Freetime Diaries

Its long time since I blogged. I am at home in Ranchi for a long vacation. Guys, the new thing is that I have left Microsoft and 6th May was my last day there. I left it with mixed emotions as I had made so many amazing friends (Bhupi and Ravi A, miss you guys 😦 ) and then there was this pride of working for the biggest company in software industry!! But I had to take this decision because I wanted to follow my dreams. There are risks involved, but then whats life without risk?

Its true that I feel for leaving Microsoft, but at the same time I am very excited about my new job and new role. I am moving to a new company in a different country. There is this excitement of moving to a different country and meeting new people but I am most excited about the kind of work that I have been offered. It is something that I always wanted to do since my engineering 3rd year!! So, here I am, chasing my dreams to a complete new world, out of the comfort zone.

Yeah, one more thing, my wife also has got job in the same company so it is really awesome. What more could we have asked for!! I will give more updates on the new place and company later once I reach there. For the time being, I am enjoying my sleep at home, learning car driving and playing with my little nephews!

  Funny statement, isn’t it. Don’t know whats happening to our politicians and political journals.

Quote

No one dies by not eating sugar, says NCP publication –  National News – News – MSN India
No one dies by not eating sugar, says NCP publication

Hey me married now 🙂 I can’t believe it has happened. Feels like I am going to wake up soon and realize it was all a sweet dream. The bad part is that we both have resumed going to our offices. I must tell you how bad it feels to go to office now. Its like every single day is a Monday!! Hope this period will get over soon.

An update on the wedding ceremonies: it all went surprisingly well. It was all fun and party for more than a week. The best part was when I sneaked off with my brothers and Brother-in-Laws a day before the wedding for one last booze party as a bachelor. Both the families treated each other very well. They were curious about different North Indian and South Indian traditions and it was fun. The wedding had an essence of both the traditions and everything jelled well.

The next part was a week long stay at my home after marriage. Geeth was going to stay with my family for the first time and obviously was tensed 😉 But I must say she pulled it off very nicely. Everybody loved her!! At least my mom and dad did 🙂 She and my sister have become the best friends now and they always work together as a team against  me!! What else could I have asked for? 🙂 All in all, I must thank Geeth and our families for everything that happened. Love you guys.

Oh one more thing, thanks to all of you who voted in our wedding site. Kerala was the place you told us to go and we went with your choice. We went there for our Honeymoon and had a fantastic and memorable stay there. It really is “God’s own country”. Thanks guys for the suggestion. 🙂

It’s an exciting time for me. With only one and half month to go for the big day (19th Nov), I am getting ready for it. It’s all sinking in now!! Am I ready for it?? Oh yes, I am but I am nervous as well. Don’t know how I will manage the married life. Till now it had been only about me, but now I have to take care of somebody else also!!

Last week I went out shopping for my wedding and reception dress with my Fiancée. We had loads of fun selecting the dresses. Have got a traditional cream and red color Sherwani for wedding and Olive-Green Suit with Maroon shirt matching my better half’s dress for the wedding reception party.

Also, have taken a house for rent. We both were searching for it since quite some time and finally found it. It’s a penthouse 2 bed room flat with 3 big (I mean really big) balconies attached to the two bed rooms and the hall. The view is simply superb from there. Full of DRDO greenery. My Fiancée’s office is walk able and my office is 15 minutes’ drive from there.

So I am getting all set now. Wish me good luck guys!!

Yes, one more thing, we have created a wedding invitation site: http://www.ewedding.com/sites/ravikeshri Have a look at it and consider it as our personal invitation. Please do come to attend the wedding!!

Let us say that you have saved everything useful and now you want to clean up some space to save some more important things (like movies and games…). You think a simple shift-delete on Windows.old folder would do that. Try it out, 🙂 I know it didn’t let you. Now you are wondering if you are really an administrator on this machine or not. I know you are. But is not letting you do that!! I know till now you have tried it many times and already have had many good things to talk about the OS. 🙂

But don’t come to a conclusion right away. Remember it is a special folder which has life saving capabilities. We have to treat it with respect and have to delete it with proper recommended method. So here is what you should do:

1. Click Start , click All Programs, click Accessories, and then click System Tools.

2. Click Disk Cleanup.
3. In the Disk Cleanup Options dialog box, click Files from all users on this computer.
   Note If the User Account Control dialog box appears, type the administrator password, and then click OK. Otherwise, click Continue.
4. In the Disk Cleanup:Drive Selection dialog box, select the hard disk drive that you want to clean up, and then click OK. Wait while the system scans the computer for unnecessary files.
5. Click the Disk Cleanup tab, and then look for the Previous Windows installations check box.
6. If you find the Previous Windows installations check box, click to select it, and then click OK.
   If you do not find this check box, go to step 7.
7. When you are prompted to confirm the removal of files, click Delete Files.
8. Wait while the system removes the files. You have now removed the Windows.old folder.

So there you go. You have the extra space you wanted. Now use it as you want. Happy computing.

Have you ever wondered –  “what am I you doing here at this place”?? It happened to me last Saturday. I had heard a lot about Transformers 2 and went to see it. Had planned for the movie with my Fiancee but at the last moment she got some urgent work at office (I hate you Samsung!) and then I had to take my friend for the movie. Till the interval it was good. But then, it became unbearable. It was like this never-ending big Bollywood movie where we all know whats gonna happen. I think for the first time I slept in a theatre. Later on I told about this to my Fiancee and we had a good laugh about her narrow escape. Lucky you!! 🙂  ( This doesn’t change anything, I still hate you Samsung for ruining my date 😉 )

I wanted to blog so much since I came back to Bangalore from my hometown but I simply had too many things to do. My office timings also have changed which has made it much more difficult for me to blog, but here I am.

I cleared another Microsoft certification paper yesterday and I am happy to tell you that I am officially an MCTS now and will be allowed to add that tag in my official signature. 🙂 Feels good and geeky 🙂 This paper was as difficult as the previous one. I felt like I was back to my college days and was giving my Microprocessor paper!! (People from my batch would understand this, it’s a whole new story.) But the point is that i managed to clear it and man I am happy. Really happy 🙂

I am planning to give a few more certification exams before my marriage in November this year. You all know I won’t get time to study like this after marriage and I also know I won’t be studying after marriage for quite some time 😉

See you all soon!

I am right now on a long vacation of almost 3 weeks and out of which, one and half weeks are already over. Holidays pass much faster than the work days, don’t they?

I am at my home town right now and came for my brother’s marriage. It was great!! Now the guests have left so I got a chance to come online.

Frankly speaking, the holidays have been much better than I had expected. I had thought I will have to face lots of questions and anger of most of the family because of my recent going-against-the-family-values acts. But surprisingly nothing of that sort happened. I won’t say that everything went very well because there are a few people who are still not happy. I can feel the cold vibes whenever I am in their presence. But after around 10 days of staying together things are improving with them also.

Enough of the family updates. I am bursting to give you guys the great news that made me blog today 🙂 I got another “ACE Award” at office recently. The best part was that I got the the news here, at home, and that really made my holidays sweeter. I love my job 🙂

16th May ‘09 – A historical day!!

We saw a very mature decision by Indian voters. Personally I wanted only three things:

1) Lalu and Shibu Shoren’s loss.

2) Mayawati or Left parties shouldn’t come to power.

3) NDA’s win (because they don’t support Lalu, Paswan, Shibu and many such politicians).

2 out of 3 of my wishes were granted and I couldn’t be happier. I respect Dr. Manmohan Singh. I didn’t like his last government because people who ruined my state (earlier Bihar and now Jharkhand) were there with him. They had posts in the ministry!! That was really unacceptable.

I believe right now Bihar is in safe hands. We can see changes happening in Mr. Nitish Kumar’s leadership and I couldn’t have asked for a better leader in Bihar. My only wish is to get someone like him in Jharkhand also. The politics in Jharkhand is really ugly and Politicians are only ruining the state. We have everything in Jharkhand. It has to be the most gifted state in terms of Minerals and Natural reources!! All we can ask for is a CM like Nitish, Shila Dikshit or Modi!

All in all, a great day. To make it sweeter, my team “Chennai Super Kings” won its match in IPL the very same day!! Perfect end of a historical day! 🙂