Pretty posers

The kids, were supposed to pose with the Golden gate in the background..

Jr. who is a pro, just turns on "smile on tap".

The little one on the other hand, was not in her mood. She was toying with daddy. On the one hand she wanted to pose for him, but on the other, she was pissed off that he wanted her to distract herself from all the things happening on the vista point and look at the same lens she has been staring at, at various vista points! The expression on her face, priceless.

The next day at Carmel by the Sea, she wanted to get her feet on the sand. While all the other three females in our entourage stayed put inside the van, sighting obvious reasons like temperature, wind speed etc., the little one walked out of the van with me and San's uncle, walked all the way to the sea and walked back. It was very windy and a little chilly and she wasn't wearing her jacket. On the way back to the van, we walked past a rock and she said "Daddy, put me on the rock and take my picture!"

and I did!

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The perks of having an MBA

One of the advantages of having an MBA is the ability to make the entire family happy. I know, this comment catches the business dudes off guard and makes them think "what am I missing here.. which class did I miss during my college days? How come no one told me this?..." etc.

The reason, you are caught off guard is because the MBA we are talking about here is not a Masters in Business Administration, but rather the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

Yes, we have access to the MBA. THE MBA! and it is awesome. We took San's uncle to get his MBA last weekend and had such a wonderful time.

The kids, were just thrilled. It was worth the almost 2 hour drive at short notice, because we got to see some amazing displays, contribute to aquatic research as part of the ticket proceeds, and literally, have a "whale of a time"! Add to that, it was bonding time for the kids with "Mama"!

Here are some photos from the trip.

San admiring the Jellyfish displays!

Trying to take "no flash" (yeah, no flash allowed!) pictures of dimly lit aquatic specimens through 1/2 inch thick plexiglass can be daunting. With the things moving reasonably fast, even if you have a tripod and use 1600 ISO, you are still going to come out feeeling "that photo could have been better".. so, I stopped taking pictures and just enjoyed the displays. You have to go there to enjoy it. Truly spectacular. Now for the little birds inside the various open exhibits.. They were all "collared" or "plastic ring identified"! and were very friendly with the humans!

Then there are the sea otter exhibits and the giant kelp forest. The thing holds more than half a million gallons of water, they say.. You are just dwarfed by the scale of the exhibit. Makes you get a grasp of how insignificant we are. It is not easy to create that effect in an indoor exhibit, but the MBA pulls it off.

We had a great time in the "sit out" facing the ocean. They have a lot of gulls coming to eat fries, seals on the far off rocks, and little free telecopes (binoculors) to watch the kayakers, pelicans, etc.

You cross this and go into a play area for kids. The kids just refused to come out. We learnt a lot about Dolphins, whales and sea lions in the kids area. Nice displays. Good fun.

The kids then got to "touch" various sea creatures and get a "feel" for marine life. Initially they were scared, but then touched starfish, clams, crabs, sea anemones, etc. etc. You even get to touch a stingray in one of the exhibits.

A day well spent. We were glad to show San's uncle something he would normally not see in India.

The sandwiches and Pizza in the Aquariums Cafe were also top quality.

The only other place we have visited that comes close or is better is the Sydney Aquarium in Darling Harbour. The MBA is still our favorite!

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Trailers, websites and south Indian weddings

Over the last few years, have you noticed how every movie that is releasing, has a website and some kind of yahoo or gmail address?

Today the BIL sent a copy of his wedding invitation and what surprised me the most?

There was an official wedding email address on the invitation!!!

The world has come a long long way, from the days where the wedding invitation would say GRAMS : PANDIYA or some such identifier for people to send their wishes through a TELEGRAM, directly to the wedding hall! Even as late as ten years ago, our wedding invitation had such a GRAMS thing!

Today it is www.thesimpsonsmovie.com or thesimpsonsmovie@gmail.com for a movie, and

sundarwedssangeetha@gmail.com !! for a wedding invitation!

Going to suggest to the BIL that he and the would be start a website along similar lines for their wedding and leave it kind of open source for people to post pictures, comments, etc. etc..

Come to think of it, there are actually some nice applications to such a website. All random junta who take cell phone photos and videos at the wedding during the "thaali tying" ceremony can post their videos and photos into this site!

In case the official videographers are all over the place shining their bright handheld lights on the bride, brides dad, groom and surrounding relatives, then screw up, and don't get the 30 seconds of action right, some random audience cell phone or relatives handheld camcorder might have done a better job!

Have you ever wondered why in the odd photo, where you can clearly see the grooms face as he is tying the knot, he has a painful expression on his face? It has nothing to do with the woman he is marrying or marriage. It is literally a look of pain! Chances are the hair on his bare back have started burning thanks to the powerful filament bulb the lightboy is shining, a little too close for the grooms comfort!

We have seen our own wedding video, ONCE! We were shrunk into a small circle covering approximately 1/9th of the screen in an inset, during the 30 critical seconds, and the background of the video suddenly showed the temple towers of Thirupathi and the soundtrack switched from the priest uttering "maaangalyam ...." to "rakkamaaaaa kayya thattu"..

I kid you not. Obviously a lot of bluescreen work and video editing technology, went into that masterpiece. One possible explanation for this is my re-creation of what must have possibly conversed between the video dude (abbreviated to VD in this post! yeah.. that was intended.. I have not forgiven him yet!) and my dad, prior to the wedding:

Dad : Nalla video eduppia pa? (will you take a good video?)

VD : Dont worry Saar. Asaththiduvom ! (we will excel!)

Dad : Mootha payyanoda ore kalyaanam pa.. . (my eldest sons only wedding...) Make sure the video quality is good.

VD : Saar, Sridevi Kalyanaththukku naan dhan saar Stills potten! (I did the stills for actress Sridevi's wedding)

Dad : Enna pa.. wedding photova still'nu sollare!

VD : Film industryla neriya velai panni irukken sir. ( I have a lot of experience in the film industry). That is why I use the terms interchangeably.

Dad : Okay! (possibly launched into his "what is in it for you..." pitch). Will give you the contract for the wedding video. Do a good job and I will recommend you to all the people I know. There are going to be over a 1000 people at the wedding. Lots of eyes on you and your team.

Your work should speak for itself. If people see the good work you do, more people will ask for your business card.. by the way, why don't you give me a few of your cards, so I can recommend you in advance to some other friends whose kids are getting married.

VD : (possible big grin.. I am imagining this of course)Yes Sir. Definitely Saar. Sure Sir. I will make sure the video speaks for itself..

And thus spake VD's Video! The guy thought our wedding video was going to be his resume!

So he pretty much exhausted every menu option on his WedVidSoft Ver. 2.0, within a 90 minute video clip!

First he zooms in on San's face, then by magic, she splits into two, then four, then eight, then sixteen and eventually when we have 65536 San's at a pixel level, and two things start to happen..

a. The eighth graders in the wedding hall watching this feed on the TV monitors on the other end of the reception hall went "Now, that is what the math teacher was trying to tell us about last week in Geometric Progression.. If only I had seen this video yesterday, I could have aced that math test!".

b. The amoeba in the coffee and cooler spills on the floor next to us are going "What the heck!!! No one multiplies faster than us.. NO ONE! These two aren't even married yet and look at them divide on the screen.. God! What will happen after they are married? No one will use as an example of reproductive prowess, in biology textbooks!"

That is when the video goes "cut.. cut.. cut.." and I start to replicate myself on the screen while a frozen San watches.

We zoom in from the left, right, top, bottom, fade into each other, we have vertical and horizontal blinds that come and go only to reveal me change to her and her change to me as the blinds shift, we spiral into the screen as though we are already dizzy after a few hours of marriage, and the list goes on. In short it is an endless fun of various moviemaker options for 10 mintues straight. By this time anyone watching the video (other than us) will be in splits, laughing.

This is followed by me zooming into a freeze frame on an oval shaped inset as I watch San smile and do all kinds of video tricks, which is promptly followed by San looking down on me (yeah, it started right there) as I do cheap tricks that include but are not limited to, me looking circular, elliptical as well as linearly polarized, having a star filter around me, a central me with five mini me's orbiting around the central me(all with star light patterns), etc. You get the picture by now?

All this within the wedding reception! The actual wedding part is of course a combination of "Innerspace", "Star Wars" and "The Blair Witch project".

The camera zooms into the mouth of the yawning guests, clearly revealing the lunch menu on the big screen, so others can be motivated to get in line for the next "pandhi". This is followed by the camera doing a rolling move alongside the dining table with the food served and ready. For some strange reason, the cameras lateral movement close to the table reminds you of the title captions on the Star Wars movie!

The rest of the video can easily put "the blair witch project" to shame. Maybe they got the idea for that movie only after seeing bootleg copies of our wedding video, err, our videographers resume!

Now where was I? Wedding websites, in case the videographer screws up....

A post that started as an altruistic freelance advice to the BIL and his would be, ends up becoming a description of our wedding video. Tsk, Tsk! Deep are the wounds from the one time viewing of that fateful VCD!

It is now time to let the BIL and BILie, write their own video saga!

ps. I will be there with my own camera phone, camera, camcorder, etc. etc. to witness the event, just in case the....

pps. My dear BIL, not to worry. The material scientist in me is going to bring a flame retardant spary for your back, to protect you from filament lamps, as you tie the knot! I got you covered.