Thinking Aloud - Sunil Prasad

I had been looking everywhere for this !! I had previously tried Pandora, RadioVerve ... and a whole bunch of other online radio stations, but this is the BEST ! It has a huge set of stations and the quality is AWESOME. News, Music (Includes 2 Bollywood stations too) and comedy (Senior comedy channels are just too good :))))
Check out: http://www.aolradio.com

June 29th - 2007 - June 28th 2008 ... This would definitely be called the most eventful year in my life (or my 26 year old life). Just to highlight the major events ...
I quit Philips, a place that was very close to my heart. Made a lot of friends, learnt a lot, but it just started to get too comfortable. Had to move on.
Goldman Sachs was not the place for me, I realized that in the first week of my job. Had to move on.
Moved to US, and got a contracting position at Microsoft. Things started to look good. Here I was in Microsoft, working on anything but the Windows platform, and a brand new product. But, I was still contracting... Had to move on.
And now, same team, better role, full time Microsoft employee ...well this certainly is something that i am "settling" for :)))
And on the personal front, this is the year where things went "public" and I got married to shravya . And we are now back in the US and busy setting up the house, learning the nuances of marriage and trying to find the balance. It sure is exciting :)
Also few of my closest friends got married, changed jobs, and having their own share of fun, but all that does make it into my eventful year log.
But this does not seem to be the end ... The following year also has some major promises and challenges in front of us (notice "us" and not "me" ... I am getting used to this new word). May be I will be better with my blogging and try and post events as they happen and not lump it in one single post :)

Pratibha, Balaji and I went out to Alki Beach on a weekday (yes, weekday) evening, just to cool off. Happen to spend almost 2 hours in the freezing cold, sitting and chatting on the floating docking station. One can get a beautiful view of Seattle downtown from here and its mostly all to yourself ...

Moving out of one's motherland is indeed a very painful process. And there could sometimes be compelling reasons that could make one take this "uncalled for" step.
Now that I am one of those guys, I would love to do as much as I can to stay in touch with India and keep myself abreast with the socio-economic conditions back home. In this era of internet and telecom, this might not seem like a big task, but there are still some aspects of the society that cannot be experienced in absence. Take social service for example. I did try and get involved in as much as I could while I was back in Bangalore through initiatives at Philips. It is very easy to be lost in our own world and think everything is hunky-dory, but these exercises gives one the real picture of what more than 75% of India is.
I am trying to do the same here, in Redmond, where I am trying to work with some NGO's who are working for a cause for the people of India.
Asha, Seattle is one such organization who are working for better (greater percentage, better quality) education of children in rural India. Recently there was this event called Geetanjali, a musical night, whose collection was earmarked for project funding in different states of India. I took this opportunity to volunteer and in turn learn about the NGO in general and their objectives. I was pretty impressed and I would be involved a lot more in their projects in the future. Below are some of the pics from the event.

This is one of my fav songs ...

"Every hour of everyday Im learning more
The more I learn, the less I know about before
The less I know, the more I want to look around
Digging deep for clues on higher ground..."

No dude !

Is that a trick question ?

This is something that I am addicted to ... Simple and but effectual bookmarks manager. I now can proudly say that all my Firefox installations have the same bookmarks no matter where I am :)
Try it out and you will get hooked on too.

I just managed to go to Kew gardens (NOT WORTH IT) and St Paul's Cathedral. I also attended the Grihapravesha of my cousin's place. Shopped a bit and returned last Sunday. London is a nice city and you will never feel alienated :)

While work at office seems to remain more or less the usual grind, I have been touring the city with some amount of fervor that I actually have surprised myself. The places that I visited in London over the last 2 weeks are:
* Oxford Street & Regent Street (Shopping places, Hamleys etc)
* Canary Wharf (The finance hub of modern London. you can find Citi, BofA, HSBC, Lehman Brothers ... and a whole of companies there.)
* West India Quay (Docking land for the ancient British trade ships)
* Green Park
* Hyde Park (The most famous park in London with its popular Speaker's corner)
* Tower of London (Armory for the ancient London, Kohinoor diamond, and all the royal jewels)
* The National Gallery (Chronologically arranged painting from world over, beautiful stuff and special exhibition of Rembrant's collection)
* Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, London eye (Just a glance)
* British Museum (Artifacts from from almost every recorded civilization, a MUST-VISIT)
* Greenwich (The GMT spot, 24 hour clock, etc)

Thanks to my cousins, I have not been deprived of good Indian food for the last 3 weeks :)

With just one week left, lets see how much more I can cover ...

Its been a week since i landed here at London, and I must say it has been quite a pleasant one. The appartment is in the heart of the city, close to the Tower Bridge, and the weather is just fine. Rains or drizzles occasionally, else it is a pleasant 15 - 20 C. Office is close to St Paul's and it is about 2 mile walk one way. I am yet to explore the city's huge set of tourist spots and am doing my bit of research.
With loads of Indian restaurants to choose from, food is not a problem, provided one is willing to spend 10 P everytime .
Presently I am at my cousin's place in a nice and quite neighborhood of High Wycombe. Planning to spend the long weekend here (Monday is a local holiday :)) and would do the touring the remaining 3 weekends. Lets see how that goes and will try and upload some pics next time.

I am writing this less than an hour of the incident.
Scene 1: I was heading home with five other colleagues (read strangers) in my office cab at ten in the night, and somewhere close to BTM layout, one of the ladies, who was sitting bang in the centre, says "Hey, you did not take the turn to my house, now take a u-turn". Mind you, drivers change everyday and they are not expected to remember your house. This just cost 5 minutes x 6 guys = 30 minutes and may be a litre of diesel. But if you think that is annoying enough at the end of long day, you just got to read to the end of this.
Scene 2: We brake right in front of her house on that narrow residential road. Note, this is a normal road like any gully in Bangalore, no median, no traffic, and just enough space for two cars to pass. The guy to her left promptly opens the door and gets out to let her out, but no, she looks to her right and says to the girl next to her "But my house is this side", pointing to the door about 10 feet from the car on the right side. The poor girl had to get down and let this one out so that she gets-out-on-the-side-her-house-is-on.
Thank God her house is not on Bannerghatta Road or something ..because the moment you oblige to such requests, the speeding lorry would make sure the people and door would all vanish before you even start to laugh about it..
Boy ! were we pissed or what ! I am not sure, if she had a longer day than mine, or was she just plain DUMB ...but she sure made us all laugh out load, soon after we turned away from her house.

Is any one of you reading your LJ friends page contents through a feed reader ? In other words is there an RSS feed for one's own friends' page ?

This is pretty inspirational; TN gov embracing OSS :) Check this out:

After a little more than 3 years, I have decided to call it quits at Philips. I have now started off on a new journey, and this time into the jungle of the finance world. I have joined, Goldman Sachs as an Analyst Developer; and yes I will still continue to write software, but this whole experience is very different compared to that of Philips. Lots to learn and lots to prove :)
Wish me luck guys !

Africa, Untamed

Blogged with Flock

As prady recently pointed out here, this is very irritating and it happens quite often.

I like this idea of my athige writing a blog, not her own, but for her son (my nephew) Vishnu. I guess she will gift him the login id and password when he is old enough to type out the events in his life by himself. Check this out!

Annual shutdown at Philips has always been something that is reserved for a trip with my family. This time it was to northern Kerala - Wayanad and couple of places around Mysore. Had a great time, and also learnt a couple of valuable lessons: Always plan and book in advance, when headed to Kerala always carry your own liquor :), etc ...

Edakal Caves

Muthanga Wildlife Santuary

Gopalaswamy Betta

Therakunaambi Venkataramana Temple

This is something that I had been looking for, or atleast feel that way once I have found it ;-) Thanks to shravya for letting me know about it.
Simple and clean, this addin lets you preview a link without opening in a new page/tab. It just vanishes once you go out of its scope (hover out), which of course you can prevent by pinning in down. Use it to see new mails, google link, pictures, utube videos, etc. Just too good. Give it a try ...