Welcome to my blog - Living in NC. Where to start? How about why I started to blog? …and the top three reasons are…

1) I just relocated my family to Charlotte

2) I can’t journal

3) External expression of internal dialogues

More on relocating:

I just moved my family, dogs, and possessions to NC from Phoenix where we’d lived in the same house for 20 years. While we’ve traveled over a lot of the country, we’ve lived in AZ most of our lives. In response to a job opportunity, we first visited Charlotte in April. We immediately liked it and by the end of the weekend, it was absolute love. Two weeks later, I was living in an apartment uptown and Kim was packing house. A little over two months after that The Drive occurred. If you’ve ever driven cross-country you know what I mean. If you’ve ever done it with two cars, 3 humans, 3 dogs, and assorted belongings, you really know what I mean. If you haven’t, you should…really…it’s a wonderful, bonding, warm, cozy, family experience…or one that can be survived at any rate.

Prior to coming for that first visit, we did what most do today to get info; we hit the web and paged through the website for the Charlotte Observer (www.charlotte.com) plus the various and sundry other "visitor" websites. *Gripe alert* Why is it that the city or visitor web sites all seem to follow the same pattern? Where to stay, where to eat, what to see – ranked according to advertising space purchased, or membership in the Chamber of Commerce, or some other criteria that categorizes only a select group of hotels, restaurants, and attractions. Nice for planning a visit, kind of, but they don’t really give you much true flavor.

Of course, now we live here. And as a newly-installed local, where I want to eat and what I want to see changes. For one thing, we must avoid the "touristy" places. We have an image to uphold after all. For another, I have time – so it’s ok for the dog park to take precedence over the museum this weekend. All of this really results in less value for the visitor websites. Maybe I’ve missed them, but there don’t seem to be many (any?) sites with practical "living here" info. Of course, if you’re a visitor you don’t need them and if you’re living here, I guess it’s assumed you know it. Common sense might dictate that I immediately create a website to rectify the issue I think I’ve identified; instead I’m just going to write about our experiences discovering Charlotte and anything else I find interesting or note-worthy. J

1. History in the making – History has been made; Barack Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee, the first African American in the history of the United States to be nominated as the presidential candidate for a major political party, and the first African American to be elected, yes, elected President of the United States.
   
2. Musharraf – In November 2007, I wrote about Pakistani's General (ret) PervezMusharraf falling out of favor with Bush, and well, that has certainly come to past. He's now probably eating crackers and nuts, waiting to see if he might be court martialed.
   
3. China Olympics – China showcased its mighty with the super Olympics opening and closing ceremonies. China has been a closed society; most of us never really know what's happening inside of China. Although its economy has been sky ballooning, since China recovered from its feudal economic system disaster in the 15^th or 16^th century, to become a communist economic system, it has always been a closed society. But the Beijing Olympic Games have shown the world what China has become, a mixture of powerful capitalist and socialist economy system, the next world economic power.
   
4. NBC Olympics – NBC's broadcasting of the Olympics games was a disaster, because of its biased broadcasting focus. In the U.S., we barely saw other countries' athletic performance. NBC simply focused on showing games where American athletes were the dominants, and if not, we never got to see those games. About 12 years ago, NBC paid gazillions to the International Olympics Committee for the exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics games, and that simply is a sick and cruel monopoly, because, we don't have any other option in the US to watch the Olympics game, except on NBC. And, even though we might want to watch other Olympics sports, we are forced to simply watch whatever NBC decides to show. The FCC needs to seriously look into this practice.
   
5. Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps – Congratulations to Usain Bolt of Jamaica for being the fastest man on planet earth, and to Michael Phelps for being the fastest creature of the sea. As I watched Bolt running, I could feel that he wasn't really running to his fullest, and if he did, he could have set a high level of world records which would been hard for anyone to break them. I wonder what sprinter Frankie Frederick of Namibia was thinking about when he was watching Bolt breaking three world records. Also, looking at Michael Johnson in the BBC broadcasting booth, when Bolt broke his record, Michael simply turned around in disappointment.
   
6. The Olympics Economic Disparity – The Olympic Games were not really designed to showcase equal and just competitiveness among the world’s athletes. They are actually stupid, because you have athletes from developed countries, whose full-time career is playing whatever their fields of sports and you have athletes from developing and underdeveloped nations who barely can financially afford to live as their counterparts from developed countries.

   How can American Basketball team competitively play against an Angolan basketball team? All of the American basketball team players are multi-millionaires who chose in what house to live, what to eat and what to drive each day. Whereas perhaps some of the Angolan basketball team may not even play basketball as their full-time career and may have to worry about affording the cost of their living, not even think of what to eat for dinner. May be Angolan basketball team players are well paid and thus well off, but compare to many of the participating countries’ GNP and GDP per capita, it's ridiculous to call the Olympic Games equally competitive. This can be seen by the countries that win most of the medals. These are the countries that equally able and capable of economically taking good care of their athletes.  This economic disparity among athletes nearly if not completely, makes the Olympics games unequally competitive among the participating athletes. They may as well call them The G8 Olympics.
   

7. Zimbabwe Inflation – What else has been happening? Oh, Zimbabwe is fighting with inner self, getting that inflation rate under control would be something. Last time I checked, about eight months ago, its inflation was at 2.2 million%, wow. But the good thing is that everyone in Zimbabwe might be a millionaire, except when deciding what to buy with the millions might be a factor. You might take your one million and be on your way to the store to buy a loaf of bread, but by the time you get to the store, the price of the loaf of bread has doubled, so you have to run back home and get more millions, and again by the time to get to the store, the price has gone up again, so the process keeps repeating itself. So, is Zimbabwe the latest country to experience a hyperinflation?
   
8. Oprah Winfrey – If I ever see Oprah Winfrey, I'll pat her on the back; she must be the happiest person on planet earth right now. Oprah is the real deal. Whatever she touches turns to gold. Nearly two years ago, Oprah appeared to her audience and to most TV viewers, urging Obama to run for the US presidency, even when Obama didn't announce that he was interested in exploring the chore. And, there were many people who were lobbying to have Oprah run for the Office, but she said that she was not interested and that she wanted Obama to run. As the time went on, when Obama and Hillary got into their scuffle of the primaries, Oprah found her show running behind such shows as The Ellen DeGeneres Show, as most of her viewers were divided between Obama and Hillary. But, the golden girl has proven otherwise. She's gold.
   
9. Logo Designing – those who constantly email me asking me about logo design, please visit www.marshgraphicdesigns.com and ask for Lindsay. She's the best, the god of logo design, in the business.

Well, that's it for now folks, I gotta go…!

Excuse me for revisiting an old blogpost, but it's one of my favourites, and today I came across a fascinating article in the Independent which supports it very neatly. It includes the great quote:

"In truth, crying isn't weakness, it's a relaxation system in the human organism," says Hodson, "In order to function, we have to function with our emotions, not against them. You cry when tension needs to be dissipated. If we don't use this system we're not being very intelligent."

So with no further ado, allow me to repost my 10 tips for men on what to do when the woman in your life is crying...

1. Don't panic. You are not going to drown. Your girlfriend/wife/partner is not going to dehydrate. The only really important difference between someone upset with tears in her eyes and someone equally upset without tears in her eyes is that the first scenario tends to make many men freak out... it's just salt water, guys!
2. Do not attempt to get her to stop crying. This will happen in its own time, but more haste, less speed. The problem is not that she's crying, the problem is that she's upset. Focus on trying to understand why she's upset.
3. Establish reassuring physical contact - hold a hand, give a hug, find a tissue. Best to keep it non-sexual at this point though - chances are fairly high she's really not in the mood. Kissing away tears may be a very sweet gesture, but a woman will generally appreciate it more after you've attempted to talk about what's going on.
4. Talk about what's wrong. No, wait: ask, and then listen, and then talk.
5. Never, ever, ever tell her that she has no reason to be upset or tearful - this will make her feel so much worse that it is an incredibly bad idea unless you want to prolong the weeping.
6. Provide sympathy, not solutions. Do not attempt to solve her problems or feel under pressure to do so. After crying, most women will get on with sorting out what is wrong, though it's always good to offer to help if you can and want to. But this is far less important than giving her time to express the emotions she's feeling, and letting her feel that she has been heard and understood.
7. If you're feeling upset or uncomfortable because she's crying or because of what she's said, say so and say why. A solid and dependable rock is useful at times but it's often nice to have something a bit softer to cry on! Important caveat - try to avoid giving the impression that what you really mean is, "I'm in an even worse situation than you and look, I'm not crying".
8. Try to remember that she's almost certainly not doing it just to make you feel bad. It's easy for a woman to underestimate just how difficult a man can find it when she cries, particularly at the moment when she's actually crying! Yes, I'll admit that some women do use tears to manipulate men by making them feel bad, but do give her the benefit of the doubt until you notice a consistent pattern. It may help to bear in mind most women can't stop and start their tears on demand! Also, tears only succeed as a manipulation device because men tend to ignore points 1, 2 and 6, and get so desperate that they'll do anything to stop the tears flowing! So this advice should work either way.
9. Remember that tears can be triggered by a lot of different things - from serious trauma to mild frustration to hormones to a sentimental film!
10. Crying in someone's presence is also a sign of trust and openness. So if you care about someone, try not to make her feel uncomfortable about crying in your presence. Nobody likes their partner to be upset, but if she is, would you really rather leave her to cry on her own?

Disclaimer: These are sweeping generalisations based on grossly oversimplified gender stereotypes. My only claim to expertise is my own experience, but that has given me grounds to think that these suggestions might be useful to a few people out there....

(Photo - Tear!, originally uploaded to Flickr by ::: *TearS* :::.)

 Warm welcome to my blog.

I was born in Kerala  and lived major part of my life here. I wish to share my experiences of living in Kerala over here. I shall try to cover areas like the history, geography of Kerala. No do not think this is going to be boring.   I wish to narrate about various facets of life in kerala. Its social life, culture and many many more. To make things interesting I shall be adding photographs, video clipping etc.  

Hope to create a pleasant and interesting experience for all of you. 

I know I'm taking a leap here, but it's hard not to talk about the upcoming election after last night's campaign speech by Barack Obama accepting the Democratic nomination.

What's been bothering me for some time now is not that Obama's a Democrat (I'm not), but rather that his charisma makes me forget that I have no idea how he plans to "fix" the America we've become under George W.

Last night's speech was no different. He's a great speaker; he's intelligent - and unlike Bush - intelligible, but I was left wondering not that Change is possible, but how it's possible. We're in deep, and yes, I'm a bit of a cynic, but I guess I'm still having a tough time comprehending how we're going to fix the economy, offer health care to every American, pull troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Maybe I just haven't been listening, but I'm wondering what makes you support Obama? McCain?