
For a long weekend, one usually plans to visit national parks or other famous attractions. But the intelligent one knows to avoid such places, because he knew that he won't get parking. So, I knew better to avoid Yosemite park for this memorial day long weekend.

Instead, I went on a drive through [**CA 130**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_130), a state highway that runs between San Jose and Mount Hamilton.

[![CA-130 Trip](http://i.imgur.com/K9IS0eP.png)](https://veerasundar.com/route-planner/)

I started my journey from my home at Fremont and instead of 680, I drove via Sunol, Calaveras road. I started early in the morning hoping for some sunrise photos, but unfortunately I couldn't find a better spot at Calaveras road.

However I continued my drive up the Quimby road to get to CA 130. I did not expect Quimby road to be challenging, but to my surprise, the road was winding and narrow. I almost lost my control in one of the hairpin curve. From that point, I started driving very slowly even in the straighter part of the road.

After reaching CA 130, the road became little wider, but still it was only two lane. Even though the road was winding, the curves were easily drivable. I took couple of breaks here and there while taking photos.

[![Mt Hamilton Road](http://i.imgur.com/NOaCrrG.jpg)](http://i.imgur.com/NOaCrrG.jpg)

## Lick Observatory

As I started very early, when I reached the [Lick Observatory at Mount Hamilton](https://mthamilton.ucolick.org/), I was the only peron there. So I had the whole parking lot to park my car. :)

[![Lick Observatory Parking](http://i.imgur.com/l4YKY5m.jpg)](http://i.imgur.com/l4YKY5m.jpg)

The observatory was not open at 8 in the morning though. I wasn't disappointed either, as visiting the observatory wasn't my plan. But even from the outside, one could get a good a view of the Santa Clara valley and the road leading to the Mount Hamilton.

[![View from Lick Observatory](http://i.imgur.com/bu1osDX.jpg)](http://i.imgur.com/bu1osDX.jpg)

By the time I started from the observatory, there was only two other people came there, one in motor bike and the other person in a bike. So, it's good to have a early start, to enjoy the nature without the crowd.

From the observatory, I continued to drive through CA 130. I saw some signboard warnings that there are no gas station or auto services for next 40 miles. My car had around half tank of gasoline, so I didn't worry much.

## Del Puerto Canyon Road

From Mount Hamilton, CA 130 goes through a remote and lightly populated forest. I could hardy see any signs of civilization (except the road that I was driving on). From time to time, I see some ranches and cattle, but zero humans until I reached the point where CA 130 meets the Mines road. At the road junction, there was a shop. My assumption is that the shop is the only social place that the locale use.

From that junction, I turned to the **Del Puerto Canyon Road** which goes to Patterson. The canyon road is again a isolated area, with very few humans in sight. However, the scenery was beautiful and breathtaking. I managed to find a spot to pull over my car and took couple of photos. Here's the best one from the lot.

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After reaching Patterson, I stopped for a coffee break at Starbucks and headed my way back to home (via I5 and 101). The whole drive tough only around 6 hours. I will be going back soon on the same route, especially to the Del Puerto Canyon, to take some of the photos that I missed.


A travelogue about the driving from Fremont to Patterson via Mount Hamilton.

Driving through CA-130


Well, well, well... look who's back! Yeah, its me! :)

Just kidding. It's been almost 6 months since I wrote anything in this blog. It was crazy time at my current workplace, where we were trying very hard to bring the product to release. It was a challenging task but as a side effect, did not get any time to focus on my writing or a side project.

Given the product has reached a stable state, now I am getting some air to breathe. So, that's the reason of this post - to say Hi to my (nearly non-existent) readers. :P

Looking forward to get back on blogging.



One more year has passed and we made it so far after the deadly 2012 end-of-the-world incident. Kudos to us.

As I usually do at the end of each year ([2008](https://veerasundar.com/blog/a-very-happy-new-year-to-all-the-readers-of-dreamz/), [2009](https://veerasundar.com/blog/so-long-2009-welcome-2010/), [2010](https://veerasundar.com/blog/so-long-2010-welcome-2011/), [2011](https://veerasundar.com/blog/looking-back-and-forward/), [2012](https://veerasundar.com/blog/looking-back-and-forward-2012/)), here's the retro post about how things went in 2013 for myself/this blog.

## Last year resolutions

Last time, I decided on three things to do in 2013.

1. **Release treesk.com** - Nope. Didn't do it. Damn, its hard to focus and launch something. But as a consolation, released [countrack.me](http://countrack.me), so _yay!_ for that. :)
2. **Write more** - Kinda worked on it. Started writing few technical articles again in this blog. But not much as I would have liked. Should do better.
3. **Open source timethetask.com** - [Nailed it](https://github.com/vraa/timethetask)! :)

## 2014 Resolutions

1. Stop writing 2013 at first and then correcting it to 2014.

Neh, just kidding. This year, there are no specific resolutions. Instead, there's going to be one objective that I'm gonna apply at all things that I do - be it personal life, career, dreams. That'll be:

> **Go to next level**.

You know, once you get confortable with something, it is hard to get out of that comfort zone. But it is very, very important to move on, try new things, fail and learn. So, 2014 is going to be one such year, where I am gonna try new things and see how they work.

That'll be it. Though it's little late, I take this moment to wish each and every one of you a happy and successfull new year!


Looking back and forward (2013)


This post was supposed to be written couple of weeks back. But, thanks to my laziness, it had to wait for this long to get published.

Anyways, here's a (pretty old) news - two months back, I bought an Yamaha FZS. Ever since, the weekends have become the time for bike rides. So far, I have rode my Yamaha to an less known village near Tada, Mahabalipuram, Ennore, Poondi and almost all the places inside Chennai. But none satisfied my passion for a long journey.

So, I eyed the East Coast Road (ECR) - the bikers paradise. ECR starts at Chennai and runs till Tuticorin, covering a total of 690 Kilometres, along the coast of Bay of Bengal. It's a scenic, well maintained roadway with comparatively less traffic. So, I decided to bike the entire stretch in one day.

On a windy Friday morning, the alarm went off at 4'O clock. In another one hour, I was all set to ride and pulled my Yamaha into the road. The morning was so chill, thanks to the December fog, and it even drizzling a bit. I didn't had a coat or hand gloves. So, the moment I started riding the bike, the chill wind made me to shiver. For a moment I thought, "Should I continue or should I go back to my room and get under the warm covers?".

On second thought, moments like these are unavoidable and I had to learn to cope with them if I ever want to go for a long ride. So, continued along the Old Mahablipuram road which joins the ECR near Mahabalipuram.

My plan was to ride only the ECR, take bypass road wherever possible, never enter into any cities (those are for some other time), and reach Rameshwaram town in the evening for the sunset.

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The ride was mostly uneventful, except that I nearly missed hitting a cow, and lost my way near Karaikkal and ran over a snake which was taking a nap in the middle of the road (apparently, snakes don't know traffic rules). All the time, I was maintaining an average speed of 65~70 KMph.

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But, by the time I reached near Ramanathapuram around 5.30 in the evening, I realized that I couldn't make it to Rameshwaram for sunset. The light was already going down. So, I had to stop at a place called _Sambai_ to take some sunset photos.

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After the short photo shoot, I continued along the ECR towards Rameshwaram (which is not on the ECR route) with the plan to stay there in the night and be at Pamban bridge for the sun rise. When I reached Rameshwaram by 7.30 PM, I was dead tired and badly wanted to take a room and hit the bed. But my day wasn't ended yet.

Almost all the hotels I enquired for a room, responded with the same answer "No rooms available", even though there are plenty of rooms free. It was not even a season time, I guess. But then, in one of the hotel, they said, they don't give rooms to single as per the police order. I thought, I can't go back and get married just to get a room in this island. So, I rode back to Ramanathapuram (50 KMs away) and got a room in the first hotel I saw.

The next day, again 4'O clock in the morning, checked out from the hotel (those hotel boys must be hating me for waking them up so early) and started riding back to Rameshwaram.

By 5.30 AM, I was at Pamban bridge. It was still dark and windy. The sun was not out yet. That day there was a cyclone warning at Pamban, so the sea wind was at its full force.

I stood there. Before me, was the dark and fierce sea and the longest Pamban bridge that connects the Rameshwaram island to the main land India. The chillness, the wind, the sound of a never ending waves, and the feeling that you are standing over the sea, the vibration of the bridge - it's all a magical experience. It's totally worth for the day long journey it took to reach the place.

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But unfortunately, it was all cloudy and there wasn't any sun rise that I was hoping for. Anyways, once the light came out, took lots of Photos. I was even lucky that a train was going in the Pamban tracks.

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After a hour long photo shoot, started my journy back in ECR, and continued along the route towards Tuticorin. I went till Sayalgudi and had to take a diversion from ECR to reach my home town from there.

Overall, it's a once in a life time experience and I'm hoping to do it again if I ever get a chance. Anybody in? :)


Biking the East Coast Road


The news is, I have left PayPal last week, and joined ThoughtWorks as an UI developer.

I have been associated with PayPal for almost 3 years (with 3 months break in between) and without a doubt, that experience had taught me some valuable lessons. But, lately, I have started focusing heavily on JavaScript and I decided to part ways with PayPal to get myself into a work that has scope for JavaScript development.

So, I picked ThoughtWorks (err, they picked me!).

ThoughtWorks is a well known software development company amongst the developer community here, known for their contribution to **Agile practice, Selenium & CruiseControl**. Having heard good feedback about ThoughtWorks from the community & my ex-colleagues at PayPal, I was really looking forward to join the company.

Now, it's been 2 days (just) and the kind of culture I see at ThoughtWorks is something that I have never seen at my previous work places. To start, there are no cubicles. Everyone sit around tables (including Managers, GMs) and one can move to any place as their project demands. There's no fixed location, as such. As someone who alyways had a _cubicle number_ given to him, the cubicle-less arrangement is a new experience to me.

![ThoughtWorks Chennai Office](http://i.imgur.com/45ZOa7f.jpg)

I think I'll cut out here, as it's been just 2 days since I started working at ThoughtWorks. I'll try to write more as the time goes by.

The last time when I wrote a similar post was when I [moved from Infosys to CSC](https://veerasundar.com/blog/moved-to-chennai-india/). In that post, I have added a photo of [IT Highway](http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x201/talktoveera/Tidel_Park_junction_panorama.jpg) (OMR, Chennai), even though my previous workplace was not near to that place pictured in that photo. But now, that photo makes more sense as the ThoughtWorks campus is located very near to that road. So, as an end note, here's that photo for you.

![IT Highway, OMR, Chennai](http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x201/talktoveera/Tidel_Park_junction_panorama.jpg)


#personal (5)