another long break

After lots and lots of rambling, I have gone offline from blogs a while. So much has happened in the last year or so, that its almost impossible to list them all. anyway here's a summary: first and foremost I became a dad. Thats more than a year ago. second, I completed my MCA. and that was a big one. Took me more than two years to complete my thesis. The end product is not as much as i'd have liked it to be, but given that i did not to the entire thesis myself, i am happy with what i got. of course I could have gotton a little more if I had worked myself, but since i didn't i can't complain.
on work, there's more rambling to be done, especially in the procurement sector. As I have frequently discussed with my boss and others as well, I am now fed up with that. i want to move on. but unfortunately, i have had a training on procurement management about 3 yrs ago. and for that reason, i am stuck with it. its not that i don't like working in procurement; I love it. I love the opportunity it creates, the social connections that it provides, and the exposure to market. Its also challenging sector to work, what with transparency and associated risk. however its bit too risky when everyone in ur work start calling you to get any and all idea about on going procurements, when your name is associated with procurement. I had several occasions when people started calling me for every detail of procurement, sometimes, chiefs of other departments, directly calling me, bypassing the chief of my department. and those of you who know me, you know, i only provide technical advice on procurement, not the whole package. I don't work for procurement department.!!!
anyway thats about all the ramble i have for today.. maybe i will have time soon and write some more. right now i gotta sign off...
happy new year to all of you
and happy mothers' day to all the mothers out there...

Shifting responsibilities

An event happened in work today. Regardless of how I feel, I am seen as a procurement specialist. It has its own pluses and minuses, and on the whole, I enjoy working on procurement... you get to deal with lots of vendor, which is very good for your social network. But sometimes, it just gets into my nerve. Today is one of those days when this responsibility has made me feel very bad... Am I feeling bad, or am I angry? I don't know. I know that I don't like what I am feeling now.

There's this machine that has recently been procured. For some reason it has gone bad. The vendor is all helpful and also sends someone to fetch it, so that they can repair it... all at their own cost. The only thing I need to do is make sure they get a gate-pass. And what happens??? People are not willing to issue a gate-pass... Everybody is shifting responsibility... from one person to another, from one department to another... and I am pissed off.... I need to get that server at vendor's location and that's all I care.... If people had been sensible and worked together, it would have too... But everyone believes they are not responsible... and points finger to others.... May be I am to blame myself... May be I shifted my responsibility too... May be I did that...

I don't know what I was supposed to do... May be I should not have relied on others just because it was their "responsibility". May be I should have taken things into my own hands... May be.. May be....

I don't know what I will do tomorrow... I will be angry I am sure.. and miserable as well... I am in half a mind to jump myself and get a gate-pass made in my name.... and just drop it at the vendor's location...

Off for a year

I have been off for more than a year and half!!! There just isn't enough time for me. Anyway I will try to type a few words now and then.
For this edition, its work, again. It is one of those rare time when I am busy with something. And before you think what on earth am I doing if I were so busy, well, I just managed to complete my task for the day.
Anyway, at the moment I am writing a feasibility study report on VSAT. Some of you must be aware that I have already done so at least two times, and two more reports on VSAT. But the technology is so attractive and cost so high that the organization always finds between having and not having one installed.
And if I have to talk to any of the vendors on market about it again, I'd be ashamed!!!

To conclude today's note, I wish to welcome s-deb in this world of blogging.

Strange as it was II

Another post with same title!! But its not part 2 of the last one, just a sequel. Another strange thing happened today. I think it was around 6 pm today (4th October 2006) when I was on the cell phone. I went to the roof in the hopes of getting better signal, and some privacy. While chatting, I noticed some kids excitedly pointing at something in the west-north-west sky. At first I thought about kites, but curiosity got the better of me and followed their gaze. There it was, about 50 degrees above horizon, a streak of something pure white. I thought it was a trick of light, coupled together by a high flying jet with unusual contrail, but a jet with so much contrail must make heck of a noise. And it was not a double parallel contrail. It was a plume. The confusing stuff was that at the head of the plume, there was something shiny, and apparenly blinking, which I thought was a strobe light of a jet. But as I said, it was silent, and the plume was rather think, without second parallel one. I had no idea what it was, but had enough sense to take a couple of shots. It was too slow to be a jet or a meteor, and too fast to be a comet. I knew then, whatever it was, it was athmospheric, at least it was inside the athmosphere. Later it came to me, it might have been some space debris. I know for a fact that Russians throw space-trash from International Space Station in their supply ship and hurl them into athmosphere where it would burn up before hitting the earth. But it was moving from east to west, and ISS has polar orbit so can't say for sure. Of course, if did not have polar orbit, it would not be seen this north. And I just did a search on ISS. ISS will pass close to Kathmandu in +2 orbit from now. It is possible that that space-junk might have passed those +2 orbit much sooner, because as it decends, its orbital time is reduced. But ISS goes from southwest to northeast not east to west.

So basically I don't know what it was. It might have been a UFO, I can't tell. Might have been another satellite that was at the end of its life. May be a rather slow meteor. Or a small asteroid that had been captured by Earth's gravity. I know about one thats been in Earth orbit for about 4 years, but it's expected to leave the orbit in next couple of years. Maybe there are other such meteors people had not yet discovered. Who knows? I know one thing for sure -- it did not have any conventional propellant. Just gravity and friction doing its work.

They say strange things happen in triplicates. I wonder whats coming up next!!!

Strange as it was

I thought it was going to be just another sunday. Boy... was I wrong!! First the day started with a Formula 1 Grand Prix -- Chinese Grand Prix, to be exact. Now this is one of the very few tracks where Michael is not very successful. As far as I remember, he spun off in the debut of the track, and performed rather poor last year. This year too, I did not expect him to perform well. And if you were to go ahead with his qualification performance, you'd say he would be lucky to finish in points. Neither Ferrari nor Bridgestone was suited for the wet condition. Michael was the only one in top ten qualifiers with Bridgestone tyres. With just 2 points seperating Alonso and Schumacher in the championship, I was certain Michael would blow up his championship aspirations here. But boy-oh-boy. The race was superb. Although it was pit-strategy that played key role, luck and changing conditions favored Michael and he won here. I wish I could give a lap-by-lap description of the race, but I can't trust my memory to describe every lap.
Anyway the race is over and now championship standings are even -- both Michael and Alonso stand at 116 points each. Ferrari lost out because of Massa's retirement, but they are just 1 point behind Renault.
That race took most of the day. Afternoon was pretty uneventful with the exception of two movies (Da Vinci Code and The Wild) and lots of SMS'es. It was the evening that was strange. I had to go to Ason for Syako-Tyako, and I left after it was dark. When I got to the gate, and was closing it, I noticed how clear the sky was, and also noticed the constellation Cassiopeia. It is one of the most easily identifiable constellation, with its distinctive W shape. Let me see if I can attach a map of that constellation

Click on the image for bigger picture. Up is North, as usual, but left is East, not West. Its optimized to be viewed lying down while looking at the sky.

So there I was, closing the gate, when I saw something unusual. Just by the constellation was a very bright object, an object brighter than the star Vega, possibly brighter than the planet Jupiter. It was just by the small star visible in the picture -- the one thats just top left of the centre star in the constellation. It was not one of the metors, or a plane, because it was not moving, but it was very bright, steller bright, I mean. I would have it as a guess, but it might have been outside the athmosphere. For the moment, I thought I was looking at a different constellation, but after about a minute, that object was no longer there. I can't say how it vanished, because I was driving then, and couldn't keep my eyes in the sky. But I am certain it was fixed. So it most probably is not satellite. But for those who'd like to confirm, the time was around 1900 hrs NST (UTC+0545).

One Great Race, One Great Racer

It's just over, the 2006 Monza grand prix that is. What a race! I did not think, not in the wildest of my dreams, that this race would be this great. But then, its a matter of perspective, I mean if you are an Alonso fan, you'd say this was one of the worst races ever.

The race started with something. Kimi had a great start. So was for Kubica and Alonso. Phillipe was the one that got penalized in all that, getting behind Kubica. He never managed to get in front of the Pole. BMW Sauber had a good package, although they were a bit lagging in the slower sections. Ferrari had the best package: at times, Schumacher would be about half a second faster than Kimi.

The first stint had Kimi as leader, but just by 3 seconds, to Michael. After the first stops, Michael was ahead of Kimi, by about 3 seconds. After that, the race was pretty uneventful for the German and Finn. However, the race was on for those on the back. Massa would not let go of Kubica, whose engine power proved much better than Massa's overall excellence, and meant that the Brazilian could not attempt many overtaking maneuvers.

The second stops just confirmed Michael's lead over Kimi, it was back in 3rd, 4th and 5th place that made all the difference. Being bottled up, Massa went in first, and few laps later, Kubica and Alonso went in together. Alonso had much better, all-be-it longer, pitstop, but he managed to get alongside the BMW Sauber of Kubica. On the exit of the pitlane, Alonso got the better of Kubica, the better part for him was, he was able to leap-frog on Massa as well in pit-strategy. So there he was, in 3rd position, with not-so-comfortable-but-nice lead over Kubica, and suddenly there's a plum of blue smoke coming out of the back of his Renault at the end of start-finish straight. Kubica misses the oil, but Massa hits it and goes straight on the bumpy ride across the chicane, and manages to get a right front puncture. The in-and-out maneuver cost him his 4th place and had to settle for 9th. Anyway, that was one of the highlights for the championship.

And with the eventual settlement for second place by Kimi, Michael had a comfortable victory. Massa tried his best to take a point, but failed, and finished ninth. The good news was that Michael scored 10 full points, while his championship rival Alonso scored none, resulting in 108 points for the Spaniard and 106 points for the German. The better news was that Ferrari leap-frogged Renault in Championship standings by 3 points (168 to 165).

The main drama was still in the making, after all the race and trophy presentation ceremony. In the Post-Race Press Conference, Michael announced what was already speculated. He's about to retire after the end of this season. It was one emotional situation, when he announced it. Almost made the presentator speechless.

Its kinda hard to imagine, particulary for the likes of me, Formula 1 without Michael. He has been there for about a decade. At the age when people start to think about future plans, he was winning races. Even with retirement in sight, he was pushing 110%. Now the real dillema for me is, in the abscence of Michael, who should I support, and follow. I am not so sure, without him, Ferrari would be so great a team, not with Massa as the lead driver. Kimi could get somewhere, but I seriously doubt it. Renault will have a good team, and has some really good driver lineup, but I don't like that team. Button has been named the replacement for Michael, but Honda team is not up to scratch, not till now. BMW Sauber and Williams have good package but lack the consistency. Red Bull Racing may show something, but Cosworth engines they are planning to use for 2007 season did not show anything with Jaguar, so I am a bit skeptical. Torro Rosso are just smaller version of RBR, so even if they have great drivers, they will not perform well. MF and Super Aguri are just back markers. So who is my preferable World Champion and Constructor Champion? Hmm... may be Kimi and Ferrari? I'd like to follow Ferrari, but chances are good that Renault will snatch both, however much I'd hate it. Anyway thats more than a year away, plenty of time for me to change my mind. One thing is for sure, I'd follow anyone I do not hate who performs well in the opening rounds of Formula 1 2007 season. For the time being, let me think over all of these and spend some time alone. I desperately need some time to analyze and think everything over.

The Great Sagar

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thulung/

Sushil sent it to me... Wouldn't have known if he did not tell me. But they were some great photographs. I knew he was one talented guy, just took such a long time to see his photographic talents.
Anyway, they were some of the best pictures I have ever seen. The captions need some more creativity though. I know he can do it.

Sagar, thinking to go pro? If not, you should. Good luck mate.