Warren in India
| Months | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
Tue, 19 Apr 2005
You don't know how lucky you are, boys
Been away so long I hardly knew the placeThu, 14 Apr 2005
Gee, it's good to be back home
Leave it 'til tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey, disconnect the phone
Where's Warren?
I'm here. In Bangalore, of course. I haven't updated in a while partially out of laziness, but mostly out of a whole lot of ordinary happenings filling my days and nights. As I have settled in and gotten somewhat accustomed to things that had previously baffled me, I have found it difficult to report on the everyday.
If memory serves, we left our protagonist with the monkeys outside of Mysore. Let's take a few steps back from there and go into a little more detail about that trip, shall we? We were scheduled to board the tour bus outside of the office at about 6 AM on a Saturday morning last month. The first wrench in our plans was that the bus showed up about an hour late. The second was that there weren't enough seats on the bus for everyone. I was ready to bow out of the trip -- abundant legroom was not a feature of the motor coach -- when arrangements were made for a hired car as compensation for the tour company's mistake. So I rode in the car to and from Mysore without a single leg cramp, which was relatively nice.
For context, I should say that this trip was my first (and only, to date) trip outside of Bangalore since arriving. There were a few logistical problems in meeting up with the hired car, but the first leg of our trip was otherwise uneventful -- I dozed in the back seat as we cruised through the Indian countryside.
Our first stop was a roadside vegetarian restaurant, where we were to eat breakfast. It was a good thing that I'd eaten before leaving, because there was exactly one item in the buffet that we were presented that I could safely eat. (For those not "in the know," I am allergic to lentils and other legumes, which are used across Indian cuisine -- especially in this part of India -- without much reserve whatsoever. Merely looking for them is not enough, as they can be hidden, ground up and added to flour etc. Depending on which legume and how much, eating them could be anything from somewhat annoying to fatal. I don't ever intend to progress much beyond the theoretical on this matter.) So I didn't have much breakfast...and I also felt quite a bit out of place, moreso than I had previously in my time here. I'll come back to this point in due time.
The total drive to Mysore took about three hours, largely due to about 80% of the road being under construction. It's only about 90 miles between Mysore and Bangalore. (It took us four hours to get back.)
We in the car had gotten separated from the bus, so our driver decided to take us to a temple on the outskirts of town. We eventually realized that we needed to catch up to the bus, but before that, the three of us (Shane, Joe, and I) ventured out of the car and were immediately surrounded by a swarm of men trying to sell us various baubles and fake sandalwood trinkets. We had to get in the car and leave for them to leave us alone. They didn't seem to understand "no," but I suspect that they'd have understood "yes" quite easily.
The first planned stop in Mysore was a memorial that a local sultan had built to commemorate his defeat of the British troops who had been occupying the area. The sultan later met his death at the hands of the future Duke of Wellington (you know, the fella who defeated Napoleon). The building wasn't that impressive, but the grounds were large and quite nice.
We then moved on to the main attraction (for me, anyway) of Mysore, the palace. I was actually quite disappointed with the palace. Not because the building wasn't nice (it was), but because it was designed and built by the British to replace a palace that was "accidentally" burned down during a battle. The palace that now stands was finished in 1912, so it certainly wasn't the example of pre-industrial Indian architecture, design and construction that I was expecting. Ah well.
After the palace, we had lunch at a hotel on the way to the temple where we saw the monkeys. The temple was basically a 30-foot statue of a bull. It was cool, but not as cool as the monkeys.
Since the classroom portion of bootcamp ended a few weeks back, I've been on a few internal projects. The first one was a tool to help ThoughtWorks track its internal resources. After a day (which isn't really enough time to do anything or to fairly say I'd truly been on the project -- I think they intended to put me on a smaller team from the start), I was moved to an internal sales tool. After some discussions with the sales force in Chicago, we moved the project to the back burner and started yet another...and after a few days on that one, I moved back to the original one that I was on for a day at the start. (The reason for this is that they are eyeing at least one developer to leave here for a project in Salt Lake City, and the manager of the team wanted someone who would be almost guaranteed to be here for the four weeks that the project would be running.) The project has been going pretty well, though the team is slowly shrinking as people are sent back to their home countries for various reasons. I'm still waiting to hear which billable project (if any) will be my first, so I'm in a bit of limbo.
Anyway, back to the food thing: it didn't take me long to realize just how much of the food around here is chock full o' lentils. The catered lunches during the first week of bootcamp were my first clue. My second clue was finding out after the fact that two seemingly-safe culinary staples, dosa and idly, were made with ground lentils. Oops. That explained why I had a bit of difficulty swallowing my anti-malaria medicine later that day. A Benadryl cleared that up, though I do count myself lucky, even though I did have my Epi-Pen with me at the time.
The third and most significant time was the trip to Mysore. It truly hit me just how much I'd come to rely on Pizza Hut and TGI Friday's. (Yes, the waitstaff at Friday's does wear "flair." No, I'm not proud of how much I've eaten at these two establishments over here.) This realization really put a damper on my interest in venturing outside of Bangalore -- let alone the area immediately around the office -- since I'd have to watch every bite of food for Warrensbane, possibly unable to ask for guidance from whomever was serving me -- not my idea of a good time by any means, and certainly not a good way to spend my free time. Though I do not complain and have politely explained when I had to turn down an invitation to a restaurant or the offer of a morsel, it's really been the foremost reason that I made it known that staying through June was not my first choice. So we'll see if and when I can get on a billable project back home.
That's about it for now. Adios, amoebas.
Sun, 20 Mar 2005
Monkeys!
I'm still going through a lot of the photos that I've taken recently (boot camp graduation ceremony and Mysore trip, mostly) but I've decided to post this batch now.
Outside of the temple we visited in the hills outside of Mysore, there were monkeys, mostly looking for food from the tourists (given or stolen) and harassing the juice merchants who set up shop outside.
I took many of photos of said monkeys, and I've posted the best in the usual spot.
As an aside, now that boot camp is over, my energy levels are mostly back to normal. It's still quite tiring just being alive over here, but it's no longer disruptively so. Anyway, I'll be posting more soon, I think. The latch on my PowerBook has broken, though, and since I rely on this machine for all of my photo processing, there may be a gap in my postings while it's in the shop. I haven't yet decided when I'm taking it in, if at all.
Fri, 18 Mar 2005
Rickshaw photos posted
I've posted some photos of auto-rickshaws (including one with me inside) at the photos area related to this journal. Enjoy!
The Guinness That Might Have Been
Last night we went out for St. Patrick's Day. We went to the only Irish Pub in Bangalore, and most (if not all) of us who went were looking forward to a nice pint of Guinness. Alas, it was not to be. The Dublin does not carry Guinness, or, for that matter, any other beer not brewed locally. This was explained to us by the waiter, who said that "it's a lot of ocean between here and there." Strange, then, that they had Bud Light and a South African (!) brew. Rumor has it that they carried Guinness a while back, but that it was about $20 for a pint. This story may have been nothing more than an expatriate Irishman having a bit of fun with one of my colleagues, so please salt to taste.
In other news, I've been re-assigned to a different internal project. This one is an internal marketing tool, rather than the internal resource management tool that I had originally been assigned to. Right now, I'm waiting for an e-mail from the project manager to tell me what's up. Supposedly the project will last for 3-4 weeks, then I'll be on another internal project. I have no idea what any of the other details of these projects are, let alone how they might affect my departure date.
We finished Object Bootcamp on Wednesday, so we developer bootcampers have been working out of the office since Thursday. It's nice to be back in an office, but I've been in limbo since this morning. Bootcamp was an overwhelming experience. The consensus is that we all learned about the equivalent of a semester-and-a-half of university material in just over a month. We learned what was essentially a completely new way of looking at programming, which takes the JIT approach that I mentioned earlier. We develop so that projects can be planned in much smaller chunks than the much longer (12+ months) plans that more traditional approaches require.
I've now got another reason to want to come back before June 5 -- New Order are playing in Chicago on May 3. It's their only show in the midwest (at least for now), and their first stop anywhere near there since 1993. It figures that I'm scheduled to be on the other side of the world. I'm going to buy tickets anyway and just hope for the best.
We're having a "Bootcamp Graduation" ceremony and party tonight. I'll post more on that after it happens. Our bus leaves for Mysore at 6:30 tomorrow morning, so I'm sure it won't be a late night for me.
I've been struggling to try to get more money into my pay-as-you-go cell phone account here, so those of you with whom I haven't spoken in a while will probably hear from me next week.
Have a good weekend!
Sun, 13 Mar 2005
Getting down to brass tacks
A lot has been going on here, so I'll just dive right into things, how's that sound?
First and foremost, my return date is a bit clearer: as with all but three of the other campers, I've been placed on a project here -- for me and many others, it's an internal (i.e. non-billable) project. This means that no-one is buying me a replacement ticket to come back before June just yet. There are two big caveats to this:
- If billable work comes up for me in the U.S., I will leave ASAP. Apparently, this usually happens with 7-10 days' notice, mostly for booking a new flight.
- There are people working on the internal project in Chicago, so I may be able to finagle my way back to Chicago to work on it. The powers-that-be in Resource Management are aware of my food issues, so that may be a a factor there. Don't hold your breath, though. You'll turn blue and pass out, and that's quite unbecoming.
Last Monday night, I saw Mark Knopfler (!), formerly of Dire Straits, in concert here. It was a very pleasant show; even though I don't know any of his "solo" work, I heard all of the Dire Straits songs I wanted to hear. The show was held at a part of the grounds of what is apparently still a functioning palace of sorts. I wish I could tell you more about that, but that's all I know. The downsides to the show were the late hour on a school night and all of the dust on the ground on the way back. My throat and lungs complained for the few days after the show.
It rained here Friday night. The skies opened up, and we got thunder and lightning -- the whole works. An hour later, it stopped. There were still patches of mud around when I was out today. I'm sure Monsoon Season is a blast. Apparently, rain in March is a rare thing. (As an aside, it was in the mid-90s -- again -- today...and it's not even Hot Season yet. That's coming soon, they say.)
The trip to Mysore was pushed back a week. It seems that I was not alone in thinking that four intense six-day weeks in a row weren't the best thing for everyone's health...so you'll have to wait for those photos.
However, I did prepare some other photos to share. That address is the place you'll want to watch for more photos.
This past week was the continuation of "Object Bootcamp," or "All Programming, All the Time." It has been as amazing as it was exhausting. Imagine a forty-hour week of a class of your favorite college subject where the level of instruction is so high that if it were any higher, it would be totally over your head. During the exercises, we are expected to not get things right so that we can be gradually steered in the right direction. It's actually a lot more effective than just sitting us down and showing us the "right way" to do things. I've learned almost as much as I did in any one programming class in college, and that's saying a lot.
The downside of this is that I've been dead tired almost every night. My typical after-class schedule this week was: take a nap, wake up, have dinner, go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. I'm actually a tad concerned that there may be another, health-related factor there, so I'm going to keep a careful eye out and go get myself checked out if I can't get properly rested. It's probably just the intensity of the schedule, which should ease off a bit after we finish Object Bootcamp on Wednesday. This should also mean more time for me to make entries here. I hope.
Anyway, I'm going to take my evening shower now and get myself sorted for next week. Take care of yourselves, and I'll shout at you all later.
Fri, 04 Mar 2005
That Huge Project I Mentioned Earlier As A Place I Might Land
Quickly, before I hop in the shower:
ThoughtWorks has announced its role as primary systems integrator partner for the first sequence of DestiNY USA.
Um, wow.
Thu, 03 Mar 2005
Yesterday's Headlines, Blown By The Wind
It's funny: after I'd been here for only a few days, it seemed as if I'd been here for weeks already. Now, however, six hours or so after the three weeks of "proper" boot camp sessions have ended, it seems as if it's all gone by in a matter of days. We'll be spending the next two days at the Agile India 2005 Conference, followed by nine or ten days of the "Object Bootcamp" that I mentioned earlier, full-time. Then I'll either be placed on a project back in the States or on one here (most likely an internal resource- and revenue-tracking application).
As for more recent happenings, I'm getting over a bit of a cold. I actually missed most of Tuesday's camp because of it -- the only reason I went in was to take part in a group presentation that my group gave.
But enough of current events for now. I'd like to try to recap my first week here, dodgy as it may already be in my memory. My strongest memories are of the first ten hours or so after my arrival, so let's begin there.
As I walked out the door of the airport onto the street, I began to look for a friendly face -- in particular, the face in the photo I'd been sent of the boot camp coordinator, Kerri. She was nowhere to be seen. I probably looked the part of exhausted firangi (that's Hindi for foreigner, and, yes, it is apparently pronounced the same way as the name of that alien race from Star Trek), so the two ThoughtWorkers who had been dispatched in her place knew to yell the name of our company in my particular direction. After such a long journey, it was really an amazing relief to meet Kraig (curriculum coordinator) and Peter (UK camper, also one of my roommates) in the barely pre-dawn coolness. I was finally here. And ready for some sleep.
After one of the more surreal cab rides of my life (one suitcase in the trunk, the other shifting about in the luggage rack on top), the driver insisted on a new term to our agreement -- that we also pay for his parking fee at the airport. Kraig, who was paying on behalf of ThoughtWorks, decided that it wasn't worth arguing with the driver and reluctantly agreed to pay the extra amount. Since he and Peter had waited patiently outside Bangalore Airport for me from about 03:00 to 06:00, Kraig offered as a tip a clever if crude suggestion as to where the driver might decide to securely store the fee in question. The driver politely thanked Kraig (no, really!), but I don't think he tried out the suggestion for a makeshift wallet. If he had, he would without a doubt have gotten some funny looks making change for his next fare.
Kraig fed me some microwaved leftover pizza, and I returned to my flat and had a bit of a chat with Peter. It was quite tranquil sitting on our eighth-floor terrace, watching the sky grow lighter. So tranquil that Peter excused himself to head for bed. I moved my suitcases into my room, lowered the blinds (our flat faces west), and closed my eyes.
And nothing happened. I'd been more or less awake for a day and a half, and I couldn't sleep. So I unpacked and took a shower. And I wasn't tired any more.
I eventually called Kraig, and we went to Indi Joe's [sic] for some quasi-western fare. I had a garlic steak sizzler. It was quite tasty, since I'd brought plenty of that well-tested Hunger Sauce with me. (I've had a similar dish there again, and it was pretty good the second time around, too, even when I wasn't quite so famished.)
Now into 40+ hours of sleep deprivation, I returned to the flat, where I met my other two (temporary) roommates, Ian (UK) and Shane (Australia). I was beginning to think that it wasn't a coincidence that I'd gotten along so well with everyone I'd met. (I may be getting the order of things wrong here; it's possible that I met Shane and Ian before I went to lunch, but the point doesn't really matter here.)
I tried to tough it out until the scheduled 7 PM dinner, but I finally collapsed at around 16:30, setting a new Warren-record of approximately 44 hours without any significant amount of sleep. Peter called me at around 20:00, rousing me and allowing me to toddle down to the restaurant where a fairly large group of campers and other ThoughtWorkers was chatting and finishing up dinner. (Had Peter called at a less opportune time in my sleep cycle, there might have been a repeat of a conversation Stewart and I had one evening in college. "Zzzzz...hello? Groan." "Hi Warren, it's Stewart." "Oh, hi, Stew. Groan." "Were you asleep?" "No, not at all. Groan." "Why don't you call me back later?" "Okay. Groan." "Click." Why do people lie about having been called when asleep? As if the other person can't tell....)
After dinner (where I met quite a few more campers), I went back to the flat and make myself stay awake until midnight or so. As was the case for the next four or five mornings, I woke up at around 05:00 and was unable to go back to sleep. It's hard to judge for sure, but it probably took me about a week or so to get fully adjusted to the time change.
Now, I hope that it's apparent why I don't make entries very often. This entry represents about three hours of writing and editing, and I didn't even cover that much! I'm far too inefficient of a writer to be an effective blogger. (And I haven't even gotten to the caretakers yet!) I'm also far too self-conscious of a photographer to be a good photo-blogger...but I plan on making up for that this weekend and into next week. (How does that saying about the best-laid plans go? Where's the rest of the first week's happenings, anyway?)
I will be heading out on a group day-trip to Mysore on March 12, so expect lots of photos then. But for now, it's time to recharge my laptop's battery as well as my own. Until next time...keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.
Tue, 22 Feb 2005
Ten-hut!
Pvt. Benedetto reporting for duty in the Homestarmy at ThoughtWorks Global Boot Camp!
Yesterday (Monday) we started the more technical aspects of out boot camp: Object Boot Camp. It's been a mix of high-level general Object-Oriented (OO) development and design, hands-on application, and a healthy amount of philosophical indoctrination regarding practices (e.g., having lots of very short methods is good; using getters and setters is bad). I'm glad that I have background both in OO and our toolset (the C# language) -- otherwise, it might be far too much information for me to absorb. We also had an abbreviated database session this afternoon. (Despite its short length, it was again quite a bit to absorb for those without much background.) We have also continued learning through discussion and games (a.k.a. "practice") about consultancy and the role of developers and analysts in ThoughtWorks' typical development process, which is our own adaptation of the Agile model. (For those familiar with manufacturing methodologies, it's roughly analogous to the "just in time" model that has been all the rage over the past decade or so, especially in automotive manufacturing. The instructor gave us a bit of context by explaining the history of JIT in that realm. Being from Detroit was a real advantage there.)
Our schedule for the daily sessions has been quite fluid, which I think is a reflection of the flexibility and attentiveness to feedback that ThoughtWorks values so much, as well as another manifestation of the fact that this entire shindig is a first for the company as a whole. For example, last night we had to go back to the local office to get a database client installed for a session today (bad -- I got home from dinner, thoroughly exhausted, at about 9:45 last night), and there were technical problems with that session this afternoon (good -- we got to leave about 90 minutes early today, which was a welcome addition to my personal time). In a way, it's hard for me to get used to such a dynamic environment; however, it does keep things interesting and fresh, which ought to make it harder to get stuck in a rut. All in all, the organizers are quite interested in feedback from us campers. I've already lost count of the number of positive changes, small and large, made in the curriculum and timing thereof that have grown out of our daily evaluations and opinions.
Another angle on that dynamism is that post-camp plans for the lot of us are just now starting to come together. From a few informal conversations, I had gotten the impression that London and Melbourne were options for me (in the near-term for "finishing up" camp), but now it sounds that my impression was wrong and that foreign placement usually requires at least a six- or twelve-month commitment, which I'm not even close to being able to consider. It does seem quite likely that, if I like, heading back Stateside in mid-to-late March is a strong possibility for me. Placement is a bit of a mysterious art here at TW, based to varying degrees on both the employee's preferences and the company's needs. Although it's generally been a blast here, my first choice will be to return to the States and to work in or around Chicago. (ThoughtWorkers working in the U.S. tend to visit client sites rather than working out of their home office, so there's a chance that I could stay in Chicago and end up working in, say, Naperville.) There is a monstrous project near Syracuse, NY that seems to have an insatiable hunger for ThoughtWorkers, so I may not get my Chicago wish straightaway. Since my weak Northern European stomach continues to balk at the idea of curry three times a day, ending my expatriate status sooner rather than later would be a welcome scenario -- not to mention the homesickness factor, which at this point is manageable but quite real. I'll post further updates as events warrant.
As far as Sunday's volleyball went, we were asked to leave the badminton court soon after we had started because, well, it was a badminton court. It was fun while it lasted, to be sure, if rather unsatisfying.
We still don't have internet access in our flat, so I have to stop here and go pay attention to my grumbling stomach. I've spent some time carefully considering how to tell about my first week here, including my inadvertent and infamous sleep-deprivation experiment, so time permitting, I'll have something on those topics ready to share soon.
Sun, 20 Feb 2005
Free time? What's that? Ah yes, I remember now....
Today has been pretty fun, as well as relaxing. After a casual evening last night (Pizza Hut at home, then chatting with eight or so other TWorkers on someone else's terrace), I met with a project group this morning for about an hour, then a larger group of us headed over to a restaurant at the fabulous Leela Palace hotel (where our bootcamp sessions are being held, as luck would have it) for a 1200-Rupee buffet brunch. The spread was incredible -- a wide array of vegetable dishes, kabobs cooked to order, sushi (!), other meat dishes, and desserts. I abstained from the all-you-can-drink champagne and decided to stick with bottled water ("100% Trust" goes the slogan) since it's warm and dry here. There's a pickup game of volleyball happening at 5 PM, which should be fun. After that, who knows? Probably some more e-mailing and a stab at another entry here to cover the high points of last week.
Those of you in the throes of winter will probably question my sanity for having written this, but the weather here has been quite boring: sunny, 90 degrees, and low humidity every day. While there is more smog than I care to think about, before today I had seen only two clouds. It's been mostly sunny today, but the clouds I've seen today and earlier in the week have all been of the half-hearted, wispy variety. Before you all cry for my hardships here, understand that the thought of the six inches of snow and/or ice forecast for Chicago (yes, I'm spying on you all) doesn't make me homesick at all. Yet it's quite a mental exercise to fully realize that it's still winter back in the States.
BTW, the project for the project group that I mentioned earlier is actually a quite a difficult exercise. We have to analyze a case study of a project that ThoughtWorks took on a while back for a major retailer in the UK. When we* came on board, the project was about a year behind schedule, with a firm legal deadline (having to do with responsibility for bank-card fraud) looming. Our project is to make a recommendation WRT the appropriate course of action for TW at eight different "decision points" through the duration of the project. These vary widely from the broad ("Should TW even take on the work?") to the more specific (questions about system architecture). In working through them, it has made me appreciate the difficulties that can crop up throughout the life cycle of an engagement. I'm just glad that these issues are discussed here at a fairly broad breadth and that I wouldn't ever be responsible for dealing with them on my own. :) (Despite the difficulties, we* did deliver to the client successfully.)
Anyway, I'm off to volleyball.
Sat, 19 Feb 2005
Excuses, excuses
I know that I'm long overdue for an update; I've been here over a week and have made only one post! I hope to get in the habit of making a shorter post every day, starting on Monday. It's also my plan to post a summary of the story so far sometime before then. In the meantime, rest assured that it's been a blast so far -- not perfect, but still absolutely worthwhile. :) Problem is that I've been so exhausted at the end of every day (not to mention slow in getting over my jet lag) that going into the office (we're having our bootcamp sessions in a nearby hotel) to write and upload a blog entry has been beyond me.
Arrival
Well, I'm here. After a bit of a rocky start, I'm mostly adjusted to being here. Our training starts this morning -- It will run Monday through Friday, from 9-6 with breaks for tea and lunch.
The experience of getting here was possibly the worst travel experience of my life. I was unable to get a spot in an overhead bin for my bag on the Chicago-Frankfurt flight, which meant that my large carry-on bag had to go under the seat in front of me. I had very little leg room and was able to get only a few catnaps in. Still, it was "only" about nine hours, so it wasn't totally awful.
The real confusion started after we landed in Frankfurt. Three fellow ThoughtWorkers were on that flight with me, and we had all assumed that we were on the same flight from Frankfurt to Bangalore. But since our flight was about 45 minutes late getting into Frankfurt, we didn't have much time to check our tickets to verify this. All I knew was that I didn't have a boarding pass yet and that everyone else did. To get a boarding pass, I needed to go to the Transfer Desk, which was in a different direction from where the other three were going. While I was standing in line for this, I figured out that I was on a completely different flight from the others -- they were on Lufthansa, I was on Air India. When I finally made it to the front of the line, the woman at the desk told me that I needed to go to the gate to get my boarding pass. Thankfully, my second flight was delayed as well. Otherwise, I would have missed it.
I had a lot more room on this flight -- I managed to get my bag into an overhead bin -- but I still was unable to get more than about 90 minutes total of sleep. We had a stopover in Mumbai (Bombay) and were once again late in both getting in and taking off for Bangalore. My flight touched down in Bangalore at about 5:30 AM local time, two-and-a-half hours late and nearly 24 hours after I boarded in Chicago.
Immigration was a breeze; baggage claim and customs were not. Immediately, they pulled me aside and x-rayed my carry-on bag. Yes, I have two laptops. Yes, I will come see you again after I get my bags. (We flew in on a half-full 747, and the one baggage carousel was smaller than I remember the carousel at tiny Windsor Airport being.) Forty-five minutes later, I had my bags and was talking to the customs officer.
Originally, the coordinator of the program here had told me that I would have to pay a tariff if I brought my own laptop in addition to my work laptop. Later, after doing a bit of research, she told me that there was a new regulation that exempted Bangalore from this restriction, and that I wouldn't have to pay. The officers I spoke to claimed to know nothing about this, despite my repeated insistences and refusals to pay. (Somehow, I think the tattered rule book that they showed me was not totally up-to-date.) After realizing that they wouldn't budge, I gave a conservative estimate of the value of my own laptop and went and bought enough rupees to cover the tariff.
When I returned to talk to the officer, rupees in-pocket, he told me that if I didn't need a receipt, he would accept a gratuity of 50% of the stated tariff in lieu of full payment. I needed the receipt to give to our CFO here in order to try and get the tariff that I should not have been charged back, however. So I paid the full amount and went on my way.
I'll get into more detail on the accomodations (nice) and people (nicer still) here sometime soon; now, I have to start getting ready for class! As I said, the journey here was awful, but I'm here, safe, sound, and mostly over the jet lag. Things have been 1000% better since I stepped out of the airport, and I'm really quite excited to get started with the formal sessions!
Mon, 07 Feb 2005
First day at ThoughtWorks
I started orientation at ThoughtWorks today -- over two months after I accepted their offer. Orientation is going to run through Wednesday, then I'm off to India on Thursday.
There's not much unusual to report about orientation, other than its length. We're going over a lot of things that haven't been big factors for me at other jobs: immigration, travel, cell phones, intellectual property. We're also going to learn a bit about sales and recruiting, which is another first-week first for me. From looking at the syllabus for boot camp, I'll be learning a lot more about many of these things between next week and early March.
Although I'll try to write a more in-depth "preview" of my trip later (after I'm packed? ha), I will say that it's been an interesting experience just getting ready for it. I've received eight immunizations and booster shots; I've started the most expensive drug regimen of my life (the anti-malarial drug Malarone, weighing in at about $6/dose); I've tried to figure out what I could possibly need over the course of four months while living on the other side of the world; and most importantly, I've tried to prepare myself for being immersed in a totally new environment with dozens of strangers without seeing any family or friends for almost four months.
Maybe this will show me what life would have been like had I decided to attend the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Except for the weather. And the shots.
There is one bit of news that I'd like to share yet tonight. A few weeks ago, we campers were told what the general schedule would be: three weeks of intense learning, followed by thirteen weeks of half-contributing to/half-observing an actual project -- possibly internal, possibly for a client. The twist is that they may not be able to place everyone on a project, so those who cannot be placed will be sent back to their respective home offices. In other words, there is a small but real chance that I will be back in March, not June. I don't know when these decisions will be made, but I'll be sure to document them here.
Fri, 17 Dec 2004
My itinerary
I received my ticket today. Good news: it's "only" about 21 hours to Bangalore.
| Outbound | ||||
| ORD->FRA Lufthansa 9151 Boeing 777 4,342 miles | FRA->BLR Lufthansa 1610 Boeing 747 4,615 miles |
|||
| Depart | Arrive | Depart | Arrive | |
| Local: | 06:30 PM 10-Feb-2005 | 09:45 AM 11-Feb-2005 | 11:35 AM 11-Feb-2005 | 02:55 AM 12-Feb-2005 |
| Chicago: | 06:30 PM 10-Feb-2005 | 02:45 AM 11-Feb-2005 | 04:35 AM 11-Feb-2005 | 03:25 PM 11-Feb-2005 |
| Bangalore: | 06:00 AM 11-Feb-2005 | 02:15 PM 11-Feb-2005 | 04:05 PM 11-Feb-2005 | 02:55 AM 12-Feb-2005 |
| Inbound | ||||
| BLR->FRA Lufthansa 755 Airbus A-340 4,615 miles | FRA->ORD Lufthansa 430 Boeing 747 4,342 miles |
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| Depart | Arrive | Depart | Arrive | |
| Local: | 01:45 AM 05-Jun-2005 | 08:00 AM 05-Jun-2005 | 10:10 AM 05-Jun-2005 | 12:00 PM 05-Jun-2005 |
| Chicago: | 03:15 PM 04-Jun-2005 | 01:00 AM 05-Jun-2005 | 03:10 AM 05-Jun-2005 | 12:00 PM 05-Jun-2005 |
| Bangalore: | 01:45 AM 05-Jun-2005 | 11:30 AM 05-Jun-2005 | 01:40 PM 05-Jun-2005 | 10:30 PM 05-Jun-2005 |
Bangalore is in southern India, about 8500 miles from Chicago and about 8400 miles from Detroit.
(For reference, Chicago and Detroit are about 240 miles apart as the crow flies, and Chicago is about 4000 miles from London, England. Since the Earth's circumference is about 24900 miles, Bangalore is over 1/3 of the way around the world from Chicago. Whoa.)
The weather in Bangalore is pretty different from the midwest.
- http://www.climate-zone.com/climate/india/fahrenheit/bangalore.htm
- http://www.karnataka.com/tourism/bangalore/facts.shtml
I'm going to be there during the hot, not-so-rainy months, it seems. I hope my hotel has air-conditioning.
Bangalore is a big city -- I've read different estimates, but it seems that its metropolitan area is slightly more populous than the Chicago metropolitan area.
During North American standard time, Bangalore is 10 1/2 hours ahead of Detroit, and 11 1/2 hours ahead of Chicago. Since India does not observe any sort of daylight savings time (there's really no point), Bangalore will be 9 1/2 hours ahead of Detroit and 10 1/2 hours ahead of Chicago after April 3.
That's about all I know about Bangalore at the moment, though I plan on finding out a lot more before I leave. I'm not sure how much free time I'll have outside of boot camp, but I do plan on getting out and about when I can.
Boot Camp is scheduled to run for 16 weeks, starting February 14, 2005. I don't know how solid these dates are, nor do I know what my itinerary is. Yet.
More info to follow. Watch this space.