All’s well ends well. It sure did end well for me last year. Last year wasn’t exactly great for me in all aspects. There was no progress made at all in both the personal and career front. Most of the time I was dazed and confused over what was happening around me and sometimes I even didn’t have a clue of what was going on. The year started off with a bang; I finally finished the construction of my house, had my first product release in almost 2 and half years after the CPS debacle (My first 1.0 that got shelved), got promoted. For once, I felt things have fallen in place for me. I also moved to a new team and a new 1.0 product. I got a chance to work with a person whom I respected a lot. Things started rolling and I started to put my heart and soul into this new product. Back home life was as usual going on smoothly.

Until then things seemed fairly positive for me, after which things started to get hazy. The very existence of my new product was under question and back home there were tonnes of problems that cropped up. I was physically and mentally thrashed badly by all these events. It was then I started seeing changes in me. I had lost my hold on myself. I started getting angry. I didn’t introspect as I used to do. I started to yell at people. I discovered that I was growing heavy day by day. I was almost measuring 98kgs. I was failing big time in all aspects.

But then at one point in time, I decided that I would not let circumstance take control of me. That was when I decided to repeat the same mistake that I did back in 2008, join the gym. Just that this time I wanted to be truthful to me. I also got back to the habit of reading. I discovered my passion for gardening and setup a small beautiful garden in my house at bangalore. Finally I was taking stock of the situation and responding to it rather than reacting. As expected the new product that I had started work on was shelved. Didn’t panic instead converted all that frustration and angry into meaningful workout sessions. Got myself fully checked for once; I generally don’t spend on medical. Started to live life in my own terms.

The year of 2009 has taught me a lot of lessons and I hope that 2010 is yet another year full of fun for me and for all of us.

P.S. This year I am planning for a perfect bod. Please provide me with the much needed motivation. I have lost almost 10kg since I measured 98kgs on September

Well I won’t say that I am reading a lot but I can definitely say that I never read fiction back to back. After finishing The Lost Symbol which actually tested my patience, I have now picked up a more lighter but yet a really funny novel; 2 States. The moment I read the preface of the book, I got to know that this was my kinda book which would be a mixed bag of sorts. One which contains, Comedy, Romance, Love, Jealousy, and lots of Emotions – a perfect mix for a soap opera. The book contains tonnes of sarcasm against south indians especially tamils but it is still enjoyable. Lets see how Krish and Ananya get married.

Today I turn wiser by a year. Lots of good wishes and lots of blessings and to top it all lots of gifts courtesy my wife.  From a brand new pair of eyes (CC) to  Polaroid  Glasses and to top it all a PS3 that I never thought that I would own. Thanks a lot Kala for making this day really special.

Ah! I forgot. Another culprit who had kept me away from my blog is “The Lost Symbol”. I gifted it to my wife the day it was released in India. I was hoping it would be another “Da Vinci Code” or “Angels & Demons”.  Frankly speaking The Lost Symbol isn’t a bad book but it was let down. It is surely a page turner (so that you could finish the book soon). The story moves at a good pace and in parts the book is really good to read. But for most part of the book the screenplay is same and often repeated. The book should have ideally gone through one more round of edits, which would have made the book even more better. Another annoying stuff in the book is that Dan Brown, explains every single characters movement as which street they walked, which turn they took et al.

In most part of the book the setup is the same.

A: Have you heard of X?
B (usually Langdon): Yes, but I thought that was just a myth.
A shows or tells B something.
B reacts with shock.
Then, insert scenes of people walking from one place to another, being chased.
Then, insert the sentence “Suddenly everything made sense.” At least for the next ten pages.

This is really annoying. On the whole, the book is a good read in parts but didn’t keep up to its expectations.

It has been quite a while since I posted. Sorry for that. Now where was I? The last update was Facebook. Ah I remember that culprit. Ever since I joined Facebook, I haven’t posted much. I haven’t even posted on my wall much, courtesy Zynga.com. Facebook is loaded with lot of this simple yet addictive community games that have kept me busy during my leisure time and some times even during work. Mafia wars, Special Forces, Farmville, and a lot more. All but Farmville are HTML based games, that makes hardcore gamers like me even sit up sometimes all nit to get the energy up and complete tasks. And whats worse, I even got tempted to use my credit card to buy some favor point and get ahead of the competition. I had even called up a few of my friends to join me in Mafia wars, so that I could buy mission items. Such has been the effect of the social games that are present in Facebook. Now I am forcing myself to login to facebook only twice a day and for 10 minutes only so that I could spend some time usefully.