PUMA Vehicle

One of the pleasant and fun trips I went on was in Chicago. It is a 3 hr Segway tour in Chicago downtown. It takes a little while to get comfortable with the segway. We just have to lean forward to make it move forward and lean back with the handle to slow down or stop. I almost fell when going on a downward slope inspite of our guide warning us. But after that, it was lot of fun, we did so many twists and turns, up and downs etc etc.,. I always wondered why this technology is not well used, but when I heard of PUMA (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessebility), I thought, well, you will see.



For the segway lovers, GM and Segway are developing an electrically powered, two seat prototype vehicle similar to the segway with only two wheels. It solves all the problems that urban traffic has imposed since years: Quick, safe, quite, clean and at a lower cost. I think this is really cool and innovative. This was introduced in the recent 2009 New York International Auto Show. Below is a picture and a video from GM website.

Organize home

We spend half of our life time at home. Clean home, nice food, comfortable bed.... But the challenge is to maintain it clean and organized. This is a tough job and moreover, keeping it exciting is way too far to think about. I have few tips to share.

A small riddle: It is soft, comfy, almost a bed, almost a dining table and makes tv lot more fun. Yes, lovely couch! Most of us who live with roomates generally buy second sale couches. One way to make it look like new is to use slip covers. A slip cover is a large piece of material stiched for sofa. They come in different materials like cotton, sateen, denim etc.,. I know kohl's, jcpenney has them or buy it online.

For small mechanical tweaks at home, a basic mechanics tool set will be lot more handy than we think. The one we have at home is Team Mechanix 122 pc mechanics tool set which is just 20$, from Walmart.

Double sided tape: Always useful! Instead of leaving the spike lying next to tv or bed, just stick it on to the wall with the tape and it is easy to remove.

For low budget home decoration, there are lot of stores like Utopia (everything under $10, in Southern California though) or cost plus. For organizing kitchen, I would say walmart is the best.

What makes us hungry

I am pretty sure you will agree with me if I say that food makes us happy. But, what is happiness? A neurotransmitter called dopamine is released by naturally rewarding experiences such as food, neutral stimuli that become associated with them. Dopamine is commonly associated with the pleasure system of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate a person proactively to perform certain activities (wikipedia). So, whenever we have food, our brain releases dopamine which gives us happiness. We keep training our brain to release dopamine whenever we have food and guess what happens if we don't eat food for a day, we feel depressed.

It happened to me a lot of times and you may have experienced the same. "I get headache when I am hungry". Hhhmm, that's wierd. I should have stomach ache or something. So my point is, when we think we are hungry, it does not actually mean our body needs food. So next time when there is breakfast,lunch, munch, coffees, snacks, dinner, late night shakes etc., etc., waiting for us,remember we are trianing our brain to ask for more. My intention is not to stop everyone eating but to understand how our system works and don't you think it is funny!