Archive for October, 2005

Dhyanesh got in big-G !

Friday, October 28th, 2005

An evening worth celebrating the fulltime offer from the big G to my apartment mate, Dhyanesh. He has done an outstanding job of bagging fulltime offers from two of the biggest IT giants of today - Yahoo and Google.

We both had a pleasant summer internship at Yahoo Finance and I presume it will be a tough call for him to make a decision. He has not one but two offers from Yahoo, with one obviously from the finance group and another from SDS which is supposed to have a bunch of challenging problems to solve. Yeah, some good food for a guy who thinks nothing other than TopCoder and ACM programming problems. Right, Dhyanesh ?

All the best to this young genious for a great and ambitious career ahead. Did I mention his dream about a topless beemer in not-so-distant future, cruising across california’s highway-1 with a… a… ahem… oh well…

Posted in misc | 1 Comment »

Getting a “real” motorcycle !!!

Friday, October 28th, 2005

Quicker than I expected, I outgrew my Honda Shadow 600cc v-twin cruiser, partly on account of its “low” 40hp and mostly due to its lack of fairings and weather protection. I am a long distance rider by heart and just needed a bigger machine that will make 600-mile days a breeze.

I finally got a good deal on a 2002 Kawasaki Concours, a silver colored beauty, which I already christened as SilverHorse. It is a 1000cc, 100hp beast and is the most affordable sport tourer in the market. It has an outstanding aftermarket support and an amazingly active Concours Owners Group (COG) website and forum. This bike can be totally maintained by the user, the design being same as the first model in 1986. I really like this type of machines where I can work as much as I can, add a bunch of useful add-on accessories, just by discussing with the COG forum members.

I am really happy about the decision. At $4300 it is a great money saver for me as I expected to spend around $8-10k for a good used Honda sport tourer when I move to California with a new job in January. This bike being the ideal one for me and a california model, saved a lot of headaches.

I can now ride a bit even in the bitter cold of east coast, with the comfort of a good windshield and add-on heated grips. The bike is supposed to come here next week and I just can’t wait…

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Ride in the Big Apple

Thursday, October 20th, 2005

A visit to Vaibhav’s place in NJ was long overdue. Since this involved crossing tunnels, I decided to postpone till getting a valid license.

What an unbelievable delay on the I-495 interstate around 5pm yesterday ! Traffic moved at a snail’s pace of 25-30 mph which I never saw before on that route. On the narrow Williamsburg bridge, it was worse than Kolkata traffic, average speed being 5 mph. A meagre 65 miles took me close to 3 hours but the timing was right as Vaibhav coming from office met me right in front of his apartment.

Some chit-chat like old times later, we rode on for dinner and some photo shoot of the new york skyline from the exchange place riverside boardwalk. Had yummy masala dosa at Journal Square. Enjoyed the stunning view of the manhattan skyline and the endless passage of airplanes taking off from Newark Liberty Intl airport nearby.

The best part of the trip was the return ride through downtown manhattan today morning. It was a big dream to ride in the big apple, and close to the Empire state and Chrysler buildings. My first ride through tunnels were great too. But Holland tunnel is too expensive - $5 toll for motorcycles where cars pay $6 ? Queens midtown tunnel cost me $2 though.

Plans are already underway for a 500+ mile weekend trip to Nashua, NH to visit another old friend Daman from my royal enfield days in India. Keeping my fingers crossed now as the cold weather gets bitter by the day.

Statistics from GPS:
Total miles: 159
Max speed: 76 mph
Moving time: 5 hours

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »