Only in the United States

I saw this in CNN today. Although I dont care much for Bush's Leadership, there is some truth to what Bush says as far as tapping phone lines goes. However the point I wanted to make with this blog was that, one thing that I trully appreciate about the United States is the freedom of speech. In how many countries can journalists, leave alone ordinary civilians question the political leaders and tell their leaders that they ought to be ashamed of themselves in front of the whole world and get away with it?

May be this is in part a reason that fuels the "American Dream". God bless America

Productivity tips from Bill Gates - How He Works

Check this out..This is how Bill Gates works...The only really cool thing I thought were the 3 big ass monitors. For a long time now I have been wanting to won one of those babies...hopefully someday in the near future, Ill have enough money to justify spending $400 on one of those. Unfortunately I am a little poor compared to Bill!

Productivity tips from Bill Gates - How He Works: "At Fortune, Bill Gates talks about his workflow and his organization system. On top of his marketing stuff on his products, he talks about couple of key things that involves in his daily work life. Here are some key points: Paperless. Email is the first communication medium Uses email filtering to drop down the number of incoming emails [...]
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Reuse water with a toilet seat sink

Check this out...I thought it was a pretty cool idea. Especially where I grew up, in Chennai we had a lot of water scarcity and this sure beats having to wait for hours in a line to get couple of "kodums" of water.

Reuse water with a toilet seat sink: "

The Cool Tools weblog points out the Toilet Lid Sink, a topper for your toilet tank that first makes the water it uses to flush available for you to wash your hands.

With each flush of your commode, clean water that would otherwise go straight down the toilet is first routed up through a chrome gooseneck spigot to dispense pure water for hand washing. The Toilet Lid Sink installs easily without tools, is attractive for any bathroom and is a great space saver. Shuts off automatically. Porcelain-like white plastic replaces your existing tank top and adjusts to fit standard toilets up to 8in wide and 18-22in long. Built-in soap dish.

It looks a little goofy, and I imagine the toilet seat gets in the way of your washing your hands, but being a total sucker for water conservation methods that don't involve not flushing (yeek), I'm impressed. The Toilet Lid Sink'll set you back 90 bucks.
Toilet Lid Sink [Real Goods via Cool Tools]
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Related: MacGyver Tip: Make sandals from an old tire
Related: Safely lay to rest your old computer

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Vegetarian diet for weight loss

Check this out...Just what I have always been preaching!!

Vegetarian diet for weight loss: "David Pescovitz: A new scientific report suggests that a vegetarian or vegan diet is an effective way to lose weight. From a press release about the report, published in Nutrition Reviews:

Vegetarian populations tend to be slimmer than meat-eaters, and they experience lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other life-threatening conditions linked to overweight and obesity. The new review, compiling data from 87 previous studies, shows the weight-loss effect does not depend on exercise or calorie-counting, and it occurs at a rate of approximately 1 pound per week...

'There is evidence that a vegan diet causes an increased calorie burn after meals, meaning plant-based foods are being used more efficiently as fuel for the body, as opposed to being stored as fat,' says (researcher Dr. Neal) Barnard. Insulin sensitivity is increased by a vegan diet, allowing nutrients to more rapidly enter the cells of the body to be converted to heat rather than to fat. Link

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Of Sambhars and buckets

Reading this article certainly made my mouth water...especially since I was kinda hungry when I read it.


Of Sambhars and buckets: "Lavanya:

When Rathna Cafe, the famous Triplicane based eatery, opened a branch in T Nagar several months ago, it created a flutter in my family. Suddenly the usually calm elders of the family all got excited. It appeared that every one of them had a story to share - about fluffy hot idlis served with piping hot sambhar ('fusht klash' theriyuma <=> It was first class you know), delicious vadai dipped in sambhar, pongal dripping in ghee and accompanied by sambhar and so on. I noticed that sambhar kept recurring in all their stories.

Not one to let go of an opportunity to know, I asked the eldest to tell me more. He said that Rathna Cafe used to serve unlimited sambhar, the then equivalent of bottomless Coke, along with every South Indian tiffin item. And then came the icing, 'the server walked around with the sambhar bucket and he poured it out on our leaf with a steel mug' added Grandpa. Steel mug and sambhar in a bucket? Since I had never managed a visit to the original Rathna Cafe, I decided that the new one in T Nagar had to be visited and the sight of the bottomless sambhar matched with the one in my imagination.

Continued reading Of Sambhars and buckets...

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Also Chennai recently has become a well deserved addition to the list of cities which are metro blogged. Mumbai and Chennai are the only 2 cities in India that are there in the list of over 30 cities worldwide that are metroblogged.

check out the Chennai blog at http://chennai.metblogs.com

Writing – Just do it!

I have been reading a lot of blogs lately and I noticed there is a lot of writing talent out there. Yet I am sure tere must be a handful of them, like me who are amatuer writers...Here is something I founf that might help you.

Writing – Just do it!: "I used to be an English teacher and the most dreaded task that I could assign my students was to write a short essay. Perhaps that fear is a product of our technological environment where the art of writing to introduce or share an idea has given way to terse or coded phone messages, [...]
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Really Cool!!

A few weeks back, I was in an ice cream store in Berlin when a family with 3 toddlers walked into the store. Although I don't know for sure, it seemed to me like there was this guy, his 3 kids and his old parents. There wasnt a woman, outside of the grandmoter in the gathering so the guy, acting like a good father which most men are, was trying his level best to keep his children well behaved yet not be rude to them.

Among the children, who were actually quite well behaved, there was this little girl who was just outright adorable. She had a nice round face, pink cheeks and big expressive eyes. You'd have to be a serial killer or something like that if you could restrain smiling when you look at the girl in the face. Initially she came in and was generally yapping to her father and her grandparents (assumed!) and pointing at things etc., It was all in German so didnt really understand what she was saying.

But then, the moment her dad handed her the vanilla ice cream, a cone which she insisted on and even refused to hold a cup underneath the ice cream to prevent the ice cream from dripping all over her, she was out of this world! I mean literally for the next 15 minutes, I was just sitting there watching her eat, while she had totally tuned herself out of everything. She was holding the ice cream 6 inches from her face and it didnt matter what her dad or her grandparents were saying or what was happening around her. It didnt matter that the television she was earlier pointing to was playing cartoons now, she was focusing on her ice cream and nothing was going to take her attention away from it. Finally after she finished the ice cream, with some ice cream still on her nose, she looked up at her dad and smiled.

That definitely was one of the most beautiful things I have seen in my life. I was sitting there wondering, when was the last time anything at all, leave alone a 2 euro ice cream,  captured and held my absolute attention for soo long. If I was her father, I'd be a bad one as I will be buying her ice creams all the time just so I could watch her eat it!

That really was pretty cool!!

Mornings are beautiful....as long as you can sleep through them!

All over Europe, they switched to the British Summer time today, causing everybody in Europe to lose an hour of sleep. (although it makes little difference to me). Here is an article on BBC which says, wheather you are a morning person or an evening person is dependent upon your biological clock and there is nothing you can do to change it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4838644.stm

That's fine, I am not a morning person and have never been all my life. I can stay up all night, but once I hit the bed,  I am not waking up until a considerable amount of time has passed. I somehow find it more difficult to wake up at 4 am in the morning than to run a 10 mile marathon, not that I have done either of it!!

But then, I read an article about the characteristics of CEO's which appeared on Fortune sometime back, which says all of them are morning people or atleast they start their day early in the morning. Its a pretty neat article, check it out at

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/02/news/newsmakers/howiwork_fortune_032006/index.htm

Does this mean I will never become a CEO in my life??

Bloglines - Toyota's Achilles Heel

Bloglines user Venky (venkster@gmail.com) has sent this item to you, with the following personal message:

All you Lean folks out there, check this article out and let me know what you think about it.

btw, I dont necessarily agree or disagree with the article, so don't shoot the messenger.

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Evolving Excellence Thoughts on lean enterprise leadership from the editors of Superfactory

Toyota's Achilles Heel By Bill Waddell A remarkable article about Toyota appeared in the CNN site yesterday that exposes Toyota's Achilles heel - the ignorance of racism.  It also raises some serious doubt about their vaunted "Respect for People" principle. The point of the article is that Toyota is having management staffing problems.  They do not have enough qualified Japanese staff to control their growth - almost all of which is occurring outside of Japan.  Despite 75% of their personnel being from other countries, and having had a U.S. sales presence for almost 50 years and a manufacturing presence for over 20 years, all 26 Toyota board members are Japanese. All of the senior decision makers at headquarters are Japanese, as well. Mitsuo Kinoshita, the guy in charge of Toyota HR, says, "Getting overseas staff to share our views on management and quality is very difficult."  Really? That is either self-delusion or a tribute to incredibly poor training if 20 years of U.S. manufacturing has not produced anyone who understands Toyota's views on management and quality.  Or it could be that the Toyota management mind is such that, at the end of the day, they cannot ever come to accept the notion that a non-Japanese can be their managerial equivalent. Their 'Japanese only' headquarters culture is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  They point out that employee turnover at non-Japanese plants is much higher than it is in the land of the rising sun, which means "a 20-year track record means a lot more for a Japanese plant than factories elsewhere." With that excuse for refusing to allow non-Japanese folks into the inner circle, it seems to be a safe bet that good people will continue to leave Toyota, keeping the turnover rate churning. Staff turnover is an accurate measure of long term management performance and, by their own admission, Toyota is not doing well.  It is self-serving of them to write this off to American culture. Why would a smart, hard working non-Japanese man or woman stay with Toyota for very long when (1) there is a glass ceiling limiting the chances for promotion, and (2) there is good money to be made taking those skills to other companies or out on the consulting trail? Mr. Kinoshita says that Toyota's insistence on micro-managing and controlling everything from Japan is because, "We're afraid of slipping, so we can't help but interfere." How much respect does that show for people?  It seems to me that the cornerstone of respect is trust, and trust for anyone non-Japanese seems hard to come by at Toyota. Even Taichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo were deluded by national pride into downplaying their own contributions.  So much of their writing was couched in terms of how Japanese look at things and do things - attributing much of the Toyota Production System to this unique Japanese outlook and value system - yet very, very few Japanese companies have duplicated Toyota. Toyota founder, Sakichi Toyoda, was every bit the racist Henry Ford was and could be just as cruel in his opinions about the West as Ford was when it came to the 'International Jew'. That proud, but ignorant, value system does not seem to have completely evolved out of Toyota. In a post a few days ago, I included a quote by Massaki Imai, founder of the Kaizen Institute and vaunted TPS guru, where he said, "Japanese companies developed a very effective system of management, particularly in the manufacturing sectors, and the rest of the world has much to learn from these practices." I beg to differ, Mr. Imai.  "Japanese companies" did not develop "a very effective system of management" - Toyota did.  They are simply one Japanese company that was built by some very intelligent and capable individuals.  The fact that they were Japanese was not the reason for their success.  If it were, Japan would not be losing manufacturing jobs at a rate greater than the U.S., and there would not be such a thriving market for lean consultants in Japan. Toyota says they are stepping up to the problem by establishing training and education facilities in Japan, the U.S., Thailand and England to develop capable managers.  That strikes me as a worthwhile endeavor, but not one that will solve the problem.  If 20 years of demonstrated performance results by some very capable American managers in Toyota plants is not enough to convince the boys in Toyota City that someone who is not Japanese is qualified for advancement, then a sheepskin from Toyota U is not going to do it. In Rebirth of American Industry, I demonstrated how forty years of business success blinded GM and Ford to the flaws in their management system.  They were so sure of the 'rightness' of their model, they were incapable of recognizing and adopting improvements from external sources - namely Toyota.  Toyota is doomed to follow the same course if they do not develop the intellectual and moral integrity needed to take off their racial blinders.

Vacation

I wish I could be on vacation forever.

My Inner Hero - Warrior!

I'm courageous, straightforward, and charismatic. I'm a born leader, but I'm also not afraid to face danger on my own. Nothing stands between me and victory... nothing that lives to tell the tale, anyway. If you need someone to charge into battle for you, call on me.



How about you? Click here to find your own inner hero.

This is what i got as a review about myself..just dont know if this is just plain bullshit or actually means something...but at the moment it doesnt hurt to brag..does it?


Congratulations!

Hello, Warrior.

Character Stats:

Rogue (14)
Warrior (23)
Wizard (11)
Paladin (6)

Your Profile:

You're tough, courageous, and up to your eyebrows in chutzpah. If you're still in school, your teachers probably talk a lot about your "potential." If you work, your boss calls you a "pro-active self-starter," whatever that means. You don't shy away from hard work, that's for sure. When it comes to leisure, you'd rather be out hiking or biking or snowboarding than sitting around watching TV or reading a book. You care about your health, and have strong opinions.

Above all, you're a man/woman of action and a born leader. You see obstacles as challenges and hardship as an opportunity to build your character (and your muscles). You're not afraid of conflict - in fact, you're not afraid of much of anything. You tend to dive into things headfirst and sort out the consequences later.

Your Mission:

You were put on this earth to lead others. They will follow you, because they are bowled over by your forceful personality, your charisma, and your willingness to do what they're afraid to do. You are the one who has to make things happen, because everyone else is too afraid of rocking the boat.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to Start Something. Something small, or something big. Start a club at your school. Propose a new project to your boss. Invent a new family tradition. Start a small business. Start SOMETHING.

And don't dally about it. We WILL be checking up on you.

A Warning:

Try to remember: it's not all about you. Yes, people tend to do what you say, but don't abuse that power. Don't be a bully, even if you feel like the weaklings really deserve it. Have a Paladin teach you how to "make nice" when necessary. You have the potential to become a great leader, but only if you curb your tendency to be thoughtless, egocentric, and well, sometimes just plain rude.

And by the way, just because you don't understand something, that doesn't mean it's "stupid." Get a Wizard to figure things out for you instead of just giving up when your attention span runs out.

Fashion

I am convinced fashion should be a mandatory 0 credit course in college in India. Everytime I fly out of or into the United States, the flights are filled with a bunch of desis wearing well...interesting clothes, like for example dark brown trousers with light brown dress shirt and sneakers with black socks. Then ofcourse there always are the people (me including!!) who fly into the united States in summer wearing a jacket, expecting it to be freezing!!

The point I am trying to make is that India is rapidly growing into a superpower and its highly skilled abundant workforce is increasingly seen as a great positive. What all this means is that we are going to have more and more Indians work in different parts of the world. While its our performance that really counts, first impressions do matter and looking sharp and fashionable can't definitely hurt us. Also being sensitive to the culture of the place and genuinely trying to understand it and trying the local costumes will only make us more amicable and win us friends and fans world over. After all when was the last time we got pissed at a western woman for wearing a saree ? (which btw I still think is the most elegant yet sexiest costume a woman can wear)

I know people who know me or seen me atleast once are probably wondering who I am to be talking about fashion, being a pathetic dresser myself? The problem I have with fashion is

1) I was born color blind and still am color blind...so no matter how much I try, I dont see crimson or turquoise or olive, I see the world in red, blue or green and my knowledge is limited to the 12 basic colors you get in a pack of crayons. (I did really try...check out http://www.yaelf.com/colour.shtml) So if somebody tells me crimson will look good with ivory black...sure but first of all how does crimson and ivory black look like? you get the point?

2) Being an Engineer, it troubles me if something doesnt follow rules and can't be defined by algorithms and basic laws..and fashion is a fitting example of something that just doesnt follow any rules..Infact I always hear..to be fashionable you got to first break all rules and yet somehow when I break all rules...I look pretty disgusting!! And where rules do apply I follow them painstakingly...like the color of your socks should be the same as the color of your trousers, the color of your belt should match the color of your shoes, wide big ass buckle belt for jeans and dressier belts for trousers etc.,

Guess again that's where a course could have helped. I can vow if there was something like that 99% of college students wouldnt have missed a single class....it would have become like the "mid-day meal" for many college students to get to class.

Peel potatoes quicker!!

For all those people, like me out there who cook everyday and love potatoes, check this video out. It tells you how to peel a boiled potato in one step.

http://www.zonalibre.org/blog/roge/archives/090899.html

As true Lean enterprise enthusiast, I am a sucker for efficiency, be it on the shopfloor or elsewhere...

btw...you can thank me for the video through my amazon.com wishlist!!

Just Whining!!

As I am flying at about 40000 feet over the atlantic ocean, and its my worst flights I have taken in a long time. Here is the scene...

First of all I havent slept in a long time!! Knowing I will be flying tonite, I decided to sleep very little last night, hoping that would make me very tired and put me to sleep in the flight. So i was screwing around last night doing nothing productive and started packing at 12pm today for my flight at 4.15pm...blah...blah. Anyways that was all fine as, I did finish packing and made it alright to the Airport in time.

I check in my bags and the delta agent tells me sir, you are 4 lbs over...do you want to take out 4 lbs or pay the $25 fee. Needless to say I was shocked as all I had checked in was 1 bag and I knew the free baggage allowance was 2 bags of 50 lbs each. Then she clarified saying my bag weighed 54lbs and I have to remove 4 lbs. she said you can check in another bag if you want but we can't let you check in this 54 lbs bag. Reluctantly I removed 4 lbs from my check in luggage and put it in my hand luggage and still didnt understand what the big deal was all about though!!

And then I walk to the security check. I am not even going to get into that because, if you flown into or out of an airport in the United States you probably already know how big a hassle it is. Its the part of the war on terrorism, which attacks poor tax paying civilians esp. ppl travelling frequently on business, who pay for the war on terrorism in the first place. Anyways to make a long story short, within the security clearence area which is about 20 Sq. Ft, I was asked for my boarding pass 3 times by 3 different people. I am convinced now that 25% of the American workforce works in Airport Security.

Everything went smooth after that till I was about to board the flight to Paris from Cincinnati. I walk to the gate late (I was drinking Starbucks coffee, ate a Banana nut muffin and "parag pathyfying" the flights) only to realize the flight is going to be full and that there are no more exit row or bulk head seats available. so I am stuck in Zone 5 in an aisle (Thankfully) seat for 8 long hours.

Anyways all that was about 6 hours back..the reason I am writing this blog now is because..well i can't go to sleep. My master plan of being awake last night worked well because I am feeling very sleepy now...however I just don't seem to be able to find a position I can goto sleep in. I first tried to sit back and relax, but then there is a kid sitting right behind me who is screaming her guts off. I then put the tray out and tried to rest my head on it. after getting over the initial discomfort of squeezing in my big belly in so i could put head in the tray, while sitting in my coach seat, I realized the guy sitting in front of me seemed to get a kick out of moving his seat front and back every 30 seconds. Meanwhile thankfully the kid behind me stopped crying and started playing. Her game was to kick my seat with both her legs as fast as possible. All along we were running into soo much turbulence that the seat belt sign was on throughout and so I couldnt even walk out. i dont mean to be a whining S.O.B but thats not all! There is this guy sitting next to me or in my neighbourhood, who is farting like crazy. And I am not talking about mild farts here....I am talking about farts, that if left out of the plane will drill considerable sized holes in the ozone layer. So to protect the environment and save the world I decided to bear it all.

Atleast the journey has taught me of 2 things

1) Get to the gate early, beg, borrow or steal but somehow manage to get an exit row seat or a bulk head seat. Its worth waiting in the gate for an hour.

2) Stop being a cheap bastard and get those noise cancelling headphones. I am still not rich enough to buy the Bose headphones for $250 but I know Sony has some for under $50. I might just have to get that.

Btw did I mention about how the flight attendent threw an empty water bottle on me and refused to ask/give me something to drink while serving the 2 guys sitting next to me? Guess its just one of those days or nights.....whatever!!

I guess the screwed up Paris CDG airport is just exactly what I need after a miserable flight and over 24 hours without sleep....oh well!!

A new gadget and my entertainment center!!

Hey! I like toys, expensive toys that can make noise, move, works with battery or A.C power. I just recently got a new gadget which I consider the best gadget of 2005 (which is why i bought it!!), and magazines like PC World, Men's Health rate it as one of the top 10 gadgets of 2005. Its called a slingbox, and what it does is stream you television online. you ofcourse should have broadband connection and also a router (wired/wireless)but then you probably already have these two!! All that you need to do is to connect the slingbox to you DVR/Cablebox/Cable and also plug in a ethernet cable to the slingbox and connect the other end to you cable modem and you are all set on the hardware side!!

The slingbox comes with a slingplayer, which you install in your laptop, and you have to setup the router and the slingbox for remote viewing (basic port fowarding etc., child's play for anybody who uses bit torrents to...well you know what!!). and that's it!! watch your TV from anywhere in the world!! The slingbox also comes with IR guns, which acts as an universal remote and enables you to control you DVR from remote location. You can even set up new recordings, watch already recorded programs off your DVR etc. It essentially is advanced signal processing which enables online streaming. Also there isnt any subscription fees, once you buy the Slingbox you are all set!!

For those of you who already havent guessed it, my long term plans with the Slingbox? set it up in my house in India, and then I can watch all the cricket matches, MTV, Channel V, Sun TV, Surya TV (Midnight Masala ;), Kahani ghar ghar ki etc., all over here (or anywhere else in the world) and i dont have to pay a dime for it...pretty cool eh?? My entertainment center is however now a mess though with all the complex connections. There are a zillion cables running around my house to service my DVR, DVD Recorder, Home Theater, Slingbox, Cable Modem and Router. Check out below a picture of my entertainment center (well, I built it from scratch) and also my connections of AV devices!!

This is what you need to know about the entertainment center I built....

Total cost for lumber $60
Capital equipment $25
screws and fastners, glue, paint etc., - $20

Value, satisfaction, Pride I get looking at it and the aesthetics of the entertainment center - Priceless!!

There are some things money can buy, but for cooler things you need to talk to me!!

P.S> If you are wondering why the entertainment center is multi colored...well I ran out of paint, and all that was left were the yellow and black colors...and i thought...well what the heck!! after all it was never meant to be a contemporary piece of art anyway!!


Well these are the connections of the AV and computer devices in my house!! check it out!

Oru Vellai Kazhuthi-in Diary!!

Its been an interesting 3 months...definitely the peak of my business travel. Although on one hand there were tons of 60 hour weeks and working saturdays...there was also lots of fun associated with all the travelling, meeting different people, learning a little bit of a new language and ofcourse a vacation to Chennai, India.

I have been to 3 different contienents (North America, Europe, Asia), 4 different countries(U.S.A, Germany, France, India..I almost made it to Netherlands too!!) and numerous cities and countless restraunts in those numerous cities in the last 3 months. Travel is always associated with interesting incidents and I have had my share too. There have been numerous incidents which i had thought about blogging, but never really found the time. For example the time when I bit the fork, causing my gums to hurt for 2 whole weeks, while I was having an arguement with a colleague of mine over a business dinner or the the time, when I slip and fell in a bathtub and landed on my jaw in a hotel room in Paris.

People tell me I am lucky to have a job like this, I get to travel and meet different people, stay in nice hotels, visit different places...they often miss the big picture which is...along with travelling comes a problems, boredom and lonliness. For eg:- for the last 3 months I have been literally living of a suitcase. I definetely dont remember how my wardrobe looks and vagely remember how my apartment looks. I havent met some of my best friends for months despite the fact that they live only a couple of hundred miles away. I missed my best friend for 6 years's graduation ceremony. I havent watched my favorite program on television in the last 3 months and suddenly all the travelling doesnt sound that glamorous...does it?

As a new year dawns, I am first of all thankful to God, not just because I have a job but also because I have a job that I absolutely love. I realize that the new year brings about a lot of oppurtunities, along with a lot more travel, long flights and boring hotel rooms...but hey...I am 23 and single, If i dont do it now.....when will I? after all there is a career to be made...

Finally I thank god for the biggest gifts he gave me...the ability to be without worrying about problems till they actually appear & for my lazy dumbness, which prevents me from thinking about anything unless I absolutely have to. As long as I have these (flaws) qualities, I can lead (an)a (in)sane life (however you want to look at it!!!).

Chennai Pattinam!!

Any trip to Chennai is always wonderful. The city to me has an unrestrainable charm. I think thats interesting because thats typically an opinion only people who grew up in Chennai have. Most people who visit Chennai view it as a place with haphazard traffic, lotsa road work, numerous temples and a conservative city. Yet despite having visited a lot of other big cities in the world, I love Chennai because i have memories associated with the city's every nook and corner. I grew up roaming in its streets, eating the delicious roadside food it offers (popularly known as "kazh-izundhi Bhavan"), spending my evenings with my friends in Besant Nagar beach eating masala Kadalai.

Yes like any other self respecting college student I bunked college and went to satyam to catch a flick and then to Spencer's plaza. I enjoy the Nair Kadai Tea and the Babu Kadai food (Yes I went to SVCE). Ill stop now...this blog is not about food, its about the memories I have from every corner of the city. Like for example the time I bunked college and travelled from Sriperumbudur to Mount Road Devi Paradise theater, taking 3 different buses to watch Minnale with 15 others, The time when the 15 of us bunked college and went on a drive on ECR and then to Juhu beach to swim the whole day and to lay on the beach under the sun, followed by the first day first show of the movie "Kannathil Mutham Ittai" in Prarthana drive In theater.

I guess you should have got the point by now..which is

1) I used to bunk college a lot...which explains the dismal attendance record I had

2) I love Chennai and I always will, it might grow and become like Chicago one day, or might get a lot worse...it might be the most condervative city in the world or the most liberal...no matter what happens I will always enjoy my trip to the city.

its been a couple of years...

Tiday - 7/27/05...its been exactly 2 years since I came here to the United States. In these two years I have learnt a lot, matured quite a bit, found a job(I hope i still have it when i go back from school!!) made little money...spent tons of cash...met some great people..have had a crush..learnt a little bit about a new culture...etc. etc., the list goes on. But however this blog is not about my life here...its is actually about the dreams and aspirations I had when I came here. Yesterday I was talking to a bunch of my friends and somehow they reminded me of my Statement of Purpose that I sent here to the University of Kentucky with my application packet. My SOP is the only thing I have really written in my life (besides meaningless blogs) and also the one I spent over 2 months writing and refining. Check it out!!

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
________________________________________

I have a dream....said Martin Luther King Jr.

Not only in the context of the America of the 60's but also in today's context, this statement does convey a powerful meaning. For, dreams are what great achievements are made of. To me, dreams have always meant a lot. Be it the dream of owning that first remote-controlled car or succeeding in my engineering class, dreams have constantly paved the path for me in the pursuit of my goals. Right from my younger days, mechanics and machinery have fascinated me. The sheer power they produce have both intimidated and excited me. Little surprise that I decided that this was where my future was.

It's often said that success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. To me that 1% inspiration has always been my father. He started AMCON, a small industrial consultancy firm in 1982 (an offshoot of a company called IBCON Pvt. Ltd, started in 1940’s by an American, John Moore and developed into one of the leading Industrial Engineering consulting firm in India till 1982) and through sheer hard work and determination, transformed the firm into one of the leading consultancy firms in India. His success has left an indelible mark on my will to succeed too. With the 30 years of experience he has in Industrial Management, he has also been a source of immense knowledge to me in my endeavors.

The seeds to my future were sown in school where my obvious subject choices were Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science. These subjects not only provided me a strong foundation in engineering, but also furthered my interests in this field. As a logical follow-up, I took up Mechanical Engineering as my major in the Undergraduate course. I was fortunate in getting admission into one of the leading colleges in South India, namely Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering where I had the right environment to learn. The college attracts some of the brightest students and my classmates have been the greatest strength in my development through joint participation in seminars, organizing programs in college etc. During the course, I was exposed to subjects like Basic Engineering, Production Technology and Workshop, which gave me a lot of insight into present day manufacturing technology. I also took up Non-traditional Machining and Fluid Power control as my electives as I believe that these subjects have become an integral part of today's industrial scenario. During my third year, I developed a great interest in the field of Operations Research, a subject in which I am currently crediting. Subjects like Inventory Control, Job Scheduling, Assignment and Simulation have made me realize the immense potential this field has in store for the betterment of our industry. My natural flair for mathematics coupled with the fascination towards Operations Research and Manufacturing has made me choose Manufacturing Engineering, a subject that I believe gives me a phenomenal opportunity to pursue my interests in both fields.
To put my theoretical skills to good use, I took up industrial training at TAFE, a leading automobile manufacturer in India. As part of the training, I presented a project report on 'Cellular Manufacturing and Cost Control'. This project not only gave me an excellent opportunity to apply my theoretical knowledge but also introduced me to the concepts of cellular manufacturing and other Japanese concepts like 5S and Six Sigma. This project on cost control taught me the importance of waste management, made me think of ways to reduce cycle time and introduced me to concepts like 'Just in time' to cut unnecessary inventory. A number of my suggestions towards cost control were also implemented by the company. The most rewarding experience during the training was that it gave me an opportunity to observe closely the 'nature of work' of an Manufacturing engineer. Being a part of this setup, which was my future too, I knew I would love the challenge. And it indeed was!

I have always believed that my strength lies in my ability to think persistently about pressing problems till I come up with a plausible solution. The problem of depleting oil resources and rising pollution levels has made me realize the importance of Hybrid Vehicle technology. To this end, I presented a design paper on series Hybrid Vehicle Technology. This paper was very well received and the icing on the cake was the grant of US $2500 that I was awarded to make the Hybrid Vehicle. This indeed was a dream come true! This enormous success has not only reassured the faith that I have on myself but also instilled in me the confidence that "I can make a difference".

Just as the USA ranks highest in the list of countries, your university ranks among the best in the list of universities. During the course of my research about American Universities, the literature that I read about the department of Manufacturing Engineering in your university explains the clear thrust in my field of interest. It would indeed be a privilege to be an integral part of this highly acclaimed course in your prestigious university.

At this juncture, I would like to put forth my request to be considered for admission with financial assistance for the Master of Science program offered by the department of Manufacturing and Systems Engineering at your esteemed university. I can assure you that if I am admitted for the course, I will put forth my best efforts and ensure mutual progress.

When Martin Luther said those famous words, it reflected the stuff dreamers are made of - They see things not as they are, but as they will be! I am a dreamer and I am a doer. For a doer is one who makes what will be, what is! Every person's attitude determines his altitude and I am not afraid of heights!!

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Like most other SOP's I agree mine is a little exaggerated...but I can vouch most of it is true..and I still am in the pursuit of the heights I want to reach. This ladies and gentlemen is what I hope to do with my life!!

Laxmi!!

Folks,

Disclaimer: I know you dont come to my blog expecting to read something sensible. I shall fully live upto my reputation.

I wanted to let you guys know about something that has fascinated me and lotsa other guys the past 2 days here in Lexington. Yes thats my new RC car "Laxmi" For those who think I am mentally deranged and that Remote Controlled cars are for kids under 10 leave now!!

I am attaching pics of "Laxmi". Its a 4WD vehicle.





Aint it beautiful? I have already influenced a bunch of guys here and they are going to get similar RC cars and we plan on making a track and racing..wont that be awesome?

As for me...I am busy planning how I am gonna buy the "all new more powerful than ever 2006 Laxmi". Check out http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LG3210&P=1 for details...its got a hefty price tag though...a whooping $400
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I wonder how some people find going to the mall soo appealing? I need to go to the mall to get some stuff and have basically been procrastinating the visit for about a week now. The thought of going to a place seeing all the things I want to buy but cant afford to buy just doesnt sound to me like a very appealing thing to do!!

ok time to go and exercise;)

Lessons to learn!

I am not a big fan of fowards and am especially against passing off fowards as blogs. However the following is a foward my friend sent me which due to some odd reason I had the patience to read through and kinda liked it!

I Hope you like it too!!

Cleaning Lady.
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During my second month of college, our professor gave us a pop quiz.
I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions
until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who
cleans the school?" Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the
cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her
50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last
question blank.

Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would
count toward our quiz grade. "Absolutely," said the professor. "In
your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve
your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say "hello".
I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.

Always remember those who serve.
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In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10 -year-old
boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass
of water in front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" he asked.

"Fifty cents," replied the waitress. The little boy pulled is hand out
of his pocket and studied the coins in it. "Well, how much is a plain
dish of ice cream?" he inquired. By now more people were waiting for a
table and the waitress was growing impatient. "Thirty-five cents," she
brusquely replied. The little boy again counted his coins. "I'll have

The plain ice cream," he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put
the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream,
paid the cashier and left. When the waitress came back, she began to
cry as she wiped down the table. There, placed neatly beside the empty
dish, were two nickels and five pennies. You see, he couldn't have the sundae,
because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.

Giving When it Counts.
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Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to
know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare & serious
disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood
transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same
disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness.
The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked
the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I
saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and
saying, "Yes I'll do it if it will save her." As the transfusion
progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all
did, seeing the color returning to her cheek. Then his
face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and
asked with a trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away?".

Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought
he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood in order to save her.