Tell Congress to Act Now to Lower Energy Costs!!!!

If you haven’t heard….speculation in the gas and oil markets are hurting us. We need to make it stop, and yes, you can help! 67% of Americans want oil market regulations - do your part!

Visit the website, fill in the form, and it sends an email to your state’s Congressmen/women to take action.

By the way… crude oil prices were down to $130…after being over $140 just two days ago. Keep it down!!!!!!

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.

I have got this ‘one post a month’ routine going on these days that I need to stop. Its just so difficult finding time. There are many times that I think to myself, that is a topic that I need ot blog on, etc… but it just never makes it.

Our immunizations saga still continues…mine is finally done. We are waiting on a response from the university on Neeraj’s immunizations (if they have accepted it). What a hassle!

Congrats to the Under 19 India cricket team for beating South Africa in the World Cup. After going undefeated in the tournament you deserve the win

As you may have seen in my previous posts, customer service is a big issue for me. If I don’t get the service that I feel that I deserver as a consumer, I blog about it. There are many big companies that have failed in this that I have blogged in the past about such as Verizon Wireless, Air India, Sears, Citibank, and so many more that you could search for on the blog.

Now there is another company that has joined in that realm of unsatisfactory customer service: eTrade. Its been just about a month or more since Neeraj and I have been trying to get a savings account open with them. Its like dealing with an Indian company. “Well, we need to do this veriifcation, that verification. You will need to fill out this form, that form.”

The reason that we were opening a savings account with eTrade was because our current company, ING Direct have recently slashed their interest rates due to the alleged upcoming US recession. At that time, eTrade was offering a whopping 5% interest rate for a savings account, and so Neeraj and I jumped on it.

A month later, we still don’t have an account open. God knows why because every time we call customer service they really don’t know why the account hasn’t been created either.

Now the interest rate is 4.10%. That sucks. ING Direct is still worse so it still makes sense to open the savings account, but it would be nice to get somewhere with the eTrade folks to get it open so that we are able to deposit the money.

So again on Monday Neeraj will call to find out what he needs to do next to get this account open. ING Direct was definitely not this difficult to get the account open. It was a very simple and easy process. Immediately after opening the account we were able to start depositing money. With eTrade, nothing seems easy.

So if you want to look at savings accounts, you might want to think twice on eTrade… I know that we have now since experiencing such bad customer service. It would be nice that today’s companies start caring for their customer who is bringing in the money rather than not paying attention to them at all. eTrade - wake up!

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.

So its Thursday, the week is almost over. Yay! Training has been beneficial, but I want to see Neeraj.

Weather has been great here: 75F. Back home in STL, there was 6 inches of snow on Tuesday (Neeraj came home from work at 10 am as the office was closed). Mumma and Papa had 10+ inches of snow at their place, and Suraj had around 8+ inches. I guess I was in the warmest place between all of us. I wish they were with me, we would have had a better time than they did. Due to the unexpected day off, Neeraj did watch Bhagam Bhaag but he said that I wouldn’t like it — he said that it was tough for him to finish it too!

Its been a week and a half since moving to Missouri, and its been a bit rough. What I have learned is that it is really tough to live without the Internet. Alot of things havent been easy; you never knew how much you relied on the Internet until the point you didn’t have it.

First major fiasco of last week was our stupid webhosting company known as Netbunch. It used to be Mesopia when we first made the website in 2004, but then it was bought by Netbunch (which is owned by WebHostingPlus) sometime in the last 8-12 months. Since that point it has been downhill — bad customer service, late response (sometimes no response at all:!: ), and no support forums!!!

Well one day last week, because I was home and thank goodness for the Business Center in the apartment complex where I could use the Internet, I noticed that our website was down. I immediately shot off a support ticket request to the Netbunch folks. About an hour and half later I get a response saying that 16 of their servers have been hacked, including their backup, and all data has been wiped clean. YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!!

What type of web-hosting company are you running if you cannot secure your customer’s data — including backup!!! Boy was I frustrated as I scrambled to find a backup on my office laptop. I found one, which was old (July 30, 2006), but now didn’t have the resources ( i.e. Internet access on my laptop) or the time to sit and fix the website. I told Netbunch that I wanted to know if they were able to recover data that would be more recent than July 30th, but they said (which took them two days to respond ) that at this time, they had zero of my data. IDIOTS!

After almost a year, Neeraj and I went to see a movie together at the movie theatre. Because Hindi movies don’t play in our city, we went to see Fun with Dick and Jane. Neeraj and I both didn’t know what to expect, but in fact, both of us liked the movie.

Its about this ordinary couple, Dick (Jim Carrey) and Jane (Tea Leoni), and their mishaps in the road of life. Everything was going well when Dick finds out that he is going to be promoted as VP of Communications of the huge company that he works in Southern California. The news hits him with excitement, and the next day he needs to have a meeting with the CEO and CFO of the company, but before that he tells his wife to leave her job and stay home with the kid. When he meets with the CEO and CFO, he finds out that they went him to go on television and discuss their financial profit, etc… on this financial show.

Lo to behold, Dick goes on television only to find out that he gets bombarded with questions regarding money laundering by the CEO and CFO. Their company’s stock falls to being just about worthless, and Dick is out of a job. Many times in the film there are mentions of Enron, the company that is well famous of of a total breakdown when they misquoted their financials on their balance sheets.

Now the story begins on how Dick and Jane work so that they are able to still live their luxurious life without losing their status. In the middle, there are reminiscents of Bunty Aur Babli, but overall it was a good film. Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni did an absolute great job, keeping it fast paced, and wanting you to stay involved in the film.

Good time! Go check it out! I have already recommended the film to my Papa and Bhaiya.

More news soon. Alvida. Jai Mata Di.

After coming on 60 minutes and the David Letterman Show in the past months, Aishwarya Rai was on another big US talk show’s guestlist yesterday, the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Thanks to Papa for telling me about it, otherwise I would have surely missed the 10 minutes that she was on the show. Yes. 10 minutes only. Oprah was doing a special on women around the world and hence brought on her first guest, Aishwarya Rai, Bollywood’s rani.

Anyway, here’s a pic that shows the glamourous Aishwarya Rai on the show. She had presented Oprah with a sari and then was requested by Oprah to help her wear it. Pretty good for a person who had never helped anyone else wear a sari.

My biggest complaint: why didn’t you wear traditional Indian clothes??? After two major appearances on other shows, you should have definitely worn something more traditional on Oprah. Aishwarya does mention how she loves wearing saris, and I think she looks good in them too. I don’t know who made the decision on her clothes — but it wasn’t a good one.

Same questions were repeated from before — talk about arranged marriages, what Indian women think about American women, living with her parents @ her age, and the list goes on. Being an Indian woman and hearing Oprah say that Aishwarya is the representative for Indian women, I began to watch her answers even closely.

Example: Oprah had asked Aishwarya if Indian women thought American women were rude. Her answer was that Indian people are very hospitable. Hmm…did she not understand the question?

After thinking about who else might be a good representative of Indian women, (women like Mallika Sherawat, Amrita Arora, Mallika Arora Khan, and Payal Rathogi went through the mind) I think Aishwarya is the best choice. There really isn’t a better women in today’s youth of India that would be better than her. I think she has definitely gotten better as the interviews have passed.

You can catch a glimpse of the video on Oprah’s website.

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.

The past few days have been really busy at work and so I have been kind of behind with the posts and the comments. Hopefully I can be more regular from now on.

So how it works with my company is that if there is ever a weekend that I don’t want to go back home (Illinois) and stay here in Manchester, NH in which I have a few options. First, I can go to another city in the same price as it would take me to go home or I could fly someone in to Manchester. So I chose the latter and brought in my best friend, Beth (who I mention on/off in our blog ) from my hometown. We haven’t had a chance to spend some good time with each other so we thought this would be the best way.

Its been hard getting used to life in USA again. Granted its only been two days, but still.

Jet lag hurts. Slept all day yesterday. Have been waking up @ 2, 4, and 6 am.

Missing Neeraj greatly. Just want to be able to see him and be with him.

Missing my parents and my cousins too. It had been too much fun with everyone that I am realizing how difficult it is to be close to people and soon see that they are not with you.

Missing life in Mumbai. The local trains. The kabootars flying in the windows @ my nani’s home. The hustle and bustle. People just showing up @ the home all of a sudden. The loud voices of my relatives.

I am definitely feeling the peace @ home with my brother. I think he realizes that he missed an opportunity of a lifetime to go with us this time.

Let’s hope my next trip is in 2-0-0-5 itself.

Make it happen Devi Ma, just make it happen.

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.