ka-la-va-ra betta

After a lot of thought, we cleverly picked 26th jan 09 (partial solar eclipse), mid afternoon with a clear sky for our trek, so that we can make use of all our old caps and sunscreens which were stacked away in unknown corners of our cupboards.
Six of us started off in an esteemed esteem towards kalavara betta, which is in the Skandagiri range (drive on NH7 towards Chikaballapur, 58 km from hebbal, with a lot of grape plantations on either side). On reaching Chikaballapur and after some frantic search for decent food on 'brigade road', we packed some idlies in a garden view Shanthi Sagar.
This hill is situated at the end of mg road, in a village called kalavara. Driving past narrow lanes, dodging chicks crossing the road, roosters and hens, dogs, cyclists, pedestrians and the potholes.. we reached a temple where we could stop the tyres and start the legs.
The climb up is through a winding path lane, with rocks and shrubs all around, intermittent with wide empty spaces for the slightly less enthusiasts like us to unlax for a while. Though the climb as such is not tough, the heat got to all of us. Armed with Glucomin-D (step-sister of Glucon-D) and some water and some false information by the guys, we managed to drag ourselves to a spot shaded by 2 rocks placed like a mushroom. This we decided was where are uphill trek was going to end.
The view from here is like that for any other hill, more hills all around, small ponds, rocks, boulders, greenery and the sky. A serene place with just the sound of wind with some sporadic bleeting of sheep.
After a break of an hour or so, along with a meal shared with a bunch of goats and a dog, we started our walk down.
Walk down is always less tiring (also because it was slight slippery in places due to loose sand, we covered a few inches without lifting a foot:)) as it agrees with Newton uncles theories. And we were back to where we started in no time, of course with the un-inevitable photo shoots all through the way.

To Do s for this trip:
1) carry loads of water
2) caps, sunblocks/sucscreens, glares, good shoes.
3) snacks or food for energy
4) once on top of the hill, after exploring the wilderness, you could be ready for a game of UNO under the cool shade of the rocks.
finally
5) make sure the combination of your raasi, nakshatra, the position of the sun, moon, all the planets with their corresponding satellites are all in a favourable position :)

Overall a good fun 1-day trip.

My rating of the place : 3 and half stars.

Human beings have a knack of finding wrong solutions to the right problem in the heat of anger..
say for instance,
action: a bus runs over a few pedestrians, killing them..
reaction: burn the bus, let the driver go home and take rest so tomorrow he ll be ready to drive another bus.
Because it was the bus which decided to go against the driver and maneuver itself into the innocents..

action: Dr. Rajkumar passes away
reaction: burn down the city, throw stones at buildings, burn vehicles, cause havoc
Because some how the entire city joined up the previous night to conspire against him..

action: Mr. Raju s frawd case in Satyam
reaction: no physical reaction was seen for this, but interestingly, when traveling home with my colleague, we saw a Satyam bus pass by and he suggested we stone it :)
Because, of course it was the bus that influenced Raju to commit the fraud.

So if people spend an extra minute to calm down and find logical solutions, surely we would have fewer such mishaps..

Finally, if you don't like this post, do not stop visiting this page but instead throw your computer out the window :)..

slacktivist......

Slacker + Acktivism.
An interesting term I came across which stamps most of the software engineers as slacktivists of some or the other kinds.. where in we want to sit in the comfort of our chairs and also lend our hand in changing the world..
Be it signing internet petitions, wearing awareness bracelets, joining facebook/orkut communities or forwarding e-mails which claim to give 25p to some desolate family in some corner of the world everytime the Fwd button is clicked.
Thus by doing what we love to do (which is nothing) it gives us a sense of satisfaction of having contributed to a social cause.

I have done my slacktivist activity for the day by posting this, which would let my unaware slacktivist blog reading friends know that they are slacktivists too... :)

Geared!

While taking my car driving lessons an interesting idea occurred to me.
Isn't driving a geared 2 wheeler easier than driving a car? Of course keeping aside the balancing aspects.
A geared 2 wheeler has gear at the feet and rest of the options at the hands and the car is just the opposite. Considering our hands are more skilled and more in control than our feet, wouldn't it be a better idea to have the important levers like accelerator, clutch and brake as hand operated and leave the gear to the feet even in cars?, as you could go wrong with a gear and it would still be ok but if you went wrong with any of the others.... hmmmm.....
This view is based on my limited knowledge of both the vehicles, may be someone more experienced could throw some light.. and if possible this idea could be patented under the name vmw (visakhapatnam motor works) ;)

Manager's Humour!

My manager found it amusing to send this to all of us... if I was not in his To list, I would have probably found this funny.

I love watching cook shows..
There is usually one main cook and somtimes one another (who's mainly there to make yummy noises and hand over things which are already an arms length away..).. the main guy is in nice clothes and no matter what ingredients are given to him, he casually adds a dash of this and a pinch of that and voila! a finger licking dish is ready.. (at least thats what it looks like and thats the expression he makes when he takes the first bite..)
So my latest ambition is to be an excellent cook..
but wait a minute.. whats a kitchen? :)

There are no Rights and Wrongs, there are only views and perceptions.
- Dpt Chavali and ...... Nah let me not share the credit ..;)