Pet Peeves : Wear Your Seat Belts and Helmets Please

We were not done with our New Year's wishes, when we were confronted with the news that my 14 year old cousin had died from head injuries resulting from a bike accident in India. 14 years old, alive and bubbly one day and gone the next. Could a helmet have saved his life? Probably yes. One of my pet peeves is around the use of seat belts and helmets. There are so many people I come across every day who are so callous about their use (or non-use) of seat belts and helmets, its quite shameful. One of my earliest memories was the death of a friend, who died from head injuries at 18. The image of a dead body covered in a white cloth with blood stains on the head is an image that still gives me the goodbumps.

The bottom line is that seat belts and helmets save lives and I was fortunate enough to have first-hand experience where a seat belt saved my father's life. In 1990, there was a plane crash of an Airbus A320 in Bangalore, when an Indian Airlines flight crashed into a swamp just as it approached the runway. The plane caught fire and roughly 100 of the 130 people on board died. My father was on that flight and survived that crash. Yes, he was able to live only because of this little thing called the Seat Belt. The seat belt saved his life and he only got bruised because he hit hit face and legs with the seat in-front. He went on to live a normal life for another 8 years before he passed away. 8 years that made a huge difference to our family and 8 years that I am very thankful for.  

Read more: Pet Peeves : Wear Your Seat Belts and Helmets Please

Best Buy's Black Friday Presale Fiasco

Internet commerce has been around for over a decade and Thanksgiving sales have been around for many years. So, one would have figured that a technology company like Best Buy would be prepared to handle a little something called a pre-sale for its Silver Rewards member. Wrrrrrrrooooooooonggggggg. On Monday, November 19th, just days before Black Friday in the US, Best Buy had a special pre-sale event for its Silver Rewards members. These are loyal members of Best Buy who spend at least $2000/year. These are your high spending VIP customers who you really wanted to impress with a good experience so they would come back on Black Friday and shop some more. Unfortunately for Best Buy, this pre-sale turned out to be quite a disaster especially for customers like me who may not want to shop on their site or even deal with their phone lines.

 

Read more: Best Buy's Black Friday Presale Fiasco

Learning is a Journey, Not a Race

The new school year has just begun in the US and with a few weeks gone by, its time for their first round of evaluations. As a parent of child from the Indian sub-continent, the question that is asked most often by other Desi parents is "How is your kid doing academically?". Its not about how your child is doing overall, its mostly about the academic aspect. I fortunately, have been blessed with a child who demonstrates intelligence at a slightly higher level than most of the students in his school and attends some extra classes called the "Challenge Program". When other parents find that out, their first question is "Will you get him tested and pushed to a higher grade?". My reaction always has been and will continue to be a BIG No!.

Read more: Learning is a Journey, Not a Race

Thank you NBC #NBCFail

 

The 2012 London Olympics are being watched live by millions of viewers around the world but we in America are in a unique situation where NBC is showing most of the events on tape delay. While most Americans are unhappy with this situation are are tweeting with the hashtag #NBCFail, I would like to send a few Thank you notes to the wonderful staff at NBC. Thank you for giving me the gift of time - With news updates, tweets, Facebook posts likely to update me of scores and results, I am able to get the valuable gift of time that I would have otherwise spent on these social applications. I wait until prime time and started tweeting about how great Phelps is doing. Most of my followers have left me because they think I am stupid. Thank you for introducing me to new sports - While the rest of the planet was watching the men's 100m finals, we in America were lucky to be watching Show Jumping. Thank you for teaching me how to control my anger - First you show the games on tape delay, then you show an ad telling us that the winner will on be on the Today show the next day before you show the results. Great programming.

• Thank you for teaching my 6-year old new words like neutering - Thanks to the incessant replay of the same commercials, my 6 year old has picked up new words such as 'neutering'. I am sure his teacher would be proud of his improved vocabulary once he returns to school from his summer break.
• Thank you for freeing up my evenings in the Fall - You ran so many ads of your Fall shows during the games that I know NBC will not be on in prime time this Fall. You will continue to be in last place this Fall.

PS: The Thank You notes concept is taken from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Show, ironically on NBC

Read more: Thank you NBC #NBCFail