Amusing November - Month of splendid rides and visits

As the first half of the month was filled with site visits, I believe it makes sense to dig about the positivity on the work that it brought in. Yes, It feels that if we are achieving our own targets then consciously/unconsciously we set to do well in other areas too and it showed in me in my work this month. More than work, I liked and started to think on a different note on what I am tasked up with. This gave me a better opportunity to explore a bit more.

Apart from that, I have taken up a positive decision to do what I have planned to do and not over-think on what I am doing and start to analyse the impact of doing the task. I decided to try this approach as I often find myself over-think about the result that a particular task would produce and stop it abruptly. This leaves me in a state where I don't know or understand anything completely. Hence this plan. 

As a first step, I started learning Git (Git basics and how it helps in social coding) using "Pro Git" (ePub) and gaining a lot of useful insights as to how it deals with the items being version'ed. I also made it a habit to recollect what I have learnt and maintain a journal entry in Evernote (so that it can be shared with others at ease). This approach is fruitful and is fulfilling my bus travel most of the times. The other reason to be interested at Git is the interest to take up some small project (from my ideas) and work towards it.

I certainly acknowledge that there is good positivity gained over the few months and the outlook is changing and is all for good. I wish I would continue the good work in the long run.

Here comes the splendid of the first half of this month.

Kushalanagar and Madikeri visit for Naga's marriage

The month started with one of my best friend (Nagasabareesh Gontla) marriage at Kushalanagar for which I joined Pramod Ramaswamy and his family along with my brother in his car. As it used to be then in our Boston (US) visit, the plans to visit places in and around Kushalanagar was neatly planned and decided to modify as the need arises.

On the way to kushalanagar, we visited places like Golden temple, Dobara (Elephant ride), Arengae dam and finished the first day happily at Naga's reception. We had a very great welcome at the reception by  Mr. Sunil (Naga's brother-in-law) and we shared a nice time enjoying Naga's tense moments in the eve of his wedding. I must say that Naga was very tensed compared to Lasya Nagasabareesh and standing rigid for the snaps!!

Golden temple is a tibetian temple and the pass through made me feel as if we have reached a different part of India. The ambiance was neatly maintained and the whole surrounding was very appealing. We got to see certain rituals being performed there in front of us and looked more like the any other Indian rituals with a different god in place. I also got into a feeling where people are more interested in capturing their moments at the temple (including myself) than understanding what this temple is for and why it has come at the place where it is. I wish I would try to know about the background of these places I visit and have a brief about them than just forgetting what I had once been.

Dobara is a place very famous for the elephant ride but unfortunately we couldn't make it for the elephant ride. As we were keen to cross the shore as there was a stream in between the place to reach elephant ride, we ended up seeing only 2 elephants (small ones) having left out (with their legs chained-up) for greens. Having spent some time in the stream after food over there, we departed to Arengaedam which is one of the oldest dam where the water exit was very high and it was much. I'm not sure which all districts this dam was pumping water into and is something that I would like to know for my own understanding.

On the marriage day, I shot videos of the rituals as a remembrance that I can give him for being there in that occasion. After the marriage, we started for bagmandala temple and is scheduled to be closed by 1:30 pm according to some website (Thanks for having the site updated). we reached the temple exactly 5 mins before the closing and completed the dharsan as the last few people. Thanks to pramod for his driving skills as it wouldn't have been possible to reach close to 80+ kms on a road with moving traffic.

After having lunch at bagmandala temple, we started for Talakaveri (one of the origins of Kaveri river) where there is a small well which doesn't run out of Kaveri water. The climate had suddenly changed from sunny to foggy and it started raining as we reached the top of the hill. We rushed back to the basement along with others and had completely drenched by then. We then exchanged our clothes in the middle of the road and had snacks before we set out for our return to bangalore. finally we reached BTM by 12:30 AM after dinner.

Sivanasamudharam and Talakad

The subsequent week after Kushalanagar trip, me and Mageshwaran Rajendran made an ad-hoc plan to visit Sivanasamudharam falls and my immediate reaction was we should go by bike. He was game for it and we went with our plan. We were accompanied by Raghav Ramalingam and Magesh's US colleague, Karthik. we were set out to start by 9 AM but ultimately started only by 11:30 AM. I was longing for a long ride in my bike since the time I bought one but it so happened that we were on it it this time.

The ride was absolutely wonderful with good roads and obviously good speed. we were on par with the time to reach that was shown in Google maps apart from 2 stops we had for having tender coconut. The road was too good for bikers and hardly any long bad patches that would disturb the place. We reached the samudhram by 2:30 pm and then stepped down to the falls and had a nice time in the water flow. We then started back and had plans to go to Sangam (Mekadatu) but we felt that we wouldn't be able to ride back from there if we plan for it. Hence we decided to go to talakad which is a lovely placed with historical temples and river sand. There was a good river stream near the temple where people were rejoicing. After a good walk (more of an acupuncture) on the river sand for a km, we returned back to the temple and set of to return in the dark roads.

The problem with the dark roads is that the bike lighting wouldn't be sufficient to anticipate anything on the road when it is dark and hence the pace would be slow. Anytime we find a car is the best time to follow and keep-up the pace. we were game for it and riding with full joy. Finally we reached BTM by 11 pm after dinner near Nice road.

It was a fantabulous ride of 380+ km as a single person with high spirit. First time long ride for me and wasn't feeling any bit of tiredness after such a long ride. 

Overall a great month to cherish and would withstand the learning from this and take it forward. 

PS: I have sacrificed few points like product video shooting, progress of the flat etc., to not bloat this blog too much.

Month of festives

October went on a fast-pace as it was a month of festivals and long-weekends. It all started with the excitement of Diwali and added onto that was the excitement of my brother's visit from Malawi after 2 years. It was a family get-together with great fun.

Professional front was fairly normal and continued with the same pace and some amount of sloppiness due to the long weekends. However this didn't leave much impact on the work. So nothing more on this to comment on.

My Flat

After the finalization of the flat and the booking, I started making arrangements for closing off on the down payment. In the midst, I have started with the wood-work at the apartment as everybody advises that "Do it or you would find it difficult to do later". I had to resort to my friends for arranging the fund for this work and luckily +Bharath Balasubramanian and +Vijayalakshmi T helped me out in this and made this happen. Special thanks to them for their support at the right time.

Diwali & Holidays

Diwali was a bit tragic this year as I had missed the eve due to the awkward placement of holidays. However the holidays gave me some rest. The holiday was made even more exciting by mom as she wanted me to visit (along with them of course) to see 2 prominent matches they have figured out. I was clueless and with half-mind and couldn't really enjoy the experience to be honest. Also I was not prepared as to what to expect out of this and how to accept/reject anybody who is gonna travel with me for the rest of my life. 

The first match was good and I liked her. This is just by look and with certain assumptions that I made by visiting their family. However my family members had a difference of opinion for whatsoever reasons and hence they decided to lookout for few more matches. 

The second match was appealing to all others except me and I kinda felt that it will not work out and hence stuck to my own norms.There was a bit of hungama as everybody tried to convince me but I was not at all satisfied. There was no problem with the girl on any sort but the very thought that she wouldn't fit me made me to find reasons. I am not sure if i had made a wrong choice or not, but was very clear that I stuck to my own norms.

After these 2 matches, I had a thought on what has just happened and what could have been done to make it even more better so that I would not suffer mentally for deciding my life partner and this gave me a realization that I made a mistake of not having discussion with the girl for understanding them before getting onto a conclusion. The further matches would only be decided based on the discussion and understanding them so that the common ground could help me make better decisions that deciding with certain assumptions in mind.

The very advice of making decisions by talking with the girl seems to be the great advice that everybody offers and I resort on this and move on..

September - Most happening month, a bit more this time

September for me used to be most happening month as it carries 3 birthdays of my family including mine and my dad made it even more rememberable for breathing one last time in the same month. I marked it along with all the remembrances by accomplishing another dream of my dad. Despite all such remembrances and my used to be long blog post, I am going to keep to experiment myself to cut down a lot of thoughts in few sentences.

I carried a lot of confusions and clarified with the help of my friends as I kept pounding on my self-experience in taking hasty decisions. It also made me remember to count on the attention that my blog post of august received as it sounded a bit more flat and open-ended which made me to edit it after some thought.

Think and act..

The professional front had left me in a lot of dilemma and I believe I made justice to the situation and addressed it through the right people and made use of the correct channel to sort the clarifications that was most needed. With the most sorted guidance, I made my decision and planned for the right action for the forthcoming period.

Journey continues..

The personal front was pretty hectic as there were a lot to juggle around with. The dilemma at work, family occasions includes birthdays and Govindho (Sourashtrian festival) and my first experience at the court. This also marked for a final call on the housing front and gave a booking advance at the end of the month. I have opened the gateway for the challenge to take over the extra responsibility of buying a house devoid of all circumstances upfront. Thanks to all my friends and family members for their support in helping me realize my dad's another dream.

Reading list..

Up with all other challenges, started reading on: Rich dad and Poor dad" to get some insights on finance and started with a course of learning at #Coursera.

That marks an awesome and a most happening month with a bit more this time and awaiting for more challenges in the forthcoming months.

As my distant learning finance teacher Mr. Gautam Kaul says, May the force be with you!!. I am prepared.

Perplexed and Drifting August

This August had been sort of confused and drifting me in some ways. Confused with the thought process of what I want to do at the professional front as I grew on experience. This has also resulted in a drift from my day-to-day tasks. The drift has also caused some sort of procrastination and laziness. Though these had happened in random, the thoughts that it has left has always been pondering over again and again. The challenges that I had internally gone through are many and some left me furious as well sometimes.

Of all the things the most satisfying part is the Yoga classes which has given some sort of physical activity than mental activity and boredom as it used to be.

Professional

I am bit disappointed myself about my growth and learnability as I am not keeping myself disciplined enough and was considering ways to bring myself back on track. I felt so because I don't see myself doing any value adding stuffs that of late increase my professional value and has always been interested in learning stuffs like Android and likes than what am working on. 

I had also attempted to think about these hampering thoughts bit more and bring traction on stuffs as I prioritize but haven't spent any conscious and concrete effort in doing so!!

I have to improve my contribution in my projects a bit more and be disciplined enough on my commitments along with acquiring new stuffs along the way. The way forward!!

Personal

It was mostly fun-filled and hectic as I blissfully enjoyed watching movies during return journey and was happily cooking once I come back home. At times I had been furious on my family members though I knew that am making mistake and also repented for it at times. This behavior has to be changed it put me down badly.

We (all Thippasandra roomies) have finally vacated the house and moved most of the items to Magesh's flat and a complete weekend was spent in shifting which had taken a toll. However we had fun bargaining at a paint shop while purchasing the materials for the screen holder of Magesh's flat.

More than these the best part was the Yoga classes which has given some momentum and sort of flexibility to the body than just mechanical work. I wish I would learn this art of Yoga with discipline and use it for the betterment.

Overall it was very satisfactory at the personal front barring the stupid furiousness.

Things that needs more discipline

Decisions are being made at the start of every day and month but the discipline to keep up the word of self is yet to be cultivated as I lack on it completely. I had planned to develop an app per week but din't pursue it at all after the first week of august and never remained myself to seriously consider this as an option anytime then. I would be back to square-one in no time if i don't discipline my act on implementing what has been learned.

Learning (New) Strategies

Using Tasks feature of Microsoft outlook as the source for task management is the only idea that I have implemented as it facilitates in capturing all my work related items at a single place. This has helped me a lot in filling my time sheet at office. However I have created a wunderlist task to update the outlook items at the start and end of the day. 

Reading list

Apart from the blogs and magazines that I read usually, I had read the sample content from Amazon on the following mini-habit books

1. Habit Stacking by S.J. Scott

2. Mini habits by Stephen Guise (still reading...)

Overall it is a good read and the best takeaway is that "Big changes in lives starts with a single step". Lets start building the habit step-by-step.

Fulfilling July

July had been a month of various changeovers for all good and has been very coinciding in terms of fulling my needs. One of such changeover is the shift of my home to BTM as an interest to bring my mother to Bangalore and be with me and my brother. Coincidentally my friend could accommodate me in his room where he was staying all alone. I would like to thank my friend +Aswin Sudharsan for the act.

Technically...

I had successfully completed the "POSA course on Android" from Coursera with distinction. I have decided not to take any more online courses until I make use of the knowledge that I had gained from my courses. As part of that, I have planned to start developing an android app per week and learn the concepts as I build them. This is an inspiration obtained from various forums of geeks expanding their knowledge and technical acumen by dedicating themselves to learn/build an app a day for 30 days or so. Hope to build some useful apps (personally!!) and gain confidence on my learning.

Personally...

A very big step in my life would be the act of buying a house. This had been my dad's biggest dream of me. Based on my friends suggestions and gathered information, I am prepared to consider buying a property at Rupenna Agrahara, Silkboard, Bangalore. A short video of the property is published at http://youtu.be/EL6A2TShNlw. The groundwork on this purchase is being worked out. If the discussions ends up fruitful and get the loan needed from the bank, then I shall proceed forward with buying the property in which case the possession of the same would happen in less than 3 months time. I felt very happy to share this very act of consideration of a property with my relatives and well-wishers and felt like achieving something.

Officially...

I had personally tried to improve my understanding on the system that I am working on by analyzing them with extra care. This enables me to address the task at hand in a better way. I had kept myself away from tracking my activities and felt that am not being honest to myself. I started to feel that the tracker that I use has to be inculcated as a habit and not to be considered as a task.

I personally felt energized to clear my backlogs and bring myself back on track with many things. This act has given me an edge to confidentially approach my tasks both personal and professional levels than getting bogged down with the backlog.

Goof-ups...

I personally felt very bad to completely miss out a viable opportunity to showcase some good work in the Hackathon happened at my company. Thanks to +Vasanth who showed his perseverance in bringing up a prototype that can be presented in the hackathon. Though it ended well, the sense of guilt doesn't make me to feel comfortable. Added to that, I tried to venture in another area where I don't even know a speck is to bring up a road-map to improve "Process Excellence" for my projects. Though I understand the literal meaning of the words and the context to an extent, it would really not suffice to come up with a road-map. Here again I failed to team-up properly and choose the right task for myself.

Overall the month of July had given a wake-up call to think and involve myself in a task of my likes and to bring more focus on the items that I commit and keep up the word. Also, the dream of purchasing a property and realizing it later this year is to be acted upon immediately.

Humiliating June

I see that the monthly blog is not happening as per my schedule and I feel embarrassed for not keeping up with my schedule particularly on this blogging. This might either be because i'm feeling comfortable about my blogging (LOL!!) or my procrastination behavior has again taken over all my plans. Hold on!! Should I fret like this? Well there were other tasks of higher priority that I had to attend and a bit of procrastination which led to this delay in my blog. Nevertheless my reflection of June is here

June had been hectic and humiliating for many reasons and have spent this month towards more personal tasks than professional ones. The best part of this month is the job offer that my brother (+Karthick Klnce) has earned by his own effort. Congratulations again to my brother for his hard-earned job. Added to this were couple of housewarming ceremonies of my buddies and all happened at the same time. That was a valuable suggestion when Sabari has asked about my wish to buy a flat where they have bought and his suggestion at that moment has kindled the interest towards buying a flat/apartment. May this be a game changer. I had also reconnected with few of my buddies after long and shared nice moments.

Sloppy Online learning

I was pretty much occupied with the last few weeks of my android course and felt that I haven't done enough justice to the course. This course in specific requires a lot of dedicated time for exploring various concepts been discussed. I didn't do that though I could have afforded!!. However this behavior of mine hasn't had much impact on the course assignments. I could do the assignment by just following the TODO's that the instructors provide. As I had followed this way of learning as a practice, I kept asking myself if completing assignment alone confirm my understanding on the course content? or practicing a lot alongside the understanding on the course content will do justice to this course. If the latter is the perfect approach then my approach towards this particular course is just as good as my B.E degree where application is given least priority. I better realize and not repeat this mistake.

Moments to Cherish:

Among the working hours at office, I spend a quality one hour with GoF (Gang of Four!!!). Yes, we are 4 people who discuss about various things that matters most to our personal and professional life. I don't want to be specific with their names and the topics here!!. The time is well utilized on most of the occasions and is an icebreaker for many such topics of interest. Hope this discussion get along well and share our wisdom effectively. 

Moments to change:

All the time management practices that I had practices in the earlier months has not been followed at all in the recent days and is something to be cautiously corrected. The pomarado's, task planning and then tracking has to be brought back into the picture and have to ensure that I reduce my backlogs effectively.

Of all the things that I must take care, I should also take care of blogging more and blogging something that makes sense.

Focussed May

May was the month where I had complete focus on what I am tasked up with. It had started with an awesome trek to Kumara Parvatha (a dedicated blog on this trek is available here http://goo.gl/jnv2Is) and then ended up with a visit to Dharmasthala. The trip has been a memorable one and an awesome experience to cherish. I personally had a lot of takeaways from this trek., be it the perseverance to go for it even when the my friends who had been there before had dropped off, to successfully completing the trek in a day's time. I also cherished the experience that I was going through during this trek. I wish I would do more of such trips to boost my self-confidence.

Bestowed with this awesome trekking at the start of the month, the following days had been tasked with hectic deadlines to catch up with. So I had experimented the technique of Pomarado and experienced it. I must honestly agree that I didn't have a single Pomarado without distractions. However the conscious effort of making it happen made me to go for it and cherish the outcome. By doing so, I realized that I could plan my activities and finish the tasks in a lesser time than actually planned. I utilized the time been saved on my tasks for unit testing and other project related stuffs. I also came to notice that I am able to keep up with my tasks at work and at home for personal fronts. The worst parts was the extended nights. I personally felt bad for being late to work and returning late from work. I must change this habit and cannot compromise for my personal aspirations. However the extended nights are not of any wastage, me and my friend +Mageshwaran R used to discuss about our latest Coursera course of "Pattern oriented software Architecture", philosophical thoughts that we read upon. 

The visit to my hometown had always been a pleasure and keeping up myself to be there as planned is another sense of achievement when I make it happen. This month had been special as there was the "Madurai Meenakshi Thirukalyanam (marriage) festival" followed by "Alagar festival" for about 10-12 days. These festival had always been a memorable one since childhood as we lived up in the area where the Madurai Meenakshi temple is located. Alongside with this festival was my brother's birthday on 25th of May and hence was prepared with a gift of the book "Most and More" from Infinitheism. I believe the book would be of good use for him and would help him in shaping his career.

This may had left an everlasting memory of complete focus and cherished experience of the outcome due to the same. I wish I would continue this awesome experience further.

PS: I apologize myself for the delay in the monthly blog for May due to lack of prioritization.

Kumara Parvatha - An Adventure to cherish

Kumara Parvatha had been one of such places that I missed visiting when my buddies had been. This has always been a place that I wanted to visit someday and I happend to make it at the start of this month (May) along with my friend +Arun Jeyan. I don't want to mention the very obvious facts about Kumara Parvatha which is one of the difficult trekking places around Bangalore and is about 1710 feet above sea level. You can find such information in many websites and forums. Hence am skipping off these information.

Preparation for the Trek

Our #KumaraParvatha trek journey started from Bangalore on Friday night 02nd May @ 10:45 PM from Majestic bus stand. As usual we were casual and thought there would be a lot of buses flying to #KukkeSubramanya (Yes.. #KumaraParvatha is the mountain of #KukkeSubramanya temple). To our expectation we didn't find any route buses and hence we resorted on KSRTC buses. As usual they charged an hefty amount of Rs. 450 (I still don't know what is the actual fare). The bus started at 11 PM and we were expected to reach by 5 AM on Saturday. We were ahead of time and reached the KSRTC bus stand which is 0.5 km from the temple.

Kukke Subramanya temple

As we had enquired enough from our friends about #KukkeSubramanya, we enquired about the lake #Kumaradhara situated at 2 km from the temple. If you are not planning for staying in a choultry/lodge then this is one of the places where you can do your early morning call-off-duty as it has all amenities. I heard that there are certain pay-and-use bathrooms but I haven't notice one in my journey. 

We had bath and then went straight to the temple. The temple has been maintained very well. To the right of temple you will find luggage room to drop off your luggage's (if any) before dharsan. we took about an hour for the dharsan and came out to have breakfast. we were done with our breakfast and all set for our trek by 8:30 AM.

Trek Begins...

Beginning of the trek

We enquired the nearby stores on the route to start the trek and we figured out that the last street that you hit on your right when yow you walk towards the temple is where you have to start. You have to take 2nd left from the dead end of the street. We officially started our trek by 8:45 AM.

We have crossed about 1.5 km of road and reached a V shaped road from where we have to enter the relatively dense forest., that's the entry point onto the hill. Please follow through the photos below in the sequence as it describes the milestones of the trek. We were expecting a lot of trekkers accompanying us during our trek and with that hope we started walking into the forest. We only had 2 liters of water and we were aware that there won't be any water source till #BhattraeManae.

Initial route of the trek

We started to walk as quick as possible as it was a flat track except for some steps in the form of trees and bushes. The forest was so dense as we moved forward and up-til now we didn't find any people and hence we started to question ourselves if we are trekking in the right direction. We hoped we are and continued ahead. we started to take snaps as we moved on to not just capture the scenic beauty but also to trace back our route when returning. The walk was perfect with shoes ON and the stretch was little dampened due to rain on the previous day. 

Actual entry point to the hill

Bhattrae Manae

As we were walking without any stops, we happened to meet 2 people at our first junction. One person is a worker from #BhattraeManae and the other one is the forest officer. We enquired them to understand how far we have come and how many more left for the first major junction. He told us that we have come about 5 km and in 2 km more we would hit our first junction. we were asked to move ahead and they said to follow us in succession, but they surpassed us in no time though we started 5 mins ahead of them. The looked like 6-or-8-pack aamir khan's and realized that this structure might be because of climbing up and down on a daily basis with food items from the trunk. The next 2 km was full of rocks and pebbles like stones and we move ahead and reached #BhattraeManae by 10:15 AM. 

Initial route on the trek

First 2 people we met in our trek

As we approached our first milestone, me and Arun decided to hit the top and come back again on the same day but we were not sure if the trek would be same though. We had good food with sambar and curd with some vegetables. Mosquitoes were complementary offer!!. The food was good and anybody would be okay for any food at this point. We enquired about the rest of the trek and it was told that it is easy and we can return back immediately. We met 7 trekkers at #BhattraeManae and they seemed to have come down from Bangalore on a 3-day trek to this place and told us that they had been to this parvatha before as well. We were on high spirits by now that we could return on the same day against many of the experiences from other trekkers on this trek. We started to trek again at 11:45 AM.

Forest Office

Bhattrae Manae

We reached the forest office @ 12 PM and had to fill up a form (the usual procedure of You are on your own stuffs!!) and paid Rs. 200/head as a nominal fee to trek further. We received bill for it and hence I believe it is official and not any fraudulent act. We filled up our water bottles as our next water source is at #KalluMantapa. As we walk towards it, we visited 2 man-made view points (amazing as I remember even today!!) and clicked few snaps for our profile pics :-). We didn't spend much time as our plan of return from top would get impacted. The trek towards #KalluMantapa was not full of rocks but have only grasses at ground-height only. so the path was very clear and could see some cow and buffalo's wandering there. Till now, there was no one to accompany us during our trek and we noted down from the forest ledger book that we were the only 2 people who were trekking further on that day. we didn't bank much on this information and went ahead with our journey in the hot sun. 

Kallu Mantapa

KalluMantapa

We reached #KalluMantapa by 1:30 PM. We started feeling little exhausted due to the climate and boring as the trek is mostly walking on a straight road and likes without any heavy ups-and-downs. we were reaching our friend +Mageshwaran R to check on the next milestones and confirmed our route of the trek. we had few photocopy of blogs for our reference. We realized that if at the pace we go, we would reach #KumaraParvatha by 4 PM. so, we didn't stop much longer at KalluMantapa except for calling home and hence walked ahead towards #SheshaParvatha.

Shesha Parvatha

We-to Shesha parvatha :-)

We faced the first difficult part of the trek to climb a mountain from #KalluMantapa as we misunderstood a direction that Magesh told us and hence we climbed a mountain that was 60 deg steep by crawling with grasses as the only source for holding firm. It was more skidding and time-consuming as we had to watch our steps. Any false step, we would lose balance and disaster!!. Hence we climbed cautiously and reached the top from there it slid down normally again with bushes around which are at 1 feet height. we started to move forward as we reached the #SheshaParvatha by 2:30 PM. We felt we had trekked far enough to reach the top but we were tested. We stopped for 5 mins as the sun was at its peak with thin air. We anticipated 2 km more to reach the top and we trekked further. 

Kumara Parvatha

One of the scenic beauty of Parvatha

Hairline trial to the peak

This last bit of trek is the most difficult trek as we had to walk through a dense forest. At the first look we thought there is no way to get into the forest which is 70 deg falling down which you had to get down and trek further. There are 2 water sources (like small stagnant water but is actually flowing water) from which we can be fill and drink. The last trek was lot steeper with no place to hold on and we had to literally crawl. I was exhausted and didn't want to continue any further after seeing only rocks. We didn't know how to crawl further and reached the top. we figured out that there was a flag hoisted at the top and upon reaching that we hit our target altitude. But this crawling was a little hesitant and hence I wanted to stop and return back. But Arun was not ready to stop though he had cramps that gained since #KalluMantapa. We continued to crawl further cautiously and reached the #KumaraParvatha at 3:45 PM. We found 3 small cave-like structure and small lord Shiva idols inside. We shouted at the top of the voice as we considered reaching this as a biggest thing and the sense of achievement was fulfilling. We clicked few snaps and spent around 15 mins there. We visited 7 more people who had trekked from #Somwarpet. We had a brief chat with them and started back.

Entry into the last dense forest. After this is the peak

The notable part of the entire trek was the Red markings on the rocks which is a sign that we are trekking in the right direction. These marking were present till the top and we found Red and Yellow markings at the peak.

Return from the trek

Exiting from the last dense forest

With complete excitement and satisfaction, we relinquished our energy with snickers and started our return journey. By now we started to feel hungry but had nothing other than water and KachaMango candy. The return from the trek is the most difficult part of the trek as we were skidding though we had stepped at right places. so we had to slow down our pace and watch out. We filled the water again in the dense forest pond and walked back.

To of the peak. 1710 feet above sea level

The sunset was approaching and the skies started to reduce its glare. we trekked back in a hurry to see the sunset and also to reach #BhattraeManae before it becomes dark. we stopped at viewpoint for sometime to rest and reached back #BhattraeManae at 6:30 PM. We had informed for our food and night stay and rested there overnight. At around 10:30 PM, devastating rain with extremely powerful thunderstorm had happened and it lasted till 5:30 AM on the next day. We were thankful that we didn't plan to get stuck at the peak and played safe. We rested peacefully and started back for the last bit of the trunk by 8:15 AM and reached #KukkeSubramanya temple by 8:45 AM. Our successful and tiring trek came to an end with a lot of excitement and cherishing memories.

Shiva Idol at the top of the peak

We felt that we could achieve the pace due to the less baggage weight, only 2 people and no unnecessary baggage and extremely helpful gripping shoes. I was just amazed to think myself to be at a place where there was completely no signs of electronics but pleasing nature and return back to a place where it is completely happening. It was a experience to cherish and should have another opportunity, I would go forward and attempt it again to hit the peak.

Red marking to confirm your route

Kumara Parvatha is truly an adventurous beauty and one of my best trek ever and should thank Arun for being a better companion.

Month of Experiments

This April had been experimental for me as I had invested my time towards improving productivity, efficient utilization of time and effort tracking, gaining considerable fitness along with fun and travel.

Conscious Investment

The best investment I have made this month is to spend conscious and dedicated effort towards reading technical and non-technical books and blogs. Towards this I had installed apps like +feedly, +Pocket (I will write a separate blog post in a week on the various apps that I have chosen to use and why I feel good about them) and subscribed for +infinithoughts magazine. I personally like this magazine because of the genres and variety of articles it provides. Also, I feel that the kind of questions that I run over when approaching anything is exactly reflected by the author in the book. I'm keeping myself conscious and cautious in taking this action and momentum forward.

I got an opportunity to attend a meetup (got to know through meetup.com) on BigData conducted by IBM @ Embassy Golf links. Primarily it ended up being a marketing session on IBM's BigData products than session on BigData which I was anticipating. However this meetup.com seems to open many opportunities to know various such technical and non-technical happening in Bangalore. Hope to explore few meetups that match my interest.

Productivity and Productivity Tracker

Towards Productivity and time utilization, I have tried to understand how people manage their time (at all fronts) and tried to understand what their approaches are. In search of that, I happened to watch an interesting video (http://goo.gl/5ls3j) by +Scott Hanselman. This gave me some ideas on the kind of tools that i can explore and look for. Also I have invested time in finding the right tools to gauge what I do with my system and how my time is spent. I found an efficient app (web/ desktop/ smartdevices) named +RescueTime (free version) which comes with a lot of application which it categorizes as productive, very productive, distracting etc.., and provides analysis on a hourly / weekly and monthly basis. You are allowed to even change the categorization. Interestingly at the start of every week it sends a report of how productive I was last week.  Apart from all these external tools towards managing time, I have started to track down what are the various tasks in hand, prioritize them and gauge how much of time is spent towards each of them. This gives me a feeling of how am doing on a daily basis and where I go wrong towards estimating the time needed.

Fitness

I believe the long hours that I had spent during android month (Yes!! Now am not in the android team and a new dedicated resource has taken over) has taken a toll on my body. I had started feeling painful when holding spoons and plates. There was a dire need for good rest which I did and for the sake of cautiousness I visited doctor and got advised to keep a watch on the timings. This has given a chance for me to resume back my workout stint which I left 2 years back and resumed it with jogging as a start. I am pretty sure not to overdo this as well to end-up in a different issue altogether.

Slippages

For the first time this year, I slipped off my deadlines in my Coursera course on "Introduction to Public speaking" due to pure procrastination. There are few more pending weeks where I can cash-in and take it forward.

Fun and Travel

There were a lot of long weekend opportunities that had come this month and used one of them where I had my experience in casting my Vote and travelling to few trekking cum pilgrimage places like Palani and AlagarKovil.

Overall it has been a month long experimentation whose outcome is to be used in the subsequent months. There is an item on SpeedReading been planned for experimentation next month.

Sounds like I had only been experimenting and not doing any work at all. But, actually most of this has been done outside my work schedule. Its a great deal of effort to give it a try and manage the schedule which I could do it and cherish the experience.

An engaging March

This march had been very engaging in terms of the responsibilities handled with personal and professional front. For a change in this blog wanted to experience the flow of thoughts when it comes to blogging. So, I'm not editing anything to fit the sequence and just going about what comes to mind in terms of March.

I had got my Nexus 5 at the start of this month and since then I have not had my chance to explore it much. Believe it or not, I have not installed even 10 apps since my receipt of it. I used to liaison between my team and the mobility (Mobile UI) team and because of my rapport and expressed aspiration, I was given an opportunity to contribute for my Android UI when one of their resource was on unplanned leave for 3 weeks. Though I din't handle the critical pieces, it was an experience for me to use my android knowledge (whatsoever earned) during my 2 +Coursera courses. To my realization whatever I had learned was not to the fullest and had to struggle to get things working in a proper way. More learning was when it was reviewed and commented which gave me a better understanding on mobile application development. The hardest part of the whole exercise was the timeline. To meet the timeline, I had to stretch which sometimes had called up for sleepless nights. The quite challenging to explore the basic stuffs. It was  activities have been piling and haven't been completed yet which is dragging the efforts and the learning. Hope to bring back the items in shape.

Except for one weekend every other weekend was with family only. The Ugadi weekend was used to the fullest with trips to Mysore and Bangalore local site seeing with family and brother-in-law. Organizing the trip and keeping them on track with followups was challenging and getting everyone to cope up with us is not easy either. Keeping my mom busy with finding a perfect match for me is a challenging task for her either.

March is a month where we end up having a huge share in terms of Income Tax and opportunities for hike and role/grade changes. To my surprise, I was promoted to "Sr. Technical Specialist". I had mentioned my self analysis about my last year performance in the earlier blog for the New Year. The promotion doesn't match my analysis on me but I feel my analysis was with more introspection and true than external perception on my performance. There had been times when I felt very bad that I'm not able to code proper (without much complexity) but considered them as realizations on how it can be done.

The most challenging thing over the month of March along with tight deadlines at office was my availability for the "Programming Mobile Applications for Android Handheld Systems" course on Android with +Coursera and +Adam Porter. I used to do my assignments during my train travel. The final exams I felt was the easiest but I ended up goofing up with the testing and fixing some of the known bugs due to lack of dedicated time. To my surprise, I could still make it with all assignments and final exams before deadline.

Over this month I had thought of blogging about my experience with Android and +Coursera but dint do it due to my procrastinating behavior I guess. Hope to do it in this month of April. The overall takeaway is that there is still greater scope of improvement with programming and work on it when the opportunity is available. 

A Steady February

As I recollect, I realize that this February had been steady, positive and challenging having left with lot of positive vibe at personal and professional front.

Personal

Family

As my amma wanted (or by force :-)) to start to find for a match for me, it has formally started in the midst of all my relatives. This has left her busy in finding match and trying to get convinced first and convince me finally.

I am happy to keep myself committed to accomplish the challenging task of visiting my family once in every 2 weeks so that I will not leave her feel lonely.

Self-Learning

Couple of my courses in +Coursera on +Android made this February very challenging to meet the deadlines both at office as well as on assignments. The best feeling that I can cherish is when in one of the open-ended assignment (i.e., without any requirements other than the list of +Android controls to use), I developed an application using one form of Steganography (hiding plain text inside an image) for which I received good comments from peers in the evaluation. Also, I felt while evaluating that I had made a real attempt at learning something and didn't waste time.

Meeting with my Mentor

I had finally visited my all-time mentor (I claim always anywhere anytime) +Prashanth Babu. For the first time as far as I know, I saw him so calm and composed to correct me even when I was uttering/blabbering about some of my points related to work/technology.

It was a very good discussion and feeling in which I received a good amount of information how some great people (he is one according to me) carry out their plan of activities without compromising completely on their personal life as well.

Professionally

It so happened that I felt I was in a full swing to carry out tasks. I didn't feel I am putting extra hours to complete the tasks. It also happened that I could build rapport with my counterparts to get/share information that is needed.

This same month I had the my yearly (appraisal) discussion which was better than what I had expected. I felt I had more negatives than what I was told about which I mentioned back. How this gets translated is something to watch out for :-).

This month ended up with an eye-opener on the client-side technologies like HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, jQuery, Knockout.js and CORS in the form of an in-house training by a corporate trainer #VenuShastri. This added up an extra item to be put up in my calendar for this year to concentrate to the extent possible.

An Amazing January

Would this have been any better than this January. I doubt!. This January as I recollect had been one of the best January so far in my life in terms of keeping me busy in both personal and professional front (mostly on the professional front though). I believe I personally felt that I'm able to challenge myself and keep myself busy with official work, MOOC's and Mastering Cooking (leftover inspiration from my US trip :-)) 

Wish List and accomplishments :-)

As it used be year-on-year, this year also started with a lot of items in wishlist some I have been dragging by convincing myself the best possible way. But this time the desire of buying a bike is accomplished. Due to the heavy price of automobiles, I decided to go with a second-hand bike. Having roamed along with my friend Srinivasan, I  finally found a Honda CB Shine 125CC (3yrs old, had surpassed 29K kms while buying). The other wish of buying a smartphone is also accomplished. I had partially accomplished this desire by taking a Nexus 7 tablet when in Andover last year but have ordered (yet to receive it) Nexus 5, 32GB, White this year. 

Personal commitment

I desired that I should write diary on a daily basis to preserve the memories for future. I had heard from from friends and relatives who dairy daily as they cherish saying how they feel by doing so. But seeing my work schedule I believe I might not be able to do so. Hence decided to write it on a monthly basis of all the good things that had happened.

I had decided to blog things I like (be it technical, things that impacted, things that I came across which ought to be documented etc.). The start is good and will have more blogs in the forthcoming months.

Android and MOOC

Coursera had been my online learning site in the last year. I had taken good amount of courses but many of which I had dropped-out due to fear, not keeping up with deadlines and what not. But this year decided to be on top of it and had registered for the courses on Android. I had committed myself to spare atleast 2 hrs of my time for Android on a daily basis and to be on top of the assignments. I was so crazy to even do the assignment when travelling back by train for keep up with the deadline. I now have some comfort in understand the basics of android. In the coming months, I will explore more and with more dedication. The feel of keeping myself updated is so good and want to enjoy more.

Crazy Explorations

This pongal has been very special as my attempt on Sweet Pongal and Puja had worked out well. Infact I shared the same with my colleagues at office and received good comments. With the same aspiration and interest on exploration, I had ended up booking for a HP Gas connection.

Work Life

With the satisfaction of keeping up with the personal commitments, the work life had been satisfying. It gave me a lot of hope to explore on things that I feared doing the last year. The exploration has yielded good results and give good hope to take up more such challenges.

What has left me with these changes

The habit of reading books while travelling is not there anymore after the arrival of bike and reading list is becoming a backlog. In the coming months, I have to devise a way to read.

Overall this January had been amazing with lot of positives to carry. The confidence it has imparted is good.