Category: break time

Break time!!

Wondering why there are lesser updates on this blog? Well I was off on a break of different sorts!

It was my cousin’s marriage after a long long while in the family. This called for a trip to Chennai city after really long years. And a new entrant this time was my son who was the show stopper around there in the function. Chennai was humid as compared to Bangalore which was freezing in the monsoon winds. The cold juice, the hot weather, the humid climate and the stuffiness without sea breeze on some days all made life kind of hell out there in Chennai. Just before starting my trip, my son got hurt twice on his forehead on the same spot, making life hell for himself.
Just when I thought the worst was over, my son fell down headlong from the cot bang on to the floor. Miraculously nothing went majorly wrong though I did have some extreme tense moments taking him to hospitals in the dead of the night at 11pm-ish for clarifiying that indeed nothing was wrong with him. I almost thought of cancelling the rest of the trip and heading home, but then I decided to be more careful with the remaining trip.
Then came the marriage – good food, dance and cultural events, story telling, performances, a grand reception, and then the culmination of months of preparation into the final tying of the knot. Enjoyed every moment of it honestly. Caught up with so many people after years – it was indeed a well deserved break.
Did it end there? You bet not! We reached Namma Bengaluru and a day later we took turns getting into bacterial infections one by one. Temperatures ranging between 100 and 105 (!!), severe throat infections, allergies due to severe antibiotic intake and general fatigues and weaknesses – enough was enough.
Now that I am out of all this mess, as google puts it – Now take a walk, get some real work done, or have a snack! The above feature is part of Google Labs for severe mail-a-holics. Click on take a break on top right of the screen (after enabling this feature in Google labs) and the entire mail screen gets blocked for a full 15 minutes – Good, now I can get back to work!!

What the HAIL?

Bengaluru never ceases to amaze me for its weather patterns. I was just enjoying myself thinking that the incessant rains are over, and then this : What the HAIL ??

Bangalore just had yet another hailstone storm. Just look at those ice cubes, how big they are! Just wonderful arent they. I’ve always been wondering what causes these hailstorms during summer time when we think we least expect ice cubes falling off the sky. Its useful to quote here what exactly causes them:

Hail is formed in huge cumulonimbus clouds, commonly known as thunderheads. When the ground is heated during the day by the sun, the air close to the ground is heated as well. Hot air, being less dense and therefore lighter than cold air, rises and cools. As it cools, its capacity for holding moisture decreases. When the rising, warm air has cooled so much that it cannot retain all of its moisture, water vapor condenses, forming puffy-looking clouds. The condensing moisture releases heat of its own into the surrounding air, causing the air to rise faster and give up even more moisture.

Cumulonimbus clouds contain vast amounts of energy in the form of updrafts and downdrafts. These vertical winds can reach speeds over 176 kilometers (110 miles) per hour. Hail grows in the storm cloud’s main updraft, where most of the cloud is in the form of “supercooled” water. This is water that remains liquid although its temperature is at or below 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit). At temperatures higher than -40 degrees C (-40 degrees F), a supercooled water drop needs something on which to freeze, or it remains liquid. Ice crystals, frozen raindrops, dust, and salt from the ocean are also present in the cloud. On collision, supercooled water will freeze onto any of these hosts, creating new hailstones or enlarging those that already exist.

Cross sections of hailstones often reveal layers, much like those of an onion. These layers are caused by the different rates of accumulation and freezing of supercooled water, as the hailstone forms. When there is a great deal of supercooled liquid in the air through which the hailstone falls, water accumulates faster than it can freeze, so a coat of liquid forms. This becomes a layer of clear ice when it does freeze. When a hailstone falls through air with a smaller amount of liquid, the liquid freezes on contact with the hailstone, forming small air bubbles in the opaque layers. The more supercooled water a hailstone makes contact with, the larger and heavier the stone is likely to become. When the hailstone becomes so heavy that the updraft can no longer support it, it falls from the sky.

Now that you know why Hail is caused, just enjoy yourself the next time you notice such a storm brewing!!

Apple cutters for Bengaluru, my day is always made

So how fast can you eat an apple? Well, perhaps in five minutes or even lesser depending your hunger level. But If I were to tell you to cut the same apple in the same two minutes, would you be able to do it without the seeds being there?

I can thanks to my new apple cutter which I bought from the London M & S store (marks and spencers). It cost me about 7 pounds, but more than compensates for that price with the many apples it has sliced for me since a year now.

So there you go then! Easy to eat apple. There is also another product called the apple corer, where you just push that instrument right into the middle of the apple until it reaches the other end, and the entire seed portion is cored out like drilling a hole into a wall

This brings me to a parting joke for this post

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but if the doctor is beautiful, keep the apple away!

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Swifts and Elephants – who hides what

The Maruti Suzuki Swift has an inherent problem – the visibility to the driver. Reams and Reams of complaints have been made about this problem and the problem itself does not seem to be blown up. Its the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The massive pillars (A, B & C) of the swift are more like those of the Pantheon (the famous roman pillar designs).

You can now imagine what all these pillars would be able to hide! From children, to men, to objects to – YES!! you guessed it – Elephants! This has become so much of a joke in recent times among my professional circle of friends that every single elephant story is now associated with this car!

Just recently when I was chatting with two of my managers (one owning a honda city, the other a swift along with me) the honda city manager told us about his Ooty trip. When driving at high speed, and negotiating a sharp right turn he just stopped short of a big elephant on the road. He exclaimed – “Thank god I could see the elephant in time, so I stopped just short of it”. To this both of us quipped – “You saw the elephant because you were in a Honda city, if you were in a Suzuki Swift, rest assured you would have banged into it” – Ha Ha Ha …

The fun does not stop here. Recently there was an article in the Times Of India about dwindling elephant population being a cause of concern for the Karnataka Government. I could not help chuckling at this news story and I ran to my manager immediately and asked him – “Do you know the reason for this news?” – and pat came the reply too – “The number of Suzuki Swifts sold have crossed a mind boggling figure of 1,50,000. Hence its no surprise that the elephant population is dwindling as a result of this! No Swift owner/driver can notice these elephants on the road and they’re slowly getting extinct because of this!

In fact the Swift is close to zero in visibility during the rains that you would miss an entire elephant herd for sure! I was just waiting for the next possible elephant joke, when I could not help noticing this picture in the TOI. The Swift visibility situation is well represented in showing how many men are hidden from view here !

So the next time you go around wildlife safaris on a Swift, never feel bad that you cant see an elephant, just get down from the car, it would be standing right next to you