India Trip

1. Traffic in Indore has improved over the last year.

2. Roads have definitely improved.

3. Maybe 1. and 2. are inter-related.

4. Food is awesome, as usual.

5. St. Paul's hasn't changed much over the last year. A welcome change though is that Father Thomas Matthew now the new Principal, Thankacchan is now gone. Some sister is the new Vice principal. Mehra sir just got a heart attack, I hope he gets well soon. John Mathew sir is fine, and is in Kerala to take care of his father.

When nothing goes as expected ...

Over the past few days quite a few things have been going wrong. I am talking about several aspects of my life. The situation did seem grim initally. However, with a little bit of self-confidence, hard work, help of friends and I might add luck as well, I have emerged better off than I was before the calamity started. As part of this process of recovery, some concepts, have been reinforced in a more concrete manner than they were prior to these problems. These concepts are:

1. You always learn a whole bunch more from failures, than you do from a simple, straight-forward success.

I believe that no one will disagree with me when I say that the taste of success sure is sweet, but what is wrong to take so much pleasure from one success so as to become negligent of facts and fail to do a critical analysis of reasons for success. Life is a battle, everyday. This being the nature of life, it is best to convert every *attempt* at doing *anything* into a learning opportunity. Such an attitude helps in making one's character more resilient and *silently* self-confident. It maybe argued here that success implies victory, so what more is left to fight for if one has already won. This would be true, if life was a single *shot* affair. But, the fact is that life is *always* a fight, a daily one. While some aspects of life are under our control, the others are simply not. Hence, one may not always achieve success but there is also a chance of failure. The reason why failures help are because they make you much more prepared for the next battle as compared to a success. ( This does assume however, that one is willing to learn from one's mistakes !)

Another related aspect is the more battles you fight, the more prepared you are for the ones which are waiting for you. Here, the term battle is loosely used to mean *attempts* at achieving something, without caring for failure. The more one is obsessed with a potential failure, the more one gets discouraged from trying something. Therefore, one should never be shy of trying something new. As they say, leaving your comfort zone makes you a stronger person.

2. Hard work *always* pays.

Over the years, I have had some very vivid examples of the above, proven to me in a very direct manner. What has varied is the duration over which your hard work will pay, but for me I have found it always does. This lesson was reinforced again during the recent /battles/. When I say hard work, I especially mean hard work in areas which you are passionate about, and where you have *not* been asked to do that work by anyone else. Such activity is, to put it in another way, *pure* because it has not been performed due to any external prompting, but has been done completely due to your own passion. There is a chance that the quality of work while undertaking such an activity will be high, simple because it is borne out of an innate interest.

Southpark Trivia

Q3. Can you ever be fat in Cartmanland ?

A3. No, never. You can either be big-boned, or just have a sweet hockey body.

Q2. What is the one thing you would never give Eric Cartman ?

A2. Authoritaaay !

Q1. What is the largest object which Eric can hold in his behind ?

A1. Disneyworld !

A tribute to Lokesh Venkat

21 March 2008 ........ 4:25 P.M. ->  Loki RIP

Update #2:

NTSB's reports :

• NTSB's interim report on the crash 
• NTSB's final report on the crash

Other News and Articles on this unfortunate accident :

• http://saulsse.com/2008/03/23/a-loss-before-the-weekend/
• http://www.sify.com/news/pilot-from-tn-killed-in-georgia-plane-crash-news-others-jegn7yjgife.html
• http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/2-dead-in-floyd-county-plane-crash/nJSsZ/
• http://www.aero-news.net/aNNTicker.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=f3b1f118-4ce2-429a-9db7-0081f457d7b8

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Update #1

If there was a guy who knew how to live life king size, it was Lokesh. An amazing attitude which made him get along well with every type of person. He was an amazing pilot, a very helpful person who always had solutions to your problems, always cheerful and a very big fan of Vijay Mallya. He had dreams of being a superlative pilot with the aim of eventually flying A380 with KFA. He also helped several aspiring pilots and guided them to success.

The unthinkable has happened, proving the unpredictability of life. I hope that God gives the strength to his family members to bear the unbearable pain of this tragedy. Unfortunately for us, the plane on which Lokesh was flying did not have a CVR or a FDR, so we will not be able to get the exact causes of the tragedy. I hope that NTSB is able to uncover the causes behind this tragedy.

Lokesh's Orkut Profile : http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=18214813016370570004

A Community dedicated to remembering Loki : http://www.orkut.com/Main#Community?cmm=46924220

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The pictures below are from my first, and unfortunately only flight with Lokesh Venkat. It was a great experience flying with him because he had the correct balance of being meticulous and having fun at the same time. He displayed all the qualities of a good pilot and I never felt that he was a 'student' pilot. What I am certain of, is that had Loki been with us, he would have been a great pilot. Other than having good piloting skills, he had a very outgoing personality. He was the kind of friend with whom you could talk about anything and be assured of being engaged in a well thought out discussion. Not a moment with him was boring and his sense of humor was worth emulating.

I had talked to him a few days before he passed away, I was in Vegas and we were planning to go to another flight when I would get back to Atlanta. He was very excited about coming back from India, after attending his sister's marriage. Also, he was nearing the end of his training and raring to become a commercial pilot for Kingfisher Airlines. This was because he had a lot of respect and admiration for Mr. Vijay Mallya and his achievements.

He left us doing what he loved to do ..... flying, flying faster and higher...

Our flight was from PDK to MDQ at Hunstsville, Alabama, and it was on January 04, 2008, and it was my first flight in a Light Sports Aircraft.

After landing at MDQ - Loki posing infront of a sleek Gulfstream

Loki managing the controls of N841 AA

Loki infront of the terminal at MDQ

Loki, aligning N841 AA for landing

Loki, checking fuel before taking off from PDK

Cupcake - finally !

After waiting for what seems like forever, I finally intalled the Cupcake update on my G1. I used the website below for performing the update, as it seems to have really simple steps to install the update.

http://www.androidcentral.com/how-manually-install-android-15-cupcake-us-version

I need some more time with the Cupcake to post a personal review of the same, however, we already know it's awesome, right ? :P

For a list of what improvements the Cupcake brings to the table, look at the site below:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-1.5-highlights.html

Happy Android'ing !

Planning vis-a-vis Execution...

Sometimes , when someone asks us: "Hey, you were going to do this task 'x-y-z', did you do it yet ?", we reply by saying that even though I have not done the task yet, but I am "planning" to do it in the future. It is at times like these that we must reflect and think if we were really planning to do that task in the future, or was that statement used more like an excuse.

One must always consider that a person is always recognized and remembered by what he or she has already "done", not by what he or she "plans" to do. For example, let's take the case of Mahatma Gandhi's famous Dandi march. Suppose, that it so happened that Mahatma Gandhi expired a few months before the march. Assuming here for a moment, that the Dandi march was until then, Mahatma ji's largest venture, would we remember him by saying, "Mahatma'ji was great, because he had planned to undertake the Dandi march"? Would we remember him by saying, "Mahatma'ji was great, because his planned Dandi march would have mobilized thousands of Indians and bolstered the non-cooperation movement?"

I personally believe that we wouldn't have thought so highly of Mahatmaji if his thoughts and ideas had remained crystallized as plans (i.e. never materialized). In other words, his Dandi march was appreciated and recognized, because it did happen, and despite all the hurdles it did get executed. The fact that the Dandi march did happen, and it did mobilize thousands of Indians is something which we give due credits for, to Mahatma'ji. Therefore, plans are not worth the piece of paper they are written on, if the plans themselves are not planned to be executed. The eventual measure of success of planning, are the achieved results and the results are only possible after execution. This post does not serve to undermine the value of planning. I recognize that planning is a very important tool in the success of a project, but planning must always be done with one eye on execution.

Android G1 Apps which I use

I had been looking to buy a smartphone for a long time and finally decided to get an Android G1. I have loaded some applications from the App market, after reviewing them online and on the market itself, and they are given below:

Newly downloaded apps are:

1. 1Cast

2. ACast

3. Butters soundboard

4. Email

5. Labyrinth App.

6. Locale App

7. Locations App.

8. Moxier Mail

9. Mr. Mackey Soundboard

10. PF Voicemail +

11. Restaurant Search

12. RoadSync - Another Outlook client wiith ActiveSync

13. Save MMS application

14. Sipdroid - to setup SIP-based calls.

15. SkyMap

16. SnapPhoto - I have to check if it has been re-updated for the Cupcake.

17. SouthPark Open Home Skin

18. Star Translate

19. Steamy Window - fun app !!

20. Stream Furious - excellent audio streaming solution.

21. Translate App

22. TTS Service

23. Tunes for Android

24. TuneWiki

25. Voice Dialer

26. Voice Recorder

27. Voice Search

28. Web Server

29. Wertago

30. Where

31. WikiMobile

32. Wikitude

33. Wordoholic

34. Yellowbook v2.0

Old apps are stated below:

1. Astro.

2. Backgrounds.

3. Barcode Scanner.

4. Bubble

5. Bush Jokes(!)

6. Calorie Counter - via this app you can have quick access to nutrition details of a very wide spectrum of foods and drinks.

7. Cartman sounds :D

8. Chess - pretty challenging.

9. ConnectBot - for SSH'ing.

10. ContactsSync - for sync'ing with my company / professional contacts.

11. Doom (!) - one of my all-time favourite 3-D FPS games.

12. eQuotes - because I feel that quotable quotes can be inspirational, and a little inspiration does no one any harm.

13. Finance - I am not an investment junkie yet, but it is always good to keep a track of what's going on with some of the larger companies and stock exchanges.

14. Flashlight.

15. Free Dictionary - Though I don't foresee a need to be an english-language expert in the near future, I still decided to download this app, just in case because it's good to learn a new word once in a while.

16. Gmote - This is one of my favourite apps, which I downloaded on the very first day I got the G1. Using this app, you can setup your laptop / desktop as a server, and your G1 as a client, and then use the G1 as a remote for multimedia control. Other than that, you can then use the G1 to remotely browse the files on your computer and play the desired ones. Further, the G1 can then be used as a wireless keyboard. And last but not the least, using this software you can stream music from your computer to your phone. Pretty neat.

17. GV app - short for Google Voice - use all the features available in Google Voice via bypassing the browser completely.

18. Hot Giggity - Quagmire's sounds !

19. imeem mobile.

20. J2ME Explorer - to run Java-based apps.

21. Lyric Search.

22. Meridian Video Player.

23. Mother TED - to see videos on the awesome TED website.

24. NPR Podcasts - to listen to the very informative NPR podcasts.

25. Owner app - to display owner info once the phone is locked.

26. Parallel Kingdom - Localized, city-based social network.

27. PdaNet - awesome application, allows you to tether any computer. Tethering, in simple terms, means the capability to use your mobile device as a modem for another device which cannot directly use the internet. This app was not available directly on the Android Market, and I had to download it from the original PdaNet website.

28. Peter Griffin sounds !

29. PicSay - great app. Using this, you can take pictures and modify them directly on your G1.

30. QuotePro - using this you can stream quotes, in real-time to your G1.

I have many more apps to go, but I shall stop for the time being and come back with more info later.

Happy Android'ing !

On Excellence

I have found that excellence is a habit, and it is not like a feature which can be turned on or off selectively. That is, if you excel in a certain sphere of life, then I believe that your chances of excelling in other, seemingly unrelated areas are high. That is because the secrets to success, in seemingly unrelated areas are the same, only their implementation is different. As a side note, my personal experience has been that there are some days, when I am more diligent than the average, and on such days the quality of my work, irrespective of the domain is of a fulfilling nature. On other days, the exact opposite is true.

Dedicated to all the Pilots

Read this somewhere, truly amazing and conveys my sense of awe for all those who fly !

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I hope there's a place, way up in the sky,
where pilots can go, when they have to die.

A place where a guy can buy a cold beer
for a friend and a comrade, whose memory is dear;
a place where no civil servant or lawyer can tread,
nor a management type would ere be caught dead;

Just a quaint little place, kind of dark, full of smoke,
where they like to sing loud, and love a good joke;
the kind of place where a lady could go
and feel safe and protected, by the men she would know.

There must be a place where old pilots go,
when their paining is finished, and their airspeed gets low,
where the whiskey is old, and the women are young,
and songs about flying and dying are sung,

Where you'd see all the fellows who'd flown west before,
and they'd call out your name, as you came through the door.
who would buy you a drink, if your thirst should be bad,
and relate to the others," He was quite a good lad !"

And then through the mist, you'd spot an old guy
you had not seen in years, though he taught you to fly.
he'd nod his old head, and grin ear to ear;
and say," Welcome, my son, i'm pleased that you're here".

" For this is the place where true flyers come,"
" When their journey is over, and the war has been won."
" Relax with a cool one, and a well deserved rest;"
" This is heaven, my son...... You've passed your final test!"