Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Emergency

It was an Emergency!

Those wheels moved with red horns, that tried telling or may be crying. But no one to listen since it was close to midnight. He should have been a scientist to exit that gate. Illuminated in white light, it was transparent inside. They were fixed looking down. They tried reaching some phone numbers, someone has to be woken up soon. He was at the far end and she was close to the door. We approached from behind. She tried reading who was behind with a numb face, but she could react a little. Her eyes were telling million things about him. He could have been her hero or may be more. She wanted silence as blanket to travel this mid-night spur. I know I'm nobody, but I wanted to tell, "He will be fine. Wish him the best."

Thursday, November 12, 2009

openSUSE 11.2 launch party :)



openSUSE 11.2 is released. Its one of the coolest Linux distros thats available. Loads of new features. Install and have fun.

Meanwhile, few geeks and nerds out here decided to celebrate the release. Cake (yummy fruit cake, with geeko printed on an edible thing), burgers, chips, fries and pepsi was there in the party. Srinidhi gave a sweating talk on the new features in 11.2 (Wow the list was really impressive, esp the numbers). It was a fun launch party overall.


Ah! We missed a group photo. :-)

[Post disclaimed, please read the blog policy]

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Siddhara Betta Trek

Many a time less planned things work well. This is one of them. A small one day trek to Siddhara Betta.


History
Siddhara Betta, as the name suggests, it was a place for the Siddha's. They came to the hill to meditate as well as for the rich herbs and shrubs found in this place. To testify that there are many small temples and Mandapam's at various parts of the hill. Also at the top are huge rocks touching that make it a cave like environment for the Siddha's to come. 


Team
A group of 8 nerds (me, Rohit, Puthali, Aditya, Jinu, Ravi, Arpan and Sanjeev) decided to trek on Siddhara Betta. After a short meeting a plan was sketched. We decided to meet at NGV and started at 9:30 AM in Tata Safari. Yup its one of the best SUV's for a trek. Just that the last two seats were a bit cramping. Ravi was our navigator and Rohit/Jinu took care of the steering. 





Destination
Reaching Siddhara Betta was an easy thing. Where ever you are in Bangalore, try to get to the road that goes to Tumkur. Post the tollgate keep going straight up to Doobspet. This is a good place to re-fuel, get some snacks and refreshments. Going further 2-3 kms you would find a fuel station with Kamat restaurant and Coffee Day (CCD) on either side. We parked the vehicle in CCD. This was a neat and closest place to park the car. 
[P.S. Yet to verify the correctness from the navigator]


100 mts from CCD is a small tunnel below the railway track. The trek starts from there. The whole route seems me an easy trek. Keep following the trail, after some initial rocky terrain one would find steps for climbing to the top. (Many blogs said there are alternate route to the top. But try it only if you have an local guy to navigate) Approx one can reach the top with 90-120 minutes of climb. 


The low depression in the coastal regions of Tamilnadu made the trek interesting with occasional drizzles. We had to take strategic breaks under the tree and beneath huge rocks. Slippery rocks were something one has to watch during a rain. At the top there was a temple, an there were 2 intermediate madap's. The local guy there said, people used to come in masses during Sunday to the temple. Also he told about few caves behind the temple, but it was impossible for us to explore due to the heavy rain once we reached the top. 


Once we climbed down, reached a dabba on the way back and had yummy late lunch before reaching back Koramangala again. 


Highlights
  • Perfect one day trek route this would be.
  • Carry own water and food. Not needed much, unless its a sunny day.
  • Easy trek, anyone could try it. We found a family, including old people descending from the hill. 
  • Easy to reach by road. Own vehicle more easy, local transport also available in plenty.
  • One of nice place for night camp, esp on a clear full moon day. The view of the NH would be nice.
Lowlights
  • Polluted. Lots of plastic waste. 
  • In the name of God, a chicken feast has happened recently. We found lots of feathers at the top of the hill.
Thanks to the Team for make sure, we did not drop any plastic or paper waste through out the trek. They were disposed safely. 





Start, crossing the railway track



We took a detour to do some rock climbing, Courtesy Ravi

Gecko. Thats how this rock looked to me!



Puthali, trying a rock slide 



It was very refreshing to take a break from the Cubicles



Risky, So take care



Didn't I say it was slippery. Jinu getting some balance.



A ruined madap. Some locations for night camp.



It was raining and we had some friends



CCD


Note: Next on the cards would be KP for December.

Friday, November 6, 2009

An old photo

An old photo, that was not framed, that was not even printed. But like a million line memory its telling stroies. Stories of life from past. A memory that was powerful enough to remember every emotion of it. A light heart and a slight grin. Its a rollercoster that you travel standing still.



Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Happy Birthday Kannan

Who said Birthday's are to be celebrated at 00:00 hrs of The day. So differently we decided to celebrate it at 23:59 hrs. Thats the easiest excuse we can take of the laziness. But its fun to wake the half asleep guy and stuff some cream on his face. }:-) Sigh! What is life if you cant eat an German Chocolate cake! :-( I officially hate GM diet.



Happy Birthday Dams. We wish you many more growths in your life ;) and success be with you. Share the cake with Vijay too. :)

Also one more new arrival to the our home (dhanda selavu). The Raja of our home got a new Guitar and a posh bag for it. Dams duly said, "Hey the bag is big enough that you can stuff extra cloths when you are going home." Perspective varies you see! :)



Well the highlight of the day was this Happy Birthday song The Raja of our home played in his new Guitar. Listen and Enjoy!




happy birthday.wma - Santy

P.S: The audio is very low. We will try getting a louder and good version soon.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Personal

Post Diwali, I had been pre-occupied with so much of thought and work. Yeah had lot of mails to send, many reminders and TODO slips hanging out. Somehow managed to progress a little. Still a long way to go. Also an unplanned flu disturbs a lot. Apart from being sick, two sad part of the flu was that I was not able to donate blood since I had antibiotics within one week of the donation. Also had to miss a travel too since my host said, "I'm not supposed to travel when I'm not fully recovered."

I had so many things to write here, but I did not have time when I wanted to write and I don remember what I wanted to write now. Apart from twitter, facebook, Google reader and blog updates I had not been doing anything for myself. Apart from the movie I did watch last Sunday! So planning to take some time off and spend them for me and see what I can do to keep me interested. So that means I would spam less on all the social networking update boards.

November seems to be a month of Wedding. I got 4 weddings to attend and that simply means 4 weeks of continious travel. So a break seems mandatory!

Some reason Youtube recommended this video and I loved watching it again & again. :)