Last weekend in Ottawa

So, last weekend in Ottawa started..!! It was a very fast 5 months here. Now 5 more working days here. After that bye to Ottawa.

It was happy days in Mckellars 605. Except weather i liked everything else in Ottawa : friendly people, good food, a lot of free time ..Weather also was good in the first two months. September and October. And by mid November snowfalling started. Still continuing...But it was a different experience. I still remember my North Indian Trip in the last january..i was feeling very cold in the 15 degree celcius of Agra. But now even zero degree is good and if it is positive it is a very good day. In the next saturday i am returning back from Ottawa winter to Chennai Summer. ..:) First few days in Chennai it will be difficult. It is a change from -30 to +30..You can imagine that. Correct?

I reached Ottawa on Sept 23rd evening. Balram and KV was there in the airport to welcome me to Mckellars. I visited Niagara falls in the first weekend in Ottawa itself . Eventhough i went alone, that was an awesome trip..Niagara is really a must see beauty in the world. Before visiting downtown, Ottawa i visited Niagara..:) First few days work was difficult, due to the Night shifts. In Chennai i used to enjoy working in Night time. But here the daily Night shift was not easy in the starting days. Then i started enjoying it by watching films, chatting, reading..really i was lucky. I didnt have much work to do in the Night time. Thanks to all Chennai colleagues for that..:)

Then in September end (? ), Balram returned back to India. But before going he introduced two good friends to me - Riyas and Hisham. In the coming weekends they gave me good company to different restaurants in Ottawa. Special thanks to Riyas for introducing me to the great food of Nandos and Mangolian Village...:). Karthick returned back in November mid. After that two weeks only me and KV was there in Mckellars. December first Ravi and Keshav joined us. Then the next trip was to Montreal. Four of us cannot forget that day. If you check my Picasa album ,you can understand how much difficult it was - worst storm. But really the Biodom and Olympic village was memorable visits. December mid Manju also reached Ottawa. He was staying in Mckellars only..in different appartment. Then what else in December? December 26th, Boxing day..me and KV reached Futureshop at 5:00am. But still we had to wait about 1 hour in the queue to enter Futureshop. Then New year Eve in addiction.. Gaurav(Gauji) reached Ottawa on Dec 31st, 2007.

Then January ..it was one of the best time here. Because we five guys were there in the appartment and thanks to remix guru Ravi's great effort..!! Our cooking experiments went to a different level in January and the food was good. January mid KV and Keshav and in the end Manju returned to Chennai.

February first week Renga joined us. But unluckily Renga and Ravi had to return back within one week due to some issues in the project. Then for the last two weeks only me and Gaurav in Mckellars..Days of experimental cooking..:) But we are successfull. Now i know how to prepare very good Chicken fry(really..). Thanks to Gaurav for recipes..

Anyway it was a good time here.. with some new friendships, good experiences and ofcourse with some savings in account. I will return back to India on March first. Planning to take two weeks vacation after reaching there. I need some rest..to enjoy homely food and the good weather of Kerala...with parents and relatives. Uncommon luxuries of a software engineer..!!

Weekend of Sleeping..!!

I am writing this at 4:30 am Sunday morning. Three days i was sleeping almost 75% of the time. Since I was not feeling well, i did not go to office on Thursday. That was due to lunch from an Indian restaurant on Thursday..!! no, not because of the food. Food was very good. But on the way, i had to wait for about 20 minute in one bus stop. It was very cold(about -20 degree celcius) and i did not check the weather reports also. So, i was not in proper dressing. I was litterally shivering that 20 minutes. After coming back home also, side effects of that cold was there. My sleeping starts from there..then till this moment( Sunday early morning), i was sleeping most of the time.

Today planning to go outside for lunch or dinner - Haveli or Coconut Lagoon. Have to do some shopping for the next week.

Then, Rajesh (he is my brother) reached Nepal again for one month onsite work. Most of you must be knowing that he is working in Huawei and he was in Nepal for the last 4 months. January mid only he returned back to India. Two weeks he was in Kerala and Two weeks in Bangalore. So, he will also miss the Festival in my village temple on February 29th. This is one of the reason i dont like this job (i mean the job of an IT professional) very much. It is giving good salary, sometimes good work. But the unpreictability of the work timings and work pressure is still a problem. Anyway, in the present situation in India, this is still a dream job. Correct?

I am counting my days in Ottawa. Today is Feb 17th. So, exact 13 more days here.

Higher Studies - an option for me?

I am thinking about going for higher studies. There are two options: Mtech from some good institution in India or do MS from somewhere outside India. Not decided anything, just in a planning stage. For doing higher studies, need to pass some barriers. First and the most important one is the financial dependencies. It will take two years minimum to finish Post Graduation. Have to find out some source for expenses - including family support. So, considering that, i think the best option will be to do Mtech in India itself.

Anyway i am just writing about it here, just for my reference later and for getting good inputs from all readers. Nowadays i am thinking about many options in life..So, it is easy to forget one of them. But this option seems to be interesting, eventhough i have to spend a lot of time and effort for getting admission itself. Have to prepare for GATE. Have to go through all the Electronics and Communication subjects once again. For the last 2 and half years no touch with that subjects. Currently , i am interested to do Post Graduation inDSP or Embedded system.

Anyway , we will see whether this will work out or not.

Two friends are returning back to Chennai today

I was busy last weekend. Didn't get any time for reading, browsing and blogging. Saturday morning i prepared chicken curry. so, lunch was good..:). Today ( Monday ) two of my friends are returning back to India. Their project got descoped without any previous notice. So, for them it was a very surprise news..and very sad news too. Actually one of them reached Ottawa last weekend only. Only one week stay in Ottawa. Again, their laptops got disfunctional this weekend. It is not booting. So, spent a lot of time to recover the system back..We didn't have XP Installation CD. Last , got it from friends. It was not bootbale. Then made it bootable. But no use..IT guys of our company created administrator password for both laptops..:) So, no way to recover the ssytems. Last we got the important files by putting one linux CD and mounting the windows File system.

Sunday roamed around in downtown. Visited Winterlude. It was awesome..especially the sculpturs made using snow. Again, i used my camera after 4 weeks. It is very useful actually. Handy too.. The model is Canon SD1000. I bought it from Ottawa, during Boxing week. It costed 189 $ for me. But wherever we are going, we can keep in our pocket. I will upload the snaps in my picasa album soon. After roaming around for some time in city , we went for Lunch buffet, ofcourse in an Indian restauarant, Haveli. The food was good. This is the second time we are going to the same place. There are two reasons. Buffet is there on Sundays too, then Masala Dosa is available there. Didn't get the time for usual weekend shopping itself.

In the coming 20 days in Ottawa, only two guys will be there in Mckellars 605( This is where i am staying). In the last 5 months, always some 4 -5 guys were here. Now only 20 days in Ottawa. Have to do some shopping. So, in the coming weekends too i will be busy..:) This week, planning to write some techblogs and have to write some posts in indiavision too.

Active in Tech Blogging

Last weekend, started writing posts in Techblog. In My techblog i am writing about embedded system, DSP and Linux. It is an interesting job. More than interesting, we can learn a lot of thing. Because we have to do a lot of googling, reading and then some real experiments.

For example I started writing about RTAI. But introducing RTAI to one who dont know about Linux Kernel Loadable modules seems to be difficult. So, started a post on Linux kernel loadable modules. Before posting i thought, i will try in my Ubuntu. But it is not working...!! Did some googling. The problem was the kernel i installed was not compiled in my laptop. So, started writing a blog about Kernel compilation in Ubuntu. So, at last i finished two blogs and i learned how to do kernel compilation and loading kernel modules. But still the starting post (RTAI blog) is in starting point only. Hope to finish this today, if there is no other new topic is needed to understand RTAI.

Then what else? This weekend also finished very fast , as usual. But met some friends here after a long one month. I got some pakistani friends here. Once i asked one of them "why you dont visit India once?" He started laughing..!!
He told me that "i want to visit once. .But that seems to be difficult.Not difficult, it is impossible". Basically Indian guys and pakistani guys are looking similar, speaking same language, watching same films, discussing about bollywood..Only difference is nationality. But i want to think positive about India - Pakistan affairs. One day his "impossible" will become "possible", because "nothing is impossible".

30 more days in Ottawa

Now 30 more days to go in Ottawa. My return is planned for March 1st. Without much work in office and a lot of experiences, new lifestyle, new friends, a lot of reading and ofcourse some extra money in my account..last 4 months in Ottawa was really a very good time. Except the boring night shifts, everything else was good.

But when we are gaining something , we have to miss something else..That universal rule is true in my case too...Missing Weekend trips to home, Football in Weekdays, homely food, Chennai friends, etc..Life is changed a lot. Life is becoming very fast. 2 day weekend is not sufficinet enough to take rest.. :)

Except weather everything else is good in Ottawa. But the snow falling was a really different experience..I have a lot of free time here. so, Read a lot ..about different subjects Linux, Embedded system, World war, Sherlock holmes, DSP, Indian start up companies, a lot of blogs. Two weeks back , bought two new embedded system boards (Atmel STK500 and Dragon) from US. Eventhough shipping charge was more(90$), it was worth to buy it. Read more about my experience of programming STK500 board in my techblog - OnTarget.

Here, Winterlude is started. Winterlude is an annual festival in Ottawa that celebrates winter. So, planning to visit Skating ring this weekend. This weekend one more friend from chennai is joining us in Mckellars( This is the our appartment name in Ottawa). Happy weekend to all..!!