Sriram's day out

What I have been missing

2010-03-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

Just now shutdown my DVD after watching this B movie "Rocket Singh".Message is slightly in contrast to what i am reading in the Cash Quadrant as to what one needs to be in the Quadrant to be financially successful :) Thats certainly a dilemma - How do you want to be "Successful" ? - At the expense of your team/stakeholders making it a Win-Lose? or be successful by taking them along - learning by making mistakes, taking the plunge(WIN - WIN). RS certainly made me think am I doing what I wanted to be when I joined this industry 10 yrs back. Perhaps i just hit the mid life Crisis bit early!! Or perhaps its just in my thoughts.. Lots to Ponder.Talking of tying in teams into our game - just heard from a Sr leader today that folks are pondering if they have to get back to being People friendly again, now that Recession is over(atleast on paper). Unless we see a repeat of Dubai in Europe now that Greece, Portugal, Spain going the same way!!

Reading the Cash Quadrant

2010-03-27T04:40:00.001-07:00

I am browsing thro' book called Cash Quadrant, now that my packing for upcoming UK trip is almost done. Relating Debt/Asset theories from both the Creditor/Investor perspective has probably been not done in a much simpler manner in any book i have read so far. Will probably share my understanding in a subsequent blog.Just scribbling this to ensure there is more continuity in my blogscapades.. :)

My Article for Insider N/L : Perspective on Investments and Career :)

2010-03-16T00:38:00.001-07:00

Being Reproduced faithfully for this audience

"Article in PI INsider for March '2010

ARTICLE
---------------

To be frank as i was struggling to pick up a topic for this article it suddenly occurred to me - why cant I write about something i am passionate about?

There are two things which have always excited me

1) Technology
2) Stock Markets

But for a change it wont be about Technology but I would like to share some of the Fundamentals i have picked up as an learner in the Stock markets
and I would like to relate it our career aspirations. This imbibes most of my mistakes as well, and i have made tons of them and continue to make them :)

As an Investor its key that one should FOCUS on the FUNDAMENTALS of the business
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Explain From a Market context:

Though this may not make sense for this audience - every business has its cyclicals - Ups and downs. But the key fundamentals of
the business is reflected in the Annual Financial statements.

- Vision & capability of the management

Where does the management see itself 2-3 yrs down the line.
What are the Key Opportunities in this timeline(Quantify them)- This typically should be in the Chairman/CEOs report
(for a serious investor read the letters from Warren Buffett to Shareholders in Berkshire Hathway’s Annual reports)

- Whats the Execution strategy

What is the plan for grabbing these opportunities
Is a non linear approach feasible to get to some of these opportunities

- Operational ability

Is the Organization in a position to turn these opportunities into business
Are there internal challenges which can be a bottleneck for the organization from execution perspective
- Could be government regulations
- Competition
- Capacity and Operations to undertake the challenge

- Is there a differentiator that sets the Company from rest of the competition

Does the Organization have something inhouse/acquired which can help it get faster to market and realize cashflows

Ultimately this is what is also reflected in the Balance sheet - QoQ/YoY.

But this P&L value in Balance Sheet mostly will not be reflected in the Stocks performance. For an Investor thats why you have Opportunities in both
Boom/Bust markets.As an Value investor if you have the patience and confidence in the fundamentals of the business and opportunities out there,
the stock is going to go up.But its important to do your math right and understand if the company's performance is priced rightly into the stock's
price and should have the patience to stick with it.

Eg: When I started dabbling with stocks, I picked up BHEL in 2005 for Rs545, the stock never moved beyond Rs 570 for 6 months and finally I sold at a loss of 20Rs a share. 5 years down line BHEL has moved 5x quoting 2450Rs/share. This is just one of my mistakes to quote for this audience.

As for gains, I still hold Infosys at Rs500/share and you know where it is now 

Let me try to relate this to a Career Context
-----------------------------------------------------
Always Have a Vision/Goal:
--------------------------

What do I want to be in the next 5 to 10 years.

- Business Leader/Client Engagement Manager/Own a Business of some size.
- Make a pick and quantify your goal( Size of business/ Pay package)

If you dont know what you want to be you will get somewhere but may not reflect your capability.

Execution Strategy:
-------------------
Key Aspects to get there

- Try to understand what you need to do in that role - JD/Typical targets/Skills required
- Try to Pick up the skills that you will need to be able to Execute that role. If you don’t get to learn something new in your role, ask for a role change but be clear as to what you want to pick up.
- Ensure you have the right connects in the organization/outside who can groom you for that role. This will only help you scale faster.

Operational Ability:
-------------------
When you come to work every day look at what you can do every day that can take you closer to the identified goal. Have fun in doing this.

Eg: If its an EDI expert that you want to be, ensure you pick up one key element of EDI map for a functional object that you will learn.Over a period of time, you will be an expert no matter what it takes.

Differentiator
-----------------
This is the key which sets you apart from the rest of the group.Identify what is it that you can pickup that can create you that opportunity for moving towards your goal.

By the way, dont come to office thinking will what i do today result in a hike/progression. These are just milestones which may happen in time/may not but ensure whatever you try to do, you have done the best job of it. Rewards and recognitions will happen if you have the right attitude, abilities and mindshare with your stakeholders.

Speaking of the Stakeholder, the fruits of the labor are in the riches but ensure you set the right expectations with all your stakeholders - your boss, your team,your family, your customers and try to achieve them. BALANCING is not easy and is NEVER EASY.

That should be all for this edition, its been fun launching this newsletter and interacting with the creative minds in this time. By the way if the PI- INSIDER ever has a section on investing, be assured I will be one of the contributors.

Packing bags again

2010-03-15T02:01:00.001-07:00

Ha. Does that sound contrarian? Infact some folks even think i am screwing up my career. This month am leaving behind a job where i have been able to push the role of CoE to its share of limelite within a team which talks, thinks and breaths "Operations". On a lighter note we just kicked out the Ops Head for non performance among other shady affairs. I will be packing up my bags again for a long pending trip to UK. Am headed to Solihull on a assignment as Technical Architect for a Utilities giant. Will be a good change from the non techy assignments i do here, chasing DMs for billing, Ops for resources, Team for Newsletter inputs, G&Os..etc etc.

But sad part is i wont be able to see Nikhil for a few months.:( But hope he joins me by Sep this year. ha..out of context but yes, i will be starting a new blog series on Investments, Entrepreneurship and stocks.TIme to start blogging abt something am passionate about.

Clocks inches 10 to Midnite & am blogging :)

2009-11-22T10:22:00.000-08:00

Ha.. Nothing better to close a Sunday than blogging activities from my past week.. Hot developments on professional front. learnt my BU is getting into ReStruct mode.

Whats in it for me
* My team could be reporting to a new Org'n in 4 months
* My role is in more limelight.
* Good bye to my ask for a promotion
* more attrition on the cards.
Good thing is the HR buggers committed on a hike in Q4, whihc was a relief.

Had a good handson @ TechEd. No nonsense stuff on BPM/BRM.Product needs to mature a bit but SAP Is on right track finally. Shd throw out some of the crap they have inhouse. If only they could close out Tibco buy, shd have some exciting stuff to work on next year. Have set my eyes on the TOGAF 9.1 this time. Will be taking a week off to finish this. Hopefully iCMG shd have a course by EoY.Am not waiting for the internal teams to come up with an Agenda. They never will anyway!!.

Am not going to office tomorrow. What do you think, no other bugger works on a Sunday, Paid Low, drowning with RFPs and a team which expects Plum postings with no responsibilities to help me drive business. Sorry guys.. Change is in cards. :)

Only bright thing today was the Smile on Nikhil's face :)

Back on blog track

2009-11-10T19:25:00.000-08:00

Wish i could write 2 consecutive blogs sitting @ the same City. No excuses though. Just get dragged away by these mundane transactions which suck up my time day on day.Quickly typing this in as i wait for my geyser to do its job :) & chatting with my sis on the next stock to buy for Nikhil(Unitech/Hindalco seems to be her flavor).She just hung up its Unitech @ 80 odd bucks.. good..

BTW talking of stocks, my investments managed to avg out @ 100% post the recession and recent jumps. Jet & Textile plays have been hanging heavy on the portfolio though, gotto shed them when opportunity turns up.

Will be off next week to Bangalore for SAP TechEd '09.Have lined up a few handson session on NW BPM. Hopefully this shd be exciting. But the season's flavor seems to be on the analytics space..my peer CL feels BPC is gonna be the next hot tech out thr from SAP stable. As a non Analytics guy, all i could make out is its basically an XL app loaded with lots of Macros to make your Data analysis easier.

Off am to water my new flower bed , seeded with ALSERs(hope i dont sound too corny) and my hot bath..

Brrrrrrrrr........its freezing here...

2008-12-31T04:36:00.000-08:00

Whadda you do when you have are alone in Office, snowing white outside and you have a flu that doesn't seem to take a leave..:) Blog it offcouse hahaha..

News of the day, i got back in touch with Goby a ex colleague from Ramco in Paris and he works just here in LaDefense for CapGemini.Thats cool..Its been 8 years since i have last talked to him, before he literally absconded from Ramco out of the blue ;) We did see him off with a bye offcourse.:)

Work gets hectic from next month i guess and we wud have our plates full by Feb/March.Have more friends joining me in Europe, Ravi moves to Geneva this month with Anand for a Project.Hopefully shd have Rams joining me in Feb. Am back to my IR screen for now and thats fr''ng Catalog XLS.Ciao.

"Just added " my snap from Louvre museum in 2004 during my 1st visit to Paris.
I think thats the statue of Venus, the greek goddess of love..

I will get the latest snap soon @ the same spot may be this weekend :)

Paris..Whats in a name :)el

2008-12-22T13:19:00.000-08:00

There we go am back what i stopped doing lately..Travelling nonstop..Its been a week since i landed in Paris, 8 days to be accurate.Sigh of relief after a stupid AI flight through Mumbai and Delhi finally touched down in Charles de Gaulle.Inspite of using the sanitiser i did catch flu on the flight but as long as its not "Bird flu" can give it a pass..Paris was cold last week averaging 1 deg Centigrade..but last 3 days its been quite pleasant hovering @ 8 deg.I am put up @ the CBD(La Defense) and travel by RER to Rueil Mailmaison.Have been looking around for an apartment near the CBD..infact will be going to Courbouvoie and Puteaux near LA Defense for taking a look @ a few apartments tomorrow.Offcourse managing the language barrier has been bit difficult but have seen French folks in Paris to be pretty decent, though folks did warn me they could be rude..Havent met any such characters so far.I work with a mixed crowd here, Gerhard my boss is German, Support team is led by a Pole called Janos and Super boss is italian.Nice mix, quite professional.I also happen to work in a multi vendor environment with CapGemini, AtosOrigin, IBM and other Independent consultants in the team.More updates will be coming ..Watch out for this space..

Back to School

2008-04-09T09:58:00.000-07:00

Now that title sounds like a misnomer considering my Orkut profile says am "Back to Office"..Shd I probably put it as "Back to Labs" or "SAP Labs" to be accurate. I head back to BLR for a workshop of geeks/smooth talking sales dude's from Deloitte-Accenture-Siemens folks as to how Composition really can be a differentiator while selling SOA to a customer..Now frankly none of us is convinced from the answers SAP provided @ the Bootcamp and we folks @ Flower company have had a pretty good headstart with developing Composites.That puts us probably in a better position to answer the questions which came from the participants. But if someone is really interested in understanding what we do for a living @ ESOA practice, you shd look @ Kartik's cool blogs @ http://ciozone.blogspot.com.To be frank i think(most of us @ EAS do think) he is miles ahead of the Tech Archs in SAP as to how we can articulate benefits of SOA to a customer.But I can never 4get a 20 min call of kartik(with Ravi&I) with a prospect US client whose architect claimed @ end of it "This is gettign too fast for me,Right now my head is spinning from ur Ideas" ;)

Ha but I will not want to sound too Techie..here to put even 'Rams' off this blog,considering she has been driver for me to revisit and restart the rants on this space.Moving away from the tech rant..am in Blr right now put @ SJP..Driving daily to Whitefield by 8.15am to avoid the logjam@ Marathahalli!!Opp'ty to rub shoulders with some ex-flowerites and S.A.P'ians(possibly looking to move into our teams)..Am here till 18th when the workshop ends and hope to cover my Cousin Nana's Engagement as well..Ha just to think of it its been exactly 1 year since Rams and I gave a nod to tie the knot.Its been an amazing year so far!! and look fwd to many more to come!!

Changing Gears....

2007-08-30T03:26:00.000-07:00

Shifting Gears - Now thats an word which is coming true in my case both on personal and professional life..While its been a gear shift down on work front(I dont get into those hectic discussions/night life working on RFPs) - doing more Interface builds on SAP XI for a Canadian client.But on the contrary its been smooth 2-3-4 up back home..Just got engaged to Rams..on July 10th and will tie the knot on November-1..The 3 months gap seems like a lifetime..Weekends usually we endup driving around Chennai city..u know the dinner..the beach and the works..

Last week completed ISHA Yoga - Inner Engineering program @ Wipro..Most Wonderful experience is the least I can say about it..Life does get very different when we try to reach out to our Inner self.Planning to attend the other workshops like BSP and HATA yoga programs to get some more crap outa my system..

Car is chugging along well now..Have done almost 8k+ on chennai roads..But only 1 long drive on ECR all way to POndi and Thirunallar and back.. Gym is going ok...Have shaped up a bit..but weight has not moved up..hovering around 60Kilos..Havent been regular the last 2 months..Malai has been quite patient though with me..Will upload his snap soon..apparently someone from Gym chanced upon the previous post and informed Malai...He was curious abt it yesterday..

Changes @ work..Ravi my exboss moved out to UK for long term..I am thinking too to take a good one out to US/UK but oppurtunities have not been too kind and anyways cant think of it till EoY..Lots left our team..Ranji was the latest..Quit in US, Ravishankar moved to a Pharma firm to head the EP team..Ha.. Sara and I have kinda become Veterans in Netweaver CoE oops..Now its eSOA practice..but thats odd..close to 3 yrs and in same technology..am i getting EXTINCT??????..Time to Ponder!!..

Whoa..Chennai Rocks..

2007-04-16T01:34:00.000-07:00

After a long wait 'was finally packed off to Wipro CDC..Still waiting for some offshore work though.. Nothing's been coming this side unfortunately..Have been churning out RFPs day 'n out tho'.Somehow all the clients seem to want folks onsite 'n not offshore..C'mon guyz give us some brk..Cant keep living out of our suitcase can we?? .. But thx to the change, lots of stuff been happening @ home..got a new Car..a new Hyundai Getz , Real Earth color..(Golden Beige shade)..with a Blaupunkt Maui player, Pioneers speakers and the works..Just put in leather seat covers last week...Will upload a snap once i charge my Fuji Digicam batteries..Its been on cold storage since my NY trip.Ha..the latest scoop has been offcourse my Gym routine..Hv been hushy abt it to budds..Joined Dheergayush near Bluestar , ANW in Feb..and have been regularly working out..Diet is something i have to work on..have been losing weight lately which is worrysome..but hope it gets better with some protein supplements from this week. Malai is my trainer (he is an ex-BB with a cool humour) ..Ha will surely post a picture of him..Maan..you should take a look @ his Biceps..you wont believe he has stopped building his muscles and has been just maintaining them for the past 4 years..Whoa..When he helps me with my stretching exercises..he handles my legs like a piece of rubber ;))

Movie front: Am running off to a new movie "Unnaale Unnaale" tonite @ Satyam with cousin Rajesh..

'n am keeping fingers crossed for Thalaivar movie ;)..SIVAJI>....

Latest frnds caught up with: Venki and Venkat(from DAV)
Marriages missed: Sesha(Viveka classmate) and Rajesh (DAV classmate)..Sorry guys..cudn't make it..but we will catchup sometime soon for sure..
Weekends:ECR-BESANTNAGAR-MARINA..'n it goes round and round ;)
'Mis'-Engaged ;) - Rao(Viveka C'mate) to Neeta, Uma to "whoo..forgot his name - ......filler" and Anand Nair(Colleague) to Savitha.

Thatz it for now folks..Keep it rockin..

Posting from New Jersey

2006-10-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

Hey finally found sometime to blog...Am back in US for a design & architecting assignment..Well frankly its more of a doc'n stuff that am doing for a client but good oppurtunity to lay hands and get them dirty on some of those real non-geeky areas like Governance models ,SLD Strategies, ITIL in EAI governance, Clustering, Disaster Recovery , RTo, RPO etc etc...Have spent last 4 weeks just learning acronyms and collecting documentations for design and architecting EAI solutions..Wonderful learning but frankly am missing the days I used to write out XML/XSL codes, configure BW and deploy Tibco hawk and administrator,....Sometimes i wonder if its really worth it growing into a new role without getting to do the explore the stuff which is the very first reason that made you to jump into the technology at the very first place.. I know its Arguable..But these days I dont even get to touch MPPs..Atleast I would have consoled myself that I could slot myself in the category of a PM..Now no chance for even that..

There is a new breed called Solution Architects who design stuff which is probably on the drawing board of the Vendor..Like SAP for instance.. :) Anything I propose, it gets to be compared with EAI vendors like webMethods/Tibco..Really freaks me out bcos I know XI is gonna take couple of more years to get to that maturity..Wonder why these clients dont have that maturity in them ;)

Leaving the work aside..The match making process back @ home has entered more critical phase.Now i get 8 profiles every day for selection..Boss let me tell you thatz one hell of a job..You can do a cross comparison between webMethods-XI-Tibco-Vitria..every available ESB on the market, but to choose a girl is one big difficult job..Wonderful what all troubles this is gonna lead me to...

Till next time..Ciao

Back from US

2006-08-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

So wassup dudes..am back from US last week 'n recovering slowly from the after effects of an hectic tour...Only interesting stuff to the whole trip is I got 1st hand to talk to Webmethods CTO during a networking lunch:) Marc something and hear out his views on the way the webservices-SOA stuff is going!! He had no better thoughts on that than any of the 150 + delegates he addressed on IS day @ clients place.He was there anyway to push Webmethods with XI is being considered by the client's numerous business teams..The best quote was when he said the "only solution to the standards blitz happening with numerous WS* suggestions should be that clients start pushing vendors to agree on the Standards adoption", but question is that IS this any easier Said than done..Simple reason being there is no usergroup for such a concept as is ASUG for SAP..So something of that sort is not gonna be realised anytime sooner.

Met the client's team the remaining 2 days pushing them to consider XI for integration services but this was no cakewalk as the whole tech team out there has "Webmethods--Webmethods " ringing in their heads.But the guys agreed that product is evolving, so have finally agreed to have an architect to provide them a Int'n roadmap on XI..Mostly I shd be leaving this monthend to NJ again for this..Phew...

As for the other new things happening on..

Girl search ... the latest search collapsed when the horoscope apparently didn't match so mom is back to drawing board...to put it..Poor frnd Arun who was actively pushing for the girl's profile to be considered is bit pissed off on that...

Tech learning .. Am now doing a bit on SOA and JMS..Shd bloggin soon on JMS architectures vis-vis vanilla Middleware implementations, so may start a separate blog corner on that..

Both Taklu and weatherboy are travelling to UK for different assignments..Nice to see the kids take to thr wings..Hope they dont fly away from the NEST(to be read Flower company)

Flying of to US

2006-07-28T02:33:00.000-07:00

So here we go the latest trip is to US, East coast.Am flying down to NJ for a client meet.Ravi is already there issuing his usual dictats from there.Looks like his body clock is screwed,i was chatting with him @ 2.00 am his morning..Poor dude..Even I had spent quite a stiff week preparing the posters and brochures for the meeting.Learning for the week has been on how I need to prepare a 10000-ft view of any technology to make it understood by CIOs.At the outset its sounds simple but believe getting them convinced is a hard task.Spent 3 days finalising the contents of the poster.So here I go doing a Marketing guy's job for once.Its a good learning back here in CoE, Proposals, SoWs and now a stall posters & brochures.

Next week is gonna be a stiff week, meeting the client Business group heads and CIOs.Ravi and I are in for the tech talks and meetings.Should be cool, answering questions on ROI, TCO and interoperability with nut heads..Will be staying at Holiday Inn , New Brunswick. Am hoping to go down to NewYork, havent been there yet.

Sad part to the whole ishtorey(read it as story) is am flying AI and everyone I spoke to gave me that "Oh pooor dude" look .. Gosh.. i am getting the goose bumps!!

God save "Sri"

I am moving out of Chennai

2006-05-23T01:22:00.000-07:00

Phew...what an hectic month..Project's gone live, got my kid sis married off and now am finally moving out of chennai back to Bangalore.A relief from the 35+ degree sweltering heat and dust to a more cooler, wetter place..But ss back to an ever irritating 10 km to & fro travel on Hosur road to ECity and back to BTM.Wish I had one those powers to get teleported as on scifi serials (called StarTrek) we used to watch on those good old days -every Sunday 9am on DD1..Sure wud have been cool..One of my other fantasy from this serial of having a flip phone has come true anyway..Indulged myself on a brand new MotoRazr V3i with a cool bluetooth headphone...Cost a heavy 15k but looks worth the expense..

The latest am reading these days is - "The World is Flat" by Tom Friedman, good book, ever insightful but felt he is getting all IndoMania..First 45 pages have all been abt Nandan, BLR, Call centers..etc etc..But quite a change from his older book - "Lexus and the Olive Tree" where all i could find abt India was an odd mention here and there.Felt quite let down then but realised I was too late in reading his books..Though I did catch up on his documentary on his trip down to Infy 't was on BBC if I am not wrong.BTW did i tell you I did get to finish reading "DaVinci Code",so queered was I by the hype surrounding the film, i did it in a marathon 6hrs 43 mins flat, last week(Was it slow,..not sure I know Sara sat on it for close to a month).Now am waiting to see the film if and Only if It gets released in India....

Sigh!! boss why do folks have to have a tiff over disclaimers..If you have decided its gonna be Mature audiences watching the film(not possible in these days of BitTorrents and BurmaBazaars(for pirated DVDs)) wouldn't they be mature enough to decide if its truth/fiction on the screen..Beats me..One thing am sure is, if its gonna be 2.5 hrs of pure dialogue and no action, forget it you wont need a disclaimer..Film will end up being a fiction unless someother director decides to make a sequel(ala Alexander ishtyle).But the news I read yesterday on the collections($225M) in 3 days tells a different tale though..

BTW did I tell I just started hunting for a girl...lets see where this goes!!Had funtime filling up the application form in a online matrimony site.. The best one was on the skin color..Fair, Wheat ..Wheatish Brown , Dark????!!!!! Eh isn't this a non racist country :) BTW I consulted 8 people before I checked that one :)

Finally its gone LIVE

2006-05-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

After 6 months of struggle, uncertainity and "so called challenging times" when you finally see your Project going LIVE without any major issues, you get the immense satisfaction of having completed a quality Deliverable.On May 2nd, N&P went live in Sweden and Finland with huge data load of 200000 records sent in just a single day!! Have had my guys monitoring the loads in Shifts as per Finnish timings.If this goes smooth over this week, I will have some peaceful time @ home preparing for SP's marriage celebs..Have loads of work coming up and some extended days and nights till 11th May..

Know what the Election results come out on the same day, so am bit worried about general Law&Order around the Kalyan Mandapam, as its supposed to be in a busy area called Vadapalani!

Leaving these aside the hottest chat around the town these days is the new set of Parties and candidates for the local state elections in TN.My 2 cents is on JJ coming back, as probably she has not much of anti-incumbency factor, tripping her path.Excellent Tsunami work, tough approach to State Gov employees, better handling of Financial affairs and nack of blaming all ILLs on the Go(Group of TN)Ministers is coming handy to her.UPA has nothing much to show on this account, except for the new Kid on the block ,Mr.Dayanidhi Maran the rest dont have anythign worthwhile to show to the public..

One new factor I see is the emergence of groups like LOK PARITRAN which have probably the most saner manifesto among the crap'r one's I get to see among the other mainstream Parties in TN.Check it out from this Pdf link Manifest

Their Achilles heel are galore,
1) no "KNOWN faces" in the fora.
2) Lack of Proper Marketing of their Agenda and Reach.
3) Its doesn't even have a Tamil name to its party which makes it quite alien to the local populace.
4) Skewed Audience- educated Middle/Upper Middleclass - This is the "CULPRIT" GROUP which doesn't CARE to vote during elections!!

But whatever be the issue probably the very fact that this is a group of bright and educated individuals who have decided to spend their Time campaigning for a Cause - when they could have instead sat @ one of the numerous MNCs -consulting to earn some decent bucks, attracts one to their side.So no guesses on this, my sure VOTE is for them-luckily as I reside in one of the 5 constituencies where they plan to contest.

BTW forgot one thing, I just cleared Velociq couple of days back..it was a breeze..Didnt even prepare..25 questions - 7 mins flat..Wonder why i still get these pre exam cramps!!May be I should prepare for PMP..:) Well that wud be a nice challenge!!

Big time back home

2006-04-17T21:58:00.001-07:00

Geeee am posting after a long time... Its been a good 3 months since I came back from Helsinki and have been totally busy completing deliveries for my project.So as on date, things have cooled down a bit..Integration testing got over and I just came back from a long Easter weekend in Srirangam, a small temple town, down south of Tamilnadu.It was cool out there, rained like hell and I had a nice time swimming in Kollidam and Cauvery,the rivers which flow on either side of the town.Stayed @ a place called Melur on the west side of the Renganatha Temple.Its the typical town surrounded by beautiful farms with lots of coconut trees.Best way to enjoy iy is by taking a dip in the slow moving river , with a mud bath mixed in with sip of coconut water. Its just heaven dude..I mean it.

I also booked a cab to go to my native Kumbakonam and Uppiliappan Koil(Temple).Specialty of this temple is that the prasad offered there doesn't have any salt in it.Goes by a myth wherein Lord offered to marry Rishi Markandeya's daughter, but she being too young to know how to add salt to food,So the KshetraPuranam says that lord offers to consume the food without salt, hence the practice of saltless prasads being offered thr to devotees.

Back in office am just checking my mails..Trying to figure out how I am gonna clear the Velociq (a QA Test) and doing ground work for my GMAT..But why an MBA, you may ask???? .Well After 6 yrs in IT, figured out I have lots more learning to go before I start out on my own venture..Lets see how things go!! Have just started the feeling the pressure @ home..Folks want me to tie the knot but am not buckling any time sooner!! I hope so :)

Wrapping up in Helsinki!!

2005-12-09T03:55:00.000-08:00

My first visit to a Scandinavian country draws to a close next week, as i wrap up things to be done by my offshore team in India.Past 3 weeks had been a bit hectic with new discoveries, meetings in Stockholm and some snooping around the city center for some Finn items for folks back home..Surprised that any localite I ask here doesn't know what is most unique items one can take back.After much prodding Jukka did suggest that I take a moose hat, one's they wear for the arctic winters..but dude it ain't gonna be -20¤ in Chennai or Bangalore..So forget it..One item of interest I did note in the Stockmann and Sokos stores is the glassware which looks pretty unique but expensive too..Wonder what mum would say if I get her a glass for 20Euros. I dont think she would complain , considering once i got back a beautiful Liter BEER mug from Erlangan in Germany. If nothing works out, looks like its gonna be the usual Diors and Douglas perfumes which I may have to pick up from Vantaa/Frankfurt airport..One of my Cousin Raji' , who works for the dumb bank I had blasted in one of my other posts,wants a good after shave too..

Well, that would be a worthwhile purchase I do think..I did buy a finnish brand(can't recollect the name,some usual no brainer) from a shop beneath my apartment called 'Tourjastallo', a cool mint based after shave which i found far wonderful than the usual Gillette's of the world.

So back i will be in Bangalore for a couple of days to close of some personal work and then off to my home in Chennai during christmas time and flower office in OMR , waiting to see my team.Have been given 2 new geeks to manage in India for the start and a nice guy called Katta for my onsite team, while am in India.Should be back soon in Helsinki, hopefully post march, when the worst of winter is over..but way things are going, I may end up back far sooner than hoped for..

BTW couple of new developments over the last few weeks, have a new blog link (http://reeltalk.blogspot.com/) with reviews on the movies I watch, these days(What the hell I do have something to say abt all those dumb movie I watch). Started with a movie called ABCD..Unfortunately its a not a movie for my buddies Taklu or Weatherboy..Cos they aint TAMIL ;)

May be I can review a Mallu movie for Taklu's sake but aint not dare watch a Gujju movie cos the only term I will ever recognise from thr dialect would be 'SU' ;)) Wonder what Weatherboy has to say on this!!

Weekend..BASH or Do i call it Hash!!

2005-11-14T01:18:00.000-08:00

So another weekend goes in Helsinki, with not much work happening during the week owing to a problematic Server with its weird Error messages and connectivity issues..Without getting into the technicalities , its just that the H/W platform is so new that the XI S/W is having issues acquainted to it..No such problems on my front though, am settling down quite nicely here..Have a friendly colleague Jukka(spell him U...kk.aa, i'll call him UU..) ,who has a very weird sense of humour..(pretty weird as he himself admits) but finds me to be more less the same..(Oh C'mon dude, I'm not so odd with my jokes!! am I ?).

'U..' apparantly cleared his XI cert, last week but was candid enough to admit to me that he screwed up the 'Mappings' section in his paper.To clear the XI cert u need to make min 70 in each of the sections and man..thatz one horrible exam , I must admit..I had nitemares giving the exam an year back..RA and Sara took it with me and know what, we were the first to clear it in Flower office and probably one of the first few in India..(then ;)))

So what did I do in the weekend....I watched one of those new Diwali movies called 'SIVAKASI' ..phew what a waste of time..Certainly goes down as one of the most stupid movies I have seen..I saw reviews of this being categorised as a B grade movie..Plzzz spare me that crap, it doesn't even make it to a C grade..Vijay cud probably get better directors to do his stufff...But same dialogues..nakkals..bores u out..2nd half was refreshing though..more like 'Gilly'..!!!Prakash raj was in his usual elt's..I felt Asin,Saranya and Geetha were wasted in the movie..Cud have been better utilised..Asin has a great screen presence, but can choose better stories b'cos she gets sidelined in such masalas..!!! anywayz..thatz a solid 2.5hrs wasted..

But I also had the oppurtunity to spend time with some nice finnish-Swedish-Scottish folks in a chillout group called the Helsinki Hash club(they call it the Helsinki H4). Lemme first introduce the concept to you..The basic idea was to get to gether , hang out and have a good Drink(read BEER) ..Nowadays its evolved into one of those groups where you have these activities like tracking Trails, Biking , a Sauna(thatz in Finn offcourse) and good FOOD too.I have a colleague here called Janne(thatz Yane), real freaky guy who organises this Hash..Every Hasher has his own nickname(hashname as they call it)... He is the 'Dancing Queen' ;)) We had others here..like HotHorse, MIB, Snitch...I hope to get a name too soon..and the naming ceremony is one of those rippoff English coronations.(details follow)!!!

So once we got together,we start of with an intro.., I had my colleague Anand with me..The Hare(Dancing queen this time), lays down the rules for the Trail. We basically have a Walkers trail and a Runners Trail..which we need to follow to get to the target.Runners trail has the rules to be obeyed like a '*' marked to point that you are on the rite track and a 'X' meaning the trail ends there.Thr r a few more like Fish hooks, 'W' for a walkers trail and all that..On the way we also need to get the BEER stop, which is a bonus for tracking it rite.Our trail started @ Yane's house in ESPOO and takes a trip thro' the Bird watch area near the estuary and finally ends up back @ his place..Since I didn't have my running shoes on..I took the walkers trail and had a nice girl hashnamed(hothorse) for company.She happens to be this marketing strategist for European subsidiary of RoyalEnfield..Very interested in Indian culinary..I showed off ;) my knowledge on some recipes on making Kheer(payasam), Biriyani and curries..She was so interested in it that even offered to help me setup a hash in the future with Indian food included offcourse!!! Well thatz pretty good for a start ;)

So we finally go back to Yane's house following the trail..We now form a circle with BEER and Softdrinks in our hand and we go on to rag the fellow hashers for their mismanagement and misbehaviors.. I was ragged twice for being the virgin(new hasher thatz it) and had 2 gulps of beer to drink to it..We then had a hash naming ceremony for one of the girls in the crowd, whom we named as the Wise Posterium(Wise Arse) for her wise crackz..The lead Hash conducts the ceremony and it goes like 'Based on the power vested in me...........' and we finally pour flour and beer on her head ;))

GOsh i do shudder whatz gonna happen to my hair,considering that I'll be named when its gonna be probably -5 degrees in finland..oh no...

@ the end of it , we end up in Sauna and have a nourishing dinner with Janne cooking up an African dish with rice and some Kichdi sort of stuff using Potatoes, Carrot and Peanut butter..We have a couple of more beers and for the new hasher..I get a Badge and Nice TShirt(HashersT Shirt).

More on Finn front...wait for it...

First official working day in Office

2005-10-31T10:28:00.000-08:00

The day started out with me catching this Bus 67 from City Central to a place called ElimienKatu..(In tamil that mean..Show(Katu) the Mouse(Eli) and Fish(Mien)), where the office is located..I stay in a place called VuoriKatu(lemme not translate that ;) for obvious reasons)..Should say thr r pretty helpful folks in the office..A short lady called Maaja (assistant for my project with a pretty difficult English accent, I dont blame her though) guides us to our desks..unfortunately our new official laptops have not yet arrived..so I need to wait for a couple of more days before I start working..(am not worried abt not working anyway). So the XI lead from the client's team, a queer looking guy called Jukka(u spell it Yukka..) comes over and asks for some help with the naming standards he is finalizing..I did give him some suggestions which he was impressed with(Though I do doubt if they wud really work)..I did extricate myself from a couple of tight spots during the discussions with the std excuse of chking out other project teams,with an addon that it wud take time as folks in India r out for Diwali..He didn't press on though he cud have very well asked if I cud chk out the Uk/US guys for an update.Lemme excuse him on his lapse though!!After a whole day of meetings..We decided to finally leave @ 5.00pm back home..

BTW was just wondering what Taklu and Weatherboy are upto now that they have been forced out to a JAVA project!!! ;) Expect some mail from them on wednesday if they are in office..
One good update is that I cud very well return back to India before Dec last week, as its a 3 week vacation in FINN..

msging out from Finland

2005-10-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

Well what do u know..I finally get out of namma ..Flooded SillyCONVali..;)
and up in "HELL" Sin Ki..and its fun for sure..Nice flight with "'Thirupachi" running on Lufthansa..but only pain point is the crew ripped me of 4k for excess baggage..Grrrrrrrrrrr....Thatz unfair guyz...i carried only 26Kgs...and she(crew) says she can allow only 24 max..dont tell 2kilos can bring ur flight down..anyway for 4k their boeing 747 was able to carry the remaining 2K...geesh i didn't know planes can guzzle cash now...

Fun part is I really did some exploring on my own..chked out the sleek OTTO machines to chk if my UTI Dr card works..and it did like a dream..so I go on to this CITY CENTER couple of streets from my apartment and did some shopping for groceries..Nice folks around here..The cashier (a cute looking babe) @ the shop infact personally went to the weighing machine to print out the bill..Well thatz some technology...Every fruit/Veg variety is marked by a number..So I weigh the banana numbered 67 and enter this number on the weighing scale and it throws me out a slip with the amt..thatz cool tech guys, why dont they introduce one @ FOOD WORLDS of the world, instead of me having to deal with Shady retailer with their odd looking scales with a StdDeviation of +25% atleast ;)...In the afternoon my roomies joined me @ the apartment and u know what, one of the guys happens to be a old colleague from Infy whom I had met on a couple of parties..geesh..World is really small..Now we both work in the same project..He is going back in a couple of weeks, while am stuck here for the next 3 months..

I will be meeting my client tomorrow..Prayin it goes well..Its an assignment which I hope will shape my career in FLOWER office over the next few years ;))

Good night folks..

Eureka ... Its raining Visa's 'L' n 'R'

2005-10-04T06:58:00.000-07:00

Geeks...

Is it the Guru Peyarchi..Am on my way to get Schengen visa for travel and my H1b gets approved after 8 months...Now am in a fix..where do i go??? Land of 1000 lakes or the land of million dreams ;)

F'ed up @ party

2005-07-02T04:14:00.000-07:00

Went to a geeks party @ commentators pub in Indian SV..3 beer bottles and was flat out cribbing to SAPPED guy abt his product..and usage..

Why do I always choose the wrong place to waggle my gibberish tongue..guess what RA wants to have a 1-1 on this...incident..

I think am going dry on the next set of parties..particularly with bosses watching me over...

Thx to Taklu and Weather boy to take me home. ;))

start of day

2005-06-29T23:14:00.000-07:00

Am late to office..u know what happens if u sit late to draft architecture guides..U dont want to check into ur station the next day ;)

I am starting into anotehr day of unexpected issues, unreasonable demands/deadlines and funtime @ coffee..

But the news today is the head of dept has quit and :)..