“How would you explain government to a 4-year-old?”, asked Mark. I posted a response, but then I wanted to see if it worked on my kids.

It turns out that we don’t get to see Bob the Builder—as much as we did while we were in Malaysia. Manny, the adorable hispanic handyman, appears to have replaced Bob.

To both the children, I first explained that “Government is a bunch of people who help us with things that we individually cannot do ourselves—like taking care of the roads for us, provide drinking water, protect us, punish robbers,” et al.

My 8-year-old understands this well. (She’s learning how Romans had their senate and all.) I then turned to my 4-year-old and asked the spot question: “So, who is a Government?” Pat came the reply: “Government is a bunch of people…,” a pause and then, “…who smell flowers!”

I guess my explanation was not working for her; we had to try something else. My wife suggested “a special helper.” S understands the concept of a special helper. Everyday, one of the children in her class is assigned a task of helping the rest of the group.

That worked. So for my 4-year-old, “Government is bunch of special helpers.”

Shimano’s RevoShift is idiot-proof. The other day I was doing it wrong—putting higher gear while going uphill, before Sneha raced ahead and showed me how.

For the inexperienced, this Michael Faraday’s invention makes the wheel feel like it’s running out of grease until you get used to its traction.

Indian restaurants abroad have developed this fine art of flooring their visitors with sweet talk-nothings, showing exceptional hospitality skills, using colorful candles, the works, while barely serving a spoonful of edible food.

It is a trend we have begun to see here in Europe. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Holland—to cite a few places with mild to worse experiences (in that order). Indian restaurants are notorious for being expensive to very expensive. Bombay Palace near Scheveningen takes the cake when it comes to servings. We were horrified when our order¹ worth €70.- was barely sufficient for one adult!

It might be okay if you don’t know the difference between finger-food and lunch. But if I were you, then I’d never go to those smooth-talking scoundrels again.

1. This was our first, and you bet, would be our last visit there. [←]

Aaryana, my eight year old daughter is yet to find her cycling balance. Yes, I am acutely aware of how late she is—especially when I see four-year old Dutch kids riding like pros. But then, I see myself in her.

The Halfords guy refused to sell me a carrier seat mount, because he thought her 25kilos weight was over the 22kg capacity of my bicycle carrier. So we had a problem. My wife’s bike is already mounted with another seat for my younger four year old daughter. Leaving kids home would rob all the fun. In any case, we wouldn’t do it.

On inspection, the carrier’s welded joints look strong. Plus, my bike has two 6mm solid steel rods as primary steel—going to the axle of my rear wheel, with about 6inches of unbraced length—for resisting axial compression. For a 25kg, that’s roughly about 9MPa—four times less than 36MPa (0.15Fy, assuming mild-steel). You needn’t do the math of course. In India, I have seen enough adult pillion riders on carriers slender than mine.

With weight restriction out of the way, Aaryana could now ride on the carrier. Still, there were two problems. One, it’s uncomfortable, and two, there’s no foot-rest. I solved the first problem with a fleece blanket securely laid over the carrier, whose surface now feels like a cushy pillow.

Problem number two remains unsolved. I am trying to get some kind of foot-rest for Aaryana. For now, she’s resting her tiny feet on the large closed axle bolts. While she doesn’t complain, I know it’s not a comfortable position, particularly on long rides. On bumpy roads, she slips her footing. But that is not stopping us enjoying country rides—at least not yet.

I didn’t find anything for the foot-rest in cycle stores in my area—probably because what we are doing here is unusual; I haven’t seen anyone older than 4 years riding pillion. If you have suggestions¹—something I could buy a pair off the shelf, then please do share.

1. The other (expensive) option, common around here, is to get a tandem attachment. [←]

In order to ease my cramps and concentration, I had just dropped to 80kph from my near 150kph sustained speed when we were physically jolted out of our seats.

It was a decent sized branch we had jumped over. I hadn’t seen it coming. I spotted a park lane in the distance and pulled over. We still had 350km to cover on our way back from Heidelberg. Our Civic is equipped with these funny tubeless tyres; spare wheel not included. We checked for signs of damage; there were none. Sneha and I sat with our heads down—until our heavy breathing subsided, our nerves no more hyper, and our heart rates back to normal.

Sneha and I remember yet another road incident from the past—our visit to Cherating. A couple of things didn’t go well on that trip. The stingray incident was one. This following is the other.

We were driving back home, and it started raining heavy. On one of the troughs on the highway, I was trying to overtake a truck—in poor visibility, in spite of wipers functioning at maxed-out speed. On one side was the concrete wall, the truck I was overtaking was on the other.

The truck began lurching towards us, and I was half way through its length. That was when we entered the trough, only to be hit by a ton of displaced water—completely blinding us. Because of the speed of both vehicles traversing through a mass of water, the water stayed in the air for a few moments in what seemed like an eternity, and knocking the living daylights out of us. That was a close call.

Now we know what it feels like—to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.

A gentle reminder to update this weblog’s feed address in your feed (rss or atom) reader, before it times out in June—if you haven’t had the time yet. The address is: http://ckunte.com/feed/atom .

My sincere apologies for springing this change upon you all. Please do resubscribe.

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Holland’s Deltaworks is perhaps mankind’s greatest attempt in keeping the forces of nature at bay. Following the 1953 North Sea flooding, the Dutch took it upon themselves never to experience the wrath of nature again.¹

Their response: protecting the entire coastline that was prone to flooding. Figures like 10250 miles of dykes, and 300 amazing structures are staggering indeed. One among them is the Oosterscheldekering. Constructed using custom built ships—Ostrea, this 9km long dam is the world’s largest movable storm surge barrier; and the one that has earned the title of being one of the ‘Seven Wonders of the Modern World’ by The American Society of Civil Engineers.

We allowed ourselves to be mesmerized by its sheer magnitude, during our visit there last Saturday.

1. So horrendous, that it destroyed about 4500 buildings, drowned over 10000 animals, and killed over 1800 people. [←]

Following are my favorite offline blog editors.

I hate rich text editors, not because I don’t like them, but because of their crappy code insertion, such as break tags, incomplete and malformed tags.