Trip to Hariharapura

I had been to Harihara pura for a weekend trip on Saturday & Sunday. Infact, it was not a trip, but my parents had organized "Chandi homa" at the Hariharapura temple ("matha"). Harihara pura is a place close to Sringeri. It is about 20 kms before Sringeri.

We had booked a tempo traveller for 15 people. We started on Saturday early morning at 5:30 AM. Leaving early has lots of advantages. We reached Chikamaglur within 6 hours, which also included a 30-45 minutes stop for breakfast. But from Chikamagalur, the ghat section starts & hence we had to drive slowly. We reached my uncle's place at around 2 PM, just in time for lunch. My uncle's house is very close to Koppa town (abt 2 kms). We had our lunch & a nap for about an hour. Then at around 4:30 PM, we started for Sringeri. Harihara pura is on the way to Sringeri, abt 20 kms before Sringeri. My relatives wanted to visit Sringeri. So, we first went to Sringeri, spent some time along the banks of the river, some more time in the temples. Then we started towards Hariharapura at 7:30 PM. We reached there at about 8PM. There were 2 huge rooms which could accomodate about 15 people. We all kept our luggage in the rooms & then went to the "matha" (mutt/temple) where dinner was serverd. Dinner was quite good. Then, we went back to the rooms & slept there for the night. The rooms were quite cosy.

Hariharapura is also on the banks of river Tunga (like Sringeri). So, we all went to the river early morning to take bath. The river was really very good. The water was not too deep. At places, it was just about 1.5 to 2 feet deep, which was ideal for small children. Some places it was about 3-4 feel deep. But we did not see water deeper than 4 feet. Maybe because it was summer. Although the water was not much deep, the current was really strong. Everybody enjoyed the water for more than 2 hours. Apart from that, there was nothing much eventful on Sunday morning. It was just the boring "homa". Many of our relatives came from a lot of different places. Lunch, although a bit late, was really very good & tasty. Accomodation & food was provided by "matha" (mutt/temple) authorities themselves. Not many people know about this place. So there are usually very few people. The accomodation is very good, the river is excellent to enjoy & if you are religious, you'll like the "matha".

We started back to Bangalore at 5:30 PM in the evening from Hariharapura. We got the dinner packed by the temple authorities. An uncle of mine, who resides in Hassan had come in his Maruti van. We started together. We went to Hassan at around 10 PM. We had dinner (the same thing that we had got packed) at his place. Then we started back to Bangalore at around 10:45. By the time I reached home, it was 3 AM in the morning.

It was a really good trip. A memorable one since many of our relatives went together.

Sony imagestation

Sony is offering the facility of storing unlimited photos online at Sony ImageStation. They also offer other services like printing & others. But the thing of interest is that you can create a free account & upload all your images. You can create your albums & put up all your pics on the website. No limit on the size. You can also share your photos with your friends/family. They'll be sent a link to your album via email. They need to create an account so that they can view your album online. I uploaded about 150 MB of images taken from my camera & my friend (Srini's) camera. It took about an hour to upload them.

Not just the images are displayed there, but also a lot of information is shown. The information abt pics not only includes size & resolution, but also, date & time when the image was taken, the make of the camera used, the camera model, exposure time, whether flash used or not, aperture, exposure time, focal length, metering mode, white balance & what not?? I did not know that my jpeg image contained all this info !!!

Of course, nothing in the world comes for free... The catch with Sony Imagestation is that you cannot view the images at the original size. you can only view smaller resized images. If you want to view full size images, you need to upgrade your membership by paying them money... :D
Another catch is that, not just other viewers, but even the person who has uploaded the pics, cannot download a full-size version!!!

Heavy Rains

Yesterday really a very different experience. When I started from office at around 8:45PM, there was no rain. It started drizzling half way through. The traffic was so bad that, at the 16th main signal in BTM Layout, I had to stand at the signal 3 times before I could pass it. When I first approached the 16th main signal, it was drizzling slowly, but then suddenly it started pouring heavily, very heavily. I was not even wearing my usual jacket. So, I was completely drenched by the time I passed the BTM layout 16th main signal. If that was just it, it would have been ok. But it was more to come. The downpour became heavier & heavier. By the time I reached the Bannerghatta fly-over, the water on road was well over 3 feet. Even if I was sitting on my bike, the water level was, at places, till my knee.. The water level was high not just at the fly-over, but till my house. If the water level was any higher, I would have to swim on my bike!!!

Even in this relentless downpour, I did not consider taking shelter at some place on the way as I was already completely wet. Riding in such heavy rains with so much water all around was an experience you rarely get. Finally when I reached home at 9:20PM, not only was I full wet, but my shoes & my bag were completely filled with water.. To top it all, there was no power. The power was restored only at around 11 PM in the night. We had candle light dinner..

Finished the commited ones

Hurray......

I finished working on my committed defects for SR6, our next service release. I got the fix for the last of them yesterday night. Now all that is left is to complete the process. I just need to get code reviews done & get approvals. I've finished my work before time. June 1st was the deadline. I feel so relieved.

BTW, this is just the defects queue & I still have my customer escalations to work on. We get a lot of customer escalations in our product. But atleast we are on target for the service release.

Also, my team member came up with the plan of working on our regular stuff for just 4 days a week from Monday to Thursday. On Friday, try to work on something new, like enhancements to the product, new features, new initiatives, etc. Looks good to me.

Forgot keys

Monday, it was very stormy. It also rained crazily for a while. Many trees were uprooted because of the storm. Because of the storm & rain, I left my bike at office & went home with Chandru in his car (Chandru is my close friend from college & a colleague too).
Today, I came to work with Chandru. I remembered to get my helmet to ride my bike back home, but forgot to get the bike keys.. Sometimes I think of my memory & feel amazed. This was one of those times. How could I forget the bike key, when I remembered to get the helmet??
Anyway, I've got to leave the bike at office today too & go home with Chandru. Maybe tomorrow I'll remember to get my keys.

My First blog here

That's true.. This is my first blog. Actually, I'm not much into this blogging thing. Never had a blog or read other's blogs. I understand the blog as a public diary, where people (if interested) can not only read my blog, but also post comments for that. I'm not sure how this is useful, but I intend to try this nevertheless. I feel that if you write a diary, that's going to be usually private. On the other hand, if you want to make writing a habit, this is the place. Write about anything & every thing. Who cares??

We have a corporate blog too (ooohh..). I have posted my "first" post there, but never ever opened that page again. So, this makes this one my only official & fisrt ever proper blog.

Some things about myself - I'm Vinay, 22 years old, a software engineer in a reputed software company. My qualification is just a BE. My interests, hmmm.. I don't remember.

I'm well known for my talking skills (my blog title should explain everything). I talk loud, repeat the same sentences again & again. Never talk to the point. What others can say in a sentence, I can talk 5 minutes about that & I'll not be surprised if the other person still doesn't understand what I'm saying.. My english is quite bad, esp., spoken English. Whatever I write will be the same way as I talk. So, if you ever plan to read my blog, just beware. Some people have told me that I "bark" a lot.