I welcomed 2007 in one of the most perfect ways I could – my band Serenity rocked out a New Year’s party gig with an impressive setlist covering Gn’R, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, RHCP, Pink Floyd, Dismember among others.

- The first good news of the year came in the form of an opportunity to move back to the US for a job.

- Close on the heels of the good news followed a personal tragedy. Lost my grandma after a long illness. May her soul rest in peace.

Arrived in California in February and the year since then has been one interesting journey!

- Formed another band and for the first time, put down the bass guitar and took up full-time drumming duties.

- Got myself a pure white Pearl drumkit that recently has been christened “Bianca”.

- Went rock-climbing for the first time and absolutely loved it.

- Went for an alternative rock concert with a EL (this guy is quite a character!). After fighting through traffic and finding parking, I realized that I had left my tickets at home and had to drive back and fetch them. Luckily didn’t miss a lot.

- Got my first sportsbike, a gorgeous, 600cc Honda CBR F3 Smokin’ Joe’s limited edition.

- Met some really awesome riders and had a great time riding through the streets and mountains of Bay Area. The riding community is almost like my new family.

- 3 months and 2000 miles later, sold my bike for more than what I bought it for (I know…I should be working at the dealership!)

- Attended Ozzfest and saw Hatebreed, Lordi, Lamb of God and Ozzy Osbourne perform live!

- Saw Dream Theater perform live at Berkeley. Watching Mike Portnoy (drums) and John Myung (bass) was a dream come true.

- And to top it all, saw Rush perform live. For a drummer, there is no better experience than watching Neil Peart live in his elements.

- Met Oz and the PFC junta in OC and it was one hell of a party.

- Had an adventure on the freeway on my way back (read my older blog entry about the same)

- Met my childhood friend A and had an awesome time with his kids in OC.

- One of my closest friends PT came to the US for a month on a business trip. I went to Disneyland with her and though she didn’t particularly enjoy it, I had a total blast as I got to be a kid once again for a day. Yay!!

- Was treated to some delicious home-made desi food on a couple of weekends when my maushi (aunt) was in town visiting her son.

- Started working on an original Hindi rock band project with a guitarist friend. The project didn’t take off but I made a new friend nevertheless.

- Had the most boring, disconnected conversation of my life with a girl who got in touch with me through a matrimonial site.

- Made a trip to the Big Apple and spent a nice weekend with my wonderful sister K.

- One of my best friend J had an absolutely adorable baby boy. Eagerly waiting for her to return to the US.

- Learnt to swim! Now if only I could be a little more regular and go swimming often.

- Played my first gig as a drummer with my new band The Joy of ESX (NO, there are no typos!) covering songs by Gn’R, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Poison, Dire Straits, etc.

- Met Nishikant Kamat (of Dombivali Fast fame) and Madhavan at the preview screening of Evano Oruvam, the Tamil remake of Dombivali Fast.

- Went to Austin, TX and celebrated my birthday with some good old friends. It was one of my best birthdays ever!

- Our lead guitarist V moved back to India and we are still struggling to find a suitable replacement.

- My colleague and friend KB had a beautiful baby girl. Poor guy keeps complaining about his loss of sleep.

- Saw Van Halen perform live after reuniting with David Lee Roth.

However, most of these experiences would not have been possible had I not met some interesting people along the way. Some I had known from before, some I met here, some came for a while and disappeared, some have stayed on for longer and some might stay all the way. So let me try and mention a few who made a difference….

My bandmates who are an absolutely crazy bunch and have been my Sunday entertainment. My friend KB who in ways unexplainable has somehow helped me out on different occassions. GB, a cool guy from work who has made the afternoon coffee-breaks interesting. DH, a Swedish colleague who helped me out a lot during my initial days at work. M from the local music store who has given me some absolutely killer deals on all my drumming gear. SJ, my guitarist friend with whom I had some fun times in the city. My goofy new friend AR with whom I have had some completely non-sensical conversations and some fun times hanging out. And as the year came to a close…met someone really wonderful (if you are reading this, you know who you are!) and the time (though very little) I spent with this person has been absolutely amazing!

Apart from these wonderful people, I would not be the sane (???) person I am without some people who hold a really special place in my life – my sister K, best friends J, N and AS (Mumbai), and some good old friends – SK, GP, RD, TO, AS (Reno).  I don’t get to meet them as often as I would like to, but I know they are always just a phone call away.

So thank you all for being a part of my life and making me feel special!

Wish you all a Very Happy and Wonderful 2008!

And I’ll leave with this quote by Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden: “Somedays you’re the pigeon, somedays you’re the statue…but if you can, you should only do the things you love”

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can’t reach…
So, you get what we had here last week,
which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
N’ I don’t like it any more than you men.”

Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they’ve always done before

Look at the hate we’re breeding
Look at the fear we’re feeding
Look at the lives we’re leading
The way we’ve always done before

My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can’t deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars

D’you wear a black armband
When they shot the man
Who said “Peace could last forever”
And in my first memories
They shot Kennedy
I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all
That you can’t trust freedom
When it’s not in your hands
When everybody’s fightin’
For their promised land

And
I don’t need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
I don’t need your civil war

Look at the shoes your filling
Look at the blood we’re spilling
Look at the world we’re killing
The way we’ve always done before
Look in the doubt we’ve wallowed
Look at the leaders we’ve followed
Look at the lies we’ve swallowed
And I don’t want to hear no more

My hands are tied
For all I’ve seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
‘Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars

“We practice selective annihilation of mayors
And government officials
For example to create a vacuum
Then we fill that vacuum
As popular war advances
Peace is closer”

I don’t need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
And I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need your civil war
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need one more war

I don’t need one more war
What’s so civil ’bout war anyway?

[Song: Civil Way by Guns N' Roses]

Me and S started off from OC and were about an hour and a half out on I-5, when suddenly the lights inside the car went out, the radio shut off and the car started to sputter. We pulled over on the shoulder on the left side and popped the hood to see if we could diagnose the problem and possibly fix it. But soon it became apparent that the problem was not a fix-it-and-go.

8:10pm 

We decide to do the next logical thing – call for roadside assistance. S could not get any signal on his phone, so we called from my phone.  This is where our problem started progressing from bad to worse.

For the first time in all these years of travelling, I forgot to carry my phone charger and my phone had probably 2/3rd of battery life left. We had another problem…we didn’t know our exact location on the freeway and could only give some approximate landmarks. We were told that the tow-truck was on it’s way.

8:30pm

Half an hour since we broke down and we were happy that help was on it’s way. We kept looking down the freeway for a tow-truck. Then I looked down at my watch…

9:05pm

No tow-truck yet…there was something definitely wrong. And just then the dreadful call came in – the truck driver had failed to find us and had returned to his base. I am pretty sure that the driver didn’t even bother to go search for us and gave up within a mile or two from the last landmark we had mentioned.

It had started to get a little cold and the noise of the cars whizzing past us and the worsening light wasn’t helping us at all.

9:40pm

We decide to call 911. Inspite of explaining to the emergency operator that I was running low on phone battery, the lady continued to go through her questionnaire and finally uttered the words which sounded like heaven – “The dispatch is on it’s way and should be there in 15-20min”…but what she followed that up with was ridiculous – “If no one arrives for 30min, please don’t keep waiting and call back right away”. Are you for real?? What part of “my phone is about to die any minute” didn’t you understand?

Through another stroke of brilliance, we decided to call up our friends in OC and gave them our approximate location and asked them to co-ordinate with the roadside assistance just in case my phone ran out of juice.

10:15pm

No cop car in sight. It’s the first time in my life that I have so eagerly awaited to see the flashing lights of a cop car pulling up behind our car. Our friends in OC tell us that roadside assistance has been instructed to keep travelling down the freeway till they locate us. YAY!!

I make another call to 911. They tell me that they have my previous call on record and that the dispatch is already on it’s way. I am not sure which way it was headed, it definitely wasn’t our way! By now we both are bored and frustrated. I start waving to all passing cars hoping that some driver would be a good samaritan and call 911 to inform them of our predicament (or inform that there are two lunatics waving on the side of the freeway!). But little had we expected that some driver would provide us with a moment of humor. Suddenly we see a BMW pull over to the side and start flashing it’s blinkers. We ran towards the car hoping to get some kind of assistance. What we find instead is a driver who is piss drunk and could barely understand what we were trying to tell him. We moved aside and set him off on his way with a “Thanks, but no thanks”!

11:10pm

A little over 3 hours since we pulled over, we see a tow-truck heading our way. We let out a scream of joy and run towards our angel in disguise (in mechanic’s overalls to be precise!). He suggests that we tow the car to a town about 10-12 miles away where they had a service station as well as hotels nearby to stay overnight. At that point, we were hungry, thirsty and completely drained of all energy and that suggestion was the best we could get. We squeeze into the cabin of the truck and were on our way.

11:45pm

The truck driver dropped off the car in front of a service station and we paid him and he was on his way. We walked to the gas station to ask the clerk for the opening time of the service station. The words that followed were like lightning crashing on our heads. The clerk said, “That service station has been out of business for at least 3 months”. I spotted the tow-truck waiting at the stoplight and I made a mad dash out to get hold of him. Just as I reached, the light turned green and the truck disappeared in front of my eyes. Our angel had just discarded his disguise and had become the devil!

Walked back to the gas station and met a guy having coffee. He happened to be a mechanic.

Was this going to be our stroke of luck? By this time I had stopped expecting for anything good to come out, so I just asked him to take a look at the car. He came over, told us it seemed like an alternator issue. He gave us a jump start using his truck, but it wasn’t of much help as the battery would not charge and he didn’t have his tools with him. We thanked him for helping nevertheless.

00:15am (next day)

Me and S walked towards a hotel and checked in. Dumped our bags in the room and we strolled out to get something to eat.

00:40am 

Seemed like our luck was changing as Denny’s actually served our order within 10min!!

1:30am 

Back in the room, I don’t even remember when I crashed on the bed and fell asleep…

7:00am

…S is shaking my hand to wake me up. Takes me a few moments to realize where I was and the entire ordeal of the previous night started to play again in my head. Took a quick shower, had a hot coffee and S called up a nearby garage who told us that they could fix the problem and have us on our way.

8:30am

We get the car towed to the garage and they tell us that they will need to order in an alternator to replace the old one. They said we should be on our way by noon. We head out to a nearby Starbuck’s while we leave the car behind for the garage to work on it. Sitting in that chair with a cappuccino in hand was probably the most relaxing moment I have had in years.

11:30am

The car is ready and raring to go. S pays the garage guys and we are on our way…

And here’s a picture of the aquiline beauty

On Saturday, the PFC-USA gang decided to convert the HQ (the bathroom to be precise!) into a studio to shoot the ad for PFC.

As we wrapped up, I left the PFC HQ to meet my oldest buddy and his family. Had a blast with his kids. His son, who is the elder one, totally impressed me with his ability to identify different makes and models of cars, SUVs and minivans. Just to put things in perspective, he is not even 5 years old! However, it was his younger kid, his daughter who completely bowled me over. She had me totally wrapped around her finger by her charming sweetness. These girls sure learn their tricks at a young age (she is 3-4 months shy of her 2nd birthday)!

Sunday afternoon, I was back at the PFC HQ and the gang had started working on shooting the short film that was scripted by our friend Striker. I played my part in the shoot by holding up a green background for a scene depicting a news telecast and by throwing around some random, completely useless ideas! Hey, I tried! I don’t know anything about movie-making…LOL. But just watching the gang in action helped me learn a lot of things about the entire shooting process.

If only had I not have to go to work on Monday, I would have loved to stay over for some more time and have more fun. Thanks to all the PFC guys from OC for the wonderful weekend.

P.S. though the weekend took an ugly turn about an hour and a half after we left OC, will write about that in another post.

And for the fun what we are all about, check out our ad at the end of this post on the above portal: PFC commercial

Is this what life is supposed to be? Live like a machine? A robot? A piece of code?

 And for what? So that you can pay your bills?

Whatever happened to your passions? What about the things that you loved to do? What about those activities that brought a smile to your face?

Our parents tricked us when they told us as kids that we could do whatever we want and enjoy life once we start earning. That’s so not true! We basically just end up doing what everyone else is doing. You get a job, your bank balance starts to look healthy. Soon enough you buy your own house, you get married, have kids and then tell them the same thing your parents told you. And that’s when it dawns on you that you never really enjoyed life and by then it’s too late. Life has slipped away and all you actually did in your life was pay bills!

I don’t want to let life pass me by while I was busy writing some code. No, I cannot just go all out to pursue my passions. I have to be practical, since paying bills is a harsh reality. But I’m not going to let that drive my life.

I am going to ride my sportsbike at every chance I get, even if it is only riding a few miles to and from work.

I am going to save up to go hit the tracks and improve my riding skills.

I am going to keep practicing and jamming to improve my drumming.

I am going to be more regular with my blog posts.

I am going to watch movies more often.

I am not going to work to pay my bills, but I am going to work to be able to pursue my passions!

I had been screaming hoarse throughout the season that the Buckeyes were overrated and the Gators deserved to be No.1 after facing way tougher opponents in the SEC. With teams such as Tennessee, LSU, Arkansas and Alabama to contend with and playing against a great team like FSU every season as an out of conference opponent, and beating them all in the same season, the Gators were a more deserving team.

The Buckeyes dominated the game for all of 16 seconds from kickoff. After that, they didn’t even get time to figure out as to what hit them. The explosively quick Florida defense was something that the Buckeyes had never encountered (and will never encounter in the Big Ten conference) and this became evident as their quarterback Troy Smith kept getting hit from behind.

If the defense was relentless, the offense was spot on! The two quarterbacks strategy of Urban Meyer was something the Buckeyes had no answer to. Chris Leak silenced his critics by coming good in the big game and Tim Tebow has the Buckeyes scampering with his rushing skills.

You can read more about it here at CNNSI and ESPN.

Go Gators!!!

Soon after the English had reached their century, Brett Lee unleashed a beauty to get rid of Collingwood. Warne came on to continue from the other end. The first ball didn’t pose any problems for a well set Strauss who was batting on 50. Warne came in to bowl the next ball, he gave it a good flight, the ball reached the peak of its trajectory, Strauss read it fine so far and took a stride forward to drive it…then the ball suddenly dipped, pitched outside off-stump, spun viciously and went through bat and pad and the death rattle sounded as it hit the middle stump. Wicket number 700 for Shane Warne! And what a perfect wicket it was – knocking back the middle stump of a top order batsman who had just scored his half-century. The entire ground erupted waving colorful placards with the number 700 printed on them.

It was as perfect a moment as a person can wish for – establishing a new record in front of your home crowd – and a well deserved one too. After going through a huge turmoil in his married life, being involved in the lewd message scandal and serving a one-year ban for using banned diuretics, Warne has come back stronger than ever and claimed over 200 wickets in the last 36 test matches (5.7 wickets per match!). And considering he hunted in pair with Glenn McGrath who himself has claimed over 500 wickets, it’s a great achievement.

Warne is definitely one of the greatest bowlers the cricketing world will ever see. He has single-handedly revived the art of spin bowling among the cricketing nations that do not come from the Indian sub-continent. As Warne is set to retire at the end of the current Ashes series, let’s wish him all the best for his future.

A few months ago, coffee vending machines were installed at our workplace to provide free coffee/tea to employees. In an “unrelated” incident, a week or two ago, small, pathetic looking cups with our company logo were distributed to all employees. Last week, a rude surprize awaited us as the plastic, disposable cups next to the vending machines suddenly disappeared, never to reappear again.

After asking the administrative department, we realized that the “unrelated” incident was not so unrelated after all. The new “protocol” was that employees were supposed to take their own cups to the vending machines, have their coffee and then wash their own cups during working hours and then enjoy (yeah right!!) another cup of coffee later on. Maybe its part of their training for employees who have to travel abroad on deputation and suddenly find themselves having to learn to wash their own plates and cups.

If you are familiar with or have ever had any experience of village life or life in chawls in Mumbai, then the above scene of an employee carrying his own cup to the vending machine …. is similar to carrying a tumbler of water to the common restroom, doing your thing and returning with an empty tumbler! Damn!! We are really living in a high-tech society aren’t we?