Its been a loooong time!

I guess I have really been out of touch with my blog, and its few precious readers, and the wider world as such, for quite some time now. The last time I tried accessing my blog was on reading newspaper reports about certain blogsites being blocked. I couldn't....and felt my prestige enhanced manifold - finally some demonstration of keyboard being mightier than the sword. Today I was generally surfing (after ages), and found to my horror that I am no longer a threat to my country. This is disappointing - they should not dismiss untapped potential just like that!

So what all has happened since my last post? Quite a few things, if I think about it. Hey, I went to Ranikhet (near Nainital) on an office off-site in June beginning. And it was good fun. And most of us also discovered the true state of our stamina when going for the morning breakfast meant a climb of several stairs on uneven hilly terrain (such was our guesthouse). No wonder I had such a healthy appettite. The funnier parts involved being woken up at 1 a.m. and asked to report in the lunchroom because the big boss was still awake and his idea of fun did not include quality sleep. The hilarious parts included the worst rendition of "Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas" that I have ever heard - and this was the resident crooner. All in all it was fun...some work but adequtely compensated through booze and parties.

I also finally got an "updated" laptop from office. The old one had cleary outlived even its borrowed time and would have declared bankruptcy anytime. This one (Dell Latitude D510) is sleeker, has larger screen, and of course, faster. And I am finally using XP. So send me those 2 MB+ mails now, and I will not have to go on a forced tea-break.

Of course, with enhanced security measures at work, we cannot access blog sites from office, and the USB devices are disabled to access any memory device. One small factor why I haven't blogged off late. You look all around at office, and you find so many funny things to write about, but you can't access the site. :(

Oh yes, I also coached a team in our internal Six Sigma & Lean Quiz competition and we came a respectable joint third. Respectable because the team was in Hyderabad, and I was in Bangalore. And we were all very busy with our normal work. So the only coaching that I could do was through e-mails and phone (talk about distance education) for three days, before we finally met at Gurgaon for the semi-finals. Three hours of intensive closed-doors coaching and we sailed through to the finals. Five hours of intensive closed-doors coaching next day and we crashed in the finals. Guess should have left them alone! :(

In between, there were many events that stirred me into writing something. The Rahul Mahajan case (rather, the media overkill), PM's visit to Vidarbha (and the rest of the country suddenly waking up to the issue of farmer suicides), the IIM / IIT quota issue (and how it is not really the issue), Bombay train blasts.....long list actually. May be, if the work Gods are kinder to me in near future, I will get down to at least some of them. For the time being, this post is just to let everyone know I am alive and typing. :))