The Ultimate Champion

Yesterday it was sports day in Deepu's school. He was in Monkey-banana race. When the race started, some bananas, made out of chart-papers were made to hang half-way on the racing track, on a rope with the help of clips, similar to how we dry clothes with clips.

The race started and Deepak reached the bananas first, and removed the clip, took the banana, but he went on to place the clip in the same place -  as before - in the meantime, others ran and won. He moved only after placing the clip back in its place and happily continued with the race to completion. He lost the race.

But we understood that he emerged as the overall champion for the day when his Principal told in her thank you speech that "... its not only about winning... I don't know how many of you noticed... in the Monkey-banana race, there was one little boy, who tried to place the clip back in its place... was nice to see that... and it is also this responsibility and the overall personality that I wish to in-culminate in the children... ". As a proud father I listened to her words with utmost happiness...

- SPGR.

Hurdles of Writing

When I read the early days of writers, I can understand that they all have done some common things. They wrote a lot in the early days, not minding the content or quality or the intrusions or obstructions or objections. According to one famous writer, he wrote on anything that he fancied, not minding about others opinion on them. Another writer says that he is very adamant that he wont allow others to dictate what he should or what he should not write. He just writes.

While reading the contents or stories of some of the yesteryear's writers, we feel that they are so advanced and liberal in their thoughts and that their family members are so privileged and lucky to have them in their family. Seldom it gets revealed that in reality it is not so. I remember a recent interview by writer Sujatha's wife about how atrocious he used to be in home and how he used to influence and control her in all the possible ways.

For many a years I was writing without any intrusions or objections. But its not so anymore. Mainly because other than me no one read my articles or posts for so many years. But no so anymore. I am still not sure if many are reading my posts, but from the hit-counter I can safely assume that many are browsing(at-least) though my posts.

I may succumb to it in future, but at the moment, nothing can stop me from the hobby that I have voluntarily chosen. I will go on in-spite of the intrusions or objections, though I may try to accommodate them as far as I can. Also another thing that became clear now is that my writing as a hobby has moved on to the next stage :-).

- SPGR.

New Zealand Trip - Travel Diary (4)

A few pictures I took in Auckland, New Zealand.

Hotel Room - TV in Room.

Place to relax in a corner of the room.

King Size Bed.

View of Sky Tower from Hotel Room.

Metro Train - Interior.

Bus Station in "Britomart Transport Center".

A Ferry going to a nearby Island - Due to budget constraints couldn't travel in the Ferry.

A Vintage Light - In the fence near the Ferry Station.

Z-Energy - A gas station in Auckland.

A beautiful building in Auckland.

- SPGR.

New Zealand Trip - Travel Diary (3)

Auckland City

I got into the habit of walking down the streets of Auckland in the evenings. I will back from office around 6 and spent most of my evenings walking along the roads. The city is perfectly planned for walking, many walk and use bus or train for their commutation. Very few use personal vehicles like car or a scooter. On the second day, my colleagues in office took me for a short walk to a Mall in the Remuera area.

From the third day onward, I sort of got into a routine, and it started boring a bit. I could see many beggars on the roads, but unlike our beggars they are posh and hi-fi. Another thing I noticed is that there are no babies. In my whole stay I saw only 3 babies in Auckland City. Got to know that people here do not marry, they just live together and do not have kids, and they keep changing their partners. So the population is thin. The Govt is taking many steps to increase the population. Also got to know that Education and healthcare is free.


Facebook

During the On journey and Return journey observed that the whole world was on facebook. Airport terminals, coffee shops, everywhere people were on the facebook. In my earlier trips, I have seen people using they mobile phones all the time, but on different things like calling or messaging or browsing, but this time all were invariably on facebook. Also I could notice a difference in the way people talk on their phones. They hold the phone in front of them and talk on speaker. After observing for sometime found that they were all video calls, and that they were seeing the other person on the screen and talking to them. I could realize soon in India too, we will be holding the phone in front of us and talking on speaker.


Food

A Mutton dish in New Zealand

Breakfast served in Malaysian Airlines.

For most part, I cooked my own food as there was a kitchen attached to the hotel. In the Project Go Live success party given by the client, tasted the mutton there. It looked entirely different. But when I tasted it, it was soft and had a divine taste.

The food served in Malaysian Airlines was also good.

- SPGR.

New Zealand Trip - Travel Diary (2)

New Zealand Trip - Travel Diary (1)

Morning woke up at 7:20 AM, quickly got ready, cooked and had breakfast and started to office. Asked the person at the hotel reception about how I can reach the office, showing the address that I had already written on a paper. He gave me a small map of Auckland, and showed how I can reach there. Actually he had shown the path to the nearest railway station. But I thought that the office itself is there. I thought I had to go to office by bus and asked if I had to take a taxi. He said its walk-able and it will take around 10 minutes. I was so happy that the office is at a walk-able distance. I happily came out of the hotel, took left on the Victoria street, and after 50 feet, took a left turn onto the Queen's street and continued to walk. I reached the Custom's road, and started searching for the building where office is located. But it was not there. I could only find a posh railway station "Britomart Transport Center". I walked up and down for sometime and then decided to call a college on mobile phone. I told him the station where I was, but he said that he doesn't know all those, and asked me check in the google maps. But, unfortunately, for some reason, net was not working on my mobile phone.

Lighting in Britomart Railway Station - The actual light is at the bottom, from which the rays are reflected by the steel ball to the dome from where it is reflected downwards, uniformly.

A train in "Britomart Transport Center".

Train Ticket.

"Britomart Transport Center" -  Common place where we get bus, train or ferries(boats).

A ferry in Britomart, that goes to a nearby island.

Another view of the Britomart Ferry Station.

[pic: Britomart Transport Center]

I went to one old gentleman who was waiting for the bus, who upon seeing the address "Remuera Road" said that its is not here and I have to take train to the next station, and from there it is at a walk-able distance. I entered the railway station, identified the ticket counter, took ticket to the next station "Newmarket" and went inside. The ticket checkers there helped me to get into the train that goes to Newmarket The trains were more or less like the new metro trains of Chennai. Time was close to 8:30 AM, and I was getting scared, I thought that I was lost and also I would be reporting very late on the very first day. I got down at Newmarkt, went out of the station, and saw the Remuera road, walked towards the left, and located the board of the client's office. Went into the office, took the lift to level 1(first floor). The receptionist looked like an Indian. Later got to know that she is form South Africa. Got introduced to the clients and started the day's work - making preliminary preparations for launching the new software in production.

An office in the Remuera Road, Auckland

Sign boards on Remuera Road, Auckland.

The Software:

In the client's company there was a room called the operations room, where many computers with lot of big monitors were connected to the production servers and the logs and the transactions were continuously monitored by people from a team called the operations team, round the clock, working on shifts. Every minute detail is noted down, and during shift change the person leaving the shift have to hand over the status and updates and many meticulous details to the next person taking up the shift. It was just a small web-services application to me, but was surprised to see how the software is closely monitored. In this particular software that is going for production, for the purpose of simplicity in developing the software, I have included some manual process in the design. Found that in actual production, this part of running the software required manual intervention for the operations team. I was a bit sad to see this, as with some more effort I could have easily avoided that manual process, it would have saved human time and effort, as this manual process has to be done everyday at 11:30 in the mid-night, during which the server has to be briefly stopped. A simple decision by me, to keep my work simple, had a huge impact in the way in which the software is run in production. That was a big learning for me, and for sure will have its impact in my software designs in future.

On the first day, while taking ticket for the return journey, I forgot the station name to which I have to go. All that I remembered was "Brito-something", tried to recall and was trying different combinations like "Brit-town", "Brit-man". So, while asking for ticket, I said "Brito-" and mumbled something for the second half. The person at the counter gave ticket for "Britomart".


The receptionist in the hotel, an Indian Guy, kept asking me various questions about the software, as he was surprised that how I can afford to stay in a posh three star hotel in the prime area of New Zealand. He asked what (computer) language he has to study to get into such jobs. I told "Java, Java is ruling the world, The mobile you have with Android is completely run by Java... the TV, the lift, the microwave oven, 70% of large enterprise production servers, all are run by Java... Java is here to stay at-least for the next 20 years."


- SPGR.