Apartment Search !!

Yes, you have every right to ask... go ahead .. who writes a blog on the apartment search right ? Absolutely true ... and this is not the first time I was looking for an apartment either so what made this apartment search so special ?

Well, this time I was looking for an apartment not just for myself !! It was for me and my wife-to-be ...both of us ... Before today, I never had to think about anyone else but myself and my needs .. :) .. Never thought of more than the hall size for my big screen TV or a shaded parking spot or even laundry inside the apartment itself .. But this time it was more than that ...

There is going to be one more person staying in that apartment ... with me !! I had to think from the community and facilities to the closet space ... Give the different ratings based on the size of the Kitchen and size of the apartment !!! This may sound funny (and even ridiculous) to some of the bachelor guys ... I know, it might have sounded the same to me a few years back .. :) But whatever you say, there was a whole different perspective to this tedious process (as tedious as the job search) of apartment search .. a kind of responsible tinge to it :)

First time, I felt responsible ... Responsible for someone other than me ... A good sign I guess :) !

Google search results changing with page #?

What do you make of the following google search results changing with page number ? Note the result page and the total number of pages shown below ... Why does it change with every page ? and that too so drastically ? going up and down !!

If you know the answer, please let me know ! Of course, there is some dynamic decision making going on in there - but whats it ? and are we sure that the 5th page (link to thre 5th page) mentioned on page 1 is the same page as the 5th page link mentioned on page 4 ?

btw, If I click on page 10 link on page 1 - I get the 5th page only !! so I think this is a bug ... Known or unknown thats the issue :) ...

Update : I dont see this behaviour on the www.live.com (Microsoft's online search engine). It shows you the exact same pages all the time !

Belated Happy Birthday ... :)

"It was your birthday on March 28th !? Are you not on my Orkut friends list !?? Happy Belated Birthday man ... "

What I have been hearing a lot from a few people last couple of days ... My question - Have we become so dependent on Orkut now ? I have deleted my orkut profile ... and wont be using it anymore ... I have somehow started *hating* orkut ! Most of my very good friends did wish me even without orkut reminder but a few of them did forget it ... mostly blaming orkut for the same ... once you have the facility, you tend to overuse it and delegate everything to it ...

what a disappointment !

India lost to Srilanka ... Terribly !! A 'Do or Die' match ... As far as I am concerned, India is out of the world cup ... Rather I should say, this Indian team does NOT deserve to play in the next round of World cup ! thats for sure ... Even if by some miracle if Bangladesh does 'manage' (there are many ways you know ;) ) to lose to Bermuda and India gets through, my money (and support) will not be for India for sure ...

The best team of paper, seven specialist batsmen .. but still more than its bowling, batting is what always suffers ... one after other all the batsmen return to the pavellion and its a disaster to watch ... the stalwarts like Sachin, Suarav(recently he is the only one in form), Dravid, Yuvraj, Dhoni - everyone ! no one can rise to the occasion ... no one who can sail Indian ship safely ashore ... its just pathetic ...

Look at Sachin Tendulkar's dismissal against SriLanka in the last game ... Is he a newcomer to cricket ? The basics of batting - no gap between bat and pad ... ok it was a good ball but then its Sachin we are talking about ! At one time, the world's best batsman !! If Yuvraj gets out on such a ball, I wont feel so bad but Sachin .. yaar tu bhi ? come on !! His lovely games ab sirf ek history ban ke reh gaya hai ... I am not saying that Sachin is responsible for India's defeat but everyone has to do their job ... and Sachin has a higher responsibility given the cirsumstances ...

Both Bangladesh and Srilanka games, we all got up at 6 am ! and sat there in front of the screens, cheering our throats out !! and what do we get ? a loss of 6 hours of valuable time and disppointment !! loads of it !!! I have not seen a more unreliable team than India man ... I am done supporting India ... Patriotism is one thing and supporting a weak unreliable team is another ...

May the best team win !!

Black Friday !

Never really blogged before, guess i was waiting for something that made me feel too good or too bad so that I actually put it in words.

Thought the title is perfect.. Not seen the movie yet so can't comment on how suitable it is for the movie, but yes it is apt for the past few fridays I have had and specially today...Well, its Friday evening and this week again I am stuck in office till late...

How come ?? I ask myself... why is it happening to me this week again... for the past how many weeks I have decided to treat myself by leaving early on Friday and start my weekend early.. But come friday afternoon and its like the stars conspire against me and everybody around is together with them in this... Every important training session gets scheduled on a friday, an urgent meeting or a last minute conference call with the overseas client always comes up on a friday evevning.. some crisis issue has to come on a friday evening... my computer decides to act funny on a friday evening... guess its the computers way of telling "enough, go home its the end of the week, give me a break" ...

Today I guess was by far one of the really bad ones... and so I got a topic to write my first blog on...To start with, I so didnt want to come to office today, thanks to my roommate who was going to stay home to take a break and treat herself to an extra holiday... Though I could not get that lucky, I promised her and to myself that I'll "leave early today"...

The day actually started in a really nice way ... work was getting done really fast and i was busy day-dreaming of leaving office at 3:30 in the afternoon... go home, watch TV or just sit and chat with my roommate or go out.. I had so many things to do I thought...Well, all this was just too good to be true and looks like someone managed to spy my thoughts as post lunch was such a havoc..

Now instead of one there were two "important" meeting scheduled.. one new joinee found time only today to get his doubts cleared... believe it or not my PC decided to restart on its own, i suddenly had 3-4 emails to be replied to ... and ofcourse as its a friday, it was obviously urgent. each one just manages to say please could u take care of this little thing before you leave early today :( :( were they joking ??

Well, here i am sulking in office at my desk, looking at people leave, saying goodbye and asking hey, how come u still here, u were supposed to leave early right ?? and I dont even want to answer that !!!! meri jakhmon pe namak chhidak rahe hain !

I am leaving my desk now but only to go upto the coffee machine to refill my mug :( and hoping I finish this "urgent" work and manage to reach home in time for dinner...

Did you notice ?

Have you noticed guys ? This is like the longest February EVER !! Is it just me or you feel the same ? I get up every day and its still the same damn month !! I know, I know .. its the shortest month of the year and all ... just 28 days this year ... but guess what, I dont agree with that ... From my experience, officially February 2007 is the longest month of my life so far ! Is there anyone who agrees with me ?

Everyday, I feel like writing this post .. every morning I hope it will be 1st March today but no !! :( I thought I will write this post in March but this month is so damn long .. it tested my patience and finally I gave in ! who cares what the date says on top of the post anyway .. right ?

Btw, March is my favourite month .. dunno why .. maybe its because my b'day comes in March (?) or maybe most of my very good friends' birthdays come in March ... or its just something I have in my mind ... but for whatever reason, I like March ... and this damn Feb is standing there like a wall between me and March ! But I guess its just a matter of just 2 days now and then it will all be over :) ..

Its 12 am on 27th Feb now ... so just 2 days from now, I am gonna heave a sigh of relief !!

Clinging to the past ...

When will I learn to move on in life ? why is it so hard for me ? especially if the past is back to your present but still has no future ... all its going to become is another past ... how can you ignore it completely so as not to hold on to it ? In fact why do I hold on to everything so tightly ? so tightly that it hurts ... Is it a mistake that I give my 100% - my everything ... I always can see that the path I choose is the one which is gonna bring nothing but sorrows and there is no light at the end of the tunnel and still I choose that path ... why do I do that ? always ? why do I always see that hope or should I say I want to see that ray of hope and so I go searching for it in complete darkness .. why ? why ?

How do I tell myself not to look back ... how .. I dont know the answer to that ... I really dont know .. how do I tell myself to be more practical in life ... think with head and not with heart ... The funny thing is the more I try to tell myself to ignore - the more it seems to be the wrong thing to do .. my mind just doesnt accept it .. and it always overpowers my actions ... I hate it .. wish I could just .. u know .. just learn from the past and not repeat the mistakes ... but the worst thing is I enjoy it .. enjoy being in the past though knowing that its gonna bring tears with it ...
I hate to give up ... I keep trying till the last minute .. try to fight the lost battle ...

Everything happens for the best ?

When was the last time you felt weak ? when was the last time you realized that you can never have full control over your life ? .. of course we all know it but if things work out the way you wanted them to - for a long period of time - then you start feeling, hey I decide the rules ! I have control over my life !! You start planning your future and then suddenly it hits you !! when you are completely unaware & unprepared ... its like someone out there wants to remind you, you are in the Matrix !! and you play by someone else's predecided rules !! You try to look back and redo all your calculations thinking that there must have been a mistake somewhere ... you must have done something wrong somewhere .. you try to debug the problem but after a long research you realize that ... there is no bug !! (there is no spoon !! remember ?) .. this is the expected behaviour !! what am I trying to debug ?

Why am I saying all this ? coz that realization happened to me just a few weeks back !! and I am glad it happened (of course ! now that its over ! duhh !!) Heres how ..

This new year 2006 had been going pretty well for me ... The job life had been good .. I was getting more and more responsibilities, the start-up I was working for, had been doing well or at least it looked like so .. I was getting more projects and was busier than before ! I had just been to India in Deewali 2005 and spent about a month ! Austin had been treating me well & I liked austin ! So all in all .. I was pretty happy, no issues whatsoever ...

I moved to a new apartment - bigger (and of course much higher rent !), better and close to my workplace on March 1st & signed a 12 month lease ... I threw away my old sofa & bed (they were in a very bad shape anyway !) and was ready to spend some money on buying a new sofa, bed and other furniture .. that day, I came back home a little early from office for unpacking and getting the new house in shape ... around 7 pm, my colleague called up and he is like 'Dude, you might want to come back to office" and I am like "why?" .."The company is closed down !!" ...I must say the first time it was damn funny but after a while when I found out that he was serious .. it hit me ! hit me hard !!!

What does this mean now ? what the hell went wrong there ? I am out of job ? i am out of job ? whats gonna happen next ? am I even allowed to stay here in US ?.. how many days ? what abt my visa ? what abt the money, the paychecks ? again, why the hell did the company close down ? why is this so sudden ? no notice no intimation no nothing ?what am I gonna say to my parents ? questions, questions and questions !! it filled my mind ... 'I am ok .. I can do this .. I can survive !!' I told myself but then looking back, the seven stages of grief were inevitable ... acceptance, anger, denial, depression, fear, guilt and shock. Exactly in that order !! It took me some time before I could get back in my senses and started thinking straight.

There it was .. the worst day of my life or so it seemed ! I was in US .. all alone .. with no job & a grace period of 10 days to find a new job before my H1 visa becomes invalid ! great !! 10 days .. is that some kind of a joke ? I didnt know what to do ... what I needed was a plan !! right !! a plan !!
Next day it became all clear ... we all spoke to a lawyer and here is what I had to do : I had to get a job or at least apply for an H1 visa transfer within next 15 - 20 days !

Next few days were so bad !! no time to sleep, no time to eat ... all the time just applying to any and every job online on dice, monster, yahoo hotjobs and company websites, forwarding resumes to my friends, calling up as many people as I could ... I mean it was just crazy ... But I must say things were not looking that bad ! I had a couple of phone interviews with Qpass, a couple with Amazon, one with Microsoft, Silicon Labs , freescale, Marvell and a few others within a span of hardly 7 - 10 days .. ! A few of them thru' contacts and (believe it or not !)a few by applying on company websites !!

so in all, things were moving .. but then so was time !! Microsoft on-site interview was scheduled for Wednesday March 15. That day was another great experience (check this out !) .. after a whole day's tiring interview, next day Microsoft called me up and gave me an offer !! My dream company was offering me a job !! How could I say no ?

So here I am ! A to be Microsoft-employee !! Truly believing that "Everything happens for the best !!" ... I could not have imagined a better end to this whole thing !! Looking back, I realized that I was at a curve 15 days back ... I could not see whats beyond and things looked pretty shaky at that time ...So does that mean I can see everything clearly now ? of course not !! .. so what has changed ? well, now I know that there will be more curves to come and I will be prepared for each of them ... I might skid on a few, I might hit a few obstacles on the way but journey wont stop ... its only just begun !! and I am going to enjoy every moment of it !!!

Coming to US for the first time ..

It was such a great feeling ! man ! I cant forget that day (3 yrs back but I still remember it so vividly ).. I was so very much excited about coming to US ... to add to that - it was my first time for traveling by plane ! well, I was going away from my parents, my sister, my country but I realized that much later (after coming to US !)

So anyway, we (my parents, sis and a few close friends) were on the Mumbai airport. The final good-byes were done. I took a trolly and put all my bags ( I think there were two big ones and one small bag and a carry on bag). Well, it wasnt anything unexpected when NWA staff told me that both the big bags are like 2 kgs overweight and they cant allow that. (Lots of people had told me this but still my mom wouldnt understand... her argument to whatever I said : 'you will be all alone there, who will take care of you there .. at least let me give you whatever I can' .. what can anyone say to that ? ) so I knew those bags were going to be over the weight limit. Still I tried convincing the NWA staff in vain for about 5-10 minutes ... then I removed a few pickle bottles & a few other things which were in the lower half of my favourites list and rushed back outside. I handed them over to my parents who were still waiting outside (and left only after my plane left the airport). Still bags were like 0.5 kg over the weight but this time the guy at the counter agreed. whoosh ! I was good to go now ... oh no ! wait .. there was one more line for passport, security check ... thankfully I cleared that in like 10 minutes and moved ahead to the waiting room till the boarding starts ...

That 20-minute wait till the boarding started seemed like the longest wait ... how will the plane be from inside ? what will i feel when it will take off ? how will the service be inside ? these and thousands of more questions ! finally the boarding started ... I got in and took a look inside ... hmm , not bad I said to myself ... the plane looked alright ... I got to my seat, put one of my bags on the upper shelf and the other under the seat and placed myself comfortably ... it was a window seat. (I had specially asked for one ! as if I thought I could open the windows and take a peek outside !! :) but still in trains we used to die for a window seat so why not in a plane right ? )

I put on the belt and all ... introduced myself to the fellow passenger sitting next to me ... another student going to US ... nice ... at least I had some company .. captain made an announcement about the next stop being amsterdam & bla bla bla .. why cant they just start the plane I thought .. anyway, so finally the plane started to move ... soon it took off .. yeah just like that ... no thrill .. I didnt feel anything ... nothing special ...

In fact, after a while I got so bored of the plane .. I was thinking ' get me out of here guys' ... From Mumbai to Amsterdam, I plainly rejected anything the air-staff offered except for the meal & slept off for the whole of the flight... but on the second flight from Amst'm to Seattle, I thought of experimenting a bit ... but what happened on that plane made me even more nervous ...

the air-hostess came with drinks and asked what I wanted .. I didnt know what all I can order and since this was the first time on plane, I didnt want to take any chances. ' they will surely have water' I said to myself and asked for water. she replied, 'I am sorry sir, I didnt get you' ... 'Water please' I stressed harder on the first word ... ' can u repeat that sir ?' ... and I was like, why the hell is she not understanding me ? Lets try once more I thought. ' Can I have some water please ?' ... 'I am really sorry sir, but what do u want again ? ' ... and I had lost it by now ... ' water, water, can I have some water ? ' this time all those waters had different pronounciations ... guess what , she still had that question mark look on her face ... and I had given up ...

But then the american lady sitting next to me told her, 'he wants water'... and the miracle happens ! 'Oh I am sorry sir ! here is your water !! ' and she handed me that small cup of water ... I swear I felt like asking that air-hostess, what was wrong with what I said .. if not exactly same, what american lady said was very close to how I pronounced water ... cant she just guess ? I mean one of the 4 - 5 waters I said must have been pretty close to what she is used to hearing ... but that time alongwith getting angry, I was getting so embarassed .. 'All the people on the plane must be looking at me' ... so I thanked that lady next to me ... drank that cup of water in one sip and slept off not to speak one more word for the whole plane ...

3 yrs later now, all these things seem pretty funny but that time it was a great experience ...