Mr. Dad and loss in family

Another Saturday with plans for Mr. Dad to drive his girls around. One to the movies, other to her first Basketball game. How exciting!

When I think about it, most of my days are spent either entertaining his kids or driving them from point A to point B. I live and work in MT, NJ so there are weeks that I don’t even leave the township, except for driving one of my kids to a sleepover or a party!

Not that I dislike doing this.. I love it. If you look at my cell phone calls, they are to my girls. My older one, just loves to go through my call directory (for fun) and tell me how many times I called Mom and her. She thinks that I don’t really need a phone as I only made 7 minutes of calls last month! Funny!

Familial update:
Last night I got some bad news: My cousin sister (Shobha) died in India at the age of 59 of kidney failure and diabetes. Similar to the way I lost my Mom a few years ago. I had just met Shobha after many years (15) years during my visit to India in 2007.

I knew she was in bad shape but she’s only 13 years older than me! It’s a like a wake up call to me that life is too short to not really enjoy it. I was really shook up from this news, because I was very close to her and her kids. I remember when I was growing up, I looked up to her as my big sister and I was in awe of her for her humor and strength. Even when I met her last year, it seemed she knew she only had a short time.

She lived in a small city in India, but I always remember that when I visited India when I was growing up, she always kept me amused and took care of me. I’m going to miss her terribly. God bless her soul!

Feel kind of down today with this news and feel like I’m just dragging along. Need to cheer myself up. Going to see “I am Legend” (about the last man left on earth after a pandemic) for the second time today. This is of course the remake of the classic movie.

Oh wait, that movie is just as depressing, but my older one wanted a “daddy/daughter movie date”, so I’m obliging.

Anyway, sitting here reflecting on how can prevent something like this from happening to me! 🙂

Dad’s Taxi and Favorites

New Years Resolutions

So it’s a few days into the new year and I wonder how many of my resolutions I’ve broken already.

1. Be a nicer person – Now this one is tough. First day on back to work, within 30 minutes, I got annoyed and broke this one.
2. Lose Weight – Started to work out more, but the “See Food” diet is just not working.

Thank goodness this is a short week.

Dad’s Taxi and Favorites

New Year, New Hopes

So this is 2008! I sure hope this year is better than 2007 for me. 2007 was an absolute disappointment. Best part of 2007 was my trip to India in June/July.

Let’s see if this election year is better. I’m optimistic for now.

I’m going to use this site to talk about topics which cross my mind on a daily basis.

Take a look at these sites:

• Lifehacker – Tips for life
• Wisebread – Personal finance and Frugal Living
• Dealcatcher – Internet Bargains
• Techbargains – Techie Deals

  Lessons learned from India:

• The Money is flowing! Due to this, the Rupee flows like water. You can never have enough.
• If you are a shopper, the malls and choice in shopping is second to none. Anything and everything you need is available! Malls and Super stores (like WalMart) are everywhere!
• Technologically, all parts of India have equal’d or bypassed US in terms of technology (cell phone, Internet, Satellite TV). Take a look at the best Indian Websites as a starting point
• Infrastructure has NOT caught up to technology. Regardless of how much money you have, the probability that you will struggle with the corruption and the inability of the government to address the overpopulation and crowding.
• If you are a NRI (non-resident Indian) – Forget about getting access to wireless networks. Terrorism threats preclude us NRI’s from buying simple fixed wireless cards so we can utilize the Wireless network (subscription) available! Very very frustrating. Of course this has a workaround. Get a local to buy the card for you!

Financially for me 2007 was a disaster. Enuff said.

Dad’s Taxi and Favorites