Oh yes. I am very much alive :) but almost buried in work….. haven’t done much in Houston yet. But I think now I am quite familiar with the places around, and the important roads in Houston.
Last Sunday (24-Sep), we had a Infosys hosted party at a private Ranch called Buck Horn Ranch. It was fun. The Ranch itself was pretty scenic, and it had a pretty huge lake within. There was a toy train too, which took us around the lake. And then there were other fun stuff. The HR folks organized some games tooo. So, it was kind of fun and a good break from the hectic work.
On the work front, lot of things piled up. The month or so has been very very hectic. But things are taking shape slowly. But its definitely taking more time than I expected it to! Oh…and I am learning lot of lessons too.. and I guess, that’s what gaining experience is all about ! :)
Yes, it has been a long time since I posted. I think more the two weeks! I think I have never blogged soo infrequently !!. And the reason for the same is ………… yes, you guessed it right……. work.
The past three weeks have been very very hectic. Kind of in meetings all day long. There have been days were I was in meeting for the entire day with a 45 mins lunch break. And then, during non office hours, I need to catch up with my mails, do some documentation stuff, co-ordinate with the team back in India and…. setup my home. We did have a long weekend in between(Sep 3-5), but we were at home, setting up things. Bought quite a lot of stuff for our house, and it took quite a lot of time and effort to assemble and setup things.
Well, Houston as such is a much bigger place compared to Kingsport. Lot of places to go around, but so far, I haven’t got a chance to do much of exploring around, except for Walmarts and Targets around :).
The weather at Houston is pretty decent. Its not as hot as I expected. Or, may be I am lucky to totally avoid the Houston summer. The weather is comparable to the weather at Mangalore, my home town. And…………..no hurricanes too so far! (touch-wood!!)
Extremely sorry to all the people who have left comments on other posts. I was just not able to reply. Will try to catch up with it soon.
Well, I am not an Impulse buyer, but sometimes, some deals and offers are too hard to resists. So, ended up buying some electronics stuff in the last few days, which I kind of wanted to buy at the back of my mind.
Got a 1 GB RS-MMC card with MMC Adapter – from meritline.com – got it for around $29 including shipping. I can use this card with my Nokia 6600 and also the Canon A610 digital camera.
Mobile Bluetooth Headset – Got Logitech Mobile Freedom Bluetooth Headset from amazon.com for $27.50 – which is pretty good price. The actual cost advertised by logitech is around $59.99 – Also the reviews on this product is pretty good.
Bought a Mobile USB travel charger for iPod – No more PC/Laptop required to charge the Nano! – got this one for around $6!
I dont say that these would be the best ever prices that I would ever get these item. But its always best to buy when good deals are available. The catch is, these deals dont last long!. Good deals expire with a blink of the eye!!!! …….. ….there is always another time, but you need to keep an close eye on the deals available.
Mangalore, my home town has been featured in Time Magazine! Came to know about this from Harsha’s blog a couple of days back.
Hampankatta. Mangalore – Photo Credit: Bharat Sikka for Time Magazine
The article talks about the recent growth-wave that’s hit Mangalore. Sure enough, Mangalore has changed a lot in the last 5 to 10 years, and I am sure that by the time I am back at Mangalore, it would look totally different!
Well, I am a religious follower of Dilbert and Garfield!. Never miss it, thanks to bloglines. Have been following both these series for over two years now.
Why Dilbert ?
Short Answer : I work in IT industry :).
Its just true to life. You can relate almost everything that’s going around you at your work to Dilbert :). The pointy haired boss character is soo real. The catbert….. I remember HR folks of my company whenever i see catbert :))Why Garfield ?
Well, somehow I can relate myself to the Garfield character pretty well…:)… (ya.. more than half the men out there think so … .. hehehe)Never heard of Dilbert and Garfield ?… Check these article on wikipedia on Dilbert and Garfield. They are very informative.
So, which cartoon series do you follow and like the most ?…. Do leave a comment.
Oh yes, in the animated world, I love Tom and Jerry :) Cute. :)
Check out this article by John Dvorak on Microsoft. 100% true. Great read.
I am fully convinced that Microsoft is loosing focus on its bread and butter business – i.e., developing good software. Instead its spending most of its energy in territories like advertising and search. Leave those things alone! Yes, agreed that there is lot money involved in advertising, but that does not mean that you should jump into the other territories without having the capabilities.
Microsoft is too occupied and obsessed with what Google is doing and that’s gonna cost Microsoft a lot!. Where as, Google doesn’t bother about what Microsoft does!!.. The day it does, Google too would be in big trouble!
One of the points from the above article…
8. Preoccupation with Google. Microsoft is too easily distracted by successful companies who are not competitors. There is a deep-rooted belief that if a company like Google is successful, then they are an enemy per se. So the company obsesses on what Google is doing rather than concentrating on important Microsoft projects. Now Microsoft is about to do a deal with Yahoo to flank Google. This old-lady-like skittishness is unbecoming for a company this size.
Netflix holds two U.S. patents for its business methodology, which calls for subscribers to pay a monthly fee to select and rent DVDs from the company’s Web site and to maintain a list of titles telling Netflix in which order to ship the films, according to the patents, which were included as exhibits in the lawsuit. The first patent, granted in 2003, covers the method by which Netflix customers select and receive a certain number of movies at a time, and return them for more titles. The second patent, issued on Tuesday, “covers a method for subscription-based online rental that allows subscribers to keep the DVDs they rent for as long as they wish without incurring any late fees, to obtain new DVDs without incurring additional charges and to prioritize and reprioritize their own personal dynamic queue — of DVDs to be rented“
WTF ? I am just wondering at the IQ of people who granted this patent!
It also means one can Patent things like…
“I get up early in the morning, brush my teeth, and then go to the restroom… have bath and then go to office”…. and then once the patent is granted, can sue anyone who follows this routine………..including the person who issued this patent.
How about a restaurant which says……
“The guests at our restaurant can sit at the restaurant as long as they want and enjoy the food served……. ” – Yes, surely you can patent this….
Then how about…..Walmart or any big shopping chain says…. “Our customers can shop as long as they want and we won’t charge them for being at our shop & spending time …..” — Well, this can be patented too… and sue every other supermarket chain on the planet.
Oh.. ya… what about breathing…? I am sure a patent would soon be granted for that too.. Just a matter of time…Real crazy.
