Labrador Retriever - The World's Best Dog.

God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if it takes my dog being there, i believe he'll be there.                   -- Billy Graham

A Dog will teach you unconditional love in life, if you can have that in life things will not be too bad.                                                         -- Robert Wagner


A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.                                                                           -- Josh Billings

 

Labrador Retrievers:

Labs are considered to be one of the most friendliest, and favourite dogs in the world. Based out of Newfoundland in Canada, this breed was used as a gun dog to retrieve the target. They are available in different colors like chocolate, black white, yellow. 

Labs in India:

India is of course an over populated country, with no place for people as such, but somehow i feel that the fondness for our four legged friends have grown at a great rate. There are a lot of Indian breeds which are great pets for security and as a family dogs. But as how it is in everything else Indians like stuff which are not from India, and yeah im an Indian. 

I have had different dogs in the past, and if i recall there was almost always a dog in my life. Each time i get a dog there is a lot of new things i learn about dogs. 

Rocky My Dog:

I got my fawn colored labrador retriever in the august of the year 2012, for my birthday. From the day i brought him home he became a part of me, i started reading about dogs, watching videos on youtube on how to raise the perfect dog. I must say that the most inspiring videos are from Cesar Milan and his dog psychology techniques. Though it is difficult to follow all, it was an eye opener.

Food and Vaccines:

India is not a very rich country, i remember what my dad said before i got Rocky, he used to say that people have no food to eat, and why you want to get a dog to feed that, well i have no answer for that, but i just love dogs dont know why.

So once i got Rocky there was this question on what i must feed him, on previous experience i knew that home food to dogs sucked big time, as it is difficult to get someone to prepare food separately for the dog, besides it will not be as nutritious as the packaged dog foods available. For the first 4 months or so i was giving Royal Canin which is the highest quality dog food that is available, but expensive, later once he was bigger i slowly changed to pedigree which i must say is still quality food but at a cheaper price.

Vaccines are an important check that has to be taken care, for every dog. Make sure that the dog is properly vaccinated at regular intervals, Lucky for me i had a vet near my house, where i take Rocky regularly, the vet is a  pretty amazing guy, i got a card from him which has the checkups dated, so i will not miss the next vaccine.

Rocky met with an accident:

One day i got a call from home saying that Rocky fell from the terrace and was seriously injured, i rushed home and myself and my dad took him to the Vepery government hospital. It looked like he had multiple fractures on his right leg, and had to be operated. We fixed a day with the doctor and after a few weeks got him operated. Its been about 2 months now, Rocky is fine, but i do not let him run amuck, which is difficult as labs are dogs with a lot of energy.


What Dog must you buy?

If you are in India and wondering what dog you must buy, then there are various things that you must consider before this,

1. How much space you got in your house for the dog?
2. How much money you can spend on dog food?
3. How much time you can spend with your dog?

These are some basic questions that you need to introspect, and check if you think you dont have much space, or you feel you might not be able to afford to feed your pet, then try looking for a smaller breed which will not require much space, and eat a lot. Think about what you want in a dog, and then look for some good breeder and check the parents of the dog before buying, as that will also help you understand how the dog will behave.

For the Soul:

Genesis 1:21 

So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Hyatt Regency!

There is no sincerer love than the love of food
                                                    -- George Bernard Shaw

 

 

I had an opportunity to have dinner at Hyatt Regency the one which is located in Anna Salai, Chennai. My team recently completed a herculean database migration activity from IBM's DB2 to Oracle DB implementing the Exadata infrastructure, so we had a nice team dinner at one of the finest places in chennai for dinner. 

                  Hyatt is situated right on the main road in Anna Salai, there are other big hotels also situated on this road like the CourtYard by Marriot, Raintree. Right now, anna salai is in a pretty bad shape, the roads are pathetically narrow, as the metro rail work is going on in full fledge. I initially thought that it will take atleast 1 hour for us to reach the hotel, as i left office (from Porur, DLF) at around 7.30 pm, but surprisingly we reached the destination in about 40 minutes. I am not really sure why but though it was a thursday there was not much traffic on the roads. 

                However i had to drive some distance crossing the hotel before i was allowed to take the U turn to reach the place, there are 2 entrances nearby, with big buses and cars moving around in the narrow road, i had be careful to get into the right one which leads into Hyatt, the other one is the entrance to Ramee Mall, which is the next building. 

             Inside the building as usual they did the usual bomb check, and i was allowed to enter. I stopped the car right in front of the entrance and gave the key to my car to the valet who offered to park my car. After another security check i was finally inside the hotel, the entrance was not very elegant, thought there was some kind of wierd hangings from the roof, which looked like it was inspired from some setting from an alien movie, it kept changing color and looked pretty cool, but was not having the opulence which the star hotels usually have. 

            We were directed to the buffet place which we had booked the previous day, the name of the restaurant was Spice, we had to take the lift to reach the L level where it was present. The atrium was amazingly decorated and looked very different from what we usually expect out of star hotels, it seemed like they had made use of some form of bee hive theme, we were able to see some fake bee hives hanging on different places, and there was a transparent stairs and elevater present which looked like a copy of the ones which we can find in apple stores.

            Spice had various other decorations in the restaurant which was a decent attempt to portray the place as Indian themed.  We were about 10 of us and unfortunate for us though we had booked table for 10 it was not available when we arrived, but the waitress was good enough to somehow arrange one for us in no time. The restaurant by itself was a huge place, and it looked like everyone who came to hyatt had dinner there. The courses were split into differnt tables, there was the main course, soups present in one table, the other one had different varieties of breads, salads, and other chat items. We were served with the starters in our tables. All of us were very hungry and the waiter brought very little to serve our appetite. We were not able to wait for long so we started with the main course, the taste of the food was good, but as usual we cannot expect much of variety from  buffet in star hotels. I had some mutton briyani, chicken curry, paneer butter masala, roti. I knew from previous experience that whenever one goes to an expensive hotel, it is not wise to hog the main course and fill the stomach, but one must chose the most delicious and rare food which will not be available everywhere, and relish eating that, so that is exactlty what i did. I had a slice of pork which i made into a sandwhich with some variety of bun, cheese and some vegetables. The dessert section was pretty awesome, i had 2 scoops of vanilla with chocolate syrup, and 2 other varieties of cakes which tasted real good.

Altogether we had a pleasant dinner at Hyatt, the bill was some 8.5K after the corporate discount, else it would have been 1.2k per head. We took some pictures standing before different backgrounds, Hyatt looked like a place which was a common hangout for celebrities and foreigners.

For the Soul:

1 Corinthians 10:31 - Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

I Love Music!!

Music does not lie, if there is something that is to be changed in this world, then it can happen only through music.                                -- Jimi Hendrix


Music can change the world, because it can change people.        -- Bono

Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul, it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.   
                                                                                                -- Martin Luther King

Love For Music:

                  I love music, have always appreciated and got inspired by great music. I remember when i was a child, i had the habit of singing during travel, it was something that was natural, i still love to sing when travel. Music has the power to lift up your spirit when you are low, vent your anger or calm you down, make you dance, pacify relationships, it is kinda magical the way it impacts people. Because of these reasons, i feel people who work for the music industry are obliged to put in their best, to produce great outputs.

                Everybody loves music, be it folk, or rock or any thing, i think every human being was made to appreciate if not make music. I of course like every teenager who is passionate about music have tried to make my own, with not much of a success.


Some Awesome Products:
                 
                 There are a lot of products that are available on the market for listening to or making great music. I have had the privilege to listen from only a very few, neverthless they have made an impact in me so much that i want to blog about it. Bose has always been a mind boggling audio product, i remember the first time i entered a bose showroom in a mall near my house, they had this demo show which they did every 20mins or so, i attended one, and i was so impressed that i decided that day that when i can afford that much money, im getting one of those. All their products were amazing and reproduced clean and refined sound. Ofcourse there are other amazing products that are as good as bose or even better and prices lesser as well, but Bose rocks.

My Music Playlist:

               Most of the artists that ended up in my playlist were shared from my friends, or i stumbe upon some amazing artists. I am not the kind of person who listens to one particular genre, and sticks to it, nor do i listen to all the songs in an album (unless it is really good!). I love to listen to different genres, depending upon my mood.

My Favourites:

            If i had to rate my top 5 favourite music artists, then they would be,

1. Toby Mac
2. Lecrae
3. Switchfoot
4. FlyLeaf
5.Brit Nicole

Majority of the music i listen to are either christian or christian based, i appreciate other music as well, but i definitely am concerned on what i hear and why the song was written. I believe music is a tonic to your soul, if you feed the wrong music you can poison your soul. There is also this other debate about what genre of music christians must listen to, genres in music just divide the type or the way music is played, so i dont care whether it is rock, or heavy metal, as long as i know that my soul grows listening to something i will keep feeding.

            My Favourite artist is of course Toby Mac, i love his attitude towards music and theology, his openness of his faith in God. Jesus Freak was the first awesome christian song i ever heard. I love other members of the DC Talk band as well, but TMac has always been my favourite. I have all his albums, all his songs, I started listening to other bands that he supports, hoping they would have the same energy levels and enthusiasm as him, some of them do, but it is never the same as Toby. Some of my favourite songs of TMac are Lose My soul, Im for you, Im God,.. and almost all. I thank God for such a great artist.

Other Stuff about music:

                         There are a lot of other artists and musicians who think they can make music easily or people who believe that if they know an instrument they can become a musician easily, theoretically yes, they can, but what it takes to be a true musician is to understand the reason music was created, to worship the one true God, music helps us display our true self to God, to open our soul in a deeper level that words or even silence cannot do. God loves music

For the Soul:

Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!     -- Psalm 150:1-6

Music is Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/plato109438.html#acoqT7oU0ziPrilt.99

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/plato109438.html#acoqT7oU0ziPrilt.99