Astrovelo

Venus has been shining brightly in the evening sky for quite some time now. Moon is coming along to join the show for a few nights. They are going to be very close (about 1 degree from some places in USA) on Friday night. As expected, clouds are in the forecast. So, I went out tonight and captured some photos.

Venus

Moon

Venus is coming closer to Earth and as the overall size of Venus is getting bigger the sun-lit crescent is getting smaller and smaller. Compare photos taken earlier in February using same process: Feb 5th and Feb 16th

Ashwini has been going to a ballet school for more than an year. She is still in "pre-ballet" class and learning the basics. According to the school rules, parents are not allowed to stay with their kids in the class for obvious reasons. Once a year, the teacher invites parents for an open class to show off their kids' progress. This year, all four of us decided to go. Needless to say that within 10 minutes, I had to walk out with Adit as he got bored and wanted to go home.

It is so nice to see these ballerinas fluttering around like butterflies. I also see a little older girls (maybe 12-13 year olds) at the school when I go to drop off and pick up Ashwini. After years of training, they are so graceful and it feels like they float effortlessly a few inches above the ground. It would be great if Ashwini becomes a good ballet dancer but, I’d be happy even if she develops this excellent posture and grace from her ballet class.

Saw this list of rules in Ashwini’s classroom. The most amazing thing about these rules is that they are not the teacher’s rules but, the kids came up with this list when asked. The first rule is Ashwini’s contribution. All of these rules are applicable at any workplace, too; especially, the ones about spitting, touching and kicking people. I wish all the people at my work are as nice and responsible as these kids.

One of my most favorite shows on NPR is “Radio lab”. Their new season began late last year and now they have 5 new shows on their website. The episode called “Sperm” is really really interesting.

The latest one is “Yellow fluff and other curious encounters”. Very fascinating stories. Here is a video related to the first story in the show.

The second story is about the periodic table of elements. In 9th grade, I was very fascinated by the periodic table. I don’t think it was in our textbooks but, we had learned about different elements in school and I found the table in my father’s “organic chemistry” textbook from college. It was good to hear a story that I could relate to. It would be wonderful to get a periodic table with real elements as described by the man in the story. It is quite expensive to acquire one. If you want to buy me one, I would like this coffee table version. Here is a link to a beautiful pictoral periodic table.

The quality of background sounds and music on this show is always very well produced . Jad Abumrad is an expert with digital sound editing. He explains how they tweak the sounds on the show in this podcast from 2007. It is fascinating how these sounds affect the whole listening experience.

“Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band” provided the half-time entertainment at Superbowl XLIII. It was 12 minutes full of great music and energy. Can’t believe that they played 2 songs from “Born to Run”, one of my most favorite albums. They played: Tenth Avenue Freeze-out, Born to Run, Don’t know the title of the new song (from new album to be released in March), Glory Days.

This was a great marketing strategy. During an interview before the game, Springsteen confessed that he is not a football fan and doesn’t watch NFL games. After being pursued by the NFL to play in the halftime show for 10 years, he agreed to play this year, to promote his new album.

Sale of tickets for many of Springsteen’s concerts opened this morning, after that great performance last night. Their marketing strategy worked very well on suckers like me. I bought tickets for the show on April 24th in Hartford, CT. Eagerly looking forward to be at the concert. It will be great.

It is almost 4 years since we saw Springsteen in concert back in Detroit. He was performing solo at that time, promoting his “Devils and Dust” album. That was one great summer of rock music for us. From May to October 2005, we saw Springsteen, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and U2. Adit got to rock with these legends even before he was born. Hopefully, he’ll develop some musical talent.

Last night, we ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant. We usually take the kids to places that we know they like such as Olive Garden etc. (where they can get pasta or chicken nuggets). Even here, they ended up eating stir-fried noodles which is similar to pasta, but had a totally different taste. Both of them loved it and Ashwini wants to go there to eat dinner every night. After eating most of the food with their forks, they started experimenting with chopsticks and I was impressed with their dexterity. After this experience we feel confident that they will try eating other new foods and not just the usual stuff.

While traditional gifts for 13th wedding anniversary are lace, fur and textiles, what I received and gave is very very different. Right now, V is enjoying some pampering at a spa and I am busy playing with my new toy.

I could catch bits and pieces of the Obama inauguration on the web at work while it was happening because the internet kept choking up. In the evening, we watched the complete inauguration ceremony on C-SPAN. Few observations:

• The coverage was excellent. It was an awesome sight, especially the shots from a camera mounted on the top of the Capitol building showing the crowds on the National mall out all the way to Washington Monument and beyond.
• Chief justice Roberts was more nervous than Obama during the presidential oath ceremony and botched it up badly.
• Obama's speech was very good, as expected and he delivered it forcefully and with conviction. Here is a transcript from NYTimes. It is good to have a president who says complex sentences without bungling the words and/or making monkey faces. I liked some of his points:
  • A nice jab at Bush's policies of wiretaps and torture by saying, "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."
  • "We will restore science to its rightful place...". Nice to hear this after years of overt governmental support for stupidity such as creationism (intelligent design) and not accepting human hand in global warming. Hopefully, stem cell research will get back on track with more government funding for new cell-lines.
  • "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers." It was good to see the acknowledgment of existence of the last two groups (the ones that I belong to).
  • A couple of sound-bytes that will be memorable: "...we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." and "...a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world..."
• John Williams' piece "Air and simple gifts" was excellent but, that poet from Yale, Elizabeth Alexander was not a great choice. Whatever she was reciting didn't qualify as a poem to me.
• It was disappointing to see anti-gay evangelist, Rick Warren as a part of the ceremony. The only thing that left a bad taste from the whole proceeding.

It has been just over 6 years since we bought this V70 with 6 miles on it. Today, the odometer turned 66666 miles.

Ashwini: Did you kiss Daddy when you got married to him? V: No. Ash: Aren’t you supposed to kiss your husband when you get married? V: You were at Vineetmama’s wedding last year. Was there any kissing? Ash: No. But, Sara kissed Brad at her wedding. V: Right. There is no kissing at Indian weddings. Ash: But, I like kissing weddings. I am going to kiss Adit when I get married to him.

For the last couple of weeks, Venus and Jupiter have been lighting up the evening sky. They came very close to each other (about 2 deg) and a young Moon joined in to make a spectacular sight. In India, the planets and Moon formed a “smiley”. People in Europe could actually see occultation of Venus by Moon. I thought I won’t be able to see it at all as it was rainy and cloudy all day here. I could catch a few glimpses of the threesome through the clouds in the evening sky last night. The next close encounter of Venus and Jupiter will be in May 2013.

Moon, Venus (almost touching the treetops) and Jupiter. Also a couple of airplanes are seen next to the planets.

L to R: Moon, Venus and Jupiter

A few months before Ashwini was born, I read about a website, Upromise.com. It is a consumer spending trend tracking program with a twist. Instead of a usual cash-back program, they put the cash in a Nevada-based “529 college-saving plan” run by Vanguard. More about 529 plans can be found here. You earn rewards not only by shopping online, but also at grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations, restaurants etc. You could also get a Citibank card connected to this program that gives 1% cash-back on all purchases and some additional rewards as well. You can also invite friends and family to link up to your account and help you save money for your children’s college. If you’d like to contribute some money to Ashwini’s college fund, click on this link for online shopping. I’ll only see the money received in the account and will not know what you buy. :)

I opened an account at the website in Dec 2002 and just a few days ago, the total rewards received in this program crossed $1000. Over the next 13 years, I hope this will at least double in value on top of more earned rewards before Ashwini needs to use it.

While watching a very scary Halloween episode of "Dora the explorer" on TV.

After Ashwini dressed him up with her play jewelery.

Trying to put the whole ladoo in his mouth.

Showing his pleasure after consuming the afforementioned ladoo.

Not that I want to keep remembering that horrific event but, exactly 2 years ago, he was in the hospital and was fighting the nasty bugs that invaded his meninges. With the help of a very competent team of doctors & nurses and some antibiotics, he won the battle. He has been filling our days with a roller-coaster ride of joy, happiness and amusement along with a lot of grief and frustration.

 

• Ashwini had an epiphany in the car this morning. “Daddy, did you know? The slow songs have slow music and fast songs have faster music.”
• On another note, she is absolutely positively certain that the person depicted in the “Statue of Liberty” is a man. No matter how much we tried to tell her otherwise didn’t change her mind. The reason why she is so certain is because “he” is not wearing a dress. If the statue was she, she would be wearing a dress.
• On a related note… It is very hard to make Adit stand in one place to get him ready in the morning. He is always trying get out of my grasp and run away. Today, I asked him to be the “Statue of Liberty” and he stood quietly in front of me with one arm raised above his head  and the other on his tummy. It was so easy to get him ready. Lets see how many more times this trick works…

This morning on my way to work, I voted in my first ever US presidential election. Unlike other places that I heard about on radio, there was no big line for voting. I was in and out of the polling place in less than 5 minutes.

After reading about the violent history of elections in USA, I was wondering if I should pack a sidearm for protection but, decided against it. Turned out that my fear was baseless. The polling station was full of senior citizens that are physically incapable of inflicting any bodily harm. I could cast my ballot and get out unscathed.

Over the weekend, we went to the Children’s Museum in West Hartford, CT. On display, were some hands-on science exhibits for kids and also a small collection of rescued/donated pets that included some exotic animals such as Lynx, snakes, pythons, turtles and big lizards. They also have a planetarium as a part of the museum. That was the most exciting part of our day as it was the first time for our kids to visit a planetarium. We watched a show called “The Secret of the Cardboard Rocket”. It was about two kids who make an imaginary rocket from a cardboard box and go for a trip around the solar system. The length of the show was about half an hour; just right and not too long. Ashwini knows all the planets by names & photos and Adit is just learning them, so, the show kept both of them interested till the end. I have so many good memories of my visits to the Nehru Planetarium in Mumbai while growing up and was pleased that the kids liked their first visit to a planetarium as well.

They have two other planetarium shows which will make us go back to the museum, as we bought an annual membership to it.