Life at Microsoft

Hm... Its been long time since I blogged about anything after getting into Microsoft. There isn't going to be any technical stuff in this post, sorry about that ( maybe later.. :) ). When I started for this post I didn't have a topic to write about but all of a sudden I have so much to talk about that I think I can write a novel out of it.

Anyway, something I really wanted to say for a long time is that, moving to Hyderabad, getting to know all these people (both professionally and otherwise), making some of my best friends here, working with some of the best people (I mean people not minds, although they are still some of the best minds I have seen) has been by far one of the best things that has ever happened to me till date.

I feel like blogging about more things now, will update with more things happening here and also some technical stuff if I can get hold of any :).

I have this habit of typing "Thanks, Anand B" at the end of every message that I type nowadays, something that I have picked up with writing all those mails at Microsoft :)

Till then, sayonara friends.

Quotes from the movie Kungfu Panda

Here are some of the best quotes from the movie,

1. There are no accidents.
2. One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it
3. Mind is like the water, when it is agitated it becomes difficult to see but if you allow it to settle the answer becomes clear...
4. There is just news, there is no good or bad news.
5. There is no secret ingredient, you only need to believe...
   
6. A real warrior never quits.
   

I liked the first two the most. Lots of meaning in them....

Live in the moment.....

I have heard that to see a change (from your normal mundane routine) in your life, something huge has to come your way. Well I have felt this urge to live my life to the fullest after what happened to me today and I would like to share my experience with you all.

Today was like just any other day and my friend Rakshitha calls up and tells me that we both and her friend shall go to college in her new car ( Alto - I think it was her birthday gift, anyway ) and collect the hall tickets. She was really excited to show her new car and I was skeptical at first but then thought what the heck and agreed to go to college with her.

Well... we go to college get the hall tickets, talk to few friends there and leave for back home and while coming back.... wait before you read ahead I need to tell you how we were seated in the car so that you get the whole picture. As you all know it is right side steering in cars sold in India, anyway rakshitha was driving and Rahul Bhuptani ( her project partner ) was seated beside her and I was seated exactly behind her in the back - the right rear door is just to my right and there is no one to my left. Now, where was I... ya, so we left college and as we neared Nayandhalli signal she tried going past a truck by overtaking from the left ( which is not legal by the way according to traffic rules here ) or maybe the truck was going to right, anyway as we went past the truck, the left front wheel of the truck came within inches of the rear right door of the car i.e. next to my window. I am sitting there looking at the mud guard (front left) of the truck and thinking... "should I wear the seat belts.... ?", well then thought that she knew what she was doing and thought otherwise and started enjoying the music. Later as we reached Vijayanagar she was trying to overtake some BCC truck and he kept on blocking her, so she tried to grab the first opportunity she got and she tried to overtake from the left but in the hurry she didn't notice the rear side of the car....

The main idea of this entry is for you to imagine what happened so I will paint you a much better picture. The truck is on the right side of the road and our car on the left side and she is trying to over take the truck from left side and change the track to the right side. She has crossed only half way and without realising started steering to the right. I am sitting there looking at the left front wheel ( actually it was the black mud guard ) coming really close to the door i.e. towards me. I am sitting there looking at the truck's wheel, thinking "should i tell her to move left" and before I could say anything she rams the car to the truck i.e. the door beside me. Man.... I have never seen or experienced anything like that in a long long... time. I am looking at the wheel and it jams straight at me ( car's rear right door ) and that is the not the end of it, she starts panicking and starts moving the car towards the truck instead of going away from it, well rahul took the wheel and pulled the car to left and parked it. We then went out to check the door - well the door was pumelled in and she had to take the car for replacing her door later on and luckily no one was hurt.

Well... this was the second time I have experienced anything like that and I don't want it to be ever forgotten and that is why I am writing it down here. Anyway the main idea of me blogging was to tell you about how I felt after this incident. Interestingly I wasn't scared or panicky but was really excited and happy. I was excited because it was something different from the mundane life and happy because I will never be able to have such a close experience and live to tell the story another day, not even if I want to have such an experience.

After that I have realized the meaning of the phrase "Live in the moment" i.e. you never know what is in store for you when you leave your home, so live your life as if there is no tomorrow :-)

I know it feels kind of cliche when you hear it but the realization behind it is something everyone has to have once in life and the sooner the better :).

Another Extraordinary Common man - Abhishek Kumar Sinha

First time you look at this guy you will describe him to be reticent but look closely and you will notice that he perspicacious too. By just looking at him you will notice that he is an IIT product ( to be precise - an aspirant ) but unlike most IITians he has virtues lacking in most human beings.

If you get more acquainted with him you will realize that he is at least 10 to 15 years elder (not in literal sense though ) when compared to others of his own peer, seeing the way he thinks or acts in various situations. One of his greatest virtues, is being calm even in most difficult situations and my guess is that life itself taught him to be the best of it. He is a consummate survivor and has been through stuff ( hurdles ) which we keep seeing our heroes in typical hindi movies go through, most interesting thing is that he "wins" in the end just like the hero in the movies we watch. If you are fair, like to pick up challenges, solve puzzles and of course need some space from others, willing to reciprocate too in the same sense then you will like him at first sight ( contact ). He is always focussed unlike most of us who keep living in dreams and enjoying most of the time. Keeping all these aside I like him most for his modest and honest nature, I keep turning to him whenever I need an honest advice on some thing and I am really happy... no proud to say that he is my friend.

I am not a veteran writer so please forgive the lack of emotion ( if any ) which I wanted to add to this epitome of the biography of my friend.
[PS: took the photo from his orkut album]

Chickamaglur Trip

Me and four of my classmates had been to chickmaglur last week for a two day trip. We had a whole lot of fun and since this was my first "legal" trip it was more special for me. It was all Harsha Valaturu's idea from the beginning. My relatives stay in Chickmaglur, So we had asked them to book us a nice hotel for staying and hire a taxi/vehicle for the trip. By the time we went there everything was setup and we didn't have any problems at all.

First day we went to Kemmangundi, Kallathgiri , Baba Budangiri, Bhadra Dam. We first went to Baba Budangiri where we saw the water falls ( Manikya Dhara )



Saw some nice sceneries there,





next we went to the famous Baba budangiri cave. From there we went to kemmangundi where we didn't find anything interesting other than some flowers and see-saws.



Our next stop was Kalatgiri which was the highlight of the day. Here there is a temple in front of which we have a waterfall ( small one ) we climbed up over the falls to explore more. It was kind of our first trekkin experience so everyone liked it the most.







Then we went to some mess in Tarikere where we had our lunch ; the food was nice there. Our next stop was Bhadra dam, since the dam was closed for visitors we didn't get to see much there. Apart from that we got see the water near the dam , take some pictures and we wounded up for the day.





Back at our rooms we watched Prison Break series just to kill time. I forgot to tell you that we contacted our friend Manoj Kumar who has an estate in chickamagalur and was present there for vacation. He had come to our room that night and we had a lot of fun.

Next day started with many promises, we first went to Manoj's estate,





from there we went to Muthodi forest with a lot of expectations. We went there at 12 noon but they said that we would be allowed to go in only at 4:30 pm. Since we had nothing to do there we climbed down the slope by the road to the stream flowing below.





Me and adarsh were the ones pioneering there. Others just were apprehensive as to what would happen and stuff. Anyway it was our best experience of the day - i should say.



While climbing up we took a different route and we couldn't locate the road beside the stream, so a lot of anxiety was there as to what has to be done next. Up from there we did remove our shirts to free it from the thorns and sticks stuck to it due to our trekking while coming back from the stream.



The worst part of the day was our tour inside the muthodi forest, all we got to see there was some deers, elephant droppings and ofcourse some monkeys. Above all we paid around 400 Rs for that ( what a waste of money ).








Anyway from there we went straight to our rooms and again watched half episode of prison break, packed our things and left the same night with Manoj Kumar.

The rest of the pictures are here PicasaWeb Album.

This was our first trip by ourselves and after this we have madeup our mind to have more of such trips in the future.

Induction Programme at Sun

Just after my exams we had this induction program scheduled at Sun Microsystems Office at Divyashree Chambers. Campus Ambassadors from all over India attended this program.

It was a great experience for me since i got to make many new friends. There were presentations , demos conducted during both the days by highly specialized programmers working at Sun. It was a great experience to learn from the actual developers of the various products. Above all this i came to know how it feels to be an IT professional.

We also had a tour of the Sun Microsystems Office ; their labs, support and services department etc. It was great to see the servers ( Niagara ) running with my own eyes.

Apart from all these it was also the valuable information imparted to us during demos about Solaris, NetBeans which are driving me to learn more about them.

We as Sun Campus Ambassadors get a lot of free resources, study materials etc. We also get paid 8000/- per month. Our job is to see that more and more students know about solaris, netbeans and other Sun products and also start using it ( don't forget i am the "ambassador" of Sun ).

I plan to provide my fellow students, faculty with many opportunities and benefits like,

1. Getting a lot of study materials for our college by enrolling our college for the SAI.
2. Obtaining discounts for students who wish to take up certification and also provide them with required learning materials.
3. Getting them guidance from experts working at Sun through User groups etc.
4. Conducting contests with attractive prizes to be won.

I really am apprehensive about what is going to happen when college starts and i will have to give a seminar to an audience full of seniors, lecturers and others.

Definition of Survival

According to me "survival" ( literally meaning "to live" ) does not hold the same meaning for everyone.It differs from person to person.
Basically from my point of view, survival is "not accepting defeat". You survive or wish to survive in this world because you have a grand cause to achieve, a big goal to reach, someone to chase, a specific purpose in life to pull through and to do all this you need to cross the big ocean of possibilities and chances.

you ( I mean everyone in general and reader in specific ) never would have believed in God if not for problems that come across your path in your life.

Here is a excerpt of the dialogue that took place between me and my friend Chetan,
Chetan - do you believe in God ?
Me - yes
Chetan - then convince me that God exists.
Me ( thinking ) - What the hell ... What to say ???

you can or will believe in God , hoping for the impossible to happen i.e. believing in miracles to occur of nowhere which would help you in surviving ( i.e. in simple terms, helping you in achieving your goal ) if and only if you have problems facing you in your life for which you can't find the solution.
Hence according to me without the element of purpose there is no meaning for survival i.e. in other words the correct synonym for 'survival' is 'purpose'.

The purpose in the life of a dedicated parent would be to guard his/her child against all obstacles and give him/her a bright future. The purpose in life/goal of a student would be to get 1st rank or to just get good marks. The purpose in life of a good husband would be to protect his family.
The list is endless and every single person wishing to 'live', to be specific 'survive' can be added to the list, since every such person has a purpose in his or her life.

Alohamora.....

Somebody told me once that doing the same thing again and again and expecting different result is the definition of insanity. Well my life just broke all the rules, my life got freed using the same key agian this time i.e. it gave me a new result with a new range of possibilities in my life and the key being the same old VTU.

You might be wondering as to what is the topic of this post. It is very simple i.e. we got our 3rd sem results the day before yesterday, I was expecting a considerable score but I scored 80.22222 ( infinite no. of 2's - not one less ) % with 52 in EC ( haha, life rocks ) , 100 in MATHS( surprise ), 64 in OOPS ( life sucks ), 55 in DSC ( made me go insane ).

At that moment I felt like hitting something (or) breaking something ( ofcourse something not too costly ) to let go of the frustration but then after listening to my friends' scores I consoled myself, since some have got backs, some have got less than mine and some got more. All those who got more marks than mine have been deleted from my buddy list....... joking yaar.Those are the ppl who give a purpose to my life.Well now that my mind is open for all possiblities ( failure and success ), it will be difficult for fate to surprise me ( haha ).

Bull's eye : Death on correct diagnosis

This is a post which will reveal to you "the inner me", what I mean is, you will know a little bit more about me which will help you in diagonizing what type of person i am, in reality.

You know, I asked myself a quesition -
What is the most important thing in my life to possess which, I would let go of my enggineering marks ( specifically my 3rd sem one ), my rank, my luck and my very favorite pastime entertainment and all the pleasures of my life?

The answer to this question was only one, my friends.If any of my friends get irritated or have a fight with me then later that day I feel so bad that i dont feel like eating, my mind goes numb, my heart feels heavy, and I start hating and blaming myself for whatever happened.I would at that moment giveup anything to have that friend of mine back.

I am posting this bcause I have a feeling that one of my friends is angry or irritated by me lately and I am still feeling bad about it.I hope that my view of the situation is wrong and he is not at all angry with me or even if he was , he has already forgiven me.

Digital Camera - coming soon ...

Well the desire to possess a digital camera and capture pictures of my friends , family and ofcourse myself has increased so much now that I cannot anymore go on with just giving some lame hints to my mom and dad about my craze for a digital camera. So, I have already put an formal application for digital camera with my mom and in all probabilities it has been approved but it is my bro who is still not so willing to buy a camera. He keeps saying the same thing, "After a few days you will lose this craze for the digital camera and you wont even open it".

Well I am still trying to find a new and more guaranteed way of approving my application given to my brother. But I have not yet lost any hopes and I am sure I will convince him to buy me a camera in near future.So guys in "the coming soon..." section you can expect the pictures of everyone and everything which is important to me.

Blood donation

There was a blood donation camp organized in our college on 6th march.I donated blood for the first time and you know what happened I almost fainted ( to be fair "felt dizzy" ) and had to bunk the college for the whole day and that was not the end of it , my mom was screaming ( maybe even crying ) for donating blood without telling her.My friend had to bring my bike back home since I came back in auto.


But I feel that 2 or to be frank 3 good things happened because of me donating blood ,

1. Firstly, someone was helped with my blood ( I hope so ).
2. I know now how much strain ( well in practice ) which I can endure.
3. I am happy I missed CO (Computer Organization) class that day.