Meri Ye Do Ankhen…

Copyrights Vinish Garg

To be continued…

A Flaterring Experience

Yes, I am flattered

 This is the title page of a magazine that I designed for our anniversary. Yes, it was a flattering experience..!! A few snapshots are available in an album on Facebook – vin.jyoti.ish.  Login into FB and find me at: 

http://www.facebook.com/Vingar#/vinish.garg?ref=profile

The complete online edition is available to those who have a cup of coffee with me. Plan it  :).

Moments that make Cricket the game it is…

Hussain’s cover drive was the best I have seen – all poetry

A once in a generation cricketer who redefines the way the game should be played

MCG is quite intimidating for visiting teams

Dravid – cricket will never be same without players like him, so orthodox and yet so classy

When emotions rule over common sense

A fast bowlers’ emotions

The ‘Openers’ walk-in

Lara on reaching 500: Will somebody ever raise his bat again for a 500?

India-Pakistan’s first ever encounter in a world cup: Emotions, Anger, Passion, Moment of Madness

I watched the first cricket match in 1987, 22 years back. The first names that I recall hearing was Raman Lamba, Arun Lal, Kapil and Shastri. I started watching it regularly in 1991, the tri-series in Australia with infamous 126 tie-match at Perth against West-Indies. I remember it as much for Sachin’s over as for Azhar catch to leave it a tie. I felt I was obsessed with it in 1993, during Hero Cup, and I wrote the first post on this gentleman’s game in 1999. From Arun Lal to Sidhu to Sehwag, from Vengsarkar to Manjeraker to Dravid, from More to Mongia to Dhoni, and from Kapil to Srinath to current brigade… I have seen all, along with of course generations from other countries as well.

www.cricinfo.com is the best thing to hook a cricket enthusiast like me but more than anything else, I like the collection of photographs available on this site (Courtesy Gettyimages because of their recent alliance with cricinfo).

Reconnecting… Is it Nature?

Reconnecting with old and forgotten friends after years is an amazing experience, a feeling of joy, fulfillment, and of ecstasy. Particularly for those whom you have lost hope that you will ever meet or chat online. It never happened with me so frequently as it has happened in last few months. People whom I would invariably remember – the moments that we shared together, the classes, coffee or career, the curriculum, customer calls or jokes, sometimes with smiles or with moist eyes.

First it was Neha – the prime character in my first book was inspired from her. I never thought that I will ever chat with her after 6 years were passed. But we did.
Then it was Renu, my class-mate during MCA. She is settled in Germany and again it was 5 years since we had a chat or message.
Next was Daya ma’m, we worked together in Spice, and we reconnected back after 5 years.
And today, it was Sanjeev. We studied together way back in 1991-94, 15 years back.

I do not believe that it is ONLY technology that is helping (la orkut/facebook). It is something in nature. Something that wants us to not to give hope, to embrace positivism, to have will to love and connect with more people, to share joy and laughter, and to love yourself and back yourself. Imagine how you feel/react when you are about to reply to a client email (that you don’t want to), or planning to cook rice (wishing someone else could do that, just for today), or waiting for a cab/bus (wishing your colleague could pick/drop you along the way, again just for today), or you are stuck in traffic (when an important cricket match is about to be over)… I guess nature has its own ways to pay back. And reconnecting to loved ones is one of those.

I long to reconnect with a few more people and I guess the route has been planned. It must be on the way. I can see it coming. Soon. God Bless Me.:)

Technical Writer and Pen/Pad?

“I wish you use pencil and pad also, and not always THE KEYBOARD, at least occasionally.” I was startled at her words. “Pencil? I am a tech writer not an architect dear,” I said.

Her voice had raised, “Even when you are thinking something, you are looking at the screen, with fingers tapping (struggling on) the keyboard. With pencil and pad, sometimes you would see around, left or right at least when you are thinking.” There was no pause… “And you might have noticed that our roof is leaking, door needs paint, fan needs to be cleaned, and blah blah blah…. Can’t u even sense that you can take off your specs at least while ‘thinking’?”

She was right!. How this PC has reshaped our thought process. I have noticed that even while planning tasks or time estimates, why I am (most often) looking at the screen? I recalled that when I was writing a fiction few years back, I would spend time looking at ceiling, or walls or at lawn outside the window. Of course technology has obsessively possessed our heart, nerves, veins, brain, liver, stomach, and everything, even spiritually. I can’t live without it but thanks to my dear wife, now I use pen and pad while ‘thinking’ or ‘planning’ something. God Bless Her.

Microsoft Vision 2019

Hi

Just want to share an excellent source of Microsoft Vision 2019 at:
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090228/microsoft-office-labs-vision-2019-video/

Interesting!

Technical Writers are recognized…

Technical Writers are not just any other writers, they are different from all other writing professionals. That’s interesting .

Know more at: http://www.stc.org/2009/05/04/us-govt-acknowledges-tech-writers.asp.
Cheers to the efforts by STC!

IPL 2009 Contest

The cricket’s new cash machine – IPL 2009 is all set to begin again. My only concern is that it may dilute the interest of 20-20 cricket world cup that follows within 2 weeks after IPL ends. After all, Indian team is the defending champions of 20-20 world cup when we famously won the crown in South Africa about 2 years back. And any such event run by ICC is far important than any cash driven ‘personal’ tournament.

IPL is huge for its hype and the cash it is expected to generate (the 7 min break after 10 overs in the innings is the latest card IPL offered to users. What users will get is, a break for updates on news channel as to what V^%&* Gandhi had in dinner, proofread an advert quickly, quick shower, salad dressing, walk with the dog, etc.) This space is for cricket lovers who love to track the game NOT ON game-by-game or over-by-over basis, BUT follow it for ball-to-ball, CLOSELY.

If I ask who are the players most likely to shine in IPL, 90% of people would start counting batsmen. Unfortunately, this is the game of batters, with due respect to bowlers. So, let’s guess who are the batsmen that are likely to dominate the tournament?

I have selected a list of 5 top batsmen who will be highest run getter in the tournament. I do not consider strike rate, average, or the batting position (though opener is more likely to score more runs than a number 4 or 5). I tried for loop but could not develop anything that I could integrate for user interaction. Simple, plain, technical writer’s calculations – highest run getter. That’s it.

The 5 batsmen are most likely to be from the following list:

McCullum, Taylor, Gibbs, Hayden, Raina, M. Hussey, Warner, Gambhir, Sehwag, de’ Villiers, S. Marsh, Yuvraj, D. Hussey, Duminy, Tendulkar, Jayasurya, Sangakaara, Kallis, G. Smith, Dhoni

Notable players who are less likely to make to the list of top 5 batsmen are:
Jayawardane, Ryder, Oram, Ganguly, Dravid, Flintoff, Peterson, Gayle

*Peterson and Gayle were in the original list but they are available only for few games which virtually means that their chances of being highest run getter are nil.

So, my list of 5 players who will top score in IPL 2009 are:
McCullum
Gibbs
Yuvraj
Taylor
de’ Villiers

Hard to leave were: Sehwag, Duminy, Raina, D. Hussey, Hayden, Dhoni, Tendulkar, Sangakaara

Your Guess?*
* You will win satisfaction of being a knowledgable cricket fan . All the best!

How much I miss STC events

As always, I registered myself for the New Delhi STC Session for 21 March, and as always, I missed it. On 20th evening, I packed my stuff and had my dinner early. This ensured that I could sleep early because I needed to travel 300 km before next morning. The next moment I heard thunderstorm and saw that it was raining cats and dogs .

I cursed the fate as night travelling in heavy rains was not really a good option. For next few hours, I dreamt of DITA (the subject of discussion) and oh… I missed it. It had happened earlier too, I would register and could not make it for some reasons. How much I miss STC in this sleepy (sleepy for technical writers) but othrwise beautiful city .

And as always, I vow to be there next time – Come What May (Probably it would be in MAY:) ). God Help me please.

This too is Writer’s Mental Block

The last week has been one of the most amazing in my professional life – exciting and disappointing at the same time.

I had my first release of documentation suite scheduled for release – where I had worked independently and was solely responsible for its successful external release. At the same time, I deparately wanted to be part of STC’s annual conference in PUNE.

The tussle between joy and agony continued 24X7….

When I saw my documents finally published on intranet and extranet today, the smile widened but soon it vanished. I saw that the conference photogaphs were uploaded on STC official site and God – how badly I missed being a part of it .

Har kisi ko mukkammal jahan nahi milta…!
kahin zameen to kahin aasmaan nai milta…!!

I wonder how I should reflect at that week now…