Astrovelo

Ashwini’s 2nd birthday was on last Monday. We celebrated it on Sunday, a day early. She wore an orange (her current favorite color) dress and most of her jewelery. As it is obvious from the pictures, blowing candles, murdering the cake and ripping up presents were her favorite activities. We had to put extra candles than the required two, to make her happy.

I am impressed with iTunes, yet again. Not only it does a great job of organising all the music, but, it handles multiple processes very efficiently. I was listening to music from the library, ripping songs from a CD and downloading a song from iTunes music store, all at the same time. Cool, eh?!?!

A lot of people scoff at digital photos that are post-processed using softwares like Photoshop and Gimp. I think what they don’t realise is that there is a lot of processing art involved in slide/print photography as well. Use of filters while taking the pictures, using different mixtures of chemicals while processing the film, and dodge/burn techniques while making a print are the very same things that are achieved with the use of post-processing software in the case of digital photos. Great photographers like Ansel Adams spent days in their darkrooms to get the precise contrast and right level of details which make their photos such pieces of art. All this processing (film or digital) is necessary because no camera lens can duplicate what the human eye sees. The photographers try all kinds of processing tricks to create a photo that resembles what they remember of the original image seen through their eye.

One of my favorite photoblogs is [daily dose of imagery]. All the photos posted there are quite excellent. The author, Sam Javanrouh, is a professional artist, so, it is not a surprise that he is so good at it. He wrote a few tutorials about post processing to describe his workflow. Here is one of them that shows how the original photo is transformed into a brilliant image. Many of us take photos that look like his original but it takes the knowledge and expertise of a professional to convert them into something outstanding.

The Sun was trying to show its presence before disappearing in the clouds above.

Spring is slowly showing its signs. Last weekend, we saw temperatures in 40s. The snow started to melt, became sticky and was perfect for packing and moulding into a snowman. We ventured out on Saturday afternoon to make Ashwini’s first snowman at home. I am sure she must have helped in making one at her daycare earlier. They have so much fun there, I wish I was a 2 year old.

Ashwini is already 2 years old. We can’t believe that these precious days are slipping through our fingers.

• Through our eyes, Ashwini is doing very well and we hope to hear the same from her doctor next week. She hasn't gained much weight since our last doctor's visit, but, she has been so active all these months. Her "terrible 2" mood swings don't help either. Some days she doesn't want to eat anything and some days we can't feed her enough.
• Ashwini's vocabulary and speaking skills are improving by leaps and bounds. She is constructing 3-4-5 word sentences and saying almost every word that she hears from us. We have to be really careful about what we say, now.
• She can recite many nursery rhymes now, although she garbles some words.

Instead of writing a big progress report like every month, I leave you with a photo collage of Ashwini’s life till today. It was so hard to pick only one photo for each month. Click on each photo for a link to her monthly progress report for every month that I wrote one.

Two Years of Ashwini

Today was Ashwini’s second swimming class. She enjoyed it as much as the one last week. She didn’t want to come out of the water at the end of the class.

Here is a picture of Ashwini in her new swimsuit.

Some facts about March of Dimes that I learnt recently…

• This charity was started by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who asked mothers to collect dimes and send them to Washington, during the great depression.
• MOD is one of the top 20 charities in US.
• MOD supported reasearch that lead to Salk Polio Vaccine, which was invented here in Ann Arbor, MI at University of Michigan, 50 years ago.
• MOD-funded research has proved the importance of folic acid intake during pregnancy. It is helpful in proper development of central nervous system of the fetus.
• MOD-funded research is responsible for discovery and design of equipments that are used in neonatal ICU.
• Many other contributions that I can't recall now...

I am participating in WalkAmerica to raise funds for MOD. If you think this is a worthwhile cause, please consider making a donation at my webpage or find a walk in your area at Walk America website.

Many thanks to those who already showed their support by donating.

Will be going to see Bob Dylan live in Chicago on April 2nd, 7pm.

It was 10 years ago today, when Yahoo! become an incorporated company. I still remember using the Yahoo website in its Stanford days when it was a directory of websites. I have used Yahoo! as my primary search engine till Google came around. I think I created my yahoomail id back in 1996 or 1997 and still use it.

Here is a nice retrospective view of 10 years of Yahoo! as a company.

Don’t forget to celebrate Yahoo’s 10th birthday by going to the following site…

Yahoo! 10th Anniversary Ice Cream Giveaway

Tried watching Hulchul last Saturday. The promos (and that unreliable source, again) promised non-stop laughter and a funfest. Instead it was all about shouting matches between the characters and potty humour. Couldn’t take it for more than half an hour or so.

Don’t even think about watching it, unless of course, you enjoy shouting matches and potty humour.

We got a few (4-6) inches of snow last night. The public schools have announced a closing. That means Ashwini’s daycare is closed. So, I get to stay home today. Yaay! A whole day with Ashwini.

Finished my taxes last night. Will receive a fat check in a week or so. That is pretty bad. It means I was overpaying the damned government. I should make adjustments in our tax witholdings and keep more for us through the year.

It was a love at first sight. At that time, we were not meant to be together. I pined in the pain of separation for more than a year. Finally, today was the day of our first meeting.

At first, I was very tentative and afraid even to touch. But soon, I couldn’t keep my hands to myself and it was a joy to completely uncover this thing of beauty. As my fingers touch the cool skin and trace the beautifully sensuous curves, all my senses await eagerly for complete satisfaction. I know that I’ll be satisfied and it is going to be a very very long night.

concept of this post was stolen shamelessly from arunshanbhag

Ashwini went to her first swimming class today. It was called ‘Parent-child Water Exploration’. We had so much fun. I was the parent with her in the pool with 8 or 9 other child-parent pairs. It was Ashwini’s first time in a pool and I was quite apprehensive about how she will react to all the water around her, but, she surprised me yet again. Ashwini was very comfortable with water. NO FEAR whatsoever. She was calling the pool, ‘ocean’ as that is the only word she knows to describe such big quantity of water.

The class had a lot of activities that included songs, playing with some toys, and going from one end of the pool to the other, someitmes on belly and sometimes on back. The parent is supposed to hold their child and help them with actions for songs, etc. Some kids were scared and stuck to their parents. But, Ashwini was happy to kick and splash water and even jumped in from the edge of the pool. Towards the end of the class, we did a dunk. She wasn’t happy with water covering her mouth and nose, but, she didn’t mind doing it a couple of times more.

I didn’t get a chance to take photos of her in her spanking new swimsuit today. Next Saturday, I’ll remember to take pictures when we get ready for the class.

After all the tantrums, screaming and running after Ashwini that is involved in making her eat dinner, take a bath and put on clothes, she is finally asleep. The difference between awake Ashwini and sleeping Ashwini has become very striking these days with her "terrible two's", but I always liked to watch her sleep. It is one of those special perks of fatherhood. She looks so peaceful and content in sleep.

What if part of New York broke off and slammed into New Jersey? Something similar happened in Antartica over the last couple of months.

Check out the following link for details. APOD: 2005 February 23 - Voyage of an Antarctic Iceberg