The Ghent Visit - 20 July After Brugge yesterday, today planned to visit another beautiful city of Belgium - Ghent. The Station is Gent-Sint-Pieters, though i had visited earlier had a little doubt as it says Gent plus something. Took a Tram to the centre market place Koren Market. Started at the Tourisl Center at the ground floor of Belfry. Belfry - I wanted to climb the Belfry in Brugge but could not, but i climbet the Belfry here. It was very interesting, each floor had some thing. The Secrecy room, the Bell Room, The Roeland Bell and the Mechanical Clock - Bit Startled when suddely the Drum Started rotation for the 2.00 Pm Music. The View from the Tower was great. St Bavo´s Cathedral - The Main work of art here is The adoration of Mystic lAMB DATING FROM 1432. The Church also houses lot of Stained Glass paintings. Castle of Counts - A few minutes walk from the St Bavo´s Square.This is a massive fort in the middle of the city. Looks real solid, houses the old arms, torture instruments, guillotine. The view from the Top is also good. This is a Festive season and so everywhere there is some band playing or giving some performance.

Brugges Walking Tour - 19th July

Brugges Walk Tour Started at the Tourist Center-The guide explained: Brugges had lot of economic problems ion 18th and 19th century , so the city could not develop, but that is blessing in disguise ,now it has preserved most of the old heritage and the whole city is under the world Heritage site. Also in 2002 Brugges was selected as the cultural capital of Europe. Then she explained that Terracotta, which is a form of clay, was used in the building of of the concert hall, as it is available in plenty in Brugge. The whole city was surrounded by a canal , which is of 9 feet depth, whose height is controlled by sluices. In old tiles there was a river Dijver, but it is no longer there, but the canals are given that name. Then we visited visited the Hospital building, which is now a museum and in old times served as hospital and and to give hospitality for the travelers and needy. Then saw the Brewery Brugges Zot-Half mad man story about MAxmillan , held captive and he did not give permission to build a "Mad house". Maxmillan also ordered the people of Brugges to look after Sans for eternity- now there are around 80 swans. The we visited the "beguinage" which is a shelter for single woman. Then we saw a alms house - which houses a small garden,a room and a chapel. The we saw the Church of our Lady, Where Michelangelo "Madonna and Child" statue is there- it is one of the two statues of him outside Italy. It was made for It was made for the cathedral of Sienna, and since he could not finish in time, the cathedral of Sienna did not accept, so a wealthy merchant bought it and donated to the church. It is placed in between two other statues - one representing Faith and belief(One with goblet) and the other Hope. Thus the three represents, love, faith and hope. We also saw the four horseman statues from apocalypse. Then we vised the Brugges center, where the building style, from Roman, Gothic, Renaissance, neo-Gothic, 19th century, the 2oth century with glass, then the latest by Japanese architect. Then we saw the Belfry, heard the caroline. There are around 52 bells.

Wimbeldon Final 2009- What a Match - Guts, Tenacity and perfection

The finals of Wimbeldon 2009 between Federer and Roddick, is one of the best match i have ever watched. Glued into the TV - The Excellent display of tennis by both the players; Even though i am a Fed fan, cant hide the appreciation for Roddicks display of fighting spritit, producing the aces and serves through out, even at the highly tensed moment. At the last it seemed not like who is going to win, but who is going to let go. Both of them where testing the other to the limits, and it looked like Roddick sensed Fed will not give up even after some 20 games. His remarks in the award ceremony "you have already won 5" implied why not give this one to me? Great Match.Lot of lessons. Federer also proved that he is here to stay for some more time;

An Amazing technological advance-WOW!

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

HallerBos - 10 to 12 KM Walk

After deciding that i will walk for around 10 to 12 Km, in HallerBos forest with my colleague, i started training little, as i don't remember ever walked that much. I started with 2 and 4 Km and then few days before the planned day walked 8 KM. This instilled some confidence that i can walk the 12 Km. So on 30 April evening after Office I and my colleague went to the forest in his car and started the Walk; It was a very good experience.The forest is really beautiful. The main attraction as is the blue bell, it carpets the forest for few weeks in spring. My Colleague gave me lot of information like- in Medieval times the forest used to stretch from Halle to Leuven and now it has shrunk.There are also other Garlic like plant- which smelt like garlic. There were pine trees and beuk trees. He also said there were native squirrels which are red in color, though we could not see one. But all in all it was an wonderful experience- both for walking and for the natural beauty. It took us 2 hrs and 10 minutes to walk.

Half an Hour in front of my Apartment - Car Stats

Volkswagen	---	43
Peugeot	---	28
Renault	---	27
Opel	---	14
Benz	---	13
Ford	---	11
Ciroen	---	11
Toyota	---	9
Skoda	---	9
audi	---	8
Smart	---	2
Volvo	---	1
Mini Cooper	---	2
Fiat	---	1
Suzuki	---	1
Honda	---	1
Limo	---	1
???	---	17

????- I could not identify.
May be at different time and place this can give different fgures, but it satisfies my curiosity

WYSINWYG a antonym for WYSIWYG - Publishing with Table in Blogger

This is really a pain creating something in table and publishing in Blogger. 1.First i created in html editor and tried to publish. If there is a break in the tag then it shows them as actual text. The i tried to have the tags in one line.Then it was OK. But for the table it created a big gap at the top. 2.I Changed the setting "Convert line breaks" in formatting tab to "No"- still did not help. 3.So then i have to manually remove all the space and align, so that it is OK. But Still "What you see is not What you got" May be a new acronym WYSINWYG a antonym for WYSIWYG Added to that: "The auto saved "saved when i mistakenly deleted all" Using Keyboard in lap top-switching from number keys to text. OOps..

My Grocery Shopping this week - April 25 2009

Item	Unit	Euro	Ruppes
ONION	1 kg	0.89	59
Spinach	300gm	1.59	106
Cucumber	400 gm	0.45	30
Beans	400 gm	2.58	172
Potato	500 gm	0.63	42
Carrot	1.5 kg	1.77	118
Tomato	600 gm	2.35	157
Brinjal	255 gm	0.43	28
Paprika	1piece	069	46
Lemon	2 piece	0.46	30
Mixed Nuts	350 gm	6.49	434
Water	7.5 L	2.67	178
Milk	2 L	1.66	111
Lays Chips	45 gm	0.39	26
Sugar	1 Kg	0.83	55
Yoghurt	500 gm	1.53	102
Total		25.41	1702

Scaling- Making of "Adai"

Dosa-Adai and Scaling Today i invited my colleagues and there family to Dinner(Adai). Still now i have maximum prepared for 3 persons and today it will be double; That means i have to scale twice in everything i cook. So i said to myself it is In Project terms simply doubling and more, the risks are time management and the ingredients quantities. So i started preparing the Batter, usually i don for 2 people(One quantity for dinner and the other for lunch), so now made it three times.I soaked in water the Rice and the dal and Started the preparing the Sambar. Making Sambar was not straight forward like Adai, most of the quantities i normally do by trial and error when i prepare, so now it is a bigger challenge as the size is increased. So i took a more slower and cautious approach while adding the ingredients. (When scaling for the first time- need more attention) The the timing problem- it really took more time than i have initially planned( but here also i don't have correct measurement of how much time i normally take). I finished successfully preparing. But then i felt that the quantity may not be sufficient and so i made some more Sambar again. I also at temped Chatni for these many people first time. All of this was a Success as my colleagues enjoyed the dinner. scaling at this level it self shows so many Process improvements areas!

Aalst Carnival- Spectacular and Colorful

Aalst Carnival- Spectacular and Colorful It was on 22nd of Feb and when i reached the station, I can already hear and see the sound and sight of big wagons with lot of Dolls, Men in different costumes. The whole city is geared up. The organisation of this Carnival is - There are around 70 wagons or groups which will start in one place and as a procession pass through different streets. The crowd will be on the side roads, enjoying and cheering. It was rich and i can see lot of practice has gone into this making. Each wagon or groups were organised around a theme, there were many themes about Fortis bank, there were themes about fire squads, scouts and there were 2 or 3 themes from India- Bollywood, Hare Rama and Kamasutra. There were Interesting themes like restaurants,market. There were themes in which a bar tender will be serving beer. Brilliant, colorful and well organised. Some of the wagons were huge and large mechanisms, with people in swings, this is as if they were moving a small giant wheel or swinging machines. As the day becomes to fade, they came with full of lights in the wagons and also in their dresses. When the last wagon passed me and as I start waking towards the Station, I already saw men and machine started cleaning the place.

Movie - Technocalyps

Last Week I saw this Movie -Technocalyps. It deals with how technology is going to change our life's, more.. change us as human beings it self's. It talks about the genome project,AI and the space research which is converging and going to bring something dramatically different. And more they predict this to happen by 2030 to 2040. Will the Homo sapiens become extinct? Human beings will evolve into something better than them(why should evolution stop at humans?) If we are half human and Half machine, who are we?

Federer and Nadal

Australian Open final they meet again.Federer is going for his 14th Grand slam title and he is playing the best opponent in the World. In the first Set after a break it looked like Fed had a upper hand, but as always Nadal comes back breaking again and takes the Set. Federer equals by taking the second one. They are equally poised at 5-5, and dues... two official reviews first favouring Nadal and then Fed. Ad - Nadal and the a cross court, dues.. wow! What a match this , as always , each point is a title point, and they gives thier best. Does the result matters! Both are winners here.

Ada Ada Adai!

One of the Great learning for me in 2008 is cooking. Before coming to Brussels, i have planned a little bit expecting that i cannot survive without self cooking. I slowly started cooking, rice, sambar , rasam and some curries. After my parents visit, i learned to prepare Adai. Previously my view on Adai was, it is difficult to make - but now i feel it is so simple; I make almost every week. Preparation of Batter. Equla portion of Rice and all other grams; Example for 1 cup of Rice, 1 cup of all other grams combined(i use, urdi dal, door dal,"passi paruppu", "kadalai paruppu". Soak in water for 2 to 4 hrs . Grid with salt, red chilli powder, little hing. The Batter is Ready, we can eat with Jaggery or prepare some chutney.

Appolo 13 - Great Learning

Appolo 13 - The Successful Failure The perfect oxymoron.What a team effort;I recently saw the movie and i was so inspired, i wanted to find out more on Net, When i searched i come across this article from IEEE.This is white paper which details the account. http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/apr05/2697 The whole episode teaches so much- training, leadership, innovativeness, dedication. It should be part of every engineering curriculam.
Leadership- Though "Flight" did not deliver the phrase "Failure is not an Option", what he said to his team exactly reflected this and inspired the team so much. Innovativeness - How many disconnected items the team came up with a solution to do Co2 filter. So much to learn from this episode.

Snow ,Snow and Winter

I am experiencing the first coldest winter, the temperature dropped to -15.

That is almost 50 degree difference from my comfortable temperature.

It started to snow the begging of this week and the snow froze and still seens in all parts of Brussels now.

What i experience at an altitude of 3000 meters in Switzerland, i am experiencing daily, near my office, on the way to office.Walking on Ice paltforms(Should be careful)

Some times it to good to see the snow but it also feels very cold..

This is a test for me to adapt and I am doing good.

New Year Eve in Brussels

I and some NIIT colleagues went and had dinner in Thai Restaurant called "Theva" near Grand Place. I have a White Wine, Vegtable Soup and Vegetarian Spring rolls . White wine was not good. Then we walked to "Sablon" were the Fireworkd will begin.There was huge crowd and people were dancing for the loud music. there was big display of Clock through Laser i believe projected on a big building. The Fire works started at 12.00, it was great , spectacular and brilliant. What a Great event to Begin a New year. Sumit asked everyone about there New Year Resolution, i did not have one, on a later note: atleast i will have a resolution to Post 1 week this year, that amounts to 48 posting for 2009.