Waves

hi!!, came across this site called Linux from Scratch, that teaches you to build your own, customised linux from the source code. The site is very interesting and would be very useful for adventerous guys (he he).

Also check the linux documentation project. The site has also documented the linux kernel.

hmm…yesterday night, my computer was getting switched off for every minute i switched it on. This continued for the next 30 minutes that i was frustrated (Grrr…). I disconnected the CPU and opened it and checked for any loose connections. Not finding any i plugged it back….and still the problem continued…Well, if you were sitting beside me, i would have strangled you. aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!! (screaming)…

Checking the connections again, i found out the problem. It was the power input to the UPS that was the cause for all this. It was partially hanging. Thinking to be a champion electrician, i patted myself and got ready to mend the loose connection. Without switching off the power, i pushed the plug slightly into position. Suddenly, a siren was ringing from the UPS and all the computer was out again…Grrr….i nudged it again and BOOM!!…the UPS exploded. The whole house was cut off from power now…thanks to the “safe trip”, it saved me from getting electrocuted. After disconnecting the UPS, my computer is running on raw current now… 🙁

ok…enough of this rant…im off to buy a new UPS…bye !!

I was enjoying the winter morning, snuggling under the bed sheets when a splash of cold water came down on my face (Drat!!!). It was my mom shouting at me, not to waste the beautiful margazhi month. Grumbling, had bath and was off to the nearest temple. Infact, mom was right in the context of beautiful margazhi because, the roads on the way to the temple were decorated with colourful kolams (rangolis), some in the center of which had akals (diyas) and flowers shining brightly. They had taken the trouble to do this the previous night itself, and for all the trouble taken, i made sure i didn’t step on any. My mood took a transition from the grumbling one to the sunny one :-).

Soon, i reached the temple. After me, came a small boy and his mom. The boy had not yet started going to school. He was sooooo cute with chubby cheeks smothered with powder, with his blue t-shirt neatly tucked in and his tiny foot making its way to the temple. He also had a ‘U’ shaped namam on the middle of his forehead, at the center of which was a bright red pottu.

He started singing some rhymes and was hopping around the sanctum, when his mom called him for accepting the theerth (holy water) given to us by the poojaris. He stopped and asked the poojari a superb question, “Why is God black?” by seeing the idol. The poojari was blinking for a second. Everyone around him started smiling. Getting embarrassed, he replied that he didn’t know. Then came the next question, “Without knowing even this why are you doing pooja daily?“…Well, this was something i couldn’t hold on to. I broke into peels of laughter with everyone following the same ha ha ha…

The poojari was too embarassed to talk anything…his face becoming paler by the minute. The boy’s mom was too bewildered to talk anything else. She surely didn’t expect such a question from this small guy. The boy had started hopping around again….I still couldn’t control my laughter….oh!!! what a superb morning i had…

hi!! came across this superb quote from BrainyQuote…

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing – Walt Disney

As time and tide waits for none; the year 2005 came to a glorious end at the last milli-second. It was a very special year because each and every festival and get-together i took part taught me a lot of things. It was a year filled with enjoyment, lots of worries, abundance of love and affection, exquisite friendship, fearsome battles and what not. In the end, each event carved me into a better human, which has told me to expect the worst unexpected, be emotionally strong, mentally rock solid, stone deaf to unworthy comments, ignore stupid people, at the sametime take very good care of loved ones. Most importantly, my dreams have told me to be “Really really cool during adverse situations” and has told me to preach this to every human i encounter on the enduring journey of life.

My heart-felt wishes of a wonderful new year to my parents, my grand parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and the best of all, my dear friends whom i have(nt) met in the past, the present friends, the online friends whom i haven’t met, my co-blogging buddies and that includes my best online friend also ;-), not to forget my enemies (if any). I can’t thank God enough for giving me this life and my friends who have been/are/will be with me during the ecstasic and painful moments. Thanks a lot people, without you im not what im.

Wishing you all a successful year ahead…

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Okay, i was busy playing shuttle today morning ‘cos it was a superb sunday and as an exception i was woken up by a friend who thought i shouldn’t be sleeping (duh!). Never mind that, we were playing shuttle at 6:30AM. Some 5 minutes later, we felt some strange vibration. It stopped a few seconds later. And we continued to play…. Getting damn tired after 2 and half hours of playing, we started back home …. our clothes completely soiled from the play.

Then came the news, it came as a huge wave, bringing with it all the dirty pictures that washed away every single human heart in the world. The news created ripples of feelings, irrespective of caste, creed, religion, colour etc. It destroyed part of Mother Earth’s biggest continent. What followed was a week that we can’t forgot. Its not the ills of tsunami that im going to tell you about. Its about how the world helped the affected people to get them on track ASAP. Myself and my friend played a small role with the help of an elder, whom we can never forget. He is our friend philosopher and guide.

[Sunday – 26 Dec 2004]
The tsunami struck. First i thought it was just a hoax. As more news was pouring in, i soon realised something bad had happened. The rest of the day was spent on many Oooo’s and Aaaa’s, typical of every accident or incident encountered till now.

[Monday – 27 Dec 2004]
[9:00 AM]
My friend gets a message on his mobile. It told us to donate for tsunami relief and gave an address for doing so. The address was a place in north Chennai called Kolathur. Soon, we got into action. We collected clothes from our friends and got them assembled at my place. So much we got that it can’t be taken by public transport. We were wondering what to do with those, when we got a call from a person. We told him we have collected some clothes … and more than half of my house’s living room was full of them. He told us to keep it in our house itself and told something that he had planned for the evening.

[12:00 PM]
We assembled a small team of 8 year olds in my apartment. We also assigned them a team leader 😉 and told them to collect as much proper kitchen ware as possible. The one with the most vessels got 2 kitkat family packs. That was enough to set them on fire. About 2 hrs later, we had collected quite a lot of vessels too. Some more of my friends came and we were now 6 altogether with around 8 of those 8 year olds. This was exciting. We took some rest and the real adventure started after 6PM.

[6:00 PM]
A local team had been formed in the playground near my house…a bullock cart was arranged along with an auto-rickshaw that had a portable microphone attached to it. Two collection centers were also temporarily arranged. The auto went from street to street in the locality announcing that a bullock cart was on its way to collect relief items. With more than 40 of us now, lots and lots of items had been collected. The whole of the area was buzzing with activity. A lot of ladies from nearby houses came to those collection centers. They seggregated the clothes into shirts, pants, sarees etc. and made individual packs. A lot of work was going on at tremendous pace and everything was happening simultaneously. The more we brought in, they more they enjoyed of seggregating them. Hats off to those ladies and the 8 year olds !!! 😀

[10:00 PM]
The collected items were taken to a place called Vivekananda Kendra. The night was cold today. So, lots of bed sheets were taken now in a van for distribution at Fore Shore Estate. The sight that engulfed us was worse than what i mentioned here. When the van stopped and when the window was opened, people swarmed to get whatever they could. It was like throwing a stone at a beehive. Myself and my friend covered all the 20km in my bajaj sunny 😉 ‘cos the van was full. We returned home by 1:30 AM.

[Tuesday – 28 Dec 2004]
A meeting was organised to distribute the relief in an effective way. Those who swarmed yesterday aren’t beggers, they are people like us…many having a decent living but lost everything to the tsunami. So, something had to be done that will prevent them from swarming and also the relief will reach properly. A plan was devised. A survey was planned to assess the damage and requirements. Just collecting something and throwing it at them will never work and it is a waste of time too.

[Wednesday – 29 Dec 2004]
We assembled at Vivekananda Kendra at 10AM today. Myself, my close friend, the elder i mentioned and 10 others were packed in a Tata sumo to visit 3 villages along the East Coast Road. Similarly, other teams were also formed to visit the nearby areas. Some fellows had the opportunity to visit Nagapattinam (the worst affected place, where there was atleast a death in almost all houses), particularly a young doctor who spent the next month doing free service and helping them rehabilitate. Good work dude !!!

The first village was Chinnandi Kuppam near Neelangarai (Blue Lagoon). We heard almost all of the painful tales that they were telling. At places where there were huts, only stones remained. A huge chunk of a road was missing and it was found about half a km inland. Boats were thrown atop houses that managed to survive. Well, those sights are still fresh in my mind. We took a detailed survey of each and every house. They said, “Everybody is giving us packets of raw rice sir…with no oil or vessels to cook them, how do we use it? We are more than 200 families here”. This hit a point and made a note. One more remarkable thing happened. A team of Muslim doctors were doing a health checkup in a temple at this place symbolizing “Unity In Diversity”.

The other 2 villages that our team visited was Injambakkam & Panaiyurkuppam. We returned home by 8:30PM.

[Thursday – 30 Dec 2004]
We went back to Kendra and did lots of work there. Many people of my age were present and we made good friends with them. Some of them are still in contact. We seggregated clothes for half the day today. This was one of the toughtest parts because more than anything else clothes were abundant. Two guys from Pune had come down to Chennai for this purpose. As the segregation was being done, they were arranged into family packs. It contained 1 shirt, 1 pant, 1 saree, blouse material, a set for kids, 1 towel or bedsheet. They were packed and sealed.

[Friday – 31 Dec 2004]
Today, we took a hand with the vessels. Many people from big companies visited today. One of them notably asked us how much family packs we had assembled. We told, “about 150 yesterday”. He immediately called up Saravana stores and ordered 150 kerosene cookers. Wow!!. We also learnt how to stitch sacks after packing the vessels. First time in my life, i realised studying and earning a good life isn’t the only thing. There are lots more to life. It was a very exciting day. I just loved this moment.

[Saturday – 1 Jan 2005]
A new year began today. I realised a lot in the past week. With all the family packs, we were scheduled to go a place called Devaneri to distribute them. They contained a dress pack, kerosene cooker, 2 vessles, 2 tumblers, 5 kgs of rice, 2 soap bars, bread, biscuits, a small lamp, oil, a bed sheet, straw mat, pillow and a photo of Lord Ganesh and Jesus. We reached Devanari by around 11 AM. The experience on monday had taught us not to throw things. So, the older people who came with us, met the village heads and asked them to call all the families to an open ground where they would be delivered a hour’s lecture. When the lecture was going on, all the family packs were moved from the van to a counter. The whole process was done very fast with more than 25 of us in a chain.

The lecture was over by this time. One lady from each family was asked to get the relief materials. They all came in a quiet queue and the relief were distributed without even a wee bit of trouble. 😀

Thus came to an end a week that i can’t forget in my life. Furthermore, as part of the rehabilitation programme we assembled before pongal festival to get a survey of the number of people doing 10th and 12th in each of those villages. Myself and my friend went to Injambakkam to get the details. We also determined a place where a tuition can be housed. Exactly a week later, teachers were appointed and free tuitions were started. On the day of pongal, 15th Jan 2005 we went to Srinivasapuram to celebrate a united pongal, gave them mental strength to overcome this.

What more would i want?? The tsunami was an angel in disguise and it had taught me so much. If you wonder what you can do, try to be a part of a good NGO. Also try to donate a small sum of your salary every month for this purpose. Islam says, “For every Rs.100 you earn, donate Re.1”. My heart-felt thanks to the guys who made this possible and made me realise the other side of life…

Update: Check this post at World Wide Help blog. Also, check Echo Club !

LINQ or Language INtegrated Query is a set of classes in .NET that allows you to query arrays just as would query a database, using keywords such as ‘select’, ‘where’ etc.

Sounds interesting?? I’m just exploring it. Have a look at these sites in that order.
1. http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2005/09/13/464904.aspx
2. http://blogs.msdn.com/sriram/archive/2005/09/16/468927.aspx

There is also a video at channel9…Do check it out…http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=114680 and here is the related MSDN link that offers a lot of code samples and downloads.

By the way, it is supposed to be shipped with the next version of Visual Studio (Orcas).

I was taking notes very sincerely (occasional hobby he he)…every 20 or 30 seconds looking up to get what he was telling. The lecture was on how to speak well in group discussions during campus interviews. Some guys at the last were giggling at every word he spoke…it made me to smile ofcourse….classroom fun is too good…He completed what he was saying and then clapped his hands twice to the get attention of the class.

The giggling stopped…everyone looked up. He said, “Put the pens down. I’m going to tell you something important”. That said, even the last benchers looked up. The sound of all the books closing filled the room for sometime and then there was pin-drop silence. He cleared his throat….

“Do you know???” he began, “Do you know, im HIV positive”….What??? What the hell?? I was shell shocked. My eyes popped out. He continued, “im having leukemia too”. What the hell of a class was this…I was bombed. This was worse than the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. A HIV+ guy doing a class for us?? Not even in the wildest dreams i was imagining so…almost paralysed with that information. sniff…sniff…some girls on the far right had started weeping and they began to wipe their noses…the news too big for them to bear.

Seeing them, he began to laugh. I couldn’t just understand what he was doing. He tells he is HIV+ and starts laughing. Congrats!! for his positive approach but it was still beyond comprehension. He started again, “Didn’t I get you all by surprise?”. “Yes” was the unanymous reply. He said, “Words whether they are empty or full, they leave a huge impact. I know you wont forget this in your lifetime. So choose your words carefully in your Group Disscussion. If you dont then your job is out of your hands”.

How true that is with our life also. With hasty decisions and words thrown out carelessly, we not only create a crack between our friendship, we also leave a scar in our friend’s heart. So, let us choose words carefully before we speak. This brings back to my mind the famous Thirukkural “Theeyinal sutta pun ullaarum aaraathe naavinaal sutta vadu“. It means, “Even the deepest burns caused by fire will heal one day, but the burns caused by words wont heal”.

Brr…I’m shivering now!! The exam fever caught up sometime back…Its showing the symptoms of leaving now because of the rains…and the exams got postponed again.

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hi!! just remembered these very famous Kaviarasu Kannadasan’s poems….enjoy them….

1
kalangalil aval vasantham
kalaigalile aval oviyam
mathangalil aval margazhi
malargalile aval malligai

2
veedu varai uravu
veedhi varai manaivi
kaadu varai pillai
kadaisi varai yaro

These poems are really superb!!!

hi!! read these 2 poems….

Poem1:
saptiya bun
beachla mun
shoot panrathuku gun
kalayla udhikum sun
unga appavuku nee oru son

Poem2:
pepsi romba gup
nee kooda romba gabbu
vekka poraen appu
sariya mappu
beer kudicha erum mabbu
velaiku pona kidaikum dabbu
un mela enakku veruppu
en endral nee romba sharpu
nan than idhai writingu adhai nee nambu!!

Ha ha ha….these 2 are really comic…no meaning in them though. Ofcourse, they weren’t written by me.