Sunday, October 31, 2010

Shusmita's Baby Shower & More

All our friends arranged a surprised baby shower for Shusmita in 3rd October at Shahriar's house. We were able to keep her confused with the date to make it a real surprise for her.

We also arranged a small birthday party of Ahyan as he turned 4 years this October 12th. We did catering from Sala Thai.



Last weekend I, Shusmita and Ahyan went to Monterey. I took a day off in Friday from office and made it a 3 day quick vacation. We took a ocean view room in Monterey Best Western Beach Resort. The sea beach is just in front of the room and hence we were hearing the roar of the ocean if we opened the window or door. We roamed around the local restaurants and shops and also went to Monterey Bay Aquarium.



Bangladesh defeated new zealand 4-0 in the ODI series and India defeated Australia 2-0 in the Test series. Everything happened above my best expectation. Shakib highest run scorer in the series and also bowled superb. For India, Tendulkar had a double century and was man of the series.

Anand was runner up in Bilbao Cat 22 Super GM tournament (Kramnik champion) and also runner up in Nanjing cat 21 Super GM tournament (Carlsen champion).

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Fufu & My Cousines Visit To US

Last few months I was to busy to be able to update my blog with what's happening in life. So now I will try to give a quick summary.

Just after my Mount Whitney and Death Valley trip, we attended rodeo show in afternoon, dinner at sultan's kebab and visit to Alameda country fair in Pleasanton with Ezaz and Wali Bhai's families. Shusmita had her ultra sonograph done and we came to know that Ahyan is going to have a baby sister this November!

Fufu, Rumi Apa, Ripa, Iram and Iqra visited us. They landed in New York at 1st July from Dhaka. Fufu, Rumi Apa, Iram went to Canada from there while Ripa and Iqra came to my house. The first weekend I took them to Santa Cruz Beach and Shankar Ehsan Loy's concert in Oracle Arena. They enjoyed both thoroughly. The next weekend we went to Six Flags of Vallejo.

Fufu, Rumi Apa and Iram came to our house via Vancouver after a month. I started with showing them Golden Gate Bridge, World's Crookedest St at Lombard street San Francisco,  Fisherman's Wharf. We had dinner at Nick's Lighthouse. One weekday I participated in a Salesforce.com IT volunteering event in SFO Zoo and took fufu, ripa, rumi apa, iram, iqra as well to show the zoo. The next weekend we covered Six Flags at Saturday and Yosemite Sunday. Finally I overcame the challenge of Roller Coaster with Iram! All of them liked highway one, pfeiffer beach, big sur very much. I took my aunt and cousins to gilroy outlets, napa outlets and great america mall outlets.



As it was the month of Ramadan, we attended several Iftari invitations and invited all our friends for breakfast in our house at Eid day. Roaming around kodak theater, LA with Fufu, Rumi apa and Iram. Yesterday we reached Las Vegas just before night. Fufu, Rumi Apa & Iram all liked it. I got a surprise call from my University friends - Faisal, Russell, Alam, Kishore, Leena Apa, Shopon, Shumon - I was so happy to hear them! We saw hoover dam on the way to grand canyon from las vegas. And yah, fufu liked grand canyon very much! From grand canyon/williams to home/fremont it took 12 and half hours, 720 miles of drive. Whole LA/Las Vegas/Grand Canyon trip was 1875 miles drive (6 days) that I managed comfortably. We attended flop concert of A R Rehman at Oracle Arena,Oakland last night with friends & family. It was too short and commercial. Disappointing. I purchased an iPhone 4 for Rizvi (my youngest brother) and an iPad (32 GB) for Rasel (my younger brother) and sent it for them with Fufu.

Amongst the downside, I got a speeding ticket and lost my iPad in FedEx while sending documents to my parents for their visa.

Good news is that my I-140 got approved and now my lawyer applied for our H1/H4 extensions. To my great relief, Abbu Ammu got 5 years of multiple entry visa for USA. They will be coming to help us out this first November. I also started investing a small amount in Rasel's stock trading house in Gulshan to get an idea  and involvement with Dhaka Stock Exchange Market.

Nitol and Shoma moved to Atlanta. He had his daughter born there couple of months back. They named her Muntaha Rahman. Nitol will be joining a new job there soon.

I finished several books in last few months including Kalo Jadukor by Humayun Ahmed, Foundation Series of Isaac Asimov except the last book which I am reading now Foundation & Earth. I also participated in the JP Morgan Run Race from office in Embarcadero with thousands of people. I finished he 3.5 miles run in about 48 minutes this year. I attended Philips ecare get together dinner at Sunnyvale Shalimar. Imtiyaz, Franca, Dan, David, Shammack. Good old time talk.

Shusmita, Ahyan, Nody and I watched 'kings of devon' at San Jose in a weekend which was based on Bangladeshi gangsters of chicago yesterday. I purchased another iPhone 4 - this time for myself. Ahyan and Safwan started going to Sunday Islamic school recently.

Friday, October 01, 2010

Sovietovoski Koutukov - সোভিয়েটভস্কি কৌতুকভ

I was reading সোভিয়েটভস্কি কৌতুকভ last night and thought to share a few with you the intellectual jokes during the hard reigns of former Soveit Union in the time span of 1917 to 1991 until its fall. While this is the bengali transaltion of the original jokes, the author tried to keep the taste as much intact as possible even providing background of some the jokes for better understanding of the context. A few ones below from the question answers radio show of Armenia radio, Yerevan.

প্রশ্ন: হিটলার আত্য়হটত্যা করেছেন কেনো?
উত্তর: গ্যাস এর বিল দেখে

প্রশ্ন: সোভিয়েত স্টাইল এ নির্বাচন শুরু হয় কোবে থেকে?
উত্তর: যেদিন ইসসর ইভ কে সৃষ্টি করে আদম কে বলেন, স্ত্রী বেছে নাও

প্রশ্ন: কূত্‌সিট কিন্ত বিশশস্তো স্ত্রী আর সুন্দরী কিন্ত অবিশশস্তো স্ত্রী - কোনটি ভালো?
উত্তর: একা একা বিস্ঠা খাবার চেয়ে সবাই মিলে মিষ্টি খাওআ ভালো

প্রশ্ন: পাঊনড, ডলার আর রুবলের অন্তর্জ়াতিক বিনিময় হার কতো?
উত্তর: এক পাঊনড রুবলের দাম এক ডলার

প্রশ্ন: কোনো মেয়ে কী কোনো পুরুষ কে লাখপতি বানাতে পারে?
উত্তর: পারে| যদি পুরুষটি হয় কোটি পতি.

প্রশ্ন: ১৯৬৪ সাল কেমন যাবে?
উত্তর: মাঝারি রকম| ১৯৬৩ সালের চেয়ে খারাপ কিন্ত ১৯৬৫ সালের চেয়ে ভালো|

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