Home Improvement

Imagine moving every single thing from a 1000 sq foot apartment into an already furnished 900 sq foot apartment. That's exactly what happened when Anu's things arrived a couple of weeks ago. I've always wondered what it would be like to live in an RV for an extended period. Well, now I have some idea...

We've spent the last few days throwing out stuff. Every item, however small was scrutinized and given away or disposed of if it did not meet the bar. Multiple trips to Ikea were made to purchase various storage solutions that we so desperately needed. Our perseverance paid off. After two long weeks the house finally looks presentable.

On the work front, things have been getting busier as we sink our teeth into features for the next product cycle - SQL Server 2011. With multiple deadlines in October and November, it looks like we are in for a hard slog before the holiday season.

Road Trip!

Just got back from a cross-country road trip from Boston to Seattle. My girlfriend was relocating to the Seattle area and we decided to drive! It turned out to be a great decision. We got to visit Chicago, Badlands National Park, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Devil's Tower, Big Horn National Forest, Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park on the way. It was an amazing experience.

Yellowstone was obviously the highlight of the trip. It is a stunningly diverse park with something for everyone - Geysers, hot springs, wildlife, rock formations, lakes, mountains. We were only able to spend a day and a half in the area but were still lucky enough to spot huge herds of bison, a grizzly bear and mountain goats.

Glacier National Park was all about the aptly named "Going to the Sun" road with very scenic mountain views for the entire 50 mile stretch. We traversed the road both ways since the views can differ dramatically.

I've added a few pictures from the trip below. (Not too many for fear of boring my limited audience. :-) ).Talking of pictures, I'm still kicking myself for not getting a camera with a more powerful zoom (Ours was a supbar 3X) before setting out on this trip. For everyone wanting to photograph wildlife, I would strongly recommend a camera with atleast a 10x zoom.

I've now visited 31 states in the US! Here's to 50 in the next 3 years. :-)

Old Faithful erupting

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Yellowstone Lake

Lake Sylvan

Middle Geyser Basin, Yellowstone

Grizzly Bear

Bison

Mountain Goats

Mount Rushmore

Hurricane Ridge

I just got started with customizing the new base template. Check out the Bing search box on the top right and the second sidebar on the left.

Yesterday, a few friends and I drove up to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park. We ended up having to wait for a couple of hours for a ferry. I was a little puzzled at first because I had made the same trip with my girlfriend last year in the middle of July (Yes, that was a Saturday too) and there was no rush. Then realization struck. It must be the improving economy I figured. :-)

The view from the top of Hurricane ridge was worth the long wait though. I enjoyed the scenery and the hike just as much as I did the first time. If I had to pick one picture to describe yesterday's trip, it would be this:

A New Beginning..

The fourth of July brings me back to this blog. Why? Because I was suddenly reminded of the fact that I started this blog on July 4th 2005. It has been five 'short' years and I'm back for a fresh start. Going through my older posts, I marvel at how much I've grown up during this period. Let's see what the 2010 - 2015 period has in store for this blog. (Hopefully, more posts than the 45 I managed over the last five years.. :-)..)

Work has been going really well. We shipped PowerPivot in the middle of May. In a nutshell, PowerPivot is a self-service Business Intelligence tool that helps excel users analyze very large(or small) data sets and allows them to create amazing visual reports based on their analysis.

Now that we've shipped, I've been able to take a break and recharge while we plan for the next release. Visited India last month and had a great time meeting family and friends.

This has been a nice and relaxing weekend so far. Played some tennis, watched the Wimbledon finals, did a little cooking, caught up with a few friends over the phone.. and signed up for Twitter! ( ID: leoncyril )

Happy Fourth of July! God bless America.. and India.. and every other country in the world. :-)

PS: Please bear with the new template for now. I know my previous customized template was far better, but I had to upgrade to be able to use some features offered by Blogger. Will get around to customizing the new one shortly.