Theme Change!

Yet another theme change, with my intention to moving towards minimalism. Here is the gist of this theme change:

~ I wanted to move to really minimal design. I am tired of information clobbering up pages. Web 2.0 is great and all, but I am almost annoyed these days whenever I visit websites to see them so full of information and blocks all around. I want to go back to old days, where the page is simple, fast to load and clean. I think I am ready to look beyond today’s web designs.

~ The theme change itself isn’t that dramatic. I just modified my old theme a bit and made it a 1 post theme only. Now, this is as bare minimum as I want to keep (Notice, there is still a category drop down. I am in half a mind that to pull it too!).

~ I am done with Adsense / Textlink or any other forms of advertising. I have reached a stage in my life where I don’t want Google or any other company to dictate how I put my information on which page. This is my webpage, and I will put stuff the way I deem fit. I am done with page ranks, SEO, adsense and all that jazz. If anything I will use my other web playgrounds to test with those technologies. This website is purely going to by personal web stop.

~ Care for the user. I am not a popular blogger and nobody realistically goes back to read my archives. I have no desire in knowing how many people follow me anymore, nor do I care about which areas of my website do they click. All things said and done, majority of my users read only latest posts, which is what they will get on front page from now on. My regular and faithful readers who do wish to go back in time will definitely know how to do it 😉

~ Readying for a photoblog. Eventually I want this theme to extend itself as a photoblog + blog framework. Hence the desire to move towards single post / nothing else look.

This theme may change over a period of time in the next few weeks. For now, the basic layout of this will remain. Lets see how far in minimalism can I get without just vanishing content of my web page hehe!

Randomness



Golden Gate, originally uploaded by suyogdeshpande.

Since I haven’t really blogged in a while, here’s a photo from our Golden Gate trip few weeks ago.

This also serves as a test post to test Flickr / WordPress sync up.

Better yet, it would be great if Flickr allowed me to batch select photographs and send it to a post. Perhaps there is a way – I must find out. If there is, then another photo post is on its way 🙂

Added a Captcha!

This was long coming. Though I have been toying with idea of captcha for long, I only could do it now. Anyways, the captcha is a simple question – and hopefully, you my dear readers know the answer. Now with combination of Akismet and Captcha, I will reduce the number of spam comments on my website.

By the way, if you get the answer wrong… may the dark lord help you!

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.

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 😛

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