Memories of Kenya

Navinkaka sent a really neat site that has pictures from old Kenya. Hopefully they will reach some settlement and not destroy the country

http://www.mccrow.org.uk/EastAfrica/Kenya/Kenya.htm

Job Description for Parents

Here's something funny to lighten up your Sunday...

POSITION: Mom, Mommy, Mama, MaDad, Daddy, Dada, Pa, Pop

JOB DESCRIPTION: Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities!
Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES: The rest of your life.

• Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5.
• Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly.
• Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf.
• Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers.
• Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects.
• Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks.
• Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, an embarrassment the next.
• Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.
• Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product.
• Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION: None. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: None required unfortunately. On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION: Get this! You pay them! Offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left.
The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS: While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered, this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth, unconditional love, and free hugs and kisses for life if you play your cards right..

FOOTNOTE: THERE IS NO RETIREMENT -- EVER!!!
** If you are fortunate enough you will become grandparents!

3 Cousins Celebrating 21st Birthdays in 2008!

Three of our cousins will be ringing in the big 2-1 this year! Sahil just celebrated his on Feb 4th, Reina will be celebrating on April 14th and Hersh will be celebrating on June 1st. Happy 21st Birthday guys!

Tarak Ran a Half-Marathon on Feb 3rd!

For those of you who didn't know, Tarak ran a half-marathon on Feb 3rd to raise money for a great cause -- congrats on finishing ahead of your goal Turk! Here's a note he sent out after the race...

Dear friends and family,

Thank you so much for all of your support in helping me meet my fundraising goal for the 1/2 marathon I ran! The race was this past Saturday (the 3rd), and luckily the weather wasn't as nasty as it could have been (it had been raining pretty hard the day before, but on race day there were just a few brief showers and a short stretch of rather intense wind and hard rain). I was able to finish a little ahead of my goal time, finishing in 1 hour, 56 minutes, and 53 seconds, and with all of your help I raised almost a dollar a mile to support great volunteer projects around the Bay Area. Thank you so much for your support and kind words while I was training! I've stopped feeling sore from the long run, so if any of you want to go out for a little run any time, give me a call!

Oh, Also: Happy New Year!

-Tarak

Who can view the blog?

A quick question.. The blog is currently publicly viewable. Should we close it up and make sure that it can only be viewed by authorized users? Please comment soon, and I will make the necessary changes. Also, I am looking for others to help administer the blog site. Any volunteers.. Sahil, Alpesh, Vikash :-)

December in Cambodia and Vietnam...

As many of you know, we travelled with Deep's parents this past December to Vietnam and Cambodia for 2 weeks. It was a fabulous trip and we would highly recommend visiting soon, before it become overrun by tourists like other parts of the region (ie. Thailand). We spent 3 days in Siem Riep, Cambodia exploring the Angkor temple complex. From there we flew to Hanoi where we spent time in town and also did a day trip to Ha Long Bay. After that we flew to Nha Trang, where we spent 5 days relaxing on a beautiful beach. Once we had recovered, we went to Hoi An for 2 days, which is a World Heritage town on the coast that has lots of character. Our final stop was 3 days in Saigon (also known as Ho Chi Minh City after the North beat the South in the war), which is the most cosmopolitan city in Vietnam

If you'd like to see some photos from our trip, check out this web album. We had three photographers on the trip (Deep, his Dad and me) so you can imagine it took forever to screen through thousands of photos to come up with this selection :)

we've moved

We've moved. The new address is:

1220 Mills Avenue, #5M
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Home: (650) 391-9329
Satyen's Mobile: (415) 215-5872
Jigna's Mobile: (310) 699-6448

We look forward to your all visiting soon!

Satyen & Jigna

DiskSpace Restrictions on Images

Hi everyone,

I just found out that there is a 1GB limitation of space to store images on our blog. Please make sure that you reduce your image size before you upload them. Microsoft has a great free utility called ImageResizer that you can download at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Look in the right hand column for "ImageResizer.exe", download it and install it. Once installed, you can right click on your image, and click "Resize Image". The 640x480 option works really well. Your original image will not be overwritten. A new image will be created in the same folder that is much more efficient for web publishing. Let me know if you have any questions.

Dipak