bjarvis

From Today's Wall Street Journal...

2012-05-18T22:02:45Z

From this article:

The billion-dollar list now excludes Facebook Inc., which on Friday is set to become a publicly traded company, valued at north of $100 billion. But it does include a large share of high-flying Web players such as file-sharing company Dropbox Inc. and room-rental provider Airbnb Inc., as well as a few lesser-known start-ups such as e-commerce platform company Rearden Commerce Inc. [<--my employer] and business software maker Workday Inc.

Let's hope! I could use the cash.

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Still Hiring!

2012-05-15T10:14:00Z

As I sit in Dulles Airport, waiting to catch my flight to visit the mothership in the San Francisco bay area, I thought I'd mention my Dear Employer is still hiring. In fact, we have 52 open positions in San Francisco, the US east coast, Arizona and Bangalore!

If you apply for one of these jobs, use me me as a reference... we can split a generous recruitment bonus!

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Visiting California

2012-04-30T18:28:12Z

I'm heading to the San Francisco area yet again, visiting my corporate overlords at the mothership in San Mateo. In a nutshell, I'm arriving around noon on Tuesday, May 15, returning in the early morning of Monday, May 21.

Booking this trip was a much more painful experience than it should be. Ideally, I prefer to fly non-stop on Virgin America. My next preferred airline would be Southwest as I'm close to getting some free flights and/or perks. (For the record, I despise American Airlines with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns and wish United would burst into flames before collapsing into a point singularity, taking with them any trace of their prior existence.) I also prefer to fly into SFO since it's just up the road from the office and to stay at the Marriott Courtyard hotel just behind my office building.

That's the ideal trip: flying Virgin to SFO to stay at the Marriott Courtyard.

Problems:

Virgin America wasn't showing up in our in-house travel reservation system.
Southwest had no flights from BWI within my budget within my preferred date range;
In the range I could afford, there were no Southwest direct flights and none to SFO;
The Courtyard had no rooms past May 22.

Ultimately, through a painful series of compromises, I'm flying Southwest with a single stop in each direction, Dulles to/from San Jose. At least I get my preferred hotel, thank god, but I couldn't get a confirmation for my rental car so I'll have to do that manually.

I hope the trip itself goes off without a hitch, since booking it took a lot more time & effort than it should.

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Improving

2012-04-30T16:32:10Z

After last week's work-related ugliness, the weasels in California had a revelation: the problem which we were digging so deeply into turned out to be not in the systems we were told. Indeed, the problem seems to be a coding issue in the back-end core apps, completely unrelated to the web servers and translation proxies they had originally assessed as faulty.

So the many hours spent on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and all day Friday turned out to be a complete waste. Total.

You can imagine how happy I was at this news.

Since we didn't get to the trailer, we had an otherwise free weekend so I determined I should try to do what I was going to at the trailer anyway: cut myself off from the world and just read.

In all, I started & finished three books and got a good start on a fourth. We visited kent4str's mother in the rehab facility for her mild stroke --she's doing very well but still has some weakness on her right side. (She'll be released back into the wild in a couple of weeks.) And I wrote some good C2 choreography last night to be used later this week.

The reading helped improve my mood quite a bit. Paying some bills also lifted my spirits, even though the bank deposit from my latest pay period still doesn't reflect my raise or back pay yet.

My plan is to have a relatively relaxing Monday --as relaxing as Mondays can be-- and then join the gang for half-price burgers at Mr Henry's tonight. If I can, I'll try to generate a few more square dance sequences before the day is through but that'll be a bonus.

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Square Dance Drama, Part 2

2012-04-20T16:29:18Z

The utter lack of civility, courtesy or thoughfulness on the sd-callers mailing list continues to astonish me. It's embarrassing to read.

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Square Dance Drama

2012-04-20T16:05:30Z

CALLERLAB officially announced yesterday that the Advanced call "half-breed thru" is being renamed to "brace thru." There has been low level grumbling for many years that the term "half-breed" was demeaning and insulting; I have cringed every time I've had to use it, and have taken great pains to avoid using the call unless absolutely necessary. Personally, I'm relieved it's being renamed to something innocuous.

I suspect a huge portion of the square dance world would shrug its shoulders, realize very little has changed and move on as though nothing had happened. Of course, those who object to the renaming are incredibly vociferous in their objections --after the fact.

I find the basis for the objections a little odd. For the most part, there are three lines of argument.
1. "I'm not insulted by the term 'half-breed,' therefore no one else could be. This is just political correctness!"
2. "I'll have to redraft *all* my choreo cards!"
3. "Change?! I demand a vote!"

Argument #3 is easily dismissed. Calls are determined by program lists issued by CALLERLAB; each list is maintained by a particular committee with open membership. Want something changed? Join the committee, lobby for your change and vote in committee. There is no cost except time. These things aren't done in secret by a cabal in a secret chamber in some faraway island. If you didn't know the change was coming, you weren't paying attention. And now that the change has been made, the same process can be used to change it back: those complaining have every right to join the committee, propose the change and vote as they wish.

Argument #2 is also pretty easily demolished. It's just a name change: there was no change to the definition or the program list where it resided. One can either just scratch out the old name and scribble in the new one, or just leave the cards as is and mentally substitute the new call on the fly. Any caller worthy of the title should be able to do this.

Argument #1 seems to be the most common reaction on the callers' email list currently. As you can guess, I don't give it much credibility. Whether a term is insulting or not is subjective, not objective; just because a handful of people don't find it offensive doesn't mean others can't. Social context matters a great deal too: an intimate friend calling me a 'dumb bitch' over cocktails at happy hour is a world apart from, say, a manager at a business meeting.

As square dance callers, the words we inject into a microphone are amplified by both the sound systems and by our position as community leaders. Verbal missteps by dancers are forgotten in seconds, missteps by club officers in hours or days, missteps by callers might as well be etched a mile high on the side of a mountain for eternity. What we say to whom and when matters enormously. Even if one could imagine a world where 'half-breed' wasn't an insult, the universe isn't static: there was a time the infamous n-word was commonly heard in even polite conversation but few would accept it today.

I think there may be an age split on the 'brace thru' renaming issue, but it's hard to tell. My perception (and it is only that, a perception) is that no one under the age of 40 has objected while those who complain the loudest are 50+ years of age. However, this may be because the number of callers under the age of 40 is miniscule compared to those aged 50 or more.

In any case, I follow CALLERLAB rules and heartily embrace this particular list change. And I can finally use the call without cringing.

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Off to Canada!

2012-04-12T09:39:31Z

Early morning flights are a pain in the butt but it's a necessary evil. *sigh*

We're heading to southern Ontario this morning to celebrate my grandmother's 85th birthday in Drumbo, ON. Our little jaunt this morning will take us from home to BWI Airport, then a quick hop to Buffalo, NY, where we'll rent a car to drive across the border into Canada and to Toronto where we're staying with friends.

Planned side trips this weekend will also include a visit to my financial advisor, a meal at Swiss Chalet, a visit to the St Lawrence Market and at least one meal with the clan aside from Grandma's event. We may yet squeeze some other stuff into the schedule but this trip is primarily about family ~~until they drive me freaking nuts and we need to escape~~.

Pray for all involved.

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Headhunter Searching...

2012-03-27T21:56:16Z

A headhunter with which I've done business in the past is looking for a Linux engineer for Arlington, VA. If you're interested, ( click here )

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Hiring!

2012-03-21T20:19:21Z

My employer is looking for bodies to fill these positions, based in the San Francisco area:

Mobile Engineering Manager & Offers Engineering Manager

12-15 years development experience
3-5 years experience as Engineering Manager
Agile Development Experience
Java, JavaScript, HTML5, Ruby On Rails
Mobile Development Experience

If you're interested, let me know!

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The Unbearable Whiteness of Being

2012-03-18T20:18:27Z

The past two days at the trailer have been wonderful for both relaxing the body and stimulating the mind.

We have two major projects now in the works, neither of which I can say much at the moment but hope to within a month or so. Brainstorming yesterday and again today has produced a lot of great ideas and refinements of possibilities. I need to do a tonne of research and produce a business plan for one, and handle some business operations stuff for the other. This is the sort of planning and research at which I excel so I'm delightfully busy right now.

Between the discussions, we've done some minor work around the trailer. Early this afternoon, we used a power washer and scrub mop to clean the exterior: the accumulation of dust, pollen and other environmental insults were obvious against the white panels. I'm amazed how much better the trailer looks now.

I've been playing with the campground wifi, learning what I can about it. We get about 700kbps download, 500kbps upload speeds, not a bad rate overall compared to either my mobile phone's feeble 1X data rate or the campground prior meagre wifi offering. Our home FiOS (25Mbps download & upload) has spoiled us.

Sure enough, logging out of the wifi service on my laptop doesn't allow me to log back in with my tablet or wifi-enabled mobile phone. Checking on other stats, I found that IPv6 is supported, the packet loss rate is high at 8-14% and DNS lookups are largely fine but the NAT node seems to have a potential security vulnerability.

I found time to sit in the sun for a brief period in the mid-afternoon. I regularly have commented that I have only two skin colors: fish-belly white and lobster red, and the transition between them is about 30 seconds. I'm trying to get small doses of gentle sun in the early spring so I can endure longer durations when needed during the summer. I also suspect my vitamin D production isn't what it should be since I spend so much time hiding from the flaming yellow ball of pain in the sky.

Memo to self: ebooks are a bitch to read in direct sunlight so consider having an audio book handy for the next time.

We return to Maryland tomorrow morning. *sigh*

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Trailer De-winterizing

2012-03-17T20:58:01Z

Another camping season at Roseland Resort has begun!

Actually, since the campground is open 12 months of the year, it's always been camping season here, but the trailer is not exactly comfortable in the depth of winter so we close it up in early November and open it again when weather & scheduling allow in the spring. Since spring seems to have come early this year, we de-winterized in mid-March rather than early April.

De-winterizing was a breeze: connect the utilities, flush the antifreeze from the lines, install the battery & propane tanks, power up the appliances and park our asses.

Roseland has changed a little since we left last fall. The rec hall has been expanded by about 50%, making it much more spacious and including a wrap-around porch. An ATM is now available for those who need quick cash. Internet access has been outsourced to WVHotSpot.net who has installed wifi hotspots across the campground: we can even get a signal inside our trailer instead of the machinations I employed to find an open wifi signal in the dining hall last year.

The wifi is a bit less than optimal for us geeks. One purchases a block of time as one would at an airport: $4/hour, $10/day, $15/week, $30/month, $50/60 days, $70/quarter, $100/half-year. Alas, the purchased account is tied to that single device and isn't transferable. If I purchase wifi access on my laptop, I can't logout and then login with my tablet. If anyone has an idea of how to work around this limit, let me know.

If you're reading this right now, it's because I purchased a day's wifi bandwidth for testing & evaluation. If only Verizon Wirless' 3G or 4G signal reached into these rural parts of West Virginia, I could use my phone's hotspot instead. *sigh*

While talking over schedules a few hours after arriving, we realized we don't actually need to dash home Sunday afternoon. After all, Michael is effectively self-employed, I telecommute and Kent is job hunting right now: what's the rush to be home & refreshed for Monday morning? Accordingly, we're going to stay at the trailer until Monday morning, then head home at our leisure. I can handle my regular work remotely from the back seat of the minivan as we trek across western Maryland for home.

I had a long nap this evening as I was still exhausted from a late night work shift. This probably means I'll be up half the night, but that's no tragedy: I have lots of reading material, a couple of writing assignments, a business plan to compose and some square dance choreography to create.

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Wifi Options

2012-03-17T05:53:02Z

Dear Lazywebz:

My campground has a new wifi offering. One can purchase relatively speedy wifi from an outsourced provider by the hour, day, week, month, etc.. Alas, once one has purchased the wifi access, it isn't transferable between devices: if you bought it on your laptop, you can't just logout & login with your tablet or mobile phone.

Is there some novel hardware or software mechanism by which I could create an in-house (in-trailer) shared hotspot while purchasing just a single $100 per season package for one device?

Alternatively, I already pay for hotspot functionality with Verizon Wireless via my mobile phone but the signal strength in extreme rural West Virginia is so feeble that I get only "1X" data rather than 3G or 4G LTE, and even that meagre offering is only available on good weather days from the south end of the trailer deck. Does anyone have a recommendation on a repeater/amplifier which could boost the gain enough that my phone could latch onto the 3G network and thus use my Verizon hotspot instead of the camp's wifi?

Help me, Obiwan: you're my only hope!

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The Simple Pleasures

2012-03-10T22:50:35Z

As most of you have already figured out, I'm a man of simple pleasures: good friends, chocolate... come to think of it, that's really all I need for a decent life.

Every now and again, I treat myself to a special indulgence: shopping at Best Buy. Not to acquire yet more toys (although that can be fun too, albeit cheaper elsewhere) but to freak out the sales critters.

I occasionally go computer shopping with clients, advising them on what to buy by matching their requirements with off-the-shelf systems and ensuring they're not taken to the cleaners by savvy staffers. A few months ago, Tracie and I were shopping for a new laptop for her accounting practice. Settling on a suitable model & price wasn't a problem but the sales person kept trying to up-sell us on an extended warranty which we categorically rejected.

"But it would cover your computer parts & labor against practically anything which could happen to it for the next two years for only $250!" he would explain ernestly.

Tracie and I just smirked at each other. "The computer you're selling isn't worth that much," I said. Tracie added in her most polite church lady tone: "Son, I bill $300 per hour. In the time it would take me to open a claim for the warranty and ship the dead machine back to you, I'd have grossed enough income to buy two more. This computer --and every other one you've shown me today-- are disposable. If and when this computer dies, I'll pitch it like an empty candy wrapper and buy a new one."

The poor sales guy just stood there, boggling at the concept. I'm sure the cost of the computer was an entire week's salary for him, but them's the breaks. The computer is... disposable?! Yup.

Today's adventure at Best Buy was to buy something so I could throw it away.

To be more precise, I recently had two fibre cards and a disk controller card shipped to me for installation in two servers for my employer. The snag is that the mounting brackets on these cards are the full-height 4.75" versions instead of the low profile 3" brackets. In effect, the electronics fit but the card mounting bracket doesn't. I could ship them back for replacement but that incurs time on my part, delays to our deployment schedule and costs in shipping as well as possible restocking.

My cheaper solution was to simply replace the mounting brackets with low profile versions. The only snag is finding low profile brackets. I then had a clever idea...

I dutifully went to my local Best Buy because it's just 1.5 miles down the road and selected what I needed off the shelf. The sales guy came around to ensure I found everything I needed. I indicated I had exactly what I wanted, showing him the no-name 100baseT cards I pulled off the shelf. He then tried to argue for getting gigabit ethernet cards, pointing out some brand name cards nearby.

"Nope," I replied. "I have what I need."

"But these other cards will be faster if your network gets upgraded!"

"Doesn't matter. I'm not actually buying network cards."

"Huh?"

"I just want the mounting bracket of them to rescue vastly more expensive hardware I already have in hand. I'm throwing away the network cards afterwards."

"Come again?"

"I'm keeping the mounting brackets and throwing away the network cards."

"You're buying these... then throwing them away?"

"You got it."

He stared blankly for a full 15 seconds before he escorted me to the cash register and rang up the sale. I don't think he really believed me, but that's ok. I got the equipment I needed, my servers will get upgraded on schedule, I saved the firm a pile of cash and I got a cheap thrill causing yet another sales guy great confusion.

Like I said, I'm a man of simple pleasures.

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First World Camping Problems

2012-03-10T01:24:22Z

The camping season hasn't begun yet but there have already been developments of the interesting kind.

The past two seasons, there has been wifi available from the dining hall and fellowship hall. It wasn't an especially speedy signal but it was good enough for casual web browsing, and it was free. The signal though didn't reach to our trailer so I spent some time at the end of the 2011 season trying to devise means by which I could extend the coverage enough that we could browse the Interwebz from the comfort of our own trailer.

Earlier this week, there was a broadcast announcement from the campground that they've contracted with an outside provider to provide pay-per-use wifi services. Because of the terrain, they can't assure complete coverage over the entire campground, but if it's a strong signal from the dining hall or there's a repeater somewhere on Rose Hill, odds are good we'll be able to tap into it from our trailer.

The downside is that it will cost: $10/day, $15/week, $100/six months. There are 30, 60 & 90 day rates as well but those don't really matter: if we bought, it would be the six month interval.

We stil have questions: Is our trailer within the area of coverage? What's the overall bandwidth? If they cancel the contract, can we get a refund for on a pro-rated basis? Is it tied to a single device exclusively or can one's use be moved from one device to another so long as only one device is active at a time? Is there a usage limit or all-you-can-eat?

If we don't like the coverage, another option for us is to get some sort of cellular signal booster/repeater so I could use my mobile phone as a wifi hot spot. Equipment for that won't come cheap, but could pay for itself within 2-3 years. The downside is the extra expense, that the equipment basically travels with me so my guys & co-trailer trash would be SOL if they're at the trailer without me, and the extra headache of maintaining the system ourselves (presuming it works at all).

At the moment, our plan is to de-winterize the trailer next weekend. I'll sign up for a day rate to run some tests and we'll see how it goes. More news as it develops.

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Weekend Report

2012-03-05T02:43:02Z

It's been a bit of a blur, this weekend.

Chip came down from NYC on Friday evening to join us for a weekend of C2 square dancing in McLean, VA (dayleh calling); deege joined us Saturday morning.

We danced all of Saturday afternoon and the early evening with a dinner break at which we had superb thai cuisine in McLean. Sunday morning, we were back at it again, dancing until the mid-afternoon. Sadly, I was feeling a bit off in the Sunday session, possibly from burning the candle at both ends (and some in the middle) the past few days so I sat out the last 1.5 hours or so to recoup my energy.

deege departed for Richmond, VA, as soon as the dancing was over so he could attend a friend's birthday dinner. We drove Chip to Union Station in downtown DC so he could catch his bus back to NYC, but we were hours early so we enjoyed some ice cream and conversation in the station's food court.

Once home, I largely collapsed. We watched a little television, I caught up on some email and now I'm about to call it a night. It's been a fun weekend but oh what I'd give for a few extra hours of sleep right now.

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We're Hiring!

2012-03-01T00:09:32Z

My employer, Rearden Commerce, is hiring!

In particular, we're looking for:

a Performance Engineer (4-6 Years Enterprise Application Dev, Profiling Application Performance, Bash, Python, Perl, Oracle, NoSQL); and,
a Senior Finance Manager (10+ Relevant Finance Experience, Bachelors Degree in Finance, Accounting, Demonstrated Business Partner Support).

Both positions are in the San Francisco mid-peninsula area. Not as seriously cool as my office in Washington DC, but it's not bad either. :-)

If you're interested, please consider mentioning you saw this in my post so I'll be eligible for a referral bonus!

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Indecision

2012-02-25T20:17:29Z

I've been in an odd state of mind yesterday and today: being indecisive.

It feels a lot like procrastination but it's more than just deferring some action. Normally, I would make a conscious decision to do something, anything, rather than just avoid some activity. Normally, I wouldn't hesitate to make a commitment to a particular purchase, or taking on a new projects or selecting a book to read. Normally, I'd just look through my prioritized to do list for the next task to tackle.

I didn't quite realize how much I've been hedging lately until I was faced with the purchase commitment on eBay. Lately, I was thinking it would be pretty cool to hook either my tablet or my mobile phone to an external monitor & bluetooth keyboard. Purchase the right extras and I could use either device effectively as a regular laptop. Lord knows both devices are pretty powerful; my phone has more RAM than my netbook. The biggest snag is simply that I need a QWERTY keyboard to type effectively on either.

Both my phone & tablet have Bluetooth functionality so buying a Bluetooth keyboard would set me back only $20. An HDMI cable would only cost $2.50. So why am I so hesitant to hit the magic buy button?

My only idea on it at the moment is that my subconscious either thinks the purchase too frivolous or doesn't want to spend the funds, or both. I just wish my subconscious was speaking a bit more clearly 'cause I'd really like to know what I'm supposed to do. Limbo sucks. I'm supposed to be on mic for a square dance calling workshop tomorrow but I suspect I'm going to be somewhat less glowing than I normally try to be. Oh, well... they can't all be winners.

I'm sure this is just a passing mood and all will be well again in another day or two. In fact, we have a fairly loaded schedule for the next few weeks so I'm sure falling into normal routines again will help push me thorugh this annoyance. In the next few weeks, we have a number of square dance calling gigs, a C2 weekend with dayleh, and, most happily of all, dewinterizing of our trailer at Roseland in West Virginia.

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Presidents' Day Weekend

2012-02-21T19:26:06Z

Another ACDC square dance weekend has come & gone. It was tremendous fun, I had a great time and it was wonderful to see everyone again but my feet were killing me nearly the entire weekend from dashing around from hall to hall, helping at the registration desk, answering various questions and even (gasp!) dancing.

My little household did the weekend on the cheap: we commuted from home to save on hotel expenses and even scored a parking place at a friend's nearby condo so we could save on parking. It added to our general sense of exhaustion but the financial impact is significant.

I hosted the guest caller Advanced hour and called a tip during that block. On the whole, I think my ten minutes of mic time went pretty well. kent4str hosted the C1 hour at the same time so I didn't get to see how things were chugging along in his hall but it's hard to imagine things going terribly wrong.

Monday was a day of great relief thanks to the Presidents' Day holiday. cuyahogarvr and I went to the National Geographic Museum in downtown DC to see the Anglo-Saxon hoard display, a collection of gold, silver & garnet pieces unearthed a short while ago which date to about 1300 years ago. The display pieces were much smaller than I had anticipated; the largest was only a couple of inches in length and most were tiny fragments the size of my thumbnail. And as I should have anticipated, the crowds were dense so it was difficult to see any of the artifacts or even read the text on the associated signs.

In the early afternoon, cuyahogarvr and I went to Fairfax, VA, to visit John Marshall at his rehab facility. Mentally, he's as sharp as ever although he's still moving delicately & slowly. Good news, however: as I type this Tuesday afternoon, John should be in the process of being discharged to home. He still has some physiotherapy but it will done with home visits. Each day, he's a little stronger and more mobile.

kent4str had an interview with another headhunter firm while we were visiting John. It's comforting to know he's still in circulation and there are nibbles periodically so we're still quite optimistic about his long term prospects.

We spent much of the afternoon catching up on various mid-term planning and projects. We've booked our hotel room for the upcoming CALLERLAB convention, although not at the host hotel. Because the primary hotel only has small double beds left --of which only cuyahogarvr might fit into, we've had to look elsewhere. Fortunately, the Marriott is only a half-mile away and we were planning to drive anyway so we'll have our minivan available.

We've also purchased air fare & booked a rental car for the Vancouver IAGSDC convention, as well as booked a rental car for our April trip to Ontario to visit family.

My evening was largely spent catching up on some reading, finishing off two magazines and an ebook. I'm increasingly becoming disappointed with many self-help productivity books and articles as I'm doing nearly all of the things which they recommend: task lists, aggressive prioritization, using a PDA, etc.. In all, it would seem the best way for me to become yet more efficient is to stop reading books on increasing personal efficiency. Which kinda sucks 'cause it means I've hit something of an unsatisfactory plateau.

Well, back to the salt mines. I don't have much to do except watch three Fujitsu guys install & configure my new storage array expansion but I'll think of something to make the time worthwhile.

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Bangalore, Day 14, Part 2

2012-02-14T21:45:16Z

Executive summary: I'm home.

When we last heard from our heroic world traveler, he was attempting to recharge his tablet & mobile phone at his gate at Charles de Gaulle Airport, just outside of Paris. Alas, it was not to be.

I think I had everything plugged in & charging for about five minutes when my name flashed up on a screen asking me to go to the nearest Air France courtesy desk. In this instance, nearest==only and while I was only fourth in line, I was fourth in line for more than a half-hour as the Brit at the front of the line had the Air France rep looking through every possible combination of flights for the following day to his destination, then doing it all over again by window or aisle seating.

When it was finally my turn, it was just to ask to see my permanent residence card. By the time I was back at my gate, however, the plane was in the process of boarding so I never did get my devices fully charged.

The 7.5 hour flight from Paris to Dulles was uneventful. Indeed, it was half-full so there was plenty of sprawl space for folks who wanted more room or to lay across several seats to sleep. I caught up on a lot of reading on my tablet, watched the latest Harry Potter movie (which probably would have made more sense if I had seen the movies or read the books leading up to it) and the last Transformers movie (which I suspect wouldn't have much more sense if I had seen the prior ones).

We landed just before 1pm EST. Passengers were unloaded at an outer terminal, shuttled in the "mobile lounges" to the customs area in the main building and were processed in a general fashion not unlike most slaughter houses. Kent & Michael were waiting for me and we headed home.

In all, I think I was in transit 21 hours total, 26 if you include the stopover in Paris and 29 if you include the transit time to & from the airports. No wonder my body is rebelling against me currently.

I've unpacked my suitcase and backpack, although I've yet to swap out the contents of my wallet and the extra pockets of my backpack. I'm working on going to bed after nightfall so I can acclimatize back into my usual daytime routine but the act of simply staying awake is taking a great deal of energy. I keep looking at the clock, wondering if it's 9pm yet. Nope, not yet. Still not yet. Nope. Damn, this day will never end.

I went to get my hair cut just a little while ago, the first time I've driven a car in two weeks. I'm feeling very proud of myself: despite recent adventures in driving, I stayed in my own lane, used turn signals and didn't honk at every vehicle, pedestrian or tree I passed. So there.

There's a huge tonne of emails to catch up on from the past day or so and I'd better get at it. So much to do, so little desire to do any of it...

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Bangalore, Day 14, Part 1

2012-02-14T08:52:58Z

It's been a great trip but I'm ready to go home: I miss my bed, my square dancing, my friends and mostly my hubbies. I'd go back in an instant though. There are somethings I didn't get to do, including riding the new metro, riding in an auto-rickshaw and seeing an elephant. I'd also set aside time for an eye exam & new glasses and see about getting some tailored clothes. I regret not stopping by KFC to see how the local menu differs from North America. I still wouldn't drive in Bangalore though.

I noticed a couple of cars today which had a sticker on the back urging anyone who witnesses the vehicle being driven rashly to call the number below. Frankly, the number looked 12 digits long: who is going to remember that when they're dodging a fast moving vehicle? And seriously, just how much worse does a Bangalore driver have to get to be labeled "rash"? My mind can't fathom it.

Checking out of the hotel was a novel experience in that the staff had no concept of a check out time: you check out at whatever hour you desire instead of the staff hounding you out by 11am or so. Still, it was a longer process than I've experienced before as they gave me copies of everything I ever signed the past two weeks: room service, laundry service, travel & driver services, etc.. The master account ran four pages but the grand total was just shy of 90,000 rupees, about $1.800. That is one hell of a bargain.

Checking in at the airport was relatively easy. The personal body scans at security were minimal but they examined every item in every carry-on, rejecting dangerous items like chapstick and chewing gum. My mess o' power cables for my tablet, phone camera and laptop caused some momentary consternation but I had the distinct impression I was given lighter treatment than the Indian travellers around me.

I also thought it interesting that security screening is segregated by sex. It's not a simple "ladies may opt for the scan & pat down by female security if they chose," but rather men are pulled from the line and ordered to one set of lines while women are ordered to another with no consideration of couples or families travelling together. It caused some significant delay as families had to sort & assig their travel docs before being separated.

I also thought it was a little odd that the process for documenting my departure from India was just as onerous as my arrival: forms to be completed, explanations for my visit, details of where I went, etc.. I expected that on arrival, but what are they going to do as I'm already one foot out the door?

I was happily surprised to learn I could get 45 min of free wifi at the Bangalore airport but the applicatin procedure requires receiving a serial number & authorization code via mobile text messaging so I enabled roaming on my mobile for the first time. Hopefully that text message won't cost $10,000.

The hotel and airport staff (among many others) have been so incredibly helpful these past two weeks. There's always someone to look after my luggage, make arrangements on my behalf, run errands as needed, etc.. I'm seriously not used to having things done for me on this scale but I think if Kent & Michael put in a bit more effort, I could grow into it.

Hey, Air France! I gave you two full weeks to equip your Airbus 340 planes with electrical outlets but I'm not seeing any improvement. WTF?! You are beginning to annoy me althogh I will admit your bathroom tissue is a vast improvement over the coarse-grain sandpaper which seems to be common in India.

One of the flight attendants looks like a tall version of billeyler --but less gay. I'm tempted to ask him an accounting or square dance question but he'd probably toss me out the door over the Balkans or something since I've also insulted their planes. The French can be so touchy.

The Bangalore-Paris hop is about 10.5 hours and it doesn't appear to be popular: perhaps only a third of the economy class is used, but that means more space to stretch and sleep. There are still lines at the toilets though. I slept about five hours in mixed degrees of comfort. My throat feels raw but I'm not sure if that's caused by dry cabin air or the insecticide fogging process as we taxied from the gate.

And now that I'm at Charles De Gaulle Airport, I had to go through security all over again, as though they could possibly be any more intrusive or thorough than Bangalore. If I fly internationally again soon, I will consider paying a lot more for a direct flight or find a connection somewhere else. Other airports may do the same, but I know for certain how inefficient this one is so I'm willing to take a risk others might be better.

Charging my toys and boarding in an hour...

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Bangalore, Day 13

2012-02-12T16:52:52Z

I tried to sleep in a little this morning, really I did. Still, I was awake at 7am despite being utterly exhausted still from the previous day's tours.

As previously planned, I cranked up my mobile phone, connected it to the hotel wifi (which is now functioning as it should, thank you very much) and skyped Kent & Michael back home to chat for a half hour before they went to bed Saturday night.

Since the wifi was working so well and I had little incentive to get out of bed, I caught up on the latest news from Canada and the US, handled some email, updated twitter and so on. If I hadn't been a little thirsty, I would have stayed in the bed the rest of the morning.

I was thirsty however and there were things still to do this last full day in Bangalore. I made myself somewhat presentable and headed out into the world, hoping to get my errands completed before the full heat of the day set in.

Because most of these errands were gift shopping, I won't say much about them here. Suffice it to say, I now have all the souvenirs I was planning to purchase.

Alas, I wasn't able to visit one particular shop as it was closed today; I'll try again tomorrow after work. And I wasn't able to get a second small suitcase: the only store where I've found luggage or indeed anything larger than a purse wanted what could only be called US prices, and I wasn't willing to shell out $125+ for a suitcase when a simple small gym bag would suffice. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about that.

The early afternoon was mostly spent catching up on my travelogue updates, sorting through photos and generally relaxing in the air conditioning of my room. I suppose I could do more with the day but really I just want to relax and look forward to being home again.

Something I noticed yesterday when out touring with the guys but neglected to report: wow, the locals Do Not Tip. I mean, jeez, I thought I was a lousy tipper but these guys are truly harsh. (Obligatory tourism joke: What's the difference between a Canuck and a canoe? A canoe tips.) I've been giving out 100 rupee notes ($2) to the hotel staff for room service and laundry delivery. To me, it's not extravagant. When we last ate together on our way back to Bangalore yesterday, I paid the bill and was prepared to leave the 15 rupee change behind but the guys actively discouraged me from doing so. I told them how most states in the US have a special minim wage level just for wait staff which is typically a small fraction of the regular minimum wage level and they seemed quite shocked --as would any normal human being, IMHO.

I haven't written much about the local newspapers so let me fill you in on a few things. My primary newspaper here is the Times of India, largely because that's the newspaper the hotel delivers to my door every morning. It's a good mix of local, national & international news: for example, the headlines today (Sunday) were about a controversy in local state high court appointments, speculation that the head of the commander of the Eastern Army may resign (and who will replace him) and Mitt Romney winning delegates in Nevada. At a glance one might guess the journalists here are nowhere near as deferential as American journalists tend to be. Take for example, today's harsh front page headline:

That said, I haven't been here long enough to know if the papers have political affiliations like many North American news outlets. For example, the Toronto Star is well known as a Liberal paper, the National Post as a Conservative one. Is the Times of India a Congress(I) supporter against a state gov't run by the BJP, or do they skewer everyone equally? I'd need more time here to say.

Valentine's Day advertising features prominently. At first, I thought this was a sign of western influence, but the more I think of it, the more I suspect it's marketing depts going the easy path to bigger sales & markets.

The astrology column occupies a full half-page and gives very detailed advice --if you're into that sort of thing. Each zodiac sign includes a celebrity name & photo noting their birthday, but not a single one of these celebrities is Indian: names include Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Daniel Radcliffe, Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe and Charlie Sheen, among others. This despite the column being produced by a local astrologer. Go figure.

Sunday comics? Nothing local, not even an editorial cartoon. Just Garfield, Beetle Bailey, Hagar the Horrible and the Wizard of Id. Sorry, India.

Not a word on Whitney Houston but I suspect the paper went to the presses before the news broke.

I'm thinking more & more about my return trip, my logistics of packing, checking out, getting to the airport & such. In particular, I'm thinking a lot more about the list of things to get done nearly as soon as I return, including calling a C2 session on Wednesday. I have plenty of material still in inventory to use, but I should stop procrastinating and get back to writing some new choreo immediately.

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Bangalore, Day 12

2012-02-12T09:50:48Z

Today (Saturday) has been one long-ass day.

The alarm went off at 5:30am to give me enough time to make myself presentable, pack my camera & batteries and head down to the lobby to meet my hired driver. Today, I and three of my Bangalore office colleagues went to Mysore to see the temples, palaces and countryside.

The drive out of Bangalore itself was quite the adventure. I've made comments here previously about the barely-controlled chaos of urban vehicular traffic. Now I've seen it from the inside as a passenger. Spontaneous lane shifts, casual passing of slower vehicles by crossing into oncoming traffic lanes, speed bumps that made me glad to be wearing a seat belt, sudden stops & accelerations: it was the whole OMG package. In the course of the 150km drive from Bangalore to Mysore, I had 14 heart attacks, five strokes and lord knows how many panic attacks. And that's just the stuff my subconscious hasn't yet blocked.

Traffic calming seems to come in three varieties: the casual speed hump most North Americans would recognize, rumble strip kind of speed bumps (5-6 small speed humps 6-8 inches apart) and portable offset gates erected by the local police which restrict traffic down to a single lane with some tricky navigation. Believe me when I tell you the rumble strip version is guaranteed to get your attention, especially if the stripes have that magical interaction with the wheelbase of your vehicle causing the driver & passengers alike to be tossed around like numbered balls in a bingo machine.

The drive of 150km really did take three full hours each way. Simply put, the highway is dominated by modes of transport which typically can't travel more than 45km/h: critter-drawn wagons, tractors, auto-rickshaws, scooters typically laden with three passengers plus cargo and buses making frequent stops. Even if you could get up to speed, it would only be a matter of five minutes before you hit another traffic calming mechanism.

Still, getting out of town was time well spent in itself. You've seen the photos in National Geographic magazine and I can assure you they're all true: oxen pulling overloaded wagons of sugar cane, cows roaming at will, fields with goats, a troop of monkeys vying for handouts from humans. The only thing missing from the picture was an elephant or two.

Our first stop was a palace commonly known as the "Summer Palace." It's an all-wood structure and while intricately carved & painted, it's rather small for something to be labeled a palace. And at 200 years old, the wooden structure is showing its age. Hopefully, a full restoration will be undertaken some time soon. No photos are forthcoming as photography was forbidden inside the structure and the exterior was sheathed in protective tarps. Sorry.

On our way through town, we made a spontaneous visit to the Roman Catholic cathedral, St Philomena's church. Yup, there is an RC cathedral in downtown Mysore, India. Who knew? Frankly, it was a cathedral like any other. I had hoped there might be some customization in recognition of its special location & culture but no: it was a perfect cut-and-paste gothic structure which would have been perfectly at home anywhere in Europe or North America. Indeed, wikipedia says it was inspired by the Cologne Cathedral in Germany.

The guys suggested we stop for a quick drink as we left the church whereupon I had yet another new experience: street vendor coconut water. There are vendors on every street in every town in the area sitting beside an enormous pile of coconuts. One selects a coconut from the pile, the vendor uses a wide-blade scythe to hack off the stem & husk, then the pointed end to gouge a hole through the meat to the litre of water inside. You can then drink directly from the coconut or, if you're a delicate but fat & overpaid westerner like me, you'll be offered a straw.

While I know this is supposedly a very nutritious drink and is the latest fad in parts of the western world who fetishize all things organic, raw & all-natural, frankly, I wasn't impressed. It wasn't a strong flavor of any particular kind and didn't especially quench my thirst. Imagine dissolving a half-teaspoon of sugar in a quart of water; if that sounds good to you, coconut water is your thing. You're welcome.

The next palace we visited was grand on any measure: the Maharaja's Palace (aka Ambavilasa Palace or Mysore Palace), the royal home of Maharaja Chamaraja Wodeyar IV. This place is the stuff of Disney fairy tales: immense, sprawling, stone, marble & glass, elaborate carvings and luxurious furnishings. Again, photography of the interior was forbidden. Further, one had to go barefoot through the palace. While I expect that of temples & holy places, I was a little surprised about needing to check my shoes to visit a royal palace. Oh, well... at least the shoes were checked at no extra charge.

The other big surprise was the price differential for admission: local citizens can visit for five rupees while foreigners were charged 100 rupees. Perhaps citizens of India get a break because their tax money is preserving the place. I like that theory more than the cough-up-you-fat-overpaid-walking-bank-machine-westerner alternative explanation. Still at effectively $2, it's an incredible bargain.

Next up was lunch at the Sapphire Restaurant at the Lalitha Mahal Palace, now a luxury hotel. Outside of a horrid package of almonds from my hotel mini-bar, I've never had a bad meal in India and this restaurant was no exception. The buffet had so many flavours to try and the dessert table was too enticing for me to resist. I ate too much mais je ne regrette rien.

We began the slow trek back to Bangalore after lunch, winding our way through the winding streets of Mysore, making a few additional stops along the way. The next one was the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary.

It was a pleasant park on the Cauvery River with several protected islands which are used as nesting areas by various migratory birds. Among other species, there were hundreds of spoonbills, cormorants, pelicans and such, along with very large bats hanging from the upper branches of trees across the river and at least two crocodiles sunning themselves along the shore. There were a half-dozen sanctuary-operated tour boats offering a leisurely half-hour ride around a couple of the small islands so we could get closer to the birds. All boats were propelled by humans with oars: engines would disturb the wildlife. Many photos were taken --including that of the life preservers piled neatly on shore at the landing pier.

And now for a little digression into language...

Yes, english is spoken by a huge portion of the population to some degree. Typically, the more educated one is, the better one's english. As a native english speaker, I make allowances for lapses in vocabulary, syntax & grammar for others, just as many others do when I stumble my way through French or ASL. The point, we all typically agree, is to communicate even if imperfectly and with some effort.

That said, there is a special level of hell in my world for folks of any language who create signs but don't/can't bother to spell-check them with a native speaker or against an Internet filled with suitable examples. Conversational communication is real-time, but making signs for traffic, business or directions isn't, and if one is going to put something out in public for all to see, it should be correct both in content and form. I would take pains to do this if I had to post a sign in spanish, chinese or whatever, and I don't think it's too much to ask adults to do likewise.

I don't mind the admission rate charts referring to people like me as "foreigners." I prefer "foreign national" but there are space restrains so I'll accept the shorter form. (I despise the American term "alien": I'm from Canada, not Mars.) Still, if you're going to use the word "foreigners" three times on your sign, would it hurt to spell it the same way rather than three different ways, none of which were correct? I forgive the misuse of the apostrophe in the follow example: native English speakers have a tough time getting it right so some slack will be cut for those using it as a second (or third or more) language. That said, a quick google search will find standard english signs to copy.

From the bird sanctuary, we drove though still more kilometers of back country roads, through villages and scenery. Our driver was honking the horn even when we were the only vehicle on the road: I can't decide if it was a reflex action from driving in Bangalore where one honks every 10-15 seconds or if the quiet of the countryside unnerved him in some fashion.

Sugar cane is everywhere in these parts. We past many fields just harvested, the process of being harvested or yet to be harvested. Huge stacks of cut cane were piled by the roadside, waiting for the cart with oxen or donkey to collect it.

And finally we arrived at the Kesava Temple, constructed around 1268 AD. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and is undergoing extensive renovation. The stone work and carvings are exquisite: no detail is spared.

By now, it was the late afternoon and the sun was fading so we finally made the final trek back into Bangalore. We had taken a number of major streets and highways out of the city when we went directly to Mysore but I presume we were now approaching from a different direction thanks to our tangential visits to other sites as we were scooting through back alleys and the wrong way up one-way streets, dodging motorcycles, scooters, cows, dogs, pedestrians and other cars in a fashion that would have made Indiana Jones proud for nearly an hour.

Bangalore at night from the neighboring hills isn't as well lit as most western cities, largely because there are fewer street lights. The lights one does see are apartments, homes, businesses and entrances with minimal additional street lighting. Bangalore also has considerably more of a tree canopy that many other cities I've visited which conveniently cuts back on some of the light pollution.

For the first time, I also noted satellite dishes: they were pointed nearly straight up. Since the satellites are positioned over the equator and Bangalore is about 13 degrees north of the equator, this makes perfect sense. It just struck me as unusual because where I grew up, the satellite dishes point at the horizon. See how worldly I'm becoming? :-)

We arrived back at the hotel at nearly 9pm sharp. I was tired, exhausted --and needed a bathroom like never before. Not that I was having any sort of GI issues, it was just time you understand.

Once settled back in my room, I had a drink from the room minibar and attempted to update LJ but the hotel wifi system was having none of it: something wasn't working correctly. I curled up with a book for a short while (on literary references to Charlemagne), then headed to bed.

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Bangalore, Day 11

2012-02-11T17:12:36Z

I must be fully adjusted to living in Bangalore: this morning (Friday), I slept in.

Over the past 10+ days, I've been waking up at 7:30am by reflex (my watch alarm set for 8am as a precaution), check my email, get scrubbed up enough to be seen in public and walk over to the office by 9am. This morning, however, I woke up, rolled over to look at my watch and was astonished to see it displaying 9:10am.

Fortunately, it's Friday here and all of the big work projects have already been tackled. In fact, I completed all of the writing tasks I had hoped to accomplish shortly after lunch Thursday. At the moment, I'm monitoring some processing jobs and updating some scripts, but otherwise expending most of my energy dreading a huge pile of stuff waiting for me at my data center back in Washington.

One of the curious side effects of being 10.5 hours out of sync with home is that I'm spending less time online. We talk a great line about how the Internet has made us a 24x7 world, but it really hasn't: the bulk of the transactions, updates & postings generated are done in the daylight hours of the writers. Since most of the people I follow on email, Facebook, Google+, LiveJournal and a host of news web sites are all in North America, there are precious few updates posted during my daytime hours in India. In effect, I get to do all of my reading & browsing within the first hour or so of my day before going to work and never have a distraction until my bedtime, just as folks in North America are starting their day.

debbieann commented on yesterday's post about the card key electrical control for my hotel room. The suggestion was that any card the correct shape would probably work just as well as my room's door key. Sure enough, the Cold Stone Creamery gift card I forgot to take out of my wallet works just fine at keeping the lights & outlets on. Yay!

I just finished reading "Rainbow's End" by Maury Klein, a history of the stock market crash of 1929. Wow, that ended badly.

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Bangalore, Day 10

2012-02-09T17:01:06Z

Today is another day of light activities. Work continues to roll along: I'm tackling my usual stack of maintenance work tickets from California, attending a few conference calls and generally writing, writing and more writing. Each day has become more routine as the novelty of being in Bangalore fades and I get into a new work habit.

This evening, I went shopping again specifically to look for t-shirts or sweatshirts for my guys back home. All I want is something which is distinctly India, something moderately special, something which one wouldn't normally find in DC.

Such is not to be had around here.

American fashion, brands and logos completely dominate the shopping & commercial district around me. I can find t-shirts & sweatshirts for sports teams in North Carolina, but I can't find a one for a cricket team in Karnataka.

As it stands, I've been here 10 days and am still empty-handed when it comes to gifts for kent4str. He'll probably change the locks before I get home if I don't have something to offer. *sigh*

I ordered chicken biriyani from room service tonight: that particular dish was strongly endorsed on Foursquare so I thought I'd give it a try. Yup, just as good as it was described but the servings are huge, large enough for two adults. I wish I had some sort of container I could use to take the leftovers with me to work tomorrow as lunch.

I had mentioned previously my guest room's key card activation: once you unlock the door, you place the key card into a slot by the door and thereby activate all of the outlets, lights & appliances. Remove the key card when you leave and everything powers down. It's a brilliant way of ensuring electrical conservation when no one is in, although my room's configuration has one major flaw: all outlets shut down when I leave, including the refrigerator. This means trouble for anyone with, say, medication which must remain refrigerated and, as I was reminded this evening, trouble for any laptop with a processing job that will take longer than the machine's battery life. Oops.

This afternoon, I made arrangements through the hotel travel desk for a car & driver for Saturday, 6:30am. My plan is to see the temples of Mysore, an ancient temple ruins site nearby and possibly a bird sanctuary if daylight is still available. The cost is reasonable, about 12 rupees per kilometer of travel and 200 rupees per hour for the driver, with an extra 200 rupee/hour surcharge after ten hours. That said, I have absolutely no idea how many kilometers this trip will be in total. I'll let you know how it works out.

I'm spending the rest of the evening curled up in bed with an ebook. I'm reading about the 1920s in America in the lead-up to the great depression. I love a happy ending.

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Bangalore, Day 9

2012-02-08T16:08:10Z

I've finally figured out how to operate the television in my room. The problem ultimately was that the remote for the descrambler had dead batteries. Easily fixed.

In keeping with the hotel's international clientele, the channels represent a broad range. There are a stack of channels in Indian language(s), but also two from France, one from Russia, one from Germany, a few from south-east Asia and Al Jazeera from the middle east.

There are a handful of cricket channels and a stack of sports channels, and by sports I mean still more cricket channels.

I found some familiar North American channels, or rather, their Indian equivalents: CNN India, MSNBC India, etc.. I think only the BBC new channel looked the same on both both US and Indian televisions.

They have VH1. Sorry about that, India.

The Indian news channels were intriguing: many times the speakers were talking a local language with appropriate upper-screen titles while the ticker across the bottom was english. In fact, many of the channels have a mix of languages, switching between english and other languages in the same program or commercial, sometimes in mid-sentence. One National Geographic channel has two overlapping audio tracks in different simultaneous languages, the net effect being that one can't make out the narrative at all.

The commercials seem to come in two major varieties: the basic story theme in a style & structure western eyes would quickly recognize, and the Bollywood musical style with lots of singing & stylized dancing, praising the product or service in question, or just creating an atmosphere of energy & excitement.

I've been watching one of the movie channels, an Indian channel showing primarily American movies. Every now and then, text scrolls across the dead center of the screen, inviting anyone who is offending by any aspect of the movie to complain to a gov't review board.

The single most striking commonality between Indian and American television is obvious, however: 500 channels and nothing on. I'm going to go read a book.

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