The most obstacle ridden day so far

This has been quite a day so far and I'm not allowing it to pass without noting the kind of obstacles I've faced. May it be a reminder of how bad things could possibly get, yet how I could be able to wade through it all.

Late start to the day with the 8.00 am call by Vetrivel. I remembered I had to wake with my alarm at 5 that morning. I had my Financial Statement Analysis assignment and the brochure of Priya Kher to complete. Already my study group was complaining about my lack of involvement in the assignment and my submission to PK was late by a day.

Conveniently ignoring these facts, I proceeded to complete my ablutions wondering how fresh a beer the previous night and a good night's sleep can make you. Good start to the day. Innovation workshop was scheduled at 9.15.

The innovation workshop was devoid of people. The 30 students had lost interest. In the midst of all the confusing PPTs people were going thru (I was not very active in the Innovation Workshop either) I ot a call for e-cell work. Strike One. Had to co-ordinate in the midst of the class for the Mira Bazaar, a fete in which we had to participate on Saturday, being part of the e-cell.

Strike Two came at 12.30 when my outgoing cell phone service got disconnected. The Airtel representative I had paid the bill to 10 days back had disappeared with the money. 850 bucks down the drain. And I was handicapped.

Strike Three was when different people kept giving me an unusually high number of missed calls and expected me to call back, which of course I was not able to do so because of my impaired phone.

Strike Four was when I found out I was to make the Innovation Workshop presentation to the client because Ashish and Sushrut were opting for the Branding Seminar to which I had offered them entry passes the previous day. I was happy that they were taking it but I was concerned because my level of knowledge on the project was very little.

Strike Five was when we found out that the regular bus to the city had a puncture. We were going to be late for the presentation to the clients. We were late by 10 minutes. The people at the client's end were top executives of a particular insurance company in India. Damn. Bad for college.

Strike Six was when we reached the Reliance Video Conferencing and realized that the facilities were not ready yet. We kept the clients waiting for a whole 20 minutes, with the video conference on, as we corrected the technical obstacles.

Strike Seven was when we found out that the client was not surprised by our findings. We seemed to have found nothing new. Ok…. So perhaps it was a problem on their side. Now we find out that our project is far from over.

Strike Eight was the biggest. Found out that the semester exams this time were postponed. Instead of ending on the 30th of Oct, college had postponed it till the 3rd Nov. I had already booked my tickets for the 1st. Air tickets. What's even worse, I had booked the air tickets initially on the 4th. Due to a free ticket scheme, I had forwarded my tickets to the 1st in order to get a 1800 Rs benefit. Now I will be losing 2600 bucks in the process. Damn! Financially correct decision at that time, strategically wrong!

Strike Nine. After the video conference I missed the bus back to college as I paid my Airtel bill. Now I wait in the Café Coffee Day outlet and type this over a cup of Ethiopian Quawah. Phew….. What a day.

And tomorrow morn I have to leave at 3 in the morning to accompany a guest from Mumbai for an Integrated Marketing Seminar at college. Apparently the guest is close to Subbu, my director. One screw up there and I'm dead. And he's in some part of Andheri. I have no idea of Mumbai city.

One day down… tomorrow, here I come!!!!

I'm Google-able~~!!!

Joy Supreme! I tried searching for "Clinton Rozario" on google... and guess what! I'm on the first 5 results!!! WHOOO HOOO!!!!

Damn, that feels good.

Now I can brag to new people who I meet, and say "Google me".

Weeee..... I love my name.

Experiment # 3440: My first self-bought Kurta

I walked into Fabmall one day with my roomie Denis Pillai,  as we waited for our other roomie Aditya Vetrivel for a discount lunch at Kobe's, the sizzler joint. I saw it, liked it, bought it... the kurta.

I must give credit to Ritesh and Maneesh for buying me my first kurta for my birthday three years back. And then credit to Maneesh again for my first kurta which I could wear for a friend's wedding. And now this is my first. I ust admit, these things are mighty comfortable. The only downside is carrying stuff in your pocket... the pocket tends to sag on a side. But overall, I like this piece.

Result: Experiment # 3438: Review of Foxit Reader 2.1 - The Light Weight PFD Reader

I've been using Foxit extensively in the past couple of days while doing the JPMC case study "The Deal" (which I mentioned about earlier); most annual reports of companies are best viewed in pdf format. Here's what I feel about the software:

(+) Foxit is very responsive. It opens up quite fast and closes (or at least disappears from screen) quite quickly. I'd say 3-5x times faster than the "other" PDF reader.

(+) It definitely lighter on memory. Yeah, maybe not with a 2mb footprint, but muuuccchh lighter than it's counterpart.

(+) The free-to-use tools are superb. Especially handy is the annotation tool, I find myself using it in a lot of places to note down ideas as I read my case.
I haven't used all of the tools extensively, but the line up is impressive.

(+) The free pdf writer and the pdf editor are also highly appreciated. But when it comes to pdf's which I have to send to other people, I would prefer to use PDF995. Foxit leaves an evaluation mark "Generated by Foxit PDF Creator © Foxit Software" on each printed page.

(-) The "Find" dialog box is a pain. It appears right in the middle of the window. I have to constantly move it around in order to see the text that it finds. Either it should move around automatically to reveal text that appears behind it, or the "Find" textbox should appear in the toolbar, like Firefox or the "other" PDF reader.

(-) There's a screen painting problem sometimes. When I open a 165 page document and search, the page on which the word is found is not drawn properly. It seems like the previous pages have overlapped it. When I minimize the window and maximize it again, the window draws itself well. It does not happen always. I think when too many programs run it happens.

Final Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
I've made Foxit my default PDF reader and kept the "other" reader as backup. If Foxit proves that it can handle all that the other reader can, then next time I format my system, I might simply "forget" to install the other reader. :)

Experiment # 3439: The Deal - A JPMC Case Study

Learning for an MBA student is in the form of case studies. You do get used to the 20 odd page case study in a couple of months... but then comes along those competitions, where they stick you with a big-fat one... 165 pages in this case!

JP Morgan had launched a nation-wide competition called "The Deal". It's a case study competition in which, if you win, you get a PPI (Pre-Placement Interview) from JP Morgan. Quite a lucrative deal! Good motivation to drudge thru the 165 pages.

The case is about the takeover of Safeway Inc (SWY) by Morrison (MRW). The former is in the US and the latter in the UK. While the actual takeover/merger did take place in 2004, this is still a case worth solving because the current global situation will affect the way the takeover is financed.

However, Mohit has his conspiracy theory. Says that JPMC is short on staff, that's why they are looking for a few good men (and women, of course).

I got good team mates, Ramachander Shenoy and Lakshman. Right now Lakshman's done most of the valuation and the finance stuff...(frankly, I've not understood some of the stuff he's done and said... he's gone that deep into valuation and financing options....) I'd say he's done a great job!

The SCMHRD Entrepreneurship Cell Logo

On request of one of my close friends, I'm putting up the SCMHRD eCell logo which I designed about a year back.

There's a little history behind it as well. In 2006, we (the eCell) were trying to build a brand image. We needed a logo. And as most stories go, we too had some frustrating times in coming up with the logo.

It was on one afternoon, bored in one of the guest lectures, I took my notebook and drew the scmhrd square. In order to make a cube I drew another square next to it. For some reason I put three leaves on the corner of the topmost box. Hey.. this looks nice... Hey, wait a minute... then the words scmhrd and ecell went in.. Eureka!!!! (No I did not strip and run around the auditorium in classic Archimedes style)

After a few iterations the top square became smaller. We didn't want to make ourselves appear bigger than the institute... (not just yet).

Subbu (my director) did not approve of the logo. He wanted something more like a banyan tree.... with topics dropping from the leaves.... "Sir, we have an event tomorrow, so let's try it out as a beta. We'll change this logo after that"... and the logo stuck.

And now I have a new eCell member Devinder telling me he wants to change the logo. Well,... I don't mind. As long as it looks better than mine! If that does happen, then this post will be proof that such a logo once existed. (and you-know-who designed it :)

Experiment # 3438: Trying Foxit - The Light Weight PFD Reader

Ashish Rathi's recommended this lite-weight software for reading PDF's... says it takes 2mb on memory... trying it out.. It's called FoxIt.... wonder if the name has anything got to do with FireFox.

Experiment # 3437: Online Personality

Meet Ajay D'souza. I'm glad to have met this guy. His website has got a hit-ranking higher than my SCMHRD's site. And to think he is studying here. For that matter, I think his ranking would out do any of the IIM sites as well.

He's inspired me to get online and create this Online Personality for myself. Why? In his words, "for name, fame and money". Superb logic. I think I'll do just that. So that explains the regular updates to my blogs. And the updates to my Google Photos. And my Google Calendar.

Might I take this opportunity to redirect the reader to an interesting blog of a good friend of mine, Mohit Malani.

Experiment # 3436: Google Calendar

It has been observed, in the course of career progress, that there are too many people trying to find out when you are free.

In the interest of making life easier for both them and yours truly, I have started to use Google Calendar. And this is my public Calendar.

'Twill be interesting to see what happens next....

Experiment # 3435: Jive Classes

All Anglo-Indians are known for dancing, ... ballroom, waltz, jive... well... almost all of them. Except some nerdy types like me who "forgot" to learn the fine art. Now that leaves me like a fish out of water, especially at family weddings.

Enter Amrita Sundar. My batchmate who is a professional dancer. She started classes for the jive, about two weeks ago. I've attended one class so far. I asked my Freshers Date Rekha to be my partner.

Hopefully I will be able to catch the basics before the next family wedding in Feb 08.