TJ's Kaleidoscope

A Dozen Travel Observations

In a follow-up to my last post about my travel experiences to India back in 2006, this one talks about the journey I took in 2009. It turns out, my iPhone wasn't completely useless, given I had it with me at all times, I just jotted down things as they came to me. Of course, the standard caveat that these are my interpretations and observations.

1. I blame Hollywood for two things: every time an English man says "Hello" expecting him to say "poppet" right after, and second, hearing airport announcements in the English accent and thinking I'm at the Umbrella corporation.
2. Mobile technology in India is booming and yet very different. The iPhone doesn't turn heads here. This does.
3. The Delhi smog has a charcoal smell to it, the type you get from an earthen kiln. The LA smog does not prepare you for it. Don't worry, you'll get used to it pretty quickly.
4. Crossing a street in Delhi is like playing real-life Frogger.
5. In Delhi some of the best food are in hole-in-the-wall joints. Word of advice, don't try and convince the chef to cough up the recipe. Relish the memory and move on.
6. If you want to enjoy all the sights and sounds, expect to get sick. You're not from the area and the local microbes know that. Pop in a couple of broad-spectrum antibiotics, and you're as good as gold.
7. When in queues, the notion of personal space ceases to exist. Queues for that matter cease to exist.
8. In Delhi, like LA, the automated flush will go off while you're still using it.
9. Anthony Bourdain is right, you'll always like the food you loved as a child. I will always love rajma-chawal.
10. Indian food is a lot better in India, but Glenfiddich & coke tastes the same, unless it's Glenfiddich and Thums up which is exquisite.
11. There's something very magnetic about the sound of evening prayers rising above the city din.
12. LAX needs a face lift bad.

Quote of the Day

You can observe a lot just by watching.

                                             --Yogi Berra

Update:

One of the anonymous feedback I received on my post about resolutions was the use of the word irregardless. The sentence has now been rewritten.

Some Things Can’t Change?

This is how a station looks at 5:30 AM in the morning when you’ve missed your train by two minutes. Reducing personal tardiness would be a good goal for 2009 don’t you think?

Quote of the Day:

Dost thou love life? Then waste not time; for time is the stuff that life is made of.

                                                               --Benjamin Franklin

Looking Forward, Leaning Back

Judging solely by my December experiences, I’d be lying if I didn’t look at 2009 with apprehension. This past month has taught me a lot, yet few of those lessons have come in a palatable form. In fact, I would argue that 2008 has been a year of tests, tests, and more tests. Some I passed, some I failed, and some I ignored. However, I look to 2009 with a renewed sense of optimism and hope. The trials of the past year were part of growing, and growth is a non-linear process. Seldom products of choice, challenges are the boot camp that test our beliefs and will. In the new year may we continue to have the courage to meet them head-on.

My dad told me many moons ago (he too has since forgotten he told me this): think with your brain, act on your feet, react with your wit and relax on your misses. As our engines rev up for 2009, let’s look forward to the new year with curiosity, wonder, humor, and hope and may it bring us all peace and prosperity.

Quote of the Day

I’ll let my favorite Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip be the quote of the day

Merry Christmas

If you’re one of the sixty odd readers of this site, or just happened to stumble upon this blog, Merry Christmas to you and to all.

(Above: our home Christmas tree)

Quote of the Day

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.

                                                                      --Agnes M. Pharo

Little Pleasures

Old fashioned vanilla frozen yogurt, mixed nuts on the bottom, middle, and top and a generous sprinkling of sunshine. One of life's joys.

Quantum of Solace

I wonder what’s the quantum of solace, the approaching train that takes me to work like clock work everyday, or the the sunlight sneaking past the clouds reminding us all that a new day has arrived.

(I know I’m stealing a now clichéd line, but I never claimed to be original!)

Quote of the Day

Keep your head up,

cause a new day will come,

and look to the sun,

even when the darkness shall come.

                                   --Wycleff Jean “New Day”

Starting the week

For what promises to be a packed week, one can still time to enjoy the small things.

Welcome Back

Who? Me of course!

In the quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I’ve gotten way behind in my efforts to share this pursuit. I was going to keep up this trend until my friend Komal called me out on it. So Komal, thanks for kicking my butt into gear.

I won’t blog about the whole slew of events since my last post, I will say that I ‘downgraded’ to Windows XP and have seen my productivity improve. For example, I can easily publish pictures to my blog without wrestling with Vista’s clunky interface. For this post, I’ll leave you with pictures from my first Angels game to which I was invited to by Tarak & Priya (below). I also took a video of the fireworks, which turned out to be the highlight of the evening given the Angels lost miserably.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little background about Tarak. Tarak and I have known each other for about six years now, we both joined IBM about the same time (via different recruiting pools), and left IBM around the same time (for different reasons). Over the years, we’ve used each other as sounding boards for ideas & issues, both professional and personal. As for Priya, she’s the charming woman who puts up with him and also happens to be his wife.

Here’s the fireworks video

 

Thought of the Day:

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

                                                                  --Mark Twain

The Angel Ring

Below, the view of the Angel stadium from the grimy view from my train seat on the way home. You can also see the reflection of my laptop. Something about bright lights lighting up the night sky that doesn't get old, much like looking at a giant majestic train whiz by...

Chasing the Light

Every evening, at 4 PM, Lucky the VOIP dog comes to my desk to chase the rays of light reflecting off the surrounding buildings. It can get annoying especially when he starts attacking your feet, but then how can you get mad at something that looks as you like that?

Take me to the ball game

Angels versus the twins at the Angel stadium.

The Big Three O

So, I turned thirty this Saturday. I was trying to keep it low key, in fact, I tried to mask it as Dan's birthday and celebrate on August 9, but it turned out we'd be celebrating on mine. I dragged my feet a bit, with the result 95% of the plan came together in the last two days. All in all the celebration was a good one, between being tricked into eating a pound of chicken, singing my heart out to the tune of Rhinestone Cowboy, and testing my body's limit to withstand alcohol. Many thanks to the ones who came, and apologies for the last minute invites.
So how do I feel getting thirty? Well, some things that I wanted, didn't really happen, and yet many things I never imagined happened. All in all, it has been a nice ten years. As Chad put it, you have to look it from a macro perspective, if you look at every tiny goal, you're bound feel disappointed, but you also have to look at it from the macro level. So looking from a big picture, I think it's been a good run. As is usual, most of the disappointments have been that of schedule. Things that I expected to have achieved by thirty are taking longer than I expected, tamed mainly by more realistic expectations. So here's to the next ten years, to achieving what I deserve, and sharing what I achieve.

Speaking of low key, it would have been tough to keep a low key. Facebook already is treating me differently, from meeting "young singles" their micro marketing ads have switched to "Mature Singles" Man! how time flies!

 

Quote of the Day

Three-zero. Older than my Dad was when I was born. Older than Napoleon was when he ... did something that was probably extremely impressive at the time – I’m not a historian. 

                                           --tick, tick...BOOM!

And How the Dots Connect

One of the more frequent commentators on my blog other than Dan (who by far has the most comments on my blog) is Kartik Agaram. Kartik and I go way back when we were nerdy geeks at our high-school: K.V. Picket. In addition to being army brats, we had quite a bit in common, from our affinity for gathering nerdy information to playing chess during breaks. Kartik was a bigger chess fan than I, for unlike me, he could play entire games by simply using chess notation. This skill came in very handy during class for while the teachers thought he was taking notes, he was in fact plotting out entire strategies.

We also were suckers for good prose, though I would suggest that he's better with the pen than me. One time both our contributions to the school journal got published the same month. My poem barely made it to the last page while his entire essay length piece was a featured article.

We went our ways  until I stumbled upon him finishing his PhD at University of Texas Austin. He has since gone on to reject a job offer from Google to co-found VentureHacks about the same time that I left a promising career at IBM to join Callfire. Looking forward back when we were fifteen, I would never have guessed that life would lead us to somewhat similar points in life fifteen years later. Yet here we are, in the land of opportunity, two geeky kids, with similar backgrounds, trying to make meaning in this world, in somewhat similar ways.

 Quote of the Day

As you journey through life take a minute every now and then to give a thought for the other fellow. He could be plotting something.

                                                                  --Hagar The Horrible

The Benefits of a Good Work Environment

A couple of updates on Lucky, the VoIP dog. He's progressing along just fine, in fact, he's getting quite an attitude! He keeps us at work focused and yet entertained.

 

 

Quote of the Day

Early to bed, early to rise Work like hell and advertise.

                                                   --Ted Turner

The Year That Was: Part 6

Speaking of the Patel Brothers, they deserve their own little post on this blog. After so many years they remain a great source of worldly wisdom and funny wise cracks.

 

Quote of the day:

Hawkeye: ...You're my best friend, I've never gotten along this well with anybody, you moron.

BJ: Well that goes double for me, stupid!

                                                             --M*A*S*H (Rumor at the Top)

The Year That Was: Part 5

My good buddy Nagi made a return to both Southern California and this blog.

 

It was a big enough event for everyone to get-together and reconnect and be part of what used to be one kick-ass team.

 

Of course, no picture is complete without the Patel brothers.

Today:

from 2006:

 

Curiously, the order of people left-to-right remained the same! We're just a bit happier in 2007 because we were no longer under the gun.

Quote of the day:

Laughter is man's most distinctive emotional expression.

                                                                                 --Margaret Mead

The Year That Was: Part 4

One more person that makes a repeat appearance this year: Mattias Larsson. The difference one year makes!

2007

 

2006

 

The 2007 picture was taken at Theresa's (Mattias's wife) Absolut vodka themed 30th birthday celebration.

 

 

Quote of the day:

Anya: For the gentleman, Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred.

                                       --Ian Fleming (The Spy who Loved Me)

The Year That Was: Part 3

The next event of the year was celebrating Chad's birthday. It was a relatively quiet affair, I won't go over it too much (especially since I have so many pictures of him on this website!), except the fact that we got to see Jennifer, who currently stands as the first person in the Hetergenius group to be a mom.

 

Full album here.

Quote of the Day:

Birthdays are just nature's way of telling us to eat more cake.

                                                                  -Anonymous.

The Year That Was: Part 2

We now move on to March where I met up with my old buddy Chris Kline at IBM's Technical Leadership Exchange. To give you a bit of a background on both, Chris and I worked together on the IBM's Nissan account and pulled through some mighty testy times. The Technical Leadership Exchange is the gathering of IBM's top technical talent where we meet to network and exchange ideas. Over the past four years, Chris and I had made it a tradition of sorts to meet up at TLE (which each of our individual management chains deemed fit to send us to). This time, Chris came to my neck of the woods: Disneyland California.

 

What made it more interesting was that my dad--who is an IBMer as well--got invited as well, so we were probably the only father-son duo at the conference.

 

 

For those of you unfamiliar with IBM culture, it is almost impossible to separate an IBMer from his or her Thinkpad. So here we are, at the general session, and you can see people cranking up their laptops and taking advantage of the free wireless Internet.

 

 

You can view the entire album here.

You can read my blog post about the last TLE here.

 

Quote of the day:

“Treat your superior as a father, your equal as a brother, and your inferior as a son.” -Persian Proverb

The Year That Was: Part 1

It's time to start recapping the year much like I did last year. The rules are very simple. Between now and the end of the year, I'll walk through the significant events this year that I happened to share with family and friends.

Let's start with the Pacific Life Open--my first live tennis tournament. I got to see Boris Becker, I should have gotten in line for his autograph, but in the short five minute that I spent deciding whether or not to get in the twenty person line, the line had already become a mile long. Oh well.

 

 

 

Even though, we were in the nose bleed section it was a thrilling experience. To see the crowd react to  Nadal's explosive power in action, and Djokovic's coming out party. That day was also Djokovic's first entry into the top ten. Most experts agree that he has significant grand-slam winning potential, and so it would be cool to say, I saw him in his first major final.

 

 

Of course, I would have to thank Dan & Nora for letting me tag along and being the third wheel. It was a lot of fun, because we got to demo all the top racquets from Tennis Warehouse, and they basically gave me a guided tour. Afterwards we stopped by an outlet mall for a major shopping spree. All in all, a fun trip!

 

 

 

The full album is available here.

Playing Catchup

This post has been long overdue. Using the frequency of posts of this blog as a way to indicate the pace of change in my life would be like comparing the growth of molasses to the speed of a Ferrari. Things have been going so fast and in so many directions that I haven't had a chance to really regroup, recollect, and recharge.

 

Regroup: Where am I know?

Well right now, I'm working at a CallFire.com a startup with big dreams and lofty ambitions to take the VoIP market by storm. This cause has consumed all spare time I have. Of course, I am not alone in this endeavor. In fact, I was the last one to join the group. Together the five of us are working our butts off to make something of this opportunity. My many subsequent posts would be about the Startup life and the differences between working for big versus a small company.

 

 

Recollect: Where have I been?

I've traveled the road of farewells and new beginnings, and during that time said goodbyes to old colleagues and welcomed new. All that while hoping I've made more friends than colleagues. The goodbye was the culmination of what has been a long series of goodbyes. I'll be blogging about that as well.

IBM Farewell Pictures, Toyota Farewell Pictures,

ICE Celebration

 

 

Recharge: Where did I rest?

During that time, I had a chance to go to Chicago (for work, but still), and went to Atlanta for one of my best friend's wedding (I was the best man). So, I had some time to get in a little fun.

Ronnie's Wedding Pictures, DMA 07 Pictures.

 

 

 

So there goes: my woefully inadequate roundup of the past three months.

Two Year Anniversary

It was two years ago today that onetj.com went live in its current avatar. It has been been a fun journey. Here are some statistics:

Since July 21, 2005, there have been:

137 posts, 73 comments and 1 trackback.

In terms of photo albums, there are currently 19 albums with a total of 908 photos.

 

What's more, TJ Thinakaran on Google lists my site as number 1. Not too bad for a site 80% of whose hits come from google! :-)

Nora's B'day & Tricks of the Eye

Nora made her debut on this website with the celebration of her birthday last week. We met at the spagetti factory which in of itself was a great. Anway, let me cut to the chase, can you spot something odd from both pictures? Hint: Nothing is as it seems.

 

Life is a Puzzle

I attended a colleague's memorial service this weekend. I learnt more about her during the service than in the four years that she and I worked in the same building, about her love for the outdoors and for life in general. One of the activities she loved was to solve puzzles. As remembrance, all attendees were asked to take a piece of one her puzzles. As I took my piece (shown), I realized that life itself is a puzzle. Very few, if at all, can truly every put all the pieces together, yet should cherish the small pieces it gives us. This is the second memorial service in six months, I pray this is the last for a very long time, and all the people I know and care live long and happy lives.

The Laws of Attraction

High school geeks grow up to become socially awkward adults. Never warmed up to the concept of being comfortable in the confines of idyllic conversations about pop culture, they surround themselves with books wrapping themselves in the safety of facts. This habit continues into college and beyond where in they have this incessant need to quote fact, figures, and research as if there is a need to backup every single statement they make. This social awkwardness manifests itself best when interacting with the opposite sex. I consider myself one of these adults. If my MS in Comp Sci isn't proof enough, consider the fact that the last date I've been on was four years ago, and it was a first date as the girl never returned my follow-up calls.

 

Anyway, today in my daily pilgrimage to Starbucks--a small detour I make on my way home from work to get my dose of 'stay-awake' juice--I happened to be standing in queue behind this gorgeous lady. I noticed that she was tall (as tall as me), dressed in dark business suit with a turtle neck sweater, and thin-rimmed reading glasses that made her look like a pretty executive straight out of a Forbes spread. I also noticed what looked like an engagement ring on her ring finger. As we waited for our drinks, we chatted up (I'll admit, I initiated the conversation), and she was very friendly. She seemed genuinely interested in what I did and asked questions about my work. Girls who don't know me, never talk to me. At the sugar-and-cream counter, we formally introduced ourselves, I discovered we worked at the same place albeit in completely different buildings. We shook hands and she walked away leaving me with a stupid grin.

 

Being the dog that most men are, a lot of scenarios started playing in my head. Scenarios that assumed that she showed interest in me for my good looks (a rather amusing assumption). These scenarios included asking if she would want to join me for the coffee-fest to perhaps grabbing a bite for dinner. I began kicking myself (metaphorically of course) for losing out on an opportunity attributing it to my geekiness when I remembered her engagement ring. As far-fetched it may be, even if she was interested in me, she was already another lucky man's lady, and hence by definition off-limits. I'm not religious, but I do believe in karmic balance in the world...do onto others as you'd wish them do onto you and what not. More realistically, I think she was just being friendly and given my royal geekiness rarely gets that kind of attention from someone that gorgeous, I made it out to be more than it really was.

 

I was having a very lousy day today, starting with losing my cherished MP3 player--my loyal companion through hundreds of thousands of miles for the past four years--in my backyard, to some personal and professional bumps during the day. But this little episode that couldn't have lasted more than fifteen minutes made it all seem so very distant. That in and of itself was a reward. It is true then what they say: sometimes there is comfort in the company of strangers.

Snapshots in Time

Atlanta will always be special to me. Not only was it my 'port of entry' as the INS would like to call it, but it was the birth place of many a good friendships in my life. One such one is with Andreas, my buddy from Germany. Back in the fall of 1997, he was one of my first friends in campus, and like people have been doing so for centuries, it was cemented over a shared affinity for my mom's cooking! Over the years we've kept in touch even though we live on different continents. In fact, back in 2005 he came to visit me in California. While I could not do the same, did manage to make the journey to Atlanta in December to meet him for a weekend (as well as Ronnie, so he could stop complaining that I don't come to visit him nearly enough as he did me)

   

The picture on the left is circa 1997, the picture on the right is 2006. What a difference ~10 years make.

Happy New Year

A Definition of Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a dangerous thing, for when it hits you, it completely blind sides you, entrapping you in the myriad of emotions that it brings. In fact, I would argue that the more forward-looking person (i.e., workaholic) you are, the stronger the emotion. Workaholics seldom stop to reminisce (or take a breadth for that matter), and when they do, they have a lot of reminiscing to do!

I realized this when I visited some of the previous homes I stayed at in India. Some of them no longer exist, bungalows that have been eaten up by the need of high-rise housing, and other others I couldn't take pictures of as they were in an Army cantonment and I was no longer part of the Army 'family'. I did manage to take a picture of one of the houses that I stayed (below), and even then I had to be discreet about it. Didn't want the current residents to get all worked up over some strange man taking pictures of their home. 

 

 

As I was driving down this street, and I felt like I was in the Sting Fields of Gold Video. Everything had changed, and yet I was completely in a different era, visualizing the same street as it used to be when I was a teenager. The cute girls across the street that I had a crush on, the cool dude down the street who I used to hang out with. The Merchant Navy officer who used to live on the flat (that's apartment to you folks in the US) above with funny tales about the 'outside' world. All my mom's friends who somehow thought it necessary (much to her amusement) to keep reporting to her where they had seen me in the city and with whom ;-) It was in this cacophony of thoughts I came across what I feel is the definition of nostalgia.

It is the sudden desire to meet the people of our past to let them know that you remember them and think of them warmly, and if only could would love to play catch up over a cup of tea or a glass of wine.

The Year That Was: Part 19

Well, we're still in India because even though the trip was only for 15 days, there was so much to see and talk about. I already touched upon the overcrowding of roads and here is an example:

 

Contrary to what you may think, this is actually a three lane road where two of the lanes ended up serving as parking lots. So in effect, on a very busy shopping bazaar, instead of a three-lane street you have shopping traffic (cars, scooters, cycles, rickshaws and people) snaking through a single lane. Quite humourous actually.

The Year That Was: Part 18

This recent push to globalization in India made for some very fun shopping experience. For example, McDonald's is growing by leaps and bound, but only because they've adapted to the Indian market. For example, a vegetarian sandwhich called the McVeggie, and also their home delivery service McDelivery (when was the last time you saw McDonald's make a home delivery?).

 

 

I'm still looking for a hillarious Indian McDonald's ad with the punch line of "I'm Lovin it".

The Year That Was: Part 17

Long live commercialism. Long live capitalism. Long live competition...oh wait...Wal-mart is set to enter the Indian retail market next year...

 

Above: A sneak camera shot of a Shopper's Stop retail outlet in Delhi.

The Year That Was: Part 16

India is becoming the land of sub compact and compact cars. This is mainly a factor of prosperity combined with necessity. More people have money to afford cars, yet the infrastructure is so poor that, the roads don't allow for cars any bigger than a Suzuki Swift like shown below. Yes of course, there were Toyota Camry's, Honda Accords, Mercedes S class, and even little known brands like the Skoda. You have these new generation cars competing with old Ambassador cars, auto rickshwas, cows, and even elephants (yes, I saw on on a freeway!). All this makes for some very entertaining driving. There wasn't one day where I didn't have a "oh sh*t!" or "Holy crap!" moment.

 

The Year That Was: Part 15 (Indian Food)

One of the first things that you notice when arrive in India (other than the crowds) is the huge variety of food available, local and international. I know this is pretty much true of any culture, for example, chinese food is probably much better in China than it is in the US. But in the US you mainly get two types of Indian food, North Indian and South Indian and are led to believe that that's all there is. Well, not quite. There's Punjabi, Gujarati, Mughalai, Andhra, Kerala, Maharashtrian, Bengali etc., (there's even Indian Chinese!). So you can imagine my delight when I was re-familiarized with all this variety. My taste bud's got a workout, at the expense of my belly fat, and I loved every minute of it!

 

 

This is a picture from a mall food court. The extreme right is a pizza place (where you can actualy order a chicken tikka pizza), Nariyal Chutney (south Indian, specifically Tamilian), More Than Paranthas (imagine a shop dedicated to just serving every conceivable form of Indian bread), and Rasoi (traditional food from the state of Uttar Pradesh).

Now, More Than Paranthas deserves a special mention for a dish that I had there (I think it was the Shahi, i.e., royal, parantha). Imagine two naan breads the size of a laptop keyboard, deep fried with eggs, between them you have a filling that is a mix of paneer, lamb kabobs, chicken kabobs, and chicken tikka seeped in a buttery sauce making for one gigantic parantha 'sandwhich'. Good thing they cut it into four slices, for I couldn't finish more than one slice. I guess this was feast meant for princes who rode horses went into battle and burnt 5000 calories a day. I am no prince.

Ok, that's all for now, I need to clean off the drool from my laptop.

The Year That Was: Part 14 (Heathrow Part 1 of 2)

I must say I wasn't prepared for my visit to Heathrow. We flow into terminal 1, and then had to walk through this long passage way that looked like an entrance to a prison. Our London to Delhi flight was out of Terminal 4, so we had to take a bus between the two terminals, what we saw upon arrival was most perplexing.

For those who haven't been to either Terminal 1 or 4, terminal 4 looks like the backwater of the airport. Very poor lighting, very few terminals showing arrival or departure times, almost none of the food vendors took credit cards, here I was barely 10 hours out of the US and longing for something I never thought I would: McDonald's and that too for a cup of coffee. Finally we found a sandwhich shop that would take credit cards and could get some grub. The highlight of the stay over was the Bentley at Terminal 4 which quite honestly stuck out like a diamond in the rough. And I kept thinking to myself, "is this the famed Heathrow airport?"

Now before you start making generalizations based on what Heathrow, I must point out that the people were awful nice, and so it wasn't like we had to deal with a lot of stonewalling. Moroever, this is just part 1 of the story, stay tuned for part 2.

The Year That Was: Part 13

The next couple of posts will be about my trip to India, for that was definitely the highlight of the year. It was my first visit to the mother country in almost ten years.

 

 

The British Airways flight at LAX, the one that we were about to board. I guess it was because we were flying out on a Monday, but there was hardly any queue, and we were done with security  etc in less than an hour with three hours to spare. A word to the wise:

1. Check-in online, it was probably the single biggest reason why there were no lines.
2. If you book early enough the price difference between World Traveller (economy) and World Traveller Plus (economy++) can be justified, and is completely and utterly worth it!
3. Don't get surprised (as I did) when the rules of queueing in the US don't apply elsewhere.

The Year That Was: Part 12

Its funny how sometimes good things come out of something that is well....unsuccessful. Mattias and I met on a project that ended up becoming a write-off (due to a myriad of reasons), and while the project is long dead, what was born from it was a personal friendship.

 

In fact Mattias and and his Theresa also came for my masters graduation. Now if only he'd let me piggy back with him on his many international travels ;-).

The Year That Was: Part 11

The toast to good taste. That is me getting a happy b'day from my colleagues on my birthday. From Left to right: Cindy, Raj, Preethi, Myself, Ariela, Nagi, and Ed.

 

The Year That Was: Part 10

My old group at a major automotive company (which shall remained unnamed) had to be disbanded because the company's push towards offshore outsourcing. So, whether we liked it or not, we had to say good bye to each other. The next couple of days will be dedicated this group.

 

Here we are rejoicing on seeing our retirement money. From left to right, myself, Nagi and Ed (also our boss). Everyone in our group will agree that Ed is the BDB (Best Damn Boss) you could ever have.

PS: I can say that without appearing to kiss-up as he is no longer my manager.

 

The last year at our group was a very dynamic enivornment. You could literally come in to office one day to find your entire cubicle shifted to another part of the country. We had to resort to innovative methods like the one above, to ensure our offices remained untouched.

 

The full album (aptly called The Melting Pot) is here.

The Year That Was: Part 9

Among the many goodbyes we had to give was to my dear colleague George. Now George is the kind of guy you want in a high-stress, tense environment. It seems that nothing seems to get to him, he's always the professional, courteous, and calm, and what's more, gets the job done right and done well. He's saved my sorry b*tt many times.

 

 

Bottom Row, Left to Right: Nagi, Ed, George,Froi

Top Row, Left to Right: {need help with name}, John, Avi, Steve, Larry, Malcolm, Ariela, and Preethi

 

 

George was also the official office historian because of his excellent photography skills. That day he even let me take the temporary mantle and drive his ferrari of a camera.

The full album is here.

The Year That Was: Part 8

This year was also one of goodbyes, some sad, some bittersweet. One of the better goodbyes was to Nagi, a colleague who has come ato be a close friend. He moved out of the area to other side of the country for greener pastures. It was a better goodbye because we knew he was moving on to bigger, better opportunities and for a better life. We had a farewell dinner for him at Elephant Bar where most of us showed up.

The person standing is Nagi (blue shirt) This picture I call the Patel brothers. Bob (Babu) and Raj, two people who taught me a lot in the past 2+ years. The funny thing is they think so alike that might as well be blood brothers.

The full album is here.

The Year That Was: Part 7

Like everyone else, I too got a year older. Dan and I have our birthday's a week apart, and so we decided to combine the celebrations into one big one!

 

 

From left to right: Anthony, Justin, Dan, Nora, Chad, and Jen. The full album is here.

The Year That Was: Part 6

We're in March of 2006 when my conspirators and I decided to play an April fool's prank and come dressed up all formal on a Friday! If someone asked what was up we would say "Job Interview" and then after a second of delay follow up with "nailed it!". Needless to say we got a lot of attention so much so, that our boss got tired of trying to answer the question "Why are so many of your group in suits?". Fun times.

 

 From left to right: Myself, Steve, and Bill (who also moonlights as a darn good magician). The picture was taken at the Nissan's former headquarters in LA.

The Year That Was: Part 5

This was a year of many changes in the workplace and we ended up saying goodbye to many a colleague who had become good friends. One such guy is Omar, one heck of a guy, we had a BBQ lunch in his honor. I didn't take very many picture, as I was too busy eating.

The Year That Was: Part 4

We are now in April of this year where we spent some time celebrating Chad's birthday at his home. His mom cooked some great food for us, I got to meet my long lost friend Judy, and got back at Chad for trying to kill me.

 

 

The rest of the album is here.

The Year that was: Part 3

Post for December 3. In March of this year I attended IBM's Technical Leadership Exchange--a meeting of its top technial, managerial, and consultive talent.  I got to see the biggest horses I've ever seen and not only that, meet two of my colleagues who for years had just been voices on the phone.

 

From Middle Left to Right: Chris (the guy who helped resolve issues with the Vaporware known as Vitria BusinessWare) and Debbie (who showed me how to treat WebSphere MQ with respect).

The Year That Was: Part 2

I'm blogging from Atlanta this weekend visiting friends and playing catch-up with them. Here's second in the series. This time its Jen's birthday. We went to CPK (California Pizza Kitchen for the un-initiated) and then went for some bowling where the girls just kicked our butts.

The rest of the album is here.

Year That Was Series: Part 1

As the year comes to a close, I thought it would be nice if I focused, through pictures, on some of the highlights on the year that was. In order to enable that, I am going to post one picture in the order it was taken in the year. Today we begin with the farewell luncheon my office group had for Nagi, who decided to leave for greener pastures from TN.

From Left to Right: Raj , myself, Bob (a.k.a. Babu Patel), and Nagi at the Golden Pheasant in Torrance, California. I fondly refer to this picture as "Three Indian and one Wannabe". 

Portrait of a Team

 

Right here in the picture is the best bunch of people I've had the privilege to work with. I will miss them. By the way, the three youngest members of the team are on the bottom row ;-)

The entire photo album is available here.

Multiple Birthday Celebrations

I've not been regular at all posting to this blog, but life is a messy concoction of hopes, dreams, and aspirations burning the cauldron of reality. So while I do have a lot to share, just don't have the time these to put them in a blog. Plus, doesn't a blog seem rather passe? Anyway, I digress, Dan and I decided to combine our b'day celebrations into one weekend get-together. The picture album is here

I didn't take too many picture, because I was too busy having some fun, but here is my favorite

The blogs of my Friends

Couple of my friends too have their own websites and weblogs, that I'll link below:

1. Two plus one makes three: The blog of my Friend Baraa and his wife Sondos bringing up their new born Ennes


2. GldnEyes6: Dan's funny and thought provoking myspace weblog

That's all for now...