Avalanche

As planned started off for Avalanche on the weekend. Met few of the other campers and got into the bus at Shanti Nagar bus stop. It went round and round the city and went to Mysore road bus stop again. It was raining heavily outside and no air inside the bus. After sometime the bus started and we were stopped at Bandipur forest as they have closed the entry from 2am-6 am. Slept in bus till they started allowing it at 5:30 am. Reached Ooty by 9:30 after a delay of 4 hours.

Went to Emerald from there. Most of the people had breakfast there. Started to walk to the camp site. It was a long tiring walk. The guides kept telling it was 30 mins away initially and after they changed it to 15 mins. It took almost 5 hours for the entire trek is nearly 10 kms; 3 kms on good road and after that on a mud trail. Up and down the hills. It was raining on and off.

Reached camp around 3:30 and had lunch there. It was a hot and yummy lunch, after all the trek it tasted awesome, It really is. Finished the lunch and relaxed for sometime, roaming around the camp site to explore it.

In the evening went out for kayaking. I did it for the first time and it was pretty good. Initially was trying to figure out which was it was going and after few minutes was able to control it. The lake and its surroundings are very beautiful. The clear waters in the lake are warm compared to the rain and the cold wind outside. I played with water while other took their turns with the kayak and swimming. I jumped into the kayak again when the instructor said there is a free kayak for the last trip. This time I went in much deeper and I was able to manage it pretty good. I think now I can do it alone.

Came back relaxed for the rest of the day. It was continuously drizzling all the time. Had very nice dinner along with chicken barbeque. Tried to sleep in the tent but it was very cold, so went back and slept in the dorm.

Woke up at usual time 6. Explored the places around while others are still getting out of their beds. Was feeling lazy as it was drizzling again that day too. The trip to the water fall started, didn’t want to go out in the rain but joined in end with the umbrella and the jacket. It was a short walk of less than 5 mins and there stands a beautiful waterfall making huge noise and running cold water.

Seeing that couldn’t resist so left the umbrella and jacket and went into water and enjoyed it a lot. The water is very cold and was looking too good. Had a nice waterfall bath – natural shower. Came back packed the stuff and finished the lunch and started to walk back to Emerald. It was good this time, didn’t feel much tired, though it took around 4.5 hrs for the trek down.

From Emerald took a truck to Ooty, was fun trying to maintain the balance. Reached Ooty, roamed around for some time, did some shopping and had dinner and reached bus stand.

Booked a AC bus so that it will be relaxing as needed to go to work the next day. This bus is Ambari, looked well, but all the way I can feel every ditch in the road, I doubt if this bus had shock absorbers.

Over all it was a very good trip. Enjoyed a lot of rain all along.

Few pics from the trip in my album koppole.in.

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A Designer at HIS Best

Last week on one of sleepless nights not knowing what to do stepped out into my balcony. It has been raining for the past 2 days and it rained that day evening too. I think it was quarter past two when I went out. I actually thought of seeing what the neighbourhood will be like during that time of the night. As I stepped out what I saw was a view that cannot be expressed in any way.  It is just the clouds passing by, not very big but they are travelling very fast. May be in a minute or two you can loose track if you follow them. Added to this the cold night with chilly wind in the light of the moon … well what else to explain..?  Just wondering about the beautiful sight that no painter on earth will ever be able to produce; what can one think of other than the one who made it possible?

The running clouds which carry the rain, why do their speeds vary? There are days where you can still see the same could for hours together and now they disappear in few seconds. Who directs them? And my thoughts went on to whole universe which have everything in place of which these clouds are a part. Everything in the solar system just goes on with ones own systems in place working perfectly each day even after these many thousands of years.

And now coming to the title: Ever wondered what it took to build a system like this which didn’t fail for these many years, is never going to fail and is still in control of the one who created it? We too humans build so many things every day, plan many things, take the small things into consideration, with all the knowledge we have and is in the scope of it, how many of them succeed? It is only Him who can design it so well, flaw less, considering every thing of it from beauty to the functional aspect.

Thinking of all this and comparing myself to this big unimaginable system of which I am part of, how small is me. My eyes are filled with tears as I remembered that He cares for me in all this and He thinks of me and remembers me too in this big whole world where some one close may not do. All I could do is just bow down to the PERFECTIONIST for what He had been, what He is and what he will be.

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So Today.....

Reached home on time today and it started raining after I reached it started raining badly and as usual the power went off and so in dark :) This is what happens to the IT City. Had a busy day at office, and was not feeling well so reached home early. It rained quite long almost for 2 hours continiously.

Took a bit of rest and started to write this entry. Today have seen the Microsoft Ad of the Shoe Circus and was surprised to see how stupid ads can be. So they have started the ad campaign now. But why? Insecure about the open source or the free soft wares available today? Or Vista not working as expected? Might be few of the reasons. So the war of Open Source Vs Microsoft had already begun. Which side are you on? I support open source. At least if not war I like the competition with MS.  Most of the things I use daily keeping the OS aside are open sources and are free wares. And I am sure most of you out there will be using the free services of some one, yet we fail to recognize and acknowledge the importance and usage. Take it from the Instant Messengers, Mail accounts, forums, blogs, downloads and lot of utilities that are installed all comes free, there are few widely used of the many present out there.  Well these might be free but some did the effort to get all those applications. 

Coming to Open Source, I use most of them in my day to day life. If they are not going to give me those facilities and sources for free today I will have to close down all and will be struggling to get my own things up. To accept the fact there are out standing applications available as open sources, it is just that people are not aware. A friend of mine who is a software engineer for the past 3 years was setting up a site and he is going to take a paid service when I actually told him he can go for one of the open sources already available. He was like they are not ‘Ad Free’. I was shocked and told him that is a misconception and told him some facts. If a Software guy doesn’t know open sources how will a common man know.

So decided today to start an awareness program on open source. Do some ads or write some analytical statistics of the programs that are available and tell the people out there how good the things are. If you are interested in joining me please get in touch I will be happy to work with you and make a better software world.

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