Abs...

Most of the guys (and possibly gals too) dream of having wonderful 6-packs.. no not talking of those Friday-night beer-fest 6-packs .. I am talking of the abs - a flat toned sexy tummy. I sure am one of those who wants to have that.
I have been working on having them more-so from the last 2 months. Since there are 2 well equipped gyms at my disposal - one in the apartments where I stay and one where I work, there is no room for complaint or excuse. But truth be told there are all those ab-machines and pilates equipment and those fitness balls ... I was (am a bit less now) confused about what exactly is better and why. And oh yeah.. the diet thing too...

My company has a dietician and nutritionist whom I can talk with. That took care of the diet part. Sweet eh?

Then came deciding the excercises. I generally did the crunches and some variations of it.. 3 sets at the end of the workout. "That is good enough to keep you 'tummying' up, but not if you want to get those 6-pks."

Complete resources to get those 6-packs from BestAbs.com
Another neat workout
A wiki page about abs
AOL fitness page with videos

There are tons of others out there. Take your pick! Keep working out people!!

African Horned Melon a.k.a "Kiwano"

So you like fruits eh? Try this one -



Well, you might actually like the looks of it (?!?) since the African Horned Melon (a.k.a Kiwano) as it is called is used as an ornamental fruit(!) when not eaten. Frankly, I don't see both those uses from my side.
But, that being said, since goofing around is one of my specialities, my good friend Pranav and I decided to buy this ornamental delicious looking fruit (note the sarcasm). The excitement about it while buying the fruit was certainly not around when it was time to cut it. But cut it I did. Boy and does it look uglier! Check this -


It looks like a cucumber grown in a wrong place - a mutated cucumber. The horned melon is not very big, though the pictures make it look like it. Its just about the size of the big apples, a shade bigger perhaps
It tastes really yucky. The green gooey stuff you see is as slimy it looks and its a hard time biting into it. The seeds are not the softest and its even harder biting them through.

Well, overall, I just wanted you all to know about this thing lurking around in the super-markets and those of you who love to try out new fruits, might not want to try this one. I repeat - not want to try this one.

I was dumb enough to overlook so many others who tried to warn people with blogs like this (example) and hope that YOU won't be that dumb. Someone has to save the world you see .. hehe ..

BTW - have bought a Starfruit....

Biking can be good excercise for your arms...

...well at least the first day you decide to bike after a 3 month winter break.
Most of you must have guessed that it must be something to do with getting the bike back in shape. Partially right - just partially.

But if everything goes smooth (everything = cleaning and filling air) its not that hard. I am also sure (like every1 else) that 99% times everything WILL be smooth and I am a major part of that 1% that makes the 100. So heres my interesting 'first bike-ride after winter' tale -

I started by cleaning the bike - no problems there. Then checked the brakes and got them tightened - just to satisfy the 'you will fall' part of my brain. Then came the workout - filling air. I have this medium sized hand-pump to get air into the tires. Its not bad. The last time I had them inflated in about 20 pumps each tire. But today was not that day.
I struggled for about 5 minutes with the rear tire and that thing just was not ready to bulge a bit. This made me consider that the tire might have a problem. So I decided to check the front tire, but got the same response. That made me think, the pump is bad. Till now I had tried to pump air into both tires at various angles. It made me feel the muscles in my arm tense. Even more than the arm I used to pump the piston, the left hand that I used to hold the pump in place was excercised more.
Anyways, yes it was the pump. I disassembled the darned thing up and assembled it again. Its quite an easy mechanical tool. Took me some time, but was fun and interesting. That got it working and the bike tires inflated and me off on my merry way. :)

Run

With the spring season getting beautiful days with warm sunshine, its time to step out of the house. One activity I like in this season is running. The lovely canal just past a corner from my house entices me even more. (Check the pictures on the right)
Along with that, Indianapolis (where I am currently) has a mini-marathon to support the cure of Breast Cancer in the month of April. Its on the 21st April this year and am planning to participate. I participated in a Race for Cure against Prostate Cancer last year. Clocked about 28 mins for 5k. Hoping to better that - lets see.

I was therefore trying to get some tips about running properly and not injuring myself in the process. I got this nice article written by Jenny Hadfield. Along with helpful hints about how to run, she also explains how to train for half-marathons; in fact the article is about running half-marathons.

Hope this helps the running enthusiast in you...

Completely off-topic : I will be starting to get my earlier posts in too.

First page...again

'He who learns from his mistakes, learns the best' , 'Man learns from experience'

Both these proverbs apply to me, at least in the case of blogging. When new to this, now widespread self-publishing phenomenon, I had created various blogs related to different topics and situations as I encountered them. Each of these blogs had, on an average about 10 posts. I just did not have any other post to make to each blog since I did not have an experience in that blog's category; and if I kept adding new blogs for each category, I would have to keep a track of all the classification I make. MESSY...
I have been planning to get all the mess out and to organize the blogs in a single ... well... lets call it BLOB.
So in the coming days, weeks and months, will be getting all my earlier blogs in one place - THIS blog. Yes, will be adding new posts too as and when required.

Hello Halo

One of the most awaited software/drama/game or whatever you want to call it, thats going to be released in 2007 is Halo 3. The viewer count of most recent trailer that was first released in a Monday Night Football game proved it. According to me, not only did the trailer win new people into the Halo community, but also bring hopes to those who were enraged with Halo 2's ending. ( I sure was) For those who were so enraged that they forgot it... the end is with our hero, Captain saying.. 'Finishing the fight'. Yes 'finishing' .. 'ing' the fight. But then he does not, not then. But he will in 2007 and that makes a good tag line for Halo3 - Finish the fight. Oh yeah... been waiting for that. But after I saw the trailer the first thing I had to do was... yessir you guessed it.. see it again! So I did and there are lots of places that host the video. I personally checked it at the official xbox360 page. Though the official Halo3 webpage is on, it still is awaiting content I suppose. The next thing I did was sign up as a beta tester for the game. You can do it too through the halo3 webpage. And now I just have to buy a 360. Hmmm... was actually planning to get a Wii, so I guess I need to buy both (snigger). The most awesome part of the trailer for me is the fact that the trailer was not a movie that those guys at Bungie Studios prepared, it is the engine! It is the game! Sweet. That is definitely the best thing to do. The engine certainly boasts a lot. Check this video where the Halo3 team explain various features of the engine along with the game, story and music. Oh yeah... the music. It definitely is an important part of the game. Without its sound-track, Halo 2 or even Halo 1 would not be the games they were. The video does a great job of providing an overview of the creation of the sound-tracks. Anyways, I don't want to take the fun and excitement away from the trailers with these boring words. Go check them out

Me on software...

For the good part of the last semester during my Masters, when I was deciding whether I should be pursuing a doctoral degree or get into the job market, there was this awesome place I used to hang out a lot. Not for the great coffee or the stunning chicks, in fact it had none of these, but for the help it provided to make a decision towards the next step in my career. This place was the blog-site maintained by Joel Spolsky - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ Amongst various other interesting, humorous and arguably opinionated blogs, Joel writes an intriguing article titled The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing. The article is primarilly meant for interviewers and tries to describe a good candidate for a given position. The article in its 2nd version those days, helped me grade myself as a better candidate for a job position rather than further research. (If you are asking 'how?', read the article and if you still don't reach an answer, email me) With this decision made, I decided to enter the interviewing game yet again (after the great interview season earlier year for my internship). I was knocked out quite early (first round itself!) this time, with the company I had interned with, Beckman Coulter Inc. They offered me a full-time position as a Software Development Engineer (ofcourse after beating the h*** out of me in a day full of interviews). I accepted the generous offer and am continuing to enjoy the fruits of both these decisions. I wanted to start blogging after my job, but its been 4 months (!) since I started and finally the day has dawned. Thinking of it, I did not have a lot of time to do it, since there have been quite a few things happening, like buying a new car, shifting into a new room, dad flying over from India, NFL season kicking in etc. I had decided to thank Mr. Spolsky for his 'decisive' article, in the first blog after starting my job. I hope he accepts this blog as an expression of my gratitude. But as is the case with most of the things with me, I needed a reason to start this blog. And amongst various reasons that might have come across, the strongest hit me today. I am supposed to interview a few candidates for the Software Group I am working with and after reading various articles and other resources over the internet and talking to various people, have come to a decision about what I will ask them. The moment I realized I made this decision, I was reminded of the The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing (that I read as an interviewer just a couple of days back).
I still don't think I am as qualified to have a blog about it as Mr. Spolsky is, and hey while he is doing a great job of it, I rather stay out of his way :D