Saving the world, one flush at a time...

Woohoo! All the restrooms in our office recently got upgraded to WATER FREE urinals!

Woohoo! No more forgetting to flush!!

Woohoo! The new urinal itself is ergonomic, sleek and sexy!

Woohoo! It's touchfree and hygenic (although we did not have to touch the older one's either...)

Woohoo! No more feeling guilty about global warming and ozone layer depletion everytime you flush half a gallon of water with your 50ml of  pee!

Woohoo! No more having to think twice about going to pee on the hour, every hour!

Woohoo! My personal public urinal at work saves 40,000 gallons of fresh water per urinal per year!

Woohoo! I was so intrigued about how it works that I had to google it up!

Woohoo! I so wanted to share it with the world (well...at least the 6.25 visitors of my blog) that I took a pic of it with my blackberry while at it!

Woohoo! I'm saving the world, one flush (skipped) at a time.

Other side of the oatmeal...

Bumped into this site - www.theoatmeal.com the other day. Found it to be pretty witty, humorous and mildly informative at the same time. I wish he was around to write the textbooks while I was in school.

He mentions that his website is a one-man operation. Seems to be a very creative guy with some top notch illustration skills. Here's an excerpt (most of his work is in the form of images). This one's is from 15'ish things to know about coffee

(Slightly off-topic....I get my culinary lessons from Alton Brown)

Jump-starting the new year...

It's starting to get cold here in Florida. December was a very mild month, milder than the December of 08. After many days of highs in the 70's and lows in the 60's the mercury has dropped now with 30's for lows and 50's for highs. "Hahaha" the 6 inch thick fur coat clad farmer in Lonetree, ND might laugh at me and cry at the same time, while looking through his window at the sidewalks covered in a foot of snow, but the fact still remains, your body gets used to the Floridian warmth. And for us Mumbaites, it feels right at home.

Back on topic; the battery on wifey's car which was purchased from Costco a little over a year back died this morning. It was dead, dead as a doornail, no, deader than the phone line after not paying the phone bills for 6 months. I tried jump-starting it with the battery on my bus, which is probably twice the capacity as the one on wifey's car. No luck. I tried leaving the jumper cables on and the bus running for over half an hour. No go.

I gave up and started my frantic search for the sales receipt for this battery. Drawer 1 messed up, not there. Drawer 2 digged into, nope. Drawer 3 which was almost empty was still strip searched and felt around but in vain. It wasn't in the drawers, it wasn't in the files, it wasn't in my wallet which still had a Free lunch coupon from 2006.

Giving up, I called Costco and asked them whether they would still honor the warranty if I have lost my receipt. The lady on the phone was pretty pleasant. She said it's not a big deal and that they can look it up using my member Id. She asked me to get the battery to their returns desk and they would take care of it. Duh, I probably should have called her before spending an hour searching for the receipt.

Removing the battery from the car was very straightforward, especially since I had installed it just a year back. The first time was a real pain in the rear but that's a story for some other time. Loading the battery on the bus, I left for Costco

The warranty replacement process was a cake walk. Basically, there was no warranty replacement! The lady at the returns desk explained to me that all I have to do is return the battery at her desk and then go buy a new one. Sweet!! A new battery and an all new 3 year replacement warranty for at least 20 bucks cheaper than the cheapest comparable battery in other places. She also told me that the price on the battery has gone down 3 bucks since the time I bought it last year.

So basically, I got a new battery, 3 dollars back and a brand new warranty, no questions asked. That's customer service. Why did the battery die within a year? The question still remains. Was it a cheap quality battery in the first place? Is there something else wrong with the car? Alternator not doing its job may be? Will it break down again tomorrow or next week? Only time will tell. For now, it's Thank you Costco you have earned yet another loyal customer.

www.hailshapes.com

Happy New Year!

I had bought this domain a few months back when they had it on sale for 99 cents. Thought I'll configure this blog to point to www.hailshapes.com

Woohoo!

London Dreams

These days, I rarely get to watch a movie from start to finish in one go. However, yesterday I watched this 2.5 hour long movie, London Dreams, in around 4.5 hours.


I am not "current" or may also be that this movie did not do so well at the box office, I had not heard of this movie until earlier this week when I had bumped into it while aimlessly browsing the web. However, it was good enough for me to stay up until 2:00 in the night to finish the movie. (Not that I need much of a reason to stay up late into the night)

What I did not like?
Not a long list but just a couple of things worth mentioning...

The end sucked donkey balls. Reminded me of Hyderabad Blues. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone bumping into this post who has not watched the movie but I'll just say that sometimes people just take a huge dump on a story just to get to a happy ending. If this was based on a book, probably the director or someone decided that it was too gloomy of an end so he decided to screw it up and try to make it look colorful and lively while sucking the life out of it.


What else? Well, it wasn't anything close to reality. Not sure if it was meant to be close to reality, probably not. But, some things felt like a musician's version of Rajinikanth jumping off the 4th floor of a building, shooting 6 bullets from his revolver which ricochet various things killing 10 baddies, landing a roundhouse kick on the main baddie and rescuing the princess.

Anything else? Yes. Salman Khan. He is not 20 anymore. He is probably 50 and should act like one right about now. It was fun 15 years back in Andaz Apna Apna with Aamir Khan. It is not fun watching him do the same old antics anymore.

Now...for what I liked?
THE MUSIC. In two words, it was aww some! In one word, ENERGIZING. I am listening to it while typing this post and it just rocks. (Shola Shola is currently playing) I don't listen to a lot of music but I have the illusion of having the ear for good music. Yes. Energizing is the word to describe it. It makes you want to put some earphones on and go run a few miles. If you don't have this in your collection, get out and buy a CD or download it to your ipod or hunt for a torrent or something.

I loved all the songs, however, Barson Yaaron was a real powerhouse especially the later half of the song. Man ko ati bhavey saiiyan was also pretty decent but not one of the best. Shankar sang it very well. Shola Shola was my least favorite but it was still much better than 80% of the songs I've heard in the recent. I did not care much for the remixes at all. It beats me why one would want to put teriyaki sauce and hummus in a really well made pav bhaji.

After today, I've a freshly ignited respect for Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy in particular and good music in general. This is a CD that will probably be playing in my bus for the next 2 weeks. 

I wish I listened to more music, more good music. Thank you S-E-L, I just ran 20 miles. In spirit.

Almost a year since...

Its been almost a year since I started this blog. I have not been very regular at posting - sometimes many a week while other times, a month between. Looking back, it has been a good year. May be one of these days I'll post a synopsis of the year that has gone by.

Enough blabbering.

Uggh. I miss my camera :(

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrgcorporateantivirusuxxxxxhhhhh!!!!!!

"Sorry but I need to screw-up your morning and start running the weekly scan now"
"Umm...can you start a little later"
No response...
"Hello? Can you start a little later please?"
"Uhh...sure! I'll be glad to start later. How much later? One hour or three hours?"
"3 hours please"
"Suuuure! Give me 2 hours to pause what I'm doing"
"WTF#*%&"
No response...
Exactly 3 hours 0 mins 0 secs later (an hour after it actually paused #*%&#)...
"Aha! Thought I forgot about it eh? Gotta start the weekly scan now"
"I'm in the middle of something. Can you please start a little later??"
"Aww whatheck....one hour or three hours?"
"One hour should do"
"Suuuuuure! Give me 2 hours to pause what I'm doing. But remember this is your last snooze!"
"WTF#*%&"
No response...
Exactly 1 hour later (10 mins after it actually paused)...
"Point of no return! Ready or not....I'm starting the weekly scan now."
"Oh well, go ahead. I'll take a coffee break. How long can a weekly scan take any ways"
2 hours and 6 coffee breaks later
"Ding! I'm done!! No threats detected"
Great! I've my laptop all for myself!!

10 minutes later
"Time to start your monthly virus scan"
$#^@&$#&#@!%@%&$%$%!$#@!

Asparagus anyone?

Made some Asparagus yesterday, thought I'd share some with you. For those who like asparagus, they're on sale at Publix for $1.59/lb. They are usually around $3.50/lb.

Recipe? Sure! It's pretty simple...

You need:
Around a pound of Asparagus
4 cloves of Garlic - chopped
Fresh ground black pepper
2 tsp Extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

They are safe!

The fishies look pretty ok now!!! They are not upside down floating at the top of the tank anymore. They still seem a little sluggish and the Daddy Fish still wants to hang out at the top of the tank but they are both right side up and don't seem like they are half-dead anymore.

I did it again.....

Around 15 years ago, I killed my best friend's fishies. He had asked me to feed them while he and his family were out of town for a week. Being the irresponsible guy I was then, I completely neglected it, remembering about it only 3 days later, going to his house to find his two black goldfishes floating dead in his aquarium. I still remember the sight and the sinking feeling deep inside, knowing that I was responsible for their death, that it was my neglect that starved them to death. No amount of regret would bring them back. My buddy forgave me but I don't think he ever forgot about it. I don't think he ever kept any fishies ever since.

Fast forward 15 years, we had two fishies that I got as a birthday present for our son in December of 2007. "Daddy fish" and "Baby fish" is what he called them. I have been taking care of them pretty decently. I have put off cleaning the tank for almost a month a few times but never have starved them.

Early Morning light...

Early morning light is just beautiful. The angle of the light source also adds a lot of perspective to the pictures.

In this case, it's just a random building with glass windows. However, the color of the morning sunlight provides the glow and the angle of the light source blended with the palm trees provide the gobos which liven up this random building in downtown Safety Harbor.

Convergence...

On my way home from work this evening, the sky seemed magical - the colors were blue, white and orange in the far, the clouds were broken up into tiny little pieces of cotton candy and they all seemed to be going somewhere...far into the sea. They were converging to some focal point..as if they were going home to their mother ship.

I wanted to go to the top of our parking lot and snap some pics but there were too many people leaving the building and I shyed off from doing so. This pic was taken from my car at a stoplight, while waiting for the signal to go green. I think it came out pretty well especially given the fact that one of my eyes were at the signal, one at the rear view mirror and this one looking through the viewfinder...

Another stop on my way home just to click a quick pic of the setting sun and the converging clouds...

Time for a shower...

Just a few feet away from the Safety Harbor Marina is this small little park in this small little town. I think it's called the Memorial Park. It has a war memorial honoring the veterans of the various wars. I don't have the accurate details so will need to look it up and update this post at a later date.

This park has a small walking trail, a few benches, a couple of shelters and this - a nice little fountain in the center of the park.

I have also heard that Safety Harbor Marina is a vantage point for viewing the space shuttle or rocket launches from Kennedy Space center. Next time they have an evening lauch during a weekend, I might come here with my camera and tripod...just for fun.

A bird in the hand is worth how many in the water?

This one is from the same marina. There were quite a few birds flying around but this one was busy basking in the morning glory - beautiful weather, heavenly sunlight, cool but not cold water....oooh. This is the best time of the year to be in Florida. November through March is so very beautiful around here. This more than makes up for the 4 months of muggy summer and news channels filled with hurricane trackers.

Early morning reflections

Went out on a early morning photo drive this weekend. The plan was to leave before sunrise and get some pics of the rising sun. However, due to the recent DST change, sunrise time was miscalculated and I left the house almost an hour into the day.

I did not take too many pics, may be around 45; out of which around 10 have come out good (yes, relatively good, good on my scale, good compared to the 35 others, good enough for me to post on here). The two posted here made the cut.

I spent a good 2 hours driving around. This was my first stop - the marina in downtown Safety Harbor. This is a small little town among the other small little towns around here. There are around 10 small little towns in this 15 mile radius - Safety Harbor is one of them. They have a nice fireworks display here every July 4th. This place gets so very crowded at that time - cars and people all around you. Last time I was here for the event, it took us 2 hours to get out of downtown Safety Harbor, as opposed to 5 minutes today.

I might post a few more pics of the next couple of photo-stops I made on this trip soon...

Where no man has gone before....

I turn left...
I enter the door...
I find things cleaner...
I find something funky...
I notice something missing....
I see vending machines...
I wonder where I am...
I gasp and look around....
I find no one and breathe a sigh...
I backtrack my steps..
I get out the door....
I turn right...
I enter the door...
I am in familiar territory...
Oooooh....I relieve myself...
Mission accomplished!
I detoured through a place...
Where no man has gone before...
Or choose to admit they have.

When you're happy and you know it...

You breathe more...

You smile more....

You don't need a reason....

You see good around you...

You like watching the gloomy skies...

Your station plays all the good songs on Pandora...

You giggle like a girl when you read something funny...

You drive slower...

You park at the farthest end of the lot and walk...

You see new ponds and plants you want to come back to...

You see the curlew pecking for bugs in the grass...

You leave the blog post open ended....(to be continued....)

These are a few of my favorite things....

A laptop outdated that just keeps on going...
Scratched up Blackberry that's constantly buzzing...
The time shifting magic a Tivo that brings...
These a few of my favorite things.


My Laptop - I have probably gone through around 20 laptops in the last 10 years but am yet to buy one of my own. This is something I have gotten so used to - whether it's a laptop or a desktop. I've had one for over half of my living years. I cannot imagine living without one. I'm not an early adopter when it comes to electronics - The desktop (that I bought) is older than my first-born but it's still going strong. I'll probably have it with me for at least a couple more years.

I've never been that lucky with laptops though. I have had crashed hard disks in at least 5 of my laptops so far. It can probably be attributed to my not-so-gentle handling.


My Blackberry - Two years ago, I did not have one. Two years ago, I did not see the need for one. It will be exactly two years in December since I've had this blackberry. It's like one of those things that you can live without until you start living with.I love carrying it with me. I'm addicted to the crackberry - It is my morning alarm, it is my personal navigator, it's been a lifesaver in boring meetings that I've found a fatal attraction to. IPhone appeals to me but I won't carry one until one lands on my table.

DVR (and the DVR remote) - What can I say about this one. Never had one, never thought I'd find a use for one, never found the value in spending money on one. Last year, I was offered one for free with no monthly fees. I whatthehecked and took them on the offer. Now, I cannot imagine not having one (again one of those things...). I can hardly watch anything live anymore unless it's on those 'no commercial' channels. 99%  of my viewing has been time shifted - starting to watch 10 minutes into the program or watching a day/week/month old episode of Good Eats.

If I was stuck on a deserted island, what are the three things I would like to take with me? Well, now you know - a Laptop without power (Did I mention that my laptop battery lasts 20 minutes when unplugged?), a DVR without a TV and a Blackberry without coverage!

Nice long walk...

(Another pic from the same park, cropped for a better perspective)

Are long walks a thing of the past? I remember going on long walks with my dear buddy during the college days. We used to roam aimlessly for hours, just walking, talking, eating....just walking. It used to be quite peaceful.
These days, I hardly walk without purpose anymore. If I were to chart my walking profile, it would probably look something like this:

I used to bike (motorbike) around a lot. Many times just aimlessly; sucking in the open air and the bugs, suspended particles, unburnt oil fumes and at times water from the rain. Never did I fall ill due to the varieties of exotic alien particles entering my body.
These days, the pollen in Jan/Feb manage to bring me to tears.

I used to xyz a lot too. However, these days, I only abc.

What does this mean? Things have changed for the bad? Have they changed for the good?

Well, neither - things have changed, priorities have changed, there's a stark contrast in what I did then and what I do now. However, the person in me is probably still the same, just evolving over time...

All I know, is that I will be walking down the path...raring to know what's at the next bend...

The Reflecting Tree - part ii

...Today, I had 30 minutes to kill. I usually have these 30 minutes to kill around the same time every Tuesday and Friday. However, today was a bit different from the last time I visited this place....

...Today, I had my 18-55 lens with me (as opposed to the 35mm prime the last time)

...Today, I had a circular polarizer on the lens

...Today, It was 5:30 PM standard time in November (as opposed to 5:30 PM EDT in August or September the last time I was here). It was 20-30 minutes before sunset

...Today, I wish I had a tripod on me

...Today, the sky was overcast - not white, not dark but gray clouds.

...Today, the picture came out much better than the last one. Still room for improvement, but some things are definitely better - a lot less gray, much crisper reflection, a little more saturation

...Today, I felt kinda labored taking this picture. May be it was a one-off event.

...Today, I took this picture so that I can post it here. Most other pics I've posted on here, I have taken because I wanted to take them. (Not sure if it matters...just an observation)

What's wrong with this photo???

Well, firstly, it's not plumb. One might argue that it could be easily fixed post capture. However, there is no room at the top or the bottom for straightening. So either the tree or the reflection or both will get cropped if I try to straighten it.

Secondly, it's very gray and bland. I should've used a better white balance. Again, not something that cannot be tweaked...but why do something later that you could've done while capturing?

Thirdly, I couldn't have picked a worse time of the day or day of the week. It was around 5:30 in the summer. The sky wasn't cloudy and the sun was out casting a white sky in the background.

Fourthly, may be using a telephoto lens might have given it some perspective but all I had is a 35mm which is kinda bland for these kinds of pictures. I'm not sure about this one though.

Fifthly, color saturation is weak. It just looks gloomly - the grass could have been greener, the water could have been bluer, the sky could have been....well...anything but a blanket of grayish white.

Here's what I plan to do. I'll be going back to this same spot in the next couple of weeks, taking at least 5 more with more or less the same composition - A tree and it's reflection. I'll attempt to do it at different times of the day and different days of the week (from a weather standpoint).

After I have my 5-6 pics, I'll post them all together and we can see which one stands out the most.

The Monkey and the waterfall...

These pics were taken at the zoo we went to the other day. Yes, the same one where the pic of the giraffe was taken. There was this monkey (Chimpanzee, orangutan, some other monkey family) who was sitting behind and in between the two water falls. He can clearly be seen in the picture above. However, from that point, he was way far away and I did not carry my 55-200 with me to the zoo.

The picture to the left is of the same waterfall, taken with a smaller aperture/slower shutter but the monkey is not visible from this angle. These photos were taken in the middle of the day. Luckily it was overcast so there wasn't much glare....just nice diffused sunlight. I would like to add a circular polarizer to the mix the next time, it should enrich the color of the water for me...

Happy Halloween!!

We carved a Jack-o-lantern a couple of days back for halloween. It was a pretty simple one but it turned out pretty good at least for a n00b carver like me.It was a fun event with the kiddos all sitting around me while I was busy sucking out the guts of the pumpkin. It did not take very long though. I might go out there after halloween and get a slickdeal on a clearance pumpkin and carve another one. May be, may be not....depends on how enthusiastic I feel on Sunday.

Search the net for pumpkin carvings and you will find a whole slew of really cool and very intricate carvings....from the very creative to the laugh-out-loud funny. There isn't a lack of creativity in this world. There is creativity in everything. A good photographer can probably take a picture of a door knob and make it look like heaven. I remember one pic of a port-a-potty on kenrockwell.com or some other site. It was just a toilet, a cheap one for that matter. However, the way the foreground colors gelled with the background, the composition and the overall scale of the photo made it look like something you wanna own!

Here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to post more often. I'd like to do more than post and run with pics. I'd like to put a context around the pics I post and probably post a bit about abstract me. If it's just posting pics, I don't need a blog, Flickr or Picasa. can do a much better job of hosting my pics for me. Like many other like to dos, this may remain a like to do or it may actually turn into am doing.

Happy Diwali from our family to yours....

Although a little belated, here's wishing a very Happy Diwali to you and yours...

Diwali reminds me of the scheduling, planning and budgeting we used to do during our childhood days. We used to get a fixed amount to burn every Diwali. It used to money well burnt with a bang. These are some fond memories, something I used to look forward to every year, right until the early morning of Diwali day and leading into the grand finale a couple of days later.


Diwali was never a big auspicious day for me nor a big gift giving/exchanging occasion. The grandest part of Diwali was buying, hoarding and lighting of fire crackers. This was in addition to watching a family of business folks have a GRAND Diwali gala on the day of Laxmi puja. This used to happen a day (or two) after our Diwali day and it was always something to look forward to. They used to get all the cool pyrotechnics available at that time - Parachutes being one of them (don't remember what the others were called).......

Giraffe at the zoo

Met this giraffe at the zoo the other day.

They had a platform at a height which made it at the same level as the giraffe's head (which is pretty high off the ground, mind you!)

Folks can purchase a cracker from the lady for $1 a piece and feed it to the giraffe.

What a novel money making scheme..."You pay me so that I can sell you a 10 cent cracker for a dollar so that I can let you feed my own giraffe" Whoa!

Anyways, i did not buy any crackers (although they looked appetizing and I was hungry) but I did get to snap a couple of good pics of the giraffe. I need to remember to turn on the flash the next time I shoot animals. The eyes look lifeless without it.