The Life aheadPersonal Blog of Ratish Naroor

After a long wait the iPhone 3g was launched in the market hours ago.I was much concerned about the reviews that it will have but was unhappy the way Yahoo news reported flaws in the iPhone software(Why did I read it at first hand ???).That was not expected but I came to know that it was not a software issue but the itunes server issue.The fans had to wait for long to be connected to the server which made some guys sad.I don’t know why Yahoo is acting like Microsoft and not admiring innovation .
Anyways got to read some wonderful reviews and have decided to go for it soon ….

Read the latest reviews here

Gizmodo
Cnet tech news
Cnn Money

Its been sometime I am hearing my friends asking where am I in this world right now ,So I decided to make it clear about my whereabouts.I have moved to USA and right now working for Aramark Corp in Draper,Utah.Its been two months of working here and working on something that I love , Search Engine Optimization.
About Utah, Its a beautiful state in USA and I think,the best place I should be.Its a place for Outdoor activities and never allows me to keep my camera aside when I am out.The people are really good and its a state with very less number of Indian migrants like me.I am very thankful to Priti Tayi (my colleague) and her hubby Vinod Rayala for giving me the support and help whenever I required .
Also I got to know that its really hard to be in US without a car .So planning to my driving license done and get a car soon.I am waiting for the winter experience here as Utah is known for the highest snowfall in USA.I am a bit scared about it and hoping for the best

Las Vegas was my next destination before I relocate to Salt Lake city,Utah from Phoenix Arizona for my job.And my brother has some of his household stuff to move it to his new house.So we rented a Van and started the drive to Navada,Las Vegas.
The Drive was great with Hoover Dam on the way.Got a couple of snaps of the dam and I can say the dam is really huge.We reached their safely and now it was time for the casinos.I went to most of the casino’s like Startroopers,Falmingo,bally’s etc but the star troopers was my Favorite.I got the whole view of the Nevada city from top.I took some snaps managing without a tripod stand.Got some stunning performance by the bike experts at the Fremont street Experience..
The pictures has been shared here for viewing.

I was much waiting for an outing near Phoenix, Arizona and we got a reason to go. Rajeev’s neighbors (Old neighbors in Nevada, Las Vegas) Anil and his family ( Soham ,the elder and Anirudh ) were visiting us in Phoenix .We made a plan to Visit the Grand Canyon visiting Sedona first on the way.
We rented a car and drove to Sedona, which has great rocky canyons. People come here mostly for biking and cycling. It was a nice drive and the climate was too good. I got a good chance to shoot some good panoramas and some cool snaps of the kids.

We decided to stay in Flagstaff and move to Grand Canyon the next day. The night was really cold and we had a nice time. I forgot to take any woolen clothes or Jackets. Grand Canyon was really rocking . It was windy a bit but really we had a good time taking breaks at each points and shooting snaps.
Have a view of the snaps here .

Life came to a stand still for me in the past three weeks and I really felt the difficulty when you are in a house arrest like that. I reached my native place Payyanur on 12th February for a 3 weeks stay, with lots of plans, but it was Chicken Pox written for me. I had never had this disease and now I know how difficult it is when the virus is in you. Due to some cross-reactions with a medicine that I took, I got my lips and mouth seriously wounded with ulcers. With not able to eat anything properly and bleeding all the time I really had the worst time in my life. I got lots of free time to watch some interesting movies that I downloaded when I was in Mumbai and I would like to recommend a list so that you can also watch if you get a chance to.

The Bucket List
Disturbia
Ratatouille
The kingdom

With lots of new things happening in my life I am moving ahead with full confidence and hoping for the best.

Its been some time my friends (Sreeram,Ravi,Mahesh ) and myself planning for Harishchandragad which is said to be a pilgrimage for the trekkers. We decided to start on Saturday morning.
We started at eight in the morning and reached kalyan station at ten. We had to catch a bus to a place called Kubi Phatta which is the starting point of the trek. We had to walk for half an hour to reach the bottom of the mountain and from there started the real climb through the 600ft vertical rock patch. There was a big team returning and everybody were giving us their explanation of how the trek is going to be. Some said its two hours walk but some said its gonna be easy for youngsters like us. It took us almost five hours to reach to the top. It was really a tough and challenging terrain to climb up. And it was a great feeling to reach the top after the tedious climb. There is a temple atop Harishchandragad which gives the trekkers a place to rest and stay the night. We had a dabba setup by Tukaram Bhoire who makes food for the trekkers and live there with his family.

The night was really cold and we managed to setup the sleeping place with whatever woolen cloths we had and it was not sufficient to fight the cold there. Woke up at six because we had to see two places in the near by areas. Konkan Kada being the main attraction at harishchandragad and we headed to that point which took us around half an hour to reach the place. It was a marvelous view from there. The whole mountain has a serpent structure due to the wind blowing there and the rocks breaking in an incremental manner. Its really a beautiful view from there.
The next destination was the shiv ling below the temple called kedareshwar. The 5 foot shiv ling was placed in the center of a cave which is filled with ice cold water all around the structure.

At about ten we started back to the city. We took the second path to reach the city which is not that difficult as compared to the path we took the previous day and is more scenic. We had to walk around five kms through that route and need to catch the bus at two at noon. We managed to get the bus and headed back to Kasara , from where the local trains head to Mumbai city. Reached Nerul back at 10 .
This trek for me can be said once in a lifetime experience and never expected that I could have reach at top with this ease. I am too lucky to the best group to trek with, who had the same enthusiasm that I had.
The snaps can be viewed here.

It was our first team outing from Fugro Intersite and the destination was Kelva Beach resort for one day and night stay. Kelva beach is around 3 hours drive from Navi Mumbai .We started at 9 30 am from Vashi and reached Kelva by one in the afternoon. The resort was quite nice and the best part was the ambience we had there. No noise from the outside world and the cool cottages. The beach was just a few steps from the resort and it was a low tide beach. We had to walk for fifteen minutes to reach the sea water. We played a lot of cricket and a little cycling on the beach. The two kids smart Anouska and too smart little Yash made the trip more enjoyable and fun filled. I really had a nice time being far from the crowded city life.
The snaps of the trip can be viewed here .

Last Friday my manager Rajesh Thorat suggested my team members and myself to accompany him for a visit to his farm house on the Pune-Nasik highway. We started the Saturday evening and reached the place at night. Really a quiet and huge farm house that everybody will dream of for keeping it as a second house. The electricity was not present when we reached the place but with the help of candle light he managed to show us the huge construction that he managed to build in the span of four years. The temperature at night was really cold, I think almost 13 degrees Celsius.
Getting up in the morning was really hard but I had to get up to get some sunrise pictures so had to get up .That time was the perfect to get the overall view of the farm house. My manager took us for a walk around the farm house to explain us what all he is growing there. I got a good chance to click some nice snaps in and around the farm house. We prepared some break fast together which was also a great fun.
We started off with a plan to visit some temples near by which were part of the Ashtavinayak group of temples. As we were returning after the temple visits the disaster stroked. The road was on the way to a sugar factory and the roads are fully packed with trucks fully loaded with sugar canes. As we were stuck behind a truck another truck from our back lost its breaks and directly dashed at the rear side of the vehicle. We were stuck in between the two trucks and as all were lucky enough there was no causalities. The car was badly damaged and we never expected our nice weekend will halt like this .The day went off with police station work and taking the vehicle back to the farm house. On Monday morning we started of to Mumbai early morning .
The snaps can be viewed here .

I was planning to take Richard, who is from Holland SDC, for a visit to Mumbai city but had to cancel it because of a political rally in the city.I had to change it to Lonavala, the place I have visited two times.This time it had a difference.We trekked to the korigad Fort near the Ambey Valley city.Really a marvelous fort built with tremondous effort.We made it to the top easily and it was worth the climb.Richard also had a nice time to climb up to the top to a fort so high for the first time.My weekend passed away with a great Trek.
The snaps can be viewed here.

An unexpected visitor was there in my apartment on last Sunday .All my other friends staying in the crew flat woke me up and said there is a cute little friend who has come to meet me .I just took my camera and thought of taking some snaps but that guy was smart enough to fly directly on top of my head . I think he just escaped from his owner’s place that’s why he was not that much afraid of humans .Got some snaps and have shared it here .