Raman's Blog

Update

2006-10-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

Its been bit late but I am writing now. There has been some new good developments. Provigil was added to my existing Zoloft. This combo therapy is working much better for me. I have more active/functional hours now and less sleeping hours. So that makes me happy.

I read Naipaul’s Between Father and Son (family letters) … it was very interesting … I am liking Naipaul more and more and I’m now reading his best novel A house for Mr Biswas.

I have also discovered the King library at San Jose. It has a great collection. I could get a lot of old and difficult books. So I will be going there quite frequently.

Also got good children’s books for the kids in last weekend’s book-sale at Palo Alto.

I am enjoying the life now …

Update

2006-10-02T16:39:00.000-07:00

It’s been some time since I have written last time. Things have been kind of OK. I have cut down on my time spent on books, games, etc and diverted that time for family and health. Also discussed with my Dr. He also agreed and insisted that I should not break the rules and try to keep physical activities and family/social interaction aspect taken care to make the full treatment work. So I have started working on it seriously. It seems be giving somewhat better results so I am planning to continue this thing going on.

Things have been OK on the book front. Recently I purchased for myself and my son the DS Lite and Brain Age game. It’s a nice game full of puzzles and other brain games. I am having fun with it. It is somewhat addictive.

Update

2006-09-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

It has been kind of a mixed week. Some things are good and some other things not so good.. Things are OK on the books front. Health has been a mixed bag .. need to work on weight and cholesterol reduction. Also now taking 400 mg .. will try it for 2 more weeks and if fatigue problems are back than doctor has suggested that we will try combo therapy with Zoloft + wellbutrin OR Zoloft + Provigil. Lets see how things go.

Money wise things are also going fine. Stocks have done well so I’m feeling bad that I missed the housing boat .. Need to do some streamlining for the fin investments.

Some of the work stuff at office is becoming difficult. I have to literally drag myself to get it done.

Weekly update

2006-09-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

Went to my doc and expplained that even upto 300 mg of dose is not helping. He wanted to add We or Pr. I checked with him if we can increase the dose upto 400 and that will be the last try. So I am now taking 350 mg which have worked fine so far (ie about a week) infact I am suppose to go on 400 from today if 350 turns out insufficient. However since it feels goo so I will probably continue on 350 for some more time. I hope we will finally put this to an end and I will be able to focus on my activities and interests.

On the home, this Sunday parents went from house. One shud not say this but it seems like bit easier at home now since I am getting some time for my own activities.

Finished Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.. I am liking his books. They have quick and street English which feels good to me.

I just got this device which will help me in converting my audio cassettes to mp3 files. I am so excited with this prospect. I just installed and tested and it seems to be working great. I am planning to convert all my audio cassettes to digital files. I will finally have full and easy access to some of the rare audios which I had only on cassette. This device will also be useful in future when I stumble upon any interesting audio cassette..

Weekly Update

2006-08-29T09:57:00.000-07:00

It was bit stressful last week. With parents around, son’s troubles and work and fatigue and everything else. I discussed it with N and after that I am feeling little better. Today I am going to see Dr and I believe we have increase the dose since even 300 mg worked only for a week. I am also going to check with him If I can increase within 7 days or 10 days. Let’s hope that it will stop at 400 mg and it will not continue on and on.

I haven’t seen any movies for so long. Waiting for things to settle down and then I will go for some movie. I finished ‘Sweet Thursday’ and now reading ‘Of Mice and Men’. I have got this scrabble game on my mobile and man its so addictive. I have urge to go on and on.. But time is always less…

Anyway better days are ahead and I am expecting a more relaxed and book-ful days ahead …

Update

2006-08-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

Right now I don’t have that much office work so it’s kind of good and bad. Good because no work related stress but bad because its difficult for me to fill my time-sheets. I am reading abha dawesar’s Babyji novel .. its good though there is some overdose of sex and mischief .. also it seems like author’s other novels also have overemphasis on act of passions. Whatever it is atleast Babyji I am going to finish. If not anything else its probably liberating to see an Indian woman like the one portrayed in Babyji.

Last Saturday I went to the book sale and got some nice books for my son and for myself. At this moment I am having quite a books in an ongoing parallel reading here is the list…

The Bookstore Moue

Granta 57 (India Special edition)

Freedom at Midnight

Babyji

Sweet Thursday

There are also atleast 10-20 other pretty interesting books waiting for my reading pleasure.

Update

2006-08-09T15:39:00.000-07:00

It’s kind of a mixed bag here. Parents are here. I have found a good writer in J Steinbeck. I am reading Sweet Thursday now and planning to read Cannery Row and ‘Of Mice and Men’ soon. In terms of work things are going stable. I finished my first toastmaster’s speech and planning to do the next one soon. But I have to keep myself dragged to finish the office. Man I tell you , its tough.

It is sometime difficult to appreciate the philistine/backward activities of my folks. I am kind of in a loose-loose situation and I don’t what is the best way to handle it. Lets see how I manage this thing.

I have to become more strict with my exercise otherwise my tummy is becoming a gas factory. Here also I have to drag myself to do the exercise everyday.

Yellow Lighted Bookshop

2006-07-31T13:58:00.000-07:00

I just read Lewis Buzbee’s book Yellow-lighted bookshop. I liked it a lot. It is his memoirs about bookselling experience and about his book-lust. Book also covers general history of book printing and selling. It’s a nice book written in a simple and cool way. I found a lot of useful bookstore’s names and other tips. Below I am going to record the things which I find useful for myself.

Book-stores (near bay area) ::

- Booksmith (SFO , Haight Ashbury Dist)
-City Lights book store (sfo north beach)
-Black Oak books ( SFO , used books )
-Hicklebee's (San Jose, Children's books)
- Tower Records (Book/Record stores)
-Abebooks.com (website for used book stores)
- B Dalton (San Jose, not sure if it still there)

Book trends/tidbits/books:

- Book Business by Jason Epstein
- A heartbreaking work of staggering genius ( memoirs by Dave Eggers; his magazine McSweeny’s )
- Howl by Alan Ginsberg (first published by Citylights store)
- use of POD (print on demand) technology
- Ulysses by James Joyce (first published by Sylvia Beach’s Paris store Shakespeare & co)
- Don Quixote ( a great book )
- In search of lost time ( Proust)
- The grapes of wrath ( John Steinbeck , the book which started the book disease for Buzbee)
- The Long Valley ( Favorite Steinbeck book for Buzbee)
- Will you be quiet, please (By Raymond Carver)
- The sound and the fury (by William Faukner)
- The Essays of E B White
- Higglety Piggelty Pop by Maurice Sendak
- The Tall Book of Fairy Tales
- Great Children’s stories (Volland edition)
- A Farewell to arms ( E Hemingway)
- Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
- If on a winter’s night a Traveler ( by Italo Calvino )

Update

2006-07-25T15:59:00.000-07:00

My parents are here now. I am trying to behave as a good boy and keep everything in order at the house.

At office work is going manageable. Because of the parents’ arrival some of my liberties are not available any more and I am running hard-pressed to find any free time. So not much time for reading books etc.

I think its going to be a little difficult one month ahead.

I am pushing my self to get the officework done on time but its quite difficult at time.

This saturady went to a kid’s birthday party with my son. It was fun with some usual little chit chat with other fellow Indians.

Update

2006-07-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

I read the second Dilbert book Dogbert’ Management handbook and it was quite a fun. I loved the Scott Adam has captured the little quirks of office/corporate environment. I am going to finish the third one Dilbert Future soon. I noticed that these kinds of books are making me more cheerful. So I am planning to include humor books in my staple diet of books.

Went to the book sale on jul 8th which has become a monthly ritual for me now. I got some good books for myself, my son and 1 cookbook for my wife.

I started with a new psychiatrist and he seems to be much better than my previous one who was basically useless. He is able to give all the details and answer all my questions. So lets hope that I will be able to streamline things with his help. On the health front things are little mixed and I am little confused about some of my symptoms. It seems to me that a lot of time I am feeling sleepiness, lethargy and very irritable/negative kind of mood and also a very slow working brain with difficulty in concentrating and having the freshness of brain.

On the office front things are going stable. There has been a cust survey which has been so far promising for our group. So hopefully that’s a good sign. At the home front things are pretty good. I have a lot of fun with kids and my wife. My little daughter is generally very cheerful so that makes my day. I joke with my wife that I am getting biased towards her compared to my elder son. My parents are arriving this Sunday. I am hoping that trip will be smoother this time. Last trip when I was in A was disaster on several fronts.

I saw Cars with my son and family. It was OK. I am planning to see Pirates and/or superman alone (if I get the time).

It has been a big tension to get my daughter Indian citizenship application processed. These guys have some weird photo rules. They have rejected my application once saying that photos are over exposed. My photographer tells me that he has never heard such a thing. It took me so much to drag myself get the second version ready. I am sending it this with a lot of prayers. Lets hope it will be accepted this time.

Update (July 1st week)

2006-07-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

I missed updating my blog last week. It has been bit busy in on way or other. I went to the book sale and got the good books. I was very happy when the lady at the register said that she is impressed with my selection of childern’s books. Yesterday got a small gathering of few people from my one of the prev. companies.

Update

2006-06-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

Update

Just came back from LA. It was a nice trip with family. One of my friend’s family also joined us so we had some company also. We cover Disney, universal, queen mary and bit of Hollywood … I drove both way alone which has kind of increased my confidence and it seems like I’m now in a position to handle to trip of about 350 miles in a day.

I have been ‘Conversation with V S Naipaul’ which has a good collection of Naipaul interviews. It’s a very interesting read. Gives a very nice insight into this writer whom I admire greatly and I like his work immensely. It looks Naipaul and Nabokov have become my most favorites and I am planning to explore many of their books soon. I am also planning to complete good books of Rushdie and see if I like him as much as the other two.

Just caught up with office email for last one week. Nothing major. Just some regular stuff and there was some praise for helping in fixing one of the issues. Hopwfully some of these praise mails make things easier to manage at th work front for me.

Update

2006-06-12T14:55:00.000-07:00

Update

After the last few weeks troubles related to fatigue and all the usual stuff , finally I am able to take control of things. Last 3-4 days have been better. I have adopted a new strategy wherein I sleep in the night whenever sleep comes to me rather than specifically going to bed and then trying to sleep. Also morning I am getting up early usually around 7. I realized that even if I am sleeping for 10-12 hrs continuous still I am feeling the fatigue whole day hence I might as well sleep limited hours and see what happens. I guess things are better with this arrangement.

So lets see how this arrangement goes. In the past things have improved but again some setbacks have also come in so sometimes.

I have read few interesting books and also got some nice books from Palo Alto book sale. I am falling in love with the Palo Alto book sale. Especially for A I got a lot of nice children’s books. I got a nice set Dr Seus books for a very cheap price. Also a lot of other interesting children’s books.

I am liking the books of Nabokov , Naipaul more and more. I have read the Lolita and heard the Lolita audiook 2 times. Planning to buy Annotated version of Lolita for my personal collection. Lolita is an absolutely stunning piece of work. Its not a book its like an artwork or sculpture. Nabokov has created a very unique style of prose. Its just amazing. Reading and re-reading Lolita again and again is going to be with me for long.
I recently finished his book Pnin about a Émigré Russian professor who is teaching in US with all his clumsiness and pecularities.

I love Naipaul’s India series books. Those are absolutely great books on India. Truly a classics.

I am reading Da Vinci and Rushdie’s Shame now. Very excited about my book readings.

This weekend there is a book exhibition in San Jose. I am hoping I will be able to attend it on this Saturday. And then we are going to LA for vacation. Planning to see Disney , universal and LA downtown/Hollywood .. Hopefully it will be a great fun. My friend A is coming from Colorado and his family is also going to join us.

Corporate /Management Crap

2006-06-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

Corporate / Management Crap

There is a lot crap and banality going on in our internal meetings here. V has special interest in making useless and crappy discussions full of banality. Also it seems like our boss J is also a big loser. Infact now its becoming more and more clear that J is also a big chootiya if I can use that Hindi term. That’s why he is reling too much on V for useless management crap. If I analyse what V says frankly its biggest bull-shit full of useless statements.

God save us !!!

Cacophony

2006-06-06T11:52:00.000-07:00

Cacophony

This was the Word of the day in the last week’s toastmaster I was attending. Today while driving to work I was playing music of movie Gangster, since music was so groovy and entertaining I increased volume and made it loud and it suddenly stroked me how I used to hear the loud music usually new scores in the Indian streets and how I used to love that noise that cacophony .. How I miss that cacophony here in US.. Its so nice and quite its too quite. Too much of order, no chaos, maybe we need some noise or chaos at times.. in Bombay we have too much chaos and too much noise … probably we need something in between ( looks like I’m getting into usual idealistic/utopian trap ).

It is that cacophony of teeming populations on the Bombay streets that make it a lively and bursting metropolis. Though it can be too much to handle sometimes. Its like you hate and love Bombay at the same time .. Or you love to hate Mumbai…

Man I loved the music of Gangster .. all the tracks in the album are good ..wow .. rarely I find an album with all the good songs .. This one is good .. Way to go Pritam …

Update

2006-06-06T07:45:00.000-07:00

Update

It was bit of a roller caster in last few weeks. But all is well if the end is well. N was quite disappointed and distressed with me. I tried my best to make her happy again. I think she is feeling better about me now but taking good care of N is my topmost priority and will continue to improve in this area.

On the office front things are generally OK but I am not able to be as much as productive as I would like to be and it has been bit tough to remain ahead of my work. It was especially hard to complete to those projects which I do in addition to the regular trouble-shooting work.

I have to give top priority to depression/overall functional level and keep the weight loss/hdl control in the back seat. Because every now and then things are slipping and I have to keep these under control.

Things have been better on the books front. Keeping A excited with all sorts of kids books. Recently got him lots of Eric Carle & Beverly Cleary books. He is doing well and enjoying the reading. I am planning to enroll him (and possibly myself) in the summer reading program.

Recently I went to the library and browsed the full Fiction section and brought some books by Nabokov, Naipul and few assorted unknown writers. It seems like my love for books has not come down and I want to keep things interesting in this front. I want to have a best possible books experience which I can get.

NY Times article about Deliberate Practice

2006-05-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

A Star Is Made

By STEPHEN J. DUBNER and STEVEN D. LEVITT

The Birth-Month Soccer Anomaly

If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in next month's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this quirk to be even more pronounced. On recent English teams, for instance, half of the elite teenage soccer players were born in January, February or March, with the other half spread out over the remaining 9 months. In Germany, 52 elite youth players were born in the first three months of the year, with just 4 players born in the last three.

What might account for this anomaly? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies tend to have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina; c) soccer-mad parents are more likely to conceive children in springtime, at the annual peak of soccer mania; d) none of the above.

Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State University, says he believes strongly in "none of the above." He is the ringleader of what might be called the Expert Performance Movement, a loose coalition of scholars trying to answer an important and seemingly primordial question: When someone is very good at a given thing, what is it that actually makes him good?

Ericsson, who grew up in Sweden, studied nuclear engineering until he realized he would have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology. His first experiment, nearly 30 years ago, involved memory: training a person to hear and then repeat a random series of numbers. "With the first subject, after about 20 hours of training, his digit span had risen from 7 to 20," Ericsson recalls. "He kept improving, and after about 200 hours of training he had risen to over 80 numbers."

This success, coupled with later research showing that memory itself is not genetically determined, led Ericsson to conclude that the act of memorizing is more of a cognitive exercise than an intuitive one. In other words, whatever innate differences two people may exhibit in their abilities to memorize, those differences are swamped by how well each person "encodes" the information. And the best way to learn how to encode information meaningfully, Ericsson determined, was a process known as deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice entails more than simply repeating a task — playing a C-minor scale 100 times, for instance, or hitting tennis serves until your shoulder pops out of its socket. Rather, it involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.

Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying expert performers in a wide range of pursuits, including soccer, golf, surgery, piano playing, Scrabble, writing, chess, software design, stock picking and darts. They gather all the data they can, not just performance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own laboratory experiments with high achievers.

Their work, compiled in the "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance," a 900-page academic book that will be published next month, makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers — whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming — are nearly always made, not born. And yes, practice does make perfect. These may be the sort of clichés that parents are fond of whispering to their children. But these particular clichés just happen to be true.

Ericsson's research suggests a third cliché as well: when it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love — because if you don't love it, you are unlikely to work hard enough to get very good. Most people naturally don't like to do things they aren't "good" at. So they often give up, telling themselves they simply don't possess the talent for math or skiing or the violin. But what they really lack is the desire to be good and to undertake the deliberate practice that would make them better.

"I think the most general claim here," Ericsson says of his work, "is that a lot of people believe there are some inherent limits they were born with. But there is surprisingly little hard evidence that anyone could attain any kind of exceptional performance without spending a lot of time perfecting it." This is not to say that all people have equal potential. Michael Jordan, even if he hadn't spent countless hours in the gym, would still have been a better basketball player than most of us. But without those hours in the gym, he would never have become the player he was.

Ericsson's conclusions, if accurate, would seem to have broad applications. Students should be taught to follow their interests earlier in their schooling, the better to build up their skills and acquire meaningful feedback. Senior citizens should be encouraged to acquire new skills, especially those thought to require "talents" they previously believed they didn't possess.

And it would probably pay to rethink a great deal of medical training. Ericsson has noted that most doctors actually perform worse the longer they are out of medical school. Surgeons, however, are an exception. That's because they are constantly exposed to two key elements of deliberate practice: immediate feedback and specific goal-setting.

The same is not true for, say, a mammographer. When a doctor reads a mammogram, she doesn't know for certain if there is breast cancer or not. She will be able to know only weeks later, from a biopsy, or years later, when no cancer develops. Without meaningful feedback, a doctor's ability actually deteriorates over time. Ericsson suggests a new mode of training. "Imagine a situation where a doctor could diagnose mammograms from old cases and immediately get feedback of the correct diagnosis for each case," he says. "Working in such a learning environment, a doctor might see more different cancers in one day than in a couple of years of normal practice."

If nothing else, the insights of Ericsson and his Expert Performance compatriots can explain the riddle of why so many elite soccer players are born early in the year.

Since youth sports are organized by age bracket, teams inevitably have a cutoff birth date. In the European youth soccer leagues, the cutoff date is Dec. 31. So when a coach is assessing two players in the same age bracket, one who happened to have been born in January and the other in December, the player born in January is likely to be bigger, stronger, more mature. Guess which player the coach is more likely to pick? He may be mistaking maturity for ability, but he is making his selection nonetheless. And once chosen, those January-born players are the ones who, year after year, receive the training, the deliberate practice and the feedback — to say nothing of the accompanying self-esteem — that will turn them into elites.

This may be bad news if you are a rabid soccer mom or dad whose child was born in the wrong month. But keep practicing: a child conceived on this Sunday in early May would probably be born by next February, giving you a considerably better chance of watching the 2030 World Cup from the family section.

Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt are the authors of "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything." More information on the research behind this column is at www.freakonomics.com.

Weekly Update

2006-05-22T16:53:00.000-07:00

Weekly Update

We had a great trip to Yosemite this week-end. Kids and my wife had lots of fun. Finally my wife is feeling confident about me that I can actually plan and execute the trips in a nice and better experience way. Even after long trips (while going it took almost 7 to 8 hrs due to road diversion ) . Also N fell sick on sat evening so I have to take care of both the kids still I could . So I came out with increased confidence from this trip.

Next month I am planning top take a trip to LA/Disney and I am going to drive to LA and I am feeling confident that I can handle it.

On the health front lets say things are stable. I got rid of that useless psychiatrist and now booking appt with a new one. I am able to control MDD fine but I have to increase the dose and now I am taking slightly more than max dose. If my need kept increasing than I am not sure how I am going to manage it.

Here off-late I have kind of improved my attitude towards money. I am now willing to spend more money for better service and better overall value. So I am spending good amount of money on hotels, trips, books , music etc. This is in direct contrast to typical middle class Indian mentality wherein high priority in terms of spending goes to Big Home, Nice Car, Children’s education , Children’s clothes , children’s theme parks etc. and lesser or no priority is given to spending on hotels, books, music , nature oriented (less kids type) trips etc … A lot of Indians consider spending on these things as waste of money.

So for my LA trip one of my friend’s family is also meeting us at LA. They will be flying from Colorado. He is already worried over spending so much on air fares and then when he sees me spending 130 doll per day on a hotel (just for sleeping) he is not impressed. He has already selected a cheaper hotel for $88 per night. I am little unsure how to handle this situation. I want to avoid a situation where there is some rift becoz of we (or lets say they) opting for different hotel. Lets hope we can handle it in a better way.

I am becoming more regular in writing my English blog. This is making me happy and becoming a nice vent for me. However my Hindi blog is doomed and I haven’t updated it for so long. Part of the reason is that it is very easy to type in English vs typing in Hindi. Anyway if things improve than I will start writing for my Hindi blog soon.

Late weekly update

2006-05-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

Late weekly update

Its Wednesday, I was trying to write since Sunday but finally now got the time. It was relatively less productive last week. I was not able to do be fully active. Somehow lethargy and tiredness had creeped in. It seems like I need to increase the dose of Zoloft. Now I am already at max dose but somehow it seems like I need more so I have increased it to 250 mg. It was showing some improvements yesterday night and today morning. Lets hope that it will stop at this point and it will not keep increasing. I am also starting more social interaction by involving in some activities which have other people as well.

I am attending a speaking seminar every alternate week and also attending library monthly book discussions and in general calling and talking to more near and dear ones.

Otherwise things have been going but for this general decline in everything like health , work, reading due to this lethargy issue.

I am hoping to be more and more active slowly. I have also gathered lot of good reading books and trying to be more organized and more active in general.

Spoke to parents and brother this week. Have sent some money to them. Sex life has definitely improved manifolds , no more PE blues and no more desperation for sex.

More later.

Weekly update

2006-05-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

Weekly update

Initial part of this week went a bit troubled. In general my wife was irritable and grumpy so we had couple of verbal arguments and I was feeling generally hopeless. But eventually on Sunday morning, my wife realized that she is having irritability and mood changes because of her PMS. Thanks to that a better sense prevailed and sanity returned to our house. In the night I was allowed love for which I was kept deprived for more than
a week (which felt like ages). I am hoping for better days ( and more love ) in coming days.

In the health front weight loss progress has again resumed so it’s a good sign. Now my eight is hovering at 175-176 which is the lowest in about 10 years. I am continuing to work on it and bring it down to about 165 in next 2 mnths. Finally I am now able to 34”
Waist pants another after 10 years kind of thing. I was kidding with my wife that if I keep moving in this direction then soon my waist will be 32” probably same or less than her waist. Here are the weight loss progress details.

1.  202 to 192 ( lost 10 lbs between Mar’05 to Jun’06 )
2. --- pleateau ---------    (between Jun’06 to Nov’05)
3.  192 to 180 ( lost 10 lbs between Dec’05 and Feb’06 )
4. ---pleatu ------------      (during Mar’06)
5. 180 to 176  ( lost 4 lbs during April’06)

Future targets

173 by May’end
170 by June’end

---

However news on the cholestral front is mixed. Total and LDL cholestral is within the range but the hdl is low … discussed with the doctor today. I am going to work on the
HDL more rigorously From June once I have achieved the weight target of 170 lbs. Meanwhile I will look at the options for increasing HDL by using fish oil etc…

On the work front things are going stable and I am feeling much more confident than what it was say about a year back.

On the home front also things are improving. We are becoming more organized and more
Productive and trying to spend more time on meaningful and enjoyable things.

Diary

2006-04-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

Things have been improving overall i.e. in all aspects of my life.

Health is stable and somewhat improving. Weight is again under cobtrol and reducing slowly as expected. Depression and activity levels are also quite imroved. Except for an occasional blip of anxiety or panic most of the times things are looking under control.

I am enjoying my ipod music collection. My song colelction is increasing and I am able to enjoy music to its full extent, well almost. I am also enjoying some of the excellent podcasts like twit, npr ones and a few others.. I am also able to rip some good audio books and enjoy them on my ipod.

I am also being more organized thanks to one website rememberthemilk.com and now I am able to focus more time on important stuff.

Also overall our home is becoming more and more like a home. I was just jokingly telling my wife that now our house is fucntional earlier it was more semi-dysfucntional.

I went to the indian dvd store today after a month's gap and picked up some audio cd's and dvd of 'being cyrus'. I was surprised to note that Himesh Reshaammia has suddenly produced a bunch of hit music-tracks and he is all over the place. I had almost written because of his weird comments and obsession with Vinit but he seems to have produced some really catchy and peppy tunes. Good for him.

We have also started using more and more productivity tools to make ourselvs power-users.
I am really enjoying being mopre and more of a pro computer user. Some of the useful apps i use are Firefox & its great extensions, PhotoShop, RoboForm. etc..

With ipod now most of my music is in digital form except for few audio-casettes which IU am planning to transfer to cd soon. My next focus is in digitizing my old photo prints and also make dvd collections of my mini-dv movies.

Other big thing is that we have finalized to go back to india next year. Befor going back to india we want to go and visit some remaining us sights(LA,NY,Hawaii, Yellowstone etc)...I am improving in my trips planning and exceution. Our last trip to reno/tahoe with my in-laws was a great success.

More next sunday.

Update after a long tme

2006-04-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

It has been long since I have written my blog. I want to make it atleast a weekly affair. Lets try to summarise the things which have happened so far.

Health : Overall progress has been quite good and encouraging. My weight is now hovering at around 176 lbs compared with 192 lbs abt 10 mnths back. I am to wear waist 36 pants instead of 38 now. Infact today I was even able to wear a 34 waist pant which has made me really happy. I have two 34" pants. I am going to wear one of these tomorrow to office and it would make me feel great. I should be giving some kind of party to my wife soon about my waist finally becoming 34". With this I am at the last leg of my weight reduction. I need a further reduction of about 10 to 15 lbs to make my weight reduction project complete. After that I just need to maintain it at the same level.

Family: Overall things have been going very well. Our newborn daughter(now 6 mtnhs) is doing very well. She has given least amount of trouble comparing to our older son. She sleeps well, eats well and gives least amount of trouble. I am able to spend more quality time with family and also able to enjoy various fun activities like sight-seeing , eating out , movies etc.. I was telling my wife that due to my trouble our family had almost become semi-dysfunctional. However now our family is looking really functional.

With more shopping , more family time etc my wife is also finally getting more happiness and she is slowly beleiving in me.

Work: Things have been kind of stablle at my new employer which is a big company. I was rated average for my last year's 4 months. So I need to put a little extra effort and visibilty fraud to make my image as above average.

Books: Things have been going well in Books front as well. I have been better in reading books and finishing my books. I have read following books in last 6 months.

- Lolita
- Various books abt books
- Saved by the light (abt near death exeperience)
- don't sweat the small stuff
- Bill Gates biography

I have also discovered the usefulness of audiobooks. I got the lolita audiobook and have ripped it in my ipod and have listen to more than half of it and its such a great pleasure. I am falling in love with Nabokov's style of word usage he is like an artist in terms of usage of English vocabulary. I am going to listen to Lolita quite a few times. I have also planned to buy annonated lolita book so that I can read the explanation of various french passages in the book. I have also got few more audiobooks (the lord of rings,romeo juliet, much ado about nothing, 1984, a tale of two cities). I am ripping these books on ipod. I have a feeling all the classics and some other difficult books which I could never read due to various reasons, I will finally be able to savour these books thru audiobooks.

I have also started going to Palo Alto book sale since last two months and it has been generally pretty good. Last time I quite a few children's book for my son and also some cookbooks for my wife. I am planning to go to this sale whenever possible.

General: Overall my activity levels are improving. Confidence in doing various things is also improving. I am also being a better organizer and my life is becoming clutter-free slowly slowly. With being more organized I am able to monitor, track and plan my tasks more effectively using one website. I have made a weekly task for writing my blog. This will be quite helpful for me.

I have been also using Podcasts quite effectively from my ipod and it has been a great pleasure and learing to listen to some top podcasts. There are so many very good and high quality podcasts available for free.

Will try to keep this blog regularly updated.

I am out of this shit

2005-08-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

Wednesday is my last day at this shitty client. I am feeling free and relieved. It was extremely hectic and stress project work for me at this client location. Client was very demanding and wanted to squeeze the blood out of me.

Fortunately I got this new job offer and now I am out of this shit. Its good that I got that this job in right time otherwise these guys were almost considering me as a Cheap Indian Labour who will never leave since I am locked for my green card. But since green card is not necessarily a must for as I might go back India. Also my new company is agreeing to sponsor my green card after few months.

Actually coming to think of it I would have let my job long time back. Only reason I did not venture out and search for jobs was because of my long Fatigue problem which had reduced my productivity and efficiency significantly and hence I was not getting very aggressive about my career and for a high paying job.

But now it looks like I have regained my life ( thanks to the medicine Zoloft ) and I am feeling very active and also I have landed with a great job which pays me a lot better. So I am really very very excited and feeling very happy.

Its a new Beginning

2005-08-26T23:53:00.000-07:00

Its been long since I have written on my blog. Just now downloaded Blogger for Word tool and writing my updates for last few weeks.

Things have finally become very good for me. My 13 yrs old fatigue which had limited my life in many ways has been finally controlled. It seems like I have Clinical Depression and Zoloft is helping me a lot . My activity levels have increased significantly. Which I am able spend a very happy personal and professional life. In some ways I have almost regained my life. My wife is very happy since I am able to finally give her a good companionship. I don’t know how she managed for the last eight years with me. I always tell her that if it would have been some other woman then she would have definitely left me by this time.

I also got a new job offer from a big company. So I have resigned my Indian Outsourcing company and in the process I am also getting relieved from a difficult client and a stressful and hectic job.

Hopefully this improved activity levels should make my blog updates more and more frequent.

Overall I am feeling a lot better these days and looking forward to my new life and new job.

Appraisal time

2005-05-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

Its appraisal time in opur company. As usual everybody is seriously looking forward to a great rating and a significant raise , specially the folks in India are quite aggressive. Many have plans to quit the company if they are not given the expected raise. So they are getting their resumes updated and searching for alternative offers just in case if they dont get the required stage.

Being in US , naturally for the last two years onsite consultants have not been given much raise ( avg 3%) whereas in the same two years in India average salary raise has been abt 12% per year.

I have become quite detached with the appraisal process. Last two years I did not had proper appraisals. This year also more than me it was my supervisor who was trying to get me appraised. Naturally I am not expecting much raise this year also. I was just thinking that what is the reason that i am being so detached with this important thing. Part of the reason is that the deep down I have this feeling that I am jsut somehow managing the job and taking short-cuts here and there. Also my priority is to have a peaceful and less stressful job even if it means less money sometimes.

However I would like to make a point that I am not detached from money or I dont have any spiritual notions about money. Infact like everyone else I would love to have loads of money so that I can feel financially secure. So If by anychance I get any extra money in raise that will be definitely make me happy. But If I do not get any raise then I will still be OK.