Goals

At work, we are urged to set SMART goals, which we laugh off and ignore most of the times ;-)  I realized I've been writing mainly on my mommy blog, I mean mainly not writing on my mommy blog.  But there are a few thoughts and projects entirely mine.  My weight loss journey was inspired by Rian and deserved to be on his blog.

I ended my post with a goal for 2011: the pursuit of happiness.  It took me more than a year or two to get there, and I wouldn't say "I'm there", just that I've made a lot of progress in that area.  Every once in a while there is a slip and when I remind myself of that goal, I'm able to course correct.

I loved these tips written by a 90 year old too.

In the last 4+ years of working for Nimble Storage, a definitely change from the pace of work at VMware, I've learnt the importance of grit, and not giving up (upto a certain point), and hard work.

A lot of the weight loss story was about self-control, and I believe I had conquered that when I practiced it for days and weeks and months and years on end.  Overtime though, now, I feel it has worn off, as has my self-control in other areas of life.  I feel like I frequently give in to temptations, or feel I deserve a certain reward, and crave it and take steps towards that temptation.  So my next goal is to increase self-control.

WW assignment - 10 things

My second week at WW starts today, and the homework assignment is to find 10 things to do when I feel like eating (emotional eating). What better place than to jot it down here, I can find this anytime, from anywhere.

1. Drink a glass of water or green tea.
2. Go for a 10-15 min walk.
3. Do 2 sets of 25 crunches.
4. Update blog.
5. Clean-up desk/home.
6. Call mom or BFF or chat or update FB. Get social.
7. Organize next vacation.
8. Chew sugarless gum
   

A satisfying weekend

What a satisfying weekend it was - despite the ups & downs. Here's why:

WFH on Friday - rested a lot, and slept with Tuggy by my side in the afternoon.
Went to Babies R Us to buy some toys for Rian. Got the Fisher Price Learning Table. Rian seemed to love it, at least the first night ;-)
Got Chinese take-out from Mandarin Gourmet on our way back - yumm tasty chicken, and awesome tasty chicken hot & sour soup, maza aa gaya.
Had a bad night because of the cold & throat irritation. Lazy morning started with giving Tuggy away to the grandparents at 8:15am and snoozing for 2 more hours. Played with Rian, then took him to urgent care @ 1pm. He got a steroid anti-inflammatory that seems to have quietened his cough, and he's sleeping better. Awesome afternoon siesta again with Rian.
Amit prepared ingredients for sandwiches, and I cooked chicken. Amit also cut some onions for me :-) It was nice to be in the kitchen with him after such a long time. Grandparents were taking care of Rian.

Rian slept with us on Saturday night in our bed - all of us slept very well ;-) Woke up early(?) at 8:30am and got to the Stanford dish hike at 11:30am. Hiked it from 11:30 to 1:15pm, it was awesome. Once again slept with Rian.

On Sunday night Rian slept from 10pm to 5am :-) and then after his milk feed, went back to the crib to sleep in it till 7am. From 7am, I couldn't resist him, and brought him into our bed...

The Audi experience & results

On Tuesday (27 Nov), Amit and I had signed up for some spirited driving, thanks to Audi. It was a wonderful working day and we were both out of office, headed towards some exciting event.

The first time I sat in the car, the instructor was demonstrating the correct technique to use ABS, and going over a sharp left and a sharp right at the next instant. I was petrified. I sat in the car, knowing what was about to happen. My whole body was tense, every muscle had braced for the ride ahead, my hand clutched the door support and held on for dear life! Of course the moment this first ride was over, Amit and I decided it's best not to tell the folks back home about this :-) It would definitely not fetch us any praises.

The ride was less than spectacular. The main reason was we didn't get much feedback from the coach. Not sure why, maybe he was simply impatient, or running out of time, or I was so far behind the other drivers, he didn't see any point in giving us positive pointers. Anyways, the good thing about the event was we got a chance to race on the track, I think 2-3 rounds each. Infineon raceway in Sonoma is a nice track :-) Of course I wouldn't know a good track from a bad one, this was just the first one I'd been to!

The "most improved driver" selection happened without us knowing anything about it. He got to be a passenger in the wicked R8 with a pro driver.

I can't say that I loved the cars too much either. We got to drive in an A4, an A6 wagon, a Q7, an S4. The Q7 was a disappointment. There was way too much roll in the car on turns. A slow driver like me on a course in the parking lot definitely didn't do much to it, but Amit sure took it to its limits especially on the turns. The G forces were way too much for me! We drove the S4 on the real track, I liked the car. Fast & responsive. Hated the helmets they made us wear though. The only use was they protected the head while getting in and out of the car :-D

The BMW autocross that we attended back in Feb '04 was a totally different beast. We had only one vehicle, the X3. There was no race track. The instructors were looking at each of our runs and giving us constant feedback. There was a "proper" pit race and we were individually timed. They matched up the times and made a good decision on the "best driver" and of course I was the "most improved driver" in that session :-)

Social networking

After days and weeks and months of resisting the social networking sites, I finally succumbed and signed up for Orkut. It was instant addiction! I found many of my old school and college friends, colleagues. I spend hours finding old friends, updating my profile, and mostly scraping to other friends.

Keeping in touch with friends is really easy with Orkut. Profiles let you do that - give you all the material to talk about. You can selectively export info about yourself to your friends, friends of friends, or everyone :-) In addition to this, the concept of "scrapbook" pretty much is the antithesis of emails: every message to you is publicly displayed on your profile. Scraps are not private.

It is easy to see why Orkut is popular: you are there, you are everywhere. You can access it from anywhere. Your friends can reach you from anywhere: another country? sure. Another continent? definitely! It is so easy to use! (Just like Picasa, but that's for another post!)

Now, I'm not really a fan of everything that Google and Apple do. But one thing both companies seem to do very well is make these complex things easy to use for anyone. That's one place where M$ fails miserably. But then I guess others learnt from M$'s mistakes.

Another one bites the blogs

Yeah, I just couldn't resist it any more. Let's keep it a secret for now :-) shall we?