Angry Birds Cake

Angry Birds Cake :)

Resusciating the Blog

Its been a long time since we put up any content in the blog. What with me going on with the new Job and relocation I have not been able to put up anything in the blog
Hopefully this will change with 2012. Wishing you and your family a happy and prosperous new year.

Classic Hymns

Completed the fourth practice of Classic Hymns. It is an initiative started by Mr.Binu Thomas to bring the various choirs of Chennai as one mass choir singing timeless ancient hymns. 2 Editions have been completed and this is the third one. The project website can be found here

For me there are three exciting things about the classic hymns. The first one is singing in a mass choir of close to 300 voices belonging to different denominations different choir traditions. The fun thing is trying to integrate your voice into one voice and learning from others. The depth of talent that is in this group is amazing and you can learn a lot.

The second thing is the opportunity to see various groups performing in one stage. Its been close to 2 years since I saw the male voice ensemble perform and now I can watch them in the DVD any time I want. Classic hymns has provided a way to record the performance of all these groups in a video which would be a good legacy to future generations.

The last and the most fascinating thing for me is watching the different conductors take the mass choir through their paces. Each person brings their own expertise and knowledge to the group adding to the richness of the sound. Its absolutely fascinating watching the conducting styles, warm ups and interpretation of the songs. That for me is the best part of classic hymns

I hope that this initiative grows on for the Glory of God in the coming years

Beijing Pics

Shanghai restaurant - Funny Pics

A harsh welcome to Chennai Traffic

Back to Chennai after a year. I have already started enjoying the choir practices, food and the friends here. However I was given a harsh wake up call to the Chennai traffic. The traffic light was red and there was a full 15 seconds before green. The auto behind me started honking and with 10 seconds to go every one started moving and I was given dirty stares by the others for not moving.

What is the rush guys ? Why cant we wait for 10 more seconds ? Of the last 2 weeks I have started driving I keep seeing accidents every 2 days from the minor to the major. And do not tell me we need stricter enforcement. Strict rules are needed. But what is the need of the hour is adherence to the rules from the public. When we speak disparagingly of some traffic cops seeking bribes do we not stop to think how many times we violate the traffic rules every day. Are we nor more guilty than them. It is almost a matter of pride when we cut a red signal.

The number of fatal traffic accidents in Tamilnadu has gone up from 11,000 in 2007 to 12,727 in 2009. With the increase in the number of cars and bikes we are going to see more number of such cases. It is up to us to have a little more patience in making the city roads a safe place

A interesting article in Hindu can be found here

An interesting blog post on the same topic can be found here

VTV

Last night me and the missus finished watching VTV - Vinnai thandi Varuvaya. My wife as a rule makes me read the review of the movie and confirm her the storyline and the ending. Anything other than a happy ending means I have to watch it alone (Which come to think of it,is not a bad thing at all). My mom is also the same. She calls me up from India to check with me some random movie in KTV to find out the ending before watching it. I assure her that the heroine will die due to cancer and the hero will commit suicide out of happiness. Oh the joys of riling your mom.
They both belong to the category of people who think that any movie with a sad movie is not a movie at all. And as this comprises films from Bala, Ameer, Sasikumar, Balaji Sakthivel I have to watch those movies in isolation. For Kaka kaka my mom made me buy the DVD with the alternative ending.
Well we were watching the movie and reached the point where Simbu and Trisha part and the director shows One year and another one year. My wife ever suspicious of Gowatham Menon looked at me coldly and said that Trisha would have died at this point of time and thus the movies title "Vinnai Thandi Varuvaya". Thankfully that did not happen and though the twist at the end was not to her liking I found the ending to be the perfect fit for the movie. The unanswered questions at the end transform a OK movie to a great one. Good show

Going Home

Confirmed at last. April end I am returning to Chennai. Back to family friends choirs. Makes the heart warm all over to return back. I would be landing in chennai at peak summer. Would be curious to see how my son reacts.

I would be missing some of the things here. The daily outings, shopping. Especially shopping at Walmart and Costco. I was never good at shopping and my customary visits to buy clothes would be over in 15 mins. Here on any given sunday we would go to Costco, snack on the samples there browse through all the aisles without buying anything. We would spend at lease a hour and a half. The big carts also means that I can park my son in the cart. Whenever I come back from ofice if the mood was not good we would go to walmart spend an hour there aimlessly, pick up one or two baby food boxes and come. That is one thing which I would miss in Chennai.

However home is where my heart is and right now its set at chennai. Reminds me of one of mark lowrys funny songs about heaven. It can be found here. The lyrics can be found here.

Anyhow Chennai beware. The great one is returning

The "Completely" lost Symbol

Last week I completed reading of Dan Browns recent masterpiece "The lost symbol". I had a great expectation from the novel having read almost all his previous books.Of course his work is fiction and it should be treated as such. You should not read too much into an author who names his best selling work as "The of Vinci Code" (Italian da =of). And regarding his grammar , well we read the story for time pass right. However the telegraph did a good article on the most humorous phrases in his book. It can be found here.
Dan brown faithfully follows his time tested formula. Take any organization or religion and add a lot of controversies to the same. Put the novel in a location that has got a lot off odd ball architecture and you have a bestseller. The curiosity factor itself will sell the book. But the problem with the Lost symbol is the Pace and lack of a coherent plot. The Da vinci code was at least fast paced and it had a lot of things that were new. Symbology, lot of controversial myths about the church added to the storyline in Da vinci code.
However the Lost symbol has none of the above. The whole story revolves around the lost word which infact turns out to be bible. And according to Dan brown its not the work of god but man and you have to intrepret the truth in the bible. And to top it we are all god like the great one says. He does not even try to pull up some dirt about the free masonry an organization that is rife with more conspiracies than the Vatican. One wonders why when you compare it with the Da vinci code which does not have any reservations about the vatican.

Lost Symbol gets repetitive after some time. You have the same cast of characters similar to Da Vinci code Robert Langdons Mentor, an exotic villain, A beautiful and intelligent Heroine and instead of a dead body in the Lourve museum you have a hand. No big surprises in the end too.
Seems like he is sticking to the same format. But it becomes a tedium to the users after some time. And as is his custom he does not waste any time in indulging in some intellectual potshot at religious rituals and this time he even brings in Hinduism too.
A very good blog on his latest novel can be found at Krish Ashoks Blog here
If you have a lot of time in your hand you can go for it. Otherwise a strict no no

E Greetings

Yesterday we were invited to our friends baby shower. As usual I forgot until the last minute to pick up a card and called up the missus who is very creative. She found a very good site for doing greeting cards americangreetings.com.

She created the above printable card using the available templates and mailed it to me for taking a print out. We attached the same and a small diaper shaped sheet cutout to the gift basket and gave it to the couple. The site was very helpful

Excel to Pipe delimited

As part of my work I got an Excel file today. We had to convert it into Pipe delimited file and upload it. Normally the reverse is easy ie converting from Pipe delimited file to Excel. I was under the impression that this also would be easy and started the work. Half an hour later I was frustrated and googling all over the place trying to find the solution. I was looking at scripts add ons and what not.
Suddenly our of the blue the simplest solution came from a user in a forum. Simple and utterly effective
1. In the excel file find and replace all commas into a special character *

2. Convert the excel file into a CSV file Comma seperated file

3. Open it in notepad and find and replace all commas into Pipe |

4. Find and replace all the special characters * into commas.

Voila you have the Pipe delimited file ready. Sometimes you need to think simple. Thanks to the guy in the forum

PERFECT SPONGE CAKE

Among all the varieties of sponge cake i have tried,this was the most perfect one. This is a fusion of many recipes from different sites. It was a thrill to do such a try, but it did come out well. Iam sure every one likes it.

Ingredients

Egg-5
Sugar-1 cup
All purpose flour-1 cup
Butter(room temp)-6 tbsp (85gm)
Vanilla essence-2 tsp
Baking powder-1/2 tsp
Salt-a pinch

Method

1. In a large bowl (large enough for the mixing bowl to rest its base) heat 3 cups of water.

2. In a mixing bowl add the eggs and sugar

3. Keep it inside the hot water bowl and stir continuously till the eggs mix well and the sugar dissolves. This takes about 10 minutes

4. Take out the mixing bowl and start beating it with an electric beater till it becomes frothy. Start from low to high speed. This takes from 20 to 30 minutes.

5. Sift flour,salt and baking powder.

6. Once it is done fold in the above mixture little by little to the batter with a wooden spatula.

7. Mix butter and vanilla essence in a bowl.

8. Fold in this mixture to the batter.

9. Pour the batter in a greased cake pan

10. Bake the cake till a tooth pick comes out clean (about 15-20 min) in a preheated oven at 400 deg F.

The cake is done and when you piece them you'll see the real spongy texture of it. Enjoy!!!!

David Phelps - The voice

When I first saw the GVB the line up was David Phelps, Guy Penrod, Mark Lowry and Bill. They remain as my favorite line up. I missed David phelps in the first home coming I attended and wanted to see him perform and thank God I was able to do that in the Homecoming in Baltimore.
In the first session he did a solo version of Nessum Dorma. During the break I was buying hot dogs when a couple of people next to me were gesturing. It was David going to meet his fans. He found time to oblige every one with a smile and a photo. I desperately wanted to take a photo however could not draw up my courage to do that. I am going to do that in the next GVB concert.
I was hoping that he would sing "O Holy night" since it was a christmas concert and I was not dissapointed as the lights dimmed in the end. It was David doing the finale of the show. When he started the first few notes of O Holy night there was a huge cheer from the audience. My words would not do justice to the song. Please see the video posted by pastorichard in you tube here. Blessed to be part of the evening.

Twitterfeed

Found out a new way to update both my Facebook and Twitter accounts using this cool site

http://twitterfeed.com/dashboard

This is a test attempt to check that. Lets see the effectiveness of this

Google In my life

Was surprised lately by the list of Google applications I tend to use in my day to day activities. As it is the time of the year to put forward a list here’s my list of Google applications that I use. I have not added Gmail and Blogger to the list since those are obvious ones

1. Google Maps

I am directionally challenged and this is one important tool which I use before going out for any trip or outing. I have a GPS device but by the time it announces the turn I would be in a wrong lane and would have to drive 20 miles to get back to that point. In India I would have taken a illegal U-turn somewhere where there are no watching Mamas. Everybody tends to act the good guy here in the US. Beats me why.

Anyway I digress. I take a look at the routes and decide which one is the best for me. Not sure how effective this is going to be when I go back to India. When I had no GPS the Google maps in my mobile was a major help.

2. Google Voice

This is one great application that allows me to make cheap calls. It is not available in India as of now

3. Youtube

No intros needed for this

4. Picasa

All my photos go here for sharing.

5. Google Docs

Google’s answer to cloud computing. You can store up to 1 GB and pay for the additional storage.I have started uploading a few critical files

6. Google Wave

This would be helpful from a project management perspective. Not sure how good its going to be on a personal front.

7. Calendar

Have started using this one recently. The best usage will be when I buy a smart phone that would allow me to sync up to the calendar.

8. Google desktop

Started recently on this one. Need to see how I can leverage this.

9. Orkut

In spite of Facebook’s popularity still the more prevalent social networking site in India

10. Gtalk

Do not use this any more. However there was a time when this was my trusty companion.

I would love to have a Nexus phone to complement all these. However the contract / price makes me think. Lets see when they roll it out to India

Lullaby

All parents would have committed this monstrous crime against their child at one point or other. I believe we all have been corrupted by the mid 90s tamil movies that have a village backdrop. The common unifying factor in all these movies would be infants crying in the village. Enter our portly hero singing a lullaby. Precisely when the song ends all the children would go to sleep. I sure wish I could have put my son in that village. He would have given our hero a run for his money.
In our house at the first sign my son shows of going to sleep, I take him from the missus with a assured glance. I take him to a separate room lest I terrify her. Then I would bring out the inner artist in me at full flow. I serenade him with a whole bunch of philosophical songs that ponder on the Heavenly home to the Beatles. No full stops there. I bring out a lot of special effects , runs what not to my audience of one. He will start with a glance of "What is the issue with this guy" to "O My God Why me". And in spite of my concert would go to sleep.
At this point of time my wife will take over. She knows if I continue with the same enthusiasm he might wake up with nightmares. She will start the mothers only patented lullaby that goes with just a single sylable and humming a tuneless tune. Well its kind of effective. Of course anything after my solo recital would be music from the heavens.
Well speaking of lullabies my special favourite is the one by Eric clapton.

Good night my angel time to close you eyes
And save these questions for another day
I think I know what you've been asking me
I think you know what I've been trying to say

I promised I would never leave you
And you should always know
Where ever you may go
No matter where you are
I never will be far away

Good night my angel now it's time to sleep
And still so many things I want to say
Remember all the songs you sang for me
When we went sailing on an emerald bay

And like a boat out on the ocean
I'm rocking you to sleep
The water's dark and deep
Inside this ancient heart
You'll always be a part of me

Goodnight my angel now it's time to dream
And dream how wondeful your life will be
Someday your child will cry and if you sing this lullaby
Then in your heart there will always be a part of me

Someday we'll all be gone
But lullabies go on and on
They never die that's how you and I will be

The kings Singers version of the song is superb. You can view it here.

Of course it is nowhere near mine.

GATT Quintet

GATT Quintet

Recently I came across two old DD videos of the famous GATT Quintet in Youtube in Dr.Santhosham’s channel. A medley of Simon and Garfunkel songs and Country roads by John Denver. They can be seen here.

They brought back nostalgic memories of my childhood. I was in my 9th standard when I got a cassette of the GATT Quintet. I was hooked to male voice music from that time on. I still remember the deep bass voice of Dr. Grubb in Go Down Moses and the peppy Step into the water numbers from that cassette. They had the misfortune of singing in a period when the recording technology was in its evolution stage. Still you can hear the quality dripping from the songs. Their last CD GATT Together for Christmas is a superb collection of Christmas songs starting from the spirited “When was Jesus born” to the oriental “We three Kings” to the Tamil song “Senthamil Nadaenum Pothinilae”. The songs can be previewed here.

A brief note about the group

The members of the group are Dr Kalyan Subramanian, James Davids,Allan Sathyadev,Dr.Ravi Santhosham and Dr Samuel Grubb. They have been singing unchanged for the last 40 years.
It was their mutual love for music and a strong passion for african-american spirituals that brought four teenagers together more than forty years ago in the youth fellowship of the Emmanuel Methodist church in the southern city of Chennai, India. By the mid-seventies the young men graduated from college and embarked on separate career paths. two became physicians, one an account executive and one an aerospace engineer, who now lives in San Diego, USA, and whose absence brought a fifth member, also a physician, into the group. the GATT quartet thus became the GATT Quintet
Even though they are now separated physically, they are still held together by their love for music and the bond that they share with each other. Successes in their chosen career paths have made them pursue music for the sheer love of it and this shows in their performance.
They have performed in England, in N.Ireland, in USA, in Australia with the world voices in connection with the Sidney Olympics at the Sydney Opera House, in Bahrain.In 2009, the GATT Quintet performed as an alumni member at the 25th anniversary of the International church music festival in the Vatican, under the direction of Sir David Wilcocks.

Kolikari Dosa

Handwork by my Grandparents

GVB Homecoming Baltimore

Ever since coming to the US my desire was to attend one GVB homecoming, One Broadway musical and one classical concert. The first one on the list was ticked off when we went to the GVB Homecoming in Baltimore.The concert was on 12th December. It was a Saturday and we planned to leave some where around 10. As usual we woke up late and started at 1 and by the time we bought something to eat it was around 1.30.
From here to baltimore its around 3.30 to 4 hours and for a guy whose maximum drive previously was an hour this was a great feat. We started without any incidents and without any of my usual wrong lane problems. It was around 5.30 when we reached baltimore and we checked into the Homestead studio suites.
The concert was at 6 and we started around 6.30 from the place. Just when I started the car I realized that the ticket did not have the address and after going to the reception guy I got it. We reached the arena around 6.50 and to my chargin I realized that there was no parking nearby, I crossed the first Mariner Arena where the concert was passed two blocks and turned into a one way street. Thanks to a cabbie who warned me I turned about then retracted the same path and realized that there was a parking lot opposite the arena itself thanks to the missus.
I parked there and we rushed into the areana. My main fears were the concert would be half over and how long my son would allow us to stay there. We punched in our tickets got the flash lights and rushed into the arena. To our great relief Linda Randle was singing there. She was finishing with "Through it all" and then Bill Gaither came out and started the crowd singing. The lights dimmed and then the notes of "Alpha and Omega" came out and it was the GAITHER VOCAL BAND. I was waiting for this moment and was not disappointed.
Wes Hamption,Michael English, David Phelps,Mark Lowry and Bill gaither. They redid a couple of their favorites Satisfied,Journey to the sky,It is finished,Daystar,The love of God. It was odd to see 3 tenors. However the arrangments were different and Bill tried out different combinations. Gene Mcdonald of the Florida boys joining for Hide thou me. Our favorite was Glorious impossible.
I am normally not a big fan of Michael English. However my views went for a toss in this concert.Michael gave a very brief testimony. One of his quotes stuck in my mind. "Our God is a God of second chances". When he sang Daystar I was impressed and I began to understand why so many people go crazy when he sings. Wes was his usual impressive self. Mark, well you can never put down mark and he introduced the vocal band as the recycled Gaither vocal band. He remarked that as he grew old he is not able to run around his brain any more. Bill Gaither was his usual self and he got carried away during the Christmas sing along. He also payed the piano for Hide thou me.
David phelps was the stand out and when sand O Holy night. My, you have to listen to this guy live. I mean I have seen him singing O holy night hundreds of times(DVDs, Youtube). He blew the audience away when he sang it at the end.
There was a break in between and i went out with my son to get some snacks. There was a commotion and I turned around and saw it was david phelps. He was immediately surrounded by people. He patiently signed autographs posing for photographs. The thing that struck me all of them were simple and great in interacting with Fans. David had to tear himself away during the break. He did it with a smile in his face. After the concert was over other than bill , mark and wes everyone else was at the products table obliging all the fans with photos and autographs. Though I wanted to take a photo with David and Kevin I did not because as usual I was a little bit reluctant.
Over all it was a very uplifting experience and I will post more about it later