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Showing posts from September, 2010

We Knew

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It was our three-month ultrasound. We thought it would be like the movies, where you look at an ultra hi-def screen and the baby is crystal clear. It felt like a big moment. I had left work early that afternoon and was hoping to get back quickly. After all, it was just a routine visit, or so I thought. We checked in and were shown into the examination room. The nurse asked Hema to lie down on the bed. She applied gel and began moving the probe across her abdomen, looking for a heartbeat. Her reaction made us realize something was wrong. Hema and I looked at each other. The nurse didn't say anything. She simply said she would be back in a minute. We knew. The doctor came in, repeated the scan, and after a few moments told us that he was unable to detect a heartbeat. It was one of the lowest points of our lives. Three months in, we had already started imagining birthdays, schools, and family vacations. When you experience a miscarriage, it feels as ...

of NachOS and surReal Views

I was staring at the symbols.  The debugger was throwing a hell a lot of tantrums.  The memory locations and debug symbols were actually making life difficult for me.  I craned my neck as closely as possible to the monitor with my nose maintaining a thin 1mm distance from the screen.  It is not too hard to imagine when you consider the fact that my nose to face ratio is as high as the noise to signal ratio when making a call on the AT&T network.  It was like the day before the last exam in school.  You just wished the holidays started a day earlier.  What kind of an instruction is that? I wondered, knowing fully well that another few hours of persistence and few more hard and cold stares at the figures jiggling in front of my eyes, I would have my moment of peace. In the midst of this insolvable problem, my mind wandered to other issues.  I could as well take something simpler and get back to this later.  I narrowed down to one from a m...