I don’t really remember when was the last time I reached home from work while the Sun was still shining. And fortunately, it was today, the 30^th of April 2008 that I was home without switching on the headlights of my motorbike.

Also, I just realized that if I don’t put up a posting today, it would be the first month without a post, since I started blogging. Definitely not something I even dreamed of. So this is one of those obligatory posts.

Let me carry on from where I left:

Relaxed….

Again, for the last 2-3 weeks, I’ve spent a lot of hours at work. More often or not, the work flowed down to my home too. The end result is still not visible to me. Something was terribly wrong. I was spending time, but not getting enough out of it. I know it happens sometimes, but this time, it was a long stretch. Though there was a lot of work pending, I decided to pull myself out of this by deciding to take the last weekend completely off the work. I deliberately decided to not even think about it. And this did wonders to the way I was perceiving things at my end. The last three days have been more productive than the last two weeks I suppose! Also, now I can easily realize what went wrong. Instead of focusing on the current task at hand, I was overwhelmed by the sea of things I had to accomplish. It was partly because of the fact that the situation didn’t allow me to overlook certain things which I should have. The bottom line is that one can only do a limited amount of work in a given time, so it will always make sense to focus on the current task at hand. However, it is also important to have a planning and visibility towards what’s coming next.

Lastly, I think I’ve been in and out of such situations quite a few times. Whatever I try out, such situations are inevitable once in a while. So next time I am caught in such a situation, I’ll take that ‘Obligatory Break!’ which would hopefully help me to get back on track both physically and mentally

Of late, I have had opportunities to interact with various people across the globe. And I am only referring to communications over the phone/web messengers. Invariably, the first piece of communication would be a question form the caller to the receiver:

 ”Hi receiver! How are you doing?”

So what’s special in this? Well nothing yet. Let’s continue…

From the answers I have received and also the one’s I put up in response to the greeting, it almost always has to be one of the following:

 Hi caller! I am doing ‘Good’. How about you?

 Hi caller! I am ‘OK’. How about you?

 ‘Not bad’. How about you? (Notice ‘Hi caller’ being dropped!)

Needless to say, ‘receiver’ would also respond in a similar way.

Now let me take the opportunity to briefly put up what each of these actually mean:

Expression   => What the person says.

Explanation => What the person actually means.

Expression: I am doing ‘Good’

Explanation:  Surprisingly, everything seems to be under control. I am not used to such situations but it has somehow been magically conjured and there’s a high chance that after this particular call, it may not remain the same. Whatever, let’s continue.

Expression: I am doing ‘OK’

Explanation: I am barely managing to keep up to speed with the happenings. Something seems to be terribly wrong and I am afraid, as we speak, it may go hay wire! I am struggling hard to figure out that ‘something’ since morning. It would be great if could help me do so.

Expression: ‘Not bad’

Explanation: Well too bad! It couldn’t get any worse. Nothing seems to be as it should be. It would be great if I was left alone. But let’s continue. Since I am already overloaded, please be aware that anything new which comes up will safely overflow!

It’s important to note that no one ever says, “I am doing great!” or “I am doing fantastic!”. Neither does one say “I am doing too bad!” or “I am screwed up!” And this is why I had to formulate the above theory.

All this just means, people are too good to trouble with their problems.

Is it???

Now this is strange but true! Around three weeks ago my TV tuner’s remote suddenly stopped working. And over the last three weeks I did the following:

• Changed the batteries (twice to ensure they are not the culprit.)
• Disassembled the remote completely and reassembled it.
• Dropped the remote from six feet above the floor when it still didn’t work after trying a couple of approaches above.

Just to mention, the remote worked for a couple of minutes at times and then stopped working. I would also like to share that a stupid thought came to my mind. Could it be possible that something is not working because of a drop in temperature? May be that an inferior IR(Infra Red) sensor/transmitter that came with the tuner/remote didn’t work at low temperatures. Or could it be that the cells caught cold?

Whatever it was, to my utter surprise, the remote suddenly started working yesterday! And the average temperature has risen by about 5 degrees in the last couple of days. Anyway the remote now works flawlessly. I can manipulate the channels from about 10-15 feet. So all is well. I was actually going to order a multipurpose remote which can be supposedly programmed to worked with any IR remote sensor! I guess I won’t need that now.

While I am not able to accept the my stupid temperature theory, this is the only noticeable change that has happened between the remote’s working and non-working phase.

I may have to wait for the next winter to find out the reason. Hope my tuner/remote last till then.

Thanks for reading this crap . I just couldn’t resist putting it up.

The new year hasn’t been forgiving at all. Three weeks and no post! That itself tells the story. Good that I didn’t make a new year resolution to put up a post every week at least.  

I have as many as 4 articles at the ‘draft’ stage. Two of them are at the ‘conceptualization’ stage! Unfortunately a couple of them are technical in nature, and are held up for some simple validations before I publish them. I need 3-4 ‘quality hours’ if I have to publish those. And I am not able to do this for about two weeks now.

It makes me wonder if the same has been happening in my professional life as well. There are some things which need attention. And they need ‘quality time’ to be spent.  There are so many things which are happening in parallel that I am just being pushed by the sheer momentum of the state-of-affairs. Not that I am not trying to get over, but it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Now this is what came to my mind yesterday night.  Since I have too many articles at the draft stage, I am into this trouble. Probably if I would have focused on one at a time, I would have had two new posts. But I chose to get into all of them simultaneously and kind of got stuck with all.

Again posts–>profession! I think the solution to the situation is to take up things one by one. It would be better if I spent each day on a particular assignment/problem and try to close them rather than juggling with everything in a day. It’s as simple as that. I am going to try it from today itself.

I hope it sounds sensible. I am open to any suggestions to tackle this situation. Also, I’ll try to be more regular in blogging. So please keep hitting my blog once in a while.

Here’s a twist–> I just wrote that I’ll take up one task at a time and finish it, spending quality time etc. etc. What have I just done? Instead of taking up one of those drafts and completing it, I wrote a new post altogether! So the situation remains as it was. I bet I do the same when I am at office.  You know what I mean. Life is so funny

Just as I write this, I am keeping an eye on the television and seems everyone but me has made some New Year Resolution! Right from cine stars to sports person to common people, everyone has something or the other to put up as the New Year Resolution. Interestingly, with every year, these resolutions are becoming more and more innovative. Why shouldn’t it be? One must have a cool sounding resolution. Whether or not one lives up to it is a different matter altogether. While among friends this topic always comes up, especially towards the end of the year when people think of resolutions.

I decided I won’t remain behind in the race, so here’s my resolution for 2008!

This year, I’ll strive to bring about an inner transformation within me which manifests to the outer world through a radical change in my behavior and align myself to those subtle but powerful forces of the society which are destined to uplift humanity and make this world a better place to live!

Couldn’t make out the meaning? Well, me too! But that’s my ‘New Year Resolution’ for 2008 and I stand by it.

Jokes apart I wanted to share a list of New Year Resolutions which I usually hear across:

1. “I will quit smoking/drinking etc.”
2. “I will spend more time with friends and family.”
3. “I will loose weight.”
4. “I will get more organized.”
5. “I will control my anger and try to be patient.”
6. “I will save money for future.”
7. “I will get things done on time.”
8. “I will do something new and different.”

I think these cover more than 80% of ‘genuine’ New Year Resolutions.

I go with 2, 4, 5 & 6 for this year. Oops! just ignore this. I do not make such simple, obvious and common resolutions even if they make sense. I have already stated my New Year Resolution earlier in the post and I truly abide by it.

What’s your New Year Resolution? And which one of the above do you share?

Wishing everyone a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2008!