reflections...

Combine RSS Feeds into one feed

2011-11-20T20:52:00.001-08:00

I'm an avid blogreader and have compiled about 38 blog links, which I religiously check everyweek and ensure that I've gone through most of them. However, I wanted this tobe shared across some community groups that I maintain, like the LinkedIn groupof Ahmedabad Branch of PMI Mumbai Chapter. On "Googling" I cameacross some links that provide this ability whereby you give multiple Feedlinks and it throws out a single XML Feed. This can then be used tointegrate into groups or to share with friends etc.

I came across BlogTips.org - ,a couple of links from MakeUseOf (Link1 - , Link2 ), anice article from CreativeRamblings.com,which gave me a names of rather creative websites/tools which serve thepurpose....FeedMingle, FeedKiller, RSSMizer,FeedBlendr, FeedStich, FEEDcombine. Some really popular one's are ChimpFeedr, YahooPipes (a very innovative interface!).

However, I did notwant to duplicate the efforts...I already had added the blog RSS links to myGoogle Reader and would like to avoid copying / pasting every time I add a newfeed. On further reading and doing some trial n error, I achieved it by followingthe below steps.

Selectthe folder that you would like to create a Feed of and click on the small downarrow shown against the name of the folder. In the menu that opens up,select "Create a Bundle". More information on"bundle" is available here.
Onceyou create a bundle, you can email a direct link (among other functionsprovided) to someone or preview it by clicking "Add a link to your websiteor blog". Click on this option and a new window opens up showing thefeeds in Google Reader. It also has a link for the Atom feeds. Click on it to get the link to get the URL to add the combined RSS feedto your reader.

There might be otherways to achieve this...share them, if you have your own method!

...till next time..

0.someone

2011-11-10T00:36:00.001-08:00

Biggest mistake ofmy life...to buy a Chetan Bhagat book assuming that he would have learnt fromhis past (One night at call center, 3 biggest mistakes of my life)! Not one, but after about sevennights (at home), I finally decided to leave the book half way. I hate doing it (to any book), and it is my lastmeasure when I don’t like a book.

To be fair to ChetanBhagat, I did like "Five Point Someone" (loved the movie "3idiots" even more) and "2 States". It seems that Chetan writes best, when he'ssharing his own life via books. If thatis the case, he's already written about his student life and his lovelife….guess, we'd have to wait for a good 10 -15 years for him to gather someinteresting things of his married life and present it via books. Well...either ways, going forward, I'llensure that I do not pick up a Chetan Bhagat book, even if there's a discountor it becomes a best-seller.

Check out the imagebelow from ChetanBhagat.com...even the media has not dared to give a review onhis latest book !

Feel free to post a comment..and share this post !

My Blog's shifted

2011-10-13T22:56:00.000-07:00

I use the blogger.com blog interface to write and my blog was available at http://nairharish.blogspot.com. I really like the interface and options and integrated with the Windows Live writer, it has worked well, but I always felt something missing. It was my own domain...and not before long, I registered the www.nairharish.com (nothing's hosted there as of now).

Next, I researched how to move the blogspot.com blog under www.nairharish.com. One of the simpler option was to sync the blog with Windows Live Writer. Next install a fresh blog application on www.nairharish.com and re-publish the blogs to this domain. However, I would lose all the comments (not many there) which I did not want to.

Then I hit upon http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/static.py?page=ts.cs&ts=1233381 which showed a step by step process on how to configure the custom domain within blogger.com. So I setup http://blog.nairharish.com and followed in the instructions on this page and there we are … all my blogs are now available at http://blog.nairharish.com. You try to navigate to http://nairharish.blogspot.com and it asks for a redirection.

Feeds: Next was to update the feeds. I use the FeedBurner to burn my feeds and had to update it to fetch the feeds from http://blog.nairharish.com

TwitterFeed: Every time I blogged, I wanted my twitter to be updated and also my friends at Facebook to be aware of the new update. I could not find any options with blogger.com which would provide me that. On googling, I came across http://www.twitterfeed.com, which acts as a "publisher". It checks my blog account RSS feed and if it finds any new blogs, posts it on my Twitter! I also have configured my twitter to integrate with Facebook, so a twitter post, automatically gets published on Facebook and Google Buzz, G+.

Perfect!

So there we are...all set…I post a new blog, it shows up on blog.nairharish.com, gets published on twitter and my facebook page.

Oh...btw...does anyone know how to remove the top navigation bar from getting displayed? I'm 'googling' on that right now!

Here comes the 'Dart'

2011-10-13T01:24:00.001-07:00

A revolution of sorts was launched in the last couple of days, with Google launching "Dart" as its offering to the web community. It's termed as "a class-based optionally typed programming language for building web applications" (http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/10/dart-language-for-structured-web.html ). Before you come to know, the next big debate amongst the programming community on web is whether Dart can/will replace JavaScript.

Going by the past experiences, I personally would like to see Google going ahead with Dart and providing the much required structure and discipline that JavaScript lacks. I'm a fan of JavaScript as is, given the frameworks that have come up including jQuery and likes. But imagine a cleaner and structured client side code, including typed variables (you can still have optional types with Dart) and of course faster execution etc. Hmm...would love it.

The vision is also to have Dart used in Server Side coding. ECMAScript Harmony project does include some features including the Classes in JavaScript, but looking at the pace at the development's happening, it would be a while, before it hits the browsers.

While searching for Dart reviews, I came across http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/10/javascript-has-problems-can-googles-dart-solve-them.ars/1 , by Peter Bright, which has a detailed account on where JavaScript fails and why Dart has it's chances, while http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2011/10/dart_or_why_jav.html criticizes the implementation of Dart and why JavaScript would be difficult to replace.

One of the challenges that Google's going to face is the implementation of Dart in the popular browsers. The programming community would have already started to play around with the tutorials provided on www.dartlang.org. The samples and showcases are going to soon start popping up, but the important point is whether we would have the VM for Dart across all browsers for these to be deployed. As mentioned by Lars Bak in his blog at googlecode.blogspot.com - "The Dart VM is not currently integrated in Chrome but we plan to explore this option", and therefore the only option to try this out at the Dartboard at http://try-dart-lang.appspot.com/ or the one that's integrated at www.dartlang.org. When you click on Run icon on this interface, the page does a server post, with the encrypted code, gets back the JavaScript to be executed. This is the JavaScript compiler that Lars mentioned in his blog while announcing the Dart release.

The Dart specification is available at http://www.dartlang.org/docs/spec/index.html and the Dart API reference is available at http://www.dartlang.org/docs/api/index.html

Nearing the home run!!

2010-12-07T09:48:00.001-08:00

Yes…its that time of the year. Amazing how time flies. The other day we were excited about finding that we had a baby coming and here we are …just a few more days. The excitement is definitely growing as the guessing time begins. Is it going to be 2010 or 2011. Whatever its going to be, I just hope Priti has a safe delivery and everything’s goes off well.
Love you all for being there to support us..more updates soon…keep watching this space. Meanwhile, does anyone know a good website to inform everyone when the baby comes?

Yay!!! Google Instant is here

2010-10-07T22:02:00.000-07:00

hi all,

After the huge hype that was created over Google Instant and after days of waiting, it is finally here. I was surprised to see that the search page refreshed automatically with every key I pressed in the world re-known "Google" text box. I thought I did something wrong, the way the screen went up and down..then I realized that Google has finally decided to bless me with "Instant" search.

It has been quite a wait, I heard it first about 15 days back and since then, I've been like a small boy trying it out every day morning as if to check, if Santa has left me a toy this morning. I'm glad it's here finally..here's to Google and Googlers...Cheers!

...Back to "Googling.."

First time dad…..

2010-08-30T10:24:00.001-07:00

This one is dedicated to my wife…
So, this is how it feels..to be a first time expectant father, eagerly awaiting the arrival of our first child, the small steps of a beautiful angel. The anxiety grows on to you slowly day by day and you wonder, “is this what everyone might be feeling or is it just me?”. Each passing day, you know that you are that close to being a father, holding you first child in your arms…wow…that would be something!!
Every day you tread to work, get drenched in the emails, meetings and phone calls and before you know it, 20 weeks are over. Yes, you guessed it right, we’re expecting our first child and are trying to enjoy every day as it comes. Sometimes, you stand back and think time really flies by, when you want it to go slow. 20 weeks!! and only 16 more to go!! We’ve still not made any purchases, any arrangements and honestly we don’t know when to start! And then your mind starts to wander, on whether it would be a “he” or “she”. We (being tech savvy) have surfed a lot on the internet and read a lot of old wives tale on how you can try and guess the sex of the child…:) It’s good reading and to think, there is a strong 50% chances that a story might be true in determining whether it’s a boy or a girl :)
We’re lucky to be surrounded by some real good friends and a very supportive family and therefore all kinds of advise and experience and tips come as a bonus. The talk of the last two weeks was to know whether Priti (my wifey!) has felt the baby kick or not! Well, it has not happened till now (or she might not know how it feels), but we are looking forward to that moment. We’ve subscribed to weekly newsletters which tell you how the baby’s progressing and have also joined Pregnancy classes (at Dr. Meena Shah, Ahmedabad). Don’t want to leave any leaf unturned.
Priti’s putting a strong brave foot forward in the entire episode and I am really proud of her. Right now she’s re-reading Robin Sharma’s “Monk who sold his Ferrari” and its almost bedtime, so off we go..until next time.
Love you lots!

DB: MSSQL 2005: Missing Indexes

2010-07-23T01:25:00.000-07:00

hello all,

How many times have we fiddled with our databases trying to identify the correct fields that should included in an index so that the performance is optimum. No offence to who know what they are doing, but lets face it, most of the time, this is guess work and based on the results of the execution in Query Analyzer. I've always wanted to know which fields are the most critical so I could have them indexed.

The following are the missing index DMVs ( From SQL Server 2005 BOL)

sys.dm_db_missing_index_group_stats - Returns summary information about missing index groups, for example, the performance improvements that could be gained by implementing a specific group of missing indexes.
sys.dm_db_missing_index_groups - Returns information about a specific group of missing indexes, such as the group identifier and the identifiers of all missing indexes that are contained in that group.
sys.dm_db_missing_index_details - Returns detailed information about a missing index; for example, it returns the name and identifier of the table where the index is missing, and the columns and column types that should make up the missing index.
sys.dm_db_missing_index_columns - Returns information about the database table columns that are missing an index.

More details on these features are available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345524.aspx and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345417.aspx

The DMVs for missing indexes are great new features and we are going to try this out with our applications. Go ahead, try this on the test servers and implement on the live servers and report back the performance you might have got.

- Harish

P.S. I Love you

2010-06-01T19:25:00.001-07:00

Recently, I was on this whirlwind tour to Kerala, to accompany my family back from Kerala. I hopped into the flight at 3:00 PM, landed at Kerala at 6:40 PM. In the flight, I met this nice gentleman, Mr. Hasmukh Adhiya. During conversations, he told me that he’s a government servant. Further discussions revealed, that he’s an IAS officer and has been long into service and currently he’s the principal secretary (education) in Gujarat government. He was on his way to some conference in Kerala. I’m honoured to be in presence of such learned man. Thank you sir.
During the flight, I switched on my Dell Studio, placed the P.S. I love you cd and started watching. It is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. The story is so very touching and the actors do total justice to the characters. Gerard Butler is awesome in the movie. One of the very few romantic comedies that I liked…would recommend this highly! Oh…by the way, the movie’s better & faster, than the book.
P.S. till next time!

To kerala and back

2010-05-17T12:18:00.001-07:00

Hi all…Its been quite some time now since I posted. Hope to be a regular now..but that's just hope :)
Well…the last few weeks were busy, but enjoyable. Had been to Kerala [my native] as my cousins were getting married. The entire event was quite a show and it was after many years (actually after our childhood), we all re-united. We had a blast, enjoyed watching the next generation having fun and getting to know each other.
It’s kinda funny, how you used to frolic around without much to worry about, have fresh fruits (right from the tree) and gobble upon all the goodies…and then suddenly few years down the line, here we are!!! Marching off to the jobs every morning, working their *** off, and having a break once in a year.
Man!!! I long for that childhood again! Am reminded of the song…“Sari umr hum, mar mar ke jee liye…”
Still..had a blast of a time at the weddings, went backstage, ran errands, visited temples, ran amok with my digicam and let my creativity flow….Here are some snaps for those who follow. No royalties…you could download them and use them as you want :) Couldn’t help posting a photo of the 2yr old cutie who’s been the spark of my visit to Kerala…Love you.

View Full Album

till next time….

I got mine!!!

2010-02-09T10:14:00.001-08:00

Well..yes..finally I’ve got mine! Before you all have your imagination running wild..let me tell you ..I’ve got a new lappy (Dell Studio 15) for myself! Got it last Saturday and have some configuration and partitioning to be done…but I have it finally. This is one thing that I’ve been waiting on for years..and now that its finally here..i hope to make the best of it.

Keep watching this space..am gonna hit this with my thoughts and experiences soon!

Men can cook!!!

2008-10-03T11:18:00.001-07:00

First of all, let me thank all and everyone of you who have read my earlier posts and forgot to post a comment, but did congratulate me personally. Thanks for boosting my confidence. My initial posts were more of a diary and something I had intentionally done because I wanted to share my experiences with everyone and cherish it.
Now here I am, back in Aruba for another trip on the same project, and this time for a longer time. I would be in Aruba for 26 days, 14th September to 10th October to be precise. So, there I was, put up at The Mill Resort, a smaller one than the Holiday Inn that I was put up in last time, but this was for a longer duration. The room was good enough, with a small kitchen attached and a nice big bathroom etc. The room's just opposite the pool and there's lot of music and activities going on. Aruba's a nice place to be in, but the food could get costly and that's where the kitchen came into play. I was supposed to get the groceries and get cooking and prepare my own food. Well, for some its a huge task, but I am not sure how many of you know it, I like cooking. It was hard to convince the guys back home and priti, so I took pictures of the food I prepare and sent it back home. Thought I could share the same with you guys...do let me know what you think of this. The sad part of some of them is that they do not taste as good as they look, but they are certainly eatable!!! Chao!! Bon apetite

Treat anyone?

Ahmedabad blasts!

2008-07-26T10:55:00.001-07:00

Why does this have to happen? Of all places Ahmedabad..in fact why anywhere?? The peace and the harmony was just getting settled, people were starting to get back together, enjoy the peace, the festivals and enjoy each other's company... when the blasts had to happen.
There was tension gripping the city to start up with. I was returning from the office with Priti when we heard of it. We wanted to get home as fast as possible. That was when Saby called up to confirm our location and he also started tracing all from our group. We reached home and frantically tried to get in touch with all friends and relatives and those who were not yet home. The urgency was to make sure that everyone was safe.   The mobile phone providers had jammed the network and the calls were not getting connected. The very purpose of a mobile phone was getting defeated...I could feel all those thousands of rupees spent being wasted.
First they were at Bangalore, yesterday. The IT hub of the nation and then today here, in Ahmedabad. TV channels flashing all images and videos and "breaking" [i'm not sure what it breaks] news!! Some of them stating that it is 13 blasts while others mentioning that there are 17 blasts. Some state that there have been 20 killed and about 100 injured. People behind this blast might be happy... they achieved a century although the Indian cricketers have forgot how to get one!   I mean, just to think that doing such illegal things and harming life to prove a point or two?? How selfish can a man get!!!
Further it has become a trend on the web to post comments against the government, police, military on the web pages which flash these news items. It is very easy for those who post these to do this sitting in the comfort of the home, but think about the authorities who are really struggling to get a handle over things. Can't we for one instance come together and give the authorities our support in handling a situation like this. People like to link these events with the recent happenings, but why can't we think about giving peace a chance!
But after all, we need some one to blame and I guess it is human nature [another link] in this case. But in today's world, is this affordable...I mean, we're anyway a dying species with the global warming and other health related problems that the man has brought unto himself, do we need an acceleration to get extinct, but such acts of terrorism?   I might be wrong and there might be bigger issues at stake, but can't those be brought to the table and solved amicably? Will killing solve the problem?
Guys...vote for peace...give peace a chance!

Food @ Aruba

2008-06-11T08:08:00.001-07:00

Monday: I was a bit late and the Lomesh and Ron were already in the Restaurant having their breakfast and Sherry was supposed to come by to meet us. She was there too. I walked in, greeted and met Sherry, with whom I had a lot of phone discussions but had never seen her. It was nice to see put a picture to the voice. We drove over to Ahata, me all the while in the back seat, wondering what I might have to do other than discussing the obvious project. I landed at AHATA and met all the lovely people there, Nathaly, Doreen, Sanju, Rob Smith and had a meeting with all. They all were so very warm. I was place there and Lomesh went about discussing the project and later on with couple of meetings that were pre-booked for him. The lunch, Rob arranged for that when he bought across a packaged soup and some sandwich. In the evening we went out for dinner with Sherry. She's a sweetheart, and speaks very fast and has that accent that people from Caribbean have. We were at this italian restaurant and they ordered a bottle of wine which is supposed to be authentic. It was of year 2003 I guess and that was when I experienced the true wine dining that is normally seen. The waitress brought us the bottle, confirmed that was the wine, opened it in front of us and poured a bit for all of us. It was authentic. The taste was so nice, could not resist it. Later, I asked for the label of the wine to be given to me and Lomesh kept the cork of the bottle as he collected that. The dinner was very good and fulfilling. We had dessert after that and it was a happy ending.

The rest of the days were mostly work. The routine was more or less monotonous. Get up in the morning, get ready and reach Lomesh's room, at about 8 - 8:30 in the morning, call up the guys in India, discuss up the days activities and then go off to AHATA, where we had Sherry, Nathaly and Rob waiting. I normally did not attend too many meetings, but there were some important ones and I enjoyed being a part of those.

I am guilty of not updating this blog for quite some days and thus, I do not remember the various places that we had lunch or dinner on the trip and the exact dates. I'll mention the memorable ones.

Mulligans at Divi: Really tops my list of places that you would need to go for a lunch or place to eat. During lunch, I had been to The Divi, which has its own golf course and a beautiful restaurant. I had to go there three days consecutively as a co-incident, but it was real good food. The margarita pizza that we had there was the most delicious of my life. The cheese was so rich and tasty, was heaven with every slice. It is definitely one place that I would recommend if you are on the island. Having the pizza with a bud-light beer was and experience in itself. For dinner we tried out multiple places near the hotel which were not too expensive. The food was anyway on Lomesh [and Ron, when Lomesh was not around].

Casa Tua : The pizza place was where we had our first dinner when I landed and it was a nice place too. The ambience and the emphasis on service in a full house restaurant was simply too good.

Sushi Bar: There was this plaza/mall dead opposite to the Holiday Inn, where we were put up. Lomesh asked me if I had ever tried Sushi and I replied in negative…there were not many sushi bars [in fact none] in Ahmedabad and this is the first time I was out of India. So we went to this place and ordered Sushi [they had different varieties of it]. We also ordered a Japanese liquor. I need to lookup the name, but it comes in a very small jar and they serve you in miniature cups. It is warm and I think it gives a kick as fast as any other form of liquor. I did not have much, but I sure did not want a chance of not tasting all these when I got a chance. So here came our sushi with the liquor and we tasted and it was nothing like I had before. The liquor was warm and had a queer taste when is drunk. I liked it :) Then came the sushi and they served it with …. Chopsticks! I never had the experience of having sushi…and that too with chopsticks! So Ron was explaining me how to use it and Lomesh was looking, while I was trying to get hold of the sushi…when the waitress brings this child chopsticks [one end of the chopsticks is tied so that you do not have to hold it together]. I was supposed to be embarrassed, but was more excited at that gesture. Really liked the way they paid attention. I told the waitress that I would keep it as a souvenir and also asked for another set of chopsticks. I hope to keep it in a display some day.

Taste of Belgium - Was one another experience which I enjoyed. The taste was different. I ordered some fish in Roti and it was like a wrap in with piece of fish was placed. It was good.

Blossoms @ Westin: This was where we had the business dinner with Mr. Malmberg @ DePalm Tours and team [that includes Danielle and Peter] on the even of signing the contract to build their website and other products. They had a unique feature or way of serving, which I saw for the first time. The chef used to cook right in front of you doing all sorts of tricks including tossing an egg about 5 times without breaking it and holding it with a couple of spoons or something. Man that was special. The dinner was very high class and of course costly. I had ginger chicken, spring rolls and beer to go with and the food was delicious. The ambience was too good and the pretty waitresses were dressed in stark red kimonos which made them look very striking in that dark ambience.

Aqua Grill - Apart from Indian preparation of Fish, this was the best fish preparation that we had. This was the last day of my stay in Aruba and Ron [a veggie] and me decided to go to Aqua grill of which we had only heard of but did not ever go. We ordered two types of fish, a mahi mahi and another red cutter [I hope the name is right]. When we got the dish, we were like wow!! We had decided that we'd share the dish and it was so tasty and so meaty. The restaurant had one of the best ambience that we had been to.

Tiera Da Sol: Another restaurant with a golf course with one of the most expensive menus also [as expected]. The ambience was nice and quiet and we had a nice lunch. We wanted something light so we enjoyed a salad with a dessert later on, which was exquisite. As usual the service was too good.

The way in which people have food in restaurants in very different than of that in India. The very moment you get seated in a restaurant, you are asked about what you'd like to order for a drink and unless it is a business or an occasion, you could normally opt for beer, coke or diet coke or water. These were the popular choices. Once you are settled, and have gone through the menu, you are expected to give the order right from the starter to the main course. Once you are done dining with the main course, you could ask for the desserts menu, after which you normally ask for the check. Once the check is provided, you are also expected to give a 15% tip. Given that, Aruba is a small island and its not very hard to remember people since the same people end up visiting a place more than once.

Aruba - Day 3 - 11 May - Sunday

2008-06-11T08:07:00.001-07:00

Lomesh was landing on Sunday at around 3 PM. So we had the morning to ourselves. Ron and me met for the breakfast and then went off for another ride.

This one was further north towards the California Lighthouse. That’s what they called the lighthouse at Aruba. Half way through, we saw these people taking a by pass and driving along a not so friendly road. We took the path and drove all the way as if we were driving in a rally. We had took a map [a rough sketch to be called a map] and were looking out for the gold ruins. We drove for quite some time, before we came across this place in ruins. It is said that this was where they used to filter out the gold. The ruins were quite cool and to double up, there was this wind which was blowing at the rate of knots. We took lots of pictures posing here and there. There on we drove further ahead to find the Natural bridge. It is called so because Aruba as an island came up as a result of an earthquake quite some time ago. Therefore there was this coral formation on the rock which was so solid that you could not tell the difference between the rock and the coral, except when you look at the difference between the red soil and the black rock. We came across one geologist who tells us that the rock has not cooled down fully and that is why it was black in color. It was very informative and learning experience. We took a couple of nice pictures and later came to know that the Natural bridge was not present anymore, but the place, the size of the waves were humongous. We had a small snack before we left for the Ayo Rock formations. We had a hike and took a couple of pictures and then Ron got stuck in a couple of cactus stubs etc. It was fun though. Thereon we went towards the airport to collect Lomesh, checked in at Holiday inn, stopped by for lunch. There was nothing much to write about till evening, but had nice time and discussed about office and then went out for dinner.

Aruba- Weekend - 17 & 18th May

2008-06-11T08:02:00.001-07:00

Lomesh had to leave by Friday, noon. That was the day when we had this meeting with DePalm in the morning, with all the business heads of the mini empire that Mr. Malmberg has established on the island. It was obvious that his family was one of the most respected and recognized on the island. Friday, the day ended pretty soon as everyone was in a weekend mood and we also retired to the hotel back. Had to complete a couple of documents and update the website etc and did that. That night we went to the casino as I just wanted to see what its like going to a real casino.

Casino: The ambience was very cool and very lively. There's no clock inside, so you have to rely on the one you are carrying else you could easily carry on playing or gambling rather throughout the night and still not know about it. Ron started playing blackjack and he tried to teach me how it was, but I was too naïve and did not want to play something that I was not sure of. Then he went ahead and played the game with dice where he won a couple of times and then lost out all he had earned. I was wandering about and found that the Roulette was something was understandable and playable. I exchanged $40 and started with that amount. Like in the Bond and other movies, I tried to get a pattern [and maybe there was none], but I was convinced of a pattern and almost lost all at one point of time. But then regained some amount and cashed out with $70 i.e. I actually earned 30$. That was good and I could have just gone to my room and spent that money somewhere. Ron had started playing Poker and was looking good. While I was there, I bet a $20 at a slot machine and I lost all of it :(. I was happy that it was not my money and it was the money that I had got from the casino itself. Moving on, I went to my room and happy with the fact that I had got at least 10$, but also sad with the fact that I had lost 20$. Later on Monday, the night before I left, I visited the casino again and bet $50 hoping that I would win some this time too and with that amount maybe buy some real good stuff for folks at home. I was wrong, I lost all of it. The good part is I had earmarked $40 for casino and at the end, that is all I had spent.

Scuba diving: Saturday was off and I did not have much to do. We had a late breakfast and Ron had set us up for Scuba diving. I had thought it would be a piece of cake with all the discovery and other documentaries we had see over the years. It seemed pretty easy. We went to this place at around 1:30 PM, registered ourselves and had to fill up a form which certified that I did not suffer with any diseases. They also told us that it had its own dangers and if the instructions were not followed, a person could die. All this, and add to the fact that I did not know how to SWIM!!!! I made it clear that I could not swim and they said that I'd do just fine. Their confidence gave me confidence. So we watched the introductory video, showing us couple of tricks etc. After we were through, we gathered our gears and there was Michael [our guide, our god] in a shaky old van. We loaded our wet suit, the weights that we were supposed to put against our waist, the air cylinders [our life support under water] and slowly chugged along the road to the dive spot. It was exciting and a bit nervous since although I do not know how to swim, I have done some underwater paddling and could hold my breath under water. I had thought it would similar. When we reached our spot, we assembled our gear, took the cylinder on our backs and started into the water. The weight itself was more that I had imagined, but once in water it did not feel much. Then Michael, started the in water course on how to breathe and we tried it. I was not comfortable initially as we were supposed to breathe through the mouse as normally as you could. It was tough to start with and a couple of times it was tough not to panic. There's a step where in you have to allow some water to come into the mask, and then make the water go out by breathing through the nose. It was not till about 3-4 times till I could actually do it. Retreiving the air pipe, getting the water out of the mask were a couple of tasks. Other than that, there was also a method of keeping your buoyancy level, that keeps one afloat once in water, which also was to be mastered. Since under water, it is not possible to talk, there was sign communication which was to be learnt and mastered within a short time. Other precautions including checking the air left, the depth you are at etc. The prelimnary exercises over, my first experience was to stay under water and look around and also breathing normally. I tried that with my eyes wide open and took a look underneath. It was as if a new blue world, so clear and so very neat!!! I could not imagine it was that cool! I was looking forward to dive. I was having a tough time breathing, but was reminding myself on doing that. So we started and took that first step and dived. When we started to go deep directly, my ear started to hurt, like the way when an airplane takes off. I had to cut short and asked Michael to help. He showed me a way to be afloat with the air cylinder and not to panic. His calmness and patience was catchy. Tried once again and slowly went deep. The life below water was simply…A M A Z I N G!!!! It was so clean, never saw those many fishes doing their own thing and not being afraid or bothered with humans around. It was all so very neat. I also needed to remind myself to breathe, but could not help looking at the scenic beauty. I was having all those feelings, feeling water enter my ear, it hurt a little bit wanting to stay afloat, have to keep the knees straight and the hands folded [as a fish], feeling salt in the mouth, and also feeling thirsty. I was down there for about 15 to 30 minutes and did not know how the time went. All so fast. We were so happy that we did this. On our way back, we promised ourselves that we'd do the next level and complete the certification. It was cool. Learning swimming was a target that I personally need to address. We tipped Michael and bid good by and on our way back, stopped to have a ham burger at a joint which was similar to McDonalds. Back at the hotel room, we slept so soundly, the muscles aching and we were too tired for the day. By the way, the scuba dive cost us $90!

Para sailing: Sunday, we went over to Mariott, walk-able distance from the Holiday Inn and took some cool pictures and later had a brunch, much better than the breakfast buffet they have at Holiday Inn. After that, on our way back for 50$, we got me registered for a para sailing. Soon the boat came and took us to the point where they launch the parachute. There was a lady ahead of me and she was brave to go about 100ft above and was still comfortable. That gave me confidence and thought it was not as deadly as it looks from shore. So when my chance came, I calmly climbed up and before I knew it I was 100 ft above the sea level and was enjoying the view. I could see the other end of the island and the ocean behind that. Almost the entire island from there. Half hour of that and I was down. It was really nice. The rest of the day was nothing special but to add to my list of adventures, I had Para sailing too.

Aruba Day 2 - 10 May

2008-06-11T08:00:00.001-07:00

Saturday was supposed to be a non working day and that it was. In the morning, I called up Ron and we went for the breakfast buffet at the hotel restaurant. I had no idea what was in stock, but the resort was beautiful in the day and with a beach facing room, it was not a bad bargain at all. We entered the restaurant and took the coffee. With just one small sachet of sugar, the coffee was not sweet at all, not like the one that we have back home. One cup of coffee and it would keep you active for at least the next hew hours. We went over the buffet and it had some of the best breakfast items on it…egg boiled, scrambled, two types of omlette, three tropical fruits, different types of bread, cheese, butter, jellies, juices of choice, coffee, coke and other drinks …all your for 16$ per person. We had our tummy full of the breakfast..and Ron offered me a trip of Aruba.

I was glad to follow and off we went. We saw some nice spots of the island, and we stopped at this place on the island where we had the stacks of stones. It seems people come here and stack these stones one over other and they just remain that way. There were lots of such stacks. We looked around at the waves and the stones and took a short hike, some photos and headed back to hotel. At hotel, I checked out my mails replied to quite a few and went out for lunch and spent the rest of the evening at hotel itself.

Build up to Aruba

2008-06-10T09:47:00.001-07:00

Like everything, this trip also had a build up. First the hint that some one would need to travel to Aruba for the project and to clarifying various points on the project so that the development could move at a faster pace and that the specifications are much more clear that they are currently. Then one fine day, the Visa process started and the documents were collected. We (myself, the admin dept and the HR) were not sure how to go ahead, since the official consultant had ditched us after the initial promise. They had not heard of Aruba [even we had not initially], but thanks to Wikimapia.com, we could zoom in to about 250 feet above the sea level. After much research we found out that the consulate that we'd need to apply is the Netherlands as the island falls under its governance. But it was not going to be easy. Normally ACTL processes visas for the US and other known lands the process of which is much more published. The Dutch embassy was not interested in letting the general public know what was the exact process or maybe they did not put the information in the easily accessible areas. We googled and found out that we had to apply at the Mumbai consulate, that the person had to apply in person and that VFS [the Visa Processing Agent] just gives you an appointment and nothing else!!! We missed one appointment and got another at a short notice, got 3AC tickets booked to a night train to Mumbai. There was a rush and cross verfication on the documents that would be required. A unique requirement was that the embassy required a notarized document approved by the municipality of the government inviting me [what ever that meant]. We let the client figure out what that was. Finally they did send across the documents required and we embarked on a one night journey to get the Visa. Last moment [as always] we decided that Priti also accompanies me. We got a wait listed ticket, which to my surprise got confirmed before the train left and that too in the same bogie.

Mumbai: We landed in mumbai, took a rick to Hari ammavan's residence, took the day off [as we reached on a Sunday, april 20th]. We went for a movie, U me aur Hum, slept through half of it and walked through the busy Sion streets before taking a rick back to home.

D-Day - The next day, we got ready early, got to the nearest sub urban railway station took a first class return ticket to Victoria terminus and boarded the train. It took us approximately 40 minutes and since the busy and hyper active mumbai was still getting warmed up to get to their regular schedule, the rush was less, but we did not [at least I did not, Priti did] seats to settle ourselves [not that we expected to, but still, that’s the minimum a person from ahmedabad would be expecting. We got down at the last stop the VT status and asked where the consulate was to a taxi driver. He did not know. Then as if it was the hand of the god, a passer-by told us where it was and we got there shortly. My appointment was at 11:00, but I was advised that I leave early to avoid long queues. I followed and when I reached the office, there was a long queue of 2 people sitting there. At least the consulate was better than the humid morning and the sun warming up on the busy streets of the Fort area of Mumbai. We thought we'd better wait till this got over and then can have our share of fun in this core of the financial capital of India. I had stayed in Mumbai some years back and was looking forward to walk through the streets once again, but I forgot that my wife's extremely allergic to Sun…she could empty a small bottle of sunscreen before heading out for a jog in the morning :) There we were, waiting for our turn and watching the others go into that cabin and coming back smiling or wondering if everything would be fine and whether they would be granted visa. There were a couple of other guys waiting in line with me who were criticizing the process that the embassy had imposed on legalizing the documents and how much fuss it was to get the documents they required [birth certificate etc] stamped by the government authorities and how he smartly did it for a mere bribe of Rs 1000/-. Since there was no one in the queue in front of me as they all were processed, the officer decided to meet me. A pleasant middle aged lady, dashing all my imaginations of a tough male officer who’s dying to cancel all visa applications given to him, explained and asked me what the purpose of the visit was, what the duration and other questions on my employment. She asked me to pay the visa fees and told me to collect the passport either the next day or go to VFS to avail the courier facility. The VFS was in Nariman point [you can get the address off the web]. Had a lot of confusion but finally got the courier service done and later got back to ahmedabad the next day. The Visa was only for 1 month in which I could stay for a maximum of 12 days multiple entry. Everyone was upset as we all expected a visa of 6 months. Initially the plan of going to Aruba got cancelled since there was no point, but later on Lomesh asked us to book the tickets. Manoj and his agents got on to the tasks and with various combinations of cost, time etc, we finally have a winning combination of tickets which would take me from Ahmedabad - Delhi - Amsterdam - Aruba - Curacao - Amsterdam - Delhi - Ahmedabad including approximately 30 ours of flying. My first since I was born, so looking forward to this one. Have looked up the various options and features of the flight, the in-flight entertainment that KLM Royal Dutch provides and the additional freebies!!!

8th May: Could not sleep much last night after coming from Tipu's birthday celebrations. The last time to bid good bye to all friends. Had some what packing to be finished. We came back, did what ever we could finish and then went to sleep. The next day was supposed to be hectic as I had to drop in to the office for collecting the laptop and was also supposed to get information on Dxchange etc.

Finally at 12:30 PM, I took off from office after getting a brief on Dxchange and various advise on what to do and what not to do in Aruba and flight etc. It seemed as if a couple of hours did not exist for every hour that passed. It went of so fast!!! I had not informed anyone, so thought of sending a bulk sms to Malay, Prachis and Prashant [some who are close to me]. Got the basic things cleared, hired a taxi and off we went at 2:00 PM.

Ahmedabad to Delhi on flight: Indigo was supposed to fly me from Ahmedabad to Delhi where I had a wait of approximately 5 hours, before I boarded KLM to Amsterdam and another 8 hour wait before I went off to Aruba. The flight was pretty ok and not the quality that we get in Jet, Kingfisher or Indian for that matter, but that’s what Indigo offers you. Once the flight takes off, they announce of the various food items that they have "specially packaged" for you and then you are free to buy it at a nominal prices. They do not offer any candies to avoid the air bubble that builds up on takeoff or landing. But the flight was not a big hassle, in fact, it surprised me when they took off earlier than the scheduled time and then landed also early. Saved us a some time which I'm spending now at the waiting couch on the airport.

Delhi Airport: 6:10 PM:

I landed here at 5:30, got through the bus which brings us to the terminal, thanked the flight captain and the beautiful hostess. I enquired the help desk and they asked me to collect my luggage and approach them again as they would be transferring me to the new airport. Am placed at the Delhi domestic airport, hearing people talk in their regional languages, two foreigners sitting across me with their weird hair cut. I had to catch up on this log that I wanted to start for quite some time. Its also refreshing to see an Indian Airlines personnel helping an old couple with their formalities, but I do not think they trust him! Anyways, I'll have to wait for another 20 odd minutes before the GMR [the firm which is building the new International airport], transfers myself and other travelers like me to the new airport. It is scheduled to come at 7:00 PM. Shutting down now. More to add if, if I get a charging option at the Delhi international airport and if I find time after all my formalities are complete. And yes, have I told this, I love my wife! Chao!

We boarded the bus from Delhi domestic to International and it was a scene to see. The bus went off the main tarmac laid for the flights to take off. There were those gentle beauties, huge in size, but calmly waiting for their turn before they took off. There were flights from across the world, Sri Lanka, Japan and even commercial ones like Fedex [a beauty of a plane]. There was a huge pollution dust in the atmosphere, but the way the flights were laid out, a sight to see. Then, there he, the politician Amar Singh, getting out of his drop off vehicle. He looked the same as in TV :) The bus took us o the international airport in about 5-10 minutes, which would have normally took approximately 40 - 50 mins in the Delhi traffic. The atmosphere was un-definable, calm and very orderly, planes lining up for take off and waiting for the previous one to reach up in the air and receive clearance to take off…totally in contrast to how it was on the roads where there's a never ending rush to get to the destination as fast as possible. Once we reached the terminal, the guards inform me that I'm more than 3 hours earlier than the departure and they wont allow me in. I could either wait in the hot humid public area outside the airport, or I could wait in the waiting lounge opposite the ariport for a fee of Rs 30/- [another way to extorting money from the travelers I thought]. But I thought it would be better than waiting outside and besides I could continue writing and updating my accounts excel sheet [Manoj and Jayesh would be behind my skins for the foreign currency that have been spent and the account for the same]. To my surprise, they do not have enough charging stations in the waiting lounge and the few that were present were taken over by people already waiting. Strategic positions near the charging stations were taken up and they did not seem as if they would budge from there. There, another seat's being vacated and I'll try my luck there.

9th May - Amsterdam Airport :

This is when I could open my laptop next. So continuing from the last time, although I tried many seats, I could not get my laptop to charge. Finally at 9:30 odd, I took a look at the LCD display in the waiting room and there it was KLM 872 and in the green blinking light were the words "Security Check". As if missing my last bus home, I got up startled, took all my baggage and started towards the terminal. Once I reached there, the flight ground staff told me that I need to get the baggage security checked again and then checked in. At the check in counter, the lady had not heard about "Aruba" and waited for some time before she called her senior and he asked me a couple of questions and asked for the invitation letter, said he needed a copy of the same along with the passport. I was a bit surprised, since no one went under this process, but it also felt a bit better to be different from the crowd :). Once the baggage was checked in, I proceeded towards the immigration check section. It was a scene worth watching. A long queue of people from various origins, all waiting in various queues before the immigration officers. This is where they check for duplicate passports, invalid visas and sometimes grill you if they had a quarrel at home :) I found a swiss person talking to me. He had been on the Palace on Wheels for 7 days and was amazed at the entire experience. He was happy that the hotel came to him and he did not have to go to the hotel. All he did was give out tips to the staff..the rest was automatically taken care of! I stopped short of telling him that it works everywhere in India. Salaries are just add-ons, tips are the main source of income for these guys!

My turn came and there he was sitting the gentle giant [read the immigration officer] with a red color "tilak". Somehow he recognized me that I'm a south Indian and asked me "Enge pore"…I said, "no Tamil only Malayalam", but I understand Tamil to quite an extent and told him I was going to Aruba. He asked me where does that come! He called his senior, he bowled a couple of questions to me on my experience, my company, my profile etc. I told him the answers as I knew it and he approved of it..an the tamilian officer relented with a smile and advised me why to go to places that do not even exists! "Enjoy life" he said as he stamped my passport. I took the passport, headed for the security check, where I had to place the laptop and mobile in a separate tray [did not know why they asked me to do that] and the other bags, in the conveyer belt and did my checking also. Once over, I was free till the plane boarding started, that was another hour or so. Feel s relieved when there's ample time at your disposal. I slowly tried to get a coffee, called up numbers that I needed to get in touch with and also looked out for a plug point. I found one, immediately plugged in my laptop and gave it whatever charge it needed. Then again the plane boarding announcement was there and I rushed up again. Once in the plane, I looked around. The seats were much better than the domestic economy versions, and they had a nice little pillow to go with the blanket that was placed. My LCD was right in front of me. The usual announcements were made, the demonstrations were made, and we were ready to take off around 15-30 before schedule. The in-flight service was ok…the space a bit crammed for the 8 hour journey, half the movies not heard of so skipped them, no interesting sports channel. Overall, I was bored. I don’t know when I dozed off, there was a bit of turbulence, the usual and every time I looked out of the window, I saw the same twilight as was before. There were many firsts here, I was travelling international for the first time, flying at night the first time. The hostess served, dinner, snacks, drinks [I opted for red wine]. In-flight, the food never digests fast, so had little of everything and tried to sleep. In the morning, about 1- 2 hours before landing, the flight captain called up stating that we are scheduled to land before time. I was feeling happy. This means that I would get a chance to trip the Amsterdam.

I now know what one feels when one has to go abroad. There's a terrible home sickness that comes over the first day itself. Think of Ahmedabad, and the places you've visited within India till now. You know that home and dear ones are never far off. You could always return to their comfort at the max in 1 or 2 days by hook or crook and the costs never going to be major. Here, the case is different. Getting back is not going to be easy, but the modern communications ease that out a bit and you could say to yourselves reassuringly, that you would call them up at the first instance.

5:30 AM - Amsterdam:

I'm now 3:30 hours behind India and in a foreign country. There are lots of Indians here since most of them are headed to either Canada or USA to visit their sons or daughters. The airport is huge and its confusing. Its also amazing that they could build such places to confuse you in the first place. I finally found out that there are pay phones, which you can use after swiping your credit card or inserting coins. I'm skeptical about using credit cards, so had to find the communication center which would help me do this. Walking around with 12 kgs of baggage is not fun, but I'm hoping I'd reduce it when I return, maybe dump a couple of t-shirts, or wear two of them or something :) I walked around the airport to get a feel of the area and the various shops that are open. This is the eden for chocolates and wine/liquor. Later, I waited for the communication center to open up and called up Priti eager to hear her voice. Could not speak to her as she had already left for office. In fact spoke to Tachu, Mom and that’s it. I'll be calling them again shortly. Got on to Internet hoping Priti would log on, but nope. Then I had Kaushik, asked him about the Wifi and he guided me. Nothing much happening now. I was searching for some place to sit and relax. The storage of baggage is also 6E for 24 hours and every time you open the locker, you pay another 6E. I could use that money to call up India later on. My Plan as of now, its 8 now, take a nap for an hour or two, have some thing to eat, get a shower room to freshen up and hang around the airport, maybe after I put up my luggage at the locker. Chao, my battery running down, will update more after some time, but Amsterdam feels good as of now!

11:11 AM: I've been in the airport and have seen most of the locations of the airport. Its really huge and has lots of shopping options. It would have been great if Priti would be around, she'd be already looking around for shopping options and then wondering whether to buy or not. I called her up just some time ago to hear her voice, and then to mom and dad in kerala to tell them about my location and my position. They were happy to hear. Now, my next flight is going to be at 2:35 PM…that means, I need to get ready for my next flight. I need to freshen up, make sure, get the security check etc done so that I can take a small nap in the waiting area of the flight. I think I've learnt the knack of carrying big luggage and still feel free. Just settle down somewhere its cozy and stay put till your next flight. But it’s a great adventure. Between now and when I landed here, I had my breakfast, some juice, fruits etc., spent a lot on communications [makes me wonder, how cheap it is in India] and looked at the various options that these guys offer. So nothing much to report, am off to prepare for my next destination Aruba. Chao!

04:00 PM approx, aboard flight towards Aruba: The final lap of the journey one way. I would be making the journey back home in the coming days back to Ahmedabad and hopefully it won't be that long. But I'm missing you all very much already, and to think of it, I haven't even landed at Aruba. Anyways, back to the details, I got freshened up as I had thought got some additional time, went to the peaceful lounge and had a small nap and went off to search for my departure. It was approximately 12:00 PM. Ever since I landed at this airport, I have felt like Tom Hanks of The Terminal. Now I really feel for him although I confess that I've not seen the entire film, I now feel that I need to watch the entire movie, which I will in the coming days. The departure was scheduled to be at gate D53. I walked and tried to make sense of the signage present and figured out how they had laid out and got a hang of it. When I reached D53 at about 12:30 PM way ahead of my flight, I saw a long queue of familiar faces and that’s when I saw that the flight that was supposed to leave before mine was a direct one to Hyderabad. Finally the security check got over and we all were ready to board the plane with a delay added to the normal departure time i.e. 14:35 and to add to the injury, there were two passengers missing from the flight and as per the norms, their loaded luggage would also need to be removed. Thus the flight finally took off at 15:30 and hopefully we'll reach in time. I forgot to mention somewhere above that I was also listening to the Panchavadyam cd that I had took with me. Very refreshing and takes near to Ahmedabad where my family knows how much I love the music of the 5 percussion items. Aboard the flight, it was pretty boring and the usual as the juices were served and later the meals was served. The monitor shows that the temperature outside the plane is -56 degree Celsius and inside it’s a bit warmer. Once I had my meal, I thought it would be a good idea to update this document with the current happenings. There's an serial going on and others are having their meal, while I'm hearing the Panchavadyam and writing this blog. Whenever I hear this sound track and when it catches tempo, my hand and head automatically start to swing to the tempo and its so very catchy. I am not sure what awaits me in Aruba for the next 9-10 days and hopefully it goes off well. As of now, I'm aware that there's a meeting scheduled on Monday 11:30PM to Tuesday 12:30 AM..a meeting in the midnight as scheduled by Ron. More updates on reaching Aruba and reaching Hotel. Chao!

6:00 PM - Reached St. Maarten: The plane landed at St. Maarten a stop over before it finally took off to Aruba. The stop over was painful. The cleaners were all over the plane once the passengers took off..and the passengers for Aruba had to stay put, cos in an hour's time the flight would take off to Aruba. I was totally tired and really wanting to get down the flight. It was a tiring one and to be stacked up in a 3.5 sq feet area where you can't even stretch fully was a pain and that too for 11 hours!! I did not want to sleep on my route to Aruba, but I kept falling asleep, maybe, I was that tired. Finally, we reached Aruba, the plane landed, and I got all my documents ready for the Immigration check. The officer double checked the papers, confirmed about the business I have here and approved the visa! Finally I've got it. A legal entry into another country, for 12 whole days! A dream!! I slowly treaded over to the baggage collection area. Waited there for 15-20 mins, waiting for the blue bag with huge "Harish B Nair" stickers, it never came through the conveyor belt and I started suspecting the proven methodology of the guys who handle the baggage. They've been handling these baggages for quite some time now and apart from a small %age of mistakes here and there, you normally are bound to get your baggage at the destination once you check it in from the place you start. Just as I was getting ready to figure out whom to lodge a complaint with at this unknown airport, incase I did not receive my baggage, there it rolled out, the heaviest of them all, just 250 grams short of 20 kilos!

I picked it up on a trolley and started towards the exit and tried to look out for a familiar face of Ron. Ron Logan, VP - Marketing, Avani Cimcon Technologies Inc. along with Lomesh Shah was in charge of the accounts in Aruba. It was agreed that he'd be at the airport to pick me up. I did not know what to do when I could not locate him. I tried the service desk, and they told me that the land line phones there could not call up a mobile phone and that I should have a land line number. Also the pay phones accepted quarters of dollars, which I did not have. I only had 4 hundred dollar bills with me, which I am still to convert into change. A DePalm tour guy was trying to market his product and he asked me whether he could help me. I told him my dilemma, and he asked me to go over to the DePalm office near the airport and maybe they would be able to help me. I did as he told me to and the guys in the office connected me to Ron. Ron was under the impression that the flight was supposed to come in another half hour. He asked me to wait at the airport while he drove down. I did so, pulling the heavy, backpack, laptop bag and the luggage with me! I made a promise to myself that I'd dump a couple of things on the island or fit it in the luggage bag and maybe pay extra for the baggage, but wont carry it in the back pack. I'm also expected to get back with some chocolates etc..so I need to offload and I will. Alright, so there came Ron, driving in a Toyota Yaris, an automatic rented car. I loved the feel of it and the way the automatic transmission worked. Off we went to the hotel, but before that we stopped for dinner, something light. We stopped at, what he suggested was one of the best pizza joints, <don’t remember the name>, had a pizza with thin crust and it was really delicious to go with coke! Now I know why the coke and pizza combination is famous down west.

11:00 PM - Reached Holiday Inn and checked into the hotel. It was much better from what we have back in India. I got into the room and started unpacking and looked at all the stuff that I carried all the way from India to Aruba. Hope all this would be useful. By the time I got into bed, it was past midnight. Before I got to bed, I also made sure that I had bought the wireless connectivity and also skype credits so that calling home was not that all hard, although calls to India were not that cheap too. It was almost 10 cents.

Saby's in canada

2008-06-10T09:44:00.001-07:00

This one was posted way back on October 8, 2007 when Saby was in Canada. A sweetheart that he is, we really missed him when he planned to jump over to Canada and make a living there. Imagine our surprise, when one fine noon, Vinod and he came to my office !!! There were sobs [due to shock, surprise] from Priti and other females as they saw him, there were claims on how one had claimed that he'd be back in 6 months.... All that, but from within, everyone felt happy that they gained an almost lost friend ... a "rakshak" [the protector] of his "bhabhi"s

It was Mrig initially, when he shifted to Mumbai, it was as if, something, a part of our daily routine [or make that weekly] has been lost. We had come to terms to that slowly, meeting regularly doing various fun stuff that we are used to... went to a small weekend holiday etc. We missed him and Dhoni [Nidhi] everywhere and everything that we did together,
be it celebrating a birthday or watching a movie together.Wonder if it would be like that now that Saby has flown to Canada..and this time for immigration.
Bulls [wonder who coined that!!!] is what the guys call the group... a group of few friends, who have been together since school days and share a great friendship, where petty things do not have a room at all. All they believed in was having fun, and they sure did have that, in their own way. I became a part of the group way back in College [L. J. Commerce College] in the second year, when I was a part of the college soccer team. We struck chemistry and my one liner [PJs], showed my talent, if I may call it that. But soccer was what
brought us closer more than anything else.
Well, back to where I started from, and Saby's in canada, and we miss him already.

regards
H

Blogs and Me!

2008-06-10T09:43:00.001-07:00

Hi! It's been quite some time since I've been contemplating starting my own blog. Something that would be my space, which talks about me, and the important [or less important] people around me, the places that I see, visit, my hobbies, my wife, my family, my friends, things that I like, computers, laptops, mobiles, technology, reading ...wow...the list might go on.

I've read many blogs and have often wondered when I'd have my own blog which would mention anything ranging from my personal life to my office life etc. So here it is and for the lucky few who would be reading this, your reviews and comments would help me to get this place organized.

Getting late for office, but promise to update this space today evening before I go to bed!

regards
Harish