Broken Promises

I’ve always believed that I’ve had this problem of lack of discipline, or should I say lack of resolve. The result – broken promises to myself. I’ve lost count of the number of promises I’ve made to myself – and most of them have met the same fate – they’ve been broken. The most common and frequent one has been the promise to maintain a healthy diet and exercise regimen. Fruit-laden, low carb diets don’t last for more than a month and sincere, regular workouts don’t last for more than 20 days.

It doesn’t stop at this. My lack of resolve surfaces in a lot more ways – half-hearted attempts at continuing sketching, half-finished books and (staying in context) irregular updates to my blog. So much so, that I still have 2 incomplete drafts in this wordpress blog – waiting for attention from me.

The irony of the matter is that I seem to be completely the opposite at work – I’m quite focussed on anything I’m doing at work until I complete it. I find myself unable to multitask a lot at work – which is good, because it means I can focus all my energies to the task at hand.

This again brings me to the same question – if I am capable of focusing, then why am I unable to exhibit the same degree of resolve to non-work related activities that I bring to work-related ones? I’m sure its not the question of enjoying what I’m doing coz I definitely enjoy sketching, blogging and exercising more than writing code. Is it a case of priorities then? Or is it my conscience that prods me into commitment for my work because I get paid for it? Or is it a case of pure laziness? (My husband would vouch for the last one )

One thing is for sure – none of the “time management” or “prioritize your activities” or “seven habits” trainings or books ever help when you need these simple answers. Each person is on his/her own to look for such answers.

Georgia Sunshine Village

Just a day before New Year’s eve, we were looking for a quiet retreat to a place close to Bangalore. We had just a day off, so it had to be a place not more than 2-3 hours away. Googling for such places, I came across a resort located close to Sivanasamudra and around 120 kms away from Bangalore. This is the only resort in the vicinity of Sivanasamudra falls. We made the bookings – the money has to be paid in advance – and headed for an overnight stay at Georgia Sunshine Village with Sito and Vrushali.

The Route:

We started from Bannerghatta Road, hit the NICE corridor and headed towards Mysore road. There’s practically no road connecting the Bannerghatta Road to the NICE corridor, so be prepared for a dusty and bumpy ride for around 100 meters or so. But the NICE corridor is a pleasure to drive on – a stark contrast to all other roads in Bangalore. This road led us very quickly to the Mysore road. We drove straight on the Mysore road (SH17) till Maddur via Bidadi and Ramanagaram. At Maddur, we took the left fork towards Malavalli. On crossing the Malavalli town, we drove straight ahead till we reached the ‘T’ junction that leads to Shimshapura road. We turned left at this junction and went ahead till a board for Georgia Sunshine Village directed us to turn right. Now this right turn leads to an uncomfortable 2-km stretch drive on a narrow untarred road before you reach the resort.

The resort:

As soon as we stepped into the resort, we were greeted by a cute little daschund, Whisky, as well as the owner of the resort, Mr Leonard. As we discovered later, there were a few more daschunds apart from Whisky, a friendly Labrador and another fierce looking Labrador (this one was tied, luckily). The resort has around four cottages, each having two rooms set back-to-back. The room Sito and Vrushali were put up in had a semi-open bathroom i.e. the roof covered only half the bathroom. The rooms were quite spacious & clean and the resort itself was quite tastefully done with rugged walkways, an enclosure for rabbits and lots of flora. There’s also a small swimming pool and an activities room (with a TT table and some board games) at the resort.

The Food:

The most important part of any laid-back holiday at a resort is the food served by them. The food at GSV was quite decent, though not outstanding. The menu wasn’t extravagant, but we enjoyed it, nevertheless. We didn’t order any extras – like tea/coffee etc – but I think that anything extra, even as simple as tea, is charged here. The package includes morning as well as evening tea, apart from the meals.

Activities:

GSV arranges fun-fishing at a small pond near the resort. It was fun initially, got boring after the first few minutes. There’s no fishing to it, it ought to renamed fun-feeding. There’s a bonfire arranged by the resort at night and the board games, TT and the swimming pool are available all of the time. Early in the morning, GSV arranges a small trek – I would call it a nature walk – across the nearby village fields. This was the best part about the stay at the resort and we really enjoyed it.

About 14 kms from GSV, is the Gaganchukki waterfall and another 10 kms is the Barachukki waterfall. We didn’t have time to visit both after checking out of GSV and on consulting Leonard, we decided to visit just Barachukki which is supposed to be better. Here, one has to descend a steep rocky stairway to reach a lagoon right at the bottom of the falls. Coracle rides are provided where they take you almost underneath the waterfall. We went coracle riding and the experience was good. Apart from the coracle ride, there is nothing much to do here. As all other tourist spots in India, this place is damn crowded, so sitting down and relaxing is out of the question.

After the visit to the falls, we headed back to Bangalore.

No silence please!

Two-and-a-half years is a long time. Especially so when you haven’t spoken a word. That’s exactly how its been with this blog. I intend to break the silence with this post, and hopefully, continue blogging this time.

While each of us are getting on with their respective mundane lives, there’s an Indian who’s attempting to row across the Atlantic. He’s been out in the sea for 40 days, rowing away and fortunately, updating lesser mortals like us with his sea-logs at http://www.humanedgetech.com/expedition/bhavik/

Hats off to Bhavik. And here’s wishing that he successfully completes this feat.

City of traffic jams

Must say Bangalore must be rechristened as ‘City of Traffic Jams’ instead of ‘City of Gardens’. Travelling on Hosur Road at any time of the day(or night for that matter) is a nightmare. I pity guys who have to go all the way to electronic city. That would be another 6 kms of torture from my office. The government seems to be blissfully oblivious….as usual…

Funny weather too…bright & sunny every morning, and pouring by evening!

Planning to watch Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets (CD) tomorrow night and I’m looking forward to it, since movies in cinema halls in bangalore have become such a rarity.

Team meeting today…yaaaawn :-O

October arrives…

Blogging today after more than a month’s gap. Couldn’t go to Barcelona coz my visa arrived the day Brainshare ended Some good news as well – Preggna will be back to office today after her long break, Reena’s shifting to B’lore and I have 8 days compulsory leave left that I have to finish before December!!

Pretty much stuck in the prototype, trying to send data with the connection request using WSAConnect, but don’t know if its supported. Wonder if there are any mailing lists for Winsock where I can get a *quick* response.

Weekend is here!!

Not my day.

It hasn’t been my day today. Started off the day with a severe cold, followed by an hour-and-a-half long wait in the queue at a government office (ouch, my back still aches) and at the end of it all, couldn’t get the work done! Thought I deserved at least a cup of cappuccino, so went to Barista’s and got a take-away cappuccino to calm my nerves. Unfortunately, the lid of the take-away cup wasn’t proper, so I spilled coffee on my clothes! Now, I couldn’t go to office in that condition, had to go home for a change and missed the shuttle bus to office I thought things couldn’t get any worse, but I was wrong. The auto-driver charged an exorbitant amount from me – I was in no mood to argue with him. And I was famished by the time I reached office. What a day!! And it isn’t over yet!

finally…

…finally, finally I saw Spidy-2. Must say its even better than the first Spidy movie, no wonder its house-full even in its 3rd week! Has been a pretty busy weekend till now, makes me wish that weekends should’ve been at least 3 days long, 2 days just aren’t enuff!! Catch-22 seems to be getting better & better, I’m halfway thru now..the only regret being that I hardly get time to read, my average speed is 1 chapter per week and that is truly pathetic. We had dinner at Sigri’s last night. Nice place, but I guess we spoilt the peaceful ambience there with all the ruckus we created….

Buffer Overflow

Pushkala is giving a technical talk on Buffer Overflow to the entire department today. Found an interesting link on the same topic. A must read for all programmers.

The first ever….

My first blog….

Hey, and now I’m struggling to find a way to change the template of my blog site…