Final day at client office

It’s my final day at the client office. I’m happy to go back to the loved ones but am going to miss the quality of work life.

I really enjoyed work during the last couple of months because I got to work again in the project I first started at Virtusa. It’s a code base I know pretty well and the changes I do to it now are mostly the ones that I wanted to do couple of years back. It gives a good feeling.

I love doing that so much, I arranged myself to work on the same project from Sri Lanka for three more months. It would probably slow down my career progression as I wouldn’t be playing a higher role – yet enjoying work for three months is worthy than that.

Pursuit of happiness

On last Friday, I went for another movie, “Pursuit of happiness”. One of the best movies I've ever watched.
Will Smith stars as Chris Gardner, a bright and talented man who was unable to continue his education after high-school because the lack of money.
He barely makes a living by selling bone scanning machines which are too expensive for its use. He loves his family and struggle to provide for them. His wife is stressed out by financial constraints and leaves him.
He gets thrown out of the house they live in because he’s unable to pay the rent. He manages to stay in a church some nights. When he fails to arrive at the church which offers shelter to the homeless by a first come first serve basis, he sleeps in a men’s room at a railway station with his son.
In the midst of all this he manages to impress a business man and enroll in to an internship program for stock brokers. The internship doesn’t have a salary so he continues to sell the last few of his bone scanning machines.
At the end, he was offered a job as a stock broker. In the movie he quotes we always pursuit happiness, but hardly ever achieve it. Even when we do, it’s only momentary.

Things I would miss when I go back

1. 8 hour work days
2. Roads without three wheelers
3. Free and nice lodging with no annoying landlords
4. Hi-speed internet connectivity
5. Realistic speed limits (which I still can’t adhere to - I do 50mph on 35mph roads - lucky still didn’t receive a speeding ticket.)
6. Room service to clean my room, empty my trash and change my sheets and towels
7. Polite people who mind their own business and doesn’t think giving the right of way is a favor
8. Online shopping for just about any thing (on which I spent US$ 2500+ during this short period)
9. Cheap gasoline (Yeah, it’s cheaper than Sri Lanka)
10. Extra Cash
11. Managers who understand work
12. Comfortable temperatures
13. Lesser polluted, lesser crowded environment (I’m not living or working in downtown)
14. Efficient, responsible and polite government servants
15. Systematic way that every thing is implemented

Preparing to come back

My onsite allocation is coming to an end and I’m preparing to come back. I bought lots of stuff from here and spent a lot of money.
What I forgot to mention previously in the blog is that I bought a laptop. Not much of a fancy one. From recent past I have shifted to a policy of buying what’s necessary than buying what I can afford.

So the laptop is a Dell Inspiron with Intel Celeron M 1.6GHz Processor, 15.4” WXGA Display, 128MB non shared video memory. 60GB Hard Disk Drive, 1GB Memory and DVD writer. I also bought some wi-fi gear to network with my home desktop, which is also a Celeron 2.53GHz running with just 512MB RAM.

I’ve pledge not to install any development software on the laptop. It’s going to be 100% personal home computer dedicated to entertainment, web browsing, reading etc. (Ok I have installed notepad2 and XMLNotepad, but not to do any coding.)

Those of you who have been reading my blog from the begging must have realized that I have transformed from a technology enthusiast to a average man who works on IT for a living. Perhaps it’s because of the type of work I get to do or just because I’m not competent. I don’t care the reason. I’m still comfortable with who I am and happy with what I still can do.

Apocalypto

Mel Gibson is my favorite Hollywood actor, or rather he was. Last week a movie named Apocalypto was released in USA which was directed by Mel Gibson. Jack Mathews of New York Daily News had said,

“Mel Gibson is sicker than we thought.

As his new film "Apocalypto" makes clear, he's not just a drinker and a raving anti-Semite, but a man with a grotesque appetite for human suffering and an enormous talent for exploiting it.” (Read his review here)

But I believed too much in Gibson to believe it. So I went to see it today. This was the first time I went for a movie while in the states, so let me start with the good stuff.

AMC in the Alderwood mall is a complex of 16 theaters. They seem to screen the same movie in couple of theaters. The ticket was US$7.50, thrice the price of the most expensive theater in Sri Lanka, but was worth it. The seats were really comfortable and are placed so that even if an eight footer sat in front of you, your view would not even be slightly blocked. There is a nice cup holder in the seat so you wouldn’t be accidentally kicking the drinks. “Switch off your phones” message wasn’t a blurred text on the screen but and effective advertisement, where a director gives out the message, “My movies don’t disturb your calls, so don’ let your calls disturb my movie”. Every thing was nice until the movie started. And there were no breaks in between.

The first scene was a group men hunting down a wild boar. It was a brutal kill, but hey, they were hunters, so even though the scene was a bit disturbing I could handle it. (before proceeding, I can watch humans getting brutally killed in cold heart, but not animals), then the story revealed people butchering each other, cutting out the hearts from alive, chopping off heads, cold blooded throat cutting.... so much human butchering that the making men run and shooting arrows and spears at them was one of the most civilized scenes in the movie. I don’t know what Mel Gibson had in mind when he included scenes which humiliate a man for being impotent. I couldn’t stop the thought that the director enjoyed seeing people being tortured in such brutal manner. I was so happy when the movie was ended.

The story seems to say that great Mayan civilization is nothing but a bunch of butchers who enjoyed butchering each other alive. And the end was white men coming ashore with swords and crosses, as if to imply it’s the white man and their religion that brought true civilization to North America. Nothing against Christianity but why put Mayan civilization to such a disgraced status?

At the end, I couldn’t say any better than Jack Mathews. He knew better.

Yasas has started to blog

Yasas, one of the first ten engineers who started my current project with me has started to blog.
Yasas is an International award winner for excellent performances from Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). He started his career as an Associate Software Engineer at Virtusa and moved on to Business Analysis track where he excelled during his two year stay at Virtusa. He worked with major clients both in the US and UK before he moved in to Australia few months back with his wife. He is renounced as a confident and talented young professional.
He is an expert author in many online IT magazines and have published a book on IT as well. His expertise is in the border between IT and business and he does a marvelously job in binding the two together for major companies.
Recently he got elected to the Executive Committee of ACS and is playing a major role in bringing it's focus more in to Sri Lanka.

Come see an interesting discussion

At the memory bank

Is Google too smart for its own good?

Google's famous for hiring the best and the brightest, but when they get bored, they're bound to create the son-of-Google, warns Fortune's Jeffrey O'Brien.
Read more

Sri Lankan anti-terror police to advise on Beijing Olympics

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Beijing Olympic organizers are seeking advice on security from Sri Lanka's anti-terrorist police commando unit.

A tribute to Prabath

On 1st July 2004, I joined Virtusa as an associate software engineer. On my first day, while I was sitting in the library to receive an on boarding kit from HR, I was joined by another guy who joined on that very same day. He was quite a character - agile, shy and quite friendly too. He was Prabath.
I joined in to a project on my third day and Prabath joined the same project a couple of weeks later. I got to know him as an innovative go getter who couldn’t be stopped by any thing. What frustrated others motivated him. He took on what others gave up. He was an achiever in all possible ways.
We both got promoted to software engineer and then to senior software engineer and got assigned to lead roles on the same dates.
Prabath was given the hard job of leading a scattered and mismanaged team and was held responsible for their technical deliveries. I was given comparatively the easy task of coordinating onsite and offshore work. And for Prabath it was this role that brought out the marvel within Prabath. Not only did he coop with the immense pressure that he was pushed to, but he had the band with to help me out as well.
I have witnessed leads that were commended as the best of the breed, but in my perception Prabath stands out of them clearly. Most leads were either techies or friendly “managers”. But Prabath was more than the both. He knew what he was doing and he knew how to lead others. He is a true role model for all the new engineers. He stood by the team all the time and never let the team spirit drift apart, no matter how much pressure he was put on with.
I personally know had I been through what he was put through; I would have quite long before. But he held up and finished the project in true style of a great lead.

It snowed..

Remember?

Incompetent Managers Cost Businesses Too Much.

Canadian business author Laurence Peters proposed in his 1969 book "The Peter Principle : Why Things Always Go Wrong" that employees in hierarchical organizations are promoted to their level of incompetence. There is such pressure in American business to move "upward" that employees continue to win promotions until they reach a level where they simply cannot do the work required of that position.

These employees end up desperately unhappy, struggling to survive and at the same time costing the company money in lost productivity, lowered morale, and less innovation.

Need I tell more?

My new cubicle

Drive to Edmonds under water park

Our client office shifted to a new location which is a bit far to walk from my hotel. To top that the raining season has started and it rains from dawn to dusk on most days. Weather is pretty cold as well…
So I rented a car again on yesterday. Not a fancy one… A KIA Rio Station Wagon. It just serves my purpose of traveling 3miles back and forth every weekday and going for groceries on weekends.
But after getting the car… I felt like exploring the surroundings. So bought few maps and headed west to see the Edmonds under water park. It wasn’t the type of park I expected, but was a large bay area for scuba divers. There was a docking port right next to the “park”

Waves

Learning to capture

Extended stay..

I initially planed to stay in the US only till the end of November; but now I'm required to stay here till end of December. I have VISA till end 2008 and my I94 is valid till mid 2007. I just hope it wouldn't get extended that long.

I'm all alone here so when ever I go out, I have trouble taking pictures of myself. So today I went out to CircuitCity and bought this tripod - which is pretty good for its price.

Random things...

Last Sunday I was walking towards Fred Meyers in Lynnwood when the sun slowly disappeared behind the mountains...

Sky around Seattle is always decorated by exhaust smoke lines of air planes...

A cement horse in the Alderwood shopping mall

Dialog Telekom – denial of service and denial of support

On the 17th of October I tried to use the "DiaText" online (paid) facility provided by Dialog GSM web site and received the error "not enough credit/billing error".

By this time, my online bill showed an outstanding amount of Rs. 483.92. I had also made a direct debit of Rs. 6000/- from HSBC which was not updated in the online bill. So my actual account balance at that time should have been around Rs -5500/-. However even without that last payment I should have been allowed to use the service as my credit limit is Rs. 3000/-.

Therefore I placed a complain (Complain No. 22713797) using the online contact form regarding this issue. On the same day I received a mail from a person named "Shone Denver" claiming that I have exceeded my credit limit and it's not yet updated in the online bill, which was not buyable as the online bill showed calls made on the 16 th as well.

I replied to that mail with details of my payments and requesting them to verify that information and provide me further clarifications, as I was pretty sure that reply was sent without verifying my billing information.

On the 18th, I received a mail from the same person requesting me to verify my identification information and payment information with the receipt numbers. By this time my last payment had also been updated in the online payment history and my account balance was - 2973.37. I replied to that mail with all identification and payment details and requesting them to clarify the issue but did not receive any reply as of yet. I also sent a reminder on the 23rd as well.

If any of you have contacts at Dialog GSM, please pass this on to them. If needed, I do have all the email communications with me.

Work life in US

One thing I really like about my client office is that all of them leave office by 5 P. M. Very rarely some stay till 5.30. If anybody stays later than 5 P. M., it’s considered as staying late! Work starts at 8 A. M.
One clearly evident advantage of it is that the productivity level is really high of every employee compared to our Sri Lankan offices. I experienced myself that I accomplish much more within the 8hours than what I did within 10~12 hours in Sri Lanka. And what’s more, I have time for myself after work. So work isn’t the only life I have here as it was in Sri Lanka.
I believe that Sri Lankan software firms should also realize this fact and encourage their employees to leave office by 5 or 6 P.M. More often than not, our employers in Sri Lanka believe, staying late is working hard and it’s productive and them implicitly expects us to stay late at office. But they don’t realize that it degrades the quality of their products as well as the quality of our lives.

Christmas

A geek son called his parents to wish for Christmas on oct-31… Why?
Oct-31 = dec-25!

Chili cook-off

Friday the 13th was the chili cook-off day at my client office.
Basically several contestants cook different kinds of chilies and the best is selected. It’s driven by the “need for chili” than the competition.
Most of the chilies were meat so I had to settle for the only vegan on available. Which wasn’t even hot as much as my regular lunch...

Back to old title

I changed the title of my blog to what it was. ICloneable.com is now directed to my google hosted home page. Blog would remain as Mahasen does blogging...

Park in Lynnwood

It's a sunny weekend so I went out to see the park I saw last Sunday on my way back to hotel from Shoreline (Car rental place)

I bought a pack of rechargeable batteries for my camera on my way and walked in to the park. The side I entered first was almost deserted and was quite calm and beautiful. But it wasn’t large as I expected and there was nothing much to see except for the woods.

Then I went to the other side of the park where there were people playing with kids, saw some squirrels but besides that there were nothing much to see either.

So I just took some photos and headed back to the hotel. Seems if I’m to do any serious site seeing, I’m gonna have to rent a car.

Moments

Time

This morning I returned my car back. My hotel is just .8Miles away from office so I decided ~25$ per day for the car is just not worth it when I could walk or take a bus easily.
The car rental place AVIS is some 12Miles away from the hotel. When I picked it up, Nalin gave me a lift. But today I had to come back alone. So I looked up communitytransit.org and found out the bus route I should take and went off early in the morning.
The temperature had been around 70F for the past week so I didn't expect it to be cold today. But since the weather channel predicted rain I took the jacket. When I arrived at the AVIS, the temperature was 49˚F (~9˚C). Luckily I took my jacket with me. I was regretting I didn't wear gloves.
How ever things at the rental place finished fairly quickly so I was too early for the bus I was planning to take. Normally busses here run hourly, so I decided to walk a bit towards the next bus stop. Just as I arrived in that bus stop, a bus pulled over from there. So I decided to keep walking. And another bus went passing me. Mind you the temperature was still around 50˚F.

I received a call while I was walking and couple of more busses passed me by. So I decided - I’m not gonna take a bus. I pulled out my camera from the haversack and tried to capture as many images I can on the 12 Mile walk back to the hotel!

I didn’t felt tired at all while walking, but when I finally arrived, I felt exhausted. I waited for a while, had a shower and cooked enough for few days. I’m too lazy to cook every day. At around 5 p.m. I felt really worn off so went to the bed to relax a bit and fell asleep almost instantly.I haven’t worked out for quite some time now and a 12 mile walk within 3.5 hours didn’t seem to be a good way to start. Any how, after the sleep, I feel quite ok now. But sadly, the weekend is over and tomorrow I have to go to office by 7 a. m. My project manager has set up a nonsense call at his more convenient 7.30 p. m.Oh - by the way - I’d be walking to office… thanks for the concern…

Words...?

Pissed off by HSBC

I opened a savings account with HSBC couple of months back, primarily because I thought they offer better internet banking than Sampath bank. And I expected their customer service to be better as well.

Last week, I used my HSBC credit card to purchase the camera online. But for some reason, the validation failed and I got redirected to a HSBC (Sri Lanka) error page. Then I simply went back to the site I purchased the camera and used my Sampath credit card and completed the transaction.

Couple of days later, I found out that HSBC have billed my credit card for that transaction which failed. So much for ACID of a transaction! I mailed them through their internet banking solution requesting to rectify it but received no answer. Then I mailed them to their personal banking email address yesterday, and still haven’t received a response.

In the middle, my salary got debited to the account. So I transferred some funds to my Sampath bank account so I could pay my Sampath credit card bill, which has provided me a much consistent service up to now. I had enabled third party fund transfers but this was the first time I used the feature. On their site they say fund transfers to accounts in other local banks are credited to that account on the following day. Now it’s the third day and it’s still not showing that in my Sampath bank account. But the amount got debited from the HSBC account right on that moment. I sent a mail regarding this matter through there internet banking solution on the second day and didn’t receive any response to that either.

I’m extremely pissed off with their service and am planning to close down all my accounts with them as soon as I go back to Sri Lanka.

Weekend

Yesterday I went to a Buddhist temple close by with Nalin, Piyal (Another friend of Nalin who lives in Seattle) and his wife. There was a gathering of the Sinhalese community in Seattle. People there (around 5~6 small families) ranged from ok to good. But the monk there didn't impress me. He kept telling me to come to US and settle down. Why on earth should I migrate to US? Besides that monk was breaking more than a few "vinaya" precepts I know a monk should keep. They collected money for the upcoming rains retreat and people there were asking whether the monk could go buy the rob himself, and he was telling he could! Most of the active members there and the monk was really concerned about the monetary issues. Perhaps I don't have enough insight to comment but I felt some thing wasn't right. Buddhist monks should not use money. Neither the monk nor the lays there seem to be real Buddhists. It made me recall the American-white Buddhist monk I met in the airport, venerable Vimala thero, he was very well disciplined and displayed every aspect of a true Buddhist monk.

So I remarked myself that it would be my first and last visit there even though I made a donation to the rains retreat.

I bought a pair of shoes today. I wasn’t planning to - but I went out and saw them and just bought them. And did a online search on them after returning, just to find out I could have bought them for half the price I paid if I bought them online :(

Bought a camera

I bought this mega zoom Cannon PowerShot S2 IS yesterday and it's on it's way to my hotel now.
I didn't pay for fast delivery so it would take few days to reach me. I'm in no hurry as long as it comes.
Also bought a Timex wrist watch - Nothing fancy in that though

American life begins

It's my second day at work in the Seattle client office. I rented out a car yesterday - a Ford Taurus - a car quite bigger than the N16 even. Didn't found it much difficult to get adapted to left hand driving.

I haven't still gone shopping after I first went with Nalin on the very first day I arrived in her. I'm planning to go out tonight after work.

One problem is that when we finish our day here, my team in Sri Lanka starts theirs, so at around 9 P.M. I have to join in for a call with them. Usually it doesn't get dragged more than an hour or so.

Our logistics team here has shipped an official mobile for me. I should receive it today or latest by tomorrow.

I still couldn't buy a camera. I'm thinking of buying a video camera.

Arrived in Lynnwood, Seattle

I arrived in Lynnwood this afternoon - local time. The trip took me 33hrs from home to Lynnwood. It was so weary. Nalin - our Architect - came to pick me up to the air port and drove me to my hotel, which is a wonderful place with all that I could ask for.

I don't have a camera with me. So photos have to be avaited.

Arrived in Narita

Arrived in Narita - Tokiyo about 20 minutes ago. I hoped Wi-Fi would be free here but it's not. The cyber cafe in the airpot offer 30 minutes of surfing for 3 US$ and the Wi-Fi costs the same for 24hrs.
Since I won't be here for that long I just logged in from a cyber cafe.
Had very little sleep in the flight so a bit sleepy right now.
Met an American monk in Sri Lanka in the air port and am keeping company to him trill our flights. He taught me some basic buddhanussathi meditation.
Will post from San Francisco if the internet is free there. Won't be able to post photos as I don't have a camera with me.
Ah by the way, they threw out my water bottle and the medical cream I had with me when I arrived here in Japan. They speak very little english so they just throw what ever they don't allow in and smile :D

The bliss

The dreams became true

When you became mine

Warming my heart

In an wonderful bliss

I don't care anymore

Even if the world fall apart

As long as you are with me

To share my consciousness with

Buddha Charithaya part 2

"Buddha Charithaya" with Sinhala subtitle - This is a wonderful piece of animation covering the life of Lord Buddha and his preaching’s, found on google video

Plans cancelled

About couple of weeks back, Kirosh, commenting on my plan to visit Thailand to attend meditation retreats said that if you want to meditate, don’t plan - just leave every thing and go do it. I didn’t listen to him...

Today, I got stamped US L1 Visa for two years. I’d probably be flying to US on next Monday on company assignment. There’s goes Thailand trip...

I had to wait for almost four hours at the US embassy for a 30 second visa interview. Americans seem to think that we are so keen in visiting their damned country. The lady next to me happened to be working for Sri Lankan air lines. She had visa and had travelled to most of the countries I know. She was visiting her husband in US. But her application was rejected saying she was unable to provide viable reasons for her visit. Perhaps a vacation in US for a Sri Lankan is some thing they don’t understand. There was another person who was invited in to US by some organization, he had to go through an argument as well - I think at the end he got his visa.

How to avoid re-occurring Err "ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve service name" (not a common oracle connection issue)

We added another service name in our database server. And I added a new TNS entry to tnsnames.ora and was ready to go... I was expecting too much :( I kept getting ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve service name.
TNS was working fine.. I could connect to it using SQLPlus and toad. It struct me only when I tried to run my application. After wasting enough time on it, I decided to give up and do a google. And it was solved by changing the access rights of the orahome directory - which is drow me insane.. I didn't do any thing with that. I just edited the damned tnsnames.ora...

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=620123&SiteID=1

Update: Forgot to mention, I synchronized both the tnsnames.ora files in ora9 home and ora10 home

I bought ICloneable.com

Last friday I was really sleepy in the evening, but was stuck in office. I wanted to amuse myself - So what did I do? I bought a domain name for my blog... I didn't want to go for my name as I feel it's out of fasion to have your name as the domain name.. So I went for ICloneable.com (infact I would have liked IUnknown but it's been taken for some years now)
So Mahasen does blogging would be known as ICloneable here after... till I decide to get rid of it... Or to give it away... Would any one be interested in ICloneable.com?

Air strike victims were 'child soldiers'

(COLOMBO, SinhalaNet 2006.08.15 09:02AM) Government official of the regional office of Ministry of Education in Mulative district has confirmed that Education department in Mulative have not arranged or organized any such 10 days resident programme
[Read Full Story...]

15 Days without blogging

Following a link in Merrill's blog I came across Windows Live Writer. Since I couldn't blog for quite some time I thought of using it for a quick post.

Right now work is flowing without much hassle but the atmosphere shows some signs of rough seas ahead. Not that the work is going to get tough but the envirement.

On the homefront, I'm still to find a place to stay. Right now we are really frustrated about it. I brought the N16 to Colombo and am using it now. I'm still to buy a new phone and to repair my 6230i. I'm using a 3310 right now :). So I can't post any photos of the N16 right now.

Chuti Akka (Second elder sister) went to Anuradhapura Army Hospital to volunteer treating army casualties. She's been there since Sunday (13th Aug).

Weekend - Family & ...

I went home to Kandy almost after a month. Appachchi (father) is few weeks in to his retirement and still finding it a bit hard to settle down. My loku akka (first elder sister) gave birth to a baby boy last Monday. It’s my first nephew. But I couldn’t visit them this weekend so I’m yet to see him. Amma’s (Mother’s) blood pressure was unstable during my stay. But was some what ok by Sunday eve.

Warm it up...

I expected it to be difficult to go under direct sunlight. My thought was since I never see sunlight during weekdays it won’t be much of a problem... Little did I thought about ~15°C air blown directly at my bold scalp 12+ hours per day.

Currently I have a wet nose and sleeping issues... I mean... before I went bold I was comfortable with a 7h sleep. But now it doesn’t seem to be enough.

Today I blocked AC ventilation holes which are directly above my head with paper but it didn’t help much. So here I am.. using my cup of tea to warm it up a bit...

Ugly -> Uglier

I shaved my head... I look uglier than before... but, hey, no one really liked me for my looks... (if any one ever liked me ;) ).

It feels much comfortable this way and I don’t have to worry about hair.. I wouldn’t have bad hair days for some time... if I like it... would continue to shave the head.
I’m still to experience mid day sun bold headed...

Solve this puzzle

• I have a Dialog mobile phone connection.
  
• When I’m in my cubicle I don’t receive signals.
  
• When I move 30 feet from my cubicle I receive signals at full strength.
  
• The person next to my cubicle who also has a Dialog connection receives signals at full strength.
• When I insert my SIM in to another phone it too receives signals at full strength at my cubicle.
• When I insert another SIM of a different provider, I get signals at full strength to my phone, at my cubicle.
• When I insert another Dialog SIM to my phone it behaves the same as my SIM.
• So the isolation is My Phone + Dialog Connection + My Cubicle just doesn’t seem to work together.

This started to happen from mid last week. What could be wrong and where??

A Guide to Buddhist Monasteries and Meditation Centres in Thailand

I'm planning to go on a vacation during december... Thought of India and Thailand. So searched google for "thailand buddhist monasteries" and found this excellent guide to thai monasteries and meditation centres.
At first I was planning to go alone, but when I told it to my sister (chuti akka) she wanted to join in as well... Still don't know how it would turn around. But I'm dead serious about this... Hope this project I'm currently working on would finish by then.

SketchUp - Another Google tool

Google's SketchUp is a simple but powerful tool for quickly and easily creating, viewing and modifying your 3D ideas.

It's features include:

• Click on a shape and push or pull it to create your desired 3D geometry.
• Experiment with color and texture directly on your model.
• Real-time shadow casting lets you see exactly where the sun falls as you model.
• Select from thousands of pre-drawn components to save time drawing.

The Pro version's robust feature set empowers design professionals to explore and communicate complex concepts, import and export a host of file formats, and create interactive presentations. You can also use SketchUp Pro to print to high-resolution devices, place your models in Google Earth, and post them to the 3D Warehouse.

The Free version is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program that enables you to explore the world in 3D. With just a few simple tools, you can create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects - even space ships.

Can't think of a title

Every breath I take deep in to my soul
Fills my mind with memories of you
In my thoughts I always draw
That sweetened smile I always love

How many lives before I win your love?

I just wanted to whisper,
Sitting next to a camping fire,
In no man’s land so far away,
With only you and me to talk,
Looking at the stars in the sky,
Drinking tea you and I just made,
On a cold - cold joyful night,
How deeply I’m in love with you!

And I wanted to tell you,
Walking in a sandy beach,
Looking at the dusk light hiding out,
Behind the waves of great blue sea,
Feeling the cold of the evening breeze,
Looking at your smile that warm my heart,
Moving my fingers through your hair,
How madly I’m in love with you!

And I wanted to ask you,
Just after a candle light dinner,
Listening to an old love song,
Enjoying the dessert and smiling alone,
Looking in your eyes I fell in love,
Taking your hand and smiling again,
Gathering my words, getting lost in thoughts,
“My darling would you be mine for life”?

But now my darling I just wonder,
Counting the stars in the sleepless nights,
With an aching heart that feel so heavy,
Looking at the flowers and listening to birds,
Closing my eyes and drawing your smile,
Listening to the cries of country songs,
Smiling alone with memories of gold,
How many lives before I win your love?

MSc in Advanced Software Engineering

I'm planning to read for the MSc in Advanced Software Engineering from the University of Westminister which is offered by the Informatics Institute of technology here in Sri Lanka. I went there yesterday to pick the application set. It's begining this september...

We burn..

Driven by the desires we all are
Of our minds naïve and untamed
Not realizing the evil of lust
We neglect the serenity within
Seek divine pleasures for our senses
That would burn us to eternity

Exchanged the Tercel

Ok folks... don't laugh now… I changed cars again… A 2004 September Suzuki Swft for 1.7Mil… Will post images soon. But the best deal is, I’m giving it to appachchi (father) and getting his N16…

In the past

Before I started to blog, I had a poetry site. (http://mahasenpaya.8m.com - http://www.mahasenpaya.tk) That contained poems I wrote in the back pages of my note books and buss tickets. Most of these poems were written during the 1999-2003 period. Asela (of http://www.4minutesperday.com) used several of these poems in his site. Today I found an archive of those old poems and thought of publishing it here.

Those tiny little things happened
That made my heart bloom
Those tiny little moments
My eyes met her glance
They all come to my mind
When I’m lost in thoughts
That’s why you always find me
Smiling whenever I’m alone...

And this one too

You warm my heart day by day
You enter my dreams little by little
My thoughts of you get sweetened and sweetened
I seem to care ’bout you more and more
And I’m afraid on one of these days
I may even fall in love with you!

You too EU; thought you can tame us?

Within hours after the EU's listing LTTE as a terrorist organization, LTTE leadership has ordered a mass execution of innocent Sinhalese civilians in Welikanda on 29th may 2006. The poor Sinhalese villagers who had been working as construction laborers at an irrigational project at ODDIYAMADU were arbitrary executed by shooting by armed LTTE cadres. One of the two survivors explaining the media, how the execution was carried out said:

"There were fourteen of us repairing the canal, but we were quite late on that day (29th) to finish the day's work. Once we stared to move home we were surrounded by a group of armed LTTE cadres and ordered us to muster on the road until their commander comes.

Few minutes later, we were taken by two and tied our hands on each others back and mustard on a line. Then the executioner came in front of us start shooting. A bullet went through my friend's head, tied on my back, so I also lay pretending dead."
The victims have been identified as the residents of MAHASENPURA village. Their names are as follows:S. K. SUNIL JAYAWARDANE, E. A. SARATH KUMARA, B. J. ABEYSOORIYA, G. S. GUNAWARDANE, SIRISENA, AJITH, T. M. DARMADASA, SARATH, T. B. WASANTHA KUMARA, B. T. T. DAMMIKA, T. M. GUNARATHNE and KUMARA.


It is evident that the LTTE leadership has not yet decided to give up his maniacal dream of an "ethnically pure Tamil land". Those SLMM monitors who visited the seen should have recalled how Adolph Hitler carried out the mass execution of Jews during the World War II. Unfortunately, LTTE has been allowed continue its barbarism in Sri Lanka unnoticed by the International Community for thirty years.

Place to stay

Searching for a house or plot of land to buy wasn’t as easy as I thought. Once I committed myself to buy an apartment from Narahenpita for 5.5 Mil. But the owner wanted me to deposit 500k in his account the following morning as an advance - with no proper documents. So I told him to dream on it.
I have to vacate the current place by 15th June. I don’t feel like renting out another place as my brother would be leaving the country within next month and my sister wouldn’t really be staying with me. If I’m to rent out a place now for all three of us I would end up paying rent for a place I really don’t need. So, thinking of being a burden to a friend for couple of months. But the problem is, even though I’m some what a minimalist. I have too much furniture with me. I need to find a place to put them as well.

Joy of life

I wish I was there
To share all your life
Through the child hood
And your naïve youth

To have supported you in hard times
And been rejoiced by the goods
Being a part of all your mischief
Making you the joy of my life

But again, you still are...

Bought a Tercel

The AD Wagon wasn’t the car for me... No ABS, no air bags and most of all not stable as much as I want it to be. So finally I changed it - bought a Toyota Tercel last week. Went to Dambulla on Saturday and it’s not that bad. For 1.3Mil I think you can even cal it good.

The N73

I’ve been using my 6230i for a year now. And several appealing phones have been released by Nokia during that year. I set my eyes on N80 from the first wave of the N series.. and now in the third wave the N73 seems to be more appealing

Sri Lankan Army Soldiers

SLA Soldiers help an old Tamil 'amma' to escape the ravaging floods somewhere in the Tamil dominated eastern province.

Clutching his rifle and keeping a keen eye out for Tamil tiger maniacs, this soldier risks his life to ensure that a Tamil child makes it to school, somewhere in the eastern province.

Can we expect any one of these to a Sinhala persona from a tiger???
Well. That's the main difference... SLA fights against the terrorists. Not against the Tamil people.