From Charlotte to Vivekanandha nagar, Dindigul

Visit my nest to read live tweets on my journey home.
http://www.twitter.com/injey

Gods play with your Samsonite number lock

I have been a computer hacker breaking into the college intranet portal when I was denied access to C++ training material. With little digging in the internet, I got what I wanted. Actually I got bit more than what I wanted. And from then on, not that I considered myself a pro hacker but out spoke myself as the Neo. I guess that was geekier than being a hacker. Anyway, today I was more than a superficial Neo for the lock I hacked helped me in the real world. There I was trying to pack my luggage for the trip to India. And if you plan something, God would have planned something else to make your time... a little more interesting. And there He did by locking the number lock to my Samsonite hard case luggage for which I do not remember the combination. Now I have two choices. 1. Carry the 50 pound luggage to a locksmith to get it opened or 2. Try all 1000 possible combinations using the next 3 hours of this already shorter Sunday evening. I did spent 20 minutes of my time with the second option with no luck. So looking at Google chrome, reminded me of the other option. Why not ask our ever helping friend Google, a simple question "How to unlock Samsonite number lock?" And so I did to get the answer in simple steps. All you need is a torch light and a sharp eye.

PS: The below text is taken from http://www.fixya.com/support/t232042-unlock_samsonite_lock and the text is mentioned to be reply from the BagLord Samsonite Himself.

Dear Sir/Madam:
The following are the lock picking instructions you requested from Samsonite Consumer Relations.
1. Position the luggage so that the numbers on the wheel are right-side-up as they face you and set all three wheels to '0'.
2. Starting with the wheel on the left, to the right of the wheel, look into the narrow space between the right side of the wheel and the body of the lock. Look down into the shaft. (If you have a safety pin, straight pin, or thin nail file, place that in the narrow space.)
3. While looking down into the shaft, rotate the wheel slowly. You are looking for an indentation (a square notch). When you find the indentation, stop and write the number down. (If you are using a tool, the tool will fall into the indentation.)
4. Follow the process for the remaining two wheels.
5. Try to open the piece of luggage.
6. If the luggage still will not open, please try the following: a) If the number on the wheel is over 5, subtract 5 from the number showing. For example, if the number showing is 8 turn the wheel to 3 because 8-5=3.
b) If the number is under 5, add 5 to the number showing. For example if the number showing is 2 turn the wheel to 7 because 2+5=7. The numbers showing on the wheels will be your combination.
If you still have a problem with the combination lock, contact the nearest authorized repair center to your zip code for repair assistance. Our warranty and repair information can be viewed at http://www.samsonite.com under the heading "Customer Service Repair Centers" for your reference.
We appreciate your loyalty and will continue to design products that are reliable business or travel companions.

Thanks to you Samsonite for telling your little secret on breaking your own code. And I really mean it. Now if you are wondering what the combination to my luggage was, looks like I was blaming the wrong guy for messing up my mind.

On the First Cubicle day of 2009

Did I say that the year appears to be a peaceful and relaxing one? But as people say, not everything happens the way you think. You may also mock "You thought so?!" for yesterday happened to be one of the busiest days in the last 2 years in US. Reaching the office on the first day of the year 2009 as early as 9:30 AM, I went straight to work on the interesting discussion with the DBAs I mentioned in the previous post and it was not before lunch time that we realized that it is going to be much more interesting than we thought. To say it in simple terms, you have entered attendance twice for the last 10 days and you were billed twice but got caught during the pay day and they decided not to pay you at all. The resolution: strike out all the wrong attendance entries and go to all departments to get the salary corrected. And it was not until 1 AM in the night that you cleared all the issues and you knew you will get your salary correctly the next day. The sad part is I even had to give up go-karting race with Sachin for work. But all is well that ends well. So after another 2 hours of work on the first weekend of the year, we pray that the salary will be deposited at least by tomorrow. You too pray for the year to be little easier in the coming days.

Its a Fresh start.... once again

Happy New Year guys and girls!. A fresh year has started. Time to bring back the resolutions you lost in the previous year and new ones that you might want to add to the list that you would be lost before the next year. Am I starting my first post of the year in a sorrowful tone? Why so negative? Yeah! Why am I being so negative? Let’s start again. Time to fresh start your resolutions that you will try hard to maintain till the start of next year. That’s better I think. Good. I think this is the first New Year eve that went away without much excitement except few calls from friends and home. The year changed while I was in my home watching TV and talking to friends. No shouts or fireworks to welcome the year. But it was good. It was good to feel the New Year eve to be just another day and what’s better than starting the year with sitting on the couch and watching your favorite movie (The Dark Knight) on the TV. It is like blessing for a relaxed and peaceful year ahead. And So I slept very early in the night around 12:30 AM which is early even for any other day for me.
Believe me when I say I woke up early at 7:30 AM. And it was not to switch off the alarm and to get back to sleep. I really did wake up 7:30 AM and made few calls. But then, I went back to sleep. Another sign of a peaceful year ahead I think. So after relaxing and comfortable sleep, the New Year started truly at around 11 AM with more phone calls, Google chats and orkut scraps. Funny but common was wishing "Happy Birthday" instead of the Happy New Year". May be it should be considered as wishing the birth of the year 2009. So all went well including having work on a holiday and few interesting mails between the DBAs, developers and support that is always fun to watch. And if all these seem so normal for any other day, the blast was the Project party at Zuma Fun center in the evening. Visit the site and you will know what fun it promised.... for the kids. Now visit this photo album and you will know how great we were ... as kids. A perfect start for the New Year indeed.