Its been 3 years….

Today, its 3 years since we got married!!!. Can’t believe it :)

Love you Chitra, my best friend forever!!!

16 comments | December 15th, 2006 at 12:00am

San Antonio Trip

This post has been long due. Wanted to post this a week back, but work is kind of hectic. So, could not post it. Anyways, to cut the story short, me and Chitra had been to San Antonio during the Oct 28/29 weekend.

San Antonio is the 7th biggest city in USA and has got a historic touch to it. Its around 3 hrs drive from Houston. The main attraction of the city is the “River Walk” area. Its a small river which flows right thought the heart of the city. There is a walkway around this river, and the walkway has all kinds of shops and restaurants on it. Nice place to spend a day! One more attraction is the Sea World water park. We spend our first day at the Sea World water park.

Here is a photo essay of the trip!

We started our trip with Sea World…

Sea World Entrance – Click to Zoom

Sea World Entrance – Click to Zoom

At Sea World, you can feed the dolphins!… but only during the feeding time. But we did manage to get pretty close to these wonderful creatures…

Sea World Dolphin – Click to Zoom

Next, we went to the Sea Lion Show. It was just Amazing. You need to see the show to believe what these wonderful creatures are capable of! The show was really funny and cute!

Sea World – Sea Lion Show – Click to Zoom

Sea World – Sea Lion Show – Click to Zoom

Sea World Sea Lion Show – Uncle Max – Click to Zoom

Next was the Shamu Show – Shamu is a huge whale and this show too was great. Below are some pics of the show…

Sea World – Shamu Show – Click to Zoom

Sea World – Shamu Show – Click to Zoom

Lady Selling some soft drinks – Click to Zoom

We saw one more show called “Viva”… it was the one with white whales and dolphins and some synchronized dancing!. Was good…

Sea World – White Whale – Click to Zoom

The last show that we saw was Water Ski Show. Saw some amazing stunts…

Sea World – Water Ski Show – Click to Zoom

Sea World – Water Ski Show – Click to Zoom

Then we spend some time on different rides… and this was the first one… the Roller coaster… was pretty exciting..

Sea World – Roller coaster – Click to Zoom

Sea World – Roller coaster – Click to Zoom

After Sea world, we checked into our hotel, and spent our evening at the River walk area… which was fully lit-up at night … Here are some snaps… of the same….

San Antonio – River Walk – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – River Center Mall – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – River Walk – Click to Zoom

The next day, again we went to the River Walk area, and took a boat ride…

San Antonio – River Walk – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – River Walk – Click to Zoom

There are Restaurants, and shops all along the River walk area… Nice place to shop and hang out…

San Antonio – River Walk – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – Restaurant on the River Walk – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – River Walk boat ride – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – River Walk – Theater – Click to Zoom

And here are some pictures of the buildings in the downtown area…

San Antonio – Downtown Area – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – Downtown Area – Click to Zoom

This was shot from the boat ride…

San Antonio – Downtown Area – Click to Zoom

Doesn’t this building look like a flat wall ?

San Antonio – Downtown Area – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – Downtown Area – RiverCenter Mall – Click to Zoom

The famous Alamo – This monument has its own place in the History of Texas …

San Antonio – The Alamo – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – The Alamo – Click to Zoom

Our last visit was to the Tower of the Americas. Its a 750 Foot tall tower, with a revolving restaurant at the top!. You get to see an amazing 360 degree view of the entire San Antonio Area!

San Antonio – Tower of the Americas – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – Tower of the Americas – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – From Tower of the Americas – Click to Zoom

San Antonio – Downtown area from Tower of the Americas – Click to Zoom

Hope you enjoyed the Virtual Tour of San Antonio! :)

14 comments | November 8th, 2006 at 11:43am

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara – Original video

I had been in search of this original Mile Sur Mera Tumhara video for years now! Finally found it on You Tube!

Thanks to Lalima who pointed to this video on the Ek Chidiya comment thread! Enjoy!

Update 1 : To download *any* video from youtube.com and other video sites, go to http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php. You can also use the Video Downloader extension for Firefox to directly download the videos from your Firefox browser.

Update 2 (18-Aug-08) : updated the link to the video on youtube to point to a better quality version of this video.

121 comments | August 24th, 2006 at 08:54pm

ChillMaadi – MIT, Manipal – Batch of 2001

Here is the most wanted “ChillMaadi” video from the Batch of 2001 Annual CD ROM. This video takes me back down the memory lane! Wish I could be back @ MIT ! :)

If you are an MITian, you can’t afford to miss this video.. Its just simply great..

Hats off to the creative team behind this video..Mighty Mighty MIT !

18 comments | June 11th, 2006 at 02:17am

Finally a car – 1998 Toyota Camry LE

After months of car search, finally found the right car to buy!!

Its a Tan colored 1998 Toyota Camry LE. Came to know about this car from the tpost.com last Friday. Called up the seller and got the details. Ran a carfax check on the car. It came out clean. We then went to Johnson City to see the car on Friday, did a test ride, and found it pretty neat. Then on Saturday, we took the car to a Auto shop to do a 30 point checkup and found that the Car was in pretty good shape. Closed the deal on Saturday itself.

However, the car needed some attention to its breaks. So, fixed it, and took the delivery today.

Some Specs :
- 1998 Toyota Camry LE
- Automatic
- 4D Sedan
- Tan Colored
- Power Windows
- Power Locks
- Cruise Control

Here are some snaps :

98 Toyota Camry LE

Looking forward for a safe and fun filled driving experience in United States!

13 comments | May 8th, 2006 at 11:50pm

Cellphones in US – Sucks

Cell Phones. One area where India rocks. No questions.

Ok, lets see the differences :

In US, first of all, its very difficult to get a cell phone connection!. You need to have a good “credit history” to get a cellphone. If you don’t have a credit history, you need to pay some deposits. And guess what? I was told that I need to deposit $750 to get a cell phone connection since I did not have any credit history!!! In India, almost everyone can manage to get a cell phone service. No major deposits etc!
In US, almost all the providers ask you to sign a 1 year or 2 year contract. In India … “What contract?? Are you kidding?”
In US, you get a mobile phone with your plan. This is good one way, but then you will have to sign a one year contract for sure (and pay some money for the handset…offcourse less than the market price – but this depends on the plan and the phone in question)!. In India, you have the freedom and flexibility to select your phone, based on your budget, from Rs 500 to 25,000! And you can change your handset anytime (except CDMA providers)
In US, the airtime charges (or the call charges) are way too high!! There is air-time charge for incoming calls too!. In India, incoming is *free*, and the outgoing calls tooo are hell lot cheaper compared to US. Infact, I had almost forgot the term “air time charges” !
In US, some plans charge you for receiving SMS !.. Nice way to get screwed!. In India, I don’t know of any plans where you get charged for receiving SMSes.
In US, sending out SMS is pretty expensive (from 4 cents to 40 cents!!!). In India…….its 1/10th the price!
In US, prepaid SIMS are contract free, but are way too expensive. i.e., the postpaid plans them self are expensive, but prepaid is more expensive. In India, the call charges on pre-paid and post-paid are almost comparable.
One more point is, in US, with most of the plans, you get some free minutes. If you are within the limit, then you are safe. But if you exceed, then you will be charged like crazy. And the minutes are used even if you call a Toll Free number! Most plans count the minutes for incoming call too!

I also noticed that in US, Nokia handsets are not that popular. I haven’t seen many people use Nokia handsets. I found more people using Motorola handsets.

Clearly, India is far ahead! Hope to see similar progress in other areas too!

21 comments | March 15th, 2006 at 08:22am

Father-Son Duo

Came across this Father-Son Duo @ Kemah during my houston trip last week :) Could not resist shooting!

Click to Zoom

Sweet isn’t it?

12 comments | March 13th, 2006 at 05:22am

Get 2 GB Hotmail!

Still stuck with 2MB or 250MB hotmail mailbox ? Follow these three simple steps in IE… and enjoy!

Step 1: Log into your hotmail account using Internet Explorer – Does not work if you try to activate this using Firefox. Also make sure your address in your hotmail account is United States.

Step 2: Click on this link
(better copy the link given above and paste it into the window in which you have your hotmail account opened!)

Step 3: Click Join Mail Beta

Now your hotmail account is upgraded to Live Mail with 2GB of storage!

This procedure worked fine for me when I tried it out a couple of mins back.

Not sure how long it would last!

63 comments | January 3rd, 2006 at 07:54pm

USB 2.0 – Hi Speed Finally

The world is getting faster by the day and USB is no exception. All the new USB devices are moving towards USB 2.0. With USB 2.0, the data is transferred at the rate of 480 Mbps (that’s Mega bits per second). Where as the earlier versions i.e., USB 1.1 (and 1.0), transferred data at the rate of mere 12 Mbps. And, 12 Mbps is way too slow.My motherboard at home, ASUS A7N266-VM has support for only USB 1.1. So, around a year back, I decided to go for a PCI to USB card, which would give me USB 2.0 ports. My vendor gave me a PCI to USB card which had a ALi chipset. I installed the card, but I never managed to get USB 2.0 working. No matter what I tried, it acted like USB 1.1. I tried reinstalling the drivers and tried all possible workarounds. But no matter what I did, the ports worked as if they were 1.1 ports. So, whenever I used to plug-in a USB 2.0 device (like my Sandisk Pen drive), windows would warn me that I have plugged in a Hi-speed device to a Low Speed port. :(. In fact, the problem continued after reinstalling windows (after the ants attack).

Finally, I posted this problem on one of the USB forums. And to my surprise, found that the ALi chipset cards are not very reliable, and are prone to problems!. The folks at the forum suggested that I replace the card with one that has NEC chipset. So, next, called up my vendor, and told him about this problem. Luckily, he offered me a replacement card. This time, it was a Intex PCI to USB card, with 4 (+1 internal) USB 2.0 ports. The Intex card was based on the VIA chipset. My vendor did not have any cards with NEC chipset.

I took this new Intex card home, removed my old card off the PCI slot, and plugged this card in (after clearing up the old drivers etc). Booted the machine. Windows detected the new card correctly (thanks to PnP!), and automatically installed some standard Microsoft drivers. And now…I have USB 2.0 ports. Now the data transfers are blazing fast!

Just to give you and Idea. .. Earlier it used to take around 12 to 14 mins to transfer 1 GB of data from PC to my Sandisk Pen drive using USB 1.1 ports. Now, the same process takes around 1.5 mins!!

Sigh!!

16 comments | December 27th, 2005 at 01:58pm

New Camera – Canon PowerShot A610

Bought Canon PowerShot A610 this week. This would be our second camera. I still love my Digital Rebel (EOS 300D). But the problem is, others feel its too complex for them to handle it. :) I can’t give it to my parents/relatives to use it. They find the Rebel it something big and that its meant only for professional photographers. It actually looks like that!. But, A610 is relatively small, and would easily fit inside a shirt pocket. So, this would be kind of a Backup Camera. The reviews for this camera are pretty impressive.