Saturday, October 31, 2009

Satgur Nanak Pargateya

The agenda of the day was to re-install the PC but 4 hr long power failure forced me to preempt the task to other chores.

One of these was to get the bike washed. There I witnessed that how much the 'Chalta Hai' attitude has been fused with our thought process. The guy was overhauling Yamaha RX-100. Some of you may know that it is needed to rub the piston in the sleeve manually for sometime if the piston is too tight (happens when installing vendor parts). It is totally acceptable and as per my knowledge the mechanic has to use the actual connecting rod to do the thing along with a rubbing compound with rated grains (average size of abrasive particles). look for the images of these keywords on google if the jargon seems to go over your head. :)

But my genius mechanic was using a spanner on the piston rod (instead of connecting rod). Now that there is no bearing, the spanner must be scratching the piston rod. Icing on the cake was that he was using sand as an abrasive!!! Yes three exclamation marks there are absolutely justified. I would spoil a meter of cotton cloth to keep the sand away from my work area all the time.
Here, just have a look:
The sand was coming from the pavement! On asking he said "What else are abrasives made of? Sand it is sir!"

I would better stick to only washing from this guy, at least he would not have to touch any screws on mine.

At the most this RX-100 was going to suffer a shorter lifespan and a few hundred bucks wasted.
But, someone with such an attitude would have been callous about the connection at the pipeline in Jaipur causing so much trouble to the nation, earth and some unlucky people as well.

Evening was also as enlightening, while returning from gym after a great abdominal workout, out of nowhere, hundreds of 'Sikh Sangat' flocked on the roads, clearing the roads of all the debris with brooms. The gentlemen, womenfolk all elite and humble were helping selflessly to make sure the roads are as clean as possible to the arrival of the 'Palki' of the holy Granth.

A procession was on the way to a Gurdwara nearby. I wondered whether all of this is necessary at all? Many stalls of various kinds of refreshments were distributing sweets and contributing to the use and throw tumblers and dishes that were already seeming like snow on both sides of the roads after being sweeped by Sangat.

Half an hour in and they will wrap up the tents and move to their homes leaving the road looking like the aftermath of a county fair.

Lots of crackers being fired, I wonder if Guru Nanak Dev Ji would have advocated such a devotion from his disciples. Won't he know that the people who were sweeping the road were only concerned about this half an hour and after the procession passes away, it would be the govt servants that will clean the whole mess away. Not to mention stray dogs as well that were already pecking at the uneaten sweets thrown by some overeaten Bhaghat.

It will need Guru Nanak Dev Ji to be reborn and reiterate all that he preached earlier to put people on the right track of devotion. GOD is not so stupid that he can be fooled by our momentarily display of devotion whenever we enter a holy shrine or pass in front of one. He will only bless a person who remembers him as all pervading like the sunlight, like the power that knows you are going to commit a ill-deed even before you do it.

Wherever he goes, whatever he does, even while repairing a faulty pipeline!

We are all much much far away from that day yet.

Friday, October 30, 2009

EOW!!

Means end of week.
Free from a sprint of tasks at the office and free for thinking for the weekend schedules.

Well, the week is over but the day ain't. Bought a new hard drive today and amazingly got almost 30 % larger drive at 200 Rs lesser than what I bought just 4 months ago!! I wonder what Mr. Moore was thinking when he proposed that law.

But for some reason the retailer was selling me a PATA instead of SATA saying that it is more stable and last longer (maybe trying to scare me because I had to buy this new one because the older one is developing flaws already) but when I returned home, and googled a bit, I found that the PATA are not selling because the systems are moving in to SATA technology and they are costlier merely because they are hard to find. Legacy systems still need them and few companies manufacture them as a mainstream product.

Conclusion: It was a good decision to drop the offer of a PATA drive (Which was costlier by almost 50% and I would have gotten half the space for same price).

Now what? got to prepare a checklist of files and folder to backup, keep the drivers handy and reinstall my system with the brand bew 350G Hdd :) Hope this one lasts longer than last one.

Good Night :)

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Is time really money?

Well, the day today was pretty hectic! The office stuff was tough on my sprained back! But you cannot use this as an excuse there when they offer you to stay home when your body seems to need more attention. The back will be fine by morning. So will be the builds that I triggered before leaving office, hope so:)

However as they say, all's well that ends well. The day went well and in the end provided one good message as well before passing away completely.

As I was returning from a hangout at 17 with some of my former colleagues and friends, I heard a loud screech of tires at one of the intersections at around 9:30 PM. Pretty common occurrence in a city like Chandigarh (not a big city but a city full of impatient commuters who are brave enough to put their (and others') life at stake for a mere 2-3 seconds of time). Who says Indians don't respect time?

We will try to save 5 seconds by jumping the red in the last moments when it is already almost over. Also, we are pretty much thoughful when we try to save a whole lots of seconds when we speed into the already curious-to-save-time traffic in the yellow before it gets red.

The real problem begins when two guys try to save their seconds at the same time!! That was the case when the above situation happened! So the moral of the story is...

Wait till the last second for the green and never try to outsmart a yellow one. Someone else may be trying to save time at the same time you are!!

Drive safe. Good Night