The Juice has Stopped Flowing

Naw i'm just plain lazy to write anymore .... mayb some day i will be in 'The Mood' and write some more crap!!

Peace....

Damn Prawns Fry!!!

It must have been the Prawns that I ate that night. I’ve had Beer before, and I’ve had Vodka. But neither had made me do crazy things like this.

It was Dins treat that night and after that disastrous plate of Prawn Fry at Shangri-La we decided to return home. I wanted to check out some comics, ‘Shopping’ can be therapeutic to guys too*. As usual Blossoms did not have any of the comics that I was looking for. And that is when I saw ‘The Complete Calvin and Hobbes’ collectors edition ‘Smiling’ at me from one corner of the store. I have had my eyes on it for a long time now , only thing that was holding me back was the price and a clear head ! ‘AND’ being the key word.

“The Complete Calvin and Hobbes," a 1,456-page art-book epic of every panel ever published in the 10 years that Bill Watterson drew them … and the cost Rs 6200/- ; I used to survive on that kinda money for at least 2 months a couple of years back!!! Din was with me, though he aint a comic collector he is a Calvin and hobbes fan. The Shopkeepers here have learnt to identify people who are out of their mind i guess. He saw us staring at the book and came over

"Sir, Very good book Sir.. We managed to get only 50 copies of it, and in a week already 30 of them sold, Sir. And we are selling it for just 4700/- Sir"

Now who could resist such a bargain!!

5 mins later Din and I were walking in search of an auto carrying 2 copies of the 3 Part Edition weighing just 14 KG each with a stupid grin on our faces and a Hole in our wallets! Actually there wasn’t much left of the wallet after paying for the book! Have been a bit crazy when spending on comics, and this must have been the craziest, and I have no qualms about it.

Funny thing is I don’t remember thinking that buying a set of comics for almost 5K was such a bargain before that night…. Must have been the damn prawns fry.

* ’Shopping’ usually has Undesirable Results when guys are Accompanying Girls on their shopping Sessions.

Oru Saamindarnu...

My 'Almost' 5 year old niece told a story about a swami, her dad recorded it and sent it to me ...

People who dont know malayalam ... I'm sorry guys


Upload music at Bolt.

The Certified Software Quality Analyst ….

Yeah tatz me :)

So finally I did clear the test, I don’t think I have prepared like I did for that than any other exam I have given in a long time. Money my friends is a really great motivational factor… even more so when u are in danger of Loosing a months salary if u don’t perform.

They said I’ll have to wait for 3 months for the results, so I decided to take rest and start preparing for my last chance to clear it. But then I got The Mail, the results are out check out the web site, so I did clear the exam and that too with 82.5%, Now I was high , after all I have finally broken the 80% barrier compounded with that rumor going around that 85% of the people who took it up last time from the company didn’t make the cut.

Then came the second mail, this time from one of my Managers with the list of people who cleared the CSQA from our Project alone… they had so many names in it that they decided to include only the people who scored more than 85%!

But hey I’m still A Certified Software Quality Analyst

Back?

So itz been a long time I blogged … now what do I say … I’m lazy, and getting better at that.

I had been home; thought I’ll blog about the vacation … but then there only so much that you can write about sleeping and eating.

The day I reached I had to attend a classmate’s engagement… Maddy and I went together, reached home and we drove up to the place. The car stalled mysteriously on a inclination just outside the church and Maddy had a good time pushing the car up. The evening the guys wanted to go to the beach, so again we started off in my car… the car was acting real strange, I could feel that it was barely moving. I should have stopped and got it checked, one big mistake. Somehow we did manage to reach the beach, I wasn’t too sure we would make it back in MY car. The guys went to the beach, I didn’t have anything to change into so I stayed clear of the water, anyway tat beach is nothing new to me .. my home is just a Km away from the beach anyway.

I decided to do some investigation on my car, opened the hood and i could see it smoking, opened the radiator on a hunch…. And guess was EMPTY, called dad said he had checked , yeah mayb a year back. Saw a small hut near the road got water from there and filled it up.

We reached back, dropped off the gals and went to the hotel where the guys were staying, they washed up and changed then we all went out for dinner. Now tat was fun, the guys after being used to seeing the menu cards in B’lore couldn’t believe the rates and ordered almost everything on the menu, was sure we wouldn’t eat half of it.. the parotas here are twice as big as the ones you get in B’lore. Now people who know me will know how full I would have been to have wasted half a plate of PRAWNS :’( I still regret doing it …but I just couldn’t eat anything more.

By the time we reached Munni’s home to drop off the gals it was already 11, I left the place at midnight, the roads are awesome to drive on at night, lots of turns, no traffic.. I Just love it. It took just 45 mins to reach home and it took an hr more than that in the morning to get to the engagement.

Away for a ( Long ? ) while

Been busy for the last couple of weeks and the firewall in office is messing with the blog pages, half the pages does not open up from here, and cant access the comment pages either.

Won’t be able to log on till end of month. There is Easter and Lent to break ( 40 days without meat or alcohol is taking its toll ) ,Have a certification ( which i have no hope of clearing ) coming up in two weeks for which I have to prepare and then will be off to visit my parents, and hope to catch up with the rest of the family too on this visit.

Hope to be back with something to blog about …

Till then

Take care

TheKey

Tadiyandamol Trek

I love the outdoors, my fav vacation's are the ones I used to spend wit my cousins in the tea/coffee estates that they owned in different parts of Kerala. After coming over to Bangalore, I haven't gone anywhere with my cousin. For one, I go home only for a couple of days and hardly finds time to finish the usual quota of 'Visits' and attending 'Functions'.

Back in office we have a 'Travel club' and I had joined it with Din. Went for 2 treks with them but then didn't go for anymore mostly coz I wasn't free during the times the trips were planned.

Last week I got a mail from the Club
"Its travel time again folks! This time to scale Tadiyandamol the highest peak in Coorg district. Located 250 Kms from Bangalore,Tadiyandamol is a favorite trek spot in Coorg, the Scotland of India. This is planned to be a 14 Km two way trek through exotic green slopes and valleys! "

I wasn't actually planning to go for it, but then the day before the trip I had gome to meet some friends who were actually organizing the trip, they caught me there and since I had no real reason to give for not joining then I tot what the hell and decided to go. Well I don't regret doing it.

We were supposed to be a group of 22 people. But as usual people dropped out in the last moment ( I actually was a replacement ;) ) and by the time we left we were only 15 of us. Our guide for this trip was Ravi Shankar from the organization 'The Wild'. We left from office at around 11:00Pm in a mini bus. Was a comfortable ride to Coorg …we reached the place where we were supposed to stay at around 6:00. It was a 'home stay';the owners of the place are coffee and paddy planters, and like many of the planters now decided it wont hurt to make some dough from ‘Nature Tourism’. The cottages are basic, neat, and the view is great. The place is called 'Kings Cottages'.

All of us freshened up, and breakfast was served at around 8:00. what they served still remains a mystery, but whatever it was everyone hogged it up. By 9:30 everyone was set to start the trek, we had the customary introduction session and we were off.


The trek was amazing, the view was beautiful, and the trek up the peak was tough. I was out of breath by the time I reached half the way. But when we reached the top, it was worth it. The climb up was only half as difficult as the climb down. The climb down was not tiring … but ppl who have trekked up peaks will know how difficult it is to climb down. My legs were hurting but the time I reached the bottom. Trekking shoes are a must or else you are gonna get hurt for sure.


All the water we had carried was over by the time we reached the top, luckily the water in the streams was clear … ( we could even see the leafs rotting in the bottom ;) ) so we filled up at the streams. Strangely there were no leaches to be seen. We had our lunch at one of the streams, even though I wouldn’t have called what we got to eat good food, at that time it tasted like the best food I have had in a long time.

We reached back by 4:30, everyone were too tired to do anything else so all of ‘em went to sleep. We woke everyone up by 6:30 and set up a campfire.The owners of the place told us something about the people of Coorg, the lifestyle,about their plantation etc, The fav food of Coorgies it seems is Pork and alcohol, only a couple of us were non-veggies and even in that only 2 of us ate pork. So I had to drop the pork part of it …but not the next time. We had a couple of beers before dinner, which again was the ‘Best food I had’ in a long time;). After all this no one had the energy to do the usual campfire dance. The girls were having puking competition, might have been the water from the streams.

Then next day we didn’t do much, after the ‘Best Breakfast in a long time’ we went to a market to do some shopping, since I didn’t have anything to buy, I was appointed as ‘The cart’ carrying everyone’s bags.I bought one more ‘Livestrong’ wristband; one that glows in the dark. After that we went to the Tibetan monastery, , the temples are beautiful, and is definitely worth seeing, and inside the temple there is a feeling of calm (even though it is always full of visitors running around taking snaps.

After some more shopping and lunch we left for Bangalore by 4, we had a tea break on the way in Mandia, and reached back at 9:00PM.

We did not visit half the good places in Coorg for that you need to be there for at least 3 -4 days. There is the Abbey Falls, Talakaveri among other placer worth going. But this time we went to trek up Tadiyandamol, and we did that, the rest of the places will have to wait .

UPDATE: Photos taken by Sreejith ,Vikas and some amazing snaps by Arvind

Going Home

Going Home for a long weekend. Been a while since all of us got together, Sis and niece are coming over, Hopefully bro will also be there this time.. But then …hope all of us get to stay home instead of running around visiting ppl. Need to attend a friends wedding on Thursday, but am free the rest of the days.

Last time I met my niece she was all exited about going to playschool… but the latest news is the inevitable … she hates going to school, what can I say … ‘Like Mother, Like daughter’, she even ‘ran away’ with my parents for a week the last time they visited, just to stay away from playschool. Heard tat some boy keeps teasing her, So me and bro planning to give her a crash course on bashing such guys up. LOL

I’m looking forward to the break from the boring routines of my monotonous work life.