A Pro on the Mac book ?

Mom presented Dad a MacBook Pro on their 10th wedding anniversary. But that being a 15" screen, Dad was rather slow in putting that together. Finally after a lot of ribbing from mom about lack of appreciation, feeling, ya da yada yada, he finally took it out, turned it on, and set it next to the windows laptop.

Avaneesh came around sniffing to see if it was a new toy.
He indeed found the iPhoto application a blast. After clicking N photos, and finding that somehow tickling, he decided to pose with every movable item in the house.
This photographing frenzy had happened with dad's new mobile phone too. And dad was found wiping tears of frustration clearing thousands of images off his phone. Dad did panic.. after seeing this. He tried many tricks to dissuade his son.

So, 145 pictures so far. His companions include the MacBook's cute white box, his favorite box of cereal, every Cars movie vehicle, Uno cards( different photos for different cards) , key chains, lego blocks, Tintin comics, Mom, dad, his brother, all his trucks, his favorite Ben 10 T shirts, the Kannada alphabet chart (huh? ) , chess pawns, his brother's babysitter.. the list goes on.

No, not a 'whale ship' .. a 'well ship'

Papa: "What is this, Son? "

Son: "You guess.. "

Papa: "A ship? "

Son: "No, a well ship"

Papa: "A whale ship?"

Son: " No.. no... its a 'well' ship"

Papa: "What does a well ship do? "

Son: "You see.. the water in the sea is salty.."

"So, the well ship carries water for other ships to use. It goes to other ships and gives them water"

Papa: "hm.. cool! .. Where is the well ... water "

Son: "Its inside the ship.. can't you see all the blue stuff inside ? "

It's ok, amma ...

Nishu is probably the dreamiest kid I've ever seen so far. He's dreaming pretty much ALL the time. In his last school, it took a few months for his teacher to get used to it - all the initial yelling only served to scare him, but not change him.

Yesterday, yet again, he'd come back from school not having done any of his school work. Most of his pages were empty/or just had one half written line on them.

And he got a good bit of yelling from his mom during homework time - for not paying attention again.

Finally when the dust settled, his mom went to him and apologized for yelling at him so much.

Came the reply " It's ok, Amma .. my teachers yell at me much more than you"

Ants ate my wound

Today, Nishu came by saying "Amma, ants bit my wound, and opened it up"

Background to this was us telling him not to pluck at his wound.. and let it fully dry. But maybe the itch or pure boredom didn't stop him and it has started bleeding slightly again.

And he now had to solve the problem getting some sympathy the pain, but not get scolded while at it.

You changed the color of my guitar!

Nishu's guitar lessons are half baked. That is, they have 'guitar' in it, but no 'lessons'. He barely does what I asked him to do, but does plenty in those sessions.

I used to tune his guitar based on a tuner his buddies bring. Then I realized that it was a semitone off compared to a couple of online guitar tuners.

So I tuned it using an online tuner.

A few days ago he picks up his guitar and says, "Papa, you've changed the color of my guitar!"

I stared at him .. and he explained " it used to be grey, but now you've made it white!"

I then remembered an earlier ramble from Nishu about how different notes were different colors.

Though I wondered if it was a coincidence or if he could really recognize a semitone difference in tuning..I then forgot about it until yesterday.

This time, I'd used a winamp plugin to reduce 'Sweet Child Of Mine' by a tone or so I could play the lead in my accoustic guitar without having to reach too high.

And I'd left that plugin on.

Seeing the laptop free, he started up his usual song ( he loves the GNR album 'Chinese Democracy' ) and again started complaining. "Papa, you've changed the color of this song too!"

I then reset the plugin, and he was happy.

Twice is less likely to be a coincidence. So, I suppose his brain one of those that associates music with colors. Googling, I found out its called 'Sound to color Synesthesia'.

Is that useful ? I don't know.

Welcome to Kara world

Recently the little guy came to dad, and introduced him to this place called 'Kara world'

Dad initially ignored that.. but Kara world increasingly comes into all conversations at home.

Kara world is a place that has taken birth to solve some of Nishu's pains/problems with the world.

Bangalore is very far from California, he knows - to his chagrin. He knows that it takes a long time to go back and forth. And he's even more troubled when his dad travels to California and stays there for upto 2 weeks.

So, here comes Kara world.

"Where, Kara world, Nishu ? "

"Kara world, is next to Bangalore, and also next to California"

Ah.

Why not Santa Clara or Cupertino, you might ask. He never identified the city while he lived there. It only became significant when he went away to Bangalore. And the songs he was crazy then about - 'Hotel California' and 'California Dreaming' probably contributed.

Anyway, back to Kara world. That becomes the wonderland of everything these days.

" In Kara world, the trucks are very big, and very clean "

"In Kara world, the firefighters are everywhere"

"In Kara world, there are lots of Lego toys"

Any new phenomenon learnt that doesn't show up easily, happens almost daily in Kara world.

We recently went to SFO Cable Car - a restaurant that has a San Francisco theme. All the pictures of San Francisco - including those of the 1906 earthquake triggered his imagination quite a bit.

There were some detailed questions - how long ago did the earthquake happen in California? How about Bangalore ? No Earthquakes in Bangalore ? How about rest of India? etc. etc.

Today came a revelation : "In Kara world a lot of Earth quakes , volcanoes happen"

"Actually, six earthquakes happened already there"

After reading about Tsunamis (usually called cinema), Kara world also has lots of Tsunamis. But with one difference - the trees in Kara world are pretty strong. The Tsunami can't destroy them. Also, Kara world has these people called 'Tsunami Fighters' . They carry guns with very strong bullets. They shoot them into the Tsunami, the waves get 'big holes' and the Tsunami goes away.

As the amazed Dad is busy documenting these wonders, in comes the son with fresh news.

"Hey Papa, I think the ground is shaking ... can you feel it ?"

How many things are in your brain?

Today ..coming back from tennis class, Nishu goes   

"Papa, I have 6 things in my brain" 

"Really, what are they ? " 

"Hm.. Fire truck, Airport fire truck, Police car, Ambulance..." 

"... Fire chief's truck, Rocket, Satellite, Fuel tanker .. " 

pauses for some counting " actually I have 8 things " 

" Garbage truck, Tractor, Backhoe ... " 

the list goes on until .. 

"Papa .. I have 21 things in my brain" 

"That's nice, raja..  21 things !" 

"How many things do you have in your brain ? " 

Not wanting to get dragged into this .. 

" I have less than 21 things, raja..  " 

"Really, less than 21 things? " 

A couple of seconds later, the question comes back 

" You have less than 21 things? I think you have more " 

..pause.. 

" I think you have more than that"  he concluded. 

The father was  relieved the matter didn't go further.