Slip-n-slide

I had my first fall from my bike the day-before yesterday!
Nothing serious, just a couple of bruises on my knee and
jaw that hurt a bit :). Some idiot on a scooter rushed in
from one of the side roads and I had to brake hard to avoid
hitting him, and there was some sand lying on the road...
so there goes my perfect record of 13000km on my bike :(

Something very interesting is, I had a fall from my scooter
around the same time last year! Last time around, I was
wearing jeans, so the knee didnt hurt all that much. But
this time my well-ironed Van Huesen trousers have been
reduced to bermudas :(

Madhugiri

The other day, Andi Kleen (yes! the kernel hacker :) ) and I went to Madhugiri.
I picked up Andi from his hotel and we set off to Madhugiri on my dear Pulsar!
We made there in good time (read fast riding ;-) ). We climbed all the way up
the hill and then made our way back down. The whole thing took about
3.5 - 4 hrs. The speed (or lack thereof) was because both of us were low
on stamina. Me lower than Andi anyways, and I probably slowed down
the climb. Now, the Madhugiri betta (hill) is the tallest monolith in Asia.
That's not all, there's one place where you have to move horizontally
where the face of the rock is almost vertical. There are steps carved
out of stone, but the fear is for real (at least for me, Andi was unfettered).
Now, if climbing up on this path was difficult, this part of the path was
downright scary for me while climbing down, and the strong winds didn't
help! That apart, Andi really liked the hill and was happy that we did it.

Now, the sad part - Both of us forgot to take our cameras. So, Madhugiri
remains to be cherished in our memories. Also, Andi got a sun-burn on his
face. His face was _red_. I think it is difficult for us, Indians, to think of
some face as red... But this was my first look at somebody's red face due
to a sunburn.

We guys are planning to go on a bike trip from Bangalore. The round trip
is expected to be around 1200km. The tentative route is
Blore->Mys->Coorg->Mlore->Honnavar->Jog Falls->Blore...
So, nitin, wanna join?

more later...

Kernel Hacker...

... not me! But I'm getting there... :) Well, I got a really big boost in
inspiration to work on the kernel last week. I was at Linux-Bangalore/
2004 and got a chance to speak to Andi Kleen, kernel hacker! Man!
I think I have to keep speaking to such guys every once in a while.
This guy is cool! Basavesh fell for his Athlon64 laptop... :) Among
other things, I learnt that Andi is interested in History. He started
writing a Common Lisp interepreter once...! It gets better, he also
wrote a C-compiler... Man, I felt like a worm speaking to him. And,
he is all of 27yrs. I felt like kicking myself at what I have (not)
achieved in life till now.


I also liked Andrew Cowie's second talk titled "Tales from the Dark
Side of the Moon". He is a very good speaker. But this year's Linux-
Bangalore wasnt very smooth for the organizers. For details of all
the stupid stuff they had to put up with, visit Harald Welte's blog.