Growing Rich Everyday... My Weblog

Day 5
Thankfully, it was predicted to be a bright and sunny day. We decided to hike up Mt Washburn. It is at an elevation of 10,243 ft above sea-level. Mt Washburn can be hiked by 2 passes - Chittenden pass from the north or the Dunraven pass from the south. We took almost 4 hours round-trip to hike a gradient of 2500 ft along the Chittenden pass. It was steep for most part of it but a very safe and scenic trek.
After the trek, we stopped for a heavy lunch at Canyon village. We also visited the museum at Canyon village, a must-see stop for the exhibits.

This was the end of our stay at Yellowstone. We then proceeded on to exit the park to now experience the Grand Teton National Park. The drive from the exit of Yellowstone Park to Grand Tetons is simply amazing. The Grand Tetons and their reflection in the Jackson Lake are indescribable. We checked in early at the Colter Bay Village where we had our reservation. Then we went to see the Signal Mountain Summit point. On the way was the Jackson Lake dam. We did not know what was to come or experience at the Signal Mountain Summit. We were taken for a surprise when we saw at least a handful of people crowding at the summit. When we turned around, we were stunned to see the sunset - its rays penetrating from within the mountains into the Jackson Lake. Signal Mountain Summit has to be experienced at sunset. Period !

We called it a day. We were tired after the hike too.

Day 4
By now we had realized that the park was extremely huge than we had expected. There was yet a lot to be seen and secondly today's day was predicted to be full of thunderstorms and snow later in the afternoon.

So we decided that we would make maximum use of the day by starting our "coverage" as early as 6:30-7:00 am, either seeing an attraction or two or driving directly to the next point of interest, and then having our breakfast at about 8:30/9:00 am.
We started off from Tower Falls at about 6:45 pm to go to Mammoth Hot Springs. On the way we saw a moose , coyote and a bunch of antelopes. The drive through the misty road was awesome. We were keen on taking a ranger program at Mammoth Hot Springs. The program was scheduled to start at 9:30 am and that was the last program of the season before most areas of the park started to close for the season. We had our breakfast and then drove up the Upper Terraces of Mammoth Springs. We drove back just in time to catch the 2-hour ranger program at the Lower Terraces.

The ranger was very good and she explained how the limestone/aka travertine terraces were formed at this part of the park.This area of the park has a lot of limestone in the soil as against the rest of the areas which have a lot of rhyolite in the soil. As a result, the hot water springs deposit the limestone sediments as they gush through. The rich orange-ish hues are of course due to the bacteria that thrive in there. We liked the Minerva, Cleopatra and best of all the Canary Terraces. The lifeless trees near the Canary terraces looked spooky, as if directly from some Halloween-special movies.

After Mammoth Hot Springs, we drove further south to the Norris Geyser Basin. This is supposedly the largest geyser basin in the park. It consists of 2 basin loops - the larger Back Basin loop and the smaller Porcelain Basin loop. It also has a nice small and sweet museum explaining the geology of the different hydrothermal features. We liked the Steamboat geyser and the green algae flows the best here. The clouds were looming in and it was already beginning to get chilly while we were at the basin. So we kind of hurried to see all the attractions here. By the time we were done, it was almost 2:30 pm.

We still had a few hours left before we could crash. So we decided to go further south to finish where we left off at the Old Faithful basin area. So we covered the Biscuit Basin and then went to see the Morning Glory pool at the Old Faithful area. It was raining hard and was too chilly at the Old Faithful area, but we nevertheless decided to dodge the rain and still go to the very far Morning Glory pool at the end of the trail. On our way back, we were greeted with hailstorms. Our feet were wet and cold. It was only 5:30 pm but then we decided to call it a day after having a warm early dinner at the Yellowstone inn.

Day 3
It was predicted to be rainy/foggy for the earlier part of the day, and sure it was ! After a heavy breakfast at the Grant Village Lakeside Cafeteria, (the restaurant has a very good location-of course on the lake, by the way) we then went to West Thumb Geyser Basin. The amazing thing about this geyser basin is that it is right on the shore of the placid Yellowstone Lake and a few of the geysers are inside the waters of the lake. West Thumb basin has 2 loops - outer and inner with the outer loop having more hydrothermal features. All these features pour in thousands of gallons of water in the lake. I liked the Fishing Cone Geyser and the SeismoGraph & Bluebell Pools the best here. As we saw in the video program next day, it seems in the earlier days (like in the 1900s), visitors would fish standing atop this cone and then drop their fish inside the steaming cone for it to cook. :)

The drive from West Thumb to our next stop "Mud Volcano/Sulphur Caldron" is very scenic as it runs along the Yellowstone Lake. The lake is the largest lake at high elevation in North America. It is so huge that it can form its own weather patterns aside from the entire rest of the park. The lake meets or rather drains itself at the Yellowstone River which is the scenic spot of Fishing Bridge. Across the parking lot from Fishing Bridge, there's a small knoll with dirt kind of some-what steep steps to climb up to the top. We enjoyed breath-taking views of the lake merging with the river.

Mud Volcano and Sulfur Caldron areas are in the most actively acidic part of Yellowstone caldera. Here the boiling water is so acidic that it dissolves the rock around it churning it into boiling mud. Here all you smell is the strong hydrogen sulfide odor that's emitted from the ground. Check out a video here to see how it looks like. Other good features here are Black Dragon's Caldron and the Dragon's Mouth thermal spring which roars vigorously sounding like a Dragon's mouth as the water boils. Just north of this area the roads and woods open up to a beautiful Hayden Valley. We spotted a bison up close there.


We finally reached the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone area. We first went to the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. The Artist's point at the end of the road over the Chittenden Bridge,is indeed a picture-perfect inspiration for artists- it is an awesome view of the Lower Falls of YellowStone River. After a couple of photo shoots, we then headed to Uncle Tom's Trail. This is steep but well-guarded 328-step trail down to the bottom of the Falls. A heavenly experience down there! Just on the other side was a view-point for Upper Falls of the Yellowstone River. The upper falls is shorter in height than the lower falls. We then went to see the brink of the Upper Falls along the Northern Rim area. Unfortunately, the rest of the Northern Rim was closed for the season due to landslides. So a quick late lunch and some wandering around, this was the end of our Grand Canyon Area of Yellowstone. But we were proved wrong the next day by some visitors. They were touting a lot about the Visitor Center of Grand Canyon area, which we eventually saw on the final day of our trip. This is a great visitor center-cum-geology/historical museum with animated exhibits.

Since we had saved time on account of the closed North Rim, the proposition was to head north and either do a good hike up Mount Washburn or go straight ahead crossing the Dunraven Pass to Lamar Valley. But then Mount Washburn trail requires atleast 4-5 hours round trip and it was beginning to get very cold and windy in the evening. We could see signs of the impending snowfall prediction for later that night. So we dropped Mount Washburn plan and decided to go to Lamar Valley instead. Enroute was a quick stop at Tower Falls.

Lamar Valley is said to be best seen during twilight hours- either before sunrise or after sunset. This is the time when the wildlife comes out to graze. We spotted a herd of bison and some antelopes. We went all the way until Pebble Creek campground and then on our way back hiked up to Trout Lake. It is a steep 30-40 min hike at the end of which is this serene Trout Lake. The woods here are dense and you can smell the pine and spruce here. I loved that fragrance.

This was the end of our 3rd Day at Yellowstone. We had a warm dinner at the Roosevelt Restaurant and cuddled warm into our "Rough-Rider" cabins at the Roosevelt Lodge.

About 2 weeks ago, we just returned from our much awaited Yellowstone vacation planned for the last long weekend of the summer, Labor Day Weekend. It was well worth the wait.

Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks are situated in north-west Wyoming. With Idaho and Montana bordering Yellowstone National Park, one can enter the park from the west via West Yellowstone, MT or from the north via Gardiner, MT, from the east via Cody,WY or Cooke City, WY and from the south via Jackson. They are a part of the Targhee National Forest area.

Day 1
We flew to Salt Lake City on Aug 29th after work and crashed in a nearby airport hotel for the night.

Day 2
Being 2 hours behind EST, we were up way earlier the next day than we expected to be which turned out to be good. We started driving to West Yellowstone at about 7:30 am, enjoying the hilly terrains and vast vast fields of Utah and Idaho, which we so miss in Florida. The air was crisp at 59 F. We reached West Yellowstone around 12:30-1:00 pm and spent about an hour there walking around the town and having lunch.

At about 2:00 pm we started heading towards the park. The entire park is in the shape of an 8. We had planned our itinerary to cover the 8 in an anti-clock wise direction starting from West-Yellowstone/Madison junction going southward towards Old Faithful area and calling it a day at Grant Village. However the drive from Madison Junction to Old Faithful has a number for detour scenic loops not worth missing and can easily take about 2-3 hours before one can reach the Old Faithful area.The road from West Yellowstone to Madison and further south runs parallel to the Firehole River, a scenic experience. We took our first detour along the Firehole Canyon drive which had breath-taking Firehole Falls as one of its highlights.We then stopped at the Fountain Flats drive before moving on to our first experience of geyser basins at the Fountain Paint Pots trail.


Fountain Paint Pots trail is a kids-friendly trail and covers almost all the 4 hydrothermal features - Hot springs, Steam vents(a.k.a. Fumaroles), Mud Pots and Geysers - that Yellowstone is known for. I vividly remember the Celestine Pool, Bacteria, Fountain Paint Pot (which is a mud pot), Red Spouter and one more geyser along the farther corner of the trail. The temperatures of these hydrothermal features range from 120 - 200 F and they contain lots of acidic chemicals, typically hydrogen sulphides in them. Legend has it (as told by one of the park rangers) that one of the visitors and his dog succumbed to their life as they jumped into the Celestine Pool.

We then went to Firehole Lake drive which has 3 good thermal features - Firehole Spring, Great Fountain Geyser and White Dome geyser. We could see Firehole Spring constantly bubbling, a striking contrast to the cool blue color it possessed. The name Firehole is interesting, a number of natural artifacts are named Firehole in Yellowstone . The park ranger explained that "hole" is the native-Indian-speak for the word "valley". So in effect Firehole means Valley of Fire, which Yellowstone indeed is.
A little further ahead, there was no activity at Great Fountain Geyser which the park rangers had predicted to be erupting later that night between 10:00 pm - 12:00 pm. We were very lucky to arrive just in time for White Dome Geyser to erupt. It was our first ever geyser in the park showing off its scheduled eruption, which was a lot overwhelming for us. White Dome Geyser is a cone geyser.
White Dome Geyser Erupting
After this, we went to the Midway Geyser Basin. Now the entire Old Faithful area comprises of 4 geyser basins - the northernmost being Midway Geyser Basin followed by Biscuit and Black Sand Basins and then of course Old Faithful's Upper Geyser Basin. Midway Geyser Basin is home to the largest hot spring in the park- the Grand Prismatic Spring and Excelsior Geyser. Excelsior Geyser, now a very large thermal spring, has beautiful intricate siliceous sinter patterns that lined on its inner walls. It is very active and pours a large amount of water in the Firehole river by way of minor streams and falls.

By the time we were done with Midway Geyser Basin, we were extremely thirsty. So we decided to skip Biscuit Basin and Black Sand Basin for the moment and head straight on to Old Faithful area which has many cafeterias - big and small. The visitor center at Old Faithful has a chart of various "predictable" geysers and their next expected eruption times.When we first went in there, one of the park rangers was announcing that Bee-hive geyser would be erupting in the next 15 minutes. So we rushed to the nearest viewing vantage point to see the geyser erupting. It went as high over 100-150 feet. Mind-blowing !!

Old Faithful was going to erupt in the next half hour as per the predictions, so we casually strolled around near the benches waiting to see one of the most touted attractions of the park. We had already spent 45 min waiting for Old Faithful and it was taking longer than that to erupt :(. Finally we decided to move on, but just as we were about to enter the visitor center again, there it was. By this time it was already 6:30 pm. We just had a max of an hour and a half before sun-down to see the rest of this geyser basin. But we had no idea how big it was. The Upper Geyser basin itself can take half-a-day to be covered in its entirety along with an hour of Ranger Program worth taking here.

We did the ranger program next which was very informative. She walked us along the upper bridge/loop area explaining a bit of history, geology, animal life, science and contemporary issues of Yellowstone, particularly wrt to the geysers and thermal springs in the upper loop - the Anemone Geyser that erupts every 15 - 20 min and flushes down its own water like a toilet bowl :), Plume Geyser that luckily erupted while we were around in repeatable 5-7 gushes. The upper loop also contained the Bee-hive geyser- it would have been amazing to be soaked into Bee-hive's erupted water from here, Lion Club geyser, Giantess geyser, Doublet pool and Aurum Geyser. Castle Geyser far across, on the other side of this loop was erupting as she continued her talk. Since Castle Geyser eruption lasts for almost 40-45 min, we hurried to see the last glimpses of its gushes.

This was almost the end of our site-seeing day. It was a long day from 5:30 am up until then. We decided to have dinner at Old Faithful Cafeteria and then head on to our our Grant Village accomodation.

Whole Foods has a very good food court and they make an attempt to promote healthy eating by actually having innovative recipes made from commonplace health foods. Quite often we know of a lot of health/vegetarian foods and their nutritional values, but to concoct a palatable recipe out of them is not so trivial.
So as I was just browsing around in their food court, I quickly jotted down (on the backside of one of the numerous receipts in my handbag) some of the ingredients they put together (which of course they had displayed) for the dishes. Of course the recipes are their trade secret. But knowing atleast the ingredients is fair enough of a good start for us.

Southwestern Vegetarian Stew
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Celery, Onion, Red and Green peppers, Sweet Potatoes, Tomatoes, Chipotle peppers, Tomato juice, Corn, Blackbeans, Cilantro, Lime juice, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Kosher Salt.


Quinoa Cranberry Salad
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Quinoa, Dried sweet cranberries, Bell peppers, Garlic, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Cane sugar, Parsley, salt, pepper.


Cabbage crunch
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Cabbage, carrots, sesame seeds, scallions, almonds, canola oil, apple cider, vinegar, honey, salt


Greek Salad
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Tomatoes, Red and green peppers, Red onions, Feta cheese, artichoke hearts, Kalamata olives, oregano, Lemon-herb dressing ( Dijon mustard, lemon juice, pineapple juice, basil, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, apple cider vinegar)

Being in the software world, I have finally realized something about programming - it's an art and can only be perfected via a constant practice that should also involve experimenting with different techniques to achieve something better than what already exists. I try to draw comparison with the way professional artists, chefs , musicians are able to become maestros by inventing new concoctions. It is what makes them professional as against anyone of us who can sing a little, dance a little and cook a little here and there. But what differentiates them is their curiosity and enterprising nature to constantly try something new and different. Similarly, as I look around, I see that while anyone can whisk up a software program to get things done, writing the program in the best possible way, while avoiding a couple of design pitfalls, requires a great deal of thought and an artful eye.

HyperTextMarkupLanguage - if you go to a zillion websites, all have the more or less similar definition - It is a language used for marking up documents. But what is marking up?

Get any clue?

Imagine you were writing up a document in Microsoft Word to be printed later. To emphasize the headers, you would select one of the Header options in menubar. To emphasize on particular words or definitions in the document, you would either make them bold or italicize them. To change the paragraphs, you might indent your new paragraphs by a few tab spaces and adjust the scale.
Obviously you have visual cues on the menubar to help you achieve all such functions. As you print the document, the headers, the paragraphs, the italicized words are rendered on the paper as you expected them to be.

Now comes the browser ... the browser cannot understand what's a header or what's a new paragraph in the document by itself. It cannot distinguish between an italicized word versus a bold word. It needs explicit information to be able to do so. Without that information, all the different parts of the document mean the same to the browser. Thus, we have to explicitly tell the browser what's what. And how do we do that? We "mark up" the document effectively telling the browser - here's a header, here's a new paragraph and so on...And this is what HTML does.

eXtensibleMarkupLanguage (XML) - Now this language also does markup.
But while HTML specifically marks up the different parts of the document with a view to rendering its structure exactly as needed, XML marks up a document semantically.

Now the semantics of one document can be totally different than that of the other - one document may talk about physics while the other may talk about history. But the formatting of both the documents will never change ! This is why we have a standard set of elements in the HTML language, but XML can never have a standard set of elements - hence the eXtensibility.
XML's primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of structured data (data that is systematically marked up) across different information systems.

From Wikipedia, "Adaptation is the change in organisms that allow them to live successfully in an environment. Adaptations enable living organisms to cope with environmental stresses and pressures. Adaptation can be structural or behavioral. Structural adaptations are special body parts of an organism that help it to survive in its natural habitat (e.g., skin colour, shape, body covering). Behavioural adaptations are special ways a particular organism behaves to survive in its natural habitat."

This is the most natural phenomenon in living organisms that forms the basis of Evolutionary Biology. But metaphorically it very much applies to us as well. Yes, aren't we living organisms too? In layman terms, adaptation can simply mean change. But there is a significant difference in the terms change and adapt. Change is so involuntary, so natural - it just happens. No one makes change happen. It just happens. Situations, circumstances change overnight with no super-force seemingly taking control of the whole process like a one-man army.


But adaptation is different. Adaptation is very much a voluntary process of a living organism. A living organism adapts itself to adjust to the changing environments. This is how it "evolves". Ditto with human beings !! Unless they adapt themselves to the changes that constantly occur around them, they won't evolve, or grow. Adapting ourselves constantly to new situations is the only way to our growth as an individual and as a civilization. Yet it can also send negative signals to us...if we allow ourselves to constantly change, where are our convictions, where is our integrity that binds us , that makes us who we are as a person??

I saw this amazing movie called "Adaptation" starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep...quite a thought-provoking movie as you may have indeed gathered by now [:)]

Computer Science is a very beautiful science that will always continue to awe a layman beyond her/his imaginable limits. Some of its manifestations have completely changed the way we shop, search, watch videos, look for directions, listen to songs and so much more..

However, ever wondered why the curriculum can be so boring ! Being a computer science student trying to make sense of all the material, I would always wonder where in the real world would such problems have an application.

A thought just came to my mind with regards to this issue - Since most of the technologies get invented with a view to addressing the real world's problems , wouldn't it be nice to have the computer science curriculum follow a case study pattern similar to the MBA curriculum?
Introducing case studies to address topics like Web Search (Using Google's Search example), maps (using Mapquest, Google Maps), Distributed Systems (using Amazon's or most of the financial companies' working example), file formats and efficient transfer of file formats including streaming (using Adobe Flash and Youtube's example) and so on...

Taare Zameen Par is about a dyslexic kid, Ishaan Awasthi, who is unable to comprehend the rigors of a typical formal Indian education system that is so mindless and abnormal quite so often. However, instead of correcting itself to be able to adapt to the poor kid, all the participants [teachers, parents and the like] in the system deem the kid to be abnormal, making his life nothing less than miserable.

Everyone can relate to it, especially if you have grown up in India where most children are labeled as worthless if they "can't" become engineers , doctors or MBAs. Even this I do not blame much, because if one were to see the other side of the coin , it is precisely these professions that has helped India as a nation to accelerate its economic growth during the last decade. Science and technology are usually the tickets for a "developing" nation to propel their growth and stand up in the face of global competition. Even within a nation, it is the ticket for the lower and middle classes to climb up to the next level in the class ladder, because the next levels always represent more economic prosperity. Indulging in creativity, arts and humanities can usually be a privilege of the more wealthier classes and nations.

But what initiates the most angst is, it is even this making of "good" engineers and doctors is what the system cannot get right. What good creativity and innovative thinking can a system achieve that promotes an extensive amount of "rote" learning. It is simply churning mindless graduates based on lame exams wherein "rote" answers are the only ones accepted to the questions asked. Forget creating something, it even nips an average thought process, rendering the brain dyslexic even if it wasn't to start with.

I copy my sister's views here :) - Education does not mean scoring high marks good numbers high elite degrees in exams and certificates. Life is an exam where the syllabus is not defined and there are no pre-known question papers nor there are any most likely questions.Instead there are challenges , questions coming from all directions.
What matters most is the confidence within us which needs to be persistent in cuting the challenges like a sharf knife :) !!

There was an article in The New York times about the Japanese envying India's schools. It mentions that Japanese are amazed with the way Indian schools teach counting at the age of 2 yrs, computers at the age of 3-5 yrs etc. Why, why , oh why? What in the whole world is going to collapse if the 2-year old toddler doesn't know the numbers? That is an age where children ought to be doing nothing but playing, and not be pressured to learn such stuff at all.

Sigh !! :(

An occasional visit to Barnes and Noble is something that I often look for as one of my pastimes.
They sure have a winning marketing streak ! Anyone with even a faint passion for books can succumb to their strategy and walk out with a couple of books.
In addition to carving out a hole in my [read - husband's] pocket [;)], I often leave with a wishlist of books.
Come what may, I am determined to read the following books during 2008.

1. The World is Flat [Thomas Friedman] - currently reading.
2. Complications [ Atul Gawande]
3. Guns, Germs and Steel [Jared Diamond]
4. The Lord of the Rings [J.R.R. Tolkein]
5. Shantaram [Gregory David ROberts]
6. Blink [Malcolm Gladwell]
7. The Tipping Point [Malcolm Gladwell]

Weeks before 2008 dawns, the extreme planner in me tries to make a wish list of my resolutions for the New Year. And it just doesn't end. Albeit such TODOs can be stressful , but they have always helped me accomplish at least something instead of nothing at all. I recently stumbled upon Zen Habits blog and it is a good piece of advice for all of us who really like to dream big but fall short when it comes to actions. The real problem is when there are too many things on the wishlist, achieving any one , atleast one of those items too can get daunting. I have always been of the kind where I wish like doing all things at the same time, which is definitely not pragmatic [:D] .

So amongst the copious wishes, I try to make some [loose] priorities as such -
1. Write blogs on a regular basis.
2. Learn the Web2.0 drama and all that gets encompassed within its umbrella - Web design, Ajax, Social networking, Search Engine Optimization, AdSenses et al.
3. Be in sync with health,nutrition, food and lifestyle. Exercise atleast 3-4 times a week.
4. "Create" ample time to be able to focus on my passion - reading.
5. Tinker a little bit with my new obsession - Travel & Tourism Industry Trends Research

As 2007 comes to an end, I am more than just happy and content. It has been a very great year for me, quite eventful and quite productive - both personal and professional.

It was a year of parent visits - my in-laws visiting sometime between April and June and my dad visiting sometime later during the year, it was a year of travel and a year of some good goals.

A year of lotsa travel !!
Tapan and I decided to make the most of our vacations by traveling to quite a lot of places this year.

It started off with a trip to Sanibel-Captiva Islands just off the west coast of Florida, in January 2007.
In March 2007 , we visited California (San Francisco, Monterrey, Big Sur, Lake Tahoe and Sacramento).
In May 2007, we looped around the Grand Circle (Las Vegas, Grand Canyon - North and South Rims, Zion National Park, Bryce National Park).
In September 2007, we visited Atlanta and the Smoky Mountain National Park and in October 2007 it was a trip to New Jersey and New York.
Of course there were a couple of trips to Orlando's theme parks - SeaWorld, Epcot and Magic Kingdom.

A year of goals !!
Learning to swim was a major highlight for me this year especially so when it took more than 2 weeks for me to shed off my fear of water. It was a very determined effort although it would be frustrating at times, but it gave me a sense of accomplishing something above all fears and inhibitions.

Professionally it has been very very fulfilling and that kind of calmed the restless soul in me. I switched jobs in March and since then it has been no looking back. I love my job (it took almost 3 years and 3 job switches to find this one) and I look forward to achieving even more than I think I can with it.

And finally the most easy to do, but most difficult to achieve results ! It's none other than shedding off your pounds ! After a lot of persuasion by Tapan, I was finally convinced to exercise regularly and maintain a good fitness level. That included frequent jogging for a mile, Pranayaam, and of course working out at the gym pretty regularly. Albeit slow, the results were somewhat comforting - I lost about 5-6 pounds from September through December.

Finally we started to blog. I had been wanting to do this since quite some time, but never had the "Do it now" attitude to get it started. I now hope to be regular at blogging and grow it into a professional venture for 2008.

And there were quite many small goals too, but the above qualified to be the best of all.

A year of some good books !!
During the start of 2007, I happened to be a part of a book club. However that fizzled out during summer - [:(]. Some good books that I read during 2007 were Serving Crazy with Curry (author: Amulya Malladi), Memoirs of a Geisha (author: Arthur Golden), The Indians, This I Believe (Dan Gediman), The Secret (Rhonda Byrne) and The World is Flat (Thomas Friedman).

Definitely a rich 2007 [:)] With this I look forward to a great and richer New Year with new dreams, aspirations, books, goals and much more !!!!

[Title adapted from "Brave New World" - a very popular work of Aldous Huxley]

There is definitely an evolution in the way workplace and work are being perceived in the everything2.0 era, and the ideas of workplace and work will still evolve in the future. However in my opinion , I can describe this evolution to pertain to only the corporate lifestyle. It would not apply to professions like school teachers, physiotherapists, nurses, doctors or any profession where healing, nurturing the other person is the main crux of the job.

Professional bloggers like Penelope Trunk, Marci Alboher have their "current" careers revolving around the same concept. In short, they precisely articulate this new work-attitude wave, and are definitely a motivation to everyone who feel trapped in their current work lifestyle. And if that wasn't enough, they enrich us with quite many positive ideas about improving workplace productivity, time-management, self-promotion, negotiation skills, shifting careers etc.

I read Penelope Trunk's blog quite regularly, and I have just come across Marci Alboher's blog quite recently. I have always felt quite the same about some of the topics that they focus on. Here is a sample of just three of them.

1. Change should be made a constant factor in career life. I believe in working in several different roles throughout my entire span of work-life which can be easily be between 30 to 40 years. Apart from my current job as Software Engineer, I am much interested to be a Librarian, Market Research Analyst, Entrepreneur, School/College Teacher as of now. I feel it is the variety of the work we do that will make our lives more fulfilling rather than dedicating one's entire life just climbing the ladder all the way to the top in just one profession.

2. Job titles are just fancy vocab games that actually limit our potential from delivering work to the best of our capabilities. Also we really do not work in a confined manner as described by the job title. The more we deliver "out of the box" of our job title, the better are the chances of us growing faster.

3. "Work-from-home mom" is the new blend for women who want to raise their kids by themselves instead of sending them to day-care, want to have a job, do not want to quit and stay at home full-time. Basically they want to have it all. There is of course some kind of compromise for the highly career-minded woman, as work-from-home may pose to have some kind of set-back to her desire of rising to the top in a fast-paced manner. But at least something is better than nothing at all.

Of course there are many more such ideas that will continue to evolve and fill up this blog space.

"SMART" - It is a mindset. It is believing that you can be better at your job, your hobbies and your life. It is knowing that as part of an intelligent and vibrant community you can expand your interests and achieve your goals.

- From FAU SMART program Brochure.

I am addicted to them everyday. Fortunately they are on the same frequency - FM 97.3 - better known as CoastFM. However I get to listen to them only during my commute to work and on my way back home.

The one in the mornings is "Those 2 girls in the morning" - yes, the title is as point blank in your face. That's what they are - the two girls - Julie Guy and Tamara G, connect to everyone in an instant. That indeed is talent enough. They do a bunch of activities in the morning session, but primarily they discuss issues that everyone of us go through or is vulnerable enough to go through at some point in life. And the best part is, they invite the people around to provide their opinions/solutions to the issue being discussed. Most of the topics they discuss are quite interesting, sometimes amusing !

The one in the evenings is Delilah hosted by Delilah herself. Well, Radio Delilah is a featured program that runs on a hundred different radio stations across US. It's Delilah's warmth, her captivating call to people to "sit back, relax, enjoy and share" the finer moments in life is what appeals most of her ever-growing audience. People call in or write to her show to share their stories of love, hope, difficulties and how they have overcome them and much more. I feel I can relate to so many of them, it is always the "I am just like her/him" . Many people call in to thank her and appreciate her good work.

Both the shows have one common appealing character - the one of people trying to reach out to you to share their opinions, suggestions, stories, inspirations...

What is the most obvious thing that an Indian fresh-off the plane to US notices? In my opinion, it is the fact that everyone greets and everyone is greeted with the most humble expressions - "Thank you" and " Hi, How are you doing today, Sir/Madam". It is ubiquitous - in the grocery stores at the cashier's counters, in the buses, at movie theaters - in fact at any place where there is a possibility of human encounter. Some may take it as a mere mindless activity people engage in as a matter of habit. But I feel that most of the time people ask genuinely. This is because the general sense of respecting the other person is generally high in the US than in India. In India, nobody would care to ask you "How are you doing today" out of the blue, or nobody would even care to say "Thank you" to the bus conductor/driver while boarding off the bus.

It is also this sense of respect for human beings that makes labor very expensive in US, which is why we wouldn't have maid-servants , cooks, laundry-men coming to our homes everyday. This is precisely why people learn to take care of their chores by themselves without any sulk. Most of the Indians opine that they would love to go back to India to enjoy these services. But for me, that would mean not bothering to respect the maids as human beings.

Over the last month, I have been reading the book "This I Believe" by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman. I would say this has been the most remarkable book I have read so far, that has shaken me enough to search and be aware of my own beliefs, thoughts and convictions. "This I Believe" started as a National Public Radio series in the 1950s. It was a national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives. It is now an international project and calls for people to contribute their essays. Everyone was and is still invited to share their beliefs ; people from all walks of life - ordinary , extraordinary, scientists, artists, teachers, poets, playwrights, politicians, industrialists, war veterans, immigrants as well as the most common man living right down the end of the block.

If one were to ask about one's belief's , it is very easy to state in negative terms.."I don't believe in this", "I do not like that.." etc. But to come up with what you truly believe in and stating your convictions in positive terms is a daunting task. Each of the beliefs is extraordinary. People spoke about responsibility, integrity, patriotism, courage, freedom, forgiveness. But the most common belief that almost all of them held was that of love, empathy and compassion, goodness and kindness guiding their lives through thick and thin.

"This I Believe" project now has a dedicated website which archives all the essays that have been aired on the radio so far.