I was out with some friends yesterday evening when I found out that Mika Hakkinen was in town for a little promo and there was a McLaren F1 car involved in the picture...

On digging around the internet, we found out that it was a promo for Johnnie Walker's new do not drink and drive campaign called Join the Pact (http://jointhepact.com/).

The only thing we (roomie and I) did today was head over to the place where the event was happening and catch a glimpse of the McLaren MP4-22, Mika, Paula Malai Ali and Steve Dawson (covering the event for Star Sports).

Woohoo! I managed to get some pretty decent shots ;)

Of course, the car never did anything more than 2nd or 3rd gear and the ear plugs they handed out weren't really needed, but it was fun. Mika did a total of 4 runs in the MP4-22, with the 3rd and 4th being longer than the first two along with some spins and the like.

The place where the event happened is actually a part of the street circuit where the GP will take place in September. Rest of the snaps - http://www.flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/sets/72157604312769276/

Date : Jan 23rd 2008
Time : 2245 onwards...(local time)
Location : Melbourne, Australia

My flight from Brisbane was uneventful. Virgin Blue is pretty cool, you have (small) screens right in front of you to watch what you want and all the good stuff is pay per view :) The rate I guess for movies and channels was something in the range of 7-9 Australian Dollars. I didn't bother, since I was enjoying the lovely skies past sunset and the cities below. The first thing I noticed when I landed in Melbourne was the big notice that warns people against joking (yes you read that right) about bombs in baggage or terrorism. The notice went on to say it's an offence and that people do so will be arrested. Eeeks. Paranoia and more Security Theatre :)
( Read the rest of the entry... )
And that brought to an end, a very interesting Day 1 in Melbourne :)
Rest of the snaps : http://www.flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/sets/72157604290718622/

Wooohooo!

Had a pretty good extended weekend and a lazy Sunday at home, watching Kimi get back to his winning ways at Sepang.

Life's been mostly good and exciting the last year, I have nothing to really complain about at all :)

Hoping for many more good ones ahead!

PS : If I need to get in to work on time tomorrow, I should head to bed now ;)

Sometime around December last year, I made up my mind to head to Melbourne for LCA 2008. Since I had a decent amount of vacation time, I decided to make a longer trip and see a bit of Australia.

( Slightly long... )
The rest of the photos are in this set.

http://freed.in/2008/

I only wish I was there :)

Feb 22-24, New Delhi...make sure you don't miss it!

In approximately 12 hours, I'll be at the Rod Laver Arena and the schedule for the day looks like this :

Not before 1330 :

Women's Singles Semi-Final - Maria Sharapova Vs Jelena Jankovic

Followed by :

Women's Singles Semi-Final - Ana Ivanovic Vs Daniela Hantuchova

And then Not before 1930 :

Men's Singles Semi-Final - Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Vs Rafael Nadal

The matches are like...umm...amazing. I'm hoping to get some good pics, fingers crossed.

PS : Oh and Australia has amazing beaches and even more amazing babes

Short chat in #gentoo-doc on freenode...


<@fox2mike> rane: ping
<@rane> what's up?
<@fox2mike> if I'm lucky
<@fox2mike> I'll be seeing Sharapova at the Australian Open
<@fox2mike> I'm leaving for Australia in 2 days :p
<@rane> oh damn
<@rane> i hope you plane breaks
<@rane> :-)


And a few days ago...


fox2mike/Gaim: and then, I'm going to the australian open
Sandy: wow
fox2mike/Gaim: thursday - both morning and evening sessions
Sandy: dont stare too much
fox2mike/Gaim: sat - ladies final
fox2mike/Gaim: :D
fox2mike/Gaim: I'll try maga
fox2mike/Gaim: I promise I will try :p
Sandy: hope sharapova loses in first round
Sandy: and the williams sisters enter the finals
Sandy: :P
fox2mike/Gaim: F*CK you


Yup. Feel the luvvvvvvv!

As I was heading out for dinner yesterday, I spotted this catty, sleeping peacefully on top of the ATM cash deposit machine. Awesome :) I didn't have the D70 with me, so you'll have to make do with the w810i's cam.

At peace with the world...and on top of all the cash ;)

2007 was amazing in many aspects. Here's wishing everyone an amazing 2008 :)

And finally, I got my FOSS.IN pictures up... Click to see.

I was going to write up something about the team behind FOSS.IN and how amazing it feels to be a part of this team, but then tejasd has already done all the hard work, so I'll be lazy and link to his post :p

Clicky!

Like I'd mentioned earlier...to me, FOSS.IN is about the people. There are quite a handful of friends I meet there, year after year...and then there's my extended family, Team FOSS.IN :)

Thanks a lot everyone, for everything you've all done for the event and it's an honour working with you all, year after year.

PS : Yes, I have about a 100 odd pics, which I will be uploading shortly :p

In the past two days, I've been asked by two different girls if they can be my girlfriend and that too in front of my parents.

Fun :)

Hope you all had a fun-filled and Merry Xmas as well!

I was supposed to be in Bangalore for FOSS.IN about 5 hours ago. The Malaysia Airlines flight out of KLIA to BLR was first delayed and then postponed to the next day, because of various reasons (depending on which member of the staff you asked) ranging from the usual technical difficulties to BLR not have free parking bays (which is actually believable heh).

After landing here at 1945 local time, the 250-300 odd folks going to BLR waited for over 3.5 hours before transport arrived to take us to a hotel for the night. I shall break here to pass on my heartfelt thanks to Malaysia Airlines for giving me one very good reason why I'll think a zillion times before flying with them again.

I got to the Hotel at 0110, and left (after eating, sleeping, showering) at 0500. Back at the airport now, and it seems like the BLR flight is finally leaving at 0800 local time (a little over 50 mins from now).

KLIA is huge. But I can't understand how they won the best airport award, if things like their main display systems show outdated and stale information.

The free WiFi is cool though. It's open, so I'm tunneling over SSH. Maybe I'll write up on how that can be done later.

Time for the flight...seeya in BLR :) And if you're one of those lazy (insert words of choice here) and haven't yet registered for FOSS.IN, then Clicky!

and for code_martial (in response to http://code-martial.livejournal.com/183623.html), a little statement :)



I'm not going to be able to sleep now.

So I was part of history today :p

There were lots of people waiting in the Changi Beach Park to watch the landing of the first SQ Airbus A380 plane (regn. 9V-SKA) at the Changi Airport.

While the light was fading, this mammoth of a plane glided in smoothly for a safe touchdown on runway 20R.

Was able to get a few more shots, but I sort of liked this the most. Will post the rest later.

View Large On Black

Taken during a trip to the Island of Palau Ubin, Singapore during the month of August this year. Unfortunately, there seems to be some dirt on the CCD :(

We had a fun trip, a decent amount of mountain biking, walks by the sea and just generally relaxing. I took this shot when the clouds were rolling in.

Another one I liked - http://www.flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/1498521773/

The set - http://www.flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/sets/72157602287565610/

And no, I'm not referring to Eid/Diwali/Christmas :p

FOSS.IN/2007, India's most happening Open Source event is being held in Bangalore from the 4th to the 8th of December. My tickets are booked and I'll be there for sure :) The CFP closes in about 4 days, now would be a good time to clicky that linky.


The foremost thing that comes to mind when someone says FOSS.IN to me, are the people. Time for some history -- Back in the days, when we were still known as Linux Bangalore and when louiswu and myself attended LB/2001 (the only time we attended as errr "attendees") it was simply mind blowing. The people, the energy, the enthusiasm. So much so that we told ourselves, the next year, we'll be volunteers. Because it's so cool to be a volunteer and help these folks out.

In 2003, we did that and then realised what "Volunteering" really meant :p I shall not go into the gory details lest I scare off potential volunteers from coming to this years event hehehehe. But I'm sure every person who's volunteered in the past understands exactly what I'm talking about. And as in 2001, we met the same bunch of folks and a bigger bunch of newer folks. At this point you lose count of the number of people you had mini distro wars with, the number of "poke your nose in to say vi rulez" kind of things you've done. You finally start associating familiar faces with names and you know you'll see them the next year, at the same place. Once every year, for 3 days.

Oh and once you've volunteered, you've given away a part of your life. Signed away your soul. One of those Ghostrider type deals :p LB/2004, FOSS.IN/2005 and FOSS.IN/2006 (and frankly, I don't know how many more years are there to come), but it's wonderful. Meeting those people, those hallway discussions, those gaming sessions we managed to sneak in last year, the impromptu help offered in the hallways, suggestions on how we can tweak Apache....that's what makes FOSS.IN awesome. The people. Meeting them once a year. Spending 5 days slogging out to make sure everything runs fine. Running around on those 5 days making sure everything IS running fine ;) Getting hardware the day before, Harald fixing USB wireless issues, Andrew lending a hand in making sure stuff gets done on schedule. All part of the game. We've come to expect the unexpected in these past years and I'm sure this year will be an absolute blast.

If you've never been to one before, you should drop by. I'll be there, will you?

Taken during the annual Mid Autumn festival. The whole place was lit up, the theme was mostly aquatic life with a few dragons thrown in.

Rest of the pics - http://www.flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/sets/72157602197453397/

One more not so nice thing to strike off my to do list, experience an Earthquake.

Crazy. We felt the office sway, slowly from side to side....for a full minute. It was almost surreal. You sort of didn't know if it was your mind or if it would stop.

I hope there is no loss of life in Indonesia, considering this was a 8.2, I'm afraid I'll be wrong about that :(

More info over at USGS -

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2007hear.php

Update : They revised the magnitude to 8.2 from 7.9

Update 2 : They revised the magnitude to 8.4 from 8.2

Taken around 1930 SGT today, the skies were actually blue when I took the shot. Hoping for clear skies on the 28th, when the Lunar eclipse occurs.

I've always wanted to be in Delhi for our Republic Day Parade, because it's just awesome. The show of strength and unity is simply amazing as is the atmosphere. I will make it someday. I'm sure of that :)

Singapore turned 42 years old on August 9th and I was there at the National Day Parade. I got to the venue a bit later than originally planned (but about 3 hours before the event began) and was out of vantage points. Amazing how many people turned up many hours in advance with lunch and snacks packed, so they could get the best view points.

Rest of the snaps (some interesting ones too :p) in the set.

Taken during the last NDP 2007 dress rehearsal which was on August 4th. This is where all future NDPs in Singapore will be taking place. The view is the Singapore skyline as seen from the Benjamin Shears Bridge. The bridge was closed off due to security concerns on National Day. View Large on Black. Rest of the snaps are in the set. I'll be uploading the actual NDP snaps sometime soon.

Okay, so I walked into office and looked out of the board room on Friday and saw an aircraft with a BIG blue tail. I was telling myself that it can't be and got out the camera....and there it was.

The world's largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380.

I couldn't get much with the 70-300, since the plane is a good kilometer and half or more away and I'm shooting through tinted glass, but still, it was awesome seeing this baby parked on the tarmac.

She's here for some tests on the new Terminal 3 and will be departing Singapore in about 10 hours or so. Early morning, so I can't get better snaps.

I'm guessing they would be flying in at least once more, before the first SQ A380 is delivered in October. I'll make sure I catch that one. Thanks to ti22 for some post processing magick ;)


$ uptime
03:33:29 up 551 days, 3:27, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00


On one of the production servers at work ;)

In other news, this journal has been up for 4 years now. I'm grateful to Livejournal for the many friends I've met here. It's been amazing even though my posting frequency is like once a month :)

Thanks a ton! :D

Now to find the time to play Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas :p

24 hours aren't enough!

PS : Yet to name her, suggestions are welcome ;)

So, finding a place these days are made easier by using Google Maps and/or Wikimapia. I found a couple of places I needed to go to in Bangalore using Wikimapia. Although there is significant noise thanks to the numerous people who seem to love marking out their houses, it still works. I successfully plotted a driving route to a place using both and well, managed to reach it fine. The route back wasn't as easy (thanks to a zillion one-ways) but that worked out as well. w00t!

In other news, Ferrari finally managed their first 1-2 of the season today at what is touted to be the last race ever at Magny-Cours. Seems the new aerodynamics package that both Kimi and Massa were confident about really turned the tables on McLaren this weekend. w00t!

A close friend got engaged and another got married and I was lucky enough to make it to both :)

Had a lazy weekend, looking forward to the week ahead....

Hopped onto the plane spotting bandwagon, thanks to the office shifting to Changi Business Park.

I'm going to have to balance work and this, or this will take up too much time ;)

First shots : http://www.flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/sets/72157600204757968/

I think I'll spend quite a bit of free time doing this.

The best part of all the 3 days, was raceday. Why? Because that's when you realise that you're normal and you see how many other people are atleast just as crazy or even more crazy that you are about the sport. The whole atmosphere was awesome. So many motorsport fans in one place....

I was wearing my Ferrari shirt as I came down for breakfast that day at the hotel and everyone looked at me like I was part of the team. Hah, felt good ;) The same thing on the monorail, random people would smile...a fellow Ferrari fan from some corner of the globe would nod or wave. And everyone in general knew what the deal was all about.

The rest of the snaps are being uploaded, a few hundred more to go...I'm off to sleep now.

Just as I thought I'd gotten over Sepang, vyshnavi kindly sends in an email with this link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi1EQBVA2Lc

And the memories came rushing back. As did the sounds. I still can't get over the V8s.

I'm going to own a Ferrari someday. That's a promise to myself that I really intend to keep.

Taken with code_martial's Nikkor 18-200 VR lens. It's quite breathtaking....the tallest building in the world till it was unseated by Taipei 101, you don't realise it's true splendour until you're right below it.

These shots were taken around midnight.

( Another one I liked... )

Rest of the Petronas shots : http://www.flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/tags/petronastowers/

Thanks to Codie for lending his lens (which he'd almost lost earlier hehe) ;)

Christijan Albers during Practice on Saturday. Rest of the Day 2 snaps : http://www.flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/sets/72157600077941245/

That's Nico Rosberg being pushed back in after his first practice session on Friday. I reached Sepang only by 1100 on the first day, so I caught 30 mins of the first session. The KLIA Ekspress is a very affordable + fast way to get to the Sepang Circuit which is about 80 Kms outside KL. For RM 100 (Around US$30 approx) this train takes you from the main train station in KL to the Airport from where AC buses ferry you to Sepang which is about 7-10 Kms away and return you back to the station from where you catch the train back. The RM 100 is for 3 days, it's RM 80 for raceday only. The train is amazing, makes 3 stops and covers 80 Kms is about 35 mins or so. Compared to a one way fare of RM 70 if you take a cab from the city, it's a killer deal.

Rest of the photos from Day 1. Some interesting ones :

1) Mika Hakkinen.
2) Robert Kubica, 1, 2 and 3.
3) Lewis Hamilton (only got his back though...)
4) Jarno Trulli (looking right ahead...seems like he was looking at the cam heh)
5) Marshals cleaning the track after Sutil's tyre blew up.

More pics soon :)

I wandered into the SIC on the 6^th of April around 1100 and heard an amazingly loud roar followed by 4 bangs...and that's when it hit me...those were the V8s downshifting from 6th to 2nd gear at the end of the start-finish straight to take turn 1 on the circuit. The first thing I probably screamed out was something not very nice, but then no one could hear me :D Here I was...on an F1 circuit and it really hadn't sunk in at that point. I just stood there and grinned like an idiot for 5 minutes before calling my dad and screaming into the phone (over the sound of the engines...).

No words can describe the scream of the V8s down the start-finish straight and the bangs as they shift gears. The cars move so fast that you can barely make out the drivers. Photographing them isn't an easy task, simply because of the speed :D The above is prolly the best shot of Massa I got across the 3 days and this was taken during the race (and he was doing over 300 Kmph..since the shot was taken down the start-finish straight).

If you're an F1 fan, you absolutely should go to a Grand Prix in your lifetime, simply because the TV doesn't quite cut it. The sounds of the engine are one I will never forget for a long time to come. Awesome. Amazing. Brilliant.

As I went to sleep on saturday, I could still hear the V8s...that's the impact they leave on you..the distict Rrrurrrrrrrrrr, bang, bang, bang...

Ferrari didn't win, and that was a disappointment but I'm sure they'll bounce back. This season should be very interesting to watch.

PS : Tons more pics to come, I managed to get shots of Kimi, Alonso, Mika (yes, Hakkinen...god bless the 70-300 :p), Nico, Trulli, Rubeno....it'll take a while to upload them all and I'll make a few more posts regarding the trip later.