Wood apple and education

One of my favorite slokha which I read in school is about an elephant eating wood apple. Finally found the slokha today and here it is:

 kapitthasya phalam chaiva yathaa kunjara bhakshitam
tasya saaram cha grihneeyaat tathaa havirasam prabhu 

Meaning:
When an elephant eats a wood apple, it consumes just the pulp and leaves the shell as is. Such should be the learning by a student. He/She should absorb just the essence of the 'reading'/lesson and leave the rest.
My understanding : Whenever we learn something we should understand the intent of it and ignore the rest.

However just happened to find an alternate meaning for it too in the web - "Just as the elephant (kunjara) consumes the wood apple fruit along with the shell, but accepts only the core of the fruit, the All-capable Supreme Lord accepts the essence (taste) of the offered food (havir), though He consumes the offering".

Day and night of Brahma

An interesting excerpt from the wiki on the night and day of Brahma compared to the modern science.
Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_creationists

Day and Night of Brahma

Science writers Carl Sagan and Fritjof Capra have pointed out similarities between the latest scientific understanding of the age of the universe, and the Hindu concept of a "day and night of Brahma", which is much closer to the current known age of the universe than other creation myths. The days and nights of Brahma posit a view of the universe that is divinely created, and is not strictly evolutionary, but an ongoing cycle of birth, death, and rebirth of the universe. According to Sagan:

The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang.^[10]

Capra, in his popular book The Tao of Physics, wrote that:

This idea of a periodically expanding and contracting universe, which involves a scale of time and space of vast proportions, has arisen not only in modern cosmology, but also in ancient Indian mythology. Experiencing the universe as an organic and rhythmically moving cosmos, the Hindus were able to develop evolutionary cosmologies which come very close to our modern scientific models.^[11]

Juicer

Months after its arrival we finally opened my sister's gift, a Jack Lalanne juicer. One of  our friend gave a good review about it and the juicer proved it to be true. We tried apple juice and it came out wonderful. Very minimal wastage for a juicer and the quality of the juice was good as well. On top of it we didn't spend a penny on it. That's comforting. Thanks to my sis for the birthday gift. Hope she remembers my wedding anniversary too. :-)

Airport Pickup

Have you ever heard of people playing pranks on themselves. Well it was our turn y'day. Srini & Shyamini, our buddies, came over for dinner to our place y'day. These guys had to pick up their cousin from airport at 9.55pm.  After the dinner, Srini developed a severe headache. (Yeah! I know what you are thinking. I just hope it wasn't the food.). Jolly & Srini, as usual did their online research and found out that the flight touch down is delayed by 66 mins. What an opportunity to play Wii. Just when we were in the middle of the bowling. We got a call from Chinni (Srini's cousin) precisely at 9.50 saying that the flight landed. What happened to the delay indicated in flight stats? We didn't have time to ponder over it anyway. Our Jolly fellow offered to drive and we quickly started our drive to SFO. This was bulb no:1. There is more to come.

On the way to the airport, we cleverly planned to trick Chinni. The plan goes likes this: Srini calls Chinni and informs he cannot make it to the airport and so Jolly will pick him up. Jolly will call and confirm the same with Chinni. We will drop Srini & Shyamini few yards before the pick up point and they will walk to Chinni. I and Jolly will drive to the point and pick up Chinni. Wow! what a plan. Chinni will be surprised to see all four of us.
Voila! We reached SFO airport and informed Chinni that we are there in the Alaskan arrival point. He confirmed that he is right there. We searched and searched, Chinni was nowhere in sight. We called him to check again. He said he was at terminal C. There was no terminal C in SFO.  Now, came  bulb no.2. We just realized that we are in the wrong airport. We called up and faced the moment of truth that he was indeed waiting in SJC airport. After an hour of drive, we finally reached the airport and picked up Chinni. Poor Chinni took it all with cheer.

Earth911

We visited our sister's place in Utah last month. Needless to say we had a good time. Enjoyed the breathtaking views of  snow clad mountains and my sister's cooking. All was well except the trash disposal system. We were only surprised to see that there was no separate garbage bins for recyclable items in their apartment complex. So I googled to check for recycling plants/centers near their home and found this interesting website: http://earth911.com/. This site goes a long way in helping recycle things. So? Make use of it.

Weekend Sleeping | ‌விடுமுறை நா‌ள் தூ‌க்க‌ம் ந‌ல்லதுதா‌ன்

Weekend Sleeping | ‌விடுமுறை நா‌ள் தூ‌க்க‌ம் ந‌ல்லதுதா‌ன்

Pollution eating plants

Thinking of decorating our hall with indoor plants, I started looking for some small, low maintenance plants. The air quality in our apartment is making me sick. My south Indian cooking is only adding to the bad air quality as I use lot of oil. Since we are in a rented apt, we cant really clean the duct using professional help. Initially we thought of adding filters to vent. My idea was to buy the ac filter mesh from OSH and cut it to the vent size and stick them using some magnetic strips. But we weren't sure if it will be very effective. Then I was wondering if any indoor plants will help reduce the pollutants. When I googled for pollution eating plants, I got these:
http://www.ecoartisan.org/pollution.html
http://www.wolvertonenvironmental.com/airFAQ.htm

http://www.brighthub.com/environment/science-environmental/articles/37020.aspx
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jun00/soil0600.htm
Hope this will inspire me to buy some indoor plants sooner :-)