Kilimanjaro and Serengeti in August of 2024

 It was something that cannot be anything other than once a lifetime experience. It was an experience which reduced 6 kgs of my weight. That is something I never thought would ever happen no matter how much I exercised. :)

Day 0: I fell ill on the evening that I reached Moshi Tanzania. Throat infection

Day 1: the start from Moshi Hotel Salinero. I was feverish and really depressed now. Could not eat. Had very little sleep over the last 2 days. Started off using crocin tablets. Reached the gate at the start of kili trek

Kilimajaro international Airport

Hotel Salinero, Moshi, Tanzania

Day 1: There was packed lunch at the gate. The climb then began steadily and I was feeling quite terrible and afraid that my strength would not last till then end of a 6 hour uphill walk on day 1. At the end of the day my legs did hurt a lot but thank fully no cramps. So I could recover slowly.

Start point of Kili trek... with Pakistani uncle

Day 1 Rain forest

Day 2: I was feeling quite sick by this time. The last night was too tiring and strange. Could not sleep properly in the sleeping bag. Feverish feeling was still there. I woke up thrice for pee. I think its because all those pills were making me have a high heart rate.

Day 1 camp... No sleep day 3 :)

Camp day 1

 

Day 3: By day 3, I had a very severe throat infection and it was time for Anti-biotics. Doc in the group said he had them but finally found some with Ashish by tent partner. How i had enegy left to take all these pictures I dont know :) Dancing on day 3 night.... and the summit in the background.

  

Day 4: Day 4 was special it was a climb up to a high point, have lunch there and then climb down to sleep at a lower altitude. The high point was called "lava tower"

 

Ashish, Doc, me, PD, Amit (Organiser)

Day 5: Started with a bang of a climb ... "Baranko wall" I was starting to feel a little better. There was a point where we had to hug a rock so tight that it was fondly called "kissing rock". It was up and up for a while and then down and down. I was doing much better than previous days.

 

Day 6: Summit day. This one started at 11:30 pm on previous day itself. It was a all night walk since the day time is hot and terrifying. I decided to take the shot. I was not fully recovered but strong enough to think that I can make it. It seems i have more energy than i think i have.

2022 is J Corbett time

 We went to Jim Corbett National park last month

Tigress

Rest house

Myself in a dull sky

beautiful bridge 

All of us in one shot

"The Secret" has worked for me

Of course I refer to the popular book "The Secret" which claimed that if a person truly and persistently believed in a certain kind of future or some sort of target, it does indeed become a reality.
For me, I first learned of this book around 10 year back. I was very depressed and sad around that time. I did not know why I kept failing at quite a few ventures in my life. I questioned if anything would ever work for me.
When I first read a part of this book "The Secret" and saw the accompanying video, I thought that it was some kind of mumbo-jumbo to sell the book. But soon I was analyzing

Pachgani

This year's Pachgani trip was all about walking to Tableland plateau each and every of the 5 days we were there. Also it was the first time I used Airbnb to book a flat. It was really quite nice and very affordable since we were there for a full week. It was also our first official trip with the kids and without any domestic help

Bitcoin - another wonderful opportunity that will pass me by

Bitcoin is a rapidly growing non-country specific digital currency that taken the world's economists by storm. Since it does not belong to one country no one can govern or control it. The acceptable is growing rapidly and soon we all are going to have to live with maintaining a bitcoin account too. particularly if we are travelling abroad.. Also bitcoin mining has gone crazy and there still is opportunity there. Hardware is fairly cheap and just like when I had predicted the rise of Android, in the next 3 years, I will be sitting back and wondering why I never set up a bitcoin mining company. :-)
I see stuff quite early but dont do anything about it. Only about one thing I am quite sure. In India living in rural places with a fair amount of city like facilities is going to become quite popular. The reverse migration of the rich from the cities will happen in the next 10 to 20 years. Thats when I will select where to go. No point in choosing a country house now and later not really liking it.

a sad day for Music lovers

Flipkart has shut down its Flyte MP3 store citing music piracy in India as a reason. Its a sad day for me personally since I was one of the biggest fans of Flyte. I dont know what to do to buy legal music in India now. damn
update: On that note, today will be dedicated to hunting down old and nice Hindi music and downloading the damn thing.

Sikkim's south east corner

me and T went to Sikkim's south east corner last month (Rumtek). For 6 days we trekked in the hills around Gangtok. As a town Gangtok itself is grubby and to be avoided by all nature lovers. The hills around it are magnificent and the air's great for walking even in summer. It rained sometimes but not so much as to bother us in any of our "us" activities.  It was a long deserved break from the kids. Its great that our parents agreed on taking care of the kids back home. Here's a gerat collage of the pictures from the trip.

The lake's called Tsongo and the ride up there was quite an experience. Camera: My trusty old Nikon D3100

Cakes and carpentry

Two things have dominated Trupti's life and mine over the last 4 months. Cakes and carpentry. Trupti is always making cakes and pastries and cookies. And I am making tables  and racks and other small carpentry items. Its a way of releasing the pressure off my mind.

Chocolate cake

 The cakes help T take her mind off the constant attention that the kids need. Its been 4 long stressful years for the both of us and still there is no hope of the pressure being off any time soon. Its always busy all the time at home. No time to sit back.

Dining Table and easel

In addition I have had a lot of worried nights thinking that my own technical edge (for which I get paid a lot), is starting to get blunt off late. And I have been worried sick over that kind of uncertainty. Nothing beats tension like a healthy dose of physical activity. And I have actually come to be addicted to it now. One of my most ambitious project was completed last month. It was unique tale design which involes no separate frame and top, but instead has a unified body. the legs of the table are mounted directly on the top which has to be extra strengthened. And in addition I tried to use all the recycled plywood from last years creations (baby beds). This was a big challenge since the pieces were in all odd shapes. So the additional cost was kept low and I made this table in under Rs. 10000. The time frame was around a month+.

wrap up of 12' - NW Karnatak & east Goa

Our babies grew fast. they are real kids now. demanding even more attention and causing more raucous at home and school. Last month we got them admitted to the Millennium school which has fees which only the uber rich can pay. which means one of the two: either I am uber rich or I am downright crazy. Anyway whats done is done.
In nov me and the wife had some nice days off in Karnatak/Goa area. we went to a place called the Hermitage resort. and then to a hotel Dudhsagar resort. both beautiful places. but Trupti had some of her clothes stolen in dughsagar resort (?!). She's been whining about some lost skirt ever since.

In both places we found a lot of time to relax and take a moment away from the heavy lifting of twins at home.

Travel in general was restricted to either Panchgani to our favourite Prospect Hotel owned by the very nice and professional Iranis or the corporate resort style "the meadows" resort in Aurangabad. That trip was back in August or July or something like that. again 4 days of sheer laid back beer, swim, sun and s. Not a bad year for someone with twins below 2.
Bye bye 12'. Hope that 13' too rings a lot of travel and new interest. what's up on 13'? It has to the rann of kutchh of course. for too long and too lengthy I have only talked about it. time for action.

importance of HTML5

In today's world its become hard to bet on any one technology on the client devices. The world loves iOS and Android on mobiles and tablets, loves Windows 7, Mac on desktops today. In the next year there will be a untested new Windows 8 and windows 8 RT with a different chipset. Who knows but Chrome OS might catch on in some places. Developing dedicated client programs or apps that are too far tied into any of these proprietary APIs is a risk I believe. Having a OS friendly native skin on top a core HTML5 app seems to be like the best bet for a new entrant as of today. Companies like my current employer bet the farm on Windows specific .Net client applications might just find themselves locked out of future innovative devices. Like for example if suddenly a potential customer wants a big support for iPads and Android tablets along with the future Windows RT "tablets". Then many of our current gen solutions are rendered not usable. Having said that, at least from now onwards when large investments are made, this should be kept in mind and a safe and generic approach of HTML5 should be adopted.
Time will tell if my stance is vindicated.

Policing employees

Employment to me is a healthy exchange of value. I will offer to the company as much value as is possible from me. The company
offers in return a value in a different form namely money. I now work in a company which polices its employees. When to do what, see what, hear what and so on. I hate that. I work on the pure principle of exchange of value at the point of sale. How I procure that value is to be left to me, just as I don't ask the company to divulge how it gets the money.
In a classic IT services company, its a bad precedent to allow unlimited internet access and later police it. Its silly either ways. Because abuse is going to be a headache at certain point anyways. The question is not what others should do but what I would like to do. I cannot be policed like a big brother. I do not do illegal activities, do not waste my employers resources, give my best value back and yet get herded along with other riff-raff. That is what pisses me off completely. The loss of freedom for no good reason.
All over the world today, as always, people are busy making other people see it their way. Dictators in Syria, Zimbabwe, North korea, internet censorship in India, ban on pirates bay.org, green, saffron etc etc... same obsession in new bottle century after century.

Angst against Microsoft

Somehow over the years I have developed a certain angst and disgust towards Microsoft as a company. Perhaps it was their monopolistic killing of competitors or their vastly overpriced and unimaginative products or their arm twisting of the PC manufacturers. Somehow Apple, itself being fully proprietary company itself does not invoke such a disgust from me. Perhaps because at least they innovate and earn their position as leaders and braggarts. MS has only being strangling others to stay ahead. And that is what draws me to Open source. Just the sheer feeling of mutual helping and no barriers. (so long as you have read the GPL-2). I dont think I will ever purchase a MS product ever by choice or with my own money. For years I have bought laptops with no OS, but they come as few and rare.

कधी कधी वाटतं की अमेरिका मध्ये राहिलो असतो तर latest gadgets पटकन विकत घेतली असती मी. इथे भारतात खूप वेळ लागतो आणि येतात ते dollar च्या रेट मुळे फारच महाग असतात. गूगल मध्ये मराठी ट्यपिंग आता खूप सोप्प झालं आहे. 

Got to travel this year

Its been more than 3 years now that me and Trupti have had no meaningful travel and ambling along the roads of India. I dont know how we are going to do that with 2 kids in tow but so far my gut feel tells me that they love to travel and would enjoy it the most. fingers are crossed

Parivartan

मागचा काही दिवसांमध्ये माझ्या मध्ये काहीतरी परिवर्तन घडले आहे. मी विवेक यात्नालकर यांना तीन महिन्यान पूर्वी भेटलो होतो. त्या वेळेला वाटल न्हवता की इतका फरक होईल. मी त्यांनी दिलेल पुस्तक वाचल आणि त्यांचे तीन वर्ग घेतले. He was very straight forward and simple in his way of delivering his message. He himself seemed very convinced of what he was talking about and that was great. आता चीड किव्वा राग आला तरी मी पटकन भडकत नाही आणि काही tricks वापरतो. आयुष्यात थोडी थोडी परत आशा जागरूक झाल्यासारखी वाटते आहे.

Nokia.... ah, dear old Nokia

My genuine thoughts about the mobile phones I so dearly loved once upon a time.

Nokia should not have forgotten that making phones with beautiful designs is what it was always good at, in addition to producing them cheap and good after sales support. I hoped the Lumia 800 would have come out with a Android skin, I would definitely have considered it. Because I still trust their hardware more than Samsung or chinese knock-offs like Micromax (I use micromax now). But forcing me to learn and adapt a new OS and that too not open source is simply asking for too much. In the case of Windows mobile, everything updates from Zune and syncs only if you have a windows OS or Mac. No support for linux(ubuntu(mint :-) )) which i use for the past 4 years and am very happy with. So its no different than the iTunes madness that I initially ran away from. So I want the hardware and dont want the software on it. Android isnt all that great, but its very easy for me to understand and connect and customize. Also it does not force me into silly jails like iTunes or Zune.

I really wish Nokia would start making android phones with their legendary quality and userfriendly menus. they could keep WP as an option as well for better hedging.

[update June 18]: Nokia is in a spiral like no other. People are doubting where it will be sold by next year. I still maintain Nokia was best off with Android and a class-apart hardware designs of their own. damn.

you know you are a father of twins when....

1. Weekdays in office seem more attractive than weekends
2. You step on random sharp objects lying on the floor and hardly seem to notice
3. Having children seems extremely over-hyped.
4. You wake up in the middle of the night, feed some baby, go back to sleep and have no recollection of this in the morning.
5. Sleep beats sex.
6. Sex is a vague recollection from the past anyways.
7. Random people telling you how lucky you are, seems to get silent murderous thoughts in your mind.
8. Things lying all over the house are best left there.
9. Occasionally you meet some domestic help whom you have never seen before or heard of.
10. You wish you wouldn't have fought with your parents.
11. You are willing pay anyone for taking the kids away for a few minutes.
12. Only a persistent strong cry from a baby gets you up from bed. Minor ones are ignored altogether.
13. Your social engagements are limited to various weekly pediatrician visits.
14. You newly discover what kind of stuff is on TV at 2:30 am.
15. All those smiling photos with the twins are a mere smokescreen for friends and family

A visit to the police station and a "bribe"

Yesterday on the eve of the agitation of Anna Hazare against curruption in India, I visited the local police station for address verification for passport renewal. Everything in the process ran with utmost smoothness and efficiency. In the morning I submitted some ID proofs and in the evening I was asked to come and see the inspector for final approval. As I walked into the station office in the evening, I had decided firmly that I am not paying bribe to these guys under any circumstances. And then came my little interview with the inspector. No one asked for a bribe, and I was out in 5 minutes. And then came the fun part. As I walked out after the last formality of signing on a paper, a constable collecting the papers, comes and says to me, "Your work is done here without any bribes. But we do a lot of work on these papers. If you feel satisfied with how we served you today, you can please give us some money and the amount can be what ever you wish. No force on you. Even if you do not pay me, your work will be done".
I (and a person behind me in line) almost burst out laughing and controlled ourselves. I had never expected this statement from a policeman. He was not asking me for a bribe, he was requesting me for a little reward! I lost my resolve.
I paid him Rs.100 and smiled all the way home. I still am smiling at the incident.

The opium of a job

Unemployment is not pleasant. It never was meant to be pleasant. These days more than the sheer loss of income for that period, what is stressful is that it actually translates to a period when a person has to think on his own all the time. When we are doing a job either for someone else or self-employed, we actually like to fall into a routine. Routine gives us comfort, to some extent the "daily routine" is like a mild dose of opium. It's predictable, it keeps us occupied, keeps us happy and numb. Our minds are conditioned to continue to do what it always does. Like a state of inertia. Same as a drug addiction. When unemployed, you are suddenly thrown into a sea of unfamiliar mental space. Well, at least for a short while, because after that you may perhaps even get used to unemployment and be extremely uncomfortable when you take up a job again. That explains why most people take a lay-off from their job so badly. They are totally distressed and unsettled. Very analogous to a opium addict suddenly cut off from his daily dose. The pain is less about the impending short term loss of income but more about the looming uncertainly and the necessity to kick start their brains again to wriggle out of this situation. People who have faced either forced or voluntary unemployment are better equipped in my opinion to think through problems and figure out ways. The mind hates to think, and that's what a job provides. Repeated steady tasks. Like the stuff they teach IT professionals in CMMi training: everything has to have a pre-defined way to do to take away all creative thinking and hence the fluctuations.
One other important thing that unemployment does is makes you focus on your priorities once more. There is a lot of things a person wishes he could do or stop doing. All those are dusted and brought out for evaluation. It's like a purgatory; washes everything off and forces you to start with a clean slate and with priorities properly rearranged. It's a double edged sword.
There are clear drawbacks but then there are some very subtle benefits as well if you are willing to use the opportunity.

the home circus

Many times at home these days I feel that Trupti and I are orchestrating a little circus. The day begins at 6:45 sharp with the wail of the girl "Thaki" or "Tanvi". Correction the day has already most probably begun at 3 am or 2 am or lets say the day is a continuous flowing stream with no start or end.

So basically the girl's is full of attitude. She smiles only when she wants to and rarely cries. Sometimes she is bored and sometimes she wants to not eat anything at all. And the boy "Bandya" or less popularly called as "Gautam" is the most gentle personality in the house at the moment with a winning smile. He's not like her. He always smiles and is willing to play. Their smiles are the only fuel keeping up going at the moment. There is a non stop cycle of feeding, cleaning, bathing, playing, crying, doctors, maids coming in and going out, parents coming and going and in the middle of all this the two of us trying to make some sense of our lives. We feel our life turned from a breezy evening jog to a formula 1 race overnight. The house is littered with hundreds of objects all over the place and we have long since stopped asking each other what each object is or what it is doing there. The local chemist and pediatrician know both kids by their first names since we are frequent fliers. Twins are God's way of reminding parents that life can kiss you on one cheek and slap you on the other at the same time.

2010 summary

1. The stork (Dr. Patankar and helpers), brought us a bunch of kids.
2. Office got real boring all year round.
3. Bored of air travel.
4. Football on Sundays was revived, thank God.
5. Finally quit Tieto
6. Life now revolves around B & T, their bottles, diapers and their smiles. They did good so far, no cry, sleep at night, pretty good for someone who is 5 month old.

आई आणि बाबांनी फार मदत केली मागचे दोन वर्ष.