Hmm........

Himalyan (mis)Adventure

2007-05-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

This blog has mostly become my travel blog... anyways at last i made it to himalyas (couple of years ago my ladakh trip got cancelled).
First lets get down to mis-adventure part of the trek.
One of my friends (i cant remember who) sent me this link about the treks YHAI organizes during may. I checked out the site picked the one that covers covers maximum distance (during the trek i found, that should not be a criteria for a himalyan trek. what matters is the latitude - what altitude you start @ and how much you go upto and how much of snow hiking is involved). Couple of my collegue showed interest and we picked the trek to kedarkantha peak (12600 feet).

We had to fight with management to get offs (i didnt want to cancel my Himalayan trip for 2nd time because of delivery dates). Anyway on the big day when we were to take off from pune to delhi, we reached pune airport @ 1.30pm. The security wouldnt allow us in, since there were no flights on a Saturday afternoon that took off from pune. They saw our tickets and pointed out that we were 12 hours late!. The plane was supposed to take off @ 1.30 mid night. My collegue has pointed this out when we were booking the tickets. The travel website used 24 hours timing. but I insisted that there were no domestic flights after mid-night and it was just a bug in the stupid indian website. I was suppose to be the SME (Subject Matter Expert) on domestic planes since i fly almost every weekend and the other guy (dont want to name him), was foolish enough to get convinced. So here we were 12 late and the security guys and the airline (spicejet) staff thought we were idiots and were amused. But the good news was the plane had been cancelled and we got full refund. We did some research over phone with a friend, who looked up planes from pune/mumbai to delhi on the net. We had a good deal with spicejet from mumbai the next day and we bought tickets from "delhi to mumbai" and it cost us just 400 bucks extra.

An hour later the while showing our new itinerary to one the guys in office we realized i had booked the tickets from delhi to mumbai. I have this problem - i mix up left-right, i am yet to figure out if 1 to 10 is "ascending"/"descending", so it was only natural, that i asked for delhi-mumbai. The booking guy even repeated my itinerary for me, but im so used to these guys repeating your movie ticket order in multiplexes i wouldnt listen. We rushed back to airport, i blamed the guy at counter for getting the source-destination wrong (im still not sure if it was my mistake or his, but as i said its most likely my fault coz i mix things up). So anyway he changed our tickets without any cancellation charges. But the whole things cost us close to 5K extra and travelled to mumbai for next day's flight.

So in couple of hours everything that could go wrong went wrong. It smelt like it was going to be a bad trip. If this was not enough we got conned by a travels guy in Delhi. We paid 1400 bucks for ticket from delhi to Dehradun. It should not have been more than 300 bucks per ticket in most luxurious bus!. The worst part was i knew he was cheating me and i told him so but bought the ticket anyways. I felt like a moron as i walked out of that place. I had been making stupid decisions and getting better at it.

After this things got better, well atleast for a while. We roamed around in delhi metro for the rest of the day, went to gatewat of india or india gate - whatever it is called. Delhi Metro rocks! looking forward to bangalore metro. Next day we reached massourie did some paragliding, walked some 20kms to a waterfall. I sat on cowdung on the way, accidentally ofcourse. My back was covered in holyshit infested with maggots. I was so disgusted that i rubbed myself in grass, mud and finally got into the waterfall, but not without my mobile phone and wallet. It cost me over 17K. i loved that phone. Now the phone's motherboard is totally corroded - the service center guys dont even want to touch it. Anyway now i have a cheap Motorola phone. I have consistently lost or soaked phones in water every 3 months for last couple of years now. i must have spent around 50k on phone - what a moron indeed!

Anyway, without the phone, i had no sense of time, date, day for next few days. The trek itself was pretty monotonous:
5.50/6am - wake up
7am - breakfast
7:30 - pack lunch
8:00 - start of day
8:45 - me and the boys (nikhil,deepak) are million miles ahead of others (we had a bunch of slackers/kids for trek mates). So wait for next 1 hour for others to catch up. Read books, take photos.
Continue this till late afternoon with lunch, tea break in between
arround 4:00 - reach next camp. This is the time when rain/hail storm starts. welcome drink (non alcoholic ofcourse. no smoking/drinking on treks)
5:00 - the rain has stopped and its freaking cold. Come of tents, dressed like pigmies and hang arround, read some more, take some more pictures of mountains, sunset. Some Tea, Soup.
6:30 - Dinner.
7:30 - Sleep in tent with 16 other men. All of us were smelling like pigs after day 2. Most of them brushed their teeth in the morning, but i didnt even want to touch the water. i was sort of enjoying being filthy and smelly ( after the cowdung incident i had to wear same clothes for next 2 days - i had carried only 2 pairs of clothes).
So it was monotonous - walking on snow at 10000+ feet, walking across these huge golf course like meadows, walking across valley of flowers (this was not "The valley of flowers"), jumping from boulder to boulder in the streams that used almost irritatingly come in my way every 10 steps, walking through forest, walking across those monstrous sky scraper sized pine trees. It was monotonous in the sense that i couldnt have lived like that for the rest of my life, although i sometimes i wish i could. It was fun coz it was better than driving on bangalore roads.
Finally, I take this opportunity to thank all the slow walkers that were with me. It was because of them that i could take my time and capture some great desktop wallpaper quality photos (many of them are still lousy, but im working on becoming a better photographer). Here's the link http://flickr.com/photos/65055518@N00/tags/kedarkantha/show.
I almost forgot to mention how much Flickr sucks. I have almost 400 pics on flickr now. It wouldnt let anyone (including me) view more than 200 pics. So unless i pay up 25$ per year i cannot view/ download my older pictures!

Enemy of Knowledge is not error, but inertness

2007-02-02T05:27:00.000-08:00

My nephew Thushar and my recruit in office with same name remind me of this sloka that i was taught as a kid. It knew the first line Ya Kundendu Tushara Hara Dhavala and looked up the rest on net (im glad that the sloka was mainstream enough to be out there on web and the fact the google was indexing it).

yA kundEndu tushAra hAra dhavaLA yA Subhra vastrAnvitA
yA vINA vara danDa maNDita karA yA svEta padmasthitA
yA brahmAchyuta Sankara prabRtibhir dEvaissadA pUjitA
sA mAmpAtu sarasvatI bhagavatI nissEsha jADyApahA

So all the bytecode like text has 2 parts to it the boring part and the interesting part.
boring part: praises goddess saraswati(chief executive, knowledge department)'s necklace, clothes, guitar and stuff like that
intersing part:says "save us from the passivity and inertness"

So effectively it is a request to save oneself from passivity and inertness. Most mantras/slokas follow similar pattern - they have a lot of text (mostly praising one of the million god's beauty, valor etc) but the meaning is simple(one might argue that there are hidden/multiple meanings. but i am clearly not an authority on this topic) and powerful. Take the much hyped gayathri manthra for example is a prays the supreme power to inspire, illuminate and guide.

links:bhagvad-gita

what have i been upto

2007-01-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

Its been 10+ flights between pune-bangalore and 2 treks* since i blogged. yes now i work off of thoughtworks pune office.
# ThoughtWorks pune office is rocks!
# IBM next to the office(call center) has some good looking women.
# My blue shirt had turned gray, laptop keyboard has collected 2 inches of dust (dont think ill ever be able to clean it) at the end of my first day in office. The floor/furniture work was still going on. But not anymore we have civilized work environ except for occasional showers from A/Cs (that should change soon too).
# Most women on roads/bikes cover their faces with shawl in pune - damn!.
# I move around in rickshaw, its a welcome break from blr traffic. The traffic here is almost non-existent. And @ the end of rickshaw ride some work for my brain to calculate the rickshaw fare. The rickshaw here run on KMs. So to calculate fare:
(no of kms * 6) + 2
note: the parentheses in formula are redundant * has more precedence.
So for 3 km its 20 bucks.

*Treks:
Bramahagiri - awesome car drive (in my new swift) and trek.
Trek on tracks - i had big expectations from this one (lots of hype) turned out to be a no-strainer.

Do we learn by making mistakes?

2006-12-21T05:38:00.000-08:00

Bought a new car last month. It has 1 big dent and broken head lamp, broken tail lamp and couple of scraches already thanks to small incedents while turning/parking/reverse driving. But im a better driver than i was a month ago. This is how i learnt riding a bike too. This is my learning process - learning what not to do. But i know of people who are more careful and learn without making mistakes. You cant (I CANT) afford to make mistakes when you are dealing with stuff that costs over 5 lacs. So here i am wondering if one should learn from doing the wrong things or is it just me being myself (careless and foolish).

If you thought STYX rocks...

2006-10-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

check out this palce called "fuel" on raheja archade road (opp mosque) near Forum. The DJ here is amazing and plays kick-ass (and non-mainstream) metal music. And what more you wont find juvenile, wannabe headbangers here.

From Z600 to Z610

2006-10-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

Its been a long journey from z600 to z610 with many cheap phones in between. Im bugged of cheap phones with there monochrome display and bad GUI and no USB charging - its not my style!. What suits me is a neat sony clamshell phone. I mean i dont care much about camera, wallpaper and stuff but i really like copy-paste, 3D context menus, bluetooth, contants sync and waking up to "Every time i die" as my alarm song.

Bad evening

2006-08-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

The world is full of people who have big problem like hunger, poverty, floods, wars... but here im cribbing about my insignificant ones....
Rickshaws and one ways:
This evening i got out of office to pick up my bike from service station - turned out to be a adventure trip. None of the rick' guys would give me a ride because of the one ways on way to service station.
Why cant i get ever get a rickshaw to goto whereever i want to goto without a lot of hassle/negotiation?
Why the heck are there so many one ways in bangalore?
BMTC:
So i took a bus ride. The bus didnt go all the way to my destination. But i reckoned a short walk from nearest stop was good for me. After all these years i expected it to be less crowded. But nothing has changed. The bus was so crowded that people were sticking out of it. The bus was stinking of human sweat. After paying for the ticket i has to ask the conductor 3 times for ticket. He gave it to me but not without a pissed-off expression on his face. I was taking the ticket money away from him which would otherwise have gone into his pocket.
The service centre:
was about to close down. I had just made it. Got my bike! - but wait someone had taken the liberty to get rid of my parking sticker (without which i cannot park in my office paking lot). In its place was ad-sticker of the service centre. The service station person had warned me he can only give me the bike but if i had any questions i had to come back the next day because most of the people who could answer had left for the day. So i no one to complaint to :(
No fuel:
The servicing guys had used up all the fuel in my tank and had not bothered to refuel (which they sometimes do and charge extra for). There was just a few drops left not enough to get me to nearest fuel station. So i parked my bike took another, not so short walk towards nearest gas station. On the way i got a empty water bottle from a roadside chaat stall guy after a small negotiation. And guess what i actually got 2 litres of pertol in a 2 litre bottle from the gas station. For the first time i walked away knowing i got a good deal from a pertol station...

Do it yourself gas station dream

2006-07-09T23:46:00.000-07:00

While fuelling in a gas station here in US, i thought about how much money i could have saved if there were self-service gas station in B'lore too - probably a big fortune. I think most people living in cities like bangalore are skilled enough to handle self-service pump. But mainly, a self-service station will be free of gas station guys who (pardon my understatements) are,
# by far the most cunning first order bastards that you can come across on this planet
# they can even beat rickshaw guys in the art of swindling

Most people know how they try to get your attention away from the guy fuelling your tank, by talking to you ('sooper bike saar...', 'cash-a?card-da?'). You cant afford to even blink - they can cheat you even when you are all eyes. They can fill 15ltr of pertol in a 13ltr tank, they can keep the meter running even when nothing is being pumped.... And when you do catch them red handed surround you like hyenas and settle the matter with sweet talk/bullying. I wonder how many people go out of these places not knowing why these guys were exchanging secret smiles...

Look who's cooking

2006-07-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

Last week i cooked "daal chaval" for first time. It didnt taste bad. It wasnt like I was first time lucky - the next day able reproduce the same taste!

Hard rock? cafe

2006-06-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

With bands like crystal method, beastie boys and maroon 5 being featured on saturday night..... what can i say about hard rock cafe?. Maybe my expectations were high. The best they can give is linkin park!.... i mean i have seen people boo in styx every time a linkin park song starts. Anyway i was crazy enough to spend a small fortune on hard rock cafe t-shirts, their outrageous menu and HARD ROCK music.

<Conslusion>STYX* can kick hard rock cafe's ass at any given time, including monday afternoon.</Conslusion>

*for ignorant low lives: Styx is head-bangers haven located in bangalore.
+Kick ass metal music
-juvenile crowd

Thanks to our censor board...

2006-05-26T08:57:00.000-07:00

we get to some hilarious stuff indicative of man/woman coupling. The way it happens is the man gets dangerously close to the lady - the just when you are beginning to think 'interesting!'... screen switches to these. Here is a list -
Boring ones:
-2. Fire place
-1. Lights going out.
0. Shadows of the couple on the wall.
1. Two love birds/parrots (yes birds) kissing.
2. Two flowers get blown towards each other in breeze.
3. Boiling milk spilling out of kettle
4. Fan above the bed.

More Innovate ones:
1. Train entering a tunnel.
2. Thorn cutting a tender plantain leaf (yes!)

Feel free to add to the list

Misty Mountain Humps

2006-05-23T07:37:00.000-07:00

After the last trek from "masanagudi to ooty" which turned out to be more of a pleasure trip, my expectations were low. Little did i know of the (mis)adventure that laid ahead.
Day1:
# Car ride to chikamagalur + a small accident in which 2 villagers had a narrow espace from fatal collision + small amount damage to nili's new car/repair and we make it to chikmagalur
# Bus ride from chikmagalur to mulliangiri base
# Hike - end of day1
Day2:
# Descent from mulliangiri
# bus ride to bababudanagiri
# (exploratory) trek to kemmangundi
# pit stop @ old fort - end of day2
Day3:
# Continue finding a way to kemmangundi
# Short trek in the woods in the valley
# In Kemmangundi by 10.30am
# Drive back to blore (no accidents this time and @ 7pm food after 30+ hours)

Details:
So this was one of the best treks (the trek from baba to kemman i mean. Nothing exicing about mulliangiri trek, it was the 2nd time we did it. It was kind of a warm before the real stuff began) i have done. why?

Wide open spaces: The only place where any kind of vegetation, other than grass can be found here is in the valleys, nothing grows on these mountains. So you could look arround for miles and miles and all you see is miles and miles of F***in mountains - nothing to block your view. Forest and wooded mountains can sometime be confining too. If the whole idea of get aways is to escapce the confines chikmagalur, with its vast grass covered mountains is the place to be. It is the kind of place an ameteur like me can do exploratory trek, coz its very difficult to get lost here, as long as the valleys are avoided and easy to find your way arround even if you do.

Easy on your feet: The terrain, though mountainous was almost flat. We were in the mountains at an altitude of 4500+ feet. We did not have to much of climbing/getting down to move from one mountain to another. These mountain ranges join at their peak. So how easy was it? well i could still use the stairs (and not elevators) to reach my office ,the day after the trek - given that it takes a lot of effort to even walk for couple of days after one of our typical trek.

Away from civilization: This was probably the best part. We did not expect these mountains to be totally isolated and we set out on day two with 6 packs of biscuits, chikkis and some choclates and the four of us ended up managing with just that for over a day in these mountains. We could see some light in the distance in the nights but it looked like the nearest village was atleast 15KM away. It felt good to be away from humans (they seem to be there everywhere you go, all arround you. its a scary thing that i have learned to deal with), littering, pollution, man-made sound/noises (even the voices), man-made structures. We even spotted deers here. It was the first time i was wild animals in wild (Well considering bandipur is a sanctuary...)

others:
# The weather was good - the cool breeze nullified the effect of summer sun. It was very cold during nights. No rains.
# Even the slackers in the group maintained good pace (but then that was because there was no climbing to do)
# reminded me of munnar to kodai trek
# On kalahatgiri to kemmangundi trek we lost our way in the valleys covered with thick forest. The fact us its not fun to get lost in forest, even though i have forced myself to look at it that way numerous times we lost our way in forest. You can end up spending a few days finding your way arround in forest before realizing you have been going arround same set of trees again and agian. Well on this trek we ended up on the same path (thats not a coincidence because the destination of both treks was same) and we avoided the valley and stayed on mountains as much as possible and found the correct route to kemmangundi. It was fun to apply the lessons learned and correct the mistakes.

Well hoping to do this one again probably after rains when everything is green and the streams are not dry.
Photos

Frustration

2006-05-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

<DISCLAIMER>
I dont take responsibility for any statements made in this blog. Nothing written here can be held against me. Im going bitch/crib....
</DISCLAIMER>

Some people (mostly my family and friend) think im irresposible and careless, my parents feel i should not carry anything worth more than 10 bucks - ill either end up losing it or get mugged and guess what - I keep providing more data points for them to quote from.

Accidents:
you fall, you getup - dust off and off you go on your way. Well i thought thats the way it is, but it turned out to be - You fall donate lots of blood to pot holes on bangalore road - it will be weeks before you can ride again and optionally get some metal to replace your bones and celebrate the spirit of being a METAL HEAD. All this was two years ago - no accidents for two years thanks to Yamaha for making enticer - its very forgiving. Im done with accidents or thats what I thought till my friend dropped me off from his bike.

U have no choice but to brace yourself for the impact when you are pellian rider on one of those tall city bikes with their raised back seat and o! if you are short you have no chance. Anyways, i want hurt bad. But i was frustrated. I cursed mallu for dropping me, cursed vivek for not letting me sit in nita's car, cursed vasu and his bike's flat tyres actually because of which i has to sit with malhar but mostly i cursed myself for getting into another accident. For a couple of days, i was depressed, my mind was screwed and average speed of my bike dropped.

Misplacing/losing stuff:
How i wish i had some king of GPS device that i could attach to things. I lose my bike keys twice every day and end up spending atleast a couple of minutes searching for it at home and office (Mostly i end up finding it in my hands or in the bike :-( Yes i forget to lock my bike). Now mobile phones are easier to trace,
with a ping provided i lose them at office/room. So its all cool till i end up losing it outside office/home. I have lost 2 phones in last 6 months (the second one, which i lost a week ago triggered this blog). Both times i got strange looks from sales person in mobile shop when i asked for the cheapest fone available and responded with "i dont care" when they asked me to pick the phone's color and also these transactions happened in record time and i was out of the store in 2 minutes. With nokia fone i thought i had seen the worst - this is as bad as the usability gets (alright! im a big sony-eric fan!) and didnt bother to even bother to see what im buying (I thought it cant be worse than the other phone. Actually i was so angry with myself i wasnt thinking anything other than i need THE CHEAPEST PHONE) and so now i have this Motorola fone - It took me a week to figure out how to lock the keypad! (yes, i could have read the manual. But i didnt the fone deserved that kind of respect)

<RelatedJokes>
<Joke Id="1" type="accident"> Hey raghu lets get a life insurance for you. Ill pay for it if you make me the nominee - i think ill end up making lot of money in a couple of months.
</Joke>

<Joke id="2" type="mobile"> Lets bet on how many days before raghu loses this new mobile
</Joke>
</RelatedJokes>

TOI article

2006-05-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a article from TOI (dated 6/5/2006). Ideally i would have linked it up on delicious. But the times site is dodgy - the link's broken (I cant believe website of a leading newspaper still uses ASP!)

So here im breaking the DRY priciple and doing what Aam-Janatha programmers do best CTRL+C > CTRL+V

Note: The article is as-is except for my comments...

Lagging behind
By ARNOLD ZEITLIN

When the conversation around the dinner table turned to India, one of the most popular television anchormen in Guangzhou, the

southern Chinese metropolis of more than 10 million people, said, “We Chinese regard Indians as our little brothers”. “Your

little brothers”, I said, “are quite concerned about their big brothers”. The anchorman smiled slyly and said quietly, “I

know”.
India had come up as a subject around the table because one of the anchorman’s TV colleagues had received an offer of a job

as a local vice-president of an Indian satellite TV network that was opening an office in Guangzhou. The colleague had

hesitated about the offer. “I don’t want to work for a poor country”, said the TV executive.
While these are anecdotes, they were typical of Chinese. They have yet to recognise India as an economic and political

rival in Asia and are unimpressed with the economic gains of their neighbour because they are smaller than the widely

publicised gains of their own state. They are unimpressed with India’s elected, popular government and its centuries of rich

cultural tradition. They see India as poverty-stricken, unclean, backward and powerless.
“While we were fascinated by its incredible cultural heritage”, David Li Shuai, a graduate student in Beijing who visited

five Indian cities in two weeks earlier this year, wrote on the Internet, “we were equally shocked by its incredible poverty,

dirtiness, and laxity. As a Chinese tourist from a still better economy, it’s natural for me to take a critical view on India,

and given the fact that India is such a vast nation, my personal observation is by no means complete, objective, and

bias-free”.
A young Kolkata journalist studying Chinese and serving as a copy editor for the English language daily newspaper in

Shenzhen, quotes a Chinese friend who returned recently from a trip to Bangalore as comparing the two cities. He said that his

own Shenzhen was a city laid out with a ruler. “Bangalore”, he said, “looks like a bowl of noodles was spilled on its map and

its roads were outlined in pencil around them”. <Comment>Indeed!. This is quote of the decade!</Comment>
I find myself making the same comparisons after five years of living in China and after 35 years of living in and often

visiting South Asia. I recently drove leisurely 1,500 miles from Guangzhou in the south to Chengdu in the north-west, stopping

for the first night after 500 miles in Nanning <Comment>Considering he drove for 10 hours - he will have to drive at 80KMPH to do some 800KM(=500miles). Imagine doing that on Indian roads!</Comment>, a provincial capital that is also China’s gateway to Vietnam. We rolled into

Nanning along a neat four-lane boulevard lined with tall palm trees and bordered with side access roads, through a city of tall

buildings softly lit in the evening and bright shops.
My thoughts immediately sped to a memory of my first visit to Bangalore when I was most curious about this city that was

the core of India’s information technology and outsourcing revolution. I was disappointed, perhaps, by my own unfounded

expectations. Instead of IT glamour, I found potholed roads and dust and the amiable shambles that resembled other Indian

towns.
This experience has repeated itself time and again during my travels in China. Driving south the 80 or so miles from my

home in Guangzhou to the semi-autonomous enclave of Macau, a former Portuguese colony, I travel for two hours along eight- and

six-lane highways over scores of bridges across the Pearl river delta. Then I remember that frantic road from Delhi to Agra

that has always made me grateful for the early morning train along the same route.
On the trip to Chengdu, all but about 150 miles of the trip was on four-lane express highways, through tunnels in the

mountainous regions that are burrowed in the hills two- and three-kilometres long and over trestle-like bridges 1,500 feet

high. The road from Chongqing to Chengdu, the final 150 miles of the journey, was only three-month old. Of course, my friends

in India tell me the road from Delhi to Agra is now better.
If totalitarian China, where tall construction cranes are so common they should be emblazoned on the national flag, can

build roads, bridges, tunnels and grand cities that are reaching for world-class recognition, why can’t free India do the same

with its increasingly enlightened citizenry and growing wealth?

The writer teaches journalism at a university in Guangzhou.

Animal instinct

2006-04-27T06:34:00.000-07:00

# Yesterday my 6 year nephew pokes his new born baby brother's head with a pencil.
# My elder sister, when we were young hits me with a sickle (i wasnt injured coz it was blunt one).
# I push my younger sister down from an attic when i was 12.

No we are not a family of retards - thats not the point im trying to make.

# when i was in nursery school, a classmate of mine cuts the scalp of guy sitting next to him.
# when the teacher enquiring him about what just happened (the stupid teacher didnt take the blade away from this guy) he demo's it on the girl sitting on the other side!!

So you see its not just my family... the point is kids hurt themselves/other arround them because they dont know what they are doing or they are dumb? well, thats partly the reason. Mallu and myself came up, sometime ago with this theory that kids are evil by nature and have animal instincts that go away with proper training and environment. So bringing up children is more like taming wild animals (not that i have much experience in this domian). For example, the whole family sat with my nephew and made him understand how it hurts the baby when he pokes a pencil in its head and how it would hurt if someone else did it to him - all part of domesticating him.

It takes a lot of brainwashing in forms of education, religion, social setup, moral fear, proper upbrining to domesticate a kid. Domestication teaches you to supress your animal instincts, it keeps (almost) every horny man from jumping on the first women he finds (thats what my dog would do. actually its a natural thing to do. every animal's mission on earth is to reproduce).

Is is this whole domestication stuff good? Utilitarianism (= Max good * Max no of people * Max amount of time) says yes. i think its nice to have a controlled wild side (which we all have anyways).

incident

2006-04-19T09:25:00.000-07:00

# People should not be forced to mourn. Why were the friggin TV channels turned off
?(i dont watch TV these days anyway... but i feel strongly about it)

# Why should bussinesses be forced to close down? My company incurred a loss of 8 hours * 40$ * 150 people = 48000USD and we have to make up for it by working on a saturday. Did i mention i hate working on saturdays. Think of all the money bangalore has lost by sutting down (even though other companies have billing rate less than half of mine. ya but then they've got numbers)

# BMTC is one company thats sure to be under loss whenever there is unrest in bangalore. Why were are the buses burnt - it was a natural death for gods sake. Do these brutes deserve METRO!!? - they'll burn it down!

# The only good thing that came out of it was there were no vehicles on road (yes i was in office all day, even thou it was an off). It was the smoothest ride to office i had in years (and will have) in years - O! and that was becoz i did not encounter a mob. Everyday after that ride i wish someone important dies (not that there will another guy with such huge fan following - oops! what an irresponsible thought)

i havent any mentioned names here, but i couldnt have been more obvious. Im brave(afterall somebody's got to do it) ,actually - im scared. Of being a target of hatemails or even worse have my house burnt down (Not that i expect one of those rick drivers to be reading this, <ThinkingOutLoud>but... does my profile on blog give out my office/residence address....</ThinkingOutLoud> ).
.
.

<ThinkingOutLoud>Im glad my profile photo doesnt give out much..</ThinkingOutLoud>
.
.
Did i put a disclaimer that these opinions are my own and that i dont represent my company/family members blah blah blah
.
.
<ThinkingOutLoud>have i given out my email address anywhere.....</ThinkingOutLoud>

Enticer Vs Avenger

2006-04-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

After riding both the bikes for 300+KM here's what i found (Disclaimer: This is not a professional review of bikes):
# maneuvering - Avenger wins (better because of straight handle bars).
# power/pickup/performance - Well no prizes for guessing - Avenger
# seating comfort - Enticer
# looks/design - Enticer (with all its smooth curves)
# fuel efficiency - Enticer
# Riding comfort - Enticer (i never had to stretch my arms when riding enticer, this i think is because of straight handle bar. On enticer i never feel the weight of the bike on my elbows)

Overall i like my Enticer better (ya... i kinda biased). All it lacks it is power (infact its a sheep in wolf's skin).

Anyways, the long ride was to ranganatittu and somnathpur. It was a 14 hour trip with 10 hours of riding. I hate bragging 'bout it but, all this after a sleepless (sleepless because our ever-so-helpful friend, who was hoping we wouldnt do it if we didnt sleep, wouldnt let us take even a short nap till it was time to leave in the morning.) night of drinking ofcourse - we never do it the easy way.

iPod

2006-04-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

cronology:
1. This is one thing i fell in love with when i saw it for the first time about 3 years ago. I was amazed by the idea of small harddisk that has mp3 codec - a replacement for ur CD-walkman (who uses them these days anyways?). I had to have it.
2. A year later i saw the 2G iPod ones in apple store - with a heavy price tag of 27K for 40Gigs.
3. Then everyone arround me seems to be buying one. Its no big deal anymore... iPod goes mainstream.
4. But when i had to buy one i didnt even consider alternatives like Creative Zen - It had to be iPod.

Well im definitely not regretting it. It has made office-home commute more bareable - shuts me off from the noisy traffic.
As some wiseman said "make sure your day is good till 10am - the rest of your day will turn out to be good" (well, something like that). Thats what iPod is doing for me. A great way to start your day on bike - all you get to hear is music (well if you like deathmetal that is) no vrooom, vroooom no keeeeck, keeeck. Not just that you wont hear the old man in battered rickshaw/supra cussing you when you overtake him. You smile back at people who scream at you and you forgive drivers who just tried to kill - you have better things to do than get into a fight. Sounds like perfect solution for roadrage isnt it? except - my mum thinks the load music on my walkman will get me into trouble

Goods acquired from US

2006-04-13T02:53:00.000-07:00

#canon S2 IS + 2gig memory

# 30gig video iPod

#1gig flash memory + tent + headlight and other small gadgets/tools ( :) + clothes +shoes)

Flight of beer

2006-02-13T20:07:00.000-08:00

I dont like people who brag about their drinking habits. But i couldnt resist this:
Here, in Arbor brewing company my colleagues and i went had 10 different kinds(1 ounce each of red ale, brown ale, german, english, wheat and many others that i had not heard of in india. here is a comprehensive list) of beer. It is a gr8 pub and they serve great beer. i also saw snow fall for the first time and did some ice skating (hanging on to the walls of stadium ofcourse).
Ann arbor is a great place to be (if youve got good crowd to hang out with and your employer pays for all the beer) ha ha ha

Whats Music?

2006-01-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

My definition - If your brain can find patterns/rhythm/peace and can get hooked onto a certain sound - thats music! - rest is noise
I guess i was oversimplifying when i was arguing with a friend about "death metal" - my argument was my brain operates at different (higher) frequency and i enjoy heavy metal.
Alternate definition - If you can say "i know exactly what this guy is talking bout" when you hear a song - thats music. What i had not thought about is songwriting/lyrics. I have to accept i can write better songs than some of metal bands. I guess you cant have best of both music & lyrics

Maybe i should do more of coldplay, james blunt & indian classical...

Sheryl Crow needs physics lessons

2006-01-03T06:55:00.000-08:00

Lines from Sheryl Crow's latest song "Good is good"...

And everytime you hear the rolling thunder
You turn around before the lightening strikes

!!!!!!! now is that possible?
Apparently she doesnt seem to know that speed of sound (Approx. = 330 m/s) is less than that of light (= 2299792458 m/s - yup i googled for it...) by a order of 10^6.

Hmmm... the only way this can happen is if the the lightning strikes is the same place more that once (but i bet like most people, she believes that "Lightning never strikes twice in the same place")

Happy New Year

2006-01-02T07:42:00.000-08:00

Well for new year's eve we (the trio - mallu, vivek and me) did that same thing that we have been doing for over a decade (exceptions: year 2000 and 2004) now. Getting drunk @ mallu's place and bitch about the whole world. bangalore infrastructure, politics, women, s/w industry, india vs china, movies, music - you name it!. I know what a bunch a losers!, but it seems thats what we njoy doing most - enjoy each others company, talk about what we have (and the world has) been upto since we last met.

Abu Ghraib

2005-12-22T05:40:00.000-08:00

These were the only 2 pics taken from my Sony Eric phone that i could download to my comp before i lost my phone.

Note:
1. This pic was taken in the morning after one of our pygama parties. The pics were inspired by Abu ghraib scandal that made news paper headlines, @ the time when they were taken.
2. NO PUN INTENDED
3. YES! its me in pic.

More Trek action...

2005-12-21T06:27:00.000-08:00

We now have a name for our trekking group - Benki (fire brand) trekkers. Over the last couple of weeks we did,
Kodachadri and Arishina Gundi (relatively unexplored falls near kodachadri)
Kumara purvatha (at last!) - o! man it was a tough one to conquer.
What else? i will I defer from bragging about leeches, mosquitoes, the forest, adventure, how fast we were.... blah blah blah.