Sunday, September 21, 2008

"The God's Mills Grinds Slow But Sure ..."

"The God's Mills Grinds Slow But Sure ..."

The Friday attack of the undue stress and other environmental parameters on me set waves of introspection from my internal self on various of my past deeds and I just thought of sharing the same which would be helpful for others too in correcting similar follies that many people succumb to.

  1. There is a tamil proverb which says "பனை மரத்துக்கு கீழே இருந்து பால் குடித்தாலும் பாப்பவர்கள் கண்ணுக்கு கள்ளாகதான் தெரியும்" which means "Even if we only drink water at the shade of palm tree, the onlookers would only view with a suspicion whether we are brewing toddy (arrack) from the palm product and consuming it.

    Similar to this proverb, two weeks back I have been staying late around with a few who have the habit of taking liquor for the weekend celebrations. Though I just restricted myself to Coke or a peg of beer, it just added up to the offences that the Lord's account book for me maintains and which I think has manifested as the 9/19 attack on me. This is Lord's lesson to me that I need to mend my ways. Again, this also coincides with the moral that Sindhu Bhairavi film carries. The two weekend incidents carries the Avarohanam for which the Lord made me to run through the agony this weekend to ward off the clouds scattering my focus on Him towards mundane attractions. Hopefully, the days ahead would be Aarohanam without any negatives as Sindhu Bhairavi concluding song says too. I have recorded a quick snap on Snapvine regarding my learning curve here:.
  2. There has been many occasions where we just waste food on many occasions. Now, every bit of food and its value is made visible by the Lord.

Simply put, 9/19 was not a disaster for me. It was a lab where the Lord wanted me to introspect into myself, correct my derails and tune myself to the service of His Lotus feet.

The Freaking Friday (September 19)

The Freaking Friday (September 19)

This friday (September 19) had been waiting with plethora of confusions, physical and mental agony for me. Due to acute and hectic stress, late night stretches the whole of past two weeks coupled with the steep climatic transition in Dallas from the peak summer to mild winter through the upcoming cold season, gave me a mild jolt or turbulence right from Wednesday night. I started getting a few water boils on the skins and Friday witnessed a kind of 9/11 attack of the stress on me even from morning I started feeling giddy.

Myself and a couple of more of our friends were planning out a long drive for the weekend. I had a lighter doubt whether I can accommodate it with the bad health of mine. I was suggested to take off on Friday afternoon, have a good afternoon through night nap which should restore the physical tranquility. I promptly acceded to the suggestions and came back to my suite towards late afternoon.

When I woke up at 1900 hours (or I was forcibly woken up at 1900 hours by my physical turbulence), my body temperature was almost like a hot furnace. I chose to seek the FrontDesk assistance on some neighboring medical aid. A couple of my colleagues offered me assistance through the night to restore a little tranquility and mobility later.

samayapurammariamman Alongside, I would also like to offer my sincere thanks to Samayapuram Mariamman who is guarding me through all these turbulences. I still have aching pains and I am surrendering unto Her divine hands to restore a complete normalcy.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Virtual Pooja to Sri Ayyappa

Virtual Pooja to Sri Ayyappa

Today evening it had been a very holy evening. Whilst casually browsing through some websites, I came across Sri Ayyappa Temple, Rohini, New Delhi website, which can be accessed from here. The opening page of the website has a virtual pooja to Sri Ayyappa.

Also, I just got to know Silverlight Streaming of Videos service from Microsoft. I had the Namaskara Slokam of Sri Ayyappa downloaded and in my personal collection. I have downloaded this from CoolGoose, which supports songs in public domain only and with good rating. You can trust CoolGoose for public domain songs for the simple reasons like:

  • Stay away from piracy
  • Small size
  • Though the website puts a lot of advertising, the download speed is good (Even in India and in slow broadbands)

Today evening, I sat down and did a small assignment like below:

  1. Prepared a SlideShow of 'Loka Veeram Maha Vishnum' in http://show.zoho.com/. I then exported it to Microsoft Powerpoint from where I can save the slides as compressed GIFs. The entire typing took me some thirty minutes.
  2. Open Windows Movie Workshop to embed 'Loka Veeram Chanting' and the slides. The most important part was synchronization of the slide that is shown and the sloka which is being chanted.  My laptop didn't have a mouse which was again a great disappointment. I called my friend 'Varaprasad' and he was explaining me how to use the touchpad to easily drag and drop. So, there is one more thing I learnt today.
  3. After careful syncrhonization, I exported the movie and then published to Silverlight Video. Check it out here:


  4. Full Screen URL (may open in your Windows Media Player)

Disclaimers:

  1. Note: As far as I know the slokam is hand-typed by me reading from various books. The audio is a free download from CoolGoose public domain song and true to my conscience, there has not been any copyright infringment. If at all, you have an issue, please send me a note to deepak.vasudevan (at) rediffmail.com, which would facilitate me to investigate into the matter. This would also help me to visit the website also to inform the uploader and clarify the same.
  2. This requires Silverlight Plugin to be installed. Check out Microsoft Silverlight page for system requirements and to download the silverlight plugin.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

A 30-Minute watch of 'Maja' Tamil Film

A 30-Minute watch of 'Maja' Tamil Film

Given the quality of tamil movies that get produced now, I seldom watch movies nowadays. Today, whilst chatting with my colleague, I had a chance to watch Maja Tamil film from his personal copy.

It was almost the closing section of the movie. While it is a same kind of triangular love story as with other Tamil films, there are some good points that apply to reality which can be inferred from the film. They are:

  1. The amount of sabotage; the uncontrolled avarice and lust can wreck on the mankind.
  2. With respect to people involving in (1), even when they are in closer circles, we ought to exercise greater vigil in their activities instead of blindly trusting them. This moral is also conveyed in Avvai Shanmughi (Chachi 420 -- Hindi version). The housemaid would do all sorts of kitchen-lifting which no one could spot. The newly recruited Avvai Shanmughi would find this, record everything to a video and then bring the crime to limelight.

Compare Shopping at Burlington Coat Factory and JCPenney

Compare Shopping at Burlington Coat Factory and JCPenney

Today I had a quick drive with a few of my colleagues to Grapevine Mills. The main action items for the topic were the following:

  1. A few cookware utensils
  2. Select electronic gadgets
  3. Hand Bags
  4. And of course a little bit Window Shopping to have time pass.

One of your colleagues's friend had mentioned about specific handbags. We did a comprehensive comparison but still then we could not get it. We chose to get some snaps of the shortlisted items and send them as email so that you confirm their choice. I just thought I would also have these marvelous handbags shared with others so that if you have a similar need, you can be benefited:

 


Windows Live Spaces

Monday, September 08, 2008

Currency Convertor Archives

Currency Convertor Archives

We know of hundreds of currency convertors online that could give us a glimpse of the current currency conversion rates. But what if, for some reason, we needed to look up a currency exchange rate of say some five months back.

I had this piquant issue and after a little search, got hold of this page from IMF website: https://www.imf.org/external/np/fin/data/param_rms_mth.aspx

You need to do a little bit workaround calculation through SDR. But it it is really comprehensive calculator.

Merinews Citizen Journalist Contest CJ 2008

Merinews Citizen Journalist Contest CJ 2008

Merinews is conducting Citizen Journalist Contest CJ 2008 to encourage young citizen journalists to contribute articles, stories and features in English. You can also contribute videos upto 100 mega bytes.

Contest Homepage: http://www.merinews.com/contest.jsp?k=ycjc

Attractive cash prizes ranging from INR 5000 to INR 20000. Just thought I would share it with other interested readers.

A Fond Recall And and Affectionate Thanks

A Fond Recall And and Affectionate Thanks

I was busy writing out a small review on C# Basics book by Vijay Mukhi. My mind slowly went back into 2002 when I started into my voyage with .NET.

For me, I would thank my following guru's who have been my beacon light in getting into a good voyage of .NET:

  1. My the-then technical leads at C S Software:
    1. Varadarajan A
    2. Aravinthan N
  2. Akila Manian (MVP)
  3. My then then program managers at C S Software:
    1. Sivakumaran Kathiresan
    2. Sasidharan Chinnaraj

      (I am not that affluent to go for costly courses. They were kind enough to organize on the job training, during our tenure in the organization and the training itself was conducted by Akila).

Just thought I would write out this small post thanking them for lending a great helping hand into my .NET Journey. I say just 'Thanks'. But is this six letter word say it all? It may or may not but it should be expressing my heart-felt thanks.