Localized Gujarati Geek

* Mistake happens in Life. I did it too, you may have done it in the past. There is no point of digging grave. Probably time to do some work to make sure that it will not happen again.

XKCD Tribute.

* Kstar (Akarsh Simha, GSoC candidate of KDE Project, Kstars) is in city (I mean his hometown!) enjoying his vacation, so I decided to meet him on Friday. I wanted to do it on Saturday but some other plan was there which indeed never happen and that is another story itself. Anyway, we met near MG Road/Brigade Road junction and went to Pizza Hut. Nice discussion of 2 hours, nice pizzas and finally mandatory click. We talked from Debian to FOSS culture in IITM (Note that IITM has 2 most active DDs from India!).

* So, my Saturday was totally wasted due to silly things. Dear Kushal was not there in town — so, none was there to annoy from me. I thought I was able to wash my all dirty clothes in the morning but, it was power cut! I waited till 12PM to bathe (Indeed, you can’t take bath without power as bathroom is too dark, and I fear cockroach too much).

Power went again around 6 PM and I went outside, wondered here and there, came back to home. Still no power. OMG, it came after 10.30 PM!

Yet another reason to hate this city, BLR.

.. I have not seen my son.

.. I have not done any shopping (other than some junk food and beer).

.. I have not watch any movie in theater.

.. I have not stop thinking about ‘BLR Sucks’.

* With uncertainty principle playing in full form with me, I decided to go to Fossmeet@NITC. But, came to know that there is no bus tickets available! What to do? I called up dear tuxmaniac aka Aanjhan and he suggested me to go by taxi. wow. Pretty expensive it will be, I thought. What ever, we decided to go with burning (hip) pockets and the journey was terrible. I did such long travel (7 hours) in taxi after long time. Anyway, we reached at NITC around 6 AM.

The Keralian atmosphere was excellent and I felt similar humidity like Mumbai and that made me a bit sad. Ah. The event was already kicked off the day before and I attended Praveen’s talk on openid while figuring out that wifi is not working for us (proxy and they didn’t care to let us know password etc).

So, we headed towards lab and enjoyed some Internet while seating in ‘Foss for school children’ workshop. Lunch was ok, but I enjoyed talking with different people and it was nice talk with Ani Peter about current localization work from Redhat. These guys simply rocks! Got my conference tshirt before ‘Medium’ size is out-of-stock.

We were eagerly waiting for our dear Pradeepto, and voila, he came and started his talk! I was attending his talk first time (always missed due to some or other reasons..). Excellent and interactive. No slides. /me need to learn something from this fellow!

We were 100% tired at evening. So, first we changed to better ‘room’. Thanks to NITC co-coordinators who did quick action for this (Why we requested for changing room? Answer: The previous room had only one power-supply plug! and we want to do hacking at night!). We then headed towards ‘Malabar Palace’. Excellent South Indian food and beer.

The next day — I was suppose to give talk on ‘Contributing to Debian’ but by some magic, the talk was disappeared from schedule. Sad. Anyway, we (me, tuxmaniac and pradeepto) gave live talk on ‘How to contribute to free software’. We used SVN, Bugzilla, Wiki, SF.Net and other tools (IRC!) to show how students can use these in college projects and make it much better and how it can lead to Free Software development. I did svn commit for KDE Gujarati (Idea stoled from Rusty’s talk at Foss.in/2007).

We then decided to leave the place. The return trip was amazing. Pookat lake and Mysore Palace. Amazing places. We had nice dinner and Kamat Hotel and I bought one wood penguin too (Total number of Penguin toys=4, Now).

I learned that Calicut is also known as Kozikode

Can you see anything like this in BLR?

Originally uploaded by aanjhan

No, I will not see

* Do not forget to read /usr/share/doc/kppp/README.Debian if you have strange problems like pppd dies after starting dialing or you can’t get CARRIER at all from your Tata Indicom USB Modem on Debian or Ubuntu. It wasted my good amount of time

* Spaghetti was nice, but my stomach is not

* On Saturday night, while watching some horror movie, I got SMS of Anurag (and Pradeepto already invited me/us on IRC!) that we are meeting Kishore tomorrow. Wanna come? It was undecided until 10:30 am, and suddenly, I took bath. Camera was ready. And, I reached and found dudes after some try.

* It was ‘Pizzeteria’ in front of ‘Hotel Ambassador’. Good Pizza. Roshan and me were veggie, others (Kishore, Anurag, Pradeepto) were only non-veggie! And, we talked lots of things. Mostly about upcoming events like Foss.in and Feb’s Freed.in.

* We then walked to Chopati for having ‘Green Mirchi Ice Cream’, Kishore discovered this during his early visit to Mumbai and we were not knowing this wonderful stuff even being Mumbaikars!

* Again, we had nice discussion and nice photography on ‘Pradeepto’ And then ‘Orange Ginger’ and then ‘Orange Juice’.

Kishore, we will love to meet you again

* Don’t know if I am able to be there. But, I liked the logo.

* One of the best ever event Freed.in is over (although, some people are enjoying at Manali right now!). I came back on last night.

* I reached Delhi on Thursday night. Grepping JNU was easy due to pre-paid taxi from airport. Got my room at Aravali Hostel and found none of the known person at first site. Oldmonk’s reply to my call, ‘where are you?’ was hilarious one. Finally, I found Karunakar and we enjoyed ‘Maggie’ at 12 AM.

* Both days were entirely full of fun. I talked about ‘Debian-IN‘ project. Unfortunately, my talk got last place on schedule (I think due to track allocation etc) and so, number of people was less. The fun thing was that whole #linux-india channel (almost, except famous Lap_64) was there. And channel was so quite during 2 days..

* With very limited time in our hand, we (me and tuxmaniac) visited Qutub Minar, India Gate and famous Delhi Metro (by traveling to/from random station!). Flickr photos are up.

* Arjun (tuxjr14, where are you??), Jaldhar and that Pizza

* Seen Rang De Basanti last Saturday! Amazing movie! Both me and K enjoyed it and whole cinema was sticked to seat till last moments. If you have missed it, you must devote time and go for it! Thanks to this post!

* I am testing various ‘Dhosas’ at ‘Nandu’ (below Office) and Near Milap Area, nowadays! Waiting for end of these days, soon!

* I am back!

* Caught ‘Link Way’ bus to Palanpur from Malad (E) on Republic Day night. And it was my first experience to travel such a long by bus. Bus stopped at various cheap hotels where FOOD was -3 quality so, I only took ‘Pepsi and Chips’.

* At 9 am we reached at Palanpur. Grand Ma’s health was not good. We (Me and Chandreshbhai) just took tea and caught bus for Ambaji. Found a hotel near bus stand. And found a venue too! Good thing was that there was too much distance between food court and exhibition area! So, it helped me a lot!

* Got some valuable feedbacks from various school teachers and principals about both product and marketing. Seen people - how to market product in rural area and lots more. Well, I am not marketing man by heart but this exhibition was different thing
* Found a mobile in our stole! It was nice temptation for me as no one was around and I don’t have mobile! I kept it but I was feeling badly. Called my brother and finally gave mobile to organizer people. It was one of my happiest moments!

* Went to Palanpur on Sunday. Enjoyed nice scenery during traveling but missed camera So, finally nice digicam is now one step up than mobile in my private wish-list!

* Met brother and mom and some friends. Again, bus travel to Ahmadabad in next morning. At noon, I have no work to do. It was Crossword time! Got following books,
1. Idli, Orchid and I (ઈડલી, ઓર્કિડ અને હું) - V.V.Kamath
2. Animal Farm - George Orwell
3. Man ni vat (મનની વાત) - Sudha Murti
4. Selected Quotes - Navneet Pub.

Also, read ‘Linux Format’ and ‘Linux Journal’ at reading facility there (Thats why I love Crossword!).

* Finished 1st and 3rd book during today’s travel in ‘Gujarat Express’.