Transformation from a successful engineer to engineering manager

One of the most difficult career transformations is the transformation from an individual contributor to becoming a manager. For lack of the better term, "Manager" is an often abused term, so I prefer the term "Leader". One of the benefits I have had in my career is that I have had the opportunity to work with several kinds of people and this played a huge part before I embarked on a personal goal to become a "Leader".

So you are an engineer, you already know all the technical details....how difficult would it be to become a "Engineering Manager/Leader". I thought it was easy, with a feeling of "may be I will face the consequences later". It's the classic "Risk vs Reward" Scenario. After a few weeks of being a manager, I said to myself ..... "Holy Guacamole...this is not just being a software engineer". I have to admit, I did some mistakes when I started...but the key is that I kept learning from my mistakes. Let me enlist the key lessons I learnt and challenges I faced during my transformation:

1. Learn to work with people: This sounds simple in principle, but it is actually the hardest part. You have to learn what stimulates your team and peers, what motivates them, what keeps them happy and what helps in minimizing conflict. You also have to really focus on how their contributions will drive better results. You always need to be their mentor and help in their decision making.
2. Think Strategically: One of the key challenges I faced was how not to think/act like an engineer. This is incredibly hard because you have to force yourself to think out-of-the-box. The ability to innately and critically challenge decisions, viewpoints, problem domains and handle ambiguous data is what differentiates a manager from an engineer. From a management perspective, you need to see what business transformation can be achieved from your role and gather the best data to make it happen, present it to the executive/leadership team, engage them in your vision and then execute.
3. Attend Relevant Meetings: A huge downside of being a manager/leader is you have to attend  a lot of meetings. An important lesson I learned is that I have to only attend the meetings that I can contribute or I learn something from. I also recommend you to not attend meetings without a "clear agenda" or "your role is not clear".
4. Remain Technically Relevant: You cannot keep coding(as much as you would like to), learn to live with it. I quickly learnt that my passion to code cannot exceed more than 20-30% of my time. I did Code Reviews, Design Analysis, Architecture etc but definitely learnt to gradually reduce my intense desire to code.Now that you are no longer coding on a regular basis, it is a challenge to remain technically relevant and keep up with new technologies. 
5. Find Excellent Mentors: An important ability for every manager to have is becoming a coach for his reports. But who coaches the managers? When you are an engineer, you have a senior engineer or an architect to look up-to? What about management....It is easy to say...look up your manager....he might be your best mentor....he might be not too. Seek out that leader in your company who can transform your thought process, help your decision making skills and give you tough love as you are working hard to prove yourself.

I can go on and on....but hopefully this gave folks an insight on what it takes to make the transformation. Since there is no clear definition of success criteria, all I can say is I have taken the leap and hope to have made a difference in my organizations and also the people around me.

Why startup?

A few years back I worked at an exciting new traffic visibility startup - Gigamon LLC. Gigamon had its shares of up and downs but had some smart engineers and decent products. Having worked at different sized companies like Motorola, Yahoo! and Blue Coat, I wanted to share the aspects you would see in a startup and should I say they should be the ground rules for judging a technology(software) startup:

1. No Rules: There are no strict rules in a startup and this green-field approach fosters creativity at the highest level. It is an essential premise for a startup to maintain its blazing speed of innovation.
2. Winning Culture: Everyone is focussed on their job but also to do things right by suppressing one's own ego. To influence change the right way , the employees must respect and trust each other. When things are not right, don't hesitate to question authority. Accountability at all levels promotes a winning culture
3. Minimal Processes and/or Documents: Enforcing too much process leads to what i call "Organizational Drag". Too little process which is typically the case for most startups can lead to "Company Chaos". "Do you need something on security certificates....ask someone in Team K" is usually the answer rather than "Look at this HOWTO doc". While this is good in a super small startups, it does not scale well as the startup grows more than 50 employees. A "healthy evolving process with quality documentation" is necessary for any startup to succeed and grow organically. The key term here is "Process Evolution". Why does a process need to evolve? Since companies adopt different strategies, scale differently, workflows once made need tuning, it is necessary for process and documentation to evolve. 
4. Visibility and Freedom: Everything you do is visible. People are more responsive for positive change and appreciate your input. If you mess up though, you cant hide. You have a new idea ? - "Prototype it and show it to your VP or CTO" and he/she may accept it willingly and incorporate into the company strategy. In a medium to large sized company...the question always is "Who are you?" and followed by ..." please setup a meeting after talking to the admin assistant."In startups , there are no barriers to developing new stuff. This freedom is needed for building a creative culture.
5. Excellent communication: The speed of development in a startup also hides an important underrated aspect of software development which is "hash it out" communication. In most cases, you respect your peers since they are incredibly smart and driven like you are and you want to hash out great ideas, communicate your thoughts and collaborate and implement it. You go to your peer's cube....whiteboard your discussions and boom ...go and implement the idea or tweak it as your team sees fit. This is done in minutes and hours rather than email chains, comments perusal in a wiki etc which may take days. Lack of communication can bring down even an innovative startup in terms of technology.

Lot more factors can have an effect on "What makes/ breaks a great startup? Stay tuned for more insights.

Let me know what you think your experiences are?

Thoughts on Agile adoption at work!

One of the hardest problems in life is to enforce others to embrace change which you believe in. I recently went to an excellent Agile Conference - RALLYON2012 and it opened my mind to the power of team-work, constant collaboration and breaking down barriers. I am entrusted with this unique responsibility of enforcing AGILE in our company and thought I share my experiences on what I have learned.

1. Everyone has a different notion of the term "AGILE" . Some people think its about faster delivery of features, some people think it is a "Slave-Driver" mechanism, some people think of it as "Open Dialogue Progress".  Lots of people ask me "What do I get by doing this Agile process?"
2. Some teams change and adapt to Agile concepts of Daily Scrum, Time-boxed Sprints/Iterations and Releases and Burn-down Charts well. Some teams resist it completely due to strong personalities who believe "AGILE" approach doesn't provide benefit.
3. Product Managers have to assess the market, analyze the Field input, propagate new ideas, push requirements to developers and myriad of other things and hence cannot be Product Owners in an "Agile" World due to the enormous amount of load a Product Owner truly has which is to "Accept" User Stories and Defects on a regular basis
4. You cannot do Agile without the right level of Metrics at a Team-Level and at Project-Level. You need a tools team which focuses on providing this data to the stakeholders or have an Agile Lifecycle Management Framework like Rally provide the necessary tools and apps for you. Any tool you buy needs to be customized based on Organizational needs.
5. Changing the Culture in a Company which uses the traditional "Waterfall" model is extremely hard and takes lot of time. Don't force a culture change to happen too fast. Let it happen gradually and it is important to bring new people who embrace the "Inspect and Adapt Culture".
6. You need to have a "Agile-Process" Police in the company to ensure folks are doing the right thing and making sure the ship is sailing smooth without any pirates.
7. Cross-Site Scrums are hard to work with and not as effective as scrums with everyone in the team locally.

One thing is crucial : Belief in change and continuous improvement is essential for a company or organization to be truly "AGILE".

Thoughts on my recent trip to India

India is a land of many cultures and many languages. One of the biggest challenges for India is to handle problem of scale. In general, problem of scale is handled by breaking down into small pieces. In India, the divide and conquer rule is thrown out of the window since the population has exploded beyond control. This is similar to the problem of what happens when there are too many rats in the house.

In my recent trip, I traveled to North India for the first time(being a South Indian) with trips to Delhi, Agra and Jaipur(within 5 days) and realized that of all the places I had been ....Bangalore is comparatively so clean and is universally recognized as one of the best places to live in India. I must admit that I was amazed at how big the roads were in New Delhi and came away impressed with the nation's capital. On our way to Connaught Place, we happened to see the Delhi Metro looks great.

Our highest expectations were on Taj Mahal and the town of Agra . I was impressed with the Taj Mahal but not pleases with what the town of Agra had to offer. Agra is by far the dirtiest place I have seen in my life. I was also surprised that lot of folks there were out to hoodwink us rather than treat us like inquisitive visitors. By contrast, I loved the city of Jaipur especially with the impressive forts - Amer fort, Jal Mahal, Hawa Mahal etc and also the people.

I also got the taste of East India during this trip when I visited the city of temples - Bhuvaneshwar. The beaches near Konark and Puri are a sight to behold and so are the temples. The Puri Jaganath temple is probably one of the most crowded temples I have been to. Interestingly the Sun temple of Konark offered a strange insight of how advanced our artists and culture was in the 10th century.

Our trip was filled with lots of travelling and fun. India has by far the best places to eat varieties of food but quality food does come at a price these days. The biggest disappointment of the whole trip was the traffic in Bangalore. The Garden City does not have the same charm anymore. Bustling with malls and active night life, the city is enticing for the youth but very hard place to travel around. Here is hoping "Namma Metro" will solve majority of the problems by its connectivity.

Python-MySQL-Windows

One of the best parts of programming is you are always learning something new. I happened to build a simple statistics application with MySQL as the database. For practice , I decided to revert to Python since doing lot of coding in PHP and Perl. I was lazy enough to decide to add MySQL connectivity to Python on my Windows 7 (32-bit) box and found that I had a range of issues.

To cut the long story short...here is a summary for anyone who wants to use MySQLdb(Python MySQL driver) on windows.

I installed Python 2.7.1 on Windows which is a simple install from python.org. I installed MySQL Server 5.1 which is a simple msi file install.I then hit some snags with getting MySQLdb to work with Python. So this tutorial is truly for these versions.

1. Install Python 2.7.1. I installed into "C:\Python27". Make sure you set yout "PATH" environment variable and compile Python with a simple "hello world!" program.
2. Install MySQL Server5.x. Again make sure that MySQL can be accessed via command line by adding the MySQL Server bin folder to the "PATH" variable
3. Do not download and compile the MySQL Python Drivers. You will waste time. Instead get precompiled executables from : http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/
4. Double click on the exe after download and choose the python folder which was "C:\Python27" in my case. This will install the MySQLdb connector
5. Start Python IDLE(GUI editor) and type "import MySQLdb". If you dont see any errors, you are ready to use the MySQL connector.

It is important to have the Path variables set correctly which makes the big difference. I spent couple of hours on this with missing libraries and changes in site.cfg and found this as the quickest way and hope my fellow coders dont waste time on trivial stuff like these.

How Twitter impacts us!

Twitter has exploded into the social networking causing a buzz among users in millions. The premise of freedom of speech can be used by this micro-blogging service (micro..since it only allows only 140 chars per tweet). Some people call this the "SMS of the Internet" and is now ranked by Alexa as a top 15 web site in the World. What is great about Twitter is that you can express anything and everything and due its ubiquitous nature you can learn about stuff just by searching for tweets related to a topic. The possibilities with Twitter are endless. You can send direct messages to particular users using an @ sign. A simple search for "#apple" will get you good enough links about mac stuff.

What amazes me is the potential possibilities of Twitter:

1. You can provide Recommendations - you suggest hotels to stay, places to go, restaurants to eat, clothes to buy...whole lot of stuff and people can use your recommendations to do stuff.
2. Provide Honest Opinion/Feedback. Lets say i took a flight on a particular airline and did not like their service. I can be specific on my flight details. The key to doing this is that each airline should use tags(lets say #DeltaFeedback for Delta airlines)
3. Communicate ideas/thoughts and this could spurn a whole new set of ideas
4. Entertainment,Killing Time etc assist in Prevention of Depression.
5. You learn what your friends or family are upto!

and the possibilities are endless.

As with anything, there are fallbacks also. Its already causing a rage in NFL training camps(some teams have banned use of Twitter). A Denver nuggets player - J.R Smith had to shut down his twitter site due to issues as of today. Check out Denver Post for the details.

Like most of you out there, I do also have a twitter page, Check it out here: TechShrink's Twitter

Lets all get AMPed

Take a look at this: YAHOO APT!

Whats the next tech miracle?

I keep wondering what is going to be the next great innovation..... i keep wondering how much people are immune to change.

Think of whats happening with the world now:
1. we have really smart phones
2. we have a smarter internet...thanks to Yahoo, Google and Microsoft
3. We have user friendly and powerful Operating Systems...thanks to Apple
4. We have great GPS systems for Cars/SUVs etc....but something is missing
5. We have amazing cars...cars are getting smarter and sleeker by the day..
6. We have great TVs, stunning picture quality and sound thanks to HD, Blu ray and also mind blowing games..
7. We have good washing machines...good microwaves and also cool refrigerators.
8. All those special irobots like roomba, verro etc

Whats missing then?

1. We still dont have smart GPS systems...Dash is an introduction...wonder if there is anything in garmin's pipeline? Smart GPS systems are systems which gives smart suggestions....it should suggest you the weather in the area is bad, traffic and construction( real time) and what local roads to follow will have minimum stop lights,basically have a form of Q-A System local to the area...for example...if i want to know the top rated dance clubs in west hollywood...the GPS system should be able to fetch it and let me know with the distances to each one of them. Similarly we should be able to know the current status of parking in parking lots...on the streets around the destination....i know this is a whole lot of information and lot of unknowns here....but that it what computer scientists and designers should dwell on
2. We need a smarter computer/web experience....the internet as we know is evolving so fast that it is hard to keep up with the technology...but imagine a world where the computer is your friend and he/she does what you want it to do. For example....we can ask the computer to read our mail and sort the most important ones based on my most clicked email topics or even people. Similarly the computer should customize the web to my preferred sites, allow me to communicate with the people i want to at any time
   
3. We need smarter TVs....TVs that can tell us what channel has my favorite shows and when..and it should have the ability to switch on the TV automatically at that point of time even if i have forgotten about it....this could cause hassles if you are sleeping or doing something private...but its an interesting thought.

Gone Baby Gone!

Watched 2 movies this weekend: Gone Baby Gone and Jab We Met(Hindi)

Gone Baby Gone is painful.....i mean its deep a movie to watch on a friday after a long work week. I also felt Casey Afflek's acting bored me to hell. Ben could have cast himself and would have done a better job.

Jab We Met was fun to watch. Not too serious, not too stupid...i think its a film i can classify as good "Time-pass".

Also took my doll out to Architecture Tour...i still amaze at the buildings in downtown.

Watch out for my technical blogs!

Finally decided that tech blogging was the way to go...and here is the link: http://techshrink.blogspot.com

Vanity is definitely...my favorite Sin!

When someone thinks too much of oneself then they are in trouble. I have seen this happen to so many people around me that it makes me sad that an individual can feel they are on top of the world and whatever they say and do is right.

What makes any one of us vain?

1. I am among the most beautiful human beings in the world
2. I have millions of dollars that i can spend and nobody can question me
3. The feeling that i can do anything and no one can stop me...

It is of paramount importance that we as humans care for what others think and feel....as we are all social animals.....we form the society and society forms us. All those people who do not care for their loved ones feelings are the ones in real trouble. Of course, we all know who love us dearly and we must pay utmost attention to their feelings first....if even one of them feel....that we are doing something wrong and question our actions.....it is important to approach the issue with a clear and open mind. A vain person would brandish that person away...instead of clarifying it. People who are vain are always clouded with the thought that they cannot be wrong...everyone around them is at fault. That is why the most important advice for a vain person is this - "The world doesnt revolve around you...it is the sun....and no amount of money/ beauty can change that...so shut up and behave like one of us".

How to recognize if someone is vain or not? it may be harder than you think!

Java Tidbits - Copy file

I recently moved to a Java group in my company. One of the most important things for a programmer is a method to copy a file. Unfortunately Java does not have an API call to do it meaning i cannot call a FileHelper class and do a copy file.

One of the programs i found on the internet( with some of my modifications) was to use a buffered reader...here is the sample function

public static void copyFile(File src, File dst) throws IOException {
InputStream inputStream = null;
OutputStream outputStream = null;

try
{

inputStream = new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(src));
outputStream = new BufferedOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(dst));

while (true)
{
int numofbytesread = inputStream.read();
if (numofbytesread == -1) break;
outputStream.write(numofbytesread);
}
}
finally
{
if (inputStream != null) inputStream.close();
if (outputStream !=null) outputStream.close();
}

}

A better and more efficient method would be to use File channels:

public static void copyFile(File src, File dst) throws IOException {
try
{
FileChannel sourceChannel = new FileInputStream(src).getChannel();
FileChannel destChannel = new FileOutputStream(dst).getChannel();
sourceChannel.transferTo( 0, sourceChannel.size(), destChannel );
sourceChannel.close();
destChannel.close();
}
catch (IOException e)
{
System.out.println("IO Exception occured while copying File. Stack Trace:");
e.printStackTrace();
}
}


Will update the blog with more Java tidbits as i learn something new.

Some of the most irritating/annoying things in life according to me!

I just decided to put on a list of qualities( behaviorial predominantly) in people that irritate me the most:

1. Hypocritical People: I mean people who do not follow what they preach. The truth lot of us tend to forget is what we advise others and we forget that we have to set an example for others to follow. Sometimes I admit I dont follow what I preach to everyone 100% but following what you preach 90% of the time is great. An example : I met a doctor and asked him about maintaining low cholesterol and he asked me to cut down on fatty foods, avoid junk foods especially and then I saw him in the corridor with a Snickers bar in his hand after I was out of the room. I have seen lot of doctors comment about exercising to live a healthy lifestyle when they never exercise or follow a diet control mechanism on their own. Isn't this what we call "RIDICULOUS" ???

2. Hotch-Potchers: I know some pals who talk so much trash and are so much BS that it irritates the hell out of me. The most annoying thing is because of the fact that they do not know the topic under discussion well but just pretend to know.

For example, Let me narrate an incident:

I have a friend who is an Electrical Engineer and knows hotch-potch( a term i use if someone has half-baked or little knowledge if anything at all)about Computer Security but he went on arguing at dinner about how Windows is the worst in terms of Security and when I told him to take a look at Motorola Q and said that Microsoft has done a decent job in terms of security and explained to him the certification concept they have used for signing.He was adamant and replied "Dude...Are you nuts!! Microsoft means vulnerable". I gave up and just realised that there is no point in arguing with people who claim they are right even though they are 100% wrong. Sometimes people are not ready to say " I dont know" or " I am not sure" even though they mentally know that these are one of the answers they honestly have to answer.

3. Gossip Mongers and Commenters: We all love some gossip whether it is human or celebrity or sports or movies. I think its very human to gossip, but there is a fine line between necessary gossip and mindless gossiping. The fine line has to be drawn by the individual himself. If the individiual does not, everyone around starts talking about him/her the same way he/she talks about everyone else. Don't people realize that we spend too much time dissecting into someone else's life than our own? I admit I make comments about others myself but I dont cross the fine line of just gossiping crap. So do the necessary gossip to enjoy your social life but never cross the line!

4. Complainers: I hate people who complain that the whole world is wrong except themselves. There are so many instances when we need to introspect our own actions but we believe bad circumstances or bad karma caused a particular unpleasant incident/occurence. It is easy to point fingers to anyone and everyone but oneself. When something goes wrong, the first thing we look at is to blame someone else...and people who show these qualities are the ones you must avoid being with or even socializing with. How unfair is it that when there is success, we want self-credit (not even share it with someone who deserves equal credit) but when there is failure, we never blame one-self??

Maturity is Overrated

Sometimes I keep wondering, when in the course of history of human growth does a human mature. Every phase of life is a sort of "Maturity Phase" according to me. When you are born, you want to mature to the next phase which is speech and recognition. Once we are done with that or even parallely a new challenge is set- to make the child ambulatory. So we all mature slowly to 18 year old adults and that is the phase of life where you need the most help to prevent you from going astray. Lot of people use the term "juvenile pleasures" or even "jawani ki josh" sometimes to refer to an immature act. So my question is "What is Maturity? How does one attain it?". Dictionary.com defines it as

a) The state or quality of being fully grown or developed
b) The state or quality of being mature

The other meanings of the word Mature refer to Bonds( like when the Bond is due) and Geology which are not relevant. Another definition states that : Maturity is the period of time in your life after your physical growth has stopped and you are fully developed.

I think most of us who are 20+ agree maturity is something of a mental thing. We all think that maturity is something which shows ability of a person to shoulder responsibility and handle it successfully. The complexity of the responsibility is also crucial here.I think "Maturity" is a term that is overrated primarily due to the fact mental growth happens when a man/woman is in his/her 20s, 30s, 40s and even when he/she is in the 80s and is learning something new. Life teaches you so many new things and everyone has limited short term and long term memory that none of us can remember we learnt in the past X years where X is a number larger than 10. So Maturity is a phase of life that every human may/may not achieve before his/her death. Maturity should be defined as a phase of life where individual can manage daily activities independently and also handle the ability to handle not-so-mundane tasks without much fuss. The definition of the "not-so-mundane" tasks is relative here.

Perfect Vacation, Airport Security and my latest read

Its been quite a while since i wrote some thoughts and actions i have been upto lately. I have been off work from New Years Eve till now and it has been an enriching experience. I cancelled my trip to India...and that was sad for multiple reasons....it depleted my chance of a perfect vacation and also depleted my pocket of $250. Sometime i wonder, why we have to pay to cancel a ticket? These Airline companies will surely find another person flying to India in no time. If they dont..the travel agencies will be waiting for it to happen so that they can coax a client with higher prices. I understand the cancellation charges for a domestic airline(since i experienced my flight from Omaha to Denver was close to empty and so was my flight from denver to sacramento), but its absurd to charge 1/5 the price of the ticket as cancellation charges.

This was my first New Year since the Millenium that I spent with family and I admit it was a welcome change. I love hanging out with friends and paartying but internally i am family guy per se. I think living in USA makes you appreciate your family that much more( esp if they are in another country) and since i havent seen my parents for 3 years, it was a pleasure to be with them and spend my New Year with them. I would have loved to spend the New Year with family in India but spending it in USA gave my dad some joy as he had a dream to spend the New Year here atleast once.

My idea of a perfect vacation is where you have the following:
1) A bed which permits you to sleep for 12 hrs atleast
2) A great TV and have bountiful of movies and food.
3) Family or Friends.
4) Dont do too much( I recently went to Orlando to meet my best buddies and we were in the hotel or in Daytona beach or a dance club just hanging out. As much as i wished to see Universal Studios etc etc..i did not see it since i would lose time spent with my pals.)

Airport Security in USA is probably the most under-discussed topics of the year. People talk a lot about security officers being racial and some of the reports i hear about racial profiling maybe true but the fact remains that you wont know till you are a victim. I have been almost never been subject to special security screening and since security officers usually base it on computer generated "SSS" on the boarding pass, it is easy to know when you are selected. I got pulled this time in Omaha airport and I observed 10-20 people behind me or ahead of me in the line did not have the "SSS" screening done. I lazed around a little after my screening was done, slowing down the process of me getting up and leaving to my boarding gate and realised that so far nobody in front or behind me had gotten the "SSS" which begs me to the question: Is the "SSS" generated in the boarding pass truly random or is it monitored by people or is it monitored by an AI program that scans First and Last Names generated and matches it to the common English names? I might sound far-fetched and too much opinionated but as soon as they pulled me over I noticed the eyes of the security officers to each other saying " check him ". Technically i was not a victim of profiling but i wondered why non-whites get "SSS" tagged most often?. Another incident in the airport prompted me to say this- One of my relatives had an "SSS" on her kid's boarding pass and the kind was 4 year old. My question to the airport authorities is this: How can a 4 year old kid know anything to jeopardize the security of an airplane or airport for that matter?

I am currently reading Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" which debunks the theory of global warming with some eye-popping facts. Lot of critics recognize this book as a fast paced thriller but many are unsure of believing that the world is not affected by the greenhouse gases. I will discuss more on this topic sometime soon.

Thanksgiving in NYC, Ideal Car and NFL

I had been to New York for Thanksgiving and it was a dream come true. New York is probably one of the most buzzing and active cities in the world. NYC is known for all its hype, action, media etc. but what struck me the most is that living in NYC is just like being part of an high octane action movie. If you live in the city (especially downtown Manhattan), you will not be surprised why you hear the term "City that never sleeps" tagged to New York. I must term my trip as adventurous especially considering the fact that we( Myself and 2 of my friends whom i met at my workplace) drove past Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania before we reached the Big Apple. The best part of the road trip was it was unplanned and we had our share of close shaves and crazy occurences. We had to drive through the Pocono Mountain Range and exactly at the time we drove around the area, there was a snowstorm with almost zero visibility. Add the weather drama to my road-wingmen snoring in the car and you see the darker side of roadtrip adventure. Despite all the driving hazzles, we made it after 15 hrs of night driving on white tar with lots of caffeine seeping through our veins. Driving in NY Downtown was one more challenge left to encounter at the end of our night driving saga and soon I felt i was driving in India. Taxis drive like Auto-rickshaws and I bet that no cop in downtown every handed a speeding ticket with the traffic over there. We took this road trip to meet our pals mainly to avoid expensive Thanksgiving flights and partially also for the kicks only a roadtrip can give. Can you guess what part sucked the most(of the trip): PARKING in Manhattan for 3 days cost us $120. The best part of the visit though was not seeing the Empire State Building or Statue of Liberty or Times Square but it was the time I spend with my buddies and laughing our ass off at the live comedy act at Comedy Cellar close to NYU. Sometimes, it is the simple things in life that we ignore or take for granted are the most memorable moments of our life... for example hanging out with friends, laughing aloud like hyenas, eating food of a different cuisine, taking the train from one town to another, the quick walk from one building to another in the freezing cold. I realised that vacation is not only about visiting places but enjoying the most common stuff we miss doing during our weekly work routine or the weekend.

Zen and the art of Car Decisions :

Just when i thought i found the ideal car in Acura TSX ,my new roommate bought a Honda Accord for almost $25K and his statement about the difference between Accord and Acura TSX inspired me to search about Accord. Accord fits the bill of a family sedan perfectly but doesn't give the sporty feel of the Acura TSX. As a result it's performance is not comparable to the TSX. However if the price is the most important criterion , then Accord is a great buy. My logic goes like this: If i can pay $25K, it should not be too much of a hassle on my living if i get my ideal luxury car for $30K. You live only once and so its imperative you enjoy your life while you can.

Now to write my own Analysis Section of the NFL( sorry Peter King) - Sunday Evening Running Back:

Ladainian Tomlinson( a.k.a LT a.a.a greatest running back ever ) was proclaimed as the best running back (of all-time)in football by his coach-Marty Schottenheimer. Since Marty was a defensive coach for a long time before becoming head coach, the statement holds lot of value. Last year, Denver's coach Mike Shanahan made a statement that LT is the best running back he has seen in the NFL. Why do so many coaches and analysts concur on this statement by Mike(Not everyone will agree with Marty)? It is because LT gives so many options when you hand the ball to him. He is San Diego's #1 Offensive Weapon as he can run, catch and throw the ball. Why is his skills so great? It is not because he can run fast or make you silly on an open field but his ability to make you miss in short spaces that separate him from all other running backs i have seen or probably will see. He has had some great runs during his career but since i follow his success and failure closely, I observed that his best run of the season was the 8 yd TD run against New England where he was so close to the ground but never went down on multiple contacts. He showed to me that he can gain those tough yards and still make home runs possible. Last week against the Washington Redskins defense, he stiff armed a redskin linebacker on his way to a touchdown which to me was one of hardest things to do for a running back his size and speed. This run coupled with the move against Ty Law which made him look silly just made me think "Marty finally made the media notice something they were waiting for a big name coach to announce." I have only one question for LT? If you are the best running back in football why dont you have 100 yard games for about 13 of the 16 weeks in the regular season. LT is a great running back but is not as consistent as Walter Payton or Emmitt Smith or Barry Sanders. Until he reaches the level of consistency of 100 yd-2 TD performances every week i will not accept LT as the best running back of all time although all of us know he has the talent to be the greatest.

Heading to the significant games on unoffcially NFL's "Rivalry Weekend":

Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants: This is the most important game of the week. I think the Cowboys are overrated and they will struggle to beat New York. I am really concerned of the Giants defense but Cowboys dont have an offense to light up the scoreboard. So the Giants should win unless they dont screw it up like they did in Seattle.

Cincinatti Bengals at Pittsburgh Steelers: I like Cincinnatti in this game despite all the criticism that they cant win the big game against the Steelers. I think we need a change in dominance and I would love to see Chad Johnson in the playoffs.

Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs: The biggest challenge for Denver is whether they can keep their "Most Disciplined Team" tag going for one more game. If they can, no Willie Roaf or Larry Johnson can help KC. Denver has a better overall team than KC and should win despite all the history of December games at Arrowhead against them. If the Broncos lose this game, the Colts fans better start booking their flight to Detroit in February.

Atlanta Falcons at Carolina Panthers: Vick has tormented the Panthers in the past. This time though Steve Smith will torment the Falcons. Say goodbye to Michael Vick and his 2005 playoff hopes.

Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears: Chicago has the best defense of the year and also has the better team in the matchup. Sorry Brett, despite your mastery of QB position , beating Chicago in Chicago especially with the current GB team is a tall task. Watch out for Chicago in the playoffs-they may enter the NFC championship game in January.

Oakland Raiders at San Diego Chargers : Can Oakland stop LT at home? Can Randy Moss start to show up? Watch out for Kerry Collins air attack on the San Diego corners. I want to see another great LT run in the playoffs and so I would have taken the Superchargers any time

+ a.a.a stands for Also Annointed As

Enjoy your weekend!

Car Shopping, Mid Season Awards!

I am Car Gazing for some time now as i plan to sell my 1998 Honda Civic for a new Car and its been a hard to decide on a new Car.I am totally confused on what car to buy. Initially i thought i will go for a beamer-BMW 3 series looked cool and then i calculate the expenses i need to pay to maintain the car: $600 loan + $200 insurance + $200 gas ...oooph...and there goes $1000 of my salary. I then scaled down after my colleagues, well-wishers and also my mental calculator let me decide that lesser loan to pay is the way to go. Considering the possibility that i may sell the car in 3-4 years i had to consider depreciation value. Here were the factors i looked at:

1) Looks
2) Comfort
3) Driving Experience
4) Standard Features
5) Cargo Room[ Especially considering that i may do some road trips]

I am comparing the new Honda Civic 2006 with Subaru Impreza 2.5 L Si, Toyota Scion tC, Acura RSX and Mazda 3 and Scion Tc. So far, my favorite has been the Scion tC.I test drove a Scion TC and I was flabbergasted by its speed at low rpms. It has amazing brakes, great steering control, look and feel and the only drawback being cargo space. Next week will be time for some actual hands on experience comparison.

Sports Update:

NFL Tidbits:

Peyton Manning got over the hump on MNF? Yes he did. I am still not convinced about Indy's defense. How good are they will be known when they face the Cincinniti Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers! I still think they are the best team in the league till proven otherwise.

My Mid Season Awards:

MVP: Peyton Manning/Steve Smith. If i were giving this award, i would give it to Steve Smith but Peyton will win it because voters prefer QBs

Offensive MVP: Steve Smith. You remove him from Carolina and their offense is as good as dirt

Defensive MVP: Dwight Freeney. He has single handedly troubled all quarterbacks and made Indy's defense look menacing.

Offensive Rookie of the Year: Ronnie Brown

Defensive Rookie of the Year: Demarcus Ware

Comeback Player of the Year: Steve Smith. I considered Mark Brunell, Kyle Vanden Bosch, Mike Anderson but SS impact is too significant compared to the others.

Coach of the Year: Mike Shanahan. Check out all the preseason ratings of AFC West. Whether it was ESPN or SI.com or anyone else, nobody thought that Denver will succeed with the Cleveland Castoffs in defensive line. Tom Coughlin was a close second. I think he has done a great job in NYC but if you look at the schedule- Denver beat SD,NE,Philly,Jacksonville,Washington[ All possible playoff teams]

Surprise Team of the Year: Cincinatti Bengals. Giants are close second.

Disappointment of the Year: New England Patriots/ Philadelphia Eagles.

Watch out for next year- T.O will have a new team and contract.

NBA Observations:

Entire League to Mr Stern: Please hand the trophy to the Spurs. Lets all play for academic interest and for showing off our suits.

Regaring Miami Heat: Mr. Riley- why do you think everyone was surprised at the roster makeover?

Surprises: LA teams winning and Nuggets losing:)

Predictions of the year: Lebron finally will make the playoffs and Carmelo Anthony may be an All-Star.

Why Champ is the real Champ!

Last Sunday, Denver Broncos played Jacksonville Jaguars and it was the first game Champ Bailey missed as a starter due to injury. I have followed the footbal circles of Denver Broncos for quite a while and I did not know much about Champ's skills till he came to Denver. Since then I watched the following elite cornerbacks:
Chris McCallister, Ty Law, Patrick Surtain, Dre Bly, Troy Vincent, Nate Clements, Lito Sheppard, Samari Rolle, Dunta Robinson,Gary Baxter, Fred Smoot, Shawn Springs and some more. I have not see Deion Sanders in his prime, hence I will state that this article covers last 2-3 years span only.

I thought when Champ came to Denver and I saw his first game as a Bronco,he was really over-hyped. I kept observing Champ each and every game, constantly comparing him to the other corners. After 2 years of observation I can safely say that Champ Bailey is the true "Champ" of all corners in NFL today.

What makes a great Cornerback( Guy who covers the Wide Receiver):
1) He has to be Physical and Strong
2) Quick feet and Recovery Speed on slight errors in judgement
3) Positioning and Poise
4) Anticipation
5) Ability to tackle/blitz effectively when required

I analyzed and rated each cornerback on the above factors on a scale of 1-10. After my observation, Champ Bailey got a 9, 10, 10, 9, 10 on the 5 factors above and McCallister is the next best at 10,9,9,9,9. I wont divulge details of all other corners unless specifically requested.

Most of you may argue with my analysis, but take a consensus judgement from Wide Receivers, Quarterbacks, Coaches in that order and you will see Champ will be right on top of most of them, if not all.

I am also impressed by Champ's leadership qualities evident in the Jacksonville game encouraging the rookie cornerbacks in the game and also helping them on their technique. My hats off to you Champ Bailey.

The last few weeks at work and the world of NFL!

It has been the most unforgettable month of my life. This is partly because work has kept me so much occupied that i cancelled my workout schedule i planned to have. We had a delivery date on Friday and it was m first big responsibility. My team lead was out on vacation and it meant more load on me and my other colleagues shoulders and also an opportunity for me to showcase my abilities. I must admit that i did ok and I have lots of room for improvement.
Lesson for life i learned last few weeks:
1) Prioritize- My best pal in Foster City, Ca has been constantly emphasizing me on this. Though i will keep her name anonymous, her words of professional advice echo in my head all the time :)
2) Take every thing one step at a time-however big your goal is, look at the very next step, try to achieve that keeping your goal in perspective and then reevaluate your goal.
3) Promise only what you deliver, and give room to satisfy your promise, expect the worst case scenario and make the best case happen.

With all this advice to myself and others who read this, i feel i am aging too quickly :) However, my love for sports and movies dont ever diminish.

I saw Kill Bill Vol 2 for the 3rd time last week and every time i see a QT movie, i become a more ardent fan of his. His movies have some rare addiction, that sleek style that no other director has that makes his movies worth-buy DVDs. I also saw average comedy flicks like Taxi and Starsky + Hutch. But the movie that made my week was 21 grams. Its a classic. For those who love great movies, add this one to your list.

Regarding my NFL analysis after week 4:
AFC Teams:
Bengals,Colts,Denver,SanDiego,New England(Jacksonville),Pittsburg are going to come out of AFC.
Philadelphia, Falcons, Giants( or Carolina), Seattle, Chicago(or Minnesotta) and Tampa Bay will come out of NFC.

Offensive MVP of the year(so far): Carson Palmer
Defensive MVP of the year(so far and may be all the way): Dwight Freeney[ He is a monster to cover]
Special Teams MVP: Adam Vinateri[or David Akers]

My early impressions of AFC:
AFC West: The Broncos and Chargers will be top contenders. Chiefs lost to Broncos on MNF and Philly at home. I dont think they will win the West. Raiders dont have enough weapons other than Moss/Lamont Jordan.

AFC South:
Colts all the way. Jaguars dont have a reliable run defense or a consistent offense.

AFC East: New England or Miami. I hope the champs enter the playoffs. Lets see if Peyton can answer them now?

AFC North:Its either "Who dey" or Blitzburg. I think "who dey" bengals will make the playoffs this year either winning the division or as wildcarders.

NFC:

Except Eagles, Falcons, Panthers are the best teams. No one else has a legit superbowl chance. Less talk on them the better.

Most dissappointing teams of the season( so far):
1. Packers
2. Ravens
3. Vikings

Surprise-Surprise teams of the season( so far):
1. "Who-dey" Bengals
2. "Cadillac" Bucs
3. Sabphins
4. Browncos[ The Browns coaching staff must be scratching their heads now for letting their D-line go]

Why is marketing important!

Since I am from India, I see some similarities and lots of differences in marketing strategies of companies in USA. As we all realize that money makes everything tick in any country, we should annoint it as the new religion. With money being the focal point, how can marketing a product go a long way in making more money. It all starts with establishing a consumer base. I asked myself why does a particular product sell? When it comes to excellent marketing strategy, experts use Microsoft Xboxes, Apple iPods, Motorola RAZR or even VIAGRA as examples.

Let me cite an example most of us feel - "have seen, been there, had that". The company is JAMBA JUICE. I dont know how many who read this article havent been there, but according to me, its a classic example of great marketing. What is Jamba Juice? Please Google it and you will learn how to get "positively charged" by Juice...sounds ridiculous to some but its true that this is what Jamba Juice is all about. How do they appeal to the masses?:
1) Having sleek names like Strawberry Nirvana, Orange Dream Machine, Mango Mantra, Cranberry Craze, Aloha Pineapple etc
2) Entice the viewer with nutrients added, protein supplements added and carbs gained
3) Good tasting juice.
4) Create a nice coffee-shop kind of environment.[ If Starbucks was a success, so can be Jamba Juice]

I went into this Jamba Juice store last weekend and I was amazed with the crowd it drew. There were school kids, teenagers, few youngsters in the 20-30 age range and also some middle aged people. It then occurred to me how a small juice store could transform into a million dollar business. Good marketing is a result of catering to the needs of the consumer base. Jamba Juice realised that youngsters were the primary market. Marketing is a result of paying attention to detail. For example, if Jamba Juice had most of the factors i mentioned but lacked the coffee-shop kind of environment, the company would have been a bust.

Principle to follow: When there is a Demand, Supply to the Demand with great marketing

More to follow in my next post!