iPad Pro

What is it: A new iPad. Bigger than the previous ones. Faster, with more processing power than the previous ones

What should we be excited about ?: If your current iPad cant run garageband well, or you are struggling to do graphic designing, this might be a good solution. For the average person (like me), this is just thinner, faster, lighter.

Bottomline:

Here's my lazy summary (shamelessly copied from an article I saw on the verge)

http://hijinksensue.com/comic/surface-tension/

Important to remember that the comic below was made in July 2012. Yup, you read that right. In 2012.

Tech Reviews

My wife is my number 1 fan. And I am deeply grateful for that. She is also very good at predicting future trends. So, she might be on to something here. I was recently browsing tech forums and mentioned to her how jaded I was after reading pages of tech information on cellphones/laptops only to realize that the bottom line is thinner/faster/lighter/brighter. Where's the X-factor anymore ? Where's the feature that distinguishes you from others ? Why is it now insanely complicated (and not intuitive) to learn new features on phones or computers or tablets ? I am sure I am not using my phone to its full capability and its mainly because I dont have time to learn about non intuitive finger taps and what they can do for me. Her suggestion was to write about it. Not the whole trend. Not a lot of words. But focus on each new product. And provide the gist of it. Should we be excited ? Or is it just an incremental improvement. What catches my eye ?

  I am going to take her suggestion and start pounding these out when I get a chance. Quick reviews. Just the bottom line.

Birds of a feather

To say that it had been a cold winter, is like saying that the sun is bright. There is no sense of severity in that. You begin to get an idea when I tell you that kids came out in shorts and tees and played over the weekend when the temperature hit 40s. Everyone was happy that the snow was beginning to melt, and that you could now walk without worrying about sliding! It was still cold, mind you.

"Let us carry our jackets, for the way back. It is going to be cold tonight again" said my wife as we began to get ready to leave. I had just returned from yet another mundane day, and the thought of going out to get past Monday was attractive. Nothing big on the agenda, get fuel for the car, get it washed and do some other assorted shopping in general. I stepped out and put on my slippers. Just as I was about to get in the car, something caught my eye and I backed off. I turned to my wife and said, "Go back in, don't come out!". In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to say. But to her credit, she listened without asking and backed off. I saw her big eyes filled with fear and realized why it was a stupid thing to say.

"There's a bird in our garage. I am afraid it will fly in to the house", I proceeded to explain.

I indeed saw a bird, what looked like a Mourning Dove. It was sitting on my car and it looked at me with the same fear that I saw in my wife's eyes a moment ago. I backed off slowly, and reached for the switch of the garage door.

"I hope it will just fly out, I told my wife".

I opened the garage door and hurried inside my house and shut myself in. The garage door opens with a lot of noise and I am sure it would cause the bird to panic and fly around for a while. I hoped it would eventually spot the big door to freedom and just fly out. After a couple of anxious minutes in the house, I decided it was time to check on the bird. I stuck my head out through the door and inspected the garage. I did not see the bird. My wife and I stepped out and then I saw it. It was sitting right outside my garage now. I called my wife to let her have a glimpse of it.

"It may be injured. How did it get in to the garage ? Maybe for the warmth" my wife was thinking out loudly.

I walked towards the bird slowly, to check if it was really injured. As I came within a couple of feet, it took off reluctantly. I was bothered now. My wife laughed out and said

"So much so for the injured-theory. It seems fine to me. What are you thinking about ?". I pointed to the bird which had not flown far away.

It sat on our neighbor's roof and seemed to be looking in our direction.

"I am afraid it has made a nest in our garage", I said.

We looked around the garage quickly. It was getting late. We had to leave for the market. We drove off, closing our garage behind us.

***---***---***---***---***---***---***---***---

I woke up the next morning, reluctantly. As I went through my early morning checklist, I tried to recollect what I had to do at work. After I got ready, I went downstairs to pour myself a glass of water. This was also my cue to start my car for its warm-up. I usually let my car idle in the garage for a few minutes. There was something about working in a engine-making company. You did these sort of things without knowing for sure how much it helped. I wondered what doctors must be doing, for their health, now that they knew so much more about the human body! As I left the engine running in the garage, I turned to open the garage door. And then, I remembered. I remembered seeing the dove last evening. It must have entered the garage, the previous morning. I usually let my car idle, and I open the garage door so that the exhaust fumes don't stay in there. This was probably how it entered. Relieved at having figured it out, I thought it would not be wise to open the garage door any more. I didnt want to entertain the risk of letting in more birds. After having my breakfast, I came back to my garage and slipped on my shoes. I opened the garage door now as I got ready to drive out. Before, stepping in to the car, I walked out the garage to look at the neighbor's roof. I did not see the dove there.

"Phew!" I sighed. It must have gone.

It had been a particularly cold night. As I was going to sit in my car, I noticed something in the garage and froze. It was a mourning dove! Sitting right on the frame for the second garage door. The bird had found its way back in! I looked around to see if a window was open. There were none. I looked for any holes anywhere in the ceiling. There were none. Well, it must have flown back in when we returned from our shopping, I thought. I opened the second garage door, to let it fly away. I noticed it getting uneasy with the sound of the door. Just as the door opened, I saw another dove sitting outside the garage door, bending its head just a bit to peek inside. The dove that was inside the garage flew around a little bit and made its way out! It sat down beside the dove waiting outside, for a min. The two of them then turned around almost in sync, and then took off in a single motion. All this while I crouched in a corner and watched.

As I drove to my office, many thoughts filled my head. A few days ago, my wife had planted this idea in my head. I think I am going to do it now. I am going to get a bird house, this summer.

Dish of the month - February

For the month of February I made curry puffs. The biggest compliment I ever got for my cooking - my wife asked me to make more late in the night. And this is after having had our dinner already! I was thrilled at my success. I would rate them as a 7 on 10 for taste and a 9 on 10 for effort. I took some time this month to decide what I was going to make. Once I had the idea, the logical thing would have been to look for a recipe. We however decided for some reason that it had to use the same rolls that are used for making croissants. Now the rolls for croissants give it a sweet taste. And that clashes awkwardly with the taste of the curry. Moreover, the pastry does not puff and is not fluffy. After doing some research online, I figured out that there are puff-pastry sheets that you can buy at Walmart. Once I had this, the cooking was a piece of cake. As much as it hurt me to throw away the previous batch of "curry-croissants", I was glad that I came back the next day and successfully made curry puffs, not once but twice! Thats my second "baking" dish for this year, and I will defeinitely break the monotony for the next month.

Preparation of dish of the month - January

You first fry the veggies that you choose to use. It was nice to use our new cookware, somehow makes the color of the veggies look good!

Pressure cook the potatoes that go on to become the "base" of the quiche.

Dish of the month - January

As promised a while ago, here are pictures from my potato quiche that I made in January. The picture looks lot better than it actually tasted!

Book of the month : January

Knowing that this is not going to be very easy, I picked up something that I know I would surely enjoy - Asimov's short stories. The book was thoroughly enjoyable, for someone who enjoys Asimov's writing. I must thank one of my friend's - Murr for introducing me to Asimov's wonderful world. What started as an obsession with the Foundation series, slowly increased to the Robot series, Clarke's Space Odyssey, Clarke's Rama series, Frank Herbert's Dune series and a bunch of other books (including Ender's Game which I really liked). The best thing about Asimov's short stories is that they are fast paced and never have a dull moment. If you are like me, it will leave you with a smile on your face - the same feeling you get when you read Jeffrey Archer's short stories, or a PG Wodehouse story or a brilliant Sherlock Holmes' story (written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). There are few writers who seem to take a lot of pleasure in writing, and I would place Asimov right there at the top. The energy seems to transfer through the power of their words and it transfers right to the readers. Lately, the Harry Potter books did the same to me. I thoroughly enjoyed the narration and savored each book, hoping that they would never end.

One month down and I am already liking this resolution.