Tai...

Today is 29th Dec and Tai (my grandmother) is in my thoughts as it was this day that she passed away. It has been a long time but some days you do not tend to forget irrespective of the passage of time. Every one called her "Tai" and my grandfather "Dada". The so called best days of life which usually are the childhood days were spent in their presence. My brother and I were lucky to have them live with us during those days. They nurtured a pretty big family I must say with 5 girls and a boy, which I still wonder how they managed to do during those days. I have a very hard time with just one.

But today I want to write about her. She was the go to person for me when both mom and dad were angry at my wrong doing. She would be the protective shield. She liked entertaining people all the time, no matter how big the crowd or how small the place. And for that, one has to be a very good cook which she was. She was also a cleanliness freak and also very detail oriented. She always had answers to our naive questions. She liked paan and ice cream quite a bit. She was always excited to take us out for ice cream once our final results were out. That was kind of a ritual for us. She used to be there with me when going to school, waiting for the school bus and was never afraid to give a piece of her mind to the driver if he was running a little late. She always said what was in her mind. She had a very good dressing sense with special nav-wari sarees for special occasions. She was like every other grandmother in the world, and then some more. That extra special quality that every grandmother has, to make her your grandmom :).

Winter has set in!

Winter has set in! It really seems like a whole season has gone by since I have written anything on my blog. I guess there is always a phase when you just don't feel like writing anything if you are a blogger. Well actually a season has really passed since I blogged last around Dassara. Diwali has come and gone, and along with it the taste of the faral and the sweets that were made during that festival. Our first Diwali, in our home, so it was special in a way. We did put up some lights and celebrated with fire crackers, played teen patti and managed not to lose a lot of money, was involved in organizing a Diwali event for the Utah Marathi Mandal which surprisingly turned out very well for the first time. Then we celebrated our birthdays, threw a party in a very nice banquet room which we managed to get due to one of our friends living there. Someday we plan to throw a party where the kids will get to enjoy more than us, that would have to mean, no alcohol and at a place like bouncing off the walls or the jungle jim's playland. The next day, my cousin and her husband visited us from India. It was really good to have them over for a few days, always feels nice when the house is filled up. We went to Moab for a couple of days as that was the warmest place within our reach. Moab is always fun, the downtown reminds me of Matheran and Mahabaleshwar for some reason, I don't know why.

I got myself the Canon Speedlite 430 EXII external flash as a birthday gift. I first used it during the birthday party and boy was it worth it. The external flash along with its powerful light, and bounce and tilt features make the photographs look so much better, got some really good captures. Then as I had promised my self a few years earlier that I would never go in the early morning to a thanksgiving sale, I somehow landed there at 4 in the morning, this after a party earlier which went pretty late into the night too. After that I have renewed my promise once again with the exception of online shopping. I always think that Cyber Monday and Pink Thursday after the Black Friday is kind of a lame concept. Why don't they make the black friday deals even better so that they don't have to deal with left overs?

Yesterday was a feel good day, why?, just because I watched Sehwag bat for 6 hrs and beat the s**t out of the so called lions. I do not remember seeing a more demoralized team than SL. It was sad that he could not reach 300, but I am pretty sure there are more of these special innings to come. He really does not get the praise and the attention he deserves and finally when Sambit Bal wrote on CricInfo, comparing him to Viv Richards, one of not so ardent fans of Richards commented from across the border saying "This is rubbish, only Hindu mentality can think like this.", to this I would like to say, thank god for the Hindu mentality and thank god for it was SL else you would have already killed the coach and called off the test. For now though, I am eagerly waiting for the team to be the #1 test team after tomorrow's result.

Happy Dasara!!!

Today is Dassara, the 10th auspicious day after the 9 days of Navratri. The day when Ram was victorious in the battle against Ravan and killed Ravan version 10.0. Effigies of Ravan are burnt down against the back drop of Ram Leela in many places. The day is marked with different kinds of festivities starting with an early pooja. Even the cars are worshipped and garlanded. Even we did pooja of both our cars this morning before I headed out to work. This day comes I think exactly 20 days before Diwali.

The 9 days of Navratri are filled with people gathering to play the garba and the dandia raas. Originated mainly in Gujrat, this has become a very popular social event and has spread not only across India but also worldwide. I myself not being a big fan of either of those, we decided to skip the event this year, even though I heard that it was very well organized and attracted a huge crowd. I remember going to this huge Durga pooja at the Shivaji Park and gasping as to how fierce but beautiful the huge idol of Durga looked.

Getting back to Flickr, below is the link to my photo stream:
My Photos on Flickr

Yellowstone Trip

Its been a week since we went to Yellowstone this summer and I am still going through the vast pool of photographs, deciding on which ones to upload. Since I bought my first digital camera, there is an exponential increase in the number of photos I have had to manage. My Picasa account is also almost full and am now considering buying a Flickr Pro account. It costs to create a Pro account but seems like its worth it and has less hassles to worry about space and other issues. Although I prefer Picasa any day ove Flickr due to its simplicity, I am warming up to the idea of switching to Flickr. Have some 500 plus photos to go through for this trip and it has been time consuming. Add to it the processing time of the photos in RAW format. But I like doing it and thats all that matters.

Weekends recently have been also busy with playing a cricket tournament. So there is even less time then. I don't know what the article is supposed to focus on: the awesome yellowstone trip or flickr or our cricket tournament? None the less, we had a great trip to Yellowstone this summer. It was our second time to that place and it was just as good as the first one. Though we did not get to see the same amount of wild life as the last time, it was a good outing with our friends. We saw a 2 hour documentary yesterday on Yellowstone, I think it was called "Yellowstone: Battle for Life" on Discovery and it was nothing like what we have seen there. This was about the survival tactics of the wild life there in winter. I had heard that they were going to keep all the loops open this winter in order to attract more tourists. One thing I would like to do there is camping, may be not in winter though. This time our group consisted of 14 of us. When in such a big group its always fun and cheaper to book a cabin/lodge there and we did just that. Our wooden lodge was in Island Park, Idaho, though a good 20 minutes from the west yellowstone entrance, it was gorgeous and most importantly tremendously spacious with an awesome wrap around deck/patio. As the path to Norris was closed we had to drive a lot on the first day to get to Mammoth and were kind of dissappointed to see just one point in the entire day, but it was fun when we returned to the lodge and grilled some juicy spicy tandoori chicken. And did I mention all the booze that flowed as if it was water. Then a few hours of the game Taboo which was cool with such a big group. Next day we managed to cover some important points on the way and managed to click some good photographs. Then some more food, booze and taboo. The final day started with an ugly hangover but we were in no rush to get back to SLC and slept in.

In the meanwhile I had abandoned this article for a while and have created a Flickr Pro account and have successfully uploaded a bunch of snaps of our trip. Out of those some have gone on Orkut too. I have also been looking out for a long time now for some good photography lessons/classes. But have not managed to find one. The one I found was really basic, like at a 'Dummies' level. Also in the mean while the cricket tournament has ended. We faired a notch better than the previous one but still have a long way to go. Hopefully the next year will be far better than this one. And with the season coming to an end we are trying to get in as much cricket as we can play. Apart from the results though, it was a wonderful experience, and has become some sort of a social event as our wives get to meet each other and gossip as well. Hardly a single sqeuak or a cheer is heard on the field as they gossip away. Alright it looks like its time to go for another of these socio-cricketarian events.

Science of Swing

Here is an interesting picture detailing the swing bowling grips and their effects.

9 years!!! Wow!!!

Today it will be 9 years since the first time I left India to come to the US. Yes 9 long and eventful years. It is unbelievable how fast time flies by. Almost a decade gone by in a flash, it seems like. It seems like only a few days back that I had decided that the job which I was working in India was far too boring and that I wanted to study more and had decided to give my GRE exam. After some time it was time to say good bye to the family. There were parties being held before the departure with some enthusiastic relatives handing me flower bouquets at the party as well as the airport. I had flown just once before this and the excitement of flying was there initially. Then set in the fact that I was going to be away from the family for the very first time in 23 years and that too at such a distance that only digital communication would be the way to get in touch with them every now and then. After saying the goodbyes we went to check in fearing that the nice things that mom had prepared would be confiscated. Yes I had my future college roommate accompanying me during our Swiss Air flight. I remember meeting a sardarji sitting next to me and ranting about how he did not get a last minute flight with British Airways as they are the best in takeoff and landing. He literally gestured with his hands to show how the BA flight lands differently than all the other flights in the world. I thought that was funny at first but then it got irritating. During takeoff my roommate’s eyes were as wide as an owl staring at a flashlight.

After the long flight and some desperate measures to prevent our luggage from being stolen at Zurich airport, we landed in Atlanta and then took a flight to Kansas city. There was a person waiting for us who looked a little like Kurt Cobain. He was generous enough to drop us at our residential on-campus place. There we were pleased to see a swarm of Indian students ready to greet us. One of my very good friends now, this guy cooked for us rajma/chaval. I'll be meeting him after a few years now when he comes to visit me during the Labor Day weekend this year.

There are some of the small things you tend to remember distinctly and some not so small things you tend to forget. Some first encounters with people in your life now are strikingly eventful, some are not. So after this initial phase of trying to find an apartment we finally moved into a nice polished one and were 6 of us. The 3 years thereafter were filled with some amazing memories to cherish forever. The doctor, the pretender, the ballerina, the boxer and the baby [since he was the youngest] were some really great guys that I had roommates during this time in Kansas City. The journey so far has been interesting with some achievements turning into fulfilled dreams, some not. We'll see how it goes ;).

M.J.

Can't believe MJ's gone. I was in a flight to Atlanta when I saw it on CNN. As they were flashing this breaking news story it was one of those moments where you want to rub your eyes to see what you are seeing is really happening. As the news sunk in one starts to wonder the frailty of life. The king of pop as they call it was no more. Thriller was my first compact disc growing up and it was awesome. It was worth every rupee as CDs were expensive and tapes were the way of life then. I do not remember the number of times I tried to immitate the moon-walk without success or throw the hat in the air trying to land it on the head and forget about standing on the toes. His entry on the stage where he shoots up from below the stage was simply mindblowing. SRK tried that in DTPH but looked stupid. Even now, listening to Billy Jean at full blast gives a different kind of high. RIP MJ.

Trip to Moab

The last few weeks have been crazy. I finally see some sanity returning and now do have some time to blog, finally. I am still reeling from the hangover of our trip to Moab, in a good way though. It was an amazing trip, finally some good weather, the road trip and then the breathtaking views of the saffron colored decor at the Arches National Park and the Canyonlands. The delicate arch picture on the utah vehicle license plate does not do justice of any sort unless you take the time and hike there to visit it. Natural formations at their best. Will post some pics soon. Here is one from Dead Horse Point.

Voting with the Middle Finger!!!

Really, that’s what everyone was showing after they voted. Well they were not flipping the bird but were actually showing that they voted. The EC in India has now decided to blot the ink on the middle finger. The last time I voted and that too the one and only time it was the index finger that was marked. Guess the election commission also has some sense of humor. Newspapers next day flashed photos of celebrities proudly showing their middle finger anointed with the royal blue ink. Some of the snaps were hilarious.

Voting or the ability to vote is one of the cherished aspects of any country's constitution, or should I say any country that exercises democracy. It is a proof of support you show towards a certain commotion, candidate, political party, etc. I personally love to vote but being in the US does not allow me to do that. I feel that the EC should start some sort of web voting for NRIs or people away at the time of the general elections. I was saddened to see that overall voting in Mumbai was counted at only 47%. That means more than half of the people of the most populated city in India do not care of the results that the elections may churn out. That’s really sad.

Someone asked me was it the fear of the swine flu I mean H1N1 flu (sorry not allowed to say swine flu anymore)? Really? I don't think so. People have summoned up courage to go to crowded places when more dangerous acts have been witnessed by the city. I am not sure what it will take other than bollywood actors asking people to vote on television, for the people to actually go out and exercise their fundamental right.

P.S. Talking of the H1N1 flu, that huge 40oz bottle of GermX lying on my office desk does not look so crazy now :) does it?

The JAG Jello Shot and the Jagerbomb .

Last summer the theme of our alcoholic consumption was mango, mojito & martini. This summer its gonna be jello shots since there is plenty of room to experiment!!! And what better way to start with the hard hitting Jagermeister.

Jagermeister makes the jello shot really strong and goes well with strawberry jello. Mix the jello with 1 unit hot water, then after the jello has dissolved completely add 1/2 unit cold water and 1/2 unit Jag.

If you are a fan of the Red Bull, then try the Jagerbomb by dropping a shot of Jag in a glass of Red Bull.

Tulip Fest 2009

Recently we went to the Tulip festival at Thanksgiving gardens. We had to postpone our trip by a week as the bloomomoeter was only at 15% which means due to the recent snow the tulips were not in full bloom. When we went there a couple of days ago it really seemed like a good decision to postpone the trip. Below are few of the hundreds of shots that I was able to shoot.

The Easter Eggu Bau Hunt!!!

I dragged myself for an Easter Egg Hunt [Eggu Bau == Egg for Aarav] last Sunday, yes on a precious Sunday with Radhika and Aarav to one of our friend's backyard. Egg and Hunt somehow don't sound right to me juxtaposed. The Egg in Easter symbolizes birth or rebirth in most of the current and the past civilizations. Hence used to decorate. In the end it turned out pretty good mainly because of the awesome weather and the kids had a good time. There were some really animated sugar high toddlers running around the yard creating plenty of mess to clean up for later. Sundays do sound so precious nowadays, just feel like doing nothing, staying at home kind of a day.I don't know if its global warming or the earth just needing more precipitation, but can you believe that its still snowing heavily in April. Good for the ski resorts I guess. But not so much for us, who are waiting to burn our tires to long road trips in the summer, so much to see, so much to do, places to go, people to meet, and enjoy the summer in spite of the blistering heat... wow that had a rhyme to it. Last year the summer was a blast! 1 SUV, 2 Camping Trips, 3 Months of rollicking fun, 4 National Parks, 5 Lakes, 6 Families for the get together, simply priceless!!! Hope this summer is as good as the last if not better.

Painting with Light.

Light painting is one of the interesting subjects in photography. There is virtually no limit to what you can achieve with this technique. Remember the famous Sprint ad with people playing around in the park with lighted props? It does not consist of just illuminating your subject but goes beyond that. From just enhancing your composition to giving it a more creative look, various results can be achieved. And with the new Xsi, this was just the thing that I decided to try out.

All we need is a camera which is capable of taking shots using really long exposures, a tripod, a dark room and a flash light or a led torch. The sharper the focus of the flash light/torch, the more precise the results can be. The longer the exposure mode, the more you can get done on the shot. So here is what I did. Switched off the lights, set the exposure mode to 32, and clicked. Once the shutter is open, illuminate or paint the objects. I decided to use liquor bottles as they were a far better subject that anything opaque. The tip here is to not keep the flash light at one location for too long or the picture is burned. Hence plan ahead and keep on moving. Once the shutter closes, the shot is done and the lights can be switched on. I just had a single flash light here but if you have colored gel rings, then you can achieve a more colorful effect by changing the color of the flashlight intermittently. Below are few of the shots taken using this technique.

The Amazing Charlie Chaplin.

"I love walking in the rain because, nobody can see me crying."
- Charlie Chaplin

Such immortal words, what a fabulous artist, a great comedian who brought smiles to the faces of millions, but was sad and depressed from inside. Sometimes I wonder, are all clowns that way? Making people laugh is not easy, it requires an enormous amount of talent and spontaneity. Nowadays its all about funny dialogue delivery but this guy did not have those tools at that time. Or may be he did but he did not choose to use them; who knows. His movies were silent and his body language and expressions were all that he needed to make people laugh. I think that is a really special trait.

Did you know that there is a whole planet named after Charlie Chaplin? Such was the impact he had during the WWI and the great depression. His "The Kid" is one of my favorite movies. As a kid I used to watch almost all his shows on Doordarshan, yes as we call it DD1 or DD2. As I was going through and organizing my DVD collection I came across a movie of his, so I decided to watch if for a while and it was same as if I was watching it 20 years ago, simply timeless.

Happy Gudi Padwa!!!

Wish you all a very Happy Gudi Padwa!!! A prosperous and a fun filled rest of the year.

The Indian Cow: Hope you don't forget your english after reading this!

This is a true essay written by a Bihari candidate at the UPSC(IAS)Examinations.
The candidate has written an essay on the Indian cow:

Indian Cow

HE IS THE COW. "The cow is a successful animal. Also he is 4 footed, And because he is female, he give milks, [ but will do so when he is got child.] He is same like-God, sacred to Hindus and useful to man. But he has got four legs together. Two are forward and two are afterwards. His whole body can be utilised for use.More so the milk. Milk comes from 4 taps attached to his basement. [ horses dont have any such attachment

What can it do? Various ghee, butter, cream, curd, why and the condensed milk and so forth.Also he is useful to cobbler, watermans and mankind generally. His motion is slow only because he is of lazy species., Also his other motion.. gober] is much useful to trees, plants as well as for making flat cakes[like Pizza ] , in hand , and drying in the sun. Cow is the only animal that extricates his feeding after eating. Then afterwards she chew with his teeth whom are situated in the inside of the mouth.

He is incessantly in the meadows in the grass. His only attacking and defending organ is the horns, specially so when he is got child. This is done by knowing his head whereby he causes the weapons to be paralleled to the ground of the earth and instantly proceed with great velocity forwards.He has got tails also, situated in the backyard, but not like similar animals. It has hairs on the other end of the other side. This is done to frighten away the flies which alight on his cohesive body hereupon he gives hit with it.The palms of his feet are soft unto the touch So the grasses head is not crushed. At night time have poses by
looking down on the ground and he shouts . His eyes and nose are like his other relatives. This is the cow.......

The Sobel Operator

Sir, we could use the Sobel operator to accomplish that! And then there was silence in the room. One of the great scientists was at risk of losing his credibility by admitting that he had never heard of the Sobel operator and hence he nodded somewhat sheepishly in agreement. I wouldn't be surprised a bit, if he had rushed to the library as soon as we left the room a few minutes later to find out what I had uttered a few minutes ago was indeed the right solution. This person was our so called senior supervisor during our final year engineering project on imaging. I recently ran into the Sobel operator not too long back while post processing some of the snaps in GIMP, and that's when I remembered this incident. I am pretty sure, the supervisor had some sleepless nights after that.

Just to give you guys a brief insight into the Sobel operator here, it is a matrix that can detect edges while processing a 2D image. I wish we had more time on our hands doing the project as the scope of pre and post image processing is really vast. Imaging is a very interesting field and even though I am currently no where near that stream, it was one of the first things of interest while leaping in to the professional world of software engineering.

Happy Holi!!!

Today is Holi, the festival of colors, like the festival of lights it has its own importance. It is celebrated for 4-5 days and ends on Rang Panchami. The uniqueness of the occasion yet does not undermine the purpose of the victory of good over evil. It is celebrated as the day when an evil father Hiranyakashyup tried to kill his son Prahlad by asking him to sit on a pyre of Holika Devi, but on praying to Lord Vishnu, he survives and Holika herself burns in it. It is celebrated everywhere in India by lighting a pyre and praying that the fire consumes your sins and makes you a better person. Then a pooja is done and prasad is distributed among the people who attend the pooja.

For us, as kids, the next day was more fun though. It was time to get drenched, spray your friends with all the different colors and throw balloons filled with water and color at unsuspecting pedestrians. Oh, those were the good days when for a day you were not scolded for spilling/hitting something/someone intentionally. After the 4-5 hours of playing with the colors and water, everyone looked the same, face colored with shades of colors you had never seen, clothes drenched and teeth white as if we had just paid a visit to the dentist. Then there was oil paint. I really used to like the shiny painted faces that the paint created but once someone painted my younger brother's face with an oil paint and we had a pretty tough time getting it off. That was really nasty. It’s been almost 10 years since I have played Holi and would like to plan a trip to India once just for this. Let’s see... Wish you all a very Happy Holi!!!

What can I say? Jai Ho!!!

I think Slumdog is the first Oscar winner that I have seen before it got an Oscar for the best picture. Usually it is the other way round where some not so interesting movie will win an Oscar and then I may or may not see it. But due to the movie's word of mouth publicity, we came to know of it much earlier. What can I say? They did rock the Oscars big time!!! 8 Oscars, wow, I would say not too far from Titanic and Ben-Hur ;). Watching the presence of the movie grow in Hollywood from a mere contender to an inevitable juggernaut was fantastic. Also the whole team on the red carpet seemed to have a great time including the kids.

Well there has been a lot of talk on this movie from mis-understood comments from Big B to it not being an Indian movie. I guess the media doesn't have much to say/write about in this economic downturn. Agreed that as much as I love Mumbai and its high profile presence, no body wants to see your favorite city to be shown in bad light. My first reaction to the movie was, why did they have to show the slums. But then, what would the movie be without that. Would an already established millionaire coming on the "Who wants to be a Millionaire" show say that hey, I am here to earn a few extra bucks? I like the movie; I like movies which give you a good feeling after you have watched them, the last time I had this feeling was on seeing "Jo Jeeta Woh Sikandar". It gives you a different kind of a high.

The songs of the movie are catchy but not one of the best scores by AR Rahman. But that should not take away anything from this guy and what he has achieved. Congratulations to him. How much does the success of SM affect Bollywood, we'll have to wait and see.

The ALL-Nighter!

Ah the nostalgia of going through an all-nighter has hit me as I sit in front of the computer working on some client related issues. In short, the client is to be shown a demo of the site first thing tomorrow morning and it is having last minute issues. As I dig deeper, I ponder over the prospect of an exciting all-nighter. There is hardly an engineering student in this universe who has not enjoyed the deafening silence of the night trying to get his or her assignment turned in or preparing for the next morning's board exam.

As boring as it sounds, trust me, we actually used to look forward to these nights during school and college days. Although some nights were simply work-horse-like others used to be fun. The venue used to be different, the music changed over the years, the tasks used to vary but some things that we always did were drink lots of tea from the chaiwala or at home and eat lots and lots of maggi with an extraneous medley of eggs; yummm!!! There was a friend of mine who loved our company so much that he just used to come there and sleep it out like a baby. Others were easily distracted by the then new MTV and channel V music channels. As dawn neared the frequency of the breaks used to go up.

Ok looks like it was a false alarm and everything seems to be in order now after some intervention from yours truly. Tomorrow is president's day well actually today since it's well past midnight, so a Happy President's day to all of you!!! Whatever that means, I have to work though :(.

Orkut... Chirkut... Mirkut!!!

“Are you still not on Orkut?” !!! What a funny name, the first time I heard it I was almost ROTFL [rolling on the floor laughing… that’s for those who are ignorant to the IMs and the Texting world]. Sounds like a hybrid between a coconut and Orko, the character from the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe franchise, btw one of my favorite tv cartoons growing up. So, the previous question was thrown at me by a lot of friends and I had to eventually jump in the pool of social networking rather unwillingly at first. Then came facebook and a plethora of other sites but there is still one thing that distinguishes Orkut over all the networking sites is its simplicity of use. l had never imagined that l would be able to stay in touch with my school buddies whom l hadn't seen in almost 17 years. I still haven't seen them but l do interact with them and that is immensely satisfying.

Before Orkut the only way of keeping in touch with friends was through IMs like yahoo and msn messengers, some times email and rarely phone calls. Agreed that other sites like Facebook and Myspace have a wider appeal here in the US but Orkut helps me keep in touch with friends and family back in India too. The earlier versions sure left a lot to be desired but now the site seems to me much more mature and stable. With close to 2,000 apps the number is set to balloon to 20,000 by the end of this year. Choices are good but a lot of choices just confuses the user. How the hell are you going to browse through so many categories of apps and find the right one that you need? Teen Patti has been my favorite app out of the few that I have managed to look at. I personally think that Orkut was better off without the Facebook style status messages. Does anyone care if you just got 2 hours of sleep and you want all your friends to know? Or does it matter that you are now going from one grocery store to the other? Anyway, just a personal opinion, some people just like to let others know how bad of a day they are having or how the 3 day old biryani has made their stomachs worse.

The security of the site still remains an issue as well as the legality of age etc. Even my ten year old cousin has a profile on Orkut. But it still has some features where you can restrict access to your scraps or photo/videos. Being a networking and a “personals” site as decided by our search engines and web crawlers, this site is blocked at work and for a good reason, sometime its really addictive. Just to guage the popularity of this website in other countries, primarily being Brazil, take a look at some of the stats below as gathered from their website.



So let me know some of the other good and bad things about this social networking, down time stress reliever, site with the funny name, that come to your mind.

Looking for Whitepapers?

If you are in an IT research field or are a Business Professional looking for technical info or a white paper, this is a very good site to find one.

Find Whitepapers.

Aai's Rangolis

Below are some of Aai's rangolis. Thanks for sharing Ashvin.

The Super Bowl - What's so Super about it?

President Obama was right on the mark - The Pittsburg Steelers edged out the Arizona Cardinals in a last minute touchdown to win the Vince Lombardi trophy, the Super Bowl, the most coveted and the most prestigious trophy in NFL. In any finals of any sporting event, I have the tendency to support the underdog and so I was rooting for the Cardinals. They did put up a good fight but in the end they fell a little short. Plus the Steelers had already won the trophy five times and this was their sixth which is an all time record for Super Bowl wins. Ah well! its not like I have some money invested in a team like SRK does. Neither was I a die hard fan of any of the teams contesting. After we moved from Kansas City where we actually had a local NFL team to support, the Chiefs!!!, no matter how bad they played, Salt Lake City does not have a NFL team nor does any city in Utah. The folks here are satisfied with the excitement they get over the clashing of two of the local college football teams. These are people who find happiness in small things... just kidding ;).

The Super Bowl dates back to 1967 and is a game between the top teams in each of the 2 leagues in the American Football namely the NFC and the AFC which are the National and the American Football Conferences respectively. So, even if it is not as old as some worldwide sports like cricket or soccer, it is one of the greatest events in the American sports calendar. The highest sale of potato chips, sodas, buffalo chicken wings and pizza happens on this very day. Oh and beer too. There are numerous super bowl parties that we usually get invited too. This year we decided to stay home and watch since Aarav was not feeling too well. I have had numerous discussions with people here and some back in India as to how and why they call it a football game as neither the foot is used as its supposed to nor do we have a round ball. I will not go into that discussion again. I still prefer to call soccer as football which I feel is the true foot-ball. Same goes with the baseball world series... people!!! Soccer can have a World Series but not baseball. More than 140 countries play soccer, where as professional baseball, a handful. The halftime show has higher ratings now than any other normal music show after the Janet Jackson episode. Hence the conference fearing any such unusual event, have reverted back to bringing old rock stars and such who are in their 60s now. This year though, Bruce Springsteen did put up a good show. The other attraction is the good quality of super bowl ads. This year it was expected that the number of ads would be less due to the economic downturn but guess what; ads worth 206 million dollars were aired yesterday. Do you know that like super bowl parties there are super bowl ad parties too!!! They mute the volume during the game and un-mute during the ads... what a bunch of bozos!!!

So the purpose of this musing was not to rant about how strange some of the sports traditions the US has, but to appreciate its sports culture and certain traditions that can be found only here. I can never imagine myself playing American football though as the thought of I being tackled by a 300 pounder sends chills up my spine.
NFL link.

Chandni Chowk 2 China = Animated Movie 2 Crap!!!

CC2C reminded me as to how unoriginal has bollywood become in terms of the storyline. This movie is the height of "being inspired" by a hollywood storyline while adding our own masala to stretch the film to a 3 hr play time. Are you kidding me??? A bollywood remake from an animated Hollywood movie - the Kung Fu Panda that too the animated movie in this case being far better. What the hell was the story writer thinking. Its true that the writers from bollywood suck at coming up with a truly original story and hence the original screenplay and story category should be removed from our award nominations altogether. Once in a while you get to see some good movies like "A Wednesday" last year, but 90% of what bollywood churns out each year is crap. I wish we had some quality over quantity here. Please save some money, peace of mind, bandwidth, whatever.... and skip this movie for good.

The Old Monk Effect

Whats with the title you may ask - nothing it just sounds so cool with a lot of awesomeness (sorry the awesomeness was from Kungfu Panda that I watched a few weeks ago). Recently my brother got me a bottle of Old Monk, actually 2, from Atlanta. I live in Utah so I hope you understand the irony there. At the same time it brought back memories of college days where the old monk rum was one of our favorites. Sure now we have moved on to the Bacardis and the Captain Morgans but Old Monk still has a special place. We had it at new years with Thums Up which is its preferred natural mixer. I was surprised in the first place that he could find it here in the US. Below are a few other cocktails that I have tried out with Old Monk:


Old Monk Martini:
This sure tasted better than the vodka martini that I usually make.

Old Monk Mojito
I used a regular mojito mix to make this. All I can say is - DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!

Old Monk Black Margarita
Sure the color of the margarita was far from the conventional, but this was awesome.

Old Monk Fresh Lime Soda
A dash of the rum on the plain fresh lime soda turned out to be a refreshing drink just like its non-alcoholic counterpart.

Old Monk LIIT
This is your regular long island with old monk instead of any other rum. More sweeter than the regular long island.

The Big B Blog

Anyone interested in reading Amitabh Bacchan's Blog? Here it is:

http://bigb.bigadda.com/

Happy Makar Sankrant

Makar Sankrant is one of the most auspicious day for Hindus. Hence the Sun is worshipped on this day at sunrise with a chant of the Gayatri Mantra which is directed to the Sun God. On Makar Sankranti day the Sun begins its ascendancy and journey into the Northern Hemisphere, and thus it signifies an event wherein the Gods seem to remind their children that 'Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya'. May you go higher & higher - to more & more Light and never to darkness. When I was a kid I used to wonder as to how the date remains the same every year for this hindu festival unlike the others - the reason is that the hindu festivals follow the calendar based on lunar positions but this is a solar event and hence the date remains the same [January 14th]. Due to this ascendancy into the northern hemisphere, the day starts to get longer and hence the winter season is on the decline from then on. This day is celebrated back in India by flying kites and making and eating Til-Gul ladoos. Ok that reminds me I need to get some sesame seeds and jaggery on my way home. Have a happy Makar Sankrant.

A FUN Photography Assignment.

Here is a fun photo assignment from Wizwow, for all those who want to add a little creativity to their photography skills. I'll post my photographs when I get a chance to complete it.

1. An image of one thing, that says only one thing about it.
2. A person who represents what you wanted to be when you were 6.
3. A kid who loves you... and I gotta see the love.
4. The thing that makes your mom your mom (or dad, or sister)? Shoot it.
5. You know your favorite song? The one you always turn the radio up on? Shoot a photograph to go on the cover of that album. I don't care if I get it... do you?
6. A bridge. From one place to another. One soul to another. One child to another. A bridge.
7. Your most hated food (for me - liver and onions) but make it look so good you are even tempted. You can have people in the shot, but not more than 12.
8. Show me a sports game in a landscape. No athletes, just the game. No sports field, just the game. No balls, no hockey sticks, no buckets of ice. Just the game as a landscape.
9. Happiness.
10. Any musical instrument, with people or not. Here's the deal though, we should feel something when seeing it, not just 'see' it.
11. Cute kitten... nawww... just kidding. Make it a place that seems abandoned, or lonely... if a place can be lonely make me feel it.
12. The one photograph you would want to sum up your photographic career today. You have been invited to show at the most prestigious show in NY and you can show only one picture. Show me that picture.

CLR Programming

I want to keep this blog as generic as possible and hence the name "Literally No Reservations". Hey, a lot of people will tell you that your blog should focus on a particular topic, but I beleive that should not be the case. So adding to the variety of topics, here is my first technical blog. The topic deals with one of the aspects of my day to day work.

Over the span of my IT experience I have used many different programming languages ranging from Pascal to C# and every step has been a progress towards opening a new door to the possibilities of effective programming. I recently started working with CLR (Common Language Runtime) integration in SQL Server 2005. At first I was skeptical about the design and the purpose of this process, but as complexity increased I could see the benefits. Usually we are only used to programming the database layer using T-SQL and the application layer using .NET. But embedding the .NET code in the SQL Sever does give us a lot of flexibility. e.g. with T-SQL it is cumbersome to do heavy computing and procedural tasks as well as cross server data extraction and manipulation. But working with the extracted data and performing a variety of transformations and computations on the data using a .Net compliant language like C# makes it a lot easier. Recently I have been dealing with a lot of scenarios where I have to deal with cross server databases as the architecture has been widely dispersed, and using CLR to do the work is a great help.

Well there are some restrictions to this process though. e.g. it is not a good idea to use this when the amount of data being worked on is really big. This would really slow down the application. Debugging is also a crucial factor in deciding to use this path, as debugging can be troublesome, like with debugging and re-deploying any other assembly. But overall, for me as a solution developer, the pros out-weigh the cons. I would rather prefer writing a well maintained code than trying to gain a few nano-seconds over the performance of the code.

Below are some of the books that would be a good read on this topic:

• CLR via C#, Second Edition. Author : Jeffrey Richter (Wintellect)
  

• Professional SQL Server 2005 CLR Programming: with Stored Procedures, Functions, Triggers, Aggregates and Types. Author : Derek Comingore, Douglas Hinson