A Christmas story...in spring!

Over Christmas, I'd been taking a much needed break from work and literally chilling out at home for 10 days (the weather was below freezing!).

For all the freedom and independence the media has in the UK, it's surprising that only two major providers of TV entertainment are present in the market - Sky and Virgin. Sky requires a dish antenna and my apartment has banned the use of dish antennas on its premises sighting aesthetic reasons. That left me with the grand choice of 1 when it comes to powering my TV.

While I am tempted to whinge about how much Virgin is ripping me off, I will control myself, for this post is about something else. I am not much of a sports fan, so that eliminates the content of around 120 of the 140 channels that Virgin provides. The only other worthwhile channels are Comedy Central, Dave (only because they have endless re-runs of Top Gear) and Discovery.

Now that we have that out of the way, said break was spent predominantly zoned out in front of the telly and the set-top box stuck firmly stuck on Comedy Central. I was watching an interesting episode of Everybody Loves Raymond and his cuckoo family. For ELR aficionados, this was the one where Frank sends an anecdote to Readers' Digest and gets published. He then walks around with a note pad trying to identify other quips he can send in, now that he is "published"!

Watching it reminded me of myself. In the early days of this blog, I wore the same shoes as Frank B. Frank walked around with a tiny notepad while the notepad in my tiny mobile phone was where I'd jot down amusing things that happened every day in my life. At one point, there were more ideas than the inclination and will to write!

As I 'matured' in the blog trade, I began to make a mental note of things that were blog-worthy. Once again, I noticed that I was flooded with ideas. This made me a very happy man, for ideas are exactly what the doctor ordered for a writer, but I found myself sorely lacking when it came to actually translating those ideas into a post that made more sense than, say, this one. 

The end of that episode featured Frank hanging up his boots as a 'published writer'. I wonder if I'm headed to the same fate...am I going to hang up my boots because I can't translate ideas to posts? I don't think so, as long as I can come up posts on how I can't come up with posts :). 

What do you say readers?

Condemned....to learn religion!

Ah, good old Gulf News, never fails to provide a juicy titbit or two.

This one is about a Saudi bloke who decided to marry 6 women and got busted. It gets murkier. This nutter worked for the Vice Police.

Apart from the obvious wise cracks around Vice Police itself not being vice free and the practice what you preach comeback, this is worrying on multiple grounds.

Saudi Arabia, as a self appointed protector of the Faith, has a force known as the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The charter for this force is simple - make everyone who sets foot on Saudi soil adhere to the strict rules imposed by it as protector of the Faith. This force has absolute powers and is able to arrest anyone, anywhere and for reasons as flimsy as a lady showing 2 centimeters of skin from the soles of her feet when she fell down flat on her face.

The poor sods who get arrested for these 'offences' are humiliated, punished, whipped and in general made miserable.

Back to our bloke. His story is that he's married six women when he's only(!) allowed to take on 4! The story is worrying from several angles because:

1. the bloke works for the Vice Squad and he does this!
2. he claims he had no idea that 4 was the maximum - this coming from a person who is in charge of implementing said rule is even more worrying
3. then comes the punishment he was given:

• 120 lashes
• travel ban for 5 years
• memorise the last 2 sections of the Qu'uran.

How can a punishment be a punishment if it involves memorising Holy Scriptures? Doesn't it defeat the purpose of if 'Protectors of the Faith' consider it a punishment to learn what their religion says?

Reminds me of my good friend, Mr. 23rd Pulikesi. Among the many gems he doled out as punishment, was one where a court dabari (crier) was punished with repeating Pulikesi's praise for a week. While getting fed with kollu (horse feed). Once a day...

Strike 1, 2, 3...you're out...of this aircraft!

Flights don't scare me. I'm no dare devil either. I can be scared quite easily, however, in all of my flying experience (totalling a grand 6 years), I haven't been scared of air planes. Awestruck, yes, petrified, no. From the time I looked up in awe at the huge Boeing 747-400 cargo liner that used to land on my sister's house in Bangalore (her house then used to sit next to the airport compound wall facing the runway), I'd always wanted to fly in the 747 simply because it was then the largest commerical passenger aeroplane in the world.

Until my first flight in 2005, all I had to go on were reports from near and dear on how the interiors of a plane looked. Most of the reports pointed in the direction of a similarity between KPN Travels buses and a flight's interior. Turns out that description was not entirely inaccurate, the only difference being the seats in KPN buses are more comfortable, recline more and have a lot more leg room.

To date, I have yet to fly in a 747-400, but lost interest in flying in it after Airbus announced the A380, all desires to fly shifted loyalties to Airbus. I followed all programs on Discovery channel on the making of the Airbus A380 and knew its vital statistics by heart. Again awestruck, not scared of its ability to stay in the air.

All that changed a few days ago. With me extricating bricks from intimate places not once, but thrice in one flight.

On the rare occasion the office sends me on a business trip requiring the use of a commercial airliner, I jumped with joy when my ticket from London to Dubai listed the aircraft as A380-800. Finally. I thought it would be a cruise, what with its superior leg room in cattle class and all. Note the operative word cattle class. Apparently, in my company, one needs to be arthritic and old (read: Senior Manager and above) to fly business class. The recession, I tell you.

I checked in at the airport and there it stood, huge and majestic, although one might argue that from angles, the plane looked like it could lose a few kilos. The area above the cockpit also made the plane look very old - it was completely bald. 

The plane had made a hash of first impressions by coming into the airport over 25 minutes late. Airline staff helpfully attributed it to congestion in Heathrow and we all know what a busy airport Heathrow is, so impressions were promptly restored.

Once the interiors were cleaned up from its previous flight, we all shuffled in and I made myself cozy in the seat, not at all spilling out of the seat and also appreciating the decent bump in leg room. The plane eventually made it to taxi stage around 30 minutes behind schedule.

As with all planes, the captain introduced himself on the PA and helpfully told us the flight plan, speed, altitude and flying time. I have multiple issues with this information doled out by chauffeurs of the air.
 

• flight plan: I know where I'm coming from and I am aware of where I am going. How you propose to take me there is entirely upto you, I trust your judgement. When I get into a bus from Coimbatore to Chennai, some drivers/conductors helpfully tell you it will stop at Salem, Dindivanam and Chengulpet bypass. That is helpful; I don't think any driver of a bus in any country will tell you the bus plans to be on NH47 for 200kms before turning onto NH45 for 300kms. If a pilot tells me the flight I'm on is from A to C with a stop at B, I will be mildly interested. What we usually get is that the flight is from A to C and flies past B.

• speed and altitude: the airshow monitor constantly displays this information, thank you. I suppose, it's a good thing S Athai doesn't know any pilots. If she did and she flew with them, she would ask them to slow down to 30kmph (chapter 3 last paragraph!) if the pilot discloses the speed as "we'll be cruising at 875kmph."

• flying time: When a ticket is bought, the normal practice is for time departure time and arrival time to be displayed. Please let me know if we're going to be late, I'd appreciate that, thank you.

There are people to say this friendly banter is to develop a rapport between the passengers and the pilot. I refer these people to the relationship between bus driver and passengers.

Anyway, the pilot gave us information on flight plan never-the-less. The flight was to fly over UK, Europe, cross over into Asia over Turkey, Baghdad, some sea and then onto UAE airspace. 

Baghdad? No one mentioned that to me earlier! It might have actually been more helpful if there was an armed escort of the non-hijacker variety on board! I decided to keep a look out for incoming surface to air missiles, just in case. Brick extrication #1.

Around an hour into the flight, at some point over Brussels, helpful pilot uncle came on the PA again and said, "it appears passengers in the upper deck of the aircraft, please accept our apologies over the noisy flight you've been having, it's because one of the seals in a door on the upper deck is a 'bit' faulty. We are in touch with our base in Dubai on actions to take over this. In the meanwhile, please accept our apologies for the noise. Instantly, images of me being sucked into the atmosphere by rapid depressurization of the cabin since the door gave way flooded my mind. I remember being optimistic by thinking that at least, I wouldn't have to look out for missiles if we fell out of the sky before Baghdad came. Please Mr. Pilot, if the danger is not imminent, i.e., we're going to die in 10 seconds, please tell us something else. I strongly recommend a placebo. Something as mundane as, "will the passenger who has eaten one too many beans in the upper deck please step into the toilet, the noise is deafening" would have helped immensely. Brick extrication #2.

Somewhere between Turkey and Iraqi airspace, we ran into turbulence. To an already paranoid mind, this didn't do any wonders. The ride comfort on the flight suffered and both the interior and ride reminded me of KPN Travels more and more. To make matters, eagle eyed as I am, I noticed that the altitude had dropped from 33,000 feet to 27,000 and speed had decreased from 875kmph to 800kmph. Brick extrication #3. This is when pilot uncle truly made himself useful and said we're flying lower and slower in order to smoothen out the ride. Relief flooded back in, only to be replaced by more dread, for we were now over Iraq and flying lower! Brick extrication #3b. Thanks to G Bush and his cronies, it appears Iraq is fresh out of surface to air missiles and we made it to Dubai over 1 hour late and I had to scramble in the 15 minutes left to make my connecting flight, which thankfully, was as boring as any other flight I have taken.

Suddenly, my appetite for flying in the largest aircraft in the business has been satiated. I wonder why...

Falcon to Burger...an Autograph

The stable of vehicles in our household has been reasonably varied.

Falcon (reg number unknown)

This was the first scooter my father bought. I have very few memories of this scoot, for I either did not exist when we owned this or I was too small to remember. Fond recollections by my father indicate this scoot was fast, had a massive premium and he sold it for a price higher than the price he bought it for (possibly the only automobile less than 50 years old that appreciated!). Oh yes and he also had his first accident by being over confident. Apparently he managed to break a cast iron handlebar in 2!

Avanti Kelvinator (TNN 7511)

 

Fondly called "Street Hawk" by my father's students, this was also a 'robust' scooter, which meant it was made of iron, weighed around 2 and half tons and with its 150cc engine, it was about as nimble as a tortise on steroids. This was also most likely the scooter that instilled in me the love of touring on a two wheeler. We'd go on long (around 80 km in a day and that is long on that scoot!) rides around Nilgiris during the holidays. The mother would have to go to work and once she leaves, the father, the two sisters and I would pile onto the scooter along with a packed lunch and take off. Considering the vehicle is only expected to carry 2 people, it had well, 2 seats! People who are keen observers, eagle eyed and all that will observe that said two seater carried 4 people plus lunch for 4 hungry souls! As you might imagine, comfort was often spartan. The seating arrangement would always have me seated on stuffed cushion between the front and rear seats or standing in the front.

In hindsight, I guess it's not the most comfortable method of travelling, however, back then it was exhilerating and exciting. The only thing one had to keep in mind while sitting between seats was to ensure you stayed well away from the grip on the spring loaded front seat, for any sudden pothole could have castrating effects on one.

Bajaj Chetak (TN 43 4911)

This is the one I learned to ride in and did quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing between Ooty and Coimbatore. I'd learned to ride in the school campus, a fact which drivers of all school vehicles were aware of and would promptly get off the road when they saw me approaching. This one had a single long seat, but alas, we had grown by then and one 3 of us could fit on the scooter at a time. This was also the one that almost ended my young life in the persuit of a lousy figure of 8.

Hero Puch (TN 37 Q 1736)

This was one puny 65cc moped, but it could scream like a banshee and still manage a respectable 50kmph if you contorted yourself like an escape artist and made yourself invisible to the wind. Even this has taken me on a trip from Coimbatore to Ooty, although it took a painful 3.5 hours and required at times a one human power in addition to the 4 horses that powered it. In my defense, this was a hand-me-down, I would never down grade from a 150cc scooter to a moped off my own free will.

Bajaj Spirit (KA 03 Y something)

Yet another hand me down from the sister (does anyone else notice a trend here?). Performance wise not to dissimilar to the Puch, but looked way better.

Bajaj Legend (TN 33 L 4177)

Ah, my first true "non hand-me-down". I was the second owner having it bought it when it had done only 3,000kms. In the 12 months I used it, it did a further 13,000. Faithfully accompanying me on trips all over the place, from Tiruppur to Siruvani to Mettur to Ooty. It was supremely comfortable and if you threatened it enough, it would get to 80kmph and stay there. Touted as the first 4 stroke scooter in the world, it gave excellent fuel economy. Its still in the family and happily ferries me whenever I go to India.

Bajaj Caliber (TN 38 P 19xx)

Yep, we were a bajaj family through and through. My first motorcycle. All the more special because I saved up and bought it with my own cash. For the one year I had it, this was my pride and joy, faithfully ferrying me on pointless trips upto Ooty, and around Coimbatore district and the jewel in the crown, a trip from Coimbatore to Chennai, a distance of 600kms that took me 14 hours on miserable, potholed roads!

By now folks must be wondering why I'm having this Autograph moment with past two wheelers. Here's the deal, there is a new addition to the brood:

Suzuki Burgman 400 (FH 06 TZP)

The newest acquisition is a 400cc brute and is quite the looker. It has been affectionately called a 'luxo-scoot' by fans.

It is supremely comfortable and I am totally in louve with it.

In order to provide the uninitiated a simple to understand perspective of the awesomeness of this bike (yes, sisters of mine, I am referring to you), here are a few quick stats:

	Avanti Kelvinator	Bajaj Chetak	Hero Puch	Bajaj Spirit	Bajaj Legend	Bajaj Caliber	Suzuki Burgman
Displacement	150cc	150cc	65cc	80cc	150cc	110cc	400cc
Power	5bhp	7bhp	4 bhp	5 bhp	9 bhp	9 bhp	32bhp
Top speed	60 kpmh	70 kpmh	50 kmph	60 kpmh	80 kpmh	85 kmph	150 kmph
0-40 kmph	Long enough	< 1 min	>1 min	>1 min	6 sec	6 sec	3 sec
0-100 kmph	100? You've got to be kidding me	100? You've got to be kidding me	100? You've got to be kidding me	100? You've got to be kidding me	100? You've got to be kidding me	100? You've got to be kidding me	8 sec

Motorbiking evokes memories and dreams of sunny skies and warm weather. Imagine how happy I was when the forecasters at BBC said the worst of the horrible weather has now passed and residents of this damp and dreary country can now look forward to temperatures that are going to be positive in the coming weeks and months. It was on that high note that I stepped into the dealership with a spring in my step and took delivery of the Burger. The weather was bitterly cold, but between the heated grips and excellent weather protection, I got home with only slightly numb finger tips. I was eagerly looking forward to a ride to the office the next day, for my office for the day was a good 20 miles from home. Having woken up bright eyed and bushy tailed the next day, imagine my chagrin when what I saw outside was this:

 

and this
not a pretty sight I tell you, not a pretty sight. I'm now waiting for the big thaw before this baby can stretch its legs.

Why I didn't get a pay rise

An astute reader of the news would have found it really difficult to miss the recent 'crisis' that Dubai is undergoing. I am tempted to doc-link the news reports to "'crisis' that Dubai is undergoing", but I'm not sure if I will be able to doc-link 3,333,234 articles on the crisis to that one line, hence I shall leave it to the reader to understand what I'm talking about or invite them to Google the issue.

Having worked in the area, I'm reasonably familiar with the organisation structure of Dubai World. A rough representation of the structure is as follows:

However, according to the Ruler of Dubai, there are two key matters to take away from this:

1. Dubai World has nothing to do with the Dubai Government and is responsible for it's own mess; and
   
2. Dubai World is just a company that happens to be registered in Dubai. Problems it is facing are not representative of any problems that Dubai as a city may or may not be facing.

Be that as it may, what surprised me more than anything was the way the world economy tanked when this news came out and how convenient the timing of the announcement was to Dubai itself. The announcement was made a day before the Dubai capital markets closed for almost a week due to Eid. There would have been no alternative but to announce the problem, it would have to be done sooner or later. Announcing it just before Eid holidays would save the Dubai stock markets from a slaughter.

What caught everyone unawares was the way the world markets reacted to the news. It would be understandable if share prices of companies with genuine exposure to Dubai World were affected, but no, shares plummeted across the board, across the world. While it is common knowledge that we live in an integrated world, such a level of integration is scary! For example, why should share prices of Mannar and Company Public Limited with its registered office in Kaaterikuppam in rural Tamil Nadu crash because Dubai World defaulted on its loans? M'n'C Public Limited (Mannar 'n' Company) has no dealings whatsoever with Dubai or the Arab world, for that matter (except for a visit by its MD to Doobai on a holiday in 2008).

Why should Tonga catching a cold have anything to do with the world economy contracting a deadly case of pneumonia? I'll tell you why, because of the bally press.

In the early days, the press played good Samaritan, reporting things as they are, letting people in one end of the country know what happened at the other end. As communication improved and became faster, more and more was reported. The fourth estate became more and more crowded. As the population of this notorious estate increased exponentially, the struggle for survival began and 'sensationalism' became the order of the day. The more shocking, Earth shattering and deadly the news, the more revenue the press made. Hence a sneeze became the pre-cursor to pneumonia. Press changed their roles from good Samaritans to doomsayers.

This is where one really appreciates the Arab press. While pressmen across the world were busy predicting when Dubai would be wiped off the map, Gulf News carried an article that merely said Dubai World is restructuring its loans to become more profitable. Simple, effective and concise. A bit like the British way of talking. "I'm in a bit of pain!" = "I've been stabbed multiple times in the back and am bleeding to death and will surely die if I am not treated within the next 2 seconds".

Imagine a world where the trigger for the credit crunch, the sub-prime loans was merely a "re-organisation of debt with a view to streamline future profitability". There would be no credit crunch, there would be no recession and I sure as hell would have gotten that pay rise...

Imsai arasan 23am Pulikesi a.k.a Microsoft Windows 7

A person would have to be stone deaf AND blind as a bat in order to have missed the slew of advertisements Microsoft has been flooding the telly with over the past couple of months, with the launch of Windows 7. Even then, said person with said weaknesses would have had to be completely cut off from a TV/Radio/News paper to have missed these ads. In other words, the only person who could've missed these is a hermit doing some good old fashioned tapas in upper reaches of the Himalayas.

The flip side of this analogy is that the audience Microsoft's ads target, spans the spectrum of the human race and a few from the animal kingdom. With such a large target, boy, did Microsoft do a Pulikesi!

Most self respecting Tamilians would have seen Imsai Arasan 23am Pulikesi and would also recall the scene on the bear hunt. The emperor, deserted by his 'loyal' followers when a bear is spotted fires several arrows and misses at point blank range. The bear is insulted by the lack of skill of its foe and, instead of killing Pulikesi, simply spits on him and moves on. An insulted Pulikesi nurses his wounds by taking up shooting classes. A soldier is tasked with holding an apple over his head so the emperor can shoot it. As each soldier dies, the target grows and is eventually replaced by a huge pumpkin, which is also missed! I may have screwed up the narrative above and made it not funny, but this was a massive slap-stick hit and still has me in splits each time I see it. Each time I see it, I also think about how implausible the whole situation is. Until Microsoft proved me wrong.

You see, the target demographic for Microsoft is massive, to say the least. A catchy ad campaign would have to capture a 3 year old and a 75 year old and everyone in between. I'm sorry to say, in classic Pulikesi fashion, Microsoft's missed them all! I have multiple bones to pick with Microsoft:

• what do you mean you got suggestions from users on what they would ACTUALLY like to see in an OS and implemented them in Windows 7? Does that mean for 20 odd years you sat on your high horse and belted out sub-standard products that didn't care about what the user wanted to do? Even if you did, I think it's a pretty big boo-boo to be admitting this every 10 minutes on telly

• one of the key features being touted is that of faster wake-up. Hasn't Apple being doing this for eons now? I can't help but noticing that my 2 year old MacBook wakes up faster than the Toshiba being showcased in the ad for faster wake up!

• a couple of the adverts feature folks being flown all the way from the UK to Tokyo/Houston just to prove the new laptops are capable of 'waking-up faster' and they are better at gaming! Each of these adverts include a limo ride to the airport in the UK, a flight to Tokyo/Houston and a gas-guzzling 4x4 ferrying the passenger from the airport to Toshiba/Dell, as the case may be. Come on Microsoft, the whole world's in a recession, you have climate change and environment friendliness being bandied about more often than Kate Moss's drunken charades or Amy Winehouse's drug-fuelled antics and here you advertise that you proudly brought a person across the world just to open a freaking laptop? Know your audience Microsoft, is that so hard?

• scriptwriters for the adverts could do with being more creative. If you want to showcase people friendliness, focus on the larger issues and club the smaller ones into a single ad for heaven's sake! Why, oh why, would you want to waste 30 seconds of precious prime-time screen real estate by having one irritating advertisement that says your new OS can arrange windows or the task bar is simple to use (again, stuff that Macs have been doing since the dawn of time!)

It's not so much an argument about the superiority of Windows over Apple's Mac OS or vice-versa. Windows 7, by Microsoft's own admission, has just become more like a Mac to use. It's as simple as that. Some changes that ought to have been done years ago, are being done now and there is nothing wrong with that, better late than never and all that. Look at Mac adverts, they are clean, simple, devoid of loud music or ignorant users (who, by the way, feel proud that they suggested something the Mac has been doing all along!), straight to the point and focussed on the features. No wonder you have fewer adverts for the Mac than Windows and no wonder again that an upgrade from Mac OS X Leopard to Mac OS X Snow Leopard costs £30 compared to £120 for an upgrade from Vista/XP to 7 - Microsoft needs the cash to fund the ads!

The ads end with, "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea!". I guess PC here stands for Puli(c)kesi...

This week, last year.

The few regular readers of this blog are, no doubt aware of my marriage, which happened last year. It's the reason I started blogging and have occasionally (read: a million times) referred to said marriage. I would, in this particular instance, strongly urge the reader not to focus on the marriage per se, but on the words "which happened last year". That's right, at some point in this week (the exact date does not elude me, I just chose not to refer to it, for the simple reason that this post hasn't been posted on that date!) our marriage turned 1. And no, this is not a mushy post on what I did/plan to do for the anniversary and how much I love her, but this is a mushy post on the year gone by.

From the time my memory goes back to, I have been fed a healthy diet of motoring magazines and continue to feed on them. One common theme I observe is that there is always a 'long term test report'. In these reports, there will invariably be a few photographs of a knackered looking car or motorcycle with some notes on how it is taking said knackering. To those who simply love jumping the gun, there will be no photographs and neither I nor the wife is knackered in any way. This was merely a comparison to put layout of this post in perspective. And like they assess the vehicles under different attributes, I shall assess a few categories of my wedding in the past year, followed by a satisfaction score.

Conversations:

At some point in August 2008, I made nervous first phone call to a girl that lasted the best part of 59 minutes. In those 59 minutes, I spoke for a sum total of 6 minutes and 25 seconds, including hmmmms, okays, yes, no and other monosyllabic emissions from my throat. The girl happily batted the remaining 52'35". Keen mathematicians would have already worked out that I was able to only contribute around 10% to the conversation. I'm happy to report that I am now able to talk for a lot longer now. But I suspect that's only because we are now together for a lot longer than 59 min. Her ability to chatter on incessantly is a blessing for me, for after a long day at the office talking in geek, it is amazing how restorative it is to have someone come and talk in a language other than geek. It's become something I look forward to when I get back home battered and bruised.

Lonely bachelors would nod with me when I say that coming home to someone is good, but I can now confirm coming home to someone raring to start talking to you is simply awesome! 9/10

Food:

Visiting dignitaries to our humble little home have poured accolades on the wife's culinary skills. They may have been polite, I don't know. But I need no other proof than the fact that my waistline, which stands testimony to her cooking skills.

In large corporations, there is a practice. When they want to sacrifice a (scape)goat, they hire a few managers and human resource personnel to talk to said goat. When they are done talking with the goat, it voluntarily catches the cheapest mode of transport allowable under expense reimbursement policies, goes to a discount store, bargains hard with the vendor, buys a knife, then goes to the butcher, hands over the knife, goes to the butcher's table and tucks itself in, ready to be sacrificed. That goat is not me. Culinary experiments were carried out on me in January 2009. From there on, there's been looking back and she has gone from strength to strength in the cooking department. I'm completely satisfied. 10/10

Life:

The transition from a carefree bachelor to a 'grahasthan' has had its ups and downs. Luckily there have been more ups than downs. Thanks to her. She's been very understanding. "I'm going for a BNO (boys' night out)", I would say. "No problem, go break a leg", would be the reply. Although I still haven't figured out why she grits her teeth each time she says this, like she is chewing leather. There's been no shortage of happiness and I am more than content here, hence the score is 12/10.

Overall experience:

Nothing short of exemplary. The product has been extremely low maintenance and high on efficiency. Given a choice between a super awesome, exciting life without her and the comfort of domestic bliss with her talking in the background, I wouldn't bat an eyelid while I chose the latter. I enjoy coming home to the wife and will continue doing so for until I retire. Then, I won't have to leave the house in the first place :). Happy anniversary 'week', dear wife.