Winter Wunderland @Portland this december...

Okydok... it usually only lasts a couple days.. this time its getting to be close to 2 weeks. Is this all global warming heh?

Spending time with family for the first week was all great.... lots of table tennis at basement, Many movies from Hollywood (we just signed up for the month plan), borrowed more movies from neighbors... its great...

I have no chains now, so stuck at home.. got them 2006, but never knew how to use them. So we ended up giving it back to Les Schwab. Here is a video from Les Schwab.

Here are some pictures of our deck. Now i promise i took some pictures of our family, but fate was not on my side.. i forgot to put the stinking flash card..

I was so dead yesterday :-).. especially with the snow, i cant even run away and take cover from the fire my family was venting at me :-)

My first attempt to use sms blog..

3rd day home alone. 2 movies back to back with my son after bowling in Sunset lanes. Great time. He is still in bed.. i wokeup early to make sure my dog does'nt go hungry.

Alright... lots of bills to clearup before the week starts.

Chao!

Home alone for a week...

My wife always finds a reason to go visit home. Well, this time 2 of her relatives are getting married and nothing could stop... so here iam taking care of my 8 year old and the only one who has the best greeting when i get back home... yep thats my dog.

Yesterday Day1: Stopped the alarm and woke up late.. somehow managed to get my son ready for school in 30 mins!

Day2 Today: Lucky its a weekend, Breakfast is done. Piano at 10:15, lunch, and then need to figure out homework and some entertainment before dinner... Phew.. dont know how my wife pulls this off everyday... just 2 days and iam exhausted to even thing what i have been through!

Waiting for next friday to return!

Time to standup for Peace... Solidarity and Support

Hello All. We all witnessed the painful events that came about in Mumbai. As Indians in America it's our resposibility to standup ....to show support to all those grieving families back home who lost their closed ones ... and to send a message "we are with you !!".

Come in with Friends and family to join in a Prayer for peace and hold hands together to form a human chain for peace and dress in tri-colors to stand up in a silent protest against the Terror attacks in Mumbai.

The Date & Location are finalized, and the Peace & Prayer vigil will now be held at
3:00 PM on Sunday, December 14th at Pioneer Court House Square, Portland.


Important NOTEs :
• The event is now being held a week later than the original plan. So please make note !
• Due to fire hazard associated with lit candles, local fire department will not allow Candles at Pioneer court house square, so if you plan to bring - please use battery-powered candles ! other options to show support are - flowers, flags !
• Please be on-time and plan to arrive early than late (no IST please !)

Spread the word.. and do take a moment out of your busy schedules, and lead by example !

Blasts in Mumbai...

This is real bad... i love the way India Responded... Strong. India is resilient, and iam very confident India will spring back much more stronger. We live in crisis always and know how to handle this. Its very sad and the target are unassuming peace loving civilians that are choosen to be targets..


Its really hard to live peacefully with all the distractions muslim terrorists create. I have some really good muslim friends who feel sorry and are rather ashamed that a few could completely disrespect the religion and the purpose for which it rather came to existance.

I was listening to CNN after a long time to capture a glimpse of whats happening. Larry King was on discussing with Deepak Chopra. Right after that i heard a comment from CNN reporter Christianne Ammanpoor which is rather shocking. She appeared very upset with Deepak's comments hinting pakistan's involvement and appeared to rather justify the attacks. She said that the 150 million muslims are underprevilegded. Come on Christanne.. you better read and know more before becomming emotional and acting up... It makes me sick to hear your comments.

More facts by some poster here http://story.theusnews.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/b8de8e630faf3631/id/435982/cs/1/#reply

Its clear muslims have more freedom and representation... Would christianne justify if the underpreveleged blacks in USA do something similar. Its compeltely irresponsible for someone from CNN to do just sloppy representation in a national broadcast. Its a shame that CNN even has her on payroll..

Scammers using Dish Network

It was annoying to be called by guys from 1-877-656-9808. Claiming to be dish network rebate department and trying to sell monthly programming for $68 with latest equipment. Always suspected they were a fraud. Finally i asked for a number and they gave the about number. When i tried to call them back, I can easily see this guy trying to put an ugly USA accent. Total frauds. Then they called me from two other phone numbers, 203-201-2000 and 971-230-0738 asking for SSN, CC# etc...

I read here that more people have been affected. I think dish network should advertise to avoid getting a bad name.

Please be aware...

Curry for Kids

Portland area non-profit is teaming up with restaurants to help end TB in India.

Thursday Oct 30th dine in any of the restaurants in the list, they would contribute a percentage of sales towards the cause.

Visit Progressive Health Worldwide for more details.

Opensolaris supporting fast-reboot

For people who work with a real OS... OpenSolaris build 100 now supports fastboot.

The minute i installed b100 i found great use for it. Its typical that once i install a lab system for development, i always have to set proper network params, hostname and such to work with DHCP blah blah... and then i would need to reboot.

deciced to give it a try and reboot -f , got the prompt (including X) back in about 7-10 secs) which was fantastic...

Thank you Sherrie from sun for providing this neat feature.. now only if you extend to support panic reboots would be fantastic.

Check the manpage for reboot for additional options.

Great work Sherrie!

Allen @work

Allen was here graciously covering for me & bob while on sabbatical. He is leaving back to home. Here are some pictures today after lunch at Thai Orchid.



Bob, Steve, Allen and Geetha



Allen posing in front of his Car... btw: he didnt drive like in China :-)



Steve wondering what to order for lunch

my iphone review

Ok, I didn't get the first version of the iphone so I could get the 3g version. Overall I'm impressed, but seems to lack some intelligence when u get a product from apple. Here are a few cases.

- 3G sucks battery like crazy. Even with 3G off, Wifi off, and using it as a simple phone it doesn't last more than a day and half.
- with 3G on and if the signal is weak, it's not switching to edge. Insted ur phone quits working unless u switch 3g off manually
- they should really turn on 3G or WIfi on or off on demand right when an app needs it. That could save pwr significantly and save going to settings like 20 times a day.


- atleast make battery easily replaceable
- ability to make custom rtones should be free. There is one for iMac (garage band), but would love to have that on PC as well
- need some way to cut/paste. Dam, it was even on windoZ ce

But all said Iam afraid it's still a cool product..

Some apps I like

- papikump (game)
- tetris
- palringo (im that connects to everything)
- facebook, twiterrific, photobucket
- shazam ((it's really cool, finds even my Tamil songs). Beats midori to dust for being a free app.
- iphunny
- vnc

I won't return it though. Although it could be better

That's it for now

Sabbatical in India

Alright... finally after 7 hard years... my employer gives me a break with a sabbatical. Paid vacation for full 8 weeks. (Iam happy they still do it when several others have pulled this nice benefit away).

I have been here for a fully day and a half already, after gurelling some 20+ hrs in flight with 2 kids...

More to come...

Through the eyes of your dogs...

I got a great article from my son's school titled the same. I felt how true the statement was. Dogs have and give you that unconditional love. Yes there is a small expectation you provide food and water, but he is always happy and doesnt hide that excitement anytime he sees you.

I probably have read or heard something similar, but unless you own one and vitness it for youseself you dont really appreciate it.

The world would be a happy place if only you could have the same relationship you have with your dog, with other humans around you. (i mean me included...) it totally changes your perspective for love and affection.

The fringe benefits, keeps you trim (as you have to take him to walks), gives you good diversion from everyday stress when you play with them. My wife has reduced blood pressure in just the last 3 months after we got him. (sure the kids do their part to make sure it doesnt stay low :-)).

Iam sure the puppy habits of chewing the coffee table, some minor mistakes when he grows up can be easily forgotten, and woudnt seem anything you would even notice for all the great puppy love he showers on you.

btw: Our puppy is Troy, He is a labradoodle, we got him when he was exactly 8 weeks old a day before christmas in Dec 2007. Surprisingly his birthday is just a day after our anniversary.

Unlocking my Sunrocket PAP2 (2102-R)

Finally.. i have that dead beast fully awakened. I was not paying attension for a while and seems someone has done a great job of automating via livecd. Basically the profile on the pap2 is set to get updates just from one server from sunrocket. So the guy basically created a livecd with apache web browser, whose IP is the restricted ip on the gizmo.

1. Setup a crossover cable between your computer and the gizmo.
2. keep the gizmo powered down.
3. Download and create a livecd as documented in link.
- Livecd from here
4. Power your pap2, make sure the cable is connected to the Internet jack (blue)
5. Boot livecd, you should see the internet link turn green.
6. Test if the IP is assigned
- Pickup the phone
- ****
- 110#
7. Now just follow the instructions on the screen.

Shoun'nt take more than couple minutes. If it takes too long, there is cable issues, or maybe your device didnt get ip. Sometimes its that the laptop you use is too new and the livecd cannot handle the network card.

8. Now signup with gizmo project, and you can setup the device.
9. I actually setup grandcentral to forward to gizmo device, and sort of have a free incomming local land line now.!


WooHooo..

China == the great firewall!

Just after jet lag, and spending some time with kids over spring break...

getting back to my blogging... more pictures of Shanghai downtown comming next.. truly amazing..


Its simply amazing... that a country would just block certain sites, especially ones that are free expression.. like google blogger accounts, livejournal, youtube and such...

for crying out loud... even wiki...

we were in a hotel and i guess its strange, it permits to enter new blog accounts, but you can't read em.. same with livejournal.

we just found a way to work around it though... login to your vpn account in the US, and then you are on your way... :)

We also find quite strange stories in the papper, it appears just flavoured to what the people should hear rather than what you see happen.

But the people seem pasionate about what the goverment is doing though... which appeared strange.!

Newpappers had good coverage of sports similar to India, i had seen very good overall news coverage and sports in less papper than what i see here in Oregonian.

Great wall of China

We reached Beijing around 6:45AM, and decided to get a quick clean and head out at 7:30AM for breakfast. We left the Kerry Center around 8:30 or so.

The taxis are like my home India. We called and he asks about 1000 RNB. Then we offered around 500RNB, and then we finally settled for 650 RNB. It was great. experience.

On the drive we saw the future communications center

Here we are at the foot hills before the climb.

There are lots of bears just before the walk. Poor guys, they lost their habitat to the tourists :-(


Me the great trying to conquer the Great wall :-)

Dave my boss, here trying to convey iam late !?

Unforgettable events @ Air China

So to recap, we were supposed to take off @7:30am by United to Beijing, instead we were stuck at PDX until 7:30PM. We managed to get a flight to LAX, and the United assisted worked some magic and got us on to Air China. The tickets show confirmed, and she said we should get boarding pass at the terminal.

So I thought the worse is over!... well... hang on..

We reach LAX, manage to get a shuttle to terminal 2. When we reach the ticketing folks we had another bombshell waiting for us.

The agent claims we have seats, but they are not confirmed :), heck i don't know what that means. She claims united did not confirm, so we are actually on standby for a 1:15AM Flight. She asks to go to united counter and ask them for travel/compensation since its united fault.

We head all the way to Terminal 7, where the united counter is located. Gale checked into it and saz that we are confirmed and don't understand why the Air China folks are giving a hard time. Since it shows as ticketed and ready to go.

She promised that if we come back someone here will take care of accommodation etc. So we are like a ping pong ball back and forth between the 2 terminals.

We head back to Terminal 2, since Dave is this super flying club member, we walk to 1st class check in, A guy called peter was so kind and it was swift with no issues.He basically gave us boarding passes with seat numbers assigned. He also gave us Red Carpet club passes to use while we wait.

We just managed to go to the club level, and just about got connected. Peter was back looking for us. He said we would need to go back to ticketing and get a new boarding pass. When we asked why, he didn't say anything but just said its same seat but new boarding pass. so we follow him out of the security gates again...

Now the same jokers are waiting at the ticketing and grinning at us. She saz i told you to wait, so there is no confirmation yet, but we are on standby #4,5. Oh Crap again...

So we keep standing there venting nothing but fumes, and after that drama she decides to give us the same seats and boarding pass. I noticed on the way back that my boarding pass was missing my Mileage number. Dave suggested to get checked at the counter before boarding.

Now back to security another time, We decide to go directly to the gates before another drama unfolds. I forgot to check at the front desk for mileage so we are at the Jetway. The same joker is now standing there and looking for me. The guy says my bag is large. I showed him two other people carrying about the same sized bags in. Now he says my bag is heavy. He was desperately trying to get my bag to check in, so maybe he can lose it as well?

Dave is insisting it is not heavy, and not big, so we decide to walk in and put this overheard. We told him if it doesn't fit we will check it in. The guy kept following us and said the hostess wont let us in. We just kept waking and the flight attendant didn't worry at all. This guy retreated back!!!

Once we were in the aircraft Dave suggested i check my mileage situation. So i walked out of the aircraft and the same joker was standing there. He claims nothing can be done now for mileage and i will need to check at Beijing. I told him its unlikely i would be able to do that, and wanted the credit entered now. When he refused i asked him to give me his name and agent #.
This is the hilarious part. He closed his ID card to i wont be able to take note of his name, and said he will call his supervisor, everything is fine.

The supervisor calls out his jokers from Front desk. Now the front desk lady comes out, and said all counters are closed and they cant enter any mileage anymore. I told her i gave my numbers during ticketing and they purposefully missed it. Asked her to give me her name and the other guys name. Now she said,"OK, give me your ticket and i will get this fixed". She came back after only2 Min's or so with my new boarding pass that had the mileage credit on it.Finally we got that squared away and back in my seat.

So much for the most adventurous, ridiculous journey... Air China sucks.They have no concept of service, almost everyone in the counter seems lost and running like crazy. It looked like they were just trying to be mean and stupid. They chickened out when I asked them the names for fear that i might call and complaint. But any case, we think the worse is over and it was a good lesson on survival on a trip to china.

If Dave was not around, they would have checked my bags in and most likely lost em too..., glad i wasn't alone.

My first visit to China (day 1)

This is my first visit to china. (Thanks to my company). My boss Dave asks me to get a reference guide (Lonely Planet, China) to take a look at what places to see in and around. The book seems pretty good, he give me a good show and tell of whats around places where we will stay. We plan to fly into Beijing, see how the city has transformed itself to prepare for Olympics. So I' am all excited right....

Woke up way early for my pickup from Raja tours, he drops me around 5:15am, breeze past ticketing. Excited to see scanners at ticketing, which scans passports, and also scans and checks validity of VISA to china.. phenomenal!

Now we also get boarded for a 7:30am takeoff... then the pilot calls for at tension. He says "People i get all kinds of lights which i turn the engine on.. not a good sign :-)". So we wait for maintenance crew to come assess the damage. Finally they call it a day and say the flight is not getting anywhere. So we all rush out, waiting for out turn to be called a number we were assigned on the Jetway.

Dave tries to work his magic to see if we can get some way out before the hold on the SFO airport is lifted. Apparently due to weather the runway is on hold and no flights takeoff or land. Dave was more hopeful that the situation is not that bad... Finally our #25 gets called, the agent works her magical fingers and manages to get us out tomorrow.. early 1AM flight out of LA via Air China. Not sure what the maintenance @Air China is, but we decided to trust them this time :-)

Working away with the free wireless in PDX, and typing something up my blog with some real content.. i.e more than 3 or so lines i have written in the past several months since i created an account. I don't know how others manage to do this... I' am worried i will expose my grammar to others.... Crap i don't care anymore...

so we are waiting in this wonderful Red Carpet club (thanks to Dave for extending all the compliments my way).. this is wonderful in spite of the delay.

Hopefully good luck is coming our way and China Air would not overbook or bump us...

Lots of time to chat with Dave... we discuss about Spitzer :-), religion, food abroad and spread out with some work discussions...

For people who don't know Dave... he is one who can just have a slide and talk/blog/dance (??? maybe)...for an hour, very interesting and engaging personality... (its focal time, damn.. i have to say something good er else :-)


I will keep you posted....

BTW: don't worry about any grammar mistakes...English is after all my 2' nd language :-) If anything is left... its the bad spellchecker not me!