Sunday, September 27, 2009

I was in Sheffield from Sept 20- Sept 27 and now in London from Sept 27 to Sept 29. Being on a site visit, I wanted to see how Sheffield was as a city. I liked Sheffield. It is a small and very simple city. It is very economical and apartment rents are in the range of 300- 500 GBP for 1-1 and 2-1 apartments. It is a very live city and I wouldnt mind moving there. Considering that you have a decent pay to support yourself, I think I may enjoy the quality of life in Sheffield. Today I went around London, met up with a friend from the old MSc. days. He is doing his post doc at Imperial College, one of the best colleges in the world. London is amazingly like Mumbai or the old Bombay. Just that it is much cleaner and systematic than Bombay. Still the same old footpaths with the tiles and the drainage holes and lids. There are no houses or bungalows in London and it is full of luxury apartments. It is really sad that Bombay which was like London once upon a time, is not anymore in the name of patriotism and independence. Only if we could have maintained what the British left for us....We walked around the area called Hyde Park and the area around Lords Cricket ground. The apartments around that area are just amazing....simply fascinating. Of course if you wanna buy any of those apatments, they wouldnt cost you less than 5-10 million pounds. Rents for such apartments range from anywhere between 350- 500 GBP per week. Some apartments are located in such a way that you get the view of Lords Cricket ground from your balcony. The weather in London is pleasant at the moment and it is a sheer joy to walk around the streets. I did take some pictures and will post them soon in a couple of days. Tomorrow I hope to take a city tour of London, after I am done with the Canada transit visa thing. That is the only part of my UK trip that sucks big time. Air Canada is just awful. I have to take a transit visa just cos my plane lands in Canada for 2 hours and I change airplanes in the same terminal. While doing this, I have to collect my baggage, and recheck it in. This just sucks big time. I would not recommend Air Canada to anybody.
Anyways, I plan to take the city tour tomorrow and then meet up with Jaideep and his wife for dinner. Tuesday I hopefully depart the Land of the Queen to go back to my routine life in the USA. These 10 days have been an amazing experience. Worth remembering my whole life. Life is good I say, as long as one thinks positively about it. Life is beautiful!!!

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 4:59 PM ] [ | ]

   Thursday, September 17, 2009  

Thinking away....

Life has been god to me. With caring hands like that of my family, professor, and friends...I feel I am set as always to take a major decision coming around the corner. Saturday, I embark to visit the land of the queen. Will be there for 10 days on official work. Hopefully will get a chance to do some local sight seeing. More updates about the experience when I reach there. Looking forward to it :)

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 10:37 PM ] [ | ]

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   Friday, September 04, 2009  

Finally Grand Canyon North Rim

Last Friday, as I was working in my lab, the topic came up about my long awaited trip to the Grand Canyon Nroth Rim. I decided to call the lodge at the North Rim and they mentioned that they had one cabin available for resevations for Saturday night. I went ahead and reserved the cabin. Then planned on taking my Jetta 96 to the North rim, something I realized was a mistake later on. I asked 2 colleagues in my lab and they agreed to accompany. So satudray morning at 5am we were on our way to the North Rim. As we reached Vegas, when I stopped to fill in gas, my car broke down, apparantely the drive shaft broke down. So I got my Jetta96 towed to a VW dealer, and then rented a car to proceed on the trip. This was the only upset in the trip and after reaching the North rim, I thought to myself it was definitely worth the trouble. I had always wanted to go to the North rim. It is just absolutely fabulous. We stayed there until Sunday afternoon and then started our journey bac. Overall a very nice experience. The Grand Canyon lodge is neatly organized and you can actually enjoy yur eveing with a drink or two in the verandah type arrangement overlooking the canyon. That was the best part..Here are some pics:

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 11:38 PM ] [ | ]

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   Friday, July 17, 2009  

May 26th 2009

This is the day when my parents got married exactly 40 years ago, and this is the day when my mom left all of us forever. Is this just a coincidence, or is it that my mom and my dad met each other in heaven?

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 10:11 PM ] [ | ]

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Turning Points!

How do you describe turning points in life? Does your life actually take a turn and do you realize it is turning, or you realize after you have made the turn? Looking back, I have thought about 2 turning points in my life- deciding to go ahead with my MSc. and then deciding to come to the US to do my Ph.D. But both the times, I never realized that these were the turning points in my life, cos they both happened either suddenly or gradually for me to actually know it. I am at a similar juncture in my life right now and do realize that I am taking a major decision. But on the inside I really don't feel that it is a major decision. I can feel it that it is 'just' happening and I am going along as life flows. I think of my decision positively, and it has its own shares of negative consequences, but I am really not bothered about it. Sometimes I feel I am in a confused state of mind but I know what I am doing. I always have had this notion of thinking about the worse of consequences, so what ever life churns out it always feels better. My decision is a professional one, and may have consequences on a personal ground. Am I putting all eggs in one basket? Where do you draw the line between professional and personal thinking- when do you base your decisions based on logic and materialistic thinking and when based on your inner voice. Well lets see....one thing is for sure, everthing that happens...happens for the best. The key to diplomacy is keep the conversation going.

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 9:54 PM ] [ | ]

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   Saturday, July 11, 2009  

Posting Again!

Sometimes I feel computers and programming are like human bodies. When ever there is a malfunction in the human body, it has a tendency to repair itself. I use bloggar to help me post on my blog. Bloggar is free and helps organize posts and facilitates embedding of links and pictures. Yeah...I know nowadays there are a lot of fancy templates that are ready made and you don't have to enter into the HTML coding thing to design a template. But I like to do that...anyways not digressing, my bloggar would not post my new posts saying that there was an error in authentication. Though I was logged in to my blog account, it still gave me that error. So I stopped posting, meaning I used to write posts by that date (I only wrote one in all these days :P). So today I just tried to post that old Ralitsa post, and behold...it posted just right. I did not do anything, and the problem rectified by itself. Thus I think my bloggar or my blogspot repaired itself. Heh heh...anyways, will be posting more from now on :)

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 9:06 AM ] [ | ]

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Beauty. Elegance and Grace!

This should have been posted a long time ago, when North Korea test fired a missile under the pretext of launching a satellite. While browsing today evening I went on to the New York Times website. The headlines read North Korea test fired a missile under the pretext of launching a satellite. I immediately switched on to CNN and it was there in discussion. The news reader Ralitsa Vassileva caught my eye. I had never seen her before on CNN, obviously cos I have never been home when International CNN is broadcast. But what I liked was the articulate way in which she spoke and her expressions while covering the news. Every morning I get to see the horrible Heidi Collins who looks like nothing but a dumb bimbo yelling in the name of covering news. Ralitsa Vassileva was a pleasant change to the art of news coverage! Here is her profile as given on CNN:

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 8:40 AM ] [ | ]

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   Monday, March 09, 2009  

Mergers and Acquistions!

Soon after Pfizer took over Wyeth ($65 billion) and Roche's desperate attempts to own Genentech, Merck takes over Schering Plough ($41.1 billion).
Read more

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 8:25 AM ] [ | ]

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   Sunday, March 01, 2009  

The Art of Pink Floyd!

Anybody who is a fan of Pink Floyd will always be fascinated by the art that the music group had on its album covers. If you take a look at most of their album covers, and think about it a bit you will realize that these albums were released in the 70's 80's and early 90's (Division Bell) but the art was way ahead of its time. Here is a collage of the various album covers from Pink Floyd that I found on the web and following that is an article that I read a few days about an interview with Storm Thorgerson who was the man behind the art, the artist behind Pink Floyd's album covers.

Pink Floyd’s album cover artist reveals lighter side of the moonby Brendan Montague and Maurice Chittenden (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article3779870.ece)THE creator of Pink Floyd’s album art since the 1960s has revealed the comic scenes behind some of the band’s most famous album covers and opened up his portfolio of designs that were never used.Storm Thorgerson disclosed that he originally favoured a different design for Dark Side of the Moon, released in 1973. It showed a figure similar to Silver Surfer, the Marvel cartoon character, sipping a cup of tea while riding a mighty wave.However, the band members took just three seconds to choose a prism and rainbow of light for their most famous album. Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright made a unanimous decision in front of a gallery of seven rough images pinned to the wall of London’s Abbey Road studios.The album went on to sell more than 30m copies worldwide over 35 years.A prototype for the 1977 album Animals, which featured a 32-ft high inflatable pig flying over Battersea power station, was originally intended to feature a young boy walking into his parents’ bedroom to discover them having sex.Shooting the album cover for 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason involved dragging 700 hospital beds onto a beach in Devon. Rain interrupted the shoot and they had to repeat the exercise two weeks later.“It wasn’t one lapse of reason, it was two,” said Thorgerson, 63, whose retrospective is at the Oxo gallery in London in July.The cover for 1994’s The Division Bell was the most ambitious, featuring two Easter Island-style statues. An alternative included a magical junk floating above an estuary.

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 10:41 PM ] [ | ]

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   Friday, February 27, 2009  

Swimming Revelation!

So I went to my swimming practice at LA Fitness today. My instructor had taught me to float and paddle my legs in the water. But each time I used to paddle, my legs used to be below the water surface and so due to that I did not move smoothly thro the water. The right way is to paddle your legs just at the surface to make a splashing noise. By this action, you move smoothly and fast thro' the water. All this is greatly dependent on your centre of gravity when floating in water. My legs used to be submerged because I was not able to locate my centre of gravity during floating. MY instructor always said try to work with the water, don't work against it....and without knowing my centre of gravity and paddling my legs, I was working against the water. So today as I was paddling and paddling and paddling suddenly I realized my centre of gravity and how to maintain it while in water. Everything just fell in place....and I started moving smoothly as a fish! IT was a great revelation for me! I was absolutely thrilled to put in minimum effort and move the maximum distance in water. I could cover more distance in one breath, as I still don't know how to breathe while swimming. So now to make this paddling action as reflex and then start moving my hands and learn the breathing technique. That shouldn't be tough I guess!! I'm enjoying every bit of my swimming and practice... :-)

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 11:50 PM ] [ | ]

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   Wednesday, February 25, 2009  

Just got an email from Yahoo! saying that Yahoo Briefcase will be closing on March 30th 2009. Does that mean that Yahoo! is going bankrupt too?

   [ posted by PseudoFreud @ 12:36 AM ] [ | ]

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