Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in sharad nagappa's LiveJournal:

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Friday, March 17th, 2006
1:14 am	Travelogue (Part 2 of about a half dozen) December 15, 2005; Frankfurt Hahn Shuttle Bus The last six hours have seen me make my way from the tiny isle that is the U.K. to the large daunting country that is Germany. The first thing that strikes me as we touch down at Frankfurt-Hahn is how stiff my neck is from trying to sleep on the flight. The second thing, is that I am now beyond the point of no-return, the dawning that whether I want it or not, an adventure lies ahead. What I find slightly surprising is that the bus driver and the guy at the information desk speak English quite well. I was almost expecting to be lost in a flurry of German! Not only that, they seem quite friendly, I must say, quite a difference from London, at least on that front. The journey itself is quite picturesque. There is the occassional blot on the landscape, but most of the time I see a tiny village in the distance or lightly wooded areas, or rolling grassland even! Almost like Scotland! It's another hour to the airport - time to relax and enjoy the view while listening to some english pop music I believe the driver is playing. Oh! I did forget to mention the windmills! I find them absolutely fascinating! December 15, 2005; Zurich Airport After the Frankfurt-Hahn experience, Frankfurt Int'l airport is truly a humbling experience. The check-in desks for my flight to Zurich were listed simply as '51-287'. I thought I was mistaken till the girl at the 'Swiss' desk told me I could check in at any of those desks! My only worry is whether my checked-in luggage is going to follow me to Nice or remain in Zurich. I saw the sun for the first time since I left Edinburgh. I rather miss the comfort and security of home, but at the same time, I'm quite looking forward to the rest of the trip. Also, having sunk a lot of money into this trip, there's no looking back. I'm just working out how many jackets I could have bought instead of going on this trip! Links and other stuff: I still find it difficult to come to terms with this photo. If you look past the glass in the photo you can see some shops inside Frankfurt-Hahn airport. My question is, why is there an erotic shop at the airport?! It's simpy beyond my comprehension! Background... The first part of this was written as I rode the shuttle bus between Frankfurt-Hahn airport and Frankfur Int'l airport. It is very much the first impression I had of Germany. Frankfurt-Hahn airport is an ex-U.S. military base, now converted into a commercial airport. It is very much a tiny airport, smaller than Edinburgh even! A lot of budget airlines operate out of there. The 'Frankfurt' in 'Frankfurt-Hahn' is quite misleading as Hahn is about two hours by bus from Frankfurt. The first mild shock for me was that people seemed quite friendly, something I really wasn't expecting in Germany (at least over here, they have a reputation for being quite serious). The second (slightly edited) part of these fairly short notes was made in Zurich. I had a stop-over there on my way to Nice. It was very much a "I have time to kill; what should I do?" sort of post. Just to give you an idea of my travel route: Edinburgh - London - Frankfurt - Nice (via Zurich) - Monte Carlo - Torino (via Ventimiglia) - Nice (via Cuneo) - Fra (via Zurich) - Dresden - Frankfurt - Edinburgh (via Glasgow) I'd say that's a fair amount of travel to visit three cities. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 16th, 2006
10:39 am	Travelogue (Part 1 of about a half dozen) A little bit of background... Here's a slightly edited version of my Christmas holiday. I needed to take a holiday, not having taken time off for about nine months. With Manu in Nice and Vineeth in Dresden, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to see that part of the world. I'm not particularly fond of travelling alone, so I convinced GG to join me. To cut a long (not to mention bitchy) story short, he dropped out, and I made a solo trip. The following is an (edited) account of some of that trip. I say 'some', because about half way through, I stopped keeping track of my events. The account of events, whatever little there is, has been sitting in a little yellow book for the last 3 months, and I've finally decided to let it see the light of day (partly motivated by a deal with Ashwin to make an update). This is more or less an exact reproduction of that little yellow book - with all the emotion just as it was when I wrote it :-) December 15, 2005; London Stansted Airport Writing about one's travels even before they begin may seem overambitious, however, with four hours to kill, you can't blame me for picking up a pen. I spent the better part of the evening being entertained by GG and his new master, 'Romeo'. For those of you who have been deprived of an introduction, Romeo is a half-German shepherd. We aren't sure what the other half is, and there is some speculation as to whether it is his father or his mother who was German. Romeo has already learnt quite a few tricks - he can sit, stay, shake, and now GG is training him to answer that all important question, "Do you neeed to go pee, boy?" Dinner with GG was good - chicken curry and rice, downed with a tall glass of 'apple juice with elderflower infusion'. Dinner-time conversation was the obligatory reminiscing of old times at PESIT - good memories of a time past. After taking the obligatory 'Manu-photo', it was time for me to depart. I had to catch the last Stansted-Express from Liverpool Street. With my infamous punctuality, it's no surprise that I missed the train. To cut a long story short, I got to the airport on the bus. And so, as we come to the present, I introduce you to my fellow stranded-in-Stansted-passenger, a Finnish girl, studying circus arts in London. It's a completely new thing to me, and it remains to be seen how much I shall learn over the next few hours. Links and other stuff: The Circus Space; Romeo is at the bottom left of the photo, for those of you who couldn't figure it out. There's also a video with GG and Romeo, but I've been threatened with consequences if anyone sees it. "Hyvää joulua ja onnellista uutta vuotta" - that's Finnish for "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" ;-) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 12th, 2006
12:41 am	For someone who prefers to have a reason to drink, today had more than it's fair share of reasons. A close friend gets engaged tomorrow (or so i believe). A half dozen close friends of mine seem to have got placed in fantastic jobs. And, today was also the rugby match between Scotland and Ireland, although, sadly, Scotland lost. So, though I be so many thousands of miles away from all of you, I drink to your health, to your success! May you all knock back your beers with as much joy as I did! I feel a massive headache coming over me, so you'll excuse me for not indulging in any more drunken revelry! Oh, and Allen, you ass, what's your phone number? (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 17th, 2005
8:52 am	For want of a subject I can never think of a suitable subject to type up there... I was rather surprised at how many people wished me on my birthday this year! I've got quite used to my closest friends wishing me two weeks after the day in question. It felt quite wonderful - a big thank you to all of you - from those who telephoned, or sent emails, to those who left 'orkut scraps'. With every passing year, I seem to get more technologically challenged. I confess that I have absolutely no idea how to reply to an orkut scrap! On one occasion, i ended up leaving a scrap for myself; i find it absolutely confusing. On that count, my apologies for not replying to orkut scraps - send me an email, i know how to hit the reply button! Anyway, as far as birthday customs go, Scotland seems to have a much healthier attitude than Bangalore. On your birthday, your friends treat you to dinner, rather than the other way around! I think it's far better than getting fleeced by a hungry, angry mob. As far as birthday presents go, I went and did some shopping. You get what you pay for, so I'm going to have a bit of trouble squeezing my new toy into my already cramped room. In other unrelated news, it's minus three degrees outside, i really don't want to go to university today :-( (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 2nd, 2005
12:02 am	An update I guess I owe it to everyone who *might* read this journal to make an update. So, with a deep breath, here goes... Firstly, starting next week, I (officially) start my PhD. For the curious, it's something to do with improving the resolution of existing sonar and ultrasound. The project is called BIAS. The website isn't particularly fancy, and has a tendency to change my browser window size (rather annoying) - be warned! Secondly, I have decided to improve my overall state of fitness and health - through exercise! I've joined the rowing club, the jitsu club, and i plan on running twice a week. hopefully i still have time to study after all that. Thirdly, well, not really much happening apart from that. I just wanted to write "thirdly". it's just the two things that have happened so far :-) (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 2nd, 2005
12:49 pm	the only reason people ask you "how's it going?" is because they want to either bitch about their own life, or boast about how great everything is going. you get into a competition trying to convince everyone that you're having the most miserable (or the best) life possible. anyway, i'm not here to crib about a miserable life, i'm here to brag about how great things are (at least for now - something about life being full of ups and downs comes to mind which i choose to ignore). anyway, i've finally finished my course. i handed in my thesis on tuesday, and i finished my viva yesterday. to make things even better, the weather seems to be great, sunny yesterday, and sunny today too! looks like a day for the outdoors. the festival is coming to an end, maybe i'll see if i can still catch anything. p.s. anyone interested in holidaying in edinburgh in the next two weeks? Current Mood: excited (16 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 16th, 2005
6:05 am	A change of routine... is what accompanies the writing of a dissertation; no, i think the dissertation demands a change of routine. This time is reminiscent of my last semester of college in Bangalore. Then too, did life seem to turn upside down for some weeks - we would start project work in the evening, or maybe even the night, lunch/dinner at dodgy places, hectic circuit debugging hours before the deadline! Ok, so I exaggerate - a bit; closer to the truth would probably be lunch, followed by rich chocolatey goodness (I forget what it's called) at Casablanca, post-lunch siesta, dinner at Kebab Magic (mmmm, those were the days!), or the closest place we could find that was still open at midnight. The "start working at night" bit is true, we would only really get started around 10 or 11, and there were many, many sleepless nights, not so much for me - I used to take a "quick nap" between 3.00am and whenever Mrinal or JD would wake me up. Sometimes I wonder what they used to do while I slept... To come back to the present, since I started writing my report, I've had another "change of routine". Some things have changed for the better, and as always, some for the worse. For starters, always the late riser, I have in the last 10 days, seen just as many sunrises! It's quite an achievement for me, especially since the sun tends to rise rather early this part of the world. What I haven't quite pointed out is that I now sleep between six in the morning and two in the afternoon, sometimes stretching it as far as 3, 4 or even 5! Somethings never change... The other major change relates to cooking. A famous person once said "Of course I can cook; I can cook bread, rice, tea...". In an anti-dissertation writing spirit, I refuse to cite the source. However, in the spirit of that statement, I count "salad" amongst my newly acquired recipes, the other recipe being boiled vegetables - with some olive oil, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper! (Cooking Tip: It's quite handy to have some bread in the toaster while your vegetables cook themselves in the microwave, especially when you're really hungry). The last change to my daily routine involves an outing of sorts, which has now been reduced to a visit to the local Tesco, and on occasion (making for some nice variation) a visit to the nearby chip shop - some of the reasons being Welsh, Polish, and an as yet unknown region of the UK. And so, two weeks into writing - with another two weeks left - I estimate, with a maximum error of 10%, that I am done with 70% of my writing. Whether my supervisor would agree with that is another matter altogether, but, since he's on holiday till the end of the week, he can't disagree, that's my only saving grace. Without further ado, I shall now introduce my head to my pillow. Goodnight! Current Mood: High on coffee (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 9th, 2005
1:07 am	Help! i'm addicted to jaffa cakes!!! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 25th, 2005
4:25 pm	A certain amount of uncertainty has crept over my future in the last few weeks. Looming large is my project deadline, 31st August - it feels a bit unreal. I have heard nothing about my PhD application - it would probably put my mind at ease if I knew for certain. I've been advised (by my parents) to keep my options open, which means looking at more universities and considering my job prospects. For now, I've decided to make a few job applications (as soon as I get my resume in order!) and start lining up some universities. I'm inclined to stay within Europe, but I'm probably only looking at the U.k., Germany, Netherlands, and possibly Sweden and Finland (I'm not sure I'll be able to manage the climate for 3 years). I'll probably need to apply to the U.S. as well. And so, I want advice, namely, where should I apply? I'm interested in: * Audio/Speech/(general) Signal Processing (not really inclined towards video/image processing, but who knows, it might be nice if I get into it). * I won't rule out wireless networks/communication yet, but I don't think it would be my first preference. If anyone has ideas/suggestions/anything to say, drop me a line. It feels good when you write down what you have to do - it doesn't seem so insurmountable now :-) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 4th, 2005
4:39 pm	wireless access point I'm thinking of getting a wireless access point (i need new toys from time to time :-D ). i've been thinking about the Netgear WG602. does anyone have any recommendations or other advice before i decide to go shopping? (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 3rd, 2005
10:37 pm	A room with a view "A room with a view" is exactly how i can describe my new room! I have a wonderful scene just outside the window - a nice garden, and beyond that, Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh's resident extinct volcano. Facing east, I get to see the dawning of the new day from the comfort of my bed! The downside to this, and believe me, there actually is a downside, is that the glorious sun rises at 4.30 in the morning. I keep my curtains tightly closed tonight. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 29th, 2005
11:08 am	After much planning, we went to the wonderful county of Glencoe yesterday. About 120 miles (north-)west of Edinburgh, it's a good place to experience the Scottish highlands - and that is exactly what we experienced in all it's ruthless, untamed beauty. The day started with a black cat crossing our path. It was quite a fat thing, and gave us a strange stare before going on it's way. I'm not one to believe that black cats are in any way associated with evil, but you can't help but think of these things even in the face of all rationality. Getting out of the city is always rather difficult, but, inspite of several wrong turns, about 30 minutes later, we found ourselves on the motorway - heading in the wrong direction. A U-turn and another 30 minutes later, we were well on our way! The weather wasn't great when we left, but there's always the hope that a distance of a 100 miles will bring you closer to the sun, and the opportunity for some great hiking. Two-and-a-half hours later, we arrived in Glencoe. It seemed that the bad weather was travelling a little bit quicker than we were, and there was a light drizzle when we reached (so much for BBC's weather report). We were dressed for a sunny day; we shopped for raincoats, had a quick lunch, and began our hike up the Pap of Glencoe. Around 730 metres high, the view promised to be breath-taking. Unlucky me, half way up the mountain, I already found myself out of breath. The rain, by this time, was coming down harder; worse was the unbelievable wind. By this point, we had broken up into two groups, the two stronger chaps continued relentlessly upwards, while three of us struggled to go any higher. We were cold, tired, and wondering how to make it back down. We had lost all sight of a trail, and were now buffeted by strong winds. We finally decided to head back down, unable to go any higher. I think I can say we went where only sheep had tread before! - you can tell from the way they mark the spots they've been on. Anyway, so down we went, and made it safely to the bottom. The ride to the tourist centre (where we dried ourselves a bit) reminded me of the time we went go-karting just after the rains. The ride home was much better, we didn't get lost, and made it back in good time. We even caught a glimpse of the sun as we got into the city! On the whole, it was great fun. p.s. I now believe that black cats are evil. (17 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005
11:21 pm	The last few days have been quite eventful, and all-in-all call for an update. Went to Newcastle over the weekend and troubled Kiran (from pesit, not on LJ). Staying with his brother and his brother's wife, they live in a nice little house in the middle of the city. Didn't do much, but I must say there was a lot of really really good food! He's quite the chef (all of them cook really well!); I'm trying to convince him to donate to my collection of recipes which I can then sell for a nice tidy sum! Well, not really, but I am collecting recipes, so if anyone wants to donate, send me your easy-to-cook recipes, to be added to Indian Cooking for Dummies, currently featuring, almost entirely, recipes from my mom. These recipes are written in such an easy-to-follow way, that even ashwinb could follow them ;-) Anyway, we also went to a concert "Fiddles on Fire", violin folk music from Hungary(?), Africa (where a guy played a one stringed violin), and South India (Carnatic). It was quite enjoyable, especially the African and Indian musicians. The bus journey back was less than enjoyable. I do not advise anyone to travel through the highlands on a bus. It is certainly not for those with a weak stomach! On the "intended PhD" front, I found that my application for a scholarship has been rejected. I now have an escape route! As long my grades remain alright, I apparently will receive an offer. With exams a week away, I think it's time to stop LJ-ing, and start studying. See you all later. (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 18th, 2005
4:09 pm	snow photos :-D Snow Photos!!! all the snow has melted away. the white wintry wonderland has disappeared :-( (4 Comments |Comment on this)
12:09 am	it's SNOWING !!! had my first snowball fight, and built my first snowmen! Current Mood: ecstatic (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 10th, 2004
12:20 am	i just finished my dinner - consisting mostly of ginger cake, followed by a croissant; not the most filling meal, but considering the time, i'm not exactly in the mood to bake a pizza (which has consistently been my dinner for the last 5 days). lunch was a most excellent meal at the mosque-kitchen. just like home-cooked food :D in other news, my project, starting april (end), will be Bayesian Subband Signal Processing, something to do with breaking up a model into smaller more 'modelable' parts. while that's distracting me, i have exams right round the corner. next week will see the start and end of my exams for this term. slightly worrying when a good grade is so important, and there are vast amounts to memorize. the good weather seems to be holding out much longer than i expected. sunny mornings have become quite common, except that it's really cold at the same time! i'm off to muscat after the exams to bask in the warm winter sun :-) i really miss my college days, fooling around, bunking class, sleeping in the music room, all those times when a movie or lunch seemed a more worthwhile investment than sitting in class. damn, it's all over. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 19th, 2004
7:04 pm	damn, it's cold! "you get into the bus, and you're smiling because you can feel the warmth of the sunlight. then you get out of the bus and your smile gets frozen on your face" - translated from greek by a friend (Comment on this)
12:17 am	it's been a really long time since i made my presence known to the world. so firstly, a big hello to all my brethren! many things have happened in the last one month, for instance, i tried cooking again :-), and it wasn't so bad either, i've started playing volleyball (Oh God! Can it be true??), and if i delay this post by a day or two, i might be able to add "It Snowed today"! at least that's what's been predicted for tomorrow, let's see if we have a white friday morning. in other news, i went on another trip around the 26th of last month, photos here. we went to a little town called Dunkeld and Birnam. did a lot of hiking, got very tired, came home and crashed. that's the gist of it. to make a story out of it, well, it's a really good place to go hiking, lots of trails in the mountains and forests. one of the trails is along side the river Tay. not a very long story, is it? there's a ruined cathedral in dunkeld. inside the non-ruined part of the cathedral, there's a statue (for lack of a better word) paying tribute to the soldiers of the black watch who were in india at the time of the 1857 revolution. (i'm just mentioning this, there's no point to it) i've been alloted a supervisor for my project. his name is Dr. James Hopgood. he's into speech, and i don't know what else. this means i don't get to do anything related to communication in my project :-( talking about projects, "gandhi gets HSBC London". that's great news! this way, he can treat me too at some point in the near future! i was travelling home on the bus in the evening. some people were sitting behind me, and i'm pretty sure they were speaking in english. it didn't sound like anything i've ever heard. the only thing i could make out was "go at", "go" as in "got", and "at" as in "that", hence the "pretty sure". everyone back home seems to be busy with things to do. and here i am trying to shirk my work :-(. plus exams are less than a month away! everything is happening so fast. luckily for me, i'm under a lot less pressure than a lot of the other people, but that's mostly thanks to my department. most other people seem to have assignments to hand in every other day, we've had two assignments so far, and we're under the threat of receiving another. this last one is bad news, it's based on a lot of crap about estimation theory, no offence to my great teacher, Dr. James Hopgood! ...this was a very random, dis-jointed, and the opposite of smooth-flowing post, wasn't it...lack of food will do that (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 12th, 2004
12:07 am	for those of you who haven't heard, i went on a short day trip to the scottish highlands. here's a photo of the kind people who invited me (that's vimal, priya and amit from left to right). selected photos from that trip are available here. we left home at 8 in the morning, and after getting slightly lost, we finally managed to find our way out of the city. i would have taken a photo of the car we went in, but it's really ugly. anyway, the trip had been planned down to the very last detail, so we made our first stop at one of the many lochs/lakes that we would encounter on the remainder of the trip. a bit of photography and a cup of tea later, we were ready to move on to our first big destination, the town/city of Oban. it's a port city on the west coast (i think). we made it to oban in time for lunch which was a sandwich each, courtesy amit (he made the tea too, we really took advantage of him). lack of time prevented us from really exploring the city, but it seems a nice quiet town. next stop, fort william. fort william turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. there isn't much of a fort left (according to the tourist information desk), and we didn't have enough time to go up "glen nevis" which probably would have been quite scenic. fort william lies and i quote "in the shadow of scotland's highest mountain, ben nevis". it would have been nice to follow the trails, but as i said, we were on a tight schedule. the drive back to edinburgh was quite wonderful. lots of hills and lakes. we didn't stop to take any photographs, and a couple of photos i took from the car are rather blurry. we made it back around 9, and it just started drizzling as we got into the city. tiring, but it was definetely a good first trip. time to sleep now :-) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, October 8th, 2004
11:10 pm	just got back from a little party in the neighbours flat. lots and lots and lots of people. met people from mozambique, tanzania, cameroon, nigeria, pakistan, lebanon, mexica, the usa, romania(?), spain(?), and china, of course. the lebanese guy (damn, what's his name??? and i met him like 10 minutes ago) came to bangalore in 2002 for some conference. turns out he really liked the place. he had even watched a hindi movie (which he said was a total rip-off of some english movie (something-dogs or dog-something, i forget again), and it had the song (pardon my english-hindi) "too cheese badi hai mast-mast..." and obviously, i had no idea which movie that was. anyway, it turns out that the indian brand name really precedes us. apparently there's way too many indians all over africa, i don't think some of them didn't like the fact that i'm indian. no matter, i shall impress them with my wonderful skills, oh wait, i don't have any :-( so after spending about an hour there, my voice is hoarse from all the shouting. did i mention it was very noisy there? i'm going on a day trip tomorrow. meeting the other indian guy has turned out to be quite good for me. we're going by car to a couple of places, i'll let you know all about it when i get back :-) (3 Comments |Comment on this)