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Showing posts from December, 2006

Sending Money Home (to India)

One of the first few questions that any one who has arrived in the US fresh from India asks is, "How do I send money home to my parents in India?". There are many ways you can do this. Send them a personal check (from the same bunch of checks provided by your bank that you use to pay your bills with). Write out the amount in dollars. Mail it home any which way that is convenient. Have the recipient deposit the check into their savings bank account. In due course of time (about 15 - 20 days), the check will be cleared (at the exchange rate on the day of clearance) and the money available for withdrawal. Some banks will allow you to encash the check immediately at a discounted price. Of course, if you want to send money periodically, you could send them a number checks appropriately post-dated. As an alternative to the above method of sending personal checks, you could make a Cashier's Check (in dollars) which...

The lion Sleeps Tonight

The lion Sleeps Tonight From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" began as a 1939 African popular music hit "Mbube" that, in modified versions, also became a hit in the US and UK. "Mbube" (Zulu for "lion") was first recorded by its writer, Solomon Linda, and his group, The Evening Birds, in 1939. Gallo Record Company paid Linda a single fee for the recording and no royalties. "Mbube" became a hit throughout South Africa and sold about one hundred thousand copies during the 1940s. The song became so popular it that Mbube lent its name to a style of African a capella music, though the style has since been replaced by isicathamiya (a softer version). American musicologist Alan Lomax brought the song to the attention of folk group The Weavers' Pete Seeger. In 1952, they recorded their version entitled "Wimoweh", a mishearing of the original song's chorus of 'uyimbube' (meaning "you'r...

Windows Wallpapers

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You could get the full images from http://axcs.vox.com The same post could be found in http://axcs.vox.com/library/post/windows-wallpapers.html

"Where is God's perfection?" - A truly moving story

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At a fund raising dinner for a school that serves learning disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: "Where is the perfection in my son Shaya? Everything God does is done with perfection. But my child cannot understand things as other children do. My child cannot remember facts and figures as other children do. Where is God's perfection?" The audience was shocked by the question, pained by the father's anguish and stilled by the piercing query. "I believe," the father answered, "that when God brings a child like this into the world the perfection that he seeks is in the way people react to this child." Then he told the following story: Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, "Do you think they'll let me play?" Shay...