San Francisco - there's something about the city

There's something about the city. There's something about driving into the city in the morning for work. The air is crisp. The breeze is nippy. There's an almost palpable excitement in the atmosphere. I love the first view of the city from 280 when I'm on my way to the Marina bay. My adrenalin pumps every morning without fail. Feels like progress. Feels like a million bucks.

I will miss the city, when our San Francisco office moves to Belmont completely in the next couple of months. The next work trip to the US will not be as exciting.

The Mysore Tourney Aug 15th-16th, 2009

http://chennaiultimatefrisbee.com/?p=74

Kaushal who recently moved back to Chennai from Seattle talks about the two big differences he notices in Indian Ultimate in comparison to Ultimate in the US.

Mondams gives a good account of the tournament from the Chakraa teams perspective.

Ripped out heart? It's still alive!

My alma mater North Carolina State University has done some amazing work. The Mechanical Department (yes.. the same place I used to be a research assistant) has recreated a tiny bit of God's magic, by keeping a heart beating outside the body! Pretty awesome stuff. Take a look at the video below..



More info at
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/03/nc-state-gurus-keep-hearts-beating-outside-of-the-body/

Boulder ranks once again as top city for quality of life in the US!

I miss Boulder! :-(

http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/107039/Top-American-Towns-to-Live-Well;_ylt=AiVU4Q4grQ8korVteXowdn9O7sMF

A different side of Ultimate

Something I didn't know even though I started playing Ultimate in the US. Maybe it exists at higher competitive levels. I played at newbie levels.


http://www.nerve.com/dispatches/zagoria/catchandrelease/

Hahaha! Join the club!

This has to be the funniest thing I've read in a long time!

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/07/porn-industry-seeks-federal-bailout/#more-34724

Frisbee Facts - 1

Did you know?

In the U.S, Frisbees outsell footballs, baseballs and basketballs combined.

Nice read

One of my friends showed me this blog she'd been reading for a while now. This is the blog of someone who has also moved back to India after being a while in the US.

Pretty good stuff. I like her style of writing. Found her posts on "I'm getting married" very cool.. Check them out here.

A must read.. the entire section above.

Su - whoever you are.. it's amazing how you can admit to yourself and to the world outside about how exactly you feel. It takes a lot of guts and I guess that's why you are appreciated so much! :-)

[Edit] Loved this post on One life, two scenarious. Hahahaha! Come on you desis.. I'm willing to bet that there aren't any of you who haven't thought about this!! Admit it!

[Edit 2] Also enjoyed reading the following posts (titles paraphrased by me :-P)
Then and now..
Embarrassed to admit that I"m not single anymore
Would you like to join me for a walk? I'm headed that way?

Presentation went well..

I landed at the hotel where the conference was being held with about 45 min to spare, a laptop bag in which I had luckily stashed away a shirt and a razor. I checked in, ran up, quickly shaved, and changed to the one shirt I had. Ran down, just in time to watch catch the prelude to my presentation take off. After this, I was put on stage along with my colleague. This year I've been entrusted with revenue targets and so, as part of that foray, I have to train sales and field engineers. This presentation was the first of the many to follow, in trying to get buy-in from the field engineers. There were about 250 of them at the conference. Into the 2nd slide of my presentation, I was caught off-guard by a couple of questions, and then proved to have made a mistake. I accepted the mistake, and went on to put up more credible information/numbers over the next couple of slides. This finally got their attention, and then valuable feedback/constructive criticism started flowing in. Executing on the current revenue goal for me this year on a product which is relatively new to the target market segment, will be like going through an entire Marketing course for me. Starting from Marketing 101 to Marketing 999 :-). Learning the ropes of dealing with the product lines, application engineers, sales, customers and competition will be a great experience.

Apart from this stuff.. I've been noticing other stuff that I'd forgotten about the US!
a) How large a one-person serving can be at restaurants
b) What is "switch-on" position in any other country, is "switch-off" in the US for all switches.
c) Water fountains.. haven't found this anywhere else I've visited so far.

I also realize that I do miss the US in a lot of ways. It has become part of me in some ways. The amazing roads, the superb cars, the traffic handling, Bagels, pancakes, etc.

Back to the US

This week brings me to Seattle, San Jose and possibly Atlanta. It has been exactly 2 years since I left the US and set base in India. An internal company conference takes me back to the US over the next 2 weeks. I sit now on my flight to the US and type this post out!

One advice to everyone.. avoid flying out of Delhi International Airport like the PLAGUE! It was a nightmare. I had flown in to Delhi from Ahmadabad after the Ultimate Frisbee tournament. First, it's a 20 min ride taxi ride from the domestic terminal to the International terminal which costs Rs. 150 (why can't they have shuttles regular enougH?). Next, the whole international terminal is utter chaos! I stood about 35 min in line to get into the airport with ONE person checking everyone's tickets and passport! Next I spend 25 min waiting for my check-in baggage to be scanned. Then, I try and find the North West counter and that takes me another 15 min because there are no boards, and when I finally found someone to give me directions to it, it took me another 10 min to get there. There was no place to move my baggage in the direction I wanted to move! There were people moving all across the airport bumping into each other. Finally, I had to lift the baggage on my head and walk over. When I reached the NW check-in counter, to my dismay, I found to my dismay that there were about 85 people ahead of me. 40 min of wait later, I'm checked-in and I have my boarding pass in my hand. Next, I go stand in the immigrations line which took the LONGEST time! (Btw.. anyone ever figured out why only in India we have immigrations for going OUT of the country??). Geez.. we have a population crisis out here.. they should be glad that people are leaving the country.. infact, they should be paying people to leave! :-P. Anyways, I stood for the next 50 min in this line to get my immigration cleared. Just when I thought everything was over, the kind lady behind me reminded me that I still have security to clear. Another 15 min later, I clear security. I have exactly 10 min to get to my flight. I run and find that they're boarding. 10 more min wait, and then I'm finally seated in the flight. So, a grand total of 20+35+25+15+10+40+50+15 = grand total of 3 hours and 20 min almost! Heck, I could've flown back to Chennai from A'bad and then taken an international flight out!
From Delhi to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Detroit and now Detroit to Seattle, I am slowly reminded of my first flight 7 years ago to the US. My mental frame of mind during these flights reminds me SO much of my 2001 flight to the US! A feeling of emptiness, a feeling of having no purpose, a feeling of no enjoyment of what I'm doing. Every one of those flights was delayed, and I ended up running from flight to flight and barely made it on time! The last one was the closest, and I cleared immigration and arrived at the check-in counter with only 20 min to spare. They said that there is no way they could get me to Seattle on the next flight. So, I had to opt to let them fly my baggage on the next flight, and make a dash for the flight to get myself on board. I have a presentation to make at Seattle at 5.00pm and my flight lands there only at 3.00pm. I could not afford to take the next flight which will reach Seattle at 7.00pm. The primary purpose of my US trip would've been lost!
During this journey, I was reminded of some of the quirks in the United States. One, my flight from Amsterdam to the US, for the first time in 2 years, I had to ask for Water / Orange juice "without ice" :-). For the first time in a long time, I had to remove my belt and shoes for security checks. For the first time in 2 years, I had to be "finger printed" for entry into a country. For the first time in 2 years, I'm on a flight in which majority of the people ask for aerated drinks as opposed to fruit juices.
Thinking forward, the next 2 weeks in the US will be reminding me a lot of my past life :-). I'm meeting my ex-roommate and a bunch of NCSU classmates in Seattle. I will also be meeting my ex-salsa partner. I hope to meet with my other ex-roommate in San Jose next week and ofcourse, my cousins and nephews/nieces in the Bay Area. Nostalgia seeps in at the thought of Left-hand drives, automatics and high-speeds. I'm reminded of my super-car which sadly is no more today!
I await the next 2 weeks with mixed feelings. Mixed feelings of familiarity, feelings of alien-ness, excitement, nostalgia, and sadness. Now, gotta put them aside for a while. My travel agents screwed up and now I don't have a rental care in Seattle.. a taxi will have to do for now. Also, gotta go shave on the plane, wear the shirt I managed to stow-away on my laptop bag, and get ready for the presentation that I have to deliver in another 3 hours. 250 sales/FAE await to tear my presentation apart or be inspired by it enough to want to sell the product I will be marketing over the next year..

More later..

Waa.. I want a Wii

There are sometimes I regret not being in the US. This is one such time.

I found a couple of awesome demo videos of the Nintendo Wii on YouTube. It's amazing!

Being an Innovator/Early Adopter.. I feel inadept/handicapped right now! :-(

Check out these awesome videos.

Avalanche in Colorado!

My friends GB and JS were travelling to Winter Park and they missed this avalanche by 3 min. GB sure thanks his stars for hitting the snooze button in the morning! A huge avalanche near the Berthoud pass swept cars off the US-40 highway and sent them spinning down the steep slopes almost 300 feet. The avalanche also buried the cars and everything in its path under 15 feet of snow almost.

Everyone associates driving in the mountains and going to the ski resorts through high country and passes with a lot of beauty and thrills. I have always felt nervous especially when driving through one of those passes. These passes usually get a LOT more snow than the rest of the mountain ranges because of the altitude they are in. Throughout the year barring peak summer, these passes always get snow. So, when we hear about the blizzard that hit Denver and neighboring areas which dumped about 3 feet of snow, then you can only imagine how much snow the passes must've got overnight. When one of the ledges of snow near the peaks give way when the sun shines later, its avalanche time!

Don't forget to check out the video footage of the avalanche posted in that article on CNN!

My pretties.

Time sure does fly!
My nieces at Colorado.

Salsaville featured!

Activecities.com carried a small feature on Eric Freeman (my Salsa guru) and his dance school Salsaville. Pretty cool video! The bunch of people shown dancing are the people who I learnt my Salsa with. Anyone who watches this video will easily be able to appreciate how good Eric is, at teaching Salsa. Kudos!

Click here to watch this small 7 min demo clip on him..
http://activecitiesusa.com/?q=node/69

Sigh.. Nostalgia.

Back to slogging it out for my @!#$!@# exams!

NC State & Maitri

Recently, SepiaMutiny carried an article on NC State and Maitri and a question on American hospitality towards International Students.

Well, I'm back in India now, and I am studying in an institution which has a few international students. I think about our hospitality to them, and I would say that we as Indians as a community are far far behind the Americans in terms of hospitality and foreign-friendly practices towards International Students.

All this talk about NC State, Maitri and 9/11 puts me in a nostalgic mood now! Good old days at NC State! No money, no job, but we all had a great time there. Each one of us were our own support system in a foreign land!

Remembering 9/11

Wow. Time does fly! It's already been 5 years now since it happened!

I sit back now and think about it, I can still remember that day very vividly. It had been about a month and a half since I landed in the US. College had started on Aug 20th and so I was about 2 weeks into the semester.

September 11th, 2001 started late for me. It was about 10.30am when I was rudely woken up by loud banging on my front door. Groggy and irritated, I ran downstairs. (Yes, we were students and we were living in a town house! Ah! The pleasures of living in North Carolina). I opened the door to find my neighbour Deepak almost slamming his feet into my chest. He exclaims loudly "Machan.. apparantly there's been some bombings up north in Washington, NY and a lot of other areas. Everyone is in a state of panic, so just call home and tell them you're fine."
Okay.. now what do I do? I don't have a calling card. I don't have TV to find out what the heck is going on. I don't have a computer to mail my parents. So, I take my sweet time to get ready.. and then I walk to the AFC (Avent Ferry Complex, the nearest computer lab, which is about a mile away). I still am no wiser when I walk into the lab. I leave an offline message with my parents telling them not to worry and that I'm safe n sound (from what?? I still don't know!). Then, I start reading the news on CNN and they have a developing story on what the heck is happening. It's only then I understand the full magnitude of what happened. I catch a few 5 second clips on the dust and smoke, but thats about it.
The next few days in America were hell I think for most non-Americans. There was a lot of hostility in general towards foreigners in America. We got a few reports of Indian students (mainly Sardhars) being the brunt of some violence all across America. It was the work of a few misguided souls who couldn't tell the difference between a Sikh and a Taliban turban! I remember one of my Surdi classmates was shit scared of walking back alone in the nights from the AFC. Understandably so.
The days passed by, and then almost 5 years later, I move back to India. I was watching the Discovery Channel on evening, and there they had a recap of the whole incident. It was then that I realized, that I had never actually seen the actual clip of the planes flying into the Twin Towers! None of us back at NC State had a TV at that point of time and caught up with the whole rat-race to find a part-time job/assistantship on campus! Blame it on the PIGS (Poor Indian Graduate Student) syndrome!

Anyway, what happened after this incident is history. The economy which was already reeling from the dot.com bust, was just pummelled further to the ground by 9/11. It is one of those economy shocks we read about in our Global Economics course. Heavy security restrictions was imposed on all foreign nationals. They put in a new tracking system (SEVIS) to keep track of foreign students. NC State came up with some wierd ass interpretation of the new rules for international-students to maintain their F1 status. What a pain it was!

Today, I read about a bunch of US professors from all across the country claiming that the entire 9/11 incident was an inside job.

Professor Jones said it was impossible for the Twin Towers to have collapsed in the way they did from the collision of two planes.

He says jet fuel does not burn at temperatures high enough to melt steel beams and claims horizontal puffs of smoke seen during the collapse of the towers are indicative of controlled explosions used to bring down the towers.

W T F ?

Ofcourse, I read the article on Times of India (yeah.. that tabloid :-P), so I really don't know how true this is! It might just be one of those conspiracy theories.

My pretty's pretty!

Kavia... born Aug 15th @ 3.59pm. Wish I could've been there!



Previous related post : Farewell, my pretty!

Best places in the US to live in..

CNN money's 2006 list of 100 best places to live in the US is here.

CNN Top 100: Best places to live in the US

Every year for the last 4 years, North Carolina or Colorado has figured in the top spot. I'm sure glad to have lived in both places. Hopefully, India will figure in such a list very soon!

Santa Fe trip..

New Mexico, the state that lies to the south of Colorado. I've been eyeing it for quite sometime now. Finally got a chance to make a trip down there.. My cousin and her family were making a trip down there and I decided to join them. It was a very short trip.. considering that we left only on Friday evening and we were back on Sunday night. The drive was about 450 miles and would have normally been a 7 hour drive atleast (one way). But, thanks to some expert speed driving for half the distance by one Mr. M (ahem! Me!), we got there in a little over 5 and a half hours. (This inspite of having to make a pit stop for dinner and about 2 ten minute pit stops for my 9 month old niece when she started getting restless in her car seat).
Destination Santa Fe!

The landscape in New Mexico was very similar to the south west Colorado region which I had seen in my trip to Durango & Cortez, just a couple of weeks back. The ground was made mostly of very soft Sand Stone. I guess the same kind of soil must exist in the northern part of Arizona (the adjoining state). Probably why the Colorado River must be able to erode so much to form the Grand Canyons.

The downtown section of Santa Fe has very different achitectural buildings. There is a very strong mix of Mexican/Native Indian/Spanish influence on the architecture. Very earthern colours.. very earthern architecture. Here are some pics from the trip..

Pictures of the downtown area. A lot of the architecture involves clay and sand.
For some reason, red pepper (chilli to us Indians) is very famous here.. It is displayed all over the place.. Huge garlands of shocking red pepper! Probably one of the staple crop in this part of the country?
Hot sauce may be one of NM's speciality.. But still, calling it Pure Poison??	This one's even funnier.. Professor Payne Indeass's Butt Blazin' Recipe #3 Wimp Retardant X-Hot Sauce. LOL!
Santa Fe had the best Mexican food I've tasted so far. New Mexico in general is supposed to have authentic Mexican food, and in proportionate quantities.. (unlike their Americanized versions). This particular corn soup is THE best soup I've ever tasted in my life.

Mark Knopfler at the Red Rock Amphitheatre...

Mark Knopfler framed against the glowering red rocks..

Throw in a good musician and a good concert arena together and the audience will usually have a good time. When the musician happens to be Mark Knopfler, and the arena happens to be the Red Rocks Amphitheatre.. we're talking only in superlatives here. It was MIND BLOWING! Mark Knopfler was GOD on his guitar, and the Red Rock Amphitheatre was heaven last Tuesday! This is one of the best concerts I've been to in my life.. and I should say it was totally worth the 80 bucks spent on it.

This is probably a good opportunity for me to talk a bit about the Red Rocks Amphitheatre. It is one of the most famous concert arenas in the world. It is unique in that it is an accoustically perfect, naturally formed amphitheatre up in the Rocky Mountains. The stage is set in a gorge. The audience are seated on the sides of a mountain looking down into the gorge. There are two gigantic walls of streaked red rocks on either side of the amphitheater which act as perfect accoustic reflecters enriching the audience to the sound coming from the gorge. The high rise buildings of Denver provide the back drop when you look far beyond the mountains into the plains. A perfect setting for a superb concert.

Here are a few pictures from one of my previous visits to this place.. and some from the concert itself.

This is the way to the North East parking lot of the Arena.. through the rock.
The gigantic left and right walls of the concert arena. Two huge slabs of red rocks which give the arena its perfect accoustics.
At the concert..
A view of the arena from the stage..