Hum Paanch

This entry is dedicated to my group (Shru, Prags, Ash, Sady and me). We met on May 30 at Shru's place in Mysore after a long gap of an eventful year This post is dedicated to all of us. Kudos to us, we surely rock. Waiting eagerly for the next meet.

Kukkarahalli Lake

I spent today’s evening with Rupa at the Kukkarahalli lake, here in Mysore. To those of you who don’t know, Kukkarahalli lake is one of the most beautiful lake in Mysore. Kuvempu, the great poet of Karnataka was known to come here for a walk. The lake comes under the jurisdiction of University of Mysore. Rupa stays nearby to the lake and enjoys the privilege to visit it more often than me. Here are some snaps of the lake.

We walked along the perimeter of the lake gossiping and enjoying the cool breeze. You can always find few health conscious people on jog along the lake. There were few others who sat and enjoyed the serene surrounding. Sometime ago a crocodile used to inhibit the lake and people who went fishing used to be cautious, don’t know if it is still there and I didn’t spot it today. At one point in time, Mysore used to be famous for lakes. Thanks to the urbanization today there are only few of them left and Kukkarahalli lake is one of the beautiful among the existing ones. This lake happens to be the perfect place to spend your lazy evenings. If you happen to visit to Mysore make sure to spend a evening here. That’s all for now.

Pepper Rice

Last week my parents had been to native to attend a Grihapravesham. Hence on arriving at home on Saturday, the onus to cook for the day had been on me. The breakfast was taken care in a nearby restaurant. Mom had saved few curries in fridge, so the noon’s meal was taken care of as well. For dinner, we were running short of sambar, I didn’t want to prepare anything fresh as we were only two people and what ever prepared would somehow remain the next day. There was huge amount of rice from the noon’s meal. I decided to try a simple recipe suggested by Vidhya, my friend. It turned out to be tasty. Here it is:

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp Cumin seeds (Jeera)

• 1 tsp Black pepper

• 2 tsp Ghee or butter

• Finely chopped carrot, capsicum and beans (if desired)

• Salt to taste

• Cooked rice

The amount of pepper, cumin seeds and ghee will vary depending on the rice. Heat the cumin seeds and black pepper in a pan. Powder them and keep aside. In the pan heat sufficient ghee or butter add the chopped carrot, capsicum and beans. Fry them till the rawness subsidizes. Add the cumin and pepper powder and stir the vegetables for a while. Add salt to taste. Lastly, add the cooked rice. Stir the rice till it blends properly with the contents in the pan. Add ghee, pepper or salt if need be.

Serve hot.

Try it and let me know. If you like the recipe thank Vidhya not me.

That’s all for this entry another one coming in few more mins till then God bless.

Linux on USB drive

Recently installed Linux Mandriva on USB hard drive. I didn’t want to compromise my system hard drive for a Linux partition. Two things that needs to be kept in mind before installing Linux on USB hard drive:

• 1. Make sure your have selected the first boot option as USB drive in BIOS settings. This change is required when you are done with the installation procedure. Most of the systems these days provide this option. Well, atleast my Dell Inspiron does :).
• 2. You might want to partition your hard drive and may install Linux on one of the drives. Please make sure that you install the Boot loader in the first partition irrespective of Linux installation. You will be provided with an option during the installation procedure.
  
• 3. For detailed installation procedure for Linux please refer Google. You will find many links.

A snapshot of KDE with transparent console (sorry, Konsol as they call it) is attached here. It is convenient have Linux on a USB drive, trust me. Try and let me know how it goes. Well, that's all for now. Take care and God bless!!

Night out - contd

The wait turned to be longer. Ended up going home at 8:30 a.m., next day. By the time we left few of my team mates were entering to start the day's work. They looked at us as if we were aliens :)
The next night i.e., yesterday night, had to wait again and ended up coming home at 5:00 a.m. (today morning). Hope that this saga of night outs end here...

Night out

It is 2:40 a.m. IST and I am still in office... Hoping to leave ASAP.

Food for soul

Recently one of my friend handed over the transcript of Professor Randy Pausch’s last lecture in CMU(Carnegie Mellon University). This has been doing lot of rounds lately and I thought of reading it. I read the last lecture titled, Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. Randy Pausch was American professor of human computer interaction and design in CMU. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he gave the lecture after coming to know that his case was terminal. This lecture was given on September 18 2007. Randy speaks takes everyone through various phases in his life, describing passionately the difficulties he faced and the moments where he triumphed.

Some of the gems from the book:

• The brick walls are there for a reason. They are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. They are there to stop the other people.

• Never lose the child like wonder.

• Loyalty is a two way street.

• Never give up.

• You get people to help you by telling the truth.

• Get a feedback loop and listen to it. When people give feedback cherish it and use it.

• Show gratitude.

• Don’t complain. Just work harder.

• Be good at some thing. It makes you valuable.

I found the one below, most valuable…

The life is not about achieving dreams but leading it the right way. If you lead the life the right way, your karmas will take care of itself and your dreams will come true. How true… This reminds me of Bhagavatgeetha where Lord Krishna says, “Just do your karma. Don’t worry about the results. Let the rewarding of the results rest with me.”

Randy died on July 25 2008. There is also a book by the title The Last Lecture. If you come across the book, do read it. I recommend this as a must read for everyone who are passionate about life and want to fulfill their dreams. That’s all for now. Please leave a comment before navigating away from the entry.

Some related links: The transcript, Randy Pausch, CMU

Ps: By the way, this is the first entry I am writing from my new laptop. Hope to write much more in future. God Bless!!

(Source of the image: Internet)