Nothing Official Here: January 2009

Oh no... One More Barista Post...

It had been a while since I had visited Barista. This evening, I created an excuse to go there as I had one design to work on.

This is how its signboard has changed lately. Notice the girl at the door? She became a bit upset when I pointed out my camera to the sign board...

When I reached Barista, I found P&P already there! So instead of working on my design, most of my time there went in chitchatting with them.. the topics varied from tummy-growing problem to the recession and doing dishes at home...

By the time I could go back to my original corner and get ready to work on design, it was already a closing time for Barista.

And this is a view of Vijay Char Rasta from Barista corner where we have stood for hours gossiping a lot...

Since I could not work on the design, I have an excuse to go Barista again. But it seems the management of Barista has changed. I wanted to take the picture of the new menu board behind the serving counter and the barista there stopped me saying Barista no more allows inside photography. May be he meant the photography of its menu board or display area as when I took pictures of P&P or my laptop, he did not object it. But if this is indeed a policy, may be I should spend my time in Chocolate Room. Lets see how my mood is tomorrow.

Testing the mightiness of Mini...

To check the mightiness of Inspiron Mini in a real time environment, we had to travel few hundreds of kilometers to Bharuch. We started driving at mid afternoon and by the time we were about to off the national highway, we stopped by at Reliance's Refresh.

The sign was very professional and tempted us to have a look inside.

The recession has hit Reliance too that only two tables were occupied...

When wee were about an hour away from Bharuch, the driver wanted a bladder break. Look how colorful even such facilities are in India!

We reached Bharuch Temple in evening. Its a beautiful temple like all our other temples. This temple is located right on the side of the national highway.

We soon started the testing of the mini and by mid night, we were convinced about mini's mightiness.

So, next afternoon, we took a bypass to Kabir Vad before returning back. Kabir Vad is a few centuries old banyan tree wood area located on an island in Narmada river.

Milk Transportation System in this area! Shot from the rear sit of the car...

We boarded a "century old" diesel engine driven boat to cross the river.

Beautiful Narmada river whose water come all the way till 11KKN and goes far down to remote areas of Saurashtra and Kutchchh.

We walked on this temporary platform to reach the land on other end...

This is a Kabir Temple, built in the memory of the saint Kabir who created the banyan tree forest here.

A sample banyan tree... branches of this tree have came down upto the ground and formed another tree from them.

When we returned to the river, the boat was waiting for us...

In summary, it was a productive trip - both for work and fun!

Mini but Mighty?

For one of the medical applications, we need a laptop which is as small in size as 9 inches but yet powerful enough to run a critical medical software in an emergency situation. Since its a medical emergency software, the guaranteed performance of the laptop is very must.

Dell introduced Inspiron Mini 9 few months back and it seems the perfect fit for my application. I did talk to Dell about it but I was discouraged for this ATOM processor based laptop for such a critical application.

It seems that for the size of the laptop I am looking for, only ATOM based laptops are available. Since the application needs a laptop soon, I planned to try one of these mini laptops.

Dell has a 30 days return policy and I decided to take advantage of it so that if the laptop did not perform well, we could return it. As the wait time for new one was more than 3 weeks, we ordered refurbished one from Dell Outlet. It arrived in office in NJ next day and a friend brought it here in two days.

Its indeed very tiny notebook.

Most keys are available but the touch pad is very small. I had difficulties in restricting my finger movement on it.

This is Mini with Mouse!

And this is Mini with Sharpie!

Mini On Top of E6500...

and Mini in the lap of E6500.

I did load the medical application on it and in a non-real time, the application runs ok.

In a few days, I will be testing the application in real time mode where I will be able to check the performance of this laptop.

The Kite Flying...

January 14th is a special day that sun will be entering the northern side. This day is an astrological end to the winter for us and is also very auspicious as now onward, the sunshine will help in bringing new crop and prosperity. Historically, this day has been a day to remain under the sunlight as much as possible to recollect Vitamin D lost during winter season... and thus, people in Gujarat and especially in cities like Ahmedabad and Surat go on terrace and do kite flying whole day.

For me, my first part of the day was very occupied in testing the new HD player. After lunch, I did some system designing for a new project. By late afternoon, I was a bit bored doing this technical work and I decided to take a break. Since sun was not too bright, I decided to do some photography of today's festivity and went up on the terrace Below are some pictures I took today. All from my terrace. Its going to be a long and picture heavy post!

This was how the sky and the atmosphere was when I reached my terrace... It was not enough windy for a kite flying and thus not all terraces were crowded with people. But most terraces were playing loud bollywood music through their boom boxes... All tiny dark spots in above pictures are actually kites in the sky.

This is what a typical kite here looks like. Strings are attached to two places (where there are holes)... Its an art to tie these strings to the kite and a proper length of both strings only will produce a balanced kite which will follow your commands from the other end of the string.

This is a reel of the string called "Firki"... A normal string is treated with special coating which also includes glass dust to make it powerful to cut the string of other kites in the sky.

Kite flying here is usually done in a pair. One holds the firki and the other one actually flies the kite... Here, a hubby flies the kite and wife is holding the firki...

Son holds firki for dad...

Or dad holds for son...

And in case dad is busy with something else, mom is always there :)

In case you are too small to have either a wife or a son, your friend can hold it for you...

And in case your friend is busy in any optical exercise, you are Godzilla!

And in case you are too lazy like me, there is a way too...

After a while, the cloud formation made the sky very colorful and with some tweaking in the camera, I was able to capture it too...

The kite flying is fun and its like a war... Each flier would cut the string of nearby kite with his kite's string to survive in the sky. The cut kite descends on the ground. For people in the area where it would land is a free gift from the sky!

And in case you miss catching the kite, its so disappointing... I was able to grab three moments of such disappointment...

The kid notices a cut kite passing by and he rushes to grab it...

He tries to grab the string of the kite (but fails...)

While he seems getting ready for the next catch, his sister had a great disappointment...

When you have such a big catch, you are surely happy but even kids suffer with the greediness :)

No matter how your terrace is or even if you are on terrace or not, kite flying is very fun!

Notice the bandage on his left first finger? When you engage too much in kite war, the glass dust of your own string can cut your finger.The sleeve protects that finger.

For a moment, I was worried for him when he started leaning on the railing. But he was least worried.

There were some photography sessions going in parallel too!

And a daughter trying to console an angry dad...

If hubby ignores the wife for his kite, well, she starts doing an optical exercise!

I also got some interesting pictures of what was going on down the street...

A poor woman was catching some kites she would later sell to some lazy kite fliers who want ready made kites. Did you notice though bare footed, how colorful her cloths are?

This was her daughter helping her to catch some more...

Two old women were returning home after visiting the temple nearby...

A grandma was bringing her granddaughter back to home...

This milkwoman had no off today. Look how nicely she has balanced the can on her head and the glass on top of it is actually a measure for the milk.

He was a lone kite catcher who at that time had no catch yet...

The gossiping ladies across the street :) Notice the twist of legs of the right one!

A typical "family vehicle" here in India! Though officially only two people can ride a motorcycle (popularly called "bike" here) and helmet is compulsory, no one is following that rule... Look how worry free all three of them are...

Another such family with the kid sandwiched between parents...

And how many riding this scooter??? Four? You sure? If you are, you are wrong. There is one more kid in front of the mother which is reflected in the mirror...