Are There Any Heroes in Your Life?
Oct 7 2007

There are in mine!  My husband and I watch the NBC Heroes TV show every week (thank goodness for DVRs).  We got hooked in the first season and are hooked again.  This season has started off a bit slower than I expected, but I am hopeful that some really cool stuff is up the writers’ sleeves.

The characters are great.  The drama is intense.  The science fiction is way cool.  Wikipedia has a list of all the characters if you are interested in knowing their names and backgrounds.  I know that several critics say the show reminds them too much of X-Men but to them I say ‘pfftph’ because who actually gets enough of the X-Men (and Women)?!?  Plus since this is a TV show, there is more time to develop the lives and characters of each of the actors and actresses.

The one major criticism/comment I have is: How is it possible that the genetics genius Dr. Mohinder Suresh did not have a clue for such a long time that he was hanging out with the infamous Sylar?  How could that smart and extremely handsome Dr. Suresh not realize he was leading the EVIL dude Sylar to all of the other genetically gifted individuals so Sylar could cut their heads off and steal their gifts?  That did not make sense to me.  Oh well…he better make up for that lapse in judgment in the current season!

NOTE:  I was motivated to do this review for Problogger’s Last 24 Hour Giveaway competition.   I really, really need want to win that $2,000 Internet marketing package being donated by IttyBiz.  Since one kid is taking a nap and the other is at soccer with hubby, I said to myself “what better thing do I have to do on a Sunday afternoon than enter (by writing a review) for a great prize that if I won would really help me with my business.”  It’s strange how us entrepreneurs think, isn’t it. 🙂

UPDATE October 9, 2007: As Pearl at Interesting Observations mentioned in the comments below, I wrote a little poem for my entry. Since she mentioned it, I thought I’d share it here:

IttyBitty spider crawled up and about the web
Down came the spam upon the spider’s head
Up came the Google juice (should have written Akismet) and dried up all the spam
And IttyBitty spider crawled through the web again. 🙂

Austin City Limits
Sep 16 2007

I have lived in Austin for quite some time now but have never made it to the Austin City Limits music festival.  Today we found ourselves right next door without even thinking about it.  The ACL music festival is held at Zilker park which is near the newly renamed Town Lake.  It’s now called Lady Bird Lake in honor of Lady Bird Johnson who passed away earlier this year.

The kids woke up around 6:00 a.m. (bleh) so since they don’t make it easy for us to stay in bed and sleep we were all up we decided to go for a walk near Lady Bird Lake.  Tons of people and their dogs were out walking, running, and biking on the trail.  It was one of those gorgeous spring-like mornings: sunny skies, 77 degrees, and a slight breeze.  We went to feed some ducks, swans, fish, and turtles and then headed over to the playscape area.  We were literally the only people there!  The kids had the whole place to themselves.  We think it’s because they had blocked off direct parking access to the playscape area because of ACL.  We had walked in through the back way.  We heard some of the bands practicing and saw the media vans and set-up crew through the fences.  As we were leaving the park around 10:00 a.m. we started seeing the attendees filter in.

Maybe when the kids are older we can take them to the music festival but for now I’d rather stay away from the ear-drum smashing loud noises, crowds, and hot weather (usually 90+ degrees here in the afternoon).  🙂

Oprah and Obama
Sep 10 2007

I just finished reading a wonderful re-cap of the fundraiser thrown by Oprah for Barack Obama posted by PamelaW on Silicon Valley Moms Blog.

Oh man, I hope to meet Oprah one day.  I admire her on so many levels.  I don’t get to watch her show often (but most of the ones I’ve seen are great!) because I’m too busy working, hanging out with the kids, or trying to get some sleep. 🙂

Here’s the comment I left on the SVMs Blog:
Thanks for the great re-cap! I find it wonderful to be part of a very diverse crowd because diversity is our future. Plus, I personally find it more interesting than being in a sea of White.

I am still unsure of who I will vote for but I wouldn’t say inexperience is a reason not to vote for someone. I am an entrepreneur and by definition many young entrepreneurs are inexperienced…they are helping to create a new future. If experience is the main factor then I’m sure George Washington wouldn’t have been elected today.

Bush was a governor and I’m not sure that really helped America or him do the best job.

To me the questions to answer are: Are they smart AND intelligent? Are they trustworthy? Do they listen? Can they learn quickly? Are they willing to acknowledge mistakes, make course corrections, and move on? Are they a good family man or woman? Are they genuine? Etc.

I hope to get the opportunity to meet Oprah in my lifetime!

I don’t know enough politically to offer an educated opinion on all of the candidates, and I will refrain from doing so here on this blog because everyone has the right to their own opinion.  I mainly wanted to bring up for discussion the subject of being experienced or not when it comes to being judged on whether someone is the ‘right’ person for a particular job, to start a company, to run for election, etc.  What do you think?

Mommy Track’d Ecards
Sep 4 2007

I  just heard about these fabulous Ecards at Mommy Track’d.  They are hilarious!  Comics are a great way to make fun of things — especially us working moms!  😀

Fortunately for me, I get to work out of my home!

Here are two of my favorites:

   �

Planning a Transformer Themed Party
Aug 24 2007

TRANSFORMERS.  MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE. TRANSFORMERS.  ROBOTS IN DISGUISE. TRANSFORMERS. THERE’S NO PLACE TO HIDE.  HERE THEY COME TO SAVE THE DAY! PLUS WHATEVER ELSE THEY ARE AND DO.

I have noticed that since my post about our son’s Transformer birthday party, that I’ve had a lot of people view the blog using search terms like “transformer party, how to throw a transformer party, transformer party ideas, transformer party stuff, etc.”  There are more people out there looking for ways to put on a Transformer themed birthday party than I would have imagined!  So I figured I’d share with the world how I went about hitting the stores last minute planning his party.

I first went to HEB plus and oddly could not find any transformer party stuff.  I spoke to my best friend a week before the party and she said she could get the stuff for me at a HEB store near where she lived if I couldn’t find it here.   I think they didn’t have it because the store near us is undergoing a serious layout/design change.  I did find 24 packs of HEB brand crayons for 15 cents each!  Yes 15 cents each!  I couldn’t believe it so I bought 30 packs.  I also ordered his transformer cake, a fruit/veggie tray, and some small bottled waters from HEB plus.


That same weekend, we rushed into a Party Pig (oh I love that name.  I chuckle every time I say it) on our way somewhere (I can’t recall where) and they were out of the transformer stuff.  I just learned that Party Pig was acquired by Party City (which explains why I can’t find a website for Party Pig).  Party City is where I ended up finding what I wanted two days before the party.  I got transformer themed:

• table cloths
• cake plates
• big cups to hold the party favors
• napkins, and
• a pinata

I also got:

• #5 candle and some extra candles
• a bag of Smarties candy
• pinata stuffing stuff (plastic straws, yo-yo’s, and other miscellaneous plastic stuff – my husband and son put the Smarties in the big cups before I could tell them those were meant for the pinata….at least all the kids got one.)
• coloring books (dinosaurs and sea animals) for something like $5.95 for 8 books!  They made great party favors.

My husband and son set up the big cup favors and put a package of crayons and a Smartie into each of them.

On the day of the party, I went to HEB plus to pick up the cake, veggie tray, and a bag of ice (for the water bottles and Gatorade Propel water – no red juice was allowed).  I wasn’t sure if the cake would be enough so I also picked up 2 dozen already prepared colorful cupcakes and it was a good thing I did!

The kids swam for about an hour, then we had cake, and then we let the kids hit the pinata (of course no blindfolds at this age).  We had to make sure no little ones were in the way of any big swinging sticks.  We forgot the stick at our house, so the people at Emler let us use the handle part of a broom they had!  Thank goodness.

The kids had a blast.  I had fun even though as hostess I didn’t have to get in the water.  My husband went in so he could watch our 2 1/2 year old.  Personally, I thought it was one of the more successful birthday parties we’ve held primarily because we went home with NO leftover cake and only 4 cupcakes (i.e., less for me to be tempted to eat)!

I hope this info is helpful for all of you trying to plan a transformer party for your kids!  Our son also got a ton of great transformer gifts (his favorite one is a cool medium-sized Bumble Bee that makes noises and shoots out his hands), but that will probably have to be the subject of another post.  😀

We didn’t win the lottery. Sigh.
Aug 21 2007

Last week I had a dream that I won the lottery so for the first time in years (maybe decades) I bought some Texas Lottery Tickets.  I figure if I had a dream about winning that was as good an excuse as any to play.  After dropping my son off at pre-school, I stopped by a couple of gas stations to buy some.  The first two either didn’t sell Lottery tickets or their ticket machine was broken…maybe I should have stopped right then….but then I proceeded to the next one and played.  It had been so long since I had played that I didn’t remember how to do it.  I ended up getting some quick picks for the standard lottery and then I learned about this new one called Mega Millions.  The jackpot was $85 million so I said to my self ‘Why the heck not!  If my husband can spend $3.00 a day on coffee from Starbuck’s, I can certainly buy a few lottery tickets!‘

So $10 later, I realized that maybe I would have enjoyed a decaf chai latte instead of giving away $10.  However, I don’t feel too bad because they say the money goes to help education in Texas.  I still haven’t figured how they are making education better here in Texas because we don’t have the top public schools in the country (although AISD has done fairly well in the past few years).  I figure if my $10 makes its way into a well deserving teacher’s pocket and/or to buying computers/supplies for a poor school, it was worth it.

While doing this post I saw that the Mega Millions jackpot is now $91 million….I wonder if I should “donate” more of our money to help education (over and above our taxes).  Maybe my dream pertained to this week?  If I don’t try I might be losing out on a fortune.  I can see why people prone to addiction could get addicted to gambling!

High School Musical 2 Weekend
Aug 19 2007

We never would we have guessed that our 5 year old son would like High School Musical 2 so much.  A few months ago, we had the TV on Disney Channel in the evening (which is rare) and High School Musical came on.  He loved it!  He loved the music, the dancing, and the singing.  We liked both of the shows because they are nice, sweet, fun and seemed more deserving of a G rating than many of the kids cartoons that are on today!  There is no violence, no gratuitous wearing of skimpy outfits, no cussing, etc.

So High School Musical 2 premiered on Friday, August 17, 2007, and we DVR’d it.  He has wanted to watch it constantly….when he’s playing with his toys he likes to have the music in the background.  My husband even downloaded some of the songs from iTunes to put on his iPod so they could listen to it in the car. 

Our son’s favorite part is where the baseball players are dancing and singing the song I Don’t Dance.  The music is so catchy.  Our 2 1/2 year old will watch about 10 minutes of it, but then gets bored and wants to do something else, but she likes the songs!  My favorite song is You Are The Music in Me. 🙂

I am not surprised that High School Musical 2 has already broken TV rating records (per the New York Times). I hope they continue to make more shows like this one that the whole family can enjoy.

A Swimmingly Fun Transformer Birthday Party
Aug 17 2007

Our son recently turned the big 5.  Crazy!  He’s very into transformers (if you click this link be ready to be startled by a boom – I was!) despite never having seen the movie.  You just can’t escape them…they are everywhere you look!   We had his birthday party at the same place he takes swimming lessons: Emler Swim School.  We were fortunate enough to WIN a swim party!  All I had to do was put a sticker on the back windshield of my car that said i swim emler and give them my license plate number.  I was totally surprised to discover that they picked my license plate…it made choosing where to hold his party very easy since at a cost of $350, we would have looked around for other alternatives.   I think they got a couple of new customers, so I think it worked out well for Emler. If you decide to enroll your kid in Emler after seeing this post, please give them my name (Aruni Gunasegaram) as I think we will get $5 off our next swim class registration! 🙂

It was so much fun!  Plus they have an indoor pool which is perfect for the hot August weather here in Texas.

The lifeguards were great.  After swim time was over, they helped us stuff and hang the pinata.  Our son has been wanting a pinata for the last 3 years but we had his past parties at places that wouldn’t allow them or there was no room to hang them so he was thrilled!


I really enjoy planning their parties, getting the party stuff, sending out the evite (no paper invites — except for his school friends), and seeing everyone at the party.  I spent at least a full days worth of time the week before getting ready…which is why I’m glad I work from home and have a flexible schedule.  When I came home with some of the transformer stuff one day, my son saw it and said with such joy and happiness “thank you mommy.  these are so cool.”  When he said thank you three or four times, I knew he was in awe.  I figure it’s as much a celebration of him being 5 as us surviving the 5 years!  I told my husband that I should also get a party because I gave birth to him and my husband just kind of rolled his eyes…but I was serious! 🙂

The one thing that I don’t like doing is writing all the thank you cards.  He really does appreciate all of the gifts, and I know I like to get a card just to make sure the birthday kid got our gift (because sometimes cards get separated from the presents, but it takes time.  For our daughter’s party last time I used the thank you e-cards from evite but even that took time to individualize.  This time I hand wrote them again but I still have to address and mail them off. 

Is it just me? Because I don’t remember my mom sending out thank you notes for gifts we received at birthday parties growing up.  I also don’t remember getting party favors at every birthday party I went to or giving them out at our birthday parties growing up.  Maybe next time I’ll just send out a generic thank you e-card and let everyone know if they are wondering whether we got their particular gift, they can email me and ask.  😀

Do You Need A Wife?
Aug 13 2007

A friend sent me a link to this article: Wedded to Work, and in Dire Need of a Wife in the New York Times by Shira Boss.  My husband is great and does a lot of things to help with the kids and the house, but I’m still the one making sure the parties get planned, the thank you notes get sent, the gifts are bought for other kids parties, schedule the kid’s doctor’s appointments, etc.  Mostly because my schedule is more flexible.  I have to say I do love planning their parties though.  Our son just had his 5th birthday party (I’ll blog about it later) and it was so much fun! 🙂

Now that women have solidly earned their place in the work force, many find themselves still yearning for something men often have: wives.

“The thing I most want in life is a wife. I’m not kidding,” said Joyce Lustbader, a research scientist at Columbia University, who has been married for 29 years. “I work all day, sometimes seven days a week, and still have to go home and make dinner and have all those things to do around the house.”

It is not just the extra shift at home that is a common complaint. Working women, whether married or single, also see their lack of devoted spousal support as an impediment to getting ahead in their careers, especially when they are competing against men who have wives behind them, whether those wives are working or staying at home. And research supports their argument: it appears that marriage, at least marriage with children, bolsters a man’s career but hinders a woman’s.

One specialist in women’s studies dismissed wife envy as something women “are usually joking about” and another called it “a need for a second set of hands, regardless of gender.” But therapists who work with couples on equality issues say it is no joke.

“I hear it all the time,” said Robin Stern, a psychotherapist in Manhattan and author of “The Gaslight Effect.” “It’s a real concern. Things that used to be routinely taken care of during the week are not anymore.”

With two-income families now the norm, and both men and women working a record-breaking number of hours, the question has become how to accomplish what used to be a wife’s job, even as old-fashioned standards of household management and entertaining have been relaxed. Many men are sharing the work of chores and child care with their wives, and some do it all as single parents, but women still generally shoulder a greater burden of household business (or fretting over how to do what is not getting done). 

According to 2006 survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in five men engages in some kind of housework on an average day, while more than half of women do.

more…

8 Random Things About Me
Aug 5 2007

A blogger I admire a whole bunch, Connie Reece of Every Dot Connects, tagged me for the 8 Random Things About Me game (meme?).  I’m not sure what a meme is but it seems like a ‘tag your it’ kind of game and then you have to spend a bunch of time crafting a respectable blog response. 🙂

She helped me get up and going with my first blog and has given me advice and suggested connections that I should make in the blogosphere.  All out of the kindness of her heart.  What a big heart!  I still have no idea what her “I’m my own first cousin” statement means.  I made the mistake of commenting on her post as follows:

Me: What an interesting post! I don’t even know if I could come up with 8 random things about me because none would be as interesting as yours.

Connie: Oh, Aruni, of course you could come up with 8 random things about you that would be interesting! Consider yourself tagged. Write that post, link back here, and tag 8 others — some of your fellow mom- or dad-preneurs or other Austin Business Bloggers. I bet that if you  get started on it, you’ll have fun.

Me: Yikes! You’ll see from reading my blog that I’m up to my ears in software testing, but I will certainly give it a go later this week. I think some of the people I have met in the blogosphere have already been tagged in this game.

So here it goes:

1. I was born in Sri Lanka.

2.  I used to ride on the University of Texas at Austin Equestrian team (which apparently does not have a working website) in undergrad.  I always seemed to pick the craziest horses during competitions!

3.  I used to work at Mr. Gatti’s Pizza my junior/senior years in high school and the summer after my freshman year in college.  I love their parmeson mix.  My co-workers had a nickname for me: Pep-Aruni.  Get it?

4.  I have lived in Sri Lanka, England, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Texas.  I have traveled to many more places than that.

5.  I have lived in Texas now for 27 years.  8 years in Lubbock (Happiness is Lubbock, Texas in my Rearview Mirror was my favorite Mac Davis song), 4 years in Austin, 4 years in Dallas, and now 11 years back in Austin.

6.  My first paying job was a paper route in Lubbock when I was 13 years old.  I remember the cold, icy mornings delivering the Saturday and Sunday papers and the sometimes hot, dusty afternoons delivering the evening paper.  I did this all on my 10 speed bike with one of those shoulder bags with pouches in back and front to hold the papers while I pedaled.  I threw the paper with one hand and tried to avoid crashing with my other.  Ah, those were the days…

7.  I like to sing but right now I usually only sing in the car to the Top 40 tunes.  After Babble Soft makes it (crossing my fingers), the next thing I will pursue is a singing career…probably won’t get too far since I’ll be in my 40s (or maybe 50s) by then. 🙄

8.  I’m married to a White guy named Erin who grew up in Mexico City and who you would never know is 100% fluent in Spanish.  He was born in the US and then moved to Mexico City with his parents because his grandmother (who is 86 years old) runs a restaurant there.  He’s sometimes smarter than me and that’s why I married him. 🙂

Now I am not sure if I know 8 bloggers to tag since I’m still a new blogger (4 months and counting) and I’m not Marc Andreessen, but here we go (in no particular order).  I’ve included links to the posts of those people who have already been tagged:

1.  Carole Hayes – Alias Tex: Telling thier story to every stranger that arrives.  Carole happend upon our company site by seeing a blog post at The Lactivist.  Carole is one of our biggest fans and she is awesome!  A news station in Dallas, WFAA, ran a story on Babble Soft on August 2, 2007 and she was the subject of the story.  Interestingly, one of my friends in Dallas saw the piece and called me to tell me that she and Carole where in the same Mom’s group when her eldest daughter was born almost 7 years ago!  Small, small world…

2.  Clay Nichols – Daddy Clay’s Blog: it’s only pee – A fellow Austin, Texas entrepreneur demonstrating that it’s OK to be a great dad!  He is co-founder of dadlabs.

3.  Maryam Scoble – Maryamie: Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble’s musings about Life, Love and Everything Else… I heard about Maryam from none other than Connie Reece.  She met Maryam’s husband, Robert Scoble, during SXSW, a music and film festival to end all festivals, held in Austin every year.  Connie actually gave him a 6 month gift subscription to Baby Manager because apparently Robert and Maryam announced their pregnancy on twitter (still haven’t figured out what twitter is yet) but as of today we don’t know if Robert lost it or left it somewhere or even remembers meeting Connie.  Maryam is so nice and responds to my comments on her blog.  I’ve commented a few times on Robert’s blog but he seems to think I’m not worth acknowledging….probably because I’m not Marc Andreesseen.  I just saw that he got Faceslammed by Bill Gates which makes sense if you think about it.

4.  Thom Singer – Some Assembly Required  – Thom is a fellow Austin blogger who I’ve known for years.  He writes books on networking and how to be the best networker around!  He recently got back from a trip to Ireland and said he kissed the blarney stone.  My challenge to him is that the next time I see him, he has to demonstrate his newfound ability to persuade people to do things he wants them to do.

5.  Mack Collier – The Viral Garden: blurring the line between company and customer.  Mack has given me some links to some informative articles about business blogging and much needed words of encouragement!

6.  Randa Clay – Randa Clay Design (already tagged) – I love her current ‘juicy’ lime graphic on her blog!  I know I need to change my blog header but I haven’t had time to figure out how to modify the css file.  I would love to have one as vibrant as hers someday.  Her lime graphic makes me wish I was on a beach sipping margaritas. 🙂

7.  Jennifer Laycock –  The Lactivist: nursing out loud! (already tagged) – I admire her ability to get the word out about breastfeeding and offer her support and insight to so many of us who need it.  I like the fact that she’s not preachy and aims to highlight the facts and the laws surrounding breastfeeding.  She acknowledges that breastfeeding doesn’t work for everyone and we should not look down on women/families who choose to bottle/formula feed.  I totally agree!  I found her site, while doing follow up research on our launch press release and she posted a “not so flattering” post about Baby Manager.  I think I have since recovered…barely…  😯

The following are ‘long shot tags.’  They are people who I know are extremely busy at the moment but would I’m sure have great responses if they have the time to respond.  However, if one of them does answer (or points me to the post where they have already put down their answers to this game), then I would have met my requirement of 8!

8.  Wendy Piersall – eMomsatHome: starting, running + succeeding in home business and blogging.  I have learned SOOO much from her blog about ‘how to blog.’  She’s amazing.  I will be doing a guest post for her in the near future.   I heard about Wendy from again, none other than Connie.  Connie met her at a conference and told her about me and later told me about her.  Thank goodness because I wouldn’t have made as much progress on this blog without Wendy’s tips!

9.  Marc Andreessen – Blog.Pmarca.Com: Often Wrong. Never in Doubt.  I am fascinated by his writing on high-tech business start-ups especially since I’m on my second high-tech startup.  When he was accepting comments, he actually replied quite often to my comments which was like ‘wow, Marc Andreessen responded to me on his blog.  Totally cool.  I matter in the universe now!’  He recently wrote a post called Why a startups initial business plan doesn’t matter that much.  I totally agree.  Now I can just mention Thomas Edison when someone asks me for a business plan.  I emailed him to see if he would mind me tagging him, but haven’t heard back.  I so enjoy his thoughts on startups that I’m hoping he will have the time to tell us 8 Random Things about himself.  I even created a category just for him. 

I think the protocol is that you link back to this post when you make your post.  It has taken me days to construct this post from contacting people to see if they would mind being tagged, to determine if they had already been tagged, to adding links, etc.  I’m cross-eyed now.  I’m not sure I can handle another tag but I hope it’s clear why I could not leave Connie’s tag unanswered!