Posts in Category: Life

Life and its intracies, fallacies and challenges

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Flying and Photography

Clouds above Pacific. The picture also shows a...
Image via Wikipedia

(This was meant for posting on the 10th of July. Somehow I never got around to posting it till today)

Sitting at the windows seat of an aeroplane after years has been a fun experience since I normally choose the aisle seat or fly in the dark when not much is visible outside.

But flying in daytime, sitting at the window has been a gorgeous treat. A literal visual feast for the eyes.

White clouds all around me, patches of blue sky above and the sun making occasional appearances through the cloud had me constantly wishing for my camera. Not that it would make any difference since it is literally impossible to take half a decent pic from a commercial aeroplane.

Anyway, that got me thinking – perhaps go in an open aircraft/glider (do they even exist? Is it even possible?) and get some photography done. But it would probably be shit expensive. Ah well one can dream can he not.

Anyway, I digress. So watching the clouds fly by made me want to see how they behave when they get near the plane’s turbines and when the exit (probably the geek in me thinking) and I thought it would be so cool to have two aircrafts flying at slightly different altitudes and photograph the effect of the turbines of the lower craft (you know, you can’t really make out the effect from inside the aeroplane because there is no point of reference) and of course photograph the scenery as is, flying on a floor of clouds, walled by clouds under a cloudy roof.. BEAutiful.. :)

All these musings made my childhood dream of flying planes resurface making me feel so terribly underachieving in life. Ah, I digress again so I’ll stop here.

(written on my phone a few thousand feet above the ground while blasting through empty space (thank god for that. Wouldn’t want the space to be non-empty ;) ) in a pressurised metal tube)

Who art thou 2009?

Yep, 2009 has come and gone, for good. Not a particularly good year, both professionally (in part) and personally.

No major highlights except growing older. And…

Left GE Healthcare. I think the team is imploding literally, almost like a repeat of Applibase. Heh
Joined SPML-Semitech, with responsibilities in an entirely different industry and segment. Heck, I don’t even code for a living anymore. Don’t know if that is good or bad…
Work has been a killer in my new job (which does not have Saturdays and also some questionable policies but then the company is managed by my uncle and cousins so can’t complain :) )

Traveled a LOT. Visited Xi’an (Sian), Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong (All in China), Bhopal, Mumbai, Jaipur, Delhi (about 4 times this year) Pondicherry, Assam, Calcutta.

My Grandmother died this year and I was really close to her. That was the worst of the year. I miss her.

Well 2010 is here now and I have a lot of hopes for this year. Hopefully a lot of change in my outlook, life and work, a lot more travel and clarity about myself, future and my thoughts.

Here’s to a new year and bye bye to the year past :)

So…

A lot of updates.. Quickly

  1. Changed jobs in September. So I’m not with GE Healthcare anymore. I’m with an organization called SPML-Semitech and a different profile. No more into development (at least for a living)
  2. 4 trips after changing jobs. More trips possibly in the pipeline
  3. Just completed THE MOST intense task I’ve worked on professionally. And to think it was preparing a document. (I wanted to use just a document but then it really wasn’t *just* a document)
  4. A lot of other stuff that I need to remember ;-)

More coming.. This time for real..

Tempus Fugit

Oh yes it does.. It was just sometime ago that I was going through the whole application process. And now it seems to be that time again.

Work had been hectic the past few weeks. Completed a major task at work so things are better now and seem to be slowing down now.

Got a new MP3 player, a SanDisk Sansa Fuze. It’s flash based and really cool. My colleague thinks it is very cute (yes she is a girl ;) )

I’ll soon be joining a short course called Social Entrepreneurship Outreach Program (SEOP) by a group known as Center for Social Initiatives and Management (CSIM).

Oh and I’ve been reading quite a few books as usual. Quick list of books I’ve read recently:

Oh and I think there were a few more but I don’t remember. I’m sure you can imagine why ;)
These are in the past 4-5 months (except the Watchmen Graphic novel)
More later.. Hopefully..

This and That – Relatively speaking

So I’ve been busy. Old news what!

Past few weeks have run away like seconds.

Two trips – Jaipur for a wedding and Pondicherry for a holiday. More trips likely this year with one definite. Want to try and go to Goa at least once this year. Could not go last year which sort of broke my promise to myself to go there at least once a year.

Work has been hectic and killing. But is sort of fun because I am in charge. BM coding has slowed down too slightly since folks at home so am always with them. This sucks because I have a lot of stuff I want to do but do not have the time to

No time for photography. Reading has slowed down too. Sleep seems to always hover around me but not for enough time.

Time seems to be flying away. Apparently relativity is hot around me but without the pretty girl.

Found this lovely video of a addictive song and an beautiful voice. Have listened to it at least 15-20 times in the past 2 days. I think it was a very good discovery. Nice songs on the singer’s (Emily Wells) myspace page too. I think I really like her voice and her unique style of singing. Will keep track of her.

(Direct link to the video if the above embed does not work correctly)

Birthday was celebrated in the trip to Jaipur. Turned out to be a fabulous day capped off by an awesome party; not due to my birthday but the bachelor’s party of the groom whose wedding I was attending there. His wife is lovely. They are staying with us for this month so yay..

Free Hugs for Valentine’s Day

Republishing this here from my article in Desicritics.org to set the context for the next post.

Opinions

I was reading this excellent essay by Roger Ebert and found it a very good read.

I really connected to the following words from that essay:

It is not important to be “right” or “wrong.” It is important to know why you hold an opinion, understand how it emerged from the universe of all your opinions, and help others to form their own opinions. There is no correct answer. There is simply the correct process. “An unexamined life is not worth living.”

This has always been very important for me. To have my opinions independent of others influence. Not always easy but I try to ensure that I keep my opinions uninfluenced until I have had a time to examine them and come to some sort of a conclusion. While this sometimes lead to being judgmental it serves me well as I can look at issues and ideas with my own perception and perhaps provide a different perspective.

Ps. Yes, sometimes I’m too strongly opinionated to the point of stubborness ;)