Two quick weeks!!

Past fortnight has gone real quick.

My new born niece is back to Bangalore. So, time at home is spent playing with her; trying to get her to flaunt that wide smile :). Its so fun playing with babies!

Meanwhile, my cousin left for dance performances in North Karnataka. I went to send her off. She is the only one in our family who is kind of majorly into art. She is trained in Bharatanatyam and rather impressively travels around the country with her group giving performances. She is quite boastful of her dance teacher who has made this happen ;)

A friend of mine got married last week. Myself, P, J & wife and N gathered at the wedding. I couldn't but retrospect while we dispersed from the wedding hall; each in his own car. Back a couple of years, we stayed in rooms sharing small space & traveled in BMTC buses. We would think twice about spending on auto. & now, we hop onto car & drive out, plan dinners at some expensive places!! Life has indeed come a long way!!

& then the work!!

The two weeks have been really occupying! Exploring, replanning and kicking off the first phase of a new project that would run for the next three quarters. The two weeks made me run through the implementations of WebDAV and kernel level drivers (file system drivers and filter drivers) on Windows. We have been planning to present a cloud drive as if a local drive on Windows machines & these two approaches seemed the best fit. Alas! now I understand why mounted drives on Windows give us so much trouble!! I understand the system freezes & BSODs that we experience!!

I have also been busy ramping up a new recruit to productivity; I must say he looks promising!

& then the challenge of re-ramping a collegue who has been assigned to work with me! Take my word for it!! He has proved to be more than a challenge. All those lessons I had in my academics on "Organizational Behaviour" are now making sense!! Also, are those bullet proof management techniques I learnt at my previous employer!! It looks like I am going to master people management if I succeed in this assigment!!

I have been busy reading through "Windows Programming", "Apache framework" & "Stay hungry, Stay Foolish". There are so many wonderful things to know!

Google, the omnipresent?!!

Got this in my rss inbox today!!
Google has made inroads into so many facets in our daily life, it's no wonder if this becomes a reality too!!! Don't you think? ;)

BNG->DLH->AMSAR->KLK->SML->SAR PASS->DELHI->AGRA->BNG

Bangalore -> Delhi (flight)
Delhi -> Amritsar (Wagah border) (train)
Amritsar -> Ambala (train)
Ambala -> Chandigarh (bus)
Chandigarh -> Kalka (bus)
Kalka -> Shimla (Mountain train!! :)
Shimla -> Kasol (bus)
Kasol -> Sar Pass -> Kasol [walk/hike/trek.. snow!!]
Kasol-> Shimla (bus)
Shimla -> Delhi (train)
Delhi -> Agra (train)
Agra -> Bangalore (train?)

Wonder what it is?!!
We (myself, V Squared & R) finally concluded the itinerary for our travel to the Himalayas in May. The lure of Punjab pulled us in & we decided to have a peek into Amritsar before we step into Himalayas; What a combination don't you think? - into the heat before getting into the cold!! :)

I guess we tried just in time. We just about managed to get our bookings done for all the train routes except for the return back from Delhi for which the reservation window is to open yet!! Not able to catch tickets for the Shivalik from Kalka to Shimla was a bit unfortunate though!

So, the trek booked & the travel plans booked too!!!
Only disappointing thing is the wait till May :(