Our 2008

It's been an eventful year for me personally. The year started off great as we are blessed with a baby girl (Mahalakshmi Gayatri) on Jan 2nd. I went to London in late Jan to coordinate the conference proceedings of SPUG - a telecom industry body. There was a change in my work life - with Sprint's economic troubles cutting short the account I am managing with them for SAIC. That put me on a contract with a California client - and made me fly across the continent frequently. My earlier weekly trips to Reston, VA seemed a breeze in comparison. However, after a couple of months of the cross-continental trips - I couldn't take it any more. And with 3 kids at home and Usha working full time - I opted out of the CA program and found another contract in July which allows me to work from home most of the time. As it turned out - I travelled only once to Reston, VA in the past 6 months. That's a great change for me - after being on the road for the most part of the past 7 years.

Usha is having a great year at the different hospitals she works - gaining very satisfied and loyal patients who want to be seen only by her.

Chandra has been practising his ukulele more and more and can now sing while playing it. Datta too started on his own ukulele. They both attended soccer training sessions this summer and enjoyed them very much. They are looking forward to another session starting in Jan.

We all vacationed for a few days in Belgium enroute to India in Sept. We enjoyed very much, beating our expectations, given that we travelled with 2 toddlers and an infant. Thank God we didn't take a short trip to Paris, as planned earlier. The kids loved India and want to go back again soon.

This is also the year we voted for the first time in our lives - in an election of significance. And to vote for a winning candidate is a great feeling. We look forward to Obama's inspirationsl Presidency.

On the flip side for this year, we saw our 401(K) savings doing a vanishing act - and we are glad we don't speculate in the stock market. The Mumbai events during the Thanksgiving holiday in November left a sickening feeling, which will be very hard to forget for a long time to come. It reinforced us to be more watchful of our own lives and how we lead them.

To cap off 2008 on a positive note, we had great pleasure organizing a great party of friends and family on Dec 28th in Piscataway, NJ. Everybody we invited, barring 3 or 4 families, attended the party. With 70 adults and 35 kids present - everybody had a great time. Santosh Khammamkar's music program was well received. Kids' impromptu dancing to the songs and the songs sung by friends turned a good event into a great one.

Quite an eventful year indeed. And we are ever so grateful for another memorable year.

Looking forward to another great year coming up where we try to realize our long term dream of returning to India...

Swasti !!