Trip Report

I'm back from my weekend bike trip, alive and kicking!
Myself and my friend did this on his bike yamaha RX135.
We took turns in riding and this made life easier (or miserable, since i found the pillion riding to be painful in rx135!).
The map is in the previous post or here.

Bangalore to Yelagiri (Route 2 - 210Km)
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Home - KR Puram - ITPL - Hoskote - Malur - Bangarpet - Betmangala - venkatagirikota (vkota) - Pernampet - Ambur Road - Vaniayambadi - Yelagiri Hlls

This route was very good in the aspect that some stretches were scenic, we were almost always on some kinda village roads and we saw hardly any vehicles on most of the routes.

We decided we would do Route2 on the onward journey as we would be fresh for the country roads. We planned to start at 5.30AM so we could beat the sun and reach yelagiri by noon atleast, and we almost started on time (5.45am). Map suggested us to take highway road to reach hoskote and then Malur. But I thought there would be some straight road to Malur via ITPL. But after ITPL, we were directed by the autowalahs to turn left and connect to the highway and go to Hoskote. We reached the highway and took tea-break at a roadside shop. Light was barely out when we reached Hosekote. From there we found the right turn to Malur. Malur was around 25 kms and we did this comfortably without any problems. Again no vehicles whatsoever on the roads. We reached Malur by 7.15AM and we found the road to Bangarpet which is around 30KM from there. This is the worst road that we would do in our entire journey. After a while, there weren't roads at all in many places particularly when you close in a village. For some reason the roads were pathetic going in and out of the village. But the scenary was good. There were some mountains by side which were fully made up of small small rocks (I'll upload photos later). After clicking some photos we continued and reached Bangarpet, our breakfast destn by 8.15AM. After filling our stomach with some idlis and dosa, we started towards Betmangala. In Bangarpet, we saw a poster for movie "Drugs and Aids: A Sex Education film". We were tempted to break our journey for the movie as it may be helpful, but decided to press on. After getting on to the road to betmangala we realised that we forgot to feed our bike and on enquiry found that there ain't going to be any pumps on our way for some distance. Thankfully, a mechanic shop was selling petrol (at slightly higher price) and filled in a litre so that we could go some distance. After betmangala, road continued to v.kota. No one here knows the full name of the place venkatagirikota. Karnataka gave way to Andhra somewhere on this way, but it wasn't noticeable (at by us). The road was good and again not many vehicles to be seen. From vkota, we found the turn to Pernampet/Gudiyatham. This is the best part of the complete ride. You'd have to go through ghats section to reach pernampet. The road was good and scenic. Bang in the middle of the mountain road, andhra gave way to tamilnadu. We reached pernampet, filled more petrol and were on our way Ambur after quenching our thirst. On the way we saw a turn to directly go to Vaniyambadi and decided to take that road. After a bumpy ride on this road, we crossed the water-less Palar river and reached vaniyambadi. From vaiyambadi, we took the road to Thirupattur and after 7KMs found the turn to Yelagiri hill road and started our last leg of our journey. The 14 KM hillroad consists of 14 HairPin Bends(HPB), spaced almost equally! The road was smooth and apart from the HPB's, there weren't any turns at all.

We reached yelagiri by 12.30, found a cheap room and refreshed ourselves. After lunch, crashed straight into the bed and slept through the afternoon. In the evening, did some boating and walking around. There weren't any places to see close-by. We had our dinner early and killed time by playing cards.

Yelagiri - Bangalore ( Route 1 - 170 Kms)
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Yelagiri - vaniyambadi - krishnagiri - hosur - madiwala - home

Once we got down from the hills, it was just speed game on this route. Vaniyambadi - bangalore is part of golden quadrilateral, so its all 4/6 lane all the way.

We started at around 7AM so that we could beat the sun and planned to reach home by 11AM. Descent was good and early morning added to the beauty of the hill. Once we came on to the highway and after side-crossing three bridges that are still under construction, we were just cruising through. speed was between 70-80kmph, which we considered safe given that the bike is stressed so much for the first time and we wanted to play safe. Road was plain and uninteresting for most part. After taking breakfast at krishnagiri, joined NH7 ad continued towards blore. Entire stretch is completed barring the three bridges. I could see cars and suv's flying through at 120+ without any effort. Oops..speed thrills and doesn't kill in this road.

bangalore welcomed us with red-light at madiwala and we rode through the b'lore traffic to reach home before 11. We beat the clock and the sun too. It was just starting get to hot outside when we found safe haven inside home.

All in all a great ride. This is my first for such long distance ride and has sure made me comfortable and confident for more such rides.

Are you a lazy one?

As gyms across the country swell with the optimism of countless new year resolutions, a message arrives from Germany that will doubtless bring cheer to the nation's couch potatoes. The key to a long and healthy life is - sheer laziness!

The book, The Joy of Laziness has been written by a German father and daughter team. (Peter Axt is a former health science expert at Fulda University near Frankfurt, and Michaela Axt-Gadermann is a practising dermatologist)

The book begins with an explanation that we are all born with a limited amount of "life energy". If we use it all up quickly - by exercising and getting stressed out - we will die early. If we do very little and live life at a snail's pace, we can eke it out and live much longer.

Read more here

PS:- I didn't read the entire article as i was too lazy :-)

Yelagiri

Planning to go to Yelagiri this weekend by bike!
Got to get my bike in condition before that or else i may be history :-(
Some info about yelagiri is here!

Oops!

Oops! This guy got sacked from Google because he blogged about his work and apparently revealed some info about google!
http://99zeros.blogspot.com/2005/02/official-story-straight-from-source.html

Be careful folks..at the end of the day you dont want to be out of your job because of your blog, isn't it?

Google India Zeitgeist

Google has updated their Zeitgeist to include Indian searches also.
January 2005 list is here!

Tsunami has made heavy inroads and has topped both Indian and world-wide search keyword! More surprises at the indian list..Trisha has outrun Aishwarya Rai as the most searched actress..Trisha Rules! Anara gupta is in the top-10 list as well..gee..i missed out..i dont remember searching for that name:-(

Look at the world-wide Popular Queries list! No 2-6 & 9 are actresses(2. britney spears,3. paris hilton,4. christina aguilera,5. pamela anderson,6. angelina jolie, 9. carmen electra)!! Great..good to know that I'm not any different from rest of the world:-)

Read & Digest

My resolute is that this year wud be a year a reading. 2004 was scarce reading with my source (read TI library) cut-off. Thankfully, with help from Vc I found a low-cost avenue for my supplies and stockpiled books, but this is going nowhere..After successfully getting ahead with some books, my last 3 books has been disastrous..I go to sleep within minutes of taking the book in hands :-)

1) "The Last Juror" by John Grisham -> Grisham, my fav authour is letting me down in this. I'm still in the middle of this book proceeding at slow pace. The story also moves at a very very slow pace with happenings at a rural backdrop in 1970's. Is this the same grisham who gave The Pelican grief and Runaway Jury etc..the legal thrillers which were simbly unputdownable!!

2) "City of Joy" - story about anandnagar slum and slumdwellers in calcutta by Dominique Lapierre. I read "O jerusalem" by same author couple of years back and still fascinated by that book, a masterstroke. But this book has so far been nothing but full of sorrows and a lot of shit(literally). Probably, since I know and seen most of what he is talking about, this really doesn't spring any surprise in me! I trashed this book after realizing i'm going nowhere with this book :-(

3) "CATCH-22" by Joseph Heller. "Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary."
Yeah...I know Mr. but I'm at catch-22 with this book. Started this book some 3 years ago where I could get past just 20 pages..Gave it a shot last year, went up to 40 pages. This time I was determined. I started,re-started after i forgot in the middle how much i've read, crossed half-century before deciding to abondon this for good!
(one of my friend said that this novel makes a great reading when you read it for the second time!)..second time, you must be kidding!

Y'day, on the way back home picked a copy of 'Ananda Vikatan' (A tamil weekly magazine). Read it from front cover to back cover, top to bottom, every single word of it..ran through the mag coupla times for photos..thought i had almost forgotten tamil..
*Bliss* nothing else!

calvin's sledding = my biking? Hmm..Pretty close!

SLB, Here I come!

Many a bloggers have ripped apart Sanjay L Bhansali and his movie black! over acting, no thick-plot, dangling sub-plots etc..height of it is that this movie was made with an eye on oscar..hehe..
if only winning oscar has such a pre-defined formula, then even i'd like to race for oscar..

I liked this movie and here's why.

* This movie is different!!
* shows lives and pains of people with whom we rarely get a chance to interact, about whom we rarely think.
* Leaves you with a lot of questions at the end of the movie. I think thats a good thing..either movie should have no story at all, just laugh it out and go back home or go with questions that you'll have to ponder for answers.
* this one doesn't have love-at-first-sight concept(hmm..where is sight in this movie?) or girls-falling-over-hero(h....where is the hereo?)
* This movie doesn't have Kareena / Mallika Sherawat!
* I haven't seen Devdas (which seems to have forced many a ones to prejudice on this movie for some reason)

One blogger had a comment. "Good effort, SLB, but you coulda done better."

I remember the story of a kid and her mother. Mother keeps telling the kid to study harder to get to first rank, and when the kid finally get there, she says she's got only 95% and she coulda done better and score more..you know what happened to the kid then :-(

If we're gonna praise someone, with a bang in the head instead of a pat at the back..hmm..why give it at all!

SLB, you may or may not get that coveted oscar, but dont worry about it..audiences clapped for it at the end, which itself is great achievement, as for most of the movies one wud be dying get out of the hall before 'The End' is shown!

P.S:- Ok, SLB, now that i've taken sides in favour of you, how about casting me as a hero in your next venture. sounds good idea isn't it?

Me too :-)

Aero show pic

Are you addicted to email?

I think I Am!

Mr.SevenRaj, anyone?

I was driving in Hosur Road on the way back home from my friend's place, I saw a scooter with a advertisement for a real estate agent at the back. Nothing odd about it except the name. It's called SevenRaj estate agency and the contact is Mr.SevenRaj.
When I googled for this name, I found that this guy has real cool website for him and his agency and do check out his logo :-)

http://www.sevenraj.com/

I've heard names like 'Elzhumalai' in Tamil meaning 'seven mountain', but not this combo..peculiar names indeed..(now i see someone laughing at my name..oh no!)

National Anthem before movie!

I went to cauvery theatre to watch 'BLACK'.
Just before the movie, they put a slide asking everyone to standup and played National Anthem! Good god, i've not stood for national anthem for a long time (probably last time may be in a college function). I doubt if i can sing it without eating some words!

I think this is a good move to play anthem before movies, whatya say?

Life is like Ice-cream, enjoy it before it melts!

Saw the movie BLACK yesterday and the movie is very good one and a different one too!! Throws light upon on a different world with no colour & no sound. True to the name, you'll rarely see colours in the movie, mostly only Black/white/light-blue.

Dialouges were little but powerful ones.
Life is like Ice-cream, enjoy it before it melts! (Amitabh)
You get to do good things rarely in our lives. (Amitabh to college principal).

Another One!

Perfect Bird!

Beauty!

Sukhoi-30 MKI on display in Aero India

Time to fly High

Got the tickets for the Air Show! Sat Morning show!
See you (some of you) folks there!

Aero India 2005!

coffee-table discussions

whenever more than one of us in our gang sit together around a coffee-table during one of those so-many breaks that we take during work (tea-break1,lunch-break,tea-break2,snacks-break,etc..) in the office cafeteria, u can be assured that the discussion will be around 2 things. One that we have it already and the one we dont have it (and dont have the hope of getting it in the recent future!)

1) work (the activity that affords one his livelihood - webster)
i've had so much cribbings of it in the past year or so, contributed by myself and others, that now i'm getting numb to this. what aspect of job are we happy with (other than the pay day)..that guy is getting more, this guy is going abroad, this guy is going abroad again, he is not coming back from US, his package is good, my work is crap, i dont have any growth, i dont learn anything, there is no management, what does HR do, stock up, stock down, stock junk etc..etc..an unending list it goes. oh, we comfortably forget how well we're paid, how less we work during these discussions.
it felt great the day TI put a offer letter in my hand (of which i couldn't make much sense)during campus, thats four years back..when I put posters of of all size of Texas/TI in my room , as if it's my saviour..but i've come a long way since then. now i dont give damn about the company i work in..i just do my work and get paid..dont really take pride if it achieves something (yeah, thats a big IF)

2) girl (a young unmarried female person - webster. for calvin's defn see below)
i'm not sure whether its mere coincidence or alien spy-racket, that all my friends have this problem, none of us have girl-friends. y me gawd? a topic that is much discussed out, how to get one! all junk ideas keep flowing as everyone know we aint going to do that. i've have so much luck that the team in which i worked in my prev company has no girls, the division in which i'm working now doesn't have girls and the so-few girls in the company are already busy (yeah..so what will u do if they are avbl, Mr?)..dont even talk about the college..in fact the last time i was close with a girl was in 3rd standard when my teacher made me sit between 2 girls for almost a year, because i was talking too much in class..i pray to god that she be given heaven-berth, i dont know y i didn't get such punishments later.
i think getting a Bachelor degree in Engineering (especially from the so-called top-notch insti's)is taking oath that you'll remain bachelor* till you get married. sigh..i shd have got into commerce or medicine..our lives have been so much devoid of it that we see them only in movies/books..I used to go to MG road (and u know y), but where the girls i ask..If we have to go by ratio in MG road, then its 99:1 in this country.. there are few girls coming the in the front (with their boy friends by side clutching them so close so as not to lose them to the eagles out there looking for prey).
going out on a date with a girl seems like reaching the peak of Mt.Everest(and i cant even scale the mountains out here nearby without the help from automotives!)..

bachelor* => meaning of this word varies from people to people.

other topics that gets mentioned are politicians,bihar,bangalore roads,sharam singh etc..but usually they dont go on for much time.

there are much more interesting discussions happen around the drinks-table during our trips, but lets leave that for another post...

Slow Motion - Good One!

Do Nothing At All!

noticed that i haven't put anything on calvin for quite some time, so here it is!

\/\/0r|0| 15 0|\|3 \/\/31r0| |o|4(3

If you can make sense of the above title, then I need to stay away from you :-)

\/\/0r|0| 15 0|\|3 \/\/31r0| |o|4(3 is the h4x0r font equivalent of "world is one weird place". Thanks translator!

h4x0r is hacker. so what is this mess, i ask. even google has a version for them. Check it out!

i browsed for some time to get some insight into it. Even google let me down here. Is this font a one-to-one map, who/why this font etc.,
i'm simbly not able to find. If you have some info, let me know!

7474, 8\-/3 8\-/3
("tata, bye bye" - for the non-geeks!)

dumboss

fontastic!

mm..which font should I use:-)

Narain clinches Jordan F1 deal

Narain is all set to drive for Jordan. This is indeed an excellent news for all the indian F1 fans who has long been cheering for schumi/kimi (and will continue to do so for some more time..).
Looking forward to see his driving for the first time..I've not seen anything of him so far.

and hey, F1 is still in holiday mood. 30 more days to go for the melbourne-kick off..I'm waiting!

One more link of this news.

I'll be here tomorrow

Tomorrow, its offsite for us and we're going here.


Btw, if you think i'll be playing golf there, you're mistaken!

02/05 Update :- I indeed played golf there, but not much fun in it. I didn't play proper game, but just hitting ball aimlessly for about 50 times. mm..not sure why people come up with such boring games (& costly one too:-( )..