Disney Frozen

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frozengroupWatched a movie in the theatres after a very very long time. A first for my son. We took my 4 y/o for his first movie experience over the weekend. Watched the new Disney movie ‘Frozen’.

My thoughts on the movie:

  • Excellent story line and execution – nothing surprising here – since it is Disney.
  • The snow effects are just awesome.
  • Since it is a kids movie, the 3D effects are not jarring or frightening. In fact, even without the glasses, it didnt feel bad. (Some 3D movies look super blurred without the glasses). Perhaps this was intentional too. Sometimes it is difficult to get the kids to keep the glasses on for a long time. This happened with my son midway through the movie.
  • Super comedy with Olaf the snowman. Great recovery at the end, where there is a magical arrangement (watch the movie to see it!) to make sure that Olaf does not melt away. Great touch – since the kids would have hated to lose this character.
  • Awesome depiction of feelings and human like emotions on animated characters.
  • Nice twists and turns in the plot.
  • Overall, a great entertainer.

(picture source: Official Disney Frozen Site)

Highest RoI Management Tool – the power of Thank You

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thankyou

I really like the articles that Jeff Weiner’s (CEO of LinkedIn) writes. A lot of it resonates with the Engineering Manager’s mind. Short and crisply written, they portray problems and solutions of every day things in the day of an Engineering Manager.

This article on the power of thanking someone is another classic article. In summary, Jeff suggests to be mindful of the following things when saying thank you to someone:

Be thoughtful – I think this is super important. A quarterly award is an award and can make an employee happy; but being thoughtful and seeking out something that the employee would cherish and remember you for, is King.

Be Genuine - Mouthing out the words or nominating for an award with hollow words just wont cut it. You need to be genuine.

Pick your spots – Balance between over-complimenting and not rewarding enough.

Solicit suggestions – Ask around if others want to nominate someone for great work. You would not know everyone and the great work that everyone does.

Learn how to accept a compliment – This is by far one of the biggest things that I have a problem with. And I see this with so many other people. Especially very strong in the Indian culture – where humility is taught in extreme proportions. Indians just suck at accepting compliments. Try complimenting an Indian person; and they will gush out – “Oh it was nothing.”; “Oh you shouldnt have.”; “Without you, it would not have been possible”. Sure, one should be humble, but at some points, when you are complimented on something that has been successful because of you, we should accept it with grace. Yes, I am still working on this as well.

Read this article in Jeff’s words here.

(image courtesy: flickr:@nate)

New life into old towns …

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This can be replicated in India. I can draw so many similarities to similar towns down south in India. The rich temple culture of the Tanjore district. But somehow the villages are vanishing. The temples are sometimes dilapidated. People want to go there. But there is no comfortable way to do this. They have stay in a distant town – Kumbakonam or Vaitheeswaran Kovil, or Mayavaram, and take a taxi to some of these beautiful centres of culture.

This should happen here as well. This will happen. Some day. Some day ……

(Video source: presentationzen.com)

Reuse Vegetable Plastic Trays

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If you buy vegetables/sprouts from Town Essentials or Bigbasket (or even cut vegetables from Namdhari’s in Bangalore), you get the vegetables in these light weight plastic trays (see below).

sprouts

For a long time, my wife was wondering what to do with these. This post is dedicated to her lastest reuse idea.

Step 1: Take the veggies out. Clean the tray.

tray

Step 2: Line the insides with news paper cut to size.

news

Step 3: You can now use this tray to keep Oil containers. This prevents them from soiling your counter top, and also makes sure they dont slip and fall etc.

oil1

oil2

Voila. These plastic trays now have a good use.

The Vegetarian Chef …. is no more.

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tarla_Dalal_midday_360x270It takes guts for someone to take up vegetarian cuisine and take it to new heights that it had never seen before. There are chefs. And there is Tarla Dalal. Or should I now say, there was Tarla Dalal.

I never knew her. I never met her. But she lived in our hearts. We saw her every day. In her cook books. In her magazines. In her website. In her youtube videos.

I baked my first cake using her recipe. My wife has made countless innovative vegetarian dishes by refering her books. There was a bond. Food is something that is very close to us. And if someone is there teaching us how to cook good food, that person is family.

In a country where the majority of the population eats both vegetarian and non-vegetarian, chefs survive by publishing cook-books with both kinds of recipes. So for folks like us who are “pure-vegetarians”, we were left to browse these books at book stores and see which of these had more number of vegetarian recipes and pick them.

I read somewhere that, after her husband passed away at an early age, it was her son, Mr. Sanjay Dalal, who encouraged her to take this up. He is a genius. Again, I have not met him. I do not know him. But the sheer idea of promoting vegetarian cooking as a mainstream publishing media house is genius. Mexican cooking. Italian cooking. Lebanese. You name it. She had a book. All in simple easy to cook recipes. All with ingredients that are easily available in the market. All of them taught in a patient, almost grandmotherly tone.

The country will remember you, Mrs Dalal. I will remember you forever. My memory of you will always be the grandmotherly way by which you taught your delightful cooking. I will remember the ways you start your youtube videos by — “This is so simple. Anybody can do it. Right now. Chalo. Lets start.”

Tarla Dalal R.I.P

The last Tarla video that we watched and learned from – just this past weekend. And yes, the brownies came out delightfully good.