Imagining Earth

On weekends, I love to travel. But considering the limited amount of resources I have (time and money) my travelling is severely constrained. That means, I have figured out a way to travel around the world literally sitting on my couch. Now before I reveal my secret let me tell you something about me.

My type of travelling involves going around the city and admiring its architecture and history in general. Now, when you actually physically travel to a place, though you can admire the architecture, the history bit can only be obtained off the internet. However, when you travel to a city on the internet, not only can you admire the architecture, but also, you can learn about its history.

So without further adieu, let me introduce to you, my favorite travel companion of all times – Google Earth. Of all the amazing products that Google has produced this one somehow gets a bit of less limelight.

Let’s say, early Saturday morning, I get the sudden urge to visit the Gateway of India in Mumbai. A few clicks and aha, I am there … standing in front of the Gateway in all its glory with the Taj Mahal hotel in its background.

Obviously, that reminds me of the real Taj Mahal in Agra and I go there to see….

Once I am done seeing that I think of visiting the Queen. Obviously I need to fly and take a train. Here I am waiting outside the Victoria station in London, waiting to walk down to the Buckingham Palace.

Then I feel the need to visit Hollywood Boulevard to check out the Chinese Theatre, and here I am standing in front of it in all its glory.

I know where this is going. You gonna tell me, nothing beats seeing it in real life. Pictures are not a substitute. I agree, but while you work your a$$ off trying to save on all the money you need to go to these places when you are old (and hopefully healthy), no one is stopping you from flying there today, right this moment and virtually walking around on the street. You can also go in the wrong direction on the highways and no one is even gonna bother you!

So take my advice, travel regularly. Use Google earth everyday.

Trello

Most of my day job involves working with multiple people on multiple assignments at various stages of progress (or in deep $hit). This involves, setting deadlines, following up and in general trying to control lots of things across lots of people (including senior management, customers and partners).

I am sure everyone of you (in jobs like mine) have your favorite tool that you swear by to help you control the chaos. So, today, let me take a few minutes of your time to introduce mine. It’s called Trello. It’s awesome. And it makes my life that much easy. Period.

Now, unlike your favorite tool, mine has a rather illustrious background. Trello is made by Fog Creek Software. Does that ring a bell? Well, I can safely assume it does. Every old software person out there (by old, I mean you learnt to code in the earlier part of this century) who saw the internet evolve, has read this one wondrous blog – Joel on Software. And Fog Creek Software was founded by none other than Joel Spolsky himself.

Joel explaining Trello

I can’t really describe how useful it is in a blog. I would recommend you try it. It is vaguely based on the Kanban system of cards (inspired by Toyota?) and then it helps to collaborate and works across multiple devices and got tonnes of nifty little features. Best of all, it’s free. So yeah, that was me expressing my love for Trello.

Keep In Touch

Once in a blue moon I get this Facebook note or an email from a long lost friend chiding me of not keeping in touch. I obviously reply, apologize and resolve to be in touch and then the email goes into oblivion for eternity.

Keeping in touch is like a handshake (banal example I know). It’s an activity in which either party has to put in equal effort for it to be meaningful. So if you get all upset on me cause I haven’t “had the time” to keep in touch with you, then may be you should try getting in touch as well.

And before you conclude, I do occasionally think of you. I do get nostalgic about all the good times we had together. And of course, I always remember you on your birthday. So next time when you write to me, do sign-off saying “We keep in touch”, so that we share the responsibility.

Walk of shame

I don’t understand commercial aircrafts at all. I am like a redneck when I take flights. For me there are just 3 types of aircrafts – small, big, bigger. I haven’t yet had the chance to sit in the biggest. But I know there exists one. So if it’s small, it means I can’t sleep cause the seats are too cramped up. If it’s big, then I can sleep a bit (probably on my co-passenger’s shoulder). And if it’s bigger then I can get a good night’s sleep. Not as comfortable as sleeping on a bed, but I can at least recline my seat and catch a few decent winks for my day ahead.

Now, I have also noticed that in the small and big aircrafts, (assuming I am sitting near the front of the aircraft) I am let in from the front door. Now problem with this is the moment I enter, I get into the part of the plane that is reserved for the ultra-rich and the super-rich types. And airlines generally let these kinds in first. So the moment I enter, I feel like they give us all (the economy class travellers) a condescending look. The kind that says “You mere mortal, I look down upon you!”

Then they proceed to show their ultra luxurious seat/ living room complete with a bed, a sofa, a home entertainment system and other stuff that I don’t even recognize. Once they are done showing, then they sip on the ultra-rare wine made from the rarest of rare grapes found on this planet centuries ago. And then they let out a hush stretch their legs and settle down in their throne.

We the economy classes then scuttle past them with our head hung low. Holding on to our meagre belongings we make ourselves scarce and go hide in our corner seat/ rabbit hole, never to disturb the royals again. Sigh. I dread this walk of shame every time I get into those aircrafts. Can the airlines please not let us through this ordeal?

Ridiculously fine dining

So there is this “exclusive” restaurant in a small shop house near my workplace. There is a perennial crowd of people waiting outside it to always get in. If it rains there is a bunch of umbrellas with people shivering under it and if it’s sunny there is a big crowd of sweaty people braving the heat.

After passing by that place umpteen times my curiosity was obviously aroused. I did some research and figured out this – the Japanese restaurant allows walk-ins for lunch. But for dinner you need to have an advance booking even to stand out there in the crowd.

That explains the crowd during lunch times. People start queuing like 10:00 AM in the morning (while I am still digesting my coffee!) and they keep queuing till the owner slams the door on them in the afternoon at 3:00 PM. Yeah the restaurant opens for lunch between 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM.

So after months of navigating that crowd to go to my office and back, I have also been thinking of joining the frenzy. Now queuing at 10:00 AM is madness, but I felt I might book for dinner one evening and pop-in to see what the hullaballoo is all about.

And here is the sign in plain English that I found outside the door (early morning 08:00 AM in January). I sneakily took a picture before a man dressed like a samurai shooed me away (lucky he was not brandishing a sword!).

A restaurant booked for 6 months in advance? That’s insane. I can’t imagine of one creative reason why I would want to wait for 6 months to eat at a place. Even if the food is like super freaking awesome.

It’s just a few seconds of taste on your tongue before it is a bunch of crap (literally) in your intestines. Why on earth would I wait so long for those few seconds of carnal pleasure? When I bounced this thought off my food connoisseur friend (who indeed is waitlisted and “lucky” to be in the list in the next 6 months) he gave me a condescending look which said “You village bumpkin, you have no understanding of the finer things in life!”

Anyway, the only reason I would probably wait 6 months is if I were a die hard fan of some celebrity and that person was ready to dine with me in this restaurant! And then, I can’t think of anyone that I would desperately wish to dine with. I think I will give this place a miss. If you happen to go there, do sneak out a tiny morsel for me to munch on.

Train Surfing

So the lazy bum (yeah me!) has invented another sport for other people like me. It’s called train surfing and it involves riding in the first compartment of a driverless train. For the uninformed, Singapore now has 3 driverless MRT train lines and 3 driverless LRT lines.

Driverless trains are a technology marvel in itself. These trains steer, start, stop and accelerate all by themselves without having anyone physically in the train to drive them. Though NEL was the first driverless train in Singapore, the designers did not really put a big front glass window for people to gaze out at the track in the front while the train is travelling. However, the subsequent lines – Circle and now the Downtown line both have a huge window from which you can peek out at the track in front.

So what exactly is train surfing? My definition is – you get into a driverless train and stand in the front compartment near the window and then enjoy the ride. These trains can reach speeds up to 80 kmph. So in a way you are out there standing in a pseudo-roller coaster that can go that fast. And the cool part? You can do it while you are commuting to your boring day job, day-after-day every day!

And what do silly train surfing fanatics like me do? Well, they plan their route to the destination in such a way that they have to take these driverless train (even though it’s not the shortest distance!).

The newest addition to the driverless train family in Singapore (Downtown Line) actually has bright lights on the front of the train lighting up the entire track ahead. In the Circle line, the visibility always has been a bit of an issue for train surfers, but with the new lights, we can now actually look into the future. How cool is that?

No Plastic

So we diligently said no to plastics. All the time every time. Anywhere and everywhere. I always carry with me a foldable reusable bag that I use anywhere I go. For bigger groceries, I have a trolley that accompanies me from my home to the mall and back.

All this saying “no” ultimately resulted in we running out of plastic bags absolutely completely at home. Now, for the only reason I used plastic bags (to throw garbage!) I have none. The situation got so bad, that I ended up buying garbage bags.

I am proud of myself and at the same time amazed. Amazed because, despite being so diligent, it took me more than a year to run out of plastic bags. Which means a rare shopper like me (who was anyways very frugal with plastic bags before) had stacked up on more than 300 plastic bags at home. If we try to extrapolate, it’s a scary number to consider worldwide.

I am happy that the Indian Government woke up to this fact and started imposing charges for plastic bags given away by retailers. Though it inconvenienced quite a few people, it is one externality that had to be taxed.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Yeah. That’s sort of wishing joy and prosperity for the new year in Mandarin and that’s the only thing I can say beyond Wo Ai Ni. So though I pretend to be knowledgeable, I am not.

Anyway, today is the first day of Lunar Chinese New Year of the Horse. All of Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau SAR, Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand celebrate. That literally means most of world manufacturing is shutdown for the festival.

Lunar New Year is by far the biggest festival celebrated in the world. More than 1/3 population of the world celebrates it. So even if it’s not celebrated in your part of the world, hang on – very soon it will be. (Yeah like we celebrate Halloween and Thanks Giving in Asia!)

The good part of the Lunar New Year is – it always comes in the last few weeks of January or first few weeks of February. That means it is right there in the beginning of the Gregorian calendar. People like me who have already given up on their resolutions can think of resolving to follow them again starting the Lunar new year.

So my dear fellow netizens, I can be statistically very sure that at least 80% of you have given up on your 2014 resolutions by now (yeah, even I partially have!). Don’t fret, you can start them again on the auspicious day of the Lunar new year.

God gives me another chance on restarting my resolutions around end of March or beginning of April when we celebrate the Hindu new year (Gudi Padwa/ Ugadi  for some). It’s ironic how we get all these chances in the first quarter of the year, and still we can’t follow the resolutions for the next 3 quarters.

Be a Zero

I have been obsessed with the GoPro lately. Unless you are living under a rock, I am sure you have come across someone somewhere sporting a GoPro already. It’s a high definition camera that can do “extreme action video photography”. You just mount it somewhere (using its mounting options) while you are doing crazy stuff and then playback to enjoy it! And then ofcourse upload it to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube for the world to admire and be jealous.

If you are tired bored and lazy on a Sunday afternoon, already done seeing all sesame street videos and mindless YouTube surfing, then I would highly recommend you to go see other people’s GoPro videos. And now, even before you proceed with this blog post, go see Kelly McGarry’s 72ft backflip over a canyon with his mountain bike while wearing a GoPro HD HERO3+ right here:

GoPro – Mountain bike backflip

After spending countless hours going through all those videos, I am naturally tempted to buy a GoPro. Yeah, I have been contemplating getting one for the past few months and each time that I walk upto a store to pick one up, I stop myself from pouring all those hard earned dollars down the drain by thinking about the typical heroic life of Girish. Mind you, I don’t surf, skate, kayak, base jump, wing-suite, sky dive, bungee jump, mountain bike, ski, snow board. The most exciting thing I do is – stand in the balcony and look down at tiny people walking on the road.

So, lets say I get a GoPro. What would I wear it to get an exciting video out for? My typical day involves travelling in a crowded train for an hour to and fro daily. My GoPro would capture seas of uninterested and bored people busy playing candy crush on their phones. Then I go to the office and spend hours staring at a computer screen making mindless presentations or boring dashboards. Then I come home, watch nonsensical television, eat and call it a night. Weekends are spent cleaning, washing, cooking and staring at the ceiling.

Just like Rolls Royce has a policy of choosing customers for its cars (yeah, you can’t just buy it off the showroom!), even GoPro should have a policy of selling their cameras only to the cool people amongst us. That way, it will save some hard earned monies for morons like me. But yeah, that won’t make the company the billions that they are raking in now. It’s always the morons that make or break a company, and very soon I am gonna make one.

Fogged up

So my article about me swimming in the blind got some of you amused. I know, I know there are options available to not let your swimming goggles get all fogged up. And to be frank, I have used a few of them. So this blog post is all about how to prevent goggle fogging. If you are a recreational swimmer (like me), fogging is not really a big issue. I am generally so slow in the pool that other swimmers do watch out for me. I just need to worry about not bumping into the side walls.

I know of at least 3 ways. If you Google you will get a lot more ways, but I haven’t tested them. Living up to my cheapskate roots I will start with the cheapest and go onto the most expensive method:

1) Spit – I know this sounds gross and unhygienic but well it is the cheapest solution to your fogging problems. Just spit in your lenses before you are about to swim, use your finger to spread the spit around and then simply rinse it with water or let it dry. Should last you for a few laps after which you have to repeat the procedure. Remember to rinse your mouth before you go swimming (else your eyes won’t be happy about it)

2) Baby Shampoo – This thing is dead easy. Just get a regular Baby Shampoo (I have only used the one by Johnson & Johnson). Squirt the liquid onto your lenses and then wash them a bit. Let the lenses dry and then use them. No more fogging problems.

3) Anti-fog liquid – This is the one that everyone recommends. And like you guessed its the most expensive option. It works, but yeah it costs a bit. In my quest to spend and pretend to be cool, I have this solution. It works like a charm (if you remember to use it regularly though!).