Aman' Birthday

hi,
talked to Aman and appu this weekend after what seems like ages. They both seem to have taken to Chennai quite a bit and waxing eloquent about the ECR, which over here means an Emergency Change Request.... which kinda got me all worked up about the work involved and all.. .before I realised they meant the road. Anyways was nice talking to them after such a long while.
...
!~v

Past, Present and Future

Well... am back after a short break, work and travelling was keeping me busy with loads of stuff. Anyhows am here now. What have I been doing, well travelling at a breakneck speed all over the bay area for one....
Finished reading Mi Moto Fidel..
bought a Powerbook :) well that I guess makes me a complete Mac convert ;)

Went ahead and finished The King of Torts by John Grisham as well :)

Completed One month of Vegetarianism :) went 2 this place yesterday called Fresh stuffings or smthing. Had enough ghaas phoos(salad/vegetarian) in one evening to last me a lifetime. However am unfazed about the setback.. not quite a setback but very nearly put me back on the path of non-vegetarianism. I thought i heard some chickens committed suicide to avoid this fate, but then I cannot be sure of what I hear on the grapewine ;) .. anyhows decided not to go ahead and make the day of all those people betting on how long can I last without meat. but I am gonna be proving them wrong ;)
did I realise that it is tougher to be a vegetarian or rather that I should have tried converting to vegetarianism in perhaps India, where it is infinitely easier to convert than over here in the US. well I guess I just love a challenge.

Planning to take up roller blading today now that my back appears to have healed :) wish me luck ;)

Dhar was here in town a while back ... great meeting him after all this while. had a great time catching up on some of the shit that happened to each of us and would have loved it, if he was here for a longer visit, but then cannot really go ahead and have everything now can I .
anyhows will log off now have been writing for quite a while now :)
!~v

Well... here it is

DSC00026
Originally uploaded by vivekgera.

Well.. here it is, my new Powerbook :) the first unveiling of my new Powerbook.
cheerio
!~v

Hydro-therapy.... & its benefits

Hydro-therapy has been the saving grace for the past 2 days. It has been helping out in pain relief and god knows how much would it have helped.

Fact:
The therapeutic effects of warm water treatment include lowering of blood pressure, fatigue relief, faster tissue repair and pain relief.

here is a transcript from a webpage that i referred to a while back:

Spa therapy for lower back pain

Lower back pain is the number two reason in New Zealand (after colds and flu) for a visit to the doctor. Thousands of people suffer needlessly.

For many years Europeans have used spa therapy (soaking in hot baths of mineral water) as an alternative treatment for various chronic diseases. Yet, the effectiveness of such therapy for chronic lower back pain has not been well documented.

In 1995, a study published in the British Journal of Rheumatology offered evidence that spa tub therapy aids both short and long term benefits for people with lower back pain.

A later study, published in the Journal of Rheumatology by a group of researchers in France, sought to confirm these results and quantify the overall benefits of spa therapy.

After three weeks of consistent spa therapy, examinations showed more improvement in the health status (as measured in pain duration and intensity and back flexibility) of the spa treatment group than in the medication only group. After six months, significant improvement continued in the spa therapy group. In addition, their use of analgesics and anti-inflammatory drugs had decreased.

aarrggghhhh...

Well, three days now.. out of commission .. basically this back of mine is never gonna let up. It is excrutiating pain and then some. I would not wish this upon my worst enemy. I really feel I should take more care of my self, however it is just that I am so lazy. Maybe it is God trying to tell me something. please wake up and smell the coffee. I have not done that for a while now :) Then i see the amazing stories of Gloria estefan and how she came back after a bus accident had taken her back away from her. Her grit and determination make me feel incomplete and a loss to life in general. Mebbe I too should take inspiration from her and move on. Get my ass moving and onto something worthwhile in life.
anyhows that is me and this is now :)
cheerio
!~v

Long time ...

Long time no see. deja vu. Meeting with friends after a long time is fun and lot of times you quite do not know what to say. But then today was fun meeting up with an old friend after nearly 10 years. good times to roll and all that and was quite nice.
:)
!~v

Brothers in arms...

Well tennis pics seemed to be missing for some time and well here is one, and I think I should have uploaded some more much earlier. But then blame it on the time issues.


Anyways here is the pic.

cheerio
!~v

Inline .... Skates and Me

Well finally i think about time that i posted my inline story. well got the skates in pristine condition and they do fit me well. However. the issue i do not understand when I am nearly 4 inches taller... I am in a better position now to appreciate the people who kept reminding me that it is not one of the best sports to take up at such an age. anyhows am here now and have to take this sport up.



Yeah and by the way.. that is me ... just with a beard :)

Cheerio
!~v

Life in the fast lane...

Well, Bro is gone back and is currently in london; if my calculations are correct. ENZAY the brit scene dude :)
anyhows am here all alone now, and might have to rethink what to do with my time now ;)
cheerio
Vivek

sahara..

A really timepass movie with a load of action and un-real scenes.. like doing the Panama.. a whole heap of lame jokes and ofcourse the mandatory female lead in Penelope Cruz. Totally unreal and miscast is what i term her being in the movie. However as I said... good tp....
anyways not a powerful movie and a total masala movie....

!~v

????

Why are we here? what is it that we seek? is it not enough that we have our own expectations to measure up to/ that we have others as well .... The questions just keep coming my way. and I wonder why it is that I have so much to care. So much to think about and so much to be. So much of myself to give; in this short span of time that is LIFE.
Maybe I think too much sometimes. Mebbe I dream too much at times.... I need something in life and mebbe I want it too quick. which is it going to be. what is the credo we live by. what are we trying to achieve here. the mad mad rush from one place to the other, single minded distraction just leading us astray. Maybe We were never meant to be too much in life. mebbe We were just meant to be...just be... nothing else.....

when will the answers come? when will I ever know? what I was put here on earth to and what next. it is a thought which occupies me now,. what next rather than what now. I know whats now, it is the next that worries me. I need to know what the future brings on to me. I need this to understand, whether now is worth it or rather is "worth it" worth the time I put in now.

Anyways,.. view from without....(thinkin outside the box)...
!~v

Comeback of sorts ....

Well... have been out of touch with tennis for a while so was taking my time hitting some god... aweful.. shots.:) but then yesterday was superb comeback. Playing with my bro.. trailing 2-4 in the final set... Won 4 games on the trot to make it 6-4. It was a sweet victory with the points being contested hard and fast. Spent nearly 20 minutes getting the lead in the 4th game with the deuce and advantage saga being reenacted in the very next match again. before moving into the fast gear to fire in a couple of aces to finish off the match .... :)
good fun tennis is at all times....

~v

Eyeballs counter

Cool.. so finally managed to put in the code for the counter to the site. :) much better than sitemeter in the sense that it give a more representative figure of the number of people who have visited the site.

~v

I am a cheeeessseee????? ( I am mozzarella! )

Tech Museum @ San Jose

Tech Museum Day @ San Jose... Well check out the link on the right. I will be uploading some more stuff some time later....
Cheerio

~v

Robots - IMAX

Well, one thing learned. IMAX you need to catch at the very last row. It is definitely not the greatest of ideas to sit in the 18th row and watch it. I say watch it from at least another 20 rows behind and IT WILL still not make a difference.

ROBOTS: Well you see it is a mixture of Jazz and Funk .... ie JUNK :) yep really good stuff coming from 20th Century Fox, Ice Age.. and now this . well let us hope that they keep us so entertained as have done Pixar for the last decade.

~v

Downfall

A very powerful potrayal of Adolf Hitler: his life and his passionate hatred for the Jews. Superb film. Took nearly 3 hours to go through the thought process' and the deliberations that make up HItler. German subtitles tho- some words just jumped off the screen and really made you think about what persecution the Jews had to go through and how terrible and horrific war can be. Nearly 50 Million people died in World War II and nearly 6 Million Jews died in the German Concentraton Camps. It is tough to imagine that all this happened less than six decades ago. We are certainly very fortunate to be living in these times and I hope that this is a lesson not forgotten easily : that discrimination and hatred serve no purpose save the destruction of the very essence of life...

ps.
Also one of the best theaters I have had the chance to go to in the Bay Area: Cinearts Cinema.


~v

Why are there eighteen holes on a Golf Course?

In Scotland, where golf got started, golf courses were originally designed with a varying number of holes, depending on the size of the parcel of land that was available. Some golf courses had a few as five holes. The most prestigious golf club, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of Saint Andrews, originally had twenty-two holes. On October 4, 1764, which contained eleven holes out and eleven holes in, was reduced to eighteen holes to lengthen them and make the course more challenging. In order to codify the game, eighteen holes were adopted as the standard after the Saint Andrews model.

Adapted from David Feldman “Life’s Imponderables”


~v

strange but true...

It's widely known that Alexander Graham Bell beat Elisha Gray to the patent office by a mere two hours with his application to patent the telephone. However, ten years after Bell's patent was issued, patent examiner Zenas Wilber admitted in a sworn affadavit that he had taken a $100 bribe from Bell, had taken a loan from Bell's patent attorney, and had given Bell the complete details of Gray's caveat. Hmmmm....

Source: Inventor's Digest, July/August 1998, pages 26-28.

~v

Clock is up and running...

Hmm. Now have the clock up and running.... on this page. am thinking whether should add india timing as well.
well... will need the feedback coming as well if I have to do so ...

~v