The Dividend Pirate

Apologies for being totally out of touch with the readers of DividendPirate. A lot of things happened in the past 2 months. I was in India for 4 weeks. Spent 2 weeks in Hyderabad for some work related training that I had to give and then spent the next 2 weeks in Mumbai with my family. Had a very interesting experience and will try to share it with you all. Mainly I want to highlight a lot of the culture differences that exist between US and India. Also want to update the readers on the investment climate in India. In one sentence the mood over there has changed from “extreme optimism to subdues pessimism”. More about that later.

Among other things my parents are visiting and am really excited to have them here. Its their first trip to US. On the weekends I am busy being their tourist guide. This week we are visiting Crater Lake. Next week we have a week long trip to Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and Los Angeles. We are staying at the Bellagio. Have been to Vegas twice before, always wanted to stay there but never got a chance. Will have to avoid losing money at poker.

And while they are here frugality is totally out. My parents have worked really hard their entrie life and hardly taken any vacation. I want them to have a great time while they are here.

More stuff coming up in other posts. Keep checking…

Adios!!!

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My old car (ironically which I have nicknamed Old Faithful) finally bailed out on me. I left my car at the mechanic over the weekend and he said that

- my rear brakes need replacement(~200 bucks)

- so do my front ones(~200 bucks)

- my radiator needs to be replaced(~400 bucks)

- my oil gasket is leaking(~150 bucks)

- my oxygen sensors need to be replaced(~250 bucks)

- my door handle needs to be fixed(~350 bucks)

Grrrr… and this just after I replaced my tires with 4 new ones a couple months back(cost me 400 bucks). How ironic that the tires come with a lifetime warranty . Not to mention that I replaced my car’s starter last week for 250 bucks. How could my car do this to me? Oh and why did this have to happen at this time? I am leaving for India next week and wont have much time to fix the problem or shop.

We are just going through a “bad car phase” in life. My wifes car’s radiator started leaking 2 weeks back and we had to do a bunch of things that cost us 450 dollars.

In a way I am not surprised that my car gave up. It is 1995 made Toyota Avalon XLS with 170K miles on it and very poorly maintained by me. I had purchased it 4 years back for 5500 when it had 137 miles and at that time the car looked new. The previous owner had cared for the car very well. The car looked like it was 2000 built when I purchased it.

Anyhow I am confused about what to do at this point,

I happened to be searching for some funny videos and I came across this one. Make sure you check it out. I promise it will make your day…

Yes, he is the most eloquent American President until now (extreme sarcasm)

And some more bushisms…..

And if you are interested, Stephen Colbert best summarizes my views on the Bush administration in the two videos below. This guy has guts. No wonder he was named “The Person of the Year 2007″

Part I

Part II

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Exhibiting at the Communic’Asia trade show this week in Singapore, Garmin finally started to show up a fully functional Nuvifone and it looks pretty cool.

And to see some more features, look at this cheesy ad.

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