I love laundered and pressed shirts. I know that it is vanity, but I love the look of my pressed and starched shirt collars. I look like the models in GQ and the Johnston & Murphy catalog. Now I know that the hotel I’m staying at is fleecing me on the cost of laundering, like they with the cost of internet access, but I can’t help but smile when I look in the mirror.
I hate the atrocious state of sidewalks in the city. Walking along the streets and roads is a kind of hiking expedition. I step along twenty feet of laid brick, then I stride over a tumbled piles of rocks, then I hop over a hole, then I step into the street to avoid mud, then I find another smooth place to walk. I get past my nervousness walking on top of these concrete slabs that cover trenches. Everyone walks on them, but I have seen too many that are broken or shattered to really trust the footing on them.
I love how helpful the people are in my office. I am mostly working with the human resources department: they schedule my meetings, offer to get me coffee and water, they bring in the candidates, and other things to smooth the process. They even are helping me organize touring this weekend in Mysore. The admin folks offer to make phone calls for me, they arrange for my transportation back and forth from the hotel, and lots of other little things. Even when I suggest to people that I am having some difficulty with something, people instantly take the hint and offer to help me or to perform the task themselves. It’s great! I wish I could get that kind of help in the office back in the states.
I don’t like the polite disapproval I receive from some of the people in the office about what I consider to be the fun way to travel (the “backpacker’s hovel” style of travel). When I told one of the managers I had ridden in an autorickshaw, he seemed very surprised and told me what a nuisance the things are. When I asked about visiting the Nandi Hills outside of Bangalore, which I had read is a popular day trip getaway for people, the HR manager spoke about how unkempt that it was, and that if I was interested in outdoor things, I would enjoy going on a jeep tiger safari (which doesn’t excite me).
I love the fact that many women wear colorful saris to work – even for interviews. They are attractive, classy outfits that add vibrant color to the office.
I don’t care for the traffic. While it is mesmerizing in its intricate weavings of motorbikes, cars, and rickshaws, it is well beyond my ability to drive. It is also dangerous on foot. When I was crossing the street in front of stopped traffic on Monday, the light turned green and a car 18 inches fromg starting moving forward. It was kind of pushing me along. Crossing the streets is an adventure. Part of it is my own fault. This morning, I looked the wrong way on the road while crossing. I stepped into the lane and was fortunate that the major road just happened to be empty of traffic when I realized my mistake.
I like the service at hotels and restaurants. People seem to enjoy their jobs, or at least enjoy doing a good job. Everyone greets me as I walk through the hotel, waiters make an effor to remember what I like to order, people volunteer make transport arrangements for me…. Perhaps it is a function of staying at a classy hotel.
I am enjoying my time here. I wish Jodi was here with me. I am glad that we are wrapping up the work portion of the trip today so that I have Saturday and Sunday for touring. I hope that the next time I come out, there is more advance notice that Jodi and can plan to come with me or meet me out here.

The business I am conducting in Bangalore this week is mostly to interview people. The company is expanding my team so that I will have both stateside employees who work in the office and work remotely and employees working out of Bangalore. Yesterday’s interviews went well. We, that is my boss and I, made offers to two people, have three people shortlisted, and a bunch of people who didn’t interview well.
One thing that initially confused me during the interviews was that most people here wobble their heads when they answer a question in the affirmative. I saw it the first day I got here, but the interviews were the first time people were talking directly to me in a long conversation. I say that it confused me because it is similar to what I do when I tell someone that I am not sure of something. Here, it means that people understand what you are saying or that they agree with what you are saying.
One of the center directors and one of his managers took us out to dinner last night. We ate at a hotel near the office that did not look promising from the outside, but inside it was a posh luxury type of place. It was a good dinner. Our hosts ordered bits of everything for us to try. Mostly, we had pieces of lamb, prawns, and tuna that had been fried (you can’t go wrong with fried), alongside breads both soft (naan) and crispy (one that looked like an ice cream cone, but I don’t remember the name). What made the best impression on me, however, was the selection of desserts we ordered. My favorite milk based dessert called kulfi that reminded me of pistachio gelato. They told me that it originated as a streetside dessert in Mumbai that was similar to a push pop, but that nowadays it had been commercialized and sold throughout India.
Earlier in the day, we had lunched at the office cafeteria. This sounds pedestrian, but it was actually fun. It was the easiest way for me to get something that resembled street food. I had a bit of pickled vegetables, rice, some kind of lentil or bean sauce along with steamed rice and chapatis. For dessert, I had a small sticky bun type of thing called gulab jamun.
Eating and interviewing pretty much summed up my day yesterday. I go to the office again today. My boss is hoping that we can wrap up the interviews tomorrow (Thursday). That would be great, although I would settle for finishing on Friday. I have to have eight candidates to hire and a handful of standbys to replace people that I am told will inevitably take an offer and decide that they don’t really want the job.

There really are cows that walk in the streets in India. I have read before coming here that this was a stereotyped view of India propogated by experiences decades ago. People told me that Bangalore was the most developed city in India and that some parts of the city would be indistringuishable from America. All that may be true, but in a few neighborhoods, there are cows that lie in the medians of streets, along the sidewalks, and that stand in small grassy spots by the road. I saw this on my autorickshaw ride from near my hotel to the city center.

I awoke yesterday at 8:30 AM and had breakfasted and was out the door by 9:30 AM. It seemed that I had made the quickest recovery from jet lag ever, where on the first day I was awake during the day in local time. I should state, however, that I went to bed too early – 9:30 PM – only thirteen hours later. I am therefore awake at 2:00 AM local time typing this to post on livejournal..

I started walking from the hotel. We appear to be in a mixed residential and light commercial area. I walked a few blocks along sidewalk, crombled stones, dirt, and sidewalks under construction until I tired of crossing the streets on foot. I did not know where I was, and I didn’t really know how far away the city center was.

After getting the rickshaw driver to estimate a price of 120 rupees to me, I climbed into what was a relatively new autorickshaw. The vehicle, also called a tuk-tuk based on the sound it makes, is a three wheeled moped with a rickshaw carriage built around it. Its small size enables it to squeeze between cars, other tuk-tuks, and motorbikes. All the vehicles pack in so close on the road, and dart among each other,, that I thought that there should be a videogame called Tuk-Tuk Driver. There is some kind of system people have worked out here, that involves a lot of horn honking, that keeps constant accidents from happening. On my two rides Monday, in fact, I only saw one close call of an accident. I have posted pictures of the first rickshaw I rode in, and will be posting a video of part of the ride, too.

The driver dropped me off at Cubbon Park, which is a huge green space in the center of the city. It looks unusual to my eyes in that it is mostly unkept vegetation and large trees crisscrossed with dirt tracks and some wide walking avenues. Imagine Boston Commons left to its own devices for 100 years. The park was packed with people strolling, couples sitting, and kids playing. The park was also large enough to provide respite from the honking of the city traffic.

I spent most of the morning circumnavigating the large park. I took photographs of the Vidhana Souda, which is the state capitol of Karnataka. Even though it was built in 1954, it is designed with elements of much older buildings in India. While there, two men who had been taking pictures of each other standing in front of the capitol and the high court building, asked to take pictures with me. At first I thought they wanted me to take a picture of the two of them, but they really wanted a me in the photo. I should say that it was broad daylight with plenty of foot and vehicle traffic, including police, around. I was still suspicious of being pickpocketed, but that turned out to be a hollow concern. They really just wanted a picture of the 6’3” pale faced guy with the light brown hair.

I also walked through a commercial section where huge amounts of construction were taking place. It is acceptable here to walk through construction sites. The construction sites, in fact, were sometimes the only way through down what should be a road and sidewalks. The glittering buildings around the worksites were closed to visitors and foot traffic – only employees allowed. I found this out from a security guard who called out and trotted after me when I was striding toward one of these buildings, looking for a way around a consrruction site. He guided me to a path through the worksite instead.

In the early afternoon, I needed to get back to the hotel so that I could get to the office. I started looking for an autorickshaw to take me back. Using the printed address of the hotel as a guide, I started asking for prices to get back. I learned at this point that I am staying in what is perceived to be in the boonies. I had two drivers decline to give a price or commitment to take me out there. I was walking further down the street when a tout approached me and offered to arrange a tuk-tuk for me.

Now, I have read the warnings of dealing with touts: that they are usually trying to get you to a particular hotel or expensive place to eat own by their [insert relative here], that and that it is a way to get overcharged on transport. I also knew that I was having no luck so far in getting someone to take me back to the hotel. So I let the tout get a ride for me. He quickly waved down a rickshaw driver on the other side of the road, and we crossed to the median where we had to stop and wait for traffic. I spent a good two or three minutes standing on thie eight inch wide median with traffic speeding by. Traffic cleared, though, and we crossed the street. So the tout and the driver start talking, and I have one foot in the rickshaw. I sit down in the seat and the tout turns to me and says that he, of course, wants the driver to take me to the tout’s business (or the business he was claiming to be owner of, some kind merchandise store), which is “on the way” to where I am going. I tell him, “no”, I don’t have time to make the trip. The tout insists, “no, it is on the way, it is not a separate trip”. I’m thinking about how I wouldn’t know if it was on the way or not, but that I didn’t have time or the desire to make this sidetrip. I start getting out of the rickshaw, at which point the driver, says that he will take me straight to the hotel.

The trip back was a long one, and turned out to be more expensive than the trip to the center of the city. It was still cheap. It turns out the rickshaw driver didn’t know where he was going. I grew concerned when the route was obviously very different from the one I was on coming out there. Going through a shopping district, I believed that he was taking me to the tout’s store despite my protests. He wasn’t, though, it was just the route he knew to get to the outer rings of the city. I should also say that his rickshaw was in poor repair. He had to pop back on the headlamp during a stop a traffic light and engine sounded very rough compared to my earlier ride. Well, we got to what I believed was closer to my destination, when the driver stopped and asked for directions. We continued on. We passed a sign that pointed to my hotel. I tugged the driver’s shoulder and told him we needed to turn around. Without a pause, he made a quick u-turn in a gap in traffic. I felt better having seen the sign. I knew we were close. I didn’t see any other signs, though, and the driver stopped two more times for directions. At the third stop for directions, the driver turns to me for payment. I pull out 200 rupees, the amount which I mentioned at the start of our trip, but for which I didn’t get a firm commitment. He insisted that it would be “300 rupees, at least”. Now, I knew that I was close to the hotel, but that I would have to wander around on foot for some time to find it – and I was short on time. I relented and paid 300 rupees – about six dollars. I knew I was getting ripped off because this was twice what I paid the driver in the morning for the opposite route (which included a 30 rupee tip), but I was on a time schedule. The journey involved some riding around, until we both saw another sign pointing toward the hotel, and then another. I had arrived at my destination. I hopped out of the autorickshaw, nodded to the driver (no tip to guys who overcharge me), and walked into the hotel compound (past the security gate).

Last Saturday, Jodi and I decided to change our backpacking plans.  Even though the weather had worked out for us so far, there were still stormy looking clouds all around.  We decided to dayhike on Saturday and stay overnight in the campground instead of backpacking.  We hiked about six and half miles.  We hiked along the Appalachian Trail that ran by Loft Mountain Campground, on the Frazier Discovery Trail, and a short part of the Patterson Ridge Trail.

The bit of AT we hiked was crowded with grasses, berry bushes, and buzzing insects.  There were few trees close by so we hiked in the hot sun.I stopped a couple of times just to listen to the hum of bees and other flying bugs.  It reminded me of sound effects from old horror movies.  Blackberries and raspberries lined the trail as easy pickings if we had wanted to pick them.  We left that instead to the bears whose presence was made obvious by the bear scat along the trail.  

The hiked and backtracked just a short way along the Patterson Ridge Trail.  As the name implies, it follows the top of a ridge for very pleasant walking.  The trees are tall and moss carpets many parts of the trail.  This made for cool, shaded walking.  We saw several mushrooms along the trail including one Smurf House that had some chunks taken out of it.

The Frazier Discovery Trail's name hints at an easy hike appropriate for kids.  Depending on your kid's stamina this may or may not be true.  The trail includes several steep climbs.  Not having hiked since winter, we were both huffing and puffing up the mountain.  The trail was mostly shaded which made it cool.  The Discovery in the trail comes from the variety of trees and birds, an large rocky overhang, and a rocky peak with great views.

We lunched atop the peak.  Pepperoni, cheese, and mustard rolled into flour tortillas are delicious when you have been hiking.  We enjoyed the 180 degree views as we munched.  A bee chased Jodi around a bit, but caused no real problems.  The peak is great lunch spot, but would be a terrible place to be overnight.  The jumbled rocks would just be begging for people to trip and fall.  The lunchtime breeze we enjoyed could just as easily gust at sundown and make for cold, windy sleeping.

After our hike, we showered back at Loft Mountain and decided to drive to Harrisonburg for dinner.  We ate at El Charros and had dessert at Kline's Dairy Bar.  When Jodi saw the size of the cones at Kline's she claimed that she was full and would only have a couple of bites off my cone.  An order mixup resulted in us getting two cones instead of one.  Jodi ate nearly the entire cone.  We also picked up a hatchet and some odds and ends in town.

Returning to Shenandoah just before dusk we went to the campfire program at the campground's amphitheatre.  The amphitheatre had great views of Massanutten Mountain and other peaks.  It also had a small stage and projector screen.  It would be a good wedding spot.  We joined about 50 other people for the ranger led campfire program which was about nocturnal animals.  The ranger played a cute kids song about nocturnal animals, then used PowerPoint to good effect to show pictures of night animals and playback their calls.  Raccoons sound like dolphins to me.  Thunderheads and cloud to cloud lightning scared some people away from the program.  They went back to their tents or RVs so that, I suppose, they could be struck by lightning there instead of at the amphitheatre.

After the program, Jodi and I started another fire at camp.  I used the hatchet to split some of the firewood into smaller pieces.  We had some success, but didn't have the amounts of energy we used the previous night to really tend the fire.  We went to bed and slept soundly.

The next morning, it was raining.  We were happy to be striking the tent 50 feet from the car instead of four miles away as was our original plan.  Carrying wet gear is obviously no fun.  After an oatmeal breakfast, we were on the road.  It was about 8:30 in the morning.  We lunched at my parent's house, relaxed there a few hours, and picked up the cat.  At home I was able to set up the tent so that it could air dry.

It was a fun weekend, even with changing plans.  The weather was good until Sunday morning, we had good food, and hiked som fun trails.

I didn't find the combination of time and energy all week to write about our trip to Shenandoah National Park last weekend (although I was able to post pictures to Facebook).  We had a great time.  Our plan included camping and backpacking.  We followed parts of the plan and modified others.

On Thursday night, we drove to my parents' house in York County.  We dropped off Brenna, spent the night, and had a great breakfast that my mom cooked.  My parents took care of the cat, who stayed in the computer room (which is a large room with a window overlooking the driveway and the front yard).  Despite my best efforts, Brenna still hasn't met my parents dog Greta, who is about the same size as our cat.

We drove to Shenandoah late Friday morning.  Starting from York County makes the drive so much easier psychologically.  I refer to my parents' house as our Canary Islands -- a last place to stop before setting out on longer journeys.  My brother provided us a weather forecast that called for rainstorms to dump on us.  We drove through grey clouds and the occasional drizzle.  We stopped in Ruckersville for lunch and when we arrived at the park, the clouds parted just enough to keep the rain from falling on us. 

We set up camp in the Loft Mountain Campground.  I recommend Loft Mountain as a great place to car camp or base camp -- especially if you want some amenities nearby.  Loft Mountain is like KOA minus electricity and a pool.  You can walk uphill to a bathroom, and walk (or drive, if you like) further down to the campstore and showerhouse ($1 per five minutes of shower).  I had this funny thought in my head that one could not have alcohol in the campground.  I discovered my error when I found beer for sale in the campstore.  They even sold it by the individual bottle.  It turns out that they were selling Dominion Lager cheaper than what I see it in grocery stores back home.

We walked a loop hike Friday evening around the campground.  This was perhaps a mile and a half circuit.  There were some decent, if partially cloud shrouded, views.  We ran into a trio of ladies who turned out to be members of the Tidewater Appalachian Trail Club.  One of them encouraged us to come out their monthly meetings in Norfolk.  They have hundreds of members.  Who knew?

After the walk, I cooked a dinner on the grill of thin crust grilled veggie pizzas.  You use flour tortillas as the crust, grill the vegetables and mix them with a sauce made of pesto, mayonaise (no, really), and chopped tomatoes.  Dinner was great.  As I was cooking, Jodi was working to start a campfire.  This was a slow process.  The Park strongly discouraged you from bringing in your own wood to prevent the introduction of ash borers, an insect that kills ash trees.  We purchasted firewood from the campstore.  The wood is fuel sized and turned out to be very wet.  I spent a tremendous amount of energy and time shaving off pieces of the wood with my pocket knife to create some tinder and kindling.  After two and half hours of shaving wood, lighting paper towels, placing fuel close to the fire to dry to dry, we actually got a proper fire.  I compared this experience with the fire I started in the backyard last month with a handful of lint, a sparker, and dry wood.  I had a proper fire in five minutes.  It's amazing what dry wood, and having a good amount of tinder and kindling will do.  With the fire, we toasted some marshmallows, stared at the fire, and relaxed.  We soon retired to the tent, I read a little bit of For Your Eyes Only by headlamp (My Ian Fleming books are the smallest, lightest reading material I have, so it is usually what I taked camping).  The night was cool, comfortable, and it didn't rain a bit.


I'll continue later

I had a wonderful day today.  fixitup 's parents are staying with us this weekend.  This morning we all went to the flea market downtown.  I picked up what looked like a 40 year old edition of Acquire.  We also picked up our CSA bag at the farm market.  It was summer bounty with squash, green beans, corn, watermelon, and lots of other goodies.

Once home, we grilled corn, chicken, and sausage.  We added to that spicy beans, rice, and artichoke that were cooked inside the house.  We spent all afternoon in the backyard.  We broke out the tailgating chairs and the table and ate a late Independence Day lunch in the shade of the tree that dominates the yard.

For the late afternoon, we all napped.  We then watched the DC United-Columbus Crew soccer game on TV.  DCU dominated the game, but came away with only a draw.  The point on the road leaves them in first place.

After the game, I set up our new firebowl out back for a backyard campfire.  We spent the next several hours sitting around the fire talking.  We listened to fireworks being launched across the river, and watched the dogs run around the yard.  As usual, the flames possessed me with their flickering -- even in the backyard with streetlights around.  We let the wood burn down to glowing coals before putting out the fire.  Next time, I will have jumbo marshmallows to roast.

Now it is about time for bed.

I was in Nevada again for a work conference.  It was the Verint User's Conference, where I was a speaker.  I have been excited about the prospect because it was my first non-local speaking gig.  I talked to ASTD contacts for advice for giving a better presentation, and lunch with David B. provided techniques that helped me connect with members of the audience.

The presentation went great.  I had a 75 minute breakout session to talk about how to select a statistically significant sample of recordings to evaluate and how to use a Gage R&R analysis to calibrate the observers.  For 99.9% of people (more, probably) it is dreadfully boring stuff.  For my audience, however, it was the kind of thing about which they wanted to learn.  I combined my playful, interactive training style with David B. furnished speaking techniques to keep everyone engaged throughout the presentation.  At the end, I received numerous requests for more information (my presentation was introductory in nature), and received positive feedback on the "smile sheets" everyone is asked to complete.  My favorite comment that appeals to my ego, "this was the best presentation of the entire conference".  What made the feedback better was that I had the worst timeslot of the conference:  the morning timeslot of the conference's last day -- the morning after the customer appreciation dinner.

The rest of the conference went well.  While I am leery of user conferences because of the amount of sales pitching from the hosts, it does put me into contact with people who are doing the same thing I am doing at work.  This is due to the nature that we are all using the same software applications.

Two side notes:  the director of a Wisconsin bank help desk offered  me a job after my animated and thorough description of the connections between training, quality assurance, and knowledge management (I'm not moving to Wisconsin), and yet again, someone pointed out to me my enthusiasm when I talk about eLearning.  It is really is the element of my job in which I have the greatest interest.

We saw this tonight with friends.  It is a hilariously awful movie.  It has wavy flying saucers hanging from strings, terrible editing that made a California town look as if it encountered half a dozen solar eclipses, and characters whose lines didn't make sense.

We saw it projected on a screen by our friends Betamax projector.  It was fun.

fixitup and I, along with our friend John M. went to see Ravi Shankar and Anoushka Shankar.  It is Virginia Arts Festival time of year.  The players were amazing.  We saw Anoushka two years ago at the American Theatre.  She plays sitar with youthful speed and grace.  She also obviously enjoys what she is doing.  She smiled, rocked, and kept up a voiceless communication with the tabla player that communicated an energy on stage.  I love watching people enjoy what they do.

Ravi Shankar came out for the second half of the performance.  I only hope to look as good at 89 years old (his daughter Anoushka is only 27).  With his presence, he was able to command the entire audience at Chrysler Hall.  People stood and applauded his arrival on stage.  A simple gesture from him sat everyone down.  He used this presence a few more times to control people's applause later in the performance.

Ravi started out slow, seeminlyg fighting with his sitar.  Was it part of being 89 years old?  Was he only warming up?  Was he putting on an act?  I don't know, but ten minutes later, he danced his fingers up and down the sitar neck and deftly plucked the strings.  Seeing him play on stage, I saw a setting sun -- something beautiful and serene, something that is the product of a long, gorgeous day.

Listening pushed my cares away, and I imagined far away deserts, jungles, and cities.  Incense wafted through the hall and added to the experience.  I closed my eyes and moved my head along with the seemingly uneven rhythm. 

Next up on the Virginia Arts Festival (for us, at least), the Tattoo on Sunday with stori_lundi !

With the Downtown Tunnel closed and all other ways over the river at a standstill, I went to the relatively new comic shop in Ghent called Local Heroes.  This is a nice place that is dedicated to comic books.  There are no sportscards, ccg's, roleplaying games, or tabletop games.  It has a comfortable couch and chairs up front where you can read.  The owner, Greg, is friendly, remembered my name, and didn't bother while I read.  It being a Wednesday, there was a good amount of foot traffic going in and out of the store.  If you live in Hampton Roads, I recommend you go by (buy) there.

I picked up 100 Bullets #100 and read it in the store.  That experience made it the best comic read I have had in years.  For too long, I have been getting my books on the Peninsula.  That meant not picking them up very often, getting behind on books, and reading a stack of comics from the last several months.  It just isn't as fun to read comic books by myself as it is to have someone to geek out with.  Reading in the store, across from another guy in a suit reading 100 Bullets was a fun feeling.

Issue 100 is the end.