Punch the keys

Wow! I had almost forgotten that I even had a blog. Hmm.. I should probably get back to writing something. Do I have the time? Maybe I do, maybe I don't. But I sure need to make the time to put something down. It feels odd that I have not written anything in almost 3 years. Two years and eleven months and nineteen days to be exact. And to think that to put something up regularly was something I wanted to do! Interestingly my last post has Adieu as the theme. I was only saying bye to my previous employment. Did it rub off on my writing as well? It sure feels that way! Strange, strange, strange! Maybe I should title my post as "hello" or something like that. Will it then rub off on my writing?

Two months of notice period have passed, and I arrive at the last day in office. Like most people, I too am bad with goodbyes. I want to leave with words that would leave behind some portion of my experiences, but know that whatever I say would not do justice to it. There would always be the few people, who made my stay great, that I would not be able to say bye to properly. But then it is my hope that I would definitely be keeping in touch with them in the future. So in that sense, it is not goodbye but until the next time! For a long time I was wondering what I would say. Goodbye in itself is sufficient, but feels bland to me. I mean, in this age of digital and social media, we could always keep in touch. Most of you would either be already on my Facebook or Google+ or LinkedIn list right? So it is utmost ease to keep in touch in the future. But I still have the nags to put in more words, possibly because I am getting older. I hear that folks talk more as they age. And given the...

Looking back at my blog feels surreal these days. I make intentions of being regular at blogging and then when I get some time to re-look at my blog, what do I see? It has already been seven months since I last posted! Seven months? By ca:user:amadalvarez, via Wikimedia Commons Whoooah! Where did the time in between go? What happened to all that days? Was I really so busy that I didn't even get time? Then what have I been busy with. OK come to think of it the time since August 2013 has been pretty busy. Let me try to list off all those activities that happened since then. The company that I work for got acquired by another one. So other than the longer water cooler discussions, there have been a lot of stress in finding out and actually integrating ourselves with the new way of working. And in some ways this is not complete yet.  The number of projects increased. Yep I found myself heavily involved in three full fledged projects with me as the solution architect of ...

The kids almost jumped up as soon as we called them in the morning. What contrast from the going-to-school mornings! Just a mere whisper and they were up. Finally, it was the day they were counting down to. The day I would start my vacation and our family would start the journey to Kerala to meet their grandparents.  They had started the countdown at least ten days back with the ritual question "How many days more to go?". So I remember distinctly the 10,9,8... The question would be repeated both in the morning and in the evening although not necessarily restricted to two times a day. My eldest even prepared an elaborate check-list, complete with all the items that were needed to reach the destination. The check-list started with a "wake up" and went on for two pages. She had even illustrated it! (I was allowed to put it on the blog with a little blur effects.)  So today as soon as they woke up, they grabbed the check-list and ticked of the first item....

You got to be joking right? The trend of having "offers" for any event is being taken to new heights here. Today I received a mailer which is trying to market on the end of the world! Right, not father's day or mother's day but they are asking customers to buy stuff before the world ends. Don't worry like any good offer they are giving a fabulous discount on items you purchase. Oh look, what a wonderful way to come up with the discount number! Dude, so why don't you give it for free?!!

I found the following points very interesting. Drink a glass of water when you wake up.  Define your top 3.  The 50/10 Rule.   Move and sweat daily.  Express gratitude.  Reflect daily.  The points are from the article at  http://www.fastcompany.com/3003586/6-simple-rituals-reach-your-potential-every-day Very simple, yet may not be so easy to keep up. So I think I will take a year end resolution to try and follow these steps properly. I guess the tricky part would be to disciplined in following it. December resolution, here I come! 

How is it possible to mess up coffee? I can understand, messing up tea. But how can someone mess up making coffee. I did not think this was possible. But, of late, I have been advicing collegues visiting my end of the work floor to avoid coffee from our pantry. The reason? It sucks! Absolutely sucks! The first time I tried it, and found it bad, I only attributed it to the possibility that the milk was to blame for it. Nay! Not just a possibility. I declared that the milk was the culprit. Definitely the milk. The next day, I was not so sure! But then I reasoned that it has to be. How can someone mess up coffee? It was not possible I say! Even though I noticed that it was a new guy at the pantry making the coffee I just could not reason that it could be the person messing up. Yes, we are pampered a bit. There is a guy, who is stationed at the pantry at our section of the company floor, whose sole duty seems to be to make sure that there is a steady flow of tea, coffee, badam m...

There seems to be some sort of speed control in the meru cabs. It might be there with the other cab companies too, but I am on a meru right now, and each time the driver goes above 80 kmph, a lady's voice warns politely, that the car is over the speed limit and to slow down. This feature is definitely needed to bring psycho drivers under control. I have been in many cabs, autos and buses that, for the sheer driving skills of the person in charge has brought me fervently praying, as if it were my last. Heck, even the pilot today got me to the same emotion barely 5 minutes after take off. That really took skill, I mean, no chance of turbulence and yet the flight was all groaning and shaking. It really felt like it would fall off the sky. Anyways, coming back to speed limits. The ride on the cab and the constant reminders by the lady has a unsettling effect. Since the road is bare clean and smooth. I wondered if this blanket speed restriction actually helped...

Recently my friend told me that he never knew so many things were made in Belgium. He had come back from an official trip to Belgium and, ever since his return to India, had been seeing stuff that were marked "Made in Belgium". Have you come across this kind of experience too? I know I have. When my wife and I were expecting our first child, we started to observe pregnant woman. I mean wherever we went, we would encounter at least a couple of them. Be it near the office, shops, restaurants.. It was crazy and funny at the same time. I have been trying to find if there was some word to describe such a concept. Even though I searched some, nothing comes across that fits well. Very strange how the senses zoom in on the familiar. Like for me, of late, I have been quick to catch any FLS that is part of words. Especially when they are in capitals. For example, I was quick to catch the FLS on the sugar packet on my desk even though it were upside down. I had not noticed it earl...

Its a new year... not even a day old, this year now..    But the clock will tick on this one too, just like it did on the previous ones... Only 366 days this one has to pass away..    yes, look at the bright side, one day extra this year.  People rejoice and are all excited all over the globe.    Merrily chanting away the wishes and cries happiness at the newness of the year. No one knows when the new year turns to old.   Is it just the next day that the "new" year becomes a regular year? Or does it last longer.

A couple of weeks back, during my visit to Hyderabad, I marvelled at the superb roads that were being laid out. Wide and spacious with proper service roads and exits, I mentioned to the taxi driver that with a little touch-up here and there, it would soon look like the foreign locations. He nodded in agreement and said yes, just a matter of time. Hyderabad, by nature, is a rocky territory. Construction is not easy. But the modern equipments help in getting the job done quickly. The pace with which the buildings spring up and become functional is sheer amazing. The drive from airport to my office is about an hour long and this gave me enough time to reflect on the development. It is not only the roads which were being developed. Huge buildings and campuses were coming up on both sides as well, and indicating the prosperous times. As most people would be, and I was not able to decide on which side I was. OK, so I am assuming here that there are indeed two sides. One w...

Nostalgia can strike anytime. It is funny how some place or object can open up a memory that you would not have thought of for many months or years even. Some small things give you a blast from the past and it is not necessary that the memory is accompanied by the sadness associated with Nostalgia. Yesterday, while rummaging through a cabinet in a meeting room, I found this item which brought back a lot of memories from more than a decade ago. 1.44 MB used to be huge at a time. Hard to explain it to kids now, but that's the way it was. Wow, I am suddenly feeling old too. Anyways, I have real fond memories of booting up the 286 machine that belonged to my friend. One disk was used to bootup and then the next was used to load prince. Yep, prince of persia in DOS. We used to spend quite a bit time, just going through the limited commands on the boot disk and reading the help for these. It was tough to maintain these disks too. Kerala is pretty humid and if these disks were not...

I find myself looking at the blank pages of a diary and wondering what words I should be writing on them. Each year its the same. And as usual no great words or deeds appear in my thoughts and I am reluctant to spoil the fresh clean pages of the diary. Why is it so difficult to start writing on a new diary? I keep asking myself this question every year. Yeah, I do fill out the page that asks for detail. You know, the fill on the dotted lines stuff, asking personal information. And then begins the dilemma of how to write in those fresh pages. Then some time in the middle of the year, I pick up the diary that's lying around, all empty pages and all, and start to scribble notes or whatever it is that I needed at that time. By this time, the pages would not be in the same condition as it was printed. Many of the diaries that are given out are made of not so great quality paper. Some of them would even be turning yellowish. Whatever the state of the diary, i could never fill out t...

Recently I have found myself doing at least one online transaction every day. No, I am not exaggerating at all! I travel between Coimbatore and Ernakulam on weekends and that requires two ticket purchases. Thanks to even bus booking being online, I just log on to purchase the tickets. But in the past couple of weeks or more, I have not only been buying tickets online. I have been paying my taxes (yes multiple), paying bills(yes lots of them), buying stuff from books to a mobile. Everything is online! Isn't that cool. I love it because I get it delivered at the address I want. The only thorn is when the bank decides to play cranky. It gets really frustrating like yesterday when I had to try four times before I could finally book my seat on the bus. The problem is that since site blocks the seat for 30 mins or more so that there are no double bookings. But since my bank failed to complete the transaction, I would need to wait for about 30 mins to book the same seat. Finally afte...

Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic; capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it. - Albus Dumbledore So true isn't it? When I read this sentence it make complete sense and I can even think about the depth of meaning in these words. Truly some people are gifted with the use of words. 

And finally, I see the new blogger interface for my account. I was wondering about why it was taking so much time to get onto the new interface. If I remember correct, blogger had started to move members to the new platform a couple of months ago. It was even more surprising since I was seeing almost daily changes on the Gmail and the Google+ interfaces. Almost started to think that blogger had forgotten all about me. Well, not a very regular blogger, but then who doesn't like a new toy to play with ;) Anyways, the new interface takes along the minimalistic approach of Google. I liked what I see. Of course I have not seen most of the features. But then I get the feeling that I am going to be liking it. I hope we get similar features on the mobile blogger app on android too.

Here are a few snaps that I took last weekend. It was my first visit to London.

Two things impressive on this journey. Trains on time. and the wi-fi. I am impressed each time I see the trains arrive and depart at such exact times as 15:52 etc. So cool. It may be a normal thing for Europeans but to me, it is really impressive. Last time I was waiting for the train at Coimbatore with a arrival time of 11:00 pm at night, the train was on time. It pulled in at the platform at 11:15. That IS "ontime" in India believe me. The other thing wi-fi. Technology never ceases to amaze me and today I was having a video call with my family in India and showing them the countryside as the train was passing by!

So the talks stall again.... I first came to know of the Lokpal and the Anna Hazare movement from all the tweets and link sharing going on in twitter and Facebook. The online community was backing it up to the hilt and it was great. So I did the least I could and signed up a petition and shared links etc. But then after a couple of days, I realized I knew close to nothing about what all this hue and cry was all about. From the social networking sites to the media all were talking of Anna Hazare and the Janpal bill. It was a cause for the nation and I actually didn't know a thing about what exactly the bill proposed or what it would do except that "remove corruption by punishing the corrupt", which sounded great to me. Come on, who wouldn't support or want that? I have made fun of people in other countries who don't have a clue why their government does some things but supported them anyways, and here I was sitting and supporting a movement, when I had no clu...

Some of these ads give me the creeps! Advertising online is really getting to be a pain, there is especially this ad from North Social, which has faces staring at you and the animation is such that the view zooms to the eyes in the photo. There are a number of sites that I found this ad on. Its not just one ad on the page. To make things worse, there are sometimes up to three pairs of eyes staring. brrr.... And why does ad seem to be following me? I see it on so many sites that I visit. I think I first noticed it on facebook about a month or more back. Ever since the frequency of this ad appearing has increased. Never could understand why there is the same ad on different places on the same page! Highly irritating, this!