The tiny Squirrel in my tiny Garden

Hey Guys... these pics are of a tiny squirrel, found in my garden last week. You might say...whats so interesting about this ?! Normally Squirrels are found on and around trees & they generally run away from humans. But interestingly this squirrel wants to live among humans ! We drop it in the garden and it immediately runs into the house along with us. It crawls on to the human body all over.... causing some awkward feeling. I don't know when I am going to get a Lab but I have got a Rodent without asking !!

Thought of taking few snaps and post it in my blog. Here they are...

On the Guava tree...


Smile Please....

Posing for a perfect SNAP... ! Picture Perfect :)

She is finally on my Computer Table too..... :)

Mr. Mouse or Mr. Rodent... who is heavier !

This is a video of the Naughty Squirrel... it would have, for sure won a GOLD for India in long jump !! Just watch it.... its amazing.

Sadly.... after 3 days, this squirrel looked very weak. It was not as active as it used to be.... It became difficult for it even to move. Reasons unknown..... Y'day morning it was found dead in my veranda :-( :-( :-( A TRAGIC END :'(

Few Updates from my L!F3

Its been quite some time that I spoke about the happenings @ my end. Thought of penning down today. Hmmm.... where should I start? L!F3 is currently a lil messy.

WORK:

Alright... I'll start where I have last ended --- Graduation,Satyam,Planning etc.,! when all seemed to be going good with my career. I have joined the Resource Planning team & started learning new things. Thought this is a wonderful step as I was involved in some of the very interesting & key processes at the corporate level. There was a sense of achievement initially as the enthu levels were very high. Everything went well till the end of last financial year. Later on life started moving in a slow motion ! may be because of the fact that I get bored easily when I start doing the same things repeatedly. Yes.... Time & Again i was doing the same stuff at my work place. A process driven by corporate but a lot to do with individual businesses in the organization. I lost interest in my work as the learning has reached a point of saturation. Meanwhile there were few unexpected changes in my team. There were 2 new team mates. I have asked my boss to release me.... which makes some sense too !! But my boss diplomatically denied my proposal ! :( Better luck next time !
Huh.... I am sick & tired doing this boring sh*t each day. Cant help....need to DO. Don't know for how long.....:(

Friends:

The less I say the better it is ! Just think that all my friends have queued up to leave me alone !! One after other.... Brahmam, Madhu, Pavan, Girish, Avinash, Arvind, Vaibhav, Ajay, Vinay, Abhineet & now Aishik.... huh.. the list is directly proportional to my increasing age(may be in DAYS) :-( And towards the other end there are few friends(so called) are still living in this city but hardly meet ;) May be they have become a lil busy with their lives(personal:P). Understandably my password to pastime is 'MOVIES'. Of course, the downloaded ones. Thanks to Riaz :) Courtesy Internet :D Amid these extreme changes I found few really interesting people at work. One of them is Anurag Bhattacharjee(AB)-The walking encyclopedia. he he he... U need not Google if Jr. AB is with you. Believe me this kiddo has got a memory of at least 250Tera Bytes!! Aishik looks completely settled in his new marketing role & currently his Dine & Wine happens only with CXOs!!!!!!!!! Then there are two nightingales - Gunjan & Deepika !! One interested in social service and the other dedicated to work ! One operates on the principle of "Service to Mankind is Service to God!" & the other operates on "Work is Worship" & sometimes 'War'ship too!!(lol). Next up is Robert Kotus from Poland. He is my 15 days old friend(call him colleague!!) We are currently on a Mission... Mission is to teach Robert Hindi, taste him the south Indian spicy food, teach him how to ride a bike in Hyderabad traffic & many more such weird things. In one word... this mission is to make Robert a Hyderabadi by the time leaves India :) he he he.

Badminton:

August 1st week.... I was completely living in solitude. The last close mate Vinay has left to US chasing his dreams and aspirations. No company to jog. Then it striked me to start playing Badminton(which was once in my Blood!!!) once again. There is an indoor shuttle badminton court around 5kms away from my home. Without wasting any time I have quickly started playing in the mornings. As I am playing Badminton after a long gap, it took me almost a month to gain the lost form!!

Family:

We are Three till now & we are going to be soon six!! Read on....
Grandmom is in my home currently :) Gokul(my brother) who is working in Bangkok for the past 20months has resigned and coming back forever!! If there is anyone whom I missed the most in my life till now then it is him. coz... I missed him almost throughout my life as he always used to stay away from home-right from childhood to teenage for studies & now for work :( I think he is calling it quits now. He is returning by tomorrow's flight. Yuppieeeee!! Then the last addition in my family will be a new pet. Probably a Labrador. Its gonna be a rocking family...A perfect one!!

Thats it for now.........I will post the pics of my complete family very soon*

* - depends on the new entrant --- Mr. Lab

Where are we heading ?

No matter where u r in this world u might have heard about the recent catastrophe in USA. A catastrophe which rocked & shook the complete world. No... I am not talking about Hurricane Ike or Hurricane Gustav. This article is on the downfall of 5 giants.

It all started with the Jan 22nd crash. The sub-prime crisis, US economy slowdown, Increasing Joblessness claims etc., by March many global banks have written down billions of dollars. Citi Bank writing off 50+ billion USD topping the list!! followed by companies like UBS. The total estimated losses of all the companies accounted to a whopping 512 Billion USD!!( write offs were approx... 275Billion USD in America, 215Billion USD in Europe & 25 Billion USD in Asia). Citi Bank need to sell some of its assets to come out of this quick sand! Few giant companies survived & few are still struggling & swimming against the tide & few have gone almost bankrupt!! Lets now talk about few of the biggest Organisations( based out of USA) which were washed away in the tide called Sub Prime Crisis.


First up....

Bear Stearns - one of the oldest Investment banks in USA was severely hampered & its stock price came down to 2$/share down from 133$/share. Finally it was acquired by JP Morgan. JP Morgan has paid close to 10$/share.

Next up...

Now its the turn of the US' oldest mortgage firms Fannie & Freddie ! The Fed came to the rescue this time.






The real Carnage begun in mid SEP.

With in a gap of less than a week, first Lehman Brothers made the headlines filling its bankruptcy. Then came the news on AIG, the biggest insurance company in the world !! Merrill Lynch followed in their footsteps. The stock price of Lehman bottomed out! It was almost valueless at 0.12$ last time when i checked. A company which has a successful history of 158 years surviving many financial crashes & world wars has finally bitten the dust :-( Interestingly Lehman has never even reported a quarterly loss till June 08!! More or less same is the case with AIG. Merrill Lynch is slightly in a better position. Luckily Merrill Lynch was taken over by BoA(Bank of America) there by becoming the biggest brokarage house in the world !! Federal Bank again came into the picture. It helped AIG by providing $80B loan after picking up 80+ % stake in the company proving that AIG is too big to fail !!! Parts of Lehman Brothers were acquired by biggies like Barclays. But that was not sufficient. Need to wait and see the future of Lehman :( It definitely looks gloomy.

The story so far :

Till date Investment Banking is the buzz word in any country when it comes to Finance ! Most of the American giants used to recruit grads from our IIMs ! I Banking used to be the most preferred profession for any MBA with splzation in Finance. But with the recent turn around in things it may soon change. There is already an article in TOI which says IIM grads are now shifting focus from IB to Micro Finance. I am totally unaware of what this Micro Finance means :-( But I am sure there is something cooking in every B-School :-) we can smell it :D

Bear Stearns, Merill Lynch, Lehman Brothers...... 3 out of top 5 Investment Banking firms are clean bowled. Left are........the dream company of many young Finance Aspirants (like me) Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley. Goldman has announced a 70% decline in profits when compared to last quarter!! which it self is an indication of slowdown. Both Goldman & Morgan used to be individual IB firms which out any tieup till now. But looks like they are reconsidering their independent status. Donno what exactly is cooking inside these firms... but the odour is definitely bad :P

If you think that the list has ended here then u might need to think again ! wait for another quarter or two.... there might be still some bad news left :(

Side Effects:

After all this mayhem analysts have termed this as Financial Tsunami !! & rightly so.

Guru Buffett termed this turmoil in the markets an 'economic Pearl Harbor' ! His quote: "It's not like Pearl Harbor where you could look at what happened with your own eyes and decide you had to do something that day. This is sort of an economic Pearl Harbor we're going through.'' Which only means that this Financial Tsunami has not reached its Climax !

Amid all this chaos, the Bush administration is trying for a $700Billion 'bailout plan' to bring some steadiness in the markets. But things did not turn in their favor till now. Voting went against the bail out plan and the DOW JONES plummeted 777 points on 29th Sep !! The biggest ever single day fall in the history of US. The jitters and tremors are felt across the globe & India is no exception. Now thats really Bad.... in fact its worse.

The aftermaths of these crashes, downfalls are Pink Slips in almost all the sectors which are dependent on US. IT is ahead in the list ! More than 65% of revenues of major Indian IT companies come from USA. which means these companies will get less business in future. Moreover, a significant part of these revenues come from BFSI(Banking,Financial Services & Insurance) sector(anywhere between 20%-45% of total revenues). Now its self explanatory!

He he he .......every second is filled with excitement these days. Its feels just like watching an F1 race! U never know who is going to crash OUT. My company has already started the cost cutting business by sacking jobs!! Is ur company into this business ?? If NO then they might soon learn this ART. BE CAREFUL !!

Break the Jinx

Kimster & Ferrari have started this season with a bang. There was no stopping till the 5th or 6th race. When everything seemed to be just about perfect, Kimi is followed by a series of nightmares! Forget about winning the race(or at least finishing on podium), he is unable to even finish the race !! Sometimes he is haunted by engine failures & sometimes by crashes on wet tracks.

I didnot watch last week's Belgian GP as I was out with few of my colleagues. Had I watched the race I would have either broke into tears or would have broken my TV set !! Hamilton started at Pole & Iceman at 4th. Still Iceman managed to grab the # 1 spot minutes into the race! Unbelievable...isnt it :-) Then he led till the penultimate lap. Penultimate lap- this is when the real drama took place. First the showers made the track wet then the Hamilton-Kimi duo fight for #1 positon. Kimi managed to throw Lewis into the woods! but strangely Lewis took the back door(hamilton has cut chicanes) and was out on track ahead of kimster!! Heart break for Ferrari & Iceman fans!!! immediately for some reason(may be kimi lost his cool as lewis overtook him or bcoz of Kazuki Nakajima coming in the way or may be bcoz of his left tyre becoming flat!) he crashed out!!! RACE ENDS, at least for kimi Raikkonen fans.

Post race comments by Kimi:
"I was prepared to win or lose, but unfortunately I went off. I only wanted to win. I slid wide on the fast left hander, and tried to come back on the circuit but I went off. I didn't want to finish behind we would have lost points. We see what we can do."

Raikkonen said: "You get punches and blows, but you just carry on and fight back. There is no reason for me to start worrying over what has happened to now stop trying. I will fight until the very end."

Now thats more like a fighter.... I luv to hear this from u Kimi.

Have a glance @ Kimi's F1 career so far.

1 Wrld C'ship
17 wins
16 poles
33 fastest laps
54 podiums
513 points

Next destination is Monza,Italy. Monza is one of the fastest circuits in F1, with average speed of 250+ Kmph add to that + Ferrari is from Italy. There is a lot to look out for in this race...Glamor,Speed,Over takings,adrenaline rush & finally champagne. If not Kimi, Massa will fight out with Lewis for the championship. This will FOR SURE keep your adrenaline pumping! Game has already begun. In today's(Friday) practice Kimi has topped the table. He has regained his lost form and showed his true colours!! RED Rules.... Kimi will rule(OMG...I am sounding too optimistic). Its going to be a Mission Impossible for Kimi to win this championship as we are left only with 5 races. Mind you Kimi is currently at 4th in the drivers standings with 19points short of steward Hamilton.

Oh...forgot to mention....just when i am writing this post the news of contract extension of ICEMAN with FERRARI till 2010 is out !! I am luving this sport even more now.

This weekend I am going no where....I don't give a damn even if the big bang happens & world comes to an end!! I will stick to my TV with Star Sports ON from 16.30 PM IST !!

GAME ON....ROCK ON!!

Google turns 10

Happy B'day Google.

Google celebrated its 10th anniversary on 7th Sep. I know I am a little late in wishing but nevertheless its not too late :-) I am sure you all will agree that Google has become a part of our daily lives. We all search for something on internet at least once in a day. Not sure about remembering my best of best friends daily but I am doubly sure that I remember Google each day!! That is the impact this $20b monster has on my life at least. It has become a synonym for 'Help'. Google is God(for ppl who believe in God). Google is Luck(for ppl who believe in Luck). Google is a genie(for ppl who believe in magic). Google is Life(for all netizens). Google is pure innovation, an evolution, a revolution. A tool which has changed the face of this internet industry by all means through its innovative products. Recently it has added one more jewel to its crown in the form of 'CHROME'-A WEB BROWSER. I am currently writing this blog with the help of Chrome. Its looks really cool !

I have read an article in NYTIMES.COM. This article has got few interesting statistics. I advice you to go through this link if you are a fan of Google just like zillions of people around this world are. CLICK HERE to know interesting facts about 'G'.

We have reached a stage where we cant imagine LIFE without Google!! WOW... "LIFE WITHOUT GOOGLE"! sounds good...will plan to write a book on this :P

I admire Google.... do u??