T oday I lost my beloved cat SOTA. She was not a cat but a baby to me. I had seen her grow up from a kittten to a mother in the last 3 years.No matter what I do in my life her loss can never be made up for. She had been ill for the past 6 months owing to a bite injury but seemed to recover in the last 2 weeks. In a single day a deluge of vomits succumbed her.She was a very cute, cuddly, swee...

Located 10 miles from downtown this hike offers spectacular scenery of Lake Superior. It's most famous for watching migrating birds in Fall. Hawk ridge has lots of criss crossing trails. I happened to walk on Amity trail.

This is a rugged 2.5 mi loop hike. It's located in the middle of the city and you won't notice it easily.

I am updating the blog after a long time as I had lost interest. But hiking has revived my interest in blogging. I am planning to cover all trails around Duluth before the end of this summer and put some pictures up here. Mostly I will do picture updates only.

I am updating this blog after a vey big haitus. It's time for celebration for me as I acquired 2 certifications in the summer. SCJP and SCJA. The logo at the right is from the SCJP certification.

My second love Java got a great overhaul last year with J2SE 5.0 ( codenamed "The TIGER") releasing and revolutionizing the Java world. Here is a poem that tells the new features in "The Tiger". /* Included comments are mine and not by the author. */ The Tiger By Dr. Joshua Bloch Tiger, Tiger burning bright Like a geek who works all night What new-fangled bit or byte Could ease the hacker's weary plight? /* Generics */ To the most despised cast We'll bid a fond farewell at last With generics' burning spear The need for cast will disappear /* Enhanced for-loop for collections */ While Iterators have their uses They sometimes strangle us like nooses With enhanced-for's deadly ray Iterator's kept at bay /* Autoboxing and Unboxing */ When from the collections ints are drawn Wrapper classes make us mourn When Tiger comes, we'll shed no tears We'll autobox them in the ears The int-enum will soon be gone Like a foe we've known too long. With...

T his program was telecasted yesterday. You can download the file from here http://rapidshare.de/files/1433467/oprah_med.wmv.html

The Stud Powered by Hello T his photo was published by using Hello and Picasa2 , Google's free picture viewing/editing and picture uploading softwares. BTW it's me at Navy Pier Chicago .

S imilar to Google alerts but more bigger in scope is the RSS feeds technology. This allows users to specify RSS enabled website URL's for news , blogs etc and as and when these sites get updated the data is sent to the user desktop. In short you don't have to visit these sites again and again. A good aggregator ( the program that's used to get the data from the sites) is Abilon . for eg if you download and install this program just enter this URL http://kedarbhumkar.blogspot.com/atom.xml . All my blog contents would be delivered on the desktop automatically as and when they get updated. A new variant of RSS feeds allows music to be "POD"casted. That is you can access such music using i-pod for free. However it still is in it's infancy

Can you see my BlogMap on the R.H.S ? This is a cool feature developed by a guy Chandu Thota and available for free from http://www.feedmap.net/BlogMap/ . Besides displaying your own location you can also also search for blogs within your geographical area . A good example of a simply outstanding idea.

God Google has come with a new service Google Alerts. It basically accepts a search term as input and sends you e-mails for a specific time period on that term. Eg You can enter Pope John Paul and Google will send you updates on this . Appears to be an interesting feature.

Along with V.D .Savarkar one person I admire the most in the great Indian freedom struggle is Netaji Subhashchandra Bose. It's amazing how a single man with limited resources amassed an entire army of volunteers and waged a war against the British empire. If he was alive before 1947 Hindusthan would have never got splintered into Pakistan and India. It's a great news that a film Bose:The forgotten hero directed by ace film maker Sham Benegal will be releasing soon. Already the music by Rahman is a rage all over. http://www.musicindiaonline.com/l/17/s/movie_name.7516/ One of the greatest mysteries is over the death of Netaji. General belief is that he died on Aug 18, 1945 in a plane crash on Farmosa island in Japan. But this story has never ever been corroborated. Alternate theories suggest he was captured by the Russians and taken as a prisoner and that he eventually died in a prison there. One of the most astonishing stories is of the Gumnami baba. This baba from Ayodhya who...

I just finished watching the new hindi film Karam. A John Abraham action flick. I had high expectations from this film after watching the trailors and reading the story line. But was disappointed eventually. Karam is a story of a contract killer played by John Abraham . He accidently massacares an entire family and repents. He decides to call quits to the killing job. But his boss kidnaps his babe Priyanka Chopra and threatens to kill her if he does not hit 5 targets in 48 hrs. The film is inspired from Kill Bill , Desparado , Matrix, MI:2 and other John Woo action flicks. The film is very stylish like Musafir but lacks the punch to become a hit. At times the characters look shallow and story slows down in the 2nd half. Recommended only to John Abraham fan. Next week another blockbuster is gonna hit the screens Tango-Charlie. But I am waiting for Sunny Deol's Jo Bole So Nihaal which will release on May 13.

Many hindi film are inspired from south Indian movies. Rather the original south movies are re-made with the hindi masala added in it. Most of the times the music is not altered. Because it's already a huge hit down south. Today I searched for few Hindi films which had chart bursting music and whose music was inspired from the south movies on the same theme. Here's a list and link to musicindiaonline.com for listening to them. Saathiya Alai Payuthey ( Tamil) , Sakhi ( Telugu ) Yuva Ayatha Izuthu ( Tamil) Rehna hai Tere dil main Minnale ( Tamil ) Although it's impossible to understand the lyrics of these songs the tunes are familiar and make up for enjoyable listening.

I spent the entire day today sleeping and surfing as I am still ill. Saw 'Masti 'again. Got bored watching it the second time. While surfing I found out this Table Tennis game. http://www.miniclip.com/tabletennis.html I play quite good TT in real life so this game was a piece of cake for me. However it was difficult to beat the 'Forrest Gump' opponent . Here are my scores against all the 3 opponents. Ti-hae ( Korea ) 12 - 10 , 11 - 9 Ben Scott ( England) 4 - 11 , 11 - 8 , 13 - 11 Forrest Gump (USA) 11 - 7 , 11 - 8. I would recommend this game to any TT fan out there.

Bombay March 12, 1993. 13 serial blasts go off on the entire length and breadth of Bombay within 2 hrs between 1.00 pm amd 3.00 pm. The death toll is massive.At last count 256 people are dead 700 injured and losses upto 1 billion Rs. Pakistan sponsored terrorist and gangster Dawood Ibrahim and his primary hencman Tiger Memon planned and carried out these attacks. The explosives were smuggled into India via the gold route of Dubai - Sreeharipatnam located on the southern part of Bombay. The bombs were planted in scooters and taxis were time delayed. Major Hindu populated areas were targeted . The bombing was done to avenge the riots which erupted in Bombay in Dec 92 and Jan 93 after the forceful demolition of the Babri Masjid. Till today the prime culprit Dawood Ibrahim is absconding and is believed to be in Pakistan . It's really sad that even after 12 years India's enemy no 1 is still alive. Spineless Indian govt's of the past and the present have done nothing to bring him...

Lab sessions were cool , went smoothly.However only few guys turned up for the day. One of the students informed me that a guy shot a judge in a court in Atlanta and ran away from the court. And I thought such things happen only in India. I distinctly remember when I was young how a convicts brother had threatened my dad . My dad's a judge and passed a ruling against this guys brother who was accused of molestation. The enraged brother wrote a letter threatening to blow up the courtroom. My entire family was provided with security. 24 hrs a day armed policeman used to be in the house and wherever we used to go. This lasted for 3 days before that bastard got apprehended. In the evening I went out to watch Ocean's 12 . Disgusting , pathetic movie. I ran halfway from the theatre. The only thing I liked about it was the scene where George Clooney and Brad Pitt are watching T.V . On the T.V they showed a clip from 'Happy Days' my favorite serial. I saw Fonzi and Richie afte...

Bloody! I have to get up at 7.30 tomorrow. I have to conduct 2 practical sessions back to back from 9 am onwards. Then attend a seminar on Network Security. Hopefully if I am well I can catch a movie in the evening. They are showing Ocean's 12 at the college. Life is seriously getting dull . I hate to be ill. The worst thing of being ill is getting confined in 4 walls which I hate very much. For the past 4 days I have not been on the lake. That's my favorite spot in Duluth. Reminds me of Bombay. I use to sit besides the ocean on the rocks for hours watching the waves and ships pass by , planning my future. Here we don't do much on weekends due to work and generally people are not willing to go out and have fun. Lets see how tomorrow goes.

T his is my first post ever . Must tell you why I decided to start a blog . I am ill for the past 4 days and its getting kind of frustrating sitting and sleeping doing nothing. It's like you are in a jail. Sitting alone, no one to speak to. Despite being ill, today I went to the college and I accidentally found out 'Brother' Anoop's blog. I read it for almost 2 hrs. After reading his blog I decided I will start my own. I don't know if anyone has time to read what I write . But in case you are reading this I am extremely grateful to you. I plan to write abt interesting events that I see and observe in day to day life as well as philosophical perspectives that I get into many times. Hope this journey won't be boring to you as well as for me.