Weekend in brief
All we did this long weekend was scoialize. Went to a Holi dinner hosted by V's boss. Drove back home with my face covered in green and red color. I don't know how many people on the road got scared loooking at my face...
Saturday morning, we surprised R & R at their house and R sat very affectionately next to me. It was too late when I realized the motive was to cover my face with red color :( Imagine having to bathe twice ! Got back home only to see that the entire building was filled with water and colors all over....Later that evening we hung out with r & R again to see "Meet the Fockers". As it happens every time we get together, we never get tickets for the movie we intended to see. This time we ended up seeing Tango Charlie. ajay Devgan was the saving grace. If it were not for him and the theatre that is built so much like AMC, I would have walked out during the interval. PVR Thia maill and Forum Mall is a replica of a US mall. PVR reminded me so much of the AMC River East 21 @ Chicago.

Welcome to this world!

V and R are proud parents of a cute lil girl named Natasha. She was born on Easter Day.

Google Features

Interested in knowing how many pages of your blog/website are indexed by Google? I tried this by Googling for site:lakshvivek.blogspot.com and it showed 78 results. There are some more neat features that you might want to chk at http://www.google.com/help/features.html
I like the movie feature the best.

I don't believe this -- access to George W Bush's site is blocked for all requests outside U.S. Not that I was too interested. I was just verifying if this article was true and this is insanity!

Flickr

I have added Flickr to my blog. The pictures that are on display now were taken during a trip to Delhi last winter.

Also chk out Bloggies. The 2005 bloggies's awards have been announced. Some really cool sites on display. A cautionary note: if you are at work, browse some of the sites with care. I tell H often that he is going to get me into trouble one day for IM'ing cerain sites and not warning me like this one ---....

Decisons, decisions and decisions

Last night I went with a feeling that one characteristic I have inherited from my mother is indecisiveness. I still feel the same. I have this lil poster in my room of a small kid with one finger in her mouth....there is a line at the bottom that reads "Decisions, decisions and more decisions!". I see myself in that kid everytime I see that poster..It has taken me exactly 1 month to decide on what I want to do and where I want to do and finally stick to it. The decision is made. Leaving is never easy and it leaves a bad taste but I hope I will be able to overcome it. It is going to be hard work as I would start on a new journey again...
An article in today's Bangalore Times probably made the decision easier--- Wellness mantra: work I need to learn to work smart from now on. A paragraph in this article reads ---

People often equate working long hours with hard work, she adds. "That's a typical Indian trait. We've made the work culture what it is. We work long hours and believe we're working hard." But it isn't impossible to strike the perfect balance.

Is this true?

Confused State

I'm in a confused state of mind. When you stay too long in a place, you become an inherent part of the system so much so that you don't know how to get out of it. I am in a similar situation now. I need to get my reasons straight and think clearly and not be carried away with all the wisdom that is coming my way now(just for the record they are all absolutely right in what they are saying and doing so in my best intersts and that of the orgn). Should one carry a guilt feeling when one decides to leave after a long time? Does the emotional baggage that comes with this comfort package make it difficult? I'm puzzled ...all this started off as an experiment to estimate my market value. A very costly experiment that has left me drained...I just need a break and gather my thoughts and not give any reasons for my actions but just do it....

Probably none of this gibberish made any sense to you all but I feel better having written it down...

Yes I'm very much alive. "Project Search" is on. I'm almost there. Got to hang on with patience for a few more days and I keep telling myself "it will all be over soon".
Last weekend, V and I were at Chennai to attend my only cousin's wedding. This was the first wedding in the family since mine...And it reminds us of one fact -- that Indian weddings are very tiring and goes on for ever and ever and drains the energy of all of us. I wonder how the bride actually changed 6 saris in a day.....

For now, I want to bury myself under the sheets never to wake up and be i...d

On Astrology

I'm not sure how much Westeners believe in Astrology and horoscopes. I know that East Asians and Indians do. There was a time in my life when I used to believe in it a LOT. . I don't do that much these days. At that point (3 years back), I had actually subscribed to the daily horoscope from AstroCenter but never unsubscribed. So I receive it even today. I read it everyday but don't let it rule my day aand it doesn't bother me much. But I do wonder with the precision that they predict the day. you should probably try it too for fun. My horo for the day says ---

Your thinking is clear, your emotions are under control, and the puzzle pieces are fitting into place. This is your time to take advantage of these pockets of good fortune and turn them into huge treasure chests. One little spark is all it takes to light a forest fire. You have the power within you to make anything happen. Especially now!

Huh...I'm just hoping it happens!

Glass Design 

I was fascinated by the stained glass designs in the ancient churches and museums in Boston. I have always wanted to try them out myself. So I experimented my first design on the French window of our home (V was not aware and I'm glad it didn't turn out very bad) and here it is..the edges are smudged..I intend to cover all the 4 corners of this huge glass and making the designs more intricate as I go along...

Formula One 2005

I've been told time and again by a NASCAR fan that Formula 1 is for sissies. But I feel the other way round and it takes guts to drive a F 1 car. Narain Karthikeyan has put India on the Formula 1 map by becoming the first Indian ever to drive in a F 1 race. He made India proud this Sunday at the Australian Grand Prix. But it was the Renault team that ultimately stole the show with Fisichella and Alonso taking the 1st and 3rd places respectively. As always when Schumi is out, Barichello is there to save the face of Ferrari. I hope Schumi wins the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Slashdot -Qutting jobs?

An interesting thread in Slashdot on When Should you Quit your job? What do you all think?

Should one quit if ---

a) If you are slogging for an inhumanly 14 hours on an average every day and are grossly underpaid (if you know what industry standards are). And your company tells you that you are here for the challenges and that money is not everything in life!

b) If you are unhappy for a prolonged period with the kind of work you do.

c) If you are unhappy with your work environment (coworkers, managers) and do not see any hopes of anything changing.

d)Everyday seems like a Monday and no amount of sleep alleviates the tiredness.

I don't mean to say that one should consider 'quitting' as the first option if only one of the above is true and if you are happy with everything else. You never know what might be in store at your new workplace. There could me more morons to work with there than your current workplace! Instead of acting in haste, one should give himself/herself enough time to weigh the other options and see if things can change for the better. If not, you would be better of leaving than sticking behind. Remember in the latter case, you are just 'adjusting' yourself. My personal experience has been that if I'm not happy in the 8 hours I spend at work, I'm not happy when I get back home too.

Black Thursday

Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong today. It started with my co-worker's machine crashing. When they were attempting to fix that, there was a power outage in that section of the office which escalated a lil later to the entire floor. It was fun. I was working on a critical file after hearing the famous s/w dialogue all morning "It works here and it is the same file. Then why doesn't it work there?". Just when I started debugging, the outage crashed my system. When we brought it back, I was delighted to see that my files were corrupted and had a square box all over...what a day!

On blogging
Check out this one on Blogging therapy Many people have asked me why I waste time blogging. I don’t have an answer. It is just makes me feel good. I think I agree with this –"When you get home you have all these feelings because you really can't say what you want to say. You write it down and you feel much better –" But I take care not to mention the name of my employer or reveal any incidents so as not to get in trouble..
I have decided to branch out my thoughts on JSF and work into 2 new blogs. The one on JSF is titled "Making Java Server Faces Work". Will reveal the one on work shortly.

No personal comments on this one. Have you heard these words before? Very motivating....

Chk out Bloggies for awards on blogging. I found a lot of interesting sites.