My god applying for Indian e-visa. After filling up form, you get to confirmation page before you pay. Now, unless you take a screenshot at this stage, there is no way to know what your application ID is. You click pay now, get to credit card page on SBI and it promptly fails and redirects to paypal homepage. Well, do you know if transaction went through? no you do not. Do you get an email that your application was submitted? Haha, no you dont. Do you get any notification that your cc also failed? You must be joking! So now unless I had taken that screenshot (because my Indian brain knows better!), I would never be able to go back to the visa application site to figure out if the application was even submitted or not! Its 2024, but Indian government websites have truly evovlved from 1990 to 1994 in all this while.

Of all things A R Rahman divorcing was not on my Indian celebrity divorce bingo card.

I was fully invested in 2016 and 2020 election year, but I am making a conscious effort not to be so involved in 2024, for my own mental sanity, and more importantly, nothing will fundamentally change about my vote. The issues that I cared about in ‘12, ‘16’, 20, ‘24 are exactly the same and will remain the same in future also and it aligns more closely with democrats than republicans. Why even bother investing time in listening to anything republican candidates or party has to say anymore because the only thing they’ve proven is how they are turning into repulsive humans (if they can be called that) year after year.

So yeah, IDGAF what Vivek or Nikki says, what Trump says/does at this point. I am of firm opinion that the American society is spiraling into a inevitable decay thanks to the rot that republicans have sown into it. My only role (&hope) is to delay this as much as possible by making sure my vote counts in ‘24 and canvas/educate others around me (in my own capacity) about perils of voting anyone but democrats anywhere - from school boards, to state elections to national. Thats all I can do, and I will do.

A less talked about fact is how wage growths have kept up or crossed inflation at this point, even if it doesnt feel like it. Case in point - this week we offered the role to this young graduate with masters and minimal work exp (<2 years) a role in my team. Her total comp package is larger than the first total comp package I got when I joined this company in 2016! And I joined two levels higher, and with more than 10+ years experience already under the belt. When the offer first came out for me to approve, my jaws legit dropped to the floor, but I am also so so happy to see that kind of package rolled out. I am glad that younger folks are starting out at a much higher base wage and that is how it should be.

Sometimes the best thing you as a leader or a manager can do is to simply…. get out of the way.

Ordered furniture for my office but I am just dreading assembling it.

European tech workers who move to the USA really struggle here. Multiple people were rated bottom of the performance curve not because they did anything necessarily bad, but just that American workers work way harder to their detriment. Europeans still work with the European mindset which just does not translate equivalently sadly. I guess these engineers are figuring out the hard way why the American counterpart engineer is also paid way more 😆

Day 3 of swim meet over. This was not bad and I got a lot of errands done so it didn’t feel like it was long, plus commute is not bad either. The next one in college park campus is the most gargantum suck in a few weeks. That’s the one I truly hate!

Day three of swim meet so you all will hear a lot more from me today coz I have nothing to do between races!

I am not sold on BlueSky just yet. My fear is that invariably in a year or two all the nazis from twitter will follow over to BlueSky because if they don’t who’s gonna give them the attention and how are they going to rage bait people? In that sense do I really want to invest my time in BlueSky only to be disappointed anyway? Am I not just happy hanging around in small corner of the world? or maybe I will just use BlueSky to simply connect with people I like but nothing more.

Jen O’Malley gets way more credit than she should. In a favorable pandemic environment Biden barely barely sneaked out a win. In 2024 she misfired completely. I hope we have seen the last of her in campaign politics!

A hard workout yesterday and then half day of swim meet where I was just walking up and down nonstop = exhausted today. And I have another day of swim meet to go!

🍿 Challengers (2024) - ★★★★☆

Challengers poster

This turned out to be way better than I expected. The slo mos get you towards the end, but this was a fun watch! Now when was the last time Hollywood did a good love triangle?

Hamas ready for truce, Zelensky saying the war in Ukraine is going to end faster now with Trump in office - I guess there was a point after all that once he is in wars will just end because of his strong arm tactics. Gotta give him that if it actually does happen.

Every time Mike Tyson is in news i remember the incident in Georgetown from 20 years ago. Me and friends having food/drinks/shisha at outdoor hangout, and suddenly we start seeing dollar bills flying all around. We look up to see a man from top floor literally throwing money out and yelling Tyson won! He was literally throwing money on the streets in happiness. It was so much that whole of that area in Georgetown came to a standstill with people trying to catch as many bills as they can. Heck we were 20 somethings we did it too because it was “fun”. There were 10, 20, 5, 100 you name it and this guy was just throwing money to the wind. Between 5 of us we collected enough money to pay for the drinks, food and shisha that night! Everytime Mike Tyson is in news reminds me of that night back in Georgetown. Cant believe that was also 2 decades back now!

My kid is not the fastest swimmer in her group and all of her besties are better in most strokes except breast. It’s always heartening to see how these girls pep each other up and push each other to do better in every race. Today the girls pepped and hyped my kid so much for the 500 free because the last time she raced it she was disqualified. This time she did great and dropped almost 20 seconds! Man these friendships are to cherish for.

At that phase of life where even my car updates its OS. I feel like I need to know what changed and what’s new!

Looking at the cabinet picks I think I want to go back to DEI hires.

It’s so bizarre that voters across different demographics all swung towards Trump - be it Latins all over, Cubans in Florida, Somalians in Minnesota, Arabs in Michigan and so on. And yet somehow democrats are the party of immigrants it seems. Make it make sense. I really hope democrats do a seriously right shift on immigration because they clearly are not the party for immigrants anyway so why even try 😂

📺 Outer Banks (2020) - ★★★★☆

Outer Banks poster

Season 4 continues to be the same campy senseless leave your brains at home teenage treasure finding adventure drama. Kid loves it and we like it too coz it’s just so brainless timeless. The lead cast chemistry is fantastic though.