Now I am part of MVF Community – Most Valuable Father.  Something similar to MVP Program, but some minor differences. Instead of MVP certificate from Microsoft, I will get the birth certificate from Kozhikode corporation. MVF award package details and benefits are not documented anywhere, but it is worth to try out

Yesterday evening (18-July-2008, 3.50 PM IST) Vidya delivered a baby girl and it was normal delivery, both mom & baby doing fine.

T-Mug is coming with new look and feel. Last weekend I was totally occupied with this assigment. We have taken back up of the old forum, but we couldnt migrate the users (Snitz forum) to new site. But members can access the old forum as well, and we don’t encourage new posts to old forum. So I would request all t-muggers to join the new site and support the community.  Please share your comments in t-mug site itself.

Nothing happened to this techie guy and I am still with software industry

But yes, it is true. I have started another hobby project for cooking recipes (www.cookingideas.net) and we have expert editors (cooking experts) too.

Here is the snippets taken from about us page. “..where you will find most comprehensive collection of Vegetarian and Non Vegetarian recipes from different parts of the world. After going through various sites, we came to know about the need of a good website having easy-to-make and genuine information about cooking. CookingIdeas.net is the one for you which satisfies all your Cooking needs. This website is a result of dedication and effort put forward by various experts who has analyzed the needs of people and their tastes…” Read more »

I have received the MVP award for 2008 and it is my sixth consecutive  award.  Here is my profile on Microsoft site.

https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Sreejumon

I have been working with Industrial applications for last 3.5 years here in ABB Corporate Research Center Bangalore.  You might be wondering what this .NET guy is doing there with Industrial Automation.  Even I thought the same before making the decision of joining ABB. It was really a great experience.  If you don’t have any exposure to industrial applications using Microsoft technologies, you should try ABB or any similar firms. You will definitely get excited once you see the robots movement through your C# program. Here at ABB, we do most of the configuration, control & monitoring applications for the dev ices (eg; - Robots, Relay etc).  Definitely, this is not pure C#/.NET programming. We should know all the layers such as protocol, communication channel etc and it is quite interesting and challenging.  As you know challenging work is just one factor of career, and ABB lack in some other aspects. Hence I decided to take a break from Industrial automation domain.  I thought I will write this blog, before I leave office. Thanks to all for their help and support, hope we will meet somewhere else.  As  you know, this world is so small

Dear Sreejumon KP, Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2007 Microsoft® MVP Award! The Microsoft MVP Award is our way of saying thank you and to honor and support the significant contributions you make to communities worldwide. As a recipient of Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional award, you join an elite group of technical community leaders from around the world who foster the free and objective exchange of knowledge by actively sharing your real world expertise with users and Microsoft. Microsoft salutes all MVPs for promoting the spirit of community and enhancing people’s lives and the industry’s success everyday. To learn more about the MVP Program, visit: www.microsoft.com/mvp.

Hence my 5th MVP title

Microsoft also offers the Microsoft Exchange server which is a product that allows, through an Exchange server, businesses to share emails and calendars with Exchange 2007 amongst all employees.

It took a while to gear up this car in a driving condition Somehow opened the boot, but couldn’t find any snow brush. It was damn cold and windy morning. Fortunately I was carrying an umbrella and didn’t think much, spent some time to clean the front glass and got inside the car. Of course it is risky to drive the car just by looking forward. If you take a rental car during snowy season ensure you are getting snow brush.

Another kind of umbrella is the patio umbrella, which is a style of very large umbrella used for cover on a porch or backyard; market umbrellas is another name for the patio umbrella.

Yes. I have reached here in Dundalk, Ireland last Sunday (27th Feb).  I thought of writing one blog entry.

We (Prasad, Srijit & Myself) started from Bangalore (Bangalore – Mumbai – Amsterdam – Dublin) on Saturday night. We took taxi from Dublin (Ireland capital) to Dundalk, almost 1-hour drive and reached by 2PM. Nice apartment was arranged near to Dundalk Shopping Center. Most of the shops were closed, since it was Sunday. But TESCO, Europe’s most famous retail shop, was located in shopping center. We got TESCO timings from apartment owner, 24 hours on weekdays and weekends from 10 to 8. Now time to eat some Indian stuff (may be first and last Indian food in Ireland), I had taken MTR read-to-eat meals from Bangalore. Apartment has all facilities except Internet Access. Our neighbors too don’t have a wireless router, checked each corner of apartment; otherwise they could have enable it for an internet buff. We got a rental car for next 2 months, hence planning to visit near by places on coming weekends. Hope I can update some snaps later.

Oh, forgot to mention some general info about Duldalk(located about half way between Dublin and Belfast). Temperature: –3 to 6 degree C, Currency: Euro, Time: GMT, Country: Ireland Republic

Another weekend of color full pictures… We (Biju, Binoj, Jijo, Navas, Shiju & Sreeju) started from Bangalore by Friday morning(3.30AM) and reached there in Coorg by 9.30 AM. Stay had been arranged in a house, located in a coffee plantation estate. I have seen some estates in movies, but this was beyond my expectation. A self-sustainable system, where we can get everything. By 11.30AM we started Irpu falls journey. Falls was good, but my expectation level was too high :(. After lunch, our destination was Nagarhole Wildlife National Park. We took the safari riding, could meet some deers, bulls, peacocks, monkeys and one pig. We couldn’t meet any tiger s & elephants, they might be sleeping after their lunch.

Saturday morning went to Thadiyandamol, highest peak (1750 meters) in Coorg. When we reached the hillside, just thought about “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. Two roads; One (left) to forest and other one to hill. Another fellow told us “don’t take the left route”, but we took the left route since others preferred some adventures. We end-up in a small forest with a creek. Thought of finding origin of creek and took a route through forest. Some point of time, pathfinders (Biju & Binoj) couldn’t find proper route and we moved out of the forest and later joined forest. We had noticed footprints of some animal, later others told leopard used to come there to drink water :). After 3.5 hours, we reached there at top of the hill, where normal route takes only 1 hour. Finished all food items except lunch (which we took later in a forest nearby hillside). By 6.30 we started back to Bangalore. I have uploaded some snaps here.

Yes. I was out of station for last 2 days. We (eight Indians) started the trip by Friday after noon. We took train from Vastertas to Stockholm. Btw, I am still youth, since I got youth concession for train ticket:) Reached there at Stockholm harbor by 4.00PM. Viking Line, Mariella was waiting for us. I had a cruise trip (less than 1 hour) some time back in US, from Whidbey Island. So I had already set my expectation about Mariella too.

Once I step into the ship, that was amazing. I would say like a 4-star hotel in India. With reception, conference halls, tax free shops, restaurants, casinos, disco club, auditorium, car parking etc. We got two cabins, mine was cabin 5720 (Fifth deck). Total 8 decks; hope you remember Titanic had only 9 decks Journey started by 4.30PM. Announcement from crew, “..will be reaching Helsinki by 8.30AM..”. ie 16 hours we had to spend. But time was going like any thing.. music, dance, casino, disco, shopping etc more than enough. My 5 hours sleep started by 3AM. Btw, we were crossing Baltic Sea. We landed Helsinki by 10 AM (Finland time). Kept our bags there in cabin, and landed Helsinki.

Helsinki is on a peninsular on the south cost of the Finland. Finnish and Swedish are national languages. Currency – Euro (still some shops accepts Swedish Kronor). We took city tour bus and visited most important places in Helsinki city. The city’s best-known building is the Lutheran Cathedral on Senate Square, Olympic stadium (The 1952 Olympics were held there). Till evening we were visiting near by places. By 5 PM, back to Marriella. Return trip was tired and sleepy. Still activities were there. But I was too sleepy. Back to Stockholm by Sunday 10AM. I have uploaded some snaps here.