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

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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