Srikanth Technologies

Looking back at 2019

Here are summary of events in my life in the year 2019. At the end of each year, I would like to look back and share important events of my life through this blog.

Entering into 2019

It was a family and friends get together on 31st night at my place. It is always a huge pleasure to be among friends and family members. Each of us looked back at 2018 and shared our moments of joy and sorrow. A few more friends joined us after 1:00 AM and the gathering grew bigger and so did the enjoyment.

At home on 31st Dec Night

At 12:00 AM on 1-JAN-2019

Change in my Daily Schedule

For many years in the past I had been playing Badminton from 5-6 AM. For a change in 2019 I decided to stop playing badminton and instead exercise at home with my treadmill. It has been hugely productive as I could listen to a lot of audio books. It is 45 mins of listening to audio books from 5:15 to 6:00 AM. Even when I was a little hesitant to get up at 5:00 am to exercise, audio books worked as extra incentive to get up.

I am enjoying best of both – exercise and listening to audio books.

On Sundays, I prefer to go to beach in the morning. I love to watch Sunrise at beach.

Pongal 2019

I can call Pongal 2019 as the best of all Pongals I have had in the recent past.

It was filled with visiting friends and relatives places, outings and of course kites.

Had a good gathering of Padmaja's friends on her birthday on 13th. Then we all decided to have an outing at Yarada on 16th and we had a great time there playing and flying kites in Yarada beach.

Early morning at Health Arena

Bhogi Fire

At Yarada Beach

At Yarada Beach

Data Science with Python

I launched Python course in Jan, 2018 and this year launched follow up course – Data Science with Python. With so much importance around Data Science I want to provide opportunity to students to learn cutting edge technologies.

No one can doubt the importance of Data Science. It is fun to teach how to handle data, visualization, building machine learning models, evaluate and deploy them. It is not like any other course I teach. Most of the courses I teach are about languages and how to build applications.

Data science course is NOT about syntax. It is about data and how to do predictive analysis.

Course Details and Syllabus

Tokyo

I wanted to visit Tokyo two years back, but backed out considering the fact that it is the most populous city in the world. I thought it would be too crowded. The stories I heard about Japanese in Soccer world cup 2018 increased my desire to visit Japan.

In the month of March, my friend and I visited Tokyo, Japan. What impressed me was their discipline. We travelled extensively in Metros and never heard any phone ringing. Everybody used phone but nobody disturbed others.

I realized many people is not the problem, many uncivilized people is a problem.

Hotel room was so compact with every required item. Can't expect spacious rooms in Tokyo, which is one of the costliest cities in the world. Check out is just dropping your key in a box. That's all. As simple as that. Nobody going to your room to check whether everything is in place.

We were short of a few Yen as we ran out of Yens (Japan currency), when we were buying two t-shirts at metro station. The sales girl just didn't accept even a Yen less compared with sales price. That's how they do it. Discipline may sound rude at times, but we need to respect it as it always benefits all in the long run.

Crossing road at Shibuya Crossing

At Lake Kawaguchiko near Mt. Fuji

At Disney Sea

Hachiko Statue at Shibuya

Giri Pradakshina

When I saw a lot of people doing Giri Pradakshina, I developed a strong desire to experience it. Luckily this time my brother and his friends have decide to do it and I happily joined it. I was new to the overall process, so needed some guidance from someone who did it.

It was a treat to be part of the divine Pradakshina. Surprised by the way thousands of devotees were walking barefoot. I was not that courageous and wore my walking shoes. Still it took a lot of water and right pace to complete it.

The number of stalls providing all kinds of refreshments to devotees, all through the stretch, was overwhelming.

We started at around 2:00 pm and completed it by 11:30 PM.

In simple words, it was a wonderful experience to be part of such a mammoth event. I am a firm believer of God but I am not the one who is into a lot of pujas etc. I believe work is worship. I love to be part of various challenges. I want to prove to myself I can handle challenges. Walking for hours and a distance of 40 KM is a challenge and I wanted to take.

Here are the stats from my Apple Watch.

Apple Watch Stats

Apple Watch Activity

Praneeth Leaving for US

We wanted Praneeth to experience education in USA. So, we didn't compromise on his branch. He would have got in some NITs had we compromised on branch. We didn't. Of course, even he wanted to pursue CSE.

I never suffocate him about his studies. I always left things to him. I want him to handle many things on his own. Though we as parents give him suggestions, it is up to Praneeth to decide what he would like to do.

I set a target of 310 for his GRE. He scored 320. We applied for a few colleges and eventually settled for CSE in University of Houston, USA.

He just finished his first semester there. He wrote a lot of code in C and Python for his assignments in OS and Digital Image Processing. It proves once again how important one's programming skills are. He did learn everything I taught. He is very comfortable with programming. He didn't have any issue with programming in MS. I wonder how someone with no programming skills can survive when so much code is to be written. It is important to prepare yourself (whether MS or Industry) while you are in college. Happy Praneeth did spend enough time learning different languages. It makes a difference.

We spent a full day in Sunray Resorts with close friends and relatives before Praneeth left for US.

Parting was very difficult for me, Padmaja, Praneeth and Pranav. Praneeth had been with us from day 1 till day of parting - 5th August. It was tough for all of us. I know for any parents it would be tough to part with kids after being with them and seeing them grow for many years.

Padmaja and I consider ourselves lucky to have brought up kids by being with them all through. We have tons of memories of their childhood. Joy of bringing up kids is incomparable. When Praneeth was less than one year old, I wrote in my first edition of C book - “His every smile makes me happy and every cry makes me worried”.

Though we were breaking inside, we saw him through at Hyderabad Airport happily because it was his opportunity to grow as a person.

It was very emotional for me and Padmaja to see his flight flying away from us to a faraway place.

Fortunately, Praneeth stood strong and has been handling things in US well.

At Hyderabad Airport

At Sunray Resort

At Tirumala

At Sunray Beach Resort

Reading book all through the night

I had a desire to read all through night. I wrote a lot of code working all through night. It was my routine every Saturday in early days of my career. But never read a non-technical book all through night.

Got opportunity to read book : Sadhguru - More than a life. I didn't sleep from Saturday afternoon to Sunday night. That made it 30 hours of staying awake and mostly reading. Completed most of the book during that period.

Padmaja also didn't sleep on Saturday night and gave me company reading another book.

Reading when the world around is sleeping is quite a wonderful experience.

Oracle Database for Beginners in Udemy.com

In 2018, I added Python and in 2019, I added Data Science with Python to the list of courses I offer. With Angular and other courses chipping in, I don't find slots to offer some other courses which were more regular in the past. Oracle Database was not offered as often as I would like to in 2019.

So, I decided to do a full on-demand video course on Oracle Database and made it available in Udemy.com, where I already have two other courses – C Language For Beginners and C Interview Questions.

This video course is as comprehensive as my Oracle Database course offered at Srikanth Technologies.

Database knowledge is a must for all IT professionals. My course was designed to teach Database concepts, SQL and PL/SQL keeping in mind an absolute beginner.

Oracle Database For Beginners

Corporate Training

In the month of April, I trained L&T, Vizag employees on ASP.NET MVC and Angular. It was weekend training program of 3 sessions each of 4 hours at my institute.

This year I had to go to Pune to train employees of Tata Technologies on ASP.NET MVC and Entity Framework. Before that I trained them online on C#. They insisted on in person training for ASP.NET MVC, so I had to go in the month of May to Pune and spend a few days there.

In the month of August, I had the privilege to train Vizag Steel IT employees on Python, Django and Angular. As usual I enjoyed every bit of it. The setting was different from previous training programs in which we had a typical classroom. This time it was a lab cum classroom in which participants worked on the topics at the same time as theory and practised more in the afternoon. I know most of the trainees as they had been in my previous training programs. Familiarity makes everything comfortable and enjoyable.

L&T Trainees

Tata Technologies, Pune

Classroom at Vizag Steel

Vizag Steel Trainees

Other Places I Visited and Events

I had been to a couple of other places that I visited for the first time in 2019.
  • Maredumilli near Rajahmundry
  • Pondicherry
  • Kanchipuram
  • Mahabalipuram
The following are other noteworthy events of 2019:
  • Released a new version of C Language for Beginners book in Amazon.
  • Enjoyed some adventure sports like Kayaking in Rushikonda Beach and Burma Bridge, Goat Walk, Zip liner etc. at Kambalakonda when my family participated in Audi event in June.
  • Had been to Tirumala before Praneeth left for US. We drove to Tirumala and enjoyed driving Audi Q3 for 2000 KM. Highway was the best between Vijayawada and Nellore and I once touched the speed of 160 KMPH just for the sake of feeling it. I don't have any intention to drive at that speed otherwise. I generally drive between 80 to 120 KMPH on highways.
  • Padmaja, Pranav and I had been to Araku to be part of Padmaja's school reunion party.
  • Online students increased by 50% from year 2018.
  • Changed Spring Framework syllabus to use Spring Boot all through the course.
  • Watched a lot of movies (mostly on Saturday nights at home) on Amazon Prime. I love to watch movies that highlight humanity because I feel that is the need of the hour.
  • Watched two very inspiring documentaries on Netflix - Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates and The Game Changers. Loved both.

Cycling at Beach

Maredumilli

Kayaking

At Rushikonda Beach

Blogs

Here are blogs posted by me in this year in all categories.

Videos

The following are the videos I uploaded to YouTube in this year.

Books Read

In this department I set myself a target of 12 books and quite happy to far exceed that by 100%. This year with my changed schedule I could listen to audio books thereby increasing my book count.

In this year, I started reading some novels in Telugu. A friend of mine suggested a few books and I read two of them and enjoyed reading them.

Of course this count excludes books on technical stuff.

This year I read some really great books like "To Kill a Mocking Bird", "Kite Runner", "The Upstarts", and "Bad Blood".