My daily office commute

I was playing around with the "My Map" feature of Google Maps. Here is a map of my daily trip from home to office.

Dominos Pizza

We love Dominos pizza in my house, especially their Cheese-burst pizza.
On Sunday, we decided that we will get pizza for lunch. In the past, we
had ordered from Dominos Sarjapur Road for delivery. When I called them,
they took my telephone number and said that they are no longer
delivering to my area. I tried the outlets in Koramangala and BTM
Layout, but they too refused to deliver. The infuriating part is that
they deliver to HSR Sector 6&7, which is just a couple of minutes drive
from my place. I asked to speak to the manager at the BTM Layout store
and he gave me a story like how they recommend a maximum drive time of 9
minutes for the pizza to remain fresh. I asked, in that case, what
happens if there is a traffic jam, will you not deliver the pizza? Or
what if I take the pizza and don't eat it immediately? At that point, he
changed his line and said that the pizza would remain fresh for an hour.
I told him, in that case, my house is just another 2 minutes from your
delivery area, there is no other outlet delivering to my house, I am
ready to waive the free pizza offer if you don't deliver within x time,
just send me the pizza. Amazingly, he refused.
I promptly called up Pizza Corner, who delivered within 35 minutes. The
pizza didn't taste as good, but they got my 500 rupee order and Dominos
didn't. I'm planning to write to Dominos that while their pizzas may be good, their attitude to the
customer really sucks.

Monaco GP 2007

I am slowly getting out of the Formula One craze that I have had for the last 15 years. It’s not that I’m losing interest, no, far from it, but the desire to see every minute of every race is fading. Part of it is due to the live timing from the FIA, I usually have my laptop on during the race and qualifying and I find myself spending equal time on that that on watching the TV. Also, nowadays, the races have become so boring and processional, that especially after the second pitstop, you can just tune off and not miss anything.

The Monaco GP was as dull as the previous race in Barcelona. I think the Mclarens were great and the skill of the drivers were breathtaking, but let’s be honest, they was never going to be any overtaking there. Even Massa, I think just decided to cruise after the first pitstop as he saw that he had no chance of beating the Macs and there was no chance of Fisi catching him. Kimi was unlucky, if he had not had Nick coming up in front of him, he could have got 7th place.

I’ve read reports that the Ferrari was never going to be good at Monaco due to its long wheelbase configuration which is not suited for tight and twisty circuits like Monaco. The next two races in Canada and Indy will be different. I’m thinking now that Kimi is a rank outsider for the championship, it will be like a weight off his shoulders and he should really be able to unleash the raw speed that lies within at these two tracks.

Lucky engineers

Yesterday, I visited one of the engineering college campuses in Bangalore (a bit of a stretch, it was atleast 30-40 km away). For some strange reason, this college was selected, it would be a stretch to even place it in the third rung of colleges in Bangalore, but that's another story atlogether. We did not go with high expectations, but even then were amazed with the results. We were one of the first companies to come to the campus (this is for students in their 6th semester, who will be passing out in Aug-Sep 2008). Out of the 120 people who wrote the written test, not one of them got the 50% cut-off. We considered reducing the cut-off to 40%, but even then only 2 people would have made the cut-off. Disgusted, we called off the whole thing and came back.

There wasn’t too much of disappointment, as the attitude of many of the students was “So what if these guys didn’t pick us up, with all the huge expansion happening, we’ll definitely get placed somewhere”. Our salary at 2.75L was also considered to be on the lower side!!!!

I have to say that this batch of engineers are among the luckiest people on earth. They’re getting placed even before they complete their 3rd year at fancy salaries. And they don’t even have to be particularly good at whatever they do, such is the demand. I wonder how big their egos will be when they actually come to work and what the fate of the IT companies will be when they have to depend on them to get some actual work done.

Weekend movies

After a long break, we caught up on some movies over the weekend.

First, we saw Just Married, which is a supposed romantic comedy about 4-5 honeymoon couples in Ooty. There was hardly anything of note in the movie and the only thing of interest to me was how Easha Deol gets to act in movies. She is too plain looking, can’t act to save her life. Movie Rating: C-

Next up on Saturday was Spiderman 3. I had read a lot of reviews about how bad this was. I think that they got their inspiration from bollywood and tried to pack in everything, action, romance, heartbreak, many holes in the plot etc. The overall effect was disappointing, but then I don’t think they had a choice. They’re already on the third movie and they had to do something different. Hopefully, there is no Spiderman 4 for some time atleast. Rating: B-

On Sunday, we finally got around to seeing The Devil Wears Prada (I’d bought the DVD at National Market almost 3 months back). I remember people raving about Meryl Streep’s performance, but I don’t really understand why. The movie plot was so predictable, we could see where it was going 5 minutes into the movie. The only thing that held my interest was the absolutely fantastic print. The overhead shots of New York looked absolutely stunning on my LCD TV. Despite that, it was very disappointing. Rating C

F1 Spanish Grand Prix

After what seemed like an eternity, the Formula One season resumed in Barcelona. Like other F1 fans, I was eagerly waiting for the weekend, though on past record, I should have known that the race is usually a procession. And it was easily one of the lamest grand prix I have seen. Other than the first corner, where Alonso went off and a little after that, when he appeared to make a move on Raikonnen, there was a monotony to the proceedings. If Raikonnen had continued, I have no doubt he would have jumped Hamilton in the pits but it was not to be. There was also the possibility that Heidfeld could have got one over Alonso, but the wheel nut put paid to that.

The only other bit of excitement during the race was whether Heikki Kovalainen would jump David Coulthard by going for an aggressive 3 pitstop strategy. At that time, I was thinking that it is a brilliant move, but alas, it turned out to be a fuel nozzle problem.

Lewis now leads the championship and has the edge on Aonso, who would have thought of that a couple of months ago? At Ferrari, Massa seems to getting the upper hand on Kimi. Kimi really needs to work on his start, it is compromising his races and preventing him from showing his true speed. Mclaren and Ferrari seem to have pulled away a little from BMW. The other midfield teams seem to have made progress, especially RedBull. The grid appears tighter than ever before, but F1 must really do something about the racing

Long weekend in Ooty

The May 1 holiday on Tuesday made a long weekend possible, so we started planning on a trip. Vidya’s father had a timeshare that he had taken in the late 90s and had not been using for a while. He invited us to avail of it and looking at the hotel rates at Ooty, we were happy to accept this.

Ooty is around 320 km from Bangalore, a 6-7 hour journey. Rather than cover it in one go, I decided to split it into two halves. So, we set out for Mysore on Friday evening. The road from Bangalore to Mysore is just fantastic now, four lane all through and 6 lane at the towns along the way. The biggest challenge, as always, is getting to Mysore Road. As we had discovered the previous weekend, on our trip to Wonderla, it takes over an hour to cover the 15 odd kilometers to Mysore Road. I was suggested an alternate route on the partly completed BMIC Peripheral Road. So, we set out on Hosur Road till Electronics City and took the BMIC road from there. The road is fantastic, no traffic (atleast for now). The intersections at Bannerghatta Road, Kanakpura Road and Mysore Road are incomplete, so you have to take a detour. The Bannerghatta Road detour is really bad, but the others are not too much of a bother. Overall, I don’t know if we saved much time, as the route does seem to be a bit longer, but it was totally stress free and that’s a big plus when you’re setting out on a holiday. I only wish Deve Gowda and family would stop letting their personal interests hold the city to ransom and allow BMIC to complete the road, Bangalore would be much better for it.

We covered the distance to Mysore in around 2 hours. We stayed at a hotel called Ginger. This is a new budget hotel chain promoted by Tatas, which promises clean modern rooms at affordable prices. To do this, they cut down on the frills like room service. They definitely delivered on that, as the rooms are really good, spacious with comfortable beds, LCD TVs, wi-fi (not free!!!) everywhere. There is only one restaurant and they only have a buffet, it is somewhat high priced (175 for the buffet) but the food was good. Overall we had a very pleasant experience and I will definitely stay there again.

We set out to Ooty on Saturday morning. I was hoping to see some wild animals as we went through Bandipur and Mudumalai forests. However, they seemed to totally avoid the area around the roads and other than a couple of deer, we saw absolutely nothing. The roads in Karnataka were really good, except for a 20 km stretch from Gundulpet to Bandipur. Once we crossed into Tamil Nadu, we were at the Mudumalai forest. A well known secret is that you can cut the journey by almost 35 km if you’re willing to brave narrow roads and 36 hair pin bends and go though Mudumalai. The alternate route via Gundalur is much flatter. We decided to take the narrow road. The journey was quite uneventful, except at the ghats, where I discovered just how underpowered the Santro is. At the hairpins, I had to switch to 1^st to get any momentum going and avoid slipping backwards. To be fair, this was among the steepest roads I’ve been on, much steeper than Nandi hills or Yercaud where I’d driven before. This is probably one place where a diesel with its higher torque would be useful. All the low gear driving did tell on the mileage, when I topped up in Ooty, I found that it had just gone 14 km to the litre.

We had quite a time finding the resort in Ooty. It wasn’t in Ooty proper, but at around 7 km from the town, it wasn’t too far. The resort was beautiful, it was built on a hill with each cottage at a different level. The resort had definitely seen better times, and wasn’t maintained very well. The rooms were dingy with poor lighting and carpets falling apart. The cottages further up the hill were half complete and it did appear that only around 15 of the cottages were in use. In fact, the waiter told us that at peak, there were almost 45 staff and now there were only 6 people in total.

We had planned to go sightseeing on both days, the first day in Ooty and nearby areas and the second day to Connoor. We first went boating early in the morning. The experience was ok, it would have been nicer if the lake was cleaner. There is also a children’s amusement park, where we went hoping to persuade her to go on some rides. She flatly refused to go anywhere alone, just like she had done at Wonderla. We finally decided that it was pointless and proceeded to Doddabetta, the highest viewpoint. Unfortunately, it appeared that everyone in Ooty had the same idea and in India, if you put too many people together in a small area, chaos is inevitable. There was a massive traffic jam on the hill. As it was a narrow road, we could not do anything as vehicles were stopped in both directions. After almost 20 minutes, we decided like everyone else to just leave the car there and walk up the hill. We started off, but luckily after 15 minutes of walking, we could see the traffic clearing. I ran back and got the car and we drove the rest of the way. The views were fantastic, the area is very green and Coonoor is very picturesque. There was a viewpoint called Green Valley viewpoint, where you can see a valley totally covered with vegetation, which was beautiful. On clear days, you’re supposed to be able to see until Coimbatore, but we did not have any such luck.

We had a quick lunch and proceeded to the Botanical Gardens. The Ooty Botanical Gardens are quite different from Lal Bagh in that it is in a much smaller area but set on many different levels. As you enter, the view is absolutely magnificent, tall trees towering above you. Like everywhere in Ooty, it was totally full with people, but I’m sure that in the off-season, it would be a fantastic place to get some peace and quiet. By then, we had had enough sightseeing for the day and went back to the resort.

On Monday, we had planned to go to Coonoor but dropped the idea and decided to take things easy. I decided to take a walk around the resort and came across a small densely wooded hill. There was some kind of a path going into the jungle, which I decided to follow. Once I went in, I found that it wasn’t as dense as it had appeared from the outside, just a lot of trees and not much undergrowth. I went right to the top of the hill and got some really good views of the surrounding countryside. On my way back, I went off the trail and started to follow a few other trails, but they just went around aimlessly without leading anywhere, and after a while I decided to just head back. It was a really good experience, my first trek in many years, and left me wanting more. Maybe, I’ll join a trekking club and plan on atleast a few more soon.

After I got back, we decided to go to the Rose Garden, which supposedly had 2800 different varieties of roses. Like the Botanical Gardens, this too was set at many different levels, 5-6 in all. There definitely were a lot of roses, I didn’t bother to verify if the number added up to 2800. They all looked the same to me anyway. It was quite hot during the day, so we didn’t really explore all the different levels. On the way to the rose garden, we took a horse ride. Nisha was initially very afraid to get on to the horse, but after some persuading, she got on and enjoyed it quite a bit.

On the way back, disaster!!! Near the lake, there was a small traffic jam due to a bus reversing to park. As I didn’t want to risk anything, I went to the extreme left of the road and stopped waiting for him to reverse into the parking lot. The idiot, however, was only looking to his right and didn’t notice our car at all, despite one of his helpers banging on the side of the bus and me honking away. He made contact with the right front panel. Luckily, he realized right away and came to a stop immediately, before he could cause more damage. The damage was done though, after 3 years of no scratches and dents, I had a fairly big dent on the side and a lot of scratches. There were a lot of arguments with him and his helpers. Afterwards, we went and relooked at the dent and realized that the panel had just gone inwards due to the thin sheet metal and could be brought back to shape very easily. One of the bus passengers, who owned a workshop in Bangalore, offered to do it free of charge and also touch up the scratches. We finally agreed to it, after taking a security from the driver of a couple hundred rupees. I don’t intend to go to the workshop, but am hopeful that the repairs should not cost more than 200-300 at most.

We finished off by buying some chocolates and Varkey (a snack popular in Ooty) for both mine and Vidya’s teams in the office. The next day, we started off to Bangalore around 11:00 am and reached home by 5:30.

You hear a lot about how Ooty is totally commercial but I really ended up liking the place. It is crowded, polluted, dirty, chaotic etc etc, just like most Indian cities. But there is enough beauty just waiting to be discovered, if you're willing to go off the beaten path.

Photos on my Picasa web album

Ooty April 2007