It happens NOT only in India...

... this should be something new ahem!
Well, before coming to this mightily capitalist country, I had notions about it which kind of made me to assume a few things.
One of the things I assumed was that it's only in India and its sub-continent countries where people shun off their daily routine and business to watch an exciting game of Cricket.

I had a a hard labor job to offer today for un/loading of certain furniture items into a truck and then carrying them to my apartment.
It turned out that I had the feeling of what I can probably term 'negative Deja Vu'. At least a couple of guys I had a tryst with for this job either rejected or deferred the job after the Patriot's match of Football was through.
Indeed it happens NOT only in India!

On second thoughts, with such passion for the game, wonder if I should have fancied my chances to bet with them about the game results to do my job at a discounted rate, or even free! Probably next time...

Amazing Amazon

Recently happened to order this handset from Amazon for the home phone. When it arrived, found that the RJ14 cord is hard-wired into the handset, that is it cannot be detached from the handset. It also meant that I couldn't use my own wire which was plugged into a wall port, about 10 feet away.

What next? I just used the Amazon return/replace feature, chose the reason as 'Description incorrect on website', and was waiting for the next page to provide me details about the logistics to return the item (they usually pick it up for free, for Amazon Prime customers).

But, I was in for surprise! :D
The next page  gave me message about the refund being processed, and mentioned to my delight that there was no need to return the item!
Probably, it was an intelligent analytics engine that kicked in, found that the total cost of returning the item and the priceless customer's agony to the whole process for a reason which was reportedly their own mistake, was a lot more than the original cost of the merchandise itself - ~$9.

Isn't that amazing? No wonder Amazon continues to amaze and grow, even after scaling great heights already. The customer and his/her time is not taken for granted, PERIOD!

One for the road...

Composed this before my US move, in remembrance of the good times I had with my Indian team mates.

It is time to go a little far away,
To the land of MacDonalds and Subway,

I am sure going miss all the fun,
Most of which were PJs and making pun.

Be it the XITE events or a quick moment of gag,
Always made sure everyone had their tail wag!

Life in the team has been always in the fast lane,
But towards the end it has turned out to be sweet pain!

Not to forget the technical discussions,
Which bettered us at our professions.

I wish you all the very best ahead,
For achieving more than just butter and bread!

Developers - They know 'everything'!

Sure to give you a hearty laugh. This is something that we see so very often in IT service shops!

The hand that rocked the cradle...

... Now rocks the droid on Nexus 7.
Yes, my dear mother whom I got the Nexus 7 tab from my maiden US trip last year now rocks with her gadget.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how she can search and download games and spiritual stuff from the Google play store. And she does it without any help. It was just a few days back that I showed her how to use the Android marketplace, and now she's completely hooked on :) I see her play angry birds and racing games with ease.

Take a bow dear mother for being so smart even at this age, and of course cradling us into being smart fellas too!

And of course, thank you Google... This is a testimony to your simplistic yet powerful user experience!

It's uphill now....

... The same day 'she' hit the jackpot, 'her' master too hit a milestone.
Hitting 9 years of professional life, it has been one cherishing journey so far.

However, it's now that the actual uphill will start.... the expectations will now rise from both sides - the employer as well as the employee. It is gonna be fun as well as challenging going ahead...

Looking forward to more milestones in multiples of 9!

'She' hit jackpot today...

... No, am not talking about my wife. She has already hit a jackpot with me - at least that is what I believe :)

This is the Maruti Suzuki WagonR that I drive. The 6.5 years old baby clocked 77777 kms today.

Along the way it has done innumerable Pune-Mumbai-Pune trips, a few trips to Goa, Mahableshwar, Diveagar, Shirdi and a trip to Aurangabad. 

What remains on 'her' and my wishlist is an interstate trip to coastal Karnataka and another one to Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. 

Being so highly reliable all the way without any major breakdown enroutes, she has been as dependable as ever.
She does show signs of aging with rattles on bad roads but it still has a punch in the belly when revved in the 'sweet' zone...

2 interesting events in its history, can be recollected now, which I have already blogged here and here.

Looking forward to 100K kms after which probably it would be thought of as a spare car. That milestone would be one childhood dream come true for me :)

Running pride

Been over a month now since I got back to my early morning jog.
It was tough to revive because of the chilly winter mornings here in Pune. But am on the track now for almost 4 days in a week easily. And I am already eating the fruits of the efforts.
Here are some motivations I have to get out of the laziness shell each morning....
1. Gives me an immense sense of pride because am the only one I see running around in the early morning chill. Do you need a better reason than pride ever?

2. When I started, it was hard to jog even 200m before running out of steam. And now I can jog almost 1.2 kms before I run out of steam for a while, and again jog a little. And certainly I don't want to 'reset to factory settings' ... If you get what I mean!

3. I have started making some new acquaintances around ... From an overweight sardar in his 40s walking with a music player in his hand to a humble security guard from a nearby apartment with whom I share pleasantries. It feels nice to connect to strangers... Probably goes well with the loquacious me :)

4. The last couple of weeks at work have been awesome... Having a big share of the problem solving pie, with some simple yet thoughtful ideas has definitely showed me that I can think better and come up with fresh ideas with the early morning pumping up of the blood vessels :)

And lastly I have gotten 'My tracks' on my droid which records and gives me some stats of my run. So it tells and pushes me to do better each day.

Anyone wanting some free counselling on getting hooked on to this wonderful, smart, effective and yet free fitness routine, feel free to drop a note. I will be happy to help.

Dream Destination for 'Belly' Lovers

My curiosity for aviation reached a higher level when on my recent first trip to US, I was luckily on board a British Airways Boeing 747-400 Jumbo Jet.

Photo Courtesy -  www.airplane-pictures.net/

At first glance from the gate where I was about to board, I thought it was just another aircraft and seemed bigger just because I was so close. Once inside, looking at the stairs to the upper deck, I realized what seemed big was actually THE ROYALLY MIGHTY one. Having seated, I had to turn my neck a whole 120 degrees to get a complete view of the humongous wing span.

The Jumbo Jet is one of the fastest commercial carrier and is known for its long haul and large passenger carrying capacity.

Ok, now coming to the actual topic of this post... well, a video is worth 100 thousand words, and I will let this St. Maarten Caribbean Airport's video tell you where I want to head sometime in my life to have a dekko of the 'bellies'.

It could be either the bellies in the air, or the ones on the shore that could make the trip a real exciting one!
:-)

There are issues to fix...

How can I sleep when there are issues to fix,
User mistakes and code issues, they come in a mix.

Not sure if these issues should ever end,
Coz it's never perfect till all of them are mend.

For now it looks like done,
As I am left with just one.

Tomorrow might not be as busy,
But then life should not be too easy.

What I have done, seems to be the best thing,
The proof of which will be only in the pudding!

How can I sleep when there are issues to fix...