Saawariya

Saawariya - a wasted efforts. Due to the other sold out box office movies, we were forced into this movie, just to come out disappointed by wasting our money on expensive ticket as well as on those much needed pop-corns to pass the time.

The Balcony - II

Here is Balcony-I.

Nightmare of booking air-ticket thru travel agent !

This was the worst experience I had, while booking the Air India ticket thru careless, stupid travel agent. First this fellow didn’t have any clue about the ticket after charging my credit card, which he didn’t bother to inform me for 2 weeks. When I followed up, he gave some ridiculous excuses, which just wasted my days. After speaking to agency owner he transferred the matter to another lady, who cancelled the previous ticket and recharged credit card for new e-tickets. All this was happening with in the last week of travel date, making you more anxious.

Due to the double charging of tickets, credit card was almost reached to credit limit. Finally when they’re unable to issue e-tickets, they issued old paper tickets, which were collected by friend on my behalf.

The big surprise was waiting for me on monday morning, when I saw only two paper tickets. After waiting for an hour for the opening of their shop, they said they issued one e-ticket for me and paper tickets for my family.

It was rather a simple task, booking a ticket ! but took plenty of phone calls then follow up calls and the painful one, i.e. checking your mailbox everyday for the delivery of tickets. It just adds up unnecessary stress during those vacation days.

Its just reminds me of the MakeMyTrip.com’s commercial ad.

On a same note, soon the paper ticket will become a collector's item. The global airlines body IATA has placed its last order for paper tickets, clearing the way for air travel to be based entirely on electronic ticketing from 1st June 2008.

a day without TV !

Our old TV suddenly stopped working, Not that we are much into TV, But having a not working TV in home makes you miserable . You never imagine that, you would miss it so much.

GoCakeGo

A special ordered one from gocakego

Edible - Delicious Celebration

It tastes much better than it looks !

Waiting and waiting …!

Most of September month went waiting for those few important letters, which were critical for out India vacation trip planning. Finally, when they arrived they arrived all together and patience paid off.

Using Microsoft Excel for Desired Inputs.

Every now and then you get requirement to produce ad-hoc report or data extract for given sets of excel data. User might provide you names, IDs for which he is expecting the results, but the problem is putting all that input data into your SQL queries in a way that it will fulfill the Syntax.

For ex.
SELECT company_id, address, city, state, country
FROM company
WHERE company_name in (('IBM','Oracle','Apple','Google','MicroSoft')

--List of names given by user (without quotes and comma separated):-
IBM
Oracle
Apple
Google
MicroSoft

It is doable when the list is small containing 10/20 items, But it becomes tedious & impractical to do it manually when list has 1000’s of items.
So while extracting such data yesterday, I found an easy and effortless way of achieve this thing using Microsoft Excel.

Here are Pictorial step-by-step instructions:



First Select the required columns (Cell)
Then using right click select the ‘Format Cell’ Option
Then use ‘Custom’ and Type as ‘@’, and click OK.

ICC World Twenty20 - India vs Pakistan

I hope after this win, We don't have to wait for next 24 yrs for the another world cup. Certainly, This win is precious for the India and will be treasured for the years to come. For me, I am just making a note here.

Bronx Zoo

Thanks to the corporate free tickets, It was economical to visit this Bronx Zoo with the family of four people.

We specially enjoyed the first ever Camel Ride and the Tiger mountain experience.

Thou due to late arrival, we couldn't cover the entire Zoo, but were able to visit the main attractions.

Family visit to NYC

This was a tiring family visit to New York city on the occasion of parents visit, by this time I've become a professional guide who can cover most of the NYC attractions in half a day starting with Grand Central, Park Ave, United Nation, Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, NYSE, Ground Zero (WTC), Time Square and Empire State and in the end serving the dinner in Indian Restaurant.

Chak De India (चक दे इन्डिया) !

A classic movie to treasure for, which are very rare to find in Bollywood.

Getting lost in Downtown Washington DC

And I thought only Capital Beltway was confusing, wait until you enter the Downtown area of Washington, D.C and it will be like a maze for the tourist traveler. Even thou I’ve been visiting this area for 5th time, I had hard time locating our hotel on Rhode Island ave at Dupont Circle.

Normally, Most cities have Streets mapped in X and Y axis but here in DC the diagonal avenues make the road network more complex. Just to get an idea, have a look at this Dupont Circle which is the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Connecticut Avenue, New Hampshire Avenue, P Street and 19th Street.

To make matter worst, while driving you have to also consider the “One way” or “Do not enter” signs. One time, I was almost entered into “One way” road before I realized the mistake.

Next day also, while getting out of the city, those Google map couldn't be helpful. Thanks to all those cabbies for much understandable direction.

Bottom line is, Washington D.C. can be awfully confusing and frustrating to get around if you're not familiar with the area. Here is a link, which advices you to get a good map, If you are heading to DC and also plan in advance to save travel time.

Visit PA - few unique attractions

This was one of the most fulfilling weekend trip, that I could remember of my all weekend endeavors.

The day started by visiting a truly unique attraction..."the Choo Choo Barn- Traintown U.S.A". As they claim "the Choo Choo Barn is like nothing you've ever seen !", true to the statement It was a really refreshing experience to see those detailed towns created with tiny animations.

The afternoon was spent riding the Strasburg Rail road in their Open Air cars, as the train tour was moving thru lush green scenic surroundings of the countryside and neighboring Amish farms.

After having a late lunch at the picnic area, we reached the Longwood Gardens for our last destination of the day. Being one of the premier botanical gardens in the US, It consists of 20 outdoor gardens and 20 indoor gardens within 4 acres. We had fun at the Italian Water Garden and Indoor Conservatory watching those amazing lotus, bonsai trees and exquisite flowers.

This is called Weekend Gateways !

another visit to Niagara Falls

This will be the 3rd one and hoping the last one. a quick weekend trip started at Saturday 06:30 early in the morning, reaching the Niagara Falls at 1:30 pm. At the destination, Most of the time was spent waiting in the long queue, thou everything was forgotton after completing the attraction. The food at Punjabi Desi Dhaba tasted more delicious due to the all tiredness.

On the return journey, we stopped by "Corning Museum of Glass". So now we know what exactly the Glass Museum is, when people talk about Glass Museum near Niagara Falls.

Last but not least, Most importantly this trip will be remembered for the first Speeding Ticket on I-390 for driving at 83/65 mph. It was a quite learning experience.