I'm too short for business class....

at roughly 5'9", I've never considered myself tall, but never really short either, until sitting in business class.

My seat was upgraded from Economy to Business for the Bangalore-Dubai leg, and at the same time, moved from a window t o a center seat.

Sitting in the seat while at complete rest and seat in original upright position, my feet don't reach the floor. My back almost doesn't reach the back of the seat, but that is nicely compensated by the fact that the lumbar support is adjustable... quite odd. The seats are wider by probably 4 inches or so, and the arm-rest is twice as wide, which makes "claiming" an armrest from your neighbor unnecessary and almost impossible.

The food.... ok, not great. The OJ is definitely better than Donald Duck. when asked for what I'd like for breakfast, I picked the poached egg with anda masala. It came in 2 courses... fruit plate and bread basket, and then the main course. The watermelon was a bit rubbery and full of seeds, and one of my grapes was a bit mush. The roll was good, and as a second round I had a croissant which was good. The main course I actually didn't eat much of. I had a single piece of chicken kabob, both because it felt/tasted very heavy, and for the fact I didn't want to struggle to get subsequent pieces off of the little stick. I didn't touch the lamb/mutton one at all. The egg was more hard-boiled than poached.

I had another glass of OJ, and the the FA take the rest. Along with the silverware, there as actually a packet with dental floss and a toothpick, but I didn't need it and forgot to bring it home.

The rest of the flight was basically spent sleeping as it was a 4-8AM local time flight.

Packed up quickly and was off for the walk through the DBX terminal.... which is vast. The DBX terminal is bigger than any other terminal that I've been in, and that includes London/Heathrow and CHI/Ohare, or maybe it seemed that way. They basically have a full shopping mall inside there. It was bustling in the morning, and all the shops were open. I was looking for a bit of junk food and found it in a pretty decent sized store that had everything from perfume to powdered milk. I picked up some Hunters(Pringles) and a couple containers of the little Kinder surprises for Lauren, hopefully I wouldn't squash them on the way home.

I sauntered through the rest of the terminal both to find my gate and a restroom. After finding a restroom, I was annoyed... there was a line. Apparently they designed it so that about 10 gates shared a single men's restroom. And inside were 3 stalls, no urinals. And of those three stalls, one was a stand/squat hole in the ground variety. My stomach wasn't doing great, but I bore through the 10 minute wait as there were about 6 people in front of me. The wait was patient, but I could hear some of the damage that was being done before me and it wasn't a pleasant wait.

There is tons of people waiting in the lounge-style chairs that are in the terminal, and very difficult to find an open seat. There is free wifi, so I sat, and attempted to make a VPN/sip call to bethy which didn't work out so well, but chat and a vid-cam feed from Hayward was good enough for about 20-30 minutes.

About 45 minutes before the flight, I piled into line and checked down into the gate.... 16 hours to go.

The final legs.....

Packed... ready to go.. i checked out of the hotel.

apparently with my stay, a ride to the airport is complimentary so I decided to ride in a relatively posh camry instead of the little Indica with my replacement driver.

He was driving really fast...... or so I thought. when I peeked over from the opposite back seat, it turns out that he was only going about 80km an hour, but being in city traffic for the last two weeks, we had never approached within 20km/hr of that.

settled into the car, as it was much bigger and roomier with leather seats and the works and dozed off for about 10 minutes on the way. the drive took about 45 minutes.

I got out of the car.... my driver grabbed a buggy for my 2 check-in bags and I mosied over to the check in counter to find with some relief that there are some benefits to checking in online.... a separate lane... which was empty. Gee... wonder why SFO can't have something like this.

After a brief scare that my large bag was 30kg, the porter pulled off my first check in bag to reveal that my big bag was only 20kg... no extra weight surcharge.

Then the check person uttered the word "upgrade" relative to my BNG-DBX leg. Sure... not the16 hour upgrade that I would have liked, but this is 4 hours more of Business Class than I had before.

I made my way to the security check in line, pulled out the 2 laptops and was ready to go through when the lady commented that I didn't have a bag tag on my backpack and that I had to go get one.... .fine... I'm here with time to spare and the line isn't that long.... 5 minutes later I've checked through a different line, only to see another security person make the same comment POST scanning, give the guy a tag, and send him on his way.... nice.

I have about 1000INR left in my pocket... which equates to probably about $20. Most of the stores here are all kinda crap... I would have been in trouble if there was somewhere that had some junk food to snack on, but alas... I guess that's not part of the culture. Besides, in 1:30, I'll be sitting in B-class and I should be able to get stuff to snack on.

unfortunately the connection quatlity here isn't good enough to make good voip calls, but I can still surf a little bit and settle down for one of the last blog entries of this trip.

It's been a great trip so far... a good mix of really cool and interesting experiences and challenges with work to give a satisfied and worthwhile feel to it all.

There is rattling around the contemplation that I really should spend more time in the area, and if JNPR will fund me being an expat to the area. I'm pretty sure it's out of the question, but before I ask, I'll make sure I clear it with the fam plans.

signing off till I reach dubai.....hopefully there will be some good food or stuff on the flight.

A Slumdog moment?

after quite a few delays, we headed out from the office to try and do some shopping/power browsing. I say power-browsing in that I have a good idea of range of things that I'm looking for, but I'm still browsing.

We end up pulling in the the bottom parking structure of mall. Mall in the sense that it is probably about a 7-story commercial building that has shops inside. To be clear, they don't have anything near the glitz or glamour of a Valley Faire. We pay Rps 30 to park and hop out of the car.

Sachin says "hey... do you want to go to a temple?" I kinda shrug, but realize that I've not really done anything during my time that is associated with the local culture or religion unless you consider the faith that I've expressed in local society as part of my recent travels. There is some sign that says something about a temple... so I go... begrudgingly... I'm a bit tired already and really want to get going.

So this mall, is in the very congested part of the city, off of a main thoroughfare of a road. The pathway is linked to a portion of the underground parking structure of this mall. we walk around this very narrow path and come to something akin to a turnstyle where we need to pay a small amount of money for entrance, I don't remember how much, maybe Rs. 60 total(maybe $1.30 US).

Then there is the shoe check... don't know if you have seen slumdog millionaire, but the little kids in the movie make money off of stealing shoes from temples and reselling them. I think about it for a moment, and I'm planning on dumping my shoes after another day's wear anyway, but giving up my shoes now is not in my plans.

Whatever... fine.. here take them....

a wash station for the hands(no soap), and we funnel through what feels like an amusement park ride with serpetining railings to handle crowds. then there is a narrow corridor with some interesting animatronics in glass cases that go over the different religions or gods? I don't recall as much of my asian american studies class as I should.

Then we wind around to a big open space... and there is this HUGE 40 ft statue. Sachin soooorta got a shot of it, but there was a guy coming after us for having a camera, which we paid extra to bring in, but Sachin apparently managed to lose the ticket in the last 5 minutes, so we didn't get a good shot.














What there is in the background, is roughly a 40 ft tall statue... right in the middle of downtown, access through the underground parking lot of a mall.

Weird.

After a couple minutes, we filed on past and went to pick up our shoes........ successfully.

Not necessarily a typical religious experience, but in place of driving 3-4 hours each way on the weekend to Mysore, this will do just fine.

Traffic.... adventures

A subject long overdue to blog about.....

Described by another as being very much like and aquarium..... all the fishes go, and manage to get there without bumping into each other, but it looks like utter chaos. "Lane discipline" as they call it is virtually nonexistent, even in the rare occasion that there are lines. It's not uncommon for cars to be mere inches away from each other. When cars do settle to a stop for one reason or another, the gaps between the cars are quickly filled in by the constant swarm of mopeds, motorcycles, and three-wheelers.

for the past week and a half, my driver's name has been Jagadish, pronounced so quickly that sometimes it sounds like Jignesh. For the first week, he wore all white, the second week he wore what looks like acid-washed jeans, but still the same white shirt(and very possibly the same white shirt day after day).


I spent at minimum an hour a day with him, 30 minutes in to work, and 30 minutes back to the hotel. Likely another hour with him as he carted me around for lunch, between buildings, shopping etc.

The little white car is called an Indica. 4 doors, small trunk, right hand drive, I think it was 5 speeds, but I don't know if he really even used 4th gear. I think it's 2 cylinders but am not sure. I think the max speed that we ever reached wasn't much higher than 60km/hr.

He wasn't a bad singer, and I didn't mind the hindi music that he would listen to from time to time. I had a considerable amount of trust in him in that I would often sleep on the way into the office, and sleep on the way home after my exhausted days..... or not, because likely if you are reading this, then you know I'm capable of sleeping in just about any situation.

tonight as thursday night was my last night with him... he is going to his hometown tomorrow and I'll be getting someone different as a driver. We were coming back from a mall from me attempting to do some shopping, and he was driving slightly more aggressive than usual, but... as you know my driving habits a little bit, I didn't mind a bit.

I saw it start, but as it has been well over a week of being used to lots of swerving, honking, and filling in of holes, it was nothing really different. This time it was 2 buses. Jagadish was driving a bit more on the aggressive side... darting in and our, closing gaps... being even more generous with the horn than usual. I thought I saw a smile cracked on his face a couple times as he was busting some crazy moves in traffic, and it meant that I was going to get back to my room a little faster so I had nothing to object to.

2 large buses were side by side for a while, and then staggered... Jagadish was behind one, and apparently the road was going to narrow, so he was hugging the back bumper of one while the one on the left started to give way. The driver of the bus, in typical form, honked his horn to signal that he was there, and was expecting Jagadish to give way. In response, Jagadish honked his horn repeatedly and maintained his position. This horn bantering went on for about 5-10 seconds as a game of chicken seemed to be evolving, with a large bus in front, us in the small white car, and another bus trying to squeeze in from the right. Eventually, Jagadish gave way, and dropped back, letting the bus on the right merge in behind the other bus. Jagadish, also in typical form, found a couple holes as darted forward, filling in a gap as traffic continued to flow.

After about 30 seconds, apparently Jagadish managed to squeeze his way ahead of the bus which we had the horn altercation with. The bus was following closely, but not something that was immediately noticeable as traffic was crawling at about 10-15km/hr. But I noticed the demeanor of Jagadish's driving had changed. There were gaps in front of us that weren't aggressively being closed. There was a gap to our left where an occasional 2-wheeler would squirt past the bus, and traffic was flowing a little bit faster than us on the right. Jagadish was also driving a bit nervously... looking back into his rear view mirror every few seconds. I glimpsed backwards angularly, not wanting to be blinded by the headlights behind, and did notice that the bus was in close proximity, but again, we weren't moving that fast so it wasn't something out of the ordinary.

This continued on for about 3-4 minutes with traffic continuing to flow around us. I was contemplating saying something to him, but I'm the stranger here... and maybe they do things differently.


Nope.


all the sudden a guy appears on the passenger side, and starts yelling at Jagadish... followed by another guy on the drivers side, yelling at him.... the guy from the left side comes around to the right side and joins in the yelling. there is some yelling back and forth and for some reason Jagadish rolls down his window and a shove comes through... then another... more yelling and the guys disappear behind the car. Jagadish gets out of the car and pops the trunk open...

I'm sitting tight.... I had heard that altercations like this happen where the drivers get out, gesture at each other, shout and curse, and then end up getting back into their respective vehicles and drive away.

I turn around as Jagadish rummages through the trunk and pulls something out as the two guys are near the bus behind us.... Jagadish pulls something out and holds it over his head as he is going to swing it down in an aggressive manner. there are no apparently 4 people out of the bus, but not the bus driver.... apparently all these people were really pissed that Jagadish was holding up traffic.

There is some scuffling as the altercation moved to the side of the road. No one is really grappled to the road, but it is clear that it is a 2 on 1. No real punches are thrown, but people are jockying for position, and grappling with each other. What I thought(or would have expected in the states) to be a person holding a phone, trying to call the police was actually a guy holding his phone so that he could get the action recorded on his camera-phone. Along the way, someone came up to the car and pulled the car keys out of the ignition! At this point, I wasn't sure what the heck to do... was my driver even going to be alive in the next 5 minutes?

this lasted for about 2 minutes, when a guy wearing a police vest showed up and continued into the shouting and finger pointing mix. I noticed that the other bus pulled up along side the one behind us, had its door open, and there was yelling and screaming out of that bus as well. Being that the road wasn't that wide, the two buses parallel effectively stopped all traffic on the road.

I wasn't sure what to do. They certainly weren't paying any attention to me, which was a good thing as far as I was concerned, but the health and safety of my driver and my subsequent ability to get back to my hotel was an item of concern. I was a stranger in a strange land, unsure of what to do, what to say... so I stayed put. I wasn't sure what benefits the security of this little car would provide me, but I certainly didn't need to willfully give it up.

The finger pointing and yelling continued with the presence of the police officer, until what I think happened is the buses started to move. all of the people who got off took notice of this fact, and as much as I think they wanted to have it out with my driver, they too wanted to go wherever they were headed, and ran to jump on the bus.

With his assailants gone, Jagadish, shirt open, returned to the trunk and put the jack back into the car. At this time I asked him if he was ok, which he nodded in response to, and then I told him "someone took the car keys." He closed up the trunk, came around the side of the car, and saw that the keys were missing. At which point, he ran after the bus and hopped on it!

great.... here I am ... alone, in a car, with no driver and no keys... so I'm watching the bus... hoping that he can get his keys back.

about 100-150yds down the road I see Jagadesh hop out of the bus and walk back to the car..... with the keys in hand.... whew

He gets back in... settles himself, starts the car and off we go.

5 minutes later, we pull into the front of the hotel with him apologizing profusely for the situation. I ask him for the paper that I need to sign, and then for him to get out of the car so that I can take a picture(above). I thank him for his help for the past couple of weeks, give him a cash gift, and he's on his way.

I'll seriously be surprised if I see Jagadesh again.... 1 in a country of 1B people. He saved me untold time in his taking of various backroads and short cuts, and a real thrill to be in the car with as he zips around the streets of Bangalore. and my experience with him certainly ended wit ha bang.

Bangalore is a crazy interesting place.. .and this is just one of the crazy experiences of this trip.

Being away....

So the thrill and the business of being here in Bangalore has been hectic.... the combination of being able to talk twice a day, and see Lauren over video cam has been incredible and I don't know how I would have done without it.

On tuesday during lunch, the feeling of being distant finally set in, and I've been ready to go home since. This is a great and incredible place, and again, with the exception of the travel time and being away from family, this is a great place to be, but I'm far from home and I miss things.

as of right now... 3:40PM on thursday, with about 36 hours to go, I have a weird anxiety that I haven't felt for about 16 years.

when I was just out of high school.... I was lucky enough to go on a trip to europe with my uncle, aunt, and two cousins.... It was a great and memorable trip, but after 10 days, I was also ready to come home. so much so, that during the 13 hour flight from Amsterdam to SFO, as much as I tried, as much as I wanted, i couldn't sleep. upon gathering our stuff at SFO, and piling into the car, I settled in, and was asleep before we pulled from the curb.

i'm starting to get that same feeling.

I have some gifts that I hope people will love and appreciate.
I'm more eager than ever to see my wife and little girl.
I long to play with my two funny cats at home.

and I'm afraid all of this will result in an anxious inability to sleep on the plane and rest appropriately to let me enjoy these things when I have the first opportunity in 2 weeks.

I'll try...

the Thai adventure

Last night I was beat.... tired.....

After a day I knew was going to be interesting because of challenges with work... went in... was unsuccessful in contacting our vendor... and then went to go visit another partner that we do outsourcing to.

Spent some time there, met lots of people, talked about what I had in store for my group and where the data centers were heading towards, and then took them out to a nice lunch.

Meanwhile... things were going south for the colo project.... fortunately, Reliance was right around the corner from where I had lunch, and I made a stop on in and I talked to their big boss of the area...about the challenges with the project and what needed to be done to clear things up and make sure there was good communication moving forward.

After that.. that brought us back to the office at about 4:20... check email.. .and then talk to another internal person about data centers, what help I would need from him and his group, and what I hoped DCIS could provide in the coming months and years.

and that took me to almost 6..... then my guy wanted to be dropped off first on the way back to the hotel till almost 7:30 due to rainy traffic.


so..... I was tired... alone.... didn't really want to go out and forrage for food...and had heard that the thai restaurant in the hotel was supposed to be very good.

It was drizzling a bit so I walked on through... took a look at the menu to see if the things that I wanted were on there... then proceeded to ask for the lonely table for one. It was a quaint little restaurant with a bit of a tiki feel. set on top of a small body of water, wicker chairs with nice cushions to go with the white tablecloth setting.

I started with a drink which was something called a blush.... I realized after I got it in a martini glass that it was pink, and probably a chick drink. Lychee juice and pineapple? I don't remember, but it was pretty good.

I ordered what I would have ordered out of our favorite places in the US... Tom Kah, and yellow currey.

the Tom Kah came, and it was quite tastey.. a little more creamy than I'm used to, and definitely more creamy and sweeter than my biggest goose would have liked, but it was pretty good nonetheless. It had a considerable amount of foliage in there which I didn't take, and just left it in the bowl.

So... it was rainy on the way in... and I knew since leaving the office, that there were some storms going on.... lightning flashes on the horizon, but I couldn't tell where they were coming from, or hear the thunder over he din of the city.

all the sudden .... a creaking and a crashing to my right... I had been a little desensitized by the fact that the city is loud, the kitchen was loud, and the thunder and lightning were loud as well.

A large branch of a tree, what I could only estimate as probably 3-400 lbs of foliage crashed down on top of our side of the building and in the water adjacent to the restaurant. bits and pieces of the tree and branches scattered through bits of the restaurant and caused quite a stir.

I was not next to the area, but somehow ended up on my feet regardless.

After about 10 minutes, then I settled back down to my meal.... yellow curry with prawns and pineapple, and a side of rice. Not really what I was expecting, but luckily I wasn't that hungry either. the waiter scooped me some rice, and poured 2 scoops of the curry over the rice. I took a bite, and was met again with a lot of folliage.. and it was a little bit spicy as well. Maybe my appetite was shaken a little bit by the commotion, but the food just wasn't really what I was hoping it would be.

I signed for the bill, staggered up to my room... and settled on in... exhausted.

My troops are down and probably out...

I think whatever troops I've had that help me deal with food from the states are down and likely out. I think the food on friday dealt them a liquifying blow.

i've tried to bolster them recently with some meds, but hopefully this will run its course into a solid defense soon. Until then, I'll shoot for the bland side of food.

I tried last night as I went to a Ruby Tuesday for the first time(we don't have these on the west coast), but the food was only soso....

Hopefully today will show some signs of solidity.