The Trek

So finally I am trying to get things done, the things I want at least. For the first time in my life I did a trek. And let me tell you the feeling was awesome, I got a very very small glimpse of the western ghats.

Our aim was to get to a place called "Pakshipathalam" it is a 7.5 KM trek from "Thirunelli" in Waynad. All of us got out by 6:45 AM to our road trip to Thirunelli, we had some break fast from a small hotel en route to Thirunelli.

The Trekkers

With the very little experience in photography I have, I managed to capture some of the snaps of the trip.

The initial part of the trek was very tough for me, since the path was a bit steep, I was running out of breath very fast. The constant motivation by my friends made me go on. Special thanks to the stick handed over to me by Ashik and the Ventolin Inhaler which I have always carried with me.

With a stick in my right hand and an inhaler in the other, there was nothing that was going to stop me (does an evil grin...)

Music playing in head - Take my breath away - Cher

Most of the paths were winding through the forests

The winding path

After a small climb the tall canopy began to clear out and the view became clear and what I saw is best described by the picture, I may not have the artistic sense to put it in words.

A glimpse of Western Ghats

Our Pro Photographer

I have never enjoyed the raw beauty of nature like this. The view was just awesome, for moment I just stood there looking at the lush green forest slopes.

And then we saw the watch tower.

Music playing in head - All along the watchtower - Bob Dylan

The Watch Tower

We took a 15 min break here, the view from top of the tower was pretty cool, I took some shots of Manuel and Ashik while I was at the top of the tower.

Looking at Ashik

Looking at Me

After the short break we went through some more winding path and after that the land was less steep and more flat, we passed through these meadows, I was seeing meadows for the first time. It was more of open grasslands, with intermittent clumps of forest.

Music Playing in head - No Ceiling - Eddie Vedder

No Ceiling

He leads the way, from behind

After about 3.5 hrs of Trekking we reached the top of Pakshipathalam, A moment I caught on my camera.

Facing Hills

The guide told us that if you go over the edge, the probability of finding your body is minuscule. We could clearly see the Kerala / Karnataka border here.

The Borderlands

After this we made it into the caves, there are these dark pits in the caves where bats dwelled. Even though we could not reach the bottom of the caves, we traversed the caves and it was all calculated placements of foot and partial jumps, one small slip and that would mean a "game over", the place reminded me of "Indiana Jones"

I am a relative of Indiana Jones

The trek down was a bit tough as the legs were paining and I was constantly slipping down the slopes. In about 3.5 hours we made it down to our starting point. We were all dead tired from our trek, and we got in this shop on our way back. The tradition is to have tea and Unni Appam from this shop, if you were ever going through this way.

The Shop Owners

Oh boy isn't this refreshing

After a long trek, tired and aching bones what do you do?

Go to Manuel's house and have the dinner of your life. Manuel's mother makes excellent food and I loved every bit of it, it was a full course dinner. I loved the tender mango pickle.

The most imba food in this part of the country

Looking forward to more adventures with friends...

Makes life worth living...

P.S: A special thanks to Irene, who motivated to move my arse to have a look at the big world out there

Last.fm Bug

Jefferson Airplane is pretty cool, I wish I lived in their era...but I noticed this strange bug in the song listing.



The Union Underground got Anachronistically between "Bullet for My Valentine" and "Jefferson Airplane"

Strange bug, the first one I noted in Last.fm in 4 years after I started using it.

What goes around, comes around

Oh yeah, I got a new project manager, and most of you know the stories, if not you can find it Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, Here & Here

Life in Zyxware has been good so far, even though the work is Drupal Centric, the freedom in work makes me forget about the nature of work.

But the irony in life is the fact that due to the very weighted dice I got, I have a project manager once again. Compared to the previous experiences with absolute retards, all I am expecting is some one who will leave me alone.

Since I work off timings usually, the manager had requested me to meet her personally. So one day I woke up early and went over to the office to meet with this new manager.

Let me try to recollect the event, I went through the door and there she was sitting over the dining table damn my work place is taken now...anyway after the morning greetings, I went over to the food table made a bowl of corn flakes.

Now why corn flakes, I usually need something to keep me distracted in manager meetings, I usually take a pen and pad and start doodling nonsense into it keeps my calm when questions like "Is firewall hot?" is asked to me and I was hungry.

Project Manager(PM): So I heard you have got some industry experience and you have worked in a company before

Me: True (Not that I am very proud of my career)

PM: So then you know about time-sheets and meeting project deadlines etc

Me: I have had some experiences (Glimpses of the Coca Cola Incident Flew by in my mind)

PM: So why did you quit?

Me (Sipping from you corn flakes bowl): I had issues with my project manager

PM: Oh, tell me about it...

(Man was that a long story to tell...)

PM: I think, what you had is just a bad experience, I do not think companies like Infosys here have this bad politics.

Me: Oh really? Do you want to see mail forwards from my friends here in Trivandrum Infosys about internal politics?

PM: So you had issues when estimating in your project

Me: Yes, kind of.

PM: Where I used to work he had an estimation team that does all the estimations

Me: So you don't involve the developer in the estimations?

PM: We do we all have a big meeting (going on ....)

(Tell me about it, I used to sleep through the big ones)

Me: So how do you actually estimate a work?

PM: We got the concept of function points, it means we divide the task into a numerous function points and then we estimate on the basis of this function points.

Me: Say If I have a task to display a "Hello World" string from a Database on to a Web Page, how would you estimate this?

PM: We would divide the displaying Part into a function point and the retrival part into a function point and then do the estimation for each of them.

(Sounds reasonable, but look what happens)

Me: Ok, sounds fair, but there is usual rule of thumb for estimation, Say I have been given to write a script for the system I am working in, I know exactly how much time will it take to write the script, for example let us assume it takes 4 Days, I will estimate it to 4 Weeks. After this it goes to my Project Manager, here I sit and argue with my Manager on why I need 4 weeks but as usual I he will try to reduce it and will finally end up with 3 weeks, and once it goes to the client, the client will say that his team can do it in 2 weeks then how come you take 2 weeks. So then we reestimate the project to 1 Week development and 1 Week Testing.

PM: Yeah...

Me: So thats how projects get estimated practically...

PM: So are you happy with the work here.

Me: Of course not, I am not happy, I really do not like the work I am doing, but I like open source and the philosophy on which Zyxware was built which is why I chose to work here in the first place.

PM: So what would you like to work in?

Me: In core computer science.

PM: What is core computer science?

(Something that is not worth answering to a person who don't know about it)

Later on...

PM: So I am trying to implement processes in here, currently everything is a mess.

Me: True, but when you implement processes things get more complicated and people tend to loose their freedom. If such a situation arises in Zyxware, I will quit the company, there are no second thoughts on that. Also a process is good if people adhere to it, most of the time processes are just placeholders no one actually follows it. The only reason processes exist is so that the company passes through some Audits.

PM: I will try to implement them in such a way that it does not affect the current work style.

Me: Have you read Dilbert by Scott Adams?

PM: No

Me: You should, it is a must read book for managers. It talks about all these aspects of processes, estimation etc from a comical stand point. But it contains serious stuff also. It is a must read.

PM: Ok, anyway let me see how these processes can be made out without affect much of the current work style

Me: Yes thats what everyone says and then all of them ends up as Darth Vader.

Anyway new changes have been coming into system slowly by surely, one of them being "Thought for the day" in the mailing list, my friend says he used to do that in his company when he was in bench and had lots of time to waste.

And today...

PM: How is the work progressing?

Me: Its progressing

PM: Are you happy with the client?

Me: Of course not, I am not happy, I will let you know if anything changes

Good thing my friend called over the mobile phone I had a chance to escape another non productive waste of time conversation.