Aamby Fuckall Valley

I got a chance to visit Aamby Valley, Lonavala, courtesy, my firm. I was considering myself lucky as I was one of the few people who got to visit the otherwise inaccessible place to common people. The place is really beautiful, very well maintained, good weather, but sadly, hyped up than what it should have looked as.

We had kind of negative reviews about Aamby Valley from some of the people who had visited it before. In spite of that we decided to go ahead with it just because of the aura around the name. We were 200 odd people, managing whom should have been a piece of cake for such big organization. But as it turned out to be, the hospitality was completely garbage. You expect such a big name to know at least A B C of organizing corporate events. But they fell short on all aspects. Food, booze, service and even in dealing with the contract that we had.

All in all, the thing which I was looking forward to, turned out to be utter disappointment. Hoping the Grand Maratha Sheraton to be a hit at least.

Prime and Subprime

I can clearly remember, there was a point of time, when in order to convert dollar to rupees, you used to straightaway multiply by 50. But guess what, now it is down by almost 20%, 39.6 as of today. Well... there are a number of factors contributing for this.

1) Baby boomer - The products of baby boomer after world war 2 have now gone past their past retirement age. Somehow I am kind of bamboozled over the concept of baby boomer. May be, after the world war was over, all the soldiers started for their homes and fucked all the women they could find on their way back. Thats the only reason I can think of. Anyways. So, these so called products of baby boomer didn't really added to the population because "staying single" was in air at that point of time. So effectively, now as these guys are dying/on the verge of dying, there is no one to take over. You might say there are Indians and Chinese to work there. But come on, most of us are there in reputed jobs, and even if we are providing some of the labor/cleaning work, we are not good enough for the whole of USA. And we have this policy of "sending money back to home". So knowingly or unknowingly, we do end up helping our economy and screwing their economy by a bit.
According to the policy in US, government takes care of the old/retired people, with the money they make from taxes. But no people to do job, no money to tax. So we have a lose lose situation there.

2) Subprime - Subprime is basically a low value asset in which you end up investing in the hope of getting good returns. As it has been rightly proven now, its only a short term profit plan and might just slit your throat in long term scenarios.
For instance, during the property boom era, the banks ended up giving humongous loans to individuals with no net worth. They did charge higher interest rates, but they ended up giving benefits like no principal payments. When these individuals found themselves incapable of paying back, the banks had to acquire the property they had invested in. By this time, the property bust balloon had burst and it was more cumbersome for banks to get rid of it. So finally, it was the bank who has to incur the loss.
Isn't it really shitty way to make profit.. Only American idiots can do this. Somehow I love to see them making fools of themselves. May be that is why I enjoy watching Family Guy so much.

Its a well known truth that when something matures to a level that it cannot go ahead, it breaks silently and just fades away. Well... I am not saying their economy is screwed and they will vanish sometime soon. But they are surely falling behind in the rat race of BRICs. Who knows, someday in near future, we might end up getting cheap labor from the US of A...

Hiatus again...

My net was out for last whole week. Thank god it is back. I had an experience of life being impacted without e-connectivity. And this, in spite of having full (well... not actually full) access to internet at office.

I don't really do anything but browsing activities from my net connection at home. But 7 days out of net felt as if the connection with outside world was broken. Days were going by, but there was something amiss.

Apart from this, at least weekends are going good. Actually... weekdays are going good too... Work is going fine. Year end is approaching. So many parties, comp to look forward to. All in all everything is good. So yet another time when I will be on and off in indulging myself into blogging activities.

Thats pretty much. Have a good one mate!

Lost

Today, I happened to come across a blog of a friend from college. Well... I can't really call her my friend. We barely knew each other, hardly ever talked. Just another person I knew from college. She was a very good person, a voracious reader, really nice person to talk to, and her sketches used to be just too good. But for some reason, in spite of being "cool" n stuff, she never became a part of the gang. May be because she was unusually quiet, but she was not. She was pretty much talkative when somebody actually went and talked to her. And, after reading her blog, I realize that she has quite good friends there. But then how come she never really hung around with us?

Sometimes, when I look back, I feel that I could have missed out so many things in life that I should have done. Many people whom I never bothered to talk to, when we could have hit off well. So many people who were good friends at one point of time, but we just lost touch for particularly no reason or just because I was too lazy to keep in touch. I read this somewhere the other day:
"There comes a point in your life when you realize who matters, who never did, who won't anymore, and who always will. So don't worry about the people from your past. There's a reason why they didn't make it to your future."
How rude!

This nostalgia bit makes me think... shit, I am yet to do so many things. I am way off target of the things that I should have achieved by the time I am 22. And with this 'my life being short' crap, I am not really feeling too good about myself. I got to do something about it.

Life goes on...

Just a forward, but says a lot...

Life is too short
Grudges are a waste of perfect happiness
Laugh when you can
Apologize when you should
And let go what you can't change
Love deeply and forgive quickly
Take chances, give everything
And have no regrets
Life is too short to be unhappy
You have to take the good with the bad
Smile when you're sad
Love what you've got
And always remember what you had
Always forgive but never forget
Learn from your mistakes
But never regret
People change and things go wrong
But always remember
Life goes on!!!

Required - Garbage Collection

Its gonna be diwali on 10th of November. How the hell am I going to manage.
The building work is surely not gonna be finished before December. The case is in court. These guys are so screwed.
The poor guy really does not have money. What is he gonna do.
I am not sure if metadata is also replicated over the E3 instances. Need a clarification from Latch.
There is a fucking memory leak somewhere. Got to spot that.
I hope I will set up the security of the router properly. I don't want someone else using up my connection.
I need a decent bookmark. I have been folding the pages/using piece of paper or whatever I get in hand for a long time now.
Deepanshu is leaving next week. Got to meet him before he goes.
Its been a little morose in office. I am not in touch with the office guys. Not good.
Have to take the teddy and the water bottle to office tomorrow.
I have been skipping gym lately. Shouldn't be doing that. Not good again.
Will set a reminder for my vacation.
Shit... the PE thingy is coming up. I don't like all the fart.
Some BUs are moving for sure. I wonder which ones.
I want my mp3 player to get well soon. Its been ill for so long.
Same with the phone too. But that can wait.
iFlow is officially the winner now. I am happy and I can show it. Well done team!
What do I give him for birthday. I haven't even started thinking about it.