A Day in the Life Of...

Life Update :)

2009-05-31T17:54:35Z

Yes, it's that time of the year again...when I look at LJ and go, "About time I update the journal.." AND have information to share ;) so here goes...

Starting today, I'll be working for Mozilla Corporation a.k.a MoCo for short. I will continue to be based in Singapore and will be working as a sysad, providing on-call support during the wee hours in the US. I'm their first hire in Singapore and their first IT hire outside the USA :D

I had an opportunity to meet (almost) the whole IT team and a bunch of other excellent folks during the Mozilla All-Hands held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View between the 27-29 April this year. It was great fun and it really helped validate my decision to join them...even if I'll be working remotely. The energy levels are just amazing and I can't wait to get started! :D

In other news, I've also just moved in over this weekend to a nice two bedroom apartment. Most of the unpacking is done, about two boxes to go and a while to settle down I guess. The internet connection is up, so that's super cool.

Time to crash, first day at work (again) in a few hours! :D

z0mg! 26! :D

2009-03-23T17:03:42Z

Here's to more w00tness and joy, more travels, more fun, more love, more kickassedness, more f1, more letters and more writing.

Here's to 26 and 2009 :D

PS : Greeting cards sent the good old way, especially when they're from your parents are just super cool!!

How I saw Sydney (for free) on the way from Hobart to Brisbane

2009-03-22T16:22:02Z

After LCA 2009, I boarded Virgin Blue flight DJ707 from HBA to BNE with a bunch of fellow geeks. The flight took off on schedule and thing were fine for about an hour and then we noticed some commotion at the back. Abbie, the lead stewardess was pushing a man to the front and just as he passed by our row of seats, he turned back and cussed at another stewardess who was at the back.

I knew things wouldn't be okay..because the guy seemed pretty arrogant. The put him right at the front of the plane. The German lady next to be suspected that he was a terrorist and we had a little laugh. The captain came out and tried speaking some sense to the guy and he didn't seem to care or understand.

And then the plane banked to the right and I knew we weren't heading to Brisbane anymore. The cabin crew handled the situation very well, and left out the first 3 rows. The rest of the rows were individually informed that the plane was being diverted to Sydney because of the drunk guy in the front and that they didn't want to risk anyone's safety.

I don't think the bloke had a clue were landing in Sydney. It was a lovely time in the evening though, just after sunset. The city lights were on and by sheer luck, the runway we were landing on made sure I could see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge from the plane. Awesome sights indeed :) The captain never announced the city and the cabin crew just said "We'll be landing shortly" and as soon as we reached the gate, not a single soul stood up ;) The Police came in and the chap left, without offering any resistance (found out later from the news that he did cause some trouble outside the plane). The captain allowed us to use our phones to let people waiting in Brisbane know that we will be delayed.

We took off from Sydney after the Police had taken statements (about 45 mins later) and everyone clapped for the crew. We also got to watch free TV (it's paid otherwise) for the rest of the flight. w00t!

I'd have no second thoughts about flying with Virgin Blue again and hats off to the crew for handling the situation very well.

So that's how I "visited" Sydney for free :) I plan to return someday and actually get out of the plane and go see the place.

I've caught up with a decent number of photos from the trip, Hobart photos : http://is.gd/oq2f

OCBC Cycle Singapore 2009

2009-03-09T15:36:36Z

It's been a while since I put down something worthwhile here, so here goes :)

Sometime in early November 2008, I bought myself my first road bike, a Giant OCR3. I began riding quite regularly and slowly increasing the distance over December.

Then I found out that there's a cycling event on February 22nd, and I thought I could take part & signed up for the 40km Challenge and prepared over the first 3 weeks of Feb.

Come raceday, I managed to finish the 40kms in 86 mins 45 seconds w0000t! :D Not bad for a first time I guess. That time put me 92nd out of 302 participants in my age group (25-29). Full result sheet is here, search for bib number 1626.

I've uploaded some photos on Flickr and a big round of thanks to my roomie, Isaq for coming along, supporting me and taking the photos :D

On a side note, I'm absolutely in love with Nokia's Sports Tracker. Absolutely kickass and I use it quite regularly. Tracked the race as well, clicky if you're interested.

I'm really starting to love cycling and here's hoping to shave off 20 mins before next year :D

Happy 2009!

2008-12-31T12:15:24Z

2008 has mostly been a kickass year, in quite a few fronts. Wishing everyone a wonderful 2009 (as I'm rushing off to the Siloso Beach Party @ Sentosa) and seeya all next year! :)

Prince Of Persia

2008-12-06T05:55:48Z

It's been a while since I've written anything here, and decided that this was as good a time and opportunity as any :)

I follow Playstation.Blog on Flickr. Simply because well, all their interesting entries have pics and if there are good pics, I go read up on the corresponding entries. The other day while I was casually going through my emails, the daily one from Flickr with the pics uploaded by friends had Prince of Persia on it.

My reactions were something like : Whoa. Hold on. WTF!!! Prince of Persia??? PS3??? Elika???? WHAT!!! and that obviously led to Your Questions Answered : Prince of Persia and then Prince of Persia Review and obviously I wanted to know when the game was coming here....so off to GameScore and voila! December 5th. Bliss.

Obviously, if you're not one/all of these :

Gamer

From my era (early 80s :p)

you sort of don't understand the excitement or what the big deal about Prince of Persia is :D

Back in the days, when there was DOS, Prince of Persia was the ONE game (apart from say Dangerous Dave or Transport Tycoon) that was on EVERYONE's lips. If you had a computer and you didn't have/play Prince of Persia, you had to be a loser :D Levels were dissected, strategies discussed, cheatcodes revealed...all to save the lovely Princess from the evil Jaffar. I've played so much PoP (yes, typing the whole name is getting painful now :p) that I still remember the theme song and can hum it all out. Insane? Maybe :D

And then I had relatives egging me along. Cousins and Nieces...just to show them how the Prince wins and saves the Princess...and some of them would even cry if the Prince died. Nuts!

So yeah, Prince of Persia is very much a part of my gaming life and life itself..it's something that I cannot forget and that is why I went rushing to Gamescore after work yesterday to pick up PoP for the PS3 on the day of it's release here. And I was blown away by the graphics right at the first level. The scenery, the desert, hills, canyons, the blue sky...just.simply.WOW. Oh and Elika is surely an added bonus. She helps you along and the Prince himself is an easy-go-lucky chap with a ready wisecrack in hand, all the time! The game is no where near the story of the original...and has a little bit of a learning curve. The fighting is just brilliant in terms of visual representation and graphics. I still remember hitting the ctrl key on the old game...haha. In just about 19 years...we've had SO many changes to computers/display systems/controllers and what not, that the first PoP in 1989 and the current version in 2008 are just eons apart.

Gamespot says you can finish the game in 12 hours, I think I'll take a LOT more :) Just soaking in the various scenes and umm there is real life and work in the middle anyway!

Shameless plugs for Gamespot (I've gotten all my games for the PS3 after reading their reviews and I'm yet to be disappointed....every single one has been spot on!) and Gamescore, who've been an excellent source of everything gaming here, atleast for me.

Oh, and I picked up Fallout3 as well. The queue now reads -> Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 - Ep 1, Half-Life 2 - Ep 2, GTA4, Fallout3 (and more of Portal, Civilization : Revolution) because I think I'll finish PoP before the rest of them :D Time...if only a day had more time ;)

It's that time of the year again!

2008-11-12T16:11:32Z

Formula1 Singtel Singapore Grand Prix 2008

2008-10-03T18:47:03Z

Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari. And the Sharkfin..., originally uploaded by fox2mike.

The first even night race in Formula1. Wow. A part of history now and I'm glad I could be at the race in person :)

It was great fun walking the track with teemus on thursday and then Friday, Saturday and Sunday just flew by with loads of F1 and loads more of Zouk.

This was my second F1 race and if I was asked to pick between Sepang and Marina Bay, I think the latter wins hands down. Cheaper food, cheaper merchandise, lovely atmosphere, amazing music, giant screens that were actually viewable to name some. I think the very fact that the race happens in the middle of a city is a win. In Sepang, there was nothing to do after the race, but head back into the city...which wasn't all that much fun in retrospect ;)

I'm sure the organizers will iron out the kinks for the next edition and it will be even more fun overall.

Way to go Singapore, you've given F1 a truly wonderful twist in the tale.

Last set of pics, Raceday - http://flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/sets/72157607704772359/

X-posted to f1

Singapore Grand Prix 2008 - Day 2 - Saturday Practice and Qualifying

2008-10-02T16:10:22Z

Pics are up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/sets/72157607640807934/

X-posted to f1

Singapore Grand Prix 2008 - Day 1 - Friday Free Practice

2008-09-28T05:15:09Z

Pics are up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/sets/72157607538474392/

Sorry! No time to describe in detail, but to summarize :

If you're every coming to Asia to see a GP, Singapore is THE place to be :) Awesome event so far, amazing organization and great fun!!

X-posted to f1

Marina Bay Street Circuit

2008-09-21T08:59:53Z

Start-Finish straight, again., originally uploaded by fox2mike.

In a week from now, Formula1 cars will line up along this very stretch to kick off the Singtel Singapore Grand Prix and create history.

I spent around 2 hours walking around the circuit yesterday and took a few snaps.

All the photos are handheld. No tripod or monopod. The lights are really quite bright as you can see :)

A few interesting things : BMW Sauber stuff, Turn 19 - where the cars go under the grandstands, Digiflags and concrete protective barriers.

For the rest of the snaps, clicky!

2008 Singtel Singapore Grand Prix Tickets!

2008-09-01T17:05:00Z

Walkabout Tickets, originally uploaded by fox2mike.

I can hardly wait :) 24 days to go for FP1 and that'll kick off the world's first night race. I got these 3 day walkabout tickets back in June, and took the pics back then too, just been lazy to upload them.

Of course, these are commemorative tickets, and hence plastic. They're damn cool :)

The circuit is almost done, lights are up, protective barriers are up and they're some very strong concrete barriers...will be interesting to see where the tyre walls will come up, if any. I'll try to walk around this weekend and get some shots of the circuit

Few more pics : http://flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/sets/72157607054264156/

w00t!

2008-07-17T23:21:55Z

So, finally louiswu is the third Gentoo developer from India. woohoo! This calls for a major partyyyy. One more to the Indian Conspiracy ;) Welcome to the brotherhood, dude :D

PS : I heard of Gentoo from him and can now stop needling him about giving back to the community :p

PPS : Time to grab some more sleep before getting ready for work :p

Infra Update!

2008-07-11T08:50:50Z

I've not written about Gentoo for quite sometime, and that's primarily because I was too lazy to update my dev blog. Since Livejournal has been doing tag based rss feeds for a while now, I thought I'll get it updated at the planet and should hopefully write a bit more ;)

The method we've been using to handle new mirror bugs has been quite sub-optimal these past few years ;) Basically, we get a bug for a new mirror...and we run a few scripts to check if it's okay, then we let the mirror sit for a while before running the same set of checks and the repeats prolly one more time and if the results are favourable, the mirror is added into rotation. This is the process for both rsync (gentoo-portage aka the portage tree) and distfiles (source tarballs) mirrors. The point where the process umm failed was between checks, since there are quite a few things going on, mostly real life related. And so some of our mirrors have had to wait months before they were approved as official mirrors.

That's not a nice situation to have and I'd like to apologize for the delays that have happened in the past. We've made some changes that will really help processing new mirror bugs way faster than before and leave us free to work on bad mirror/other mirror related bugs.

Last weekend, thanks to a poke by robbat2, I hacked up a little script that automates our mirror checking and drops us an email with the results. All it needs is information from a simple tab de-limited file which has information about the bug, mirror address/IP, type of mirror etc. This really takes out the need for us to attend to new mirror bugs, since all that's needed it adding one line to a file and then the rest is taken care of.

The second change is that we now have an upper limit of 2 weeks to close off new mirror bugs. If a mirror is in sync and doing fine, we aim to finish processing the mirror and adding it into our list of mirrors within this timeframe. To this end we'll mark the due date on the subject of the bug to help us keep track of it.

I'd like to thank our mirrors/mirror admins/sponsors for standing by Gentoo and helping out. Thanks a ton folks and keep em coming! :)

The other small thing that robbat2 and me wanted to get out of the way, was to update our infra server list, which we've completed bar a few machines. So yay for that as well!

Flying...

2008-06-28T12:35:56Z

Flying..., originally uploaded by fox2mike.

I was back at Melbourne Park for the ladies final, and this was taken when Maria was well on her way to winning her first Australian Open title. The match was good, as was the lighting and the crowd was mostly behind Ana Ivanovic (she is surely a darling of the cameras as Alan Wilkins rightly put it during a Wimbledon telecast).

Rest of the set : http://www.flickr.com/photos/fox2mike/sets/72157605851583844/

I still have a metric ton of photos to upload :p

T-100 days and counting...

2008-06-20T01:26:32Z

In a 100 days, if all goes well, I'll be watching the world's first F1 night race at the Singtel Singapore Grand Prix. w00t!

About fricking time...

2008-05-27T15:17:30Z

So I finally managed to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. I'm sure I'm one of the last souls on the planet to have gotten the book on the day it came out and took so long to finish it ;)

I've been on a reading spree actually...all my backlogged books are done and brand new ones are waiting to be read.

Woohoo. More reading.

Apart from reading, gaming takes up a bit of time as well. Assassin's Creed is one of the best games I've ever played. Ever. Totally amazing gameplay and equally well written story. On the PS3, with a Sony 32" Bravia to boot...at 1080p it's just brilliant :D

And then there's GTA4. Nico Bellic. My Man. Slick, cool. Compared to the last GTA I played...this is just insanely cooler. I don't like the graphics much though, I'm sure Rockstar could have done better (I'm biased after Assassin's Creed), but so far, I'm hooked. With things like 24 hrs functioning train networks...ability to hail cabs...go bowling or play darts, go out on a date...just amazing how they've worked to make the game as close to reality as possible. And yeah, Liberty City and the powerboats just kick rear as well.

Haven't had enough time to try out Half-Life 2 though ;) The Orange Box is waiting in the wings...

F1 fever catching up in Singapore

2008-03-30T18:37:35Z

Mika in the MP4-22, originally uploaded by fox2mike.

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/

Melbourne, Day 1

2008-03-29T05:03:16Z

Maria, Serving, originally uploaded by fox2mike.

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 :)

I was supposed to head over to Batman Ave/Melbourne Park early in the morning, but then catching up with cousins and the internet meant I slept at something like 0300 and woke up at 0900. The matches I was interested in weren't going to begin before 1330 anyway! (http://fox2mike.livejournal.com/165792.html)

I took the bus + train and reached Flinders Street Station at about 1315. Rod Laver Arena and the Melbourne Cricket Ground are all a 10 min walk away from there and I decided to walk it instead of wait for a tram. Made it with enough time and managed to get my 70-300mm past security (lenses above 200mm weren't allowed and yes, they were checking but not well enough :p).

Only when I got in...did it really sink in that I was at the Rod Laver Arena. And that I was going to see three Semi-Final matches. Wow. If anyone had told me when I passed out of college that I'd be at the Australian Open in 2008, I'd have laughed at them :p

It was so amazing to watch Maria Sharapova walk out and play some amazing tennis. Really, totally amazing. Jelena was no match and seemed out of form and Maria won in straight sets. I whistled and screamed out "Maria!", "Come on Maria" a few times, I'm sure if there's a recording of the open, my voice will be there :p I was quite loud. She had most of the crowd on her side for this match.

The officials were quite strict about the no walking the aisles during the match rule. Once you go out, you can only enter when the players are changing ends...so you need to think about when you want to go grab that drink, coz you just might end up missing the next 3-4 games. The good thing though is you can eat food inside, which means if you plan well, you don't have to leave when a match is going on.

The second match was Ana Ivanovic Vs Daniela Hantuchova (*wipes drool*) and that was an amazing match as well. It was surely going Hantuchova's way until the crowd decided to chip in an pull up Ana. Shouts of "Hadje Ana!!" kept going out regularly and she rallied back to beat Daniela in three sets. In the 3 ladies matches I watched, Ana had the maximum support. Even greater than Sharapova.

The last match of the day, was the mens Semis. Jo-Wilfred Tsonga Vs Rafael "Rafa" Nadal, and man that was simply stunning. The pace of the men's game is so much higher than women's tennis and especially these two guys were going at it like there was no tomorrow. Serves from Tsonga were regularly above the 210 Kmph mark and were a treat to watch. Tsonga totally outplayed Nadal though and won in straight sets.

On my way back home, I took the train and was waiting for the bus at around 2345 local time at the bus stop. The bus finally came and the driver ends up telling me that this is the second last service of the day and doesn't go where I want to go. He sounded irritated at first, but when I told him it was my first day in Melbourne and that I was a tourist, he eased off and offered to help. He said he'd drop me off at the last stop and that I can take a cab from there. Now the bus had like 4 passengers apart from me and another lady who was going to the same area that I was. And she offered to help. Awesome!

So we get off at the last stop...and I didn't see any cabs around...and I was preparing for a long walk home (because my cousin wasn't picking up her phone, so she couldn't come pick me up hahaha) when the lady from the bus said her husband was coming to pick her up and that she'd drop me home. Wow. Thankfully, I knew the address, so we went to her place first, and got a map and they were kind enough to drop me off right at the doorstep. Random acts of kindness rule. I can't thank them enough for helping out and I thought that's the last time I'd see them, but that was not to be :) More about that in another post.

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/

A Quarter Century ;)

2008-03-23T18:00:19Z

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 ;)

Sand And Sky

2008-02-25T16:00:35Z

Sand And Sky, originally uploaded by fox2mike.

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.

The itinerary was something like this :

Jan 19 - 23 - Gold Coast
Jan 24- Feb 3 - Melbourne

The longer stopover in Melbourne was due to the Australian Open, followed by LCA.

I flew Emirates from Singapore, since it was amazingly economical :) They had a special offer SIN - BNE and MEL - SIN (booked one way) and I booked my BNE-MEL flight on Virgin Blue.

The flight I took, was doing London - Dubai - Singapore - Brisbane - Auckland and was an hour late when it landed in Singapore. The service in Emirates was on par with Singapore Airlines, I really like their seats as well. The food was okay, and since I hadn't asked for Vegetarian meals when I booked (booboo on my part), they didn't have any. But they did manage to pass on a crew member's meal, that was vegetarian, so that was quite nice of them. I didn't get more than 2 hours of sleep on the 7.5 hour flight, primarily because I was so excited and thanks to the Brazilian couple who were right next to me and were heading to Brisbane to do a 6 month English course and we kept talking about various things.

The plane finally touched down in Brisbane and that's when you're hit by how efficient Singapore is in handling incoming passengers :) It took me a good two hours to leave Brisbane airport after Immigration and Customs heh.

I had a great time in the Gold Coast, mainly thanks to my wonderful host(s), long time friend Tracey and her husband Mike. Managed to visit the Currumbin wildlife sanctuary, couple of beaches, Dreamworld, swim (in the pool and the beach after a long time), watch Cricket (India won the Perth test woohoo!) and Tennis and generally have fun. Special mention and squishes go to Hank, Tracey's Lhasa Apso pup, who was soooo cute and stuck with me the whole time I was there ;) He even slept on me for a night hehe. Puppies rulez!

The first leg ended in Brisbane with a meeting up with fellow Gentoo Dev, Stuart Longland aka Redhatter, Ivan and Appleman123 before heading out on a Virgin Blue flight to Melbourne.

The rest of the photos are in this set.

Freed!

2008-02-18T11:13:38Z

http://freed.in/2008/

I only wish I was there :)

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

Melbourne Park

2008-01-23T14:24:40Z

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

Why I like IRC ;)

2008-01-17T11:15:08Z

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!

sleepycat on atm

2008-01-16T08:11:04Z

sleepycat on atm, originally uploaded by fox2mike.

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 ;)