Vim rants...

Hey people! I am back!
This is just a temporary template. The new one is still under construction.

The last weekend was pretty eventful.
Saturday I spent a hell lot of time on the new template for this blog.
An extra </div> somewhere in the code was driving me crazy, I could not fix it and had to start again from scrap.
That night, the Empeeror met with an accident and managed to get two ligaments in his right arm torn and lost a few finger nails.
I did not get a chance to see him, I spoke to him over fone.
Palas met him, and I am sure we can expect a good narrative from him.

Sunday, Ganesha Chathurthi.

Unmesh had gone to Kerala for the weekend, so we guys @ #63 decided to pay a visit to Dinu's house. Dinesh, Alex and Saji stay together near Banaswadi, half an hour drive from our place. Since there are no direct buses to Banaswadi from our place, we decided to take an auto-rickshaw.

At Dinu's house, we cooked rice, prepared chicken curry and egg burji.
While Alex was preparing chicken, we sat for a round of twenty-eight.
By 3PM, lunch was ready and we sat to feast. The curry was too spicy(little did we know we would suffer...) but yummy.

Around 4PM we decided to go to the playground nearby and catch up with some cricket.
There are 3 colleges in this locality, including a nursing college , and we had hell lotta fun walking down the road to the playground.
Two hours of cricket, we were dead tired. Managed to reach home somehow, took bath and went to bed.

Looking forward to read Palas Bhai's narrative..."the BMW tractor"

I am back , after a busy week !!!

Feeling refreshed after 4 days of extreme brain activity!
I am talking about my interview with IBM ISL. It all began with the development discussion with my managers in IBM. Following the discussions, I started to look around for internal job postings... my eyes always on ISL , been drooling abt it for long.

After an exhaustive search I was able to find contacts in ISL. *thats secret * . Heehee, I am not gonna publish it.

Discussed the movement with ze contacts and forwarded my profile. I never expected such a quick response, people I am in India! Hmm, things happened pretty quick, on Friday I got a call from one of the Managers in ISL ,"when can you appear for an interview on c/c++/os/testing ?"
Dis tym I was knocked outta my senses!

Since the excitement would kill me, i decided to take it at the earliest, got the appointment for Monday @ 1700 IST!

Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning were like, I dont know how to describe it, my dormant brain cells sprang to action, helping me read any c/cpp/os stuff that came my way and trying hard to retrieve loads of stuff I had read 5 yrs back...it was painful to clean up the dusted memory and establish proper neural connections. After hours of hardwork I could feel connections falling into place somewhere in my head.

Terror!st and Demolish kept a check on me during the preparation, heehee...they know me too well! Bhailog, hope I'll be able to live upto your expectations
Kickasso sent me some c/cpp faqs and Terros!st helped me a great deal with OS.

Well, after all the excersises, the time came for the interview *sigh* My body temp dropped, I was freezing!

I walked into the meeting room to face 3 panelists - people with 8+ years of experience in IBM!

After a quick intro we entered a tech round, we started with Java, first a Helloworld program! Hey, thats nothing to laugh at, in the last 28 months I have rarely written a line of code! That makes me a fresher
The Shelling lasted for almost 90 minutes and I think I got away with more than 60%!
After the first 90 minutes, there was another 30 minutes with the Manager.
They were looking for a 2yr+ experienced guy, that was another heartbreak.
Hmm, now their concern was whether could pick up the project in a couple of months.
I tried to convince them with my PBC Ratings and "thirst-for-knowledge".
Hmm, if they recognise it, I would be selected...it all depends on the result of the tech round. I am optimistic, lets hope for the best .

I forgot to mention, me blog was honoured, ze Manager peeped in and bookmarked me!

Well, that was my first interview on developement skills!

I still remember my interview with Ashish, for GSDC. The first question shot to me was "How good are you at N/W and OS?", next "Whats a DHCP?", "Lease? Explain how the lease is obtained", "Good, ....." a series of bombs followed, and finally "How much do you earn, and how much do you expect ?", " OK, I'll offer you...., glad?" . Remote Administration! that's the word that made me take the offer and join! lolz

I really wish this one was like that! Taking up this interview was a li'l step, if selected, it would be a giant leap! A dream come true!

Your EQ is 160

50 or less: Thanks for answering honestly. Now get yourself a shrink, quick! 51-70: When it comes to understanding human emotions, you'd have better luck understanding Chinese. 71-90: You've got more emotional intelligence than the average frat boy. Barely. 91-110: You're average. It's easy to predict how you'll react to things. But anyone could have guessed that. 111-130: You usually have it going on emotionally, but roadblocks tend to land you on your butt. 131-150: You are remarkable when it comes to relating with others. Only the biggest losers get under your skin. 150+: Two possibilities - you've either out "Dr. Phil-ed" Dr. Phil... or you're a dirty liar.

Got this from kickassso. I went at that result! lol

After the EQ test, Blogthings got onto my mind, I surfed for some interesting tests, this one did attract me...another surprise. lol

You Are 72% Gentleman

You are definitely a gentleman. You're very considerate and you have excellent manners. Occasionally, you slip and do something foolish... but usually no one notices!

Varghese had also come to B'lore. He was here for a few weeks. After a series of misfortunate events, he decided to go back.

Last month also saw me getting into a day shift. Whew! me having breakfast, lunch and dinner on time! Believe me, more than 3 meals a day, and on time! lol... guess I am putting on weight. I am quite enjoying this shift, more time with friends @ home, less of lonliness, more productive time, etc.

August might see me less and less on Orkut and Y!M, got a lot of work, honestly...pending work.

Yeah, I have decided to try and avoid procrastination... so you can expect regular updates blogger!

Ha! This is another post from the procrastinator. Heehee. But this is just a few days old.

It so happened that our Edmonton Team went for a sky dive last saturday.
People, I can hear my heart beat when I think of jumping from an airplane.

This is an email that Miguel sent out to the team a few days before the skydive:

...The short answer is YES. I am scared, very scared, but nothing is gonna stop me! I will be there to make one of my dreams come true! I do not know what of the above has scared me the most. But after August 5, 2006, I will certainly know which one will have done it . I know that because nothing else has scared me that much with one week in advance. I used to get scared only a few minutes in advance, when it was time for the action!

I hope we all will enjoy it. I do not know if there are any experienced sky jumpers in the team, but I know we all will be at least a little bit scared. That will not be a reason to give up. There are different ways to cope with anxiety. Having written this message and shared it with all of you has been mine. Now I am not as scared as I was when I typed "Welcome to the air everyone". I am confident I will face it much better...

On Monday when I came into the office, Miguel was online. He was on night shift from Edmonton.
Miguel briefed me about the team outing.
Here is the Chat log:

Me : Good Morning Miguel :) !
Miguel :

Miguel : we survived

...

Me : Hey, name all of em... lemme guess

...

Me : Adam in the center

...

Miguel : TIP: only 4 of us work with SP

Me : aw!

Me : kk...u with ur hand raised

Me : red helmet

Miguel : you got it

Me : who are the others with SP?

Miguel : Jasen and Luckron

Me : Jasen the sitting one

...

Me: Luckron? Never seen him b4

Miguel : the last one, right side

...

Miguel : we all had lots of fun

Me : how many times did ya jump?

Miguel : only one, I jumped at 9:30 PM. no time for more jumps

Miguel : lots of people yesterday

Me : night ? :o

Miguel : PM, but still with some Sun light, we are in the North, jejejeje

...

Miguel :

Miguel : so, it was not in large airplanes, ok?

...

Miguel : yeah

Miguel : there were at least 100 jumps yesterday

Miguel : from only 2 small airplanes

Miguel : so, it was a very busy day

Me : 100 people jumping! :o

Me : and u jumped with an instructor ryt?

Miguel : no

Miguel : the instructor was always the last one to jump

Miguel : so, each time 4, 5 or 6 people

Miguel : + the instructor

Me : man, so it was a .....whew!

Miguel : but the instructor would be the last one

Miguel : heheheh

Miguel : the instructor had never reached anyone whose parachute did not open

Me : i can feel myself falling...... aaaaaaaaaaaah

Me : did someones parachute not open?

Miguel : oh no

Miguel : that had finished the day sooner than expected

Miguel : can you believe that in a country that has less than 40 million people we have so many risking their lifes? LOL

...

Me : and was it easy falling guiding the parachute?

Miguel : yes, that is the EZ part

Miguel : I lways knew that

Me : and wen u guys were falling...u fell silently or did ya scream

Miguel : I do not know if anyone screamed

Miguel : I do not think so

Miguel : for first jumpers the parachute has a system that the instructor deploys and the parachute opens in less than 6 seconds

Me : too much of technology, eh?

Miguel : not reallyMiguel : all is mechanical...and based in simple physical laws

Miguel : the deployment system is not electronic or wireless as u might have thought

Miguel : it is like a very small parachute that the instructor pulls as you jump

...

Me : so he pulls the string and ask u to jump

Miguel : no, actually he has it in his hand and when you jump he just stays there in the plane

Me : so u just gotta fall....

Miguel : so, it will release the actual parachute in just a few seconds, and you just fall

Miguel : and if it does not open thaye will spend a long time placing all your pieces together

Me : lol

Miguel : there was only one accident yesterday

Miguel : and it was not from someone we knew

Me : :o accident

Miguel : A guy just broke his ankle in the landing…

Me : uh!

Me : hows the landing, btw?

Miguel : most of the time is EZ

Miguel : but if you make a mistake you can brake your feet, knees or some other bones

Miguel : and if that happens it is also noisy

Miguel : crack

Miguel : you can hear that from several meters away

Me : ah!

Miguel : but that is nothing compared to a parachute that does not open

Miguel : I am finally gone

Miguel : after this line

..........................

Those who never turned up from edmonton, guys u missed the fun!