my own!

Last week, bought the domain name www.grajesh.com. Finally I have my own identity online. Hurray. Going forward just type in www.grajesh.com, note that without the www, it wont work.

It took me some time to figure out how to use my own domain name with third party hosting like blogger. So, basically I just bought the domain name 'www.grajesh.com' and then I linked it to my blogger account http://raj-esh.blogspot.com .The reason thats a good idea is because hosting solutions (storage space, bandwidth etc) are expensive, in this case however, I dont have to buy any hosting solution, blogspot does the hosting for me, its free.

It was not the easiest thing to do though, had to sit on the forums for quite some time to figure out how. In the end, couple of articles helped me to fix it. If ever you think of buying your own domain name, refer them -

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=55373
http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/2007/01/google-custom-domain-case-study-1.html

Rediff sucks

I also did register rajeshg.in through rediff hosting solutions. Rediff is one of the #@$#@$#@ companies on the planet. How else can one justify not having a customer care number on their website. They just sell you the domain name and forget, no customer care, no guidance, no nothing. Atrocious!! In short, I bought the domain name and was not able to use it because rediff doesnt provide any facility to forward or link to third party hosting solutions. In short they robbed me of some 800 bucks and there is nobody to help. Rediff domain is so full of s#$@. I hate them so much. No quality in articles, no priority to customers be it rediff shopping or anything.

My since advice to everybody out there, never trust rediff. Instead you can give your money to charity.

flickr

I also got myself a flickr pro account last week. Flickr is so cool if you have a digital camera, just now have started to explore it, over the next one year i guess it is going to become one of my addictions in the internet.

Testing the Macro mode

DSC00428, originally uploaded by Rajesh Gunasekaran.

Have been doing some macro shots (cliche these days, its all over flickr, everybody has tens of thousands of them). Anyways, me just trying now.

Was having a busy weekend, this past week has mostly been a good week except for one major event (in my friends life). Usually I made it a point to post atleast once per week, for this week, I will be posting updates tomorrow or day after.

Good week finally

What a week it has been! This week was by far the best week since I came to the US.

Wednesday, May 09

I got the camera delivered from amazon. Sony T100, the one I mentioned in my last post. A stunner!! And my first macro shot taken using the camera is there for everybody to see, below!



Thursday, May 10

Finally, booked a house, after so much deliberation. I finally settled for a house in Jersey City Heights, close to Washington Park, close to the bus stop and near the shops and everything. I would be moving to the house on June 1st.

Friday, May 11

We went to Spiderman 3 on Friday night, first movie of the US trip in 2007. Movie was utter crap though. Im a spidey fan and it was a big disappointment for me. That should be obvious from my previous post.

Saturday, May 12

I drove! It was not as difficult as I imagined. It is way too easy when compared to driving in India. But, in the highways, it takes some getting used to, keeping the speed and knowing where to exit and when is quite a challenge. Driving on the right side of the road is something I had to remind myself to do, a couple of times.

Then, we went to Rasoi, the Indian restaurant on Oak Tree Road in Edison. We went to the buffet in the afternoon, it was very good. It costed 13$ per person and for the number and quality of the food items, it was well worth it.



In the evening, me and BIL played Tennis for around an hour. My first attempt, its really not that easy to play. All the time I saw it on tv and other people play, I thought it was no big deal, but it was really funny when I played, I could almost never always keep the ball within the court. It was fun though. Hope to make time and play once atleast every week.

Sunday, May 13

And today, we went to Six Flags Wildlife Safari that is located in Jackson, New Jersey. It is close to an hours drive from sisters place. I drove, with bro-in-law's help. The Wildlife Safari was quite good, it is supposedly the world's largest drive-thru safari outside of Africa. As per their website, this 350-acre wildlife preserve stretches 4.5 miles and features 11 themed sections with nearly 1,200 animals.



We basically have to drive through the entire stretch in our own vehicle, its exactly like it is in the movie Jurassic Park. All the animals just roam around, there is a paved road that goes through the entire stretch, we can stop wherever we want on the road, near the animals we want to see. We went in around 10.30 Am and we saw Giraffes, Deers, Rhinos, Elephants, Ostritches, Peacocks, Lions, Tigers, kangaroos, monkeys etc. We also had a couple of close encounters with a couple of Giraffes and an ostritch. The lions, tigers and elephants were caged (obviously), that was a bit of a downer. All in all, it was worth the money. Not great though, I would call it a well spent 2 hours, a good outing.

It has been hectic this week. Need to catch up on some sleep and rest. Have uploaded few pics to flickr -> Click here .

Spidey is back but..

Sam Raimi has gone bonkers! This movie is a mess. Spidey 3 is one sequel too many. The moment Sam Raimi brought the symbiote graphics into the main titles somehow I felt something is not right.



There are a handful of new characters and none with enough characterization. Nothing seemed new and there were almost no moments that you remember after the show ends. More villains, another leading lady, larger scale, more action sequences but in the end it is one big mess, nothing new. Plus there is no Danny Elfman, so the score is very amatuerish. I can't believe Raimi let go off Elfman.

The movie is not going to generate repeat audiences, starting next week movie is going to slide at the box office, what with Shrek 3 and Pirates releasing in subsequent weeks.

We went to a night show on friday, sis, bro-in-law, mom and me. At 1 AM in the morning, when we all came out of the theatre, all of us had just one question, 'why?'!

Nevertheless, the movie has grossed close to 650 million $ worldwide! Thats a hell lot of money. I wouldnt recommend the movie to anybody though.

Busy week, no outcome!

The case of the indecisive me

Two weeks over now, still no luck with the house. Whole of this week has gone with the apartment hunt. Since last weekend, my apartment hunt strategy has changed. Now I'm looking for an apartment in Jersey City Heights. Jersey City Heights is to the north of Journal Square (remember the indian locality i mentioned in my last post). The thing about this place is it is not as crowded Journal square is but at the same time has some sizeable indian population.

Hope to have something finalized atleast next week. The thing is Im trying to find the one house that I would want to stay for the entire time Im here, but looks like Im not going to find such a one so soon. Maybe an intermediate house and then the final one. Or maybe I might get lucky next week.

I'm at my indecisive best this past two weeks. So much that even if you give me two pair of socks, I would be thinking for like 4 hours about which one to wear and in the end would decide to go with just the slippers.

End of the Camera hunt

Today though, I finally decided which camera to buy. Whole of last week, was thinking about Canan SD750 / SD800 / SD1000 as possible options and finally yesterday, while doing my research about those 3 models, I stumbled upon the recently released Sony DSC T100.


Sony's takes the T series of style phones to the next level with the T100. It is really a stunner, form, style and features! From novice to experts it has something for everybody. It infact has everything that an average user would want, plus it looks like a dream. Perfect for me. Ordered it online at amazon. Buying stuff online is definitely atleast 15% cheaper than the stores. My first big purchase in this trip. Bought the black one for 350$, in shops it retails for 399 plus tax. Good deal for now, in future though, it will get cheaper, I couldnt wait though.

Spidey 3


And, Spiderman 3 has released, I cant believe I havent seen it till now! I remember one week before Spiderman 2 released, I was going crazy, I couldnt wait for it. This time around I dont even have time to think about my favorite super hero. It has grossed 148 million dollars in america alone in just 3 days. If I assume a ticket rate of 8 dollar, then roughly 18.5 million people in america have already seen the movie in the first 3 days. That is some achievement. It has already broken box office openeing records. Well, it was expected though.

Yet another week begins tomorrow, waiting to see what it brings with it. Wish me luck with the house and hope I get to see Spider Man 3.

One week over!

One week over, am still indecisive about the house. Lot of confusion over where to take a house. I had two plans or rather two options.

Plan A

Take an apartment in Journal Square.

Journal Square is a sort of indian locality.It is congested, unclean and very densely populated area. Not the sort of place one would want to be in immediately after coming to the US. The sole advantage to this place is that it is close to the city, very closely connected to New York through the rail and bus network. People who work in the New York could take a place in this sort of a place, coz the prices in new york is beyond the sky.

My office is in Newport, 2nd station from Journal Square by train, so its very easier for me to go to office if I take a home in Jersey city. However, I hated the place the moment I saw it.

Plan B

Take a place away from work and New York, like Edison, Woodbridge etc.

But this is like an hours drive to office, so a car is a must. Three of us (friends) in the current project are thinking of buying a car together and sharing the expenses. The advantage with a place like Woodbridge or Edison is that it is very scenic, spacious, clean and serene. The problem here is finding apartments for all the three of us in the same place. It is proving to be a bit of a challenge. Whole of yesterday and today we were out there searching apartments, lot of good options but somehow each one posed some problem for atleast one of us.

At this moment, it looks like more of Plan B will work out. For now, living in my bro-in-law and sisters home. Living with them makes us forget that we are away from India, theirs is a Warm and cozy place. Im giving myself a couple of more weeks
max to find a house, hope to find a good one soon.

My wonderful office

Till now, the one thing I liked the most, was my office place. One word for it is stunning, it is located on the 11th floor of a 15 storey building on Washington Blvd in Jersey city.
Note the office, marked in green below in google map, it is right near the entrance of the Holland Tunnel. The Holland Tunnel starts in New Jersey goes under water across the hudson river and emerges out in New York. Wonderful aint it?
The office is located on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, the river
separates New Jersey and New York. The view from office is just stunning, on one side of the building we can look at the whole of New York and from the other end of the floor we can look at New Jersey. The views are just breathtaking. I will try and post some pics from my office building soon.

Thats all the update till now, interesting month ahead.

Reached US of the A

I used to take the same road to office every day. But in the wee hours of 21st april, the same road looked different, the air pleasant and the memory unforgettable. It was a short 20 mins journey from home to airport that I for once liked very much and didnt want to end.

Anyways, the flight was at 5.25AM, the flight took off at 5.30 something and 10 hours and a big headache later we (mom and me) were in Heathrow airport. And I spent my first dollars there, 10 $ for two cofee, phew!

And at Heathrow is were we faced one of the most gruelling security checks, everything from shoes to belt to wallets were checked. No liquids, only one bag per person, no this and no that. No matter what these people do the T guys (short for Terrorists) would find a way to outwit them, atleast some times.

Around 9 hours later, we reached Newark at 5.35 PM. Sister and bro in law came to pick us up. 20 mins later we were at their home. Visiting a new place for the first time is really an experience I like very much. Trying to observe as much as possible, the roads, the cars, the buildings, the shops, the people and the smell of a new place. Everything had changed in a span of one day, India to New Jersey.

New Jersy has a sort of old world charm. It is not too overwhelming, it is just about right. The houses all reminiscent of the past, ample greenary everywhere and above all the free flowing traffic were the stuff that stuck me the most.

No signs of jet lag till now. Had a good nights sleep yesterday. Was up fresh in the morning today, next one week is probably going to be very hectic. Settling in office, getting used to the place and above all finding a house will be the key challenges next week.

Hope floats!

6 days to D Day

Well, 6 days to D day! Very little time and even more little time for me to get ready for it. By this time next week, me and mom would be in air, somewhere between Heathrow and Newark, over the ocean.

Today, while I was driving, I took a few seconds to think about what Im looking forward to and what I would be missing when I go to America. Few things came to my mind and I put a litte more thought and have listed down them down.

What Im looking forward to..

1. Meeting my sweet little sister and taking my mom to America.
   
2. All the amazing places in America. Touring and Visiting places along with my mom, sister and everybody.

1. Movies (without intervals and good audience) and netflix (what a wonderful concept!).
   
2. More money, the green currency(not too much though) and lesser expensive gadgets.
   



3. Lesser pollution (dont know if that will be the case, coz going to stay in journal square, supposed to be sort of indian terrain in New Jersey).
   
4. Well mannered people, good traffic system.
   
5. Regular office timings (unlike here, working 2-11pm for months together) and more time at home.
   
6. Weekly 1 day working from home (that just sounds amazing, Im just so happy even thinking about it).
   
7. No tie (hip, hip, hurray!! my current employer has this ties on mondays and tuesdays rule in office in india alone! That sucks! I hate it more than anything else. So much so that when I joined this firm and the first few days, I thought I might as well hang from the same tie!).

Things I would miss

1. India. No matter how much ever we brood about the country, the people, the politicians, the system and everything else, it is still India. My own India.

1. Home and Chennai. Even though mom is accompanying me to America, I still would miss home in chennai, no matter how hard I try, America would still be alien to me and me alien to America!
   
2. Trading in the Indian Stock Markets. Because of the time shift, Indian market will be open past midnight US time.sob sob. But it is also good in a way, because if I dont trade atleast one thing is gauranteed, I wouldnt lose any money!
   
3. Not having to follow any rules. Are there any in India in the first place? My office does though, lots of them. I hate rules that keep reminding you that it is a rule. My office has lots of them.
   
4. All my friends. Thinking for a few seconds, I realize most of my friends are not in Chennai, but still!


5. The big, mad crowd almost everywhere and especially in theatres, would definitely miss watching Sivaji in India.


6. Driving on Indian roads, it is the best driving test one could take in the whole world. With all the traffic, the lack of rules, poorly laid roads and lack of driving discipline, everyday driving becomes like playing a video game, where almost every moving object on road would seem to collide with your course. To come out unscratched after a days driving is itself an achievement. I would miss driving in Chennai roads.

Summing everything up and considering the fact that I will probably be there for a year or less, I think the things I look forward to outnumber the things I would miss. And thats the reason, I guess, I dont feel like I would be missing much.

Where is the world heading?

I just love this quote from the movie 'Down in the Valley' starring Edward Norton

“Most days I just want to step outside of my own heart. Go walk under a
sky full of stars…and hear nothin’ but the wind.”

I feel the same way!!

We are born in the century which had the most technological advancements in the history of the world. Technology is supposed to make life easier. However, if you look at now and a hundred years back, the only real advantage due to technology is the world has become a smaller place but on the other hand, man has become lazy, dependant and machine like. Back then, life was simpler and people were happier.

The world today is in a state of chaos. War, terrorism, hatred, apartheid, domination and exploitation, there is no peace anywhere. Every country is slowly deteriorating into oblivion in one way or another. The haves don't worry about the have nots, the world today runs on money and not on emotion. As per recent statistics 'The world's 3 richest people have wealth greater than the combined Gross Domestic Product (the value of all goods and services) of the world's 48 poorest nations. ' Do the rich care about the poor or do they even think about the poor, nah! They are busy expanding their business and building their wealth, so that they can be even more richer.




Take the case of Zimbabwe, the countrys population is already decimated in the last decade, it would be gone from the face of the world in the years to come and the west is doing nothing about it. Nobody cares about a Zimbabwe or Somalia. As per the Guardian, Zimbabwe's inflation is at 1700% (India's is around 6.5% and the FM and the RBI are screaming), the life expectancy there is just 37. Check this article in the Guardian to see what is happening over in Zimbabwe.


For the common man, life has become so uninteresting and devoid of any happiness. Material needs have taken priority over everything else.

We earn more, we have all the luxury, we have the fancy gadgets, we have everything today but if you ask 'Is man more happy now than 100 years back', the answer is No! Our existence today has become purposeless, we are in a sort of rat race, never satisfied, never contended, always striving for more, when we already have enough!

Day by day we are becoming more mechanical, robotic I would say. In future we might not need the robots at all, we will become them!

We are diseased. What is the cure??

Tonight I dined in Hell with 300 Spartans!!

300

Whoa! What a movie!! It just overwhelmed me!! It’s the kind of experience that you go through once in a few years! A visceral assault is what it is! By the time I came out of the movie hall, I felt like a Spartan myself! Cinema at its stunning best!

They were 300 Spartans against a million! No prizes for guessing who would win. But it was the sacrifice of those 300 Spartan Warriors that inspired whole of Greece to fight and eventually win against the Persian Empire!

The film boasts of Visuals that one has never witnessed, war sequences that are spectacular and outrageous but so very believable! Violence like you have never seen! Heads, arms and limbs fly in the air, torsos without heads fall to the ground in slow motion, gallons and gallons of blood splashing around, definitely not for the weak of heart! 300 is a war poem on celluloid.

Exaggerated heroism is made believable by some really good acting and some splendid action choreography!

300 is Zack Snyder's second movie, Dawn of the Dead (one of best modern day Zombie movies) is his first! This movie is based on Frank Miller's GRAPHIC (note the capital letters, it is that graphic!!)Comic book and the movie is loyal to the comic book, it is a very difficult comic book to adapt but Snyder has done it and has done it in style!

Gerard Butler breaks into the A list of actors with this movie, a star has arrived! What a convincing performance as King Leonidas! All the other Spartans and the Queen are played really well! The Persian King xerxes is a bit oddly characterized but passable!

Zack Snyder has arrived and how! Hats off!! This is an Movie experience worth undergoing, a battlefield epic that is just spectacular.

Memorable Quotes

"We Spartans have descended from Hercules himself. Taught never to retreat, never to surrender. Taught that death in the battlefield is the greatest glory he could achieve in his life. Spartans: the finest soldiers the world has ever known." – Dilios


"A new age has begun, an age of freedom. And all will know that 300 Spartans gave their last breath to defend it." - Leonidas

Warning

But before going to watch 300, you need set your expectations right, this movie has tons and tons of violence, outrageous action sequences and a loud retro soundtrack! This is not everybody’s cup of tea, there is just too much violence, lot of people might get offended, bored or will miss the point. Be forewarned; understand what you are getting into before going for this movie!

Visiting Lord Venkateswara

I had only once earlier been to Tirupati / Thirumala (when I was a small kid)! I didn’t have any memory of that trip and so this was like the first time for me and boy, the opulence in the temple was just unbelievable! The sheer enormity of the place was striking, the crowd, the history of the temple, the hundreds of thousands of devotees who throng the temple each day; all this had to be seen to be believed!

We had booked the APTDC Tirupati package(transportation to and from Tirupati / Thirumala, Darshan tickets and visit to main temple, hotel stay for the few hours, visit to Kala Hasti, visit to Sri Padmavathi Devi temple)!

We started off from TNagar at 6.15 PM and reached Tirupati at 12:00 AM (delayed after a bus break down which provoked the passengers to curse and swear like there was no tomorrow!).

We were allowed a measly 2 hours of sleep before being whisked away to the temple and from 3 AM to 5.30 AM we were just in the queues, the elaborate paths that has been setup to control the crowds is extremely annoying but is unbelievable in the way they have planned and set it up.

I had never been this long in the queue, that too at 3 in the morning, it was a bit too much and eventually when we reached the deity, it was just mayhem!

The devotees went berserk! It was like suddenly everybody went mad, people start pushing each other, stepping over other peoples legs, crushing people literally and while all this is happening, the temple staff are trying their bit, by pulling people out of the madness, all this was a little too much for me. I stopped moving after the initial mayhem, , the crowd, literally swept me off my feet and took me in front of the deity.

Boy, those few seconds, those few seconds one gets to watch Sri Venkateswara, is worth all the pain one takes to reach till there! You are not allowed to stand there in front of the deity for more than a few seconds, if you try to then you will definitely have an aching arm, the temple staff just pull you out of there, such is the pressure with which they pull at you that if you resist your arm might come off! I didn’t take the risk though, within those few seconds, I had a one sided conversation with the Lord Almighty! However once I was out, I remembered that I had forgotten to discuss a couple of things!

Was feeling bad about that but we then were headed to Sri Padmavathi Devi temple, so the rest of the conversation happened at that temple!

As per history, when Sri Lakshmi Devi came to know of Lord Vishnu's marriage to Sri Padmavathi Devi, she was in consoleable and eventually Lord Vishnu had to shift Sri Padmavathi's place to a different location to console her. That's why Sri Padmavathi Devi has a separate temple, whereas Sri Lakshmi Devi is borne by Sri Venkateswara on his chest in the main temple. (Well, bought a pictorial book about Tirupati outside the temple, got some gyan from that book about Tiruapati and this info is from that book!)

Then we started our journey back and reached home at 5.00 PM. In short it was a very tiring schedule but what I got to see compensated for the pain that I had to undergo in the journey.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contact info for booking tickets

A.P. Tourism (http://www.tourisminap.com/tirupati.htm#)

Address: 1Soundararajan Street, T. Nagar, Chennai600017
Phone: (44) 24333010, 24331977

Cool albums

Sivaji - The Boss

Well, what can I say, AR Rahman strikes back!! Sivaji soundtrack is just awesome!! Can't believe they are releasing the soundtrack so close to the movie! This is the sort of tracks that would be chartbusters for a long long time!



Of late AR Rahman had become like Sachin Tendulkar, lack of form, coming up with very average stuff but this one is good, true AR Rahman! Incredible! Im so happy!

If you haven't heard it already, you can download it from the internet but remember piracy is a crime, so if you are downloading, at your own risk! Come on, be good, don't download stuff of the internet like me, buy them! Don't click on the below links!! :-)
http://tamilbeat.com/tamilsongs/newreleases/Sivaji/
http://gyanguru.org/download-sivaji-cd-rip-320-kbps-vbr-tamil-2007/

Life in a Metro



Well, this soundtrack is good, Pritam-Anurag Basu combination again! Some real good soulful tracks in the movie. You can check them out in mp3yug.com but do remember, piracy is a crime so if you are downloading, at your own risk! :-)

Hope floats!

There is going to be some change (finally!) in my life and changes always deserve a blog!! Hence, here again, re-entering the blog world! Wanting to share and remember my days henceforth through this blog!

Well, what exactly is the change? you may ask! The change is that by april 23 i will be working out of New Jersey, thats about the only change! No change in what I do, no change in who I do it for and above all no change in me!! But I hope, seriously hope, the last part alone changes and changes for the better! Thats what is my single greatest goal in the next one year (time im planning to be in US of the A), to become better!

I really really want to believe that this is the one year that I will put to use to decide what Im going to become in the years ahead!

Right now, I still don't know what Im going to do 10 years from now, the techie world is so obviously boring!! And Im short of ideas for the future!!


I guess thats the way pretty much every techie in the world feels! Wanting to do so many things but eventually not doing anything because of the laziness that they have acquired working in the Software Slaves Industry!! Oops!! did i say slaves, pardon me, Software Services Industry is what I was wanting to say!! :-)