Ah Yum....

I am visiting India for three weeks. Happy New Year!

Solstice Party ...

Continuted....My Rendez-vous with an Astronuat

One great thing I realized in my current job is the opportunity to meet great people. These people include space tech researchers, remote sensing scientists, geographers (of course), computer scientists, peace corps volunteers working around the world, and even folks from reputed international aid organizations.

Last couple of weeks have been especially interesting; I met the kind of folks that changed the way I view the world. It is plain thrilling.

Anyway, the last week has been less busy at work, with the Christmas break coming up. Serious work meetings gave way to the Holiday parties with some great wine and food. Yeah, 'tis the season for .... parties!

One of those parties was the Solstice party, arranged by one of our colleagues. For those of you who are "Geography"-cally challenged, read about what Solstice is here. And the star guest in that party was Piers Sellers, the astronaut! It was quite thrilling to meet an astronaut, and hear him talking about his experiences in life, on earth, and in space. It was quite an amazing experience.

Just the past week, I visited the Space and Flight Museum in DC last week, and I saw the IMAX film on astronauts and moon landings. One thing the narrator in the film (Tom Hanks) stressed is how normal these people are - just like you and I. In less than a week of my visit to the space and flight museum, I had a chance to meet with an astronaut and see how normal they are. It is one of those experiences that is hard to describe.

My Rendez-vous with an Astronaut

Astronaut Piers Sellers autograhed his picture for me :




Piers Sellers and I :




(Google this guy : Piers Sellers )

Home for the Holidays

Finally, Finally, Finally! I am visiting home (India) for the Holidays for a couple of weeks ! I am so freakin excited about this trip. It has been awfully long that I had been home - almost two and half years. I can not explain how super excited my family is. Boy, O'Boy! I can't wait for this trip. I have so much to do, so many people to catch up with, and quite a bit of travel to do.

Y'all have a very happy holidays and a great new year's!

Until the next Blog,

Au Revoir!

Say What?

Here's a picture I took near the US Capitol yesterday (Sunday, the 19th December). Check out what the sign board has got..An inscription that says "Die for Bush in Iraq"! I was totally amazed how someone would have put it up there, especially considering the number of cops and snipers around that area! I am very intrigued!



(click on the image for a bigger image)

Until the next Blog,

Au Revoir!

IVR Cheat Sheet

Most of us often put up with those insanely long and annoying electronic messages while calling for Customer Service. Sometimes the interactive voice response goes nuts, especially with people like me that have an accent. I yelled "Help" 10 times once while calling my Bank, and it kept going "OK. Here it is. Your account balance is..".

It is a HUGE hassle to reach a living-breathing human on these systems. Pressing the good ol' "0" doesn't work anymore on most systems these days. The wait you have to put up could be anything between tens of minutes, to hours. (The longest I was asked by the "automated voice" is close to four hours... Yeah, FOUR hours..I was calling my utility company, CPS, in San Antonio)

One good soul named Paul English now created a "cheat sheet" and put it up on his website. This cheat sheet lets you press a sequence of keys to get through a real person. Since this offers real help, I wanted to write about it a month ago, but it got off my head. Brian Williams showed it on the NBC Nightly News yesterday and I thought I should definitely let those folks know that are not aware of this convenience.

The cheat sheet contains a list of organizations (like Banks, Utility Companies, etc) and sequence of key presses. Here's the link: http://paulenglish.com/ivr/


I think you can email him if you want to contribute. Print it out and go past those annoying electronic messages.


Until the next Blog,
Au Revoir!

i-Recently-Pod. Did you?

I finally considered buying the thing that everybody has got these days - an iPod. I never really was "into" buying a portable music player like an iPod, I've always preferred a portable FM player. Not only an FM player plays the music for free, it keeps you updated on what's going on around you. Moreover, I wasn't ready to spend $300-400 on just a music player - even though it is a piece of beauty from Apple.

However, my thinking changed a little bit when Apple released the shuffle, and the Nano. I kept wondering what's coming next? Even the Saturday Night Live pulled off a neat spoof on Steve Jobs in a comedy skit where Apple releases iPod microscopic, and eventually, an iPod Invisible! Very funny!

Anway, I was compelled to buy an iPod because these models are smaller, cheaper, and have got a decent memory (1-2+ Gigs). Another major reason I chose to buy an iPod is the wide availability of the numerous Podcasts and a big set of 80s music gifted by one of my colleagues. I also figured that it will be a great companion while walking across campus or while riding the Metro.

I finally decided to buy the iPod after spending hours on the Internet and the Apple Store at the Pentagon. I was back to my dilemma - should I buy a Shuffle or a Nano. Nano has a screen, you can have multiple playlists (sets of songs), and its incredibly small. With the screen, you can actually see what's playing and control your playlists the way you want. Shuffle lacks a screen, and you can have one playlist at any time. Nano scratches easily, Shuffle is strong.

Ultimately, I decided on buying a shuffle. Here's what I considered going for a shuffle

- I have a relatively small collection of music

- I don't care to see what's playing as long as it is playing. Plus I can always skip ahead if I do not want to listen to a particular song/podcast.

- The Shuffle is real cool and small. It is very similar in shape to my pocket FM player in Bombay and I felt real comfortable holding it.

For size comparison, Apple shows how small the Shuffle is - it is just like a pack of gum. (You can see that picture on Apple's site.) Here's my own version of comparison between two things that stay in my pocket most of the time: my (insanely bulky) cellphone and the shuffle.



Oh, I absolutely love this little one. It plays music great and it introduced me to a whole new world of PodCasts. It is amazing to see how many different Podcasts you can download for free - News, Comedy, Science, Tech, you name it! And like I said, it is great while riding the Metro or walking across the campus...Its an amazing piece of art - just like anything else from Apple.

Now, I am waiting for the Intel-based iBook...psssst, "they" say the new iBooks are on the way in January. I will keep my fingers crossed!

Until the next Blog,
Au Revoir!

Panther Pride!

If you ever read my profile (it is to the right of this post), you would know how much I love my alma mater - University of Northern Iowa. During my two years (that seem to have passed by super fast) of study at UNI, I never missed a single chance to show the panther pride - either by cheering on top of my voice or wearing Purple. I even do it still in Maryland. From my previous post, you would also get a grasp of the high quality education, and the one-on-one attention every student gets. I have been to a bunch of University campuses around Amercia and I work with a University now, but I am NOT exaggerating when I say that I found UNI to be the best. For the folks that think that "there's nothing in Iowa", hmm...I wouldn't try to interfere with their ignorance.

I could not have been more happier this evening: UNI Panthers beat Texas State Bobcats to reach 1-AA Divison Football Championship. I couldn't catch much of it, but I watched the best part of the game - the fourth quarter. Man, did they nail the Bobcats! It would have been more fun had I been working in Texas - a bunch of interns in my office were from Texas State and It would have been a more closely anticipated contest.

Anyway, it gives me great joy to see UNI reach the Championship game for the first time. Good luck UNI. GO PANTHERS!!

Until the next Blog,
Au Revoir!

Feels Good...

Reading the blogs of my grad - school advisor and my most favorite professor Dr. Wallingford has been always a pleasure pastime for me. In his recent blog, A Milestone for Our Student Population, he starts off by saying that (and I paraphrase) UNI is a "comprehensive university" and thus falls out of the top research schools that dominate the mind share of computer science world. He discussed how two of his students got job offers from two big companies, and how glad and proud he was of these students.

And guess what, I am one of those students!!! I feel EXTREEEEMELY happy knowing that my favorite professor of all time feels proud of me ! This is one of those "truly-on-top-of-the-World" moments. Thank you Dr. Wallingford, I am truly humbled. I can not thank you enough for being such an excellent advisor and great mentor. Like I told you many, many times, you are THE best!

I truly hope that many more students from UNI Comp Science will continue to aim high and succeed in becoming one of the best. Come on folks, lets make our professors ever proud and happy of us!

Until the next Blog,

Au revoir!