Dust storm shuts down interstate in northern Okla. - Yahoo! News

This happens in America. Highways full of fast cars, flanked by vast open spaces come to a grinding halt in front of nature's fury. Once again human beings are made to remember that their massive inventions are after all not so powerful against the wrath of nature.

Dust storm shuts down interstate in northern Okla. - Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/dust-storm-shuts-down-interstate-northern-okla-214800712.html A massive dust storm swirling reddish-brown clouds over northern Oklahoma triggered a multi-vehicle accident along a major interstate Thursday, forcing police to shut down part of the heavily traveled roadway amid near blackout conditions. Read the full story

Buried under work!

Anger is Work (Photo credit: shtikl)

I have been so busy with work that I have rarely had days off during the past month. Hence my blogging has also been sporadic and irregular. It is generally a busy season everywhere in the world. Here in the US shopping season is getting underway in the run up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. While in India I am sure Dasara and Diwali shopping is in full swing. I am not aware of the rest of the world I am sure everyone everywhere is celebrating something or the other.
As for me I am working busy as always.

Fossils Galore at Mineral Wells, TX

Mineral Wells, Texas Historical Marker (Photo credit: fables98)

Mineral Wells is one of my liked places for a weekend getaway in Texas. I like the place because it is one of the few places around DFW with a slightly hilly terrain. I recently found out about the existence of a fossil park in this place and went to check it out. The road to Mineral Wells Fossil Park is pathetically bad, full of gravel and sand. I had to jostle along the dirt tracks raising clouds of dust at 20mph.

The fossil park is a unique location surrounded by hilly terrain and rocky outcrops. Most of them of course are private property fenced off with no access to public.  Anyway what I found at the fossil park is indeed uniquely different from elsewhere. Here one can actually collect fossils and bring them home and government encourages this kind of fossil hunting. I hunted a few and brought them home.

Losing our legacy!

A recent conversation at work made me extremely sad. Few days ago during lunch break one of my colleagues was talking about her family weekend outing to a Christian retreat in rural Texas. She was describing how peaceful and serene the locale was and revealed that every morning the retreat conducted prayers and Yoga. I was silently listening and others in the room chipped in their conversation about how beneficial Yoga was and how they all like to learn and perform the exercises and meditate during.

One of them was even saying how great "Christian Yoga" was for the mind, body and spirit. Another colleague turned to me and asked "Do you know about Yoga? I know Yoga is an Eastern practice...." I responded suitably and the conversation went on.

The reason I am sharing it here is because I am so depressed by the fact that we Indians have lost everything in the eyes of the west. We lost our independence and freedom when the Muslims started invading us. Then we lost all our wealth thanks to the marauding mobs of Muslims. We lost our identity sometime in 1400s when Christopher Columbus landed here and branded the tribal people "Indians". Then we lost our economy, and got enslaved by the British.

After independence we lost our sense of thinking what is right for our civilization, nation and society. Unfortunately we have become so selfish that we only think of what is right for me and my family, even if it means compromising our identity, culture, tradition and legacy.

I wonder what we will lose next! Maybe our history!

Wild Flowers and Hiking Trails

Whenever I go hiking the only things in abundance that are noticeable are wild flowers. Like any tourist and wanna be photographer I shoot pictures of these creations of nature and post them on my blog. Here are some examples:

Protect Your Identity and Safeguard your life!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of LifeLock Twitter for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
Identity theft is a real, fairly common and a serious problem that is facing successful people in the developed world today. If one's identity gets stolen it takes long time and thousands of dollars of spending before the mess can be sorted out.

The best way to protect your identity is to ensure that it doesn't get stolen. The most common way people hack and steal your details is via the internet.  Remember there are hackers online all the time looking to steal passwords. Have you ever wondered How hack-friendly is your password? There are many services that promise to protect your identity but I don't think there is none as good as LifeLock.

LifeLock is a the leading provider of identity theft protection service. LifeLock provides clients a multi-pronged strategy to ensure identity theft protection. It is one of the most technologically advanced service provider in this area.

Identity theft has led to individuals and families going bankrupt, losing credit, and getting their personal health information compromised among others. Lot of people dismiss identity theft as something that happens only to rich people, that is false. Households with an annual income of 100K have the highest identity fraud rate of 7.4%. Once identity gets stolen it can cost around $1,513. Identity theft is becoming more and more common - last year (2011) over 11.6 million people were subject to identity frauds and they lost over $18 billion. That is a whopping number both of people and the money.

A huge contributing factor for identity theft is smartphone ownership. Nearly 6.6% of victims own smartphones, 6.8% victims use social media, and 10.1% are linkedin users. Isn't that amazing? Now would you like to be one of them? Of course not! Get LifeLock and you can be assured that no hacker can reach you and steal your identity. It takes only 0.000224 seconds to hack a 6 character password, so it is better to have a bigger and more complicated password.

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A website for Geeks and discount lovers!

Majority of my friends are into the information technology (IT) profession. They are what one would call 'geeks' they live and breathe technology, gadgets, software, hardware, and other cool stuff. I have always wanted to be one up on them and give them information about latest gadgets and cool gizmos. For a long time the information I gave them was already old.

Now I have found the Geek Blog which will keep me ahead of my geeky friends. This blog offers the most contemporary information on the latest cool gadgets, gizmos, innovations in technology and other related stuff. How I found this website is itself quite an interesting story.

I was looking for some discount coupons to buy a gift for a friend. I found this website with Toys r us coupons and was immediately taken. As I browsed more I found more discount coupon codes and offers. I was surprised at the amount of information, discount codes and offers that this website has.

I found LL Bean coupon code which was another bonus for visiting this website. Now I am waiting for the opportunity to surprise my geeky friends with all the new information I have gathered here.

Mineral Wells State Park

I recently visited Mineral Wells State Park. As I have already written this is one of the few hilly areas around the metroplex. Will write more soon...

College Artworks

Recently I started an art appreciation class and one of the assignments in school is to go round the campus and document the art works that I can see. Well I went around the campus with my camera and captured the images of what I saw. Some are good, others are well... I will let you decide...

Content Central - The Brand New Document Management Solution from Ademero!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Ademero for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Businesses, both small and large, are always managing documents. These maybe contracts, workflow solutions, contracts, bills, invoices, etc. There is a constant need to monitor and manage documents if the business has to function smoothly. Large corporations invest in creating content management systems and software and with the advent of internet some have hosted content management. This kind of investment may not be feasible for small and medium businesses.

Here is where Ademero Business Services step in. Their main service is to provide hosted document management software, document imaging, and related professional services for businesses that handle large amount of documentation. Hitherto businesses depended on paper documentation and management and it was labor intensive to locate specific documentation. Now with document imaging and hosted document management solutions from Ademero all documentation is practically at finger tips.

Just imagine if you are a business owner and you are looking for a specific contract that you implemented several years ago. With hosted documentation that converts scanned images into searchable text it can be accomplished in minutes. This is the power of Ademero's solutions.

Ademero's Content Central is a cutting edge platform for a businesses document management and workflow solutions. It is a completely based software that can be accessed using any popular browser including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome. Users can log in with a unique username and password and do every operation they need to do in document management. This includes document capture, indexing, searching and retrieving documents and of course distributing them to single or multiple users.

Think of the ease with which you could disseminate information about new products or services to your clients; or perhaps the great new deal you are offering for Thanksgiving or New Year, etc. Perhaps you want to have a conference of associates you can deploy information about it through Ademero too.

The biggest advantage of this system in my opinion is the ease of operation, and access. Every user can access this from any computer all they need is an internet connection and browser. Administrators can install a single copy of Content Central on a windows server and voila it is available for everyone to use.


This document management system has to be experienced to appreciate its benefits to your business. The deployment is quick and controlled at the same time. It is login based access so it has security you can choose who gets to see what. Once logged into the system users can create documents using PDF-based electronic forms or scan documents using appropriate devices. These documents will simply be converted into searchable PDF files once on Content Central and be available to users who have privileges to access them.

I am yet to tell you the best feature: Content Centrals powerful search tool. You can use names, dates, and keywords to find the document you are looking for. The system also features an integrated e-mail and fax tool that allows distribution of the documents on board without any need for external devices or software.



Now you must be thinking that a software solution that advanced as this would cost the moon. No it is extremely affordable and priced according to the number of users that are going to access the system. Ademero is the way to go forward if you want a smooth document management system.

Now you can get download a trail on Ademero's website and learn all about their services. It is going to save you time and money. In this economy both are very valuable.

Rock Climbing area in Mineral Wells State Park

Rock climbing in Dallas area means going to a gym and ascending their epoxy resin walls. This can be done throughout the year and through the day. On the other hand real rock climbing is pretty much impossible in the Dallas area or so I thought till I visited Mineral Wells State Park. Here there is a small area in one corner known as the Penitentiary Hollow where there are medium sized rock formations ideal for top-rope climbing. So for people in Dallas who want to do real rock climbing the few months of the year when it is pleasant and not extremely cold or hot Mineral Wells is the answer.

Lake Mineral Wells State Park

Lake Mineral Wells State Park is one of the few areas around Dallas where one can see hills and rocks. This is one of the large lakes that dot the area and not too long ago it was believed that the waters had healing properties and people from all over the country would come here for a bath. The city and its water was so famous that at one time the mineral water originating from here was the most sought after. Anyway now since there is more pollution and modernity has set in nobody visits this area for the special water. This is now a small country town which attracts adventurers for its outdoor activity offerings. The state park offers bicycling, hiking and rock climbing options.

US declares Haqqani network a terrorist body - Yahoo! News

Finally after what seems like eternity, having lost many lives both American Soldiers and Civilians US government has recognized that Haqqani Network is a terrorist group. I wonder why it took them so many years, lives, and destruction. I guess as long as it was people from India and other countries where this network operates through its allies were victims America didn't care. Now that their own soldiers were being targeted they have started this process. I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow the US announces a few billion dollars in aid to Pakistan. This has been the typical strategy of America during the past several decades. Pinch the child and rock the cradle. Let us see what happens...

US declares Haqqani network a terrorist body - Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/us-declares-haqqani-network-terrorist-body-152453023.html The Obama administration declared Friday that the Pakistan-based Haqqani network of militants is a terrorist body despite misgivings about how the largely symbolic act could further stall planned Afghan peace talks or put yet another chill on the United States' already fragile counterterrorism alliance with Islamabad. Read the full story