Greece Trip Snaps

Mashbox

Recently I came across this cool concept from fachak.com - The MashBox.

The concept is simple yet unique: -

1) Pick your content from flickr, youtube, sideshare...... It may be videos, images, slides, docs..

2) Mix and mash it up.

3) Your mashbox is ready to be embedded  anywhere.

Try it out on fachak.com

Here is my mashbox: -

Cool ads

Dreams

Dream world seems to be a very much different place than normal world. It seems to be driven by entirely different laws than the normal world. Anything a person can imagine is possible in dreams. The Wachowski brothers would have seen the concept of the Matrix in their dream.

That day, I came from Dallas (onsite) at 3 O Clock in the morning completely exhausted by the 12 hours waiting time at Frankfurt airport. When I arrived at the office Deepti and Smitha told me about the new projects under discussion. There were a lot of new things going on. We had many meetings for the day. I tried to understand the things under discussion fast so that I can be useful to the project ASAP. I was thinking to work hard to make everything proper and under control.

The dream I was having was developed from a single fact. It might have been there in my mind when I was about to Sleep. Following thoughts were developing in my mind at the time of sleep. This is what I remember as the start of the dream: -
If you believe in anything from within the heart and you know that it is possible and can be done and are you are confident about it then it can be done. No matter what others say. It might seem impossible to others but if your belief is firm and you know from within that it can be done, then it can be done.

I started thinking, may be the magical power possessed by the gods/humans of Ramayana and Mahabharata were real. It may not be exactly like it is written in the books. The heroes/vilains of these epics used to go to Tapobhumi, a place where they concentrate, far from any disturbances and do the concentration for many many years until there wish is granted. Concentration might make them firm believers that they already have these powers and that they can exercise it. Once there belief is firm from the core of their heart, one fine day, they opens up there eyes and are very excited to realize that they have these powers.

I found it hard to believe but then I thought before atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima/Nagasaki, before Einstein proposed his theory that there's a vast amount of energy inside an atom, it was impossible for a layman/even scholars to believe that there can be such a huge amount of energy inside an atom.

Science is still not able to unlock the human brain. Its still a mystery. There might be vast amount of potential in human mind. Ancient man would have discovered this potential and might have been able to do the things using there mind. Dhyana (Concentration), Tapas (spiritual suffering, mortification or austerity) is always emphasized in the ancient religions.

In Christianity, Jesus was believed to be able to walk on water, move the hills, healing the wounds by touching, turning water into wine.
In Judaism, Moses was believed to have magical powers like commanding the see to give way, turning water to blood, turn rod into a serpent.
In Hinduism, the saints were believed to have magical powers which they had gained by concentration.

It is said that one can move the mountains if the person has believe in it.

In my dream, I was doing a lot of crazy things which are not possible in the real world like flying in the air or turning a desk into an airplane. At the start of the dream I was having the thoughts that with enough belief a man can do anything and I was amazed to see when I was able turn a semicircular metal ring into a full ring just by thinking.

Later on there were confrontation of belief with others in which me and my opponent were trying hard to turn it the way we believed and whoever was more confident in his belief was winning. I could feel opponent's power of belief when I was trying the things to turn the way I wanted. The more I was winning, it was giving me more strength.

This was my dream and now I realize that this was because of the thoughts running in my mind, the media I watch, the books I read, and the tiredness and jet lag due to recent travel.

It seems nice to be in imaginary world as it gives one the power to do anything one wants.
But now with my eyes wide open, my conscience is making me believe “Welcome to the real world dude”.

Idea

This weekend I watched "Sixth Sense" in which Bruce Willis suggested that sometimes people start writing without having anything particular in mind. Lets try it out.

Many times I have thoughts running in my mind and I am thrilled by them. I think of writing it down but most of the time I don't and it vanishes after some time. I suppose it happens with others also. We think of some idea and then forget about it. Writing it down will help giving shape to the idea.

Some ideas are just ideas, it looks difficult to implement the idea with the resources currently available, and we forget about it. Writing them down will help as we can refer back to it at the time we have resources and knowledge to implement it. Also with the advent of online collaboration it is possible that someone with necessary skills read your idea and can help turning the idea into reality.

Many times idea looks simple and we ignore it thinking that it would be already in place. It is possible that the idea is already in place but then also writing it down will help in creative thinking.

Idea is the first step to creativity. Its always a good idea to document the idea and present it to the world. Its possible that someone else is also thrilled by your idea.

Euro Trip

Finally planned a trip to Europe in 2007 easter holidays. I was onsite (in Dallas as usual). Nitin, DJ and Neeraj did most of the planning, booking for the hotels, arranging train and plane tickets, gathering info from others who have been to Europe, preparing for the Visa,..
Initially there were around 9-10 guys but only 5 lucky guys could make it to Europe :)
Debjyoti (DJ), Nitin Kallikat (Kalli), Supratim Haldar (Suppu), Vibhav Agarwal (Agarwal)and me (Mittal as they call me).
Our trip plan: - (5th April to 15th April 2007)
Cyprus - > Amsterdam(2 days) - > Paris (3.5 days) - > Rome (1.5 days) - > Florence, Pisa (1 day) - > Venice (1 day) - > Milan - > Cyprus.


We started from Amsterdam. It is one of the most beautiful cities I have visited. The places, the people, everyone is beautiful there. It is like we are in some different world. We spent 2 days there. We visited Tulip garden, wind mills, Anne Frank Museum, Country side there. Then we took a train to Paris. Paris is a vibrant city. You will find all kind of people there. I liked there dressing sense. You will find people skating, painting, playing music in public places. Its full of love. We visited Eiffel tower, Arch de triumph, Napolean tomb, Palace of Versailles and many other places of interest. The metro service in Paris is one of the best in the world. We spent 4 days there. Then we took a overnight train to Rome. We visited most of the places in Rome on foot. All the places of interest were near to each other. We visited Colloseum and other historical monuments. Then we went to Vatican City. Its like a whole city in the church. We took snaps from the top of St Peters church with St Peter's square beneath us. From Rome we went to Florence. Florence is alos a small place. We visited all the places on foot. There are various monuments in Florence like Statue of David. We took a bus for Pisa from there and tried to straighten up "Leaning tower of Pisa" atleat in the snaps :). From Pisa we took a train to Venice. Its a city in water. We took a boat pass for the whole day, took Gondola ride, fed corn to Pigeons and played with them. In the night there is music playing at St Marco square with lighting everywhere. It was a nice time and the last place on our Euro trip plan. It was a journey to heaven on earth.

For details and snaps please visit the following site: -
http://picasaweb.google.com/vivekmittal514/Europe?feat=directlink

Trip to Egypt on Cruise

It was during the Easter holidays. Summer had just started in Cyprus. We were having a long weekend. So we thought of visiting Egypt. We booked Salamis cruise for Egypt from Limassol and got the visa for Egypt. Although me and Bhuwan just got the entry permit (no visa) as our stay in Egypt was only about 12 hours.


We boarded at Limassol port at 1:30, as the departure time of our Cruise was at 2:30 PM. We were about 30 from amdocs. We had with us cap, ginger (for sea sickness), and lots of water for beating the heat of Egypt. And of course all of us were ready with our dig cams. For most of us this was the first time on cruise. So we were all excited about our first experience on cruise. We got on to the cruise at about 2:15 PM. It was a sunny day. Most of the passengers were on the deck enjoying the sun.


The view of the port was eye catching. In front of our cruise was another cruise which was also about to leave for Egypt. Some small boats were also there on the port. All of us were enjoying the sun and the breeze on the deck and looking for the gals out there on the cruise :-). The ship started at around 2:45 PM for Egypt. We were given the schedule of the entertainment events to be organized by the cruise for the two days. In the night after dinner a magic show was organized. Some dances were also performed by the cruise crew. Some of us went to Casino to try our luck.


We reached Egypt next day at about 8 AM in the morning. Three buses were waiting outside the port amid heavy security. May be that was due to the fact that there was some bomb blast in Eastern Egypt the previous day. We got into bus number 3. We were received by our guide Marwaha. She had done her masters in Egypt history or archeology ( I don't remember exactly) from Cairo university. I was not expecting our guide to be so much educated. The name of our bus driver was OSAMA. Initially I couldn't believe my ears and tried to check the name plate on his shirt pocket. Anyway, he was not that dreadful looking. Marwaha started talking about the sources of economy of Egypt. She told us that main sources of income to Egypt are Suez Canal, Gold, and Tourism. The people living in cities are generally educated. The people in village are not generally educated. Also nowadays many industries are being setup in Egypt.


Then she started talking about history of Egypt -- The Pharaoh, the pyramids, the mummies, king Tutankhamen. She told us the places we were about to visit. The museum, Great pyramids of Giza, sphinx, and the papyrus factory.

We reached the museum and started following Marwaha. Many things in the museum were the result of the discovery of some British archeologist who had found the treasure of Tutankhamen king. It is said that the whole crew of the British archeologist met death one by one due to the curse of opening the Tutankhamen’s treasure.


It was a big museum. It would have taken many days to see all of it. So Marwaha showed us only the most important things. There were many monuments out there of ancient Egypt. It looked like the ancient Egyptians were to rich in gold. There was a mask of a man made up of solid gold, the bed made up of gold, even the sleepers which king used to wear were made up of gold.


The ancient Egyptian used to keep the mummies inside the coffin completely made of gold. They also kept many things inside it which they believed that the king will need in the after life. Many things out there belong to king Tutankhamen’s period. The ancient Egyptians believed in many gods. King Tutankhamen proposed to believe in one god. But the priests didn't like it. So they killed King Tutankhamen. Marwaha also showed a famous painting called as "The judgment day". It was painted on papyrus. That’s why it was still intact and rich in color. According to that picture after the death of the person, in the after life, the heart of the deceased is weighed on a balance against the "feather of truth". If the heart was "heavy with sin" it was thrown to a monster ("the devourer of hearts") and the deceased could not enter into the company of the gods.


After the museum, we went to see the gr8 Pyramids of Giza. The pyramids were visible from a long distance when we were still in the bus far from the Pyramids. They looked like well formed mountains from a distance. As we reached near to them we felt negligent in front of those huge structures. There were two pyramids side by side. They were very huge. The sun was shining like anything. It was too hot out there. We started taking the snaps trying to give impression as if holding the whole pyramid. But it was really a difficult job to cover the whole pyramid. There were many children and men selling the models of pyramid and other things. We were told in the bus by Marwaha, not to take anything from them as a hell lot of bargaining is involved in it and also they may cheat you. She also warned us not to take camel ride as they will allow you to sit on camel for free but they will charge money for getting you back on the ground from camels back. So we ignored them. We went inside one of the pyramids. It was too congested inside the tunnel. People were going bothways. There was no window or anything and the tunnel through which we were moving was also very narrow and low. We were going bowing our back, with too little of air inside it to breath. At the end of the tunnel was a big hall where they kept the mummy. We came out of that huge pyramid and started towards the Sphinx.


Carved from the bedrock of the Giza plateau, the Sphinx is truly a mysterious marvel from the days of ancient Egypt. The body of a lion with the head of a king or god, the sphinx has come to symbolize strength and wisdom. Behind the sphinx stood two huge pyramids. Someone told us that there is a place out there from where we can see 11 pyramids in a row at a time. It was really very hot outside. The wind laden with sand had made it even worse. The sphinx and the pyramids were standing magnificently there braving such harsh conditions for thousands of years. It was a memorable day to be along with those huge structures.


Our next destination was the papyrus factory. There was a person on the reception who told us the process by which they prepared the papyrus. They used the stem of the papyrus plant for making it. The bottom of the stem is pyramid cal in shape and the leaves were like the rays of sun coming out of the shoot. They rolled the stem and keep many such stems side by side for a few days. After a few days all of them get glued to each other and form the paper sheet.


Papyrus is mostly used for keeping the paintings preserved for many days. I bought a painting of “The Final judgment” with ancient Egyptian alphabets drawn on the periphery of the picture for 7 Cyprus pounds. Some of us have also bought the gold rings. On our way back we were taken to the Nile cruise for lunch. We enjoyed belly dance along with our lunch as the Nile cruise moved in the river Nile.

We were back to our cruise by 8:30 PM. We were a little bit late on our schedule. We started our way back to Limassol having dreams of king Tutankhamen and the pharaohs.

Dallas Trip - Arboretum

I don't remember the exact date but it was some where in March 2006 and it was Sunday. The whether was cloudy and I thought that I will not be able to go out today. Satish called me up. He laid out his plans to go out and visit some place. He had to leave for Cyprus in a few days. So he wanted to cover as much of the city as he can. We met in the business room downstairs where we can use a computer and printer. We logged on to Google and searched for some places where we can go. After arguing a bit, both of us agreed to visit arboretum and we got the way to arboretum printed out of the printer from MapQuest and started on our way. The whether was not that bad as I had thought. It was the beginning of spring season. I had just bought my Casio digicam from Amazon, so I was busy in taking the snaps all my way to arboretum. Everything was looking beautiful to me and I wanted to capture all of that into my dig cam. It took us about 30 minutes to reach there. Also this time we didn't got lost while following the map like the previous day (our trip to Fair Park). We parked the car and paid for the ticket. The cost of ticket was 8$(per adult) + 5$(parking) which was really worth it. When we entered the park, it was like some other world out there full of blossoming flowers. We both went crazy. Satish took out him camera and started taking pics of every flower closely. He would have replaced his desktop wallpapers with them later on I guess. But soon I was also taking the pics of the flowers along with him. It doesn't took us much time to realize that we cannot take picture of every flower :-).The park was divided into various sections. We were given the map of the park at the ticket counter. We started down the garden and started capturing everything we could. There were various types of flowers and sculptures out there. There were many people out there in the park admiring its beauty and relaxing on soft grass. We were greeted with Namaste by a white guy which had caught both of us by surprise. I realized that Bush is currently on a visit to India. We reached a section of the park with old huts and carts. The name of that section was The cowboy town. It was the presentation of old Texas. We took some snaps out there and proceeded towards the other section. There was a pond out there full of water unto brim. We noticed a bride in traditional white wedding gown. A photographer was taking her snaps whom probably she would have employed for taking her photograph. I was ready to do it for free :-). I too took her snap and moved forward to yet another section of the park. There was a statue of a beautiful gal there in the middle of a pool of water. We took the snaps and started towards another section where there was another pool of water with four statues of frogs around it and they were throwing a fountain of water into the pool out of there mouth. It was beautiful. As usual took some snaps and started our way out of the park. I was contented. I was happy with my decision to visit Arboretum.