{balki Blog}
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• Should've applied and gotten the green-card sooner instead of greedily chasing the money.  This is probably the most common item for many Indians coming to the States.
• I recently started listening to the local NPR station (its called OPB in Oregon) but I believe I would be much better-informed person if I started listening to public radio as soon as came to the States (7 years ago).
• I consider myself a decent investor but I started way too late (around 2 years ago).  It never hurts to start investing (even if it is in more conservative investments like ETFs and index funds) sooner, however small the regular contributions
  are.  Investing in 401-K also falls into this same category.
• Buy a slightly bigger house… a lot sooner.  I was under the misconception for a long time that people without a resident status could not buy a house in the States.  Also, we were never sure if we would stay in this country for the long-term because of the unclear green-card status.  It would've been really wise if we had bought a house sooner.

Last night we went to the local BAPS temple in Tigard with our friends Rohit & Vaishali. While coming back, there was a set of railway tracks across the road and the crossing lights starting flashing as soon as Rohit’s car got right in front of the tracks. So, we waited a long time for the train to slowly pass by. There was no gate on our side of the tracks but there was a crossing gate on the other side. After the train passed by, the lights stopped flashing and the gate started to raise on the other side, so Rohit dashed ahead only to realize that the lights started flashing again and the gate close on the other end when he was forced to stop right on the tracks. He backed out of the tracks only to realize the gate started to open again. This time he dashed forward again to be stopped by the closed gate. As he was wondering if the signaling system was broken he saw a guy walking towards his car with a big torch-light, and a huge train coming behind him! Can you even imagine that?? You are in your car stuck on the railway tracks and a train coming towards you? Doesn’t that sound terrifying? Luckily, the train was coming slowly and Rohit had enough time to quickly backup onto the road. If this does not qualify for a brush with death, what else would? Although, both Rohit and Vaishali brushed off the incident as insignificant, I thought it was a close call!

Moral of the story: BE VERY CAUTIOUS WHILE DRIVING OVER THOSE GOOD OL’ TRAIN TRACKS!!

I’ve mentioned Podcasts once before on my blog but I thought it would be appropriate to reiterate the topic now that I am completely hooked onto them these days. I am slowly gaining control of the family iPod and am redeeming myself of the guilt by listening to interesting podcasts. I spend around 1-2 hours each work day listening to the podcasts while doing routine work and I have to claim, that is actually increasing my efficiency. I have about 4 hours worth of new podcast updates coming in every week and I plan to take that up to 8-10 hours, to have enough content for the week.

Anyways, here’s a list of my current podcast subscriptions:

Technorati : podcasting

For the last one year, I have been trying to enroll into an acting class but had to put it off for some reason or another.  Even this quarter, I could not enroll because Maansa & I were visiting India until October 2nd.

However, I forced myself (and neighbor Vishal) to attend the second class of the “Beginners Acting” course at PCC and I do not repent that decision even a single bit.  Without giving away too much, I just want to say I did not have that much concentrated fun (2 hours straight) since Ben Affleck started dating the first Jennifer.

I laughed so hard for so long that my stomach hurt for the next 2 days.  No kidding!  All in all, this is one of the smartest decisions that I took in a while.  We had 1 class so far and I cannot wait for the next class on Monday.  Keep a lookout for more details.