Evian

Vevey by night

The best way to get the flavor of Vevey is simply to wander, have a nice view of France from there during the night. A walk in its narrow Old Town alleys, enclosing the huge Grande-Place is a must to do there. On a Tuesday or Saturday if u r, you’ll find the marketplace packed with stalls – food, crafts, wine or all three. There is a huge pillared building dominating the square is the Grenette, or town granary, dating from 1808 and now housing the tourist office.

What else comes to your mind. Nestlé’s world HQ is there. A very nice building, looks very beautiful when its illuminated.

Had been there

At last my travel to Switzerland has come true. 4 & 1/2 days of trip with a feast to eyes.
Finally my dream has come true 4 days of cheer fun in Switzerland
Day 1 – late evening – travel from Grenoble to Vevey after reaching Geneva
Day2 – Trip to Evian & Lasanne with Natasha
Day3 – Trip to Zurich and to St.Moritz with Natasha & Indu
Day4 – Travel by Glacier express from St.Moritz to Brig and then to Interlaken, Night stay at Interlaken with Srekanth and famlily
Day5 – Travel to Schilthorn via Bern, Lauterbrunnen with Srekanth and famlily
Day 8 - Travel to India for 2 weeks.

See you all soon. Will be away from Blog for a while.

Gift

What you are is God's gift to you.
What you make of yourself is your gift to God.

Monaco by night

Monaco facing Mediterranean sea the had a lot to offer me. It's a sovereign and independent state, the Principality of Monaco has borders on its landward side with several communes of the French Department. The population of the Principality consists of 32,020 inhabitants. It lies in a narrow coastal strip.

Monaco is divided into five areas:

Monaco-Ville, the old fortified town, with the Prince's Palace, the ramparts, the gardens, the Cathedral and the Oceanographic Museum.

The Condamine, the harbor area.

Monte Carlo, created in 1866, named by Prince Charles III during his reign, hosts an internationally famous Casino, its great hotels and leisure facilities, some created recently: Larvotto beach, the Monte Carlo Sporting Club, the Boulingrins Gardens.

Fontvieille is the newest area of the Principality of Monaco and was literally created from land reclaimed from the sea. This man-made waterfront area features a harbor, stadium and sports complex, heliport, and a pollution-free industrial zone, as well as some shopping areas and the new Columbus Monaco hotel.

Moneghetti, the Ravoires and the Exotic Gardens (on the western border with Cap d`Ail).

Monaco Palais du Prince

Monaco-Ville, the old fortified town, with the Prince's Palace, the ramparts, the gardens, the Cathedral and the Oceanographic Museum we visited all this here. Shortly after our visit to Monaco the news was out that the Price Rainer died, this is the fort where they live. The change of guard is worth the visit. The F1 race there at Monaco needs a mention, that’s the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Monaco. I went to the official F1 shop at the entrane of the tunnel and bought some F1 merchandise. The beach there is really nice.

Monaco by day - The Condamine

The Condamine is the harbor area that is viewed here along with a partial view of Monte Carlo. This photo was taken from Monaco-Ville, top of the mountain. I stayed there in the evening along with Tina & Ioana there on top, for taking this view beautiful picture in the night. The best story starts here, all my Indian friends were tired so they all left early in the evening and then I stayed joined Tina & Ioana for the evening. We had a superb dinner and then leisurely walked to the train station just to know the last but one train we were supposed to leave is cancelled, so walked back to the harbor with some back up plans. Alex called in Ioana and offered to drop us back just in case if we don't have the last train also, thanks Alex for this. But luckily I got into the last train and came back to Nice and they went ahead to Cannes.

Another eventful month come to an end

This April has been an eventful month for me, My brother's marriage(younger one) got fixed, he had the honors of inaugurating Gudur gas station, my planning for the trip to Switzerland is done, I'm going to go by the Glacier express, a big dream come true. Another feather to the cap this month I got my promotion letter with my work permit getting extended till the December, Just 3 more dream places to go - Scotland, Greece & Norway .....Miles to go before I sleep, last but not least my birthday celebration. WOW I love this world, thanks to all of you for all the support and encouragement.

So next month a trip Swiss followed by a trip to India for my brothers marriage and back to France.

Largest ski area in the world Moutier @ Savoie

Do you know the largest ski area in the world?

It's none other than Courchevel. It's been for long I wanted to go here, Looks like its still going to be there as a dream as of now, with the close for this season.
The reason why I wanted to be there is for the airport that's there. The run way in that airport is at an altitude of 1941 to 2006m and the slope reaches from 18.5 % of inclination.

Now u know why I missed that place so much. Just went around Moutier watched the ville. The access to this place itself is a tranforming one, u need to travel through the tunnel to get access to this village. YES its a village, but of people speak English. Just take a 360 degree turn, you will just c mountains and only mountians. So what do we do? Just roam around and come back to Grenoble

This picture was in the local cow fair which was going on there. Any guess how much does this cow bell costs. Just a Euro 250(Rs.14000)


Inspite of so many unfortunate things the only consolation for the day is I watched one of the best race days in my life, I hope its the same for others. What a way to race, Schumacher started 13th after the qualifying. He moved up several positions early and reached the 2nd position. No one ever is capable of doing this, U can always expect him to do better after the pit stops. With many disappointing results in this season, he has come back with great vengence.

Fernando Alonso held off Michael Schumacher in battle which provided many excitment to win the San Marino Grand Prix.

Target - the landing point

Preparation Phase I

Preparation Phase II

Take-off Phase I

Final take-off

Flying

Set Your Goals BIGGER

Thanks Lux for this forward.

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population,fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats.They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price.

So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish.

So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies (still) put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state." Like the Japanese fish - "Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment."- L. Ron Hubbard Challenges are what keeps us FRESH !

Instead of avoiding challenges, jump into them. Beat the heck out of them. Enjoy the game. If your challenges are too large or too numerous, reorganize the challenge, team up, be resourceful and do not give up. Failing makes you tired.

If you have met your goals, set some bigger goals. Once you meet your personal or family needs, move onto goals for your group, the society, even mankind.Don't create success and lie in it. You have resources, skills and abilities to make a difference.

Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go!
Dream...Think...Create...Solve... Lead...Su(Ex)ceed

Back Packers

Good news is Jag is back. I had checked it only last week and I'm impressed the way he has re-designed.

About this picture, this was taken when Mugi, Indu, Niru, Gaurav & Natasha left for a 3 Nation - Italy, Greece & Switzerland trip. How can this bunch of back packers leave me like this and go on their trip...Miss u all and have great trip. It's me in the middle with a small bag, yes small in mind and action, weekend nothing much gr8 was done, I felt terribly sorry for some thing which I did. A post will follow soon on that..Does that indicate me of something else? Oh its okie.. I'm not getting older people, I need to blame it on my work, this had been keeping me lil busy with a lot of other activities.

Some quick statistics about the flying

PERFORMANCE TANDEM FLIGHT
# Drop from 1000 meters level from Saint Hilaire in vercouse mountain range
# Made a spin at 250 meters level for 3 meters for 45 seconds, this was just great - that's why I call it a performance tandem flight
# Longest lift at one stretch was from 630 meters to 780 meters
# Longest descend at one stretch was 75 meters
Perfect bull's eye landing

Jack I'm flying

YES I did it today, It's my Tandem flight and we were flying for 30 minutes.

Ultra-stretchy

This one is from Hum to me, couldn't stop laughing on "Ultra-stretchy" goals :-)

What's in a status message?

DSC02913
Originally uploaded by cvraman's.

Well, today I had put my status message on Jabber the internal messenger tool as To err is human, to blame it on someone else is more human, it was not meant to offend any one, just that I place some weird messages some time so that people get reminded of me and ping me. I had tum pinging on me and sharing this with me with his compliments
Tum Brilliant as usual...did you know I own the URL www.blamesomeoneelse.com
Hum No there's no page
Tum I was only joking, but it is true that in the same sentiment as your jabber status, I have joked with friends that I bought that URL for years. The goal being to take the art of blaming others to the web

GOAL

Birthday 16th April 2005 - for those who want to know my age

This whole event on my birthday was reminding of something life has offered / offering, around me I have such wonderful people wishing me good luck. It's not just the people around me on that day it's the whole bunch of people I know. I got a few calls and lots of e-cards thanks a lot to all of them. A special thanks to Gai, Indu, Natasha, Gaurav, Reuben, Niru, Adriana, Varun, Sergio, Mugi, Aks, Christina, Alex, Emil, Mike, Charles, Stef, Laura, KS, Birgit, Ioana, Na, Charlotte , Piia & Aline for making the day a more memorable one. The two funniest things happened on that day are #1 Indu and Niru had the cake and gift and they got struck in the lift and they where rescued by the firemen and thus they made their way #2 Adriana coming to my house and was about to ring the bell @ my house not knowing that the venue for the surprise has got shifted to a different location. Thank you all once again.

Birthday - All candle lights

This is how it started. It was a real surprise for me. This birthday I call it the best ever so far. At Indian time exactly at 00:00 hrs Gai buzzed me on messenger and wished me. It all started with that, she offered me a cake on the web camera, later went to sleep, its me not her. I was supposed to go for the Ice Skating class that evening, but due to very bad weather conditions I cancelled the plan and stayed back. This led to some nice interesting things. Indu, Natasha, Gaurav, Reuben, Niru, Adriana & Varun planned for a surprise thinking I will not be there at home. So this was lil disappointment to them as they had to change the plans.

This is after cutting the cake

Then I was woken up at 00.15 hrs in the morning and was asked to join at Reuben’s place. It was like a movie I walked into a room which was completely dark, with all candles around in the house and there on the table just the cake with candles around ..no one was there it was completely dark. I was standing and wondering what to do looking around as no one was there.

Natoooo preperation

Then I wait there wondering were all of them would have gone and suddenly people jump from all corners and wish me. If was very funny to c that Niru was hiding herself under the table covering herself with a sleeping bag. Then I was asked to cut the cake and they gifted me the sleeping bag and a camera tripod. Adriana presence was of great surprise to me. I missed Mugi so much at this time, and also wished my crush was there to share this happiest moment. We kept aside one dessert and lil cake for Mugi and then we enjoyed the rest and danced for sometime. Adriana taught me some more salsa steps. This dessert was prepared by Natasha which has the chocolate, friuts, icecream and wafers.

The Cake

Me in a sleeping bag -gifted to me

Cake that Adriana got me

Later in the morning Sergio joined the whole gang for an Indian lunch hosted by me. It was nice food prepared by me, trust me. This is the dessert that Adriana got for me.

With all HP Friends - on my birthday

Later in the evening went to an Indian restaurant with all the people in the photo from HP. We had nice food and it was a memorable evening too. They gifted me a nice Swiss army knife and a big toblerone bar. The whole restaurant joined our gang and sang the B-day song for me. Then we went to a pub there danced for a while and then again there all of them sang the birthday song.

Some people are missing in this.

Cannes By Night

Trip to Cote d'Azur started with a Red carpet welcome at Cannes. This is the highlight of the visit to Cannes. This was a trip filled with some lil sweet surprise, let me come to the surprise a lil later. Cannes has one the beautiful sand beaches here in the Cote d'Azur. The Palm Beach here was inaugurated in the presence of the Aga Khan - who fell in love with a girl from Cannes. This place is very ideal for sand beach lovers. You have all varieties of plants here, thanks to the British, they are the one who bejeweled this place.

In front of the International Film Festival auditorium

.

Cannes is more famous for its International Film Festival and the Golf festival also.
In 1939, the first International Film Festival opened with great solemnity... It was in 1946 that Cannes city earned the title Capital of Cinema.

Cannes - Hand Prints

Our visit started with a walk around the auditorium where the IFF is hosted. There are some of the hand prints of the famous film personalities.

Cannes by Dusk

We just went around admiring some of the Yatchs there then we headed to the Fort-Royal. We had to take a boat there to reach the Sainte-Marguerite's Island. This is the where my surprise was in store. The boat which we took was the last one to make the trip for the day and we hurriedly got into the that and we went up. There I see Christina, Ioana & Alex. It was a real surprise as Ioana mentioned to me saying that they are also planning for a trip to Cote d'Azur for the holidays. Its really amazing to know that they had also planned to visit the places we planned in the same order. Cannes on the first day, Monaco on the second day and Nice for the last day.

Cannes - On the way to Sainte-Marguerite

We decided that we will not plan anything for the next day, but if we are destined to meet then we shall. So after this quick meeting and one round of photo session we headed to the Fort-Royal, on Sainte-Marguerite's Island. This became a state prison in 1685 and played host to the legendary Man in the Iron Mask. We could not visit the Musee de la Mer to see the collections of underwater archaeology as we had very lil time there.

The Ile Sainte-Marguerite is the largest of the Lerins islands is found opposite Cannes. Here you will be surprised and won over by the peace and tranquillity that the island has to offer. This island offers wonderful strolls beneath the pines and eucalyptus along the many paths.
In the evening we came back to Cannes and then took a stroll in the beach there with a visit to the old city. From the top of the mountains this night view of the city was captured from there.

Sand beach Antibes - near Cannes

Antibes by evening

Journey end-less

Journey end-less
Originally uploaded by Venkata.

The good news is my own brother is getting married next month so I had to go and book the tickets to India, after check various options, I settled to get a ticket for Chennai by Lufthansa. For just being one day late I had to shell out additional Euros 80 for the same ticket, was cursing myself for not doing it earlier. This is ridiculous how they can do this.

London to Sun Valley

Ehhhhh I'm not talking about any new trip itinerary here, these are the names of some of the famous pubs here in Grenoble. Last weekend it was only filled with party, had to miss some for various reasons. Friday night it started with a birthday party at London pub and then on Saturdays we all gathered at Na's place for a fun filled evening. All of us cooked / bought something which is from their country. We played some games by name Murderer, Laura taught us this. Its an interesting one, later a few of us played poker.

Then the real event started by tasting food/drinks from all counties from Netherlands, Poland, France, UK, Russia, Bulgaria, China, Austria, North America & India, we missed Romania. Then after hogging, many of them started with the Bar Crawling. This is so much fun, I dropped out as I was already tired and also had to go for another lunch the next day. Bar Crawling is a fun activity, as the name describes we go from one bar / pub to another after gulping a drink in that place. At the end u will not be walking u will be crawling ...that's how the name goes.

18 to 3 in a day

Oh gosh, I'm not taking about Indian teams score here. It's about Grenoble's weather. Just in a day there was this complete swing from a moderate climate to this extreme, during the night its goes 4 to 5 below zero. There was snow fall this weekend as well. I thought all has come to an end but its sad to note that its reset again. Colder mornings, milder afternoons and freezing late evenings, so the weekend plan of going out had to be cancelled and we all changed the plan. On the whole the weekend was good, had to miss some invites as there was lot of fillers. This photo was taken some time back when I went out think of a trip in mind and saw this photo matching my mood.

Some humor in word with colors

Many thanks for your quick actions on this topic - in blue or black means it’s a compliment
Many thanks for your quick actions on this topic - This in red means an escalation

Can't ask for more in life

Yesterday was a perfect day. The day started of by talking with my best friend G, its after a very long time I was able to reach her on phone. Then at office it was a perfect day with move to production activities moving on smoothly without any problem, which was keeping me busy the whole of last month with no updates on my blog. The evening started with a perfect note, first it was my x-manager coming home for dinner. He gifted me a perfect bamboo twig, this is the one I want to buy from the moment I saw it first, later in the evening got a call from Indu asking me to join them @ local pub. SUN VALLEY as its know is a very famous place here. I like this place for various reasons, though I don't consume alcoholic drinks, I was always under the impression that pub is a place meant only for drinking. It's not thanks to the people who enlightened me. This is the only pub I had been and I like it a lot. This has the big screens where there display some extreme sports, which I like a lot. Some time they event host come local events also. Yesterday it was a show by the INP-Grenobles win over Rennes in some lot of sport activities. The pictures conveyed the fun the people had & to close the day I met my crush there in the bar. I was so happy to meet her there. Many a time u can get a glimpse of the pub with a live web cam here in the late evening u can access this.... U can watch this, no one is watching u, don't worry..no police will also spy u..
The picture here is the one where I went on for cycling last weekend.

G is for growth

Storage is an important part of email, but that doesn't mean you should have to worry about it.

As Gmail is to celebrate one-year birthday, they're giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GBs by giving you more space as we are able. We know that email will only become more important in people's lives, and we want Gmail to keep up with our users and their needs. From Gmail, you can expect more.

My God no stopping for them. Lil busy with work soon have to do my posting on the Cote D'Azur trip details. Sorry for keeping you all on hold.

U know what ...automatically started typing "Regards, Venkat" ..I need a break

Ski -> Salsa - > Scuba ?!?

No I could not make it to Scuba as it’s still winter here. Yes I had been to the French Rivera for good 3 days and had great fun with lot of new friends. Will post soon on my trip to Cannes, Monaco (Monte-Carlo) & Nice. We had a red carpet welcome in Cannes. I missed to take a picture of that, that’s the high light of the trip.

On a bright morning

Sessenage
Originally uploaded by cvraman's.

Morning meeting are good, but some time to early are also not good, considering the fact if you haven't prepared for the same. Many a time I prefer to have them early so that I could work the rest of the day with the action items. Yesterday was a very unique day. The weather was little gloomy and I had to go to one of the vendors place which is across the road. It was around 9 in the morning, When I was heading out I was stopped by one of my colleague and was give the following advice. You should not be heading home just because the weather is dull like this. It's the other way you should be walking. Just because it's dark it doesn't mean you need to go home. Your day is just commencing. I was not allowed to speak for a while. All I could help myself was with a smile and finally he stopped wishing me a good day. It's nice some times to hear someone cheering up like. He made my day.

TGIN-me-Today

Thanks God It's Not me Today. Every week in the cafeteria at least 3 to 4 people drop the water glass. I really enjoy the sound it makes, I understand how embarrassing it will be for the person who drops it. Every time this happen I thank god saying it's not me today. I'm so scared every time I go near that place during lunch. This photo here has nothing to do with the activity mentioned. This is very nice one I think so, so just added it here along with this entry

Birgit's Birthday

Birgit Birthday
Originally uploaded by Venkata.

Spring is finally here and its party time. Of late had been partying more frequently, and yesterday it was Brigit's birthday so one more reason. It was a nice Italian shop we went and had a great time. Happy Birthday Birgit.

Cycling - Spring time

After giving much thought last Sunny Sunday decided to go out on cycling trip. The whole week I was severely down with cough and cold, So took rest on Saturday and then on Sunday decided to go for a short cycling trip. We rented our bikes and after going for short distance my bike gave off. So had to put it in the tram and got it back to the shop & swapped for a new one. After some exhaustion we reached this place. I was more than tempted to step in the water, but resisted myself. The water was freezing, though the spring is in place, we still are facing the hardness of the winter. Over all the weekend was nice and refreshing. Here is the picture taken near the lake.

Ski to Salsa

With the harsh winter coming to an end so are my ski classes are also coming to an end. So now I need to think of some thing else for the spring time, Ok there was an offer for Salsa dance, jumped in registered for the class and the first class is also over. This is a very nice one considering the fact that u need to be in sink with u r partner thoughts and action. At first when I joined the classes there were like 20+ people and when the instructor taught the first step then zoom a few really did very well. I think I entered the HaLl oF sHaMe, I was dancing like Sandra Bullock in Miss Conginality when she was learning to dance for the beauty pageant. Later I came to know that many of them have come in for intermediate level and I’m in for beginners level. So this is one reason for me to console & moved on. Picked up a few steps and had to rush for some meetings. More steps later in till such time have a look here on the steps

Long way to update - Learning to SKI

It's been long since I had posted on this on the weekend plans. There a lot to write will soon will upload the photos and then do the posting.

At the moment I have joined for my SKI classes. Got a nice offer from my company at a very subsidised price. Great deal.

I had doing Ski on my own with the technique I learnt, but last week it was all different.

I had been to the Prapoutel ski station in the Belledonne mountain ranges.

Here are some info of the SKI resort

Les 7 Laux Prapoutel Altitudes

1050m	Max Vertical
2400m	Highest Run
1350m	Lowest Run
1350m	Resort

 

Following are the lessons learnt last weekend in addition to what I knew earlier

# Learnt how to stop (this was the biggest problem for me, I never learnt in earlier, now is better)

# How to control the speed (this is very dangerous if u don't know how to control, I had banged a few people)

# How to fall the right way when u can't control :-) to avoid an accident

# Learnt to make turns

(earlier on slopes I used to go cross, fall, then pickup the ski's, manage to get in and then go cross, fall again)

# How to stop when u r going in reverse

# Learnt to walk with the SKI's on

# Get into the SKI's when u fall in the middle of the slope (this is a trick really learnt, I had struggled for hrs. earlier not knowing this)

# The best of all - safely get into the SKI lift and go on and get out of the same

 

More later on the other lessons

Prapoutel - Green 2 Blue with extreme sporting

With the essential Skiing Equipment this weekend went on for the second ski classes and as the 6th time skier, set out for the fun on the slopes.

Marked Ski Trail - Piste

With Ski, Ski boots & Ski Poles went on to Prapoutel @ Les Sept Laux. First thing before getting onto Ski we took the chairlift from the base to the piste. Piste is the marked trail which is used for skiing. The various levels are

Green piste for beginners,

Blue piste for intermediate,

Red piste for senior &

Black piste for expert level.

A piste is a well maintained area in the mountains where the snow is treated, so that people can ski in those areas. The color coding is the one that defines the surface or the plane available for ski along with the inclination. The color coding differs for one resort to another, no two resorts will have the same color coding for the same type piste. It differs based on the level of individual expertise and resort level they are at.

Chairlifts

With the second day on the 3 day course I became an expert on Green piste and then headed for the blue piste. The best thing I always wanted to do I did that on the green. Having become expert on stopping, turning and learning to negotiating a turn I did try Ski Carving and succeeding in that I consider the greatest achievement.. This is the Ski Chairlifts we use to go from the base to top of the station.

free style skiing @ Prapoutel

This week after getting all this on the Green piste decided to head on to Blue. The first thing in all classes, our instructor takes all our ski poles and throws them & asks us to ski without them. This is right, that's how we realized why he wanted us to learn without them. U get a lot more control in free style, this is how u learn to control the speed. It's really amazing with just the Ski putting them in parallel u go forward, with the Snowplough position - which is an inverted V positing, u stop and leaning back in parallel ski position gaining speed and leaning forward reducing it and controlling the same.

T-Bar surface lift

We normally use the T-Bar to reach the top any piste and then ski down, here I'm taking the lift.

Ski trials

Now that we decided to go on Blue piste I did that with lot number of falls. The best thing was in the Blue trail I almost jumped across the barrier that separates the Blue to Red I almost ended up landing 50% in that. This is event that scared the hell out of me and after that descending on blue was more adventurous and also scary one. Next week we are going on this trial which is shown here.

Bird watching - Bohemian Waxwings

Jaseur Boreal

A sudden surge without precedent of Bohemian Waxwings, richly coloured birds, currently occurs in France and the reason why I tell u all is, its found in abundance in our company garden.

This event is serious, because this bird is not here by chance. It's known to announce the large cold and of disastrous news in the popular belief. Bohemian Waxwings come far from the forests of Siberia and Scandinavia. But since the beginning of the winter, the Jaseur Boreal, invade the French Alpine, plains & mountains, in the search of a more lenient temperature and for food. In a migration from Eastern Europe, they arrive by waves initially to Alsace. The ornithologists estimate now their population between 12000 and perhaps 25000 individuals present in Europe. Driven out by the hunger of the Scandinavian and Siberian, These birds move in an erratic way with the favour of bays of winter (wild or in the gardens) which they find on their way. These will be here in France until March to observe them, and from that date on they go up towards their sites of nesting. It's diet grows rich by fruits of winter like apples but in season of reproduction, it is insectivorous and decorates its food of spiders.

In the garden not just these birds were adding color to life, but there were other birds which were wearing colored dress also gives a pleasant viewing experience ;-)

Admire Me

Admire Me
Originally uploaded by Venkata.

Long way to update - Learning to SKI

It's been long since I had posted on this on the weekend plans. There a lot to write will soon will upload the photos and then do the posting, let me start here right now with last week and then carry on with the others later.

At the moment I have joined for my SKI classes. Got a nice offer from my company at a very subsidised price. Great deal. I had doing Ski on my own with the technique I learnt, but last week it was all different. I had been to the Prapoutel ski station in the Belledonne mountain ranges.

Here are some info of the SKI resort - Les 7 Laux Prapoutel Altitudes
1050m - Max Vertical
2400m - Highest Run
1350m - Lowest Run
1350m- Resort

Following are the lessons learnt last weekend in addition to what I knew earlier
# Learnt how to stop (this was the biggest problem for me, I never learnt in earlier, now is better)
# How to control the speed (this is very dangerous if u don't know how to control, I had banged a few people)
# How to fall the right way when u can't control :-) to avoid an accident
# Learnt to make turns
(earlier on slopes I used to go cross, fall, then pickup the ski's, manage to get in and then go cross, fall again)
# How to stop when u r going in reverse
# Learnt to walk with the SKI's on
# Get into the SKI's when u fall in the middle of the slope (this is a trick really learnt, I had struggled for hrs. earlier not knowing this)
# The best of all - safely get into the SKI lift and go on and get out of the same there after

More later on the other ski lessons

Cool software

Needs a broadband connection, other please excuse..click here

Strategy Specialist

A nice one to read & its priceless , that's what I liked the most

Dedication

Sachin

Here in this space I’m bragging about my intrepid travels, I credit this travel experience of mine to Sachin Pokle. I remember some time on a snowy day in Jan 2001 from Koblenz, which is called as Germany’s most beautiful “corner“. Koblenz is so called for the reasons that it has a very picturesque landscape of the Rhine and Moselle and surrounded by four low mountain ranges and its a 2000-year-old town. Deutsches Eck is the point where the Rhine and Moselle join and flow again. I would recommend the river cruise, or travel by train from Frankfurt to Koblenz or Frankfurt to Cologne via Koblenz. This is a journey one needs to undertake by train or river cruise or by road as this takes through numerous castles along the river side.

Ok on our trip to we made our way to Garmisch Partenkirchen and then to Zugspite. It was a wonderful journey. Today every time I go to the Alpine areas either for ski or for mountain walking it always reminds me only of Sachin. This trip was an awakening to the travel animal in me. Our journey was an adventures as we had to change some 7 trains to reach that place. When we landed there it was dark and we had tough time finding a hotel. That’s when I learnt from him how to plan for a trip and how to face the challenges that arise. From then on (touch wood) till today there is no stopping to the travels I undertake.

The next day we took the cogwheel train to the Schneeferner glacier on the Zugspitzplatt, to visit Germany's highest church and to watch the skiers in action. Eibsee is the first frozen lake I saw while going up, From the Zugspitzplatt station we took the glacier cable car to the highest peak in Germany at 2,962 metres.

Every time I meet people I have new experience to share. I always wanted to thank Sachin. There is no better way to dedicate him. He is my FPG (Friend, Philosopher and Guide). The learning I have made is great and wished I worked with him longer. Thanks to Guru also who had been asking me maintain a weblog of all the travels I make. Ok I recently bought myself a book from Lonely Plant series which was sent by Chandra with great difficulty. Will post more on its content as I read on.

Interesting to read on - Lalu

I was reading this article "Trying to Unravel Puzzle Lalu"
Lalu is a master at selling dreams. At one meeting he says, "Ab kam ke badle chawal aur tana tan paisa! Ab Dilli par kabja hoi gava (You will now get foodgrains for work and cash too. I have captured Delhi)" - Does it mean he still says to people that they will have to work in Bihar only and they will only get food grains and sometime cash too ;-)

So sad for the duck