Lotteries - Inorganic

Root cause of this post is the recent Ad I saw in TV for Georgia Lottery and a long back seminar in AdventNet.

In the Ad, a white man knocks the door of a house and introduces himself as 'you own lost brother' to the millionaire who opens the door. The afro-american millionaire then closes thee door without even a word. The Ad suggests to go for Georgia Lottery instead of other shortcuts.

In the seminar in AdventNet, back in 2002, in the closed-dark-airconditioned-dinning-hall, Sridhar Vembu was explaining what kind of growth the company wants. It is an organic growth rather than an inorganic growth. What happens out of an inorganic growth. Kind of Cancer. Not the one, any body in the world would wish for. Sridhar was explaining that an organic growth can hardly be noticed, unless otherwise you compare snapshots. But it is the real healthy growth. I was inspired.

The lottery in my opinion seems to be an inorganic growth. I don't get, how an average person would better manage a million dollar cash without a prior experience.

I still believe, anything but nothing can beat your hard & the consistent work. There is no shortcut, to heaven or hell, than a birth and death :)

US Fedral Tax dept called me! To sue?

5th time in 2 weeks, today got the call from US Fedral Tax dept. What for? Did I not pay the tax? Or not filed the return? No. I have paid my tax and filed the return. The call say's that I have $600 refund. But I have already got the refund a month ago. Then how come I can expect another return?. May be its the stimulus package which is released this year, for an additional return. But by the Economic Stimulus Payment Calculator, I'm not eligible for it.

But the call said me I've $600 more return waiting for me. On taking the call, it asks me whether I would like to get the tax return $s. First time when I got the call, I said YES. However I couldn't wait to hang once they asked my bank details to put the money in my account. God, I have got my return a month back. US Government directly deposited my money into my bank account. Now this Federal phone call, asks me again my bank details. What a kind heart for them to keep calling me for the 5th time, to give my money? :)

Apart from this call, I get lot of mails from Bank Of America (BOA) asking me to login immediately and verify this & that, reset this and that. But the very first printout I got from BOA read that BOA will never ask its customers to login to the online banking by email. :) When I get the email from BOA requesting me to login and do this and that very immediately, I checked out the URLs for login. The URLs in the emails, lead to the same site of BOA except a single difference. Slight variations in the url in the address bar.

Beware.

I'm my driver

After four months of life in carrollton, GA, I finally fell for a car. I used to rent vehicles and used to look for one, couple of week-ends. On Jan 5th visited a dealer Honda Carland in Roswell, GA. It was 70+ miles away from my place. I heard their name from my cousin Joshi and visited their web inventory and found so many good vehicles of my expectation. So visited them, found a good car. Negotiated and bought the car on the same day. All I did alone. Its a good experience.

Its a Honda Accord Ex-L 2004 model. One feature I make use so much is the 6 disc changer Music System. I loaded 6 CDs of my favorites and listening to them whatever I like while driving without manual loads / unloads. Till now I haven't taken any photo of the car. Here are some pictures of the car from the dealer's web inventory.

The car doesn't completely wipe off my bad 07-08 transition. I just became my driver.

07 - 08 transition

One thing i wish never happen again is the transition of 2007 to 2008. Whenever I took leave from my friends / relatives, I never felt like leaving them forever. Reason - I used to think I can anytime contact them by mail or phone. So I usually keep lot of things with me, thinking of sharing them in future.

But life is not simply that I can guess, expect or believe. I was proved wrong, when my uncle passed away in Dec 07. I knew him from my child hood, from the day he came as a bridegroom to see my aunt. He was a kind man. I loved him and respected him. He used to talk to me & advise me on several things. But most of the time, when I wished to share something with him, I kept that for later time. Now he is no more.

On the day he passed away, I heard 2 bad news one by one. One is about my uncle and the other about a friend of mine who faced some critical problems in life.

Apart from these the difficulties I faced in getting the driver's license in US, the two weeks fight with my cold, fever & cough and a speeding ticket every thing made sure that I had a worse transition I ever faced in my life before. One good thing is that all these bitter experiences teach me the new bounds of humbleness.

may be everybody knows it, then why

Was watching the "Billionaire Inside" in CNBC (a spill here) , an interview with Donald Trump. It was interesting to watch the program because of the intelligent questions shot by the audience in the hall and some from different part of the world (Singapore, Dubai for some). It was so interesting not only because of the intelligent questions but beyond that because of the intelligent and beautiful answer back. And i was impressed when Donald said that if he would have to for an Ad in CNBC that would cost him a lot, however now he is the hero of the show in CNBC for an hour at no-cost.

Ok, so were the questions were totally different that you have never heard or thought about? No absolutely not. Then how was the answers of Donald. I know the answers were not new for me. However it was truly interesting to watch his answers live. I don't understand the magic here, how it is still interesting to hear something you have already heard? May be I was trying to correlate his replies with the other people from who I have heard the same messages.

I have read Stephan Covey. I have listened to and read, Sridhar Vembu the CEO of AdventNet or ZOHO.

Couple of things, common or the same, that each of these people I have heard, is that
* dream / think smart / stand out
* believe what you think
* love what you do
* implement it
* never quit
* fight

If some reads this again and again, he / she may get bored on the above steps. But it was interesting to hear these from Donald Trump. Erin Burnet (hope the name is correct) was conducting the interview did her job well by asking specific questions and by not going far away from the subject. It was an interesting program to watch.

Back to the title of this blog, are these tips or advices are something new from the sky? No. Guess already so many people know these and have heard this. But the thing is they don't believe it to a level that is required to push him / her off to start implementing. And the TV shows like this, in my sense, might help the people, not simply to get the tips but far from that, to believe the concept and get motivated by the people like Donald Trump, who have had already proven and sitting and sharing right in front of the audience.

A nice interview, I watched in TV instead of studying for my Driver's license :)

One other thing I miss

Some time back, I wrote this.

One of the big things I will miss in 'AdventNet' and there is no guarantee that I will get it anywhere else is the 'Sangeetha Megam' team.

The one other thing, I'm missing is the free-of-cost motivation, energy and enthusiasm from the blogs and forums. Apart from the friendly and flexible culture of the company, one big boom for the employees of AdventNet / Zoho (its new brand) is the internal blogs and the forums (ofcourse power driven by the CEO Sridhar Vembu).

It simply means that it costs my time now to gather the most hot on the web. Thanks to the Google Reader. BTB, wondering will a reader be on the line of delivery from Zoho (or is there one already?).

My 2 special b'days after my childhood

After my school days, I usually don't celebrate my B'days great. After my school days, to date, I had two special birthdays.

1) I dont remember which one it was. But it was the one during my MCA degree. I had to call my aunt who was at that time in Bangalore, India. All my cousin brothers and sister joined to sing the birthday song for me. I was very that day.

2) My 30th B'day. This is my first B'day out of India. As usual I was not very specific about the day. But my cousin Joshi, his wife and my friend Sherine and her brother vivek, who are close by me here, made my day special. We celebrated it one day earlier, since the actual day is a working day. Uma shankar, vivek's friend also joined the lunch and the cake-cut. They all made me so glad on the day.

About my B'days

I usually don't celebrate my B'days much. I used to think, so what. That was my childhood days, where my B'days were hyped in my family. That was a joint family. We (my parents, brothers and sisters) lived together with my grand parents and uncles and aunts. On my B'day, I used to get good new dress, sweets and loving & caring words from every body at home. I used to get greeting cards from my friends. No one scolds me or beat me. I used to enjoy and have fun all through the day.

But one thing I could wonder all through the day was how my so loving dad on that day, will turn so cruel to me on seeing my progress report, that I will bring home, in another 2 / 3 days once my school reopens. Yes my B'day used to fall few days before my school reopens after my quarterly exam holidays. Though I used to enjoy my B'day, deep in my heart there will a very great fear of my progress report. Though I wished to study well, I never got good marks. I started studying well once my dad stopped stressing for good marks :)

After my school days, I never celebrated my B'day well. I usually will be reminded of my B'days by my friends and family. But never enjoyed it well, as in my childhood. But this 30th B'day, was bit special. Will post more on that later. GTG.

Orkut updated my profile without my permission

4 days back, noticed that orkut updated my profile without my knowledge / permission. Usually, any profile-update will be done by the owner. But this was an exception. And I see this the first time in orkut.

I did not have any control over it. I did not update it. However, it was updated. Ok, to be honest, ofcourse, I did get some clues. The day before the update happened without my acceptance, my relatives and friends reminded me that. My wife called me at 12 'O clock, midnight, to say about that. But I never thought orkut will update my profile that I'm now 30 years old. 'cause I never asked it to do so. :(

Time to revamp

After a long time, i posted in my music blog about my 3yr old composition. I feel very bad, i dont have anything new to update. Also reviewed my old posts. I guess its time for revamp and improve.