Ladybird picture books were my childhood pals even before I learned to read a single word. I warmly recall cozy winter afternoon siestas spent right next to my mom, wondrously poring over lives of Snow White, Thumbelina, Rapunzel, Hansel & Gretel, Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty… My friendship circle widened over time, and I had many historical adventures with gods and kings in Amar Chitra Katha’s, accompanied with laughs in the company of Chacha Chaudhary, Sabu and Suppandi....

I have further questions than reasons given in my previous post on meditation. Questions like: Why is having a meditative state of mind better than a non-meditative one? Why does meditation or spirituality interest people my age? Information and good reasons from the book I found good arguments (that resonated well) while reading Sam Harris’s 2014 book: Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. Sam is a Stanford graduate, and has a PhD in Nueroscience from UCLA....

I feel blessed and deeply grateful for family and friends celebrating and showering us with love. It was an entertaining energetic evening, and a fabulous kick start for a rocking 2023! 6:30p was the time, and driving along the rain soaked highways made us concerned of being late ourselves. Settling into Amber’s lower party hall was a breeze, and the place resembled more of a cozy, elegant and comfortable living room....

Rain storms in a drought ridden state are a rarity, and worth savoring. Growing up, I have fond memories of wearing rubber raincoats and making my way to school in Delhi’s heavy rains. I love the earthy smell, the pitter patter of raindrops, the breeze that typically accompanies a rainfall. Figure 1: Morning rain, Delhi, India I love freedom and lightness when submerged in water. Taking the mundane daily shower is one of the most fun daily activities....

I am blessed to work in a job whose sole purpose is solve problems. I help solve problems: with customers, to simplify their work with developers, to use technology both efficiently and effectively, and build their careers, with managers, to plan projects, set processes, coordinate resources and dependencies with product managers, to bring ideas to life I am often faced with evaluating competing solutions, and many times I have to help break a tie in two similar solutions....

Software as a Service (SaaS) business is unlike .COM, which provided internet based alternatives for conducting commerce (example: Amazon), auctions (example: eBay), travel (example: Expedia), and finance (example: E*TRADE) using desktop browsers initially, and now using mobile applications. SaaS is a paradigm shift in the implementation, delivery and usage of software applications. SaaS uses two ways to distribute software applications: Web apps: use the public internet to deliver software to users, making delivery costs close to zero Mobile apps: use proprietary app stores, which slap on extra penalty of 30%....

Setting up devops is a learning journey for most programmers. Early in my engineering career, before cloud computing was invented, making my programs work in my company’s datacenter could be summed up as making the program: configurable: by having no hardcoded paths and secrets in the code, supporting feature flags (both static - which were driven through property files, and dynamic - driven through databases) deployable: in different machines other than mine....

Its been a rocky start for my journey to be a consistent meditation practitioner. As resources, I referred to both the Calm app and Pema Chodron’s book on How to meditate. I am finding the book more useful and relevant for my current milestone to quiten my mind. I practice meditation in the morning, at the beginning of the day. I start a new Meditation workout on my Apple watch (in the hope that maybe health data such as BPM will be a useful review later on)....

I find joy, happiness, and pleasure in anticipating, experiencing, and reminiscing life events. Our 2016 sojourn in Iceland has me excited for our upcoming summer vacation plan to tour Scandinavia. Scandinavia is one of the least populated, most scenic, and well connected parts of Europe. Politically, Scandinavia is the collection of five countries: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Estonia. English is the second language of all peoples, making it convenient for US travelers....

I struggle maintaining healthy work life balance, and I suspect that this is true for many other software engineers. Recently, joining back work after an extended holiday break, I felt this disruption acutely. I actively need to tackle this problem, as otherwise I slip into an unhealthy pattern of constantly ruminating on work concerns. This leads to affecting quality time spent with family, and ultimately making performance at work suffer....