An update after a long time with a new look to the website

Just one blog post here in 2012 pretty much sums up how the year went by for me. Here I am, updating my blog after a fairly long time. The website also now sports a new look, new structure - which was in works for quite a while now (as this depended mainly on the free time my team had, which wasn't much). Thanks to my team at Saaranga who have worked on this purely out of respect, despite a hectic schedule. I'm no longer the person who tinkers with the look and feel of this website.
In earlier days, this website was sort of an experimental base for the scripts I wrote on my own or the web applications I wanted to try out, along with Sampada.net - a community that I had started in 2005. That favourite pastime of mine has since vanished, owing to a packed schedule. I wouldn't have hoped to renew the habit of blogging after such a long time without the help of my team members and without the encouragement of my better half (who has particularly been a tremendous source of inspiration for me, at a time when I was down with some serious health issues). Having jotted down couple of quick write-ups for some Kannada newspapers recently, I felt that I really need to bring this blog back to life. And here I am doing that. Hope this new look would spur some regular activity here. And that it would serve as some good distraction for me from the stress that has been part of each day of my life in recent past.
For last couple of years, I've enjoyed carrying the camera with me when I travel or just clicking around in the garden has brought joy. Although I do not claim to be a professional photographer, I have added a section on photography on this site now which is going to feature some photos from out my FlickR set.
Hopefully, the Cartoons page will now get some new entries - at least few quick sketches from the mobile if not illustrations like before
Ayurveda - and the numerous herbs used in this traditional system of medicine is another renewed interest I've been carrying along of late, and it has given me an excellent pastime that brings down stress, while being so valuable for recovering from the health condition I've been in. Last several months was sort of a struggle between not-so-great health and the usual hectic schedule. There just wasn't enough time for full recovery between all the stess and the health issues continued to stick.

Sadly, bad health has kept me back from doing so many things I had planned for the year. I had to put my active role on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects to full-stop last year as my primary work took priority while health wasn't that great then either. Sampada.net is not managed by me for more than a year now, and that may not change for another year from now unless I get some free time to revamp the project. The technology is being supported by the team at Saaranga, the firm that I've been part of. Suma has been taking the lead role in keeping the community running, despite the challenges. The project needs to be brought out of the expenses it has been piling up to become at least a self-sustained project. It has been more than 7 years now since Sampada.net was started.
When I look back at what made me stop writing here, I find myself blaming just the phase of life where incidentally I didn't get to read much. Just too many things were happening, and either of 'peace of mind' or 'time to read' wasn't there. When I did find time to read, I had less time to write down stuff that I thought would be useful.
Several little notes I had gathered here earlier now sound stupid when I read them back. However, I've retained them here as they remind me how much I've grown. The notes on technology still seems to be attracting visitors and at times it feels a bit sad when the realisation sinks in that all these posts are going to get old and stale at some point of time and nothing can be done about that. It is just like life, after all. What has happened earlier gets rolled into an archive of the 'past' and the outlook is always towards the future.