So I had this really mellow yet fun trip to Buffalo this last weekend, and it was nice to hang out with Saurabh and Arul. We just chilled out at home for the most part. Also played some cricket, watched some Mash and cooked a bit.

Then I got back in town, met up with some amazing people whose shared similar reading interests. It was fun, and then this friend tells me last night at around midnight that she is on her way to Chattanooga in the morning. I jumped at the idea of driving to Chattanooga to see Jaro, and asked if she was fine with it. She said yes, God bless her soul. So I dropped a mail to Jaro and asked him to call me in the morning to wake me up and also let me know if it was okay to drop in on such short notice. He said sure, and called at around 8:45.

So I got to Chattanooga and am here for the day, and will be leaving in about an hour and a half (7pm). So while I was here, we all went for an Indian lunch to this Indian Taj Mahal place, which was quite good except that we were kind of late and the food was a little cold but still had good taste to it. Got out of there to come back to Jaro’s office. Met his dad, and brother among others. It’s such a cool place to work. Met Don too.

Then Jaro and me went downtown for a bit, and he showed me the town where he grew up. It was fun, and we got coffee from this really cool coffee house in the Art district, The Rembrants Coffee shop. I had their Iced mocha and man was it good! Still sipping the remnants *slurp slurp*. Man now I’m kind of sad I didn’t come here to work. But it’s all good in the end.

That’s it for now.

So today morning was the commencement ceremony. Pappu, Punit and many others were walking: here are some pictures

.. umm actually it was more like through Tech after the rain in the morning. Decided to take my camera too, as the weather was kinda grey and yet there were many things to be captured: My latest model

The day started with my going to work around 8:30. We are at the verge of the launch of the second version of our website, the ADA Game at www.adagame.org.

Worked till about 11:30 when Marsha (my boss for the last two years) took us out to lunch, as a celebration for my graduation as well as for my having found a good job. We went to Mirch Masala (she was enthusiastic about it) and ate our heart out. Got back and worked for a bit, before heading home.

I just about land up and home and Pappu drags me out to go get something to eat and maybe see a car for Zach. But Zach has no idea where the dealer is, etc. So we end up just getting something to eat, and then decided on checking out The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Pretty interesting movie, and fairly well made.

Got back home around 9:30, and then just lazed around for a bit before calling up people in India. Started with sayanbaba, and spoke to her for a bit. It was fun to hear about her escapades in Sri Lanka, and I heart her even more now. Then spoke to Manish and was glad to learn Kavya was doing great.

Fell asleep around 1:00 or so and got up straight at around 1:30 today afternoon. Slept really well. Now am at the library with Pappu, about to start coding on some ADA Game stuff. Will then just chill out for a bit.

I did take some pictures today, will upload tonight or tomorrow morning.

So the class came to an end today, and I feel relief beyond reason. Why? I’m not really sure except that it feels like an accomplishment par excellence.

We were a bunch of seven people who had come together to work on a project, and were having a really rough start. There was a lot of backbiting, and people weren’t wiling to work together. Tensions were running high. Technically we were a really strong team and if we held it up, we could really take the class head on. But simple things such as scheduling were getting in the way.

This is where I realised the need for a manager/strong management. We were all technical people, engineers. This was new to us, and was akin to what our other professor spoke of in class about how it was different managing technical teams when compared to marketing ones or others.

But we soon ironed out our problems and worked as a team, which lead to fantastic results including a very realistic and fully functional prototype.

That aside, was a pretty fruitful day as I met up with Mayank and caught up on some good reading material.