hires, FBI tells American firms-The United States-World-The Times of India

Watch those H1-B hires, FBI tells American firms-The United States-World-The Times of India

Good one to start off the day with coffee on your side. I guess I was pretty curious as to what context of checks or watch FBI was advising american companies to keep on H1B, well after reading the article it turned out pretty dumb.

When you don't allow a propective employee to stay for long and seek citizenship in US how do you expect him to not to go back to his/her country and utilize the knowledge gained for his and nation's development. Typical FBI attitude, doing what they know is stupid, but still going ahead with it.

I guess they are more worried about bits and pieces of a mammoth project being taken away and re-engineered which I along with many people would find really absurd considering that there has to be a specific motive and a whole set of logistics if something of this kind has to be initiated, doesn't look like for competition purposes, I would go ahead and pull out an entire set of R & D folks from Intel and start off my own Chip Fab facility in india !! Come on, is it so easy for you to get venture funded by your country for something like this ?

FBI, you think you are more dumb than anybody else ?? Wrong !! Your dumbness has been long time surpassed by Indian government where even public welfare schemes dont get funded due to lack of targeted benefits, leave apart funding something for which American Co.s themselves have R & D facilities here, so moving data from offshore to use is much more easier than bringing it over from US. I guess the Boeing issue clearly highlights the global connectivity works much easier than an employee coming over to his native country.

God bless the FBI.

Slickdeals.net - A World of Slickest deals on planet earth !!

Slickdeals.net

This website is something I have been more regular to than my office cubicle I believe ;). Why ? you will ask. The simple answer is the name of the website itself. It gives you killer deals on stuff ranging from a sock to 60" mammoth sized LCD/Plasmas at rates that even grey markets can not afford.

Although there are couple of other sites which are similar like deals2buy, Fat Wallet, Techbargains, but the simplicity and simply the volume of deals posted here drag me here day after day. It's now a phenomenon where people have reported to go bankrupt in the craze to buy something cheap which they don't need rightaway to people who have simply save hundred's of dollars by watching the website at the right time for the right product they wish to buy.

Personally, my bank account would like to thank Slickdeals for all the money it has saved, although sometimes addiction has a fee associated with it.

So next time you are in US and are looking to buy stuff online / B & M, don't forget to browse through these website's forums !! You never know what you can land !! Some examples of what I have landed ..

Woot : Fantastic site which regularly has great stuff for throwaway prices.
Steep and Cheap : Another site which doles out wonderful stuff.

Bluetooth Headsets - 2 FAR ( Free after rebate worth $ 120)
McAfee products - 8 FAR ( worth $ 500 )
Canon SD 700 IS - $ 270
6 sheet paper Shredder - FAR ( $40 value )
Canon ZR500 Camcorder - $ 175 ( $ 250 value )
Sprint SERO plan - $30 p.m ( saves me at least $ 70 every month on a similar service )
Collection of Creative's MP3 line - $20 - $ 30 AR ( Zen Nano Plus ), $120 ( Zen V Plus 8 GB ).
Loads of SD Cards, microSD, miniSD, USB flash drives (512 MB - 2 GB) - $0 - $20 range.
Targus Groove backpack - $10 ( $30 value)
Loads of cash in GCs valuing upto $ 100.

All said n done, if you want to have the maximum bang of your buck !! Get SDing baby !!

IBNLive : Anuradha SenGupta's Blog

IBNLive : Anuradha SenGupta's Blog

People wouldn't have read much about this particular blogger being featured on IBN's blog page. I didn't either till I landed a blog by her which described her experience of watching Rajinikanth's latest blockbuster down south and all across the world "Sivaji".

I haven't seen the movie yet, which I definitely want to watch, but reading of the blog has kicked off a wave of brickbats, insults, accusations and regional accusations which weren't called for in such a magnitude to a poorly written piece of text. Not only the article shows the author as a poor candidate for writing even a personal review, which I believe IBN is not a medium for, unless that is what the author assumed when she sat down to write that piece of text. The only other reason I could see that prompted her to write this would have been a quickie to some sort of internet celebrity, although in a not so good way.

Anyways, people are people and when it comes to something about a superstar who is worshipped no less than god in and around tamilnadu, strong emotions being vented out on the comments section was rather obvious. What stumps me further is the attitude of the blogger to vindicate her stand and schoolmaster her thoughts to the audience which I think she is poor at communicating by using such a demeaning class of language where she compared herself to a pig, I guess PETA will definitely note that ;).

Media has been evolving to generate mileage and TRPs via such sensationalist comments and articles that "Yellow" journalism looks like being accepted as a quick fix to gain attention and then go to length discussing about it. I hope sense does dawn upon Anupama and she deters from giving her personal opinion on things which she doesn't have knowledge of.

From East to West - Almost

The above sentence captures my journey in the last 19 months or so. Yes !! From the shores of Marina in Chennai to deccaan plateau to the current Santacruz beach in California, for me the world around has come from East to West.

None of the past 19 months have been less exciting than its previous ones, every month promised something new, something dramatic or something topsy turvy. Right from the haphazard transition from India to US to snail pace movement from East Coast ( US ) to West Coast. In between were some really wonderful moments, unforgettable journeys to Canada and Florida and in and around the Upstate of NY.

Rochester probably was the best place I could land into when coming to US. Not so small, the imaging capital of the world, home to the famous lake effect snow points along with Syracuse and Buffalo, courteous people and a really wonderful place to live in. That's Rochester in nutshell. Some wonderful things about Rochester which I miss in the sunny silicon valley of California are :

1. SNOW - I know I can get it if I hit Sierra, but the luxury of snow at your feet and playing around with it is something incredible.
2. Finger lakes - Have visited some of them and needless to say they are the best places to relax.
3. Working @ Kodak - the pioneers of Imaging, great team to work with.
4. Cricket @ Rustic - As wonderful are the apartments, so is the pleasure of playing and meeting people there.
5. Community of Wipro - Probably the best off-work interaction with colleagues in my career, if this community wasn't there, life would have been surely as white and bland as a snow packed lake.

As it was destined to happen, events lead to yet another change, this one not happening in January for a change but yes, it happened in June. Moved over from an Indian MNC to a French MNC. Hopefully the changes stop for good now.

Back into the land of the Silicon Valley, the Indian occupation seems more powerful than US one on Iraq and for good too. Though technically we never invaded, but now we own this as a Indo-Sino territory. Plenty to be happy about here, including the most pleasant weather, nearby San Francisco, Sierra Nevada, long beaches and yes the world famous Sequoias. Hoping to discover more of California than did the gold diggers of the past.