Premshree's (品速力) Personal Weblog

Made my day.

The long weekend last week was Death Valley. We hadn't planned well, and since it was a long drive, we rented a car -- a hybrid -- sadly from SJC. And I wasn't allowed to drive, apparently, because I need to be _25_ to drive a _hybrid_. WTF.

Fujicolor Superia 100

While I wasn't particularly excited about the freezing weather, I'd imagine it's much better than being there during the summer. The most fun part was hiking the sand dunes. More pictures here.

I have a selection of my photos that I file under personal favs, but if I had to pick one that I absolutely love, it has to be this:

For the technically inclined, it's not as sharp as one would like it. But I think it turned out fine as it is. This was shot on Fujichrome Sensia 100 on my (now broken) Nikon FM10. As to why this seems square-cropped when it's shot on 35mm film: this was the last exposure on the roll, and it got only partially exposed; so it was not cropped, really. (Aside: when I gave this roll for development, this last frame wasn't scanned -- the guy probably assumed it was a "bad" exposure -- so I went again to get this one frame scanned. I'm glad I did.)

I hate it when people say things like "that guy is weird", "he's crazy", "I don't understand him" and such. People probably just say it because they're not like that; but it bothers me. As an example, some of my closest friends are spendthrifts (I belong to this category), while others are the frugal kind — folks from one category don't "understand" the other kind. There's probably this human urge to try and understand something you don't, well, understand — which is just fine — but don't try too hard.

At this point I'd have quoted that cliché about variety and life, but I'll pass. People are different, and that's one reason I love life.

These days I use my company-issued MacBook Pro. It's amazing how small my 12" Powerbook seems in comparison. Sadly, it's no longer in an usable state. I'd still want to get a 12" (or smaller) MacBook Pro (if they ever make one): it's so easy to carry around.

FWIW, now I have more sticker space. :-)

Oh, here’s an useful post for you geek fashion n00bs (gosh, it almost feels retarded saying that) on how to (and how not to) accessorize the ultimate geek fashion accessory.

(Whee, fourth post already!)

Saturday was Monterey with Gopal_V, Subbu, Sai, hitesh and teemus. Hitesh drove Subbu and Gopal in his nice Pontiac G6, while I drove the rest on Sumeet's awful Focus. The drive was mostly uneventful. We got there some ten minutes before Hitesh and gang, probably because we exited CA 1 via US 101, while those guys took some GPS-assisted, longer route (CA 85, CA 17, CA 1).

We got there a little too late for whal-watching and the next sail was only at 14:00, so we decided to visit the aquarium and then get back.

I didn’t want to spend 25 bucks to see the aquarium because I had visited earlier in August with GopalV, but I ended up going anyway (loser). The Ocean Sunfish fascinates me. Done.

Excited, we headed to Chris’ whale-watching tours, only to learn that all whale-watching tours were canceled thanks to choppy waters. But he was doing a 10 buck “sail around sea otters” thing, which didn’t soud very interesting, but we went anyway. Boy, was it worth it! The waves!

Time to get back north and head for dinner. Subbu, Hitesh and I; Sai, Sumeet and Gopal. Subbu drove, while I slept through most of it. Pit stop: 748 N Mathilda (aka Larkspur). We rest for a while, yathin comes in a few, and then we head to DishDash just down the road. I asked for Sambusak Dajaj, realizing when it arrived that I was basically eating chicken patties in some gravy that was way spicy for my taste. My stomach’s bad right now.

Now I needed to return my rental car today because I had received a legal notice from them earlier on Friday. My credit card couldn’t be charged after the first month because it was over limit or some shite like that. Anyhoo, legal notice. I’d potentially be prosecuted if I didn’t return the car. So, Hitesh and I head to my place, Sumeet his; Hitesh’s car goes to garage, take my car, head to Sumeet’s (he’s the money); drive to Avis in SJC. Car returned. Say what you want but I really liked this car, the Chevy HHR.

I’m one broke man.

TODO: Tokyo and Sydney

Life’s been crazy. I never had an issue with my passport wherever and whenever I’ve traveled. I didn’t even have a problem with my social security. But... DMV refuses to accept my application because my name on my social security and passport don’t match. So that’s that.

What else? Umm, code_martial has been ordering like a mad-man. That's not what’s crazy — I’ve actually been receiving them too. That’s not what’s crazy either. The *one* package that *I* have been expecting hasn’t reached me in over a month. It’s officially lost now. *That’s* crazy.

I want to fly out to BOM/BLR early next week; and need to get back by 12^th. That’s bad too.

ack

For most purposes Flickr has pretty much become where I “blog”. I just couldn’t keep up with LiveJournal; and I hate that. Although, sometimes I think of one of my friends and read them. It’s weird, though, when I don’t get the context. And sometimes it’s funny because posts typically tend to be rants — and that’s okay — but it’s still funny (in a makes-me-smile kinda way, know what I mean?) because I’m just not used to reading personal blogs anymore.

The last people I read were ravi, tsk1979 and diyaraghavan.

I want to (and hope) I can get back to blogging more often.

Finally a picture of us together. Thanks, spo0nman!

“What’s all that green on your hair? OMG, it’s SHORT too!”

Here's another one. These were shot on Fujicolor Superia Reala 100 ASA film.

I'm sorry, but there's nothing else interesting my life. But that's okay.

You know, it’s kinda embarrassing, but what the hell, the truth is I had never ridden a bike or driven a car. Well, the former—biking—I have done, but it was more because I had to prove a point. Now, the last few times I’ve been coming to Bombay I’ve been biking every day. I’ve been enjoying it! The first thing I want to do when I come here is bike. And I like riding fast. I’ve been riding on Ghodbunder road regularly. I did Worli to Dahisar once. I must thank my brother for being a good teacher. :-)

I’ve been driving too. (My trainer says now all I need to to is fly a plane. Haha!) But nothing like biking.

Oh, that picture is from one of the biking trips. (More pics from that night.)

You can call me a Rockstar, but don’t ask me to play Erotomania.

We had a small party at my place on Christmas eve’s eve. And since I had just bought a shaker a couple days ago, things happened. Here’s how you make Tears in Heaven:

- ice cubes in shaker
- add some salt (very little)
- 30 ml Currant-flavored vodka (Danzka)
- 30 ml dark rum (Old Monk)
- little Kahlúa
- very little Triple sec
- Peach Twirl (Tropicana)
- shake well

When sabiokap had it for the first time his eyes watered apparently. Hence the name. Oh, I know the garnishing looks awful. Sorry.

I’m happy about the way some of these turned out.

I got lost yesterday while trying to get to my hotel in Santa Clara from the Golden Gate area. I ended up using a cab, Muni bus, Caltrain, a bus again, light rail, then did some walking and ended up somewhere in San Jose. Manged to reach the hotel, eventually.

Next time — I’m driving. Definitely. Traveling in Portland was so easy, but then again distances aren’t huge.

Oh, and stop bothering me with those silly questions. Yes, I have a D70s now. :-) One of the best pictures I’ve taken so far is probably that of Bhavana’s. It was nice meeting you!

OSCON was a lot of fun. My talk went pretty well. I think. Here’s the presentation, if you’re interested.

A lot of the sessions and tutorials were nice—I mostly attended a bunch of Perl talks. Among the keynotes, the best, in my opinion, was Kathy Sierra’s.

Oh, this picture that I took won a runner-up prize at the Third Annual OSCON Photo Contest. So I got a HP Photosmart R717. Just like that.

Also, during the OSCON week, we released an update of our Search Web Services SDK. Here’s the announcement. It now includes the Lua and Ruby bindings that I had worked on earlier.

I’ll write more about the stuff that happened during that week if/when I get time.

» Pictures from OSCON 2006

74 "Infinity Radio"
25 "Ultra Hits Radio"
23 "Virgin Radio UK"
21 "Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb" 
10 "Pearl Jam - Last Kiss" 
 9 "Deep Blue Something - Breakfast At Tiffany's" 
 6 "The Who - Baba O'Riley" 
 6 "Iron Maiden - Dance Of Death" 
 5 "Pink Floyd - Wish you were here" 
 5 "Def Leppard - Hysteria"

(The numbers indicate the number of times a song was played.)

Previously: What’s Playing

I just got my copy of Ajax Hacks (I’ve contributed couple of chapters sub-chapters). It happens to be one of their bestsellers, btw.

I was supposed to get the book quite sometime back, but since I didn’t, I was asked to choose any O'Reilly book of my choice. Now that was not an easy thing to do: I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted bad. (I would have asked for any book on Haskell or OCaml, but they don’t seem to have any books on functional programming languages.) I ended up asking for AppleScript: The Definitive Guide. What book would you have chosen?

Anyway, apart from those two books, they also sent me a copy of AppleScript: The Missing Manual. Sweet!

“Work is work. I don’t think twice before going to a place; I’ll take the passenger wherever he wants to go.”

He spoke good English. He said he liked speaking in English with his passengers when he could. “Whenever I get a chance, I speak in English with my passengers. This is my classroom, this is where I learn whatever I can.” He spoke, enunciating each word, with a slight American accent. “Once I had an American passenger and I spoke to him a lot. He was amazed at my English. He said my English was better than many people in his office. That made me very happy.” He’s married and has a kid. I told him his kid is lucky. “I talk anything. It’s the only time I can. I hope I’m not boring you.” I told him I was enjoying listening.

“Whenever the passengers are talking, I try to hear so I can learn new words. If I don’t understand a word I sometimes ask the passenger.” I told him his English was pretty good. He smiled. “Sometimes some people don’t like it when I speak English. They probably think I’m trying to show off. But I don’t apologize because I didn’t do any wrong—I just want to learn.”

He dropped the other guy off (it was raining hard, and we—Pankaj and I—couldn’t find a rick, so this guy asked us to join him since he was headed in that direction anyway), and then we headed to the airport. I told him I wish all auto guys around here were like him. My flight was at 21:30; it was about 21:00 then. I had missed this flight twice in the past, and I didn’t really care if I missed it this time. I asked him if he’d like to have tea. He parked his rick and we had tea and smokes.

His name was Mohammad Rafi. Nice guy.

teemus (yelling): it doesn’t work for me, bitch
me: it works for everyone
teemus: bitch
me: ...
teemus: bitch
me: ...
teemus: bitch
teemus: bitch
...
...
...
teemus: bitch

teemus has been—in code_martial’s words—chanting “bitch” for the past half hour or so.

After living practically out of the office for over a year, I finally have my own place. Pankaj was looking for a place for himself some months back, and he asked me if I’d like to move in with him. I reluctantly said yes—I wasn’t too keen on renting a place then.

The broker guy showed us several blue-pink houses with their USPs being “you can see diamond district from here, saar” and such. We were pissed.

We chanced upon our penthouse—yes, it’s a penthouse, not by Bombay standards, but yeah, a four-floor building is what you get in Bangalore—when the broker was showing us another flat in the same building. We had to rent the place. And we did.

It wasn’t very easy getting the house ready, though. I don’t know why, but there seems to be something terribly wrong with the way folks here conduct business: “yes saar, ready saar, today evening, done”. But of course, it never gets done for a month. Anyway, after giving up on them later (agreeing to bright yellow and ivory white being the same color, etc.), we moved in.

Pankaj and I have been shopping for curtains, cushions and things like that. I’m quite happy about how the place is turning out.

Here are some pictures. Pankaj’s pictures.