Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

This Saturday I met up with Tarini, Sachin and Udit at Ansal Plaza. It was a lot of fun we had a lot to talk about as I was meeting Tarini after about two years and Udit after almost seven years. Sachin I had met a few months ago in NY so he didnt look that different. Udit has lost a lot of weight but other than that he hasn’t changed that much.

Sachin took pics so I will post them here when I get them from him. We sat outside enjoying the sun and talked and talked and talked. Then Tarini had to leave so after a couple of hours of yakking at each other we split.

Have to meet Yash and Monica also but our schedules never seem to match. 🙁

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

Cya,
Suramya

First of all a very Happy New Year to all of you. Yes I know its almost a month late but I have been kind of busy to post stuff.

A lot has been going on in my life recently. I came to India on the 14th Dec and then had to rush to Jaipur for Amit’s wedding. It was a lot of fun. Me, Vinit and Surabhi drove from Delhi to Jaipur and I must say the drive was very nice. The road was well maintained and the truck drivers were very nice, if they saw you coming behind them they would automatically get out of the way. I don’t think we went below 80 for the entire drive. (Except for the few infrequent busy area’s).

Over there we metup with Ravi and Sonia and all of us went to the wedding as Barati’s (The groom’s party) and I did my first baarat dance. (In hindu weddings the groom goes to the bride’s house/wedding area riding a horse and the groom’s party dances the entire way). It was a *lot* of fun. The band walla’s (The people playing the music) wanted to leave early but we made them stay for a long time while we all danced. Finally someone from the girl’s family had to come and tell us: “Beta ab bahut ho gaya ab under aa jao” (Son, you have danced enough so now why don’t you all come inside) so we finally went inside.

The food was good the company was great. Since the only people we knew over there were Amit’s immediate family we just roamed around and enjoyed the wedding. After the photographs we went back to our room. The next day we left early in the morning and drove back to Delhi. The drive was again a lot of fun (The part when we had to cross Gudgoan was *not* fun).

Then I visited my Grandparent’s place and did a lot of shopping. Then We left for Bangalore on the 22nd (or was it the 23rd?) by train. There were Eight of us (Me, Mom, Dad, Surabhi, Bijender Chachaji, Rajkumar Mama, Ranmal Mausaji and Jawahar Singh Uncle) it was a noisy and eventful trip. We had the ‘pleasure’ of being in the same compartment as a group of girls from 6 – 9th class who were going to Bangalore for a school trip and they were noisy. They just wouldn’t shut up… The worse was when they decided to start singing… < shudder > That was just painful.

We Finally reached Bangalore on the 25th morning where it looked like pretty much half of Vinit’s family was there to recieve us, since we weren’t expecting so many people to come to the station to recieve us it was a very pleseant surprise. Then we drove to RaceView hotel (So named because you can see the Race Course from its rooms… Duh.. ) Everyone then settled in to a brief rest then my Buaji’s (Dad’s sister’s) (Padmani and Maithili) and their daughter (Nandani) [Sorry if I misspell anyone’s name. I am really bad at spelling] arrived. I hadn’t met them in over 10 years since they have been in Australia for the past couple of years. It was nice meeting them. And guess what? they like Suramya.com 🙂 Then at lunch time I went to the Airport to recieve my Tauji and Taiji [Dad’s elder brother and his wife] and Amarnath Uncle. It was a long wait as Amarnath uncle’s flight had been delayed a lot due to fog in Delhi.

Finally everyone arrived and we had lunch. It was great food and I think I overate a bit. Then we retired to the hotel while surabhi went to get ready to a Beauty Parlor with Vinit’s Aunts and mom. They took a while…

Finally the evening arrived and we all arrived at Leela Palace for the engagement. It was a great event where they had a program called Bollywood Dhamaka by a group called Vibes (I think). It was an event that was over 3 hours long so if you think that I am going to type everything that happened during it then you are sadly mistaken. Highlights are as follows:

1. Surabhi and Vinit got engaged
2. The dance Group performed.
3. Atul danced inspite of his injured leg (And he danced pretty well).
4. Vinit’s Mama’s and Chacha’s also danced
5. So did his and surabhi’s friends (Yes including me. )
6. Maithili and Padmani Buaji sang an awesome song
7. The food was again great.

Now I am tired of typing. Will finish this post later.

Thanks,
Suramya

Ok, its been a while since I last posted. Its been because of pure lazyness combined with a hectic work schedule. More of a lazyness than work but you get the idea.

So what have I been upto? As some of you are aware my birthday was on the 3rd of Dec and it was fun. Originally the plan was to go paintballing in the daytime (For those of you who are wondering what paintballing is check out: http://paintball.about.com/cs/gameinfo/f/paintballfaq.htm and http://paintball.com/) and then follow that with a dinner at a Hawaiian restaurant. Unfortunately Surabhi fell sick so I decided to not go for Paintball and cancelled the dinner.

So I called up all the people I had invited and told them that dinner was cancelled because I didn’t want to leave Surabhi alone at home. At this point I was a bit sad that I had to cancel the dinner but otherwise not expecting anything. Decided to watch a movie and just relax. Vinit on the otherhand had a different idea on how I should spend my birthday, he called up all the people who were originally supposed to be coming for the dinner and had them come over to our apartment. Now this was a total and complete surprise. It was awesome 🙂 🙂 We had ordered Indian food from Rasoi and then spent a couple of hours talking and having fun.

The next day Surabhi and Vinit left for India. Now they are enjoying in India while I am stuck here. Actually I am happy that they left early as that gives them time to do most of their shopping without my being there ;).

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

This Thanksgiving was a lot of fun, I visited my cousin Ashish and his wife Sheng in Minneapolis. I left for their place on Thursday (24th) and got there in the evening after three hours of an unevenful flight. The best part was that this time I wasn’t selected for the ‘random’ special screening so the security check was quick.

After I got there we watched the movie Hercules which was fun especially since I was watching it with my niece (Lydia) and Nephew (Aryan). I caught the last half hour of the movie which wasn’t that big a deal as I have already seen the movie multiple times. After that we talked for a little while and then started another movie (Salam Namaste) which was surprisingly decent. As some of you might know I am not a big hindi movie fan but during this trip I watched more hindi movies than what I had watched in the past year. Since I watched so many of them I am a bit fuzzy on what day I watched what… but I did see: Satte pe Satta, Angoor, DDLJ, Banti Aur Babli, Hum Saath Saath Hai.

NEways, On friday went shopping with Sheng and the kids (I got a DVD Writer, an RC plane and a Music system for my car), talked a lot and I played with the kids. Bhaiya cooked an awesome lunch and Sheng made Naan for us. They tasted great as long as you didn’t let them cool, after which they turned into a rock hard rubbery substance that is great excersise for your teeth. 😉

Then at night I decorated my first Christmas tree. I have seen Christmas tree’s before and I have celebrated christmas before but this was the first time I got to decorate the tree. It was fun with both Lidya and Aryan helping me and Sheng. (Surabhi and Vinit watched… After Vinit found the 4th leg of the tree… and Surabhi ‘sorted’ the branches.) We did take pictures and I will post them here once I manage to get a copy of them from Vinit.

Vinit and Surabhi left on Saturday morning to come back to NJ while I stayed back. After breakfast all of us (Me, Bhaiya, Sheng, Lidya and Aryan) spent the morning sledding even though there was only about an inch of snow on the ground. Still it was a lot of fun and it would have been a lot better if I had snow boots instead of formal shoes. I fell too many times because of that. After me and Sheng froze our toes (Bhaiya, Lidya and Aryan were wearing propper snow boots) we came back inside and had ice-cream 🙂 [Yes I know its crazy but it sure tasted good 🙂 🙂 ]

At night Sheng’s brother’s came over to baby sit so that we could go to Jen’s (?) birthday party. It was held in a bar called the ‘The Wild Onion’ in downtown St Paul. It was fun though the crowd was a bit older than what you would find in a NY club/bar with most people in their late 20’s/early 30’s. They were playing some really good music and it was fun dancing. We left at about 1 am and then got a really early breakfast at some place (Can’t remember the name… I was a bit buzzed at the time), got home at 2:30 am and crashed.

None of us wanted to get out of the bed on Sunday as we had stayed up late but after we finally dragged ourselves out of bed and had breakfast, Sheng went to finish some work while me, Ashish bhaiya, Lidya and Aryan went to Chucky Cheese and spent most of the afternoon over there playing games and generally having fun. After we all we tired of video games we went to downtown Minneapolis to see the ‘Children’s Museum’. I must admit it was a lot different than what I was expecting it to be and it was a lot of fun.

Then at 5 we drove back home. Then Sheng and Bhaiya decided to take advantage of me being there and went off for a romantic dinner alone while I stayed home to baby sit the kids. It was an interesting experience… I was the first time I was baby sitting and it was fun. Me and Lidya cooked, (ok ok we made scrambled eggs but that still counts as cooking) and we had a lot of fun doing it. Lidya managed to put egg shell’s in my eggs and too much salt in her portion while I forgot to put salt in mine. Thankfully we didn’t set the house on fire while cooking. Aryan was a sweetheart and helped the both of us. We ate dinner while watching a movie and then went to sleep.

On Monday we decided to goto the Mall of America after having lunch at the cheese cake factory and it was an interesting experience. That place is huge, unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of time to explore it because I had a flight to catch but still it was fun. Then I had to say goodbye and catch my flight back to NJ and I got here at 10 pm. Couldn’t sleep after I got back so watched a couple of movies then crashed.

So that was my thanksgiving weekend. Wish I could do it again soon.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

As some of you might know I am back in Kansas City for the next few days while the final acceptability testing for my project is done. Staying in the same hotel as before which is cool. The funny part is that the last time I was here I had a huge suitcase and my room was on the second floor and this time I am carrying a laptop case and a backback my room is on the firstfloor (Ground floor to all the people in India).

The trip here was interesting too, my flight left Newark at 6:40 am to Cleveland from where I caught a connecting flight to Kansas City (The earliest direct flight was at 3 pm). I got to the Newark airport at 5:30 am and since I had no luggage I was able to check-in using the eticket counter without having to stand in line. The flight got delayed so I landed in Clevland 25 mins before my flight was supposed to depart and the gate was all the way across the airport. I ran all the way there and was the second last person to board the plane before they stopped boarding.

Overall an interesting trip so far. Now its time for me to sleep, so that I can wakeup early tomorrow.

Will post more later.

Cya,
Suramya

This past week has been ‘interesting’. Lets see what all I have been through:

Sunday:

Spend over 6 hours sitting at the Kansas City Airport waiting for my flight to NJ to depart. Got ‘randomly’ selected for a special screen by the airport security. Poor guys were confused about the functions of all the cables and wires in my laptop bag. Arrived in NJ at almost 1:30 am. Got home at 2 am. It was raining

Monday:

Was decent. Spent all day sleeping and relaxing. Fun 🙂 Didn’t go out at all since it was raining all day.

Tuesday:

Still raining, had to drive to work, the 45 min drive took over 1 1/2 hours. Not fun. Spent all day at work, wanted to meet friends but since it was still raining had to do a rain check.

Wednesday:

Still raining. Had some stuff to take care of at NJIT and the bank so dropped Vinit and Surabhi at work and walked to the office and then toof the subway to the bank. I must have been out in the rain for maybe 10 mins but I was completely soaked. Thankfully all my electronics survived the soaking without damage. Then I was trying to get to work found out that half the roads were flooded, and after waiting in traffic for about 2 hours made a U turn and came back home to work from there… After parking the car when I was walking back to the apartment I got splashed by a truck driving through a huge puddle. 🙁 Not fun.

Thursday:

Still raining. Reached work in an hour. Spent all day testing GUI’s and my application with the new DB. Pretty busy day. Couldn’t go out as it was still raining.

Friday:

Still raining!!! Reached work in about 1 1/2 hours. Worked all day on testing GUI’s on the new DB. Stayed at work till about 10 pm, got home at 11:30 (Roads were flooded so had to take a lot of detours)

Getting really tired of rain.

Saturday:

Finally its not raining… 🙂 Woke up early to help with load testing our system and spent all day setting it up. The one day it wasn’t raining I was working 🙁

Sunday:

Went to bed at 5 am (was watching movies to de-stress) work up early to help with load testing again. This time it wasn’t that bad got to take some time off to visit Vivek and Ruth in the city, had lunch with them and then had towork from his apartment for a little while. Then came back home to watch the system and see if it worked. Thankfully it did 🙂 So we also did our failover tests and they passed 🙂 🙂

Watched episodes from the series ‘Birds of Prey’, awesome series too bad it was cancelled. Going to work on my website now.

Well this is all for now. Will post later

– Suramya

Lets see… What have I been upto this week?
Flew from California to Kansas City with a one hour stop at Denver. Overall a non-eventfull trip. Read the ‘Legend of Zoro’ novelization which was pretty good. Currently in Kansas City and will be here till Friday after which I am flying to NJ for a week. It will be good to be home after all this time. After spending a week there I will be flying back to California.

There are some pretty interesting TV shows out there right now and since I have nothing better to do I watch TV ;). Watched the premier of Supernatural today, It’s a damm good show. Will be watching it pretty regularly. Combined with Lost, Threshold and Nightstalker I have plently of shows to keep me occupied for a while.

What else…. I updated the gWifi scripts, added more locations to the site and launched the new version. Trying to design a bridge that will let me share data with another site that lists free wifi spots. Once thats done I will have a whole lots of spots to show on the map. Will try to get some of it done this week but trying to get all three of us together to work on it is a pain, lets see how that works out…

Well thats it from my side… now lets see what else is there on TV today.

– Suramya