One of my friends in his absent-mindedness (he was thinking of his girlfriend presumably. the reason for leave prove this beyond doubt), sent this leave request to our manager

"Owing to personal reasons I will not to come to able to attend to office work on Monday, the 2nd of May. Please oblige."

We laughed and laughed and laughed over this for a while. He noticed this after he sent the mail and went "Holy $#@!^&"

:) A little laugh soothes all the madness the day brought with it, doesn't it?

Did you watch the San Marino Grand Prix? You didn't? :-( You missed what must be Michael's best ever race.

Ferrari is back and so is Michael. Starting at 13th place on the grid, with what seemed a fully loaded fuel tank, Michael finished 2nd. It was not just strategy at work, it was the magic of Schumi.

I was depressed at the start of the race when I saw that the first Ferrari was 9th on grid. Infact I dozed off during the first 20 laps or so. When I woke up Rubens was out and Schumi was still stuck behind the slow cars. Little did I know that I was gonna watch the most hair-raising race ever.

With a lot more fuel on the car, Schumi made up a lot of places with pitstop strategy. He was at a blistering pace before his first pit-stop. Infact he caught up with Button before Button could make his first stop. With Button out of the way, Schumi put in some insiring laps before getting into the pits. He came out at the 3rd position, but started chipping 2 seconds off Button's lead every lap.

By the time the second round of pit-stops started Schumi was in Button's rear-view mirror. Button stayed out for a little longer before pitting, thus allowing Schumi to overtake him in a excellent show of f1 wizardy. I went berserk when I saw Schumi's maneuver. The master was at work and he nonchalantly put Button behind him in a stunning display of confidence.

Next on the list was Alonso. With 20 laps remaining Schumi caught up with Alonso too. Alonso is every bit as inspired a driver as Schumacher. Alonso's tactic was simple and effective - Slow down and control the pace. Alonso finished 0.2 secs ahead of Schumacher. A great drive and a great show of cool from Alonso. But nothing can take away the fact that Michael showed what he is capable of and why he is undoubtedly the *best* f1 driver today.

Michael is back and with what a bang!!! It was only the second step on the podium but the Tifosi are happy to see Ferrari back in business!

Yep, 1050 kms in 2 wonderful riding days.

Day1 (16/APR/2005): Bangalore - Mangalore - Kundapura - Maravanthe (beach) - Kundapura - Maravanthe - Kundapura.

Best part of the day, Maravanthe beach under a silver moon at midnight. Breathtaking beauty. And Shetty's Lunch Home Chicken Ghee Roast. Yummy!

Day 2 (17/APR/2005): Kundapura - Maravanthe - Murudeshwar - Honnavar - Jog Falls - Tumkur - Bangalore.

Jog had very little water, but the cascade made by that little water was awesome. I definitely have to visit Jog when it is in its full glory.

Pictures will follow as soon as they can.

Tired. But a happy tired feeling. :)

Photos from the Madikeri trip have been uploaded here: Imagestation. I guess I've managed to introduce camera-shake into almost all photographs. Time to get a tripod. There are a few more snaps, but the film-roll is not even half-way through, so that's gonna take sometime.

By the way, have you tried Picasa. It's open-source, it's free and it's a damn good photo organizer. Just take some time to read the help files, lest you overlook or overuse some feature. :) It's from Google.

My collection of photos is growing. I think I will need to beg/borrow/steal a DVD burner to make backups. I dread a HDD crash.

Are you bored with MTV and Channel V? Do you hate the runs and re-runs of mind-numbing
Bollywood jatkas and remixes? Here is a music channel that you just might like. vh1.

Non-stop international music. Yeah, they play boy-bands too :(. But hey no pain, no gain. No veejays to spoil your mood. Not too many ads to make you go berserk. And definitely no serials (what was MTV thinking?). Infact their celeb-watches are fun to watch too. Yep, the songs get repeated, but that's part of the game.

Things might change later, but until then chillax and rock to some good music.