Brown Motion

Could pass of as a limited liability partnership of accountants or bail bondsmen in Kampala, Uganda with Messrs Kale (a person of Maharashtrian origin and therefore more cerebral) and Kombucha (the muscle) teaming up in a good guy, bad guy routine. But it is far from it.  Kale pronounced as Kail is a green leafy vegetable that has had a resurgence in the American health market as a super nutrient with loads of vitamins that might do someone good.  While a staple of some European diets in varying forms its recent entry as a superfood that can be consumed as a juice (assuming consumee has the right tools to juice a leaf) has drawn interest from a lot of yoga pant wearing crowd. Add Kombucha to this.  This one is a mystery ingredient that is essentially a fermented goop arising from bacteria working on either tea or some form of seaweeds to produce what may be another cancer fighting wonder drug. These two K's are now the new killer breed of bottled wonders that has Am...

This weekend we saw two movies one old and one new both with the same underlying message.  Coincidence?  Maybe. The older one was a Bond thriller called 'The Spy Who Loved Me', where the svelte Russian agent tells Commander Bond to have one - positive mental attitude that is.  Of course you cannot be Bond if you do not. The other is an engaging romantic comedy called 'About Time'.  The romantic comedy genre has taken off big time and I think is directly proportional to the amount of anti-depressant pills being sold in the country. The cast is not your A-listers but the story line is easy flowing and acting very natural.  It is a tale of a family where the guys can travel back in time to a certain event and change the way things work out based on the observed chain reaction the first time around. The movie is set in Cornwall, England on the coast where the protagonist grows up to be an adult and goes through life wanting to find and experience true l...

Of the funky incarnations that Silicon Valley introduces or more broadly trends that tech companies have been known to spew out comes the pesky last line of a message, sent from a mobile device. It may read something like - sent from my iphone - or sent from my - Samsung Android Device. The genesis might be a forced and oh so subtle (ya right!) marketing that is part of a out of the box signature for emails sent from the said device. User expertise is needed to update this default and the hope is many may not know how or will not bother and therefore the recepient is the unintended but intended spam consumer. If you are not already using an iphone why not switch?  Now is a good time!  More than ever! Believe us!  Oh really? Some have used this feature to impress on their audience how busy they really are - and good at multitasking.  And that if you are not one of them then You have a problem.  So I am now seriously contemplating adding more color to ...

Reader Warning - Risque subject matter follows - American Retail is a fascinating subject that could fill blogs.  Esp if interested party is a student of how the marketing machinery works and how customers react to it.  Many has been written, said and expounded on in papers to thesis to actual degrees being awarded on the subject of retailing. Mine are merely casual observations on the subject as I see them - So back to Aisle 1. All stores in America are run like organized operations with laser like focus to get the maximum traction (i.e. basket size) from the passing gentry.  At least the owners of this retail operation would like to see gentry - with some amounts of disposable cash that they will share with them. What to sell and how is closely watched, dissected and executed that will ultimately drive high inventory turns and smooth traffic flow while servicing the consumer. So when I recently decided to take my usual walk (not to buy but to observe) I deci...

An old play about racial segregation was titled thusly.  But mine are merely soporific thoughts on what we are all raising, in whatever climate exists around us. In my case we (with the better than better half) are raising a child.  A daughter.  Of whom we are proud.  Actually I sometimes have a sneaking suspicion that she is raising herself just fine and we are merely witness to this phenomenon.  We are merely providing some nourishment.  She has a good head on her shoulders that one.  That this raising is largely done under an azure California sky is fortunate.  Apart from some allergy attacks that is.  Cannot have it all. So back to the subject of raising.  Much attention in national media these days is on concepts like Tiger Mom and scholastic acheivements and state of our schools and on and on.  While providing children with modern day tools and skills (languages including SQL; stamina from swimming; music appreciation...

Fortunately I still see well.  So it is not about the insipid chore of rinsing little glass contacts with special formulaic liquids that I was involved with over the weekend.  Rather updating the lifeline device aka Cellular Phone after having bestowed a new one by my telco (that is slang for telecommunications service provider).  There are contacts contained therein and it had been a long time since any cleaning had been undertaken.  So in the spirit of all things anew for Spring I decided to spring for some spring cleaning of the cell phone contact list.  Hence the title. So as I embarked on this activity, which I found cathartic.  It constituted of the following - 1.  Deleting some meaningless contact written using shorthand that I use to save a number when I get a call from someone I think I might be interested in following up, only to realize that it was an optimistic attempt at doing so. 2.  Data became Information - Editing con...

Spring time is fun time to watch the avian wildlife start making an appearance in Northern California suburbs. Below are a few samples.. Great Blue Heron Mourning Dove Hummingbird Finch (Red - top,  Yellow - bottom)  

I am a fan of the Charlie Rose show on American Public Television.  I record all of them and then selectively watch them as I vegetate. On couple of recent interviews with the accomplished citizenry that he invites to talk, I heard a lot about resumes vs. eulogies.  The thought is that people often work hard at building an image of who they are when they are alive but often forget to think beyond. Now truth be told that the very accomplished end up in an ideal spot where they effectively give away all that they made when living, which sets them up for a nice eulogy.  But the message was clear.  We need to pay attention to more Living and less Chasing. When our electronic devices remind us that there is only critical amount of juice left to perform critical tasks (not text your latest hobby to your thousand friends but make that all important phone call you have been putting off), we seem to go on a panic attack and want to find the nearest charging temple ...

This is not a report on Swedish furniture.  Nor is it admiration of someone's feces. This is one of the opening remarks a doctor makes to the protagonist of a film called 'Philomena'.    The hero of the film appears to find this remark as curious praise until he realizes that the doctor meant he has not yet submitted a stool sample as part of his physical exam. A mildly humrous yet rather serious film about a mother's quest to search for her son taken away from her for adoption 50 years ago. This story like some recent productions is "based on real events" and could mean anything but the film version is positively entertaining.  Co produced by BBC films this one got some nominations from the Motion Picture Academy aka Oscars.  It did not win but I think that is only an opinion. Judi Dench plays the distraught yet firm of mind mother who certainly deserves a lot of credit for the role she played.  I have enjoyed her other roles including th...

Named for a Spanish saint, San Diego is the birth place of modern state of California on the western coast of the United States.  This spring break we took the highway (I-5) paralleling the old King's Highway or El Camino Real to visit this wonderful piece of real estate along the Pacific.  Back in the late 1700's it was considered New Spain. Those Europeans knew how to spend their time during the 1500 - 1800s setting out on long voyages to "discover new worlds".  Now we go to the moon or something boring. On one such discovery voyage a Portuguese called Juan Cabrillo took off from the Mexican west coast and sailed up to discover new lands and ports.  He found San Diego and continued up to discover Monterey and then Point Reyes north of the Golden Gate.  They missed  finding San Francisco in their travels. After a few centuries another Spaniard called Gaspar Portola took a bunch of soldiers and set out from the south west coast of Mexico to subsequent...

Not in an existential type of way but it is probably the third or fourth question I get asked in a social or work setting when I run into someone I have not met before. So I thought about the blog I recently penned around 'identity' and it hit me that people are always trying to figure out a social connection when they ask this question.  Sometimes it appears they are reaching even if there is none.  The 'where' in the question is really about 'who', as in who are you?  Can I feel comfortable around you?  Are you someone I could trust (if it is a long term deal they are looking at)?  Can I perhaps leverage our new formed relation to parlay for something else? I suppose its natural to some more than others to probe thusly.  It is a matter of what their social upbringing has taught them.  It might well set the stage of how someone perceives you from that point forward. I often think of various possible responses that may include - I am fro...

The opposite of ironclad is not ironies (ease). You run after money when you don't have it. You run to keep in shape when you have too much of it. A prenup for a breakup is now common place even in places like India where the whole premise of getting married is to have and to hold (much like a car reservation). A chemically induced high is often followed by a non chemically induced low. Boeing built a much cheaper commercial 777 jet that did a more amazing job of vanishing (with 300 people) without a trace and staying hidden for a month compared to a $2B Lockheed stealth fighter that only carries two people.

Life?  I think it is.  I mean there are so many metaphors we see used that it would be a shame to not think of it as such.   In the ballpark to out of left field to getting dealt a poor hand. It is a game made up of the bookends called Birth and Death.  First you arrive, then you live and finally you die.  Trick is in figuring out how you live.  Birth and Death are both accidents with really no way to predict - at least for yourself. You can sort of tweak the end but ultimately you cannot predict it.  So best case - try and live. Now on the matter of living - there are unwritten rules that one has to follow.  How does one go about figuring out the unwritten?  I mean its not exactly some hieroglyph somewhere that one could decipher. You use your smarts.  That is the genetic stuff you arrive with.  As you grow you learn.  More you learn the more you know.  So grow to know.  The unwritten rules that is....