Kamal S. Prasad

I volunteer at the local humane society. Every Sunday, for a few hours, I walk dogs. I find it very enjoyable and satisfying. It also gets me much needed exercise I would not get on my own.

Last Sunday when I was in the play yard with a dog, I noticed animals being brought out and loaded into a van. I thought nothing of it since it was common for the humane society to take animals to different events around the area and show them off in hopes of getting them adopted, and at the same time, bring attention to the organization and the good it is doing.

Some other people who were nearby got to talking to the people loading the van and I thought I heard them say they were taking the animals to be blessed. I was not sure so I asked and the answer, indeed, was that the animals were been taken to a “blessing of the animals.”

What good is that going to do? I thought out loud. The animals don’t need to be blessed, they need to be adopted. I don’t know why but this upset me a lot.

So I spend the day thinking about all the cool things to write in my blog and by the time I get home, I am either too tired to concentrate or I have forgotten what I was going to say.

Oh, here is something. Have you ever met a not so smart person who says something that pisses the crap out of you and then you spend the rest of the day, night, perhaps week thinking about what you could have said back to at that moment to put them in their tiny place, only that you can’t cuz that moment has passed and there is nothing that can be done about it?  It happens to me more than I would like to admit, and it drives me crazy that stupid little things like that bother me so much.

My first profession of choice when I was really young was to be a medical doctor. That all changed when I had to get my blood taken out for some medical exam. I could/can not handle needles too well.

The second thing I remember wanting to be was a scientist. I had setup a fake lab and everything in my yard and I used to scare the neighbors kids (much younger than me) that I could blow up their house if I wanted to.

Anyway, as time progressed, I still wanted to be a scientist but also wanted to so many more things. I wanted to be a teacher, a doctor (via the virtue of a Ph.D.), a writer, a school bus driver, a movie maker, etc.

I have worked to achieve some of those goals… I studied physics in college (although I don’t consider myself a bona fide scientist yet), I wrote a children’s book, and plan to write others, I was a teacher for a while (although I did not consider myself to be very successful at the task), and I am working on a writing a screenplay for a feature movie.

I don’t think I could picture myself doing the same thing for the rest of my life. I have a very understanding wife who indulges me in my dreams and I am supportive of her in hers. Did I mention I was very lucky?

Indeed it is.  You will hear me say that a lot.  Life is crazy.  I do believe it is true.  People care too much about all the wrong things, and in the end it does not even matter. (No, I do not believe in god.) 

***Spoiler Alert***

I just finished playing the single player campaign of Halo 3 and here you will find my impressions of the game. Well, it is mostly about how the game ends so be advised that there spoilers ahead. If you continue reading, the ending will be spoiled for you.

***Spoiler Alert***

Read the rest of this entry »

Some of you may know that I have written a children’s science picture book entitled, “Why Can’t I Jump Very High? - A Book About Gravity.” I published the book myself and do not have a marketing budget for it. As I have a full time job, I also do not get to publicize my book as much as I would like. It is only available from a handful of places, Amazon.com being one of them.

This last week, my book reached its highest sales rank ever and was in the bestseller list (#14 for best physics book for children) for a brief period. These numbers change by the hour, so it is likely that my book was ranked higher before I noticed it. Given that there is no active publicity campaign for the book, I guess that is pretty good.

Amazon.com sold all copies of my book that they had in stock and for some reason, even though they ordered more and I shipped it to them right away, my book was listed as unavailable. Someone thought they could make some extra money by selling my book for $210 when Amazon.com’s price is just over $10. Maybe they were trying to pass it off as a rare item.

Hello, World! Welcome to my blog (again). I started a blog sometime ago but got too lazy and caught up in other things to give it the attention it deserved.  I shall venture to do better here.

Over the come coming weeks I will be transcribing my enteries from my old blog to this one.  Bear with me as I bring things up to date.  I shall pepper those enteries with new ones as the muse strikes me.