Free as a bird

He looked out of his window. The morning sun blinded him. The glorifying rays grazed his face, marking his clear profile on the wall. It had just rained the previous night. The dew on the leaves reflected the light making them glitter like gold. It was a pleasant sight and a very refreshing moment. His mind sought after the sights of the nature, the chirping birds and the evergreen trees. He sat there sipping his morning coffee, staring out of the window, at absolutely nothing. He wondered. He starred. He rejoiced. With every sip of coffee, he removed himself from everything that was real, until he reached a state of complete bliss. Every thought in his mind was a happy one. Every sight in his vision was soothing. Just as if reminding him of reality, the alarm went off. He knew right away he had to shake himself and face the world. The fast paced dog-eat-dog world didn’t give him the time to stay back and enjoy the tranquility in his room. The coffee drained his throat more slowly than before. Every slower sip meant an extra moment. It didn’t bother him that he had work to do. It didn’t bother him that he had to work up the courage to face the world. What bothered him was that the serene moment was gone. His mind had wandered to work. His brain had started planning the day ahead. Right when he sipped the last drop of coffee, a Stellar Jay flew by his window and sat on the rails. Down went the bird, dipped into the water and drank it. The bird looked around at him, starred into the room and flew away … Making every cell in his blood wish he were as free as that bird.

Snow in Seattle ...

It takes very little to make me excited. And when it's 7 inches of snow in my backyard ... I dont need more.

Fresh snow ... fresh fresh snow. A mountainous amount lying around everywhere I look. And still, you can squeeze it into a small ball of tightened snow, that fits right into your hands.

I love the touch of snow on my skin. Cold! Cold as hell for sure. But it gives a fresh feeling like nothing else. The chillness makes the skin spring back to life.

It's not a surprise that snow is a treat for the eyes. The view is simply astonishing. The slanting roof-tops covered with snow gives a feeling like it's Europe or maybe Switzerland.

The evergreen trees are white now, with snow on every one of it's branches. Snow tapering on and hanging from every single leaf. The array of pine trees gives a feel of Christmas all over. And a snowy one too. I wish I could decorate the tall tree in my backyard with Christmas ribbons and ornaments and put a star on top. I would seriously have the biggest and most fabulous Christmas tree :). Even the trees that don't have leaves on them look so pretty. That's the magic of snow. It gives life to dead trees or a lifeless surrounding.

Pretty as hell! I am enjoying it while they last!!

Merry Christmas!

Five-Point Someone

A book, I picked up last sunday. A light-breezy book, considering I have finished it already. Somehow I always find Indian writers easy to read. I can skim through the book really quickly.

My personal review of the book ... Good story, not so well written.

I could very well relate to the story, since I studied in one such school myself too. My school admitted the best of the best students in Bangalore. The cream of high scorers from Class 10th. This made the competition very very high. I remember those days, when I used to slog my *** off, score pretty well (on an international basis) and yet, my class rank was just average.

The entire 2 years of my life there, I never knew I was good enough to be a Microsoft employee today or even someone who is capable of doing an undergrad course on a 100% scholarship. The school gave me absolutely no confidence in myself or my capabilities.

Anyway ... back to the book. The story, striped down, is the story of a lot of Indian students like me. That is the best part of the book. The mugging vs learning routine is pictured very well in the book. Some of it, I thought was cliche ... but then again, maybe it is just my personal experience that makes me think so.

Style of writing ... I could never understand why the continuity was intentional messed up in the first half of the book, such as, why was the IRAQ war stuff split up into two parts, even within the same chapter. And what is the deal with 'Alok Speaks' or 'Ryan Speaks'?

Nevertheless, the book was worth the read just to reflect back on my life.

Stocks ...

The stock market ... a place that amuses me to the core. I get dazzled at its dynamic nature, the flexibility and the impact it has on our lives. This year in stocks is an example how much variations this stock market can create.

The variations puzzled me so much, that I decided against investing in stocks. Despite enjoying my 2 years in the stock market ... Despite my immense interest in it ... Despite the fact that even now, I follow it like I own it ... despite all the reasons, I am not able to convince myself to enter the market again.

Well, how did this happen you may ask? It all happened due to the tax cuts that Fed announced. I could never understand why Fed would announce a $600 cut because the finance sector is not doing well. That was just the first cut. And the tradition continued ... Every time the index well low, Fed announced a tax cut.

How would that make a difference? I mean ... given the inflation is sky-rocketing, mortgage rates are too, gas prices are rising, etc etc, why would an extra $600 make you buy stocks? Seriously, why? However, it did. The very next day, the stock soared. They did great. People invested. I was missing something and still am. I am not able to figure out the answer.

Did Fed Tax Cut create an illusion that people felt richer all of a sudden? Can Fed Tax Cut be a permanent solution? Or is it something to stabilize the market temporarily while the real reason is addressed? What is the real reason? Does the problem have a good solution? Or is the world so messed up, the we need a revolution to set us straight?

All I am educated and experienced to say, the stock market really amazes me.

Yet another attempt ...

... to revive my blog. The truth is I started missing it. I miss writing and ... for the matter, reading too.

Office has been terribly different in the last few months. Work is biting. My responsibilities have doubled or tripled. My team has budget for food and beer :). The dev team got mails to upgrade PCs. Seriously, I have never seen this change in the team's view. Suddenly, the outlook has changed. People are beginning to take Commerce Platform seriously. I just hope this is not some kinda mirage that at some point all this budget becomes just an illusion.

Things at home have been different too. Lots of electronics been bought ... TV, DVD Player. Started seeing the free channels ... finally, there is some life in the house. DVD Player ... well, that messed up. trying to return it now. Lesson learned ... dont buy refurbished versions.

Looks like I am so drained out that my writing is affected too ... This article can qualify as the most boring one I have written ... Ah! well ... thats all I can care for right now ...

what the ...

I came across this article where Sreesanth has outsourced meditation ...

"Transitional meditation means that my protege Sreesanth communicates his state of mind to me. I'm in state of meditation 24x7 and I'm able to send him positive vibrations. "

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtvcricket/showstory.aspx?id=SPOEN20070016202&site=ndtv

New Yorkkk ...

It was a very memorable trip. New York and DC. A trip that lasted 5 days. Pretty long i would say considering most trips I made were a max of 3 days.

The New York journey started with a subway ride from the airport to Manhanttan. Oh well, we got lost. We went past ahead of our destination. We were tired of sitting in the train. We got off the next stop and decided to walk back. I cannot explain the excitement in our minds when we got off that train and came out to see the sun. We were relieved of the train, excited to see New York and focused on getting to the hotel. Thats how the trip began!

Our first tourist location was Grand Central, just another railway station I would say. However, the scenes from Karan Johar movies made it special and we identified all those places that SRK and Rani would meet. I liked the food court there. So much variety in a single food court is rare to find.

Next on line was meeting the rest of the group that got split up at the airport. Finally, we met them and proceeded to a Cathedral Church nearby our hotel. The church was sure very pretty. Tinted glasses, high ceilings, it had a very European look to it.

Next was Rockefeller centre and up Empire State Building. The view! The city! The population in New York and the active city life had already astounded me. And looking at the high rise building from atop Empire State, New York astounded me all the more. I had never seen a city with so many high rise buildings. Each with a different company's name associated with it. Such crowded downtowns, such construction. I was reminded of the way the novel 'Fountain Head' had ended. Only in a city like New York could that ending have made sense!!

As usual, when I start writing there is no end to it, more posts about New York to follow ....

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: The Movie

Best of Harry Potter they say! I am not able to agree. Am I bored of Potter? Why wasnt this movie as exciting as the last.

Go by story ... Well, the prophecy never made sense to me, and without Longbottom's story the little bit of common sense was gone. Go by action ... there wasnt any ... just a little bit of action towards the end of the movie. Frankly, the book had more action than the movie. The five doors they get stuck behind. The war between the good and the bad. Even Fred and George's exit from Hogwarts!! Come on ... could have, no, should have been beter!!

I cannot write more on this! Its boring to even recollect.

Hello there ...

'Its been long', I say. She agrees. We talk. Conversations for the sake of Conversations. Small talk. 'How is the weather there?' 'Where do you shop?' 'How is your work going?' All questions with one line answers. Every person's creativity was being tested and the question rain had begun. Despite having spoken for 3 hours, no personal information was shared.

'Where to start?' I think. Can I remake the same rapport I had with my school friends again? Will I be able to sit together with them and discuss each other's lives?

The truth is we grew apart drastically. We buy each other gifts. Talk abt general stuff, but the personal touch is gone. How do I still keep in touch? I wish I knew. I wish the answer was simple.

Vettaiyadu Vizhaiyadu

For a long time, I stayed away from this movie. I was told that this was a gory movie, some scenes were disgusting. I hate disgusting scenes and I stayed away. Finally ... one day, there was no other tamil movie worth watching on the shelf. So I picked this one up. The movie rotted in my apartment for a few days until I finally decided I must somehow get through this one.

That was the standard I had set for this movie, the expectation from me. Irrespective of all that, I actually liked the movie. I enjoyed seeing it. I thought the movie was very stylishly shot and it had a very fast moving first half. The suspense and the clueless murders kept me gripped to it.

After the suspense was revealed over interval, the movie started losing the momentum. Thats the biggest problem with Tamil movies. They just wont sacrifice on the length of the movie irrespective of how boring the movie could become. That said, if I paid 10$ for a movie that ends in an hour. The Indian mind in me will crib that it was a big waste of my money :).

Many scenes in the movie reminded me of Kaaka Kaaka. You can easily guess both the movies were made by the same guy.

Verdict: For a one time see, its good!

The Geeky Me ...

My day today at office was great. Not just because it was productive. But for a change I felt like I achieved something.

I dont have a lot of experience in multi-threaded programming. And recently I was given this task of converting a single threaded application to multi threaded. I wrote so many versions of this one task until I reached the final pseudocode.

1. A simple thread application that uses polling to communicate with the child.
2. Ofcourse, polling is not CPU efficient, used semaphores.
3. Then, I came across this new .NET term 'ThreadPool'. More efficient, so modified the existing forking scheme to use thread pools instead.
4. One thread pool was not prioritizing threads properly. Priority thread pool didnt suit the requirement. Split to use two Thread pools.
5. Further on, more enhancements ... Exception handling, logging, etc etc.

I started off the day knowing nothing about threads. By the end of the day, I knew more than 5 ways to implement the same requirement.

Feels good. Thats what I call a good day at office.

My identity ...

[A post recovered from my old blog ... ]
I happen to find a friend of mine after a long time on orkut. This was our chat script …

She: Hey there! Its great to find you here.
Me: Same here! How are you doing?
She: Fine! So, do you orkut often?
Me: Hmm … not really. I am more of a MSN person.
She: I see! Do you use Yahoo?
Me: Not unless someone insists. Do you use Skype?
She: How about Friendster?
Me: No … I visit orkut more frequently than Friendster.
She: I see, ok! What is your email id?
Me: You know what … This is my gmail id: … , my yahoo id: … , my hotmail one: … , skype, orkut, friendster, hi5. You can have your pick! Just inform me which you choose.

I do have more email ids than that. I am sure I’ll be out of space if I had to list everything! Every one of those ids is me, and yet not me! My friend was also insisting I should fill in my profile details correctly, so everyone is "up-to-date" about me. Which means when my real identity changes, I have to change all these virtual identities of mine without fail.

Looks like I have reduced to just a few words on the internet :(.

Traffic lights ...

Every day in the morning, I drive 2-3 blocks from my home to office. It takes me less than 5 mins to reach office. But there are approximately 5 signals that I need to cross.

For the first time, admist the morning hour traffic, today all the signals between home n office were green in my favor. I didnt stop at even one. And my travel time reduced to 2 mins :P

Ah well! small pleasures of life :).

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

After a long time, I read Harry Potter. After 4 books, I had had enough of Harry Potter, so I stopped reading them. With the new book and the movie releasing, I decided it was time to catch up.

This biggest plus of this book is my break. The fact that I was reading Harry Potter after a long time made me read it. I liked sensing the magic all over again. The book was not as thrilling as the fourth nor as innovative as the third. I kept waiting for more thrills and more suspenses.

The whole story hung off ... a Prophecy. And frankly even after reading the whole book, I didnt get the whole point of the Prophecy. Why did Voldemort want it on the first place? What information would he have got, that he didnt already know? What additional information did we get ... except for Neville Longbottom's story?

Somehow ... to me, the part of the Prophecy resembled Lord Krishna's history. Kamsa is told the eighth child will kill him and here Voldemort is also told about his killer. In both cases, the child escapes.

The biggest drawback of this book was that my imagination was so restricted. Every time I thought of Harry Potter, it was Daniel Radcliffe that came to my mind. The worst part was the story of Hagrid ... the whole time I could only imagine Robbie Coltrane. That totally ruined my imagination. I could not picture any other giant other than him. What a pity!

Overall ... if you have read 4 Harry Potter books ... there is no reason for not reading this one ... Go for it!

What a day!!

Today was one of the most satisfying days in a long time now.
Friends, tulips, frisbee and ... paruppu saadham with ghee to end it all ...
There is nothing more I could have asked for today!

Kiasu ...

Ah! I had forgotten that word. I had forgotten that urgency. I had forgotten the fear. Seriously in the one year in US ... that Singlish word had lost its role in my life.

Instead the fear has been replaced by a smile. The moment I used that word today ... it brought an instant smile on my face. And more so ... seeing that this word has a separate page dedicated to itself on wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiasu ... makes the smile broader :).

Emotions ...

Did you know that emotions literally translates to two Latin words ... e(x)/out, outward + motio/movement, action, gesture. As simple as that ... emotion is an outward gesture.

Stressed ...

The fascinating things stress does to me ...
- I am losing weight without stepping into the gym.
- My appetite is decreasing.
- An inactive personal front.
- And a partial satisfaction on the work front.

Lately I have been a bit obsessed with work. Trust me when I say, 'working hard would be an understatement'. Unfortunately the outcome from all the efforts makes me wonder if it is worth it. Well, things at work did change a little ... more respect, more responsibility. But if I have to maintain this ... oh gosh! it scares me!

Well ... like always to relieve myself I am resorting to something I like doing most ... reading n writing!! Blog is back to active guys!

Back to the roots ...

After a very long time ... I revisited a field that made my life a lot interesting years back ... Personality Analysis. I was back to reading Sigmund Freud and doing some online personality tests. I was back to analysis myself and my stupid personality ... yet again.

My biggest revelation in this attempt is that I am an extreme personality. I was not so surprised at the find but i was definitely surprised at the extent of it. For every question that I was answering ... I mostly clicked either 'I completely agree' or 'I completely disagree' ... there were so few questions with the gray shade. Well ... good or bad ... thats me for you.

Another find ... Oh I have changed. To the better or worse. I have changed. My personality seems to be getting stronger and clearer ... day by day. I'd be surprised if people find it difficult to figure me out. My personality is just out there with nothing really under the covers. Straight forward, transparent, confident and bold.

Lately some incidents are making me realize that probably the extremeness and transparency is a little difficult for everyone to handle. Less do they realize thats just me, just the way I am. Well, there is nothing I can do about it. Thats me for you. Period.

Time is the healer ...