Hold on to that nut!

Like probably gazillions of expats before me, I am doing a surprise trip to India this weekend. Cliché though it may sound, it is indeed a bit exciting and something to look forward too. My folks dont know yet, except for my brother who I've informed and is flying in the same weekend ( No silly sentiments of a family get-together, just to ensure that my parents are at home!). Plan to call them up just before my connection flight inside India and ask them what's cooking for lunch!

And yahoo!!, hopefully I'll be catching up all the summer I missed in D'land (actually the last couple of days haven't been too bad, someone's been reading my posts!). Before you get the 'you lucky bastard!' going, let me tell you, I'm gone for only a week or so! But yeah, it was a sudden decision , made on Wed morning and after a few miracles later (not least of which is a boss who granted me leave from his vacation island, boy, you gotta love those Blackberry thingies!!), I am all set. Doing Emirates for the first time, without the obligatory long stop in Dubai (I think I figured out how to avoid the long lay-over, let me confirm things before I post it!!). Just gonna hang out, no visits or trips this time. C'mon scrat, it's time get that nut roasted!!

That is how my Yahoo weather widget looks for Duisburg for the past few weeks. Ignore all the dramatic lightning streaks and notice Monday, thats how the past few weeks have been. Dont be fooled by the sun peeking out on other days, the cloud cover is just a CYA for the meteorologists I guess. Because its a live update, those sunny pictures can and do infact become sheets of rain in few min. Summer this year has been quite a disappointment so far, Berlin was much better last year. Actually I dont know what to wish for, being in Germany. Wishing for the sun would be a typical European thing to do, just that I dont have air conditioning systems here. Wait a min, make that 'I' a 'We'. Yes, Europe as a rule doesnt seem to have ac's , funny considering they have had a recent history of warm summers. I had one warm summer last year in Berlin in a cramped up apartment and this year, lo, i got my ventilator ( pedestal fan for folks from India) much before the summer began. Why an entire continent would not learn from experience is puzzling!

From my tiny fans to yahoo widgets to forecasts, weather's big business if you did not know, GE ( 3 ways with Bain and Blackstone if you are from B School, go analyze that) just bought the weather channel for $3.5 billion hoping to use the eyeballs from the website to drive the price of its broadcasting assets when stuff is ( rumored) to go on sale later this year. Read some more details here.

Still remember the days when I used to tease a friend in Bangalore for watching out for the weather forecast for the day before leaving for work. Funny how the widgets are changing my world. They certainly have made it lousier by telling me about how miserable the weather tomorrow and the day after is gonna be!

One of the forums I am on is doing a list of stats on things various members have done over the past decade...readin' thru sure scared the hell out of me...man...got me thinking about my last decade....darn....gettin old....here's the list....

• 1 - Number of hobbies - cooking, enough said
• 2 - Number of times graduated, engineering and mba, both times promised myself never again
• 3 - Number of serious relationships fallen in and out of in the past decade, mainly my fault
• 4 - Number of close friends whom I can call up anytime and ask anything, funny enough all in the last decade and most from CIT
• 5 -Number of times I actually planned and did something, considering its 10 years, thats a lot by my standards
• 6 -Number of great bosses I have had, actually I have had only 7 direct bosses in my entire working life, so I gues I have been a bit lucky
• 7 - Number of countries I have actually spent more than a day in ( and so can expertly comment on)

The rest just doesnt flow on or is not important enough, but not to forget the countless moments of cluelessness, the innumerable days spent wallowing in my bed and the infinite number of times I have told myself to get myself into shape.

Phew, that brought in a lot of memories ( like the red horse dangling from the key chain of a lady professor...if you are from CIT's computer science engineering class of '97....u know what I am talking about)

EDIT: For those of you who pointed out that the topic has a typo, thanks, but 'oder' is German for 'or' and is frequently added to the end of a sentence as an Inquisitive Conjunction for confirmation. I dont get older!( hee!)