Ever want to do houseboat in Allepey, kerala?

If you want to do houseboat in Allepey urf Allapuzha, these information might be useful.

Timings: 
You check-in at 11 in the afternoon. You check out by next day 10 in the morning.

Pick-up Location: 
Punnamada Finishing point. Its near Allapuzha bus station.

How to? : 
You can reach directly there between 11 and 12 and haggle your way through touts and agents and boat owners. It can be tricky to get a good deal in you are a non-malayalee. However you will get a boat for sure and if you in case you prefer choosing your boat and also got the instincts to bargain then it would be a good idea to straight show-up than booking in advance.

Contacts:
These contact numbers are of boat owners and not of any agents in between. Order is of the condition of the boat i found during my visit searching for a houseboat for a friend.

Naushad - 09846709090 -2 Bed's
Soji C - 9846079398 / 9037774676 - 2 Bed and 1 Bed
Haridas - 9048131443 - 1 Bed
Kunjumon- 9388122184 - 1 Bed
Santhosh Raju - 9446710189 - 2 Bed and 1 Bed
Sijo - 9656703087 - 2 Bed
Saji - 9446220404

Price:
*For a 1 Bed - 5000 to 6000
*For a 2 Bed - 7000 to 8000
*Price is very much a factor the quality of the boat. I mean how new or well the boat is. All these boats were in good condition. The best being on the top of the list. None was bad and dilapidated. 

Do this:
Pick up some toddy on your way to the boat. Else before you start the journey ask the helper boys to pick up some for you and ask the price. Also any things which you intend to do in the boat during your trip carry before boarding the boat or even better before reaching the harbor / jetty. Inform the boat guys and lunch early because there is a lot of eating during the course. Also if you want to pick up some fresh fish on your way to the boat buy it on the way. The boat does stop in between to a small market, but it costs touristy. 

My 5 five cents: Never forget to drink toddy!! If it tastes very sour and pungent taste its a bit stale. The most fresh is sweet sour and got a good taste which i dont think anyone can dislike!! So go toddy!! Also if you are booking on the phone tell them you might get a duck on your way, or get a duck on your way to the boat and hand it over for them to make it for you. Cost you a duck

One day walking tour of historic dubai

My experience on a one day walking tour to see the history sites of Dubai. I would call it Jimmy's walking tour for the sake of reference :)

I reached Ghubaiba Bus station at 9 am in the morning. Most buses ply to ghubaiba bus station and Ghubaiba metro is right in front of the bus station.

Bus route no 8
Boarded bus no 8 towards Ibn batuta MS. I also felt that bus no 8 is good one to take a leisure bus ride if you want to avoid a hop n hop bus trip or an open bus trip.

Jumeirah Mosque
Bus stops right outside the mosque and it only takes 10 min from bus station. Jumeirah Mosque has a guided half an hour tour, which allows non-muslims to entire a mosque. There is also an interactive session by a guide Latifa on Islam and Muslim at sharp 10am. Tickets can be purchase for 10 bucks from 9:45 am, I would also suggest to pick up a copy of Islam & Mulsims copy kept right at the entrance of the mosque. I boarded bus number 8 back to Ghubaiba Bus station.

Sheikh Saeed al-Maktoum's House

Popularly known as Shindagha house this right behind the Ghubaiba Metro Station and is a pleasant walk along the creek. The collection of coinage, maps, documents, photographs, history; this place is absolutely marvelous. Its not much visited and therefore not crowded. I will surely recommend Shindagha house in your do list if you enjoy a bit of history and reading and museums. Its much better than Dubai Museum and was also the house of Sheikh saeed. I spent easily around 2 to 2 half hour and in the end hunger forced me out of it. Carry a bottle of water, i would say.

Lunch: Special Ostadi  
Either take a metro from Ghubaiba metro to Al-Fahidi Metro Station or for those bravehearts you can walk it down to Al fahidi metro station. I walked it and its not far. You walk through meena bazar so it can be a walk through the crowd. You may also ask people for direction towards "Al fahidi metro". Walk straight out of Al fahidi station and Special Ostadi is right next to musallah towers. Food can be described in just one word "fabulous" ( try their yogurt marinated kabab)

Bastakia Quarter
After a gorgeous meal its time to do some walking. Walk through the bastakia Quarter towards Dubai Museum.

Dubai Museum.
You would take one to one an half hour in the museum. Comparing to Shindagha house, dubai museum is not of much charm. The first few blocks of the tents and weaponry is ok. The rest is just a causal stroll and doesnt have much of interest. The last block of archaeology and a bit of excavation collection is interesting. Overall Dubai Museum is crowded doesnt have much of artifacts and can be done in a quick browse.

Al-Fahidi Fort.
Museum is located in this fort. On the exit from the museum we can stroll inside the fort or sit in the shade for a while. Nothing much to see. Its just to relax your feet from all the walking and standing :)

Bur Dubai Abra Dock

You can look for sign boards for direction towards marine transport service or dubai old souk marine transport service. Reach the abra and walk straight into any of the wooden boats docked with a water taxi driver. within a few minutes the engines would start and it would roar to the either side of the creek. Its a beautiful ride in the evenings and will be a very refreshing experience. Dont worry about any tickets; a few minutes on the ride you would feel a pat on your shoulders or else be courteous to throw 1 dhiram to the captain.

Deira Spice Souk  

Stroll into the alleys of the souk, i recommend no buying and not to take much of photographs because they are mostly street side vendors and flea merchants. They try to bully you or make a quick buck, so use your street travel instincts :). But the stroll is worth. Incase you want to buy something, walk to those stores whether they dont woo you and usually has an old man sitting inside the counter. Ask the price and if over priced dont hang around much and move on to another shop.

Take wooden boat back to bur dubai abra and walk back to ghubaiba metro station. Board a metro towards Burjuman.

Paul Bakery & Restaurant

Once out of the Burjuman metro station walk towards burjuman center. On the basement of Burjuman you will find paul bakery & cafe. Take one of the outside seating. Enjoy the evening.

My 5 five cents: It can be a little tiresome during the peak summers during July and August if you are not much into walking. This area doesnt have much of public restrooms, so if you want to relieve yourself the dubai museum would be the last option before burjuman. :)

Experience of taking up an ITIL Foundation exam.

As part of my resolution to learn something, an hour every day, after spending spending 7 months on Agile i was looking to take up something new. That's what made me to take up ITIL foundation. Let me share my experience.

I went through an ITIL youtube playlist to get an overview on the contents of ITIL. I think this playlist contents is aligned with v2 foundation however it gives a fair understanding of core elements of ITIL. In the meanwhile i was also trying to figure out how to take the exam and which course material should i read. I decided to go with thoughtrock as i found the price of study material along with the exam worth while. Though not a R.E.P of PMI their 26 hours course + completion of exam helped me to obtain 26 PDU's for my PMP. I registered this under Category B in gaining PDU.

Taking about thought rock material is very raw and is literally an "audio reader" of their presentations. ITIL foundation is fairly an easier course than PMP or ACP but i wouldnt say its a cake walk. Learnings of PMP does match at times with many topics in ITIL. I took a good one month to complete course  and also did some reading and browsing while taking up the online tutorial.

I tried a few practice exams during my prep. There arent much free question sets available for ITIL so once i completed a few reliable ones i started redoing the same. Thoughtrock study material also has two good sample questions sets and also you can find a sample question on ITIL offical site. I will share the bookmark of all the links i used for the exam in the bottom of this blog.

Thought rock provide Loyalty exam code along with their material to take ITIL foundation exam from home. This was my first experience of taking an exam online from home. The process was pretty smooth and easy. The proctor was friendly and guides you well through the process. Only noticeable point is that though in the instruction they say get a printer configured for the exam, ITIL foundation exam doesnt need a printer and you can skip configuring a printer.

I passed the exam with a good 85% , process was the category where i didnt do well. Like PMP questions even these ones are tricky and you need to solve 40 questions in an hour. I finished them in 30 minutes and reviewed my answers twice ( but that didnt help much :) because i didnt deter from a single answer i previously selected) 

ITIL study reference bookmarks and sample question links

Download these html to view as bookmarks. If you directly open you would see only the html contents.

My 5 five cents: Core stages of life cycle are : SDTOC - Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, Continuous service improvement.

Although an overused statement i really think its important for the success of a venture to:  Vision -> mission -> goals -> objectives - > CSF (critical success factor) -> KPI (key performance indicator) -> define metrics - > measure whats in real time.

-> = should be converted

PMI - ACP ( agile certified practitioner ) fixed. Another one to talk about

After four months of struggle, lethargy, procrastination, laziness, i'm a certified ACP an agile certified practitioner. I managed it with proficient in both tools and techniques, knowledge and skills. This is the plan i used to conquer.

• Bought agile prepcast . Why i went with Cornelius and prepcast have two reasons: I used prepcast during PMP and I liked it and also thought it was very useful. I'm couldn't find a better tutorial searching online. I didnt want to do a boot camp because it doesn't give me the freedom to rewind what is been taught and also it’s shitty pricey. Also i dont get to learn it in my pace 

          Deepfriedbrainproject has a good review of agile prepcast. I still consider said all that its still one of the value for money online tutorial for acp.

• Finished prepcast and got the eligibility to obtain 21 contact points.

• Filled in Application form. It’s pretty simple if you have a PMP. Still as a backup I contacted my managers and just ensured their email address and contact details and kept them informed I will be taking ACP. Just to stay alert in case my form goes in for an audit. 

• Bought PMI-ACP Exam Prep of Mike Griffith from amazon. I found it the cheapest there. Kept aside 3 weeks for finishing it. But then plans don’t work. It took me 7 weeks to finish it with all my travel, relocation, lethargy and procrastination. The book is nice and far simple than Rita Mulcay. It’s one of the most concise, precise books you can find in market for ACP. I wanted to buy Andy Crowe as well. However this time around I decided not because I did it last time for PMP and in the end I never read it. Few comments worth saying about Mike Griffith book is it’s an easy read. Practice exams are very very few and easy. Details of agile methodologies scrum, xp, lean, Kanban, are minuscule.

• Booked dates for the exam with a 2 weeks gap for taking a few practice tests.  The number of practice exams is way to less. Talking about practice exams, sorry to say this, but there aint any good online practice exams I came across. I think I almost took each and every free/ test exams available online and I would not recommend an OK or even worth a look on any of them, for the exam. (The only one I missed is velociteach) Now here is something I might again contradict, 1000+ PMI-ACP Practice Questions, Christopher Scordo is worth some time. I decided to go for it after reading one of the comments from this group. It has around 400-500 useful questions. It also makes you think and tests your concepts on Agile. Cons, I agree many questions are repetitive and some questions are not much of use. 

       Free online copy available if you hold a PMI membership. Search in eReads and books of PMI with pmi-acp as the search text. I also read I a few reviews that velociteach practice exams is quite good.

• A day before the test day, decide to drive to the exam center, an believe me that was the most wisest thing I ever did in my entire preparation. The exam center I selected was National Academy for Research and Development ( NARD ) Al Gurg Tower3 Regga Al Butten Dubai 47567 . We drove around for an hour but just couldn't locate a building called Al gurg tower. Neither google maps nor gps nor blackberry map was any use. We just could not locate the building. Finally we parked our car and decide to walk around. In short Al gurg tower is right behind the clover creek hotel apartments or Marriot apartments there are a by-lane which goes inside. At the end of the by-lane is Al gurg tower. Easy way to locate this building is it has “ADNIF” written on the ground floor.

• Reached center on the day, and gave the exam. A few tips for the exam day and carry two id’s: 1 photo id and one non- photo id. Second for sure carry a light jacket. 3 be prepared for a noisy exam center. I was the only one for the exam, and there were a few people talking all throughout the exam in the corridor.

Topics of questions were, Agile manifesto, Scrum, XP, Lean, kanban Estimation (there were questions on cost estimation) roles and responsibilities, burndown charts, brainstorming, EVM, velocity, value based analysis, risk, Coordination,Risk adjusted backlog, Persona, Wireframe,Self Organizing team, conflict (not the levels of Mike Griffith), planning poker, backlog, value based prioritization,Retrospective, Affinity Estimating, estimations, Risk based Spike, Iteration & Release planning, Osmotic Communication,Definition of Done,Ideal time, Progressive Elaboration,Minimal Marketable feature,Story Points,Agile ceremonies. Some elusive topics where scrum of scrum, automated code coverage tools, technical debt, cost estimation. 

Below link contain bookmarks to some of the links which i referred and free sample questions online PMI - ACP. Lately i have been hearing reviews about agileexams, so you might want to check that too.

ACP study reference bookmarks and sample question links
Download these html to view as bookmarks. If you directly open you would see only the html contents. How to screenshots below.

Click on the download button as seen in the screenshot. The downloaded file is an html.

My five 5 cents: CWF CMF WCCSS R - My representation of Agile manifesto principles. 

• Customer, Welcome change, Frequent.
• Collocated, Motivated, Face2Face 
• Working, Constant, Continous, Simplicity, Self Organised
• Reflection.

Effective Conversation

Now this is spooky, i just started this blog yesterday i got 7 views. I dint even type anything. Is this showing up on my G+? I dont know. I dont even have a clue on how to check that thing. Anyways, why bother. :)

Reading on soft skill negotiation concepts on agile i came across this interesting piece on paraphrasing on effective conversation. To prove paraphrasing indeed is a good method, a real time example was that of a situation on a busy restaurant which we all have gone through in our life. 

The waiter comes in to take the order of the table. You got one friend still fumbling through the menu. Another one trying to figure out whats been served on the other table. The other one browsing on his phone and you are trying to negotiate with the waiter. 

All of you place your order, the waiter nods, murmurs and walks away. I normally get this question on my mind, did he hear that part, where, i told him AA instead of XX. Would he get me the right one?

Consider this butterfly effect:

All of you place your order, the waiter nods, and speaks out " so this is what you ordered...AA, XX, FF...". You are happy, he is happy, because you know what you get and he knows what to get. Bang!! Bang!! now thats some effective conversation which left a long term, lasting value to the customer to be rest assured.

My five 5 cents: Dont you think Michael David whatever, err, that dude from Passenger,  is a nasal singer?