Men - Are they turning into Machines?

The evolution of machines is as old as the evolution of Man. It has been always a constant struggle with man to lead a more comfortable life. This was possible with the invention of Machines.

Starting from the most simple invention of the Wheel which is been used in modern vehicles for transport to the most recent machines like the Computers, used for performing complex calculations, man in involved in refining and redefining his inventions to make it more user friendly. These machines have alleviated the living standards of mankind over a period of time So much so, that man is completely dependent on these machines.

There were times when men scarcely used machines. Water used to be drawn from the well using a pully, they now use a electric motor to do it. Land was cultivated using bullocks, now we use the tractor which is considered to be more effecient. Lately every activity that we perform is been replaced by a machine.

In order to keep pace with the change in technology, man is forced to be dependent on these machines. He is using one machine to help him in inventing/building a new more sophisticated machine.

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

Interaction of men with the society is lost to a great extent. Modern man spends most of his time interacting with a machine than with fellow beings. In recent times, the total number of hours that a person spends interacting with a computer both at office and at home is increased to a great extent.

With the advent of modern machines, the pressure on man has increased manifold. It is not too far to see, that the growing depencancy of man on these machnines will soon lead man to turn into a machine.

My Firsts in Life.....

I still remember the day I visited chennai. It was the 8th of December 2004 a day to remember. For on that same day I was to visit the US consolate for my visa stamping.

You wouldn't beleive, I had most of what they call as "The Firsts in life". To start with, the trip to chennai was my first long distance travel that I ever made by train. It was my first ever visit to Chennai, my first visit to a consulate and very soon to be my first travel to US, not expecting that there would be one more first's that I would have to hear of very soon.

After reaching chennai by Shatabdhi Express, I had checked into a hotel close to the consulate. I had my appointment at the consulate the next day. I made sure that I know the route to the consulate the previous night as I had my appointment around 8:00 am.

The next day, it was easy for me to reach the consulate office in time. The interview took less than an hour and I was out free to spend the rest of the day visiting places close by.

Chennai is famous for it's beaches. My friend and I decided to visit the most famous Marina beach which was not too far from where we stayed. As always, we took the rick. Knowing tamil turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I was able to get a ride for a nominal charge.

We need to walk a long distance on sand in order to reach the waters...we spent some time on the beach and came back to the hotel where we had stayed. We returned the same night by Mysore express and reached Bangalore the next day.

A few weeks later I got to hear the first that I had mentioned the bad news of the devastation caused by Tsunami to most parts of the world including Marina Beach. The first of it's kind to happen in India. It was less than 3 weeks that this incident took place. I watched the havoc caused by the waves.

I started to recollect the day I visited the beach. It seemed to be so calm with it's gentle waves. But now, the sea looked too rough on the television. The place had undergone a vast change. I heaved a sigh of relief after realizing that I was safe back home in Bangalore.

Visit to Sunshine State - Florida

It was close to two years of stay in the US and I had the opportunity of visiting most of the places in the east coast like NYC, DC, the great Niagara and the Atlantic city just to name a few apart from the regular visit to my brother @ Detroit, MI

Having visited the east coast, my friends and I decided to visit places down south of US. To start with, we decided to visit Florida a place known for it's beaches. It was the christmas season of 2007 and we skipped the usual white christmas in NY to celebrate our christmas down south in Tampa, Florida.

It didn't take too long to decide we had already started looking out for the tickets on the internet. We got what we thought to be the best deal available for the christmas day long weekend. We just went ahead and booked our tickets to Tampa!! We had few joining us from Delaware.

The flight journey didn't take too long and we were already approaching our destination. I got to get a glimpse of the ariel view of the land strip from the flight window... It was one of the most beautiful views of the landscape that I have ever seen!!

As we deplaned we got to hear that the friends from Delaware had already arrived. But we also got to hear the bad news that the baggage of our collegues from Delaware went missing.

Our friends from Tampa had come to receive us at the airport. We reached the apartment and spent the rest of our evening partying and planning on the places to visit for the remaining days of our vacation.

The next day, which was the first day of our long weekend, we started off to spend sometime to relax at the Pier. Later that evening, we headed towards the beaches. As always the visit to a beach makes your mind clear of all the tensions. We returned home later that evening and took no time to go back to sleep.

On day 2 we decided to visit the Sea World. This is one of the many theme parks that you get to see in Orlando a place close to Tampa. We had to drive early that morning in order to reach our destination in time. So it was told to me to be the one to wake everyone up as always!!

We took no time in getting ready to visit the Sea World. We had a short stop over @ the Dunkins to grab our breakfast. We had to drive for 2 1/2 hrs to reach the Sea World. Once we were in there, we got to see some of the fishes like the sting ray, the sharks and the dolphins in it's natural habitat. We also got to visit some of the shows like the Shamu the Whale show, the Sea lion's show not to forget the dolphin show. It was really amazing to see these fishes. We also got to take a roller coaster ride which was one of the other attractions @ the sea world.

We decided to spend day 3 water rafting and barbequing at a park close by. Once we reached the park, we hired two rafts with three of us in each of them.....It was fun to row your raft.

As I said that there were two boats...and I was in the second boat trying to row all the way down the lake to watch the alligators. My friends in the first boat had the experience of rowing and hence it was really easy for them. While, it was pretty new to us.

We were rowing our boats with a lot of effort. But the boat seem not to move a inch. Later we realised (when we watched the videos) that both of us were rowing our boat in the opposite directions....LOL. All of us had fun watching the video!!

After we were done with the rowing...we went on to prepare the BBQ. BBQ's really turned out to be yummy. Each one of us enjoyed every bite of it. We returned home a bit early that evening.

The next day which was day 4 of our trip...we decided to just spend time to relax. A few of my friends suggested that we play tennis as their apartment had it's own tennis court. It was a bit hot outside. As hot as our indian summer. We had fun playing tennis and felt tired running around the court to hit the ball. Later we went back to our apt to have our lunch and soon we headed back home.

Olympic Gold for India!!! - 11-Aug-2008

It was a glorious day for india and indian sport. Abhinav Bindra won the first ever individual gold for India in the olympics. He won the 10m Air Rifle shooting competition.He was placed 2nd then, behind Henri Hakkinen (Finland). Guess he was placed 2nd even after the 9th shot. On the 10th he scored a brilliant 10.8. Hakkinen's nerves must have given way. He came up w a poor 9.7, which gave him the Bronze. China's Zhu Qinan won the Silver.

Cricket will still continue to rule the hearts back home but India's man with the golden gun Abhinav Bindra desperately hopes his Olympic gold will change the face of sports in the country.

Lesser mortals would perhaps have lost sanity but the 25-year-old Abhinav was poise and grace personified as he talked about his attaining Olympic immortality and its possible ramifications in a country that remains almost biased towards cricket.

Growing up in an affluent Chandigarh family, Abhinav had the advantage of a private shooting range at home, but the mild mannered shooter has always been down to earth and kept a low profile despite his success at various international events

A million emotions might have been rocking his mind but Abhinav Bindra chose to express them in the simplest of ways. A smile and a clenched fist were the only celebrations that marked the biggest day in the history of Indian sport.

I am really proud to be an Indian, to have heard that the Indian National Anthem was sung in the Olympic Stadium. Thanks to Abhinav Bindra....he has made all of us proud

All about blogs

I always wished to write something that will be visible for everyone to read from anywhere on this earth...something we wouldn't have imagined to have happened few decades back. Thanks to the internet!!..it has made this happen through blogs.

I tried to understand what really goes into a blog? As always I searched for the definition of blogs on the internet.. (thanks to the modern technology, we get the latest and greatest information with a click of a button) through my favourite site http://www.wikipedia.org/ and here is what it says about what a blog is(Note: I have provided a url to read through the entire definition of what a blog is):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

In short Blogs act as what we used to call as diaries. Blogs are in short a virtual diary. A url where we keep track of events that take place in our lives in a reverse-cronological order.
I'm not sure as to how long I would continue my blogging...but this seems to be a good start!

New york Guide!!

The city of New York is the largest city in the United states since 1790. New York City comprises five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island.

Visiting NY is just a hop, skip and a jump for someone living in Jersey City. I've visited NYC numerous times. But as always the closer you are to a popular place..the less you know about it.

I still remember the days when I used to spend hours going through the maps of a old school atlas (infact it was my sister's) when I was in my 5th grade.

I happened to see a section which had the maps of the greatest cities in the world like Tokyo, paris etc., New York was one of them. The map was so cluttered that it was difficult for me to see the places being mentioned... (I couldn't have imagined to understand these places at that age though LOL).

Now that I was here, I made it a point to visit some of the important places in and around NYC.
The first place to visit was the Brooklyn Bridge which is close to the World Trade Center.

I still remember the day when five of us had taken the PATH train from the Exchange place path station and got down at the world trade center. Walked a couple of blocks before reaching the Brooklyn bridge.

This was the same bridge where the great actor Sharukh Khan had sung the song...."Kal ho na ho...." I was still new to US and I had hardly bought a camera then. I missed taking pictures of those moments and I still regret!!

I then decided to buy myself a camera to tresure those moments..and that was when I bought my Sony Cyber shot digicam!!

During my initial days of having my own digicam, I used to shoot anything and everything that caught my eyes, from the pigeons and the sea gulls that walked on the footpaths of Jersey City to the skyline view of NYC.












As days went by, the shots grew very specific. The NYC skyline, the statue of Liberty, the remains of the World Trade Center, the Cube near the world trade center, the Bull on wall street....were some of the items that were captured with my Sony digicam!!


The frequency of my visit to NY helped me familiarise myself with the city to an extent that I was soon to be called a New york Guide!! to most of my friends.

My Favourite poem - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-By Robert Frost

These are my favourite lines from the above poem by Robert Frost:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.