Airtel Great Delhi Run - 21 November 2010

participated in the airtel great delhi run today.

was a good experience, clicked some good pics n gave them some interesting captions ( i think)

for me though it was airtel great delhi walk. ardently walked the whole distance. thats what my preparation ( if any) and stamina permits.

reached in a little late. the shuttle service form the metro station was a bit let down. but every cloud has a silver lining ;)

ADHM 21 November 2010

Office Gyan

Got some really good office gyan yesterday. In a way got two sets of gyan and both on my way back home from office.

The first one came from a very experienced superior of mine, someone i respect alot.
1. He said that no matter what job you are doing or what position you are working at, you always need to be a human being first.
2. Always remain grounded tm the earth. It hurts least if you fall and fewer people see you fall. If you are too high up in the air, you can pretty well guess the consequences.
This was on my way from office to the metro station, i had got a lift.

The second set of gyan was in the metro, close to my destination. As always, two people were talking at a volume audible to me. And you know, hearing is involuntary. One of the more experienced guys from among the two was sharing anecdotes from his professional life. By the time the metro reached the destination, he beautifully summarised the entire conversation into three points:
1. Obedience to superiors
2. Respect towards superiors, peers and subordinates.
3. Initiative to learn more.
The first two make your life easier at work (sort of hygiene factor). The third one helps you grow(sort of motivating factor).

I getting all this gyan at this juncture seemed ominous.

weather with you..

this song has been ringing in my mind for some time now. fell in love with the lyrics

weather with you by crowded house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIb6I8gtgtw

first shot at stop motion videos

inspired by a video called corporate life for emids (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuOTM0o6ToE) , decided to take a shot at stop motion videos. didn't have to go far to find a subject. my very dear transformer bumble bee toy came in handy.help was just clicks away, ample 'literature' available on how to make quick stop motion vids.

the principle used in stop motion videos is that normal motion pictures use approx 24 frames per second. i.e if we flip 24 or more frames of photoshots in a a second it would look like a movie instead of a photograph

i took over 150 shots for my vid, finllay used some 90 odd frames for the vid. it laste for some 25 seconds. playing around 3.5 fps. taking the pics was real challenging. had to make small transformations for each successive shot, the point o be kept in mind that the bumble bee does not move too much at base else the vid wud not be coherent. the difficult bit was to make it stand on its feet. has to use the 'rope trick' to lift it up. used white thread on a white background to make it sort of invisible.

used windows movie maker to make the vid and add the bg score - new divide by aerosmith and the titles.

was a satisfying experience

my vid

why does this happen with friends

last week i got a friend request and message on facebook, asking for my contact number. It was from sg. technically we were talking after 8 years since we left school but actually it was far longer than that. We were the closest of friends during our school days – far back in time, during class four n five. but something happened and it fell apart, we parted ways n we stopped taking. our class sections changed, our friendhip got reduced to a little smile just to acknowledge each other's presnece n then, that too faded away i don't knw when, we got other friends n we moved on. we were togeher in class x but that made no much difference. then he took science in class xi and i took commerce. then we pretty much lost contact. random badminton games were all we had in common. after school the relation got deteriorated to 'wiped off' from 'faded'.

i was over-whelmed to see the message. yes, probably thats the word that is closes to describing the state of my mind. i gave my number and started waiting for the call. i was so lost that i forgot to ask for his number. may be i was so sure that he wud call back soon, after all we had been so good friends once upon a time. n yes, i was right. he did call. we had a small chit chat, decide to meet over the weekend. he still remembered my b'day and surprisingly i too remembered his, 26 december.

n then came the weekend. saturday evening was consumed in some household chore. we decide to meet on sunday evening, thought its a working day for him and that to a busy one. but still he agreed, guess he too was overwhelmed to meet me after such a long time. n then we meet. had a long chat - discussing what had happened in our lives over these years, he did his engg in e&c n then joined his father's property business. he got married some time back. then we took a stroll down the memory lane, the good times we had spent together, our rendezvous point during school days - the windows behind the basket ball pole interestingly both of us remembered it, our academic performances (he was always a notch better than me, no points for guessing that) etc

then came the important part, trying to figure out why we parted ways. n surprisingly both of us cud not put a finger on why our friendship fell apart. there was no reason for us to part ways, but it happened, don't knw why. but i guess its the hallmark of true friendship that it transcends physical spaces, time, et al. we met today after so long n it never felt that we had not been in touch. it didn't matter that i forgot to take his number coz i knw that he wud call for sure and that i wud meet him, sooner or later.

had a really good time with him. glad to have rediscovered my friend again, not a mere addition to the friends count in facebook.

this inspires me to reconnect with some old friends i have lost touch. hope i will be able to do it soon.

make sentences

today i spent 2 hours helping my neighbour's son with his school homework. he was learning new words and had two words with the letter 'h', the words being 'hawker' and 'hurry'.

and it took me a whooping two hours to be through with the sentences. i tried my best that he understood the meaning and usage of the words and also had to ensure that the sentence was of the level for a grade 2 kid. some observations

- is 'hawker' a word fit for a grade 2 kid to learn.

- how is the kid going to make sentences when he is not aware things called noun / tenses /verb / articles etc.

- the kid had absolutely no motivation to study. he just wanted to be through with his homework. he also knows that students cannot be made to repeat classes in primary section i.e. no student would fail till class five. you cannot tell him that you will fail if you don't study.

- he was not interested in concentrating on learning, his mind kept on wandering.

after the 'class' i wondered how i cleared my school in straight 12 years. may be thats what you call Grace of God.

the walrus and the carpenter

read the lewis caroll poem the walrus and the carpenter.

memories of old school days...

the poem

http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html

the wikipedia info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walrus_and_the_Carpenter

LOTD - origin of the song waka waka

explored the origins of the song waka waka.. which has been chosen as the theme song for FIFA 2010

The chorus of the song is borrowed from a huge 1986 hit called "Zangaléwa" by amakossa group called Golden Sounds.

The original song has these lyrics:

Zaminamina oh oh

Waka waka eh eh

Zaminamina zangalewa

Anawam ah ah

detailed article at

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-History-of-the-Official-World-Cup-Song-Waka-Waka

LOTD - AED

AED- Automatic External Defibrillator

also see CPR - Cardiopulmonary resuscitation

back on the yahoo answers circuit

am back on the yahoo answers circuit..

feels good :)

LOTD - ivy league collges

one of friends got into cornell university today. i knew it was an ivy league college. had checked that earlier when mridu had got thru cornell.

took out some time to further knw about the coveted ivy league

there are 8 colleges in the ivy leauge

• Harvard University
• Yale University
• University of Pennsylvania
• Princeton University
• Columbia University
• Brown University
• Dartmouth College
• Cornell University

it initially it started for excellence in sports but later on it was for all round performance of these universities....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League

LOTD - 70 mm

learned why the movies we see in hall are called 70 mm.

its coz the film strip is 70 mm wide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/70_mm_film

LOTD- Aurora

Learning of the day

Aurora - are natural light displays in the sky, usually observed atnight, particularly in the polar regions. They typically occur in the ionosphere. They are also referred to as polar auroras.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy)

summer time.....

the title wud invariably remind u of the rascal flatts song - summer time, everybody's feeling 'saxy'....

but here the reference is to the great summer vacations i used to have during my childhood.

the post originated as a comment on one of my friend's blogpost. but then given its length, it seemed more like a blogpost than a comment. so i thought that i shud be putting it down on my blog as well. vaise bhi, its been long since i posted anything. partially coz i was busy n partially coz i was feigning to be busy. god knows whom am i fooling...

so here is the post -

reminds me of my summer vacation. though never thought of penning it down. but now that ur post has sent me down the memory lane, i have to do it...

the most memorable bit of our vacations in kerala cud probably be raw mangoes soaked in brine solution.all 7 of us wud relish them equally. my daadi wud prepare it in such a way that it wud be ready by the time we wud reach for our vacations. n we wud have them at the terrace stealthily during afternoons when everyone was fast asleep. it used to be too concentrated a brine solutin, not fit for direct consumption. it used to be so tempting that we cud not wait for the day a gravy wud be made form it. we wud just cut it, add red chilly powder, salt and coconut oil and there it was - ready to be eaten, the smallest of the pieces worth being fought for.

- then there were sessions of palying cards - bluff being our favourite game. 4 sets of playing cards n still the game wud not go beyond half an hour. at times it wud come to a natural end or else more often it wud end up in an argument followed by sulking and silent treatments. patchup wud happen mostly at times of meals - all the kids first, on the floor, with the super cool n convenient banana leaves as plates. i used to be the odd one out with nothing non vegetarian in my plate. my daadi wud then fry eggs exclusively of the 'brahmin child' of the clan, which made me feel special. she always wondered how cud a child grow 'strong and big' without eating non veg. guess we have no other option but to grow - with or sans non veg food.

- next, our evening strolls down the lane. we wud collect henna leave which people wud grow as hedges along the boundary walls of their houses. then all of us wud help our girl cousins in applying the henna on their hands in odd geometric and abstract designs. alternatively we wud go for a walk in the fields, careful enough not to spoil the standing crop, collecting snail shell ( i dont knw how they found their way to the paddy fields)

- i remember the swing our grandfather wud tie on the mango tree for us to play. as a beta test my one of my heathiest cousin wud be made to try out whether is was good for the lighter version of his grandchildren.

- each of us had a coconut trees of our own in the backyard garden ,which we wud take care during our annual trips, comparing who's was the tallest / strongest.

- the visits to our small pineapple farm, plucking a couple of them n see our grandfather skin it and cut it for us. more often then not, we wud finish it by the time the last slice of the pineapple was cut. something similar used to be case with ripe jackfruit, fruit of cashew nut, things i had never seen in delhi.

- making toys with coconut leaves. just loved them. equally interesting were the attempts by us to climb the coconut tree.

- during evening tea time we wud be treated to kerala speical snacks - numerous varieties of appams, tapioca / banana / jackfruit chips et al. cooked in coconut oil, we wud relish them till the last bit left in the bowl.

- other things, for which i am at a loss of memory.

i guess memories of visiting our grand parents always have a special place in the human mind. my dad still recollects his childhood stays at his grandparents.