In pursuit with the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle

One of my ambitions is to do the worlds largest jigsaw puzzle (called LIFE) which is 24000 pieces in future.In doing so I have started the miniature version of LIFE which is 3000 pieces.Currently I have completed quarter of it which is around 700-800 pieces.Planning to complete this end of the year if time permits to do so.
Here is the full image of LIFE after you complete it.

Here is my last puzzle.

2010 Formula 1 world champion decider at Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi

What a cracking finale it will turn out to be in just a little less than 5 hours from the time I am writing this post, after the yesterday’s qualifying session at Yas Marina circuit.Theoretically all the top 4 driver’s  has a chance to become the champion but I will put this as any one of them can lose it easily.

The table bellow will show you how tight the championship race can be as the current standings.

Pos	Driver	Nationality	Team	Points
1	Fernando Alonso	Spanish	Ferrari	246
2	Mark Webber	Australian	RBR-Renault	238
3	Sebastian Vettel	German	RBR-Renault	231
4	Lewis Hamilton	British	McLaren-Mercedes	222

Sebastian Vettel scripted it perfectly at yesterday’s qualifying session by securing the pole position while his team mate Mark Webber had a worst qualifying which he managed only the 5th place in the grid.Lewis Hamilton and current championship leader Fernando Alonso secured the 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

Unless something dramatic happen the stage has been set perfectly for the Fernando Alonso to take his 3rd championship title.

There will be lot of pressure on him and he can be a hero or a zero in a matter of milliseconds.And there are so many permutations on who going to be the champion by judging the current standings.Believe me, I don’t even thinking about those combinations right now.

I can’t wait to see the start of the race and first turn of the circuit where drivers at front rows will be itching to go pass each other and take the advantage.

Since I am a Ferrari fan, my money is on two times championed Fernando Alonso but you never know, I will keep my fingers crossed.

First ever series win in Australia

What a performance by the the Sri Lankan cricket team down under making history to win the first ever series beating Aussies(Current number 1 ranked team in the world by ICC and see the full rankings) in their own backyard.It was a real professional effort by the team and they fully deserve that win with the brand of cricket they are playing at the moment.This performance will augurs well for them in 2011 cricket world cup which is going to be held in sub continent.

This performance reminds me that,we were doing well in down under in 1995/96 tour to Australia and went onto win the world cup in 1996 which also held in sub continent.I don’t know this is a coincident or not but believe me, history repeats itself.

All kick started with the Twenty 20 win at Perth where rest of the world thought will be an impossible task for Lankans to cope with purely because of the bouncier conditions.Against the all critics they won that game convincingly.In my opinion that really did make them believing, they have a real good opportunity to beat Australians in their own backyard.

Then came back to Melbourne for the 1st ODI and pull off a miracle to comeback from 8 wickets down for just 107 runs and chased down 240 to win the game by one wicket which is one of the greatest come back of ODI’s history by Lankans.In doing so Angelo Mathews and Lasith Malinga beat the 27 years old world record for the 9th wicket partnership held by Kapil Dev and Syed Kirmani.

And then in the 2nd ODI at Sydney they script another convincing win, hence the first ever series win in down under.This was too an all round performance by the Sri Lankans and Aussies were really down and out.

Now I am looking forward to the tomorrows game at Brisbane which is a dead rubber as far as the series is concern but Lankans have a real good chance to make it a clean sweep which is not an easy task by any means against the Aussies in Australia.I am wondering how many teams have done that before.

Wishing you all the best to you Sri Lankans to achieve that feat too.

GO Lankans GO.

My classical box guitar

Yesterday, I finished repairing my guitar which was given to me by one of my colleague, Anura.Thank you very much for giving me that and hope you won’t ask it again from me when you see the new look one.

Images before refurbishing :

I have already started lessons.Hardest part as a beginner is the tuning.Need to learn the trade sooner than later.

Antique world map jigsaw puzzle

Completed puzzle is framed by myself and now hanging on the wall.

Pool table in action

It has been a long time that I managed to play a game.Today I tried to play a game for a much needed relax.Take my word, it is indeed take some doing to play a perfect game.You need lot of patience as well as skill.Today , I realized that you need to practice continuously in order to keep your shape in the game and handling the cue is not going to be an easy task if you lose the rhythm.Practice make perfect is the order of the day.This is applicable in any where whether you are doing office work or any other work.And finally it will give you more pleasure specially when you are playing on a table which is built on my own.

Antique world map jig saw puzzle

Recently I completed assembling the 1500 pieces jig saw puzzle.Before this my first puzzle was a 500 pieces one.It was a gift from my good old friend Amila Jayaratne and this one was presented by my father-in-law, Mr. Gunatilake.
This new puzzle by no means a easy walk in the park as you can see in the image above.
Normally you start the puzzle by separating the border pieces.So I too stuck to that but to no avail.The reason being there are no contrasting images to identify the correct pieces(Its just a single color boarder ss you can see in the image ).Then I was thinking how I am going to tackle this new challenge.So I changed my strategy.

Since there are clear lines , circles and letters , I started to separate them out.That was indeed the way to go.Then I first assemble the circle area.
After that it became relatively easy till I getting closer towards the border area.It was very hard to find the correct pieces and it took a considerable amount of time too.
After spending around 30 hours within the span of 2 months, finally , I managed to completed this.

My ultimate goal is to complete the world’s largest jig saw puzzle which has 24000 pieces.I have already ordered the miniature version of that which has 3000 pieces.Nishad ayya will bring that for me from UK end of this month.
Waiting for that .

Event full weekend

Saturday, yesterday , started the day by going to the service station at 6:30AM in the morning.As usual I was the first to the service station and I was walking up and down in the premises till they started.Then came the owner of the station and he opened the doors to the pump house and generator house.

After about 45 minutes , the service man started the work with my car.It took 3 hrs to finish the job.

Then I took the car to the Tissa Electricals to check my radiator fan.The problem I had was , it was boiled when I come to the office on last Monday and I thought this may be due to the fact that my AC condenser fan was not working, the clue was I saw my heat indicator going up and when i turned off the AC it came back to the normal.So that was the history.

I told that story to the technician who run the place and I told I need to lay a harness to my power doors.After the removal of manual doors last year I replaced them with power doors, which has the options of power shutters , power mirrors , central locking , but never had a chance to complete the laying of the harness.

Then owner asked one of his technicians to take a look at this and Sampth is the name of this guy.Very talkative guy.After spending few minutes with him , I realized that he is not only talkative but also competent which is the most important thing.

Then he started to explore the vehicle.

First what he did was took the Carman Scan II diagnostic tool (a hand held device) which can be connected to the ECU via the interface provided (OBD-II),see the image at left.

Using that device he turn on/off the radiator fan,that concludes the signal is correctly passed into the fan, from the control unit.Then he concludes that by judging the speed of the fan, it has to be replaced and further checking the AC condenser fan it also has to be replaced.

Found a original AC condenser fan and get the fan unit and put it into the existing bracket.And found a radiator fan and replace it.Since Tissa electricals had recondition items , it wasn’t a difficult job for me to get the required fans.That saved me a lot of time.

The story was not ended there.While inspecting the fan, learn that the two power transmission belts also need to be replaced.One belt was already started to break from the edge.He said better to replace both at the same time.If I drive another hundreds of Km’s with those two, I could well be sit on the edge of the road with hazards on.

He recommended two brands to me which I haven’t heard.Because I am new to this belts.One was “Brando” and the other one was “Mitsuboshi”.

Then they started to remove the belts from the engine and by no means that was an easy job.

While it was going on Sampath started to remove all the door covers(apostings) and and estimated the length of wires required for the wire harness.

Estimation was 30m from number 14 and 10m from number 9.The number indicates the number of threads in the wire.That is 14 threads and 9 threads respectively.Plus power mirror switch and 3 gum tapes.

I had to go to “Pathma Motors” at kadawatha to bring those belts plus others.It took 1.5hrs by bus.

Once they got the stuffs started working on the harness and the belts.The time was 6:00PM , and stumps of the day.

Sunday morning at 8:30AM commenced the laying the harness.

To be continued…

US Open 2009 Men’s single final

Who would have thought, the world number 6 seed Juan Martin Del Porto , Argentinean, will storm into final , by beating Rafael Nadal in straight sets to face non other than world number one Roger Federer who never loss at US Open since 2004.Without a doubt Federer will do everything to make it 6 in a row at Flushing Meadows.

Even though Federer has a 6:0 winning ratio against Del Porto , he will be a tough opponent in this final.I cannot wait to see this match which is schedule at not before 16:00Hrs which is early tomorrow morning in my time.That’s a worrying sign for me.

more info at www.usopen.org

Terminator Salvation

I watched the move today @ Colosseum in Oslo.It was a great experience in that cinema.It is one of the few cinemas which has got THX CERTIFIED.Unbelievable sounds and high quality images.Truly a great cinema experience.It felt like you are a part of the film because of these surround sounds and high quality pictures.

More details on THX can be found at here.

You can view THX trailers here.First one is the one Colosseum showed before starting the movie today.

As a fan of Terminator film series I loved this one and it is indeed a action packed movie.Every time after watching a Terminator film, I am thinking in mind that there will be another one.Time will tell you.It becomes a reality in 3 times so far.

French Open 4th Round match - Rafael Nadal Vs Robin Soderling

What a match it turning out to be.I am watching World no. 1 taking on Swede(23 seeded) on Star Sports.I am sure no one has bet against Nadal for this match.To date he has won 32 straight matches in Roland Garros in doing so won four French open titles consecutively(2005-2008).

At the time of writing this entry Nadal was 2 sets to 1 down (6-2,6-7,6-4)against the Swede and 2 all in 4th set and Nadal to serve.This could well be go down to the fifth set if Nadal do manage to win this set and if that happens it will be the first time Nadal has played a five setter in Roland Garros.That shows you how tougher customer the world no. 1.

It will take some doing against the Swede who is so powerful in serve as well as ground stokes.His display of ground strokes is amazing to watch and normally I have seen such serenity only from Nadal himself.Nadal has done that to so many opponents here in Roland Garros.But today its his turn to face the music from Swede.

But still Nadal is hanging out there with Swede.Now 4 all in 4th set and Nadal to serve.Absolutely fantastic game to watch.

Now the 4th set is in the tiebreaker and things not looking good for Nadal, 2-0 down with Swede serivng.2-1 Nadal to serve.Breath taking stuff out there.

Now the score is 6-1 in the tiebreaker and the 4 times defending champion is about to bow out from the 2009 French Open.Oh my god , Swede has done it.He has defeated the king of clay Rafeal Nadal who has never been beaten here in Roland Garros.What a major upset in French open 2009.Well played Swede.

Match statistics

Sanomee mark her first birth day @ an orphanage

To mark the first birth day of our daughter , we decided to pay a visit to an orphanage and provide an alms giving to them.

It was indeed a fantastic feeling when you see those children enjoyed the occasion.And you felt that you have done something very very important to bring a smile to their faces.

It was a small place, well organized and taking care of 27 children.All of them are bellow the age of 15 years and all are girls.

As we finished preparing the dining room, the bell was rang by a child and then came all the children and was in a queue in front of the door.

Then one by one entered in to the room and took their respective seats.After having the meal they return to the main area.

There were lots of things in my mind when I noticed their behavior.

Most of them were very shy and reluctant to make eye contact with us.That showed the state of the mind they were in.Must have felt alone and neglected by their parents for what ever reason for that matter.I was felt really sorry for them.In a way they are lucky, they have been raised in this orphanage.Unless otherwise they are no more in this world in my opinion.I had no clue what might have gone in their mind.It must be very complicated to them.

Finally one of the children delivered a speech.She did thank us for what we did for them and made well wishes to my daughter to be a strong one in this society.

It was a very touchy one for me to listen.I was wondering how she made her composure while delivering that speech. She must have had so many things in her mind.It may have been a common thing to her, to deliver such speech to the people who comes to visit them in such occasions.I can still feel what I felt at bottom of my heart at that time.

Thought of sharing this with you all and if we can help such people in any means that really help them to live another day with a great smile in their faces.