Never gonna give you up

I got RickRolled today.

Was browsing Amazon.com
Cos I had nothing better to do
I scrolled to the bottom but did not stop
Until I hit the rock

There were these sites
That Amazon had bought
There was Diapers, Soap, DPReview
Zappos, Aubile, IMDB and Shopbop

And then there it was. Woot.com
All by itself with a description that read
"Never gonna Give you up"
I wondered why it said, what it said

So I clicked.
Was taken straight to Woot
With a Daily Deal on Zoku
But right next to the set top box
Was dear old Astley
Going...

"Never gonna give you up"

Yes my friends
I got RickRolled
By Amazon
By Woot
By the curious puss
In my Boot

(Just so that you know
You go directly to Woot
You don't get Rick
Nor do you get to hum...

Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you)

My newest toy...

Got one of these last week from Amazon.com. Best 6 minutes of flytime you can have for 18 bucks and  60 minutes of USB charging!

Buy it here. You won't be disappointed!

eBay can be strange sometimes....

Kindness is the best investment

"Kindness is the best investment" or was it "Kindness is your best investment"

I noticed it on a bumper sticker on one of the cars in the parking lot. If I remember correctly, it (the bumper sticker, not the car of the parking lot) belonged to some church around here.

WTF? Am I the only one who thinks that the phrase makes no sense at all? Do people just make shit up to make it sound pure and righteous?

No, I won't try to explain why I think it did not make any sense.

Scared the shit out of me

I recently experienced the meaning of this phrase. I learned that I seem very calm and composed while I poop my pants. I also realized that I hardly have any folks around to talk to while shitting in my pants. It's a shitty feeling.

Poopiest post ever!

*Pop* went another one

In the last 6 months, I built myself a new computer and I really love it. It's fast, it's smooth, it's cool, it's hot and it reminds me of some pretty groovy memories from the college days when we tried to do this for a living. (Crescent Computers now seems like such a uninspiring name for it)

Last week when I was trying to copy stuff over from my old computer onto this one, I head a lout *pop*. Almost sounded like a bullet. I had read about these pops online when I was r&d'ing how to solder caps but had never thought I'd get to hear it.

I was not even sure that it was my capacitor that had popped. The old PC was working fine since I had remoted into it. Just to confirm my suspicion, I tried to switch the display to my old PC and the screen went blank. I opened up the desktop and pulled out the video card and here it was, the popped capacitor.

Ironically (or murphionically), it has a different rating that the ones I have 7 more of - the ones I had replaced. This one is a 470mF 16v capacitor. Now, I need to buy 10 more of these and make 6 more posts about how badly I suck at desoldering/soldering, post 3.4 more graphs about my success rate probabilities before I get it to work (or burn down the house).

Here's a pic of the new caps I soldered on 6 months back. It has worked like a charm ever since.

If you ever want to read about the history of bad caps, click here.

Oh, by the way, these are untouched pics were taken with a $135 p&s camera, which I have been using more than 75% of the time these days...

7.0 liter W12, 500 HP, 475 lb-ft of torque

Now that would be a monster of an engine if all of those cylinders fired under one hood. Those are the combined numbers if I put our two people haulers together. All that power and torque for transporting a handful of people at average speeds of around 35 mph!

I'm always amazed at the technology and reliability of current day internal combustion engines. I'm not even taking about those super advanced engines in an exotic German or Italian car. This is just our day-to-day, run-of-the-mill, mass produced cookie cutter cars.

Both of these cars can go around 12,000 miles between oil changes. The don't need water or any other fluids added on a regular basis (well, besides gas of course).Both these cars are categorized as ULEVs (Ultra Low Emission Vehicles??). The only routine maintenance I perform on them (every month or so) is check and fill any air in the tires if needed. They are not new either. One of them is over 5 years old and other around 3.

Hell, the 5 year old one can even turn off 3 of its 6 cylinders when the engine computer determines it doesn't need all the power! Yeah, I sound like a baby in awe, but as I said, whenever I think about how often I don't have to think about whether or not the car will start the next time I crank the engine, I continue to be amazed...and thankful!

Thank you technology. Thank you human brain. Thank you mother necessity.

(If Murphy has his way, one of them is going to breakdown tomorrow)

Guess where I'm posting this from?

Nope, I'm not sitting on the throne while posting this.

Yes, I fixed my graphics card! After multiple failed attempts at being able to de-solder the bad caps, after giving up on the whole project a couple of times and after finding that this card still sells on eBay for north of $50 used, I went the brute force approach to de-solder and clean up the holes.
 Finally at 2:00 AM yesterday I managed to de-solder the old caps (~20 effort hours), solder on the new ones (1/2 hour), installing the card (2 mins), hitting the power button (20 secs) and waiting for things to show up on the screen (20,000 hours), it happened. I finally got this card to work!

I had to literally drill the solder out of the holes after failed attempts at trying to get the solder off with solder sucker and desoldering braids (those videos on Youtube make it seem so easy). The older solder won't come off easy and when soldering the new caps, the new solder won't stick on easy!  (those videos on Youtube make it seem so easy...wait didn't I already say that??)

In the meanwhile, last week, due to unknown/unrelated cause, the power supply also went kaput. eBay came to the rescue and I managed to snag one for 15 bucks.

So, I now have a working 7 yr old desktop....wooohooo!!!

OMGBBQWTFacebook Mail!!!!

OMG Gmail killer! OMG Quick! Run! Get one!

Life is a series of left turns...

From home to drop-off, it's just a series of left turns. I'm surprised, I'm not home by the time I'm there!!
Turn by turn account goes thus... (Road name in parenthesis for my reference)
1.  Left.... (WO)
2.  Left.... (OP)
3.  Right.... (PL)
4.  Left.... (HH)
5.  Left.... (WD)
6.  Right.... (WD)
7.  Left.... (TP)
8.  Left.... (FL
9.  Left.... (RT)
10. Left.... (MD)

WTF?  2 out of 10 turns are left turns? 3 of them with stoplights! One might think I'm going round in circles!

The good thing?? Well, my way back is a series of right turns with a couple of lefts (without stoplights) sprinkled in between. If I measure the time, it probably takes me 25% more time to go than to come back!

A bad workman blames his tools

A possible corollary to the previous post :)

No updates on the repair job yet. Just a pile of tools, bad caps and more tools taking up space on one corner of a table....

Cheapo parts not a good job do

The stupid 4 dollar soldering iron won't get hot enough to melt the solder. I paid a dollar for the iron and 3 bucks for shipping. No point going around the hassle of returning it either.

RadioShack came to the rescue. I've never been a RadioShack fan but this was the second time it proved to be very useful.

A couple of months back, the Microwave went kaput. After opening it out and checking some of the circuits, it seemed that the internal fuse might have blown. I wasn't sure but it was worth replacing before spending a hundred bucks on a service call to a repairman. Checked online, the fuse was at least 10 - 15 bucks shipped. Tried my luck at RadioShack - 3 for $2!!. Yaaay....replace...see if it works...rinse...repeat 3 times. It worked on the first try. The microwave has been working fine ever since. Hundred bucks saved - thank you RadioShack!

Fast Forward to yesterday. Went to RadioShack, found a decent 30W soldering iron + starter kit (some solder wire, stand, etc.) for 8 bucks! Made me kick myself for wasting time and money ordering online before checking at RadioShack (2 mins from my house)

The project still is facing hurdles. I was able to easily remove the bad caps with the RadioShack iron....but the solder in the holes won't come out. My noobiness is shining very bright. I've already tried a couple of times - spend around 2 hours an successfully cleared out enough holes to put in half a capacitor.

Good news? No burns yet - no fingers burnt, no table burned, no house on fire either.

If it doesn't work by this weekend, I'm giving up (would be a BIG blow to my ego if I do give up). Let's see....

Fatso. Undo. Update. 1

From the various things I had set out to do, these are the one's I'm doing and the once I aint...

- Drink more water - try to keep track of qty drunk - Target: 1 gallon/day
>>> I have upped my water intake for the most part. Not consistently though. Also I'm not tracking my consumption so cannot say how close I am to hitting the gallon a day mark. I'm probably close to 1/2 gal/day

- STOP late night snacking
>>>> Been successful at doing this for the most part. Some nights are bad but those are rare.

- Wean away from reaching for the candy jar (I have a sweet tooth and I know I cannot completely give up on it)
>>>> Reduced considerably but not given up completely

- Build an exercise routine - at least 3-4 days a week - cardio, weights
>>>> Failed miserably at doing this. I must say I did not attempt this with any effort at all. This is definitely something I should start soon.

- Exercise portion control and attempt to consistently count calories - plan on using caloriecount.about.com
>>>> Been doing very good at portion control both at lunch and dinner without ever starving myself. Water intake before meal, whole wheat bread, fruits, etc. are some of the things that are helping this.

I have not been using caloriecount...but I'm pretty sure I've been within 2000 cals most of the days.

- Sleep at least 6 hrs/night
>>>> Weekly average of 6 hours is being met but not on a daily basis.

- Weigh in every Friday and monitor the weight gain/reduction on a weekly basis
>>>> Been doing this every Friday morning. Three weeks later, I am tracking at 189-190 lbs. I have lost 3-4 lbs over the last 3 weeks, which is in line with my target of a pound a week.


However, these initial pounds that I've been losing are the easy on, easy off ones. They were more of a bloat due to bad habits over the last few months as opposed to gradually gained over a few years. After I lose another couple of pounds, I know it would get harder and I will have to add exercise to the mix. So I better start working on it now!

To solder or not to solder....

I think I have answered the question

Over the weekend....
- I found the stock VGA card that came with the desktop.
- It doesn't even support any widescreen resolution or any std resolution beyond 1280 * 1024
- At 1280 * 1024, you can literally see the screen refreshing when you switch windows
- Anything graphicky runs yucky and puky with the stock VGA card
- I found yet another graphics card (FX 5200) that had a couple of popped capacitors
- I noticed that all the popped capacitors on FX 5200 as well as the 7600GS were of the same ratings
- Figured even if I manage to fix one of them, I would be in good shape
- I also figured I must have spent around 150-200 bucks between these two graphics cards (Dang! PC Gaming is expensive!!)

So, I went ahead and placed orders for....
- Off eBay -- Rubycon 1000uF, 6.3V Low ESR capacitors - 15 qty - $5.50

- Off eBay -- 40W soldering iron with pencil tip + some 60/40 solder wire - $8.50

- Off Amazon -- Solder sucker - $ 3.49
- For a total of  around 18 bucks, I figure this is way cheaper than getting a replacement card

- I also figured that it's way way way cheaper than replacing the 6 year old desktop (Just looked it up, purchase date: 8/23/2004) that still continues to function and perform like new


What would be the outcome? One (or more) of these should/would/could happen...

- I burn one of the cards with the soldering iron - I burn both the cards with the soldering iron
- I burn 10 of the 15 capacitors with the soldering iron (I only need 5)
- I burn my fingers with the soldering iron (sidebar: As of this morning, I have either a cut or bruise on 4 of my 5 fingers on the right hand!)
- I burn the table with the soldering iron
- I burn the house down with the soldering iron
- One of the two cards gets fixed- Both the cards get fixed
- Both the cards get new capacitors but still don't work

Worst case? I burn my fingers, the cards, the table and house --- Outcome: I'll have buy a new desktop
Best case? I fix both the cards, both test out fine, 7600GS goes in Desktop, FX 5200 on eBay --- Outcome: Profit!
Most likely case? Jury is out on that one....

RIP Video Card. He loved to laugh....

I have a Dell SC400 as my primary desktop. It is old, outdated, relatively slow, but a the same time, it has been one of the most stable desktops I've ever had. I've owned it for 6 years now and it has never given me any problems. It has been upgraded over time with more RAM, Hard Drive capacity and Video Card. I have been contemplating upgrading but have never been compelled enough since the stability of this desktop more than made up for it's lack of speed and processing power.

It was working fine until a couple of days back. Today, I turn it on and nothing comes up.

I don't get a BIOS check complete beep either. It's not completing the POST.

Did the initial pushing and pulling of wires but no luck.

After opening it up, I hear two very feeble beeps a few seconds after turning on....unsure whether it's coming from the motherboard or the VGA card.

I suspected the RAM first so I uplugged the DIMMs one at a time to see if any of those had gone bad but no luck.

I finally unplugged the video card and here's what I found....

Seems to me like the two capacitors are toast. I don't have the inclination to go buy a couple of capacitors, a soldering iron, solder wire, unsolder the bad capacitors, solder the new ones, etc. etc.

I think I have a old base VGA card somewhere. Will hunt for it in the morning and plug it in to make sure that is actually the problem.

Ironically, I had bought an external hard drive a couple of weeks back to backup the data on this PC. Never got around to actually backing it up!

Sidebar: Don't you love the fact that a $100 point & shoot can take better macro pics than a $1000 SLR unless you have a dedicated macro lens?

Ma look! No internet!!

Beginning October, i.e. two days from now, we're losing our current internet service. I procrastinated about researching which one to go with. I had whopping 3 choices and I did not decide on one. Nor did I call any of them to find how soon they can come over and setup the new service.

Yikes, looks like it's going to be a few days with NO INTERNET. OMGWTFBBQ. IDK MY BFF JILL? Will the world end? Will I vegetate?

*Reminder to self* Make the call tomorrow!!!

Feeling old....

Was in a meeting at work today with a room full of people, when suddenly the topic of age came up out of the blue. This guy asked the question to the folks in the room "Who do you think is younger of us, him (me) or me (him)?"

Pretty straightforward but it's full of irony...

-- The guy asking this question was a bald guy - not that there's anything wrong with that and he's a pretty nice guy.... (just saying that in case he ever reads this blog)

-- The only person who said I was younger said what she said because she already knew how old I was...

-- The guy asking this question was 42...

-- When asked how old I was, I couldn't remember my age...

-- After doing a quick math, I said I was 36 or 37...

-- I am not even 35 (yet)!!

Damn, I feel old!

2001 Infiniti i30 for Sale.....

Putting our car on the market hoping to sell it in the next couple of weeks. It's a nice car that has served us well for over 5 years. I washed the car and cleaned out the interior this weekend and took some pics.

Some of the pics are a bit over-exposed. The lighting conditions were not optimal and I only had 15 mins to take the pics (excuses, excuses). I'll be post the ad online sometime today or tomorrow...

Thought I'll post them here so that I can hotlink the pics from here instead of imageshack/tinypic.

^z ^z ^z ^z

Undo Undo Undo

Wouldn't it be great if undo'ing stuff in real life was as easy as as hitting ^z ^z ^z?

Overslept? Undo undo undo...
Missed an appointment? Undo undo undo...
Forgot about the PTA meeting? Undo undo undo...

Over-sped?  Undo undo undo...
Turned the other left? Undo undo undo...
Took the wrong exit? Undo undo undo...

Overspent? Undo undo undo...
Bad investment? Undo undo undo...
Bounced check? Undo undo undo...

Overstressed? Undo undo undo...
Laid off? Undo undo undo...
Fired the wrong guy? Undo undo undo...

Overcast sky on your day of golf? Undo undo undo...
Take a shot and miss the ball? Undo undo undo...
Caught sleeping with 15 of them? Undo undo undo...

Overweight? Undo undo undo...
Overate? Undo undo undo...
Let go a stinker with your boss behind? Undo undo undo...

Overpost and bore the most? Undo undo undo?
Boring posts and clunky prose? Undo undo undo?
Discard post or publish post? ^z ^z ^z ^y ^y ^y

Hey Fatso!

I've been gradually gaining weight over the last 9 months - around 10 lbs from my then stable weight of 183 - 185 lbs. Over the last couple of years, I have been as low as 180 (+/- 2) to a recently recorded high of 195 lbs. Although it's gone down a couple of lbs since then, it's still above 190 at all times.

I think I know the reasons...
- Remnants of binging on sweets and snacks from back home
- Decrease in exercising to almost zilch
- Late night snackings
- Reaching for the candy jar at work
- Bad sleep habits
- Other changes in lifestyle

I would like to lose the gained lbs and then some. The plan is to get to the 175 - 180 lbs stable weight range by end of this year. This way, it would be more of an mid-year resolution as opposed to a new year resolution and hopefully have a better chance of success!

The plan is to use a somewhat scientific and somewhat disciplined approach in order to achieve this goal.

Some of the things I don't plan on doing....
- Won't follow any "named" diet regime (Atkins, South Beach, low carb, cookie!!)
- Won't go overboard with either diet changes or exercise (e.g. exercise 2 hrs a day, 7 days a week and consume only bananas for breakfast, lunch and dinner)
- Won't do anything that's not sustainable

What I plan on doing? Few small, simple things I start doing from today for starters...
- Drink more water - try to keep track of qty drunk - Target: 1 gallon/day
- STOP late night snacking
- Wean away from reaching for the candy jar (I have a sweet tooth and I know I cannot completely give up on it)
- Build an exercise routine - at least 3-4 days a week - cardio, weights
- Exercise portion control and attempt to consistently count calories - plan on using caloriecount.about.com
- Sleep at least 6 hrs/night
- Weigh in every Friday and monitor the weight gain/reduction on a weekly basis

I know I'll probably reach a plateau after losing around 5-10 lbs. I'll have to re-visit my plan then and possibly add/restrict additional stuff.

Until then, good luck to me and let's see where this goes!

Chasing the rising sun - HDR edition

HDR'ed and heavily edited version of the previous pic. Generated by merging 3 exposures 0, -1, +1 EV in Photomatix. Do I like it? Kinda. Is HDR super overused? Betcha. Will I keep messing with it? Sure. Do I like it better than the original? Noppa.

What the font? Google Instant!

So, Google introduced Instant a few days back. Seemingly a progression of Suggest, Google now not only tries to auto fill your search phrases but it also attempts to automatically execute the search for the most likely phrase you are going to search on.

One interesting thing I noticed about Google Suggest and subsequently Google Instant is their censorship of search phrases while suggesting. What the....Font??? Even if I turn off "Safe searching", the results are still censored. If they are trying to save milliseconds off my time, then should they really perform a search on "What the Font"?? Do they really think that's what I'm searching for? Really? Really Really?

Pondering away further...what might be the natural progression to this feature?

Open up gmail, click compose mail...
Bing! Suggested To person: Mom  --- Last email sent 2 years back
Bing! Suggested Subject: I miss you Ma! --- Last 23 emails from Mom had keywords "miss you son"

Wake up in the morning, Google dress suggestion via SMS...
Bing! Wear the purple polka dot shirt today. You got 112 Facebook likes the last time you posted your pic in that shirt.

Google seems to be a really interesting place to be. Sometimes I wonder about the extent of information google has about me. If they dig through the info they have about me, they probably can write up my biography better than any person.

My emails (GMail)...My recently visited places (Maps)...My likes around entertainment (Youtube)....Stocks I'm researching (Finance).....News I'm interested in (News)....Pics I've been clicking (Picasa)....Stuff I've been searching/researching/exploring/sites I've been visiting (Search).....and above all.....CRAP I've been posting (Blogger).

Loading the dishwasher

The wifey loads the dishes as if they are traveling first class on Sunday. I make them commute second class in a Mumbai local train at 5:00 PM.

Talking of local trains, it's been over 5 years since I've traveled in a local train in Mumbai. I wonder how the crowd on the local trains are these days? Exponentially grown? Stayed around the same? Getting better?

Chasing the rising sun....

Went shooting today after many months. It's been quite a while since I woke up early morning to do something by myself.

Not many months back, it used to be like clockwork - wake up by 6:45 every Saturday and Sunday, leave home by 7:10, play an hour and a half of tennis and be back home by 9:00 AM. It was almost a ritual, only difference was that this was not a forced one; it was something I liked doing. Something I used to look forward to. It went on for almost a year and a half until it stopped cold. Man, I miss it.

I digress, but the point I was trying to get to was, along with the tennis, gone was my drive to wake up early morning on weekends. Photography could've take its place, so could've golfing or running. Only thing that took it's place was an hour or two of extra sleep. Well, I still continue to digress.

Today, I was woken up by one of the kiddos desire for a 5:00 AM snack. This granted me an opportunity to leave home before sunrise and go shooting.

Tampa might have quite a few places to capture beautiful sunsets, but not many places offer clean views of the sunrise. Only place close to my home that offers it is Safety Harbor and nearby areas.

The pics here are from the Safety Harbor Marina. This is a place I visit quite often when I am in the mood for a quick shoot. I think at least a third of the landscape pics on this blog are from a 2 mile radius surrounding the Safety Harbor downtown area.

As luck would have it, we had a completely overcast sky. I knew it when I left the house but I was hoping for a glimpse of the rays from the rising sun escaping between the clouds. Nope, no go The clouds were too dense; only a few streaks of orange sun managed to get past.

I still managed to get a few decent pics (or so I think). More than anything else, this inspired me to get out of bed in the dark more often and go chasing the rising sun...

Knowledge v/s Skill v/s Creativity

Read a ton of books and magazines and I'll gain a ton of knowledge...

Take a lot of pics and I may think I've gained a lot of skill....

I look at some of these pics and I realize...

A ton of knowledge and a lot of skill cannot make up for lack of creativity.

Photos from: http://www.fubiz.net/2010/07/27/milas-daydreams/
(A lot more very neat pics of this baby there)

I saw this posted on one of the forums. I have no idea on the background of the photographer, equipment used, years of experience, etc. etc. It might as well be a mommy shooting her peacefully sleeping kid with her $60 point and shoot.

As wifey said when she saw these pics, "It’ll make the child feel so special when she grows up and looks at them."