Watch what your kids eat

Last year Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was involved in a study to determine if there was a link between ads for junk food and the increase in childhood obesity. With there initial findings, it has been stated that 40 percent of food commercials that are aired are for candy, snacks and fast foods. These ads are largely viewed by kids who are between the ages of 8 to 12 years. Kids in this age range are trying to be independent and it is important to understand what they are exposed to.

What FCC is going to do about these ads being aired is at their discretion. Maybe they will reduce the number of such ads being aired; maybe they will work on improving the quality of such ads, so the viewers are educated. I have never seen any ad for fruits, vegetables, meat or seafood that are nutritious and are much needed for the growing kids, except for that ‘got milk?’ ad. Maybe FCC will improve on airing such ads. Whatever step they take it will be for the benefit of growing kids; after all they are our future and you don’t want your future to be obese.

The whole issue on airing these ads in like a chain reaction. The ads are aired luring the kids to these junk foods. They ask their parents to buy them such foods and sometimes throw tantrums on food aisle while shopping with their parents. To avoid such embarrassing moments, parents become vulnerable to such tantrums and give in to the child’s plea. I know parents are the ones who control the final decision of whether to buy what the kids ask for or not, but sometimes you just give in for various reasons. Once in a while for kids to have what they want will make them happy and give them a sense of winning their requests battle.

But that in no means says that you just let kids get what they ask for all the time. We as a parent should have our stand as well. When I go shopping with my son, Yash who is 8 years old, I am strict about what he can get but at times, even without him asking (because he knows he is not going to get it anyways), I will pick up his favorite candy bar for him to munch on, on our way back from the store. Even stores have made candy-free checkout aisle for moms, so they can checkout and pay for their groceries without the kid asking or nagging for candies.

The idea behind FCC getting involved is to reduce junk food promoting ads and to improve food ads that have nutritious values. One can argue that removing these ads is not going to change anything. But the fact is kids ask for things that they see on T.V. where they spend their time watching their program of interest. Then you might say, ‘reduce the TV watching time or cut off TV completely and promote other physical activities.’ That’s not the point. Cutting TV and video game time is not the solution to the problem of reducing intake of junk foods. Such ads, may it be on TV or magazines that kids watch or read will only instigate them to try it out.

My son watches selective programs on Discovery channel or Animal planet or his channel that airs Sponge Bob or Captain Scarlet. But in the midst of these shows, the numbers of ads for junk foods and toys that are shown are numerous. Why can’t the program be ad-free? Even if FCC is able to get this to work (ad-free programs for kids), I would be very happy. Someone has to take that first step to start the race and I am glad FCC is working towards this.

Shunt – What is that?

Ever been in a car crash? Absurd question! Well, let me rephrase. Ever been in a car accident? Some might say ‘yes’ and some ‘no’. I started driving while I was in India. I learned driving there and it was in a stick shift. Don't let the picture of Ferrari accompanying this blog fool you. That was not the car I used to learn my driving. It was an Ambassador car. I have had my share of faults while learning to drive and amongst them was when I was driving to a hotel and was waiting to make a right turn at an intersection where there was no traffic light (we drive on the left lane in India). I made the turn when I hit an oncoming car. The situation was taken care of by my teacher who was with me while I was driving and got into that mess.

After I came to the U.S., I had to relearn driving in a way because the car we had was an automatic and driving is on the right lane. It took a little bit of adjusting before I was accustomed to the ways of driving here. Eventually as time passed, I became a good driver. A couple of years after settling in the U.S. came the day when I got into an accident. I was driving on Fairfax county parkway one sunny afternoon in my Camry and I got a little carried away with my driving and made a bad turn and hit the railing, bounced back and made a 360+ degree spin and stopped facing the oncoming traffic. Luckily, I walked out without a scratch after all that happened. Of course, my insurance went up. From then on, I have been a very responsible driver and have a good driving record since then (keep fingers crossed all the time).


In relation to what I said above, the news of Comedian, Eddie Griffin crashing a rare Enzo Ferrari on a test drive on a race track surprised me. Why? He is not a racer, so why practice racing on a $1.5 million worth Enzo? That car belonged to the ‘Redline’ movie Executive producer, Mr. Sadek, who also happened to be a rare car collector. Why would he let Griffin practice racing in his car, even though it was for a charity race to promote his movie? I am sure; the car is insured in some way for this purpose. Without prior arrangements, I won’t let anyone drive my car to practice racing on a race track, even if it is a Ford Pinto. So why Mr. Sadek would let Griffin drive a rare Enzo without any arrangements. I am definite about the way Griffin would have felt while walking out of that crashed Enzo, without a scratch as I had much the same experience.

But I don’t know about how he would have felt about the damaged Enzo after the shunt. To those who don't know what a Shunt is - it is the racers lingo for car crash while racing. When I got into the wreck, I felt good that I walked out safely but was feeling bad about the car and the after effects of dealing with getting it fixed, dealing with the insurance going up and the lectures about responsibility from family and friends (that’s what they are for right?). Griffin has gotten the experience of having to learn racing on a race track in a rare Enzo and an ultimate thrill of shunting it too. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

P.S. After reading this blog, don’t estimate me to be a reckless driver or a person who would shunt a Ferrari or any car for that matter. I am a responsible driver and am living with a dream of owning a Ferrari. So I won’t crash my dreams that easily ;-)

My Ovation to 'Scrubs'

I very rarely watch any show or serial on T.V. whether it is English or Hindi. If it is a serial, I have to make sure I follow it through to understand the story line, which means I am glued to the television for that time slot every single day that it is aired. With the chores that I run every day, it is difficult for me to commit to a show. So I always end up watching shows that have same characters but different stories altogether every time it is shown. What do I mean by this? Take for example, Seinfeld. The characters are the same but every episode you see is totally independent of the episodes before, barring the references they would make here and there.

When I came to the U.S. in 1994, I began watching ‘Saved by the bells’. I liked the school setting and the story line more because I had graduated out of the college recently and was missing that atmosphere. Seeing that show would lighten up my mood and I enjoyed the characters especially ‘Slater’ played by Mario (cute dimple on his cheek) and ‘Screech’ - played by Dustin. These characters reminded me of my friends at college. Even then, I did not watch this show every time it was aired on T.V. but when I was in front of TV flipping channels and if this show came on, I would end up watching it.

Later, I moved on to watching ‘Mad about you’ with characters Paul Buchman (Paul Reiser) and Jamie Buchman (Helen Hunt). It was a family setting and I could relate to some of the episodes I would watch. It truly depicted how a couple managed their lives with friends and families around. What turn one’s lives would take when one is impacted by people around them. I was so hooked on that show, that I would watch it anytime it was aired (provided I knew it too). The theme song would always play in the back of my head. Even today, if I happened to land on the channel that showed this show, I would watch it, simply because I love it.

Then it was the time for ‘Seinfeld’, which was introduced to me by my friend and colleague, who I worked with years ago. Since then, I am glued to that show. I have watched every single episode of all the seasons thus far. It is sad that the show is over but people will find me watching repeats of any episode of Seinfeld even today. Even in my blogs, I would always relate the incidents with what I saw on the show. I am proud to say that I jumped on that bandwagon; even though I had missed out on many others.

Lately, I am hooked on to ‘Scrubs’ (Main character JD, played by Braff). This show is put up in the hospital setting and the wide range of theme and topics that they cover makes me wonder, ‘how do they come up with it?’ Every episode brings on a smile on me for various reasons. May it be because of the story, because of how they show how to deal with life and love, because of friendship and I can keep going on and on about it. I have seen only the first three seasons and am yet to see the rest. This year will be the last season of ‘Scrubs’ and Braff decided to make movies full time instead. Good for him but bad for me. I am hoping to catch up with the rest of the seasons and I try to see the current season as I can when it is aired.

All these shows that I mentioned have same settings and characters but the story would be different. So even if I missed a show in between, there is nothing to catch up on and that is the kind of show I like to watch. On an occasional basis, I also watch ‘ER’, ’Law and Order’, ‘CSI’ and such because I have an interest in criminal investigation. Whatever show I watch, I only hope that it unwinds me from stress when I watch it rather than putting stress on me, in making me watch it religiously and I have gotten a good deal with watching Scrubs. It makes me smile and laugh every single time I see it.

Follow me, the perfect parent model

It is very common for students to argue and fight over a topic in school. It can be a result of what one likes versus the other or it can be a plain simple bullying. But whatever the case might be, the teachers always look over the shoulders of the students to make sure everyone follows the rules and peace is restored amongst the students. But that does not seem to be the case in a school in Prince Georges’ county. PG County is known for bullying in schools and such (those who are in PG County can vouch for it – right!)

Two thirteen year old students got into an argument at school. They were separated and their parents were notified about it. When one of the student’s mothers came, the student was released to go home. The mother was accompanied by two other adults and on the way out of school, they went to the office were the other student was waiting and attacked him and then fled. This is the marvel of today’s world. I can totally understand if the student was attacked by an adult in the first place and then the mother goes to defend her child and fighting the adult. But getting in the middle of a fight among two kids is a bit of an over doing.

I have a son who is 8 years old now and when he plays with his friends, I watch over them to make sure everything is alright. Sometimes they get into a tiff and they will run to me asking for help or support. I bluntly would say to sort it themselves because they are friends and they decided to play together. If there is a problem, then stay away from each other and get busy doing something else. I don’t get in the midst of their arguments unless it is needed. When parents get in the middle of kids’ actions, the situation takes a turn on the opposite direction, especially, when they are in school or other activities where there are teachers and coaches to look after them. They can make a decision and take care of the situation.

We as adults should know when to intervene in such situations. We complain about bullying and gang formation in schools. We worry about how our kids will turn out under such situations but in the interim we should also make sure that we don’t blow anything out of proportion. Wasn’t the above situation like a gang war? What a disgrace that adults behave like this and in school. What image are we setting for our kids’ future?

Oops... I forgot

Have you ever carried a real gun around, forget about carrying it around in the security-prone areas. I presume the majority of you will say ‘No’. How about carrying a gun and forgetting that you have a gun on you? That is insane. The fact that you are carrying something like that in itself will get your heart rate going. When you are around the security check points your mind is already thinking about what you have on you that might draw attention towards you and what you can do to get yourself through the detector amicably. In such a situation, imagine one forgets that he is carrying a fully loaded gun with additional magazines as well.

For those of you who don’t know what this is all about. An aide to our Senator James Webb was arrested this Monday for carrying a fully loaded gun with two fully loaded magazines into the senate building. The gun belonged to Mr. Webb and he had handed over the gun to Phillip Thompson who was his friend, former Marine and employee of the senator, on his way to the airport. I guess Mr. Webb knew that he was not going to pass the security at the airport with a fully loaded gun on him. So he was thoughtful enough to hand it over to his friend on the way, instead of having to toss it in the receptacle at the security check point.

I don’t know what the understanding was between Mr. Webb and Mr. Thompson regarding this gun situation but Mr. Thompson ended up with the gun on him at the security check point in the senate office. One hands off the gun to the other saying that “I am not allowed with a gun at the security, you take it back” and the other walks right through the security with that gun. Is this the height of idiocy? And the fact that the other was a former Marine and that he walks through the security and says “I forgot that I am carrying the gun” raises the bar on absurdity.

In the present state of affair that this world is going through, where a six-year old Tawann Caskey was suspended from school for bringing the so-called toy ‘weapon’ a few months ago, I wonder where we are heading to. You suspend a boy for carrying a plastic toy gun to school and you consider a former marine, carrying a fully loaded gun without a license through the security in the senate building, an oversight. What is happening to this world or rather I should say, what is happening to U.S.? I will wait and see who gets suspended for this incident at a minimum. If no one gets suspended, I will at the least confirm that U.S. is taking a turn for the surreal.

Make the right choice

The latest news in terms of heart health is to avoid angioplasty and go for medicines and exercise unless the situation leads to a major heart attack. Angioplasty basically cleans and unclogs the arteries. The same results can be obtained by taking medicines and doing exercises that is suggested in such situations. The procedure takes care of just the blockage at the point where it is done where as medicine cleans the whole artery and makes sure the flow is smooth.

My friend’s dad went for angioplasty last year but at that point discovered of four other major blockages in the artery leading to bypass surgery. He is doing much better and is fine now. Situation like that need immediate attention and cannot be waited upon to be taken care of by medicines and exercises. But most chest pain cases end up in angioplasty even though it is not needed, simply because they think they are not receiving the proper care or attention, without which they would have a heart attack and eventually die.

Like I mentioned before, you have to weigh the option of what you want to get it done and why. Do you want the whole artery clean like a perfectly smooth flowing highway traffic where you are cruising along or do you want that one point of blockage cleaned like having a bypass to avoid a traffic signal, only to have the bottleneck in the next signal. Studies have shown that the severely blocked point that causes chest pain is not the source of heart attack as opposed to less severely blocked artery. This is all the more reason to get the whole artery cleaned up instead of just points here and points there, unless it is a case of emergency.


If you run the common analogy of sink pipelines to that of artery it is very understandable. (Well, what do you expect? After all, I have my bachelors in Civil Engineering). If the sink clogs up with all the leftovers and water in the sink, stinking the whole kitchen, then it is an emergency. You call the plumber, clear the blockage, doing whatever it takes to fix the problem. Well, this is angioplasty. But as a part of maintenance and minor clogs, you pour liquid plumber that cleans the whole drain pipe and makes sure clogs are dissolved. This is your medicine and regular exercises.

Whatever the case may be, make adequate research and make the right choice that will count. If you are able to solve the problem without surgery, nothing can beat that. When I had my accident and broke my left arm, I had to make the choice of opting for surgery (have a pin placed inside to hold the bones) or getting a plaster and waiting for the bones to align and set (took 3+ months), I opted for plaster. It took a long time but at least I know I don’t have any metal inside my arm.

Hope for the next time

As some of you might know, I am a big fan of Football (No. It is not American football but the actual football which you all here call it soccer) and Cricket. The attitude and craze is some what similar to what some of you might have for American Football, except my craze happens every four years. When the world cup Football was happening, I had bought the matches on my dish and was practically glued to my T.V., watching every single match that I possibly could. When the final match was to be played, I had invited some of my friends and we were all cheering and enjoying the crazy moments to the fullest extent possible. Well, that is history now.

This time of the year is the fever for the world cup Cricket 2007. I was so excited when the qualifying matches were about to begin. I saw in which group India was in and who it would play against. India happened to play against Bangladesh, Bermuda and Sri Lanka in group B. But the sorry state of affair was that India won only against Bermuda and lost against the other two. As a result, India will not advance to super 8 in world cup series. Indian cricket was at its best in the past years but lately it has come to a situation where we would all feel good if it won against a new team like Bermuda. In the past years, we would know for sure that India will win against teams like Bangladesh but the current state has come to a point where we (Indians) would debate about India winning even against Bermuda.

Times have changed. I remember the world cup cricket 2003 when I was watching the Finals with my friends at home. It was tense to see the finals between India and Australia. But even though India lost the finals, we were proud in a way that we lost against the best team in cricket. But today, knowing that India lost the qualifying rounds, it makes me sad to see the set back. Indian team cannot be performing with the same tactics that they used several years back. There are advancements in everything – from landlines to wireless, from CDs to iPods and so shouldn’t there be advancement in Indian cricket strategy as well? I can see that the other teams have improved in their games, so why is there a setback in Indian team. Indian cricket is financially sound but morally very poor.

The last world cup that India won was in 1983 and since then all Indian cricket fans are eagerly waiting to see the light again. I can totally relate to the Redskins fans here. You are not alone in the wait for hope. I am here in the same category except my wait is for a different team for a different sport. Let us all wait and hope for the next time. until such time, we will strengthen our spirits with the wins from local and other series match that our team would win.

Make way for me

This past week, I was driving on Rt. 28 going to work as usual and I remembered the number of times I had been on that road for the following obvious reasons. I have been on that road for the past 3 years, day in and day out, dropping my son to school at Reston for two years (his school was in Reston and I was taking the toll Road) and I go to work (I work in Ashburn). I have been through the traffic when the bypass was being constructed, when I was told that traffic would flow seamless and that sitting in traffic would be long gone when all the bypasses were constructed. During those years, I would leave very early to drop my son off to school. My early, unlike others, was at 7.15 am every weekday. If I missed that sweet spot, I was bound to sit in traffic for an eternal period of time or so it seemed.

Now that the bypass constructions are all done, one would think that the flow of traffic of that road would be smooth. But when I was driving this past week at 10am in the morning, the scenario was not the same. I was sitting in the bumper to bumper traffic for ever. The simple reason being, not all signals on Rt. 28 were converted to bypass. It is true that the traffic flows smoothly when there is a bypass but what happens when you come across a signal? It causes a bottleneck. So the solution of seamless traffic was pushed a little further. Is that a true solution? Until all major signals are replaced with bypass, I don’t see traffic flowing smoothly, not just on Rt. 28 but on all major roads.

To compound to the problem above, the traffic was also slowing down because there was an accident and the two cars involved pulled over on the shoulder and the cop was investigating it. All the drivers had to slow down till they reached the accident spot to see for themselves and get an answer to their what, how and why the accident had happened. After they passed that spot, traffic was flowing smoothly. The cop was doing his duty and I couldn’t understand why others would want to put in their share of investigation. Is not one man (or woman cop) enough to do the investigation? Do we all have to slow down and throw in our shares as well? If the traffic kept moving as normal under such situations, most roads will be free of slowdowns.

Eureka... this is it!

I envy those who can write and especially those who can write pages on a simple topic. After reading what they write, I feel the point was simple enough and that I could have written something like that but when I sit down to write, I hardly seem to get one paragraph together. I started writing these blogs to simply improve my writing skills on any given topic. So I pick up topics and news randomly from the newspaper and I start to write by explaining what the topic is about and then what? How do I associate myself to the topic? That is where the challenge is. My mind often wanders around different topics and thoughts that I have to put a leash and control my thought process to stick to one topic and one topic only.

When I started writing these blogs, I did not know that it would become a chore where I would spend at least a couple of hours a day to complete my write-up on the topic. Why? I have to decide on a topic, and then put my thoughts together as to what I would write about the topic. If I have to talk about the news, then I might as well give the link and the readers can read the news themselves. I don’t need to re-write the news. The idea is to tell what I think about the news or the topics and share my experience about it. The key is my experience (if I have one); so most of my time goes in finding out how to get the readers attention. Now, one might say, I am writing all these for myself, why bother about readers. Well, the simple answer is, if nobody is reading it, then how do I know what I wrote was correct or not. If people read what I write, they would say what is right or what was wrong and help me correct it as needed. If nobody is reading it, then I have no way to find out what I wrote was correct.

During the first few months, I religiously wrote every single weekday, though it took me hours each day. But slowly, I realized that it was eating away most of my time and writing did not come naturally as it would for others. I found myself reading every single article and taking the newspaper clipping of the ones I wanted to write on. I was caught a numerous times, in the act of thinking deeply to put together what I wanted to say in the blog and was told that writing was not my cup of tea and that I am taking this as a chore rather than as a hobby. For ‘some’, ideas pop up when they are in the shower and they would walk out saying 'that’s how I will write on that topic today'. Well, I am not among that 'some'. I have to work at it to put together what I wanted to say. But I don’t want it to be a chore and so I stopped blogging for a while. From now on, I will write when I come up with that idea, saying 'Eureka....this is it'.

My Disappearance

I didn’t disappear but was out of town to Florida last week. Well, it was not a pleasure trip as one might think, it was a business trip. So what if it is a business trip, you could still go out and have fun. Right? Not when you have meetings and conferences scheduled all day long. This is how my trip started last week.

I left for Orlando, Florida on Tuesday morning. I hurried to the airport to catch my 8.30am flight. When I entered the lobby to check in, I saw a big line and that was at 7am. I was just hoping to check in my baggage, catch my shuttle to get to my gate to board the plane on time, only to find out that the flight was delayed to 9.30am. So I took my time in doing everything leisurely and joined the line to get past the security. I had my boarding pass and ID in my hand, so I can show it to the security personnel when asked for. Those who travel know the routine that they must go through to get past the securities. You don’t want to draw any attention towards you or else you have the wrath of the guards. I went through the drill of removing my shoes, removing the laptop from my bag, setting all the items in the tray and sending it for scanning. I then passed through the scanner myself and heard the beep go on and on. I had to go back again through the detector after removing my bracelet and other jewellery, only to hear the beep again. This time I was determined to find the culprit causing the beep. It was my hair clip clad with stones with metal underneath it.

After I passed the security check, I went on the shuttle and got to my gate. The aircraft that I was to board had not even landed, so my departure time was not known. To kill time, I went to a coffee shop (no, not starbucks for a change), got my morning coffee and was reading the paper. When our boarding was called, I got in the plane and was on my way to Orlando with the hope of getting on some rides in the theme park during my stay. After I reached my hotel in Orlando, I ate lunch and was called on to attend the meeting with my VP. There my journey of meetings started and was in meetings every single day till 5pm.

Our typical day started at 7am. We would meet at 7am, have breakfast and talk to other fellow employees and go to the conference room at 8am. From 8am to 5pm all we did was participate in the conferences and ask questions and such. In the evenings, we had gatherings and some fun activities to do in MGM where a special stunt show of Indiana Jones was organized just for our company. Even though the entire trip was spent inside the conference room which was freezing, look at the bright side. I got to soak up the sun once in a while when I came out on a break from my meetings, I got a good view of the internal walls of the conference room in Hilton, I got to see a show and enjoy my time in the evenings with my fellow colleagues. I think I made the best on what I got and am glad to be back home. Oh, by the way, the picture that is accompanying this blog has no relevance other than the title. :-)