Is our Metro system cursed?

Many depend on metro system to get to work especially to get to Washington D.C. With the parking rate increase in D.C. ($2 for an hour to park including Saturdays) and the recent metro and bus fare increase by 10 cents (at least it is only a temporary rate increase till June 2010) to make up the $40 million deficit for the current year, metro riders are hesitant to use the metro. Is that the only reason? Early this weeks’ accident on the metro red line in Rockville killed two of the metro workers who were fixing the lines with control equipments. They were struck by the high rail truck while working on the lines past midnight.


Since this past June of 2009, Metro has been facing a downfall starting with the deadly accident of two trains colliding, killing 9 people including the train operator and hurting 80 people, followed by a train striking and killing a person on the red line in the same month. There have been some accidents or the other in every single month up until now. While everyone should understand that if a person voluntarily stands on the track or jumps in front of the train, (to commit suicide) than it is not the metro’s fault, it also becomes important that metro accidents of killing workers and riders brings down the confidence of people wanting to ride on the metro. To where metro is now in terms of rating, it had taken a decade for the same metro to build up its ratings in the years past.


The chances of getting yourself killed are much higher when one rides on the metro. People are scared to take the metro anymore. In addition to this, metro is not making any improvements in terms of making its system safer to travel. When the tracks are not safer, old models of cars still carrying passengers, one does not want to give up their lives for takes. The general manager of metro, Catoe has resigned for these precise reasons. He does not want to be killed on the tracks while he is doing a walk-through on the work that is being done.


To compound to the issue, metro is increasing fares, instead of increasing the safety of the metro system. On one hand, there is the deficit that metro needs to cover and on the other you need to get more metro riders so that metro can get more revenue. But that is not going to happen until people feel that it is safe to ride the metros. If metro wants more riders, increase the safety of the trains and then increase the fares if need be. You cannot take away the carrots (train safety) in front of the donkey (passengers - pun intended) and except it to walk towards you (metro revenue increase) also.

Stuck between the rock and a hard place

Time and again one has to be reminded that politics exists in any nation because two or more groups have difference of opinions. Our President’s first State of the Union address last night proved just that. His portion of the speech where he mentioned about cutting taxes for 95% of working families did not enthrall the Republicans seated there. Many of the points he covered were the same as what he had said while addressing the Congress a year ago when he became the President. Many of the items that he mentioned during the first year were still not complete after his first year in office. To name a few: overhauling the health care system, enacted a market-based cap on carbon emissions blamed for climate change, imposed a new regulatory system on financial institutions, closed the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and signed a new arms control treaty with Russia. None of these were completed and still the topic of discussion for last night was health care reforms, energy and education.


To improve the economy of the country was the reason he came out with the stimulus plan. He sanctioned bailout dollars to keep the companies that were economically suffering from bankruptcy and keep the jobs open for the Americans. What were the results? The stimulus money that we got (even though a little to be even noticed in our paychecks) was used towards keeping our homes or paying the bills. Some were hoarding on to that money to be used later on in case people lost their jobs. That money was never spent to go back into the pool of growing economy of the country and keeping the businesses going. So the stimulus plan backfired.


Bailout money for banks is another story. 65% of the Americans believe that when banks got their share from the government, banks started to hold on to that money and stopped giving out loans to customers or small businesses because they knew that they will never see that money come back to them again. The idea was that the banks would give out loans to small businesses which in turn would create jobs and to keep the cycle of life flowing. To solve this problem, Obama is putting fees on banks now. He also talked about helping college students with their tuitions. Many students are waiting it out to finish their degree programs because what are they going to do after finishing their studies? Where are the jobs? Obama did not mention about how the job market is going to improve with the unemployment rate being at the highest ever – at 10% but he did mention about Recovery act to improve businesses.


Obama’s plan seemed to be fluid and we have to wait it out to see what will materialize successfully despite the fact that he mentioned about how long we have to wait to think about our future. There was also an issue about his numbers for lending to small businesses being different from when the aides previewed his speech to when the speech was actually delivered. With so many uncertainties and resistance he faces to complete anything that he had promised us to make our future better, to how we have to adjust our perception on the person we elected an year ago, one has to wonder who is stuck between the rock and a hard place – President or us?

Farewell Favre

I am not an ardent football follower (nor a player). I don’t swank about knowing things that I really don’t know as the back of my hands. I have been watching football games regularly for about five years but I don’t know the player details all that well nor do I remember their history of achievements. If I am interested in a player I Google them and learn more about them to the best I can. So, in all honesty, I did not know about Favre until this season. To be candid, I was not even paying any close attention to him, until Vikings reached the playoffs.


The game this past Sunday against the Saints was a close one to have watched. Each team were playing at their best and were scoring TDs one after the other. The score at any given time was a tie between the two teams. The Saints defense was at its best and Favre was sacked a few times in this game but still the fire was there in Favre to get the Vikings to the Super Bowl. Until the third quarter, it was just like any other game but kept me at least, on the edge of my seat.. uhh… my sofa. Bobby McCray (#93) of Saints fell on him while he was sacked in the third quarter. That scene was awful just to watch leave alone the fact to go through it physically. That defensive end player was big and huge (excuse my pun) and for him to land on the back/leg of Favre was very painful.


Then came the misfortuned throw of his game. His intentions for the throw was to get closer than the 38 yards, so as to give Ryan Longwell, Vikings Kicker, a good shot at the field goal to seal the victory for the Vikings, but fate took a different turn. When that play was played, I was wondering why Favre was not running the ball to gain yardage but instead threw it. I was hoping that Vikings would catch the throw at the other end but was intercepted by the Saints. Some games are meant not to be won; no matter how hard you play, just like certain relationships are not meant to happen, no matter how hard you try to make it work. Only if he had run the ball and had Ryan make an attempt to kick it for a field goal. 35 yards attempt for a field goal had been made before and were successful (unless it was Suisham) but what’s done is done.


For a forty year old, he had done a great job as QB. Whether he will return for another game, another season with the Vikings is to be seen. He was in his first of two-year contract with the Vikings after playing for Packers in 2008 and New York Jets in 2009. When bombarded with questions as to whether he was going to retire or come back to play, he said he was going to mull it over with his family and decide on whether to come back. What is there to mull over? It is not like Vikings coach, Brad Childress, is waiting to have him back and if he does do that, Favre should just pounce on the opportunity that is knocking again (if at all) and give it a good shot to get to the Super Bowl. Who even bothers to draft players in NFL over 40 years of age? If Favre does not show up again in any of the games in NFL, playing his play, then it is ‘Farewell Favre!’

Playing Dodge Ball

How many times does it happen that when you are watching the news on the television or reading up a newspaper to catch up on that day’s news that you come across something that jolts you? I was watching today’s news about a driver (a women) who was driving in Georgia Avenue in Montgomery County, Maryland, when suddenly out of nowhere a manhole cover shot into the air, striking the driver (obviously after breaking the windshield of her SUV), hurting her critically. She was rushed to the Baltimore emergency center for treatment and face job. It was told that the manhole explosion was due to a gas leak in that area.


Firefighter and Washington Gas officials and crew members arrived at the scene to investigate the incident. The fire fighters told the reporters that they had evacuated the residents until the problem of gas leak could be fixed but some residents said that nobody came to evacuate nor did they know about any evacuation procedures. Why is this confusion that the residents and firefighters have different versions? Possibly, the firefighters came knocking and nobody was there in the house at that time but later the residents drove back or walked home. But the authorities had blocked the road of any traffic, so the residents could not drive home on that road. When they were blocked, that would rise questions among the residents to find out more about the incident and hence the evacuation. Instead of the reporters giving haphazard news to the public, it would be better if they give a complete analysis of the situation. Sometimes I feel that the reporters are just playing the role of ‘Narad muni’ to get a story.


So, coming back to our lady who was driving the SUV... Poor lady… she must be driving back from work and this had to happen on Monday evening. She would have been a little happier that the manic Monday was over when the flying manhole smacked her on the face. Driving has become so difficult these days, that one should expect the unexpected while driving. With the way we see pot holes all over the roads that we drive on, one must be good at playing Dodge Ball in driving to avoid them. Just like ‘Monk’, we should be able to zig-zag when we see flies (those who have watched ‘Monk’ will know what I am talking about) That reminds me, we being in the snow season still, I have seen cars driving with an inch or two of snow slabs on top of their cars after snow days. When I drive, I try to avoid those cars. If not, a slab of snow is bound to hit your windshield any time. Those drivers don’t have the time to brush of that snow off of their cars’ top.


To add a little pun to lighten up the situation – I heard an ad over the radio that Taco Bell is selling bean burritos for $0.38 today. Is that the reason for this manhole explosion? Maybe!

Fighting for the Basics

Now close to two weeks after the catastrophic incident in Haiti, people there are struggling to get their basic need of food and water fulfilled in any way they can think of. While reporters are doing a good job of interviewing people and video covering the incident and the aftermath, it gets a little creepy when they are showing people being shot by police men for stealing bags of rice that fell from a truck of a shopkeeper. I am referring to an incident that happened on Thursday in Haiti that was covered by CNN. Three men were shot by policemen in Haiti, when they were in the act of stealing or rather picking up a bag of rice (whichever is true) that fell from a truck. One was killed and the other two were badly injured and lying on the side road bleeding to death. A couple of CNN reporters stopped their car and were video taping the incident and then were interviewing people to get a story.


Now, I am not discussing the fact that policemen shot the men for stealing a bag of rice. I do not know exactly what had happened, as to whether there was a riot going on or people were looting all over in that area and that the police had shot to maintain peace. It certainly did not give any right to shoot people over a bag of rice but I presume they did it in the spur of the moment to maintain peace. I am also not debating against the men who were stealing. When people are dying of hunger and thirst, the last thing they would be thinking of is to debate the fact over stealing that bag of rice to feed them selves or to take the honest road. I am awestruck at the fact that the reporters stopped to tape the incident rather than doing anything to help the wounded men.


I am not there in person to help the people in need and I am really impressed by all the people who are donating for a good cause and going there to Haiti to volunteer their time and efforts to help them out. Thanks to all the people who are donating money and things they need. Even a small donation goes a long way in helping them out. Friday night’s show – ‘Hope for Haiti Now’ by George Clooney brought many stars and strangers together in collecting close to $57 million dollars for the cause. Even a seven-year old boy in UK was able to collect $100,000 for Haiti relief by doing a charity bike ride.


Many bloggers would just say ‘do the right thing’, ‘help people in need’ but other than that how many have truly did anything more for the cause? Saying ‘do the right thing’ on the blog to attract hits is one thing and doing it actually is another. There is a big difference. People who say much, seldom do anything has been my experience. They just get carried away and say things that they can barely have the nerve to do or stand up for, just to win the moment and people’s trust. Don’t be one of them, do the best you can, donate even the smallest amount you can. It will touch people’s lives in Haiti. Donate now!

How lazy do you want to be?

Research and new innovative developments is what makes us better human beings. Many agree to this but I sometimes feel that all these developments apart from the problems it solves, is making us only lazier by the day. Take for example, in old days or even a couple of generations back, people washed clothes by hand, grinded what they needed for cooking by hand, lot of activities involved manual labor. With the physical exercise that they got, their average life expectancy was 80+ years. But nowadays, we have machines to do all these chores and we seldom get our exercise so we have to end up in a gym to get our exercise done and to stay healthy. Nowadays, doctors and researchers say that we have to try to walk or bike to work to stay healthy and to keep the environment free of pollution. They also say that gardening or doing household work or climbing stairs instead of using elevators would get our cardio workout done. Though, having invented machines like elevators and cars to simplify our lives, we are only backtracking to old ways in the name of becoming healthy.

Cell phones are another good example of innovative technology. While cell phones have made it easier for us to communicate to others from wherever (apart from the problems that is has like the calls not going through because of weak signals or the person on the other end will never know if you are at work working or at the library working on your research paper like you had said or whether you are sight-seeing at Shenandoah), it also has made us lazy. Many (up to 66%) use their cell phone mainly for texting or playing games that are downloaded in it rather for talking. Incidents of texting while driving or walking and getting into accidents are many in number that is heard on the news on a daily basis. Spending so much time on the tiny lit screen has proved detrimental to kids and teens being near sighted. Should anyone be surprised when a research is run to see why kids these days are nearsighted after the fact that you gift wrap a cell phone for their use?

When I was hearing the news on the way to work, I heard a report that a group of researchers are creating an innovative idea on stopping the ringing cell phone that is in the pocket without having to take it out. The method to stop ringing is to smack the cell phone in a particular way on a particular place where the cell phone is. Also, you can smack another way to send a message back to the caller that they are busy and that they have to call back later. Imagine this situation for a bit – You have the cell phone in your pant pocket (or hip clip) and you are in a meeting. The phone rings (technically you would have turned it off or set on vibrate before the meeting) and in the midst of the meeting with your Manager or Director, you are performing smack dance, smacking your self on the leg (or waist). Is that not funny? Are they going to reinvent Morse code for communicating silently over the cell phone?

How much lazier do you want to get? Is it that difficult to lead a simple life rather than having to use all the gadgets and machines? Why do we need new innovations when we only try to get back to old ways in some time in the name of getting healthy?

Double Trouble

The news that rocks the headlines right now or for that matter for over a week now is the earthquake that hit Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince with a magnitude of 7.0 on Tuesday, January 12th. The quake brought down buildings, power lines, and everything that could possibly be standing on the land leading to a major catastrophe for the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. It has been announced that 200,000 people are dead, 250,000 injured and made 1.5 million homeless and many more still remain unaccounted for. Haiti being a third-world country and people struggling for their day-to-day existence are further pushed back to face the hardship that the tremor crafted.


People who witnessed the incident had reported that a huge plume of dust and smoke rose up over the city within minutes of the quake. They saw a blanket of smoke and dust that completely covered the city and obscured it for about 20 minutes. They are many damaged buildings throughout the capital, including the president's residence and many structures that were leveled to the ground trapping thousands of lives, some still alive to be rescued and many dead. The tremor that lasted only a few minutes had created so much havoc and damages that people and volunteers from all over the world are still working through to sort it all out. Organizations like Red Cross and many are collecting donations in terms of much needed supplies like food, water and basic clothing and shelter to money to help the poor nation that just got poorer.


“jab bhagwan detha hai, chappar phad ke deta hai” is an old Hindi saying which roughly translates to “When God gives, He blows the roof off”, meaning He gives with an open heart. I am sure He gave trouble with an open heart to Haiti. The saying should be “jab bhagwan detha hai, sab phad deta hai” in this situation meaning “When He gives, He tares everything”. All that the people in Haiti are left with is the big hollow word ‘Hope’ that they would be rescued, that they would get food and water just to survive after losing everything that they owned or even people that they loved for that matter. “Time will heal” mentality is what will fill in the void. I will talk about this phrase in detail in the upcoming blog.


As people in Haiti were trying to figure out their present and future this past week, another aftershock of magnitude 6.1 shook the place this morning. When will these aftershocks stop? Will the people in Haiti get the time to at least grieve over their lost ones or will they be scurrying to save their own lives? People have to figure out where they would live, what they would eat or drink to survive in this mired situation. Oh sure; time does heal by giving more pain or bigger worries to deal with, that the present problem will look miniscule and not worth the pain.

Pants on, pants off

Make up your mind for once. This week seems to be pants off week. I am talking about two different things but will get to the other in a bit. January 10th is the no pants! ride subway day. This was started by Improv Everywhere in New York City in January 2002 and has been going on every year since then and has caught on in many major cities. In 2002, Improv Everywhere started this event with seven people to create "scenes of chaos and joy in public places." So this January 10th was its ninth anniversary and if you were riding the metro in NYC or Washington DC or any other major city, you would be enthralled with the sight of people riding the metro with their pants off.


Men and women who participated in this event walked in the metro as normal people – I mean with their pants on and after they boarded the train, they took their pants off, folded it and set it aside and continued to act normal by reading their newspapers or chitchat with fellow riders. It sure did get some smiles and some smirks among their riders. I hope no one was wearing boxers that read ‘wifeys pick’ or any other crazy wordings. With the weather being frigid on that day, many people were bundled up with thick jackets, hats and scarves. In the midst of this, to see people stripped down to boxers and panties called for stares and wonder.


Along the same line, on Jan 13th, General Larry Platt, a contestant in American Idol performed the catchy rap during auditions in Atlanta (oh no!). His song (which he wrote himself) was called ‘Pants on the ground’. The basic theme was to wear your belt or else your pants would drop off when you are talking to folks in a stylish manner with your hat turned sideways. Larry was not selected even though his song got laughs and applause from the judges and audience since he was above the age limit for the show. He is 62 years old but his song sure brought out laughs to many of us. I am sure it is going to be a hit song or some song writers would use it in their albums. Whatever happens, this is our 2010 'Macarena' - "Pants on the ground, pants on the ground..."


Here is the link Pants on the ground. Enjoy it and have a few laughs….

A dose of reality

Carrying gun(s) in a public place without license has been a no-no in the USA for years now. But why does anyone have a need to carry a gun – with or without license, when there is all the possibility of something bad happening when the temper button is pushed? When such is the case, what was going on in Washington Wizards Guard, Gilbert Arenas’s head? For those of you who don’t know the story behind this incident, Arenas was charged of felony for carrying a gun (unloaded) into Verizon Center and pointing it at his teammate, Javaris Crittenton, another Wizards guard, in an attempt to play a joke over gambling debts.

Arenas is a three-time NBA All-star, who makes $111 million a year and is in his second year of six years contract with NBA. Most of us here make about 70K a year on an average and with the bad economy that we are facing, anyone is just happy to have any job at all to keep their lives moving forward. Students keep struggling to get a degree because there is no job waiting for them when they are done with college. So many are purposefully delaying their graduation, so they can still be students and not having to hunt for jobs in this economy. With that being said, do you know how much is $111 million a year for a pay? Compound that with all the perks he would get and all the exposure he gets being with NBA. With so much money on hands, he is attempting to play a joke with his teammate by pointing guns over a gambling debt? It does not fit well with people in this stature.

Moreover, a few days later police searched Javaris’s house in Arlington, VA, for guns and came up empty-handed. Sure they would. A few days not enough for Javaris to hide the guns if he had them? Why would he mess up his career when he saw what was happening to Arenas? Also, police found out (so did we) that Arenas possessed hundreds of gun. What does he do with all those guns? A collection perhaps to make some additional millions?

With this incident, Arenas has lost all credibility, his contract with NBA is terminated and he has to say bye-bye to his $111 million a year job. I am pretty sure he would be filing for bankruptcy in jail for felony. It is like a trailer trash winning a national lottery, blowing it all away and ending poorer than where they were before. Read ‘The winner’ by Baldacci, you will know what I am talking about.

Which way is it?

I am not going to toot my horn and say like a few men out there, that given a few hours, I will figure out any piece of mechanism or get myself out of any place without asking direction even though I am lost. I would call them folks, knuckleheads. If you are lost anywhere, you stop and ask for directions. I for one, have a bad sense of direction and keep asking for directions even to a place that I have been a zillion times. So I got myself a GPS unit which I use now to get myself ported anywhere I want to go.


GPS unit is easy to figure out even for a kid. If my 10-year old can figure out, anyone who is driving a vehicle can figure out how to use it. You can get the GPS for about $150 (Megallan is good, if you are looking for one to buy this year) and use it externally or have it installed in the vehicle or get a vehicle with one installed already. The navigation system basically has the option of entering an address that you want to get to and different choices of getting directions and some being ‘Fastest time’, ‘Shortest distance’, ‘avoid highways’. But what you get in terms of directions is not entirely reliable or safe as witnessed by a couple during the weekend of this past Christmas. The couples were using their SUV’s navigation system through the desert of Eastern Oregon but were misled into a remote forest road. With the snow storm occurring during that time, they were stranded for two and a half days before they could get a faint signal in their cell phone to make the emergency call for help.


It has been my experience as well that when I use the GPS directions while I am in DC (obviously I was taking my guests to DC for site-seeing and posing for pictures), it would give me a round-about way to get to my home. The easier route might have been to get on I-66 from Constitution Avenue but instead it would direct me to get on I-395 and go around Virginia before I can get home. The reason might be that it was avoiding I-66 for HOV restrictions. But similar episodes when driving out of state has occurred and me being disoriented generally, make it a point to ask for directions in the gas stations (while getting ‘fuel’) to make sure that I am heading the right way. It is very important to have a general feel for directions and instead of blindly following the directions by GPS, use local maps and stop to ask for directions. But men being what they are don’t ask for directions even after they are lost for a good amount of time. Maybe it is about time for us (females) to figure out the mechanics of thinking on those dogged out men.

Aftermath ripples

I am sure everyone on the east coast had a good taste of winter starting the week of this past Christmas. Those of you who have no clue as to what I am talking about – we on the east coast had a snow storm or rather a blizzard on the Dec 18th (unfortunate date) which led to many accidents for drivers. The snow storm resulted in two feet of snow on an average along the coast. At least as far as I know, VDOT did an excellent job of prepping the roads with salt and the snowplows on the prowl to clean the roads of snow to make driving easier on such conditions. The problem with snow plows plowing the snow off the streets is that if cars are parked along the streets, it becomes difficult for the plow to do its job. The snow was accumulated around the cars blocking it from being able to pull out of the lot. The plows cannot come too close to the cars to remove the snow because there is always the possibility of coming too close to the cars, scraping it which leads to the owners of the cars coming after the plow company. To avoid these headaches, snow plows keep their distance from the parked cars resulting in the embankment of snow along the cars and driveways.

Many have complained about how the snowplows have done a lousy job of dumping snow around their cars in their parking lots and that they had to shovel the snow to be able to pull out their cars to get out of their parking lots. To them I say - do you expect the snowplows to clean every nook and corner around the cars when they are maneuvering the big plows to clean the roads and to make sure not to hit the cars but come as close as they can come to take away the snow? I have had experiences like this when the plows go by past my house and during the process block my driveway. Then I spend a few minutes cleaning the dump off my driveway so my cars can enter. I guess it is part of the whole shebang.

The after effects of this snow storm are still witnessed in parking lots of the gym and office spaces where a number of parking spaces are filled with huge deposits of snow. As a result of this, parking has become a problem. When I go to the gym, I spend a considerable amount of time looking for a parking spot because of snow deposits and also given the fact that it is the New Year and people are sincere in keeping to their promises for the year. I just have to wait for a few weeks to get my parking spot, for the snow to melt away and also for people to cave in to break their resolutions of going to the gym because of laziness and also because promises are only meant to be broken.

New beginnings

I had disappeared for a while after my last posting since I was busy with my gardening and growing my own produce for my home. I also was busy with my work and getting some issues resolved in my life. Now that my excuses are out of the way, I can direct my mind to pen... um.. type some words here to get us going.

Now that the New Year is here, it is full of hope and promises for many. Many of us can look ahead to do something worthwhile with our lives in terms of achieving some things at work, shaping their careers, learning new skills to add to their skill sets, build strong relationships and so on. Talking about building relationships, it is a two-way street and if one is determined to break all rules, you can pretty much write-off that relationship for good. If you end up in such a situation, consider it as good riddance and move on.

Unemployment has gone up to 10%. Many of us who still have a job are thankful each day to have one and if some regards are scared as well of not knowing when they might lose it. Many who don’t have a job are on a constant lookout of finding one. Don’t give up! This New Year will bring us good luck with job security and peace in our lives. I will continue to write on a regular basis. Stay tuned in!

Have a very Happy New Year. 2010 it is!