Bits and Bytes from my Life

This weekend we had a Wii Party at home. Swati’s friends from her office came to our house and we played Wii. Wii is an amazing gaming console. It is the best thing that has happened to gaming in years. Nintendo has really changed the whole playing field in gaming industry. It is a lot of fun to play it with friends. J Here are some snaps from our party. J

Mandy and Tyler Boxing:

Rodrigo, Billy, Tyler and Mike(not in photo) playing Tennis

Poor Mike getting his ass kicked by me in Boxing (First round KO). JJJ

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Tipping Point is my first book in couple of years. It is a great read and I will highly recommend it to everyone. Malcolm Gladwell talks about events and people that help make a major transformation. Tipping point is when a technology or product goes from being only for innovators to mass market. How does this happen? That is what Malcolm tries to find and his finding are really interesting. He talks about Law of the few (Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen) and The Stickiness Factor and Power of Context. Enjoy

Finally after 2 years of rigrous MBA program we were ready to graduate yesterday. The whole atmosphere was filled with joy. J It was nice to see everyone again.

Exec MBA is a tough program to go through. There are so many priorities you have to balance. Between Job, Studies and personal life it is really tough. There are times when I was in college until 9:30PM and then went to office as we had to meet some deadlines. But I enjoyed it a lot. The experience was amazing; it is unbelievable how much you learn from the program. Forget about Marketing or Finance or Strategy stuff you learn. You learn a lot about yourself and I think that is the most important thing to take away. I think I have changed a lot in these 2 years and I hope I can keep learning and changing for better going forward. On that note, following are few snaps from the ceremony.

Left to Right: Chris, Vicky, Jenny, Harris, Me

Me and Swati.

Few weeks back I interviewed for a position as Product Manager for BizTalk RFID team. This Wednesday I accepted the offer and I will be starting my new job on 1^st of October. J I am really excited about this opportunity. I could not have asked for better opportunity after my MBA. It is a marketing role focusing on worldwide launch of BizTalk RFID Server. Marketing is going to be a new area for me but I think I am ready for the challenge and it would be lot of fun. J I love traveling and I will get to do a lot of it. J

Now I prepare for my graduation on Saturday 8^th September. J

We reached Pittsburgh around 8.00 in the evening. Pittsburgh downtown has its own charm; you could very soon understand that it’s different from any other downtowns. It has a lot of history attached to it with its own character. The skyline shows itself in all types of structures. The best part is there is a river which runs parallel to the downtown and you have to go to Station Square, on the other side to enjoy the downtown view. The bridges across the river add a character to the skyline, can’t imagine what would have happened without those awesome bridges. We ate at Joes crab shack, best seafood ever. Next day we went to visit SV temple about an hour’s drive from Pittsburgh. It’s a must see temple. We also met my close friend Rama whom I saw after 7 years, was delighted to meet her and conclude our trip.

Our next stop was the Falling Water at Pennsylvania. It’s an architectural masterpiece by one of the renowned architects of American history, Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s in a small town named Mill run. The house is built on a boulder set on a waterfall. Hence the name-Falling Water. The house was built in the 1930’s and was very sophisticated and modern for its times. It was on the cover of TIME when it was built. The PA conservancy has done a great job in its conservation. From inside the house it feels as if you are with nature all the time. We all are striving to attain sustainable design concepts nowadays, Frank Lloyd Wright had achieved it back in the 1930’s and laid down a great path.

After Phily downtown we drove to Hershey, PA. Hershey is a fun place. You can tour the Hershey factory and they also have a good amusement park. We enjoyed various roller coasters. J Some of them were real fun. We spend few hours in Hershey. We stayed at Holiday Inn at Mechanicsburg, PA. I was really disappointed by the hotel but the attached pub was good. We spend some good time at the Pub. J

Few Snaps from Hershey.

We landed in Phily on Friday night. We stayed at Sheraton, it was a beautiful hotel. We really liked it. On Saturday morning we went to Phily downtown to see Independence hall and Liberty Bell. Our guide at Independence hall made the visit memorable. I was impressed by his knowledge of history. I don’t like visiting historic buildings and all but Swati’s loves them so I just tag along. J But the guide was so good that I was really interested in listening to what he had to say. J

Here are few snaps.

Our guide. J

@ Liberty Bell.

Over the long weekend for Labor Day we visited Pennsylvania for road trip. We flew into Philadelphia on Friday, We visited the downtown area on Saturday morning, next we went to Hershey’s around Saturday Afternoon, next we drove to Falling waters on Saturday morning and Sunday evening we reached Pittsburgh. We returned back home on Monday evening. J PA is really beautiful there are mountains everywhere and the drive was really great.

After returning from Redmond with a Red eye on Friday morning we started planning to visit DC for Hitendra and Mansi’s baby shower. We drove to DC on Saturday morning and stayed at Sonali’s place on Saturday. On Sunday morning we attended the baby shower. Actually it was a surprise party for Mansi. The look on her face was amazing. J Here is a snap from the party.

From left to right: Anushka, Sonali, Asim, Adil, Me, Hitendra and Mansi. J