Saga De Ammerikka - 1

Whenever I have to go Ammerikka, Singapore Airlines is my preferred airline not because it passes by Singapore but because its so punctual on time and professional in service. Till now, none of my flights were delayed nor I had any BAD experience of in-flight service. So for this trip too, I planned to fly Singapore Airlines. Unfortunately, Singapore Airlines was almost Rs. 30,000 expensive compared to Qatar Airways. Moreover, Qatar offered only ONE stop where as in Singapore Airlines, they were two.

So, I decided to go with Qatar Airlines and booked my tickets with the lowest aiffare.

My flight from Ahmedabad was at 0530HRS. I kept awake the night of 4th to adjust my body to US time zone. But it was very challenging. When I reached Doha airport, though I was awake, I was almost sleepy. I forced myself to grab some pictures though…

Welcome to Doha… picture from within airport…

I did not notice any noose in this airport. Passengers were transported to and from plane by bus.

The airport has a nice but expensive shopping area…

Most shops were of perfumes and cosmetics and liquor with very few of electronics.

First I thought this is jus an arrival/departure display area but ….

…back of it was an internet cafe.

After a quick breakfast of home cooked food and coffee, I fell asleep for next 10 hours on this 14 hours direct flight to New York.

A one hour delayed pick-up brought me to National office at 7:30pm. I was feeling very tired and sleepy but I wanted to finish some work before calling a day. So only way I could keep myself awake was to pour some Java Chip in my eyes…

So I ended up in a nearby Starbuck and just the smell of it inside made me feel 50% fresh!

This is my drink – tall Java Chip – light ice, double pump of mocha and double blended!

I have received my new laptop and its lying in a box front of me. Looking at the picture of Java Chip has brought me 10% of energy :)… so I might have a look at it before calling a day.

The Social networking revisited…

Almost a year back, on April 07 2008, I wrote my confusion and fear of social networking sites… I did experiment a bit of facebook but the adventure stopped right there. But it seems social networking indeed is very powerful that it has brought me back to the same subject one more time!

Few days back, I received an email from one of close friends inviting me to LinkedIn. Last year, when I installed Xobni in my Outlook, I remembered it asking about LinkedIn. So, this time, taking that as an excuse, I created an account on LinkedIn and when I logged into it, I discovered whole new world there. LinkedIn seems to be more on a professionals networking than a social networking. I found RG and many others’ profiles there and some of them were really interesting. Many of my ex-ISRO friends also seem to be on this network and seeing their profiles revealed lots of missing information. LinkedIn seems less scary than facebook.

Later, I dared to logon to my facebook account and I was surprised that it was still active! There, Dr A had sent me an invite long back when she found me in Katerina’s profile. Adding her to my list, I ended up bringing Nishant to my connection. On Facebook only, I found that Dr A got her residency in UOC. Best of luck to her!

I feel that I need to be little more brave and embrace this social networking positively.

The power of RAW...

Few weeks back, Multimedia gang was in Barista. We took some pictures there and later, I discovered that white balance of all these pictures was just wrong. Fortunately, the camera was set to RAW + JPG mode and thus I had RAW version of all these pictures. From these RAW files, I could "develop" pictures to look better...

This is original as shot...

And this is just white-balance corrected one...

This is original half empty Ice Tea Yogi enjoyed...

And this is the corrected one...

We had a great time there as usual and had lots of fun there.

It is said that Brazil produces some of the best coffee in the world. This mug was in display in Barista... I have asked Alessandra to get some of Brazilian coffee on her return from Brasilia. Of course, in coming time, I should be prepared that I may not be able to consume coffee... too bad too bad...

Hmmm.... What is he doing? :) Actually, this picture depicts the power of f2.8 lens. Even in tungsten lighting and at very close distance, the lens produced very good image. Of course, the photographer aimed at the nose of Kuns instead of his eyes...