Trekking in Troodos

There are many nature trails in Cyprus of varying difficulty. The main difference between the trails here and the ones in US is that there is no "authority" monitoring these trails and no matter, what the weather conditions are, the trails are always open. This makes some of the trails very interesting to attempt in winter because of the snowfall.
One such trail we go every year is the "kalidonia Falls" trail. This is a 2 km downhill trail in the middle of which is a waterfall. This trail is interesting for the fact that, there are numerous stream crossings and the whole trail is within the troodos forest. During winter, the entire trail is covered in snow and we have to find our own way through. This makes it pretty risky as well as interesting!
Last year was the best with almost a feet of snow on the entire trail and we literally slid down downhill sections of the trail. This year, there was not so much snow, but enough to keep the trek interesting. Below are some snaps from this year's trek. Just hover your mouse over the thumbnail to see a bigger version.

Each year we did this trek, we were with a different group with only me and vidhya being common for all the three years. This year, we had a large group, almost a dozen people. There is some amount of "car management" to be done here, because the start of trail is around 7 kms by road from the finish of the trail. So, we had to plan such that, we could leave a car at the finish of the trail and then fit into the rest of the cars, go to the start of the trail. Once we finish the trek, all the drivers use the car at the finish to goto the start to get the cars back to the finish to pick up the rest of the people ..confusing ?? It is.
There was a place in the middle of the trail, where greenish fungi like plants had grown on rocks. This place had an ethereal look with the green contrasting against the snow and the rocks. The pictures below don't do the place enough justification.
This year, i didn't take my heavy D-70 with me, because i wanted to enjoy the trek rather than spend the entire time clicking photos. But, the temptation still lingered and i took my much smaller coolpix 2500 with me.
I came to realise that this was the biggest mistake i did. I had kind of got used to the "technology" of a digital SLR and found it very difficult to adjust back to the "point-and-shoot system" of coolpix inspite of the fact that i had taken more than 10000 pics with it before it moved to a SLR. At the waterfall, Vidhya climbed on the rocks, got thoroughly wet in the process and gave a grinning pose from high up on the falls. I was supposed to capture this moment. On coming back home and transferring the pictures, i realised that this photo had turned out pretty bad. This was it, i got a big lecture on my inability to take good pictures even though i spend lot of money on photo magazines etc etc ...
On completing the trek, we went to the top of troodos. It was terribly cold, so cold that the bottom of my pants had frozen solid, the first time i had seen such a thing happening.

A small but interesting challenge : Try to save the enlarged picture to your local disk, without looking at the full path from the source of this page. i.e. Try to find a way to right-click and save the pic. I found a way, let me know if you know more ..

Brains of Amdocs Quiz 2006

The BOA 2006 Quiz happened last Friday. It was conducted by phenoMenon a.k.a VijayAnand Menon, the winner of the last year's edition.

The quiz had a teaser section (A flash attachement) which had 8 connected questions and the theme had to be identified. The written prelims had a total of 29 questions. The topper of the prelims had a score of 34 out of a maximum 44 and the sixth team to qualify made 30. We made 28.5, close ..We missed out on all the visual questions, where we had to identify six personalities.

Below is a sample from the prelims.The answers can be found out by hovering the mouse over the "Ans" at the end.

• Named after the Hawaiian word for 'quick', it is a type of website which allows users to easily add and edit content. Name this technology. Ans
• It was designed by Howard Garns, a retired architect and first published in 1979. The name by which it is now popular, a Japanese abbreviation of a longer phrase, "suji wa dokushin ni kagiru," meaning "the digits must remain single", is a trademark of Nikoli Co. Ltd in Japan . Name this now very popular pastime.Ans
• "America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow" by Eugene Cernan were the last words. What were the first and who spoke them? Ans
• What was the mission entrusted to Captain John Miller, Company Commander of 2nd Ranger Battalion, Company C of the US army on June 9th, 1944 in Normandy? Ans
• What is aibohphobia the fear of? Ans
• Why did the book "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" by William Blum shoot into the limelight very recently? Ans

Thank you Marcos!

When : Five and a half years back.
Where: A restaurant in Bangalore.
Scene: I am with 3 of my friends, sort of a farewell for me, after submitting my resignation at my previous company.
-----
Friend 1: So Rajaram, where are you joining?
Me: I am going to Cyprus.
Friend 2: Ah, that's a good company, Cypress Semiconductors, Its in Chennai , right?
Me: No no, Cyprus is not the name of a company, I am "going" to Cyprus
Friend 2: Sorry, I didn't know that Cyprus is a city in USA.
Me: Cyprus is the name of a country ...
Friend 1,2,3 : What ?? Where is this country ?
Me: Its in Europe..
Friend 1: In Europe, never seen it in any of the maps ..Is it a big country ?
Me: No, its a very small country , too small to mathematically scale it to normal maps..
Friend 2: ugh ..then why are u going there ..
....
-----------
Such was the general knowledge about the existence of Cyprus few years back. One of the main reasons I chose to come here was the "exoticness" imprinted in my mind about an island in the Mediterranean sea. I remember, back in school, during the geography exams, invariably there used to be a "map" question asking us to point out the Mediterranean sea and i used to search the globe trying my luck with all landlocked water bodies !!

But, this was all pre-marcos era. Marcos Baghdatis, from the city of Limassol in Cyprus (the city where i stay) has put Cyprus and all its tray sure on the world map. He was the runner-up in the recently concluded Australian Open, an impressive feat for a person ranked 54 and from a country of around 700,000 people. I am sure any shopping mall during Diwali time in India would have more people in it!

I am thankful to Marcos, as he has saved me the trouble of explaining the history, geography, economics and what not to all the middle-aged relatives back in India.
All these relatives, after following the Australian open, would have researched enough to teach me a few things about Cyprus. Now, its listening time rather than talking time ...

Da Vinci Code - The Movie

Have you read the book "The DaVinci Code" ? If not, that should be the next item on your "Things-to-do list". I don't know of anyone yet who has not liked this book. I am not the kind who likes to spend time reading books, i would rather spend it playing some sport. But, I loved this book, maybe due to the fact that this is only the third book i have ever read.

If you are the kind who likes puzzles and crosswords, then you will be intrigued by the ones in this book. Visit the author Dan Brown's website to play the online challenge. It is an excellent "treasure-hunt" kind of thing, involving various aspects of modern technology..Try it, you will love it ..

Infact, a movie, based on this book, is due to be released sometime mid-2006. Check out the official website. There are some puzzles here too ..

Off to try these puzzles ....

Donations to a Gym

I started going to a gym 3 days back. This is actually my second attempt at going to a gym. The first attempt was four years back, when i had just come to Cyprus. It was the "in-thing" then to go to a gym. But, what everyone didn't tell was that lasting beyond the initial few days was definitely not the norm !

I took a 3-month subscription and went to the gym for exactly 3 weeks. I was a hero. I had gone longer than most of the guys who had joined with me. There are guys here working with me, for whom the only visit to the gym has been on the first day to pay the subscription ! Nowadays, it is widely agreed that your stay in Cyprus is incomplete, if you haven't donated to a gym. It is because of people like us that the gyms here are able to afford expensive modern equipment for the benefit of the locals. No wonder, we get a royal welcome whenever we approach a gym asking for subscription details.

I think, I have cracked the reason for this. The trainers at the gyms here chalk out a routine for you on the first day and when they introduce you to the various exercising stuff, they say "We usually start off with the minimum weight, but looking at you, i guess you can manage more". What this does is boost your confidence to unmanageable levels. So, at the end of the first day, you go back home and check yourself out in the mirror and say "looks like my abs have started developing already..". This is enough to keep you in bed the next morning!!

I have become wiser now and taken only a 1 month subscription. Its been three days and looks like my abs have already started developing ....

World's smallest website

This site calls itself "The Original world's smallest website". It even has an option to choose from Flash or HTML content. It also has the "World's Smallest Ping-Pong game" !! The game is interesting, though it makes some really strange sounds !

Create your own cartoons

Ever wondered how "they" created those "Stick Animations" which you see on TV. Now, you can create your own. Check out the site FlipBook. No need to login, just go ahead, create your animations and share them with the world.
Check out the one I made ..well, I am still learning ..

A Clock on your webpage

Want a Clock on your blog/webpage? ClockLink makes it very simple. All you have to do is to go to their site, choose the kind of clock you need and copy/paste the HTML onto your page.
You can either have an analog clock or a digital one.

Saarang 2006

Saarang 2006 started on the 24th. Saarang is the cul-fest of IIT Madras and one of the premier culfests in the country. Originally known as Mardi Gras, it was renamed to Saarang in 1996. If you are in Madras during this time, don't miss it. The "Pro" show this year is the Shankar-ehsaan-loy show. Check out http://www.saarang.org.

BOA 2006

This is the poster I created for the publicity of BOA Quiz (Brains of Amdocs). The second version is to be held this Friday. I based the title of this quiz on BOB (Brain of BITS), probably the most famous quiz in BITS, Pilani

New Year Party 2006

The 2006 New Year Party was held last Saturday at the Hawaii Grand Hotel. The special attractions this year were the 30 Awards given out and the presence of Ron First, a magician from Israel. The usual lottery/raffles which happen every year were also there. Vidhya or I usually win a Liquor bottle, but that didn't happen this time and so i guess, we are going to have a "teetotaler" year, the year of row ditty!

The magician was awesome. There was a big difference from the many magic shows I have seen. This one had a few long tricks rather than the usual many small ones. His start was impressive with the "wine glass trick".

His best "trick" was at best, shocking. Two guys were called on stage and made to sit on chairs. It looked to be some innocent trick, but both were to be taken on the most shocking ride of their lives :)

Then, there were the Belly Dancers. They have become pretty much, a standard offering at all our parties.

Then, we had the highlight of the evening, the awards. I am highlighting this as the highlight, because i won two awards, one for oustanding excellence and the other for contribution to non-techie areas called the "Because-of-U" award.

On the whole, it was a very enjoyable party.

Ignore all entries before this post

Ignore all the entries before this, as all of them were written for testing the various features and playing around with css options ..

Another test

testing this to be sure that the passing is ok.testing this to be sure that the passing is ok.testing this to be sure that the passing is ok.testing this to be sure that the passing is ok.testing this to be sure that the passing is ok.

testing this

testing this

testing this

Through word with a pic

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embed my own pictures. This is a second one with an image Let me see if this works. Then the bloggin work will be easy. I can easily reproduce the stuff which flickr does.This is a second one with an image Let me see if this works. Then the bloggin work will be easy. I can easily reproduce the stuff which flickr does.

Through Blogger for word

This is a test post thru blogger for word

Direct copy from flickr linking

This is actually a test post from within Flickr. This was taken at the inauguration of Lemesia 2005. The photo was taken from the pier.

Test linking to Flickr

This is a test post to check the linking from blogger to flickr.

Fireworks

Fireworks
Originally uploaded by Rajaram S.

This is actually a test post from within Flickr. This was taken at the inauguration of Lemesia 2005. The photo was taken from the pier.

A test with a Title

This is to check whether my html within a blog works a i think it would. But, i can see that it works as promised, now i wonder as to what else i can achive by publishing this inside the blog ..by now i have realised that I am typing junk to get some text to appear on the page ..

This is a test without a title to see how this stuff look like on the actual page.