Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Hullabaloo under the Peepal Tree

There's this very humourous novel called Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. Great read about the crazy things that happen when people think they're in the presence of religious greatness. In the novel, a guy just decides to chill out in a Guave tree, but people assume he's meditating and is then revered as a holy man. Read it if you have the time. It's old enough that it's pretty easy to find at the library.

Anyways, here's what seems to be a real life example:

Scientists to check Nepal Buddha boy. It would actually be quite amazing and awesome if this boy meditating under a Peepal tree turned out to be the re-incarnation of Buddha. The world could certainly use one. Anyways, I love all the little details about this story, like the villagers figuring out how to enable more people to visit the boy, the scientists checking him to determine how he could live without food or water.

Anyways, I enjoyed Hullabaloo enough that I think I'm going to go to the library and check it out again!

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Solitary Profession...How Does One Improve?

I just read this interesting New York Times article titled When the Doctor Is in, but You Wish He Wasn't. It's an article about the problems patients sometimes have with the "bedside manner" of their doctors. It's a pretty short article so you may as well give it a read.

Anyways, the first thing I reflected upon is the relationship I've had with my doctors. To be honest, I haven't really had problems with my docs. That's probably because I rarely have reason to go. The second thought I had was about the method which my health organizations use to determine the quality of bedside manner their doctors are providing. I've always had coverage through large HMOs or networks. Currently, I'm with Kaiser and I'm going to be sure to ask my friend how Kaiser determines such things (or she could leave some commentary here, hint, hint)

And interestingly enough, the final thing I thought about before deciding to blog about this article was the solitary nature of being a doctor and how that compares to the work that I've done in my life.

This thought came to my mind as I read the end of this article where the consultant asks the doctor to change the way he listens to his patients. I immediately thought about a workshop we had at work where we learned some active listening techniques to learn more about the real thoughts that the other person has and what they reall want to say. That lead me to think about how when I'm at work, I tend to rely on the thoughts, advice, and opinions of my colleagues as I work and before I make big decisions. This is the same for my photography work. While it's a very different line of work, I rely on my partner for creative advice as well as her thoughts on how I'm doing with my work. And this is while I'm working, not after. I feel like I improve at my work all the time through this sort of groupthink. It's a circular thing which allows both myself and my partner or colleague to improve how we work and our results.

Given the description of some doctors work, I wonder how they really improve themselves over time? The article notes the doctor who modified the way he listens to patients, but it's not something he can get pointers on while working. Granted, I don't think most of us need busy-bodies telling us how to do things while we're doing them, but there's a difference between getting consultative advice or training and collaborating with someone to improve as you go.

At the very least, I can ask a colleague, "Hey what do you think of this?" before I actually do something egragarious. I'd imagine that it's difficult for a doctor to do something like that. They can certainly bring in a colleague for a consult, but that seems like such a big deal. So big that the doc has to stop what he's doing because he's not sure and then find someone who can tell him how to proceed. I'd guess that the impression that a patient gets when this occurs might deter some doctors from getting just the advice they might need. And moreover, the advice is usually about some sort of fact, not a soft skill like bedside manner.

As such, it seems like that outside of medical conferences, board reviews, and such, doctors lead a very solitary profession. In such cases, how can one really improve? Books, training, and consultations can only take you so far. What other ways could skillsets be improved for the sake of all?

I don't have any close friends who are docs so if anyone reading this is a doctor, is in med-school, or has a close doctor friend, speak up!

Monday, November 28, 2005

Napa Heads Is Too Allowed

Ahh Thanksgiving weekend. A time to pause and reflect upon all that we're thankful for. If you've read my blog even slightly consistently, you'll know that I'm uber thankful throughout the year so I won't bore you all with my thankfulness right now. Let's instead focus on the photos I took on our little day-trip to Napa.

First of all, let me just say it's odd to be posting my own photos. Since most of the photos I take nowadays are for clients, I don't post them up for review. I also don't post photos of friends and family in public places. So it's a rare occassion when I have photos of my own to post in a public space. With that...let's proceed...

[If you're wondering about the title, just ask me...it's a play on a hip-hop lyric. Not witty at all, just something that came to my mind when starting this post]

Markham winery isn't amazing to look at but it was close to where we were so we stopped by. They were in the process of holiday decorating so it was a bit of a mess inside. Wine was good and so was the light outside. I love taking shots with narrow depth of field. The Japanese love it so much, they even have a term for it: Bokeh



More Bokeh with this shot taken at Beringer Winery. I must say that even though Beringer is a huge winery and they say the smaller wineries are more quaint and nicer, Beringer does a nice job with their grounds.






They say we don't have seasons in California. Well here's proof that we do indeed get some color changing, season changing goodness. Of course, it's the end of November, not September and even then, the colors are sporadic. But hey, in the meantime we had an exceedingly long Indian Summer that we got to enjoy this year. One of these years, we definitely have to go to New England to experience the fall colors. Let's hope we can plan it sooner rather than later. [Taken at Beringer Winery]


The Leaning Oak of Beringer is famous. At least that's what the tour guide told us. While we enjoy wine, we're not total afficianados so we still take the touristy tours and we still learn new things that most afficianados wrinkle their noses at. In any case, this oak tree is obviously much bigger than than what you see here, but I like the junction of the main trunk with the limbs. Perhaps that's why it's so famous? The tour guide said it's 200 some years old, but that's not all that old considering the age of the sequoia & redwood trees throughout California. Well, whatever the situation, it's a nice looking tree and it has a wine label created in its honor.


Another shot specifically created for tourists: The original wine cellar at Beringer. The main reason I liked this shot and some others which I took in the cellars is the difficulty of taking good shots without a flash or tripod. Not only do you have to be verrrry steady, you've gotta know what you want out of the shot. In this case, I wanted to keep the shot looking old and dusty and as you can tell from the photo, it's exceedinly dusty, ain't it?


Merryvale Winery which we just happened along after lunch. They've got a nice dining room which would be an interesting venue at which to host an event. I loved the colors in here. You'll notice the bug zapper in the corner. I'm sure they take that away during dinners, but I think the blue color really adds to the ambience in the room. Speaking of bug zappers, Merryvale had a ton of fruit flies which wouldn't leave us alone. Again, a shot which is rather simple to take with a tripod, but without the tripod & flash, it's steady as she goes. The additional colors you get without the flash really add to the feel and are more similar to what the room actually feels like.


Ahh, Mother Nature doing her work. I'm not sure why there is such a clean break between the green & orange/brown leaves here, but I liked the juxtaposition so here it is.









This is Pasha, in San Francisco. After spending the day in Napa, we headed down to the City for dinner and a night out. The night ended rather early since we were all a bit tired, but it made for a good Saturday. Pasha's a fun, if expensive Middle Eastern restaurant. Decorations are great, just make sure you get there at a time to enjoy the entire show. We got there about 2/3 of the way through the show so we could have had much more fun if we had gotten there earlier. Regardless, the food was great and too abundant.





Friday, November 18, 2005

Trippy Trippy Trip Hop

Well, after such a long time without any commentary on music, here's a second music related post in the past week!

A friend recently recommended some great music, which I've been loving since first playing it. The rec actually came about because we were talking about good music to work to. Jazz music tends to be great. The new Digables album is also good for working to. The problem with "work" music is that sometimes it can be a little too dull to keep the energy flowing. So utilizing his massive musical memory, my friend recommended a couple of great trip hop albums

The first is DJ Shadow's latest album called The Private Press. The only thing I have by Shadow is his original Entroducing, but his DJ skills blew me away on that album as well as the Quannum show we went to a year and a half ago. Yes, I'm still listening to the Quannm crew, more than ever no considering the new Blackalicious album I got last week. Now add to this, Shadow's new album which is just amazing! I didn't even have to get through the whole album to say it's one of the best I've heard this year. Yes, I know the album is from 2002, but since I just found out about it, it's new to me!

Not only is trip-hop good to work to, I find that my mind races when listening to it so it's a great energy thing. And since I've been working on photo-editing a lot this week, it's helped me keep my creative juices flowing. Good stuff. Anyways, give it a whirl if you're into trip-hop and masterful DJ work.

The second album I cued up was the first album by Handsome Boy Modeling School called So...How's Your Girl?. Again, this isn't a new album (it came out in 1999), but it's a great listen. I think that as I listen to this one more and more, I'll also like it more and more. As my friend was saying, the album's got an all-star line-up featuring Del the Funkee Homosapien, DJ Shadow, Mike D and of course, the long lost Father Guido Sarduicci. There's quite a few other cameos on there, but the main idea is that in 1999, these names were huge and putting together a compilation like this is no small feat. What's no small feat either is having an item in my music collection that says "Handsome Boy Modeling School". Give me a few days and I'll figure out hot to explain that one to my wife :P

Again, give this one a spin if you're into great DJ work that has a little more lyricism in it.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Putting the iPod Cart before the Horse

So I spent a significant part of my weekend acquiring and setting up a new iPod. Not for myself. Not for my wife. Not for my parents. For my uncle. Who lives in India. In a small town. Without a computer.

Last week my dad called me to tell me that his brother had asked for an iPod from America. Now, it's not odd to get requests from my uncles before heading to India. In fact, my dad takes a significant gift for one of his brothers every time he goes to India. However, it's usually a really nice watch or something like that. So when my dad told me about the iPod request my first question back to him was, "Do they even have a computer?"

Well, earlier I told a white lie about them not having a computer. There is actually a computer in the house, but it's quite old and I suspect it would have a tough time running the latest version of iTunes.

Nevertheless, my dad said he still wanted to get him an iPod since he asked for one. I proceeded to remind him of the cost of a new iPod ($300), the requirements for said iPod (computer, MP3s), etc. And then finally asked (multiple times) if he was still sure he wanted to gift it to my uncle.

I'm not sure why I wanted my dad to be so hesitant about getting this iPod. It wasn't the expense of it since my dad generally gets something nice for one of his rels (although the $-to-size ratio is pretty high for an iPod). In fact, I've given one of my uncles a nice film SLR for his photography business. The hesitance also wasn't because I wanted one. In fact, even while I spent time setting up the new iPod and playing with it a bit, I didn't feel any desire to have one of my own.

I think the main reason was because getting an iPod for them was sort of like putting the cart before the horse and having a feeling that the iPod wouldn't really get used much. Referring back to the computer situation, I think my uncle will have a hard time really getting good use out of the device since he doesn't have a library of songs already ripped to MP3s. Sure, he can rip tons of songs and put them onto the iPod, but I doubt he understands how much time and effort it would take. Heck, I decided to do that with my library last year and I gave up after two dozen CDs. It just takes too much time! Forget about having a library of MP3s, regardless of how much my uncle is a gadget freak (which is definitely is), I don't think he's really comfortable with the concept of digital music.

And regardless of how easy it is to use an iPod (very easy if I may say), I think there's a certain experience you need to have before being able to get much use out of it. So there you have it. While I was happy to set up iPod for my uncle, I really don't think he's going to get a tremendous amount of use out of it. I suspect he'll go back to popping in a CD into his CD player since it's just so much easier.

Heck...remember those 5 CDs I got last week for my birfday? Well, I've got 5 jewel-cases sitting in my car and I've been switching CDs every time I want to listen to one of them. I haven't ripped them to my computer. I haven't created a single MP3 CD which could hold about a dozen CDs worth of music and which I could leave in my car stereo.

Will my uncle go through the process of ripping or acquiring a library of MP3s? I certainly hope so. He's got a shiny new iPod that he needs to use :)

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

It's Mah Birfday!

Yay! The Big Three-Oh!

So it's still barely my birthday, but I must say it's been a pretty good 24 hours. We caught the U2 show last night and ended up with some decent spots on the floor. We didn't get into the circle in the middle, but it was still a great show. Much better than their show earlier this year at HP Pavilion.

Then my oh so dear wife has been showering me with gifts for days on end!

I suppose it's a good thing since I rarely get anything for myself. If she doesn't get me something, there's a very slim chance that I would actually buy it myself. So it started out with a new dress shirt, then a new jacket which I've been meaning to get. Those were apparently unplanned gifts which she just found by-the-by.

The "real" gifts came today in the form of a gift for each decade of my life (ie, 3 gifts). The first gift was actually 5 items wrapped into one. CDs ranging from hip-hop to rock (thank Anish for the great recommendations). So here's what I'll be spinning for a while to come: Earth Tones by Crown City Rockers, Funeral by The Arcade Fire, Beyond the Spectrum... by Digable Planets, Demon Days by Gorillaz, and finally, The Craft by Blackalicious. Talk about a great blend of loungy, jazzy hip-hop and rock! As The Digables would say, I've got a nickel bag of funk!

What else did I get? I got some nice shoes which, again, I've been meaning to get. And finally I got a new espresso/coffee maker to replace my woeful array of caffeine machines. My last espresso maker can't make more than one shot of espresso at a time (and I like my coffee drinks strong and bitter) and the steamer is inconsistent.

Oh, and lets not forget the most time consuming gift of all...my wifey baked me a cake. From scratch! Yum!

So there you have it. Some people may have issues with entering a new decade of life, but I'm looking forward to mah dirrrty thirrrty. It's nice to start of my 30th year with so many nice things that I've been wanting for quite some time. Of course, all the time I've been spending with my wife has been great (especially since I've been so busy lately). Just think how fun it'll be spending a night out with the peoples this Friday! If you think I'm giddy right now, wait until I get some alcohol in me ;)

Monday, November 07, 2005

Saving us from ourselves?


So our idiot dog has been doing something which has been really been driving us up the walls (Despite his innocent face pictured on the left). Plus, it's kind of dangerous for him. As such we've been trying to stop him from doing it since the first time he did it.

But for some reason, today when my wife told me he'd done it again, the first thing I thought was that Junior knows something we don't and he's just trying to save us from something worse.

So what's he been doing?

He's been chewing up the eletrical wire from a plug in the game-room. And I'm talking about a single plug, not other wires or plugs in other parts of the house. There's this one plug by our front window which is behind a bench and no matter what we do, he keeps chewing up the wire & plug completely.

He's gone through 2 extension cords, two lamp wires, and one set of Christmas lights.

We've yelled and spanked him so many times now we're tired of it. But today for some reason, I'm beginning to think there's something special and worrisome about that electrical socket and that's why Junior keeps chewing up anything that's plugged into it.

Why do I think this? Well, there are many other plugs and wires all over the house which are much more easy for him to get to than the socket in question. In fact, there's a wire plugged into a socket right where his bed is, but he doesn't seem to care about that one. What gives?

I've heard about pets sensing things which humans can't sense (like earthquakes), so maybe this is one of those situations. Now, I'm not a very superstitious person, but I do firmly believe that there are a lot of things which humans are completely oblivious to. So maybe there's something about this socket that Junior can sense and he's just got this urge in him to prevent whatever he thinks is going to happen.

The only special thing I can ascertain about the socket is that it's wired to a wall switch and that it's hidden behind the bench. As far as I can tell, there's nothing else special about it!

The other thing is that this is the only thing which Junior doesn't stop doing even after we tell him not to. He's quite the obedient dog so he stops doing things after we tell him not to. But this wire, plug, and socket thing? He won't stop!

Anyone else have experiences with any strange things that pets do and they just won't stop?
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Thursday, November 03, 2005

Diwali and Sal Mubarak

Ok, so I'm several days late on this, but I just had to post a little something about this.

Happy Diwali! (Diwali Mubarak)

Happy New Year! (Sal Mubarak)

As a Gujarati, only the second wish is common place. I never grew up wishing people a happy Diwali since our family cared more about the next day, which is new year's day in the Hindu calendar. But since college I've been exposed to the variation of Hindu culture and I receive Diwali greetings all day, but I tend not to wish anyone a Happy Diwali.

Not because I'm a stooge, but simply because I'm used to wishing people a Sal Mubarak.

I confirmed this with several Gujarati colleagues yesterday (which was New Year's Day), so I can truthfully say that most Gujarati operate this way. We wish each other Sal Mubarak and go to temple on new year's day and go out to each on new year's day and call everyone on new year's day and generally make a big to-do about new year's day.

Diwali? Eh...light a diya and be done with it :)

Anyways, just a light hearted way of explaining how we Gujaratis are even wierder than you thought ;)