If any of you are into cycling in around Pune region, you can register at the following groups...folks go out on cycling excursions...
http://groups.google.com/group/pune-cycle-pratishthan
and http://groups.google.com/group/pune-cycling-enthusiasts
Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade
My blogging has taken a big time hit. Just don’t seem motivated to sit and write down…don’t know why, have I hit the writer’s block….or is it just the fact that I don’t find the daily happenings interesting anymore to pen them. Oh well, no point brooding over it, have decided to just jot down what & when I feel like it. In any case, it’s not like I have a ton of readers subscribed to the blog and feel left out if I don’t write.
So what’s up…May and June have been a bit crazy for me. There are lot of happenings in the office, Some good and some bad…remember we are a small company in the telecom sector and business has taken a significant hit due to the downturn. Things are pretty fluid. I have been pretty tied up at work though, but have also seen quite some folks with whom I have worked and now become close friends decide to leave for better pastures. In a way it maybe good for them.
Am also trying to get my groove back into a thing called fitness…Can’t believe I could run 10kms sometime last year. Man, this thing has been hurting me for ages, I reach a certain level of fitness and then it all comes down…it’s like hitting a plateau as you are trying to climb a mountain and then you take a break, the break gets too long and then rather than further climbing the mountain you start the descent cos’ it’s too late. Yes, have been in this rut for a long time and don’t see a way out. Am desperately hoping this doesn’t happen with my cycling. Have cycled 4 times in the first week of June and about 3 times in the second week to an overall cycling update of :-
Total Distance Covered on Merida: 1269 Kms approximately
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 1839 Kms approximately
See the plateau problem, I covered ~1000 kms on my Merida TFS 100 V from late Feb to late April that’s about 2 months and in the next one-and-half months I have covered only about 270kms. What can I attribute this slump to…rut, the daily grind. Any work/other pressures that come along the way and my fitness regimen takes a hit. Somehow need to inculcate discipline, it’s not that I don’t know that if I do go out for a run/ride things get clearer…but hey, it’s still not happening. Hey maybe it’s the rains…the weather is much colder, the rains make the earth much greener and I just feel so good tucked in bed.
On the 5/6/7th of June, had been to Ooty along with my office buddies. We have a staff welfare club at office, all of us contribute a paltry 100Rs every month and then over a period of time spend it organizing trips, group events, passing out T-Shirts/Jackets…yes the fun stuff…it keeps the fun in the workplace concept going. It was hectic, we left for Ooty from BLR on Friday night, reached Ooty on 6th morning. Lazed around, went to Coonoor, came back to Ooty and headed back on the 7th. It was great fun, and kudos to the young organizers who did an impressive job. Oh forgot to mention, I went alone, my ever accommodating wife and son, had absolute no qualms in allowing me to go on a “bachelor” outing.
Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade
May has turned out to be pretty hectic this year. Unfortunately my cycling has taken a big hit. I have not been able to cycle as much as I would have liked in these 2 weeks gone by. I might have cycled maybe only a couple of times so I guess there’s no point recording those details.
It’s been a month since Sawani and Arjun left for Pune and I guess my forced bachelorhood is coming to a close. It’s been interesting, man does life change. I have spent so many years alone while studying and growing up, but now it does feel a whole lot different. Maybe I will post a separate post on that sometime.
I am posting this from my home in Pune. Yes I travelled to Pune last Wednesday (13th May). My primary reason being to be at home with my parents for sometime and celebrate my 7th wedding anniversary (14th May) in Pune since Sawani and Arjun are also there. We plan to then go back to Bangalore over the weekend. They were in Pune for almost an entire month. Both of them have had a lovely and wonderful time in Pune with family and friends although Pune weather hasn’t been that great at all. It’s consistently hitting 40+ temperatures during the day time. Pune has (de)morphed into something so totally different from about 5-10 years back. Temperature is soaring, roads are shortening, traffic is bursting to seams..the once laid back people of Pune seem to be caught up in the race of their lives…it’s getting apparent and extremely pulsating. Pune is about 850 kms from Bangalore and I normally travel by my car. This time around was also no exception. I travelled alone, started at 2:30 am on the 12th and reached Pune at 1:30pm on the 13th. A distance of 850 kms in 11:30 hrs. Now that’s something on Indian roads, although I might add, that the Mumbai-Bangalore NH4 is now way upto International standards barring a couple of 100 kilometers primarily in Karnataka.
Being in Pune has been fun so far. It’s a great feeling when Arjun hugs me and says he was missing me. In fact I have taken priority for him, than even his grand-parents now ;) Distance and being apart from your loved ones over a period of time does eventually get you closer to them. We plan to travel to Mumbai in the later part of the day today. My very close buddies Vikram and Nital have moved into their new home in Mumbai and we are going across to see their new pad. They have worked hard, and we know what having your own home means. It’s an awesome and indescribable feeling. We plan to be back tomorrow in Pune and then in the later part of the day head back to Bangalore. It’s going to be hectic but lot of fun as well.
Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade
April 26th: Went for a longish bicycle ride. Rode from Brookefields-Whitefield-Sai-Baba Ashram – Old Madras Road – Pai Layout – IndiraNagar 80 ft road – Manipal Hospital – HAL – Marathahalli and back home. For some reason mapmyride is not loading the Bangalore map. In any case considering this ride was an extension ride from the April 23rd ride which was about 35 kms and considering this time around, I cycled all the way till Indiranagar I guess this must be atleast a 55 kms ride approximately. With this ride I have completed 1000 kms on my Merida.
April 27th – April 30th (4 days)– 20 kms per day. Office and back.
May 1st – Being an Indian Labour day, we had a holiday for 1st May. I decided to do a small loop – Brookefields – Old Madras Road – Indiranagar – Domlur – Manipal Hospital – Marathahalli – Back home. Had some medicines to collect from Domlur so decided to do a ride. Did this in the later part of the afternoon. Started at 2:30 and was back by 4 pm to watch the IPL matches. This ride must be approximately 20 kms. I had 2 tender coconuts along the way. I definitely need to get a cyclo-computer.
May 2nd and 3rd: No cycling
Total Distance Covered on Merida: 1129 Kms approximately
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 1699 Kms approximately
Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade
Came across a post by David Chambers on the ThinkFemtoCell blog that talks of a company trying to develop a GSM based femto cell on a USB stick. David has written an amazing post, introducing the company and their current device, their aim of extending this device into a femtocell device on a USB. He then goes further and explains the possible issues which need to be taken into consideration while putting up a femtocell on a usb stick. I whole-heartedly agree that this definitely is a potentially disruptive innovation technology and must be watched out for.
If this thing works; imagine the scenario:-
Form Factor:-
The way the femto works today, it involves a femto cell (cable modem type device) to be installed in each and every household. Yes they will be cheap, but it still involves a consumer going and buying a fairly bulky box from their local store. Imagine the whole of that box now on a USB stick ? Which would you prefer ?
Portability:-
Assuming this device supports the capability to just plug into a telephone jack and starts working, imagine the amazing potential. It would be impossible to carry around the current femto cells, but having them on a USB stick ? Who would not want to carry them around ?
Looks really good, but as David states in his blog, it’s not as easy as it sounds.
Here’s the original article by David:- http://www.thinkfemtocell.com/Technology/GSM-Femtocell-on-a-USB-stick-coming-soon.html
Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade
I realized looking at the blog archive that I haven’t written much in the month of April. I guess it was due to quite a bit of activities happening..but that should have actually resulted in more blogs. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out to log onto the computer and then type and post a blog. I wish there was something more simpler to post blogs…I wish it could be done via the mobile phone. I mean via an SMS, I could just send out an SMS and the entry gets posted on my blog. Does it work on blogger ? I don’t think so. There’s a company that works on a similar concept via email/sms Posterous. I did open a blog there, but not sure that’s going anywhere since I am unable to set my phone to do that. In any case google folks should notice it sometime and may provide us with this useful capability.
Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade
Phew, what a last couple of weeks. Hectic, busy at work all alone back in the home. My wife Sawani and my little one Arjun left for Pune to be at home. Arjun was just waiting for his summer holidays to start so that he could visit Pune and be with his grand-parents (both paternal and maternal). They left on April 14th so it’s been like 2 weeks (almost) since they have gone and I can’t tell how much I miss them. It’s amazing how life changes once you get married and so much more so once you have a child. Evenings without my Arjun in the house, it’s pretty boring. But hey, I do get a call from them almost daily updating about the happenings in Pune and what he did, what happened..etc. so it gets be back into a jolly mood.
So quite a lot has happened over the past 2 weeks. On the work front have been working on the Femto Controller requirements and things are shaping up pretty well.
My cycling has continued to be intermittent due to quite a lot of happenings.
April 10th: 20 kms
April 11th and 12th: I’m not sure if I cycled on that weekend. I think not. I guess I will have to keep doing this more regularly lest I forget.
April 13th: 20 kms
April 14th: No cycling. The day Arjun and Sawani left for Pune. I went to office by bus that day, Sawani in the afternoon came by car to my office (My office at Aiport road is along the way to the bus stand at Kalasipalyam) and then we drove together to the bus stand and I drove back to office and then later in the night back home.
April 15th, 16th, 17th: 20 kms each
April 18th: Decided to go on a ride towards Sarjapur. Went all the way upto Sarjapur village from Whitefield and further about 5-6 kms and then headed back via Bellandur - Outer Ring Road. This turns out to be around 50 kms ride. Pretty good really I completed most of it in about 2.15 hrs. Had a stopover at an eatery near Sarjapur, had delicious piping hot and spicy Idli-sambar-chutney alongwith a cup of tea. Had another stopover at my friends place at Outer Ring Road later since we were planning for a night dinner at my place (me and my office friends) interestingly most of them also are alone (wife and kid gone home) types so we decided to cook, drink and be merry that night. Here’s the route map of my ride
Came back home in the afternoon around 1:00 am and then went out to buy some mutton. Got about 3 kgs of mutton. We were about 6 of us (Chandra, Abhijit, Ajay, Suresh, Sarvesh and myself) There was one more guy whom I had invited, but he didn’t turn up (Satya) Well he almost never does. Chandra got some delicious home made chicken (about 2 kgs) and we gorged on it. All-in-all had a gala time later in the night, watching the IPL cricket matches, drinking and eating.
April 19th: No cycling. Recovering from the previous days party. Nothing much happened. Took to relaxing.
April 20th: 20 kms. It started raining in the evenings in Bangalore. Got completely drenched while coming back home. My cycle doesn’t even have tire guards, so you can imagine where and in which places I was completely drenched. So how/which is the best way to cycle even in the rain. Tire guards won’t look very cool in on my Merida. I guess the only option in front of me, if I have to continue cycling in the rains, is a good wet-suit (rain-coat) I guess. I need to get that sometime.
April 21, 22nd: Decided to go by car, due to the weather. Riding in the dark, with the rain is not safe. Better safe than never and hence decided it would be prudent to swallow my pride and go by car instead. April 23rd was declared a holiday at office due to the elections in Bangalore. Concept being, everyone must vote and there should be no excuse (had to work) to not go and cast your vote. Well, did I vote, no I haven’t. Why, I don’t have an election card here in Bangalore. Did I get one done ? No..Did I try to get one done? No. Is this a good thing? No ? Then why not ? Well, I read about the harrowing stories about trying to get the election card and then making sure that your name is listed in the voters list, I just grew tired thinking about it. It’s a lame excuse, I know. Maybe next year. So since 23rd was declared a holiday, we so-called-bachelor folks again decided to party. A very last moment kinda decision and we headed out to Satya’s place this time around. Suresh, Chandra, Satya and myself again cooked some chicken/mutton alongwith some whisky (got it through back-door channels since the liquor shops were officially closed) and IPL matches for company. Came back home by 12:00 am and signed out for the day.
April 23rd: Being a holiday, I decided to burn off the calories that I had put over the past day and due to not cycling was getting a bit restless. Decided to take a different route, went from Brookefield-Varthur-Hoodi-Sai-Baba-Ashram-Old-Madras-Road-Pai-Layout-and back to Brookefield.
Here’s the map: Distance covered as per the map: 35 kms
April 24th: No cycling due to weather. Went to office by car. We headed over to KFC for some fried chicken and burgers. It was a Friday so we office friends typically head out for lunch instead of having it in our office cafeteria. Interesting day became more interesting, since one of the consultants called me up later in the night saying that one of the telecom firms would like to interview me for a Pre-Sales Engineering Manager position the very next day, ie. for the 25th.
April 25th: Nothing much happened other than some basic brushing up in preparation for the interview. The interview was more of a discussion with the System Engineering folks at that company. Went all-right, but am not sure will get the job since the position may not be an exact match. Anyways it’s an interesting opening, so thought what’s the harm in going for a discussion. The company is doing pretty interesting work and has notched up several million dollars in venture funding. Came back home in the evening and was disappointed to see Mumbai Indians loosing to Deccan Chargers.
April 26th: Today: Posting this blog. May go out for a ride later. Have an interview scheduled with another company tomorrow.
Total Distance Covered on Merida: 974 Kms
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 1544 Kms
Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade
On 7th April 2009, about a week back from today, 3GPP in conjunction with Femto Forum and Broadband Forum officially published the first femtocell standard.
More details at http://www.3gpp.org/World-s-first-femtocell-standard
and
http://www.femtoforum.org/femto/pressreleases.php
All the related specs are available on the above mentioned links.
These are extremely interesting times, since I am bang in the middle of the Femto Gateway development at my company as a Primary System Engineer.
Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade
March 25th and 26th: 20 kms each
March 27th: Gudi Padwa holiday and Arjun’s 5th birthday. So no cycling
March 28th and 29th: Break from cycling
March 30th to April 3rd: 20 kms each
April 4th and 5th: Did not cycle on the weekend as well, since had caught a stomach bug late Friday night. Came home as usual and immediately after, rather while having my dinner my stomach seemed to give away. Most of the weekend was spent recuperating.
April 6th: No cycling. Had to go to office with my car, had some work lined up for in the later part of the day for which a car was needed.
April 7th: 5 kms. Started on my bike, but had to return from half-way back due to some family emergency.
April 8 and 9th: 20kms
Total Distance Covered on Merida: 769 Kms
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 1339 Kms
Cycling was a bit intermittent for the past couple of weeks. Haven’t got my weekend runs under my saddle, due to various reasons… parties, sickness and work. Hopefully will pick up the slack again from this week onwards. I still haven’t got my Merida TFS 100 serviced yet. The brakes particularly the rear have become real loose. I need to call up Venky and get her serviced. I am doing my bit, regular chain cleaning et.al., although a once-upon-a-time mechanical engineer turned software junkie, i am still in a newbie state-of-mind when repairing a bike. Well I tried my hands on my Hercules, but would prefer the experts to handle the Merida. Venky has promised first 3 services free, so am keeping my fingers crossed. All the distance readings are approximate since I don’t have a cyclo-computer but I’m pretty sure that I am on the conservative side when calculating distances.
Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade
Why don’t you mind map ? I think it’s an amazing concept. A graphical representation of your mind in front of you, let me tell you, may jolt you at first, but as you get the hang of it, I would think it would be an extremely useful productivity tool. Want to know more ?
What is a mind map ? Find it here (Mind Map)
Want to know the various mind mapping software ? Find it here (The List)
Following look interesting of the lot:-
FreeMind: Famous, well-known
XMIND: Looks to have more sets of features than FreeMind and has support for Free Mind as well.
Personal Brain: Looks pretty interesting. Will check it out soon.
So when will you mind map ?
Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade
Want to have a desktop makeover ? Hop over to BumpTop and see for yourself. Started by an Indian Origin Canadian Anand Agarawala, this is a real piece of interesting stuff.
Came to know about this at http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/07/bumptop-gives-windows-desktop-a-much-needed-makeover/
Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade
Received a regular email from the i-mint program and noticed a promotion of a site called http://www.buzzintown.com Hopped across to that site and found quite a bit of interesting city specific events happening. I think this is a good concept that was very much needed, a consolidated view of all the happening events across various cities. Now what would help is really an event calendar across the entire country based on specific selection criterion ex: Books and Exhibitions. This would give a list of exhibitions across India, throughout the year, and the capability to go ahead and register oneself for it. That would be cool.
Cheers,
Yogesh
One of my colleagues at office pointed me to the site www.ted.com, a macro site for talks (essentially videos) by the world’s leading thinkers and doers. Do check it out. Seems extremely interesting
Cheers,
Yogesh
On the auspicious occasion of Gudi Padwa, the Hindu New Year, on 27th March 2009, my son Arjun turned 5 years old. His growth has been nothing less than phenomenal for both Sawani and I and we have cherished every moment of it. It has been an absolute blessing and both of us thank the almighty profusely for giving us Arjun in our life.
This year on the 27th March, we celebrated Gudi Padwa in the morning hours by raising the traditional Gudi and praying to God for a happy and wonderful year ahead and thanking him for blessing us with the love and warmth of our parents, the joy and happiness of family and the amazing gift of raising a child. Arjun’s grandpa and grandmom (Vijay and Neela), my parents, came from Pune especially to celebrate and be an integral part of his birthday celebration. They actually undertook an uncomfortable 16+ hrs bus drive to be with us in Bangalore. Amazing. Arjun has been really enjoying their company and just loves it when they are here. Infact, in the night he needs to be tucked in with his grandmom every night.
In the evening, we celebrated Arjun’s birthday at our home in Brookefields in a nice homely fashion, with invitations specially made by Arjun to his little friends from the apartment complex. We got cake from a nice little cake shoppe at Indiranagar named CakeWalk, and other munchies (dhokla, gulab-jamun, sandwiches, chips, cold-drinks) and everyone had a blast. This year Arjun wanted a spiderman cake, so we got a spiderman mask cake made and I must say it was extremely well made. It was a fun filled evening, with music, cake, cold drinks flowing (literally) and the amazing kid banter.
For the night we had invited some of our next door neighbours for dinner. Sawani and my mom spent almost half of the afternoon preparing for dinner. It was a lavish spread of chicken, vegetables, shrikhand and a lot of other stuff. The chicken turned out especially well (I had some hand in it) and we partied till late in the night.
Photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/yranade/27March09GpadwaArjunBday#
Some videos are embedded below…
Video 1: Arjun’s Ovalna
Video 2: Arjun’s Birthday Cake
Video 3: Happy Birthday To You
Cheers,
Yogesh
Oh boy, it’s been a while since I posted. My cycling though hasn’t been as intermittent as my blogging. So here are the cycling updates:-
March 16th through 20th: 20kms to and fro each day
March 23rd and 24th: 20kms each
Total Distance Covered on Merida: 584 Kms
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 1154 Kms
My Merida is due for servicing. Oh and btw: March 22nd marked a month since I purchased my new joy.
Cheers,
YVR
http://selfmadescholar.com/b/self-education-resource-list/
An excellent resource for self education. Great to review some of your basics as well.
Cheers,
YVR
Embarked on my longest bicycle ride today. I decided to go from my house in Brookefields to Bangalore International Airport and back. I had no clue of the actual distance, but knew it would take 4 hrs minimum. I thought that I would keep going till I hit 2 hrs on my clock and head back. With this in mind, I woke up early at around 5:45 and was on the road by about 6:15am. Had a back pack in which I took 2 bottles of water and carried some cash with me. Decided to take the Brookefield-KR-Puram – Hebbal – NH 7 to BIAL. Was at the Hebbal junction at about 7:05 am. Decided to take some snaps around, gulped down some H20 and continued forward. The highway markers mentioned the BIAL was still 27 kms to go. The weather was nice and not very cold, visibility was clear, essentially perfect weather conditions for cycling (atleast in my mind). My mind was clear and fresh, decided to put on my radio. 91.9 Radio Indigo is an amazing aid with it belting out really nice numbers. From now on, my partner in crime was Radio Indigo. At 8:15 am, 2 hrs from start, I was about 4 kms away from the airport. As per the original plan, should have turned back, but the fact that the airport was just 4 kms away, I decided to go ahead (btw; this was my first visit to the International Airport). Reached the BIAL at about 8:30 am, to be welcomed by Army commandos at the airport. Chatted with them and asked if I could take a round of the airport, and they mentioned, I would have to ride along without stopping. My first impressions of the airport, atleast from the outside, it’s allright, nothing great though. Funnily the BIAL airport doesn’t even have a large billboard that states such (or did I miss it). Saw some Cafe’s on the sidewalks near the entrance, rode through, raising lot of heads, what in the world is a biker doing here ?
Stopped for another round of H20 and headed back. Journey back home was uneventful, V(R)ani Ganapati at Radio Indigo, giving me company. Heard numerous amazing numbers from the 70s,80s through the 90s. It was great. Rode nonstop till Hebbal junction (road is not that easy though, there all lot of climbs and downhills. It was fun. My legs felt fine and in general was feeling pretty good. The sun was not that harsh still, had a decent cloud cover so that made things a bit easier. Had another round of H20 and continued onwards on ORR. As I crossed the KR Puram bridge, stopped and had an ice-cream candy (orange flavour – 5 Rs) and reached home at 10:45. So overall time spent about 4:30 hrs for a distance of 86 kms (approx according to mapmyride). Here’s the map below…
For photos (none exceptional really) go on to http://picasaweb.google.com/yranade/RideToBIAL#
Reached home and gorged on some watermelon slices and had a nice round of khichri, hit the sack for about an hour. Overall am feeling a bit tired now, but should be ok by tomorrow, I think.
Cheers,
YVR
Extremely interesting…
Came across this @ http://static0.blip.pl/user_generated/update_pictures/198204.jpg?1232704996
Cheers,
YVR
Want to know the various 3GPP specification groups (TSG)? Visit http://www.3gpp.org/Specification-Groups
Cheers,
YVR
That’s the heading of a recent excellent post by Joel Spolsky at his Joel on Software blog. Here’s the link, read it, assimilate it and apply it.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/03/09.html
Cheers,
YVR
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