Subodh'S Space

Google+

2011-07-17T15:50:00.000+05:30

Joined Google+ after Panigrahi invited me there. Yet to explore its various options. Looks good as far as the first impression goes. Lets see if people really give up/reduce Facebook in favor of G+
Looking at the popularity of Facebook I think it will be quite a task for Google+ to penetrate into the lives of Facebook users. People have become quite used to Facebook now and I am not sure if they would be interested in trying out something new. One best part is that since it is from Google, you would get all you Google related accounts linked to it. Although not sure if it would add great value to your net surfing but it will surely be cool to be able to link your Picasa photos to G+ and share with your friends.

In Pune

2011-07-17T15:46:00.000+05:30

I am in Pune for quite some time now. Today after 11 years met with Praveen Pillai. Had a good time reliving our old days and discussing about all our batchmates. It is really good to be back in touch with your old friends with whom you shared so many happy memories.
I don't know how long would I be there in Pune but planning to meet up with Anupam Agarwal also.

Just waiting to get back to Bangalore where my family is.

IE 7 Sucks with Blogspot

2011-06-12T17:54:00.000+05:30

In IE 7 I was not able to post anything for quite some time now. So here I am posting from Google Chrome. Its a nice browser and all the new elements of blogspot seems to work fine here.
Things have been pretty hectic for some days now. Day after tomorrow I am leaving for Chennai and will be back on 15th-June night.

Vivaan has become too stubborn these days. Its a huge project to make him drink milk twice a day. These days he is into cricket big time. Always like to bat but never bowling.

this isn't good .... i can't type anything in the text area. Neither I can upload any images. whats happening to blogger and IE 7 -> Is it an IE 7 problem OR blogger.com problem

2011-06-06T15:14:00.002+05:30

Latest Oils & Water Colors

2011-05-31T11:02:00.000+05:30

Weekend that was

2011-05-30T15:11:00.002+05:30

Friday evening saw "Book of Shadows - Blair Witch Project 2" followed by "Shutter Island"
Saturday had a good time with old college mates at NGV Club in Koramangala while watching the one sided match of Chennai Super Kings versus Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Sunday went just like that and in the evenings I saw Scream 4 (junk movie).
Hopefully, I might be getting into a project soon, so it might happen that I again disappear from this blogosphere but will try to scribble here once in a while.
Season of paintings - Tried my hands at Water colors and Oil colors this time (for a change). Trying hard to learn water colors but it seems to be really a challenge learning on your own.
Oil colors are fun to work with, but really gets messy and cleaning up requires a lot of effort.
Will try to upload some pictures of my new paintings soon.

Exactly 1 year Back

2011-05-24T14:41:00.002+05:30

I had mentioned that I would be returning to the world of blogging soon after spending my vacation at Chhindwara and Bilaspur. That "soon" turned into a good 1 year and here I am after full 365 days. Let us see, whether this time I am able to post regularly.

In summary, after last assignment about which I mentioned in my blog, I was about to fly to US on for a long term opportunity for one of Wipro's customer, but my luck again ditched me and my travel got cancelled. I got a chance to visit UK for the 1st time. I went to Nottingham (3 hrs. away from London) for 2 weeks and had a good time there. As soon as I was back, I got into a new assignment as a Project Manager for Charles Schwab account, responsible for managing the automation project deliveries. I was again supposed to fly to US for this project and again my L1 Visa played the spoilsport and I was stuck at offshore. What an experience it was !! Experience of these 10 months (From July-2010 till May-2011) have been enormous. I do not want to get into the details of these 10 months but in short it was a lifetime experience.
Now again I am back in free pool and searching for projects (specifically for requirements in US)
Let us see how life treats me this time.

7 months were too long

2010-05-25T16:45:00.003+05:30

7 months prior I had mentioned about writing something, but 7 months became an year and the year just passed in a jiffy.
So where was I? Of course after coming back from HP (2009 Jun) I was on bench (read "idle") for quite some time and there were lots of UPS and DOWNS . I can write a whole 400 page Novel about the time I spent from July-2009 till October-2009..... But let me not eat up a lot of space here right now
Fortunately (may be I have done something good in my previous birth) I moved to the Automation Practice here in Wipro and then my stint with Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) ODC Started and I started working day and night, night and day from October-2009 last week, time flew and it was 30th April when I came back to life.
After a long and hectic year of LOADS OF WORK & UNLOADS OF WORK I took a well-deserved (thats what my boss said. I don't know whether its true or false) vacation starting 6th May until 24th May.
Here I am back to the blogsphere and will try to keep it updated until I get caught by someone and become a part of the vicious cycle again.

Coming Soon ...........

2009-12-25T22:59:00.002+05:30

After a hiatus of 7 months I will be "Coming Back to Life" .............
7 months have been like a Sinusoidal Curve

I am B2B

2009-05-21T13:33:00.001+05:30

Finally, after an year long assignment with Hewlett Packard India I am back to Bench in Wipro Electronic City campus. Yet to find out what is there in store for me in the days to come. First and foremost I want to relax for a few days as I have been working really hard for last few weeks.
It was a surprise to me when HP folks decided to bid farewell to me by taking us out on lunch yesterday to The Dhaba (on Outer Ring Road). Everyone who has worked with me during my stay at HP was there on lunch. After having a sumptuous lunch we were back in HP office and I got back to resolving issues which people had with our Framework and the API interface of the framework. After working with HP and helping them to resolve issues, I was free by 6:30 PM and for the first time in last 3 months I reached home early at around 7:15 PM.
The worst part was my headache which started troubling me since afternoon and by the time I was home it was at peak. Somehow managed to get relief from medicines and Divya Dhara (An ointment which is to be applied on forehead during headache) but only at 10:30 PM. Did not have dinner and after watching TV for a while slept at 11:30 AM.
Arrived at Electronic City at 10:30 AM and found that there has been a lot of shuffling of parking lots as there is a parking lot construction going on in EC-4 campus. Had to park my car at the other end of Wipro EC-4 campus and walked down to Tower-12 to find a place to connect my laptop and check mails.
So far so good. Need to meet up with my boss to get some understanding of the situation in Testing Services and the current openings which will suit me.

Might get to spend a lot of time on my blog for a few days atleast. Lets see how long and how much.

Started Using Internet

2009-05-18T16:24:00.001+05:30

When I was in my undergraduate college doing computer science engineering from NIT Surat (India). In our 2nd year we got a computer centre and that was the place where I started using internet using the text based browser "lynx" on network consoles running linux operation systems.

Looking for a ruler

2009-04-25T14:29:00.003+05:30

I wanted to see how big will a 8 inches by 6 inches envelope be and thought of printing a exact ruler

But How? I searched google for a real ruler image which can be printed on my office paper and this is what I got: Printable Rulers

Nice and Handy for a quick measurement :-)

BrightKite

2009-04-25T14:08:00.004+05:30

BrightKite is another site which I came across while browsing through the businessweek slideshow of Best Young Tech Entrepreneur. Based on their description on their web-site:

" Brightkite is a location-based social network. In real time you can see where your friends are and what they're up to. Depending on your privacy settings you can also meet others nearby."

How good OR how bad are they will be known only when I spend some more time on their site. But time is at a premium right now. So I better get back to work, or else .........

Wild Pockets

2009-04-25T13:40:00.003+05:30

I was going through a slide-show on the BusinessWorld web-site about Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs 2009 when I discovered a new web-site called WildPockets.com which allows people to create 3D games by themselves.

Just registered to try it out. They seem to have a lot of tools to design your own stuff. Be it 3D Advertisements, 3D Product features and many other things. Lets see how good it is.

Some Disappointing Updates

Building of games and other 3D content require installing an ActiveX control which when clicking on install gives an error in the WildPockets page --> Could not download the installer. Now who is playing the spoilsport here? Browser, Organization Firewall OR Wildpockets.com.

Some pics from 27th March

2009-04-17T12:20:00.027+05:30

Its been a couple of days since I updated my blog. Yesterday while checking our art group bangaloreartforum mails, I came across a bunch of pics which Prabha had taken during our Lalbagh artist camp. I thought of uploading some of the good ones (according to me), so here they are:
Me Messing around with dry pastels

I seem to be happy, but about What?

Jagdish Sir giving Finishing Touches to my work

Our group of 5

End product after Master's Finishing touches

And the master's own work

An Interesting Book

2009-04-14T11:33:00.002+05:30

Recently I came across a web-page (I don't remember the links which took me there) and saw a review/information about an art book which I think is a MUST BUY for me.

Title

An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers

Author

Danny Gregory

BAF Meets at Chitrakala Parishad

2009-04-13T12:00:00.003+05:30

On the 12th of April, members of BAF met at a truly inspirational place - The one and only Chitrakala Parishad. Jagdish, Jyotirmoy, Subodh, Usha and a new member Hegde were a part of this meeting which took place in the entry lobby of Parishad. We came up with a couple of thoughts and decided to take up the following as our action items for coming weeks:

Have a road/street show of our paintings in Lalbagh (the other side which has the tower on a mountain view), but before that publish the event in all possible media (newspapers, online, Bangalore shopping guide etc.). We also plan to take our paintings to that show and see if there are any interested buyers. But the important point here is that, people should know that an event like this is happening. The date is yet to be finalized but its definitely going to take place within next month.
Create a new blog and upload all the soft copies of our art on that blog. The object of this blog would be to sell our paintings. All the members will send soft copies of their art and Subodh will create the blog and upload all the pictures.

Looking forward to a long weekend

2009-04-09T18:26:00.003+05:30

As I write this post, I am looking forward to a long weekend starting tomorrow, i.e. Good Friday.

Lots of work at office and will continue to be there until I am at this location. Good part is that I will be moving from this project pretty soon.

On Sunday i.e. 12th April I would be visiting Chitrakala Parishad to see Shobha Goswami's painting exhibition and also to meet up with fellow BAF members for a quick meeting.

Rest Later

Hectic Weekend

2009-04-06T17:33:00.002+05:30

This weekend was hectic as expected. Some updates:

Received my wife and son at Hyderabad's new airport (I found it much better than the Bangalore airport although both the airports are constructed by the same company :-)). I can write a lot about the goods as well as the bads about both the airports but not now, may be some time later.
I met 3 of my old school friends at Hyderabad yesterday. Some of them I met after almost 15 years ..... Had a great (but short) time meeting them.

Chacha Chaudhary brings me back

2009-04-01T17:54:00.001+05:30

looking out for themselves

2009-04-01T14:39:00.004+05:30

While reading about "Rashomon" on internet, I came across a series of links with one link leading to another and another .....

- Rashomon

-- looking out for themselves

-- Psychological Egoism

-- Circular Logic

-- Infinite Regress

All these are definitely Interesting Reads.

Bhad-Manush & Rashomon

2009-04-01T12:17:00.005+05:30

The setup was amazing. The cast was superb and the performances were outstanding. Based on some Japaneese story "Rashomon" (on which Akira Kurosawa has also made a movie) dealt with dual-faced human being. Quite dark some times the play was on a backdrop of heinous crime committed and the witnesses account of the murder.

Now I am into reading more about Rashomon and the ideology behind this story. Lots of information is there on wikipedia about Rashomon

Theatre

2009-03-31T15:38:00.003+05:30

Going for a play "BhadManush". I know nothing about it, so don't even think of asking me the meaning of the word "BhadManush". Only thing I can say is it seems to be a Hindi word to me.

I will try to post some details (might include the meaning as well) about this play tomorrow, as I will be watching it tonight at RangaShankara. Show starts at 7:30 PM so I will have to start from office at around 5:30 - 6:00 pm. There might be a lot of traffic at and around BTM layout so its better to have some margin to reach the venue without getting stuck indefinitely.

The Day That Was - 27th March 2009

2009-03-30T11:58:00.004+05:30

Wow, what a day it was. Full of greenery. This was the day when I got up at 6:30 am on a holiday took bath (Yes, thats right, it was a holiday) and reached Lalbagh at 7:45 am. I have never been so committed to the office work as I have been to this activity.
As planned, I was the second person to reach Lalbagh. Myself and Jyotirmoy started searching for a place to start. The location can not be more ideal than the one which we chose. A small hilltop from where you can see the lake and is covered by lot of trees, so there was no problem with Sun shining bright and making us sweat.
An ideal location for "plein air" painting. We waited for others to join and slowly but steadily Sankar, Prabhu, Jagdish Kadur, Usha joined us. We started painting and with lots of chatting breaks we continued. Sharing his experiences were professional artist Jagdish Kadur (who runs an art class in Jayanagar and has his own studio, which we visited later that day) as well as Usha and Prabha. Jyotirmoy was sharing his encounters with the great artists of Kolkata, and how he learnt from them.
Overall it was a great day with lots and lots of creativity flowing in and around. We ended the day at 3:00 pm and then straightaway went to Jagdish's Studio to see his paintings which he is going to exhibit in Chitrakala Parishad starting 1st April. It was a very inspiring visit to that place.
Reached home at 6:00 pm and too bath again.
Will post some pics very soon. In the meantime, please visit our official blog http://bangaloreartforum.blogspot.com for some of the pics which were taken on 27th March.

Gearing up for Lalbagh tomorrow

2009-03-26T12:08:00.003+05:30

The 1st activity of Bangalore Art Forum is going to take place tomorrow at LAL BAGH.

My main intention is to learn from the experts of art. I am planning to take all media which I use for my drawing/sketching/painting and some oils/acrylics as well.

Outcome of tomorrow will be something interesting. How it goes and what I do there will be reported only after tomorrow.

You need this flying car

2009-03-26T11:10:00.002+05:30

You don't need a pilot's license to "drive" this car.

Rasterbate your Photo

2009-03-25T20:01:00.003+05:30

Some cool online converter which convert a photo into a big poster by splitting it into dots spanning across multiple pages. Check this out ---> http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator to understand what happens..... I have converted one of my son's pic to a rasterbated image. Let me print it and see how it looks when put together........

Man, there are hell lots of creativity going around in the world....... Just exploring and seeing those will take whole of your life.......

26th-March Update

So I did rasterbate a photo and took a print of the same (the minimum size which will look good will span across 9 pages and will be created as a PDF document). All the pages contained black circles of varying sizes with the largest being 7mm in diameter. You can select the size of the circle when rasterbating the image. Looking at those pages one after the other CAN NEVER MAKE SENSE.

First thing I did as soon as I reached home was to arrange those 9 pages on the floor. It required some Jigsaw skills to put all the right pages in order see the photo appear. Initially when I arranging the pages I was not able to see the picture clearly and a bit disappointed, but after all the pages were put in right place and I took a few steps back, Wow, my son's pic came alive. Though it is black and white (because printers in our offices are b/w) it looks pretty good. I am planning to stick all the pages together with an adhesive and then take snap of the big poster. Will post the pic on the rasterbate site (as requested by the creator) as well as here for all to see.

Geocaching

2009-03-25T11:08:00.003+05:30

I came to know about this thing called "Geocaching". What is it? Even I don't know but when browsing through various links, I came across the following site which offers quite a lot of information and details about Geocaching:

http://www.geocaching.com

To me it seems to be an interesting thing, but only if you are an active GPS user and you "own" a GPS device. I don't know much(didn't have time to go through all the written stuff on the site to learn more about it), so I might be wrong.

Will Explore when Time Permits

Its good to get up early

2009-03-24T16:51:00.002+05:30

After a whole 1 month I got up early today at 7:00 am. That is too early if you look at the past one month's statistics. It was difficult to get going after waking up so early, but I had to reach office before 9:00 am as I had telecon with my bosses at Wipro. Reached office at 8:45 and attended the telecon and continued working. Its been a hectic day till now.

Lets talk about some work (my work involves development and maintenance of a test automation framework using STAF/STAX and Python). I am currently working in this automation project for HP and working from their office on Whitefield road near K.R.Puram

Spent a lot of time in analyzing the problem which I am facing to handle a particular command in my API automation code. Finally I was able to work around that problem and also fixed a couple of other issues which I had seen some time back. Now actually it is getting pretty boring to keep on doing this maintenance of the code which has become too ugly. Now the customer is talking about running some 350 odd tests with API automation. That seems to be a daunting task, because I am sure there will be lots of issues related to the API code which I will have to fix.

The weekend that was

2009-03-23T16:33:00.002+05:30

The weekend which just passed was very dull. On top of that we didn't have our Bangalore Art Forum's meeting because most of the people were busy with something or the other. I went to meet one of my school friends (yes, friendship goes back to 1992 when I was in Standard XII at Nagpur). He also has a baby boy who is now 8 months old. Played with him for a while as he reminded me of Vivaan, who is not with me these days as he is visiting his grandfather's place at Bilaspur.

Missing Vivaan a lot. Yesterday I came to know that he was playing with a small Pomeranian dog at my wife's friend's place. It seems he was holding the dog by his tail (just imagine the scene) and trying to pull him around.

Waiting for him to come back to bangalore.........

Stippling - Coming up very soon

2009-03-20T17:19:00.003+05:30

These days (as I am free after I reach home) I am back into my art. Right now I am doing some work in stippling or as some call it pointillism or dot-work with a 0.1 black pen. Pretty soon I will be done with it and then I am planning to upload some to my portfolios at artwanted & artmajeur.

I thing which I must confess is that its a real tedious style, but the result which you get are amazing (atleast thats what I feel :-)) After a couple of hours of putting dots close to each other, my hands get really worked out, but the art which appears in front of you, doesn't let you put the pen down.

Me & My SON

2009-03-19T12:03:00.003+05:30

A recent snap which was taken at a wedding in Nagpur. Father and Son, both in "Ghajini" style attire

Blue & Sun

2009-03-19T11:48:00.003+05:30

There are news doing the rounds in the global arena about Blue gobbling the Sun. Whats that? What is Blue and why does it want to eat up the mighty Sun? Analysts are saying that it will cost Blue somewhere around $ 6.5 billion. But who is this Blue and what is this all about eating up the Sun and that too for such a hefty amount.

Is Sun such a costly delicacy ?

2nd Meeting of BAF

2009-03-17T13:54:00.002+05:30

Sunday: 15th March
We had scheduled a meeting at 4:30 PM in Indian Coffee House and everyone was there by that time, except me. I reached at 5:15 PM but luckily got to spend some time with everyone. Two much more experience ladies were there that day. Both of them have displayed their art works in many places. One Mrs. Shobha was an established artist, who has had around 6 shows in all over India. I am now expecting to learn a lot from them. Mrs. Shobha is again having a solo exhibition at Chitrakala Parishad starting from 6th April.
Mrs. Usha, the other lady conducts art classes at her home. Except myself, everyone seems to be a real good artist so I sometimes feel a little inferior. I know I should not and the whole aim of this forum is to learn as much as I can from artists who have more experience than my.
The greatest part of this forum will be the techniques, new styles, new mediums etc. which I will get to learn from the members. One of the first objectives which I am planning to set for myself is to learn Oil painting. This is one medium which I am really scared to use, because of 2-3 mishaps which I had with Oil colors :-)
Lets wait and watch. So far so good.

New Beginnings

2009-03-13T17:34:00.004+05:30

Starting the journey from www.rangrasiya.com I have reached a platform where i will get to meet budding and amazing (hobby) artists from Bangalore. And believe me, we did meet (3 persons, Jyotirmoy - who initiated this forum on freedomofexpression, Prabha - An excellent artist herself and myself) at Indian Coffee House on MG Road on Sunday (8th-Mar-2009)

Looking forward to a new and good creative atmosphere where I will get to learn a lot of things in art. Came to know that Jyotirmoy knows quite a lot of artists from the Bangalore art fraternity so it will be a good chance to meet up with some great artists and learn from them.

Prabha has created a new blog to represent our forum in the internet, http://bangaloreartforum.blogspot.com

Lets see if looking at the activities happening some more people (present in the bangalore art forum community on freedomofexpression) will be motivated to come for the 2nd meeting on 15th-Mar-2009.

Vivaan turned 1

2009-02-26T16:40:00.001+05:30

My son Vivaan turned 1 year old on 5th Nov 2008 and we went to Chhindwara (my parents place) where first we celebrated his mundan (removed his hair) and then his birthday.

Coming back to life

2009-02-26T16:39:00.001+05:30

I think its high time now and I got to write something here in my blog. The last few months have been full of activities of various kinds and some happy and some sad moments.

Coming back to Life .......

2008-09-02T14:43:00.001+05:30

Coming back to life after a long hiatus of 2 full months .......... Lots to write but not time, atleast something will be written ...... wait and watch :-)

A Tired Guy

2008-07-02T18:43:00.002+05:30

Tired of this grueling work involving lots and lots of programming. On top of that I have to understand the current implementation of the test automation framework as well. I don't know what is going to happen to me after I am formally moved into this project.

Long Gap

2008-07-01T18:21:00.002+05:30

Busy as usual with lot of work in the new project. I haven't done so much coding in last 2.5 years in Wipro as I have done in this project. Lots of Python scripting. The good part about this project is that I am learning many things. Still there are lots more to be understood and done.

Vivaan - Ahh!!! What should I write. From the day he has started crawling (around 9th June) he is unstoppable. He crawls at such a pace that you can't even imagine. If you start crawling at the same pace you will be tired in a few minutes.

जीवन

2008-06-12T18:19:00.003+05:30

शायद मैं ऐसा पहले न था जैसे अब हो गया हूँ।
जाने जीवन की कौन सी पहेली में खो गया हूँ ॥

बदलाव

2008-06-12T18:08:00.003+05:30

वैसे तो मैं इतना भी बिज़ी नहीं हूँ की एक ब्लॉग भी न लिख सकूं, लेकीन इलेक्ट्रोनिक सिटी और मेरे पुराने ऑफिस के बीच में इतना उलझ गया हूँ के मुझे कुछ और करने की फुरसत ही नहीं मिलती।

आगे ख़बर यह है की आजकल वीवान भाई साहब कुछ ज्यादा ही मस्ती करने लग गए हैं। बस उन्हें तो चाहिए की वह हरदम बाहर ही घुमते रहें। बहुत शैतान हो गया है आजकल

हम तो बस इलेक्ट्रोनिक सिटी से आजकल काम कर रहें हैं। अपने नए प्रोजेक्ट में काफ़ी काम है और उसी की उधेड़-बुन में लगे रहते हैं। सोचा की आज हिन्दी में पोस्ट कर के देखते हैं कैसा लगता है। तो इसलिए हम आ गए अपने इस होम पेज पर.

Vivaan

2008-06-02T17:06:00.004+05:30

He is such an adorable human being. His face shows innumerable number of expressions everytime you look at.

One moment he is happy, the other, sad,
One moment he is good, the other he is bad (no ... not really bad)
Transformation from :-) to :-( in a fraction of a second,
Sometimes he is real, sometimes he pretend.
I Feel, how I wish I was him,
Always bubbling up to the brim.
But, thats life as they say,
Never in your own way ......

Where Am I?

2008-06-02T16:55:00.002+05:30

Its been the longest hibernation period for me from my blogosphere. I was busy shuttling between Wipro M2 and Electronic City offices as I have started helping a test automation project. The news of my current project is that its going to close in a couple of months from now. So after a long long wait of 2.5 years finally we received the news a few days back when customer's head of outsourcing was here. As a token of appreciation we got the latest model of IPod Nano 4GB. "All's well that ends well."

At home, I am having a good time with my parents who came to Bangalore on 21st May.
Vivaan
My son has started to talk in some crazy language which only he can understand. He knows now, how to get attention. He is always curious to look outside the door and windows of our house. He now has started putting his arms up in the air to let us know that he wants us to carry him around.
He is always looking towards the door and is always interested in going out.
Yesterday we went outside with him and it was raining heavily. After finishing our work we came back home. But as soon as we entered our home, he started crying. It was apparent that he didn't like our idea to return to home. All the while when we were out in the car or in any shop he was quiet and patient but all hell broke loose when we came back.

Uncertainty Prevails

2008-05-13T14:20:00.002+05:30

Uncertain Times @ Office

Change is the only Constant

Another Monday

2008-05-12T10:41:00.003+05:30

The weekend was pretty happening in terms of getting in touch with some old folks.

Firstly, I got a call on Saturday from Yashowardhan Shukla who was my classmate in XII th standard at Nagpur. Spoke to him after whole 14 years and was really happy to get back in touch with him. He is working with Star News as a news producer (ahh.... I still have friends out of this IT business ...)
Chatted for a while and talked about our good old days at Nagpur and the days spent in VayuSena Nagar hostel........

Yesterday I met Shipra after a long gap of 4 years (I think so). The surprising part was that she had come to Lifestyle for shopping for her marriage which is next week. Her fiancee is from Norway and he was also there with her buying some Sherwani's and Kurta Pyjamas for his marriage.....

World is definitely a small place and I am sure that people with whom we lost touch years ago will cross your way at least once in your lifetime. According to me this is one reason for all of us to live happily as each day brings something new for you.

The weekend that was

2008-05-05T11:00:00.003+05:30

Back after another weekend. Today my son Vivaan is 0.5 years old. He is getting naughtier day by day and his screams seem to be louder each day.
I saw 2 movies this weekend -
1) One missed Call (I was thinking of watching this movie for quite some time now) - It is a kind of OK movie, not very scary but average.
2) U, Me aur Hum - Pretty decent movie with an interesting storyline. Lot of emotions weaved into the story. Sometimes Depressing but at the same time clinging to Hope. I was not sure about this movie earlier and was not that much interested in watching it, but after I saw it I had to change my opinion. Songs are not good especially when you know that the songs are composed by Vishal Bhardwaj then you definitely expect something more out of the music. Background score was by Monty Sharma (of Saawariya) and was kind of average.

Back in office

2008-05-02T16:39:00.002+05:30

Finally I am back in office after 2 days of good training and 1 day of holiday. Tuesday and Wednesday I went to a training "Self Leadership - A Discovery". I was a very interesting training and I would recommend everyone at Wipro to experience this. It involved lots of fun like expressing emotions in colors, expressing yourself through collages etc. etc. and making presentations on "Brand YOU".
I have never spent so much time on finding myself ;-) in last so many years of my job. I am hoping to implement some of the learnings from this program. Let's see how much I succeed in the same.
Then yesterday was a holiday and I was at home during the day and went to see one of my friends Sunil Tufchi in the evening. But my son Vivaan would not let me sit there for long and he cried a lot when we decided to come back home.

Now again the weekend is here, so let us see whats there in store for me this weekend.

Learnings All the Way

2008-04-23T18:06:00.003+05:30

Today at Electronic City Campus of Wipro there was TeS Confluence -
A two day program organized by the Testing Services Group of Wipro Technology. I have never been to this event in last 2 years but this time I thought of going there and see whats it all about.

2 Very Interesting talks were there which I enjoyed thoroughly:

1. Non-linear growth of IT Companies -- Believe me, even I was not very comfortable with the topic because it seems to be pure management jargon like topic but when Prof. Rishikesh of IIMB started talking I got really interested and involved in the talk. It was all about Growth of IT with Value Addition and Innovation.

2. Competency Development in IT Services - It was totally un-related to the topic but extremely interesting because of the person who delivered it. Prof. Sadagopan Founder Director or IIIT Bangalore. He is an amazing speaker. I had always wanted to listen to him once since I came to Bangalore in the early 2000. Many astonishing facts were put in front of us by Professor and time and again he emphasized on the Importance of Testing as a Career which was really good and would have motivated many developers (so-called) to get into the Testing Domain without thinking twice.

Disappearing Act

2008-04-16T11:42:00.002+05:30

Wondering where did I disappear?
Suddenly Subodh is busy these days. With so many things lined up one after the another.
@ Work: Pretty busy these days as the testlink tool is behaving wierdo after a lot of trial and errors for upgrading the version from 1.7.0 to 1.7.4. Still breaking my head. Also the last regression test cycle has started after a long delay and the team needs to finish it off in 2 weeks flat. With Prashanth's absence I need to take care of all the status updates and telecons for another 7-8 days. Going to be pretty hectic.

@ Home: Vivaan & Vivaan - Keeps me busy most of the times.
I also met one of my very old colleagues Vivek Shrivastav. He is one of the good friends I have from the IMR Global days. He is still in the same company (Now its called CGI) and had come to bangalore for some official visit. I went to Purple Haze on Friday night (No, I didn't take any alcoholic beverages there) and then again met him on Sunday night at the good old Madan Pub.
Chatted for a long time reliving our good old days and remembering all our pals in IMR Global.
I got too nostalgic and started remembering my days at IMR. All the good and bad things which we did in Bombay during those days.

artmajeur.com

2008-04-01T18:12:00.004+05:30

I have created my online portfolio containing 10 artworks at the following web-site:
http://www.artmajeur.com/subodhsoni
You can also sign my Guestbook on this site if you feel like

Boring ......

2008-04-01T17:45:00.002+05:30

@ Office
The life at office is getting real boring these days. Nothing much to work on and nothing much to do ..... just trying to keep up the stamina to sit for 9:30 hrs. in the office.

@ Home ..... My son will turn 5 months on 5th April ...... He is getting more and more naughty everyday ...... Each moment passed with him is truly an amazing experience ...

One Missed Call

2008-03-28T18:54:00.001+05:30

Today I saw a new movie being released .... A new horror movie "One Missed Call". The print ad looked really nice and I would not want to miss it. Atleast I should see it on DVD.
The story line was also interesting so looking forward to it.

It's del.icio.us

2008-03-13T18:57:00.001+05:30

Visit my del.icio.us bookmarks page at http://del.icio.us/subodhsoni and see what I have saved ......

Experiments with Firefox Addons

2008-03-13T18:52:00.003+05:30

There are some real cool firefox extensions available on the addons.mozilla.org website
Some of those which I have installed today are:
Colorzilla - Pick the color you like on any of the web-sites and use it wherever ...
del.icio.us Tag - Add a del.icio.us button to your firefox browser and save links and articles directly to your del.icio.us account.
Firebug - Edit the page on the fly .... as you browse you can save any page and edit it online as you wish ....

Anand has a Boy

2008-03-11T18:05:00.003+05:30

Just Got the news from Anand that he has become a father of a baby boy. Another boy in the group after Me and Arora ........

Vivaan is Back

2008-03-11T17:43:00.004+05:30

Finally after a long time of 3 full months, my wife and son returned to Bangalore. My forced bachelor life came to an end on 9th March. And, am I happy? Of course, I am.
It's so much fun looking at the kid and playing with him. He has learnt to laugh also. Earlier it was just a short smile but now it is accompanied with a huge laughter as well.

Head Again Aches

2008-03-06T15:28:00.001+05:30

This week is not good for my health. Again had a severe headache last night and was not able to get up this morning. Managed to reach office at 1400 Hrs.

[END]Bachelor Days[/END]

2008-03-05T20:11:00.006+05:30

My Family returns on the 9th of March 2008 and so here comes an end to my forced bachelor life. I will be seeing my son after a gap of 2 months.
Today Vivaan turned 0.33 Years Old :-)

Recollection

2008-03-05T18:13:00.004+05:30

Some of the movies (obviously HORROR) which I have seen recently. Just trying to put the list in one place so that I don't forget ....

1. Sweeny Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street --> Different but not of my type (Its a musical. Yes, it doesn't seem to be a musical from the promos but IT IS ONE). So you need to be a person with a liking to this genre of Hollywood movies.
2. Gothika --> Average, Horror. A girl possessed with a spirit
3. The Invasions --> OK, Sci-Fi & Horror. Some really really weird concept of a virus entering in human body which is not found on EARTH. It genetically mutates the human chromosome & screws up everything.
4. Hell's Gate --> OK, But do'nt remember that much.
5. I Know Who Killed Me --> Average, Horror, Was good, but sadly I didn't get the ending(I guess its a common feature of all horror movies, so as to keep the curiosity alive. It will make you come back and watch its sequel)
6. The Cave - I don't remember, so definitely not worth watching.

7. Some More ...... May Be ...... I am Forgetful

Lucknow '76

2008-03-03T18:58:00.004+05:30

Yesterday, I saw a play "Lucknow 76" at Rangashankara. The actors were excellent and in fact they were outstanding. But the sad part is I was not able to understand the play in its entirety. When I say "its entirety" I mean it. The setup was from the pre-independence era in Lucknow. There were certain scenes/acts in the play which were very impressive in terms of the performances and the dialogs, but overall I could not understand the connection between the various scenes.
May be I didn't have that "sense/aptitude" to try to reach to the real meaning OR may be the director was not able to convey his thoughts and understanding in a manner which everyone could understand.

Monday Blues

2008-03-03T18:57:00.002+05:30

I got up with a severe headache and could not come to office early. Then some how I managed to reach office at 1:00 PM and then tried to work. Somehow Monday mornings are never pleasant for me.

Blogging from my mobile phone

2008-02-27T20:52:00.000+05:30

Now i don't bother even if my organization blocks these blogging websites like blogspot.com, i can post from my mobile phone as well. Although i am not sure if i'll be able to upload images or not.

I have another web-site

2008-02-12T19:15:00.001+05:30

Thanks Google !!! I have one more site of mine, http://subodhsoni.googlepages.com

Chitrakala Parishad Again

2008-02-12T14:21:00.000+05:30

I went to Chitrakala Parishad again this Saturday (09-Feb) to see an exhibition of paintings and photography. The Photography exhibition was absolutely stunning with the theme being "Nature, Landscapes & Animals". I went with one of my friends, Maneesh. The paintings which we saw were really good especially by the 3rd Year students of CKP. I really liked the paintings done in acrylic for which the theme was "Expressions". Each of the painting costed Rs. 25,000/-

A New Day

2008-02-08T10:56:00.000+05:30

Beginning of a new day,
Get going in your own way,
If things get too rough,
the going gets really tough,
But, as some seers say,
Don't worry about the past,
Don't think about the future,
Just have faith and enjoy today !!!!

Finally Traded

2008-02-07T16:02:00.000+05:30

So, Today I was able to start stock trading on ICICIDirect.com !!! After a 1 month long wait of account opening/verifications/ and what nots, I am "IN" in this game.

www.ArtWanted.com/subodhsoni

2008-02-06T16:55:00.000+05:30

Recently I registered as an artist on www.ArtWanted.com, which has a huge collection of art in all the possible Mediums like oil, pastel, pencil, acrylic, mixed, pen, ink, charcoal, water colors, etc ... and Categories like portraits, landscapes, still life, illustrations, photography etc. etc. .....
I too have created a portfolio. Please visit my portfolio @ www.ArtWanted.com/subodhsoni
Currently I am a free subscriber but I am thinking of subscribing to their premium membership (as it costs $5 a month, which converts into Rs. 200/- and that seems to be a decent amount) so that I can upload multiple art works of mine. Presently I have uploaded only 3 works. The free membership allows uploading only 3 images a month.
It seems to be a good site for selling art as well. I am not sure if PayPal has an India subsidiary. If it does exist then I am surely going to put up my art for sale on ArtWanted.com

Overall, you get to see a lot of good art on this site

From Bilaspur

2008-01-17T20:14:00.001+05:30

Posting this from my wife's place. I am currently in Bilaspur and enjoying the winters here. Will be starting from here on 19th and will be in bangalore on 21st :-(

Holidays !!!

2008-01-10T10:45:00.000+05:30

The holidays for me are starting from today evening. I will catch the Rajdhani express today evening at 8:00 PM from Bangalore City railway station. I will be at Chhindwara tomorrow evening at around 8:00 PM
24 Hours of grueling journey with a great reward ......
Be back on 21st.

A Week More

2008-01-04T16:18:00.000+05:30

As the holiday season gets to an end for the whole world, it starts for me :-) from 10th Jan 2008 to 21st Jan 2008.
Next Thursday I would be leaving for my home to meet my family. It will be exactly 1 month after which I will see Vivaan. My wife has been telling me that I might find lots of changes in him since he has now grown up (he is 2 months old now !!!). I will wait and watch. I might be missing from the blog scene for a couple of weeks, but I think that's OK.

It's a new year - 2008

2008-01-01T20:50:00.000+05:30

This is the first post of this new year. Last night I had a good time at National Games Village New year celebrations. Then I returned home at 12:30 a.m. and went to another friend's house (they stay in the house opposite to our house in HSR Layout). There we chatted for another 2-3 hours and then exhausted I came back home at 3:00 a.m. and slept for good. As expected I got up at 12:00 p.m. this morning (or afternoon).

Last Post of the Year 2007

2007-12-31T17:34:00.000+05:30

Hoping to have a great year ahead for myself and my loving family, I am posting the last blog of the year 2007. I am sure that 2008 will have many more surprises for me and my entire family.

Wishing Everyone (who visits my blog) a Very Very Happy New Year 2008.

Chitra Santhe 2007 - Bangalore

2007-12-31T17:15:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I visited the annual "Art Road Show" organized by the Chitrakala Parishad (A renowned Art College in Bangalore). There were close to 1700 (that's what the statistics say) artists, hobbyists displaying and selling their works. The price of the art was ranging from Rs. 10 to Rs. 10 Lacs.
I got to see lots of beautiful creations in Pen, Pencil, Pastels, Watercolors and other great media.
I met a couple of people who do art as a hobby and have not gone through any professional courses. or haven't learnt Art anywhere. Asking about the process for exhibiting art in "Chitra Santhe" they told me that I can also put up my drawings/sketches and other paintings here next year. I need to visit Chitrakala Parishad during the month of November-2008 and enquire about the same here. They do encourage hobbyists to come up and exhibit their creations.

Some of the real creative stuff which I saw (and bought some of those as well):

Small cards with color gradings painted in very beautiful geometric patterns. It can not be described.
Acrylic washes - After putting the acrylic paint on the paper/canvas, leave it for drying for about 10 minutes and then wash it with water. The effect that it creates is amazing.
Fine point pen sketches - Some really amazing works were there in which the pen was used to create landscapes, abstract forms, still life, portraits and other similar figures.
On smooth white paper (calendar like) one person had painted abstract shapes and he created the shapes after it dries with a marker black pen. These paintings are rectangular and long ones and the artist was selling it as 2008 calendars by sticking a small printout of the calendar at the bottom of the painting.
Very beautiful portraits using just dry pastels on colored papers.

I should put some pictures of the Art which I have bought because no words can describe the art completely.

I showed some of my works to a lady (who pursues art as a hobby and she has joined hobby classes in Chitrakala Parishad) and she was very impressed with my pen sketches. I met a guy from Motorola who has an extra-ordinary talent for art. His charcoal sketches and some paintings were very beautiful. I also discussed with him about the various mediums which I also use and his views on the same.

I really got inspired at the end of the exhibition and decided I should visit Chitrakala parishad frequently in the coming year. Also I should gear up for putting up my works for sale in the Chitra Santhe next year. At the end of the day at around 8:30 P.M. I started back for home, very tired and exhausted by walking around a long stretch of road for more than 5 Hours.

Horror Movies

2007-12-24T16:23:00.000+05:30

I finished 4 horror movies in last 4 days:
1. The Reaping - Average. Not that good
2. Dead Silence - Scary, real scary
3. Premonition - Not exactly horror but interesting
4. Creep - Crap

Google Analytics Works

2007-12-21T18:48:00.000+05:30

Finally, After 3 days of struggling The Google Analytics tool has gathered the data successfully and the Reports are showing some visits.
The data is more useful if you have an e-commerce web-site but according to me it can also be used to analyze surfer's behavior (Although for my page I have forced people to visit in order to increase the amount of data which GA shows me ;-))

A Sketch of Mine

2007-12-21T15:21:00.000+05:30

Here is one of the sketches which I did in the year 2005. It is done on a A3 size white sheet with the Black Staedtler Pigment Liner Pen (0.1mm)

Visit My LinkedIn Profile

2007-12-20T16:26:00.001+05:30

Please do visit my profile on www.LinkedIn.com/in/subodhsoni and connect to me if you are not already.

It's Raining in Bangalore

2007-12-19T13:21:00.000+05:30

In this month of Winter Season, it's raining in Bangalore. A very depressing weather prevails and you don't feel like doing anything at all. Everything looks Dull & Boring.

Who's Vivaan

2007-12-18T17:21:00.000+05:30

Vivaan is the only Son of Sonal & Subodh, who was born on the 5th day of November at 05:25 PM in Bangalore.
Today he is 2 months Old.

Starts

2007-12-18T13:31:00.000+05:30

Subodh started on Eighteenth Day of December in the Year Two Thousand and Seven