Traffic Ticket

I went to Time Square, for 2007 New year eve. Totally I drove 1874 miles in 3 days. From Greensboro, I drove to Ohio, picked up a friend at Akron, Ohio and we drove to New york. Everything was exiting, except I got a speeding ticket at Maritta, Ohio. It was a beautiful drive form Greensboro, Virginia and in West Virginia. Even the speed limit was 70miles/hr, I was driving around 77 miles/hr. As soon as I hit into Ohio, the speed limit become 55miles/hr. So What I did, I was driving 55 constantly and whenever I don't see any traffic (through my windshield and through my review mirror) I was raising my car to 90( I rented a SUV). It was dark and in that Ohio suburb I didn't see no one in the road, So I was constantly driving around 85 miles/hr. There were two Caravan in front of me. I should have slowed down, but I thought to overtake them and slow down. As soon as passed the vehicles, I realized that is a cop car. I have been pulled over. I got a ticket 88 miles/hr @ 55miles speed limit, $140 fine.

This is what I learned from my first traffic ticket experience.
Talk very polite to a cop.
Don't be scared to talk to cop. After you have been pulled over by a cop, your first question would be "what speed you were driving. Don't admit, even though you drove fast. Say the exact speed limit in that place. Then Cop would say his radar reading of your speed limit. If you have rented a car, dare to say, you are speed-o-meter was showing only the speed of maximum speed limit at the place.
If you would say, you didn't see any speed limit posting for lost 10 miles, Cop would explain you, where and all the speed limit posted. B'coz he knows the area better than you. So don't say that.
Try your best not to admit the over speeding and act very innocent as much you can. (If you are pulled over, 90% you are getting a ticket, only 10% chances are there to escape)

If you got the ticket, and you can think of taking the chance to appear into the court, that is the best way to do, to escape from your insurance premium rise. ( I don't have any experience, may be I will write a blog about that, later some time)

But, be proud to have a ticket.

The Matrix Phone

Recently in my office all the conventional desk phones has been replaced with Cisco IP phones(7941).Here I am not going to review the technical details of the phone. Try WIKI to know about that.

But as a user I feel, lot difference. I had one of the Matrix phone in my desk.(The phone used in the Matrix movie, to travel between Matrix world and the real world). The message indicator in this kind of phone is a small red light in front of the phone blinks.(Even I didn't had that option in my phone. The one I had, you have to pick the receiver If you have a message, you will hear a different ring tone.)

The ultra revolutionary Cisco IP Phone has everything in it. the best part is, it has the display, If I get any internal calls it shows the name, who is calling me.(So I have the option now, to pick the call or not). Cisco would have added MP3 capability to make it an ultimate machine.

In my personal side recently I upgraded my cell phone to Blackberry Pearl. (Last two years I used Moto-Razor) I would say, Blackberry Pearl is the ultimate equipment. MP3 playback, Video streaming, 2MP video camera, the best part is the PIM(Personal Information Management) software. It is same as outlook features. I didn't take the date package, b'coz I sit in front computer almost 16hrs/day. So I haven't needed the e-mail data package. But I use the PIM as a reminder for my personal tasks.

If I think back in my college days, I didn't had a cellphone. I used to remember all the phone numbers and tasks in top of my head. Oneday, myself and Sivasu was counting how many phone numbers we know. If I am right, I had 17 numbers in my count and sivasu got 20 . Sivasu was always pretty good in manipulation numbers. But now, I remember only 8 to 10 numbers and I am damn sure without a cellphone I could be lost.

Coming back to Blackberry Pearl, I have a trouble with Sync'ing to Apple-Imac. Bluetooth to Bluetooth is not compatible. I used to sync my Razor via bluetooth. Even after I download some software I have difficulties to transfer data's thru USB cable.
I don't want to give up both the products(Apple and Blackberry). Probably if I buy a Micro-SD card, I hope I can solve this problem by directly communicating to SD Card thru a reader.

Nick Names

I met a my college friend Arun Kumar after 6 years.
Last week he was here in winston-salem, NC for his business trip.
We went to a same school for our four year Mechanical Engineering

Actually in our friends circle no one knows him by his name.
He is very famous with his nick name "Proxy". We were talking about how he got that name.
In our first year we had a chubby lecturer for our Basic Electrical paper, Geetha Madam.
In our attendants list the next name to Arun Kumar is Antony Praveen Kumar(well known as DAP)

One fine day Geetha was going through attendants list, "Arun Kumar" he said Yes ma'am
Antony Praveen Kumar, he said Yes ma'am with the same tone. She got him. From that day, he has become "Proxy".

The other main reason to use nick names is to differentiate the guys with common names. For example there were four "Karthik" in our class. So to differentiate everyone uniquely we used nicknames.
"Self"Karthik ---> My nick name. I ragged my co-students in the first year, called self ragging.
"Mama"Karthik --> He is a very big guy........so, Mama(Uncle)
"Kalingan"Karthik-> I'm not sure why he got this name, but "kaligan" is Goundamani(Comedian) name in Ullathai Alitha-a tamil film
"Tuticorin"Karthik->He is from Tuticorin

Other interesting nick names in our college
(You should definitely know Tamil to understand this, but keep it in mind all the nick names has a valid reason).

"Pedal" Udaya, "Sibu" Prem, "Kattu vassi" Senthil (Tarzan),"Kadalai" Kasi, "Aaatha" Pandi, "Surtai" Senthil, "Netta" Muthukumar,
"Motta" Muthukumar, "Ding-Ding" Mani, "Kuruvi" Aravindan..................................

Desi Party

Desi Party

I attended a desi baby shower on Saturday. The party was scheduled @ 4PM.
I thought it is so rude to show up exactly at 4, even though I know the host couple
very well. So I showed up at 4.40 PM. Oh....my goodness I was the first one.
After some time people started showing up one by one.

Later on that day, we were talking about timings. Some one made a comment, people usually show up
approximately on following schedule.

bachelors - 45 min. later then the scheduled party time
Just Married - 1hr
With one Kid - 1hr 30 min
with two kids - 2 hr

(Just married may have the reason for their late, but I am not sure about others)

I don't understand, what is the point to schedule a party time?
I guess, May be this is the way it works, probably I am new to it.....
I have to keep this timing in my mind.

Okay, about the party it went very well, in my point of view. Last part of the party was fun and different.
I have been to parties like this a lot. People usually eat and talk, nothing else and most of the discussions are about Visa and their flight adventures (nothing but how they passed the security gate and how they found their departure gate @ international airport).
Suganthi & Srikanth prepared some quiz, puzzles and scrambled words. It sounds like a kiddish, but really some of the questions were tough and the competitors were aggressive.

Just do it

Well, fellows I have been blogging here and there, But now I decided to do it regularly.
The main reason, I want to see today’s karthik in future. If I look back my past I have only few good and bad memories, not a whole lot and I forgot so many peoples whom came across my life. My brain’s RAM memory having a limitation. I am hopping this blog would help me to back-up my memories to my brain in the future.

Okay, they next question is what do I write in my blog? My daily life.
What’s happening in my daily life?
In a normal day, 10 hrs of work+1 hr for transport+8 hrs sleep+1 hr miscellaneous, so I have only 4 hrs for my personal life.

In a normal working day I am spending almost 70% of my time @ work. So there is no chance I could escape without talking about, different people I am meeting in my daily life.

Finally, what ever I am talking about here is my personal opinion only. If you are reading this blog now, probably you might know me in some way, so don’t hesitate to comment about my blogs.