Of This and That

This one dates back about 9 years. It won't sound that funny now, but it sure was a real funny incident then. I was newly married and we used to go out often for dinners. Bangalore had loads of hotels and hence we were never short of trying out new places. One evening we noticed a new place by the name "veneta cucine, the italian kitchen". It sounded very interesting we hadn't ever tried italian cuisine. We were a bit surprised by the spelling of "cucine", but thought it was probably an italian word for cuisine. So one evening we decided to try it out and landed at this place at around 8 pm. The placed looked like it was closed and we were surprised. Anyway, there was a person inside, so we walked to it to ask him and he said - "we close at 7.30 pm, but you can still see our kitchen". I and wife looked at each other and wondered how can be a hotel close to early and why is he offering us to see their kitchen???? As we walked in, we realized it was ...

Packt Publishers recently published this book. This book gives examples on what typically goes wrong when wrinting code and how refactoring tools in Visual Studio help follow design patterns and refector code to be aligned with them. It also covers details about which patterns can't be directly refactored by Visual Studio and require manual effort. And the important point is that I was one of the reviewers of this book :-)

There is no shortage of funny incidents in our lives, but i feel nothing beats this one. We had once gone to a local exhibition. My kid typically in such journeys, takes one of her many baby dolls along and plays on the way. This occasion was no different and she was having a baby boy doll. There is no doubt that the dolls these days are very realistic, but we realized that day just how realistic these can be. As we got down at the exhibition, I told kid that she needs to leave the doll behind. She agreed and we left it at the back seat, got out of the car and locked it and started to walk away. Just then the parking attendant came running our way and shouted - "Sir, you left your baby behind!!" :-) :-)

I earlier wrote about model code of conduct . There is another incident that I can remember. My daughter has a bit of health issue and falls sick frequently. With age, this has reduced though. However it isn't just illness, but small injuries also and she will all cranky and "there is too much pain" and "I can't tolerate" and all that. We keep trying to tell her to be mentally strong. Where there is will, there is a way, is what we try to keep telling her. I played cricket at the office on a weekend with friends with the entire cricket gear. I would have played cricket after about 20 years and in general played anything after months. No surprise that after the couple of hours of fielding and batting (short innings :-)), my muscles all rebelled and the next morning, there was hardly any body part that I could move without significant effort and feeling lot of pain. I was hence lying on the bed and had great difficulty in getting up or moving around or.. just ...

The day our local municipal corporation announced alternate day water cut, as the water level in the various dams was precariously low, it hasn't stopped raining. It is indeed interesting how our Met department isn't able to give some real good insight into when it will rain, when it will not, where it will rain, where it will not. But the good part is that they are consistently inconsistent. At least that way you know that you need to do the opposite of what they usually tell. Life can become real difficult if they are correct sometimes and not sometimes. The weather pattern has shifted by about 2 months, is something that we have all observed. The summer arrives a bit late, the winter arrives a bit late so why won't the rains arrive a bit late, but we were still looking at 10 June as the arrival of monsoon in pune. Anyway the good part is that the rains seem to have finally arrived, the water level in dams is increasing and overall this is a good sign. The only challenge ...

Getting my kid to sit and work with concentration is a tough nut to crack. The only thing that she does without getting distracted is watching TV :-) When it comes to homework it is even more difficult. She will remember all the interesting episodes of school, previous evening play time incidents, what other subject work is pending than she is doing, etc. etc. It is very common that while working on question B, she will want to get question A checked and all that. Added to that is the fact that she is in class 4 and the syllabus is getting tough by the day. So many new concepts, facts, figures and hence we can well understand that she finds it difficult to manage the homework on her own. So either I or wife has to spend lot of time with her to get things done. Weekend mornings are usually spent in playing or watching TV. But today (saturday) we had plans to go out for some shopping and hence got her to sit and finish her homework. As wife was busy with morning routine, I ended up helpi...

Earlier I had written about how we try to teach good habits to our kids. I call that model code of conduct :-). However, we all know that things don't always work out as expected and sometimes we are put in a spot by our own code. This one is recent. One model code of conduct that we follow with my daughter is that she should return to home before 8 pm. She is allowed to play downstairs with friends, but by 8 pm she should be back at home. A few min here or there is fine. Sometimes, we allow friends to come and play at home past 8, but usually that is the boundary. If it really extends then she has to listen to the lecture again. Recently, a colleauge of mine had come down from USA and we (the team) went out for dinner. Needless to say that it got delayed and I got home almost by 11 pm. Wife told me the next morning that our kid was questioning as to why the code of conduct isn't applicable to me. She was asking "When papa comes late, why isn't he answerable to us? Wh...