Step 2 is to become an Associate Software Engineer.

In other news, I am now an Associate Software Engineers (surprise, surprise). Which explains my prolonged absence in all forms of the Internet. I got promoted and I got assigned to an urgent project, which means I have less ‘john is doing stuff come again later’ time.

This post is just to inform any of you regular readers who still visit my blog (in case there are any in the first place) about my status. Regular blogging activity does not seem likely to resume at this juncture. Hopefully I’ll be able to work out something new.

On the plus side, I actually get paid to do what I was doing for free in the first place. Developing I mean. In case you get any other ideas.

P.S. – And those of you who tagged me for “10 things that make you happy” will have to wait a bit longer to find out what gets my freak on.

P.S.S. – Work on my new site has paused for the moment. You can get a sneak peak here – http://www.incrediblebulk.info

me down the moment one of their crawlers pick this post up. The bastards.

Well onto the Suicidal Peacocks and Homicidal Elephants of Habarana.

One week of silence (from my total of four weeks) is because I went to Habarana last week. I am still recovering from the emotional and physical after effects. We left on Thursday and came back Friday night. It was an office trip so we didn’t have to pay. For once I agree that the best things in life are free. I took lots of blurry pictures of trees, dust, elephants, dust, monkeys, dust, friends and dust. My friends took pictures of flowers and lakes and things, none of which I ever saw. I doubt we went on the same trip.

A highpoint of the trip was the elephant safari. It involved a trip into the Minneriya reserve. The safari can be succinctly described thus,

A jeep safari which involves forty minutes of traveling through and tasting various types of dust (brown, red, powdery, sticky) punctuated by twenty minutes of looking at elephants, peacocks, foxes, eagles and cows (bloody cows are everywhere apparently) followed another forty minutes of dust tasting during the return trip.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved every minute of it. Forget the fact that all of us had brown tinted hair and that my brother is still removing dust from inside his ear (which leads us to the conclusion that he does not bathe regularly). We were traveling on the back of an open top TATA jeep. There were eight of us in all, including four bloggers – Jester, Chamara, Jahufar and of course me. The common denominator was that we were all somehow connected to Proporta (benevolent employer). Chamara and I work there, Jahufar used to, and Jester is the sibling of a good looking and intelligent current employee (moi).

The safari started out pretty tame. We went through a path that had lots of trees and dried up streams. And plenty of dust. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that it had not rained in a while. We passed a few peacocks that that kept trying to jump in front of the vehicle. I think they were depressed. Who’d like to be called a peacock anyway? If I were a peacock I would kill myself too. Saw a massive eagle (at first I thought it was a seagull but then my friend pointed out to me that we were nowhere near the bloody sea) take off right over us with a fish clutched in its claws. Failed to take a picture of that though. Then we turn a corner and BAM! Elephants. Masses of elephants. A herd in fact. None of them had tusks though, which was surprising.

The next bit was exciting because it happened without any warning whatever. Our driver took us towards a particular elephant and passed it at a distance when suddenly it charged us! An elephant was charging the vehicle! It was right behind us and closing fast. The driver slowly accelerated away but the elephant kept chasing us for about fifty feet before it gave up. The driver stopped the vehicle. The elephant charged again. This time it got closer before the driver accelerated away again. The second time it chased us it was trumpeting loudly and hissing as well. Apparently the reason for this behavior (as the driver told us, it might be a yarn) is that the elephants offspring was killed when it was hit by a truck (not while inside the preserve) and it had been attacking vehicles that got close to it ever since.

We don’t have much video evidence of the chase for the simple reason that everyone was trying not to piss their pants and holding on to the rails around the jeep, which meant that all the cameras ended up filming our feet. Needless to say it was dusty. Some of us managed to get the chase on cam the second time and I will be posting them soon. In the comment section some people may allude that I uttered words to the effect of “holy shit! We’re all going to die”. I categorically deny that I ever uttered those words. Even if video evidence clearly shows that someone is uttering those words there is no proof it was me. All the witnesses were unreliable since they had just been chased by an elephant. End of story.

Apart from that the trip was like any other. We played cricket. Some people played really well and others not so well. Our team captain (again the same bunch that went on the jeep ended up on the same side), Chamara was the pick of the bowlers. As usual I was the loudest and played horrible cricket, although I did bowl a couple of nifty overs.

I thought I’d have a separate paragraph talking about the food but then I realized I would be too hungry by the end of it. Pissu forewarned me that the food would be great, armed with this knowledge I put my plate to good use. The food was delicious.

Well I think that just about covers my trip to Habarana and my post for the month. I guess I will have to keep this up until they ‘discover’ the auto updating blog. In any case I doubt I will be posting anything again before my exams are over at the end of this month. Wish me luck.

EDIT: Since embedding Youtube seems to break my style sheet, the video can be found here

First video. End of the second chase.

Horny Monkeys

Drunk Monkey 1

Drunk Monkey 2

P.S. – If you really have nothing else to do with your time and you want to look at blurry trees and strangers and such you can find pictures here and hereP.S.S – Videos to follow