It is nearing end of June '09 and six months since I made my new year resolutions. So here I am taking stock of where I am with respect to the goals I had set for myself. 1. Spending time with family: this was on the top of the agenda. To be honest not much has changed with respect to the fact that I am staying away from my family. I have not found a better job closer to Idaho and neither has my wife tried to come closer in the bay area. Given that, the best case was to meet every weekend. Well in the past six months we have been in India for three weeks. That was a real vacation and I had a real good time with my kiddo. Apart from the vacation I've never missed my scheduled bi-weekly visits. I also ended up making three more. One in February one in April and on in June. Currently I am on my way home for a full week. I will be back in San Jose on the 6th July now. Thanks to my company's bi-annual maintenance shutdown. Though Praji does not have leave the fact that I will be spending another week with my Nemo is simply too good. Overall I'll rate myself 2.5 out of 5 with respect to fulfilling my aim of spending more time with family.

2. Make more money aka Change my job: well my company screwed my happiness by reducing my salary on January. things haven't moved much because of the recession related panic which kind of tempered the ass kicking that haapened out of the salary reduction. I have made a few half hearted attempts to jog my grey cells and be prepared for some interviews but nothing serious. Now that work load has kind of regularized atleast I open books once a while to jog my grey cells. Need to do much more of I were to vie for a 'real' technical lead position anywhere. So I get a 1/5 in this task.

3. Pay off my Mortgage: Well again I have not done much but gotten lucky. One of the by products of the recession was tumbling housing interest rates in india and I've been a benefactor as well. I still get 1/5 for this luck makes it 2/5. we now have less than 11 years of mortgage left.

4. Buy a BMW: Well this is something I have kind of given up. It was more of a luxury than a necessity and I have for now decided to forgoe this luxury. Might change again but for now this is totally off the table.

Other things that did happen 1. My dearest sis (in-law) got married. We were in India for the same. And we were able to pull it off monetarily because of the fact we were in US last year. 2. I bought an iPhone. Well as we all know by now I am the proud owner of this little wonder that I am actually using to write this blog. 3. Moved to a different shared accomodation in Bay Area. Earlier I was staying with a good friend of mine but since his mom is coming over from India I moved out. The new place is cool too. Sharing accomodation with a Latin guy and a Chinese.

Over the next six months aim is to get a better paying job and spend more time with family.