- Borderline high LDL
- Sinus Bradycardia

Since I know what LDL is, I figured I need to cut down on my saturated fats (primarily from mother-in-law made gound-ke-ladd) and have more meals replaced with oats! And that, sadly, means no samosas from the canteen. And thankfully, my number of 117 is not so far off from the healthy upper limit of 100. I know people who have had numbers above 300!

What really scared the hell out of me was the Sinus Bradycardia bit! I looked up the net and found that they were referring to a slow heart rate, and I could link that up to the comment one of the investigators (was it during the 2-D echo?) had made mentioning that I have a low heart rate. I had, at that time, commented that ‘I am an athlete’ and that settled the matter with the investigator commenting, “We rarely get to see the heart of an athlete. We get people to whom we need to prescribe walking for 30 mins every day!”.

Further looking at the Wikipedia article revealed that it is typical of all athletes to have a slower heart rate since each beat of the heart is powerful enough to pump the right amount of oxygenated blood to the rest of the body. In fact, super athletes like Lance Armstrong have a resting heart rate of just 42 beats!!! Mine is 63 and a long way (and lots of road running, cycling and swimming sessions) away from that benchmark! Amen!

Sun outage is an astronomical phenomenon where the earth’s receiving station, the (geostationary) satellite and the sun all come in one straight line. This happens twice a year, and lasts for several days in a row, lasting a few minutes once each day. Due to this, and due to the fact that sun, in its usual course, emits powerful radiation across the full spectrum of electromagnetic radiation (include the wavelengths used for communication between earth’s receiving station and the satellite), there are ‘chances’ of communication link (between the earth’s receiving station and the satellite) disruption and corruption (read: increased error rate) during this period of sun outage.

Since Indian exchanges – both NSE and BSE – and many broking houses and brokers use VSATs (very small aperture terminals, dish antennae smaller than 3 m in diameter) which connect to the geostationary satellites for getting exchanges’ broadcast and interactive data, the reliability of this link is of paramount importance (it’s financial data being passed both ways!).

Due to this, the exchanges, as a precaution, used to completely pause all trading activities during the sun outage period (usually for 45 mins during the trading day), and in turn, compensate by extending the trading hours towards the end. Hence the market will close at 1615 IST instead of the usual 1530 IST.

However, since 2009 the Indian exchanges have not observed any sun outage related pause in trading activities, due to the following reasons:
1) A SEBI notice advising exchanges to continue trading during sun outage period
2) Indian equities market being a one square mile phenomenon (covering the area between Fort and Nariman Point in Mumbai)
3) Most brokers, amounting to an overwhelming majority of volume on the exchange, use leased lines to connect to the exchange and do not rely solely on VSAT’s for connectivity.

Related links:
NSE circular mentioning no more sun outage related pause in trading activities – http://www.nseindia.com/content/circulars/memb11821.htm
Broadcast and Interactive connectivity to NSE (and BSE!)

my tea cup after a month of wash-less tea drinking

If only she would see this cup that I found at a office desk in the country I visited

the dirty tea mug

To top it all, a colleague mentioned that there’s a market for used dirty tea cups- ones that have been used for years altogether without a single wash, and these cups sell at quite high prices as antiques! I have got a fortune coming my way in some years, I guess

(By the way, Steve’s website at stevepavlina.com is among internet’s top sources of free personal development related resources, and my personal favorite).

The ideas mentioned in the article are about material abundance and how choosing apparently expensive but higher quality goods eventually turns out to be more value for money due to their additional functionality, durability, comfort and ease of use – besides such choices are something that would make you proud for many years to come, happy’ every time you use the object, and also raise your social status.

However, I intend to extrapolate this idea and use it in other parts of my life as well, and this is my Big Hairy Audacious Goal no. 3. I will use the concept of Overcoming Cheapness in the case of behavior, relationships, spirituality, health, child upbringing and conscious choices.

Behavior: behaving cheap – below your class – would endear you to a section of people for some time may be , but would harm your reputation in the long run. Would you prefer to be remembered as the CEO of a blue-chip company who was known for his drunken revelry sessions?

Relationships: behaving cheap in relationships – taking people for granted, ignore key relationships – may sound like an attractive option for the time being given how busy our lives are, but that takes the relationship towards entropy and eventual atrophy. Haven’t heard of couples where wife still complains of the missing honeymoon after 10 years of marriage? Ever had a need to connect with a school/college friend and didn’t know how to approach since you chose to not stay in touch?

Spirituality: behaving cheap – not doing enough to connect with your inner and higher self on a regular basis – is not a good idea since spiritual growth is a constant upward spiral of daily acts of kindness, meditation, and introspection.

Health: behaving cheap – short cuts in daily physical exercises and other venues of challenging the mind, body and will power – would hurt in the long run. Invest in the right gym membership with good instructors, or self study materials to get the right set of workouts and right postures during workouts.

Healthy eating choices are a no-brainer! Every time you are faced with a choice of food, go for the healthiest choices! Brain dead simple, isn’t it?

Child upbringing: get your child enrolled in the best school you can afford considering your other considerations. Even then, bring the best educational resources, toys, puzzles, etc for her. And finally, don’t be cheap when allocation your precious time for her – it would be worth it in the long run – you would be proud of the result sooner rather than later. Have more active, outdoor games, learn new skills together, have fun together!

Conscious choices: make the right choices for the environment – use minimal plastics, disposable plates and cutlery, avoid using car where you can, conserve water. Your kids would thank you!

Besides, incorporating and achieving some important (from the viewpoint of your longer term objectives) but not urgent activities also keeps the motivation and self esteem at a much higher level since you are achieving a milestone every single week, and not squandering days and weeks in pointless dillydally.

As they say, the journey of a thousand miles start with a single step!

Beginning today, I will do weekly planning of my week in advance. I will spend at least 10 mins for this planning and keep my longer term objectives in mind to focus on the “important” activities in the upcoming week. This weekly planning will include all my major priorities that span across professional and personal goals – mastery (professional), menu (eating), movement (fitness, marathons) . For the  sake of accountability and learning, I will also save the weekly planning sheet, in paper or scanned form, for review and gauge my progress over the weeks, months, and years!

Get going!

It is my four year old daughter’s birthday today, and I stayed home to make the day special for her. And her best friend joined in the evening for some more fun. I realized that my fitness level – physical energy required to just keep up with the kids, and mental toughness and pep required to continually keep them engaged with creative activities, pursuits and games – is probably not at par.

Beginning today, I am going to really go after energy management (and not time management, and they are two different things, a topic for another post later). The first BHAG that I am going to set for this week is to get more physically fit by running (road running!) twice a week, every week. That will certainly help me feel better inside, reduce weight, increase my energy levels (energy management!) and mental alertness, motivation levels, better moods (thanks to endorphins) and pave the way for further BHAGs! As a further step to increase my energy levels, I am considering experimenting with vegan diet (at least part of the day, or on certain days of the week), eating more timely 5 square meals a day, trying another exercise regime (Nike Training Club, Hot yoga, cycling) etc. but they are other BHAG’s which I intend to add every Monday (or motivational Mondays, as running Rachel (of runningrachel.com fame) likes to call them.

Will post another BHAG, and an update on this week’s BHAG next monday, 5th March 2012!

Later in the year, when we started visiting Pune more often, we discovered the Laxmi Narayan Chevda – this too comes in two varieties – the corn flakes one (my favourite!), and the poha (rice flakes) chevda.

Laxmi Narayan corn flakes chevda

More recently, a good friend visited Nagar (officially known as Ahmednagar, but since Ahmed- is not a very politically correct sounding name some how, most localites call it just Nagar!), and as good friends do, brought another world famous chevda! This time it was the Ramprasad Chevda. This is also rice flakes (poha) based chevda, but is in a different league of its own. Its hot (really!) and sweet and crunchy and dry-fruity taste is as addictive as it gets! Have a look:

The world famous Ramprasad Chevda from our very own Nagar, sorry Ahmednagar

Do you know of any other place in Maharashtra which has its own local, but world famous, chevda?

In present day life, we face many struggles. We do our best to learn as best as we can about the problems, ask for opinions and advise from well wishers, and generally sail through the problems, or at least develop the wisdom to accept them and take them in our stride.

What would happen if your struggle is with your own individuality and gender? What if you are not sure whether you are man or woman? Do the dividends of being a man tilt your opinion in favor of manhood? Or the maternal instincts you have for your child force you to accept your womanhood?

This is the story of Yuvanashva – a able king 23 generations before the venerable Rama (whose story makes up the Ramayana). The author maintains that the story of the pregnant kind – Yuvanashva – has been repeated twice in the Mahabharata itself, and also quoted in various ancient scriptures, called the Puranas. While it probably will never be clear whether the story of ‘the pregnant king’ is a true occurrence, it does server a strong purpose of sensitizing the human kind of the singularity of the human soul. The author, taking the liberty of making Yuvanashva a contemporary of the Pandavas, draws many parallels between the stories of Mahabharata with that of Yuvanashva. Mahabharata, interestingly, is taken as an aid, by interweaving the stories, in explaining the situation of Yuvanashva since it is widely believed to be a true narration of real incidents happened many many years ago, and is filled with many cases which are akin to the story of Yuvanashva. In Mahabharata lies the story of Shikhandi, a girl brought up as a boy, Krishna, who becomes a woman for a night to fulfill the last wish to Iravan (Arjun’s son through Ulupi), and Arjuna who spends a full year as a woman, teaching dance to the daughter of a king.

While the book is divided into rather small chapters (called books), the plot can be broadly divided into three parts. The first part lays the foundation of the story by giving lots of background information about Ila vrita, the rituals and the ways of living of its inhabitants, the varna-dharma-ashrama concepts and the various political and cultural goings-on in the region at that time.

The second part of the book – the largest one – is centered around the focus on boy child and how important it is for a king to father a son before being crowned a king, how a mother uses this excuse to rule the kingdom, and the various approaches that the young Yuvanashva takes to father a king. This is the story of his struggle with himself, with the rules that have been laid down by his ancestors, with a dominating mother, and at one point of time, it appears as if he is at war with the rest of the world.

The final part of the book is when Yuvanashva realizes the futility of this struggle, renounces the world and moves into the Vanprastha ashrama. He gives up his royalty and moves to the forest as an ascetic, meeting other ascetics, learning from them, and finally wisdom dawns upon him.

While I personally believe, and I have read Devdatt’s another monumental book Jaya – an illustrated retelling of the Mahabharata, the story of The Pregnant King is relatively unadulterated with fiction except where absolutely necessary to carry the plot along. The narration is flawless and the reader is spell bound till the very end. Through details of the various ancient rituals and practices and the socio-cultural setup, Devdatt manages to keep his reader engaged till the very end.

Related articles:
The author’s commentary on his book (external link pointing to author’s website)

When a buy-side investor uses DMA for sending orders to an execution venue (e.g. exchange), his orders are not touched (not necessary not seen) by the broker, but rather forwarded directly to the execution venue through broker’s infrastructure. The term infrastructure, as used here, includes the connectivity (from the broker to the exchange), the order routing system (hardware and software), the risk management system, the exchange membership of the broker, the margin utilization of the broker, and ultimately back office contracting and settlement services of the broker.One key characteristic of DMA is that the broker can conduct pre-trade risk checks on each order before the order hits the exchange.

Sponsored access, on the other hand, is similar to DMA except the fact that the investor (buy-side, aka client) does NOT use the broker’s infrastructure, and routes his orders to the execution venue using the broker’s membership id.

Owing to this routing, the broker can only do pre-trade risk checks if the execution venue provides such a system and service to the broker, and this is called filtered SA. Here, each order of the investor still passes through the broker’s pre-trade risk checks before hitting the execution venue.

In the case of unfiltered (aka naked) SA, the broker only receives a drop copy of each order that the investor has sent to the execution venue, and the risk management is to be done using this information. Note that the order is already in the market, and not dependent on passing the broker’s risk checks.

As you can see, the unfiltered SA provides the lowest latency, followed by the filtered SA and finally DMA. These low latency options are very attractive to the algorithmic and high frequency trading firms.

–quote
Dialogue is the basic unit of work in an organization. The quality of the dialogue determines how people gather and process information, how they make decisions, and how they feel about one another and about the outcome of these decisions. Dialogue can lead to new ideas and speed as a competitive advantage. It is the single-most important factor underlying the productivity and growth of the knowledge worker. Indeed, the tone and content of dialogue shapes people’s behaviors and beliefs—that is, the corporate culture—faster and more permanently than any reward system, structural change, or vision statement I’ve seen.
–unquote