I thought of changing the blog design as I felt it needed changing. I chose the new theme specifically because of its colours and simplicity. Its clean and looks fresh. The text font and colours are just what I like. I dont really like the Home and About Buttons, and i will look at changing their current green colour. Overall I like it and will hope it will help keep me continually posting. The  old design you can see the earlier design in the picture above. The new design is called “Digg 3 Column” by Small Potato.

What a week it has been?!! It flew past like it never happened. It kind of reminds me like in the movie “CLICK” where Adam Sandler clicks fast forward through the weekend to find his work all done and ready for his important Monday meeting. Its like I don’t even remember the many things I did (There was just so much to do) and yet I did! Sometimes i need to go through my PDA just to remember whom all I met the past week and the things that I need to follow up with the following week. And that’s exactly what I am going to do tomorrow before the start of a new week on Sunday. But I do know that the past week was a good one from both professional and personal sides. I managed to somehow balance both sides getting many things done. Work was full of meetings, grappling with obstacles and near to closing three leads and two projects. The coming week looks like I will be having my pda full with tasks to accomplish and appointments to keep. The week gone by gives me immense satisfaction. Though I was busy as I could be, it was enjoyable. Personally I did spend a lot of time with my family, taking them out inspite of being very tired after a tough work day and most importantly seeing that very happy face of my daughter when she has fun when we are out shopping or just hanging out in a shopping center. It truly is what every parent needs to do inspite of a hectic day. Dig through that reserve of energy and spend it on your child / children. It could be as small a thing as taking him/her to the local grocery store to buy a loaf of bread. Those 5 – 10 minutes is still quality time. Quality time is important, no matter how little there is. Even if you have to take your kid down to the building lobby to pay the rent in the building office, do it. Its small but still better than nothing. Kids need all the time they can get with you, no matter how little. Take the time out when you want time for yourself. In taking time out for them, your are actually taking time out for yourself too. Many of us don’t realize that. What more relaxation can any parent get than watching his/her child smile back at them when they are enjoying your company. Family is important. your kids are important, your wife is important. Give time to them when you are back after a tough day. Yes do take some time off to un-wind, but get back to them asap after that. I am a learning parent. Everyday is a learning curve. We need to take the initiative to learn form our everyday experience with out family, just like we learn on the job and how to handle work situations. Family life is as important, if not more. Give equal time to family, and your life will be balanced. I am trying hard to keep that balance and believe me when I say, its worth it.

The starter truly surprised me. It was extremely good. The chicken was tender and nicely done. The surprise was the marinate. It was excellent. The flavours were just superb. I don’t think i have eaten a better Pudina chicken tikka ever.

The main course arrived a few minutes later. The butter chicken was just about average. Nothing special there but not bad at all (better than many ither places I have eaten). The Chicken Tikka masala was really good. The Gravy had a very different flavour from what you normally get in the Indian restaurants. The chicken pieces though should be barbecued which was not the case here. But overall it was a very good dish. The surprise of the main course was the Paneer Kadai. The gravy was just perfect and more than that was the paneer. It was soft, moist, done to perfection. The paneer, you could make out, was of a very good quality which is a must for these kind of dishes. 

The portions of the dishes were smaller than usual and that’s the only negative point i could find about the whole dining experience. The pricing is normal for a restaurant of this type. The overall bill came to KD 13 for the five of us which is quite ok considering the number of dishes we ordered. For desert we had Gulab Jamun, which the captain provided for us complimentary (which was very nice of his to do so). The Gulab Jamun though not the best I have eaten, very very good too. The service was good and the staff were polite. I would highly recommend Zaika for a good overall Indian Food experience. This is one place I would be visiting at least once a month for Indian Food.

Met an old friend of mine yesterday. hadn’t seen Irfan in a long time. Maybe 5 years i think. He was flying down from Dubai fior a short business trip. Caught up with him and had a nice chat talking about Family, career developments and other common friends. I always think that when we meet such old friends, we also realise their importance and how they were missing in our life. This tells a lot about your relationship with people who in the past where close. Meeting after a long time tell you honestly how you feel about them even after years of separation. Special friends will always bring back the feeling of warmth and wanting to be in their company. I was hoping that irfan would stay back maybe another day to just not rush our meeting which was just a few hours. I have met many old friends after yeras of not being in touch, but not many (rather very few) of them really made me feel genuinely happy to a point that i want to relive the old moments. Such friends are the real treasures that need to be held on to. Fake, superficial friends do no good, not in the short term nor in the long term. Friends like these are the proverbial “Gold” that are to be treasured, and kept close no matter which different parts of the world you live in. When it comes to freinds I always remember this line from the Book “IT” by Stephen King which goes  – ” Maybe there isn’t any such thing as good friends or bad friends, maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when your hurt and help you feel not so lonely, maybe they are always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for, maybe worth dying for too, if that’s what has to be, no good friends, no bad friends, only people you want, need to be with you, people who build their houses in your heart. “

The weekend’s here. Another week has just flown past. It seems like i sleep-walked through the entire week. I dont even realise when the week starts and ends. Its so amazingly wierd. Days are flying past like they are hours. everyday is such a rush. there seems to be no time for anything. the day is always full doing something or another. When at work, its the workload, and when at home it’s home chores and tasks. Somehow there just isnt enough time in the week for ourselves. I look forward to the weekend to just chill, gather thoughts and relax. But this weekend, i dont think that would happen. Social engagements are plenty over the next couple of days. There is a wedding to attend on Friday evening, Saturday morning will be a visit to a dear friend’s house, followed by a dinner invitation at my place for relatives. I hope i can catch a movie or two in between. Probably continue reading the John Steinbeck Novel that i started Months ago. Looking forward to this weekend still. Hope everyone has a good time this weekend.

Iomega has put out a new external hard drive. This one comes leather bound. This is one good looking external drive you dont mind carrying around. It looks absolutley fabulous. I am seriously thinking of buying one myself. I need to find out if it is available in Kuwait or not. This is definitely worth a buy. The specs are as follows:

• Capacity: 250GB
• Preformatted and hot plug-and-play
• No AC adapter needed
• Compatible with PC and Mac®
• USB 2.0/1.1 compatible
• Transfer rates:
  • USB 2.0 480 Mbits/s
• Includes EMC® Retrospect® Express backup and disaster recovery software (PC & Mac)

Yesterday i was involved in a minor car accident. This happened at the Sheraton Roundabout at 4 pm in the afternoon. I was taking the roundabout to enter the First ring road. I was perfectly in line in my lane for the exit. At that moment, this guy banged into my car hitting it on the right rear bumper. Luckliy there was not much dmage done, just some bad scratches on the bumper (as you can see in the image above). I told the guy who hit me to forget about it and move on as going to the police wont help me repair the car as it wasnt damaged much. To myh surprise, the guy insisted on going to the police station. Apparently he thought that he would get compensation from me for his broken headlight. According to the law in kuwait, if a person hits you from behind, its his fault. PERIOD. There is nothing more to argue about. This guy was a total nutcase. At the police station, the Cop asked me if i want to go to the Investigator. I said there is no need as i was hit from behind and i died not want ot pursue it further and would like to leave it at that. To my and also the cops surprise, the guy insisted that HE wants to pursue the matter. The cop tried to tell him that the accident is his fault and that i (as in me) am letting him go without any case. He still insisted. This clearly annoyed the cop (not to mention me too). The cop made the necessary papers and asked us to go to the Chief investigator. I told the guy when leaving the station that he is making a mistake. If he walks now, it will save him KD 30 as he will ahve to pay that fine since the investigator will surely find him in faulty. To cut a already long story short, he finally decided not ot go and wen to the cop to say he does not want to go to the investiogator and he will settle with me. I thought he would just say ” Ok fine, good bye” and leave. But to my HUGE surprise (and later amusement) he actually told me that he is willing to drop going to the investigator if i pay him for the damage. I was sure at that point that this guy is surely nuts. I told him that he is crazy to think i will pay him for hitting my car when i should be asking for compensation. I told him straight that now I want to go to the investigator to make sure he pays. He then says its ok, lets drop it and we then parted from the police station. This whole excercise wasted two whole hours of my time. If that idiot of a fellow would have realised all this in the first place, it would have saved us both all this trouble. Anyways, i still will have to get the bumper polished to get rid of the scratches. It would have served no purpose trying to get his insurance company to pay as they would definitely not pay much. in the end i would lose as i would spend a lot of time running after the paperwork. Hamdulillah, there was not much damage and the guy realised in time that he was actually not getting anything out of me. I still feel that he does not accept that it was his fault when HE banged into my car. I was just happy that i came out of this without much damage to my car.

After Corus, Jaguar and Land Rover taken over by TATA, here comes another acquisition by an Indian company. This time its in the media sector. Bennet & Coleman Co. the holding company of the Times of India group has bought UK’s Virgin Radio for a reported GBP 53.2 Million (Rs 445 Cr) . The deal is significant as its the fist major global  takeover by an Indian Media Group. The details of the deal as as follows:

Virgin Radio is one of UK’s biggest broadcasters with an estimated 2.7m regular listeners. It has an FM licence for London as well as a national AM licence. The deal will give BCCL’s wholly owned subsidiary, TIML Golden Square Ltd, control over Virgin Radio’s assets in the UK — valued at £68.5 million gross (Rs 570cr) and £63 million net (Rs 525cr) as of December 31, 2007. Its gross revenues in 2007 were £24m (Rs 200cr) and its profit before tax £4.3m (Rs 36cr). Under the deal, TIML can use the Virgin Radio brand name for 90 days after the sale is completed, but will then rebrand the radio network.

Link: Times of India

The 10th Standard results are out today. My niece scored a marvellous 92%. Congratulations Khadija and wishihg you the very best for your studies ahead!!

Update: Just found out that Khadija has stood 3rd in her School!!!! Excellent Khadija!! Take a bow!!!!

Yesterday was a very tiring day. More out of lack of food than exertion. The day started busy and i reached office without breakfast. I thought i would grab a bite somewhere in between, but that was not to be. I had an important online meeting for which i was wrapping up some last minute details. the meeting lasted around 1.5 hours after which i had to rush directly for my second meeting. That go over around 2:30 pm and i was already late for my next meeting. By the time the third meeting was done, it was way past 4 pm. I was famished. I have a term i usually use to describe my state – I am so hungry that i feel my stomach is touching my spine!!” I went with my colleagues to Mais Alghanim for a late lunch. The food was good as ever and I felt relaxed after the food. But soon after i had a splitting headache that refused to go. I took a Panadol extra and that helped. Later in the evening I saw half a episode of BONES and then saw an episode of 24 before hitting the sack at around 12 midnight. A very tiring day, but i ended it feeling relaxed.

A real DESKTOP PC this is!!!!! This is one really useful tech design. Would love to see these come out in active production. The idea is definitley not improbable as all the slots and ports can be accomodated using a custom motherboard. Just hope it is durable (water-proof, scratch proof, children proof etc!!!).

We then ventured out to the Department Store which is on the floor above. Thankfully there was an attendant to take care of our trolleys while we looked around the Department Store. The electronics has a decent range. The prices were better than what you would get at say Virgin’s. The Department Store is also a huge place, But again what you notice is the space to move around. Its not cramped. Even with all those people inside, it did not seem like a rush. They have a big variety of stuff and also the prices are attractive. This is a good place for shopping – plenty of parking space (and free), space to move around while shopping and also a full fledged department store after you finish the grocery shopping. A big thumbs up to Lulu for coming up with a winner here.

If you are a man, forget it –Mumbai’s newest taxi service is for women only.

Sleek silver and white taxis sporting a blue and pink logo bearing the name “Forsche” — a play on the name of the luxury German carmaker and the words “for she” — will hit the roads for the first time on Thursday to coincide with International Women’s Day, the new taxi company’s founder, Revathi Roy, said.

The service will have special feminine touches like bigger mirrors, a make-up kit with a nail polish remover and a magazine rack.

Coutesy – Times Of India

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