Ios Maps vs Google Maps India

Recently when we went to Bengaluru, we took our beloved unlocked iPhone 4s with us (idea was to try with an Indian Sim card) to help us with phone access during our vacation. With the data plan we figured we could use the navigation also. Considering the charging of the phone is such a problem in India, I was hoping against hope that the built-in maps of iOS aka Apple maps would work for in US, I have found them to be battery saver and have come a long way since introduction. 

As they say, India is completely different dynamics at play and the Apple maps I was so hopeful about was up to no good. I had to change tactics and rely on Google maps. I wasn't expecting this extreme of a difference but Google maps are a few light years ahead of Apple maps. 

In places where Apple maps was struggling with GPS lock on my location,  Google map was able to give me point to point and turn by turn directions including details on service roads and one way too. 

With the driver we had hired for Bangalore trip, we survived solely thanks to Google Maps.

On the same note, traffic overlays on Google maps is extremely accurate and I admit I have a new found respect for Austin traffic after encountering Bangalore traffic.

So, a piece of advice if you are interested in taking your iPhone to India make sure it has Google Maps.     

  

Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas

A piece of knowledge from Sri Sri RaviShankar-ji on occasion of Christmas.

You are the Christmas tree that points upwards with branches on all sides. At the time of year when other trees are barren, you are green with many gifts to offer. - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar 

Christmas gift for the homeless

Yesterday while driving back from office I got stuck at a signal, I had barely missed the signal because the car in front of me had slowed down a lot to make the left turn. 

While I was silently cursing that car/driver and was in the process of accepting what happened, I noticed another car on my left which had a green but had stopped conspicuously. I started to wonder what was wrong with that car and then the car slowly made a right turn and stopped.  The lady sitting in the car was waving towards the homeless guy begging at the signal. My small mind was saying, "why is she waving towards the homeless?," and "doesn't she know that she is blocking the traffic?" and so on. To be fair, the traffic was fairly light and she wasn't really bothering the traffic movement. 

Once the homeless guy reached the car, it was my turn to be awed. Out of the car came a big nicely packed gift box and after asking the guys size a jacket too, I am sure she wished him merry Christmas.

I was amazed at the lady and her organization for doing this charity. 

Now I know why I was stuck at that signal for an extra 2 minutes.

Our Art of Living volunteers also took part in a similar endeavor few days before Christmas. 

Avni's pumpkin painting

What would you do when you have an urge to paint the pumpkin and your parents are too busy to help you, you pick a brush per paint color – simple.

Images from Dubare camp

All images captured with Canon Xsi with 24-105 F/4 lens in manual mode. No editing whatsoever.   

Christmas at Bannockburn–snapshots of the season

This Christmas, thanks to Sandhya who has made this list of things to do during Christmas/holiday season, one of them happened to be performance at Bannockburn Church.

Considering Avni is following a new routine of sleeping at 8:00 and due to other unavoidable reasons we could only make time for the last show on Monday at 7:00PM.

If I had one word to describe the performance it would be, “wonderstruck”. The performances had people of all ages from kids to adults, the dances were extremely well choreographed, the singers had amazing voice, the lighting was just perfect, the artists were extremely talented and last but not the least the dresses they wore just lit the stage on fire.

The best part of the show for me was the myriad ways they performed for the song “Jingle bell, jingle bell … “. If I may divide the show into 2 parts, the first half was fun and joy and that was the part in which Avni had a blast and second part was performance on life of Jesus from birth to crucifixion and re-birth (after which I had to leave). Both parts were very beautiful and kudos to the production team for pulling this off with incredible precision.  

Many thanks to our Circle C ranch Facebook page and the residents who evangelized it. It was a wonderful performance and something I look forward to for next year.    

Dubare elephant camp

I had heard a lot about this place and by the time we finalized our trip to India, this one had become a must see places in our vacation. I was told the ideal way to visit is to book a day in jungle lodges Dubare and I say, yes they were right.

This was my first experience with jungle lodges and I have all praises for them. They had very clean and spacious cottages, wonderful food and friendly people. I must emphasize when I say clean, I mean not a single piece of paper or cigarette butt or any such things that don’t belong in the forest.

Our journey started from Mysore in the morning and we reached Dubare by afternoon, much to my surprise we took a boat to reach Jungle lodges, in essence we were a captive audience till we checked out next day.

After lunch and tea we were taken on a safari in the evening, lasted a couple of hours and we were lucky to see a bunch of peacock, a jungle cat, few elephants and a Gaur (Indian Bison). Returning from the safari there was camp fire, followed by dinner.

Next day started with a small guided walk through the jungle and a coracle ride followed by breakfast and Elephant interaction. Thanks to government of Karnataka for organizing “Tipu’s birthday” and which led to Coorg Bandh, we almost had exclusive access during elephant interaction. Avni had a blast bathing the elephants and feeding them.

All in all, it was a well planned 24 hours at jungle lodges Dubare. One can stay for more than a day but the activities would be the same.

I wouldn’t do justice if I don’t talk about the elephants in the camp. Some of the elephants are born there and most are caught/tamed to prevent human and animal conflicts. I was told the males do get into fights sometimes and it is a common thing. One interesting fact I found was that the medium of instruction for the elephants is Hindi. 

My recommendation for people visiting Dubare, spend the money and stay overnight and appreciate the nature.

2 phone solution

It probably happens only in India and would sound very alien to US residents, one needs a dual sim phone to keep up with multiple networks as one might be active in some areas while others are not.  How about dual phones itself? one for talking and one for internet? Yes this is what I witnessed while in India during my vacation recently. If it were 1 or 2 people I wouldn’t have bothered but I saw at a minimum half a dozen people doing this and to top this, there was a news paper advertisement for a smart phone which said buy a smart phone and get a multimedia (dumb) phone for free.

Made me wonder why?, I just barely scratched the surface and I had my answers.

On an average my Iphone 5s lasts a day or so with 4G disabled and on an average here in the USA in about 3 hours or so my phone charges from 0 to 100%, in India my phone takes almost double this time if not 2.5 times and on top of it if there were a power cut then god alone save me. To contrast, my mom’s multimedia phone has almost infinite talk time (compared to my smart phone), the voice is clear and it charges fast.

Another reason may be, thanks to Apple and Samsung for not allowing their real high end phones to be dual sim.

So, how do we solve it Indian way? have a phone for talking and have one for internet.  

ಪ್ರತ್ಯಕ್ಷವಾಗಿ ನೋಡಿದರು ಪ್ರಮಾಣಿಸಿ ನೋಡು

ಪ್ರತ್ಯಕ್ಷವಾಗಿ ನೋಡಿದರು ಪ್ರಮಾಣಿಸಿ ನೋಡು is a famous Kannada proverb, hard to find an equivalent in English but loosely translates to don’t believe whatever you see with your eyes, have patience and investigate before forming your opinion. Now, what is the link between this proverb and my daughters playschool/pre-school?

When we moved to Circle C back in 2012, Avni had barely turned one and time flew while we were settling in the new home and poof, she was close to 2 years. Considering all our known parent friends were sending their kids to some sort of playschool for a few hours in a day (at least that’s the perception we had), we also as dutiful parents decided to do the same. So, went around exploring the possibilities in the neighborhood.

The first place we checked out was Xplor, it is a commercial location with branches all over the city and some of my friends had already enrolled their kids there and they offered cool things like video feed from the child’s classroom and flexible hours and the teachers had uniforms and so on. All in all they had a good marketing team and front desk and we were smitten by their technology and facility. We were impressed by their facility and almost immediately made up our minds to try this place for our daughter.

Right next door was Circle-C CDC (Child Development Center), we went there just to inquire and the appearance of the place gave a gothic feel with dark hall way and not so well lighted reception which was instead of being clearly visible from the entry door was located half way down the corridor. To top this there was an angry receptionist who was mad at us for showing up at the door without making an appointment. All of which somewhat discouraged us and what choice we made is fairly obvious.

In Xplor, my daughter lasted barely 2 days and we had to pull her out of it. She did not like it at all, the impersonal treatment of kids, teachers busy making notes to handout to parents at the end of the day and their insistence on them providing lunch, all together combined with the fact she fell terribly sick at the end of day 2 made us pull her out of it. To top it off, they had big time teacher attrition. If there is 1 day I regret not taking the right action in Avni’s life, her day 2 in Xplor would be on top.

After pulling her out of Xplor we enrolled in some home day care for a few months and meanwhile scheduled a tour of CDC. When the director Shaun C gave us a tour I realized this place is wonderful and they had a lot to offer than dark hallways. We couldn’t enroll Avni then but had to wait for next term before enrolling her and its been 2 years since then and 1 more year to go before she goes off to public school. There are a lot of things to love about CDC, to start with the fact that the teacher visited our home before school start, the kids stay together for the whole year, very low attrition of teachers (almost zero), lots of games and learning, a fun place for kids and lot more good things. Since day 1, Avni has loved to go to this place and has almost never said she doesn’t want to go to school that day.

So, ಪ್ರತ್ಯಕ್ಷವಾಗಿ ನೋಡಿದರು ಪ್ರಮಾಣಿಸಿ ನೋಡು :)   

One plate per person or one plate per line

When I go the buffet at any restaurant here in USA, it is mandatory to take a new plate every time one goes to the buffet line, while in India it is exactly the other way, meaning 1 person and 1 plate and not a new one each time. One can argue it as cultural difference and also point out that it is not sanitary to take the used plate back to the buffet.

All said and done, one thing I noticed was with 1 plate each time per buffet line there is a larger wastage of food while the other one there is less. Surprised?, last time I went to a buffet in India (one plate per person) I filled up my plate first time and went back to my table. When I was ready for the second round I realized I need to finish everything I have taken before going back to the line (left over means wasted real-estate) and I eneded up taking only things I know I would eat, now compare this to the US style since I know I will get a new plate each time in the buffet line there is never a real need for me to finish everything I got from the previous round before heading back to the line.

Irrespective of buffet or entree order, I do not believe in wasting food and more than likely finish everything I have taken or ordered. That said it was a revelation to me that one plate per person saves not only water but also produced food.   

Pumpkin Pumpkin

When my daughters school put out their fall Halloween party wish list, the easiest one I found was a bag of small pumpkins. How hard would it be to find a bag of pumpkins? or that’s what I thought.

Thankfully due to other priorities amongst other distractions, it totally slipped my mind that I was supposed to get the pumpkins till the day it was due on Monday morning. Even then, I am used to such things and I figured I would walk to the nearest HEB and pick up couple of bags or that's what I thought. In the end it took me close to an hour with stops at 3 HEB's, 2 Randall’s and 1 Whole Foods before I could declare victory. Yes I picked up the last 2 bags from that store. In the process I learnt a lot about pumpkin sizes, they are almost like dress sizes XXL, XL,  L, M, S, XS and XXS (my search was for XXS) of which XXL and XXS are hard to find. 

Moral of the story, Halloween and pumpkins especially the small ones go fast and faster so plan ahead.

Sri Sri yoga – a honest experience sharing

Two of my dear friends recently became Sri Sri Yoga teachers and have decided to organize a course here in Austin. I thought what better way to publicize to an event than to share my own experiences practicing the same. 

What is Sri Sri yoga?
In my humble words, it is a sequence of poses that would take around 30-40mins to complete and if done on a regular basis can improve the quality of the day and life in general

What makes it different from others?
I have explored other yoga studios in the past and none of them offered any take home practice and everyone wanted me to come back to the studio to practice in the studio. With Sri Sri yoga, we have a take home practice. The best part, in the 2 weekends (format could be different now), we were given enough knowledge to take our yoga practice as deep as we wanted to, essentially saying one can tailor the practice to their needs and time availability.

Can I elaborate on it’s impact?
I did the yoga course almost 3 and half years ago but never ever practiced it, let alone regularly. What was the excuse?, very simple, it is hard to find that 40mins of alone time to practice.

But, in 2013 when I was in some sort of low phase (relatively) and wanted to get out of it, upon a friend’s suggestion I took up the challenge to practice Sri Sri Yoga for 40 days and I saw the difference in my energy levels on the very first day.

Ever had the feeling of “floating in the air” or “things are getting done more efficiently” or the feeling of “I can handle this”, yes that is my state of mind after completing the practice and I carry that throughout (most of) the day.

Since then, every time I become aware that my energy levels are not up to the mark than what I expect them to be, I know the trick to get out of it.

If my memory serves right, somebody had asked the question as to what is the difference between this Yoga practice and Padmasadhana and SriRam-ji had said both have similar set of postures but one is designed for a healthy and happy state of mind while other is meant for deeper meditation. I have no knowledge about Padmasadhana but yes Sri Sri Yoga will help you to have happier state of mind. 

The blog post won’t be complete without thanking Sandhya, who pushed me to do the course. Rewind 4 years back, my excuse was, what is the point of learning something when I do not have time to practice?, but she proved me wrong and showed me that one needs to learn when they can as one never knows when it would come handy.

At the outset knowing your Ayurvedic body type and tailoring the yoga practice accordingly would make the practice better and enjoyable. More about that in a later post.

So, good luck friends and have fun co-teaching the course. 

ps: I was told the course has been renamed to Art of Living Yoga and no longer advertised as Sri Sri Yoga

Rangi Tharanga

I had heard a great deal about this movie called Rangi Tharanga and when Sandhya told me that the director Anup Bhandari was her classmate once upon a time, I definitely wanted to see the movie. In general I would Google the movie before hand and would have had an idea about the plot but this time around I made an exception to the rule and went to the theater blank slate.

So, what is the movie about? 

• A horror, romantic, suspense thriller with slight amount of action
• A movie that throws curve ball after curve ball towards the audience
• A movie that keeps you on the edge of the seat from start to end (no, not like Bourne series) 
• A movie that re-defines suspense thrillers
• A movie with some wonderful songs
• A movie which doesn’t add songs for no reason
• A movie that has the fewest technical and logical flaws
• A movie that has the best cinematography along with best story and best direction
• A movie with the original story, last one with this level of intensity was Kahani in hindi
• A movie that for the first time ever in my life-time in Austin had 4 shows in a theater and almost all shows were packed
• A movie that had a good blend of old and new talents
• A movie that had brand new artists who performed like veterans
• A movie that is definitely not a family (I wouldn’t recommend for kids) entertainer
• A movie that in my ratings would be a PG-13    

Great job Anup Bhandari, hope to see more work like this in the future.

If you haven’t seen it and there is a chance to see in a theater do it, its worth the money and time. 

Doggy camp and boarding

Recently when we had to go on our vacation, most of the stuff related to vacation like tickets, accommodations and attractions were done in advance. But this time around unlike last time we had a family member who wasn't going to accompany us on our trip and of course she is not able to handle herself by herself either, no she is not old or bed ridden, in fact she is young at heart and in body too. Yes you guessed it right, it was our pet daisy.

Thanks to our Circle C Ranch Facebook page I found a few dog highly recommended dog boarding places that I short listed to checkout

In general

• There are a lot of dog boarding places in and around our neighborhood
• 4th of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas are the busiest times and
• The cost of boarding is in the range of $30-$35/day
• I can’t comment about the business side but almost all the places I visited had decent number or a lot of dogs
• Most dog boarding places are plain boarding places and that means they provide a semi private indoor place for your pet and let them out every 3 to4 hours for 10-15mins and put them back inside
• They in general won't allow group play for dogs or more than required time outside the kennels
• Some places were ridiculous, they were quoting extra $15-$20 for 10-15mins of group play in a day.
• One of the places even offered a doggie massage and also human time instead of group time, that would be $10-$20 for 15mins
• The same place also offered nature walk for the pup but 10mins walk would cost $15, considering I take my dog out for 40minute walk in the morning and something similar in the evening, 10minutes sounded ridiculous
• After seeing the other places out there, day camp and boarding at our neighborhood petsmart looks very primitive (no outdoor space and cramped play space)
• Of all the places I visited best I liked was Dog Camp in Dripping Springs and next one was Bobby Colorado training camp

Since I couldn’t get Dog Camp, I had to board her at Bobby Colorado. At the end of 10 days, my pup looked happy and I admit had lost some weight but nothing to worry about.

International Day of Yoga Celebrations in Austin TX

Some came because Narendra Modi, PM of India had called
Some came because Sri Sri Ravishankar called
Some came because it's adventurous
Some came because they were organizing it
Some came because it is probably the one and only event they were looking forward to (for personal reasons)
Some came for they were tasked with documenting the event
Nature said, I can't be left out and it rained and poured before and after the event

Yes, I am talking about the first ever International Day of Yoga celebration at our city Austin, TX. In case you missed it, it happened on Capitol grounds on Sunday June 21st at 10:30AM.

75 odd yogis from Art of Living, Bea Love Yoga and more importantly from Austin showed up to celebrate the very first ever International day of Yoga here at the lawns of the Capitol of Texas.  

We have a saying in Art of Living, “from chaos comes creativity” and this yoga event was no different. On Thursday before the yoga event scheduled for Sunday we were not 100% sure of the logistics and with rain in forecast didn’t have a plan B, to top it off nature wanted to do some rain dance for the event and on Sunday around 10:00am it started raining cats and dogs.  

But, when 70 odd yogis decide to do yoga on the first ever International Day of yoga, nature had to listen and give way for yoga. Come 10:30, the rain turned to drizzle and the lawns started to drain out just enough for us to get on with the yoga. The parking was free and plenty (I guess the rain turned some visitors away) and all other finer logistics, didn’t really matter. Can you imagine the state senator joining us at the yoga event.

The yoga was beautifully led by 3 senior yoga teachers from Bea Love Yoga. I have full respect and regards for Bea Love for if there was 1 person who was 100% sure they will be doing yoga that day, I would say it would be her. Once the yoga started, the event moved on with clinical precision, the teachers taking turns to lead the yoga and before we knew it was time to do the chanting of om and final resting. At which precise time, nature decided to join the party and started to drizzle and it poured again.

Later the party was moved indoors where folks from our own Art of Living band filled the rotunda with ancient chants and hymns.

It wouldn't be fair if I don't speak about the precursor to this event, it was called the sun never sets yoga which happened a week ago Saturday as a gearing up event for the international day of yoga, around 20 odd yogis gathered on the banks of town lake in the morning at 7:00AM and an hour long yoga was lead by our own graduate yogi Ritesh Seth.

All in all, a grand successful event for the Art of Living Austin. Kudos to the team for pulling this off in a very successful manner in true Art of Living style.

ps: yes, picture speaks 1000 words and yes I will be posting them soon 

pps: here are the pics 

With age does creativity . . . .

One of those blogs, that I am not sure of the content completely but still feel it is worth posting. This one is coming from my 4 odd years of interaction with Avni.

Off late I have concluded that structured education or molding the brain is to an extent detrimental to creativity. I have examples from my interactions and Avni's side to prove the same. In the end I am not advocating anarchy and a believer of structured education system.

Observing Avni, she doesn’t fret about color combinations, her approach is free spirited, a creative venture of mix and match of colors, in her own words, mixupitis is always fun. One can call it as festival of holi played on the paper. Can you imagine a princess face being painted tri color and still looking pretty.

From my side, an example is children books, specially the ones for the kids in range of 1-3 years old. They have large pictures and barely any texts and as parents we used to spend lots of time creating stories for those pictures and now as she is growing up we have graduated to more verbose books and end up reading what's printed rather than fitting creative stories.

I wonder if this is part of growing up. The free out of the box thinking that we as adults try to ignite in ourselves (every now and then) is already present in us as a child. If you are still not convinced, try convincing a child through logical statements (not arguments). One can argue that those solution are almost always impractical, but that's what being creative is, right?.

Last but not the least, the creative solutions moms come up to either feed their kids or to pacify them is clearly unique to every single mom. 

Future animals rights activist

It was a hot Sunday afternoon, Sandhya was trying to feed Avni. Both were sitting on the floor and as usual our pet Daisy wanted to be near  them and I was holding Daisy’s leash back and asking her to stay back. Suddenly,  Avni who was doing some art work stands up with an angry face and the following happens.

A: Manju, say sorry to daisy
M: why?
A: because you are mean to her
M: no I was not
A: not leaving the pets is mean
M: I was just trying to hold her back
A: not leaving Daisy near amma is mean, say sorry to her
M:sorry Daisy

Avni then comes near me and says “leave the leash now, do what I say”.

Her last statement was,

"Being nice is to let everyone to play"

No more PIO only OCI

Back in 2010, right around the time Avni was born, I started researching the options for her as she will be born in USA and the parents were Indian citizens. People had all different solutions, some were crazy as suggesting that she can pick her citizenship when she is 18 years and others that she can get Indian citizenship if registered right at birth.

Turned out all were wrong, since she would be born on US soil, by default she would be citizen of USA and also India does not support dual citizenship.  In the end she could become either a PIO (person of Indian origin) or an OCI (overseas citizen of India).

We the parents were Indian citizens and not foreign passport holders, she could only apply to be PIO. Even further, for some reasons un known,  being PIO had way more restrictions than being an OCI, few from top of my head are, it had to be renewed every 15 years and if the person had to stay for more than 180 days in India then they had to register with nearest police station. The only saving grace was that PIO was 1 step and OCI was a 2 step and longer process.

It always pinched me that the fact that we are citizens of India and my daughter had to be PIO but if we gave up our Indian citizenship then my daughter can be an OCI. To say in another way, government of India government rewarded non-Indian citizens better than Indian citizens. I was so annoyed with this that the last 3 times I took my daughter to India, I went with a visa for her.

Thanks to Modi and the new Indian government there is no more of PIO, only OCI and all PIO’s are being converted to OCI’s.

Great going, I am happy with this. I believe it is time to make Avni an OCI.      

Good job coach

The last day of the soccer league got rained out but that didn't dampen the spirits of the kangaroo team coach. He made a plan to get us all to Waterloo ice house on a Saturday morning.

We reached around 9:00 and most had reached before us and a few much later. As with kids once they reached a critical mass they ran out to play and we had to drag them back once the breakfast was served. At some point along. our coach wanted to say words to his team and I teased him that he had only 2 minutes and I will be timing him. I admit, I didn't time it and he made a wonderful speech, the best part was he had something unique and positive to say about every single player in the team.

One more thing I admit shamelessly, I have gone to almost all the matches over 8-9 weeks but I didn’t pay attention to the team as much as he had done, in spite of the fact that his own daughter was also playing in the same team (and probably one of the youngest in the team).

Come to think of it, if it hadn't rained out on that last Saturday we wouldn't have gathered for the festive breakfast or got to see the oratory skills of our team’s coach. I wish we could do this more often . 

It also showed me a new place for breakfast tacos other than rudy's bbq.

ps: In my previous post I had said our team lost all matches, I was corrected apparently we had won one match 

The tendency of mind is ....

Back in December, one of the parents from my daughter's playschool started the initiative of kids soccer. They said they were enrolling their kid to soccer camp starting in April, a 8 week camp played one weekend every week, they suggested if all kids could join in it would be lot of fun. We all got excited with the idea and jumped on it right away.

Since most of us were enrolling, we requested all the kids to be together in the same team. The wonderful folks at the camp honored our request. Even better, some of the dads became the coaches for the team. Keep in mind the whole idea behind was to let kids have fun outside school and some socializing for us too. The kids are truly having fun, specially since the soccer practice ends with donuts and drinks (snacks provided by different parent each week).

It's been 5 weeks, the kids are enjoying the games and having fun. I would definitely say, they have been improving every week, but our team hasn't won a single match. To put it bluntly we get our butts kicked by the opposing team each and every week. We would be lucky if our team makes 1 or 2 goals in the process and don’t self goal during the match.

I think the reason is simple, each team that we have played against so far has 2 to 3 kids who are much older than the kids in our team and also have played multiple years of soccer. If only we hadn’t made the request during enrollment, may be our team would have gotten couple of older kids too and we would be tough competitor too but if that had happened it no longer would have been team “Kangaroos”, would it be?.

Now, the real point of this blog post, I realized I am going away from the original intent of the whole exercise "having fun" and getting to the mode of winning and analyzing why our team isn't doing as good as others.

I think this is called awareness which my good friends were trying to drill into me a decade ago. Of course life is such "aha" moments and that's what makes it fun.The secret is simple, to breath, want more information visit artoflivingaustin.org

Happy Earth day

I walked to my daughters school for her “Art in the park” day and noticed the following on her class room door.

As usual I was impressed by the artistic expressions and impressed with the teachers and their creativity.

Later in the day I heard on KUT that today is “Earth-day”. Now the art made perfect sense.

Great job teachers. I wish I had known this before I would have taken the picture of the entire door.

Disney on Ice–Frozen

Last summer we took our daughter to watch Disney on ice in Austin. This year took her to Disney on ice frozen, only catch this time it was not in Cedar Park but Alamodome, San Antonio.

This time around it was a bit challenging and needed some prior planning as we now have our puppy Daisy with us, I was on the fence for a long time but thanks to Sandhya, we just decided to wing it.

I remember getting the email back in January itself, they had a total of 8 shows over a weekend (Thursday to Sunday) and by the time we made up our minds all that was left for us was Thursday, rest all were sold out, atleast that's what it said on ticketmaster.com. Our show on Thursday night, barring a few open seats here and there was pretty full.

This was our first event at Alamodome and boy was I impressed by the scale of things. In my mind I kept thinking, 78 miles door-to-door and would need an hour and half for drive and park and get in so should not need more than 2 hours. But the scale of Alamodome is quite a few times higher than our cedar park center, so I should have added an extra hour to make the whole thing more seamless. San Antonio police were stationed to guide the traffic and parking and were doing it very diligently and the staff at Alamodome were quick and efficient too.

Now to the show itself, I had wondered last time itself as to where does Disney find such wonderful ice skaters for its shows. One theory I have is that Disney recruits all the Olympics figure skating rejects for its “on ice” show. Unlike last time which was about a mix of princesses stories, this one specifically was musical story of frozen. It was so well done that Avni who is a big fan of Frozen (dressed up as Elsa but without the wig) barely asked any questions through out the event. I doubt if she even blinked her eyes.

As with anything Disney, it was colorful, energetic, executed to perfection and full of theatrics and special effects.

Most every little girl was dressed up to be Elsa and very few were Anna costumes. Some had taken an extra step to get a blonde hair wigs. One of the attendees I spoke to said, “she felt she had come to Elsa heaven”. 

Door to door it was a total of 6 and half hours venture and well worth it. I forgot to mention, as with everything Disney it's not cheap.

Puppy adoption

Sometime last year Sandhya and I decided to adopt a 4 legged pet (read dog). We thought it would be nice for Avni to have a pet doggie to grow up with. So the search began, initially we thought of adopting a young/adult dog but soon fell in love with pups. Needless to say our adopted pup will be coming home sometime next week. Yes, will post some pics once she arrives.  In this process we worked with multiple rescue organizations across Austin and here are some of the learnings.

• The best resource on the web to find dogs and pups is petfinder.com
• Pups get adopted real fast, if you see something today and like its pic, get to action right away else it will be gone before you realize
• In general whether it is a dog or a pup, I recommend to adopt from a fosters home rather than straight up from the shelter
• There are a ton of pitbull and pitbull mix dogs and puppies available for adoption
• I must have met close to 8-10 foster parents and all of them were very good people. I did learn a great deal by interacting with them
• Be prepared for heartbreaks, for the pup/dog you fell in love might already have an application pending
• Most shelters pull dogs/pups from euthanize list and I am very certain one will never know the dad is but sometimes the mommy dog gets rescued and you get to see at the least 1 parent.
• The fosters are highly motivated people and are experts in the field, interact with them and they can teach a lot. 
• Its one thing to meet a dog in the fosters home and completely different to see it in your own home (hint: if you can get the foster to bring the dog to your home, that’s the ideal scenario).
• If you are ok with a mixed breed dog/pup and not hung up on pure breeds, adopting from shelter much much cheaper.
• Considering the fosters pretty much could be living all over town and sometimes in next town, it does take decent amount of driving to find the right one.
• Patience, patience and more patience    

Austin Pets Alive: Previously known as Town lake animal shelter, located on the banks of town lake. They are mostly a volunteer driven organization and they have a huge collection of dogs and pups. They have a very well designed and searchable website. They mostly work through emails and phone calls rarely. The best part, they have a matchmaker service too, she is pretty helpful specially if you are looking to adopt an adult dog. One thing I didn’t like about them is the fact they did not inform in advance if there was an adoption pending and their website has no way of indicating the same.  

Austin Dog Rescue: I have to admit, these guys are my favorite amongst all (even though I couldn’t adopt from them). They do not have a physical shelter but only work through foster programs. These guys are very structured and do have a very well maintained website, once I showed interest in a dog/pup by emailing the co-ordinator, the foster would call to discuss about the dog/pup and about us (family, house, yard and all) and if they are satisfied they will setup an appointment for meet and greet. If the foster likes the interaction then we go ahead with the adoption process. The foster has the final say in adopting the dog to us.

Austin Animal Shelter: This is a city of Austin Animal shelter and very professional one. They have a 2 step procedure, first show up at the shelter and do the required paper work to become eligible for adoption and then look around their website or the kennels and most dogs/pups go on a first come first serve basis unless they are in foster program where the foster has the final say. Unlike other shelters where they pull dogs/pups from being euthanized, I believe Austin Animal shelter works only with stray and owner surrenders.   

Craigs List: This was my favorite place when I was looking for adult dogs, but the experience wasn’t that great. Lot of the dogs that people are looking to rehome on craigslist are big dogs (80-90LB). I got close to meet and greet through craigslist twice but did not go through with either of them, in one case the lady cancelled the meeting 2 hours before the scheduled time and another case they wanted to hand me the dog over to me in the middle of the road (it became more of an ethical dilemma). On the whole It’s pretty entertaining to read through some of the posts.

Other organizations worth mentioning are

Relocation rescue: they usually post on craigslist and won’t find them on petfinder. I am in good touch with the Austin contact and she is very motivated to find good home for dogs/pups.

Love a Bulll Austin: These guys mostly work with PitBulls and their mixes, super focused on those breeds. They are working hard to eliminate the social stigma that comes with Pit Bulls and are willing to house the dog at our house for however long we think we need to before we say yes/no for adoption. Somehow I am not a Pit Bull fan butt I did end up meeting one of their dogs and sort of liked her.  

Austin Humane Society: I barely worked with them and they are mostly phone based people and not email. I believe they have a shelter somewhere on Anderson Mill road and 183.