Does this remind you of your own...

A must read....please read.

"Some days, we’d go exploring in the woods. Our minds full of fantastical stories of bad guys chasing us, we decided we must build a tree house. So we gathered up scrap pieces of old wood, rusty nails pulled out of rotting pieces of equipment, and a hammer someone nicked from their Father’s toolbox. Then we’d nail this crap to a tree. Once the rickety house was complete, we’d climb up in it, careful to hold on to the branches in case the floor gave out beneath us. Then, we’d muse to ourselves that we had not built it high enough.

We built ramps in parking lots and jumped them with every toy we had that sported wheels. Skateboards, bikes, roller skates. We didn’t have helmets or kneepads or elbow pads. It didn’t matter. Sometimes we’d fall and rub the skin completely off of our bodies. Nobody cared.

We’d eat berries and apples from strange trees. We’d ride our bikes 6 miles to the park, alone. And not just any park, either. We went to parks with monkey bars higher than our Dad’s heads and dangled our legs over cement. We sat in puddles full of oil and water and swam in water so dirty it might as well be called sewage. In the summertime, we’d go 6, 7, 8 hours at a time without laying eyes on our parents."

Excerpt from: Childhood: Then and Now

Warren Buffett - words of wisdom

I admire Warren Buffett for being a person firmly rooted in ground, in fundamentals. Short-cuts are short-term. Whether you listen to him being interviewed on TV or read his annual letter to his companies' share-holders, you see that his wisdom lies in his simplicity. Below is an excerpt that caught my attention as I was going through his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders in these tough economic times.

"However, I have pledged—to you, the rating agencies and myself—to always run Berkshire with more than ample cash. We never want to count on the kindness of strangers in order to meet tomorrow's obligations. When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night's sleep for the chance of extra profits."

Skilled immigrants leaving the U.S.

Why skilled immigrants are leaving the U.S. is a summarization of Vivek Wadhwa's research presented in BusinessWeek. I read through the article and found it to be, at best, naive. To me, it doesnt tell something that we dont know. Given the fact that it is a research work, I expected more than what is served.

However, the motivation behind this entry does not lie in the article. It lies in the comments to the article. Going through a few pages of comments that the article has received, I felt surprised at the whipping meted out to the H1B candidates. Maybe, the research article wrongfully provokes a seperatist sentiment at a time when American people have lost jobs for no consequence of their own.

However, it is important to look at the other side of the coin. A migrant worker comes seeking opportunity. H1B in particular, is an example of supply and demand. It is not one way. Being someone who has been in the same shoes, the settlement in a new land is particularly challenging for the first generation of immigrants. It is the lure of opportunity, a better tomorrow and the inherent will to explore that drives people to uproot themselves and tread the path less known. Sadly, most of us who have migrated will remain fickle life long.

The comments to the article, some unexpectedly inflammatory, drove me to ponder on the fragility of virtuous tendencies like openness and acceptance. How the varying parameters of temperature and pressure extend their effect past the lifeless world of matter and unto the human mind. It is no surprise when analysts forecast the impact of the global recession to incite social unrest.

And, irrespective of all rhetoric to shun protectionism, seems it is no to immigrants in Britain as well. How time changes everything!