Diary 58: FeastHunt Day

Yesterday I slept at around 4:30 am. I was mainly watching the TV episodes. Today I woke up at around 10:35 am. I knew that I need to go to Powai for the FeastHunt meeting. So, I brushed my teeth, had breakfast, and started to get ready. I also watched one of the TV episodes, and then took bath, and left home with Dad around 1:00 pm. I reached Powai at around 2:30 pm. Then, I and Akshay moved to Mantra's to have lunch. Dallas joined in. Akshay told me that he got a new job in JP Morgan. He also told us that one of his friends showed a bit of interest in the FeastHunt Idea. Anyways, after our lunch we spoke with the manager of that restaurant. Well, it was one hell of a talk. Initially he was very adamant about the whole idea, but we kept him in the conversation, and he gave us a very good idea about the whole "Friday" scenario. We learned a lot from this conversation. Anyways, next we moved to Akshay's house. There we brainstormed for a while, the result of which was more questions and scenarios. We realized that the table management system in many restaurants in not aligned with our solutions. Next, we decided to have a look at our competitors. Well, in my mind, I placed them at a very high place as I thought that they must have a very sophisticated technology to integrate so many systems at once, but very soon I realized that both the sites are nothing but call centers, where someone calls up the restaurant to book a table. It was ridiculous. It did nothing, but increased the number of steps in booking a table. It was not real time. It was just a dubious way of causing a reason to earn money. Akshay and Dallas liked their model a lot initially, but then I showed them the basic flaws, and how the system is obsolete and unnecessary. Meanwhile, I got a call from my sister that her tuition was over and Dad is not picking up his phone. I called up many times at home and at Dad's mobile, and then concluded that they must have left the mobile at home by mistake. Later I came to know that it was indeed the fact. Anyways, then we decided to talk to more restaurants. We chose Bistro Grill, as Akshay told us that it is one of the restaurants that is very new and will be very happy to find a way to increase their presence. So, we went in. Well, it was also one hell of a conversation. The manager was too straightforward, and directly asked the charges for the service. Obviously, we didn't decide any fixed cost structure, but I gave a basic idea of how it will look it. The revenue structure analysis a few nights earlier helped me in this. He even allowed us to see the back end of the system. There we realized that Bistro Grill is not in the Category I type restaurants. It has a billing system, but it is missing a basic Table management System. After that, Akshay had to buy some medicines so we moved to some shop, but I and Dallas decided to go to the P3 store. I bought new headphones finally, and Dallas bought a Lamborghini theme mouse. After that, we discussed final words on action items, and dispersed. It was around 9:30 pm, when I left Powai for Vikhroli station. Meanwhile, I decided to call up Ajeytaa, as I was supposed to meet her today evening. I called her up many times, but she didn't pick up. I don't know what has happened to her. She was become very lazy and at times mean. Anyways, I left her a message. Hopefully she will reply. I reached Kharghar by train. My dad picked me up from the station. Then, on reaching home, we all had dinner except for my sister who had Dosa earlier. Then, I moved to my room. There I and my sister chatted for a while. I taught her to use the SLR camera for a while. Then, she left for the night, and I moved to my laptop. I was enjoying the comfort of my new headphones, but I knew that the sound quality was nothing compared to Scheinheiser. But the headphones were compatible with IPod, so it was very useful. Then, I watched a few Coke Studio videos, TV episodes, and then, wrote this long Diary. Next, I plan to watch the remaining TV shows, and then sleep by 3:30 am.

Diary 57: Meeting Alok Day

Yesterday I slept at around 4:30 am. Today I woke up at around 11:30 am, with a phone call from Ankit. My voice was cracked that time so it helped my caused to the avoidance of office. Anyways, Ankit asked me to follow up on the DX plugin installation. I woke up, brushed my teeth, had some Tea and then composed a mail to Gil telling him about the problem I am facing in installation. Then, I moved back to JAVA. I was multi-tasking between TV episodes and JAVA coding. After some time I got a message from Alok, saying that he is near kharghar. So, I called him up and told him to get down at Vashi. Then, I told my mom that I am leaving for Vashi. Today she cooked Chicken for dinner, but I told her that I will have that in my dinner. Anyways, I left for Vashi and finally met him near KFC at InOrbit Mall. He had the same pony tail which I saw in the video chat once. Well, before eating at KFC, we roamed around the mall a bit, and also went into the Kid's zone to play some Arcade games. It was fun. I even took my SLR with me, and took a few snaps with that. Then, after the lunch at KFC, Alok left for IIT and I left for home. It was planned that we will meet again later for another session. So, I went back home, uploaded the photos on facebook and picasa, watched TV episodes and relaxed a bit. Then, at around 5 pm, I got a call from Alok that his job is done, and we can meet. So, we decided to go for a movie. That time, we decided to go for Double Dhamaal, but I reached a bit late and we missed the 6:30 show, and then we missed even the next two shows in a confusion of moving from theater to theater. Anyways, we finally settled for the 8:15 pm CARS 2 show. I was excited as I loved CARS 1. So, after all the running here and there, we finally sat down, had some food, and chatted about old and new things. I even told him about the idea of FeastHunt. I didn't give him much details but I gave an overview. Basically, in the process I got an opinion from him. I also got few nice ideas such as Calorie Meter. He had one idea too, the one with the RFID Menu. I liked it, but it was not marketable yet. I will take some more time to gain the market for that in India. Anyways, after all this discussion, we moved to the movie theater. CARS 2 was awesome but somewhere it lacked the soul it had in the first version. The second version is full of so many things that the main essence, the soul of the movie was corrupted. No doubt, the 3D effects were good. One has to know a lot of things ranging from GodFather to habits of people in Europe and America, to fully enjoy the movie. Anyways, after the movie it was time to say Goodbye. He insisted that I come to Pune sometime. I didn't promise but I said that I will make some time for that. Within all this noise, I don't know whether I can, but I will try. Then, I came back home. I remembered that I shouted on my sister today on phone, because instead of helping me out with the show timings on bookmyshow, she was laughing and teasing me. Anyways, I had already forgot all that, and was in a good mood. I laughed, taunted, etc with my sister on the dinner table. Meanwhile, I got a message from Ajeytaa asking me about tomorrow evening. She was here only till Sunday, so I was in a catch 22 situation as I had some FeastHunt commitments too. Let's see what will happen. Let her reply back. Next, I came back to my room, and wrote this diary. Next, I plan to watch the TV episodes, move on with JAVA, and some random net browsing as usual. I plan to sleep by 3:00 am. 

Diary 56: Repeated Off Day

Yesterday I slept at around 3:30 am. Today I woke up at around 10:30 am. I went online and checked mails etc. I had my breakfast, and then moved straight to multi tasking between TV episodes and B2B DX training. With all the JAVA training I am doing, the back end of informatica was getting clearer to me. The issue which has been bogging me for quite a while seemed clearer and I can easily relate to that. Meanwhile I realized that the B2B DX lab guide is done with and only the problem persists. I mailed the update to Gil, and explained him whatever I could understand about the problem. After that, I had my lunch. Earlier, I informed Ankit that I was still not well. I did this so that I can get some time for other stuffs like JAVA and FeastHunt. Anyways, after I was done with the B2B DX, I moved on to JAVA. Today the chapter was interesting because everything was very interactive. The Swing platform created user interfaces and hence was one of the important packages. I was keeping up with the TV episodes too. This went on till the evening, when I had to re-visit the problem I faced in the training. After some 11 mail exchanges, Gil reached a conclusion that we may need to re-install the DX plugin on the server, and he asked us to do it. Now, although I may want to learn how to do it, but I don't want to risk losing a more or less working plugin. I went forward with it, but stopped in mid way. Ankit was also in the loop, but as usual, he had no say in it. After that, I reverted back to JAVA. Later, I had my dinner. After the dinner, I realized that it is the deciding day for the first test between India and WI. So, I tuned in to Ten Sports and was happy to know that India needed only 2 wickets to win the test match. It was a very low scoring Test match, and the pitch was tailor made for a result. Anyways, I got the news later that India won by 63 runs. It is good to use "India" instead of some stupid club's name. Then, I moved back to my room. I found out that Alok to coming to Mumbai tomorrow. So, I may meet him tomorrow. Then, I moved to multi tasking between JAVA and TV episodes. I finished the Day 9 chapter today. I just started with the Day 10. Next, I wrote this diary post. Now, I plan to watch the remaining part of the episode and then go to sleep by 4:00 am.

A 'Not-so-good' JAVA Program

import java.lang.someDictionary.*;

public class addWords {

public addWords() {
String[] words = new String[4];
words = {'excited', 'expert', 'exhausted', 'experienced'};

for ( int i = 0; i < words.length; i++){
words[i] = Concatenate( 's', words[i] );
addtoDictionary(words[i]);
}
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
addWords NewWords = new addWords();
System.out.print (" Enjoy ");
}
}

Diary 55: No Office Again Day

Yesterday I slept at around 3:30 am. But, before that I did some financial analysis on the whole FeastHunt project, and realized that we need some 50-60 clients to achieve break even in 12 months. Anyways, my assumptions were very rough and I used worst case analysis. Today I woke up at around 11:15 am. I had my breakfast and then went online, and checked my mails. I was invisible till around 12:30 pm on my work chat, because I used fever to avoid office. Anyways, I started with training of B2B DX. Gil replied to the problem I mentioned yesterday, but the problem was not solved yet. I moved on to the next exercises. In between I watched a few TV episodes also. I got hold of the JAVA book too, and continued with the Day 9 chapter that I started yesterday. I had a late lunch at around 3:30 pm. Then, continued with the TV episodes. Today I started with the 9th season of CSI:Miami - quite an achievement. I took a bath during the evening. Then I got hold of the guitar and started playing random tunes. The whole evening was spent in the same mode. We had dinner, and then I and my sister spent some time together discussing random things from music, VB, JAVA, Music etc. After that she went to sleep and I started watching TV episodes again. Next, I wrote this post. Now, I plan to watch the remaining part of the episode and then sleep by 2:30 am.