Do It Yourself - Speaker Stand

After a very long time, I created something from scratch this weekend. Had spent some time creating a mobile app some time back. The anxiety of creating this myself and the perseverance of finding the material after making at least 4-5 rounds to the market to assemble pieces for the stand finally pays off.

I had purchased YAMAHA receiver and speakers some time back from one of the YAMAHA stores in Singapore. When I enquired about the prices of the stand, they quoted me S$150. It sounded expensive to me but at the same time I believed that I could create my own. I had an idea of how I'm going to do it and, therefore, wanted to test it out. Thus, started the whiteboard design and then validating on net with possible solutions.

The next task was the most difficult, finding out the places to get the materials. And I knew nothing. Had seen couple of materials shops close to my house, but whenever I went (on sundays, on week day evenings) I found them closed. It was becoming frustrating and then I decided to go to Little India and search there. Found one small tiny shop near Little India that gave me most of the materials other than the wooden planks. It is recommended that whenever you go to buy these things, always have your measurements ready.

Finding wooden plank with my measurements was also very difficult. Went to a second hand furniture shop close to my house and asked the owner there to give me 4 such planks. He gave me the planks, but I had to cut the plank myself to adjust the shape and extra width. Held the saw after a long long time, but I was determined to get this thing done.

Rest was easy, got the pieces assembled according to my design. The stand now stand firmly around my sofa. Proud of this small thing.

Materials needed - 4 wooden planks, bolt, washer, steel pipe, plastic pipe and black paint.
Final cost - S$55 (excluding cost of making numerous trip to many places)

The Art of Selling

I've been investing at personal level in Indian Stock Market for a long time now. I bought my first stock in Dec 2004 and since then my portfolio has grown and grown. I love taking bets and ready to forgo the amount if the market crashes. (so, in a way I'm prepared for the risk). Most of the times I hear news about some stock from somebody in the family or office (and never follow CNBCs, NDTVs stock experts etc), track that stock for probably a month and then take a decision to invest in it. That has been my usual investment style. Things that I have learned post MBA is to look at the financial reports and try to form a basic reasoning before investing. Nevertheless, my returns have been pretty ok and I'm happy doing this personal investment and excelling my return targets every year.

One very important thing that I have observed over a period of time and learned during MBA that the trick of making money in stock market is not through continual investing. However, it is really through selecting the right time to exit and make a realized profit. The realized profit every year is actually my return targets. And because of this strategy, I've made money in the stock market by not waiting for a return and either take a sell or buy more call once I don't see the stock moving in the direction I expect. Have been fortunate to not wait for a long time and see my profits eroding as the financial crisis these days is taking a short cut and returning pretty fast.

What To Expect After Your MBA/MS?

I went through this interesting post on financial Times today.


One paragraph enlightens that employers in Europe look for previous experience while hiring MBA graduates. I'm pretty sure that the statement is valid if you replace Europe by Singapore (may be South East Asia?) This is what I had faced exactly during my time at NUS Business Business School pursuing my master. Singapore is a selling market, which leaves very little ambition for companies to train their employees post hiring. Every sales manager bonus is dependent on the performance of his/her teammates and, therefore, who would not be willing to give a chance to a brilliant scholar from a prestigious school to do sales or marketing?

Things have changed drastically in last 4-5 years and getting jobs in a mature market (until or unless you have the relevant experience) is very very challenging. Indians who are looking to pursue higher studies in any market (other than India as I'm not sure whats happening there) should definitely find out about their post-graduation interest before taking the jump. Talk to as many people as possible and form a view about what to expect in your targeted market. Else the frustration can just kill you.

It is not the 2005-2007 time any more.

Time For Value Engineering

I graduated from IIT in April 2004. Till then the bug of Finance didnt hit the Indian market. I remember majority of students at that point in time wanted to go into consulting firms such as Capital One, Mckinsey, BCG etc. These firms were very selective (and believe they still are) and mostly who got chance for their interview were top performers in their class. I guess majority of the students must not have heard or know very little about financial firms like Goldman Sachs, Lehman etc.

Time changed and I remember in just one year, ie 2005, students started getting hired by GS, Lehman, MS etc from IIT Bombay campus. I believe Lehman hired close to 25 students in 2005. Career prospective changed and because of the high paying nature, financial institutions probably became the first class choice of the elites (and non elites :P ).

Great Barrier Reef - Natural Wonder of the World

Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is one of the seven wonders of the natural world and the only living organism visible from outer space. The images of the reef at Google Image Search excited me tremendously and the thought of going there and experiencing the marine life gave us goosebumps during the trip planning. Here and there, just decided to go there and experience the most divine, natural, unperturbed marine life on earth. But there was more to come other than just Marine Life.

As we grew our search, we came to know that GBR is much more than marine life. It is an excellent destination where one can not only enjoy the marine life, but also experience beaches, beautiful view of cairns via skydiving and excellent road trip to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation. The more and more search grew our confidence that we are really going to a place we ever envisioned  we would go in our dreams.

Finally, after spending lot of hours finding about what all things we should do we came with a 7 days itinerary for our trip. The main things that we decided to do were -

• 2 days and 1 night cruise in the reef, 
• sky-diving from 14000 feet, 
• road trip from Cairns to Port Douglas to Cape Tribulation and 
• 3 days - 2 Nights stay at Sheraton Mirage, Port Douglas.

Let me share my experience with the important areas/activities I covered during this trip.

Great Barrier Reef
Well, if you havent done scuba and snorkeling in your life, I learnt during this trip that how refreshing it is to know more about the life that exists in the water. We booked our tickets on Ocean Quest for 1 night and 2 days trip. In these 2 days one can do upto 5 snorkeling dives and 2 scuba dives. For diving you dont really need to know swimming. There will be a guide who will make sure that you can dive well. I was impressed with the physical strength of these guides. During snorkel, one guide could carry two people along with him easily. All you need to do is to clutch the swimming pad and move your legs. And the guide will pull the pad via rope. Awesome !!!

I would recommend you to take a camera which I didnt do. Although they will take pics of you in your scuba dive on the first day, but you get to see the beautiful corals with unbelievable colors during the snorkeling time and you just want to capture the moments, the unimaginable corals, the violet-blue-orange-brown-green-and god knows what all colored fishes, the giant clamp, turtles, star fish etc. We got many pics clicked and here is one with the wally.

 First night at the reef was also very special. I have never seen so many fishes, sharks together. The guide focused the lights closer to the boat which attracted all kinds of fishes. The movement was so fast and since it was dark, it is nearly impossible to get a good picture with a normal camera. The below picture captures the moment but it is a bit hazy.


The food was ok and Ocean Quest cook did make something for us who are vegetarians. The rooms are decently sized (only issue could be that the bed is slightly wet once you move into the room). But I believe in the scheme of larger things, these small issues are ok. We got to experience changing weather, sunset, sunrise and what not.

Sky Diving
After our 2 days excursion at the reef, it was time for sky dive. We booked our tickets at SkyDive Australia. We had our full trust on our guides (what else we could do otherwise). As the plane started to take off, the feeling of doing something like this was apparent on our face and hands (due to goosebumps). As the small aircraft lifted, we got the glimpse of beautiful cairns. The sky was clear so the sight was awesome. As we were climbing high, the temp was dropping. The moment of truth arrived when we reached 14000 ft and the guy slided the gate and asked to sit on the edge of the plane with our legs hanging in the air. The feeling cannot be described here at all. Everything was there - excitement, fear, disbelief of falling through the sky, hearing your heart beat in that tremendously loud aircraft noise, thinking if parachute will open up or not and what not. The guide just asked us to cross our hands, move a bit back and then he pushed me and himself out of the plane. I have absolutely no idea what happened at that point in time. I was falling, just falling and I dont remember anything probably for 5-10 seconds. And then I was like got into the world of consciousness when the guide tapped my shoulder (it was an indication of making an arc shape). And then I realized that I was falling, falling and falling. I was screaming hard but I could not hear my own voice; the air was gushing so fast through my ears that it was nearly impossible to hear anything. And the guide used his hands to do all the maneuvering, move in circles - clockwise, anticlockwise etc. The free fall lasted 60 secs and the parachute opened at around 4000 ft height.

I was spellbound and it is easy to say that this has been my most incredible time of my life. I dont know if I my going to do it the second time, but this is one such event which I will never forget (even if I want to).

Road Trip to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation
Immediately after sky diving, we rented a car from Hertz and started our journey to Port Douglas. Stopped at 3 beaches during our journey and took fabulous pictures of the scenery around. Port Douglas is a very small town and we relaxed for next two days. We booked our place at Sheraton Mirage and had a good stay there. The hotel has a big lagoon which was very good to swim and relax. On our last day we went ahead to Daintree Rainforest. We then further drove to Cape Tribulation. Cape Tribulation is the place where beach and rainforest meet. But after the trip we felt that it was too long a drive to go there. It could be avoided because it is no vastly different from many other beaches we went.

In all it was a very satisfying trip, had never been to such a place and enjoyed to the maximum. Keeping the advice of our friends alive in our heart and mind, we look forward to another exotic and wild destination in December 2012.

The planning has begun.