ExpertDabbler

One thing that has happened in 2011 is that a bulk of my reading material has gone digital. The books are synched and retrieved whenever I want. The kindles, dropboxes, boxes and safari oreilly subscriptions not to mention the veritable ebookee has helped me build a decent library. And My iPad (one wise buy in 2010) facilitates easy access to this collection.

For the kind of reading I do, the productive output from me is not what I am happy about.
The only explanations I give myself is that the benefits of reading should be considered not only in terms of what I do, but also in terms of what I avoid doing. Reading helps me avoid kodambakkam cinema ( now that I am staying away I think the 95% of Tamil Nadu is obsessed with it), unhealthy friendships, and not least of all more unhealthy habits.

Looking back in 2011:
My daughter’s arrival is the highlight of 2011. Moving to the new and bigger home was another good thing. I took better control of my finances, which can never hurt.

I do not remember the last movie I saw in sathyam on my own. I had very few restaurant outings, and fewer window shopping opportunities in Landmark.

On the other hand, GMAT was a debacle. I scored what I scored in the GMATprep - 590. So much so I forgot to even blog about it. Failure to get a car was another. My exercise regimen has taken a beating.

I will becompleting 5 years in my job next month and I don’t even know if that is a good thing

I would like to think more good things can happen if I focus more on act based on what I know.
Hopefully 2012 will see me finish some of the unfinished agenda.

Wishing you a happy 2012!

P -> probability.
And I hasten to add I don’t understand much
http://www.thoughtleaderforum.com/957443.pdf

Hm. The Maayan calendar apparently stops On Dec 21, 2012. We should ask Maayan to print properly for 2013.

Do very close friends necessarily make great co-workers on a project? I’d say not necessarily.

It is one thing to talk for hours together with a friend about all the things under the roof while having dinner. But it’s quite another when the friend tries to talk as if he is Jack Welch and you are one Ramarajan.

In theory it is very easy to say no to such situations. But then in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is

There are friends who would make dream partners and co-workers, along with some who are an absolute nightmare.

Arul wrote for my post

I had similar thought process as you have. As the current pricing scenario is unreall. But my sister and mom wouldnt listen and went ahead and bought 7 cent plot near mathampalayam bus stand in 2009 for 1 lakh per cent. Now in just two years we had three to four calls from the broker asking us to sell the plot for 1,50,000 per cent. I dont know what to make of this! In another bizarre pricing the house opposite to our grandpa’s house near periyaniackenpalaysm is quoting 70 lakhs. It has 61/4 cent land but the building is atleast 20 years old … Then i decided not to use my logic and analytics here..Just go with the flow and milk as much money as possible… Its like short term trading. I am still young just 25 years old. So i also dont have the memories like you do which makes my decision to buy and sell that much easier… The only way to stop this arbitary price rise is to have 2 year buy and sell ban on properties..similar to hongkong…in 2009 HK had similar problems now the prices have come down.. So the thing is you can still make lots of money out of the real estate market… You gotta trade short term in the long run the bubble will burst no doubt about it… Lot of people will default on their home loans..

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Here’s the 2011 post. The other day, one of my colleague was telling me that a group of people who had booked in Mantri project in OMR has refused to take possession because the price appreciation has not happened the way investors had wanted it to be, and ICICI bank has been saddled with that property ( in lieu of home loans ). The colleague told me there are quite a number of apartments facing the same fate in OMR. Apparently, his friend works in the recovery department of ICICI.

I am not sure about the veracity of the statements though.

Here are some simple facts. I get paid by my employer for the work that the world thinks I do.
The payment happens by virtue of a deposit to my bank account. Now before you skip this post, read on. I am also given food coupons (Sodexo) by my employer.

The interesting thing is, my mother always thinks of the bank credit asmy hard earned money. On the other hand, she considers the Sodexo coupons as if it is a free gift given from my employer.

As a result, all the essential commodity purchase happens via the withdrawals from my bank account (supposedly from the hard earned money ) while the semi discretionary purchases are done via my Sodexo coupons (paisa vendaam coupon kudu).
Despite my telling her that my employer will not give this coupon to anyone walking on the streets, so this is given as part of the compensation, this attitude has never changed.

This attitude is prevalent among the very educated/smart/rational thinking groups too. For some reason, the salary credited is hard earned money while the stock awarded as part of the stock option is deemed free. Psychologists call this ‘mental accounting’.

The fact that paying with cash is somehow more painful than paying with card illustrates that people’s attitude and behavior towards money as in cash/currency note is different from the way they react to something which is closer to but not actual cash.

During one of my umpteen return trips from down south, I had the company of a Thavil vidhwan once.

I boarded the TNSTC bus at trichy. And he was seated next to me in the last seat. A trip in the TNSTC bus from Trichy to Chennai on a Sunday evening is, to borrow the famous FORREST GUMP line, is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are gonna get as a co-passenger. It can be a drunkard, a vattam, maavattam politician, small trader, etc. that time it was a Thavil vidhwan. For that matter it is no less unpredictable in the supposedly elite AC Volvo buses. I have listened to hot and horny stuff from well attired gentlemen seated next to me thanks to that nasty device called cell phone. More on that later.

Coming back to that thavil vidhwan, the conversation started when the supposed point to point bus took special pains to go to perambalur terminus, and then to ulundurpet terminus. I became very interested in him when he mentioned he was a Thavil vidhwan. This gentleman commutes regularly between thanjavur and chennai. He lives in Medavakkam because his wife is working here but performs only in thanjavur district. He feels it is only in that region people genuinely respect Thavil and Nadhaswaram.

As a co- passenger he shared the importance of UDHAYA near vikravandi ( that is a galeej hotel where all the government buses mandatorily stop by and all the male passengers mandatorily pee on the road side in the dark ).
He gave me company right upto Medavakkam at around midnight.

Why do I remember all this now?
This nice article on Thavil prompted my thoughts to wander.
Via jeyamohan