31-05-2008 - On cue

The end of summer!

30-05-2008 - Snapped in the act

29-05-2008 - Party time

It's #150, after all!

28-05-2008 - The circus begins

It wasn't so amusing 10 years ago, though.

27-05-2008 - Claws

That's the gift! And for the record, my guess wasn't spot-on.

26-05-2008 - Misplaced priorities

Captured by my wife as I was driving the car. We followed this dude for a fair distance. Bengaluru roads being what they are, we had to, as it was very difficult to get a picture that was sharp enough. This came closest.

25-05-2008 - Message of the day

Especially if you're among the fortunate ones who get to enjoy three square meals a day.

24-05-2008 - Built to a price

This piece of furniture isn't even a year old.

23-05-2008 - Right tool in the wrong place

These locks can be opened without a key if you're on the right side of the door. It's a bad idea to use them on balcony doors!

22-05-2008 - Brown on brown

Suggestions for a better name are most welcome!

21-05-2008 - Redundancy

Maybe not, come to think of it. It's fairly dusty around here. Still, that Civic is usually not under wraps.

20-05-2008 - Guess what?

My wife's poser to me today. That's my birthday (falls on May 26) gift-to-be.

19-05-2008 - Fuzzy

Exactly the state of my mind when I took this picture, as I was (yet again) searching for a nice subject. Sometimes it's good to listen to plain-old static on that in-car FM radio.

My camera's batteries died shortly after this, and trying to push more photos through on weak batteries results in corrupted images being written to the CF card. There wasn't enough time left to charge the batteries fully and shoot more for today's entry, so I left it at this (and some others). I don't really like not charging the batteries fully, in case you wonder why I didn't do that to carry on.

18-05-2008 - Earthen canvas II

17-05-2008 - The case of the missing 'L'

Remember those Hardy Boys/Alfred Hitchcock novels? 'The case of the <adjective> <noun>' types? Summer always brings back memories of summer holidays spent with those novels. Of course, I used to immerse myself in novels even during school days but that's a different story.

A friend once asked me what the difference is between a Maruti 800 and a Mercedes Benz (say C220 CDI, w.l.o.g.). Ok, forget the M800. Replace it with a Honda City, which is a decently expensive, upmarket car. Both of them do the job of getting the driver (and passenger(s) and luggage, if any) from point A to point B, so why spend so much more for one over the other? I guess part of the answer is that intangible thing called "build quality". I guess that's also the difference between this relatively expensive pair of otherwise sturdy Woodlands trekkers and a pair of Pradas/Guccis.

16-05-2008 - The painters

15-05-2008 - Earthen canvas I

14-05-2008 - Batteries galore

More is never enough given the power situation in the Indian IT capital. I just augmented the backup my APC BackUPS RS1000 provides with a companion BR24BP battery pack. The BR24BP offers roughly twice the backup offered by the standalone RS1000.

On a related note, May 2008 is a "new batteries" month for me. The car and bike got new batteries. My cell phone and camera decided to spare me some trouble, luckily.

13-05-2008 - The artist

12-05-2008 - Off-roading

11-05-2008 - Buddies

10-05-2008 - Cooling off

We had a company outing today - a half-a-day (we wanted to make it back in time for the sake of those who wanted to vote or had other commitments for the evening) trip to and trek up to Savanadurga, which must be around 60-odd kms from Bengaluru (basically a half-an-hour drive into the forests around Ramanagaram, which is around 50 kms from Bengaluru). There were 20 of us and we'd never had an outdoorsy outing of this nature before. This trumps lousy dinners at multi-star hotels. Any day. Here's to more company outings like this!

Savanadurga is apparently one of the world's largest monolithic rocks and is supposed to be at least a billion years old. I just wonder how big it must have been originally, before the erosion that these billion-odd years must've caused. It's quite windy (pleasant drafts and gusts - not gale-force stuff) because it's the highest rock in the area and there are hardly any obstructions around it.

This was one of the guide dogs that accompanied us on our climb up (and down) Savanadurga. He took a dip and sip on the way down as it was past noon and getting warm now and there was still quite some way to go.

The way these dogs work is very interesting. There are a few in the village at the foot of the rock and they just hang around there, waiting for trekkers. When they see a group of people they automatically latch on to the group and guide them along. There's a little bit of competition between the dogs here as they run up to the group to be the first (or second) guide dog for the group. I didn't see more than 2 dogs per group. I don't know if that's the case always. As I said, there's only competition, not fighting. And the losing dog(s) just tend(s) to whine/whimper a little bit in sadness/dejection (think "Oh no! I've missed my chance of a free meal on the way/at the top."). There's no (dog-)fighting at all. Very healthy stuff!

Even when coming down the rock they are constantly on the lookout for groups climbing up, and can shift teams if they think the other team has more to offer in terms of food and affection.

We fed "our" dogs at the top. They wouldn't have peanut candy and bananas, but they happily lapped up all the biscuits and plum cake that we offered them. It's not just humans that love junk food!

09-05-2008 - The only toffees worth eating

08-05-2008 - The gift

Today was an interesting day. I received a call from Vodafone in the morning telling me that I had won a phone and today was the last day I could come and pick it up! No details, nothing. Anyway, I made my way over to their corporate office and came back with a brand new Magic Box 225 that put a huge smile on my wife's face when she saw it.

07-05-2008 - The time is ripe...

...to savour some mango!

Not the most ideal way to photograph one (especially in terms of light and as a consequence the almost non-existent DoF), but my excuse is that I just wanted to get over with the PAD picture then :).

06-05-2008 - An unconventional anniversary

My wife and I met each other for the first time this day last year.

05-05-2008 - Growing pains

04-05-2008 - Wrinkled or rugged?

03-05-2008 - Pulses

02-05-2008 - There are days when you just can't be

And at the end of the day, today was one such day for me.

01-05-2008 - Bubbles