Basking in solitude !!!
Zealous nocturnal
When it comes to living alone, natural tendency of people is to avoid it. It's a basic human need, to have somebody to interact with. I have been living with roommates since last two years and I liked it a lot. But, If given an option, I like living alone more than living with roomies !!! It's not that, I don't like roomies. I had GREAT roomies. (probably, they had problems with my laziness in household work ;) )

But living alone gives you an edge to know yourself in much better way. You introspect and find flaws in your personality and you try to improve them. Plus, it gives you an opportunity to use your time in ways you can imagine. You can freely aim yourself towards your final goals and change your plans in matter of seconds !!! An utter state of anarchy ;-).

So, when I came here in San Diego, instead of living with room-mate, I found one bedroom in a four bed-room house of a polish guy. I share kitchen and drawing room with him, but most of the time I am all alone in my bedroom. Being alone I have achieved following so far...
  1. Cooking: It improved a lot, I tried couple of things which I never tried in the past and still gonna carry on with new dishes. It kind of keeps motivating you to carry on with cooking. When you are making food for yourself,even if you mess it up the only person who is gonna be hungry is yourself. So, try harder Stupid :)
  2. Music: I always wanted to learn the language of music and wanted to learn at least one instrument. So, I bought Guitar within a week after coming over here and I "disturb" myself with it, whenever I get free. Gradually improving it from "disturbance" to music.
  3. Reading: Being alone and have nobody to talk with, most of the time I spend in reading. These are the books I am reading now. Near by target is to reach 3 books a month, If office work permits :)
Still there are so many things, I want to do!!! like...Surfing(I did it once and loved it, eagerly waiting for summer to come), painting, to learn dance, blogging(to do it regularly). List is long and it's never gonna end. Let's see, what future brings along !!!
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Hate being IDLE...
Zealous nocturnal
Most of the time, you hear people saying, " I don't have time to do it". This is so untrue(got inspired from "Friends" series for usage of word "so"... :) ). In fact most of the time people really don't know where they are losing their time. Believe me, one can always find time do the stuff, if one really try to use his/her time as much as possible. That's why i hate being IDLE... I like to do something, every time i find myself being IDLE.

Following are list of things that you do, when you are IDLE, but you don't really know that you are...
  1. you take more time in doing some task, which you can finish in far less time.
  2. Unnecessary talk...(I m not pointing to the normal conversation with friends or colleague...).
  3. Checking mails, even if it is not necessary at that time. Most of the time people click "check mail", even if they are not expecting any mail.
  4. Watching TV by changing channels randomly, where you are not focusing on any particular channel for more then 5 min.
The list is very long, but the idleness is different for every person and can't be defined by anyone else than the person himself. You yourself have to define your idleness on your own.

Now, what are the things you can do, if you wanna utilize your time at his best and live life as king size. First and foremost step is to find that whether you are really wasting your time or not. The moment you realize that you are loosing the time, go back to an active state, where you do some useful stuff. This can be anything, ranging from the work you love to do, reading books, sharing your thoughts with friends or group of people, playing sports, doing exercise, traveling, learning something new. This seems very easy to think, but it's bit hard to apply. Most of the time stuff what you are doing, while begin in idleness is so tempting that it take tremendous effort to stop it and do something useful. But, gradually one can overcome it.

Solution for #1 reason i mentioned in the list above:
Define some time-limit for the task you are going to do, say 2 hours, 1 day, 1 month. This limit will force you to complete the task within specified time. This may have taken longer, if you wouldn't have specified the limit. It's kind of competing against your own leisure. If you are working with PC, you can use STOPWATCH to define time limit for your intra day tasks.

Believe me there are so many things to do in this world, that even the one life time is not enough for it. Feel free to add any comments, if you have any tips to utilize the idleness...
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How to get IDP without the Agent ???
Zealous nocturnal
Since last august I stopped writing, mostly because of my laziness in finding new stuff and also in in putting it over here. But finally I found something today, which I can share over here and I am pretty sure that it will help other people too.

I needed an IDP(International Driving Permit) for my onsite project work in US.
For that I went to RTO, Ahmedabad. In our country the most shameful fact is, you can't get things done if you meet right kind of people, instead you need to meet wrong kind of people to get it done. And the irony is, these wrong kind of people are always found at right kind of place.

First thing I saw in the RTO office was window #1, where it was written that "Here you can get all kind of forms". So, i went there and asked the person to give the form for IDP. He told me to go at window #38 to get this form. During that path an agent crossed my way, and asked me "what do u wanna do, I can get all things done". I replied "I want to get an IDP" and continued walking. So, he told me: "Come with me, it will just take Rs. 1200/- and you will get IDP within one day". I said, I wanna get it without any help from agent. The reason behind my attitude was, If one can get license in foreign country without any help from middleman, why can't it is possible in our country.

Upon my reply, that agent started laughing and told me : "It's impossible to get any kind of license in this office without any help from agent, If you will get an IDP without the agent, i will give you Rs.1200/- for it...". I didn't say anything to him and kept walking towards window #38. What I was thinking at that time was: Is it really true OR Is he just trying to convince me. By the time I found window #38. It was 10:40 am and as expected no body was there inside the window. I asked to the person in the other window about the emptiness in #38. He told me to wait till 11am, may be by the time that officer will reach to RTO office. So, I am left with around 20 minutes to spare. There wasn't anybody else in that area to talk to, except that window person. He was also not having any customer to work with. So, to use both his time and my time , I asked him what will I need to get an IDP?? I was pretty sure that he will tell me to get an agent. But to my biggest surprise he told me the whole procedure to get an IDP.  I must say, still there are some good employees seating inside the RTO office, who are ready to help if you ask them for help.

As per him, one needs following things to get the IDP.
  1. One IDP form (Which you will get from window #38)
  2. One medical fitness checking form (you will need to get it stamped from the doctor, after your normal checking). This form you can get from window #1 and you will need to stick one passport sized photograph on it, upon which doctor need to sign.
  3. Copy of your passport with visa page along with first and last page.(Keep your original passport with you for verification during the application)
  4. Copy of your state driving license (Keep your original license with you for verification during the application)
  5. Your air-travel ticket (Itinerary would be enough)
  6. Your address proof. If your address is same in both license and passport then you don't need any other proof. If it is different, then you will need to present some other address proof, like electricity bill, voter ID etc.
Once after getting all these things prepared, you need to follow below steps :
  1. Give it at window #38. Here the officer will add some data as per the passport and air-ticket. 
  2. Then he will return all the documents and you will have to  go at window #123, where they will check it again for passport and license verification and will stamp it.
  3. Now, go to Room #2. RTO inspector seats over here, he will again verify it for passport and air-ticket checking. Once he gets convinced that none of them is fake, he will sign those docs and will return it to you.
  4. Now, you will again need to go at window #38(Still I don't get it, why can't they perform everything at one place. Here, after getting those docs approved from RTO inspector, officer will make an entry in their databook and will write down the number of that receipt on your form.
  5. Then, go to window #80 to 85. All these windows are called case windows, you can go to any damn window. Here you will have to pay Rs.500/- as IDP fees and will get receipt for it with carbon copy.
  6. Last but not least, attach the carbon copy of fee receipt with you docs and go to Room #2, submit all the docs to the RTO inspector and DONE !!!. Inspector will take your docs and will tell you to come at around 5:30pm to collect the IDP. The best time to get all these things done is between 11am to 2pm.
  7. After collecting IDP from room #2 after 5:30 pm, the final thing left to do is to go at the window #38 and get it stamped. 
And you are through with getting an IDP from RTO without an Agent. Believe me the 
agent may charge you from Rs.500/- to Rs.700/- extra as per his requirement. But, this is not the question of money. Money saving is just the by-product of this  cumbersome application 
process. 

What you will save is the encouragement to "Agent Policy", in more layman terminology you will stop corruption by certain amount. Our country is being driven by corruption so deeply, that it's almost impossible to stop it in a jerk. All we can do is to stop it gradually. This may be just a small step. But, if each and every person will not be consulting agent, believe me one day we won't find any agent having dare to regard license getting task as Impossible without his help.

I am still looking for that agent,  after all he owes me Rs. 1200/- ... lol...

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How to add your URL on googles search list...?
Zealous nocturnal
If you want to share information with the world, the easiest way is create a website or blog. But this is not enough, how come people will know about your content, it will be limited to only people who know you. What about the people who don't know you...?

Well, here comes Google in to picture. Mostly people come to know about new stuff from Google search engine only. So, you need to Submit URL of your website/blog to the Google. After submission you will get forwarded to thanking page. Here you need to click on the "Google webmaster tools" link for further processing. Then you will be asked for username and password of your gmail account. After logging in you will have to add your websites URL again, and then click on the "Add site" button.

Next step is to verify the website. Verification is useful to know the statistics about your website later on. For verification you can have two option, one is to add meta tag and another one is to upload HTML file, the easiest option is to verify it by adding meta tag content to your homepage, which is provided by Google. This is very handy if you are submitting your blog's URL to Google(like me...)

If you are a blogspot user then you need to go in template tab, where you have an option to edit HTML file of your template. Click on it and just copy paste meta content in the first <head> section of the page, before the first <body> section. Save the template, come back to the verification page and click on "verify" button. And you are Done!!! Your page is added and you can also track how many time Googles crawling programs are accessing your page(Of course, for this you must have useful content on your page).

Now, if you want to check it by Google's search engine, then fastest way is to add seach content on Google like this "inurl:<your URL word>", e.g. for my blog it would be like "inurl:jillionstars". You will get your site in very first page of search content.

Below is the search result for my blog...
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Wanna read guajarti ...?
Zealous nocturnal
My habit of reading makes me read everything I come across, which can increase my knowledge.

As the worlds most used language is English, most of the books which i read were in English. Being a Gujarati i was always in search of something in my regional language. There are many good poets and writers in Gujarati language. But, it's hard to find material written by them on internet, where i spend most of my time.

So, I thought about searching for it on net(I don't know, why this idea came so late in my mind...). I went on Google and typed "Gujarati+read" in the search bar and Whhhoaaa!!. What i found was incredible. The very first website Read Gujarati was a very pleasant surprise for me.

Everything I have ever wished of reading was here, including poems, small stories, information about new books and novels. The nicest thing about this site is, it does have RSS. I added it in my Google reader, so that I can read any new stuff coming then onwards. It does provide the links for some other Gujarati Websites.

Hats off to Mr. Mrugesh Shah. He is the owner of this website.
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Are you a Nokia user...?
Zealous nocturnal
Again one more example has been set to prove that how less information can misguide people.

Since last two days, people are just getting more and more excited about the Nokia BL-5C, battery replacement stuff.

Nokia's product advisory is like this : "Nokia-branded BL-5C battery manufactured by Matsushita Battery Industrial Co. Ltd. of Japan between December 2005 and November 2006. This product advisory does not apply to any other Nokia battery"

But most of the people, just read that "BL-5C" is not good and they will get replacement!!!
This resulted in rush of people at all Nokia care centers. Out of them only some percent need replacement, others are just fine(or their battery is fine...) !!!

If you are one of them, then just click on the below link and submit your 26 digit number,which is on the back side of the battery.
Nokia Battery Check

Let's us see, if you have got it in you(i.e. in your mobile of course...).
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As a tiny creature of the infinite world
Zealous nocturnal

Sometimes I wonder, what am I supposed to do in this infinite world? I am pretty sure that this question has startled everyone's mind at least once during their whole life, provided he has time and mind both to think.

I don't know when I will find the answer of this question may be today, a week later, in forthcoming months or years or may be never (which I don't want...).

Even if I get the answer, will it add any sense to my life? Well, being a tiny creature as compared to the universe, whatsoever I am gonna do, should not create much difference to it. This seems to be so simple, but it is not. Because, this kind of little differences only, have lead the world to big changes.

So, getting the answer can make me to finish my part of work properly. Then, why I haven't got that answer yet. May be still this is not the right time..., may be I just need to wait and continue with whatsoever I am doing now.

So here I am..., still finding what has been laid down by this mysterious and astonishing world, for my life....


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