| My Stealth Valentine, and my son's Maturity! |  |
| My Stealth Valentine, and my son's Maturity! |  |
Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and for me, it holds special meaning because I proposed to my future wife on that very day, ten years ago.
I don't have explicit permission for it, I would otherwise quote the exact Spike Milligan poetry I used to woo her.
Anyway, my wife 'commemorated' the event by gifting me a costly sleek PDA Phone from O2, called the Stealth.
See here below!
We needed a run up though, to the event. My son had to be 'prepared' about it, and I did that by telling him the one provided by the office had gone bad, and needed to be replaced. He sounded quite okay about it.... Until that is, the brick landed home. Last evening, when he saw it in my hand, there was an instant change in his mood, he refused to eat his dinner, he refused to come and even hold it in his hand.
I tried pacifying him by inviting him to switch it on first, place it on first-time-charge, pull out the stylus, etc, that he did half-heartedly.
Later in the night, and the next morning, (that is today), my wife told me a few interactions she had had with Aditya.
Today, we reached an agreement, sort of!
Aditya was the first person to switch it on.
He made the first call into the phone.
He used the stylus first.
And, he has already booked the phone, to be inherited from me, when I grow old to become a grandpa, and he goes to college. (Wonder how I will be a grandpa when he is still at college! Interesting logic these kids have!!)
Rajendran.
I don't have explicit permission for it, I would otherwise quote the exact Spike Milligan poetry I used to woo her.
Anyway, my wife 'commemorated' the event by gifting me a costly sleek PDA Phone from O2, called the Stealth.
See here below!
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We needed a run up though, to the event. My son had to be 'prepared' about it, and I did that by telling him the one provided by the office had gone bad, and needed to be replaced. He sounded quite okay about it.... Until that is, the brick landed home. Last evening, when he saw it in my hand, there was an instant change in his mood, he refused to eat his dinner, he refused to come and even hold it in his hand.
I tried pacifying him by inviting him to switch it on first, place it on first-time-charge, pull out the stylus, etc, that he did half-heartedly.
Later in the night, and the next morning, (that is today), my wife told me a few interactions she had had with Aditya.
- She was all praise, how mature Aditya's behavior had become! - He was trying so hard to hide the fact that he was upset because of the new phone in my hand! And, was even explicitly stating that he wasn't upset because of that, but was having a pain in his stomach, that's all... (I wondered, wow, what a way to measure maturity!)
- Last night, just before going to sleep, he had asked her, "So, who has more THINGS Mom, is it me or is it Dad?", to which she had said, "It is you, my dear, who has more THINGS". But, he had shot back with a last word-clincher, "Yeah, but it is Dad's stuff that are costly!".
- Seems today morning, he asked her why I was given a phone when I already had one. And, once Radha explained that it was only because the other temporary phone would be taken back by the company once I get a new one, he kinda subsided.
Today, we reached an agreement, sort of!
Aditya was the first person to switch it on.
He made the first call into the phone.
He used the stylus first.
And, he has already booked the phone, to be inherited from me, when I grow old to become a grandpa, and he goes to college. (Wonder how I will be a grandpa when he is still at college! Interesting logic these kids have!!)
Rajendran.
| Jim - All Chin, No Work! | |
| Jim - All Chin, No Work! | |
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Jim Allchin of Microsoft, co-president of the Platforms and Services Division, is now FORMER co-president of the platforms and services division.
Yes, he retired after working for seventeen long years with the company he loved a lot.
But then, he is now moving into company he loves a lot more, too!
In his blog (probably he will move to some other blogging platform soon), he writes tongue-in-cheek, about what he looks forward to, as a typical day at home, away from work.
For the complete post, see here.
Some excerpts:-
It is gonna be interesting watching Jim Allchin get into some real work. ;-) Probably, Jambav should invite him to join our parenting blog community.
- 7:00 AM: Breakfast with my sons. Ended up doing a product comparison review of the various cereals we had in our pantry. Sugar does beat the natural stuff and my suspicions about the impact of packaging on the post purchase experience were spot on. It turns out the box does matter.
- 7:40 AM: Kids off to school.
- 7:45 AM: Went to check email. Only two pieces.
- 7:46 AM: Checked network connection to see why I am not getting any email. Everything working perfectly.
- 8:00 AM: Went to clean up the playroom so that it’s organized for when the kids get home. Ended up building an application to sort the Legos using a SQL Server backend and a Windows Presentation Foundation front-end on Windows Vista. Can’t decide whether the primary index of the database should be color or size of the piece. While searching the web discovered that Lego means “I put together” in Latin.
- 9:30 AM: Spent 45 minutes looking around the house for the big refrigerator with the free soda just like Microsoft – was unable to find it.
- 10:15 AM: Worked on my Windows logo latch hook rug – another couple days and I’ll finish the red.
- 11:00 AM: Watched Rachel Ray – god is she engaging. Maybe she should do the launch of the next version of Windows.
- 11:30 AM: Checked mail again. No messages.
- 11:31 AM: Turned off Spam filter.
- 12:00 PM: Went out to lunch with my wife. Was surprised to see so many other people out for lunch during the week. I wonder if they have been buzzing around for all of these years that I have been in building 26.
- 1:30 PM: Went to check out the Apple store at University Village to see what all of the hype was about. Ended up demoing Windows Vista for all of the employees (and a few customers). All they could say was “Wow.” Ended up leading a group of them over to BestBuy to help them pick out new PCs with Windows Vista pre-loaded. Need to go to the Bellevue store tomorrow.
- 3:00 PM: Checked email. 150 unread messages. Unfortunately, 149 of them were spam.
- 3:10 PM: Turned Spam filter back on.
- 3:15 PM: Went to drive the afternoon carpool run. Spent 20 minutes waiting in line behind other parents whose kids weren’t even outside yet. Need to write paper about Next Generation Carpool Queuing solution (NGCQ) that integrates Windows Live Presence with the driveway scheduler. Must get appointment with school principal when it’s done.
- 4:00 PM: Home with the boys. Went to the playroom to help them build a train layout. Ended up doing interoperability test to study compatibility issues related to using Thomas trains on Brio track. Turns out while they work, the trains perform better on their native platform. Need to try Brio trains on Thomas track tomorrow.
- 4:30 PM: After a phone call with my Mom, I decided I needed to configure her account as a standard user for Windows Vista. This gives new meaning to “parental controls”, but a son has to do what a son has to do.
- 5:00 PM: Dinner with the family. After they finished asking who was this strange man sitting at the dinner table, we had a great conversation about the kids’ day. May have spent too much time asking them “how they would have done things better” and “what do they see as their key areas for growth.”
- 6:45 PM: Read kids a bedtime story. They seem to be recently interested in “chapter books.” I was amazed by how quickly they fell asleep when I read them one of my favorite classics, “The Theory of Recursive Functions and Effective Computability” by Rogers.
- 7:30 PM: Checked email. Again. No new email.
- 7:31 PM: Turned Spam filter off again.
- 8:00 PM: Went down to my music room to play my guitar. Dozed off on the couch.
Rajendran.