And it didnot snow!:(

This was my first National Level Trek...At first I declined the idea of goin on this trek, which would take 11 full days as per our schedule. But then succumbed to the temptation of covering most of the places in North-Western India. More than everything, the very idea of getting to meet new pple from different cultures n making new frnds was quite an inviting idea...

[Bangalore-->Delhi--->Amritsar--->Pathankot--->Dalhousie-->
-->Kalatop--->Khajjiar--->Chamba--->Dalhousie--->Pathankot-->
-->Delhi-->Bangalore]

The trek was well planned by Abhinav n folks... The complete schedule can be found in my previous post..The schedule was followed most of the days, except some delays in train departures and arrival timings due to foggy conditions around Delhi and Amritsar places...

Our Janta for Trek

Things that deserves a mention....

The fun of journey (approx 6 days in bus and trains, and then trekking...wasnt that journey too;) ), the chilling temperatures, 6-7 layers of dressing, spirit shown by Indians at Wagah Border, Long Break from hooking onto lappy, exploring Delhi,Amritsar and places in HP, meeting some passionate trekkers who have been there and done it since ages, disciple wrt time exhibited at YHAI hostels, Fog at D & A, Zorbing at Khajjiar, Delhi Metro, the Mafia Game and our crazy logics, life on the edge throughout the trek, Rajdhani, photography, Josh filled Dances, Washing plates in frezing water, No-bath-for-3days Saga, The New year Celebs, The "Horse is red, horse is brown and cat is dead" episode, Harsh's photography, Viral's accent, Kiran's imitation of the same, The lasting wait for snow....And overall the EXPERIENCE.

Briefly Phrasing how the days slipped...

Left bang on 24th night.....reached Delhi on 26th morning at 11.30. am..had got a feel of the cold and Fog by then...Moved straight to YHAI hostel in Chanakyapuri, Freshened up...roamed at Cannaught place for the evening...then headed towards Nizzamudin to catch our train to Amritsar....Reached Amritsar next morning....had booked a hotel beforehand....stayed there, roamed around Golden temple, Jalianwallah bag, Wagah Border...Rested for the night at Amritsar...Left on next(28th dec) morning to on Bus to Pathankot from Amritsar...Hopped onto another Bus to reach Dalhousie( the base camp of YHAI) by evening 7....

Had to head straight for dinner (with our never forgetteble plate and cup;)). Thus started, the bond with out plates and cups, remained untill the last day of trek....then there was cultural evening of songs, shayaris, poems ...this was followed by cake cutting and bournvita...Then there was our own mafia game at bed.... Thus ended our first day at Trek....

Next day was reserved for Acclamatisation.....so as to implement the subject, we were woken up early in the morning at 5....and taken to Subash Chowk.....this was followed by some exercises which looked quite grilling in that stiff cold...

Day3 of trek, Dec30th, we walked for 11 kms from Dalhousie to Kalatop. Apparently Kalatop is the highest point we reched during our trek. Its 8k+ feet above sea level.."1942 love story" is said to be have some scenes shot here...Sunset point was main attraction here...The evening passed with funfilled competitive antyakshari...Night was fun too, with Kiran's heroics...

DW-10 Batch

Day4 of trek, Dec31st,...we trekked from Kalatop to Khajjiar. This route was comparitively the toughest of the trek involving long steep trails of climbing the hills...Khajjiar is referred to as mini Swiss because of the grassland vegetation here...Enjoyed Zorbing here...Missed the paragliding due to time constraints....Fellow friends had some nice plans for new year...New year cake was colourful to mark the occasion too..The euphoria of new year celebrations took a backseat due to some extra josh of localites....Anyway, didnot miss the chance to wish all our fellow frnds a very happy year to come....This was followed by some sound sleep..

Day5...was the usual trek.. Took time off to move around chamba and do some shopping...Also visited the Lakshmi Narayan and Chamundi temples, palace(which is now transformed into a college).....Evening passed with some dancing and mafia games....Some part of "Taal" is said to have been shot at Chamba....

The next morning a private bus was booked to take the entire Gang of 50+ to Dalhousie....Reached Dalhousie...After collecting our luggage, headed directly to catch a bus to Pathankot.....Took a train from Pathankot to Delhi.....Thanks to Fog at Pathankot....our train arrived 3 hrs late which gave us some shopping time here...Jammu mail was the train we boarded....worst ambience...train reached Delhi 5 hrs late...thus spoling our planned 1 day Delhi Dekho trip.....We headed to YHAI hostel....left for some lunch to Cannaught place.....We non-veggies went to Kake De Dabha for lunch....whereas veggies preffered Saravana Bhavan...Boarded metro...switched at some points...ended up in some market...did some sweets shopping....came back by metro too...Was very impressed by the way things are planned at Delhi metro.....Thanks to metro,places where we need min 1 1/2 hrs...we were able to reach in just under 10 mins....Eagerly waiting for the Bangalore metro to kickoff.....

Then boarded Rajdhani to Bangalore....good experience it was for 40hrs in Rajdhani.....Reached home by 11am on Jan 5th. From that point started our usual Bangalore routine starting with WFH......Next day newspapers read...."One of the coaches of Rajdhani caught fire when it was moved to some cleaning place"...that was the same Rajdhani we had travelled in.......Also there was photos of fresh snow in Dalhousie flashed in almost all the newspapers....It had just snowed after we left:(

Snaps:

Himalayan Trek

All set to hit the snow!

Its Recession time and as part of cost cutting measures, cisco has asked us to go on mandatory PTOs from 25th Dec to Jan 5th.

Thanks to our visionary Abhinav, who had forseen[;)] this and planned for Winter Trekking at Dalhousie. Am quite excited to see new places, meet new pple and experience nature at its best!. The pic below gives our schedule (courtesy Abhinav)

Merry X'mas and a very Happy New Year for all folks who stumbled upon this post. Cya soon!

F.R.I.E.N.D.S......

F.R.I.E.N.D.S... Man, what a show!...I've become completely addicted to this sitcom. Looks like thers no way am gonna stop unless I finish all 10 seasons or, will I rewind to the first season again?!:O. Let it be when am feelin lonely, or kinda confused as to what to do when thers lota work n study to do, or as part of that routine before I hit bed, this has always been my source of ultimate entertainment :).

Was kind of wondering, how did I get to like this show so much? I mainly watch television as an object of relaxation. So thers no room for serious stuff. Thats been the reason I always distance myself from hollywood stuff, most of which I believe fall under the action, thriller or full of logic kinda movie category. With FRIENDS, I've found a new era of interest in sitcoms.

FRIENDS is one show which guarantees a smile on u'r face (guffaw would be the right word here) no matter what mood you are in. Apart from the non-stop laughter guaranteed, it touches one with the keen frendship qualities displayed by the characters.

The best thing about frnds is the characters themselves. Amazing characters, with amazing acting to portray the meaning of the very term F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Instant comedy in every minute of the show is in store for u ...Each character is exemplary in their own way...Chandlers rhetorical questions, Joeys expressions, Ross's body language, Monicas never give-up attitude, Phoebes music and 'child at heart' behaviour, and Rachael's way of pulling Ross's leg is simply unmatched. Lastly, the way Janus cackles "Ohhh My Goddd!" deserves a mention here.

A question popped up....whoz the most famous character afterall..a quick check in orkut shows...chandler has 52k fans, joey 183k and phoebe 106k. FRIENDS as a show has 551k, expected na...afterall its the bonding among the six that everyone loves...

Some of my fav dialogues....

The way Phoebe introduces - " Hey everyone, this is Mr. XYZ and Mr.XYZ this is `everyone` "
Joey's famous one, " Hey, how u doin?...."
Joey's innocent way of protecting Chandler and Monica, " I am Joey. I am DISGUSTING!" (so I did the silly thing, whatever you are blaming C and M for)
Chandlers rhetorical questions starting with "Could this be any more...?"

Offlate, I did watch some episodes of "How I met your mother", a similar sitcom of 5 frnds. But I did feel this ones no match for F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

CCIP.... Finally!

Longtime since I blogged...The reason being the subject itself...hectic work and plans for personal growth, kept me kinda busy these days.

Networks has always interested me and so have been those certifications since college days. It was in Jan 07 that I finished my CCNA paper. The initial euphoria had made me think, I'll read CCNP for a month, practice for a month and become a Cisco Certified Network Professional in about 2 months. Thats when I skimmed through CCNP Syllabus, was aghast to discover that CCNP like CCNA is not just a single paper but its a set of 4 papers. Started off preparing with BSCI which is the common paper for CCNP, CCIP, CCVP and other professional level certifications. This subject is like our first year engineering wherin you get to read all different branches. Here it forms the base for all different certifications as it includes an introduction of all Interiro Gateway Protocals (IGP) and Exterior Gateway Protocols (EGP). Got hold of a book by some specific cisco author and began my preparation. The book started with the basics of each protocol and gave an indepth explanation of the different configurations, outputs and explanation for the same. Was so happy with this book that I never cared to have a look at other BSCI books and went for the exam in about 6 months. Flunked the first time.Only at the exam did i realise that I had reffered a book which was outdated and had some important chapters which were added offlate,missing. DHCP, IPv6, Multicast as I remember. Flunking was pretty dissapointing as I had slogged like the way I used to back in my college days. But yes, the fact also remains that BSCI syllabus is vast compared to any of the professional level papers.

Browsed a lot, used to read a lot of blogs related to success stories and also learned to use IOU, dynamips meanwhile. Decided I'll read cisco student guides to get a better understang of the concepts. And also got to know these were the syllabus followed in network academies. By referring to latest student guides I was atleast sure that I'm not missing out any topics with respect to the examination. At this point had to change my team. This is when I realised CCIP would be more appropriate for my responsibilities at work than CCNP. Started working on a project related to QoS broadband related areas. So decided to take up QoS certification first.Finished it and went back to BSCI (didnot change the book though :)). Got hold of those extra chapters I had missed and prepared well and passed BSCI in my second attempt. Then it was the time when confusion cropped wether BGP next or MPLS. Started with MPLS as it sounded the hott technology.Mid way through realised you needed good understanding of BGP to understand MPLS well. Eventhough BSCI had introduced to BGP topics,I didnot remember much about BGP as it was 6 months since I took the exam. So started preparing BGP in parallel, felt pretty interesting and finished studying most part of it. Speaking to seniors realised it was better to take a combined paper of BGP+MPLS. So prepared for both the exams and took a combined paper. Finished it by end of july 08. So it needed 1 1/2 years of weekend slogging to finish of my CCIP. Hope I'll constantly implement the concepts I've learnt at work and see to it that I'll develop more knowlegde in the ever expanding cisco technologies. But should accept, CCIP gave a good base for understanding basic concepts of multiple cisco technologies.

What next? Well have some non-technical plans in mind. Meanwhile thinking of giving some break and setting up a home PC with all latest configurations and high RAM to run dynamips and practice most of the concepts learnt all these days. This would make some serious sense if I decide on preparing for CCIE in near future. Works been really hectic from the last 8 months. Feeling a sense of satisfaction that I could pull of my professional certification inspite of hectic schedules. Much more happier that I finally found a topic and some time to pen down a blog here.:)

Long Weekend.....

Insomnia strikes yet again at the end of a weekend! And am here bloging at 2 am on a tues morn after a loong weekend. Stop, its not because of fear of the weekdays ahead;), its just the effect of afternoon slumbers on weekends :)

Numbers say that we have max number of long weekends in 2008. And here again one more just passed by.

Weekends for me basically include movies, swimming, meeting frnds,long rides,dining out, watching reality shows on TV and yes some work too. But most of the time the joy of long weekends is lost when you remember the proj deadlines at job fast approaching. Monthly time lines at work tend to wash off the essence of long weekends.

This weekend I ended up watching 2 movies. First one was Accident ( kannnada) directed by Ramesh. Had gone to this one with my cab frnds. The movie was meant to be a thriller, and yes to some extent it was. The story basically is the sudden death of our heros better half when hes out of the country. Media reports our dead heroine of having an affair and the reason for accident being drunken rash driving with her then boyfrnd. Not able to believe this, our hero decides to unravel the exact cause for the accident. The movie then is how he with the help of his frnds solves the mystery behind the murder. I would rate this movie as once watchable.

The second one was the much hyped Pavan Kalyans "jalsa" (telugu). Hype I guess was basically because of the well known characters in the movie, well know director and music director. And yes the title too adds to the hype, "jalsa" means enjoy having bindass time. Well to tel what the movie was all about, ohh yaa lemme think, yes the script was so bad that I seriously have to think all over about the 21/2 hrs to make some sense of what exactly it was about. All I can remember is "Pavan Kalyan", yes it was among those typical south Indian completely hero centric movie. Hero centric bcoz, you'll only hear the hero speak for most part of the movie.Some dialogues making sense and most of the time absolute non-sen se. Fights filled up in the movie and hero thrashing hundreds of rowdies throughtout single handedly. All in all it was complete crap, except a couple of gud songs and some gud dialogues. So beware before you plan for this much hyped one.

To overcome the disaster of spoiling our weekend by watching such a movie, we frnds headed straight to "The Lagoon" a new restaurant in our area. Had some typical kerala dishes and lots fun at the dinner...

Third and final day of weekend. Its Ugadi...our new year. Pujas at home, work for most of the day, heavy lunch followed by heavier slumber. So the long weekend is past now, get back to work pple:)

Bday...just another day?? Nah!!

10/10 was a special day. Had less sleep the previous night as expected. A very warm feeling when pple wish u at 00 hrs from all over. Late night, early morning and all day wishes...hah!..afterall it was my day:)

Celebration at office has always been special, afterall its expected when u have some very special frnds:) The suprise barging into my cube, the cake cutting, leg pulling, the bday song singing, and all along staying at their decibel best was the best part. And finally the GPL:( ...was the way it went.

Ond group Snap:)

My Shimmoga gang..... Feels happy to have such grt frnds. Always always you pple have made me feel special:).

As far as works concerned, it was one of the hectic days. Early morning meetings, long travel to office, celebration at office, and also making sure I had time for my frnds:)...the day had a mixture of everything.

Honours for the day..

Thanks frnds for all the time, wishes, gifts and kicks ;)...Also needs a mention...The msgs from unknown numbers, the status msg , the 1Re belief...and the Red Uniforms[:P] too!!

Thanks guys....this blog goes to u all..:)

One year at Cisco!!

This one particular blog gives me immense pleasure to write. The very topic says it all. Its been a very memorable n eventful year at cisco.Can write pages about my experience in the past one year.;)..hah!! dont worry ...will try to put in here with a compendious approach in mind.

It was 26th june, 2006....exactly an year ago...when i stepped in DC office of Cisco Systems.And writing this blog exactly an year after, and trying to just ponder over the past year...my brains swamped by immense nostalgia.

Past one year at cisco, in particular work life at Divyashree Chambers would remain in memory for ever.The college atmosphere we created at cisco, coupled with flexible work timings helped us to have the experience of fun at work, at its best. Its been a place of fun at work, right from day one. The work culture, the pple around and our ever enthusiastic group of college grads added a pinch of masala to all the fun. Life here has had a share of everything. Some extremely good pple, and some contrary to them.Those initail months of extreme fun, those fun at office and work at home days, those extremely time critical SRs. All in all... its been an experience!.

In cisco u'll get to see pple of all tastes....some extremly hard working nerds and some exactly d opposite;) We were a small gang of 12 frnds at cisco DC. I've had some very great cherishable moments with his gang. At the sametime have had some very sad moments too. Being with this group, I've had the fun of life. The never ending threads on our mailer lists, the lunches at cafetaria,the laughs that echoed "no one can beat this noise":D , the carrom , badmitton and TT games , the fun games on christmas eve, the birthday cakes, the birthday bumps, the gifts , the get-together at tea in every 2 hrs:)

I have learnt a lot in the past one year. Let it be technical, interactive or managerial skills or the art of getting along with pple with different tastes.Getting very close to pple, blabbering all sense n non-sense, and later realizing its always in everyones interest to maintain that "one arm;)"distance.Frankly speaking, me not among those guys who enjoyed my college days. It was always a count of days for me to just get out Eng college and get into a good job. Having transformed from being an extremely introvert guy to what i have been offlate says it all.My frnds often say, its kinda confusing the way i dealt with my college days and professional life.

Not to forget..."Cisco Sportunity" needs a mention. It did made me play all sorta games which i had never played but always wanted to;).Hah!!..just missed by a whisker in being cisco's "Asafa Powell":D

FUN it was...in the true sense!!