New Hampshire Fall Trip
This is my first trip to see fall foliage in New Hampshire. We went to the White Mountains in New Hampshire to see fall colors, guess we made a good decision to go there to look at fall colors. Trip was planned within two days, with the logistics of car, accommodation and food were taken care in 2 days. We hit the road @5 in the evening on Friday, the customary round trip after driving to the first stop sign to get something what we missed to take was done this time too. We consider doing that as a good luck at the start of the trip, this time the culprit forgot to bring the music cds. Drive up to New Hampshire was good, with some discussions and good music. We stopped for our dinner in a rest area in Connecticut. It was decided earlier that we would cook(that we doesn’t include any bachelors) some food and take it up there for our dinner, which turned out to be a good decision except the fact that we ended up eating our food in the freezing temperature outside.
There were quite a lot of cops on the road and lot of people were pulled over for over speeding or other violations, we were extra careful on not to get caught. We reached the place where we stayed at around 1.30 in the night. I wanted to go and take some photos early in the morning of fall colors, early morning and the evening are the best time to take photos, I set my phone alarm to 6 A.M and retired to bed. All my buddies were up playing cards, looks like they had decided to play a prank on me. Switched off all the lights and adjusted the time of my phone to 5.30 A.M after 10 mins I dozed off to sleep. They were smart to the change the alarms of most of the phones in the room. Alarm started going off, I didn’t feel like I slept for a long time, I woke up and saw how it looked outside, it was dark, I still decided to go ahead with my plans. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, came out to put my shoes and leave, the room was bright and everyone was up, it took sometime for the reality to sink in that they have played a prank on me. It was a good way to start the trip, rest of the trip was also lot of fun.
I went to take some early morning photos on Saturday, it was cloudy and it spoiled the start. We went to Franconia Notch and Flumes Gorge during the day. We had to trek in freezing temperatures up in mountains in Franconia Notch. I got some good colorful photos at the flumes gorge, there was lot of deliberation and discussion on whether we have to walk to the flumes gorge which is a 0.75 mile trek or go in a bus, I was up for walking and finally convinced everyone to do that. I don’t think any one regretted walking to the flumes gorge. Dinner for the night was suppose to be prepared by the bachelors but a better cook took over the mantle from us and cooked a tasty chicken curry for us. I was very tired after seeing for the whole day through the view finder of my camera, I retired to bed very early on that night.
Sunday we decided to go to Mount Washington, there was lot of hype on how difficult it is to drive in that road. I have been to quite a lot of hill stations in India, compared to that this Mount Washington drive is nothing. They are marketing the place very good, which attracts so many people towards this spot. They had restrictions on how many persons can go in a car in a van etc etc. Two of my buddies dropped out and waited in the lower base of Mount Washington while we guys drove up. I don’t regret driving up there, the colors were really good and I got some really nice fall color photos.
We drove via Boston when returning back to Scranton, we went to a restaurant called Fire and Ice. They had a very good concept, it’s a buffet, they had all the raw materials like vegetables, meat, egg, sauce etc as a Buffet. You have to go and pick things in a bowl and give it to the cook who will cook it in front of your eyes. Cook won’t add anything extra apart from what you have got there so the taste is based on what you take to the cook for eating. I enjoyed it up there. It was a good trip. You can see the photos of the trip here
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Niagara
I am always awestruck on seeing this falls, the power and beauty of the falls makes me to go this place again and again. I planned on making a trip to Niagara for the 7th time in a span of 3 years, one difference this time is I was armed with a Nikon D80 for capturing the awe and splendour of the falls.
We rented a car, we decide to pack our food and take it there rather than eating outside. We hit the road @6 in the morning, I know it is quite early for a saturday
morning :). It is a 300 miles drive from Scranton to Niagara, the drive isnt too tough, there wasnt much traffic in the morning. I started driving the car and we had our first stop/breakfast break @8.30 in the morning. Home made kichadi for morning breakfast was just too good. Then my friend started driving the car,I have this very bad habit, I like to drive the car or I would prefer to sleep in the back seat. I caught some sleep for 2 hours when he was driving, we stopped for our second break some 50 miles from Niagara for a coffee and french fries, I just love junk food.
I did not want to go on any rides in Niagara falls, I was just there to see the Niagara and enjoy the view. Our timing was just too good, it is a normal weekend and there wasnt much crowd for the ride Maid of the Mist( they take you in a small boat right under the Horseshoe falls). Engineering marvel is @ the best in Niagara, they do the unthinkable by controlling the amount of water that can flow in the falls. The ride what my friends went was the last for the day. They had to decrease the flow of water in Niagara falls due to some emergency, there wasnt much information available to us at that point of time.
We had our lunch @3 and then decided to go for Jet boat ride in the Niagara gorge. It was one of the best rides I ever had. Niagara gorge has lot of class 6 rapids, they take the jet boat through that. It was just too much fun. Timing was good there too, we went for the 5.30 P.M ride, if we have gone for 4 of clock ride the ride could have just been a normal ride since they decreased the flow of water due to some emergency.
We were right in time for the Niagra Night view. I did not speak to anyone for sometime, I was awestruck for sometime. I tried to capture the beautiful night view in my camera here
It was an awesome trip.
We had our dinner in a worst Indian restaurant in Niagara welcome center, the food really sucks there. I would suggest no one to go there. It was the only bad thing in the entire trip. we hit the road @11.15 P.M, I was too tired to drive, I drove for inital 1.45 mins then my friend took over from me. I took the back seat and slept really well, we reached scranton @4 in the morning. It was a well planned, well executed trip.
I want to take my parents to Niagara when they visit me in US next year.
We rented a car, we decide to pack our food and take it there rather than eating outside. We hit the road @6 in the morning, I know it is quite early for a saturday
morning :). It is a 300 miles drive from Scranton to Niagara, the drive isnt too tough, there wasnt much traffic in the morning. I started driving the car and we had our first stop/breakfast break @8.30 in the morning. Home made kichadi for morning breakfast was just too good. Then my friend started driving the car,I have this very bad habit, I like to drive the car or I would prefer to sleep in the back seat. I caught some sleep for 2 hours when he was driving, we stopped for our second break some 50 miles from Niagara for a coffee and french fries, I just love junk food.
I did not want to go on any rides in Niagara falls, I was just there to see the Niagara and enjoy the view. Our timing was just too good, it is a normal weekend and there wasnt much crowd for the ride Maid of the Mist( they take you in a small boat right under the Horseshoe falls). Engineering marvel is @ the best in Niagara, they do the unthinkable by controlling the amount of water that can flow in the falls. The ride what my friends went was the last for the day. They had to decrease the flow of water in Niagara falls due to some emergency, there wasnt much information available to us at that point of time.
We had our lunch @3 and then decided to go for Jet boat ride in the Niagara gorge. It was one of the best rides I ever had. Niagara gorge has lot of class 6 rapids, they take the jet boat through that. It was just too much fun. Timing was good there too, we went for the 5.30 P.M ride, if we have gone for 4 of clock ride the ride could have just been a normal ride since they decreased the flow of water due to some emergency.
We were right in time for the Niagra Night view. I did not speak to anyone for sometime, I was awestruck for sometime. I tried to capture the beautiful night view in my camera here
It was an awesome trip.
We had our dinner in a worst Indian restaurant in Niagara welcome center, the food really sucks there. I would suggest no one to go there. It was the only bad thing in the entire trip. we hit the road @11.15 P.M, I was too tired to drive, I drove for inital 1.45 mins then my friend took over from me. I took the back seat and slept really well, we reached scranton @4 in the morning. It was a well planned, well executed trip.
I want to take my parents to Niagara when they visit me in US next year.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Inflation and Dollar Vs Currency Exchange Rates
Being in US, the dollar exchange rate and Indian inflation controls my savings range. I was trying to understand on what changes the Dollar Vs Rupee exchange rates and figured that many like me would have the same questions. Economics is about Demand Vs Supply. As most of you would be aware that world business is done in US dollars. Any change to the value of the US Dollar will affect Indian Economy too.
Statutory Warning: This blog may be very dry for lots of people as it is related to economics.
Inflation
Inflation usually refers to the general rise in the level of prices of goods and services over a period of time. India’s current inflation is 12%, which means for example if you have bought 100 pencils for 100 rupees a year back you have pay 112 rupees to get 100 pencils. Money is getting devalued, more money chasing less goods that is leading to price increase, Demand Vs Supply. Central Bank or RBI tries to control India’s inflation. How they do it??? They increase the interest rates and the percentage of money what the banks should hold. What happens if they increase the interest rates, it decreases the money in the market or money circulation in the market. Less Money and more goods, inflation will come down. Then there will be next question on how more money comes to the market, who else RBI prints and releases it to the market. We can think on why RBI can’t increase the rates to have Inflation under control. There is a flipside to it. How Inflation does controls the Dollar Vs Rupee Exchange Rates
Dollar Vs Rupee Exchange Rates
India allows FDI or Foreign Direct Investment, to see the list and percentage of investments allowed in different areas refer to the link << http://www.dipp.nic.in/manual/fdi_manual_11_2006.pdf>> . How does this control the Dollar Vs Rupee Exchange Rates? India is considered to be the economically booming country, lot of FDI’s are going into India for example from buying HUTCH and naming it as VODAFONE, NOKIA factory being opened in India, all those investments are done in through Rupees. Dollar has to be exchanged into rupees and then the investment has to be done. More Dollar --> Less Rupee in the market, Rupee will appreciate and that will affect the conversion rate. RBI controls the Dollar Vs Rupee Exchange Rates too, how do they do it either by increasing the interest rates to suck the excess rupee out of the market, which would decrease the value of rupee and then it inturn increases the value of the dollar trade with rupee. Why should RBI do it ??? To keep the Export market in India including IT industry to be profitable, more export a country does more economically strong it will become.
I am not sure on how clear I have written this blog, since it is a very very grey area for me too, I am trying to understand the economics behind these exchange rates.
Statutory Warning: This blog may be very dry for lots of people as it is related to economics.
Inflation
Inflation usually refers to the general rise in the level of prices of goods and services over a period of time. India’s current inflation is 12%, which means for example if you have bought 100 pencils for 100 rupees a year back you have pay 112 rupees to get 100 pencils. Money is getting devalued, more money chasing less goods that is leading to price increase, Demand Vs Supply. Central Bank or RBI tries to control India’s inflation. How they do it??? They increase the interest rates and the percentage of money what the banks should hold. What happens if they increase the interest rates, it decreases the money in the market or money circulation in the market. Less Money and more goods, inflation will come down. Then there will be next question on how more money comes to the market, who else RBI prints and releases it to the market. We can think on why RBI can’t increase the rates to have Inflation under control. There is a flipside to it. How Inflation does controls the Dollar Vs Rupee Exchange Rates
Dollar Vs Rupee Exchange Rates
India allows FDI or Foreign Direct Investment, to see the list and percentage of investments allowed in different areas refer to the link << http://www.dipp.nic.in/manual/fdi_manual_11_2006.pdf>> . How does this control the Dollar Vs Rupee Exchange Rates? India is considered to be the economically booming country, lot of FDI’s are going into India for example from buying HUTCH and naming it as VODAFONE, NOKIA factory being opened in India, all those investments are done in through Rupees. Dollar has to be exchanged into rupees and then the investment has to be done. More Dollar --> Less Rupee in the market, Rupee will appreciate and that will affect the conversion rate. RBI controls the Dollar Vs Rupee Exchange Rates too, how do they do it either by increasing the interest rates to suck the excess rupee out of the market, which would decrease the value of rupee and then it inturn increases the value of the dollar trade with rupee. Why should RBI do it ??? To keep the Export market in India including IT industry to be profitable, more export a country does more economically strong it will become.
I am not sure on how clear I have written this blog, since it is a very very grey area for me too, I am trying to understand the economics behind these exchange rates.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Google Chrome
Google Chrome
It is a not a new buzz word. It is going next Gen web browser. Just due to the amount of features what it offers beneath the browser. Quite a lot of architecture changes to a browser
Tabbing
Opening a Tab in a window was a craze when it first came out in FireFox or Mozilla, IE also copied it soon. But there were host of problems with the way Tabs were architectured to run internally in the browser. It was designed as One Process per Window, so if you open multiple tabs within the same window it is single process and multiple threads and it all shared the same address space in windows. So a programmer who knows hack into this can read the data handled in the next tab, for example you have opened a credit card statement in one tab and some website which runs the Malware in the next tab, the Malware can read the credit card statement since it is under the same process. If 1 of the 10 tabs that were opened in a window crashes then the whole window will crash. All these problems have been alleviated in Google Chrome.
1 Tab -- > 1 Process 1 address space. It is crash proof against other bad tabs.
JavaScript
Performance
JavaScript is the most important thing in web today. There are so much complex things done with JavaScript today, the performance of JavaScript affects the web applications.
Being a web developer myself, I know the pain of trying to improve the performance of slow running web application, most of the times the culprit is the slow running or slow loading Java Script. Browsers are inherently single threaded, Browsers have to handle the control the JavaScript when it starts executing, the browser cannot do anything till the JavaScript finishes execution and handles the control back to the Browser. If there are 10 tabs opened in a window and 1 tab starts executing the complex JavaScript, then the all the 10 tabs will stop responding till the execution of JavaScript is complete. With 1 Tab -- > 1 Process 1 address space this problem is addressed.
Compatibility
When you write a web application with lot of JavaScript in it then the web application has to be tested for compatibility since the JavaScript implementation and support is different in different browsers. Again being the web developer, seeing something not working properly in one browser to the other can be nasty. I wish JavaScript had a Virtual Machine which takes care of the internal implementation rather than the developer worrying about those. My prayer for a VM in JavaScript has been partially answered, with the introduction of JavaScript Virtual Machine V8. I wish that the JavaScript VM becomes a standard and other browsers also adapt this.
Memory Handling
The main problem with the JavaScript is Bad Garbage Collection, I would say worst Garbage collection. Current Browsers with the existing JavaScript uses Conservative Garbage Collection. It is like you have a Rack full of bundled clothes and searching for a small Handkerchief in the mess, you wouldn’t know where the Handkerchief would be so it is going to take more time to find it. If you exactly know where the Handkerchiefs are stored it would make it faster to search and find those, that is what the JavaScript VM V8 does. It also does an Incremental Garbage collection which can result in the applications being more interactive like a smoother drag and drop in the netflix applications.
Security
As I said earlier in the Tabbing section of the blog 1 Tab 1 Processes 1 Address Space. This architecture change has enabled the Sandboxing of the Tabs, means they can use the processor for computing but they cannot use it for read files from the machine or write files in the machine. Plugins have always been a big headache for the security of the browser’s (client) machines that run those. Plugins can access anything in the browsers machine and read or write things. For example if we install a Adobe Plugin in the browser, that does not fall under the standard security, they generally run at a higher level and generally works with the renderer( the part of the browser) which graphically displays the web page to the user. Renderer and Plugins run in the same address space. But in Google Chrome the plugins have been isolated and have been kept in a separate address space or sandboxed in a separate address space, so the security threat is minimized to a great extent. Another major problem with internet security is phishing attacks, it is like for example there is a bank site called www.icici.com and there is a hacker who opens a www.icicibank.com , how would you know what is the original site and where to enter the password, Google Chrome claims to warn the users against the phishing attacks and keeps updating the list of phishing websites. This sounds interesting but not sure on how well it would work.
End user should not worry about what happens under the hood of the browser and shouldn’t find a difference between the application written as a thick client (stand alone application) or thin client (browser), usability of the application shouldn’t get affected, and there are limitations with writing applications of that kind with the existing technologies and with the existing browsers. I hope Google chrome can address that problem too. Definitely a good start but way to go.
It is a not a new buzz word. It is going next Gen web browser. Just due to the amount of features what it offers beneath the browser. Quite a lot of architecture changes to a browser
Tabbing
Opening a Tab in a window was a craze when it first came out in FireFox or Mozilla, IE also copied it soon. But there were host of problems with the way Tabs were architectured to run internally in the browser. It was designed as One Process per Window, so if you open multiple tabs within the same window it is single process and multiple threads and it all shared the same address space in windows. So a programmer who knows hack into this can read the data handled in the next tab, for example you have opened a credit card statement in one tab and some website which runs the Malware in the next tab, the Malware can read the credit card statement since it is under the same process. If 1 of the 10 tabs that were opened in a window crashes then the whole window will crash. All these problems have been alleviated in Google Chrome.
1 Tab -- > 1 Process 1 address space. It is crash proof against other bad tabs.
JavaScript
Performance
JavaScript is the most important thing in web today. There are so much complex things done with JavaScript today, the performance of JavaScript affects the web applications.
Being a web developer myself, I know the pain of trying to improve the performance of slow running web application, most of the times the culprit is the slow running or slow loading Java Script. Browsers are inherently single threaded, Browsers have to handle the control the JavaScript when it starts executing, the browser cannot do anything till the JavaScript finishes execution and handles the control back to the Browser. If there are 10 tabs opened in a window and 1 tab starts executing the complex JavaScript, then the all the 10 tabs will stop responding till the execution of JavaScript is complete. With 1 Tab -- > 1 Process 1 address space this problem is addressed.
Compatibility
When you write a web application with lot of JavaScript in it then the web application has to be tested for compatibility since the JavaScript implementation and support is different in different browsers. Again being the web developer, seeing something not working properly in one browser to the other can be nasty. I wish JavaScript had a Virtual Machine which takes care of the internal implementation rather than the developer worrying about those. My prayer for a VM in JavaScript has been partially answered, with the introduction of JavaScript Virtual Machine V8. I wish that the JavaScript VM becomes a standard and other browsers also adapt this.
Memory Handling
The main problem with the JavaScript is Bad Garbage Collection, I would say worst Garbage collection. Current Browsers with the existing JavaScript uses Conservative Garbage Collection. It is like you have a Rack full of bundled clothes and searching for a small Handkerchief in the mess, you wouldn’t know where the Handkerchief would be so it is going to take more time to find it. If you exactly know where the Handkerchiefs are stored it would make it faster to search and find those, that is what the JavaScript VM V8 does. It also does an Incremental Garbage collection which can result in the applications being more interactive like a smoother drag and drop in the netflix applications.
Security
As I said earlier in the Tabbing section of the blog 1 Tab 1 Processes 1 Address Space. This architecture change has enabled the Sandboxing of the Tabs, means they can use the processor for computing but they cannot use it for read files from the machine or write files in the machine. Plugins have always been a big headache for the security of the browser’s (client) machines that run those. Plugins can access anything in the browsers machine and read or write things. For example if we install a Adobe Plugin in the browser, that does not fall under the standard security, they generally run at a higher level and generally works with the renderer( the part of the browser) which graphically displays the web page to the user. Renderer and Plugins run in the same address space. But in Google Chrome the plugins have been isolated and have been kept in a separate address space or sandboxed in a separate address space, so the security threat is minimized to a great extent. Another major problem with internet security is phishing attacks, it is like for example there is a bank site called www.icici.com and there is a hacker who opens a www.icicibank.com , how would you know what is the original site and where to enter the password, Google Chrome claims to warn the users against the phishing attacks and keeps updating the list of phishing websites. This sounds interesting but not sure on how well it would work.
End user should not worry about what happens under the hood of the browser and shouldn’t find a difference between the application written as a thick client (stand alone application) or thin client (browser), usability of the application shouldn’t get affected, and there are limitations with writing applications of that kind with the existing technologies and with the existing browsers. I hope Google chrome can address that problem too. Definitely a good start but way to go.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Best Forward I got in some time
"Have you been to states before" ?
"No, Haven't yet". (எங்க..நமக்கு தெரிஞ்ச ஸ்டேட்ஸ் பெங்களூர், கேரளா அப்பறம் ஆந்திராதான்)
"Any other country" ?
"No".
"What are you man, You have enough experience..Should have been to onsite atleast once"
"yeah…I could have been… But…"
-இந்த மாதிரி ஐடி இண்டஸ்ட்ரில ஒரு நாளைக்கு ஒரு ஒம்பது பேராவது ஒம்பது எடத்துல பேசிட்டு இருப்பாங்க..
"அல்மோஸ்ட் என்னோட பிரண்ட்ஸ், பேட்ஜ் மேட்ஸ் எல்லாரும் ஆன்சைட்ல இருக்காங்க? நமகெங்க….எழவு அதுக்கெல்லாம் நேரங்காலம் வரணுங்க"ன்னு முக்குக்கு மூணு பேராவது மூக்கால அழுதுட்ருப்பாங்க..
"ஏங்க…. நம்ப தம்பி இப்போ போறேன், அப்போ போறேன்னு சொல்லிகிட்டே இருக்காப்ல ஆனா ஒன்னும் போற மாறியே தெரியலையே, நம்ப அனந்தன் பையன் அமெரிக்கால இருக்கான், சகுந்தலா பொண்ணு சௌதில இருக்கான்னு"……!!!!
-சாயங்காலம் காப்பிய குடிச்சிட்டே வீட்டுக்கு வந்த ஒரம்பறை அளபறைய குடுத்திட்டிருப்பாங்க…
ஆன்சைட் - மென்பொருள் துறையினரின் வாழ்வில் தவிர்க்க முடியாத, மிகவும் அவசியமான, அத்யாவசியமான ஒரு வார்த்தை.
சரி ஆன்சைட்னா என்னாங்க?
ரொம்ப சிம்பிளா சொல்லனும்னா.. வெள்ளக்காரன் தான் நமக்கெல்லாம் படி அளக்கற சாமி, அவனுக்கு ஒரு வேலை ஆகனும்னா…இந்த மாதிரி இந்த மாதிரி வேலை ஆகனும்னு அவன் டெண்டர் மாதிரி விடுவான். உடனே நம்மூர்ல இருக்கற கம்பெனி எல்லாம் வழக்கம் போல அடிச்சு புடிச்சு "எனக்கு செய்னு, எனக்கு மோதரம்னு" மன்னன் படத்துல ரஜினி கௌண்டமணி மாதிரி கெடைக்கற பீஸ் ஆப் ப்ரொஜெக்ட வெச்சுகிட்டு ஒரு வழியா புது ப்ராஜெக்ட்டுக்கு பூஜைய போட்ருவாங்க…. அது 20 பேரு செஞ்சு முடிக்கற வேலையா இருந்தா மொதல்ல ஒரு ரெண்டு பேர அந்த நாட்டுக்கு அனுப்பி அவனுக்கு என்னென்ன வேணும்னு பக்கத்துலையே இருந்து விசாரிச்சிட்டு அங்கிருந்துட்டே நம்மூர்ல இருக்கற ஒரு 8 பேர் கிட்ட வேலைய (உயிரை) வாங்கற process தான் Onsite-Offshore co-ordination.
இந்த ரெண்டு க்ரூப்க்கும் மாமியார் மருமக மாதிரி எப்பவுமே ஏழாம் பொருத்தம்தான். இவன கேட்டா அவன் ஓபி அடிக்கறாம்பான், அவன கேட்டா இவன் ஓபி அடிக்கறாம்பான் கடைசி வரைக்கும் சித்தி சீரியல்ல வர்ற சாரதா, பிரபாவதி மாதிரி பொகஞ்சுகிட்டே இருப்பாங்க..
இப்ப அந்த வெளிநாடு போற ரெண்டு பேரு யாருங்கறதுதான் இங்க மேட்டர்…
அப்படி போறதுனால என்னங்க…
நல்லா கேட்டிங்க….
** இங்க அஞ்சு மாசம் சம்பாதிக்கறத அங்க ஒரே மாசத்துல சம்பாதிச்சிரலாம்!
** நம்ப negotiation skills ம், business communication ம் நல்ல இம்ப்ரூவ் ஆகும்!
** நமக்கு வேலை ரீதியாவும், சமுதாய(கல்யாண சந்தை) ரீதியாவும் நல்ல மரியாதை கெடைக்கும்.
** இங்க நம்ம உருவகமா பார்த்து தெரிஞ்சுகிட்ட பல விசயங்கள அங்க உருவமா பார்க்கலாம்… அட, நான் வேலை சம்பந்தமாதாங்க சொல்றேன்.
அப்பறம் பெருசா ஒன்னுமில்லீங்க, நம்பளும் இந்த ஈபில் டவர், லண்டன் பிரிட்ஜ், பிரமிட், சுதந்திரதேவி சிலை, பைசா கோபுரம் இந்த மாதிரி பல எடங்கள்ல சம்பரதாயமா நின்னு கேமராவ மொறைச்சு பார்த்து பல ஸ்டில்லுகல எடுத்து மொத வேலையா ஆர்குட்லயோ, பிக்காசலயோ போட்டு ஊர் வாயில விழுக வேண்டியதுதான்…
இங்க அவனவன் 38 degree வெயில்ல காஞ்சிட்டு இருப்பான் அங்க நம்பாளு சுவிஸ்ல ஜெர்கின போட்டுட்டு snow fallல வெளயாடறா மாதிரி போட்டோவ போட்டு பொகைய கெளப்புவான்.
மொத்தத்துல மேனேஜ்மென்டை பொறுத்த வரை ஒரு resource அ ஆன்சைட் அனுபறதுங்கறது பொம்பள புள்ளைய கட்டிக் குடுக்கற மாதிரி…
மூத்தவ நல்லா பாடுவா, சமையல் சுமாராத்தான் பண்ணுவா….போக போக பழகிரும்…மத்த படி போற எடத்துல எப்படி இருக்கணும்னு சொல்லி வளத்திருகங்கற மாதிரி… இவருக்கு ஆன தெரியும் குதர தெரியும்னு கிளையன்ட் கிட்ட சொல்லி எப்படியாவது ஆன் சைட் அனுப்பிருவாங்க.
அதெப்டிங்க பெரியவள வீட்ல வெச்சுகிட்டு சின்னவள கட்டி குடுத்தா ஊரு தப்பா பேசாதுங்களாங்கறா மாதிரி சீனியர் resourse அ வெச்சு கிட்டு ஜூனியர் resourse யும் ஆன்சைட் அனுப்ப மாட்டாங்க…
ப்ராஜெக்ட் வந்ததுக்கப்புறம் போன்ல கூப்பிட்டு " நம்ப கிட்ட ஏற்கனவே குழாய்வழியா (Pipeline ல) இருந்த "வருமோவராதோ" ப்ராஜெக்ட் வந்திருக்கு. நீங்க கெளம்பறதுக்கு தயாராகிகோங்கன்னு ஒரு 10 பேரு கிட்ட தனித்தனியா சொல்லுவாங்க, இவனுகளும் நெசமாத்தான் சொல்றியானு ஆனந்தி மாதிரி கேட்டுக்கிட்டு, உடனே ஷாட்ட இங்க கட் பண்ணி ஃபாரின்ல ஓபன் பண்ணிருவானுக. ஒரு ரெண்டு வாரத்துக்கு தரையிலயே நடக்க மாட்டானுக. பில்லா படத்துல வர்ற மாதிரி ரீ-ரெகார்டிங் இல்லாமையே நடப்பானுக, திரும்புவானுக, பாப்பானுக. மேல இருந்து கூப்பிட்டு தவிர்க்க முடியாத சில காரணங்களால வேறு ஒருத்தர் போறாரு நீங்க கொஞ்ச நாளைக்கு "ஏங்கடாபோங்கடா" ப்ரொஜெக்ட கன்டினியூ பண்ணுங்கன்னு சொன்னதுக்கப்புறம் தான் "I am Back" ன்னு தரைக்கே வருவாங்க..அப்பறம் கொஞ்ச நாளைக்கு "வார்த்தை தவறிவிட்டாய்"ன்னு ஸ்லோ மோஷன்ல நடக்க ஆரம்பிச்சிருவானுக!! ..
ஒரு ப்ராஜெக்ட் புதுசா வருதுன்னாலே, எல்லார் வாயிலையும் அவுல போட்ட மாதிரி ஆயிரும்…. அவன் போவான் இவ போவான்னு எல்லாரும் கெழக்க பார்த்திட்டு இருந்தா மேக்க ஒருத்தன் மொதல்லையே கெளம்பி போயிருப்பான்…
மேல இருக்கறவங்க, முதல்வன்ல ரகுவரன் சொல்ற மாதிரி அகலாது அணுகாது ஒரு தொலை நோக்கு பார்வையோட பாத்து ஒரு பொதுவான முடிவாத்தான் எடுப்பாங்க… "ஒன் டே squad ல ரெய்னாவுக்கு பதில கைப்ப எதுக்கு எடுத்தாங்க" ங்கற மாதிரி ஆக்ரோசமா ஆறு நாளைக்கு அத பத்தி பேசிட்டு அதுக்கப்றம் ஆறாவது நாள் அவங்கவங்க வேலைய அமைதியா பாக்க ஆரம்பிச்சிருவாங்க.
ஆன்சைட் போனவன் "அக்கறை சீமை அழகினிலே", நியூயார்க் நகரம் உறங்கும் நேரம்" பாடிக்கிட்டு அந்த கெத்த அப்படியே மெயின்டையின் பண்ணிகிட்டிருப்பான்….நம்பாளு "சொர்கமே என்றாலும் அது நம்மூர போல வருமா", "இந்திய நாடு நம் நாடு இந்தியன் என்பது என்பேரு" ன்னு காந்தியவாதி ரேஞ்சுல பீலிங்ச போட்டுட்டு அவர அவரே ஆறுதல் படுத்திக்குவாரு.
சரி இப்போ ஒருத்தன(பேச்சுலர) செலக்ட் பண்ணிட்டாங்கன்னு வெச்சுகோங்க. மொதல்ல அவன் work permit எடுக்கணும் அப்பறம் visa எடுக்கணும்.. இதுக்கான காலக்கெடு நம்ப போற நாட்ட பொறுத்து மாறும். US னா ஒரு வருஷம் ஆகும் (அது வரைக்கும் நம்ப உசுரோட இருக்கோமோ இல்லையோ) Uk னா ஒரு மாசம் ஆகும். இதுல US விசா எடுக்கறதுல மட்டும் ஒரு உயரமானவெளிச்சம் (highlight)! என்னன்னா ஒரு கம்பெனி எத்தன விசாவ consulate ல submit பண்ணாலும், வருசத்துக்கு இவளோ பேரைத்தான் அனுப்புவாங்கன்னு ஒரு கணக்கு இருக்கு….அதனால சிக்கிம் சூப்பர், பூட்டான், மணிப்பூர் லாட்டரி மாதிரி computerised லாட்டரி சிஸ்டத்துல செலக்ட் பண்ணுவாங்க அப்புறம் இன்னார் இன்னார் செலக்ட் ஆயிட்டாங்கன்னு சேதி வரும்…அதுக்கும் பொறகு consulateகாரன் நாள் குறிச்சி கூப்புட்டனுப்சு, ஏன் போற எதுக்கு போறேன்னு விதி படத்துல டைகர் தயாநிதிய சுஜாதா கேக்கற மாதிரி கேட்டு, கொடஞ்சு நம்ப பாஸ்போர்ட்ல குமுக்குனு ஒரு குத்து குத்துனாதான் நம்ப பயலுக லேசா சிரிப்பானுக இல்லேனா மந்திரிச்சு உட்ட மாதிரி ஆயிருவானுக!
இந்த லாட்டரில பேரு வரதுக்குள்ள அவனவன் படர பாடு இருக்கே….அறிஞர் அண்ணா சொன்ன மாதிரி "விழுந்தா வீட்டுக்கு விழாட்டா நாட்டுக்குன்னு இருக்கறவன்" சந்தோசமா இருப்பான். "இந்த சாப்ட்வேர் வேலை எனக்கு புடிச்சிருந்துச்சு, என் பேரு அன்புசெல்வன்…US என்னோட 25 வருஷ கனவு, தவம்"னு கெளதம் பட ஹீரோ கணக்கா டயலாக் விடறவனெல்லாம் கொஞ்ச நாளைக்கு குவாட்டர் அடிச்ச கொரங்கு மாதிரியே திரியுவானுக!
நூத்துக்கு எண்பது சதவீதம் US இல்ல UK ல தான் ஆன்சைட் அமையும்…சரி ஒரு வழியா விசா கிடைச்சிருச்சுனா. மொதல்ல நமக்காக சொன்ன ப்ராஜெக்ட் இன்னும் நமக்காத்தான் இருக்கான்னு பாக்கணும். இல்லேன்னா அடுத்த பஸ் வெடியால அஞ்சுமணிக்குத்தான் அது வரைக்கும் இப்படி ஓரமா உக்காந்துக்கப்பான்னு இந்த கிராமத்துல எல்லாம் சொல்ற மாதிரி அடுத்த ப்ராஜெக்ட் வர்ற வரைக்கும் பேசாம உக்காந்திருக்க வேண்டியது தான்…
இல்ல சினிமால சொல்றாப்ல "உனக்கு அவதான், அவளுக்கு நீ தான்னு சின்ன வயசுலேயே முடிவாயிருச்சு" ங்கற மாதிரி நம்ம நேரம் வொர்க் அவுட் ஆயிருச்சுன்னா டபுள் ஓகே.. இப்போ அடுத்து கிளையன்ட் எப்போ கூப்பிடுவான்னு காத்திருக்கணும்…அப்டியே தோராயமா எப்போ கெளம்பறோங்கறத நம்ப மேலதிகாரிங்ககிட்ட கேக்க வேண்டியதுதான்…அவங்களும் monday கெளம்பற மாதிரி பாத்துக்கோங்கன்னு சொல்லுவாங்க, ஆனா எந்த monday னு அவங்களும் சொல்ல மாட்டங்க நாமளும் கேக்க மாட்டோம்
வாரக்கணக்கு நாள்கணக்கு ஆனவொடனே நம்பளும் இந்த தடவ கெளம்பிருவோம்போல தெரியுதேன்னு பர்சேசிங்கையும், பாக்கிங்கையும் ஆரம்பிச்சுருவோம்.Financial settlement கள், சிம் கார்டு சரண்டர்கள்னு நாட்கள் பரபரப்பா போயிட்டிருக்கும்.
இதுக்கெடைல நம்ப பாசக்கார பய புள்ளைக அப்பப்போ போன் பண்ணி கண்டவனெல்லாம் சொல்லி நீ ஆன்சைட் போறது எனக்கு தெரிய வேண்டி இருக்குன்னு பீலிங்க வேற போடுவானுக…இதுல என்ன கொடுமைனா ஏற்கனவே ரெண்டு தடவ வெறும் டாட்டா மட்டும் சொல்லி பல்பு வாங்குனது அவனுக்கும் நல்லாவே தெரியும்…
Lot of my friends have gone through this, its funny when you see it now.Thanks to Shankar for sending this.
"No, Haven't yet". (எங்க..நமக்கு தெரிஞ்ச ஸ்டேட்ஸ் பெங்களூர், கேரளா அப்பறம் ஆந்திராதான்)
"Any other country" ?
"No".
"What are you man, You have enough experience..Should have been to onsite atleast once"
"yeah…I could have been… But…"
-இந்த மாதிரி ஐடி இண்டஸ்ட்ரில ஒரு நாளைக்கு ஒரு ஒம்பது பேராவது ஒம்பது எடத்துல பேசிட்டு இருப்பாங்க..
"அல்மோஸ்ட் என்னோட பிரண்ட்ஸ், பேட்ஜ் மேட்ஸ் எல்லாரும் ஆன்சைட்ல இருக்காங்க? நமகெங்க….எழவு அதுக்கெல்லாம் நேரங்காலம் வரணுங்க"ன்னு முக்குக்கு மூணு பேராவது மூக்கால அழுதுட்ருப்பாங்க..
"ஏங்க…. நம்ப தம்பி இப்போ போறேன், அப்போ போறேன்னு சொல்லிகிட்டே இருக்காப்ல ஆனா ஒன்னும் போற மாறியே தெரியலையே, நம்ப அனந்தன் பையன் அமெரிக்கால இருக்கான், சகுந்தலா பொண்ணு சௌதில இருக்கான்னு"……!!!!
-சாயங்காலம் காப்பிய குடிச்சிட்டே வீட்டுக்கு வந்த ஒரம்பறை அளபறைய குடுத்திட்டிருப்பாங்க…
ஆன்சைட் - மென்பொருள் துறையினரின் வாழ்வில் தவிர்க்க முடியாத, மிகவும் அவசியமான, அத்யாவசியமான ஒரு வார்த்தை.
சரி ஆன்சைட்னா என்னாங்க?
ரொம்ப சிம்பிளா சொல்லனும்னா.. வெள்ளக்காரன் தான் நமக்கெல்லாம் படி அளக்கற சாமி, அவனுக்கு ஒரு வேலை ஆகனும்னா…இந்த மாதிரி இந்த மாதிரி வேலை ஆகனும்னு அவன் டெண்டர் மாதிரி விடுவான். உடனே நம்மூர்ல இருக்கற கம்பெனி எல்லாம் வழக்கம் போல அடிச்சு புடிச்சு "எனக்கு செய்னு, எனக்கு மோதரம்னு" மன்னன் படத்துல ரஜினி கௌண்டமணி மாதிரி கெடைக்கற பீஸ் ஆப் ப்ரொஜெக்ட வெச்சுகிட்டு ஒரு வழியா புது ப்ராஜெக்ட்டுக்கு பூஜைய போட்ருவாங்க…. அது 20 பேரு செஞ்சு முடிக்கற வேலையா இருந்தா மொதல்ல ஒரு ரெண்டு பேர அந்த நாட்டுக்கு அனுப்பி அவனுக்கு என்னென்ன வேணும்னு பக்கத்துலையே இருந்து விசாரிச்சிட்டு அங்கிருந்துட்டே நம்மூர்ல இருக்கற ஒரு 8 பேர் கிட்ட வேலைய (உயிரை) வாங்கற process தான் Onsite-Offshore co-ordination.
இந்த ரெண்டு க்ரூப்க்கும் மாமியார் மருமக மாதிரி எப்பவுமே ஏழாம் பொருத்தம்தான். இவன கேட்டா அவன் ஓபி அடிக்கறாம்பான், அவன கேட்டா இவன் ஓபி அடிக்கறாம்பான் கடைசி வரைக்கும் சித்தி சீரியல்ல வர்ற சாரதா, பிரபாவதி மாதிரி பொகஞ்சுகிட்டே இருப்பாங்க..
இப்ப அந்த வெளிநாடு போற ரெண்டு பேரு யாருங்கறதுதான் இங்க மேட்டர்…
அப்படி போறதுனால என்னங்க…
நல்லா கேட்டிங்க….
** இங்க அஞ்சு மாசம் சம்பாதிக்கறத அங்க ஒரே மாசத்துல சம்பாதிச்சிரலாம்!
** நம்ப negotiation skills ம், business communication ம் நல்ல இம்ப்ரூவ் ஆகும்!
** நமக்கு வேலை ரீதியாவும், சமுதாய(கல்யாண சந்தை) ரீதியாவும் நல்ல மரியாதை கெடைக்கும்.
** இங்க நம்ம உருவகமா பார்த்து தெரிஞ்சுகிட்ட பல விசயங்கள அங்க உருவமா பார்க்கலாம்… அட, நான் வேலை சம்பந்தமாதாங்க சொல்றேன்.
அப்பறம் பெருசா ஒன்னுமில்லீங்க, நம்பளும் இந்த ஈபில் டவர், லண்டன் பிரிட்ஜ், பிரமிட், சுதந்திரதேவி சிலை, பைசா கோபுரம் இந்த மாதிரி பல எடங்கள்ல சம்பரதாயமா நின்னு கேமராவ மொறைச்சு பார்த்து பல ஸ்டில்லுகல எடுத்து மொத வேலையா ஆர்குட்லயோ, பிக்காசலயோ போட்டு ஊர் வாயில விழுக வேண்டியதுதான்…
இங்க அவனவன் 38 degree வெயில்ல காஞ்சிட்டு இருப்பான் அங்க நம்பாளு சுவிஸ்ல ஜெர்கின போட்டுட்டு snow fallல வெளயாடறா மாதிரி போட்டோவ போட்டு பொகைய கெளப்புவான்.
மொத்தத்துல மேனேஜ்மென்டை பொறுத்த வரை ஒரு resource அ ஆன்சைட் அனுபறதுங்கறது பொம்பள புள்ளைய கட்டிக் குடுக்கற மாதிரி…
மூத்தவ நல்லா பாடுவா, சமையல் சுமாராத்தான் பண்ணுவா….போக போக பழகிரும்…மத்த படி போற எடத்துல எப்படி இருக்கணும்னு சொல்லி வளத்திருகங்கற மாதிரி… இவருக்கு ஆன தெரியும் குதர தெரியும்னு கிளையன்ட் கிட்ட சொல்லி எப்படியாவது ஆன் சைட் அனுப்பிருவாங்க.
அதெப்டிங்க பெரியவள வீட்ல வெச்சுகிட்டு சின்னவள கட்டி குடுத்தா ஊரு தப்பா பேசாதுங்களாங்கறா மாதிரி சீனியர் resourse அ வெச்சு கிட்டு ஜூனியர் resourse யும் ஆன்சைட் அனுப்ப மாட்டாங்க…
ப்ராஜெக்ட் வந்ததுக்கப்புறம் போன்ல கூப்பிட்டு " நம்ப கிட்ட ஏற்கனவே குழாய்வழியா (Pipeline ல) இருந்த "வருமோவராதோ" ப்ராஜெக்ட் வந்திருக்கு. நீங்க கெளம்பறதுக்கு தயாராகிகோங்கன்னு ஒரு 10 பேரு கிட்ட தனித்தனியா சொல்லுவாங்க, இவனுகளும் நெசமாத்தான் சொல்றியானு ஆனந்தி மாதிரி கேட்டுக்கிட்டு, உடனே ஷாட்ட இங்க கட் பண்ணி ஃபாரின்ல ஓபன் பண்ணிருவானுக. ஒரு ரெண்டு வாரத்துக்கு தரையிலயே நடக்க மாட்டானுக. பில்லா படத்துல வர்ற மாதிரி ரீ-ரெகார்டிங் இல்லாமையே நடப்பானுக, திரும்புவானுக, பாப்பானுக. மேல இருந்து கூப்பிட்டு தவிர்க்க முடியாத சில காரணங்களால வேறு ஒருத்தர் போறாரு நீங்க கொஞ்ச நாளைக்கு "ஏங்கடாபோங்கடா" ப்ரொஜெக்ட கன்டினியூ பண்ணுங்கன்னு சொன்னதுக்கப்புறம் தான் "I am Back" ன்னு தரைக்கே வருவாங்க..அப்பறம் கொஞ்ச நாளைக்கு "வார்த்தை தவறிவிட்டாய்"ன்னு ஸ்லோ மோஷன்ல நடக்க ஆரம்பிச்சிருவானுக!! ..
ஒரு ப்ராஜெக்ட் புதுசா வருதுன்னாலே, எல்லார் வாயிலையும் அவுல போட்ட மாதிரி ஆயிரும்…. அவன் போவான் இவ போவான்னு எல்லாரும் கெழக்க பார்த்திட்டு இருந்தா மேக்க ஒருத்தன் மொதல்லையே கெளம்பி போயிருப்பான்…
மேல இருக்கறவங்க, முதல்வன்ல ரகுவரன் சொல்ற மாதிரி அகலாது அணுகாது ஒரு தொலை நோக்கு பார்வையோட பாத்து ஒரு பொதுவான முடிவாத்தான் எடுப்பாங்க… "ஒன் டே squad ல ரெய்னாவுக்கு பதில கைப்ப எதுக்கு எடுத்தாங்க" ங்கற மாதிரி ஆக்ரோசமா ஆறு நாளைக்கு அத பத்தி பேசிட்டு அதுக்கப்றம் ஆறாவது நாள் அவங்கவங்க வேலைய அமைதியா பாக்க ஆரம்பிச்சிருவாங்க.
ஆன்சைட் போனவன் "அக்கறை சீமை அழகினிலே", நியூயார்க் நகரம் உறங்கும் நேரம்" பாடிக்கிட்டு அந்த கெத்த அப்படியே மெயின்டையின் பண்ணிகிட்டிருப்பான்….நம்பாளு "சொர்கமே என்றாலும் அது நம்மூர போல வருமா", "இந்திய நாடு நம் நாடு இந்தியன் என்பது என்பேரு" ன்னு காந்தியவாதி ரேஞ்சுல பீலிங்ச போட்டுட்டு அவர அவரே ஆறுதல் படுத்திக்குவாரு.
சரி இப்போ ஒருத்தன(பேச்சுலர) செலக்ட் பண்ணிட்டாங்கன்னு வெச்சுகோங்க. மொதல்ல அவன் work permit எடுக்கணும் அப்பறம் visa எடுக்கணும்.. இதுக்கான காலக்கெடு நம்ப போற நாட்ட பொறுத்து மாறும். US னா ஒரு வருஷம் ஆகும் (அது வரைக்கும் நம்ப உசுரோட இருக்கோமோ இல்லையோ) Uk னா ஒரு மாசம் ஆகும். இதுல US விசா எடுக்கறதுல மட்டும் ஒரு உயரமானவெளிச்சம் (highlight)! என்னன்னா ஒரு கம்பெனி எத்தன விசாவ consulate ல submit பண்ணாலும், வருசத்துக்கு இவளோ பேரைத்தான் அனுப்புவாங்கன்னு ஒரு கணக்கு இருக்கு….அதனால சிக்கிம் சூப்பர், பூட்டான், மணிப்பூர் லாட்டரி மாதிரி computerised லாட்டரி சிஸ்டத்துல செலக்ட் பண்ணுவாங்க அப்புறம் இன்னார் இன்னார் செலக்ட் ஆயிட்டாங்கன்னு சேதி வரும்…அதுக்கும் பொறகு consulateகாரன் நாள் குறிச்சி கூப்புட்டனுப்சு, ஏன் போற எதுக்கு போறேன்னு விதி படத்துல டைகர் தயாநிதிய சுஜாதா கேக்கற மாதிரி கேட்டு, கொடஞ்சு நம்ப பாஸ்போர்ட்ல குமுக்குனு ஒரு குத்து குத்துனாதான் நம்ப பயலுக லேசா சிரிப்பானுக இல்லேனா மந்திரிச்சு உட்ட மாதிரி ஆயிருவானுக!
இந்த லாட்டரில பேரு வரதுக்குள்ள அவனவன் படர பாடு இருக்கே….அறிஞர் அண்ணா சொன்ன மாதிரி "விழுந்தா வீட்டுக்கு விழாட்டா நாட்டுக்குன்னு இருக்கறவன்" சந்தோசமா இருப்பான். "இந்த சாப்ட்வேர் வேலை எனக்கு புடிச்சிருந்துச்சு, என் பேரு அன்புசெல்வன்…US என்னோட 25 வருஷ கனவு, தவம்"னு கெளதம் பட ஹீரோ கணக்கா டயலாக் விடறவனெல்லாம் கொஞ்ச நாளைக்கு குவாட்டர் அடிச்ச கொரங்கு மாதிரியே திரியுவானுக!
நூத்துக்கு எண்பது சதவீதம் US இல்ல UK ல தான் ஆன்சைட் அமையும்…சரி ஒரு வழியா விசா கிடைச்சிருச்சுனா. மொதல்ல நமக்காக சொன்ன ப்ராஜெக்ட் இன்னும் நமக்காத்தான் இருக்கான்னு பாக்கணும். இல்லேன்னா அடுத்த பஸ் வெடியால அஞ்சுமணிக்குத்தான் அது வரைக்கும் இப்படி ஓரமா உக்காந்துக்கப்பான்னு இந்த கிராமத்துல எல்லாம் சொல்ற மாதிரி அடுத்த ப்ராஜெக்ட் வர்ற வரைக்கும் பேசாம உக்காந்திருக்க வேண்டியது தான்…
இல்ல சினிமால சொல்றாப்ல "உனக்கு அவதான், அவளுக்கு நீ தான்னு சின்ன வயசுலேயே முடிவாயிருச்சு" ங்கற மாதிரி நம்ம நேரம் வொர்க் அவுட் ஆயிருச்சுன்னா டபுள் ஓகே.. இப்போ அடுத்து கிளையன்ட் எப்போ கூப்பிடுவான்னு காத்திருக்கணும்…அப்டியே தோராயமா எப்போ கெளம்பறோங்கறத நம்ப மேலதிகாரிங்ககிட்ட கேக்க வேண்டியதுதான்…அவங்களும் monday கெளம்பற மாதிரி பாத்துக்கோங்கன்னு சொல்லுவாங்க, ஆனா எந்த monday னு அவங்களும் சொல்ல மாட்டங்க நாமளும் கேக்க மாட்டோம்
வாரக்கணக்கு நாள்கணக்கு ஆனவொடனே நம்பளும் இந்த தடவ கெளம்பிருவோம்போல தெரியுதேன்னு பர்சேசிங்கையும், பாக்கிங்கையும் ஆரம்பிச்சுருவோம்.Financial settlement கள், சிம் கார்டு சரண்டர்கள்னு நாட்கள் பரபரப்பா போயிட்டிருக்கும்.
இதுக்கெடைல நம்ப பாசக்கார பய புள்ளைக அப்பப்போ போன் பண்ணி கண்டவனெல்லாம் சொல்லி நீ ஆன்சைட் போறது எனக்கு தெரிய வேண்டி இருக்குன்னு பீலிங்க வேற போடுவானுக…இதுல என்ன கொடுமைனா ஏற்கனவே ரெண்டு தடவ வெறும் டாட்டா மட்டும் சொல்லி பல்பு வாங்குனது அவனுக்கும் நல்லாவே தெரியும்…
Lot of my friends have gone through this, its funny when you see it now.Thanks to Shankar for sending this.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Does 8/100 of a second Matter?
Olympics started off to a gala opening on Thursday. Opening Ceremony was simply too good. Yesterday I saw 4x100 Olympics Men’s free style swimming competition, one of the best swimming race I have ever seen. Previous world record for 4x100 is 3:12:46, Team Canada finished the race in 3:12:26(which is world record by itself) and came 6th, which was the quality of the race. There was a tough competition between Team US and Team France, aided by their off field rivalry. French were ahead till the last moment, before the US Relay team captain Jason Lezak scripted a comeback from behind victory, Team US finished the race on 3:28:24, Team France finished it on 3:28:32 a margin of 8/100 of a second. 8/100 of a second did really matter to Team France.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Madras Kappi
I was born in Srilliviputtur( birth place of famous hindu god Andal) a small town in the southern part of TamilNadu but was brought up in chennai famously called as Madras and very very famous for Madras kappi. What is Madras Kappi? Coffee made from Coffee beans(powder) and chicory with lot of milk with coffee allowed to be filtered overnight just by gravity. My mom makes very very good Filter coffee or Madras kappi to be called. Aroma of she making coffee in the morning can definitely wake you up. I miss those days when I had a filter coffee in hand and reading Hindu Newspaper sports page in the morning. My dad use to scold us badly for directly going to the sports page in the Paper, we never heard his words on that. I don’t think people will have so much patience to make filter coffee in this modern world. Todays world is Instant world right from coffee to making instant Idli. I guess Filter coffee will be soon added to the extinction list.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
40 to 31 in 1 year
I wasn’t into running till last June 2007. I went for my vacation to India in May. I was quite heavy then weighing 220 pounds( 100 kgs). I got quite a few nice comments about my looks and how heavy I am from my so called friends and relations. I was very very upset about one of my old volleyball colleague’s comment asking on when is my marriage and I look like a 29-30 year old guy. I wasn’t a heavy guy in college, it all happened after I joined cognizant for work, due to heavy coffee drinking, food and no exercise helped me ballon from 72 kgs to 100 kgs within 2 ½ years. After coming to US in December 2005, the un-healthy life style continued, my fondness for choclate and with no one to curtail me from not eating it didn’t help me either. One Hershey or Mars bar for a snack in evening was too much for my body. I did not realise that I was getting heavy for a long time reason being, people who are around me are also heavier. Only after going to India I realized how heavy I am, my mom wasn’t happy either with my weight. She had her reasons to worry, child hood friend of mine had his first heart attack at the age of 24 thanks to high cholestrol and heavy weight. I did not have a clue on how to reduce my weight but I had a motivation that I have to reduce my weight.
I have never run for a long distance in my life. Longest as far as I remember was 400 metres race in high school and in that too I ran for first 300 metres and walked for the remaining 100 metres, I finished the race though. I was very active kid in high school, I played volleyball for school but that doesn’t require much moving around or running, I participated in shotput, discus throw and javelin throw in zonal/school district competition. I use to go in my bicyle to school( still remember the day when my dad bought me my first bi-cycle, I was so proud as if I was the king of the world), I have to ride 5kms one-way, It kept me really really slim. After returning back to US I started thinking on how to reduce my weight then I realized what I did when I was in High school, so I got a confidence that I can reduce my weight. I asked for suggestions from people who have decreased there weight. One of my client Systems analyst was weighed a whopping 380 pounds, he decreased his weight from 380 to 220 pounds in 1 year. He had some good motivation for decreasing his weight, he has a small passport size photo of when he was heavy on his desk. He advised me to have my photo in which I am looking heavy on my desktop as wallpaper and the moment I see that I will be off to working out. Actually his idea did really motivate me. I thought of just jotting down Some of the tips what I learned from other people who have decreased weight and what I did to decrease my weight . I chose running for decreasing my weight since it was the fastest and healthiest way suggested by my doctor
• Buy a weighing machine and weigh yourself daily morning and evening.
• Buy a Nice running shoes, probaly you have to shell out somewhere around 80-100$ on a running shoe, but it definitely does worth it.
• Buy some good branded play dry t-shirts. I hate wearing cotton when I am running, cotton t-shirts or shorts absorbs sweat and becomes heavy in the course of running and made me to feel tired. Play dry t-shirts evaporate the sweat and helps in running.
• Buy some play dry shorts. It helps in running similar to play dry t-shirts.
• Keep yourself hydrated when you are running. I prefer water.
• Buy 4 or 5 head bands to use for running. Lot of people have aversion towards using head bands. Head bands helps in absorbing the sweat from the head and prevents it from dripping down to the face. It feels lot better to run with a Head band. It does worth to spend some 4 to 5 4 on a head band.
• If you are starting to run for the first time in the tread mill then start with a speed of 4.5 or 5 Miles per hour and run for around 5 mins @ the start. Then start increasing the timing slowly. After a week if you are feeling comfortable with running at 4.5 miles per hour then increase it to 4.8 and try running for the same time.
• Most of the gyms have TV nowadays, try to find a nice show for the time you are running, go to the gym for seeing the show and run when you are watching the show. I like seeing Everybody Loves Raymond, I use to align my running time when the show comes on TV. It will keep me occupied.
• If you are using some music player when you are running get a nice wristband or arm band for the music player, it helps in the natural free flowing hand motion when running. Holding the music player in hand or in pocket made me conscious about the presence of music player and I would concentrate on not dropping it on the floor than actually running.
• Lot of motivation and will power is needed for running daily, lot of times I wont feel like running at all but the moment I switch on my laptop and see the wallpaper I will be off to running.
• You may not see the weight loss results immediately. Donot lose hope, it happened a lot with my friends, they will run for a week and if they don’t see result then they will stop running.
• I feel lot confident about myself after decreasing my weight, I am able to do lot of outdoor activities, my endurance has increased a lot.
Now you maye be wondering on why I kept such a blog heading, it is my waist size. I was 40 inches in June 2007 and I am 31 inches now.
Myself in June 2007
Myself in May 2008
I have never run for a long distance in my life. Longest as far as I remember was 400 metres race in high school and in that too I ran for first 300 metres and walked for the remaining 100 metres, I finished the race though. I was very active kid in high school, I played volleyball for school but that doesn’t require much moving around or running, I participated in shotput, discus throw and javelin throw in zonal/school district competition. I use to go in my bicyle to school( still remember the day when my dad bought me my first bi-cycle, I was so proud as if I was the king of the world), I have to ride 5kms one-way, It kept me really really slim. After returning back to US I started thinking on how to reduce my weight then I realized what I did when I was in High school, so I got a confidence that I can reduce my weight. I asked for suggestions from people who have decreased there weight. One of my client Systems analyst was weighed a whopping 380 pounds, he decreased his weight from 380 to 220 pounds in 1 year. He had some good motivation for decreasing his weight, he has a small passport size photo of when he was heavy on his desk. He advised me to have my photo in which I am looking heavy on my desktop as wallpaper and the moment I see that I will be off to working out. Actually his idea did really motivate me. I thought of just jotting down Some of the tips what I learned from other people who have decreased weight and what I did to decrease my weight . I chose running for decreasing my weight since it was the fastest and healthiest way suggested by my doctor
• Buy a weighing machine and weigh yourself daily morning and evening.
• Buy a Nice running shoes, probaly you have to shell out somewhere around 80-100$ on a running shoe, but it definitely does worth it.
• Buy some good branded play dry t-shirts. I hate wearing cotton when I am running, cotton t-shirts or shorts absorbs sweat and becomes heavy in the course of running and made me to feel tired. Play dry t-shirts evaporate the sweat and helps in running.
• Buy some play dry shorts. It helps in running similar to play dry t-shirts.
• Keep yourself hydrated when you are running. I prefer water.
• Buy 4 or 5 head bands to use for running. Lot of people have aversion towards using head bands. Head bands helps in absorbing the sweat from the head and prevents it from dripping down to the face. It feels lot better to run with a Head band. It does worth to spend some 4 to 5 4 on a head band.
• If you are starting to run for the first time in the tread mill then start with a speed of 4.5 or 5 Miles per hour and run for around 5 mins @ the start. Then start increasing the timing slowly. After a week if you are feeling comfortable with running at 4.5 miles per hour then increase it to 4.8 and try running for the same time.
• Most of the gyms have TV nowadays, try to find a nice show for the time you are running, go to the gym for seeing the show and run when you are watching the show. I like seeing Everybody Loves Raymond, I use to align my running time when the show comes on TV. It will keep me occupied.
• If you are using some music player when you are running get a nice wristband or arm band for the music player, it helps in the natural free flowing hand motion when running. Holding the music player in hand or in pocket made me conscious about the presence of music player and I would concentrate on not dropping it on the floor than actually running.
• Lot of motivation and will power is needed for running daily, lot of times I wont feel like running at all but the moment I switch on my laptop and see the wallpaper I will be off to running.
• You may not see the weight loss results immediately. Donot lose hope, it happened a lot with my friends, they will run for a week and if they don’t see result then they will stop running.
• I feel lot confident about myself after decreasing my weight, I am able to do lot of outdoor activities, my endurance has increased a lot.
Now you maye be wondering on why I kept such a blog heading, it is my waist size. I was 40 inches in June 2007 and I am 31 inches now.
Myself in June 2007
Myself in May 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Google Analytics
If you are an avid blogger and with lot of people visiting your blog then this is something that you have to add to your site. It is yet another wonderful product from Google. It gives you a good idea on which geography, which ISP you get hits for your blog, what is the users language preference. It does provide some good reports and clickable maps on the User Visit information. Due to privacy concerns Google Analytics does not give preference for tracking IP Addresses. Tool is free till 5 million hits to your page per month. Adding the Google analytics tracking to your blog is very easy, just copy paste the JavaScript (with tracking application info) to the blog.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
I love my pulsar
Only major decision i took against my dads advice was buying a pulsar in 2005 Feb. Though I drove the bike only for 10 months, I really fell in love with my sweet pulsar, funny part was my dad started liking my pulsar better than any other Bike, he is driving it now in India, I dont regret buying pulsar against my dads advice.Iam not new to driving mopeds/bikes, I started driving my dads Bajaj M80( we are bajaj family, all the 3 mopeds/bikes in my house was bajaj) when i was in the 5th standard. I love driving my pulsar early in the morning, wearing my Ferrari Stickered Helmet( was red in color, most of my friends dont like my helmet,but i love my helmet though) with my helmets visor up, fresh air hitting the face, that was heaven.It was 27 kms drive from my house to Tidel Park, I use to make it in 40 mins in the morning. I still have that love for Bikes, but being in scranton, even I buy a good one , I can drive only for 4 months in a year and remaining 8 months the bike has to be in the garage.I feel like buying a Bike If I am moving to some other warmer place.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Ven Pongal
I am a big fan of Ven Pongal, I did not have a proper ven pongal since I came to US. Lady luck shined on us, new friend of mine who moved from India to Scranton a month back offered to cook Ven Pongal for us(in total 5 of us) yesterday night. It all started when we were planning on what to do on saturday night. We searched for proper pressure cooker and all the required ingredients to be added and finally started cooking @around 9.45 in the night( not bad for a saturday night). Then there was a discussion on what chutney to be made for pongal, cocunut chutney was decided on vote. Green chilli and Pepper for pongal had to be borrowed from my friends apartment. I had a wish that pongal will be good with chutney and sambar too, that combination is just too awesome. Lady luck again smiled on us again, one of my friend who was there had made sambar in afternoon, we brought that in and made some adjustments( liquified it to some extent) for pongal. MMMMMMMMMMMM it was yummy, it was worth spending sometime on cooking pongal and eating it, i was taken back to India when my mom use to make pongal on sunday morning. Thanks to our chief cook Jagadish for making the pongal so yummy.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Long Time!!!!!
I did lot of traveling from the time I wrote my last blog. I am not an avid blogger, but lot of outdoor activity has kept me away from blogging for a long time.
Trip to Vegas
I went to Vegas with some of my friends, it was hell lot of fun. While going to Vegas, the flight landed ahead of time in Vegas, wow what a surprise, it never happens in US. While returning back it was on time and I reached office on time. We stayed in different casinos on different nights to get a feel of the casino. Some of my friends were introduced to gambling and they where just hooked on the slot machines. Most of the time in the Casino or sight seeing went in taking profile
pics :), thanks to Navin a great photographer( made me to look good in the photos).
The amazing part is the desert has been converted into such a booming place, interiors of some of the casinos were mind blowing. We went to a show called Le Reeve( Dreams in French) , though I couldnt understand the essence of the show, the acrobatics in the show was too good. I definitely want to take my parents to the show when they come to US.
Trip to Chicago
I did not plan for the next long trip but it just happened immediately after my visit to vegas, I and 5 of my friends went on a road trip from Scranton (actually 4 of them drove from Hartford, CT) to Chicago. Wow it was lot of fun on the road, got to know them better. I went to Chicago to see my school friend Kasi, he is a real nerd, we visited lot of museums. I did like Chicago a lot, it is a windy city, the skyline is just awesome, in most of the movies the skyline that is been shown is the chicago skyline. I bumped into some of my old friends in Chicago downtown, quite a lot of change from the last time I saw them. Drive back from Chicago to Scranton was good, though I could not drive both ways since I am an underage (below 25) driver, stupid rental car companies here does not allow underage drivers to drive the car.
I am looking forward my next trip soon...
Trip to Vegas
I went to Vegas with some of my friends, it was hell lot of fun. While going to Vegas, the flight landed ahead of time in Vegas, wow what a surprise, it never happens in US. While returning back it was on time and I reached office on time. We stayed in different casinos on different nights to get a feel of the casino. Some of my friends were introduced to gambling and they where just hooked on the slot machines. Most of the time in the Casino or sight seeing went in taking profile
pics :), thanks to Navin a great photographer( made me to look good in the photos).
The amazing part is the desert has been converted into such a booming place, interiors of some of the casinos were mind blowing. We went to a show called Le Reeve( Dreams in French) , though I couldnt understand the essence of the show, the acrobatics in the show was too good. I definitely want to take my parents to the show when they come to US.
Trip to Chicago
I did not plan for the next long trip but it just happened immediately after my visit to vegas, I and 5 of my friends went on a road trip from Scranton (actually 4 of them drove from Hartford, CT) to Chicago. Wow it was lot of fun on the road, got to know them better. I went to Chicago to see my school friend Kasi, he is a real nerd, we visited lot of museums. I did like Chicago a lot, it is a windy city, the skyline is just awesome, in most of the movies the skyline that is been shown is the chicago skyline. I bumped into some of my old friends in Chicago downtown, quite a lot of change from the last time I saw them. Drive back from Chicago to Scranton was good, though I could not drive both ways since I am an underage (below 25) driver, stupid rental car companies here does not allow underage drivers to drive the car.
I am looking forward my next trip soon...
Monday, April 21, 2008
5K Race
I was lying low for sometime, after my injury scare while playing volleyball. I started running around the lake scranton again after the pain in my right ankle reduced, though i had support for my wrist. My office colleague informed me about a 5K memorial run on April 19th, organized as part of the Carbondale YMCA( Old and Historical town in PA). I was excited the moment i heard about that. I wanted to run in the race but wasnt sure on whether my ankle would be ok for running. I ran around lake scranton on friday(april 18th) to check whether my ankle is ok for running. I couldnt complete the full run, yet i decided to run on saturday.
Race Day
I was there for registration sharply on time, 7.30 in the morning. Whenever I am on time nothing else will happen on time. There was a fund raiser event for YMCA and there were lot of politicians giving long and lengthy speech. Politicians are the same everywhere. Race that was suppose to start at 9.15 in the morning started at 10.15. Temperature was also high on 90F. I gulped in a bottle of gatorade before the start of the race. There were lot of people who ran in the race. The moment race started people were sprinting as if they are running in a 100 or 200 meters which is very bad for a long distance running. There were cops and volunteer regulating traffic around the race route and people cheering us all the way to the end. Lot of people dropped out in the middle of the race. I completed 1 mile in 8 mins and 10 seconds, my office colleague had to stop in between for a minute since her knee started giving trouble. I finished my 2nd mile in 17 mins and 20 seconds. The last leg of the race was the tough one with one long up hill , i struggled but somehow managed to finish the run in 27 mins and 20 seconds. I was happy on finishing the race and I was placed at 52 among 588 people who ran in the race. It was not bad for somone who has never run in such a long distance race before.
Race Day
I was there for registration sharply on time, 7.30 in the morning. Whenever I am on time nothing else will happen on time. There was a fund raiser event for YMCA and there were lot of politicians giving long and lengthy speech. Politicians are the same everywhere. Race that was suppose to start at 9.15 in the morning started at 10.15. Temperature was also high on 90F. I gulped in a bottle of gatorade before the start of the race. There were lot of people who ran in the race. The moment race started people were sprinting as if they are running in a 100 or 200 meters which is very bad for a long distance running. There were cops and volunteer regulating traffic around the race route and people cheering us all the way to the end. Lot of people dropped out in the middle of the race. I completed 1 mile in 8 mins and 10 seconds, my office colleague had to stop in between for a minute since her knee started giving trouble. I finished my 2nd mile in 17 mins and 20 seconds. The last leg of the race was the tough one with one long up hill , i struggled but somehow managed to finish the run in 27 mins and 20 seconds. I was happy on finishing the race and I was placed at 52 among 588 people who ran in the race. It was not bad for somone who has never run in such a long distance race before.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
I hate Mozilla for this reason
I work a lot with web applications when it comes to mozilla firefox i hate it as a developer for a simple reason. See the below pic, you can see the cursor or control in two places one in the title and another in the edit area of the textbox. It can make a developer look like a fool in front of testers
Bad things always comes in double for me
I would like to forget my last week. It was full of bad news and un-necessary tensions and fights. Sunday was ok with good work out, volleyball game and some nice time after that. Monday was our title match for Weston Hall volleyball league, It did not go well. Too much of confusion right from the start to end. We lost the game, the way we lost the game was more hurting. Rift in the team after that wasnt fun to deal with, lot of explanation and long discussions for 2 or 3 days to make up.
Nothing much went on Thursday but was a hectic day @work. Friday started pretty well with me being in high spirits from morning, left around 5.30 from work and got ready for my game of volleyball. I was happy with the way i was played out there, my setting was good and my drops were pretty good. In the 3rd set I went up for a block, i landed on my right ankle, i tripped and fell down in that instinct i landed on my right wrist. I knew at that moment i shouldnt have used my right hand for support when i landed. My wrist started swelling immediatley the worst part was i had volleyball tournmanet on sunday. I had tough time on saturday, i went to the doctor , took an xray thank god no broken bones only a sprain. Hope a better week likes ahead for me.
Nothing much went on Thursday but was a hectic day @work. Friday started pretty well with me being in high spirits from morning, left around 5.30 from work and got ready for my game of volleyball. I was happy with the way i was played out there, my setting was good and my drops were pretty good. In the 3rd set I went up for a block, i landed on my right ankle, i tripped and fell down in that instinct i landed on my right wrist. I knew at that moment i shouldnt have used my right hand for support when i landed. My wrist started swelling immediatley the worst part was i had volleyball tournmanet on sunday. I had tough time on saturday, i went to the doctor , took an xray thank god no broken bones only a sprain. Hope a better week likes ahead for me.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Dream come true
There is a beautiful, pleasant and scenic lake called Lake Scranton near my house. There is a trail around the lake for 3.5 miles a haven for fitness enthusiasts who run or walk around the lake. I started walking around the lake two summers before and use to always struggle to complete 3.5 miles. I use to see lot of people running around the lake and completing the entire stretch. I wondered then on whether I will be able to run like that. I don’t even remember of me running 100 or 200 meters in school or college. I was never a runner and never had a motivation to push myself so hard for running. The game what I chose to play (volleyball) also helped the cause, not much need for running, stand and play. I have been running for the past 1 year or so in the tread mill or in the track in YMCA just to shed the extra few (40-50) pounds that I gained after joining cognizant for work. I am still clueless on how I really gained so much weight; probably lot got to do with my moms cooking. Running helped me a lot to reduce the extra pounds, I feel lot fitter now. Yesterday my dream came true, I ran the entire stretch of Lake Scranton in 45 mins.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Repaying Affection
I had a very very long conversation with my family( parents & bro) today, later part of conversation turned nostalgic. My role model is my dad, he is a teetotaler and i have never seen him raising his voice against my mother, neither my mother. When i have kids, i would always love to be like him to them. I have never let my parents down. I have always made them proud of what I have done.I always thought i have been a good son to my parents but never a good brother. It starts from the time my little brother was born, i was 3 1/2 years old then. I remember till date, I cried by lying under the cot asking my parents to throw my little brother in garabage bin. I dint want share my undue affection what i was getting from my parents with my brother. I dont remember anyone explaining about the soon to be born little brother to me.
He has always shown un-due affection on me. If he gets a choclate( candy), he will bring it home without eating and share it with me. He was smart to ask for another choclate for me, if they have one more. I have always fought with him from small things to big things. People would laugh if they know that , i use to fight right from who gets the first dosa(rice pan cake) to who gets the big omlette. My mom was so smart that she use to make dosa in two pans at the same time, so that both are the first dosas :). My brother always liked to stay with me but i acted as if like i never like his company. During summer vacation time i use to stay in my cousins house for 10 days. My brother cannot stay away from my parents during his young age so my dad use to hide me under the bed or something and then take him home. He use to search all over my cousin's house and then leave with my dad dejected.
We always fight for TV remote but he was so nice to give it for me every time. I dont remember a single instance of him watching the channel what he wants when i am there :(. I was headstrong and arrogant during my childhood days but he was always caring and down to earth.
I remember him being so excited of my 10th, +2 results and when i was attending my job interview in cognizant. I dont think i have ever repayed the kind of affection what he has showered on me. Only time when i acted like a good brother for him was helping him out in chosing on what he wanted to study in college. I understand things better now( atleast i think so) and i realise that how good he was to me. Hope i repay that affection at some point of time in the life.
He has always shown un-due affection on me. If he gets a choclate( candy), he will bring it home without eating and share it with me. He was smart to ask for another choclate for me, if they have one more. I have always fought with him from small things to big things. People would laugh if they know that , i use to fight right from who gets the first dosa(rice pan cake) to who gets the big omlette. My mom was so smart that she use to make dosa in two pans at the same time, so that both are the first dosas :). My brother always liked to stay with me but i acted as if like i never like his company. During summer vacation time i use to stay in my cousins house for 10 days. My brother cannot stay away from my parents during his young age so my dad use to hide me under the bed or something and then take him home. He use to search all over my cousin's house and then leave with my dad dejected.
We always fight for TV remote but he was so nice to give it for me every time. I dont remember a single instance of him watching the channel what he wants when i am there :(. I was headstrong and arrogant during my childhood days but he was always caring and down to earth.
I remember him being so excited of my 10th, +2 results and when i was attending my job interview in cognizant. I dont think i have ever repayed the kind of affection what he has showered on me. Only time when i acted like a good brother for him was helping him out in chosing on what he wanted to study in college. I understand things better now( atleast i think so) and i realise that how good he was to me. Hope i repay that affection at some point of time in the life.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Best Political Satire Cartoon in Recent Times
I like looking at the CartoonScape section in the Hindu Newspaper. I have grown up seeing the cartoons of R.K Lakshman and Keshav. Below image is one of the best political satire, I have seen for a long time.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Getting into Playoffs
Me and my friends started playing in the Weston Hall Volleyball League in middle of the league, since the team lost some players. Now the league phase is over and we are getting into play offs. 2 of my team players are going to India for a vacation (one has already left and other is scheduled to leave over this weekend) hence we got to search for someone to play with us. Our volleyball team was on the roll for quite sometime in Weston hall. We won 3 matches continuously, and due to that we may have to play with a higher ranked team in the play offs. I am having my fingers crossed to see how we are really playing in the playoffs.
Monday, March 3, 2008
ATM Door getting jammed
I am not sure on how many of us got stuck inside the ATM with the door getting jammed. Once I had an experience similar to this, the security guard outside the ATM was able to get me out.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
For heaven sake go for the ball
For the quality of the opposition team, the game what we played on Tuesday night was really good. Opponent team played in 4:2 combination with 4 hitters and 2 setters, our team has only one hitter and setter with others acting as receivers for the ball. My setting was awful yesterday with most of the balls going too wide or too close to the net and was easily blocked. While practicing (“taking touch” in volleyball slang) before the match we use heavy beach volleyball. The ball used in the match is very light compared with the practicing ball, which may be one of the reasons for my setting going bad in the match. Setting is more about control of the ball and strategy. We took lot of points in service, I was happy with the way I served. The guy who introduced us for playing in the league is around 60 years old, he also plays along with us in the team (with someone changing as sub-in). Age is supposed to slow down the reflex, but I don’t think it will slow down your attitude to go for the ball. There are few old people who play with me in the Dunmore Community Center, I admire there flexibility at that age. They are simply too good. I am not going to crib about the old guy, but when he is in the court the mistakes what he makes brings the moral of whole team down. I am not asking for all good players to play in the same team, but players who make an attempt to go for the drop falling in front of their legs.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Another Monday and got to go for office again :(
I am generally enthusiastic about going to office on Monday, but not today. There was too much of physical activity as such this weekend. I played volleyball on Saturday and Sunday for 3 hours a day and was feeling really tired after yesterday night’s game. I didn’t feel like getting up from my couch today morning, but suddenly stuck that I have a meeting in different office location today morning, dint even get an extra hour sleep. I woke up at 7 in the morning got ready and rushed to the meeting at 8.15 A.M.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Valentines Day a Day to remember!!!!!!
Feb 14th 2008 is definitely a day to remember, don’t run your crooked mind in all directions ( karapannai kuthirai inneram thati vitu irrupingalai). This is when we won the first match in Weston Hall Volleyball League in Scranton. It is a co-ed league, a team should have 4 men and 2 women. We were having our fingers crossed for 1 our team women player to come at the correct time. Finally she made it up, after all the initial hiccups the game started. We had a smooth sailing in the first set with us winning the set 21-15. Lethargic attitude started setting in at the end of the first set, which made us to lose the 2nd set 20-22. We made lot of mistakes with me being the main culprit with some awful setting. Things fell in place nicely for the 3rd set, some good hits and serves made us to win the set 21-17. We were all happy after winning the first game in the league. Our team has a game against the top notch team in the league on Tuesday 8.00 P.M. We are hoping to play well against that team too.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Car in the Ditch???????
That is what could have happened to my car today morning. As usual the weather in Scranton sucked, with freezing rain, sleet, snow and ice (finally a slushy mix was in the road). As a good practice (they call it best practice) had my car switched on 20 mins before I started to office, cleaned all the icy wintry mix on top of my car. The drive from my house to office is not much of a problem. I give ride to my office colleague whose house is in a steep hill, for which I have to take a small de-tour from my office route.
I have had problems before in the snow and ice mixture driving up the hill and was really skeptical to drive up this time too. I thought lucky me, since I did not have any problem in driving up the steep hill. I was sort of confident that I have made it but there lied the final touch. There is an adage that life is not always smooth, but the problem today morning when I was taking U turn was that the road was too smooth. There is no worst place to do a 180 than this one. With me staring down the hill, it is a forest with trees and not a road (sema pallam) and my car front tires are deep inside more than 1 feet of snow.
Only after getting down the car to look at the conditions, I realized how slippery it was. It was at least 2 inches of ice on the road and I could not walk there, I could have fell down and hurt myself easily. I shoveled the snow below the front tires in my car and with combination of reverse gear and drive mode, I struggled( rather the car struggled) for about 15-20 mins to come out of the snow. Now I am more experienced in driving in snow :) and know who will come to help you when you are really struggling.
I have had problems before in the snow and ice mixture driving up the hill and was really skeptical to drive up this time too. I thought lucky me, since I did not have any problem in driving up the steep hill. I was sort of confident that I have made it but there lied the final touch. There is an adage that life is not always smooth, but the problem today morning when I was taking U turn was that the road was too smooth. There is no worst place to do a 180 than this one. With me staring down the hill, it is a forest with trees and not a road (sema pallam) and my car front tires are deep inside more than 1 feet of snow.
Only after getting down the car to look at the conditions, I realized how slippery it was. It was at least 2 inches of ice on the road and I could not walk there, I could have fell down and hurt myself easily. I shoveled the snow below the front tires in my car and with combination of reverse gear and drive mode, I struggled( rather the car struggled) for about 15-20 mins to come out of the snow. Now I am more experienced in driving in snow :) and know who will come to help you when you are really struggling.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Amount of Opportunities and Facilities
I played volleyball for High school and College in
I was bit early for the Saturday night game in Dunmore community center and got an opportunity to see
I always had a feeling that the amount of importance what we give to cricket kills peoples interest in other games. Don’t mistake me I am an avid cricket fan and I follow up and watch every match
1) Game should keep you fit and active.
2) Should not take lot of time away from my studies.
3) Should not have physical contact between players
For the facilities what I had in school and what suited for my dad’s requirements was volleyball. My school Shri Anand Jain Vidyalaya had a volleyball court (that is the only play area we had in school) in the center with the school building covering the court in a “U” shape. We have groups/houses in school, since it was a jain school the houses were in the name of Ruby, Emerald, Diamond and Sapphire and me being in Sapphire for last 4 years of my school life. Playing volleyball in front of the whole cheering school for the house matches was really interesting and are real good memories
I have never played volleyball in an indoor court before coming to
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Robin Hood Men in Tights
I became a fan of Director and actor Mel Brooks (see link
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Yaaruku Yaaro???? Poor Erode Sukumari
Universal Cine Arts Presents, Erode Sukumari Produces and in Joe Stanleys Direction..Yaaruku Yaaro. Introducing the next Keanu Reeves(matrix fame) of tamil cinema..Sam Anderson and Next Jo Lopez of tamil cinema varnika. I got this video link from my friend,
man from then i have watched the video atleast 10 times and i beg you all to watch this. I havent laughed so heartily forgetting about every damn bug my code is going to create. Watch the movie with your friends, it is 2 hours of non stop entertainment. Movie starts with the pretty dame Varnika singing a so called melody song( the female singer who sang the song is really crass and loud) , the hero listens to the song and he is really impressed. Next some lollu-sabha fame actors ( I don’t know why they took up a movie like this to demean themselves) snatches the chain of the heroine( Varnika), this where the directorial touch of Joe Stanley comes in. What will we expect (after watching lot of tamil cinema), the hero to beat the chain snatchers and recover the chain but in this movie hero will give a chase to the chain snatchers in his TVS Scooty and will come empty handed. Then the hero requests the pretty dame varnika to sing the introduction song again( nana irunthena mavane ippo thaan chain thoalachiru irruken patta kekuthu unnaku appdinu thooki pottu midichirupen) , camera man will do some close up shots of the hero( I don’t think the camera man could have survived after seeing the expression on a close up shot) when the heroineeee is singing the song. I watched the movie till the embedded song and couldn’t take it up anymore. I am not a guy who says that only good looking actors should act in movies, look at dhanush he is not good looking but has his screen presence and is confident of what he is doing in front of the camera. You need people who are confident and know what they are doing. What makes people to take movies like this??? Is it due the advent of cheap camcorders??? Or due the hero with lot of money who wants to leave a mark in tamil cine industry?? Or the rich produced who wants to show some loss to evade income tax?? God only will know the actual reason…..
Friday, February 1, 2008
How to do a 360 easily???
What is 360??
Car doing a complete circle of turn at high speed (speed is relative). Simplea layman termsla “Car Full Roundu Adikanum”(Thanks to Shankar for the definition).
Physical Requirements:
1. Obviously you need a car for doing a 360 (Enna question ithu).
2. Car tires should be bald (namma lollu sabha manohar thala maari) or you should have driven the car with new tires for more than 20k miles ( avlo ottuna eppadiyum car tire bald aaydium).
3. Preferably no passengers in the car except you, compulsorily no gals (otherwise there will be lot of screaming).
4. Driver heart should be made of steel (shouldn’t panic under any circumstance).
Environmental Conditions:
1. You should drive down the hill (hill grade should be high).
2. There should be a stop sign in the road where you cannot make your car to stop.
3. There should have been atleast 1 inch of sleet (sleet is neither snow nor ice, but very slippery) rain.
4. No Car should be parked in the road where you are going to do 360
5. Gods should have showered a lot of luck on you
Drive down the hill at a good speed( if the speed limit is 20 , drive at 35-40) and try applying your brakes at the first stop sign, you cannot stop the car from doing a 360, trust me I did that twice this morning.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
First Volleyball Game after 6 months
I was trying hard to register a team in the Scranton YMCA volleyball league but did not have luck for quite sometime. Through some contact we heard that they play volleyball on Saturday Evenings in Dunmore Community Center , me and my friend krishna went to check out things. I wasnt prepared to play on saturday.Infact i was already cramped up after my workout for lower body on saturday morning.But i played since people who played there invited me to join for a game, the decision which i am regretting till now. It was easily one of out the worst games i have ever played, i play in as a setter in volleyball( guy who sets the ball for attackers to hit), i did not have any control over the ball. I should be blamed for the whole thing for entering directly for playing without warming up. Hope I play well the next time i play there.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Baby Shower Function
Two of my colleagues are expecting a baby soon, so we decided to throw a surprise baby shower function for their family. I was bit late for the function, but was there before the food got over (another instance to prove that I will be always on time for the food), the actual celebrations started after the food. We had some cute games for the couples expecting baby, thanks to Ramesh (my project mate) for thinking about the innovative games. Games started with the couples having a paper plate on their head and drawing a baby figure with a pencil, we got figures of everything execpt a baby. It set the tone for the next game, one of the couple is going to have their first baby, the game being changing the diaper for a baby doll and time clocked between husband and wife. The guy was turning the baby doll over for changing the diaper, it was so much fun seeing him doing that. The diaper change was followed by a quality testing session in which a mother of a gal evaluated the diaper changes, the guy diaper change for the baby doll will be leaky( we thought it was intentional since he did not change diapers for the baby later on). The same game was played for the other couple expecting a second baby, since they already have a baby and would have experience in changing diaper, rules were changed to change the diaper in single handJ. Wow the guy did that in less than 25 seconds. Quality testing session followed and the guy’s diaper change was evaluated to be too good. We then decided to play dumb chards with English movie names. One of my colleague got the movie name “Final Destination”, the way he emoted that was an ROFL, and he started with the numbers 1, 2 and was expecting his team mates to go to the word finalJ. We had some really complex movie names like “
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
LolluSabha 200 Episodes…
Cheers to LolluSabha crew and fans, they have reached a mile stone in the number of episodes. I am die-hard fan of Lollu Sabha, watching lollu sabha makes me to forget work pressure and laugh like anything. My favourite episode is Mudhal Mariyadhai and favourite scene is the introduction scene in which everyone will speak some unrelated stuff for e.g. “7 mani bus 7 maniku vanducham 8 mani bus pinnadiyaai vanudcham” and call it as an adage or palamoli, it is definitely a must watch ROFL stuff. I have watched few of lollu-sabha shootings taken in Mudichur near my house in
Friday, January 18, 2008
Action Replay
I was browsing through Hindu Website for news few days back and came across this link. On reading this I remember my first Tamil debate stage speech when I was in school, I was so nervous and I started all over again since there was a mike interruption.Hail the official who gave the speech..
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Pongala Pongal
After being down for 2 ½ days with the food poison I was up on Jan 15th Tuesday.
I decided that I am going to make Chakkara Pongal (Sweet Pongal) and Sundal in the evening. Left home at 5 P.M from work and started with my pongal and sundal preparation at around 6 P.M (had to clean to the house also for pongal celebration :) ).
Woke up my mom in India at 5 A.M (there time) to ask on how to prepare pongal. Armed with the preparation technique from my mom I kept rice in the rice cooker and set up about breaking the jaggery( vellam). It took for me and my room mate 30 mins to break a piece of out of the jaggery bar. We virtually tried all possible combinations except jumping on the jaggery bar to break it. As usual when there is issue in production ( my samayal) called the production support( my mom) in India to ask on how to break the jaggery bar, experience speaks…she asked me to put the jaggery bar in hot water and boil it in low flames for 15 -20 mins. Wowww it started melting and I got the watery jaggery mix in correct stage( kambi pakuvam). In the mean time I finished my sundal preparation too , mixed jaggery ,rice and cashew fried in ghee and here I gooooo Pongala Pongal……….Pongal turned up ok for eating...the pics below looks yummy for eating rite……
I decided that I am going to make Chakkara Pongal (Sweet Pongal) and Sundal in the evening. Left home at 5 P.M from work and started with my pongal and sundal preparation at around 6 P.M (had to clean to the house also for pongal celebration :) ).
Woke up my mom in India at 5 A.M (there time) to ask on how to prepare pongal. Armed with the preparation technique from my mom I kept rice in the rice cooker and set up about breaking the jaggery( vellam). It took for me and my room mate 30 mins to break a piece of out of the jaggery bar. We virtually tried all possible combinations except jumping on the jaggery bar to break it. As usual when there is issue in production ( my samayal) called the production support( my mom) in India to ask on how to break the jaggery bar, experience speaks…she asked me to put the jaggery bar in hot water and boil it in low flames for 15 -20 mins. Wowww it started melting and I got the watery jaggery mix in correct stage( kambi pakuvam). In the mean time I finished my sundal preparation too , mixed jaggery ,rice and cashew fried in ghee and here I gooooo Pongala Pongal……….Pongal turned up ok for eating...the pics below looks yummy for eating rite……
Monday, January 14, 2008
Getting Back to Realization..
Saturday started pretty well, woke up at 7(early for weekend) in the morning.
As usual browsed for some vetti news and was off to YMCA for work out. I was happy at the way my workout went in YMCA, ran for 5 miles and weight training too. I felt very very hungry so went to the only indian restaruant in scranton, the decision what i am regretting for the past 2 days. Effect of eating in the Indian Restaruant started around 6 in the evening with a stomach trouble and started puking. I dint have much health trouble as such since i came to US ( Dec 2005). Whenever I use to throw up, my mom use to hold my head and my dad will be around with water in a jug. For the first time when i threw up, i forgot that i was in US and was expecting my dad to give me water to wash my face and gogle it. I took me a while to get back to the realization that they are in India i got to fend for myself here.......
As usual browsed for some vetti news and was off to YMCA for work out. I was happy at the way my workout went in YMCA, ran for 5 miles and weight training too. I felt very very hungry so went to the only indian restaruant in scranton, the decision what i am regretting for the past 2 days. Effect of eating in the Indian Restaruant started around 6 in the evening with a stomach trouble and started puking. I dint have much health trouble as such since i came to US ( Dec 2005). Whenever I use to throw up, my mom use to hold my head and my dad will be around with water in a jug. For the first time when i threw up, i forgot that i was in US and was expecting my dad to give me water to wash my face and gogle it. I took me a while to get back to the realization that they are in India i got to fend for myself here.......
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