Travel
[Movie] Untraceable
May 16th
I have been watching way too many movies past 2 weeks, cannot even remember many of their names now. Last weekend I planned to go to Salem, but ended up in Fry’s (Wilsonville). I bought a Wii there and am thoroughly enjoying the games in it, but more about that in a different post. Amidst all these I am trying to finish up my office work too. See how hard working, I am? 
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In this post, I want to talk about the movie Untraceable. I just finished watching it. My initial impression – "Great, that was interesting!". But now, after some 10 minutes, I realize all the holes and stupidity in that movie. But before I get to that, let me tell you what this movie is about.
![[Movie] Untraceable](http://kannan.jumbledthoughts.com/wp-content/upload/2008/05/untraceable.jpg)
******** Warning: Spoilers ahead ***********
A story of WMDs and patents
May 10th
It has been a pretty tight week so far. Luckily my hotel is closer to my office, at least I don’t have to worry about getting lost. Talking about getting lost, people here use GPS heavily. The cab driver, when I came from the airport to the hotel, didn’t know where Holiday Inn was in Hillsboro. He asked me the address, entered that in to his Nuvi..bingo…he took the shortest possible route to my hotel. Pretty impressive!
Unfortunately, Hertz guys didn’t give me a GPS unit. Instead, they gave me 836 WMDs. Don’t believe me? Look at the picture of my car.
I am planning to make a fortune selling these to North Korea.
BTW, this is the route I take daily to my office. It looks far, but is actually only ~3 miles.
Since the group I have come here to meet/work with is one of those *pure* Research groups in Intel, every body here holds on an average 15 patents. Kinda overwhelming! But, it is quite fun to see all those great guys I have only heard of. Knut Grimsrud, the person sitting in my opposite cube is the director of Intel Storage Architecture group — he looks so laid back and cool that you won’t believe he holds such a high and important position! He has written one of the best sellers in Amazon on SATA. He is also one of the Intel fellows, which is a very high position in Intel’s technical ladder. In Intel, if you want to grow technically, you become a Principle Engineer, a Sr. PE, a Fellow and then a senior Fellow in that order. Pretty impressive accomplishment, but still I saw Knut to be a down-to-earth guy; Couldn’t stop thinking about some of the so-called TLs in Intel India.
Oregon, here I come!
May 2nd
I will be visiting Portland (Oregon) for 5 weeks, starting WW19. This being a very short trip, I can’t hope to explore OR fully. Anyway, I did a quick search to get a list of must-see spots. Filtering the “normal” stuff apart, I am planning to at least cover the following places: Do let me know if you have any suggestions or I am missing something interesting.
Oregon Symphony (http://www.orsymphony.org/)
The Oregon Symphony is one of Portland’s great cultural attractions, performing over 120 concerts annually at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall from September through June.
The Portland Saturday Market
To see Portland in it’s artsy element, visitors should experience this large open-air arts and crafts market, offering tons of music, art of all kinds, and great food. The Portland Saturday Market is open Saturdays and Sundays, March through December.
Sternwheeler Riverboat Tours
The Sternwheeler Riverboat Tours offer fun, relaxing cruises through either the scenic Columbia River Gorge (June through September) or the beautiful Williamette River (October through June) on an authentic triple-decker sternwheeler.
Heceta Head
Heceta Head is home to many points of interest, most notably the Heceta Head Lighthouse, which is one of the most photographed beacons in the US.
And of course, my favorite:
Oaks Park (http://www.oakspark.com/thrillrides.html)
This amusement park is near Portland. I am not sure if this is the best one around, but am sure I will make it to at least one amusement park, even if I had to miss all the other places 
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Sin-”bad” Adventures!
Apr 29th
This happened last month (March). March 25th was a holiday (Good Friday), so I bought a KSRTC ticket to Chennai, for Thursday night (March 24th), or at least that was what I thought I did! I actually had bought a ticket for Friday night (March 25) and I did not even notice that mistake until I went there to the bus stand!
Thursday evening, I left office by 7pm, went home, packed lotsa clothes (to wash in Chennai), stuffed my camera + other valuables along with my laptop in to a shoulder bag, started merrily to Majestic bus stand! As the next day was Good Friday, KSRTC expected lotsa passengers and had arranged for many special trips to Chennai. So, my 10.15pm bus actually came in only by 11.45pm!! Feeling relieved that I had not missed the bus, I boarded it and was shocked to see another person sitting in my seat, #14.
I told him, “Hey, I have this seat booked”.
“Really?! I also have this. See…here is my ticket”
I compared all the fields, could not find any difference! I was really irritated by then. Who wouldn’t be! I took both the tickets to the driver and told him the problem. He had one look at both the things and said I had got a ticket for the next day!! Only then I noticed it. I sheepishly apologized to that #14 middle-aged man, got off the bus as quickly as possible! I could hear the driver telling me it was possible to transfer the tickets. I didn’t even turn to thank him. Since, it was already nearing 12am, the ticket controller said it was impossible to transfer the tickets. So, I was standing there, with a ticket for the next day’s night, wondering whether to go back to my house in Airport road, or to buy a ticket in some bus and reach Chennai somehow! Unfortunately, I decided on the latter. More >
Real hot Bangkok!!
Feb 25th
HOT! Bangkok is really hot, I mean it literally. At 4am in the morning, the temperature was like 2pm in Chennai! Thankfully, all cabs have air conditioners. Because of the recent Tsunami, Bangkok has lost some of its tourists, I heard. It doesn’t look like that. You find foreigners everywhere.
Though, I had no plans for buying any electronics items, I ended up buying a MP3 player and couple of DVDs. Pantip Plaza, the mecca for electronics, will surely tempt anyone in to buying things they never wanted to buy. It is a five storey mall, with umpteen shops selling the same things, at different prices. If you are lucky & patient, you will find the cheapest price in one of these stores, but still the highest price quoted will be lower than the lowest price outside I picked up a 512MB MP3 player for 3100 Bahts. This is Rs.3500 or so. I was pretty satisfied with the deal. Unfortunately, it was shortlived, as I soon found the same model being sold for 2900 Baht in the next shop!!
