Recent Updates....

Have I became lazy? No, it's an underrated statement; I've been lazy for almost 24 years now. There are so many things that I have been wanting to do both in personal and proffesional aspect in the near future. Few of them are:-

• Disturb my roomies with my vocal chords; heard Swaralaya is a good bet
• Become a SCWCD
• Prepare for my PDGBA exams; jus 9 more papers to go
• Organise my belongings in the room

The latest news is that we have augmented our Vasantha Maligai at VadaPalani with a LG Flatorn 21" TV set. Unfortunately, have to live with the tamil channels and the new channels for now; settop box is something in the future agenda.

I have been driving my Alto pretty well; looking for 4 people to experiment my drive over the hi way. Looking forward for a drive from a Pondy to Chennai in few month's time.

Expecting the arrival of 'Perusu' Sai from UK after his short trip of three weeks :P....

The song that has been looping in my system at office is "Newyork Nagaram urangum neram...."

USil irunthu Chennai Varai

3rd August, 2006 my last day at Montvale, NJ, I was heading back to my home country after coming to the much sought United States of America almost an year back. I had a strange itenary from NJ to India Newark -> Chicago -> New Delhi -> Chennai. My US visa had expired. Hence, I had no other option than to take a direct flight.

My flight to Chicago was at 1600 EST at Newark Liberty International Airport. I reached the aiport at 1300 hrs, well ahead of the scheuled departure. I was really excited as I approached the check-in counter of the American Airlines. It was now my turn to check-in. The lady at the check-in counter was taking a long time to complete my check-in process. Though I had ample time left a sense of urgency and tension was mounting on me. After a while I heard the disappointing news from the lady in the counter, my flight to Chicago was delayed and hence I cannot make my connecting to New Delhi from Chicago. "I want to board my flight to New Delhi. Please do whatever you can"- This is what I could tell the customer representative of American Airlines. After a while, the customer representative presented me with a new intenary New York(JFK) -> London -> New Delhi. I wasn't sure if that was indeed a valid itenary as I didn't have a transit Visa. I raised my concern and they convinced me saying that it is an unvolunteered change and hence there was no need for a transit visa. I somehow wasn't convinced and I kept repeating the same question. I decided to take my chance. American Airlines provided me with a cab to New York JFK airport which was over 30 miles away from Newark Liberty International Airport.

I was in the cab to JFK and the I was having a last sight at the beautiful Hudson river and the Sky Scrapers of NY. My transit at London was over 2 hours and I decided to call Sai Kiran that I can meet him at the airport. I even thought it was a blessing in disguise for me to meet my beloved friend after an years time. While all these thoughts were wavering in my mind, I reached JFK airport.
I was waiting again in the counter for my turn to check-in. I didn't sense the disarray that was awaiting me until the Customer representative asked me for a London Visa. I was dismayed when I was asked to present a London Visa; it was a mistake by the customer representative at Newark. I cannot take a transit at London unless I have a transit visa or a valid US Visa. I had neither of them with me. American airlines apologized to me for the confusion that they caused. I tried to emphasize that I wanted to board a flight by all means on the same day. There was a flight to Chicago at 1600 hrs from JFK. American Airlines booked me as a Stand-By passenger on that flight. I went to the appropriate Gate and kept my fingers crossed if I would get an opportunity to board the flight. At the tick of 1555, I heard the announcement " Chicago flight is closed". With total disappointment and unaware as what was bound to happen next I walked back to the check-in counter. The first news that I got is that my baggage had gone in the Chicago flight and I will have to claim it in Chennai, Holy Crap!. I was desperate to board a flight to New Delhi on the same day but all the efforts to book me through Air India, Continental and other Airlines went in vain. All the direct flights to India were booked. Now with all the doors closed, I had no other option than to take the next day's flight. I wasn't sure if I could reschedule my domestic flight from New Delhi to Chennai. I was provided with accommodation for the night and food coupons for three sessions. With no access to Internet and a computer, I conveyed the news to my family and friends in India with great difficulty with the help of Prabhu.

4th august, 2006 I was at JFK to board my flight to Chicago. This time no difficulties, I managed to make it to New Delhi on time. I reached Indira Gandhi International Airport on 5th August at 2045 hrs. There was a notice at the Gate asking me to meet the customer service representatives. My baggage was held at New Delhi as they to clear customs. After all the formalities I headed towards Domestic terminal. I straight went to Jet airways counter and got my ticket rescheduled. After waiting for over eight hours at the airport Lounge, I boarded the flight to Chennai on 6th August, 2006 at 0645 hrs.

In over two hours time I was flying over Bay of Bengal. I could already feel being at home. I landed at about 0920 hrs. My parents were waiting for me at the arrival Gate and after a gap of over 12 months; I was back to "Singara Chennai"....

Sorgame Endraalum Athu namoora pola varumaa......

Nama Veedu

Templeton, my apartment in saligramam, Chennai is really progressing well.
I n Visu will be proud owners of two houses in this appartment by somewhere in May '07.
I was happy to see the photos of work in progress...
Here are the photos
Home sweet Home

Holi

Hi friends wishing you all a very Happy Holi....
All I could do is only think about the Holi celebrations that we used to have in the college and the cleaning that we had to do in the final year after messing up the classroom with Holi Powder.

Mood : Nostalgic

June?

Why is it that june always come after May and not after march....???!!!!

A week at India

I had the great opportunity to travel for a week to my motherland.
I had to lot of dialogue with my PM to get an approval for the weeks trip.
I wanted to take up the trip as I had no task in my project plan for a week.
It was really exciting to land at the Country almost after 6 months. The autos, MTC buses, two wheelers, road side T shops, I really missed them all in US.
The first day at India, I reported to my office at J16, Anna Nagar. All I did was go around the office, meet my colleagues and chit chat with them about my experiences in US and my lucky vacation for a week.
Then I spent the evening with my friends for a dinner. The next day I went to pondy to spend time with my parents. I went to PEC, the paradise where we enjoyed for almost four years. Incidentally I met my immediate juniors there; all working for HCL.They were so eagerly asking me about the Onsite opportunities at HCL. While I was answering them the unexpected happened.
I started hearing some beep sound.
It was from my cell phone...It was morning 0630 AM in Montvale NJ and my alarm was ringing...
All I could do was snooze it and go back to bed...

Happy Married Life

One of my close friends Padma, got married to Senthil on 2nd Feb '06.
She is the first to get married among my close friends and I feel sad missing the great occasion. (Off course the first member of chauvinist gang to get married).
She has been a real good friend of mine for past 5 years. One of the persons who was admired by almost everyone in the class for her good nature.
She is going to travel to CA by the end of this month along with her hubby...

I wish her a very Happy Married life.

The Elixir

Not many things better than driving a car in Hi Way with "Ennai Koncham Maatri" from "Kaakha Kaakha" in the background...............

Driving @ US

After due consideration and lots of confusion, I decided to buy a car for myself.
The basic reason was that I had no other means to commute to my work place.

I bought my car on 7th Jan. I completed all the formalities like registration, insurance, etc on the same day. I was ready to hit the roads by almost noon. I had to right away drive on a hi way to get my car back home. Though nervous initially, started enjoying the drive with time. I just roamed around the local roads, to feel more comfortable.



Prabhu, me and prashant decided to go to karthik's house for the long weekend which fell on Jan 14. Karthik and I succeeded in brainstorming Swami also to come from the west coast in just a single phone call. We were all really excited to have the grand get-together. Prabhu, me and prashant decided to rent a car to go to Karthik's house which was just over 100 miles from my place. I was very eagerly waiting for that so that I can do a part of the drive. There came the twist. Prashant decided to back out of the get-together as he had some official work over the weekend. Within 24 hours of this shock there came another shock from Prabhu, he also backed out owing to a release that he had to do the following week. All we could do was, just discuss on how this profession kills us.

With Prashant and Prabhu backing out, the option of taking a rental car from NJ was completely ruled out as it turned out to be an expensive option. I had only two options; either take the train or drive my car. After a series of thoughts, I decided to drive all the way myself. The only concern for me was that I had no navigator and not even a CD player in the car. The day before I started, bought a FM transmitter so that I can enjoy some good music using my small mp3 player.

I started on Friday evening 0445hrs from my office at Montvale, NJ heading towards North Wales, PA. The drive was real good at Garden State Parkway and was then I entered I-78. It all took a fraction of second for me to miss the route. I was gazing at my route to see the exit number from I-78 and before even I could do something, I was on the wrong lane that merged to some other Hi Way. All that I could do was get into the next exit and then go to a gas station and get the route back to I-78. I almost wasted 20 minutes on this. Things were real smooth after that until it became dark. That is when I remembered the Weather forecast for the day. It was a real foggy day and I almost had zero visibility in US 202. I could not see the lanes or the sign boards clearly. For a few minutes I became real nervous. I put the car on the shoulders, had a gulp of water and then relaxed myself and started driving again. I kept following US 202 S as the map asked me to merge into US 202 S through various roads, All I kept looking was signs for US 202 S as I kept driving on 202. As time preceded US 202 almost became like a local road and the drive was even more terrible. I wasn't even sure if I missed the right turn into Summneytown Pike that I was supposed to take from 202. I could see a road named North Wales road and my instincts told me that I was somewhere around North Wales and didn't go too far. All I could do was again look for the gas station. Hurray! There I found the gas station. Unfortunately I came past the turn that I was supposed to take, fortunately it was just over a mile from the gas station. I reached Karthik's house by 0830. I was a real long drive for 110 miles. Had some food and after some chit chat, after which I went to hit my dreams.

We had to pick up swami from Phili airport at 1200hrs. I n Karthik went to the airport and picked him. We then had to go to Indian grocery stores, so that we can have some good Indian food for the next 2.5 days. We started cooking lunch at 0430pm and we ended up having it as a dinner, Swami didn't want to go out anywhere, so we decided to stay home see movies, cook, eat chit chat, and speak to friends in India thru conf call. We really had good fun doing all these. We had a wide variety of food like kara kozhambu, rasam, kovakkai poriyal, pongal, thakkali saatham, paneer butter masala, etc

All good times have an end. We three had to part on Monday AN. I dropped Karthik and Swami at the train station, so that they can go to airport. After filling my petrol tank, I started from North Wales at 0315 pm. The return journey was real smooth. I managed to reach back home by 0545 pm. I was back to my usual routine. After all, life is all about this.