Google Calender

I have become a fan of Google Calender, and have been using it non-stop to help me remember the list of things to do etc. I previously tried to use offline stuff like M$ outlook etc, but they are well - offline. So unless I am in office I cant use them.

Since I check my mail all too often, I realized that the Google calender is a very valuable resource for me. I added all stuff like people's birthdays, renewing my passport (about an year away) to weekly team meetings in office to getting my bike serviced or meeting an acquaintance.

Google calender is the next best thing after a blackberry kind of device for these alerts. Since I do not have anything close to a blackberry, I am relying on Google calender.

Hail Google! :)

An iPod Saga - or how I nearly went mad trying to use it

My sister recently gifted me an iPod Nano. I tried to use iTunes to load some mp3s onto it... seemed like a simple enough task given the "user-friendliness"/"coolness" (depending on if you are a fan/fanatic) of Apple. First of all, it says it needs to delete everything existing on the iPod. Hmmm, ok... WAIT! WHAT THE FUCK! why do you need to delete the existing stuff, Cant you just "add" to it? Apple's Steve Jobs makes an appearance on the iPod nano's screen and lists Apple's Official Policy - "Itz my product damn it, I can make it shit on you - if I wish to".

So, I deleted the existing songs, and wrote new mp3s onto it - using iTunes on my office laptop which had windoze I-REALLY-promise-not-to-crash-XP with Service Pack I-NOW-REALLY-REALLY-promise-not-to-crash. (Never mind it BSODs once a day on "heavy usage", But I digress) Now, I wanted to shutdown the damn iPod and there is no "off" button... hmmm, so I had to google the controls on how to shutoff the damn thing. Score one for "user-friendliness"!

All is well for one single goddamed day, when I decided to add a couple more songs. I start up iTunes and connect iPod, and iTunes crashes. ok maybe I connect ipod before starting iTunes? still crashes. maybe I reboot iPod? crashes. maybe I reboot Windoze? crashes. maybe I reboot both? crashes. maybe I update software? crashes. crashes. crashes.

OK, screw it. I would rather listen to my 12 songs already loaded for the rest of my entire life, than put up with another second of this i-Piece-of-CRAP-Tunes. So disconnect & Play. What is it? oh, when i-fucking-stupid-Tunes crashed - it corrupted the song DB and said I have to reset the device with iTunes. and guess what happens when I try to connect the iPod with iTunes?

At this point, I would have taken a comically giant mallet and bashed the evil incarnate out of existence, if it were not a gift. So, I thought therez got to be a way out from the dark side, and sure enough I found out about GTKPOD for Linux (and win-fucking-doze), which kicks iTunes's ass anyday and we lived happily ever after. The battle against the evil machinations of iTunes was over.

But i-will-be-back-Tunes wont give up so soon. I might see it striking back with the i-am-so-DAMN-cool-that-you-bow-to-me-right-fucking-now-Phone. I am counting on Google Phone to kick its ass then :)

Trekking in The Himalayas - Where the earth meets the Sky...

Himalayas had always been a trekking destination which eluded me. Sometimes it was my fitness level, sometimes the cost, sometimes the professional commitments - but whatever the reason, it was not happening. So when I saw the BMC posting for a Himalayan trek, I immediately knew I could not miss it. Thus started my tryst with the Himalayas...

After taking a flight to Delhi from Hyderabad, followed by a disastrous bus journey to Manali, we landed at the Hotel on Sunday Evening. Monday morning we started to Solang Valley by Sumos, where I did Zorbing. We then moved on to Rohtang Pass, where we played by sliding on the small patches of snow etc. Then towards evening we moved to the the Base Camp at 14 mod (at 3250m) in heavy rain, and retired for the night.

The next day we began our trek to the next camp at Ravalikoli at 3750 m. Initially the trek passed through the forest, but soon we were above the tree line in beautiful grasslands. we reached the Ravalikoli camp, which was surrounded by mountains on 3 sides, with small rivers originating from them - and combining to form a big stream which snaked past the camp, and distant snow-covered peaks on the 4th side. After having some hot soup, we played Dumb charades and then proceeded to rest for the night.

The next day we started our trek to the sacred Brighu Lake located at 4250m above sea level. After a couple of hours of climbing through grassland, rocky areas as well as some snow, we reached the majestic lake Brighu. We rested for half an hour near the lake and then ate packed lunch before starting our descent. On the way back, a couple of us, played in the snow by throwing snow balls as well as sliding in it. By the time we reached the camp at Ravalikoli, there was a heavy fog and visibility was reduced to less than 10ft. I then climbed the nearby mountain for a view of the camp, but had to return soon due to a lot of rain. We played song & dance for some time before retiring for the night. However, unlike the previous nights, it never rained, which was a big surprise, given the downpour that used to hit the tents on earlier nights.

The next day the sky cleared up completely resulting in a bright and sunny day. This made the return trek one of the most pleasurable experiences of my life. We enjoyed a lot by singing, dancing and plain freaking out on the way down. We walked through big meadows filled with exotic flowers, while sheep and horses were grazing peacefully. We reached the road, where we were picked up by Sumos and headed back to Manali.

I did some basic shopping that night, as well as visited the Manu temple. The next day we did white water rafting on the Beas River which was very exciting, especially when a couple of us, jumped into the river. In the evening we boarded the bus back to Delhi. After staying at my cousin's place in Delhi for a while, I reached Hyderabad sunday evening by flight.

This trek is easily the best among all the treks I had ever done due to the sheer beauty of the Himalayas coupled with the very diverse backgrounds and intellects of my team mates. I look forward to doing more such treks in the Himalayas.

Some people NEVER learn - CitiBank

Today I got a call from a Citibank guy hawking Citibank investment products. Being the seventh call about this in as many weeks, I was pretty pissed off, but was trying to be polite. He asked me "CitiBank would like to help you plan your investments", and I told him "No thanks, I have already planned my investments". Most citibank guys usually leave me alone at this point (which was why I was generally polite to them.) But this guy was persistent.

"But Sir we will give you free counseling on how to make investments...". Trying to end this pointless conversation I replied - "OK, I dont have any money left with me after my previous investment". That I figured would effectively end the conversation, since you cannot sell to a guy who is broke.

"Sir, Do you have a CitiBank credit card sir?" he asked. what the ...? Now he is selling me credit cards? "No" - I snapped. He then explained to me that if I got a CitiBank Credit card, I can take out a loan on it (@24% interest rate) and then use the money to make Investments. I ended the conversation with a "no thanks".

This is the EXACT thing that burned CitiBank (and Wall Street) - Taking Loans to make investments - Leverage. If these big shots could not handle leverage and went to the Fed for handouts, how come common people are supposed to handle it? How can they even make these kind of stupid suggestions? No wonder so many subprime mortgages got sold! Something ought to done about these bloodsuckers, before they precipitate another meltdown.

Falling off the grid - An Experiment with my Life...

Off late I have become kinda addicted to email, browsing, social networking - basically to computers. So I am planning on doing a small experiment with my life, where I try to fall off the grid. I will try to see how much more productive I can be if I keep away from these computer related activities... I was planning on it for sometime, and now appears to be a good time.

In a way, I am partly off-the-grid already, since I do not have a television at home. It leaves so much spare time and I really loved it! I will try to blog about how long I can carry on this "experiment", and what all additional things I have done, and how there was an increase (or decrease) in the quality of my life :) Maybe I will do stuff like clean my room, visit places, go for a jog, read a book, wake up early and enjoy the finer things in life. I believe, for a start, a week should be enough.

So why am I doing this? Sometimes in life, we think some things are so indispensable that we cannot live without them. Once we start thinking that way, we inadvertently hand over control of our lives. This exercise will hopefully put things back in perspective. And when Judgement Day strikes, I would be better suited to fight SkyNet :P

Ofcourse, I will still be using a computer for office work and will be available at my office email id. Well, what did you think? I am trying to fall off the grid, not get my ass fired :D

Nights on Necklace Road

If you are bored at night in Hyderabad, and dont know what to do - here is a new destination, visit the Necklace road, which true to its name, is like an ornament on the Hussian Sagar Lake, in the center of the City. We live a couple of blocks from the necklace road, so whenever my friend and I feel bored at nights, we take our high-end bikes and jolly ride to the necklace road at late nights. But you need to be on the lookout for idiot bike/car racers. Racing is common, and so are accidents and deaths on this stretch.

There is a Heritage Parlour which sells milk products etc until 11PM, which is our regular hangout point. (Big names like Eat Street close by 10 or so, and are too crowded). Besides this there are a couple of the Ice Cream Bandis too.

There are cops prowling the place at late nights, and they are decent enough to leave you alone until about 12:30-1AM. But after that you better not park your bikes there. But cars are safer all throughout. Also, due to these regular patrols, the area turns out to be very safe.

Coming from the Destiny City - Vizag - I always loved the beach there, and missed it a lot after moving to Hyderabad. The Necklace road is the closest, one can get to such an experience in Hyderabad.

Trek to Kudremukh - Touching the face of God!

It had been a very long time since I had been on a trek. This summer was a complete bummer, with temperatures soaring in Hyderabad and surrounding areas. So after the first monsoon showers, I decided to go on a trek. With none of my friends having the time to join me, I decided to go with a professional club, and the Bangalore Mountaineering Club (BMC) was the BEST among them.

So I started a day earlier and landed in Bangalore on Friday morning, and worked that day and then joined with the BMC team leaving for Kudremukh on Friday night. We reached Kalasa and were put up in a local hotel, as the local nature camp did not allow large groups (we were 35 people). The next day morning, we reached the base of the trek at around 9:30 am, and started the trek.

Initially the trek was on a muddy road for a couple of km, and then it branched out into the forest. While waiting for others to catch up a couple of us also took a detour to a nearby waterfall with a check-dam which was beautiful. Back on the way, after crossing the first stream, I realized that there were leeches all over the place due to the incessant raining in the past few days. I have a serious fear of leeches (I looked it up and the actual term is "Bdellophobia" :), and these were really big ones at almost 4-5 cms long (without any blood i.e.), wiggling around vigorously to attach themselves to the nearest blood source. After reaching a patch of dry rock, we checked our shoes and sure enough there were 2 leeches, which were quickly removed by my teammates (thanks guys! I was really really grossed out :).

After climbing for some more time, we could see the actual peak we were about to climb. It was awesome, like a serene giant, being engulfed slowly in milky white clouds. The mountains around were majestic. After some comparatively steeper climbing, we reached the peak by 2:00 PM and relaxed there for an hour while enjoying the lunch of chapattis & chutney which our BMC contact Ram had provided.

On a nearby mountain, we could see a herd of bison, walking slowly, and it felt very exciting seeing them. On the peak, I realized that I ran out of my 2.5 litre supply of water, having misjudged the strenuousness of the climb. So, I had to drink some water from a nearby stream directly - since I did not have any iodine to purify it, but it was very pure. We started our way back down, after climbing down from the main peak, I was deep in leech territory, so I started running all the way until we were close to the mud road, which was safe from leeches.

Four of us were lost on the way back on the mud road, and reached a local village. Two local women were kind enough to lead us back to the Bus. It was almost 6:00 PM by the time we reached the bus. We went back to the lodge and the next day we went to a nearby waterfalls which were very beautiful, before starting back to Bangalore. It was almost 1AM by the time I reached my friend's place in Bangalore.

I did not carry a camera with me on this trip, so the pics from my cell are subpar, I will put up the remaining pics once the remaining team members upload their.

I was very happy with myself for completing this trek, since my strength and stamina training over the previous 5 months had paid off handsomely, with me being able to carry a lot of weight uphill without getting real tired! Hoping to do a trek sometime real soon.