Burn Baby Burn

I have moved my blog's default feed to FeedBurner. It will help me in analyzing blog visits and subscription data. The new blog feed URI is:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Nerd-beta

The old feed URI is no longer available.

The one thing I like about feedburner is that it also integrates my del.icio.us bookmarks in my feeds. Which means, know you can also check which sites I am visiting and bookmarking.

In future, I will also integrate my flickr account so that the feed becomes a one-stop-shop for all the updates from me.

By the River Ganges, I jumped and rafted

After all those boring weekends, It was a good change.

After one week of planning, one day of cancellation and one hour replanning, we finally set off for Rishikesh on Friday Night. It was a tiring journey and we reached the destination saturday morning.

As the camps were not available at that moment, we started playing cricket. Mind you, I was playing cricket after light years and for the next two days I faced the repurcussions in form of a painful shoulder.

Next was a good bath at river Ganges. Earlier, I was aquaphobic, but after this bath, I was not... I still don't know how to swim, but atleast I am no longer scared of water.

Then a trip to Tehri dam. It was huge... and that is an understantement. Thanks to Prakhar, we got permission to visit the powerhouse tunnel and it was mind blowing.. Loved that trip.

And if you think that was enought for the day, the best is yet to follow..

When we came back to Rishikesh from Tehri, it was already 10 PM. Now it was time for some fun at river coast in a moon lit night. The feeling is too good to be described in a blog.

EOD

The next day morning, it was time to go to Neer Garh Water Fall. It was a half an hour trek from our camp and was fun. We had fun in the water for next 1 hour (at the place depicted in the third snap on the aforementioned website). Time to return back to camp and go for the climax... Rafting..

Initially, I was feeling a bit nervous about this whole rafting thing. As I don't know swimming, it adds to the pressure. But leaving my nervousness aside, I sat on raft and we started for the journey which I will never forget in the times to come.

We started slowly, but gained good pace during the course of rafting. We sailed through many rapids some of which has very weird names like Return to Sender, Tee Off, Roller Coaster, Double Trouble etc. That was adventorous..

Next was a jump in the river... As I told earlier, I don't feel very comfortable in water, but having a Life Jacket and five trustworthy friends by my side, I jumped.. and we floated for almost 4-5 kilometers in the river.. It was a wonderful feeling, floating in the water... heads up... watching the sky..... simply too good.

Time for a break, and some adventuruous friends of mine did some diving practice in the river... Back to the raft and another sailing session of 5-6 miles and we are at the end of our journey.

I will not forget those days.

What is Fun

Fun is:

• Dancing for more than 2 hours on the occasion of your friend's engagement.
• Exploiting(Efficiently utilising) the memory capacity of a digicam.
• Returning to your home from the venue as far as 50 km, by hitching a ride.
• Walking for 2 kms, as there are no rickshaws available, in your formal shoes, after dancing for more than 2 hours. And on top of that, it happened at 01:30 AM in the deadly night in The Crime Capital of India, Noida.
• Answering the natures call and giving some recycled water to thirsty plantation in Noida Sector 28. ;)

The Pursuit of HappyNess

Thomas Jefferson , the principal author of Declaration of Independence, was a great president of America. We know that. But why I am discussing it here at my blog. There is a reason. And the reason is HappyNess.

According to the declaration, we only have right to pursue happiness but not direct right to happiness. So the declaration gives us right to seek ways to find happiness around but it doesn't guarantee any happiness.

But why we don't have any rights to happiness? Because it is a subjective thing. What construes as happiness may be a torture for you. And if someone is as greedy (ambitious) as me, happiness becomes a mirage which we keep chasing but never achieve.

Idea Courtesy: The Pursuit of Happyness

And the Protagonist : Chris Gardner

P.S. I wonder, why am I using so many Wikipedia hyperlinks?

Pray for me brother

I saw this video by AR Rahman and couldn't resist singing it out loud.
Here it is for my future reference.

Lyrics:
Pray for me brother
Pray for me brother
Pray for me sister
Are you searchin’….
Pray for me brother
Lookin’ for the answers To all the questions In my life
Will I be alone Will you be there By my side
Is it something he said Is it something he did
I wonder why He is searchin’ For the answers
To stay alive
Could you ever listen Could you ever care
To speak your mind
Only for a minute For only one moment
In time
The joy is around us But show me the love
That we must find
Are you searchin’ For a reason to be kind, to be kind…
He said… Pray for me brother
Pray for me brother Pray for me sister
Pray for me brother Say
what you wanna say now
But keep your hearts open
Be what you wanna be now
Let’s heal the confusion
Pray for me brother

Don’t let me take When you don’t wanna give
Don’t be afraid Just let me live
Don’t let me take When you don’t wanna give
Don’t be afraid Say what you wanna say now
But keep your hearts open

Be what you wanna be now Let’s heal the confusion
Pray for me brother Pray for me brother
I’m ashamed ah, brother be dying of poverty
when he down on his knees its only then he prays
And it’s a shame ah, brother be dying of ignorance
cos the world is a trip and everybody’s a hypocrite
Need to stop ah , taking a look at the other
I’m not ashamed of poverty
need to be making his life better
So think about it, think about it once more
cos life is a blessing and it’s not justa show, ah
Round and round the world is spinning around

We need to be singing a prayer, we need to be singing it now
Round and round the world is turning around
We need to be singing a prayer, we need to be singing it now
Need to be feeling the power, need to be feeling the faith
We need to coming together just to win this race

Need to be feeling the power, need to be feeling the faith
We need to coming together just to win this race (twice)
Are you searching for a reason to be kind ?

Video Link

5 days to go

The 2007 Formula season is about to start. Australia will play the host for first GP.

However, the challenge for me right now is that on 17th March there is a cricket match of India (which is suppose to conclude by 03:30 AM IST next day morning) and on 18th March morning 08:30 AM IST the Australian GP will start. After analysing my sleeping habits for past 3 months, there is very slim chance that I will be able to manage with only 5 hours of sleep.

Windows Vista Ultimate Wallpapers

Long has provided link to two more vista wallpapers. The wallpapers are designed by Windows Vista Ultimate Team and has been published on there site.

Link

And I must add, the first one looks awesome with Windows Vista Aero.

Most of us are like rudderless boats rocking to the waves in the ocean of life..

I read this line on Shekhar's blog and you know, I couldn't agree more. Most of the times I think and I feel, what is our purpose? Why we are doing things which we are doing? What makes me to wake up every morning and makes me have a sound sleep every night?

And then I think, we are just one flower in 'The Garden'. Each one of us is a different kind of flower, each having a certain characteristics which set us apart. It won't affect much to The Garden if one of us fails to deliver up to the expectation. But if we succeed, it will bring more beauty to The Garden.

Continuous Improvement

I mentioned in an earlier post that I will be freezing the design for the moment. But knowing myself, I knew that I won't stick to this and will surely come up with something new for the blog.

This time, I have implemented a tag cloud. The source is phydeaux3 .
The design is still in alpha phase. ;)

Redesign

For past few days, I have tried various templates and layouts for my blog. I have also designed a logo which suites the overall theme.

Finally I have settled for a very minimalistic template with white background. The logo is also on a white background.

I will baseline it at this version and will not do many changes to the blog (design) in near future.