New Beginnings

So it will be a new beginning for me from Jan 1st onwards.

I had the thrill of running a successful company and growing something from nothing into a successful company that was able to help thousands of people find a career.

It will be melancholy to not deal with my employees on a daily basis, that is what I will miss the most.

I tried to be fair in everything I did.  I did the best I could.  Thank you, to all my staff and employees.  I had a lot of fun and my share of heartache but overall it was awesome.

I will keep you guys updated as to the weight loss and how it is going with the travel.

I have a lot of assets and stuff and today the new Blackberry Classic came out and I had to buy that of course.

But in 2015 I was thinking that I was not going to a single discretionary item (Non-Essential).  I wanted to see it feels like to not care of want anything.  So no buying houses, no land, no phones, no laptops etc...

It is is still in the planning stages but I will let you know my decision and how it feels to live like that.

Priya Pictures and Videos

Priya and Neeta in CA.  This is a place with Rocks like the one Priya is sitting on, where the kids are supposed to climb them:

Just chilling in her play room:

 Priya being silly with her pant on her head: (In CA at her sisters house, they just moved in, hence the new TV on the ground)

Priya at Holi:

Priya Dressed as Krishna:

Priya Dressed as Krishna, Closeup:

Priya Ready for a Party:

Dad holding Mom, oops that's Priya:

Priya - Boundless Energy

Priya is just a ball of energy or I simply have not been around kids enough.  Thank goodness for Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger TV show.  That is only time we can get her to sit quietly for about 30 minutes.

Besides those quiet moments she is a constant whirl of activity.  She wants to run everywhere and will invariably fall.  She keeps climbing the breakfast table and sits on top and eats.  I constantly fear that she will fall and sit her head.

I guess that is simply part of having a child, they do not listen and will do exactly what they want.

We will have to see how my mom handles her during the summer when she will be in India.  My mom is also a bundle of energy, but Priya is going to wear her out. 

I guess this is how we were when we were young, but I simply do not remember that far back.

Girls Are Vindictive

Based on a lot of experiences, I would say that girls are very vindictive.  The more vindictive they are, they less likely they are to make a good wife.

I think one of the defining qualities in a good wife, is the ability to forgive and forget.

I think the older, a girl gets, the less they are able to forgive and forget and the worst a wife they make.  This is probably why older guys marry such young girls, they are simply more forgiving.

I even consider my ex-wife a friend of mine.  I am unsure what she considers me, but I do consider her a friend.

It is only because of her, that I was able to become a success.  She made me step out into the world and prove myself.  My daughter is a direct result of my extra efforts to have a kid.

Every baby bird gets thrown out of the nest and only because I was thrown out was I able to become a success, in the classical sense of the word.

So Priya, when you meet my ex-wife, in case you ever do, be sure to thank her.  You are the direct result of her throwing you dad out of the nest.

This Hurt Me a Lot

I told you I met Nalini at the wedding reception and I asked for her Brother-In-Law's phone number.  He was a pretty close friend of mine, Prasad.  I told you in the previous entry that I owed his friend $5000 and I really wanted to pay it back.  I had no clue as to Dean's or Prasad's last name.  I only got the last name when I was looking through Nalini's friends list and I saw that her sister was still using her ex-husbands last name.  That is when it stuck me, what Prasad's last name was and I searched on Facebook and I found him.  Without that last name there is no way I could have found him.  I then added him as a friend and he accepted and I got his number.

I told him that I have been searching for his contact for a long time and that I wanted, nay, had to, pay back Dean the money I owed him.  He was very happy that I had called him and we had a nice long talk.  I talked to Dean and he was happy to hear from me also.  From what Prasad told me Dean is well off, and probably did not care about the money.  But that was not for me to decide weather he needed the money or not.  I owed it to him and I HAD to pay it back to me.

Sometimes things like this slip your mind after an initial try.  I Goggled Dean and shipping, because I knew he had a shipping company.  Not much.  I Googled Dean and Prasad, but really without a last name it is pretty much impossible to find someone.  So I gave up looking and I forgot about it.  Seeing Nalini gave me the initiative to try again and this time with the last name I was successful.

So today I checked Facebook and I got this message from Nalini:

As you wrote “People do not change. Your opinion of them when you knew them is probably the valid opinion." My intuition about you was correct…you said that I don’t know the new Vijay, but you appear to have not changed at all. After what 10-15 years or longer of not being in touch and asking me for Prasad’s number was transparent. It seems that if you really wanted to pay Dean back, you would have found a way to get in touch with him without my assistance. You were obviously resourceful enough to find his number on your own and leads me to believe that you were trying to find out information that is none of your business concerning my family affairs. Your comments and conclusions that you’ve drawn are inappropriate and strike me as malicious. You’ve shown your true character and you are certainly not someone I would consider as a friend or want to be in my life. Perhaps you are extremely bored and unhappy in life to write about other people in your blog. Please do not bother responding as I am blocking you.

I am guessing that she thinks I am trying to pry into her families life.  I do not care about her family life or what is going on.  I was just excited to meet someone from my past.  Asking for Prasad's number, was exactly what I explained I needed it for.  Nothing more.  It was not trying to pry into your families life.  I have no clue what happened to you all after I left DC and I never once tried to even find out, because I simply had no interest.  

Now I did talk to Prasad and we are getting together in DC on Dec 20-21 along with Dean.  They were excited to meet up and I am very excited to meet them.

I think when you want to read others actions as evil and malicious, you can do that,  if that is what you thought going in, no matter how innocuous an action or a comment might have been.

About the last thing I am in my life is bored.  If you want to use the words: over-worked, over-burdened, stressed, then yes you can substitute any of those words in place of bored.  

As far as writing my blog, it is mostly about me, and hardly about anybody else. Mostly pictures of my daughter and mainly about me.  I write my blog because I enjoy it and I hope my daughter learns from it and can hopefully not make the same mistakes that I made.  I do not think you read many entries.

I was truly excited in seeing friends from my past.  But just by asking for a phone number for an ex-brother-in-law I get a comment from you like the above, it seems to show a high degree of mistrust.  I am unsure what I did to you to get to that level of mistrust.  If you do not consider me a friend, I respect that and will consider all my future actions with those words in mind when and if I have to ever deal with you again.

Thomas Wolf, wrote: "You can never go home again".

Truly things and people change and you cannot recapture the moments from your past.  Really no use in dwelling on the past, it is much better to move ahead.  

Not sure why, but Nalini's comments really hurt me.  When I read them, my heart was racing and I actually felt pain.  If I was someone more emotional, I am sure I would have burst into tears, but lucky for me, I can internalize pain and keep it inside of me and keep a smile on my face.

Prasad and Dean I am excited about meeting up with you guys in DC on Dec 20-21.  I think it would have been more fun in Vegas, but DC is fine too.

Dean - Chance to Fix a Mistake

There are always mistakes you make in your past and it is nice to be able to correct those errors.

I had borrowed $5000 from a friend of a friend of mine.  After a few years I wanted to pay it back but I was never able to get in touch with my friend.

I tried googling him, I tried contacting other friends of his.  Nothing.

I had this on my mind for so long and I really wanted to pay this money back to Dean.

I went to this wedding in DC this weekend and I got hold of his Ex-Wife and her sister and they claimed that they did not know his number.  I was surprised by that.  You do not the phone number for the father of your child?  Weird!  I did not remember my friends last name, but then I checked Facebook and my friends ex-wife is still using his last name.  A Facebook search later and a friend request gets accepted and boom, I got hold of Prasad.  Prasad gave me Dean number and I called him and told him how I owed him money and I wanted to send it to him.

He was, of course, surprised and pleased that somebody had the integrity to want to pay this money back.  Prasad told me that Dean is well off and the money is not a big deal to him.  But like I said, an obligation is an obligation, and when you get a chance to fix a mistake from your past, you jump on it.

So I am sending him the original $5000 today that I owed him and $10,000 towards the interest in a month or so.

I feel like a burden has been lifted off my shoulder with this payment.

I am meeting up with my friends, Prasad and Dean, on Dec 20-21 in DC.  It has been a long time and it will be fun to get together again.   Dean now has 4 kids and Prasad has 2 kids, so I guess our conversations will be much different than the past.

28 and 22 Year Old

There is this 28 year old from my past that wants to marry me and I told her no way.  I even had a 22 year old tell me that I was not to old and that she could see her herself with an older man.  I just smiled, it is cute to think about it, but no way. 

Now that I am much older and do not even know how to handle a 28 year old's energy, much less a 22 year old, I am getting offers.  Life is so unfair. 

So let us get this straight.  I would not make a good husband.  I have a million other things going on.  You would come way too low on my schedule to be happy.  I am trying to free up my schedule so that I have more time for my daughter.

 I will give you the same advice that I would to my daughter.  Find someone near you own age or possibly even younger and in super good health.  It almost does not matter what he does for a living as long as he is smart.

At worst send him to me and I will train him for a $100,000 job and have him working in 6 months in a good IT job.

Kumo in DC

I was getting ready for the trip to travel the world and Kumo is now in DC with the girls.  I am sure that he will get lots of attention there.

Ramakka's house has a big fenced backyard that he can enjoy himself in.  Kumo enjoy yourself buddy in your own backyard. 

Ariel had to put her dog down because of some cancer and I will sure will come over a lot and play with you also.  So you really have 4 girls to take care of you. 

Anisha is planning on taking you to the park and running with you, so good luck with that.  By the time I come back from the trip you will be a lean mean Akita.

Wedding Reception

I went for a wedding reception in DC and I met Nalini there.  After my divorce there was really only 2 girls I though of meeting from my past and one of them was Nalini.

It was nice seeing her, I had no idea that she was coming to the wedding.  It was crazy loud at the wedding and I never really got to talk to her, except for a casual hello.

It is crazy that I did not know her last time.  I knew her for years and never got around to knowing her last name. If I had known her last name I would have definitely gotten in touch with her.  She was one of the truly nice ones from my youth.

It was surprising that hardly any of the kids from my generation came for the wedding only Lakshmi, Lalitha, Kalpana and Nalini were there.  No Suman, No Ramu, No I forgot the rest of the names.  I was happy to see Kalpana's son, Shaunik there.  A lot of the kids that I grew up up, acted a lot more American and distanced themselves from the India side.  I was always more Indian than American.  I love Telugu movies but I love American Football and my Redskins.  I think I am a good mix of both and I am able to mix well with both groups.

Good thing you never married me Nalini, I am a terrible husband.  Good provider, but terrible husband.  I am sure my current wife would agree with me.

Priya Victory

The doctor told us to stop giving Priya milk in her bottle.  So Neeta tried to give milk to her in a cup, a sippy cup, in a tetra pak with a straw.  In each instance she would take a sip realize it was milk and refuse to drink out of it.

So Neeta figured that if we only give it in those containers she would eventually give in and drink her milk.  For 3 days Priya refused to drink milk and finally we are back to giving her milk in her bottle, the way she likes it.

Score:

Priya - 1
Neeta - 0