Last Christmas, we were in Nagercoil celebrating something and also so we could finish off Ayden’s baptism. Stories are many from that trip, but not all can be told publicly .

One of the best memories from the trip is the following picture taken with Ayden, Dad and Granddad along with me. A very rare picture which I had never imagined in my wildest dreams.

Both my grandparents from my dad’s side of the family are still alive and reasonably healthy at almost 90 years of age. They were extremely happy to meet their great grandchild.

Below is my grandmother holding Ayden in our ancestral home.

And most of all, my brother Eddie got married after Christmas. It was a wonderful affair in Tuticorin and a reception in Nagercoil. I wish him all the best in his new life.

To the left is Sandy, a cousin of mine, and to the right is my sister-in-law Anusha’s  mom.

Altogether another great Christmas and end to an awesome 2010! Yes, I am offering my belated New Year 2011!!!

3-4 of years ago, a friend in IBM took a photo of mine to his friend. This guy did a free style cartoon of the picture I had given using a ball point pen. I had gifted that to Nafisa, which I saw again a few days back, prompting me to blog about it.

This guy is really really good (not necessarily me, but the guy who painted… hehehe).

And the original below.

A little late I know, but the pics were just lying around and so…

There were showers of blessing that day, and badly ringing ears. We could hear firecrackers going boom all day and night.

Some crazy settings with my camera I suppose, and hence the light delay in the photograph. Cool effect.

A picture of one of our rockets taking off…

And some lights . UFO?

Thursday, Apr 2nd, 2009: 1:30 PM

Anoop and I were at Yeshwantpur railway station and we boarded the Sampark Kranti Express 2629. We were off to the Delhi NCR IndiBlogger Meet 2009. Ah, only if life was so simple.

Unfortunately for us, only at the station did we know that we were still on the waiting list and our names weren’t on the confirmed list. Oops. Anwin’s list of unlucky escapades with trains continue. Earlier incidents here, here and here.

And, after a lit bit of deliberation and a lot of phone calls to and from Renie, and after consulting two contradictary TTEs, we boarded the train onto 3rd A/C with a computer printout for a ticket. All went well until after about an hour when the TTE comes and asks for the tickets. We somehow managed to elicit a bit of sympathy and understanding from the TTE (along with a couple of other passengers in the same compartment) and we were given berths. Ah, only if life was that simple again (sigh!). Unfortunately, the TTE could only give us berths until Pune after which we will be at the mercy of the next TTE. Damn!!!

Friday, April 3rd, 2009: 11:00 AM

The next day we all got a bit apprehensive and decided to consult the next TTE. And, believe it or not, we showed our faulty ticket to the ONE person we really shouldn’t. He he he he he. If you haven’t guessed it yet, it was the Head TTE. He was very nice to us and asked us to pay a reasonable amount which was the fine plus the ticket fare to Nizammuddin Station. Fair enough. Except, we have already learnt that life is not that simple. Right? So, as usual there was a slight problem to the solution. We could only get seats in 2nd class sleeper and no A/C. Ha ha ha ha ha. But, the upside was that it wasn’t too bad a journey at all. We slept well and reached Delhi and then our hotel peacefully. And Renie joined us at the hotel.

Saturday, April 4th, 2009: After 2:00 PM – The Delhi NCR IndiBlogger Meet

When we reached the Microsoft office at DLF, Gurgaon, we had a pleasant surprise. The meeting hall was quite roomy and had a very nice ambience. We could see the blogger meet unfolding before our eyes as we took in the room.

With all things setup we found bloggers strickling in one by one and in groups. There was this blogger called Ankit who had come quite early, in fact, he entered the hall with us. We did meet 4-5 bloggers from the previous Delhi meet, like Kinshuk from OSSCamp and Desperado. And the Delhi Bloggers Bloc was represented, including twilightfairy.

Pic – Anoop flagging off the meet

After a few tweaks we had the Delhi NCR IndiBlogger meet going. This was the first time that the IndiBlogger team had put up an IndiBlogger presentation to start the meet. Renie, for IndiBlogger.in, talked about our inspirations and how the open source community and the bloggers have been the most supportive of our endeavor.

Pic – Renie talking about IndiBlogger

The next was the ever popular ’1 minute to fame’. Every blogger had time to talk about her blog and what they were passionate about and blog about. There were quite a few laughs. But the big prize for humor went to Mr. D Ravindran who had quite a few jokes and funny anecdotes to share with the Delhi blogging crowd. He had the whole hall of bloggers begging him to stop. Yes, he was that funny.

Pic- D Ravindran talking about his blog

And then we started the ‘Live and Let Comment’ thing where everyone had to hang a chart paper over their backs so that people can come and comment on the physical ‘blog’. This was also an IndiFirst for the IndiBlogger team. We wanted to try this novel way of getting the bloggers introduced between themselves, network, learn about other blogs, etc. And boy we enjoyed it. I speak here as a blogger rather than and IndiBlogger. I loved speaking to and commenting on the ‘blogs’. After which we gave away some T-Shirts as prizes. Mr. D. Ravindran got one for being the funniest blogger, and some others for quite a few incidental reasons like the person who could find the first spelling mistake in their blog posts.

And then the session on IE8 by MS started. This was a very refreshing session with a lot of feedback, criticizm, apprecation, skepticism and understanding. I now check that there even has been a couple of reviews on the meet and IE8 as well. Nice.

pic – Abhishek from MS

After the IE8 session, Twilight Fairy – a blogger from Delhi and a founding member of Delhi Bloggers Bloc, started the Social media & its copyright aspect session. This was an eye opener for a lot of bloggers at the meet. Twilightfairy and a few others were very vocal about the fact that not everything on the internet is free. The discussion went on to discuss what is legal in using other people’s views, pictures, videos and other material from the internet.

And then, we broke up for some pizzas and lots and lots of soft drinks and coffee. And the networking.

Pic – Kinshuk

To wind up Kinshuk from OSSCamp spearheaded a discussion on how ‘blogging and social media can be effectively used for internal communications and encouraging an open environment for all types of organizations – startups, hospitals, corporates, etc. This was another kickass session with all the bloggers joining in and discussion their views. Finally, it was concluded that blogging and other social media could be a very efficient channel for encouraging open communications within an organization.

Pic – The last photo at the meet

Find reviews on the meet at IndiBlogger

And then the IndiBlogger team met with the Delhi Bloggers Bloc at Cafe Moccha. Hmmm… nice place, especially since they had so many books lying around. I managed to read Asterix in Britain there.

Then we went back to our hotel where we kinda started another one of our ‘inspirational’ sessions that lasted until 5 in the morning. After which we left for the railway station. And we traveled another 40 hours to reach Bangalore. Damn, that train is a bit slow.

And, it was good to be back in Bangalore after 5 days of traveling and a Delhi Blogger Meet. Until next time, it is goodbye from Anwin.

Another pic:

Attended Naveen’s wedding at Mangalore. It was great. But more on that later. This post is about me and how I prayed at St. Aloysius Chapel in Mangalore. Ok…not much of a but a picture really.

Hehehe…I know. Sacrilege.

But fun apart, the chapel was amazing with beautiful murals all over the walls including on the ceiling. It was like walking into a dark ages catholic “cult” chapel. Only the priests in robes were missing. But in my imagination I could see.

Before visiting the chapel we had also visited a temple, but the name eludes me. All I know is it was in Kadri and goes something like Manjunateswara temple of something. We were told to visit the caves which were supposedly awesome. I am really not sure if we were at the right place, but you can see Renie inside one “cave”. Hehehehe.

The huge Hanuman in the temple apparently trained along with Arnie (Arnold Schwarzenegger).

The temple was also quite interesting. My whole point in visiting these places was to know a bit of Mangalore history. The monuments hold a lot of history and culture in their walls and sculptures. Quite interesting.

And then, of course, one picture of Nafisa and I to close the post.

Oops. No. One more pic please.

“Jesus Loves you all”

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