This Side of Paradise

I finally parted ways with my five and a half year old CBZ. She was the first bike I had truly earned all by myself. Here’s a small walk down memory lane: The Beginning The CBZ was probably the first truly sporty bike in India and it hit the markets around 2000, when I was in the final year of college. One look at the pic had me floored instantly… the neat sweeping lines, the aggressive front, disk breaks…wow. I knew that was the bike I wanted to have with me. Got into the job and finally saved up enough to get her in Jan ‘02. Went for the deep bottle green color as it was so rare…not many were on the roads then (…and even now). I still remember rushing out of the office at 4 that day to pick ’er up.

In my quest to make more room in my room, I’ve finally started moving out the desktops… I sold the old desktop and am now looking out to move another comp as well. However, the replacements have already been decided. For the regular day to day use, I’ve decided on the [vaio TZ] (http://www.sony.co.in/product/vgn-tz17gn?site=hp_en_IN_i) series - I had an encouter with it a few weeks back and I was absolutely floored by it. The 11.1’ screen runs at a super sharp resolution of 1366x768 and boasts an astounding 11 hour battery life. This translates into roughly 6-8 hours of normal use on battery. All this for an approx 1.5 kg weight with the battery.

I had this fantastic opportunity to be part of the information risk management forum at the client location. So, off it was to Bangalore again - the program was scheduled for a day, with various senior people speaking. The most notable among them being - Nandkumar Saravade - Director, Cyber Security and Compliance at NASSCOM. One of the very interesting discussions we had with him was an info sec accreditation similar to ISO 27001 which members of NASSCOM would use to benchmark themselves in the industry. Since offices in India serve various countries all over the world, the proposed standard would be trying to encompass information security laws across many countries. Any company having that particular security accreditation would surpass individual country specific requirements. Even a third party surveying/certifying firm like Gallup or Moody’s could actually define and administer these surveys and certifications. Great for the outsourcing business in India, and definitely a step in the right direction where information security measures are woefully inadequate when compared to the industry growth here.

I finished six years of professional life on Monday evening. It’s been a wild ride so far, there have been ups and downs, fighting against seemingly impossible situations and emerging out somehow. It’s been a time of learning new things and opening up to things which we never knew existed…! I think I’ve become a senior citizen in the company.. hell yeah…!! totally agreed :). Time to think of the future now…!

…for a man, but a giant leap for mankind!". that step has been taken, the leap is in the making! More later on…!

my music collection surely has a talent to surprise me at the oddest of the moments…I was mentally preparing to post something very serious (…yes…that post is still on its way) - and that’s when winamp decided to flip me over to Orbital’s “Bigpipe styles”. Did some more reading and found out that it belonged to a series of songs called ‘style’ because it used an instrument called a stylophone ‘Bigpipe styles’ combines bagpipes and the stylophone to a fantastic effect.

… Everything may not appear as what it seems

…my fourth company sitting in the same seat. The brokerage services division of ADP has been spun off effective Apr 1st and the new company has been named Broadridge. What does it mean for us? we’re going back to being a small company again - lots of growth opportunities, interesting times…something for everyone! here’s a photo of the opening at NYSE.

this is the first in a two part write - up on the HX-4 - a biking trip I did towards the end of January in Himachal.j Warning - long read…:) The HX4 trip log Some of my best memories so far have been on my bike. The HX4 was a valuable addition to that list. A six day ride into the interiors of Himachal, pristine surroundings, breathtaking views, un-crowded places, no traffic on the roads…well, could we ask for more? More so, we had our bikes to travel to these places.

Most of my visits to the US have been restricted to the east coast and the mid-west. This time I made it to the west coast - thanks to friends who have settled there. Went around downtown San Francisco…pics from yesterday.