Saturday, February 26, 2005


Played Ping Pong all day Saturday. The uni had organised a tournament; I came third as from the pools in singles and second after finals in doubles. Tomorrow: single playoffs.

Monday, February 21, 2005


What would you think if you were on that chairlift? Bloody awesome could describe it. Tree runs were amazing.

Ronald in total control heading towards me. Let's say he is about to go snow hugging.

Ronald after he skiied into me and fell down. A kodak moment. He wanted to remember me and asked for the camera.

The view Ronald has of me

This is actually a movie and it includes a nice "improvised" flip. The snow is very chopped up but so soft. A fun challenge.

Monday, February 14, 2005

GMail Invites

If you want an invite to GMail, tell me. You need one to register.
GMail is Google's approach to free web mail. It uses search tools. At this stage not many people have one, so you might be able to get a good name. I assume it will be big some day.

It has one GB of storage, which is primarly why I use it.
Send me an email if you want one.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Man who controls Iraq

Reading the Australian, I stumbled on this link:
http://www.sistani.org/html/eng

The cleric you see controls Iraq now. The party he endorsed has won the majority of the seats. This is quite a cultural shock. Of great interest are his Q&As

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Leadership Conference

Today I attended a leadership conference. I have to go to so many workshops for one of my classes and going to this conference counts for half of that requirement. If it hadn't been for that class I would not have gone; I would have missed some very interesting speakers.

The session was divided in a few parts; first we had breakfast and socialised with one another. A politician then came and talked to us. His message was that we could make a difference. Mostly he told us stories of people who had gone against the odds (including himself) to achieve something great, even if only small. After being properly applauded out, we split into a number of sessions, according to our fancy.
I attended two such sessions:
1) The first was on MindBody Intelligence; a practical psychology approach preaching "know thyself". The man talking founded the approach and the clinic he runs. His purpose was to get us to write, in our own time, a mission statement, a set of guidelines that both provide an ethical and directional backbone. Having given this approximate presentation hundreds of time, his delivery was impressive. He had a good flow, and was very efficient.
http://www.mindbodyintelligence.com/

2) The second was on bad leadership and why people follow it. This presentation was given by one less qualified and less interesting than the previous speaker. She basically went over a book written by someone with the credentials. She asked us a lot of questions and while waiting for our answer, encouraged us with some impressive facial gymnastics. Still the matter was substantial, and gave some food for thought

Real food followed. Lunch was served, and on most tables sat an alumni from a different field. I sat with a civil engineer who was now going to business school to move away from engineering. We, the people at our table, asked him questions and he graced us without much prompting with long monologues on his life choices.
Lunch finished, we stayed in the same seat and heard a motivational speaker tell us about her model to success. What a speaker she was! Her energy was remarkable; her flow was smooth; and her voice was perfectly schooled to draw her audience where she wanted it to be. Her model is certainly not unique; in fact I had conceived of most of what she said, but hearing someone else say it in such a convenient package is a very different experience.
http://www.janntaber.com/

And that was the end of the conference. It seems like there is a lot of knowledge available to one that looks for it. And yet I never go to any such event in Australia... I tend to take them as a bit of a joke, but in fact the good ones are worth the time.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005


Our board and our less than christian (sorry Chris) comments

A typical morning sight, and sometimes an afternoon one in our living room

Rhythm loves this one

Rhythm sculpted

Tuesday, February 01, 2005


I took this photo while riding. My camera is great.

The main library

Rinal, right, is Rhythm(centre)'s sister. She came up to vist for a night. Jay on the right goes out with Rhythm, and has been for five years now. Their parents do not know. Indians believe in arranged marriage.

The building where I live: Castillian

Me at my best, or so my roommates say... They should know.

Computer is back

Yes it is! Cured, finally.

I had no idea what I had, and I had no idea how to fix it, so I googled, and I found this website called "castle cops"; there I submitted a log of a scanning software. Step by step, an expert told me how to clean up my computer. I used software I have never heard of before, and never wish to hear of again, but now the computer is clean.
The service the site offered was free: is this a not for profit site? The man who helped me, however good he is, must have spent at least half an hour on me. And there are hundreds of problems more everyday. There are ads on the site, but I didn't click through any of them. I would think most people wouldn't. It is possible that the site works on a commission basis. They have a lot of links to software that would help me in the future. Or it could be that malware/spyware/worm-haters have a strong enough passion to spawn a desire to help thousands of helpless victims like myself out of the goodness of their heart.

The site is:
http://computercops.biz/