One day Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry and rude young man came up and began insulting him. “You have no right teaching others,” he shouted. “You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake.”

Buddha was not upset by these insults. Instead he asked the young man “Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?”

The man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, “It would belong to me, because I bought the gift.”

The Buddha smiled and said, “That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you have done is hurt yourself.”

“If you want to stop hurting yourself, you must get rid of your anger and become loving instead. When you hate others, you yourself become unhappy. But when you love others, everyone is happy.”

The young man listened closely to these wise words of the Buddha. “You are right, o Enlightened One, “he said. “Please teach me the path of love. I wish to become your follower.”

The Buddha answered kindly, “Of course. I teach anyone who truly wants to learn. Come with me.”

Thanks to my friend Babu for sharing it on the facebook..

My Hand made Ganesha with Aruna’s prasadam almost 8-9 years in a row!!

Wow, Time just flies and flies fast. If you don’t notice, days became months before you know it becomes years. I just realized it has been be almost 10 months since I wrote something personal so thought posting this blog with some updates.

Change is the only constant in our life. We all know that and nothing can change that fact. In the past 10 months or so, many things have happened in my life like any other active person’s life. I changed my project client and going to move to new one in a week, shifted our base to a new home, competed in another Toastmaster Speech competition, help to close few more houses for my clients, camped with family few times, met some old friends and so much more to share. Let me do quick run down of some important ones.

Sugar Land – Our New Home
Let’s start with an exciting one, we moved to our new home in Sugar land on April 15, 2013. It was tough decision but we have to make it for the purpose of our kids education and family growth. It is just difficult to select the right place to move but it make it more tricky being a Realtor myself. But we put all parameters of importance for us and prioritized them and finally choose Sugar land. It was last in our options but came out as winning choice in all aspects especially kids education, kids activities, commute to any future project destinations like downtown or galleria area, amenities, closeness to all shops and finally important one, easy to visit temple.

It has been almost 5 months so far and things are going good. Ashwin started in his new school during last school year for few weeks and started again in 2nd grade again this year. Akhil is going to Little Fisher Preschool from 9-2pm everyday starting Sept 2nd. That will keep Aruna more busy everyday due to drop off and pick up duty. We also started back swim classes for Ashwin at LifeTime Fitness which he was going previously. Added Akhil also to membership and started Swim class for him as well.

Found a chess group taught by Mr.Chuck Hingle and Arun is going to his class for beginners for almost 2 months now. I thought him little bit of chess previously but now he is doing much better and winning games. Joined Ashwin to Guitar class as well from August as he wanted to learn guitar after seeing his friends going to classes. All these classes are adding more chauffeuring duty for us especially Aruna making the day go by really faster than usual.

Spring Toastmaster Contest
After winning Fall 2012 District Humorous Speech contest, I was asked by many to compete in the Spring International Speech contest. I also wanted to give it a try to see whether I can go above District level to compete in the Region level. So I enrolled in 2013 Spring International Speech contest and started preparing for it. I was in search for a winning speech. In spite of busy schedule settling down at our new home, I also started searching for an exciting topic to talk about. Finally I figured out a topic which was near and dear to me. It was about my personal journey about coming to America, meeting good people all these year and how this country always motivates me to do more in my life. I titled as “OPM Effect – Opportunity People and Motivation” It was a great speech and winning speech up to Division level. I couldn’t go fast division and placed 2nd in Division O Contest. But it was another interesting journey, a serious attempt to show that I am not only Humorous speaker but also Professional speaker as well.

Fun Things
Finally, let me talk about some fun stuff. As many of you know, I love to venture out and take some adventurous trips. In that line, we went to Great Wolf Lodge in Dallas for kids Spring break 2013. It was an indoor theme park. We stayed for a night and spent 2 days in the park. Both Aruna and kids had great time. Later we went to Lego land for Kids and they had good time.

Another exciting trip was to Beaver’s Bend State Park in Oklahoma during the July 4th week with Bala and Deepak family. We couldn’t get any cabins so stayed in a lodge close to the park. We had amazing time Kayaking, Hiking, Swimming in the lake, Scenic Ride and Boating. It was all in all a great trip with lots of activities.

This labor day weekend we traveled to Austin and camped one day at McKinney Falls State Park near Airport. I expected some good flowing water but was disappointed to see only stagnated water. No falls, no water activities due to drought. Park was not really active and it was too hot on top of all. It was around 90’s and only cooled down in mid-night. We managed to stay that night with just ceiling fan in the Shelter but uncomfortable.

Next weekend, we went to another camping with all our Tamil friends to Lake Houston Wilderness Park, New Caney. It was a planned camping trip arranged by our camping friend which we go every year. It was a fun and relaxing weekend. No work, just relaxed, hiked, had decent food, played games, kids enjoyed and

Over all, it has been an active year for us. Moving to new home, getting kids settled down in their school’s and starting after school activities and fun camping activities, all kept us busy. Aruna parents will be in town from Sept 20th and it will be fun for kids to have their company. We(Aruna and myself) are also looking forward for some quite time 🙂

BTW, I have posted few pictures on all these adventurous activities in my Facebook page, so don’t forget to check it out.

Real success takes discipline and methodology. Here are eight things the most successful people are meticulous about getting right. By Kevin Daum

Most people claim to want success. But not everyone is willing to do the hard work and the smart work to get there. Often opportunities present themselves and because people are distracted, they miss them or give up on them before things fully develop.

Truly successful people don’t leave much to chance. They are disciplined and focused. They constantly seek new methods to achieve more, in bigger and faster ways. Listed below are eight different practices that will help you concentrate your efforts on rising above the tide.

1. Make Materialism Irrelevant

Fancy cars and houses are all well and good, but many foolishly focus on the byproducts of success, rather than concentrating on building sustainable success in the first place. Establish a bare minimum for your material needs, and then you can enjoy the benefits of success, debt and stress free.

2. Enhance Knowledge

Success comes faster to those who are open, active learners. The higher up the success ladder you climb, the more complex the systems and opportunities that are presented to you. Absorb all the information you can and if you sense a gap you can’t fill, connect with people who have the knowledge you need.

3. Manage Relationship Expectations

People in your life require time. Successful individuals attract folk and so they have to carefully regulate the time they can spend with others. It’s hard to limit the time you share and still make people feel important. Make choices about the people who matter to you and determine how you each can get value from your interactions. Then make sure they understand your limitations so they don’t take it personally when you can’t be present.

4. Practice Emotional Self-Awareness

Not all successful people are calm and nice. In fact, many can be volatile. But most are very aware of their tempers and idiosyncrasies. They know how to use their emotions to get what they want from life and work hard to make sure feelings don’t become a detriment. Know yourself and learn how to let your emotions work for you in positive ways.

5. Commit to a Physical Ideal

Everyone has a vision of their own perfect body. They don’t have to be fashion models or athletes to be happy. But physical health is a consideration in their life and it’s a big distraction when it gets out of whack. Determine the body you believe is worth working for and set a game plan to achieve and maintain it.

6. Gain Clarity About Spirituality

There are many highly successful people like Richard Branson and Warren Buffett who don’t consider religion to be important or relevant. But they have a clear point of view as to the role spirituality plays in their life. Find your own way to be at one with the universe and be clear and deliberate in how you practice.

7. Adhere to a Code of Ethics

Really successful people live by rules. They may not be the rules of others, but consistency is important for them to maintain power and stability. Their individual view of how the world works is the basis for how they believe people should be treated and they will defend it until their dying day. Determine your ethical lines and broadcast them loud and clear so people around you know where you stand.

8. Focus on Time Efficiency

Prioritization is a key component of success. You can’t reach your pinnacle if you are wasting time on distractions. Integration of activities frees up time for greater achievement. Spend your time on activities that are fun, enlightening and productive and soon you’ll have gained hours to reap the benefits of success.

Ultimately, really successful people live their lives by design instead of default, so if you want to be one of them, dedicate time and effort to determining the plan for your preferred future and execute that plan in a focused and consistent manner.

Source: inc.com

Drum roll please….

The Winner of Division O Humorous Speech contest is Vijai Thirnageswaram.

I was so happy to hear that announcement yesterday during the Division O contest. I am still trying to get over the Jet lag from last week trip to India. I was worried whether I would be able to deliver properly after lots of preparation and I was able to pull it off. Thanks to my coworker and coach Pat who helped me along the way starting from tuning the speech to hearing me out and giving suggestions on pronunciation and every things else to win up to this level.

It is the first time ever I came up to this level in any Toastmaster contest in the past 11 years with Toastmasters. It is not easy and I know any challenge/contest is not an easy thing. It takes lot of time and practice. Practice is the key. So I took it bit serious after winning the club contest on Aug 23rd. I worked with Pat to change the speech to add more laugh lines and able to win the Area contest on Sept 18th. Immediately started working for the Division contest since I have to leave India for a week trip before the contest. With Pat’s help, we trimmed and tuned the speech again for better and practiced before leaving India. I got back on Monday Oct 15th and I was totally tired and sleepy due to Jet lag which made things worse. I kept telling myself, just one more day and try to get ready for it and it may be life time chance, never know right!

Started practicing with help Aruna(my wife) and Pat and got ready for yesterday speech. We thought we are all set and went to the contest with Projector and laptop to set it up. We found out that we are missing the clicker which I practiced with to move the slides. Bit upset and tensed, didn’t find it. So we have to jump to back up plan and asked Pat to move the slides as speech progresses. It did distract my speech flow but did work out well than I thought and got good laughs. I totally enjoyed giving the speech and actually forget few lines in the middle but able to caught back up and finished it. It was a great experience!!!

In the below picture, I am with District Dignitaries and other contestants from different Area. Pat Snyder is standing behind me. I owe it to him everything for all his help.


Now we need to start again to get ready for the District contest which will be held at District Conference on Nov 17th. I am really excited and hope to do my best and try to win it.

Am I really humorous to win the first place in the Hess Houston Toastmasters 2012 Fall Club contest held on Aug 23, 2012 at Hess by beating 2 other contestants?



That’s a question which I asked myself after winning the contest. I would say, my speech seems to get some good laughs that day to grab audience and judges attention to win the contest. I am not say out of humility. I know how much I practiced to give that speech and deliver the way I wanted to bring laughs from people. What I am trying to say is, I don’t know that one speech fully determines my comedic ability and capability.

People who have watched me give speeches have told me that I am good talker who can deliver great speeches. Some have told me that I do have humorous touch in my speeches. I do agree, I can put together any speech of a topic of my interest in fraction of minutes without much preparation. I like to have stories and humor aspect in my speeches to make it last long in their mind but I certainly lag the skill of making the full speech humorous. To say, I am a humorous speaker is totally overqualified. But I been trying to get good at it and working on improving that skill so it can come easily.

By entering into this year’s Humorous speech contest, I took the challenge to myself being a long time(11 years) toastmasters to get good at preparing and delivering good Humorous speeches which will last long in people heart. I hope winning the club level contest is a big boost and surely increased my confidence level to work more and perform more in the Area level. I am going to try to do my best with all friends encouragement and wishes.

Thank you everyone for their support.

A recent a news about Spelling Bee contest won by Snigdha Nandipati by defeating eight other finalists is the highlight of many parent discussion around the town. She is the fifth consecutive Indian-American winner of the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee competition in the U.S.

She is 14years studying her eight grade tied for 27th place in the last year contest. She studied 10-12 hours on weekends and 6 hours on weekdays to prepared to reach this accomplishment. She received an amount of $30,000 in cash, a trophy, a $2,500 savings bond and a scholarship of $5,000. She and past winners are always an inspiration to the young indian kids to do more instead of just watching TV and playing video games. Click here to check out more…

In past few years, Indian kids emerging as U.S. Champions in various fields. Like Snigdha, there are other US youngsters from India decent who made to the news by winning various awards. Here are few,

Nitin Reddy Tumma – 2012 Nobel Prize for Juniors/Intel Science Talent Search Winner for his research on cancer pathogenesis.

Shree Bose – Winner of Google Global Science fair 2011 – Discovered a process to improve the treatment of ovarian cancer patients.

Ramya Rangan – Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement 2011 honoring her as a top achiever in America in advanced placement math and science.

Bradly Ivan D’Souza – Presidents Volunteer Service Award for 2011 for finishing more than 1100 hours of community serviced.

You can read more stories about these young chaps at the recent article posted at siliconindia.com and show to your kids to inspire them on their journey to achieve their dream by never giving up on them.

Source courtesy: siliconindia.com

Thanks to my friend and neighbor Suresh who gave me the immense pleasure to read one among the best speeches I ever read by forwarding the script. It was the speech by Mr. Nipun Mehta. It is the founder of Service Space, a non-profit organization initially called as Charity focus. I did more research about him after the speech. I was amazed to find out that his philosophy and his teams mantra was give without no strings attached which is the actual meaning of giving lost in this internet era.

I really enjoyed reading every para of the speech and able to take away plenty of life lessons which I want to follow and share with others. I loved the phrase where he said, don’t just go through life — grow through life.
It wouldn’t be fair if I kept this wonderful speech to myself and decided to share with my friends and visitors of my website. Don’t just rush through the pages, just take some time out of your busy schedule and read it with quite background. You can feel it inside your inner soul.

Below is the script of the speech he gave at the IVY League Graduation ceremony. Enjoy it.
[download id=”26″]
I also found a TED talk which he presented about Give, Receive and Dance. An interesting speech as well.

It’s four families with 8 kids ranging from 2 to 13 and 8 adults, what could you expect other than a fun time at a place where you can forget about everything. It is everyone’s dream vacation land, Walt Disney world. We just got back from our much awaited trip to Disney world, Florida. It was 9 day trip, 8 night stay in Orlando. I cannot just say that we all had great time because that’s just an underestimated statement. We had loads of fun but as every Disney world visitor says we needed a vacation after a vacation. We came back with great memories to add to our photo album. Here are some Tips, Tricks and Thoughts from dream vacation with few pictures which should help you plan your dream vacation to Disney world.

Planning is Key

As many of you know, I am a strong proponent of planning ahead of time instead of figuring out things at the last minute. It really helped in our long 9 day vacation to Florida. Everything went as per plan and we all had great time spending reasonable amount of time and money wherever needed. I started planning 3 months in advance from the place we want to say, which park to go first, where should we eat and which rides are good and so much more.

Tip: Either buy The Unofficial Guide Walt Disney World 2012 (Unofficial Guides) or lend from your library. I borrowed from library and scanned the pages needed and printed them out to help us every day on our schedule.

Lodging/Stay
I started looking at Disney Resorts, Westgate resort & Costco offers referred by few friends and checked out vacation deals from websites. Nothing came close to renting a villa to stay together directly from the Owner. We stayed at a Solana Dream Villa in Terra Verda Resort and paid $120/night for 6 bed/4.5 bath with all other usual stuff. It is not a luxury villa but we just wanted something to stay and eat together. It was only around 9 miles from Disney, not too far and close to all the shopping and eating places. It worked out great.

Tip:We saved few hundred bucks by going directly to the owner instead of the middle management companies. Here are links for the resorts around Disney which sends emails to owners directly,
http://www.emeraldislandhoa.org
http://www.terra-verde-villas.com
http://www.solana-resort.com
http://www.windsorhillsrent.com

Tickets & Fastpasses
As a frugaler, I always look out for deals on everything. I know the theme park tickets don’t come cheap so sweeped all over the web. I only found few deals which can save couple of bucks. I also made sure to be careful in avoiding timeshare deal tickets. I didn’t find any deals which can save good money but I finally ended up getting a good deal after talking to Billy from Billy Boys. They sell discount tickets in their website TicketMomma.com. Good thing, I didn’t have to buy the tickets until I get to Orlando. I just got email confirmation about the deal and later called them when I got to Florida and picked up tickets personally before heading out to the park on the first day. They accepted credit card and even offered 2-3% discount if paid cash but we didn’t have enough cash to pay for all our tickets. So I ended up paying via credit card otherwise we might have saved few bucks. They been selling tickets for 10+ years in the same place and they are legitimate and don’t try to sell you any timeshare deals.

I should tell about the FASTPASS system in Disney parks. It was a great, great idea and helped us so much. We used the touring plan suggestions from the guide and couple of adults always go out to get FASTPASS before we head to check out a show or ride. Once we get back from that one, we will get FASTPASS for another ride and go to the one which we got FASTPASS earlier. Their ChildSwap system also helped much so we got company to go with you all the time and kids where able to try out second time. Thanks to Disney for offering FREE!

Tip: Try to follow the touringplan from book and get FASTPASSES for the ride you like to go before ahead and check other out and you will cover most of the rides.

Theme Parks to visit
We want to have fun visiting as many park possible but at the same time we don’t want to visit every park out there in Orlando. There is Disney, Universal, SeaWorld and lot more small parks. We decided to go to Disney which is well known and ranked first in our list. We also decided to go Universal park either for a day or two depending on our tiredness level.

Now comes the decision time to choose which park to first and later in the Disney world. Since I almost completed the Unofficial Guide and bring important print outs. It helped us on every decision from which park to go, which ride is good and plan for the day. As per the book, their recommendation was to head to parks in this way, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom. We discussed and decided to follow their tips and also took the weather into consideration. We did EPCOT as our first park.

EPCOT
It is a decent size park but lot less rides compared to others. We did the Living in Land ride, Soaring which was great. We checked out Captian EO, later Mission Space which made me sick a little bit. Then Universe of Energy show which was fun and Space Earth ride. We didn’t walk the international country side of park instead cut short to hit few countries and ended with the Illumation Fireworks show.

Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom was our next park. We felt the heat a bit more since it was all wandering outside instead of shows in a/c hall. We hit the Kilimanjaro Safari ride first, later Mt. Everest Ride and couldn’t go to Kali ride due to technical problems. We hit the Dinoland and finished the Dinosaur ride. After lunch, we went to Swirl ride in the Dinoland few times and ahead back to Kali River water ride. We bought Pancho’s from walmart to protect us from getting wet. I still got wet but not a lot so I should say it helped a bit. We checked out the 3pm parade and headed to other side of the park using train and kid enjoyed the petting zoo. We ended our fun time at park by checking out the It’s tough to be Bugs which was cool show and did twice as there was no queue.

Since the park closed early and we got to villa bit earlier than yesterday. It was not too tiring so we want to test our capacity and thought it be a won’t bad idea to head to Magic Kingdom. Not really, we found that it is going to rain on the day we plan to go to MG so thought better switch it and finish the big park on the day it’s clear and not raining.

Magic Kingdom
It is the big park compare to other Disney parks and got little more rides and shows. We first ahead to small kids area and checked out Winne the Pooh ride waiting for 30 mins or so while some of us went to get Fastpass for Splash Mountain. Later some checked out “The small world” and later saw the Philamagic show which was fun. We headed to Splash Mountain ride and took the ride which was thrilling so I tried one more time. We get to catch some pictures with the Pooh and Tiger. We had to hurry back to take the PeterPan ride, finished lunch and we aheaded to Tomorrowland. Used FASTPASS to go to Space Mountain ride and check out the 3pm Parade enjoying cold ice cream.

Later we checked out another show across Monster Inc which was ok and saw the Mickey stage show in front of the Magic Palace. Then we headed to Adventureland but missed Pirates of Carribean shows as it was closed due to mechanical problem. Took Tiki boat ride which had fake animals along the way, it was relaxing and fun. Took a break and later gone to Haunted mansion which wasn’t up to expectation. We had more time to kill before parade so we gone back to fantasy land and took kids ride carousel, saucer spin and gone to check out Electric parade and couldn’t get good spot. After that we wait for the big laser show and fireworks at 10pm. It started 9:45pm and it was amazing. It took us more than an hour to get out of the park as everyone wants to get out and transportation was limited. If you want to enjoy till end, that’s what happens and you have to patience and be prepared to stay late and save snacks till end so you won’t be tired out of hunger.




Blizzard Beach
We are so tired and wanted a break before head out to other parks. Since we got package which came with water park admission. We headed to Blizzard Beach Water Park around 12pm and had superb time in the water. It was short but those 5 hours flew fast with great fun rides to try out. I tried every ride except the big one with kids. I even tried tubing multiple times and ended with rafting ride with the family. We left and headed back to villa, refreshed and gone to an Indian restaurant to taste some good Indian food. Next day we plan to go the last park, Hollywood Studios.

Hollywood Studio
We ahead to Hollywood Studies, last disney park on our trip. We again reached the park little late around 9:30am. Started with Disney Junior show for kids, next Great American Movie Ride and Voyage with Mermaid show. We can only get Toy story FASTPASS for 2:30pm only. Had lunch and gone to Tower of Terror and headed to Toy Story Ride which was different and fun with my kids. We had to go back and do Rock Rollercoaster near Tower of Terror. I tried twice with kids and it was great. Later headed to Indiana Jones Show, Star Wars Ride and check out back stage tour and walk around a bit. At end, we walked back to Fantasmic show around 7:30pm to get some seats. We sat close to the water thought it would be good to be close but won’t recommend it. Due to wind, water got all over us. Sit on top seats or may be in the middle. It was one of the great show I have ever seen, excelled with lights, fireworks and action. Don’t miss it.

Universal Kingdom – Island of Adventures
Our last park was the Universal Kingdom, Island of Adventures. I did most of the rides except the big HULK and Dragon roller coaster ones. All the rides more thrilling and little scarier than Disney rides. I happen to get my iPhone wet in one of the ride and it finally crashed. That’s the sad part of the universal park visit. We were also able to get Caricreature done for second son Akhil since we had one done for my elder in Universal Studios, CA. It was another tiring but fun day at the park.

We initially thought of going to both Universal parks but decided to do only one and plan to take rest next day as we have to drive back home. On the 9th day, we took a short ride to Tampa and hit a clear water beach for couple of hours and came back and prepared to vacate the villa. Last day we started early around 4:30am and hit hard to reach Houston around 9:30pm.

Tip: If you going with kids, always take stroller and lots of drinks and snacks so they won’t get hungry and ask your food from the stalls. Don’t try to go every show or ride, be selective as per your group taste and follow the touringplan as much as possible.

Kids take
Kids had a blast. They just want to keep going on the same ride again and again. Since we had too many things to cover, they were satisfied trying only 2 times. My son who is exactly 48inch tried every ride atleast 2 times with the help of FASTPASS since he had great company his cousins from India. They were tired at the end of the day but get right back next day to go to another one. Bring strollers if they are less than 8-9 years old as they get tired and won’t be able to walk at the end of the day.

Adults Experience
Every day was long day starting from 6am to get ready to get to park around 9-9-9:30 and ends around 10-11pm. It was bit tiring after walking back and forth to the rides and shows. We took 2 vans, 8 people in each one. In each van, two adults swapped periodically and drove to avoid tiredness. We took break while going to avoid driving in night. While coming back we just pushed to do it all one day and we did it on time as well.

Disney Park got every aspect to entertain both kids and adults of any age. They have really thrilling rides as well small rides for kids. The shows were really fun with 3D aspects and some exciting factors. Total package for a family and must to visit place for a family with kids atleast one time or one time every few years. Overall, we all had wonderful fun vacation and will surely go back again after few years with my grown up kids.