To Prashant

I had to write this blog sooner or later. One of my favorite blogs to read is of my friend and ex-colleague Prashant whose ramblings and thoughts fascinate me. Ofcourse you would be able to relate better to his posts if you knew him personally. Irrespective, his posts reflect of a generation that makes you think about life and the way you see this world.

Urge to ramble

I have not been writing any blogs lately. Thanks to my work life imbalance. Life has been a roller coaster and one just flows with its ups and downs, twists and turns. Most of the times you are chasing very short term material objectives and in doing so your long term dreams get lost somewhere. One ponders on the life in retrospect to find what they are after. When you think deep about the past and then try to change your way of living it does not succeed always. Next day you are back to what you have got conditioned to do.
Question should still remain "Where do you want to go today ?"

The Seattle Times: Local News: 136 stolen cars, 1 suspect: "He enjoyed driving"

The Seattle Times: Local News: 136 stolen cars, 1 suspect: "He enjoyed driving"
This comes as no surprise given what I have experienced before.

Recent statistics regarding vehicle crime in Seattle:
7 — The number of seconds it takes an expert thief to break into a vehicle. It often takes that thief less than one minute to drive away.
9,558 — The number of vehicles stolen in the city of Seattle in 2005.
66 — Percentage of auto thefts that occur at night.
68 — Approximate percentage of stolen vehicles that are recovered.
$5,800 — The average loss of missing parts on vehicles.
Source: Seattle Police Department

Solving Poincare Conjecture problem

Recently International Mathematical Union (IMU), announched 2006 Fields Medal (equivalent of Nobel Prize in mathematics) winner. One of the winners is Grigori Perelman who has solved the Poincare Conjecture Problem that is regarded one of the most difficult problems in mathematics since hundred years when it was found. The Poincare conjecture essentially says that in three dimensions you cannot transform a doughnut shape into a sphere without ripping it, although any shape without a hole can be stretched or shrunk into a sphere.

However the acclaimed mathematician refused to accept this award and another award of $1 million for solving this problem.
This makes me wonder that there are people in this world who are not fazed by the fame and money involved in pursuing a pure academic career. But for the pure joy of solving such mysteries that has kept the human mind always puzzled and thinking.

2006 Summer Movies schedule around Seattle

Movies at The Mural - Seattle Center
Experience moonlight, movies and fun for all under the stars at Seattle Center this August! This FREE outdoor cinema series presents films suitable for all ages. Come discover, or rediscover, the classics! Movies start at dusk.

-CasablancaFriday, August 4As time goes by, this timeless classic starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman only gets better.
-ShaneSaturday, August 5Amid stunning vistas, this Western follows reformed gunslinger Shane (Alan Ladd), whose determination to avoid a fight is tested by cattle barons who threaten a community of homesteaders.
-To Kill A MockingbirdFriday, August 11Gregory Peck is Atticus Finch, a lawyer who defends an innocent black man (Brock Peters) against rape charges, only to encounter the prejudices of the South.
-Singin' In The RainSaturday, August 12Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor combine their talents in one of the best musicals ever made.
-To Sir, With LoveFriday, August 18Sidney Poitier stars as Mark Thackeray, an engineer by training who takes a teaching job in a working-class London high school.
-Lawrence Of ArabiaSaturday, August 19The epic true-life story of warrior-poet T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole), who helped unite warring Arab tribes so they could strike back against the Turks in World War I.

Movies at Marymoor
Lights, Camera, Action!!! 2006 begins the second annual FirstTech Movies @ Marymoor Park. Thanks to a partnership with First Tech Credit Union and Epic Events, King County Parks will be offering citizens an opportunity to watch some great films under the stars.
Movies are held at McNair Field in Marymoor Park and all donations go directly into supporting parks maintenance. Now that’s a happy ending!
Summer 2006
Tues July 11th (9:40pm)"March of the Penguins"
Wed July 19th (9:35pm)"Office Space"
Wed July 26th (9:25pm)"Field of Dreams"
Wed Aug 9th (9:05pm)"Ferris Bueller's Day Off"(20th anniversary)
Wed Aug 16th (8:50pm)"Raiders of the Lost Ark"
Wed Aug 23rd (8:35pm)"Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
Tues Aug 29th (8:25pm)"Napoleon Dynamite"

Fremont Outdoor Cinema
2006 Seattle Summer Schedule
Saturday, June 24th - Movie: Kung Fu Hustle
Saturday, July 1st - Movie: Shrek 2
Saturday, July 8th - Movie: TWISTED FLICKS: Black Scorpion
Saturday, July 15th - Movie: Batman Begins
Saturday, July 22nd - Movie: Shaun of the Dead Plus a local independent film - CREATURES FROM THE PINK LAGOON screening right after the feature.
Saturday, July 29th - Movie: Grease
Saturday, August 5th - Movie: TWISTED FLICKS: The Manster
Saturday, August 12th - Movie: March of the Penguins
Saturday, August 19th - Movie: Bend it like Beckham
Saturday, August 26th - Movie: TWISTED FLICKS: It! The Terror from OuterSpace
Saturday, September 2nd - Movie: King Kong

Addicted to Orkut....Are you ??

So my BIL introducded me and my wife to this social networking site called Orkut that is currently getting quite popular in India.

Usually I show no interest to such sites, but my wife first started using it. After spending saturday noon on browsing through it, she came to know to about many of her old class mates aka langotia yaars and their current whereabouts....

I was still reluctant to create my profile, but when I gradually came to know that many around me are hooked on to it, this was it. Its not difficult to get a software engineer aroused in his arena. After I logged on, I found many of my close friends active on Orkut with whom I had such great memories. And through their friends network came to know about more people with whom I had lost touch since ages.....

So now I am an active member of this new socio-networking concept.

Does this mean that yahoogroups has lost its charm or has failed to keep up. I don't think so, but may be people wanted another way to interact and keep in touch, something that is simple to use at the same time. Something that has a little more active communication, a different way of talking (known as scraping in Orkut world) and some more pictures than words

Back to my Orkut..........

And if you wanna join, just leave me a comment and I will send you an invite....

Sequel to the car episode

Few of my friends asked me after reading my blog, 'What happened to your car? Did you find it ?'. So I thought of writing a sequel to this episode.

As some of the Bollywood movies have, after intermission there is a twist to the movie. Something similar happened with this too. After about six weeks of my missing car, one afternoon I got a call from Bellevue cops in my office. They asked me to come down to a place close to where I live and identify a vehicle. I was happy that they found my car, and at the same time there was anxiety about what will be its condition.

By that time I had already bought my second car Mazda 626. So I called up my wife and we drove to this place. There was one cop waiting for us. We identified our car. Hurray, our car was found. There was joy on our faces. Then he showed some of the stuff lying in the car, which wasn't ours. He took finger prints of few places so that the thief could be indentified. The car was a mess from inside. Luckily he had not trashed the car, as most of the thieves who are also drug addicts do. We drove it back home that evening.

We had two cars for couple of weeks. I used to drive the black altima to work where as my wife preferred driving the red mazda. But not for long as we decided to sell the altima. If you want to get tips on how to sell the car in two days, may be I can give you few.....Once our ad was posted on Seattle Craig list, we received more than 30 calls in a day and half of them visiting to check the car. Seattle is apparently a hotter market for used cars as compared to Bay area. If you have a good condition used Japanese car, there is no dearth of buyers. We both had spend weekends when searching for a car during this course, getting some funny experiences looking fora car. Seattle Craig list offers the best possible ads, and one has to be quick in responding if there's a good car for sale in the market. So to cut the long story short, our car got sold in a jiffy when three buyers landed up at the same time.

So this is how I landed up buying my third car in US. Mitsubishi, then Nissan and now a Mazda.

Trekking or hiking in Pacific Northwest

Northwest US is one of the most beautiful regions in the country. The terrain is not at all flat. There is so much of greenary, mountains, hills, lakes and forests all over the place. No wonder Washington is called as the Evergreen state. If you love outdoors you ought to be here as there is always some activity to do in every season of the year. Summer is the best season of all, as the days are long and the tempratures are nice and warm. Perfect for all sorts of outdoor activities and adventure.

Sometimes me and my wife go out for trekking to close by places. There are abundance of them from a family hike types to rigourous steep climbs and those that require training (climbing Mt. Raineer types). Last week we went to a place called Franklin Falls that is half an hours drive from Seattle. It was hot day but the trek was through dense forest along side a river. If you want to go for couple of hours trek, I would definitely recommend this place.

Besides Waterfalls of the Pacific Northwest is a great site to search for nice places to hike and trek.
Have fun, till it suns.

One billion reasons to care

How is India progressing with its 1 billion plus population ? Well we are still labeled as developing country and people in the some parts of world still know as us as snake charmer's land. Of past few months I've had some reasoning inside me, which countries in the world are growing most fast. China of course is world's no. one manufacturing base, but India is not behind. Check out the this video and you would be full of inspiration for your country despite all the downfalls.
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1674437

India is the biggest democracy in the world. India is a miracle !!

Life without a car in US

Last month when we moved to the new apartment, the first night our car got stolen. It was a shock when we found about it. Something that was difficult to get through for the next few days. To add to the misery, I had declined the comprehensive insurance on it about a year back. Some statistics on theft and crime in the city of Bellevue can be found here. Over all the crimes are reducing in Seattle region, but car thefts have been increasing by approximately 15% every year. Used car market is as hot as the real estate in this particular area. I was comparing the rates of used cars like Accord, Civics and Camry's with those in SFO and it was cheaper there. Can you believe it ?

It feels terrible without the mobility vehicle. Car is an integral part of your life in US. Without it you can't go to places on the fly, need to depend on friends, and your connection with the active world out in the streets gets reduced.

Once a person moves in a stable state, and is then dispersed from it, it is very hard to come back to that state.
So finally after a stressful search for two weeks I bought another car.

Hopefully someday my car will be found.........and it will be in a good shape.