Life Changes in 2014 - Part 1

Hi everyone,

Its been a very long time since I've written anything; over a year actually. A lot has changed since my last post. Pretty much my life isnt how it was anymore. So today I just wanted to rant out whats happened with me so far and talk about the changes in my life.

After my last post I had gone to India (my home country) to attend the wedding of my cousin. Little did I know, my parents had arranged for me to meet some girls so that I could possible get married too (Indian tradition of arranged marriage is done this way; parents find a suitable bride/groom and then you meet them, talk to them, get to know them and then decide whether you want to marry each other or not). I ended meeting 3-4 girls during my cousins wedding. I ended up meeting the most amazing girl. She is kind, beautiful, smart, caring and just amazing to be with. I liked her a lot from the very first moment we met.

We met in a temple with my parents and her younger sister and mother. After a few minutes of general chitchat among our parents, we were left alone to talk amongst ourselves and get to know ea h other.  its funny because we had never ever met before that day. I didnt even know her name so thats exactly what I asked her. "What is your name?" She answered back a little timidly "Purvi. And what's yours?." Guess even she wasn't prepared for this meeting. We talked about general things like what I do and my hobbies, what she does and her hobbies. Why I was there in indian at the time. Honestly, I was hoping she would just keep talking and no one wpuld come disturb us. Unfortuately, soon enough were were interrupted by her mother and sister, whom asked me a bunch of questions abput my job, where I live, etc. Then both our families went our ways.

Back at home, my parents, my uncles and aunts (from my moms side), my grandparents (from my moms side), the kids; pretty much everyone that was there, bombarded me with the same question. "Soooo....did you like her? Shall we fix the wedding?" I got pissed and said I dont want to ever get married. Then almost instantly I said "I want to marry Purvi and no one else." It was almost as if I wasnt it control. But it felt amazing.

We decided that some of the other elders of our family need to meet Purvi's family once too. We got in touch and to my surprise, even Purvi's family wanted the same. We met on Jan 3rd, 2014 at her grandparents home. We had a great time, everyone getting to know each other. Again, I got a chance to be alone with Purvi. I told her how I felt but not completely. I didnt want to sound to weird by saying I love you and want to marry you out right. I didnt know exactly how she felt. So I told her I am ready to marry her if she is ready to marry me. In hindsight, that sounds so stupid. Sounds like I was making a business deal lol. Anyway, I also told her abput the lifestyle here in New York and such.

After the meeting we had to go home fast as my father and I had to catch an interstante train from jaipur to mumbai for business. We tried to get in touch with Purvi's family to tell them that we agree with this wedding and that it is a yes for getting married to Purvi by me. We couldn't get in touch with them in time so we decided that my father and I will go to mumbai and talk to them when we get back to jaipur. So as planned, my father and I left jaipur by train that night.

That is the end of the first significant moment of my life in 2014. Stay tuned for the next installment of "Life Changes in 2014 - Part 2."

Yours truly,

Rajat

R/C Helicopter flying....

Dear Readers,

I recently got in to a new hobby - R/C Helicopters. I know, I know - its quite a different hobby from what I am normally interested it, but so what. Its always nice to try new things (Even if you are not good at it lol).

Anyway so i started out my new hobby with a very simple and basic R/C helicopter; the Syma S107G. Its a steady and easy to fly helicopter. It can turn on a fixed axis and can fly forward and backward and height is controlled by increasing or decreasing power/throttle. It was easy to fly because it had a balance bar to make sure it doesn't over fly in a given direction. I had fun getting my feet wet so to speak with this helicopter but it got boring quite fast. I wanted some more excitement so I decided I'll get a faster more aerobatic capable R/C Helicopter, which lead me to order Helimax's Axe 100 CP.

Now this new helicopter looked quite a bit like the first one in terms of size, but it definitely makes the first one look like a baby when it comes to flying. Unfortunately, I didnt get my feet wet enough with the first one to be able to handle this one. This helicopter is much faster and harder to control. Sadly, I've already dinged it in a few places and even cracked the canopy (i've repaired the dings and cracks with scotch tape and crazy glue lol).

I'll probably get a PC flight simulator to practice on before I take it out to fly again. Despite the dings and crashes, I am having fun learning and flying. If you guys want more info regarding this hobby and R/C heli's, feel free to contact me or post a comment here. I'll try to provide any information I can.

- Raj

P.S. Here is a video of my unboxing the Axe 100 CP so you can see what it looks like and what comes included.

Trip to Montreal

Dear Readers,

I am back after a long time. MBA and then training for the family business have kept me quite busy lately. But at least that's all done with now.

Anyway, my family and I recently went on a vacation to Canada. Seeing as it was 5 adults and 1 child it was financially suitable for us to drive from New York City, where my home is. Being the one in the family that loves to drive, I ended up driving a large majority of the way. It wasn't bad though; the drive through large chunks of forest reserves was quite refreshing.

We were all prepared for some crazy excessive interrogation at the border going into Canada, but surprisingly, there barely asked anything. Just a few simple questions like where we are all from, what I did for a living, where we are going and how long we'll be staying and also if we bought any products such as alcohol, cigarettes or tobacco.

Montreal is an amazing city. So much to do there that no one should be bored at any time. From the Biodome to Mount Royale to the Notre Dame to Saint Joseph's Oratory to the Old Montreal City to the Underground City. It was all memorizing. I particularly loved the Amphibus tour, a guided tour in an open bus/boat that starts on land for first half of the one and a half hour tour in Old Montreal City and then moves in to the adjoining lake to a view of the city from the water. The memorable part of the tour was when our tour vehicle got stuck midway on the ramp while coming out of the water back on to the land at the end. People were going frantic and some even jumped out from the windows in the middle of nowhere (They didn't know the place so ended up coming back only a few minutes later lol).

All in all, it was a great vacation and a much needed break. I only wished it was a bit longer as I felt that there was so much to do and so little time.

Yours Truly,

Raj

How to effectively kill your social life!!!

Hi everyone,
Its been quite a while since i blogged. I've been so busy with my MBA classes and other responsibilities, I've hardly had any free time. This brings me to to this blogs' topic: How to effectively kill your social life!!!

 Its actually not all that hard. If you are a working individual or one that goes to school, your have already taken the basic steps that you need to take to accomplish total social life annihilation. In fact, almost every person on this planet has or will eventually take these steps willingly. But this is just the beginning; you have a long way to go. Another thing you could do to take away your social life is get a job or if your already working, go back to school while working (like i am). Now most people would work full-time and go to school part-time or vice-verse; work part-time and go to school full-time. If your are really adamant about  accomplishing this goal, you could try working full-time and got to school full-time. I can guarantee that this combination will take enough time out of each of your day so that you have just enough time to travel to and from home, eat lunch/dinner (if you are one that can have a full meal in under 15 minutes on average), sleep (about 8 hrs), and some other basic chores. If you are one that doesn't sleep much you could take up some extracurricular activities (e.g. gym, professional organization, local sports teams, etc).

The point is there are so many things that you could do to kill your social life. You might be wondering why I am talking about Killing you social life as oppose to improving it. Well, in the last year, i have taken up some of these extra activities (going to MBA school and working full-time) to improve my future. I just couldn't help but ponder why I am doing all this. I wasn't able to fully justify living miserably now to live lavishly later. Despite my lack of justification I am killing my current social life. I just hope it all pays out in the end.

What do you all think? Is it worth it to life with bare minimum and live a life of self-inflicted hardships now to live lavishly in the future? What would you do or what do you do?

- Raj

INDIA WON THE ICC WORLD CUP!!!!!

Hey guys,

I don't know if any of you are die hard cricket fans. I for one am not to much into it. How could I have been? Although I was born in India, I moved with my family to America at the age of 9. I was pretty much raised in the American culture. As I was saying, I am not to much into Cricket, but my Dad and sister-in-law are. My sister-in-law tells me how people in India are so over the top that stores all around are closed and people perform pujas (religious ceremonies). Heck, they'd even perform a puja of their T.V.s before each match. She mentioned how people take vows just so their favorite team would win. For example, her Mom vowed to travel to some temple and donate money (they call it "prashad chadhana"). All this is just down-right crazy if you ask me.

Anyway, so after hearing all the craziness surround around the sport, I figured I'd watch it. I watched the semifinals, which was India Vs. Pakistan and India won. Apparently it was a big deal as India and Pakistan have a huge rivalry going on for ages. It was a bit interesting as i was trying to learn all the rules (there aren't too many) and more importantly all the techniques they were using in the game (i found some to be pretty silly, but i guess it was just my view). Anyway, so i decided to watch the Final Championship match, which was against India Vs. Shri Lanka. This was suppose to be a very big deal because India has only won the championship once, which was 28 years ago in 1983. You'd think for a team that hasn't won the championship in so long to get into the finals, it be a very interesting match. Sadly, most of the match was almost mundane. It wasn't until the last 5 overs (each over has 6 balls/pitches by the bowler/pitcher), when the game got a bit interesting because India was batting and they were inching towards their required number of runs needed (keep in mind that the game was 50 overs after which the game ends.) At the point in the game when India needed 6 runs (points) and had 13 balls/pitches left, even i got excited. I was at the edge of my seat murmuring "come on India, hit a 6 (kinda like a homerun)" The batsman grounded the ball and they take two runs. The new pitcher comes on and again i find myself murmuring "Come on India, add insult to their injury. Hit a 6 instead of a 4 (grounding the ball to the boundary at the outskirts of the field)" Sure enough, the batsman, coincidentally the captain of the Indian team, hits a fly ball right into the stands for the win."

I learned something that day. Cricket is a fun game to play, watching it is only fun with a group and its only fun to watch the last few overs. What really got me was the fact that I sat with my Dad while he was watching the Indian news on T.V. and for the duration of half an hour all the newscaster talked about was how India won the Championship. That was evidence enough of all that my sister-in-law told me out the people in Indian and their craziness pertaining to the game. What are your thoughts about this sport and also about the nation of die hard fans and how this is the only news they have to talk about now (lol)?