Senseless Syndrome

admin April 7th, 2009

Today when i was showering hurriedly before heading on to the research group meeting, i had a sudden realization out of no where that i had a blog. I also remembered that it has been ages since i updated it. There was a time when i was passionate about writing and i jotted down every interesting thing in this blog but things have changed! I threw off the blogger in me and rushed to catch the bus to the campus.

I know you might be wondering that there is not even a single correlation between the title and what i have written. Coming on to the point….

For the initiated Moe’s is a popular food chain in the United States. Being an university town, Blacksburg has most of those food chains and there is a Moe’s at the end of college avenue. It is one of my favorite restaurants in this small village! Today i went there and thought i should write about it and “hurrah” i found a reason/chance to update my blog. I don’t remember going to Moe’s even once in the previous semester but this semester as far as i remember i have been there at least once a week. I usually head there alone or along with sameer after the tuesday afternoon meetings.

With enough build up and no further ado, here is why i love Moe’s
- The food ‘looks’ good….

A picture is worth thousand words!
- Generally it is a contradictory thing that most of the good looking food items taste bad but most of the entrees at Moe’s are pretty good.
-It is not expensive. At $6 i can have a good meal.
-It is one of the few places which has options in the menu for vegetarian folks! In most of the places it is either a single veg sub/veg burger/cheese quesadilla!
-The people at the food counter cheer you with a ‘Welcome to Moe’s’ when you enter(at least in the afternoons when there is no crowd)
-The tortilla chips and salsa are the best in town(or i haven’t explored other places!) and they come for free!
- Moe’s doesn’t have Wi-fi but one BIG reason why i like the one in Blacksburg is because it picks the ‘dlink’ Wi-Fi from one of the adjacent shops at full strength.
-The above point means the first thing i do is open my laptop after getting my food.
-The time taken to have a meal is pretty optimal (~21 mins) to watch a TV show online! If i have no other work to do i watch two episodes.
-I always order a naked burrito or the burrito in the bowl so that i don’t soil my hands and this doesn’t hinder me from operating the laptop! Also i am not a big fan of the burrito layer, whatever the Mexicans call it!
-Mexican food is pretty close to Indian food. Most of the entrees have rice and beans.
-The seats in the left end have an amazing view of downtown and it is relaxing and that too after the meet!(It is also the spot which has the best Wi-Fi Strength)
- They have this special deal on Monday where you get any entree and a drink for ~6 bucks but unfortunately i have a class sometime after the lunch which ‘always’ has a submission.
-The food is pretty healthy and if you remove the sour cream and reduce the cheese it is perfect.

Obviously i am gonna get bored of this place in a while but still i just wanted a reason to write about something which i like. May be i should show it to Moe’s and ask for a free meal!

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admin January 12th, 2009

I don’t know why i like cooking up such long titles! More than two months since i scribbled on something here and in an yet another attempt of not letting this blog die here goes the story. Five months as a graduate student and after one semester things haven’t changed much and it’s all like sailing in the same boat. After living in a city like Madras with all the hustle and bustle moving on to a city like Blacksburg is really really hard. Break times in Blacksburg are the worst. For instance the number of human beings i saw in the entire day walking on the road, going to the library, traveling in the bus should be less than 15 and that includes a mirror image of me.

The last week of the semester is always worse and it wasn’t a different story here. I was waiting for it to end and i was more excited about the trip and the holidays than the final exams. My grades did get screwed up a bit but it’s ok! But there is always the next semester(That’s how losers console themselves!!). Those decimal points are important but there are lot of better and interesting stuff to do in life! Although, i did manage to balance between my blogs and internet marketing stuff well and doubled my profits after i came in here which i never expected to do. A small consolation again!

I couldn’t thank Madan in words for planning the NY trip and also successfully screwing it up. Nevertheless, i had amazing time. The very thought of going to NYC kicked my hormones. After a lot of planning we finally decided on to stay in NJ and go on to near by places along with his friends. Unfortunately Madan had to cancel his trip because of some shitty snow storms in his place and now i had to take a choice. Go on and stay with people who i have never ever seen before or get haunted in Blacksburg’s beauty. At any cost i would not have chosen the latter option and i decided to go ahead and i feel happy for it.

Once in a conversation Bobby said “Oh! Blacksburg, let me see the world and get back!” and that was the only thought running in my mind. And now in a different mindset all together i wished the two weeks will fly past and i get some change. I packed up and headed on to Roanoke the local airport. When you fly in to NY or NJ from Roanoke one thing i realized is that it takes more time than it takes when you drive! Guess Northwest airlines likes Pythagoras theorem a lot that i had to halt at Detroit as the connector and then fly in to Newark so that a ’somewhat’ right triangle can be formed. If only people understood the shortest distance path and if only having a direct flight from Roanoke to EWR would make the airline company some money!

I seriously hate the 48 seater flights. I would prefer the share autos from panagal park instead! With no leg room the case gets even worse when a fat lady sits near you. I wanted to take some aerial shots but i intelligently put my camera in the jacket and placed it above and didn’t bother to make that lady to get up again. But she was so kind and was telling me her family stories and how she is excited to meet her grandchildren and showed some pic of her daughter with Obama which she was carrying in her handbag. Good time pass you know!

Finally after all the delays landed at Newark and boarded a train to NY to meet the people waiting over there. Good guy Harish was waiting along with Puneet and Gokul and all i was longing for was some sleep. And finally got on to the place ~ 168 Hamilton Street in New Brunswick- It rocks!! Being an introvert i did get on well with the people in a couple of days and the two weeks i spent there was really joyous and memorable.

I lived in at a stone’s throw from Rangathan street in Chennai and when i walked on Oak tree road in Edison it was a bliss. I did eat Idli, dosa and what all i can at Saravana Bhavan. The Indian stores, the hotels and all other things gave a perfect Indian feel. We also went on a city tour of NewYork and visited the various places. New year’s eve In NYC was also a super highlight!

One thing i always love is being in good and joyous company. With the romance gyaan from harish, mathematical PJs from Harshad, Puneet’s tamil there were no lack of chances to laugh out all the time. There was joy, there was harmony and more than all that there was life in that place and i liked it a lot. Happy that i made some nice friends in the short trip.

With a just a week more for the next semester to start i wish it goes on well. And now all i could wait for the time being is …..Spring break!

A little late but wish all you people have an amazing year ahead with lots of fun.

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admin October 31st, 2008

Its 4 AM and i am bored and not getting sleep. I thought i could say a hi to my dear abandoned blog! We meet lots of people daily but very few create an impression and among those very few stay as an inspiration. I like meeting people and also network well with groups and over the last couple of years the people whom i have met at Proto, Blogcamp, barcamps, OCC and many such events is innumerable. Over at college i didn’t have like “LOTS” of friends but we did have a closed group and we traveled to lots of colleges participating in culturals and symposiums and it was amazing fun. Ok! Coming back there are some people who make a mark or a difference in your life. Here are those folks whom i have met in life’s journey so far in no particular order….

Sheshadri Sir
Every one will have a inspirational teacher and in my story it was Sheshadri sir. I am generally not the “teacher’s student” and most of the teachers especially in under grad didn’t like me as i would be the one who is spoiling the class! I went to different kind of High school called Ahobila Math and as everyone i hated the school when i studied there but started missing it when i went to college. Even though i was a science student there was a fourth subject which would be biology or comp.science but in my case it was strangely Accountancy. On a lighter note i loved accountancy more than science but realized it pretty late! Sheshadri sir took accounts for me in 12th standard and if i remember right that is the only time in my life i sat in the first bench. He was more than a teacher and moved on well with the students. Every one in the school inspired his personality and his entry in the class would be majestic. It is really hard to find a dedicated and talented teacher like him.

Vinod Ji

Vinod Ganesh was a senior of mine at college. He was this “famous” quizzer in college who was completely different from all the other folks. A multi talented guy every one looked at this guy with awe and some girls thought he was smart! In some way or the other this guy has made some significant turns in my life because i first heard the word “blog” out of his mouth and also created my first blog taking his awesome funny blog as an inspiration. Today my life revolves around blogs, social media and i have churned around a million INR in profits from my blog network in the past year and half. I pay my tuitions here at Virginia Tech on my own and i have a good level of financial freedom. If not for this guy i would be no where and i would have been yet another guy who sits and codes in a cubicle! I still remember those crappy questions which i used to ask him as a fresh undergrad and he was patient enough and answered all those! Also he served as the gyaan guru for our Dumb C and Ad Zap teams and we did carry on his legacy and bagged the name as the team which could not be beaten! We managed to rope in more than a lakh or even two if i am not wrong in prize money as a team during the last two years in college.

Bhuvan Anna

(Of course! The guy who is showing the direction!)

One of the best things which i did unknowingly as a school kid was being over enthusiastic and joining the scouting movement. The few years i stayed with the Patel Scout Group was bliss and Bhuvan Anna was a multifaceted personality whom i got to meet. Being a scout also molded me a lot and it was amazing fun to camp in the tents, go on hikes and so on. Bhuvan was a perfectionist and everything he did will have his stamp. Super talented scout, ambidextrous, awesome painter, mellifluous singer and overall a super human. Sitting in the all faith prayer and hearing his voice has no match. Most of his students exhibited the sign of being Bhuvan’s students. The group was great to be with and all people in there were super enthusiastic and i repent for not continuing. Nevertheless i got the Governor award braving five days at the state testing camp. There is a Boy Scouts of America group here in VT and may be i should go and check some time and recall fond memories.

Vijay Anand

I love people who have a vision and to vision something like Proto.in is not a joke. Today Proto.in is strong, massive and is considered a top notch event in India and the major credit goes to Vijay. I can still recall the first meet at the Cafe day where all the enthusiastic planning for the first edition happened. He has undoubtedly contributed a lot to the start up scene in India and being a part of the Proto.in team was a blessing for me. I did learn a lot and meet lot of aspiring folks. I do aspire to become a start up guy few years down the line and i can’t start off without thanking this guy. I did get an opportunity to see the funnier part of him when we stayed in the Guest house for the fourth edition in Delhi. The funky start up ideas which we churned in the flight way back to Chennai was way too humorous expect that Kausik who was sitting in the next seat had fumes out of his ears.

Ganesh APP

A picture is worth thousand words!

Some one told that if you ever want a bad inspiration then it should be Sagaro! May be untrue for some! He is undoubtedly one of the interesting guys to meet and i definitely developed a lot of new interests because of him. Way back when we first met in the blogger’s meet he was the geeky guy who was in his own world doing stuff which many others thought were dumb. The number of plans which we made were innumerable be it for treks, tours, serious stuff but very few got executed and undoubtedly all those were good fun. I liked his concept of splitting your interests across various fields and be a jack a all trades and master of some rather on sticking on to one thing and dying with it for life. The cycle race on ECR, the Tada trek, part of the 1000 buck tour, the “thon” series, film fests and lots more! Man, Life in Chennai was damn good at times!

There are lot of other people who i like for the way they do things and the people above just came on the top of my mind. For instance the Knowledge Foundation was an amazing thing in which i was a part of and the diversity of the group was the good reason for the success. I liked the attitude of Kiruba, the intelligence of Siddhi, the skills of Syed and overall the group blended on really well. Inspirations do happen but the tough part is being inspired….

If you have scrolled on till this and read the post, Thank you! Seriously , i have never written such long posts!

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admin October 5th, 2008

This part of the world is so crazy about football(American!) and the spirits of the Hokies go up like any thing during a home game. It is a shame being a Hokie and not watching a match live in the stadium(Set aside the fact that i don’t understand the game!). I got a ticket for the match against Western Kentucky which is like a minnow team and VT with four wins in a row didn’t look up WKU as a potential opponent but still it was a game….

There is a practice where in the entire stadium wears the same color and it looks awesome. For VT it is Orange and Maroon and we call it the “Orange Effect” and “Maroon Effect”. The match against WKU was held on the Home coming week and it was a mix of both Orange and Maroon and it was a perfect eye candy! I wore the bright Orange tee which i got from the univ store and got all set. Good guy Sameer was kind enough to take me in his car and after some confusions we reached the research center where we were joined by few more guys from the department. We walked down to the stadium about an hour before the match and the entire place was so lively.

In front of the stadium!

People from lot of places come to watch the match and the stadium will be jam packed for any match. It is an amazing feel to sit among the thousands of fellow Hokies and jump, dance and do all the weird stuff!

Sameer getting some football gyaan from Dr. Pyla

The ultimate comedy was i didn’t know the rules of the game and initially all i did was shout out loud when every one did and make those funny noises likewise. But with some gyaan from Dr. Pyla i did get some insights and figured it out when i should shout on my own! Improvement!

Jam packed stadium… Orange and Maroon Effect!

The most important thing aside the game are the marching bands, the cheer leaders, and some other group whose name i forgot! There are some funky things like making noise with key chains during the final block and throwing up a person after scoring a point and many more things.

Every time VT scores they threw up one person up in the air equal to current score. Imagine flying up 27 times(final score!)

And i did shoot a video of that “Throwing up” thing!

It was an enjoyable outing leaving aside the fact that i had to spend $4 for a soda (ok…coco cola!) and i did learn something. The last two quarters were pretty boring as VT did major scoring in the first two quarters. I forgot to mention about the Hokie Pokie Song at the third quarter…. It brings the child in you and when every one dances you ought to!

Awesome coordination!

Final Yard!

Two months since i landed in this place and i am kinda liking most of the things. Some important things are slated for this week and later and i hope things go on fine.

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admin August 26th, 2008

Moving out of India in to a foreign land was a big decision which i took after many considerations. With a not so great profile some how i got in to Virginia Tech which is one of the prestigious schools in the United States especially for engineering studies. After spending almost 21 years in Chennai it was a big change and the first fortnight here in Blacksburg has been significant.

I am not a frequent flyer and the very thought that i had to take 4 flights in a span of 30 hours across time zones was the first hurdle. I started off from Chennai on my 21st birthday and i was really overwhelmed when all of my friends came to the airport to send me off. Hats off you guys! At many places i didn’t know what to do but finally managed and completed my immigration in Chennai. I had to take a connecting flight to Mumbai and waited there for few hours. I did get some travel company and so it went on pretty well. The Airbus which took me from Mumbai to Chicago was massive. Almost 900 passengers in a single flight! One good thing about traveling in Air India is that you get some decent food but in flight entertainment- NIL! I did finish reading a book in the journey and it was after a long time i read something.

There was a transit in London Heathrow and it is a very beautiful and huge airport. The worst part is we had to walk all the way through the airport, do the security check again. The biggest nightmare was waiting to meet me in O’ Hare Airport in Chicago. I had to take a connection flight from the domestic terminal and there was a three hour gap in between which generally is more than enough. The immigration took close to two hours and with an hour left i had to find my baggage and move to the domestic terminal for which i had to take the transit. The baggage check in machines conked off when i was looking at my watch every 30 seconds. Fortunately the flight got delayed and i made it!

There was Chinese guy waiting at the local airport at about 12 in the night holding a Virginia Tech board and it was a big relief.  After an half an hour’s drive the Indian seniors helped us to get set. The first few days i was awe struck seeing the beauty of blacksburg and the campus. The University was on vacation and there were hardly people on campus. The international center did an awesome job and every day they arranged some activity to keep all the international students engaged.

Cascade Waterfall Hike

There is a beautiful waterfall near Blacksburg and some 40 international students decided to venture out in the woods. The place was so pristine and i enjoyed the 4 hour long hike.  Virginia Tech has a very diverse culture with people from across the globe. In the group of 40 i guess there would have been people from 20 different countries.

Campus Legend Tour and Scavenger Hunt

Every campus will have its one history and myths. Like where the ghosts are, where the secret passages are,  where people make out and so on. Virginia Tech is a little ahead with all these stories and they were damn interesting. Jonathan from Cranwell Center took us for the legend tour and i was impressed on hearing those stories. Vt has lot of underground steam tunnels and there are people who explore those tunnels. The police get behind those guys but still people do it. VtUnderground.com has lot of information about those tunnels. I am planning to make a site for VT Legends along with Jonathan. Should be interesting!

The scavenger hunt is one thing which i was longing to do and finally i did it. Although we didn’t win we completed majority of the 30 crazy tasks and it was absolute fun. the first two weeks on campus was total fun with lot of dinners, hikes, movie night, swimming, club house, library, ultimate frisbee,shopping etc etc. Classes have started and in a week from now i guess it will get hectic. I also managed to get a job in the food court although i am not going to take it! Interviews, online tests, training session for a server or a cleaning job is too much!

Virginia Tech is one of the top college football(American) teams and the people here go crazy about it. The stadium is huge and i heard the home games will be beyond imagination. Hope i get a ticket to sit in one of the loudest stadiums in the country. Before that i am trying to figure out the rules of the nasty game!!

War Memorial. VT is a military school and lot of alumni have lost their lives in the World Wars.

The Torgersson Bridge. There are 8000 outdated ethernet ports and 80 miles of copper and optical fibers in this stretch.

The Newman Library. This is where i work from when i am on campus.

Computer Science Department

Ultimate Frisbee in the drill field. I did play along with the University team once and made my team loose two points but scored one! The guys are super cool and they do pass to me! Hope i will get better at this game.

Check out more pictures from Virginia Tech HERE

Two years in this beautiful place is good but i don’t know how effectively i will tackle my courses. I have put most of my savings which i earned during my final year of UG in this course and hope i don’t screw it up! Looks like all the guys in my department get funded from the second semester but it involves lot of hard woork and research commitment! I can also do a paid summer internship and make some money if i don’t opt to do research. The spirit of the people is too high! The people at Virginia Tech are called Hokies and every single day you can see this word at least a thousand times on hoardings, buses, tshirts,and where ever. I am wearing a Hokie Tshirt too! Feels good to be a Hokie!

I am a Hokie!

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admin August 4th, 2008

21st bday and off to Virginia Tech for my masters…..

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admin July 27th, 2008

First of all i repent for skipping the early morning ultimate frisbee games for some petty reasons. During the first few months when i started playing i never missed play and it was really refreshing and more than that it was great fun. In the past few months random work, late night sleep coupled with laziness stopped me from going to the beach/ground and the end result is i suck at the game now. Neglecting all these i was pretty excited when there was a announcement about a tournament being held in Bangalore. Ganesh said he was also coming and so i readily put my name in the list. The Chennai Ultimate Frisbee gumbal is a super cool one with all over enthu people and time will fly off like the disc in their company.

The tournament happened during the first week of July and the previous week i also got my visa stamped, so i was very much relieved. The tournament happened in a remote place near Bangalore and we started in the early morning and after grueling for about ten hours on unimaginable roads we finally reached the destination. Hat games, sleeping in the tent, late night talks, good food, the nail biting game between chennai and Bangalore, travel convos and many more. The two days was fun filled and i really loved being in the CUF gang. I got to speak with people who i haven’t interacted much and i felt good.

Check out the photos of Camp Shrishti HERE

Was back from the tourney and the preparations for the summer edition of Proto.in was in full swing. Had some productive meetings in Vijay’s office and those ones really were of good help. A few of us from the team started to Delhi a couple of days before the event to carry on the ground work. The event went off well, thanks to the amazing guys from Delhi who of great help. We stayed at a place called Heritage near IIT Delhi and it was really amazing. This was the first time peeps from Knowledge Foundation got to stay and work together and it was good fun and lot of lessons learnt. Met some very nice people like Shivaas, Piyush and they were with us throughout the event. Apparently Shivaas is also gonna be some where near Virginia and we have planned to meet up some time. It is always good to keep in touch with guys who have the entrepreneurial spirit running in their blood!

I loved Delhi a lot and the city is full of life (at least in parts!). At the end of the first there was a Proto.in Alumni Dinner and after it got over, good guy Shiv from Viewspaper took us to the India Gate. It was around 12 in the night and it was a splendid experience. We has Chuski near India gate and walked on the Raj Path! Shiv had a good knowledge about Delhi and he briefed us as and when some landmark passed. One funny thing is that the place where we stayed was inside a colony and the entire colony which spread about a few kilometers was locked! Every entry to the colony was locked except one. You cannot walk in after 10 o clock in the night. On the other hand there were families happily sitting and chatting near the India Gate at 1 AM!

The next day was when the presentations happened and it went on pretty smooth. After the tiring day it was all random talks in the rooms and i didn’t remember when i fell asleep. The next day we went to a place called Delhi Haat. The place had food stalls from all the states and we had a sumptuous lunch there. All this time we had this guy called VC Karthik along with us and he has a amazing sense of humor. He will keep the place lively with all his stories. We still had a few hours for our flight back to Chennai and so me, ravi and kau decided to travel by the Delhi Metro. We took an auto to CP and then went in the Metro. Impressive! Then we walked around the Parliament, Rashtrapathi bhavan and it was a short and good one.  Nothing can beat the in flight conversations because that is when you get bored to the core. Vijay was at his best throwing up crazy ideas and i added on. After some time we decided sleeping would be a much better option!

Overall a pretty good month and more than that feels good to blog. One more week to depart and i still haven’t got the mind set. Still lots of pending work. Hope i complete all those before i leave!! I have decided to blog regularly from now on and this time i guess i will stick to it! Looking forward to see the good old times of blogging everything i do!

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admin June 8th, 2008

The past few weeks have been pretty good. It was filled with treks, trips and many other good happenings. The first on the list was the Tada Trek. We kept planning, planning and finally went on the 10th of April. Just four of us(Me, Ganesh , Mahen and Vittal). It was the “-thon” and the movie gang. The gala night outs at Vittal’s place still stay fresh. We were all parting to different places and so we thought we should go some where and have some fun. Mahen is getting married, Vittal is(has) shifting to Mumbai and God knows what is happening with Ganesh. Some sources said he is planning to take a break and go on a Euro trip! Waahh!!!!

Getting back to Tada, it is a wonderful place, full of greenery fresh water and close to nature. Mahen was pretty well versed with the route and after travelling by train and share auto we finally reached there. The beauty with Tada is that as you go higher and higher it becomes more beautiful, you get lost in the beauty and finally get lost! We took the wrong route while coming down but it was pretty adventurous and at last we found our way through. It was one helluva trip and one of the best treks i have ever done.

This was the initial rough terrain where we had to jog, run ,walk and drag for about 3 kms to see the first stretch of water.

The first place where we took a halt, changed , got wet and played ultimate Frisbee for some time.

Our “Typical” shot

Me trying hard to get on!

Bliss!!

After completing the tough stretch.

Check out more photos from the trek HERE

After Tada we had to face the final wrath of sitting for three hours in the same place and scribble some thing in a booklet. They do call it exams and we were do it for one final time. We didn’t complain. As usual previous day photocopying, over night stand and we finally did it.

On the day the exams got over a few of classmates started to a place called Veerapandi a small village near Theni district. We stayed at my friend Arun’s place and the four days i will never forget. The thiruvizha, the sweet and loving family, the farms, cows, the river, the palm trees, Arun’s grand father and many more. With all these the days went off with amazing fun.

The thiruvizha (temple fest) was SO massive and i never imagined some thing like that. There were about a lakh people from the surrounding villages and the city never slept for the entire week. Music, dance, religious rituals , shops selling unseen items and two eyes was not enough to see all those. The first day we roamed the thiruvizha and one thing which made every one gape their mouths wide was the death well or the Marana Kinaru. It was a 50 foot deep wooden well like thing and the stunt men rode cars and bikes on the wall. High point was there were 3 women in the team. Imagine a car running perpendicularly on a wall at 100 kmph and the man taking his entire body out of the window controlling the steering with his legs and hands partly! You have to see it to believe! But they were risking their badly…. i second mismatch between the vehicles , sure shot kabala moksham!

Indeed…A Death well!

The next day we spent it in the farms, the river and had nungu straight from the palm trees. Also learnt the art of eating it directly by putting one finger inside the soft surface. We then went to the river and dipped in for a couple of hours.

Natural Shelter to beat the heat!

On the way back we saw the die rolling game. (Recall the Pithamagan film where Surya cheats Laila). Some what same thing. 10 ruba vecha 20 ruba. One thing which is synonymous with villages is that there will be no pechu, only vetu , kuthu, kolai! One guy made a comment during the game and it turned to a big riot. Only thing which we did was ESCAPE! The next day we went along with many of the family members of Arun and had food in the farm. Veerapandi is one unforgettable experience and i has some good conversations with Arun’s grandpa. Hard to see a man like him. He would be some 80 years and was so passionate to take care of the farm and daily went and did the irrigation and stuff.

Theni is really an excellent place with a pleasant climate. It is centrally located between Munnar, Kodai and Thekkady. We decided to go to Kodai the next day and head to Chennai from there. Kodai was good except for the summer crowd. Lots of places to explore there but we just alloted one day and so we hired a cab and checked out many places. We went to boating when the sun was about to set and the lake was filled with mist.

Finally after battling in 4 government buses and travelling for some 18 hors finally reached home!

Not but not the least, yours truly is now an ENGINEER!
The final semester result was a pleasant surprise. Scored 85% which i never thought. Although not a big accomplishment feels good to be a first class with distinction grad!

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admin April 1st, 2008

I just wanted to write a wrap up of things that happened two weeks before but left off and a week passed. So thought of naming the post “Sunday to Sunday” jotting down the recap of the week’s happenings but one more week passed and the title got extended! Good that the title didn’t extend!

The first of the three sundays was jam packed and good fun. Some of us met for the first organizers meet of Chennai barcamp 2 and after some heated discussions and vetti talks decided that we should chuck off Barcamp and do a Howtocamp. It will be happening in a month’s time in Chennai and is gonna be exciting. From there me Ganesh and swami headed to the Chennai Metblogs meet. I may be joining the Metblogs team shortly. Met some nice people over lunch and got some interesting inside information! The next destination was the Open Coffee Club meet at Amethyst. We both took an auto and landed some after it started. Hats off to Sid for starting the OCC in Chennai. No doubt it is one of the best ever meets and the attitude of the people who attended it was definitely matchless. I could see the fire in all of them! Good luck for all those future business magnets! Ganesh and Mahen left off in the middle to look at some art /chick exhibition where in girls would explain the intricacies in naked pictures. I preferred the OCC instead!

The next weekend i went to SASTRA univ for their cultural fest and it went on well. We as a team packed home with 8k in cash. Very poor judging in one other event we lost 6k. Anyways it was good fun. One of the best ever Dumb-C s ever and they had some super cool innovative rounds. After battling hard we beat the teams from NIT, SVCE, Sastra, JIPMER and bagged the first place. We have won more than 25 prizes in dumbc but this was one of the best. My quizzing skills went to an all time low. I sucked!

By the time I reached Chennai Sid’s sister who was bringing the Macbook from the US also arrived and the next two days went on playing around with the Macbook! Thanks a lot to all those who helped me in smuggling the Macbook to India

The next weekend i went to Chennai tweetup. i started using twitter after a long hiatus and now i am loving it. It is killing lot of work time and my productivity is going down!! The tweetup had lot of new faces and it was a welcome change. When ever something like this is organized it usually goes on like a get together for the TKF junta but this time it was different. Some ultimate mokkais did happen in the meet!!

Last working day of college happened and it was really a memorable. Farewell and Thanksgiving happened and hats off to the juniors for pulling it off in a great manner.

The following week we had the intra college cultural fest and we lifted the overall championship. We finally did it!! One of the most joyous moments for my department guys and the day will stay fresh for long. We ran around the campus carrying the huge cup and it was an amazing feel and much to the envy of other department guys! After two days 20 of us went to a restaurant and made the place galeej…. We were almost chucked out but we are dejent guys u see! We moved to another restaurant nearby and repeated step one! Guys also went for a movie and to beach the next day but i missed it.
I have cribbed a lot about my college in the past but definitely i am gonna miss it.

This sunday Me, Gapp, rupya and vicky met for deciding stuff for the How to camp website. The website will be up soon.

…..And finally i completed writing this post after four sundays!!!

I have made a half a million INR turnover this fiscal from blogging, domaining and other stuff. Happy that i hit the target which i set 6 months back. Some tough decisions to be made in the next few months and life is gonna take a new change. I am looking forward …..

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admin February 24th, 2008

Yesterday night was super fun! After long many of us got together and great thanks to Gapp for pulling us all in. Yesterday Webcamp happened and i found a few interesting topics in the wiki and so i though i will go and check it out. It started at 2 o clock but i went there only at 4 o clock and found that very few people had turned up at Rails Factory in Ashok nagar. They should have got a better place. It was also not that interesting and once again the coding part went missing. As usual me and Gapp went out, stood in the lobby and talked about random things.

After having 2 rounds of dried veg puffs we started of to Vittal’s place. We had to go to Mandaveli and all i knew was it was pretty far. After an hour of travelling we finally reached, got the keys from his aunt’ place who thought we were some goondas! To kill the time we both tried playing some sort of ping pong on a square table with a stress ball and it was good!

Then TUD and Syed came in. It has been a long time since we guys hanged out together. I badly miss the Roof Top Film Festival and mainly the Knowledge Foundation meets at Syed’s office! Me and Syed went out to pick some snacks and drinks. Then Mahen joined us.

When we returned back almost every one had arrived. Vittal came along with two of his other friends. Nandu and Gapp went and picked some movies from Tic tac. Initially we had some glitches with the projector but it went on well after some time. The idea of ditching the DVD player and projection on the wall turned out to be awesome.

It was all set…. Movies, Food, Booze and we started off!

The first movie was “Super Bad”
A pretty entertaining movie. Absolutely hilarious! A nice movie to watch with a group of friends.

The next one was Natural born killers By Tarantino. Unfortunately i slept off in the starting parts itself!

TUD has joined NDTV as a Assistant producer and Mahen is getting married in June. Both of them have agreed to give big treats. Congrats guys!

PS: Posting after more than 50 days! I have lost all my blogging skills!!

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