I have to admit it. After numerous failed attempts at writing a blog post, here is another attempt. I know I am and I feel terribly guilty of not updating my blog. And I just can't seem to do it. My brain is too muddled with petty things happening at work, and back home, there are so many things that I'd like to spend time doing that I actually don't do anything properly. Like coding my website. That came to an unceremonious halt when I realized that I need to design from scratch again (the template that I designed just didn't feel right). Starting from scratch meant going back to Photoshop and waiting for inspiration (which never came). Meanwhile, I wanted to get back to processing my old RAW files in Adobe Lightroom and start saving 16bit TIFFs with non-destructive edits (using layer masks). This meant dealing with files of up to 45mb, something which my poor AMD 3000+ system would really suffer under the strain of (so I either had to upgrade, or be prepared to spend lot of time staring at progress bars). As usual, my computer crashed (like the zillion times it has before) just when I got started on one of the above (don't even remember which) and I got backing up my data and reformatting my disk. I had enough unwritten data to spend my entire weekend doing nothing but backups, so I killed another opportunity to do something productive.

The good side of this computer crash is that I finally decided to upgrade but the sheer economics of upgrading (and Intel planning to cut prices in Q3) got me more seriously looking for alternate solutions. And I slapped my forehead so hard that I fell backwards when I did finally manage to nail the problem. It was NOT my motherboard, it was NOT my hard disks and it was not my luck. It was my Power Supply Unit that was causing all the crashes (for two years straight). When I posted the specs of my PSU on the MSI forums, someone actually said, "I am surprised your computer boots at all!". Imagine that. I have been choking my system with an underrated power supply and have been trying to fix crashes for 2 years by investigating everything else but the power supply. God, I wish the same PSU gives me an electric shock to cure my stupidity. 

In between all this, I have been fighting hard to stay afloat and not drown in a sea of stupidity at work. I am learning lessons on how NOT to be like and what NOT to do, but with the monotony of things, I get this feeling everything is happening at cost of my youth. Youth? I am 25 alright, but I still feel young :). Maybe its because I have a short attention span or maybe cos I have outgrown the project environment, but watching (and being part of) a company's growth from 20 to 100 is not actually as exciting as my boss would want us to think. (I have been on the same project for 3 years now so 'short attention span' doesn't actually sound right :)) In fact, I totally appreciate the enthusiasm of certain individuals who have a vision of making it big (for the entire organization and not for themselves), but we are a services oriented company seen as a low cost vendor for mighty rich MNCs, so the reality is that we are operating within a very limited framework. In fact, the reality of the situation hits us, who are in the front and facing the customer, evermore than the others who shout orders from the back. And do we have a good set of people in the front? Hell, thats where the problem starts and I believe its not unique to our company. Over a span of 3 years I have hardly seen even 1 individual who can be called a bright spark. Our education system is entirely at fault and all this is a topic for another day and another blog post. Bottom line is that we have a dull set of people who while away their time indulging in petty things. But then, haven't I seen this kind of situation before?

Right now, I need to catch some sleep

PS: Over the span of blogging this (probably an hour), Askimet has caught 15 spams. A total of  26,085 since when I installed it 6 months ago. Can someone tell me whats going on?