Thankful – 2012
Nov 25 2012

Another Thanksgiving in the US has passed.  It’s nice to have a holiday to remind us to be thankful and grateful for the many positive things in our lives as well as for the challenges we have overcome.  I was reviewing my past Thanksgiving posts and last year I wrote Thankful – 2011 (such an original title!) and included a photo of a dragon from my October 2011 trip to China.  That trip was amazing, the memories wonderful, and I made some great new friends who I still hang out with.

I also wrote a post on Nov 30, 2008 called The Strength Of A Thought, and I still wonder the same about “thoughts” but have softened my query and am moving more toward observation/acceptance of my musing on that day: “So, how do we rule our thoughts instead of our thoughts ruling us?  Or maybe the question is can we accomplish this in this lifetime? In this body? In this experience? Oh what power our thoughts have on the direction we step in our lives…whether it’s right, left, backward, straight, or directly into stardust…into our dreams.”

Reason for photo: The kids insisted on taking the cloud photo a few weeks back that I’m using in this post.  My son felt quite certain that the middle cloud looked exactly like a dragon’s foot and my daughter agreed.  I’m thankful for their vivid imaginations.

Author: Aruni | Filed under: FYI, holiday, Just For Fun | Tags: china, dragon, power of thoughts, thanksgiving | Comments Off on Thankful – 2012

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Scooters and Dishes
Nov 7 2011

There’s really no correlation between scooters and dishes.  I got some scooters for my kids a couple of weeks ago and now they scoot around the house all the time.  When they wake up, to the breakfast/dinner table, to the bathroom to brush their teeth, etc.  I told them they could scoot around the house only if the scooter hasn’t been outside the house.  We have a “shoes at the door” policy most of the time, so I figured it was fine for them to scoot around the house while the scooters were unblemished by the outside driveway or sidewalk.  They seem more motivated to go places in the house on their scooters so that’s nice, and as long as they don’t run over my toes, I’m fine with it.

On another dishy note, my 9 year old son tried to the dishes tonight.  He said “I never realized how tiring (hard) it was to do the dishes.”  He only put around 4 plates in the dishwasher and he put my gloves on while rinsing the plates…so cute!  I laughed.  I always told him that when he was tall enough he’d have to do the dishes.  He’s still a short kid and much water ended up on his shirt and on the floor, but I’m glad he appreciated that it wasn’t an easy thing to do the dishes!  He and his sister like to help me cook and especially if I’m making mac ‘n cheese, but doing the dishes was a new thing and I’m glad my son now has a neural pathway in his mind about the “hardness” of doing dishes. 😀

Author: Aruni | Filed under: parenting, working mother | Tags: beijing, china, scooter, washing dishes | Comments Off on Scooters and Dishes

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Opportunity Knocks…
Oct 23 2011

When opportunity knocks where will you be?  I imagine I’ll be at my son’s soccer game, making sure my kid’s take baths, cooking, or I’ll be doing their laundry.  How do we recognize when opportunity knocks?  Entrepreneurs are supposed to create opportunities, right?  But really, I think we see an opportunity and we try to take advantage of it.  Ideas are a dime a dozen.  People who can validate the idea are rare but those who can execute against those ideas to profitability are even rarer.  It’s not easy to execute against most ideas or take advantage of most opportunities.

One day I want to write a novel.  I want to write a fiction novel and I’d like to write a novel about business.  But right now I’m working full time, making sure my kids take their baths, watching their soccer games, going to swim classes, making sure they do their homework, doing dishes, and folding laundry.  It’s certainly all great material for that novel I’m going to write one day which may or may not ever see the light of day.  I recall my grandfather wanted to write a book.  I think he started writing something, but he was too busy doing great entrepreneurial things, helping kids, hanging out with grand kids, dealing with a sick wife (my grandmother), and helping other people so he never finished putting down in words the wisdom that was in his head.  He died of leukemia at the age of 82.  I bet if he could have blogged, he would have tried it out.  He was a brilliant, yet flawed man like most of us humans are.

Opportunity knocked and I went to China.  Opportunity knocked and I found a guy who I used to work with, Brian Hurdle, to redesign my blog who just redesigned my twitter page.  While flying to China, I read Little Bee: A Novel (about a refugee girl who escaped from Nigeria to England) and The Secret Life of Bees (about a White girl who runs away from her abusive father to live with a bunch of Negro women in the southern US in the 1960s).  The first was written by a man, the latter by a woman.  The overarching theme of both books from my perspective was “men suck!”  Interestingly, little boys did not suck and they too needed protection from men, who ironically were at one point in their lives little boys themselves.  What happens between cute, sweet little boyhood and manhood?  I don’t know, but I hope my boy stays sweet, thoughtful, and caring.  Of course both fiction novels were written for the female audience, which is kind of distressing.  But as I was reading them, I thought these are well written novels.  Not as superbly written as others I’ve read but well written overall.  So after doing some calculations, I figured I need to be a millionaire by the age of 45 to even think of having the time, resources, and health insurance to write such a novel.  I’m not too far away from 45….

Any benefactors out there?

Author: Aruni | Filed under: book review, books, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, parenting, travel, twitter | Tags: benefator, brian hurdle, china, elephants, little bee, opportunity knocks, secret life of bees, twitter | 2 Comments »

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When In China…
Oct 15 2011

I recently got back from a fabulous trip to China.  I signed up for a 9 day tour coordinated by the Austin Chamber of Commerce.  We had an aggressive itinerary and hit most of the major highlights in Beijing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Shanghai.  While I was there Steve Jobs passed away and pretty much everyone in China was talking about it too.  I’m not sure why I was a little surprised, but there were iPhones and iPads in China despite access to Google and facebook not being allowed.  What a profound affect Mr. Jobs had on the entire world, but in the end we still cannot avoid death.  In his life, he accomplished more and touched more lives than probably any before him.

His death with the background of ancient China was sort of appropriate in some ways.  The people who built The Great Wall, one of the 7 man made wonders of the world and visible from the moon, are not remembered but the Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who directed it’s construction is remembered.  Although 99.99% of us won’t be remembered much past our life times, hopefully we will have a positive impact on those around us so they continue to spread our wisdom to future generations.

Today I ordered an iPhone 4S at a nearby AT&T store. Rest in peace Steve and may your entrepreneurial stardust land on a few of us left here on earth.

I am going to try to find time over the next few weeks to blog about my trip  and include some photos.

Author: Aruni | Filed under: entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, steve jobs, success, travel | Tags: austin chamber of commerce, beijing, china, facebook, google, great wall of china, hangzhou, iphone 4s, qin shi huang, shanghai, steve jobs, suzhou | 4 Comments »

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