On the eve of Deepavali

It is 7.20PM almost. I am waiting in the office for Malu and kids to come and pick me up. Today in the office we had a good celebration of Deepavali since tomorrow is a holiday for IBM in Bangalore. There were lot sweets and namkeen around and it was fun seeing people coming to office in ethnic attires. I was not able to wear the Dhoti since the one that I got at home is of red color and I didn't want to attract too much attention around. Srini was great in Dhoti and some women colleagues who came in sarees were looking good. Alright ! Malu and kids have arrived. Let me sign-off!

My visit to Budapest

I am here in Budapest for the opengroup architecture practitioners conference. It is a great experience in two ways. I had the opportunity to meet several great guys from IBM as well as from other companies. Secondly, I have, for the first time in my life, got a chance to see an European country. I have read and heard about a few things that had happened to these countries during the turmoil periods of World wars, especially to the eastern European countries. Today, we had to go a dinner event deep in the central park of Budapest and it was a fascinating coach travel to that place and back (from Royal Corinthia, Andras Avenue). There was guy in the coach giving a running commentary on the history and pointing to places relevant to his commentary on the left and right of the streets, squares that the coach was passing through. . When I read about history I always had some imagination of what it would be like. Man, there was this great experience within me that somethings that were only stayed for long in my imagination are showing up as a reality. Wow ! all those streets with buildings on both sides and these buildings were built hundreds of years back. On the Andras avenue, I saw tram lines and stations in the middle lane and normal road lanes on both sides. I might skip some sessions tomorrow to go around and see places. Let us see how it works out !

My day today: 24 Feb 07

I am just trying to create a habit for myself. Write as much as I can everyday. More and more I venture into new areas I start realizing the point that I can take up these challenges better if and only if I can have some confidence going in prior to each challenge. For example, at MIT, Anna University, it struck me during and towards the end of my talk that I could have done it better. Preparation was bad, I agree. But with whatever the preparation that I had and with the material that I have put in the slideware, I really feel I should have delivered it better. There were some external influences though like organizers asked me to reduce the session length since they were supposed to wind up for the President's visit. Even with that in mind, I still feel I should have done better. Basic factor, I figured it out, which was not allowing to do better is nothing but lack of high degree of confidence before going into the situation. This is true with every situation that I walk into and irrespective whether the situation is new or something that I have already had experience with. I guess one thing I can correct: do not leave any stone unturned in terms of preparation which has been the bottleneck for me for so long. I have been not managing my time very well. It worked ok till now since it took only so much out of me to be able to perform the way I am doing it now. But, with my seniority both in professional and personal life increasing, and so the responsibilities and so the number of tasks at hand at any given time, I should really gear up myself and fix time table and also priorities. I want to do it very seriously starting from this week. Let me see how much determination I have. I guess there is no other go. I know I can win if and only if I prepare well.

Dad's first flight

It is Daddy's first flight and it is from Bangalore to Chennai. I was really excited to take him along with me this time and very first time to this conference to Chennai. Surprisingly, he was almost at home with airport, check-in, boarding and all through the travel on board. I always thought I should take them (parents) to a foriegn country for a visit and was so much trying for it while I was in US in 2001. It didn't happen for reasons out of our control. After I came back from US, family expansion program has taken the priority and this dream of mine took a back seat. While I was going to Malaysia in Jan 2007, it flashed me that I should do at least take them on flight so that some part of the whole dream is realized. Finally, this opportunity that has come in our way and I am happy that I could use it to get at least Daddy on the flight for the very first time. I will return and right more about this at a later point