Photo blocks!!

Yayyy! Am so excited just by the idea of photo blocks! Basically, they are wooden blocks with pictures and/or text on the sides of the blocks. I wish I could show you few of them, but do not want to trespass somebody's private pictures. Pinterest has so many of them here.

Be it colored or vintage looking, they all look so great. And the best part is they can be done so easily. All you need is wooden blocks, mod podge and some awesome photos. Alright, so wooden blocks are not easy to come by in India. But I am sure, I can look up some alternative. You can make your own mod podge by mixing equal parts of fevicol and water. 

I keep thinking I don't need a printer and then I see these fabulous DIYs and my mind spins again :) Here is a quick DIY. Can't wait to try!

http://www.somewhere-in-the-middle.com/diy-photo-blocks/

The crafty people

To start off, I am not one of the lucky few who was bitten with the creativity bug. But more recently, I found myself seeking a creative outflow for my energy. In my quest to find simple DIYs, I came across so many fascinating ideas. I am amazed that people can be so talented. There is an incredible lot of quick and easy stuff to try out on the net. I can't wait!

Here are my favorites.

DazzleDIY  
I simply love this girl! Her DIYs are so easy to make AND she believes in recycle, reuse.

The Dating Divas  
This site is full of lovely, romantic ideas for the love of your life.

Exploding Love Box!  
Cute but hard for me to make :(

Reel or Real

I love reality shows. Not all of them. But most. These shows bring us closer to the world we live in. Often, our lives get so busy that we fail to notice what the person next to us is doing or going through. When I watch a talent hunt or a competition, I realize how varied the human nature can be. During the auditions, we see the participants come with their life story, their struggles, their hopes and their dreams. It may be a housewife who wants to prove to the world that she can do more or a survivor from cancer who decided to have a one up on life. As they progress, we watch them getting better by the day, overcoming their fears and learning new stuff. At the end of it, we share a bond with our fellow beings on this planet, not knowing that through their journey we have crossed our own.

At some point of time, I look into myself and ask what is my passion, what is it that drives me? How would I define myself? When there is a tough situation in the show, I wonder what my decision would be in that scenario. When the cameras roll to the personal lives of the contestants, more often than not, there is always a battle. I draw parallels to my life and thank my blessings. More than all, I love the fact that these people were able to overcome their battle. They were biding their time for that one chance which will change their lives. And when they are presented with that opportunity, they give it their all. Some with their god gifted talent and some through sheer hard work.

The outcome might not always be as expected. There can only be one winner for the show. There might be many shows which are scripted and may have pre-decided favorites. But people learn to move on with the quote "The deserving always win" or "Life is not always fair" depending on who won :) The underlying fact never changes that the show provided a platform for the contestant to show case his talent. It slowly built a confidence in the person to face the world. At the same time, it makes sure he is grounded by showing that there are others who are better or as good as him.

The reality shows instill a belief that there is HOPE for all. It is like Cinderella's fairy godmother, twirling its magic wand, bringing magic to people's lives. There are so many shows to discuss. Rather than making this one long post, I am going to break it down into several posts because I think each show has its own specialty and deserves its own space.

P.S: I realized today that I had been spelling "specialty" as "speciality" all through. Thanks spell check! :P

Creating custom search engine for Firefox

Sometime back, I replaced Google and created a custom search engine in Firefox. I found it very helpful. Recently, I happened to install something which removed my custom search engine :( I tried fiddling with about:config but no luck. After a lot of browsing, I found this add-on which I used the previous time. It is quick and easy to use. Sp pass it on :)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-to-search-bar/

A very well-written post!

 Gen Y problems :)

http://sahajapatel.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/an-arranged-happily-ever-after/

Why this kolaveri?

This is the third time I am writing this post! Wow! The person mentioned here must be something! :D Or maybe, this is symbolic of my growing maturity :P The first time, I was angry and frustrated. After a few days, I calmed down, but still felt hurt. Finally, today I can look back and smile at the wonderful moments I had.

I work on NIC and iSCSI boot drivers. So, most of our issues start with system doesn’t boot, which means you cannot do anything more, automatically achieving the P1 status! During one such critical issue, I had to work with a guy from Costa Mesa. Let’s call him Ryan (I like this name better than the one he has). This issue was getting very hot with the clients and the upper management wanted results, immediately. We have very minimal debugging tools here, honestly speaking, none. So, we have to entirely rely on our gut feeling. This obviously needs a lot of experience and sound knowledge, which I happen to lack. And that is why I was suggested to work with Ryan, who was already analyzing this issue.

I was under a lot of pressure and I woke up early (evening for them) to ping him on chat. I was nervous since Ryan is also one of the top guys and he had not replied to my mail. Surprisingly, he replied immediately. He expressed concern over me getting up early just to work on an issue. He punctuated it with a smiley! That’s right. He put this :) And I knew, I would have no problems working with this guy. We got working on the issue and Ryan even stayed up the next day, just to help me.

I have to give it to him. He is a great guy. Despite the miles between us, he sensed that I was totally freaked out and gave me a day off, just to compose myself. Unlike many others I have worked with, he would keep up a friendly banter which kept me awake during the late hours. This showed in our work and we were able to root cause the issue within two days. It turned out to be somebody else’s mistake!! But the deal wasn’t bad because I had found a very good friend. Ryan is a very humble man. Absolutely modest and down-to-earth. What I like the most about him is his sense of humor. Ryan not only comes up with good ones himself but also has the rare virtue of being able to take a joke on him. He would also laugh at all my jokes, good, bad and ugly. 

The issue was resolved, but we continued to stay in touch. He called me his 3 am friend. He even told me about his evil MIL! :D He loves his wife and daughters and I am proud of him for that. I would in turn tell him about my work and my life. This was going good. And then, somehow he stopped talking to me. Yeah, I don’t know why, but he stopped answering my pings. This was strange because, no matter how busy he was, he would always make time to reply to me. He would tell me if he was busy and we would plan to talk some other day. I ignored his ignoring me for some time, assuming he must be on a really tight schedule. However, he never tried to contact me. Honestly, I don’t know what went wrong, no idea whether I had hurt him or upset him in any way. Ryan believed in talking out things to sort them. Somehow, he must have felt that I did not need an explanation.

Ryan, you will always remain one of my good friends. However it ended, I will at least not regret that I did not attempt to revive our friendship.

New Year New Approach

Happy New Year everybody!!! I hope all of you had a lot of fun bringing in the new year. I did :) We had a theme party. The theme was "Your Wackiest Best" but many of us got confused and finally it looked more like fancy dress :D

I never made resolutions. I thought it was lame and anyway I was not going to follow it so what's the point in resolving? Negative right? So, this time I have decided to start the year with a positive approach. I will set targets for myself, I will make promises and try to fulfill it as much as I can.

To begin with, I have a well defined goal.
* Learn to drive: Yes, I want to be able to drive a car, by this month end! In fact, I will register for the classes tomorrow.

Now, the more general ones.
* I will be more patient and tolerant. I will try to keep my temper in check and I will think before I speak.
* I will make more time for my friends and stay in touch with them.
* Finally, I will take better care of myself. I will watch my health and diet. I will try to stay in shape. I will respect and believe in myself and never lose confidence. Last but not the least, from now on, I will enjoy each and every moment of my life!

That's all for now. Hope you guys too start the year on a positive note :) Cheers!