This blog has moved to nirajkhanna.com

I've finally taken the 20 minutes needed to move my blog over to my own page, nirajkhanna.com.
This is my last post on blogspot. I will keep this site alive until I archive my previous posts onto nirajkhanna.com

Niraj.

Looking iPod Cool Can Lead to Greatness!

My iPhone came with those super cool iPod headphones, you know the ones. Instead of using them as a mere fashion accessory at the poker table, I have decided to cave into Keith's and Kevin's urgings to listen to some entrepreneurial podcasts on startups. I had relented because everyone seemed to be listening to these podcasts. If I'm trying to come up with the next brilliant idea, following the masses is certainly not going to get me closer to my goal. Brilliant ideas come from experience and clarity. I thought these podcasts would only distract me with things that would clutter my own "clarity". I thought wrong. VentureVoice (VV) is an excellent podcast with a very simple theme: Bring successful & notable entrepreneurs onto the show to tell their story. I have listened to 5 of these podcasts in the last week, the effect of which has been extremely positive and constructive. Listening to these discussions has given me the benefit of the experience gained by the entrepreneurs, the hope that revolutionary, great ideas can happen to anyone and the pain that comes with knowing that I didn't cash in on the tech bubble at the end of the last century. Don't get me wrong...there are plenty of shitty podcasts out there that will try and manipulate your mind into mediocrity, but they are worth sifting through to get to the great ones.

Niraj.

Back from Vacation

Laura and I just got back from our month long, eleven city escapade (Phoenix, Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Vegas, Calgary, Vancouver, San Diego, Encenada, Cabo San Lucas, Los Angeles, San Francisco). It was truly an amazing experience and Laura and I both came home promising to vacation more often. Over the course of the next several weeks, I’m going to post about the trip as I go through the 1400 pics/vids and decide what to keep and what to toss. I figure it’s the best way to remember the trip and avoid giving Laura a blank look on my face when she asks me “Remember that drive from Santa Barbara to Monterey” three weeks from now :-).

Getting back to work after a month of absence when you’re an entrepreneur means only one thing: overtime. When I got back, the amount of work needed to be sorted through was overbearing, so I turned to David Allen and his Getting Things Done – The Art of Stress Free Productivity book. I’ve been using Omnifocus, an organizational tool developed with the GTD concept in mind since December of 2007, but never read the book. After reading the first 60 pages of the book, I feel like I have the basic tools of organization at my finger tips and proceeded to dive into my Omnifocus projects, reorganized them, assigned due dates and defined clear expected outcomes (i.e. acceptance tests). Yesterday, I was able to complete 17 different action items (i.e. “To-Dos”) which took off some of the stress induced heat. For today, I have gardening related activities to knock off the list as my grass is as burnt as a defenceman trying to stop a rushing Alex Ovechkin.

Niraj.

Temporary Blogging Page

This site hosted my old blog. I'll be using it temporarily until I get nirajkhanna.com to work half decently. Of the 15 posts I made on this site in the past, I deleted 12 only keeping the last 3 for nostalgic purposes. Glad to rejoin the blogging community and hope I can be entertaining if not interesting.

Niraj.

Excellent Marriage Advice...

I'm looking over some poems for Ankit to put on my DVD and I come across this one.

To Keep Your Marriage Brimming
Ogden Nash (1902-1971)

To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong admit it;
Whenever you're right shut up.

He new what he was talking about...

Our Honeymoon

We stayed at a resort called Secrets Excellence...an over 18 resort. It was about 1 hour away from Punta Cana in a small city called Alero Alto, but it was amazing. The resort was totally secluded...it was like we were on our own little island. The first thing we did after arriving at the hotel was have lunch at the seafood restaurant on the terrace overlooking the lively, crystal clear, blue water of the Atlantic Ocean...totally breathtaking. The resort itself was georgeous with all sort of plants and vegetation arranged so beautifully everywhere. The room: Again, amazing, a huge king sized bed with four posts and a bed roof on top. It also came equipped with a jacuzzi, sparkling wine and unlimited mini-bar. Everything was sooo comfortable...I think we slept on average 12 hours per day (we were exhausted from our 3 days with Pooja :-)). Honestly people, words don't do this place justice. I'll try to post pics and you'll see for yourself. As for the highlights here they are:

- On day 0, Laura and I were brought on stage by the animators and we were in some dancing competition...we got eliminated in the quarterfinals, but it was a lot of fun.

- I learned how to operate a Catamaran on day 2. I went catamaraning every single day after that...I loved it. On day 4, the waves were quite lively and I unfortunately was trying to make a turn, but ended up going perpendicular to the waves...yup, you guessed it, I flipped that baby over...it was fun getting the thing back up, but the only bad thing was that Laura lost her glasses (I felt pretty bad since prior to us leaving she asked whether she could take her glasses off and I told her in my most machoist of voices, "Baby, there's no way a catamaran is flipping over when Captain Khanna is on board" (or something of that nature). Following my mishap, by day 4 I went catamaraning with one of the animators and we started jumping off and getting the catamarn to pull us in the water...stupid, but a lot of fun! Laura was on the beach sleeping during these shinanigans.

- On day 3, Laura and I took an excursion to go swimming with...SHARKS and STING RAYS (why are Sting Rays so dangerous...cause they sting people?). Laura was pretty anxious about it at the beginning cause I had a cut from flipping the catamaran, but once she got into the water she loved it. The sharks (some sort of dosile breed...probably drugged...just kidding) and sting rays were in a huge netted cage in the ocean, so I kind of felt bad, but what the heck, better sharks that are used to humans than those that are not. At first, when we saw a shark swimming in our direction, we both started swimming the other way...pretty pathetic but funny! After realizing that if the sharks wanted to eat us they would just eat us, I "let" one swim 2 feet under me...it was really cool. I'm pretty sure if I had had more time I would have thrown off my snorkling mask and went under to try and touch one...good thing I didn't have more time :-).

- Laura and I became Casino rats while we were there. We went in on Day 4 with 6$ and played some slots. On our second to last quarter we won $50! By the end of the night, we had one $100. On day 5 we went back and lost $10 (after being up $50). On day 6 we went back and lost $50, but then won it back playing roulette. Let's just say it's a good thing that there's not a casino in walking distance from our place or we would be in big trouble. I think roulette is a beatable game (play 2/3s of the table and you have a 66% chance of being in the money!). I'm waiting for John to get back to me as he doesn't think so.

- We went horse back riding on day 6. I had a lot of fun, since I quickly learned to navigate the horse. Americans are such cry babies...they were all complaining about their horses...mine was nicely controlled. I even got to gallop a bit along the ocean which was kind of one of my mini life long dreams...it was pretty neat. I hope to have a ranch one day for forgotten race horses...those animals are truly amazing. Laura's butt her quite a bit after the ordeal...mine was fine for some reason...must have been a fit or padding issue :-).

Other than that, Laura and I just spent a lot of time together doing stuff like archery (I dragged her, but I started to become quite good), Ping Pong (she rather enjoyed watching me trying to chase down the stupid white ball when she smaked the ball 10 ft off of the table), beach volleyball (I was doing that while she was reading on the beach and in the shade), drinking (again more me), eating (Laura and I were about even here...that girl can pack it away...I don't know where she hides it but I sure hope I don't find it 10 years from now!). It was honestly just really nice to be together without my family or our other obligations taking time away from us. But I think I enjoyed it more than her...I more of a lounger and beach goer...she's more of the museaum and cultural rat...I guess our next trip will have to be to Europe! But that was basically our trip. I'll never forget it.

Niraj.

My wedding

The date was July 31, 2004 and it will go down as one of the saddest days for single women following the development of the arranged marriage concept. Honestly thought that day had to be one of the most magical moments of my life...everything was just perfect. As tight as I thought I was with my friends, I think I got 1000% closer to them during the preparation weeks for my marriage. Laura and I were both extremely touched by all the effort our friends put into ensuring that our wedding day would be just perfect. Even following our wedding, John, Zoe and Ray came over to our appartment and John decided that they should all clean our place to help us get off to a head start...we were so touched we were both left speechless. And then there's my little brother Kunal, who is technically my cousin, but that just implies too distant of a relationship to accurately describe ours. He came here 3 weeks prior to the wedding and was a Godsend. He was always by my side keeping me company regardless of how involved he was in the activity I was doing at the time and we were really able to become very very very close during his stay here. And I honestly think that he injected the energy into the opening celebrations and without him, it still would have been good, but not nearly as great and hair-raising as the morning turned out to be. People who don't know him probably think he's pretty quiet, but he's just incredible in every way, be it values, intelligence, business sense and attitude (not to mention that he's in good shape) he is light years ahead of me when I was 19. He'll be very successful in life and I can't wait to watch him evolve as a person. I always thought of him like my little brother, but when he was here we actually acted like it...we talked, he asked me for advice on some things (or I gave it without solicitation)...it was like I finally had the little brother I had begged my mom for every single day when I was a kid. I'm going to make sure that I call him once a week to keep tabs on him and see how he is doing. We forged a very tight relationship while he was here and I can't let it slip.

I can't believe how good it was considering that the entire event was planned in 6 weeks. I'm usually not one to say this, but God must have been smiling on us. I guess he was also wanting me to finally marry Laura after knowing her for 13 years and going out with her for 9. I guess he was getting impatient too :-). I don't know how the wedding could have been such a success without the help of so many of mine and Laura's friends...honestly, without their helpful and willing hands it never would have been close to what it turned out to be. Laura and I will always feel grateful to them for caring enough to take significant amounts of time out from their busy lives and using that time to ensure an amazing wedding. The presentation that was given by Ankit and Angie was hilarious and very very touching. Ray's speech was also very touching. The room that John (and others...Ankit? Stacey? I still don't know) had picked out and decorated along with Yanni was simply perfect. We are very lucky to have friends as good as these...I've honestly overachieved in this area vastly beyond anything I could have imagined (despite my previous blog).

Now, a bit about Laura. I'll make this brief, cause I can go on and on and on about this subject, but I am soooo fortunate to be married to her. She is my dream girl. Not many people get to marry their dream girl, but I am one of the lucky ones. Again, another huge overachievement on my part, even though I do consider myself as a pretty good guy/person and quite a good catch...but Laura is just so much more selfless than I am, it is honestly humbling at times...the only way to really describe her is pure of heart. She's truly an amazing person. I love her so much and will always make sure I take care of her.

I'm sure I'm leaving out details, but all in all it was a day filled with magic and truly revealed to me how much my friends love and care about myself and Laura. We are both truly blessed to have so many people that care about us. I hope throughout my lifetime I am not stupid enough to dissolve any of these relationships but rather do all I can to ensure I make them even stronger. And if I don't...Laura will put me in my place :-)

Niraj.