Let's be HaPpY

Let's start with a broad smile - this is must before reading next line.

One again smile please!!

Hope your facial muscles had good exercise.

Whatever the situation our attitude should be HaPpY. Being happy gives us strength to face negative situations and it gives us drive to move further with the success (or any other positive moments - happy attitude adds momentum to those positive moments :) ).

I am trying to write here some points which will help us all remember why being HaPpY is important. Actually we all know these facts, thing is sometimes external situations or internal state of mind makes us forget these simple to understand but important facts.

Why should we always be HaPpY?
1. We gain more energy in the things we do. When we are happy many a times we think of crazy - creative ideas.
2. When we are happy, we spread happiness like virus! i.e. we being happy makes the environment around us grow happy
3. Happiness is also reciprocative. If you make 10 people happy probably 4 of them will make you happy in return.
4. Probably God likes happy people. When you are happy you love the world around you i.e. you appreciate the beauty in the world God has created. (atheist friends can replace word God with Nature ;) )

Having reminded why we should always be happy. Let's look at the reasons why we should not be unhappy?
1. You don't gain anything being unhappy
2. Unhappy attitude brings complaining nature, with unhappy attitude even if you pray 100 times a day to God, you might sing the songs to tell God how great he is, in reality every now and then your mind thinks about bad things in the world. You do not respect the good things God/ Nature has given you.
3. Unhappy attitude make the environment around you dull.
4. With unhappy attitude you repel friends and loved ones (at least in long term). People do not like company of people who make them unhappy.

Let's find infinite reasons every-moment to be happy about. Let's make the environment around us grow happy. Let's every-moment think about making our near and dear ones happy. Let's live the journey called life acting as a happiness spreading virus!!

Let's end with a big smile again :).

Yogi Baba's Assembly class

After last leave in December I resumed work from January. Now work is so much that I could not even think of taking single leave till Feb. end.
I have joined Yogeshwar (Yogi) Sir's class to learn assembly language. This class is really a different experience. Most of the students are older than the teacher :).
Earlier I thought he will start the class with typical "Hello World" program, but to my surprise he started with how computer works :). Many things were new to me. When he taught us difference between C and Pascal calling convention I really felt ashamed for not knowing this difference after working for ~4 yrs (I knew it theoretically but that was almost 'mugging up').
It is a fun to attend Yogi's class. Most interesting thing is anybody can ask question at any moment of time. The question may not be assembly related (but if Yogi knows it, you will get answer!). The discussions sometimes completely leave the course work and end up in discussing things like how fork() call works :D. To add somehow the lighting arrangement in teaching room is such that we have to use one tube-light and one bulb - which gives the environment feel of some 'geeky-magic' is being taught here.
Initially timing was decided as Sat 8am to 10am and Sun 8am to 11am. till date class never finished before 1pm and most the the times it went up to 1.30pm :). Other interesting things I learned the were binary operations, segmentation and paging, hardware components in computer and their functions...
Next time if you want to register for any class do ask teacher, what is s/he going to teach - syntax or concepts :D. Assembly language's syntax is also interesting. Writing code is assembly is like giving instructions to 2 yr old. You need to specify most of the things - otherwise results can be unexpected :) (mostly error :)).
The class is not finished yet, few more things that will be covered are static and dynamic linking and then implementation of data structures using assembly language.
I am really tired now. Have not got single day for rest from 2nd Jan 10 and will not get it till end of Feb. Now I am stuck in between workload, assembly homework :D and study I started on my own "Windows operating system".
Saddest thing is I have not done any trek for past 3 months :(.
I hope Yogeshwar will start class for some new subject after few months and I will again experience such busy schedule. I like learning when it is fun!

Break for 1 month :)

I wanted to take long break from daily routine life for quite a long time. In April 2009 I told this to my colleague and tapri partner Chetan at least 10 times. What a boring life - daily routine for everything is fixed. Get up at fixed time, get ready for office at fixed time, daily follow same route, come to office on fixed time. Do the same work everyday, almost same things happening everyday.
I was desperate for a break. I did not dared to ask for 1 month leave for long time, at that time I was the only person working on my project. This project is quite like a baby for me and every-time I thought about applying for long leave, guilt and feeling of giving up responsibility did not allow me to do so.
Then in August 2 developers from UK joined my project. I finally dared to ask for 1 month long leave. Leave for complete December was approved!! (Thanks a ton Jesus Christ for having your birthday in December).

I was very happy in the August when leave was approved. The enthusiasm was so great that the OpenGL book I planned to study in December got almost finished over weekends before November, Also the work tasks which were pending got finished at quite dramatic speed.

What did I do in December?
I wanted to visit Shripad Shrivallabha temple at Kuravpur for quite a long time. My first and foremost priority in December was to visit this temple. It is beautiful place near Raichur (Karnataka). Thought it is one of very important temples of Shri Guru Datta, being located at remote place there are very few people visiting this temple. I really felt good after visiting this place. There was no hurry for finishing the trip quickly. When we go to spiritual places with calm mind, we could really enjoy the company of God.

I spent most of my time in December studying book "Advanced Windows - by Jeffrey Richter". This is really amazing book and a must read for any Windows application developer. After reading this book I was really puzzled why was I taking salary of software developer for past @4 years without even knowing ABC of this windows world (I have worked most of the time on windows based development environment).

Whenever I used to get bored from studies I went for short drives with my good old Bajaj Boxer. I went to Hinjewadi almost after 2 years. I tried to take bit different route this time - to my surprise at about only 2km distance from TTIL office there is huge agricultural area (yes near IT park phase-1!!) and it was really surprise for me to drive 10KM along that road.
On working days if at all I go for morning walk - I generally go @ 6.30am and come back before 7.30am, in this leave period I used to go for walk @ 8am. I the kind of people who are on road dramatically changes in this short 1-2 hour time. It was fun to watch people around at these irregular timings at every place (otherwise most of the times - the places of your existence at given time are dictated by clock and work).

I read one of 'the' good Marathi book in this period - it is "Jagachya Pathiwar - by Sudhir Phadke". This book source of inspiration for fighting against odds, for learning lessons on patriotism, it also has some good lessons to learn about the attitude of forgiving people knowingly with open eyes. After reading this book, now I like Sudhir Phadke as a person, as much as I like his Geet Ramayan.

It was also fun watching detective series of Agatha Christie on youtube. She is genious, it is difficult to predict the exact criminal in almost all her stories.

In all, December 2009 will be very memorial month in my life. It was full of fun, new experiences travel and following my own heart. Finally I joined back my company on 4rth Jan 2010. From this experience I surely think that it is worth giving time to yourself when you really need it.

Cheers!!
Ashish