milwaukee snaps
Milwaukee is a real beautiful county and the beauty is compounded a 100 times when it snows with the while sleet of ice that gives an impresion of a never ending blanket laid over the whole wide plains. Posted below are few snaps taken near my appartment and nearby places. Hope you would enjoy them.
Bush in India
embarked upon next of Crichton's novel, State of Fear, but i amnot going to talk of Crichton again here. I happened to be passing by the wall mounted TV by the corridor and wa reminded that Bush is visiting India today. As expected Pakistan is a oart of his tour as well. I never understood why US doesnt respect the capability of nations to overcome their disputes bilaterally, but hten hte blame could be squarely put on Pakistan that has been crying for a third party intermediation in the talks since Day 1. A word of appreciation needs to be conferred on the US Administration for recognising the potential threat that exist in the subcontinent posed by the control of Nuclear warheads by hte Pak Army and the intervention of US in terms of imposing sanctions and maintaining countinued pressure on them. The war on terror had laid doubts in the minds of the most nations on US intentions to revamp their cold war allies and enter another covert operation which might lead to another mess as Al Quaida, which in fact was a CIA brain child.
Things are looking up today with the US administration's firm stand on the necessity for Pakistan to return to democratic governancy, relinquish covert support to all terrorist outfits and respect LOC with India. One of my friends recently brought to my attention the article in Rediff which stated that India was one country that was offered maximum number of US Visas in 2005 which was 30% of total visas issues in all. To add to that the number of visas issued in 2006 till date have allready crossed the 2005 year numbers. Things sure seems to be looking up for Indo-US ties.
Crichton's Prey
spent the weekend pouring over a paperback novel. God I hope dad doesnt hear that, he has allways been concerned i am more inclined towards reading garbage than anything else. All said and done I however feel Micheal Crichton novels have a powerful way of updating the laymen of latest scintific revolutions and the implications it might have, often in an intimidating way. Often have i wondered if he is not endangering teh growth of research in the fields he writes on by giving them an ominous touch, but one thing i swear is that at the end of the day if u need a real thriller u need to look upto crichton.
The amount of research he does on each of hte subjects he writes makes u wonder if he is a reasearch student or a science fiction author. The bibliography for each of his novels often runs to 3 or 4 pages!!! I really do admire the perseverence shown by an author to bring out quality work agains all odds. I expected Crichton to be a young person and hte feeling was further rooted by hte pictures that i saw at the end of each of his books. Yesterday i took the effort to read through the author description to note with wonder that he is a person of 56 years!! Well some may consider that a young age though.
Prey, the novel i read was about nano particles, distributed intelligence, networking and the related stuff. I wondered if a supposedly techie nerd as me could not compleletly comprehend all the stuff in there, what would a layman make of hte whole thing. But somehow it seemed to be just clicking.
post from US
it makes me feel awkward to pen my post from US actually 17days aftercoming here. better late that never, so they say.
i am here at waukesha in wisconsin. i wouldnt be surprised if no one back home havent heard of waukesha since most of my friends couldnt recollect having heard of a state called wisconsin. milwaukee is the nearest city from here and the fact chicago is below a 100 miles should be a solace.
A beautiful county with nice and entle people is what waukesha is. They say the europeans leaft all their ways of life back here when they left here. I was consufed and shocked the first time i landed here. I could never digest the concept of smiling at a stranger and wishing him which is hte way of life here. People greet each other irrespective of hte fact you are a stranger or acqaintance, havent seen them show a difference in the respect. Winters are pretty long an harsh in this part of hte world, starting in October the snow doesnt recede till its March end and somehow i seem to have decided to land here in hte middle of it all.
The GE Healthcare office is as new as i am to this place, which meant to say that the first operational day of the office and my first business day in US seemed to coincide. I would consider that auspicious and a sign of a long standing relationship i might have with this place and the people out here. Another fact i good here is the work culture they stuck to and hte flexibility they exercised in balancing their time between work and family ensuring the delicate balance isnt affected.
Waukesha Public library, one of hte first official building i ever visited in Waukesha was a breath taking experience. I felt a storm of relief to see one of my dreams were coming true here and a pand of pain that none of the indians had such a previlege back in India. I resolved solemnly that some day I would build a library back in India where students and all people who loved to read could come and collect all their favourites. Perhaps that could be one of my post retirement plans I am setting at this early age. I beleiove its this abode of knowledge that ensure people in waukesha doesnt feel the pinch of the virtual house arrest they are forced into by the harsh winter.
I have been reading a book by Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretaries of state during Cinton's regime. He was the person in charge of diplomatic ties with India and pakistan and held the herculian task of convincing both nations into join the NPT philosophy. The book talks about the meetings he had with Jaswant singh, who initially was the forriegn affairs secretary and the most trusted aide of Vajpayee. Jaswant singh later was promoted to the minister of external affiars in the midst of stiff opposition from many parts of the NDA for the reason for he was a moderate in all respects among men who were considered religious fanatics. I never knew Jaswant was a Major in the Indian Army at one point of time untill i read this book. I used to wonder what ran through his mind when he uttered those incorrigible sentences littered with most complicated verbatim in all his interviews. The book, a must read for all Indians gives and unbiased story of the freedom struggle of indian, independence, paritiand and diplomatic policies since then, politics of India and struggles and sacrifices Indian elite polititians took up for hte cause of hte nation.
It would be next wednesday till visit the library anothe time, let me make good of time by reading anotehr of hte thrillers from crichton, the author of jurassic park.
