Oh The Places You’ll Go…

Today has been my favorite day in Omaha so far!! :) I think it’s the first day where (almost) all aspects of my life actually went really well! :)

I had my mid-year review at work today, and it went really well! I am either meeting or exceeding expectations for everything. Also, I learned that hard work does pay off quite a bit. Luckily, I was able to make some serious progress on all of my projects this week. It is like something just clicked (especially on the development one). So, needless to say, I’m a very happy woman today! ;)

So, after work today, I went to Kohl’s to see if I could get a better deal on my shoes (I paid $32 for them last weekend, but I got a $10 coupon in the mail literally 2 minutes after I got home from that store). The lady was really nice, and she returned the shoes, and I was able to re-buy them for ~$19. Originally, they are priced at $60, and even if I wasn’t going to get the deal, I was going to keep the shoes, but hey, the cheaper the better! Here’s a picture of one of my gorgeous new darlings – I can’t wait to wear them to work tomorrow!

Outside of work, I am loving the weather! It is just perfect this week – not too hot, not too cool. Plus, on Thursdays, a group of my friends & I all get together and just chill out. For the first time in a very, VERY long time, I had a margarita- and it didn’t taste so bad after I remembered the *umph* (for lack of a better word) twinge of alcohol.

To top it all off, the women’s final is Williams vs. Williams, and I know we’ll be seeing Andy in the finals, and hopefully he’ll be joined by Federer. It’s nice to see the resurgence of Hewitt, Haas, and Ferrero though.

So, considering all this, I’m quite the happy girl! :)

It’s been a really interesting summer- my life has totally taken some unexpected turns. So, in light of everything, I decided it was time for change. Anyway, I finally decided on the cherries theme, because they just make me want to smile all the time (especially the little one on the left-hand panel of this page)! I hope you like it too! =)

On another note, only 2 days left until Wimbledon – with Nadal out, would anybody bet against Federer now? :P

I know I haven’t posted in a long time – I do have a lots of posts drafted, but I have not published them yet, because I have code snippets that I want to ensure are working first. However, I just had to post this photo- it shows how much this French Open title means. What an inspiration! 14 Grand Slams- ties Pete Sampras’ record AND Agassi’s Career Slam- I’d say he’s definitely up there for the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) debate.

3-4 days left till Wimbledon (depending on your time zone)… Who are your picks to win? :)

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. At that moment, she didn’t have a care in the world. She forgot about everything else – classes, friends, the pressure from everything else. The only thing going through her mind was how perfect the breeze was. She had a tendency to get so caught up in activities and planning and classes. Of course, she loved it all, but in the midst of it all, she sometimes forgot why she did all of those things. She would look, but not really see.

For that one moment in time, as the breeze passed through her hair, she remembered to see, not just to look. And since that moment, she has never been the same- never again did she forget to look, never again did she get too caught up to forget the important things in life.

She will forever be thankful for that one moment – for that breeze.

Nach. Baila. Danse. Tanz.

Regardless of the country you are in, all of these words mean the same thing. I have always been involved with music – whether it’s singing or playing piano. But last night, I realized that dancing brings music to a whole new level. Whether it’s dancing to country music, hip-hop, pop, rock, or Bollywood music, it’s just a time when you can let go. Let go of worries, let go of stress… let go of reality. It’s a tough feeling to sometimes achieve, but when you’re dancing, you are guaranteed to get that feeling – every single time.

And that’s why I loved Nach Night :) I felt like, for a few hours, I could just forget everything and laugh and smile… and dance the night away. :)

Just wanted to wish everybody a very Happy, Prosperous Ugadi! Happy New Year! Ugadi Shubakanshulu!

Image courtesy

I really do need to do a better job of updating – I’ll try to stay on top of it. But there are some good reasons – I promise. :)

Now that I am pretty much fully out of training, the variety and amount of work that I have to do has really picked up quite a bit. I officially released a new userAdmin application (into development mode) on Friday. It’s going to be full-fledged into production by the end of the year. In addition to this, we have an internal conference (SysCon) coming up in just a few weeks, and I will be giving some presentations, so I have been preparing those. As soon as the conference is over, I will post the slides up here- the app that we will be using for demos and classrooms is the userAdmin app, so I am really excited about that. Another project for the year is turning our main dashbaord into a web application.

Also at work, I am the Vice Lead for an organization called UPTies- it’s basically an organization for people who are new to the company. I also have an audition on Monday to join the UPChoir… I am debating joining the professional Omaha music group here too – it will give me an opportunity to get back into piano and maybe an opportunity to sing some duets or solos!

I am also thoroughly enjoying having a TV! I have been keeping up with LOST, 24, and American Idol. Has anybody seen Anoop Desai – he is some seriously hott stuff (great singer, great performer, and he’s good-looking)! :) Anyway, it’s quite nice being able to come home from work and relax- I still can’t get over the great feeling of having no homework. :)

Now that the weather has gotten nicer, I am also trying to see about joining a tennis league here. In addition to this, there is a group of Telugus that get together and play beach volleyball, go biking, and just do a bunch of fun outdoor activities. :) So I’m excited to get invovled with that.

All in all, it’s been quite busy but fun. Anyway, I guess that’s all the news for now. :)

I know it’s been ages since I’ve written a proper post, but I just had to share that I am going to be going a Nickelback concert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D I’m so excited that I get to go to a concert. The next 2 weeks are quite busy, but after that, it seems like I might have some time again to re-start my learning-Hindi initiative and to finish up the re-design of my website!

So, until then… ciao y hasta luego!

So, for all people who are truly CS majors and IT lovers at heart, here are 2 funny things that have come across my way… I hope they will make you laugh too!

1) I went home last weekend, and on the way back from the airport, I was talking to my parents about my flights (they were canceled and delayed and everything else you don’t want to happen to you) and I meant to say:

“… catch a connection…”

and I totally said (completely by accident): “… catch an exception…”

That one cracked up my dad for a while. :)

2) My aunt (from India) sent me this:

Someone in the IT industry gave birth to a set of twins. Guess what they named them? See the photo below!

Laughter truly is the best medicine!

Today I started working on the UserAdmin application at work. Basically, this is an application that all of the app-teams can use to check on the status of servers, JDBC connections, and other statistics. This is really going to help our team (the JAS team), because it will reduce the amount of tickets that come through for our main support person. Being able to view the statistics will pinpoint any issues to either WebLogic compatability issues, deployments, JDBC, or some application-specific issues. Moreover, this is a Spring application (specifically, Spring MVC).

So, the goals for this week are:

• revise the current version of the application so that it will build and deploy
• renew all SSL certificates
• review the UI and propose the changes

More to come on this soon, but I am really excited about this application- I think it will turn out to be a great tool for us, along with the LogAdmin tool that my mentor is working on (basically, a way for app-developers to view the server logs- to see what we see). Also, this is going to be the application that will be showcased at SysCon- the conference in April. So, watch out for it soon!