Bicycled Every Day of the Month

31 Oct

Ever since my student days, this October is probably the first month in which I bicycled every day, no exceptions. Interestingly, the first and last day of the month saw the least distance bicycled – about 2.5km each. Most days saw to the tune of 6km to 11km. There is one day with longest distance, about 16km.

I thought I missed the bus today, when I came back from work at 3.30am and slept till 6.30am. But in the evening, to get a few snags fixed, I took my bicycle out and spent some time roaming around the neighborhood. Once back home, I am checking my logs and found that fact that the month concluded on a very positive not from a physical activity standpoint.

Diwali Night – Part 2

28 Oct

We headed out from home in the afternoon on Diwali day and went to Kompally area to meet a few relatives. En route, me and Surya stopped by at our new home to burn a few crackers at the place. We reached the place of our get together by 5.30pm and kids played in the lawns for a while. Our cousins started trickling in by 6pm. We did a long fireworks session till about 10.15 pm and then headed to Palm Meadows community for a quick stopover at the Diwali Celebrations there.

In addition to the first set of pics, here are the pictures from the day.

 

 

Diwali2011-PM-Set02

 

 

నిరాహార కార్తీకమా?

23 Oct

అమ్ములపొదిలోని అస్త్రాలని ఒక్కటొక్కటిగా నిర్వీర్యం చేస్తూ వచ్చారు మన దొరవారూ, ఆచార్యులవారూను. ఇక మిగిలింది నిరాహారాస్త్రమే.

తెగేదాకా లాగకూడదని మనవాళ్ళకి కొంచెం ఆలస్యంగా తెలివయింది. ఆసరికే కార్మికులూ, రవాణా ఉద్యోగులూ, విద్యార్ధులూ, మిగతా ఉద్యోగులూ ఎవరి దారిన వాళ్ళు వెళ్ళడం మొదలెట్టారు. మూడు రోజుల రైలు రోకో జ్ఞానోదయ ప్రసాదిని అయింది. మన పోలీసులయితే మనవాళ్ళే కదా అని కొంచెం మెత్తగానే ఉంటారు కానీ రైల్వే పోలీసులు బిగిస్తే మన కొవ్వు కరిగి కండ నలుగుతుంది.

ఏసీ రూముల్లో కూర్చుని రైలు రోకోని పర్యవేక్షించగల మనవాళ్ళకి బస్సులులేక ఆటోలల్లొ నలుగుతున్న ప్రజల నాడిని తెలుసుకోవడం కొంచెం కష్టమయింది. సమ్మెలో రాళ్ళు విసిరేవాళ్ళకి బిర్యానీ పేకెట్లు ఇవ్వగలరేమోకానీ ఇంట్లోని పొయ్యిలో పిల్లి లేవక పిల్లలు పస్తులున్నపుడు ఆసరా కాలేరుకదా. సకలజనులకి ఒళ్ళు మండి సమ్మె వికలమయ్యిందందుకే.

రాజీనామాస్త్రం మొన్న మొన్నటిదాకా ప్రత్యర్ధులకు భయం కలిగించినా, మొన్నటి ఉప ఎన్నికవల్ల ఆ అస్త్రం వికటించిందన్న ఆందోళన కూడా మొదలయింది.

ఇక మిగిలింది నిరాహారాస్త్రం. వాడి రెండేళ్ళయిన ఈ అస్త్రానికి ఇంకా వాడి బాగానే ఉండి ఉంటుంది. కార్తీకమాస ఉపవాసాలకి పుణ్యం కూడా వస్తుంది. మన పిచ్చుకదొరవారు ఈ బ్రహ్మాస్త్రాన్ని ఎక్కుపెడతారేమో చూద్దాం.

First time – Bicycle to work

21 Oct

My first bicycle to work in India today, in about more than a decade. Started at about 6.20am at home and reached our NetEnrich office by 7.00am. The distance is quite short at 8km but most of it is uphill. A couple of steeps at Jubilee hills really tested my thigh muscles. All the practice in the last few days came in handy.

 

BikeToWork-2011


 

Did a short demo of the gear bike and accessories/apparel during lunch hour in office. We had some quality time when our coworkers tried going uphill on the ramp from cellar, both using low gears and high gears.

Switchover to bicycle with gears

16 Oct

So far, I have been using bicycles without gears in my whole life. In the last one month, I started taking my bicycle out quite regularly. For more than two weeks, I am doing 6+ kilometers on my bicycle. Based on the positive effect of taking out my bicycle regularly, I started looking at what the local bicycle club members are doing. I found that they are doing anywhere between 10km to 25km on Hyderabad roads, which is quite impractical to achieve with my bicycle without gears. Most areas near my home are hilly and the flat areas a bit farther from my home.

At the same time, good gear bicycles are quite expensive and I didn’t want to invest good amount of money upfront without testing the waters. Unlike in western world, there are not that many pro bicycle rental places in this part of the world. That prompted me to shop around for a used entry level bicycle with gears at a lower cost, so that I get a feel of what would it feel like.

Based on one of the posts in Hyderabad Bicycle Club (HBC) forums, I contacted a bicycle enthusiast who is willing to sell his old bicycle. He recently bought a Cannondale  and he is ready to part with his older one. The deal is done in the first meet and I brought home my first geared bicycle Friday night.

 

From Miscellaneous

 

This is a Raleigh Elevation 2.0, an MTB with 18 gears. I took the bike out on Saturday morning and had a very positive experience. I got a couple of accessories fitted with the bicycle (water bottle with a cage and a bell – a must thing in the crowded neighborhood I am in) and got the parts lubed and greased. Now the response of the bicycle is much better. Let me see if I can better my 6km mark with this bicycle. Sunday is the testing day.

 

 

Dennis Ritchie

14 Oct

For close to two and half decades of my programming life, the name Dennis Ritchie has become a synonym for simplicity, elegance, portability and efficiency.

My love for the C language started very casually and grew with time. Having been exposed to other programming languages like BASIC, Fortran and Pascal, it took me two full days to learn the syntax of the C language. But it took me several years to understand and effectively use the semantics of various aspects of the language. Once I started learning about the early C++ interpreters on Unix language and how object oriented semantics are implemented in C language (using compilers and preprocessors together), my love for the language and its innovators kept on increasing.

The journey with the Unix operating system became more of a life than love itself. Each variant or derivative of Unix I ever worked with, including HP-UX, SCO, UCB, Magnix, Linux and Solaris in particular, led to immense passion and respect towards the fundamentals behind Unix – all the qualities I attributed to Dennis in the first sentence above. These qualities are the reason why the applications and appliances built using the core and its paradigms touch us day in and day out, directly or indirectly. (For more on these qualities, read The Practice of Programming – here and here.)

Even though Dennis is no more today, his impact will still be felt for decades to come.

Quoting Dave Tong (@davetong) on twitter:

If Steve Jobs changed the world then Dennis Ritchie created it.

All I can say is a big thank you to Dennis Ritchie, for his silent yet powerful life. It changed our lives. RIP.

Palm Meadows Community Home Owners Meeting

09 Oct

Today we had our General Body Meeting of Palm Meadows Community members. It turned out to be a marathon meeting that eventually took up positive resolutions by the members. These resolutions are aimed towards

  • Defining the operating principles for the committee to take possession of common facilities/amenities maintained so far by the builder
  • Essential changes to the bye-laws of the community
  • Establishing guidelines for maintaining quality of life in the community
  • Financial aspects like maintenance charges, check signing powers and fund management

The meeting started on a very emotional note, indicating the passion of the fellow members to further improve the quality of living in the community. Once the voice of the members is heard across the board and the suggestions are addressed, specific agenda items are tabled for discussions.

One great thing I observed in the community is that almost all members excel in their own specific field, be it financial management, administration, health care,  technology, service or brick and mortar businesses. That makes an abundant amount of talent pool available for the committee to tap into. However, I have also seen that most members are busy with their own businesses and they may have less spare time for activities on a recurring basis. I am glad that we have a fully functional committee that could attend to the immediate needs of the community. However, more participation by members will definitely improve the facility to the next level.

Glad to be part of a meeting with such a passionate and experienced community.