Change

It almost seems forever now that I have last blogged. Almost 7 weeks have passed by, and while my lack of updates might have indicated busier lifestyle, writers block or just simply boredom, it was anything but that. The last seven weeks in my life have not only been life changing at some level, but mind numbing too. At times I wished that so many things didn’t happen this fast, but I guess that’s life. For a while now I had been having inclinations that something was around the corner, I just didn’t know so many things.

It all begin with the India trip I took this time. A successful yet totally harried tour it was for me. It saddened me a lot that this time around I did not get to meet so many of my close buddies; heck I could not even call up a few of my friends due to my packed schedule. Given the guy I am who loves to keep in touch with friends alike, the fact that I was not able to even call up some of my close friends bothered me (and still does!) quite a bit. Nonetheless, I hope those friends will forgive me – next time around I will definitely do better.

Better I have to 🙂 While on one end if friends were away from my radar this time, there was someone else in life too. Someone special. Perhaps more the reason why I did not find the time to meet up with my friends. After months of chatting and a brief dating period, we decided to get hitched. Parents met, parents agreed, and it was set. I was almost disappointed that this being a love story, there were no fireworks on either side. Either I am that good, or she’s that good, or perhaps the parents saw that there was no hope for either of us, and we were better off together rather than alone. All in all though, it ended well. And now comes the waiting part of it, the planning part and finally the d-day.

I can’t say I am not nervous, but at the same time I am looking forward to it.

Hardly had I come back from India to United States, within a two days, there was some other news awaiting me. I was expecting the news, but I did not expect it so fast. And yet it had happened. Our company got bought out by another company. That was the good news. The bad news: they wanted me to move to another state half way across the country if I wanted to still work with them.

This came as a pleasant as well as a rude shock to me. I still remember talking about the company with my friends in my undergrad years. I had gone to their campus selection though I was not qualified because I didn’t have the required aggregate. Over the years, i always dreamt of working for this company, because it was one of a kind.

And here it was, the company of my dream, buying us out and asking me to work for them. And yet, I was sad about it.

Not sad because it was not a good thing; sad because very soon I will have to leave all my friends and relocate to a place I don’t know many people. Over the years, I had built my social circle around here whom I love being with. Without them, I did be homesick five out of seven days of the week. Friends who begin their life in grad school, moving to areas close by, eventually marrying their wives – it was wonderful setup. I was next in line to get her so that there was one another gal in the group. One other girl to gossip, and one other sacrifice as my friends would joke.

And yet, when i will be back with her, I will take her now to a different place, a different state, where even I don’t have many friends to speak of, much less close friends. After numerous promises of how awesome my friends are here, and how she would never feel alone here, she will now come to stay with me, as alone as probably as I will be.

I hate such changes in life, and I hate it even more that this change means I have to rebuild my entire life again. I hate the fact that after so many years with my buddies here, I have to be the one to move first, and go away to rebuild my life, all over again. I almost don’t want to.

And yet, I know it is right. I know it is the right thing to do. Change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go. I can’t let this opportunity go away. This is what I wanted for a while now, and perhaps the price of working at a place I wanted to for so long means I have to accept the change.

Hopefully it will turn out for the better. Though I dont have to move immediately, i start working this Monday for the new company.

This Monday, a long lost wish from my undergrad days gets fulfilled.

Back

I just can’t seem to sit tight on any theme. Maybe I just like the way my theme looks and feels – I personally feel that all that I need are in the right places in my theme – There is a lot of scope for visual enhancements, but overall, I like the way my theme looks. I think I am going to stick with it for a while.

Theme Change

Of all the new themes that I have tried out in the last couple of weeks, I have to admit, this is the best one of the lot I have liked. I am going to put it up for a few days – maybe study the code a bit and see if I can get all my usual stuff on this one…. it should be interesting 🙂 – keep you posted!!!

Non Stop Rants

Ever since the JeDI has introduced me to Non-Stop Rants, my blogging has come to an absolute standstill.

There is no reason to 😛 – Now I can rant away to glory in short simple posts. Yes, nonstoprants is Twitter with a desi twist 🙂

Thanks Jedi for inventing it.

Now that means, my this blog will be in hibernation for a while now!!!! 🙁 – Or, I need to find a way to merge my posts on nonstoprants to this blog automatically – ah – now that sounds like a plan 🙂

Meanwhile, u guys check out what we’ve been TP-ing about 😛

New Look, Anyone?

Ever since the Jedi told me that the current theme has been my longest running theme, and how its gone fat, I have been thinking about it quite seriously.

And I think he’s right – This theme has gone stale.I developed it months ago and it is now looking aged. I like the overall structure of this theme and where each should be, but i have a serious problem with the colors and overall look and feel.

I know I could do the improvising myself, but I find myself with absolute lack of time and too many things to do in my offline life.

So here’s calling all you web wizards out there! Help me! Tell me how should I improve this theme? Like the overall look, the colors, the font size etc etc.

I am bundling a 25$ Amazon Gift Certificate to anyone who can come up with a nice looking eye pleasing template based on the theme I have presently.

The things that I am looking for are specifically:

  • The template / look should be neat and clean. This and this are very gaudy in my opinion, while this is too simplistic for my taste. My tastes would be somewhere along lines of this or this (2 thumbs way up!), the latter being one of my personal favorites in the way the whole site is laid out, it being colors, font size et al. This would also classify as an excellent clean look.

  • I do not necessarily hate the way my website looks. I do know it is too blocky in nature. It does require cleaning up and structuring content properly. Hence, I don’t care where blocks go and live, but I did like to keep the current blocks in the layout.

  • No rounded corners / nifty corners or rounded edges. A little bit of Ajax may be fine :). I hate clutter on websites, and I certainly dislike websites which take more than 1 second to load. So it has to be light.

  • No photo streams of flickr etc. I like the rotating banner photo above, but thats about it.

Other than this, I have no serious qualms about the layout – use your imagination – feel free to move stuff around! But whatever it is, it should be clean and very eye pleasing!!

PS: I am technically competent with CSS and PHP, hence I am not expecting you to make a “theme” for me. I am just looking for the standard CSS, and the look and feel template of the site (perhaps a PSD, JPG or BMP files big enough, nicely labeled :)).

What are you waiting for – a 25$ Amazon Gift Certificate awaits you!!

A Beautiful Letter.

Yesterday I recieved a beautiful email about a post that I made some weeks back. It makes me feel very happy that this post helped someone in some way. Thanks for sending this email, Renu.

Hello !!

I have been reading your blog for sometime , and really find them interesting…well I am sure you must be getting lots of messages just to tell you all that…so will leave at that !
Actually – I just wanted you to know that I liked the post ” Starry -2 nights” – so much so that I copied and sent to one of my very young friend as he is really going through the bad phase….personal problems coupled with not so great results – he also I think flunked in his exams….he will not tell me how many subjects…and with impatience of youth feels that this is not the chosen path for him….! I felt as if I was not enough of a support system to him to bring him back to his usual self….so when I was going through the post – it sort of gave me impetus and I have sent that to him….considering your studies background…and now what you are doing …I hope he gets the message that “life just goes on” and these are just exams….a phase in a person’s life…

So wanted you to know this- I mean – I hope you don’t mind….( I mean I have done it….!!)

Thanks –

From India

Simplicity is the key

As you notice, there is a subtle change in my theme today. Its gone back to 800px width, and I have got rid of the sidebars. They were too “sidey” :D.

Nonetheless, I am begining to believe, based on my own preferences and perception, that Simplicity is the key. Hence this change to theme.

You come here. You read what’s latest. You scrawl down, and if you are interested you click on tags and see their respective archives. Really, that is all is required!

From now on, for couple of weeks expect some “simplicity” being thrown in. 🙂

Comments, brickbats welcomed 😀