Brown Motion

What is with these short forms you ask?  I will get to it.  Off late I have noticed that strip malls and shopping complexes are leasing out new square footage focused on a few sure bets.  This to appeal to the so called Gen Z folks ... whose mood today seems to crave the below.  Add a few thousand boomers or folks with a healthy bank account and FOMO on snagging a cutie in their 7th inning, you have a recipe to profit. Fitness centers - with exotic names like Zoomba to Cross Fit to P2P to Soul cycle. Boba - From SE Asian chains to local moms and pops wanting to see the cash register ring before it all pops, these high margin, easily reproduced drinks are offering a new twist too - cream and butter on traditional tea and coffee..all the rage with some even touting salted butter and colorful toppings to the caffeine craving crowds. Salons -from toe to fingertip and everything in between you can cure (mani and pedi) or fix what ails you (physiotherapy) or find acu...

As short forms go this is a new one to many folks. So here is a little quiz.  Can you identify what the short form P2P stands for? 1.  Person to Person payment 2.  Urination issue of some magnitude 3.  Push up to Pin up If you chose option 1 then you are right in that there is such a thing.  But that will be the subject of a different blog if and when I want to pontificate on an academic topic. For now the right answer is 3. What the heck is a push up to pin up you ask? It is the rage in the desi crowds that surround us.  Desi is slang for Indian born ex pat in America or anywhere but India. Those living in America esp Bay Area of California are apparently inspired by a warehouse turned to fitness regimen practicing studio.  Here people pay around $2,000 for a year to be pumped to get their muscles to burn calories and get into a shape different from the one they entered the cult with. I say cult because most of these operations are....

A three-day long weekend with very cold temperatures outside with snow on the hills at a 1,000 feet.  Made for an interesting picture with palm trees against a snow laden backdrop.  That also meant a couple of indoor activities that are my favorite. No brainer action movies with loud explosions and some taste bud titillating food every couple hours.  So with that in mind we started the evening festivity with the latest installment of the superhero girl from Sweden.  Originally imagined by now dead author Stieg Larsson the famous trilogy was continued in the form of other titles from another author.  Directed by an Uruguayan director this fourth installment is at times cliched but nonetheless mind bending stunt machine till the end. Starring a British actor called Claire Foy who by virtue of her goth like lifestyle does not say much but just hacks and attacks, is a force in the film.  The movie was accompanied by some warm Indian Samosa (flaky stuffe...

As I was preparing to file taxes for the past year I was struck by how my screen time has been going up each year. See when I first started filing taxes I did it with a pencil and eraser on paper.  This tradition continued for years after the advent and accessibility of the internet. As I might have said in the past I am a reluctant technologist and have been wary of anything new and improved.  My first reaction is congruent to the Latin phrase 'Caveat Emptor'. So back to screen time.  For the past couple years I've resorted to using software to help file.  In part because the tech in that arena matured and also because taxes got wildly, stupidly complex.  Getting a salary and filing is not an easy task apparently. So to use the software you end up staring at the computer for a good chunk of time that was otherwise spent looking at a sheet of paper and printing with graphite or erasing said print if the calculation was wrong. Rewind many many years an...

As someone who follows the airline industry and aircraft makers as a hobby it was sad to see the mighty jumbos come in for a hard landing. A jumbo jet is a wide body aircraft (usually double aisled) designed to fly long distances ideally for less cost than flying multiple smaller planes.  American made, Boeing ruled the skies with its flagship 747 four engine jumbo for decades after introducing it in the 1970s. Airbus which is a consortium of European Aerospace businesses built a real competitor in the form of the A380.  The 380 is a large full double decker affair with four larger jet engines of its own.   It came at a critical time in the global economy with a maiden flight circa 2008. This coupled with rising fuel prices did not play well for the new aircraft.  With far fewer orders than the 747 which had introduced the double decker concept with its big top design decades earlier, the Europeans managed to get some oil rich kingdoms to sign up for the ...

I am reading an autobiographical account of John Cleese titled "So, anyway...". This led me to pen something in a similar vein albeit focused more on some of the amazing moments in my life than just a chronology of my upbringing as my favorite British comic has attempted in his work. So if I was to exit the planet as in stop ticking just at this moment as I am blogging away I would admit I had a wonderful life if it was an account of things enjoyed in the credit column, and the pain and suffering in the debit side of the ledger.  It also seems apparent to me that nature trumps man when it comes to move you.. Not in any particular order, to be able to enjoy the following moments is a gift, a matter of chance at times, dumb luck and some hustle and some hard work... Feeding carrot to a kangaroo in some remote region of Australia while wondering what the heck this creature is doing here in the first place, then wondering the same about me Hiking Diamond Head cra...

I woke up this Sunday to a partial sunshine and nip in the air sort of morning.  I had to head out early to judge some speech event in a local university. As I drove down I quickly realized that the normally greening hills in the neighborhood at this time of year (being winter) had a different color.  They were definitely coated in white.  It made them shimmer with the weak sun that was trying to eke out of the cloud deck above. As soon as I got further down the road and the sun broke free of the pesky clouds I could make out the bright hills with a good inch or two in places of the powdery coat.  Snow levels had dropped to almost couple hundred feet as far south as the latitudes of Silicon Valley. It made for a spectacular and unique sight not seen in the two decades of living in the valley.  I mean I saw Google in the clouds...aka Google Cloud!

Disclosure - The author has a massive ass and does not own a bicycle.  I however do own a pair of running shoes which I use for walking.  I have walked enough to have fully depreciated the asset's value and they still seem to have their SOLE intact. _______________________________________________________________ You can cycle by buying a cycle and using it.  Which would mean taking to the streets in your neighborhood and pedaling.  For the excessively adventurous and larger carbon footprint mode one would attach it to a guzzler of an RV and take it to some remote woods to unleash the magic of a chain and sprocket enabled appliance. Regardless this entails having the holistic idea of enjoying the breeze in your face or the unlikely hailstorm if the weather did not cooperate.  It might in China or India mean a constant onslaught of toxic fumes now moving at higher mph rate than if one was walking. The so called first world like America or Canada one thinks...