The meaning of life

'Dad, what do you think the meaning to life is?' Jake and I are talking in the car on the way home from Tae-Kwon-Do. I tell him that is a multi-layered question, so he asks me what the layers are, and I list them, starting with 'there is no meaning to life' and working my way through 'forming deep relationships with friends' and 'being close to your family', and 'actually there is really no meaning'. He keeps probing, and I am about to get on to layer 5, to do with reaching self-enlightenment through deep introspection, when he interrupts, so we never get to layer 6, and tells me 4 things he thinks in his case define the meaning of life.

1) Happiness and enjoyment, living life to the fullest,
2) Cure aging - 100 years is nowhere near enough,
3) Remove all traces of religion from the world, as so many wars are caused by it, and society as a whole would be 2000 years further advanced if it had not slowed us down,
4) Find out once and for all what really happened at the beginning of the universe, how something came from nothing.

I certainly can't say he's not ambitious, even more so than other 14 year olds. Number 1 is probably common to many people, but I don't think you will find many others sharing his goals for the last three, at any age.

'How are you going to do number 3?' I ask. 'Easy' he says, 'I'll use number 2 - anyone who wants extended life will have to swear on a bible that he doesn't believe in god. All the atheists will live pretty much forever, and all the religious people will die off.' (Of course I think he may have overlooked the tiny issue of reproduction, although if you are fertile for a few thousand years I guess you could have more children.)

'How are you going to do number 2?'

'I'm going to have a team of people working on it, and I'm going to be the head scientist.'

'Well, you better get started on those right away then.'

'I've started already, but I figure I have till age 30 to finish them - they can wait that long.'

The light at the end of the tunnel

It is the last day at UBS for 3 guys in CDR today: Martin Radcliffe, Bright Paramveer, and Manjun Rao. We have a lunch for Bright and Manjun at Mitchell's Fish Market, but Martin of course is a bit far away to come so all the guys and gals in London are giving him a good farewell there. He deserves it, after being in UBS for over 29 years!

We will all miss their smiles and optimism, their beer drinking abilities, their witty comments, and their help and cooperation in all the projects they worked on with us.

Have a great life guys, and all the best wherever you go.

michael, victoria, sruthi, albert, leo, manjun, alok, bright, and nabil

Junk Male

Charlotte walks around the block with me this morning as we hand deliver 100 fliers for my new business to the people in our neighborhood. She has her heelies on, so some of the time she is hanging on my arm as I pull her along. We stop here and there to watch the local wildlife, mostly just squirrels and chipmunks. And pop into our friends place for a minute to say hello.

So, I feel just a teeny bit guilty, as I have now become one of the things I hate, a direct marketer. And am corrupting my daughter as well. Its amazing how easy it is to justify to yourself once you are on the other side of the fence. You just know that everyone will be so thankful you put junk mail in their letterbox, once they have the chance to sample your service.

Post another 50 later that day. The first batch are probably in the rubbish by now, so have to get more out there. :P

Dinner Dance

Jake looks absolutely smashing in his tuxedo, a white double-breasted jacket and a bubblegum pink vest, matching bow-tie, and hankie in his top pocket. He has been so psyched up for tonight's dinner dance at his 8th grade school.

I walk him in - everyone else is dressed up nice, but Jake has really kicked it up a notch compared to the others. All the guys compliment him on his clothes. But he gets even more compliments and wows and looks from the girls - they are obviously very impressed. The girls all look beautiful and way grown-up too, in their fancy party dresses and high heels and jewelry.

The school is set up to look like a cruise line, with portholes everywhere, and cabin numbers (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 - representing the upcoming high-school years), and signs pointing to the spa and pool and upper deck.

They all sit down and talk for a while, and then food is served. Included are strawberries, chocolate cake (that Jake eats way too much of) and lots of other things including a chocolate fountain!

Then they get to move into the gym, which has been set up as a disco, with loud music and flashing lights, and dance for the next two hours, having lots of fun.

Jake takes zillions of pictures and comes home so hyped up that it takes him over an hour to calm down before he can go to bed. He has enjoyed it immensely.

He looks so much older tonight, won't be long before he is off with a girlfriend going to parties in his own car.

Head to Toe Restoration

Am excited. Started up a new business this week.

I have been certified as a swedish masseur for many years, and have been thinking of setting up a little business on the side for a long time. Finally got around to it. Just bought the table tonight, a lovely thickly padded one by Master Massage Tables. Earlier I bought professional liability insurance, just in case anyone sues me. Ordered my business cards and they should arrive tomorrow. Have to buy a few things on the weekend, like more oils and towels and things, and then should be all set.

Threw a little website together over the weekend, and have been tweaking it ever since. Its wiltonmassage.com - check it out and tell me what you think.

To build up a client base reasonably quickly, I'm offering a promotion of the first massage free - hopefully once people have had the first one, they should come back for a second. Assuming they love the massage I give :)

Swedish massage is focused on relaxation, not like massage therapy where it can really hurt, and where you are trying to help relieve an injury or more than casual soreness. I have on more than one occasion put people to sleep while giving them a massage. Perhaps it was just the droning of my boring voice, who knows.

On Fire!

Badminton tonight, am feeling so good, so full of energy. Play for the usual two hours, and still feeling ready to go at the end. Think I am playing better than ever before, winning all my games. My senses were so attuned to the game, and to the other players - it is so much fun! :)

Not as many here tonight as usual, Megan and Heather and several others are away. But play with Peter and Despina and Michelle and Pierre and Madhura and several others.

Peter Bartush, the badminton instructor, has his arm in a sling at the moment. He has sutures in his shoulder somewhere, and can't move it, even has to be all tied up at night when he sleeps. He has been playing for years, and plays lots of other sports, and has had so many sports related injuries he has almost lost count. He's an excellent teacher - when not in a sling he can put the birdie anywhere on the court.

I signed up for the summer - will sweat a lot, but don't want to wait till the fall or I will have forgotten things and have to relearn them. Can't have that - this is too cool to miss!

Pierre and Madhura

Clever Sex

Lester suggests where we should go for our Thursday night outing. He gets to choose - its only fair since he was let go yesterday :(

He picks Dragonfly, a cool restaurant and lounge with a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere, and quite tasty food. We did Rack 'n' Roll last time, and all agree that we need a change from foosball.

The whole crowd is there, Albert, Leo, Nabil, Sruthi, Lester of course, Alok (he actually came this time!), Tawanda (Alok's new colleague), Manju, Bright, and his carpool buddy Sam.

The place is amazing, plush furnishings, gothic motifs, detailed stonework and carved woodwork. The ornate dragonflies hanging from the rich burgundy velvet drapes add a nice touch.

Nabil is into red wine, Sruthi is drinking some sort of plum martini, I'm having a mojito, everyone is consuming a variety of different cocktails and liquors - most of us have seconds and get very happy. The conversation flows freely, but you wouldn't want to take some of it out of context, or it might sound very suspicious. So here goes:

"Nabil is the best blower in CDR."

"I'm having problems with a vibrator - how do I get it working properly?", asks Lester inncocently. "Let's ask the expert, Sruthi!", everyone says in unison.

Nabil stands up and makes yet another announcement: "Leo shares his towel..." (don't even want to think about that one)

"You want it right now?!" demands Bright (whatever could he be talking about?)

"Banging goes with any alcohol!"

Bright gives us his words of wisdom about how gender and intelligence mix:
A smart man plus a smart woman is a great life;
a smart man and a dumb woman is pregnancy;
a dumb man and a smart woman is an affair;
a dumb man and a dumb woman is a marriage.

We all agreed whole-heartedly :)

Half way through, a live light jazz band starts playing swinging music, adding a lot to the atmosphere. A fantastic night out, we all enjoy ourselves immensely.

"Blow out those candles Nabil!" But he surpises us by extinguishing them with one swift wave of his hand.

Sounds

I wish you could hear these sounds. So many, and so varied.

I'm sitting outside in the front yard, just finished spraying some roundup to kill the weeds on the driveway. The sounds of modern day life are not very far away, even here where we are supposed to sort of be in the "country". Cars drive by on the road up front. A plane flies over. I even crane my head up to see a helicopter go directly above our house, flying low.

But then there are the other sounds. The waterfall provides that constant calming white-noise background. The wind blows softly through the trees. The leaves rustle in the undergrowth, probably a squirrel or something rummaging for food. And most obvious of all are the birds. Not one species, but dozens, each with their own unique sound, some short and to the point, others loud, complex, and ostentatious. One sounds like an owl, somber and low, maybe a great horned. Some chirping, others warbling, yet others twittering, from all directions, a cacophony of noise, grating and mellifluous all jumbled up together.

Its very peaceful out here, the sun will be setting soon, that magical time of day just before dusk. I just wish all the cars were gone, or replaced with quiet electric ones perhaps. Nearly time to go back inside to the even noisier family.

Justifications

I have a confession to make. I am a bad father. Every Saturday Charlotte has a soccer game, usually at 10am nearby, but today it's at 8:30 and is a few miles away. Charlotte was in pain last night, and I had to give her ibuprofen, as she been to the doctor that afternoon, and had shots in her arm including a tetanus shot. And she also recently had a fight with some poison ivy, and I put cream on a dozen spots on her arms and legs. So she is not exactly in a good shape atm.

Maybe we'll just her her sleep in today, and pretend our alarm didn't work properly.

So the question is, are we being nice to her, or just selfish, so we can sleep in ourselves in a nice warm bed?

...

Heavy breathing at our bedroom door. After a couple of minutes I wake up, and see Charlotte standing there. She of course had an alarm clock under her pillow, and I had "forgotten" to turn it off the night before. It's Sigrid's birthday, so we let her sleep, and creep downstairs to get ready.

So here we are, huddled and freezing on this miserable day, not enough rain to actually close the fields, sitting in our fold-out chairs, trying to wrap not-big-enough blankets around us, cheering on our "Pirates", who are running for the ball, or standing shivering in defence. What fun.

We just scored a goal. Yay!



Final score: Pirates 4, the other team 3. But its just a game, nobody cares about the scores. Ok, maybe just a little bit. :)

Provoked

Provoked, the true story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, a Punjabi woman who leaves India to marry her British-Indian husband. For ten years she suffers his abuse, mental, physical, and sexual.

In an attempt to prevent him from chasing her, she tries to burn his legs, and succeeds in giving him fatal burns, for which she is sentenced to life imprisonment. The efforts of a team of dedicated activists allow her story to come to light, and her sentence to finally be remanded to the over 3 years she had already spent in jail.

Aishwarya Rai plays her so sensitively, evoking such emotion, her facial features perfectly reflecting the turmoil of her soul. A touching movie - brought tears to my eyes.

All-nighter

Lots of problems today, in fact the whole week, so here I am after knock-off time on a Friday evening stuck at the office, lucky me, running a job to load up data so I can give it to the users for testing. Oh joy.

Finally get the job started at 7pm. It runs. Actually a better description would be it crawls. After crawling for a couple of hours, and based on the number of records in integration, I estimate it will finish at 11:30, so I head off home on the train to spend a couple of hours with the family.

Get back just before midnight and its still going. Of course. Check its progress every 10 minutes. Its gone past the number where I'd should have finished. It finally hits me that its just going to keep running forever, just to torture me.

Listening to loud music. The office is completely deserted. Start singing. Get a bit crazy. Start dancing. Wander around all over the floor, find someone's candy jar, leave a quarter for a mini snickers bar.

Feel like passing out around 2ish, so lie down and power nap for 30 minutes. Up again, job keeps on going, UAT is a wet towel. Eventually ends after 4 and I do the extract and send it out and leave at 5am.

So looking forward to my nice warm bed. Walk to the car park and stare in disbelief. The car park is closed. My car is locked behind mesh doors. It doesn't open till 8am. OMG.

Shuffle around Stamford for 3 hours, half asleep. Eat breakfast at Curleys, a 24 hour joint, not exactly classy, but by that stage I don't notice. Finally get home 24 hours after I started work the previous morning. Curl up in bed exhausted.

zzzzzzzzzzz

Bangers and Mash

Rack'n'Roll, a cheesy dive not far from work with an only half-decent bar (no red bull, but at least they have smirnoff ice) and way too many pool tables. Its only redeeming grace being 2 foosball tables. Bright, Manju, Albert and I turn up tonight to find Leo and Lester already there, so we all order a drink and some medium spicy wings, and start playing. After a couple of games Sruthi turns up as well and joins in the fun.

Bright spins the foosball men with raw power, Albert goes for the cunning corner shots, Sruthi sneaks it past the defence, Manju encourages the ball with "yes, yes, yes!" It's been a while for us all, so we take a little while to warm up and get good again.

"Bang that ball!"
"You really get hot and sweaty when you bang it hard!"
"Go on, ram it in fast!"
"Bang it straight into the hole!"
"Everyone is banging now! Woot!"

Man, did we have a good time or what! High fives all around!! :)))



And the dessert afterwards (tiramisu, pistachio gelato, and chocolate mousse) was just icing on the cake :p

Depressed

I lost it with Jake tonight. He just doesn't get it, no matter what we say. I don't know what else to do.

Had to walk all the way around the block tonite just to cool off, so I wouldn't take it out physically on him. Damn cold outside too. And its a big block.

How can he be such a great kid sometimes, and so bloody impossible others?

Floating Eggs

You would think Easter would be a time for eating eggs, but Charlotte had more fun flying them instead. Not exactly flying, more like throwing and then watching as they float down slowly on their attached parachutes. And then chasing to see if you can catch them before they hit the ground. Never-ending fun, as you can keep throwing indefinitely. Until you get cold of course and run back inside.

Of course later she had fun eating them too (after the obligatory easter egg hunt).

The Herd

Charlotte gave a scream of delight as she opened her eBay purchase, 7 Schleich horses, a rider, blanket, 2 saddles, and a bridle.




She added them to the rest of her family, including the real and makeshift stables.



I think we might have enough horses now :p

Elevator

"Baaaa!"

Bad, bad, bad

Some days words are not enough to express it. Take a look at this:



And that's just the top layer. There is lots underneath. This is all the food that we found while looking through Jake and Charlotte's rooms today looking for her wallet that she can't find. Instead we find they have been stealing food and taking it upstairs to their rooms, smug and self-satisfied that mum and dad didn't know what they were doing.

Grounded for two weeks, no after school clubs, early bed-time. But its not enough. How do we get them to understand this is a bad idea...

Udderly Irresistable

Charlotte tonight told me a bed-time story, since I couldn't think of one to tell her. She made it up as she went along, which was surprising, as the whole thing fitted together quite well. Its quite short, and it went something like this:

There were once four animals, a horse, a dolphin, a rabbit and a cow. Each represented a different aspect of life.

The horse, majestic and free, represented the soul, proud and strong.
The dolphin, quick and playful, represented the mind, intelligent and creative.
The rabbit, cute and cuddly, represented the heart, emotional and compassionate.
The cow, slow but content, represented the stomach, empty, full, and everything in between.

One day the horse, the dolphin, the rabbit and the cow came together for a party. Everyone brought something to eat, that they might all share with each other.

The horse brought cookies, the epitome of soul food.
The dolphin brought bananas, food to enrich everyone's brain.
The rabbit brought candy, little valentine sweets to make everyone smile.

The cow didn't quite understand the whole concept of party food, being, as we said, a little on the slow side, but nevertheless brought something that seemed appropriate, at least to her. Although the others were not exactly impressed with her choice.

"Can you guess what it is dad?", asked Charlotte, stalling a while so she could make up the ending in her mind. "No Charlotte, I can't."

'C'mon, guess, please?"
          "Um, was it grass?"
"No."
          "I don't know, tell me Charlotte."

Charlotte thought for a moment more, and finished the story with one quick statement, that sort of summed the whole thing up in a nutshell.

The bright bovine brought a cowpie.

Tasty Bovine Treat

Sitting at lunch today, most of the whole crowd, Albert, Bright, Sruthi, Manju, Nabil and I, discussing the usual motley collection of random topics.

We get onto soup, which seems to be a popular one. In this case the unspiciness of my "spicy crab chowder". The usual americanized cafeteria food. I wonder why we don't go out more often?

Someone, I think it was Bright, puts the weirdest image in our heads. Cow soup. He doesn't mean soup that has beef in it. He means grabbing hold of the teats of a cow, and exercising them in a "milking" motion, only, instead of milk coming out, you get delicious, spicy soup. Putting your mouth under them and the soup squirting straight into it. Tasty. Scrumptious. Bizarre.

Not as bizarre as the egg soup that is suggested next. That's right. Nothing Chinese about it. Crack open a nice fresh egg, and out comes, you guessed it, delectable soup.

Coconut Creme Brulee

Its our fourth wedding anniversary today. Check the date and you can easily do some simple math to work out how long we've been married for :)

Coco Bongos, a neuvo latino restaurant in Ridgefield, CT, only 20 minutes away. Lighting just right, with little candles set in insets in the custom made stone wall, and in artistic spiral cast iron swirls on the other walls. And cute sparkling stars flashing above the central palm tree. Cozy atmosphere, excellent and fast service, absolutely delicious food (I had the Carne Latina and Sigrid had the Churrasco, am going to have that one myself next time), with a lovely bread and dipping sauce to go with it. And the dessert was out of this world.

And the tasty Caipirinha cocktail (a Brazilian drink made with lime, sugar, lots of ice and a sugar cane-based drink called cachaça) I had with the meal was oh so strong and made me happy and sleepy - Sigi drove home :)

Wipe Out!

A perfect day. Sunny, not a cloud in the sky. And in the last 48 hours it had snowed 9". Charlotte and I were at Ski Sundown, and the slopes were treating us well. We came early, and stayed late, Charlotte didn't want to leave. She even told me at one stage to leave her alone for a while so she could flirt a little with the boys, but they weren't accommodating, they were too busy skiing.

The only hitch came at the end when the main 2 lifts weren't working for a while, but they finally got them going again.

And wow, was Charlotte wiped out the next day! Did not want to go to school at all. Was a bit tired myself actually :P

And you thought I meant she fell down on the snow! Didn't you!? :)

Look into my eyeball

Along Came Polly, a funny romantic comedy about Reuben meeting and falling for Polly, a woman with a fear of committment, two weeks after finding his wife in bed with another man on their honeymoon. Loved it.

(The eyeball quote is by Claude, the Frenchman that seduced his wife.)

Waterfalls, horses, alpacas, and animals of all description

On the way up to Mohawk Mountain today we saw an interesting waterfall, and had to scramble through the brush to get a good view. Then we stopped off at a farm and two horses came up and had a talk to Charlotte. Half a mile up the road was a lovely lady with 6 alpacas and a pony - Charlotte had a great time walking amongst them and having a nice chat (to them and to the lady).



Charlotte had a wonderful time on the slopes. She is really starting to get the hang of skiing, doing her turns nicely back and forth across the snow. This is the second time this year, and before that it was five years ago, so she has made fantastic progress.



We stopped for a nice hot chocolate at the half way lodge half way up the hill, and took off our skis and loosened our boots. Boy it felt good :)

Charlotte near the end of the day wanted something a little more challenging, so we tried another ostensibly easy slope, Ledges, which turned out to be more difficult than we thought. Charlotte got through the top section, but then came out further down going too fast and couldn't control it, and ended up falling head first on to the hard-packed snow. Ouch! Even with a headache though, she got back up the slopes for a final run.



On the way home, we found a guy who made metal sculptures in a unique style, animals mainly, very artistic. All in all it was a great day, and Charlotte really enjoyed herself - except for the minor concussion of course - lucky it was a no-school day the next day :P

Laughing Gas

"Breedbate": to pass gas while laughing. This was just one of several weird answers we made up for even weirder words in a game of Balderdash.

"Bantling": the offspring of a hedgehog, or a lame duck? No, its actually a spoiled brat.

"Mortress": dead hair, or a wall built to keep firebrands out in 1524? Sorry, its a hearty meat and vegetable stew.

"Leveret": an incorrect yet humorous answer, or a small lever? Nope, a small rabbit.

We won't mention who was doing most of the laughing, but it was the same as the one that made us run for the air freshener     :-/

I carry your heart

In Her Shoes, a wonderfully emotional movie about two sisters, so diametrically opposite, and yet so much the same. Maggie, the wild and crazy one, so spontaneous, thoughtless, and carefree. Rose, straight-laced, responsible, a lawyer, treats herself to one beautiful pair of shoes after the other, but never goes out to show them off.

A story of desperation, of self-esteem, and finally of acceptance. My favorite lines are at the end, a poem by E. E. Cummings:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Scary Horse Hair

Give everyone in the family their own personalized name anagrams for New Years, something weird and wacky:

Jake Wesley Richards: jeweler has scary kid

Charlotte Richards: horse cart child art

Sigrid Andrea Richards: desiring rad hair cards