Idle musings

    From 12-Jun-03 to 20-Jun-03 I was in Dubai, at my brother's house. I spent the mornings lazing around in the house, reading a novel. I honestly don't know what I enjoyed more : the peace and quiet and absolutely carefree mornings or the drives that my brother, sister-in-law and niece took me on during the evenings :-) Anyway, this was my first visit to the city and this blog contains my impressions of the city.     My first impression of Dubai from the air was that it looks like any Indian city. It took me 15 minutes of driving from the airport to see that this wasn't just any Indian city ! The Dubai roads have clearly marked lanes and signals. More importantly, the car drivers know and stick to the lane discipline. It's funny that 50% of the population in Dubai is from the Indian sub-continent, but traffic discipline is decidedly "un-Indian", i.e. better than in India :-) It appears that the strict law enforcement in Dubai has resulted in better discip...

On Saturday, in the morning, I went to a Chartered Accountant's office. The decor of the office portrayed an impression of solidity. The colours were earthy and there was a stone-like finishing to the walls. The furniture was tastefully done as well. The staff there was young, polite and knew their Information Technology. I heard one of them ask how a particular report could be generated. Another one of them had a problem with the PC. "Yes, I know the network is up, but I cannot see anything here", was the comment offered to a trouble-shooter technician. He went into another room and said that the server was up. It must have been a minor problem, the man went away quickly and the office resumed its ambient level of conversation soon. As I awaited my turn, the sound of the fan was a comforting one. It is summer and the weather is HOT ! To see the blades of the fan turning, hear its comforting sound and, above all, to feel the circulation of the breeze was a pleasant sensat...

    I saw the end of Star Trek Voyager on the day before yesterday. I have become more than a casual fan of the serial. One of the reasons I like the serial (or so I tell myself !) is for the ideas it introduces. I have mentioned what I like in the entire Star Trek series in my previous blog. Another aspect that I find in the serial is that there are lessons that I find I can apply in my life as well !     Of course, it is actually the other way around. The creators of the serial and the screenplay writers borrow lessons and incidents from life and depict it on the small screen, extrapolating the incidents. Still, the way the packaging in the serial has been done is to my liking !     The final episode of Star Trek Voyager illustrates what I mean. The starship Voyager is originally adrift 70,000 light years from home. The story of the serial is one of an odyssey to come back home. Along the way, there are adventures, enemies and friends to be...

NOTE:     I had originally written this blog in another site. Since that site is no longer accessible, I am uploading it in this blog at http://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.in/ using (or attempting to use) the same date as the original blog dates. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-     I am a fan of Star Trek. This blog contains my impressions on the serial, as a whole. If you want to learn more about the show, go to http://www.startrek.com .     When television was first launched in India, one of the highlights of Sunday morning (before Ramayana and Mahabharata, of course !) was Star Trek. For many aficionados of Star Trek, the original show (TOS) is the best of the series. After TOS, there have been four other in the series, viz. Star Trek : The Next Generation (TNG), Star Trek : Deep Space Nine, Star Trek : Voyager and Star Trek Enterprise. In India, TNG and Voyager are currently being shown in private televisions chann...