Tampere trip

I visited Tampere last last weekend. I guess it is after couple of months. It was Rajit vi's and Mou vabi's daughter, Suha's first birthday anniversary. They invited me to attend the celebration. I went on Friday afternoon. The celebration was on Sunday. So on Friday and Saturday I met my old friends and spent time with them. On Sunday morning I went to the amusement park Sarkanniemi with three of my friends, Tareq vi, Saad and Rubel. It was a nice bright day. We didn't go for any ride; just did roam around inside the arena and watched the dolphin show. Let's look at some pictures of that day :)





Just after the entrance





A ride on water





My company, from left to right, Saad, Tareq vi, Rubel.





Now I am there :)





This ride looks nice.





Amazing tap :P





Inside the dolphin hall





The show just begun





Wow... what a jump





On top of the tower





View from the tower





Another side from tower





Yet another side





Lake view from tower





Another lake view, I could hardly believe it's a lake :-S





Yet another view





Now we are just beside the lake :)





Lovely sweet breeze over the lake



Programming Solution

Finally weekend came, now it's almost gone

Weekend feels much better after hell of a week like last one. It was a very busy week for me. The week started with the event "World Class Team" in Siuntio in a hotel. It was organized by our office. It was a two days event. We stayed overnight on Monday. The room was quite spacious and cozy with a balcony. The event ended on Tuesday afternoon. There were several nice discussion session, lots of food and drinks, sauna, swimming, billiard and so on. I must say that it was a nice event and I enjoyed every bit of it.

On Tuesday I had a badminton match in the afternoon. So I went to play badminton straight from Siuntio. I played for an hour and then came back home with a very tired body.

The next morning, Wednesday, I had a business trip to Sweden. My flight was at 8 O'clock in the morning. My home is quite far from the Helsinki airport. So I had to wake up so very early to be in the airport in time. I woke up around 04:30 and took the 05:20 train. The flight was quite short, only 50 minutes. The office gave us business class, so we got nice refreshments. We reached in Kista Ericsson office in Stockholm around 08:45 local time. Then starting from 9 we had whole day meeting until 4 O'clock in the afternoon. The meetings were quite fruitful. We had nice lunch and several coffee break. The coffee from vending machine there is better than in our office here in Finland. Our return flight was at 18:00. On the way back the flight was even shorter, about 40 minutes. We reached Helsinki airport at 20:00 local time. Good that we took taxi to home, so I reached home being totally exhausted.

On Thursday I went to work, was quite busy at work and I had another badminton match on that day. It was my last match in this round and I must win to enter into group 2, which was my target since I started playing badminton in LMF badminton club. Thursday's match was really tough. The opponent is almost of my quality. I had hard times to win against him but finally I managed somehow with a set 2-1. After playing for an hour with him another employee from our office asked me if I wanna play more because he has a reservation. I agreed and I played another half an hour. He is also a tough opponent. I could hardly walk after playing one and half hours in a row. On Friday morning I could feel every muscles of my body when I tried to move. I had to leave office early, around 16:00, because I was really tired. Finally the weekend came and it felt so good :) Weekend feels so good after such a hectic week. Now it's almost over again. It's Sunday evening now. Need to prepare mentally for tomorrow's work. Good that I have got an invitation in Khokon da's house to watch the Final match of ice hockey championship between Finland and Sweden. I will go watch the game there and most probably stay overnight. His home is quite close to my work place. Most probably I will go to office from his home tomorrow morning :)



Programming Solution

ADSL connection in home

Finally I have got ADSL(Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) connection in my home. I have been waiting for this connection for long time. It took several months for the bureaucracy of the process. But I am still happy to get it from my office.

For several months I have been using internet connecting via my mobile phone. That is a 2 MBps connection but that is only in theory. I used to get more or less 300 KBps always. The ADSL connection I got is theoretically 18 MBps connection. I just tested the connection speed with http://www.speedtest.net/. According to this site right now I am getting 9.02 MBps downstream and 0.90 MBps upstream. The connection is still half of the maximum speed but still I am quite happy to have this connection after using the crap connection for several months :)



Programming Solution

Luxury of food

I spent the Easter vacation at Gagan's home in Oulu. I stayed 5 days. It was a nice trip. We played sports, board games, went to different places, played games in xbox, watched movies, even had basic driving lessons from Gagan. I did practice driving ( only in first gear :P ). Beside all these, as usual, we cooked lot of foods together. This time I didn't even take pictures of all of those. Here goes few pictures that I took exceeding the threshold of moving my lazy ass.





Preparation to take breakfast in balcony.





Already sat down to start. It was too bright outside and camera was flashy.





Started the nice breakfast with pan cake.





Home made french fry and sandwich.





Home made shingara





Home made samucha





Evening snacks with shingara, samucha, noodles and tea.





Shorma



Programming Solution

Eight and half hours journey to Oulu

As I have told in my previous post, I was so excited about the long road trip to Oulu with Gagan. On Thursday I came back home around 14:30. Yes, the plan changed a bit. The previous night we decided to start the journey together from my home. It took us some time to prepare everything and start. Finally we began at 16:00. The weather was a bit gloomy but quite ok. Unfortunately we caught by the rush hour and it caused us few extra minutes to get out of the town.

As we came out of the town and fall on highway, Gagan started to drive at highest speed limit. It's awesome to run that fast. We played music that Gagan put on few CDs particularly for this trip. Both of us sang to our fullest voice. Because of that shouting we had sore throat at the end of the trip :P

We took two breaks during the journey. In the first break we stopped in a road side parking beside a lake and had our snacks. The other one was in a gas station. We took sufficient gas and then took dinner. The last four hours was without any break. Finally we reached Gagan's home at 00:30. Shanila was waiting for us, obviously with nicely prepared food :D

The whole journey was a bit tiring but I enjoyed every bit of it. Let's have a look at some pictures of that day :)





The car is waiting for the long run :)





Last minute checking.





On the highway, it was raining a bit at that time.





Taking the first break.





Having snacks beside the lake.





Now me, I was talking about something funny I guess.






Preparing for the next run.





The journey began again.





Stopped for gas and dinner.





At night, at the end of the journey.



Programming Solution

Waiting for the long drive

For last few days I have been waiting so eagerly for the long drive that we (Gagan and me) are going to have tomorrow. I decided to spend my Easter holiday in Gagan's place in Oulu and we planned to go there by car this time. It's around 650 kilometers drive which will be my longest car ride so far.

Gagan and Shanila went to visit London 10 days back. They came to Helsinki by car, left it here and took ryanair flight from Tampere. Shanila came back 3 days back and is in Oulu now. Gagan just came to Helsinki today, 3 hours back and now is in my home, sleeping and snoring I guess :P We will start our trip tomorrow around 3 PM. I will still come to work tomorrow. The plan is, I will prepare everything tonight, come to work tomorrow morning and in the afternoon Gagan will pick me up from my office and we will head to Oulu. I think it will be a memorable trip :-)



Programming Solution

Ericsson Badminton Doubles Championship

Today I participated in Ericsson LMF badminton doubles championship. I missed the singles championship due to illness. This time I was so eager to participate and I made it. And you know what? Me and my partner became the champion :D

Only four teams participated today. The partners were put together by lottery. I was really lucky; I got the best player among us as my partner :P Each team had to play against all other teams and then best two teams would play final. We won all the matches in round robin league and secured our place in final. At the end we managed to win in the final as well. As a matter of fact, there was no trophy, rather each of us got a box of victor shuttlecock which is really good to me as an award.

I played 11 games in total within two and half hours. I was totally exhausted and I feel pain in many parts of my body right now. But I enjoyed it very much. This championship turned my boring Sunday into a great enjoyable day :)


Programming Solution

I dreamed of you

I dreamed of you last night
After a long time.
It was a nice one
Full of happiness and smile.

You were even laughing,
Talking in Bangla
With other people.

You looked nice;
Fresh and cozy.
Exactly how I wanted to see...



Programming Solution

70 years old guy surprised me

I had a badminton match today at 1630 and my opponent was a 70 years old guy. He had been working in Ericsson for 27 years and retired 13 years back but he is still playing badminton as a club member. At first I didn't know any of these information. Seeing him I thought he is around 55. While playing the first game I had to work hard to win. After the game I asked him, while panting like hell, how old is he. At that moment I came to know about him. I was so surprised, such an old guy competing with me quite well. I managed to win the match but I had to work hard for every point I achieved. He played with me for the whole hour and it seems that after an hour I am more exhausted then he is. How can he be so strong in this age? :-S I wanted to know more about this guy but he can't speak English at all. I had to extract all the information with my very little knowledge of Finnish language :-)


Programming Solution

Peter's last day at work

Today is Peter's last day at work. We had a farewell party for him. Around 25 people came to the small arrangement. Peter came with 20 balloons of different colors filled up with Helium. He gave one balloon to each of the first twenty persons who came to the party. There was champagne, a big cake and coffee. We had funny gossip, well it's always funny when Peter is around. We spend almost an hour there. All the people passing the terrace was looking at us because we were holding colorful balloons in our hands. Everybody put his/her balloon in own team space. In our team we put it with our high table. I didn't miss the chance to take picture with peter standing behind that table. I will still see him either in his home or my home or outside but for sure I am gonna miss him during office hours :(



Programming Solution

Going to start with a new team

Last two weeks was really different at work. Many changes took place - people were leaving, organizational structure was changing, teams were being restructured and so on. I was also inside the scope. In the end I have been offered an opportunity to work with another team. The new team is going to work with Radio Network. I still don't have the big picture but everybody said it's good to work there because it's the main focus area these days. So next week I am going to shift to the new team and from the beginning of April I will start working there. I would obviously miss my old team mates. Good that I would sit near by, so I can visit them quite often :)



Programming Solution

Survived from getting sacked

It's been two months now that Ericsson is negotiating with the union about the possible lay off of employees in Finland. The negotiation ended last week. It was a successful negotiation from employees' point of view in a sense that the number reduced to 37 from 90. Today was the big day to let all the employees know the final decision.

The environment was very awkward since this morning. People gathered in small groups in the terrace and were talking to each other. Everybody was tensed what was going to happen. The bosses started talking with people from 10 O'clock. I got call from my boss around 1 PM. Luckily I survived means I didn't get sacked. Unfortunately two guys from our team has been sacked and one of them is Peter :( I am not worried about Peter. He is competent enough to find a good job within few months. But I feel really bad about it. Peter has been my closest friend in the office for several months now. We used to work together, have fun together and most importantly share the events of our lives which is very unlikely for a Finnish guy. I can't be happy today because Peter is leaving and I am gonna miss him terribly in the office. I am loosing another very good friend. People I like are getting away from me one by one. It doesn't matter whether it's intentional or inevitability, the fact is I am loosing them :(


Programming Solution

Steak night

I just wanted to make some steak in home and I gave a try. I bought the beef for steak. It was already marinated. I just had to fry it home. It looks quite good but not very tasty as I expected. Nevertheless, a late night supper with this steak was nice :)


Programming Solution

Events from home: part 2

So here goes the second part of the home events. It was a long overdue plan. Finally this time we were able to execute it. We gathered on one of our friends roof top, cooked biriyani and grilled chicken for dinner. We had great chit-chat and fun. Most of us stayed in our friend's home on that night. We had almost whole night of playing cards and gossip. Let's have a look at some pictures of that night :)





Start marinating the mutton





Processing going on :)





Preparing the stove for cooking





Necessary stuffs for grilling





The stove is ready to use :)





Razib is preparing the chicken to grill





The mutton is being cooked





Marinating the chicken with spices





The burning coal for the grill





The chicken pieces are placed





Two guys preparing salad





Half cooked chicken





Gossiping in the middle





The chicken is ready





Close shot, Looks yummy :D





Having adda





Me, cooking the biriyani





Everything is done, just gossiping before start eating





The dinner started :)





Looks good, right?





Busy with delicious food :D





After dinner lighting cigarette in a funny way :P



Programming Solution