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.

An article by CIO of Xtra personnel (http://xtra.no)

Found this article ,here ,in Norwegian language.On behalf of my colleagues and others who follow my blog, check the Google Translation of it bellow.Enjoy reading.

---- Translated text removed from here -----

Since the Google translation of this article was a total mess, Christian himself has translated it and placed it under the original post.Thank you very much for the translation Christian.

Puzzlepart web site launched

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 .

Bandaranayaka College past pupil’s association’s new look web site launched

It is my pleasure to inform that the much awaited new look past pupils association’s web site lunched yesterday during the 2009 OBA day.

www.bandaranayakecollegeppa.com

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Rasika Mahindasiry for his valuable efforts for the design of this new site.And further I should mention the name of Roshan Sooriyarachchi who is behind this entire project and making it a success.Job well done.

And looking forward to introduce more features into this in future.

My new digital camera – Sony DSC-W270

Time had come to change my very good old HP digital camera which is still working well apart from the noise in the image when took pictures with flash on.It really has a very good video recording without any issues.

The new one , Sony DSC-W270 looks really a good one and looking forward to the new experience with this.In a nutshell this camera has a 5x optical zoom and 12.1M pixels.More details on this camera can be found here.

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.

SharePoint and Women

I read a very interesting blog entry published by Bjørn Furuknap and I should definitely share this with you.Read it here.

Keeping your cool while driving

This is something that I always had in my mind, how to keep your composure ( or cool in another word ) while you are driving.I am pretty clear that we all have come across situations where you totally get frustrated while driving with those totally out of mind drivers.The "frustration" is not the ideal word to show you how badly you felt it, "p..... off" is the right phrase I feel.Sorry for being very offensive.

Who are the notorious drivers in our country? Number one is the bus drivers, and two , 3 wheeler drivers and at last but not the least, motorcyclists in my opinion. Out of those, bus drivers are the most insane.Totally out mind , bunch of idiots who has taken the responsibility of taking commuters to their destination.Who would have wanted to be on board with such a stupid in control.

I know for sure that you don't need any examples of how they drive on the road.

So the question is how you keep your cool while driving.Following are the things I have tried out to keep my stress level to a minimum.In a way it worked really well for me.

• Don't ever try to retaliate if the driver in front of you do something stupid while you are driving.That is the cardinal mistake you could have done.I know your adrenalin is pumping and you are furious to over take that bugger and learn a lesson to him.By doing this you will be putting yourself in greater danger, because you are not focusing on your driving and you are just thinking about learning a lesson to that idiot.I have experienced that and I know how was it like.
• Let pedestrians to cross over when ever you have the chance to do so.That will really cool you down for a few seconds and let you gather your breath.That doesn't mean that you have to do it all the time.But I have few situations where you can , let them go by.
• if you are not in that much of a hurry just put on breaks and let them cross.
• if there is a long queue behind you then just stop and let them cross, because they (pedestrians) don't have to wait for a long time to cross.Otherwise just keep on going because they can cross after you pass the crossing.
• Don't ever be restless while you are driving.I know you are in a hurry to go to office or any other work then you are trying to over take others.Then of course you in hot seat.So be patient and take you time to over take.
• Never ever try to overtake at bends.I have done so couple of times and avoided some close shaves.
• Try to avoid honking your horn like a crazy.I know for sure you have experienced the driver behind you is honking like a crazy, no need to explain what is your feeling at that time.So it is the same feeling the driver in front of you get if you do the same.So try to use it less and see.Of course you have to use your horn in situations where you have to let the others know about your presence.

I know, you readers also have different styles of driving.And I would like to know about those and reactions to what I have mentioned here.

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.

Looking back at year 2008

It has been a fantastic year to me and my family.There were some critical moments in my family life as well as in my work.I would like to list down some of the key moments of the past year for me.

The first one was the best in the lot. Which was the birth of my lovely little daughter.It was a fantastic moment in my life to see her coming out in to this world , and I did witness it from the theater beside my lovely wife and the first cry my daughter made was still echoing in my ears.Everybody who were in the theater was amazed of the loud of it.It was a fantastic feeling and really hard to put into words.

The second one being the delivery of xtracare portal for Xtra.When I took over the project, it was challenging simply because of the time frame for the delivery which was merely a 2 months or so.Had to cope with a dev team which consists of a SE and an intern which made your life bit tougher to transfer the domain knowledge as well as learning curve for the new comer especially with the timeframe we had.Ultimately we pulled it off in a style with the fantastic team effort.Hats off to the entire team which includes dev team , QA team BA and the PM.

The third one was a bit of a scare to my life.It almost took my life unless my seat belt came to the party.It was a very hard day at office and after releasing the xtracare build to the QA and the dev team set to leave the office.I still remember the time we left the office was exactly 00:00 hrs.I told one of my colleague Sudheera, "look at the time we are leaving the office..." and we had a laugh.It could well have been the last laugh, but luckily not to be.

I was bit sleepy as I getting closer to home and I told my self, hang on for a second I am almost there no need to stop and have a nap or a glass of water.The last moment remember was passing the 20th mile post and then to realized that my car went out of the road (to my right) and hit a fence and rolled over and landed on the road facing towards where I was coming. That was very freakish and I had no clue how did it happen.Luckily for me not a single vehicle or a person was on the road at the time of the accident.If that was the case , the incident could have been tragic.When you saw the car aftermath, it was hard to believe that how did I escape from that fatal accident.Answer to that question was wearing the seat belts.Very simple.

So I still use to do it no matter how shorter your journey is, wear your seat belts.Food for thought for you readers, make a habit of it.

The fourth one was moving to an annex closer to my wife's office.The reason was my wife had to resume her work after maternity leave and needed to find a way to feed my daughter during the day time.It is highly unlikely that we staying at Yakkala and come to feed during the luncheon interval from her office at Bellantota, simply impossible.

So we took the decision to move to a place which within the closer range to my wife's office so that she can pay a visit during the luncheon interval and feed the baby.

Credit must go to my parents who volunteered to look after our daughter and joined with us to stay at Borelesgamuwa.I am sure that was a tough call to them.Thank you mom and dad for your support in big time.

Finally I would like to take this opportunity to thank my wife for all the support given to me during my difficult moments.She helped me all the time when it was required and always ready to listen and come up with the best possible answer to the situation.That is one of the most admirable aspect of her.And thank you for every thing you did for me.