Candle Light Dinner

We celebrated Halloween in the evening at MOA.We drove back home with handful of candies at around 8 P.M. One of my little friend while driving in the car, kept saying we would have candle light dinner tonight and at first I thought probably he was insisted by his school teacher to have candle light dinner along with his family members on Halloween eve and I never bothered to ask him the reason for today's unplanned (at least for me) candle light dinner. We reached home and arranged our table with food. All lights were turned off and one small slim candle was lit. We were almost about to complete the dinner and then my cute friend relieved the secret behind this candle light dinner. The candle was self made by my little friend using beewax, he explained to me, how he prepared the candle with full josh. He wanted to use his handmade candle for all possible occasions and he found one today for our dinner.Today's dinner was special with my little friends handmade beewax candle.

Humming

Music always has a special effect on us, no matter whether it is singing, humming or just plain instrumental note. You just need a trigger to sing/hum. When my friend was humming En Jannali Therivadhu Tamil song from Mozhi during our dinner time, I was controlling myself not to buzz along. I was not sure how others in the group would take if I too hummed the same song the very next second. And another reason I avoided to hum was I had promised my rommie, I would not sing/hum this song at least for the next couple of days. I had troubled my roommate singing this song for the past three weeks. I am usually out of control when it comes to humming that too if that is one of my favorites. I have few memories in the past were I have faced weird situations. I heard one stranger humming one of my favorite song and I immediately hummed back and he mistook I was falling in love with him, of course one would because both of us were humming a romantic song. Though I had no such intentions but it is sometimes difficult for everyone to understand the how music mesmerizes ones soul.
Then on I am very careful to hum anything in front of anyone.

Slip of tongue

When I was two years old, my parents were worried as I didn't utter even a single word properly. It seems I used to point things and made noises but never pronounced anything. My parents even thought I might not speak when I grow old. They tried out lots of things to hear a word from me. As I matured my relatives were very fond of hearing me gibber. My cousin brother even now makes fun of me for the pain he took to teach me say “Glad to meet you" and it looks like I used to say "Glad to bottle".

Usually when I am tensed or over excited or over bothered or in rush even now I have the habit of doing Freudian slip. Today I uttered sentences such as "I was lying in the bread" instead of saying I was lying in the bed and lot more. My roomie started teasing me for such excessive number of tongue slips.

Height of Hatred

It is natural tendency for any of us to like and love people who empathizes our good and bad feelings. But when it comes to hatred we have no consideration for others notions. That's when we start to display our egoism, selfish nature, disgust behavior, debase signs, possessiveness, misunderstanding, gossiping and jealousness etc. Today I hate someone to such a level that I am completely disgusted with that person.

I generally don't hate anyone that easily, I always try to understand the person as much as I can taking into account their family/educational background, friends, interest and attitude. Even when people debase or annoy me, I ensure to understand their situation and try my best to love/like them. When people make me feel sad for any reason I hate them to the core. No matter whom they are to me. I show no feelings or soft corner for such people. I am adding someone to this list today.

Interesting TT

Today's toastmaster meeting only had interesting table topics session (extempore talk on a given question for two minutes). Unlike the usual meetings were we have a combo of speeches, table topics and business updates. Our toastmaster had chosen "News Media" as the theme for today's gathering.

Our table topic mistress was very sincere to dig in and present us with some amusing questions based on the latest news from FOX, CCN, All headlines, Whitehouse Blog and Times of India. It was amazing listening to every speaker. Everyone had their own niche in today's table topics. It was a great feeling to know something really really new and different.

Sandwitched

What I have understood after being an onsite coordinator for close to two years, is the significance of responsibility and meeting the deliverable dates. The trust, rapport and the service solely depends on how we fulfill the committed deadline.
I always insisted offshore resources not to work beyond 8 P.M IST, but today I behaved little different and pushed my counterpart to work even late night to complete one assigned task that has been pending for client deliverable since last week. I am surprised to see myself with this dramatic change of behavior. I am caught in between the client and offshore. I have no excuses for delaying the deliverable from offshore side due to my leniency and go easy policy.

Sampling

Today was my first visit to Costo in MN; Last year I had visited this wholesale shop in California.
The trip to Costo was interesting due to sampling of consumable food items. We started our journey to Costo at around 12.20 P.M, it was almost lunch time. I was feeling damn hungry as I had skipped my breakfast too. The moment we reached Costo, I and another friend of mine rushed to sample frozen fruit crisp. It was yummy to taste crisp apple and banana. As the quantity of frozen fruit crisp was less, it kind of made me feel better but my stomach still grumbled to have more food. We kept moving from one section to the other. Unlike SAMS club I noticed sampling tables almost in every aisle of Costo. We gave a break to our cart/hand, stationed at each sampling tables and grabbed a tube of flavored curd, vegetable fries, granola mix and few other things for which I have a difficulty in recalling their correct name on our way to shopping.

As my friend was eager to buy Pizza, We waited for two minutes to sample grilled vegetable Pizza and Asparagus Pizza. After sampling hot hot pizza we moved to the next aisle to sip Pomegranate juice and taste French Muffin. After sampling all items, we billed our things and drove back home.

We reached home and gathered to have lunch; everyone felt their stomach was full with sampled food at Costo. It was a memorable experience to fill my stomach with only sampled food items for my brunch. Friends if you have any plans of visiting Costo, ensure to visit it before 4 P.M, otherwise you will miss the chances of sampling many food items and in turn buying those too.

Her Day

This lady has played an integral part in my life. Below are few incidences that made me feel she is different, firm and dogmatic.

My grandma still says this lady never got you anything any doll or dress that you wanted for. I(Granny) have heard you cry many times when she ignores to buy things of your choice. Time has changed so much that now you don't ask her anything you like. You simply go with what she gets you. When I hear such things from my Grandma I feel this lady must have been terrible and bossy.


Till my 5th standard I was pushed in all competitions such as fancy dress, calligraphy, elocution, drawing, running, dance, singing and slow cycling. Whether I won a consolation prize or a winning medal it didn't matter much to this lady. All she wanted was to give her daughters a taste of everything in life. I felt inside this women was crazy and pushy.

In my 6th standard she thought me to cook food for the family and wash my clothes. We had taken care of our things such as placing books at the right rack, covering our notebooks and school socks in the right drawer etc. Absolutely no help from her side. I used to compare myself with many of my classmates and kept telling her she was burdening us with unwanted things during our study life. In this stage, I felt she was stone hearted and a stubborn women.

When we reached our 8th standard we were sent to post office to do money order and banks to do deposits and withdrawals. No prior instructions were given to us by her how to do money order or deposits, she blindly instructs us to inquire things from bank/P.O employees. I felt she was uncivil and uncaring.

From 10th to college we were not pulled in any activities, we were given full freedom to do what we wished or aspired for.

Now what I feel about this audacious woman in my life is totally different. Her each move taught us all essentials for our living.

Her no no's to small things that I wished for, has taught me to take disappointments easily in life. If someone/fate/luck denies me of something I like the most, I know how to overcome such challenges in life. Her push to involve us in all competitions till 5th standard has taught me to live life with brio. Her cooking and washing lessons in 6th standard has made me to live life independently and confidently. Her training to do money order and deposits/withdrawals had taught me to be civilized.

I have lots and lots to write about this woman whom I love the most. Today I feel blissful wishing this lady a happy birthday. This lady is none other than my beloved one and only mother.

Very Close

For the first time in 6+ years tennis life, I have forgotten to take my tennis racquet for today's match. I rushed to the parking lot with water bottle, tennis ball, money and print outs, only when I noticed my friend carrying the tennis bag, I realized I forgot to grab the tennis racquet. I marched back home to get it. I was little upset about this incident. I tried to keep myself cool by enjoying the inside music and outside rain while travelling in the car to the indoor tennis court.

My mind was blank and my body was listless when our mixed doubles match started at 7.15 P.M. I played the match with the support and confidence given by my doubles partner. We didn't show a sign of scoring any game point as our opponent crushed us with their powerful angled shots and serves, they lead the set with a score of 2-0. I was lucky today to score the first game point during my serve. The score read 1-2 and we kept fighting back and pushed our best to score the coming games. Our score moved from 1-2,2-3,3-4,4-5 and this time we didn't feel like giving up the first set, we tried hard and leveled our score at 5-5 . We won the first set after a seven point tie break.


As our match court was booked from 8.30 p.m , we had very limited time to complete our matches. The second set started shortly . We were leading the game by 3-0. Our opponents looked very dingy but displayed complete vigor . We kind of repeated our first set score but in the reverse order 2-1,3-2,4-3,5-4,..6-7. Our opponent won the second set after a 7-point tie break. We were very close to wining in the 10 point tie break. We had three match points, due to one of my small blunder we lost the match. I gave more importance to my tennis game improvement than victory which screwed up the team's performance and ranking. Great learning for the next match.

Cab Ride

In India I never moved alone in taxi. But after joining software industry I had traveled nook and corner of Chennai in the office cab at midnight and early morning.

I always preferred a ride in Auto than going by taxi. Auto was considered more safe, cost effective and common in Chennai. One major problem any one faces with Auto driver is the annoying bargain for the trip fare. Usually the fare meters in Auto rickshaw work for name sake. They are either manipulated to display wrong number or they absolutely don't work. If one is new to Chennai and by mistake if they step in an Auto without knowing the exact route to their location. One would go crazy paying high fare for such a short distance.

Today I traveled in a cab to pay a visit to a medical clinic. My cab driver was very old and experienced. When I showed him the clinic address, he was confident to drop me at right place without using GPS. Unluckily he couldn't figure out the building, he kept circumvolving the road, I was little concern about the fare. After coming to U.S, I have journeyed several times in the cab. Most of the drivers had the GPS and perfectly had no issues taking me to the right place. It was a new experience for me to travel with a driver who had a difficulty in tracing the place. I was computing how much I would land up in paying with his hit-or-miss drive. Later I came to know that he was very concern about the passenger's currency and at once stopped the fare meter.
We reached some near by building and inquired for the clinic location. The stranger directed us and said it was very close by. We reached the clinic in few minutes and he charged me nothing extra rather I paid less than the usual amount.

At least in MN I feel positive about cab rides and drivers.

Dash-3

It is quite common for Indians to walk and drive on the left side. "Keeping left" created and is creating surplus troubles to me. I can't forget the admiration I received from an African-American on my first all alone driving adventure in U.S. I didn't realize that I was driving on the left side of the road until I had a head on collision with this guy. As the car windows were all closed, I could only see his lip movement and partially guessed that he was screaming "get out of the road" and something else too for being on the wrong path. Without procrastinating I immediately pulled back from his way.

Another place where I always violate rules while walking is in office premises. We have a long path ending with two sharp cuts leading to right and left direction. As I normally walk on the left side, I quite often clash with people on the turns. Today when I walked back from a meeting, I gave a sudden shock to another lady striding from the opposite direction. For a second both of us felt something was happening too fast between both of us that gave an effect of sudden death in an accident. It was a terrible experience though. I tried to get rid of this incident and carried out my day's task. It was time for lunch by then and this time I ensured to walk tardily in the right direction at the turns while taking my route to the cafeteria. This time, for a change I had a guy walking in full speed thumping me. We said excuse me to each other and went ahead to our intended place.

While going for an evening break, I was carried away with the information on the notice board that I completely lost control and dashed another lady who was walking besides me.
I said sorry to her for being absorbed with the details on the bulletin board.
I dashed three people today because of my walking direction and preoccupied thoughts.

More than an Hour

I am usually the last one to be on bed in my family. My parents and siblings are early birds. They sleep and wake up early. To talk to someone at home beyond 11 P.M IST is next to impossible. New Year and birthday’s are the only exceptions, when the whole family is awake till 1 A.M IST.

At home we are not allowed to make/receive calls beyond 10 P.M IST. Even though I go late to bed, I normally think several times before making any urgent call after 10 P.M IST. One thing that hasn't changed in me even now is being late to bed. As my mother is not around and due to different time zones, currently I have the full privilege to call friends and family members without any time constraint. I am no longer following my mother's "NO CALL AFTER 10 P.M POLICY".

We have our regular offshore daily status call at 11 P.M CST, generally our call winds up in 20-30 minutes, today we had to discuss several issues that dragged our call for more than an hour.

Stomach Full

Eating yummy food has become a routine for the past three days. It started from Diwali eve and we are still tasting/having variety of food during lunch and dinner. No restriction to limit ourselves to fill in our tummy as much as possible which makes us feel sleepy during odd time.

Today again we were invited to our friends place for dinner. We were served with hot Adai along with pudina chutney, tomato chutney and brinjal kulambu.
As I was feeling terribly hungry I didn't even count the number of Adai I had, I kept feeding myself. Finally at one point I realized I had stuffed my stomach with lots of food which made me feel weighty. I was unable to walk back home.

Documentation

"IT" is all about documentation. Be it proposal/test case/requirement gathering/minor code change/support activity. Today I had to create few new documents for my project.

How painful it is work on a 35 page document on a Sunday afternoon?
Review and recommendations for this document was discussed over phone. Working on documentation even for half an hour bugs me a lot.

I may not be the only person who hates documentation, there are many others who would join me in supporting against the process oriented technical document templates.
I love referring existing documents but dislike preparing one. Hopefully Google will come up with some new tool that would simplify the IT documentation process.

Readying Diwali

Till yesterday night I was in a dilemma to attend today's Diwali celebration as we had to send across some critical project document tonight. Whenever I was unable to take apt decisions I consult my mom. She insisted me to attend the function. Her point of view was Diwali comes once in a year and I should not be putting it off for any reason. From last week few of my friends kept ordering/requesting me to attend the Diwali potluck while some counted me in for granted.

I thought, what is life without spending some time with friends and family? And finally made up my mind to attend the potluck in the morning. In between our friends family came to our place to distribute home made Diwali sweets. My friend’s family looked jazzy in the glittering Indian traditional dress. We immediately captured their family picture in our mobile.

We tasted the sumptuous sweets and started our cooking preparation for bhaji pretty late, as we wanted them to stay crisp and hot for the potluck. At the end we landed being late to get ready. We decided to send our mixed vegetable bhaji through one of our friend for the party which would make us to get ready unhurried. We were all set and were waiting for our friend's arrival to pick us up. At 12.25 P.M stepped in the car. We carried two trays of raitha along with us to the party hall. I and my roomie were totally focused and ensured nothing dripped from the delicate tray during our bumpy ride. We reached the hall just on time, when everyone were about to start the main course. We wished everyone and quickly took our seat.

The hall was jam packed with people. We kept eating for one and half hours and later gathered the crowd for some interesting games and dance performance. Finally we decided to play paper fold game. It was fun watching couples/bachelors holding each other and standing on the tiny piece of paper. During this game we had plenty of photo sessions from judges and friends.

We winded our evening with a halcyon Diwali celebration. After coming home I and my project mate spent close to three and half hours in completing the document. Overall the day was taxing.

Power Cut

For the first time in two years I have experienced a power cut for more than two hours in my locality. At around 11.30 A.M, the power went on and off more than five times in our office premises. After a while it was totally blanked out. I and couple other friends were sitting in a pitch dark room. We heard an announcement stating the power outage was due to natural gas interruption and were hoping for things to be back in 20-30 minutes. To our dismay there was no sign of power for the next 45 minutes. Meanwhile we all had our lunch and we were waiting for our machines to detect either the wireless or LAN connectivity. Few of my colleagues decided to leave home as it was more than an hour without electricity. Most of my clients who stayed away from office premises heard from their family about the net availability at home that made everyone prefer working at home rather than sitting idle in the office.

I went for a 1.14 mile walk within the office sky walk and found the whole building lit with emergency lamps and outside brightness.

At 12.30 P.M we heard our second announcement, this time they had figured out a different cause for the power failure, they said there was some issue with the transformer, the team was investigating on the issue and confirmed it will not be resolved before 2 p.m. They also conveyed there would be half an hour updates about the ongoing fixes for the power. In the time gap of 30 minutes for the next promulgation, my teammates gathered in our room to have a chit-chat about Diwali celebration. In between our boisterous conversation we heard a door knock, my client opened the closed door and was requesting us to pack home.
As power was out even in our residential area, we weren't willing to go home. In sometime we heard our third announcement that said workers are released for the reminder of the day, plant engineers are not excused. We didn't wait for a second, immediately we piled our things and started home.

Reached home at 1.15 P.M. Too early isn't it? Power supply was back by 2.15 P.M, but there was no details about the exact root cause.

Lunch Buffet

I had very less time today afternoon due to an unanticipated meeting between 12 to 1 P.M, me and my lunch mate decided to have our lunch in the nearby cafe. We met two of our other friends having their lunch on a lengthy table.
My lunch mate inquired, if it was fine with me to join them, initially I was little hesitant for the fact that I had to rush back to my desk as soon as possible and didn't feel like walking out in between everyone's meal. After giving a thought about my lunch mate, I said yes. It wouldn't be right on my part to press her hard to finish lunch with me in jiffy. In congenial manner both my friends circulated their lunch box; we tasted their food and in turn gave our boxes to them. Immediately two others joined us on the table and we continued the same process of circulating our boxes. We got back our box and were about to sample our food. One more friend joined us, we kept all our boxes in front of him, he patiently tried out everything and without a say he returned back our boxes. As I was in rush, I started breaking my chappathi and there you go, comes our next friend. Again without losing blitheness everyone offered her their food. At last everyone grabbed their boxes and had food. I broke out in between for my meeting.

It was like a buffet of home made food from different cuisine. Though not arranged on the table, it was well circulated and shared. Never got a chance for the second round though :)

Too many interruptions

Between 12 to 2.16 P.M, my mind was totally blank. I had to generate a report and send across the same to my client by 2.15 P.M. I was checking the data and wanted to ensure everything looked fine. As I had to compare the data in the report with the data in the backend for close to 200+ Stock numbers. I needed complete concentration; any small mistake in this task would screw up price details that would in turn affect our sales amount. I even thought of postponing by lunch and focus on this one. I had one of my colleague stop by to discuss about the development status, I absolutely had no patience to reply her back. I kept my responses brief. In between my DBA pinged to know the server details. I did a parallel conversation with my DBA and BA. After I was done conversing with both of them, I had series of questions from my lead on remedy ticket closure. I quickly answered him back and looked at the monitor. My mind was extremely saturated and couldn't even understand what I was doing. I thought it was high time for a break and decided to have lunch. After lunch I tried to put off everything that got my nerves. By then it was 1.15 P.M, I completed 50% data check and this time I was interrupted again by a phone call from my testing lead.

I clarified his doubt and continued, again one of my friend sametimed me simultaneously one of my colleague pestered me to share one of the script that I had previously written to auto approve few records through backend. This time I was determined not to worry about anyone and focused to complete the task. Though I completed my task on time, I had lots of unexpected disturbances that I couldn't manage.

Committed

I have heard of committing code in CVS and committing oneself to something.
When I think of this word, I can only recall a funny incident that I faced 2 years back. Way back in 2007, We 9 friends, 5 gals and 4 guys from different project and account gathered during lunch time in company cafeteria. Lunch was always fun with such a big gang; everyone pulled each others leg with something fishy. One of my friend during our lunch time said her colleague was committed and said he has also changed the status in Orkut. I spontaneously replied back, yes I know. She asked me how; I know that the guy is very dedicated and committed to his work. The whole crowd roared into laughter. I was perplexed and wasn't sure why they were chuckling. She actually meant to say he got engaged to a gal and I mistook as his commitment to work. I know one can change the status as "Busy", “Available" and "Away from Desk" and thought it was probably a new status introduced by Orkut to say one is committed to work. Everyone from then on started treating me like a kid and kept saying you will not understand adult's talk. I only learnt committing oneself to “something” could also be a gal and just not work.

Following quote sent by one of my friend was the essence of my day:

There's a difference between interest and commitment.
When you're interested in doing something,
you do it only when circumstance permit.

When you're committed to something,
you accept no excuses, only results.

Cool Bye

I should probably say my day was crazy and hectic. I didn't even have the time to breath. We reached home at 4.50 P.M and immediately myself and my roommate started to cook. We winded our cooking by 5.20 P.M and ran to our friend's place to celebrate a surprise B'day party. Enjoyed the strawberry cake and merriment of the group.

Myself and other tennis members were in serious discussion about tonights match in the birthday party. Got ready for our next adventure to indoor court at 7.30 P.M. We met new people and the whole atmosphere was filled with excitement and exuberance.

My stomach was aching severely before the start of the match, people fed me with pasta and gave lot of solutions to get rid of my pain. I was confident, the moment I step in the court my concentration would be on the play and not on anything else. I tried to relax and watched other matches on the court. I geared up myself to do my best. We occupied the middle court and were eagerly waiting for the arrival of our opponent. Meanwhile matches had started in other four courts. We were anticipating a hefty opponent as most of them in the group were either tall or fat. Our dreams were shattered on seeing the first opponent, she was skinny and tiny. She was a ray of hope, as we found her shots to be fragile and unfocused.

Unworried about the next opponent we concluded our victory for this match. But as the waiting time of 15 minutes was exceeded we got a walk over for today's match.
We played a friendly match for about 1hr 30 mins, reached home , munched our dinner quickly and got set for the offshore call.

I felt like skipping my blog today, as I was so wore out.

FP Cooking

I hated cooking right from my childhood. When we were in 6th standard our parents taught us how to prepare basic things such as Rice, Rasam and Dosa. I somehow never liked entering the kitchen for cooking. My sister on the contrary was fond of cooking and loved to try out new things. I neither had the patience to stir things nor the desire to chop vegetables. I always considered cooking as a time consuming and boring activity. During my study days, as all my activities were timed, I never got a chance to help out my mother in cookery. Even after coming to onsite, if I recall correctly my roommates went crazy hearing me grumble everyday while cooking. Now after cooking for close to two years I have started to love cooking to some extent. Might not be a great cook but definitely a speedy cook.

We did full pledge (FP) cooking today. Everything came out very scrumptious and I wondered how much I have changed over course of time.

Scary Ride

It has been quite sometime I moved out of this state for a tourist visit. I have heard a lot about Colorado trip from most of my friends. Today I got to know about the scariest and highest sky coaster ride in Royal George Bridge. My friend was sharing her experience in this ride. She explained to me in detail how the ride works and what one feels swinging in the air from such a great height. She said how nervous she was at the beginning and how relaxed she was after a while. I am counting my days to get a feel of such things in life.

Check out the following link to get a glimpse of the ride:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4yUNsVxLxA&feature=related

First Match

We reached the indoor court well in advance to play our mixed doubles league.
For the first time I was playing in a California red Plexipave surface court rather than the common green or pacific blue court. Initially I felt the court dimension was bigger and found it bit harder to move back and forth. I experienced very warm temperature inside the court that made me feel hot with the outer jacket. I took time to adjust myself to the slow ball bounce. We had a mini practice session before the arrival of our opponents. Close to 6.30 P.M our rivalries arrived one by one.

The captain of the opposite team handed me a sheet listing the players and the order of play. I quickly filled in the details of my team and chose to play in the third court. The matches started in two courts at around 6.45 P.M. Both my opponents were aged, composed but had adequate experience of such leagues. Our match started at 6.47 P.M. My opponent won the toss and preferred to serve. I and my partner appreciated our adversaries’ brilliant placement and brawny top spin serve. Our opponent team had a blend of cross court shots and magnificent placement. We tried our best to break their serve point, but our efforts were in vain. Our score progressed between the two sets by one game point. I had no strategies for this match due to my focus shift from winning a match to improving my tennis skill. I didn't feel like worrying too much about the game/set point. I played my best possible shots, of which some were through. Though we lost our match; it was a great meeting new people with higher tennis potential.

Inline

Today we did shopping again and at last landed up in Sports authority for our final round of purchase. The attractive inline skaters grabbed my attention. As I learned four rollers skating from my elder sister, I always had a longing to try out inline skates. My parents had a perception that inline skating required lots of balance and control. They never ever attempted to get me one as they thought I would get hurt.

I was very determined today to try out the display roller skates.
I quickly pulled out the box that was marked with my foot size. Two other little friends of mine tried out the inline skates along with me. I was initially holding my roommate's hand to support me while taking the small step in the trial inline roller skates. My reactions were different after seeing my 8 year friend stepping out confidently in his skates. Immediately I left my roommate’s hand and started walking alone.

I was thinking what sowed the seed of confidence in my mind to walk alone, that too instantly after seeing the 8 year friend. I recalled a statement made by one of my favorite maths school teacher "You can do it too, when someone else is able to do the same thing". This saying has indirectly sunk into my subconscious mind that I followed it today without my self knowledge. I have the habit of absorbing at least one good thing from my teachers and friends. It is efficacious when we try to recall the quotes and good things taught by them.

Geese Crossing

While travelling back home in our usual route, we found three cars lined up one behind the other. All the cars were still and there was no sign of movement. As my visibility was poor without glasses, I couldn't understand why the cars were standstill until we queued up in the same line. I saw a bunch of geese walking in a linear fashion on the road. They were walking in untroubled and swagger manner. I was patiently watching them cross the road. I found them to be well-ordered, none of the geese fought for the first position and everyone walked restfully. Not sure of the reason behind they not walking together as a group. Probably the motto of the geese road crossing was, you show the path and we follow. My friend quickly took out his mobile to capture the natural cat walk of geese. Most of them in the car started to lose their forbearance. The driver in the first car kept moving inch by inch to break the contiguous flow of geese traversing.

As soon as the agility of geese crossing abated, we immediately crossed the road. On seeing the importance given to Goose (Minnesota State Bird), my friend cracked a sensible joke to include Goose sign in the traffic lights in addition to the pedestrian symbol.

What a blunder ?

This person is everything in my life. He has been behind my studies right from school days. He trusts me more than my mom and dad. He was the first person to encourage me to play tennis. He is also the first one to gift me the most expensive tennis racquet. He is my role model, motivator and problem resolver. He is the only family member next to my mom with whom I feel comfortable expressing myself.

He is one step above my dad in all my things. He dreams and plans out my future. If I am something today it is just because of him. At times when I give up and say that's it, I can't try anymore, he still keeps up hope and keeps pushing me harder and ensures I achieve what I wanted for in my life. I always consider him next to God. I have no appeal to his sayings. So far, I haven't done anything in return to show my gratitude to him.

Today when we conversed, I came to know that he was invited to his friends place to celebrate his birthday. Generally my memory is too good to remember my friends and family member’s birthday. I am still not able to digest the fact that I forgot to wish him today. I have no excuse for missing out this day in my life. Albeit my mind was preoccupied with project and personal issues I shouldn't have committed this big blunder.

yrwod

Not sure if this word bothered me before, but from yesterday night it has been annoying me a bit. Few years back I had even stated I would not marry a guy who demanded this. I remember debating against this throughout my college life. I had argued guys were the culprits in accepting this and not their parents. When the guys have the guts to say "No" to marry a less pretty gal, I sometimes fail to understand why they never bothered to say "No" to this word. Now I can only associate my situation with Revathy's state in Magalir Mattum tamil movie released in 1994.

People sometimes consider this word as a means of their status and prestige change.
Guy’s parents claim that they have spent a lot on their son's education and upbringing, and I wondered what tricks my parents played to get my education and nurturing done without spending a penny. This word has caused lots of deaths in the past, lots of fight between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law and has shattered the peace in the family. In arranged marriage one can hold a better chance of getting a decent life partner only if one could afford to spend a greater lump of money. Sometimes people say, people who love and marry don’t face such issues, but I know few of my friends whose parents were even ready to break their relation if this word wasn't offered.

This five letter word has been carrying its marriage tradition for eons. And I don't want to be a prey of this for any reason. I have strictly conveyed this to my parents too. Hopefully I will not be brain washed by my parent's love and relatives coax. It is better to be alone, than tangling myself in buying someone with huge sum.

Biking

People in U.S refer cycling as biking. Way back in 2007, when I heard my client say, their kids love biking, I was wondering how kids were allowed to ride bikes in U.S. Later I came to know that our bicycle is stated as bike in U.S. The word biking made me look back few rattling moments of my life in robust cycle.

I am crazy about biking in my BSA SLR. I had to choose between Lady Bird and BSA SLR cycle brands when offered by my dad. I opted to buy BSA SLR cycle in my 11th standard. As I am a reckless rider, I really wanted BSA SLR that would withstand all my tough stunts such as leaving two hands, riding it in maximum speed and taking sudden sharp turns.

I used to spend solid 15 minutes in cleaning and greasing my cycle with oil every Saturday morning. I had plethoric love for my cycle that I hardly lent my cycle to anyone, not even to my sisters or friends. Even after 6 years my cycle looked brand new. I would go frantic if anyone ever did even a small scratch on my cycle. I was extra careful during rainy season, I always ensured to protect my bike under the parking roof. I never liked to see any rust on my cycle due to wetness. I enjoyed every moment when I took my mom for a doubles in my cycle. As days passed by, I couldn't spend much time with my bike, I started to travel to office in company bus and to nearby shops in Kinetic Honda. Everyday morning, I used to peep in the garage to check the status of my cycle and felt pitiful for its condition. I was also helpless as I was busy running places with my family and friends that I absolutely found no time to go for a ride or take care of my bike.

Today myself and my friend went for a half an hour biking. It was fun changing the gears while riding in the down and up hill. I was only thinking of my golden days cycling back from home to college, school, tuition, friend’s place and tennis court.

Empty Court

We have a wooden wall lined up with one basket ball court and two tennis court opposite to our apartment. During summer it is very difficult to find tennis courts, there were times when we used to take turns for playing in the court. Sometimes it is even tough to find space on wooden wall for our tennis practice.

Peak time for tennis practice is usually from 4.30 P.M during weekdays and from 3.30 P.M during weekends. The court is normally filled with families and friends on the court's resting area. It is ordinarily jam packed with kids in the park area, just adjacent to Conway community center. If we had any tournaments, we would ensure to book the courts by coming in early. Morning is the only time when the courts are free.

People who practice on the wall have to ensure that they do not trouble the basket ball players. I have personally troubled them a lot and have run into their court to get my tennis ball. I resumed my tennis practice after three weeks gap and was stupefied to find the whole court and play ground deserted.
I was the one and only person practicing on the wall. I felt peaceful for sometime but missed all those boisterous jokes and disturbances that were caused by players and kids around.

As the climate was cool with a temperature of 51 F accompanied by breeze, I believe there wasn’t any crowd in the court. Felt lamentable on seeing the state of the court today.

Trouble shooting

At last we found a solution to our wireless issue today. For months my roommate had been trying to resolve this issue. Just because one of my friends spouse mentioned the word wireless, we shouldn't have troubled him so much. We never even thought he would give it a shot.

There were times when I and my roommate bounded us to a single posture to use the LAN connection for our internet as the wire was short enough to pull beyond a certain limit. And the biggest drawback of LAN Connection was, only one person was able to use the internet. My roommate tried all possible things to set the wireless connection right. She talked to the customer care for hours and hours and tried resetting the router several times, nothing worked. But today my friend’s spouse resolved the issue in just 30 minutes. First he checked if the wireless was accessible in unsecured mode, later he tried changing the router authentication using a hex password. He remapped the authentication in the router and matched the same in our comp wireless connection. And guess what, our wireless worked. We were all curious to know the root cause of the issue and why our wireless worked at office and not at home. He patiently explained all our questions. To explain our issue in simple terms, our router authentication protocol did not match our comp wireless authentication protocol; this mismatch prevented us from accessing the wireless internet. We got a great relief today after having resolved this issue unintentionally through our friend’s spouse.

And we were very grateful to have them for today's dinner.

Farewell

We 10 gals had lunch together in an Indian restaurant to bid a farewell to one of my inquisitive and sportive friend. We travelled in groups of 5,4 and 1, and each group took their time to reach the destination. We were the second group to reach the spot. We didn't feel like waiting for others to join us, we immediately attacked the food. Today being Thursday, my options were limited to vegetarian food items. I didn't find any sumptuous vegetarian dish to munch on.

Everyone focused on food for the first 15 minutes. After a while we started to tease our newly wed farewell friend. We enquired about her marriage life and better half. She was proud to say that her huby was a great cook and was little worried about the climate in her huby's place. She was also excited to see the tulip flower show in her huby's place. She had bought a SLR camera to record our sweet “Good Bye” memories. She started clicking photo's of all of us from different angles. Finally we got our group snap taken by a stranger. We all started to talk much at the end. Meanwhile one of my friend slowly circulated the farewell card for us to sign.

Most of them wrote stories in the card that me and another friend hardly found any space to sign. The words in the card were very apt and appropriate for my friend's personality. We were happy that she liked our card and present.
We shook hands and finally dispersed my delegating one important task (updating our group blog during her free time) to her, so that she would be occupied during her month's bench time.

After dropping her home we quickly returned to office. We had a great time with her during lunch.