I own a car now. A 2000 Chevy Malibu LS. One most important, must-have entity for life in the United States. I didn’t visit the regular KBB or Car Dealers to buy my first car. It was a good feel that I did not have to hunt for cars. Looking at VIN, vehicle history. Probably I will do all these for my next car.

I bought it from my friend, Abhilash Nair. He is a friend since undergrad days. He studied Aeronautical while I was in Instrumentation. But he was always welcomed as a Instrumentation senior by all our juniors in college. A happy going, cool dude, and the only person from Kerala who calls an auto an ‘auto’ instead of ‘otto’ (This is meant just as a joke… Please don’t take this seriously as I believe firmly in democracy…)

The moment I announced that I bought a car, my mom wanted me to perform a ‘Vahana Pooja – a ceremony of bestowing goodness and blessing to the person owning the car and the car’. I was asked to get a coconut and four lemons for the ceremony and I did get it from an Indian Grocery Store. The pooja was performed last sunday.

Now I am ready to drive the car! A way of attaining independence in United States! Here I come!

Licensed to drive in the US.

I got my driving license now. Got to get a car, and get mobile. I am planning to get a car from my friend Abilash Nair. A chevy. Heading full steam on the life in America, the land of opportunities.

Yeh Jo Desh Hai Tera!

.Net 4.0 introduces the concept of Client Profile. I came to know about it when I was adding references to my project file. Even though, I had added a few assemblies in the project reference, the compiler was complaining of not finding the namespaces in the references that I have added during compilation.

The project was a Windows Form Application. I opened up the Project Settings Page to see that the

Target Framework was .Net 4.0 Client Profile.

I changed it to .Net 4.0 Framework. Everything worked fine.

So to get past the error of missing namespaces, even though the assemblies having been added, check to make sure that the Target Framework is not in the Client Profile.

Today is the Pongal Day! A harvest festival celebrated in our state in India. I am here in US, but I did make the sweet pongal, “Sakarai Pongal”. I will be missing the sugarcane and the total annular eclipse happening tomorrow.

Here are some things that I remember from my childhood days.

It began with the Pongal shopping. I used to go with my sister and dad to the Main Bazaar, in my hometown, Neyveli. They would have given the Pongal “bonus” for my dad, and so did every family in Neyveli. So everyone would be busy getting the bonus amount drained. The usually calm town of Neyveli will have small shops on the roads, selling clothes, fancy items and greeting cards.

The greeting cards would not be Archies, but a post card sized, normal graphic depicting a pot of pongal and two sugarcanes. I used to buy and send it to my friends living in Neyveli. It was fun. Nowadays, we send emails. But I somehow feel that, the postcard had a personal touch. This is not me whining, I enjoy it even now.

It was a nice occasion to celebrate. 3 days of holidays. Wow! It meant going to your native places, visiting relation’s home, getting together, gossiping, cinemas.

Happy Pongal!

PS: If someone has the old post card, can you please send me one?

There was this table,

ORG_ID     LEGACY_ORG_CODE
------      ------------------
1001         8909
1001         12323
1002         80909
1002         78798
1002         09009

and the requirement was to get the concatenated legacy_org_code like

ORG_ID     LEGACY_ORG_CODE
------      ------------------
1001         8909, 12323
1002         80909, 78798, 09009

The solution to this is:

SELECT PL.ORG_ID,
	(SELECT LEGACY_ORG_CODE + ','
		FROM SGT_ORG_PLAN ORGPL
		WHERE ORGPL.ORG_ID = PL.ORG_ID
		ORDER BY LEGACY_ORG_CODE
		FOR XML PATH(''))
	 AS ORG_CODE
FROM SGT_ORG_PLAN PL
GROUP BY PL.ORG_ID

I was looking for simple answers on the web I came across this link, that helped me to get it done in a simple SQL statement. Recording it here for future reference. This technique is called Blackbox XML.

One among the new year resolution is done. And on the same new year’s day. My site now has a new look. I have been wanting to do this for more than a year now, and I never pushed myself to sit and do it. What better time to do it, than in the vacation. And so, here is the new look for the site. I have decided to call the new theme “Arjuna”.

Arjuna: means ‘white’, ‘clear’. It is a Sanskrit word, and the name of one of the Pandavas, in the Mahabharata.

This theme is a white theme, minimal, and subtle in expression. Being my first side project, I was a bit confused in choosing a name. I chose this because, it was somehow connected to the ancient literature of my own country.

Feel free to download, test and report any bugs that you encounter.

Here are the steps to perform a clean un-install of MySQL from your Mac.

Execute the following commands at the Terminal

Uninstalling MySQL

Open /etc/hostconfig file in a text editor and remove the following line

MYSQLCOM=-YES-

That’s all.

Wish you all a very Happy New Year 2010. Let this year bring prosperity and joy to all.

This is the time to reflect back on what happened the previous year, and plan for the coming year.

What happened in 2009?

• Completed my one year in Sagitec.
• Had been continuously writing on this blog.
• Got my first ever proposal.
• Accepted her as my better half.
• Got my first onsite offer, to work in America.
• Came to USA on a H1B permit and currently working.

Wishes for 2010:

• Get happily settled in life.
• Get a new look for this site.
• Get CowsNBulls game to the next level.
• Learn a new language apart from C#, looking at python and ruby.
• Live happily ever after.

Once again, wish you all a very happy and a prosperous new year.

I was surprised the day before yesterday to see a FedEx door tag hanging on my apartment door. I had not ordered anything, or I could not think of someone who would spend money to send me a FedEx parcel as gift.

I just left it signed on my door yesterday, so that the FedEx person could leave it at the door. When I came back for lunch, yesterday, I met the FedEx guy who gave me a small parcel.

Viola! it contained a 2 GB iPod Shuffle. It was gifted by Sagitec, my employer as a Christmas gift.

Thank You Sagitec.

I was browsing the internet as usual. But unusually, I was searching for A R Rahman videos on YouTube. That is when I spotted this video.

A R Rahman in Surabhi

Surabhi, if anyone of you would remember used to be aired in Doodarshan (DD1). I still remember that period, when cable TV was not known commonly in India. My full family used to watch them. We never understood or knew Hindi. But we just watched them.

Krishna, Chandrakantha.. I am remembering these serials as I type it in. Wonderful days. We used to discuss in school, about it. We used to be discussing about Kurur Singh and his “Yakkooo..”

In this video, that should have been taken by 1992, after Roja release, I am wondering about what he says. Hear Sridhar say, about his sound technique, “Theatrical”.. he says. Rahman wanted not the base sound of the flute but the air from it… And then the song plays… Wow, really A R Rahman… is a genius.