"Peer" appraisal

It seems that Dukhi does not know the concept of a peer. He has assigned me as a peer of the Bulldog - a person with whom my communication has been limited to a single code review. Even that review was dominated by Baavra, as he knew the topic at hand more intimately than I did. And even with this situation, I have to comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the Bulldog. I added a remark in my comments saying that my appraisal was based on that one occassion of communication that happened between the two of us.

It looks like this peer appraisal is nothing but a formality for this group.

Requirements doc

I'm preparing a requirements doc for the new PI. By stretching my imagination to the limits, I could actually come up with 6 points that can be termed as "requirements". I need to run it by Rishi Kapoor by end of today and send it out on the mailing list. I completed the Word document before lunch, and am spending the time converting it to HTML. I'm the master when it comes to doing stupid time pass!

Nice ride

So I left office yesterday at 3:15, and while leaving the BG parking lot I suddenly got the whim of going for a long ride. So I took the Baner Road all the way to the NH4 bypass about 6 km from the office, then turned left on the bypass towards Katraj. This was a really awesome ride - 4-lane smooth road occassionally flanked on both sides by hills, gentle slopes and banked curves. I had the urge to test the bike's speed, but kept the speed at 60. I must have ridden about 10 km in as many minutes before I took the exit towards Kothrud. I had no idea where it would lead but took it anyway. To my surprise, I found that it was Paud Road. I passed the hotel that had served as a landmark while finding the hall in which AJ's engagement took place 2 days ago. Reached home refreshed at 3:45.

Unwell

The plan that came to my mind yesterday about faking sickness and not coming to work today almost became a reality. I awoke at 9 with an ache in my ribs and hips. I had been feeling sort of shivery and feverish while sleeping last night. I thought of skipping work, but decided against it as I wasn't feeling so bad that I couldn't get out of bed. But now, at the time of this writing, I have a slight headache developing. So I think I might as well head home.

Andaaz Apna Apna game

CK and I have been playing a game the whole day. We've been typing dialogues from the movie Andaaz Apna Apna, in approximately the actual sequence in the movie. It's a great way of revising your knowledge about this fantastic movie. It's also a good judge on when you need to watch the movie again.

Tummy upset in the making

After eating a lot of angoor-malai at AJ's engagement yesterday, and something very fishy for lunch today, my stomach is feeling a little queasy. I didn't have any snacks for fear of aggravating it. Thoughts of leaving office early flashed across my mind. Maybe I can fake a stomach upset for the next two days, and skip office. Then I won't have to bother with the damned PI! What a brilliant idea. Typical escapist me.

PI hell

So I've been given the "ownership" of the "new" PI. I have to workout the "requirements" and "design" for this thing, based on discussions somebody else has conducted. The damned PI is a peripheral low-priority uninteresting piece of shit, which I have to make "simple", "robust" and "easy to understand". I shal have another "resource" at my disposal if needed for "investigations".

I was subjected to such bullshit by Rishi Kapoor yesterday.

Another wicket down

AJ is getting engaged today. After a whirlwind round of elimination and meetings, he had found a suitable match on Friday. Today, he's getting engaged! It's amazing how lack of time can cause people to take such snap decisions! To meet a girl just once or twice and decide that she's the one to be your life partner means that you are either a very good judge of character, or just plain stupid! Knowing Amit, it wasn't surprising that he would do all this in a hurry.

Lazy weekend

The weekend's over, nothing worthwhile done. Played football on Saturday morning, a 4-a-side game. Ranjeet, Atul, Abhishek, Sagar, Amit and 2-3 others were there. Promised them that I would show up on Sunday for the UU game. Did absolutely nothing other than play compie the rest of the day. Aai had been telling me for the last 2 weeks to get the new cordless fixed. Well, it's not actually a new one. I brought it when I came back last January, and it hasn't been used since. Hence new.

After putting it off for so long, I finally went to the tele shoppe. I also carried along the handset of the old cordless. I first showed the guy at the shop this piece, asking for new batteries since the voice was coming out too low. He said it might be a problem with the speaker of the earpiece, and he couldn't test it without having the base unit. So I would have to get that and come back. I showed him the new one. It turned out that this piece wasn't working because the handset and the base unit were not speaking to each other with the same code. He would have to tinker around with it, and so he kept it with him. I went back home and got the base unit of the old phone. The guy confirmed that it was a problem with the speaker, and kept that piece too. One week for the new phone, Tuesday for the old one.

The alarm went off at 7 today, but I slept on. Atul called up around 8:15 asking if I was coming. Had to say no because it was too late. AJ called up at 9:30 with some good news. He's getting engaged. After eliminating most of the prospective girls just by looking at their photos and educational background, he had finalized three. He met all of them, and seemed to be very impressed by one of them. So he consented to go ahead with the match. The engagement will be held sometime in the coming week. There's not much time as he's leaving next Saturday.

In the evening I went out to get fresh pairs of undergarments. It's been 3.5 years since I last shopped for undergarments. That was in 2001, when I was preparing to leave the country for my MS.

The week ahead is not too appealing for me. Most likely, I'll have to work on the damned PI stuff. I've dedicated an entire post ranting about the PI, so best not to repeat it here.