IBM Outing

Had mentioned in one of previous posts that we were planning for an AHM (All Hands Meet). We had it in Manipal County on 24th Nov 2005.

We initially planned to go by bikes but as it was raining I changed my mind to take my sister's car. I was around 10 KM drive from Silk Board Juntion on Hosur Rd.
As it was a Friday there was considerable amount of Traffic on that rd (As usual)

The whole day was divided into many things.. Too many team building games were planned. Pallavika, Lavanya and myself conducted many games after lunch..

Some snaps are here ...


Ganesha @ Entrace welcoming us.


Whole Group Photo ---> Can you locate me ??



Introducing each other --> There was a game to memorise all others name


Some Games Games were played in teams of 4... They were called Panthers, Cheetahs, Leopards, Jaguars .. I was in the team of Panthers .. Grrrrr


Have you ever played Indoor Lagori .. See here we have played

Hurreyyy now I own a "Car"

Another update from myside is I bought a car ..
It was very tough to select a model, color etc.. for the whole month of Nov.. Everything came to an End when my cousin Kishore bought a Santro Xing.. He had come to our place to show the car. After I drove it, I had almost decided that I sould go for it.. I was amazing to drive. He had bought Real Earth Color.. I went and booked the same model in 2 days.. Sowmya was interested too much in Scarlet red color. I had a concern that maintanance of the color would be tough. But atlast I had to go by he words.. (No wonder huh! )

But no regrets ... Its too good color and car is really good... Take a look at it ..

Srirangapattana - Tula Snana Trip

Another trip which Sowmya, Amma (mother) and I went was to Srirangapattana , Pashchima Vahini ..

This one was a kind of piligrim trip.. According to Solar Calendar a month Starting from Oct 15th to Nov 15th (approx) is called Tula Masa (A month called Tula).
In this month taking bath in Rivers is considered to be auspicious.

It all was unplanned. Actually when we got an invitation from Sri Na. Krishnappa, an eminent RSS Pracharak for this event. Sri Na. Krishnappa's elder brother condcuts an event every year for newly wed couples. So we planned to go and take mom also ..

I had taken Jukka's car and drove myself. It's around 120 KM from Bangalore.. It was great drive.. I had never driven car such a long distance in India.. ( I have driven in US )

Here are some snaps..

Mom and Sow


Pooja


The Venue


Ganga Pooja by all women

Kodai Trip

So Many trips have not been blogged... I will do one by one..

We had tripped to Kodaikanal 2 moths back.. Hmmm.. to be accurate we started on 3rd Nov and were back on 5th Nov.. It was amazing trip

Sowmya and me along with her parents, brother and her cute little doggy tuffy.. ( Click here to see tuffy)

I was amazing trip, we had hired a Tata Safari.. Initially we had booked a Scarpio but just 30 min before our scheduled start time the owner told he can rent out the vehicle. Shucks...
But good thing is he arranged another vehicle for us. Good for us.. We started by 9:30 and reached Palani by evening 6PM. After a nice darshan of Lord Subramanya (Muruga) we reached Hotel at late night.

Here are some snaps...


Way upto Palani Temple using winch


View Croaker's Walk


Me her and Tuffy


Look at the fog


Bicycle ride with two seat .. amazing it was ..



Boat ride in the morning ... (Did u observe the fog... woooo ... it was chilling )



Some time pass at the park .. Shot this in the park... Calling for Partner ?

Cup of Life !!!

Here is something very interesting, so I thought its a good idea to share it with you.....

"A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university lecturer. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain-looking and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said: "If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the better cups and are eyeing each other's cups."

"Now, if Life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change." "Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."

So folks, don't let the cups drive you...enjoy the coffee instead"


Source: Unknown

First Deepavali

I know its long time since deepavali festival.. But I still wanted to blog about it.. I was so busy all these days.. and even now that I am unable to give much time for blogging..

This was first deepavali for Sowmya and I after marriage. Usually first deepavali is celebrated at in-law's place. So my FIT had invited all of us, including my sisters' family to his place on Naraka Chaturdashi that was on 31st Oct. All went very fine..

Deepavali is 3 day Festival, First day is called Naraka Chaturdashi, Second day is called Lakshmi Pooja and Third day is Bali Padyami, but for us first and last is very important.

All the three days Sow and I stayed at their place itself. Another good thing is Sunil (Sow'a Bro) had come from London.. We spent almost whole 2nd day with London stories, Photos, Video etc.. We also had been to Jogi film on that day... It was ok kind of movie.. Not that great..

3rd Day was fun.. Too many relatives had come to in-law's place. Had great fun playing housie (Tambola) ... Good food...

Sowmya's grand pa is 92.. He is very fond of photos. Here are some samples :)










Evening we spent some time in blasting crackers ... It was total fun .. :)

Things to Blog .. In Queue

Looong time I blogged ... I need to blog so many things.. Just wanted to list them so that I dont miss any


1. Deepavali @ Mavana mane
2. Kodai Trip
3. Drive to Sriranga Pattana
4. IBM Team outing in next week
5. Planned events in IBM Outing
6. Tulasi habba, Utthana Dwadashi

I will take one by one and blog them ok ???

Rain Struck Family

Guys ..

Go thru this blog post http://sridharmachani.blogspot.com/2005/10/oct-23-27-of-2005-days-of-insanity.html

Sridhar is my good friend and we were BE classmates.. I feeling very bad for mental trauma he and his family are facing..

Bombe habba..

Bombe habba..
Originally uploaded by Karthik C S.

Dassera, a.k.a Navaraatri is celebrated across India in different way. Kolkatta and rest of Bengal is famous for Durga pooja. Whole state does not work for entire 9-10 days. Software companies not aparted.

In Mysore its a grand feast. Lots of programs are arranged during Navaratri. The last day procession which is famous as Dussera Procession of Mysore is world famous. Mysore Urs (kings) had this great custom built and our State Govt is following the same.

In most part of Karnataka and some part of Tamilnadu we celebrate Dussera as Bombe habba. Bombe means Dolls. Habba means festival. So it can be translated as Festival of dolls. Each and every house is decorated and dolls of differnt kinds which tell of many tales of Hindu Mythology. Most of these dolls will be in sets. Like Rama-seeta-Lakshman-Hanuman, Dashavatara, Set of dolls which tell customs of Marriage, Some fancy dolls etc..

This is our first Navaratri for me after marriage. We bought some new dolls and you can see them all :)

Rains in Bangalore

I have never seen such a pathetic state of Bangalore in recent past. Rains have ruined my sweet Bangalore. Roads have become streams ways.. Offices have become lakes. There is no distinction between pothole and a manhole and normal road. Its dangerous to walk on road, ride on road and even to drive on roads.


Yester years Karnataka suffered from drought and now its floods. Sunday we had been to Vegitable Market. To my astonishment all vegitable rates have reached sky. Can you imagine beens to reach 40/- and Onion almost 30/- .. They say vegitables have been rotten because of heavy rains. They anticipate more hikes. Last month petrol rate was hiked and now its vegitables turn.. When comes my salary'e turn .. I am bothered ..

Kids have great plans to celebrate Deepavali with great crackers and lovely lamps.. Seems they all would be disappointed. Rains are expected till december, according to some article in news paper. Many dams are flooding and people near dam are dying. Dam gates are getting damaged. I was wondering, man is having nothing in his hand. Just a week of rains kill the whole civilization..

Among all the bad news.. we have got a sweet news that India have beaten Srilank in the Cricket match with a huge gap .. Congrtas guys.. keep it up ..!!

Page Hits

I have started a Statcounter for this blog from Aug 11. The Blog Hits graph is shown in this pic..

http://tinypic.com/essvsy.jpg


You can see the hits are coming down gradually.. .Last month this time there was huge hits to my blog..
I can see some days page hits was reaching 100 and Unique Visitors are around 40 ...

Huge Hump on Unique visitors and First time visitors can be seen during Last week of Sept.. What did have in blog during those days ..

Hmmm I had these 2 posts... which had pulled too many Visitors...
IBM Rocks
Weekend

I need to study more on this analytics. ... hehhe

Peer to Peer Network

I wanted to transfer some 20 GB of data from my laptop to PC at home.. I wanted to take the back-up since long time .. This one really got catalytic acceleration when Chandra's laptop got crashed last week. I just dint hvae any alternatives other than loosing all my precious data.

I knew that peer to peer networking is possible by using cross over n/w cable. I googles about it and found more info about it. This link really helped me
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/networking/peer.htm..

I went to SP road and bought the 2 mtr cross over network cable for 45/- RS and with Sowmya's help I could configure peer to peer network.. Amazing.. I was really happy.. I could around 10 GB yesterday.. Today I will copy the rest..

Aquarium

Aquarium
Originally uploaded by Karthik C S.

This is the aquarium at one of my friends' place.. Did u observe another aqurium inside it? He says the fish was very ferocious, so he jailed it this way

Mallige Moggu

Mallige Moggu
Originally uploaded by Karthik C S.

We had been to Hosur last week. I took this shot there ...


Howz this ?

SAP TechED 05, Certified Consultant :)

Last week I attended SAP TechED 05 here in Bangalore. It was very big event conducted by SAP. They started Tech ED from Last year and continuing. Whole purpose of the event is to introduce SAP Practitioners to the new technical roadmap SAP has built and moving. It was amazing !! I was impressed by the ingauration part of the event. They had Karnataka's folk dance called 'DoLLu kuNita' to welcome the guests to the stage. We had key notes from SAP AG Directors, who had come from different part of globe. There were about 2500 SAP Practitioners from all over India. It was a three day event.

We also had an poertunity to take up the SAP Certification exam there. I appeared for 'SAP Netweaver Development Consultant Focus ABAP' and cleared it with 81% eeee.. Now I am Certified SAP Practitioner :) ..

More later .. BFN

IBM Rocks

It was on 28th Sept.. All were invited to take part in AMS Imprint, thats annual celebration of our AMS unit... We all went there by 3 PM. After a very short speach by our director, entertainment programs started..

First performace was by VIVA gals.. Anushka and Mahuwa.. It was not that great..
Then came Sanjay Kini, who has made his fame in The Great Indian Laughter Challenge
At last .. guess who came .. It was The great, sweet Sonu Nigam.. It was a pleasant surprise to all of us. It was amazing experience. I was standing in the firts row and we danced, jumped exhausted ourselves.. Great it was ...

Weekend

Saturday:

Got up early ( 8AM) - Early for Sat na ?

Went to SLV to buy Break fast. Decided to not to put on stove :). Bought Masala Dosa, ( Without Red Chutney inside) and maddur vade. But It was too late for the movie. Could not have at home.

Went to Amrtha Dhare with Amma and Sowmya. It was 10:15 Show at Uma theatre. We went by 10:25.. Missed first scene.. which was title song :) Listent to it.. Super song :))

Had the Break fast what I had bought at the theatre itself .. hahaha..

After the superb movie, went to NMH VV Puram. Had a superb lunch and went back home and slept ...

Evening was again lazy.. dint go anywhere

Watched Ankhe in Star Gold in the night.. Had missed that .. so watched completely.

Sunday was good again .. Had been Sow's Aunt's house for lunch. Menu --> BBB (Bisi Bele Bath) , Koasambari, Curd Rice, Chips, Sweet Pongal. Yummyyy it was cool.

Evening: Shilpa had come.. Shilpa Sow and I had gone out for Tikki puri .. Then we had a small tutorial for Sowmya for riding two wheeler.. She was too scared. After riding she was lil confident. Shilpa rode my pulsar :) cool na !!

Thats all Folks

Yet Another Cloud

Yet Another Cloud
Originally uploaded by Karthik1.

Thanks for liking those slides, which encouraged me to post another cloud pic :)

Clouds

Clouds
Originally uploaded by Karthik1.

This is a shot taken when we had been to Waynad .. I love this one .. The

cloud formation, rocks wow !!!



(See attached file: DSCN0283.JPG)

I live in Bangalore 2nd floor !!!

Just a though !! After seeying the even growing population, enumerable no. of vehicles, hectic traffic jams, raising value of land.. it came to my mind that some day we can also strat building a new city above our sweet bangalore. We have seen bangalore growing extending its outskirts, swallowing surrouning towns.. Bangalore's width has crossed about 40 KM radius.. It too much now.. Bangalore might start thinking growing tall as well.. We might start building a new city above our existing one. Which has its own people, schools, land(in air), houses, vehicles, roads, KPTCL (2nd floor), BWSSB (2nd floor), BMTC (2nd floor), BCC 2nd floor, separate corporators for Bangalore 2nd floor and what not. .

How far ( altitude ) should Bangalore 2nd floor be ? I think 300 - 500 mts is needed :)

Join me in building this new city called Bangalore 2nd Floor.. .

Lunch everyday

Rajesh, Pallavika, Lavanya and me have lunch together. Just wanted to show you how would be our menu ... This is a sample :)

Waynad Trip

Hi All,


Long time I had been here... Was very busy at home and at office.. We had been to Waynad Last to Last weekend. It was amazing .. Here are some snaps..

In Bus..



Near Falls...



Some Dam


Dinner


Whole troupe on the way to Edkal Caves

At Edkal Caves


Entrance of Edkal

Another Wild Pic

Another Wild Pic
Originally uploaded by Karthik1.

This one is another wild pic.. Can you guess whats this ?



(See attached file: DSCN0993.JPG)

Go Waynad

Hurray!!! Yet another outing ...

This has been in plan since 2 weeks. Now almost confirmed that we are going for a trip to Waynad, Kerala. You must be thinking which gang is it right?? Its IBM gang.. Planning to leave bangalore on Friday night and come back on Sunday night..

Thinking Wild

Thinking Wild
Originally uploaded by Karthik1.

I took this shot last sept .. I was turning very wild and mad becos of

lonelyness.. Guess whats this ??

(See attached file: DSCN0991.JPG)

Gowri Rangoli

Gowri Rangoli
Originally uploaded by Karthik1.

I think most you know my niece Gowri. She had recently participated in a

rangoli competition conducted by ISKCON.. She got second prize for this

one..



Congrats Gowramma... Keep it up ..



(See attached file: DSCN9888.JPG)

Yahoo with Voice

Hi Guys,

I installed Yahoo Messenger ver 7 with Voice.. Its really good.. Why dont you try too ..

Pak w/o Mysore

recently we had been to a restaurant for lunch. Orderd some Jeera Rice.. Here goes the conversation:

Ram said .. hey man whats this there is no Jeera at all in this Jeera Rice ..
Immediately Aravind replied.. Hey do you find Mysore in Mysore Pak ...


We all could not stop laughing ..

Independence Day

On Aug 15th, I was wathcing a TV program. Some one was singing a so called Patriotic song.. One of the lines says:

"Bharatiye ninna janma dinadandu ninage namisuvevu ..." something of that sort... Meaning we bow to you on your "birth day"

I was actually astonished to listent to this line... How can Aug 15ht be celebrated as Bharat's Birth day ?? Its disgrace for all of us. We have not understood the meaning of our independence day but everyone takes the day off and enjoy their life... I felt really bad..

How can anybody determine Birthday of Bharat ? Its there since the time of Rishis and Munis .. we have got the proof also.. Alas our so called poets dont know this simple matter.

Weekend Trip - GRS Fantasy Park

On Tuesday, Father In Law told that they want to goto Mantralaya but they can't go this time as no one is there to look after the house and tuffy. Sowmya and I had asked them to go ahead and leave all house responsibility to us. On that promise they tried to get a train, bus or what ever the transportation to possible Mantralaya on whole Wednesday and Thursday. Till Thursday evening nothing was finalised and they had almost dropped their plans. That made us to go ahead with our trip plans.

It was a long weekend. Wanted to go out somewhere, desperately. We all (jukka, roopakka, shilpa, sowmya) started planning on Thursday evening. After half an hour of discussion and telephonic calls, it was almost decided that we go to Ooty and Black Thunder water park for 2 days. At the n th moment I got a call from my Father in law saying that they got the tickets to Mantralaya and requested us (Sow and me) to stay home to take care house and the their dog, tuffy. Tussssssssssssss.... our plans got dropped for that moment ..

Atleast we wanted to go out for a day. Every one was ok with that and we decided to goto GRS Fantassy Park, Mysore. I booked
Tempo Traveller (TT). Our whole family went for that. Amma, Sowmya, myself, Roopakka, Bhava, Shilpa, Yashu, Jukka, Bhava, Gowri and Bhargav. We were 11 in total. Our trip started at around 6:30. Sowmya and I had come from my in-law's house. We were little late. More over we had to prepare tomato-onion gojju (kind of curry ). Jukka and Amma had prepared, Chapathis, Puliyogare and Curd Rice. TT came to roopakka's house in Wilson Garden at 6. They were all ready and came to our place which is around 7 KM at around 6:20. We joined the troupe at 6:30 and started.

We took a break at Maddur to eat Maddur Vade and also had break fast there itself. The place we went to buy maddur vade was crowded like hell. Ussshappa...


Allinda .. we went to a Sai Baba Ashram on the banks of river Kaveri, on the main road itself. It was amazingly calm appealing .. Here are some snaps ..

Sai Mandir, River Kaveri, Sriranga Pattana


Bhava, Shilpa, Gowri, Raju Bhava, Bhargav, Karthik, Sowmya



Raju Bhava, Srinivas Bhava, Roopakka, Amma, Bhargav, Jukka, Karthik, Gowri, Sowmya, Anant Yahas





From there, we went directly GRS and had great fun.

So many rides...



Women and Kids pool


Bhava and me at Pendulum, most scary water ride. .


Lazy River


Sowmya loves to Swing, Shilpa joins her




We all .. at red Indian Falls


Oh! Dont touch 'em


Red Indian Falls


This is called 1-2-3 Photo