About
In my professional life I build computer software, currently working at ING in the Netherlands as a software system architect.
A couple of my public talks on tech subjects are on YouTube:
- Microservices Ecosystem – My talk at a Women in Tech virtual meetup during Covid, in Aug 2020
- Flirting with the Public Cloud – Talk at the GOTO Amsterdam conference, June 2022
I have a son (just past his teens) and a daughter (in her teens), who keep me on my toes, and give me the Gen-Z perspective on things. When my son was young enough to want to play with me, I used to play HearthStone with him. I love watching TV shows with my daughter, whichever ones are her current favorites – this changes drastically over months.
My serious hobbies are water color painting, writing, and photography. More recently, as a hobby project, I created a health app, Log4Health – for iOS & Android platforms. It’s free, you can download and check it out!
Art
I have always been interested in painting, right from childhood. Coming from a traditional background with a high emphasis on science, math, and engineering, I never considered art as a possible career choice. Being “just a hobby”, art has taken a back seat during some phases, but overall, all through school, college and later, I have stayed in touch with painting. I was part of the art team in college which was responsible for putting up large murals in auditoriums around the campus for the annual cultural festival all through my four years of campus stay.
Water colors fascinate me. The ability to convey so much with a light touch of the brush, where less is truly more. Intricate pen work is also something I enjoy – it is free format, almost like doodling, but can produce interesting overall effects. My subjects are sometimes abstract, sometimes from nature, mostly rendered in a stylized manner. I occasionally experiment with pastels, but the main focus for now is on water colors.
Check out some press coverage for the two art exhibitions I put up in Pune!
Photography
This is an interest I acquired in my working life, more or less a by-product of the travel that is inevitable with a software job. Photographing wild flowers is a particular passion. My parents both love travel and nature, and this has certainly been a big influence on me.
Starting with a humble Canon point & shoot back in the day, I progressed to a very satisfactory Canon SLR while in the US. With the advent of the digital camera though, the SLR is long gone, and a couple of cameras later, I’m now on a Nikon D3300 (very happy with).
Gardening
Not only wild flowers, I love flowers of any kind – garden, city, cut flowers. (Ok not so much artificial flowers.) Attracted to bright colors, I try to keep my garden blooming year round. It’s a bit of a challenge given the winters here, but over the years I’ve found a few winter bloomers too. But in general, I prefer low maintenance plants and don’t like to fuss with fertilizers and plant food. Oh, and I should mention that I have a huge soft spot for trees – especially flowering trees. ❤️
Writing
For a long time I have been writing bits and pieces, and putting up photos of my travels. Figured it is high time to consolidate my web presence into a central website, so here it is!
~NomadSiv
