User:Premkudva

My name is Premnath S. Kudva, and I am from Mangalore, India.

Hobbies and Interests
My interests include stamps, coin and Indian currency note collecting. In stamps I collect mint stamps, mostly directly from the postal administration of the country I am interested in. Besides mint stamps I also buy Year Books and Year Sets of a few selected countries like New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Australia and Great Britain. I have hosted several posts on some of the stamps in my collection, to see them check my stamp collection here at LJ.

Coins
I collect proof coins of the US from the US Mint. My interest in US coins collection started when the US Mint started the 50 State Quarters programme in 1999. While buying that I also started collecting the American Silver Eagle coins. The 50 State Quarters programme will run for 10 years and end in 2008 when the last lot of five or maybe six quarters are issued. Six if the District of Columbia coin is issued if legislation is passed by US Congress. At eBay I have been able to buy buy quite a few commemorative proof coins for my collection. I also buy a few selected proof coins issued by the India Government Mint.

Fiction
Prior to my above hobbies I was very much interested in reading. I used to read a lot of fiction, some of the authors being Jeffrey Archer, Frederick Forsyth, Sidney Sheldon, and John Grisham. During my school and college days I have read a lot of Enid Blyton (The Secret Seven, Famous Five et al), Arthur Hailey, and James Hadley Chase.

I still read a lot of magazines and books, though I have reduced reading fiction due to paucity of time. I have a large collection of books. So much so that when we built our house in 2001, I had a library room incorporated into it.

I restarted reading about two years ago. There have been a spate of book exhibitions in Mangalore over the last few years. One of which had brought a huge lot of hard bound used books from the US. From these I was able to buy at least 25 which where in mint condition.

New authors that I have read after I restarted by reading are James Patterson, Paul Adam, Martin Cruz Smith, Jan Burke, John le Carré (who was intensely boring), Michael Crichton and Dan Brown.

Aviation
My interests also include aviation, aircraft and airliners. A large number of books in my collection relate to aircraft and aviation.

Even though it is very routine today, every take off and landing that I watch of an aircraft fascinates me.

Have a look at the new Boeing 787 at this website called How will you travel through life?. This site also has a section where you can check out the new Boeing 737. They have a large flash presentation here which shows the 737 being put together from fuselage to take-off.

A similar Airbus 330 assembly video can be launched here A330 Assembly.

The most awesome photos of airlines can be found at Jetphotos.net

My most favourite airliner is the Boeing 737, all types.

Space
I am fascinated by space and space exploration. The idea that a vast expanse of space has been interpreted by man since ancient times is a humbling thought.

While I think the concept of a space station is all wrong in terms of money spent and other priorities on earth, I quite like the thought that there are human beings dwelling in a billion dollar tin can in space.

Rocket and shuttle launches impresses me every time I see it on TV. The high I should say was watching a shuttle launch in a theatre in the movie Swades. It was simply wonderful.

I had been following the Space Shuttle programme from the days of its development by reading about it magazines like National Geographic and Popular Mechanics.

I still remember the photo of a white hot glowing shuttle heat shield tile being held between the fingers of a scientist in a National Geographic magazine.

The Hubble Telescope is another space programme that grabbed my interest. I used to watch its development, and its wait on earth when the shuttle programme halted with the Challenger explosion. Its launch thereafter after the resumption of shuttle flights. Its faulty mirror, the successful service mission to rectify it, and the beautiful images it gave of space.

Currency Note Collection
I have a collection of Indian currency notes, most of them in UNC condition. I got several of them at my bank and from friends at face value, others which were not circulating I got through eBay and Baazee (now eBay.in) auctions and once at a stamp exhibition here in Mangalore.

These are my collection of Indian currency notes album. I have hosted them at Imagestation.


 * 1969 Mahatma Gandhi commemorative notes
 * Indian One Rupee notes
 * Indian Two Rupee Notes
 * Indian Five Rupee Notes
 * Indian Ten Rupee Notes
 * Indian Twenty Rupee Notes
 * Indian Fifty Rupee Notes
 * Indian Hundred Rupee Notes
 * Indian Rupee 500 notes
 * Indian Rupee 1000 notes
 * Indian British India King George VI notes

Model Cars and Other Stuff
I collect scale model cars, and used to think I would have a model train layout sometime in the future. I have now decided that having a model train layout takes too much money, time, skill and space and hence decided that I will not go for that hobby.

I interested in astronomy and look at the skies once in a while. I can tell a couple of the constellations though not the stars. I am deeply interested in space exploration, and manned space travel. And hence check everything that is available on those topics.

Live Journal
I used to maintain a regular blog of my activities at Livejournal called PremKudva's Journal, which I finally stopped in August 2011.

Wikipedia Contribution
I joined Wikipedia on the 15th of September, 05. I initially added the details of the novels written by Sidney Sheldon. Then of course I made some minor edits to my home town Mangalore. Later while searching I found there was no entry for Dr Shri Veerendra Heggade of Dharmastala, and for Dharmastala too. So created those two articles on the 16th and 11th of September. Template:Done Template:Smiley

Governors of the Reserve Bank of India
Being a Indian currency note collector made it easy to create these entries.

Other Entries
I watch and frequently edit the following entries.

Books
When I started I created these pages for novels, but didn't contribute much. Also the initial narration was mostly copied from the authors website. The Dalrymple books basically I removed from the book section of the author's article and moved them to a new article page. No creativity there.

My Wiki entries got a mention in The Week magazine.