Macro

At the reception over the weekend we were seated with our old friends that we know well, and somebody I used to enjoy discussing politics with. I have blogged about him before. It was depressing to see his even more rightward-shift than when we talked last. 10 minutes into conversation he was talking politics – about all the problems and issues in this country and how to handle them – and my basic point to him was even if he was right about everything, Trump and Elon were nazi fascists and not the right people to tackle what might be the right problems. To which he said, neither of them were fascists and only people like them can bring real much needed change to America. I decided to end the conversation then and there and told him politely that if his argument begins with that, then for sake of the reception and the host friends we should switch to some other topic. Thankfully he got the point and rest of it was peaceful.

This is a common pattern of ingrained right ward people. First they tell you that they are neutral and they consume news from non-political or neutral sources (ok, whatever!). Then they say, they care about America and Americans. (Ok, fine). Then they will give you some obscure examples of some regulation and law in some city in America and how that caused a lot of problems for working class — and extrapolate it to rest of America and how that will harm them too! And its continuous – its a lot of obscure laws (in liberal states of course!) that somehow made everything worse for a subset of people, but now we should all be worried because that will be America. The cultists will deny they are in a cult, but every bit of their behavior is like talking to a Amway multi-level marketing person.

A few days since I put my resignation and I have a few weeks before I start in new team and I feel oddly ok. I was apprehensive about making this decision but now that i made it, I am like whats the worst that can happen there that hasn’t already happened to me in this team? So yeah, onwards and forwards. I guess I should take work more relaxing next few weeks. I still haven’t broken the news to my team and I expect them to be really upset at me – I will need to individual 1:1s to calm ’em down (and yes, my reports do like me!).

An AI generated image with the following prompt: “Generate an image of a woman and her daughter at cherry blossoms in DC. Its windy, so the blossoms are flying in the air. The picture is taken from a boat while they are standing at the edge of tidal basin and monuments behind their back.” So much is wrong about this picture its laughable – when did the reflection pool end at the capitol?! Neither of the two places are close to anywhere near tidal basin water body. AI simply does not have that contextual intelligence yet.

The kid’s high school lists Young Democrats as one of the clubs she can enroll into. Initially she was interested in it when we went to the high school night but now i have asked her to stay far away from any of these clubs, not just for her own safety, but more likely than not this democrat club is going to become another beg-for-money scheme because they are quite incapable of doing anything more right now. Her time is better spent in student governance clubs as well as others where she might enjoy more.

The Studio is such a fun series in only two episodes I have watched so far, but gosh, couldn’t they find a better lead actor than Seth Rogen? He is incapable of acting – literally every single role he does looks the same and maybe that’s the point, but I wish they had a better lead actor.

We spent the weekend in Philly for my best friend’s sister wedding. A lot of partying happened over two days and two nights. It was fun to completely disconnect and just have fun. A lot of folks were people I hadn’t met in decades so there was lot of catching up too. However it was also slightly bittersweet in sense that a major part of the group of people at the wedding perhaps will never get together again in one set – partly because she was the last of the family to get married, and we know all these folks through my friend. And second realization that everyone collectively had was the next wedding for all of us within my friend circle is now going to be one of our own kids a decade or more from now. It was a sobering thought and gave us more reasons to party harder. It was also nice to completely disconnect from the grim and depressing news all around us to just have a good time.

In Philadelphia for a close friend’s sister wedding, with Hindu ceremony in the morning followed by Jewish ceremony in afternoon. This is what is beautiful about America that the buffoon wants to kill. The groom killed it in baraat! Stunning wedding location to boot.

It’s hard to comprehend it’s been only 8 Weeks or so and so much has already been dismantled and gutted. When you read in history books how Hitler took only a few months to completely destroy Germany it felt unrealistic – and now we are seeing play out live here in this country. Ooof.

If there is a system that can be exploited, you can be rest assured my fellow Indians will find a way. For instance, the amount of people now qualifying for EB1-A visa by creating some random profile of yourself is through roof. You know have agents and companies solely focussed on making you a EB1-A eligible candidate so you dont have to go through the long wait of EB2/3. I personally know one who made his “profile” standout so he could qualify for EB1-A. Or how my cousin got his B1/B2 tourist visa. If you go through regular channels, it will take around 18 months to get a date with Indian embassy for tourist visa. However there are now agents and companies in between you can pay 20-30k rupees to and all they do is appointment farming. They have actual humans monitoring the scheduling queue 24/7 and the moment something opens up they grab it and book it on behalf of the payee! my cousin says most ppl simply pay the additional 20-30k and get appointments within a week or two if not max a month. Telling you, if there is something that can be exploited, desis will hehe!

Put in my papers in my current role/team. Taking up a similar role in another team local to the area. Still in the same company. I had reached a point of no progress in my current role/team/scope and was not adding anything to my resume. While my new group is not exactly the sexiest org of the company, the role scope and new people/team should bring me some fresh energy and focus. [And then there were a lot of other reasons regarding my own manager that I wont get into detail about].