Long day ahead

Monday, April 19, 2010

Went to sleep late, with an over loaded stomach with all the goodies from Narayans house. And a few from temple. Was not able to sleep.
Anyways woke up around 5am but got out around 6, did some light work out and could feel the difference in my tone around the chest . Getting better at push ups..

Have to return the rental car, before that deposit the check and buy more bottle water and milk from costco . have to manage till my things get here from Vancouver.
7:20 heading off to work..

got cracking on the two days of mar that i was supposed to be an employee of Cognizant. sending out mails to the HR , amit , justin, joanna//

then around 11 head off to costco to get more water bottels, milk and cereals and tortilas.
get back home have lunch and then head off to drop off the car at enterprise.

On the ride back met an wonderful old lady "Ann" who had retired as a nurse. And since she was not able to live on her retirement had taken up part time work at enterprise. Such a sad state of affair, that the rest of the world does not get to see about americans. They end up working their whole life. no happy retirement for the majority. While the rest of the world are enjoying their senior years in glorious peace of their homes, taken care by their kids and family. The Americans are made to work and work more.

Get back to work and start the series of calls to get Katie of the moving company. who does not seem to be replying to my emails. Get her around 2 and ask her for firm dates. which she dodges and says she will get back to me tomorrow.
Tell her that I need to book the tickets to YVR based on her firm dates.

then latter not getting any call from the sub agents from yvr call her up again , get her after a few calls and ask her to give me their number so that i can initiate the call.

But she refuses to give saying corporate policy....grrr.

Evening walking out of the office, kannan and kris both offer to drive me home. But refuse and start walking with the load of the two lap tops. talk with Narayan who says he is heading to my house from NJ with Vikram..... Then get a call from AV, who is drunk on wine and is preaching to me to drink wine daily.... grrr

he goes to bed early as he did not get to sleep on his journey from sfo to atlanta.

around 11pm narayan and virkram make it to my place. The first thing they say is , this place is "posh".. whoo hooo...

Narayan leaves after seeing the house and vikram takes the main room.

cheers to new beginnings...

1st Pay Check

Sunday, April 18, 2010

wake up around 6:am and go to sleep again. get out of bed @ 6:30 and finish off with the bathing and washroom.@ narayans house. have break fast.
Then go to gym with Narayan around 8 and get back by 10. Do some cycling at the gym waiting for him.

then go to wal mart and buy shower curtains and knife set. As it seems to be cheaper here.

Narayans sister and family turn up there too, seeing her after about 11 years. Great family atmosphere with lots of kids playing.
Have a lavish lunch, Mutton curry, Chicken curry, veggie curries. Veggie biriyani, white rice and yogurt. All cooked in Pakka Andhra style, spicy and yummy by Narayans wife.

@3pm say bye to all of them and head back via temple again. :) Stay there for about another hr trying to meditate thru the loud wailing of kids. then again to the Temple cafetria and got 3 tamrind rice to go. got to test it.
Saw the ad for the guruvayoor temple( http://www.krishnatemple.org/) , maybe thats where all the malus go.. maybe next time I might head there and check out the malu girls...... they are the worlds best.

Get home around 6 set up the shower curtains and then return the costly knife set brought at lansdale.
Check my mail box for the first time and discover that I have got my pay check too. kool .
Also in the mail was my corportate Credit card. cheers.

Now to focus of completing the rest of the canadian taxes and booking my flight to YVR. have to get in as much dancing as possible too when there.

Attitude and Life of wandering

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Woke up to: ""Attitude and Life of wandering results in developing a personalty and mentality that is incapable of sticking to a Place or Committing to a Relationship. ... Does that explain why I am still single?""

Is that why my life thou seems great subject matter to talk about or as a great conversation material and invoking envy from others in a party or initial meeting, is still something to me that is missing that special someone-forever and family that most others seem to have?

Its great to experience and get exposed to lots of different exotic places and cultures, but in the end human mind is really seeking that peace and fulfillment, which only comes when one is calm and in stable. Just like Gautam Buddha, who had the world or riches and pleasure, but realised the moksha (liberalization) to Happinesss only by giving up all and everything.

To me it summerizes that no matter how far and wide you travel, no matter how exotic your experience is, in the end when the temporary rush and excitement subsides (as anything that goes up must come down) is there someone or something that makes you feel at home and at peace and fill you up with happiness. That someone who would be there no matter what ever happens outside the HOME. That someone special who would make me want to return home and look forward to returning HOME. That special love and tenderness with which she could make me feel special and loved......
And with time the seeds and fruits of our love (kids) and their life..... A loving family!

Called up home again to mom tell me about the new year horoscope stuff, about things clearing up for me getting married. About time.
Was chatting on FB with Geetha chechi and relying info between them. hehehe modern tech. One in Arabia, me in US and mom in Kerala... cheers

Got call from Narayan, so tempted to go to Jersey again to the temple. tried renting and was told that the car is not available for economy. Then called up after 2 hrs and got an intermediate size car. Well got to go with it, and satisfy the urge to travel and pray.

Chatted with Lubo, he is a good man and good person at heart. Only wish that others close to him could have got some of the goodness from him.

Went and got the car around 1pm. 2pm head to office to get the receipts for the Visa expenses scanned and sent to the mail id. Called up narayan and told him i am starting off around 3.. its already 3:20 as i was not able to find the map.. well heading out for the Temple ,, hanuman darshan. more this time as per the suggestions of my mom.

cheers and off to NJ after that.

Reached temple around 5pm, then after been there for an hr, went to the cafeteria and had their famous Veggie Biriyai. packed a few tamrind rice and onion bajji(pakoras/pakodas).

Reached Narayans house around 7:30, latter go out in Narayans new Honda CRV. wow loved the new model with its sleek features.....
Returned back to his house and got watching Hindi TV channels. It felt a bit heart warming to watch TV from back home, thou it felt a bit sub-standard. And it was me watching TV after a very long time. Also got to see the movie "Dil Chahata hai", felt like I was living the life of the character Sameer.. :((( always having my heart broken.

Call Center Demo

Woke up early and went about the now routine of light work out and yoga. Feels good and fills me up with energy. Did not drink coffee of Tea either.

Today will be going to for the call center demo.

But before that there was this tressure hunt that is been organized by CTSH and there was an early bird prize. So there was a competition with in the room to be able to send out the mail as soon as the registration started.,,,, we ended up as 5th.. awwww

10:30 to 12 Got a demo from Anish Thomas, who used be into supporting Siebel. Moved into the call center for a more even-time job.
He was informative and seemed to know a great lot to talk with the doctors. The call that came thru was one related to surevey. They were using MOC for the doc to initiate the call online and then after anish confirmed about the Docs credentials , started off with the other process. Then again after the end of the call approx 16 mins , he went to Siebel to enter the details of the call.

Around 12:05 called up Katie of Fry Wagner regarding the details of the move. but she did not pick up , left a msg.

12:40 off for lunch

Got to Katie after a series of non-stop phone calls and having her paged by her receptionist.

Said will have her agents in Van get in touch with me regarding the documentation for the move.

Had a last min meeting regarding leave and stuff. Might get to go to India during jul aug got to work out the logistics based on the requirement..... have to see when I can return back to india on long term.

Things are slowly moving and one hurdle after another seems to be clearing off. Feeling more relieved and less dis-oriented with the new place. Home sweet home feels a great place to come back too, glad i took up this place.

VISHU (real day)

WISHING EVERY LIVING CREATURE A HAPPY VISHU (Malayalam new year).
And may the world be filled with Happiness and Good positive feelings.

Opps thought that Vishu was yesterday. But looks like its today. So what, I get to celebrate it for two days. :)

Called up home and talked to them all..... 3:45 pm
Talked with Adhira, Kanka aechi ,,,,, Looks like everyone was there at my house to party and surprisingly they all had some kind of alcohol. woooo that is a new development considering my dad never was into any of these things.
Even Ganga aetan turned up from mumbai there to celebrate. cheers to family and celebrations.

After a physically demanding walk with the weight of two LTs on my back pack for about 30 mins. Went in directly to the War Room and got testing on the changes made to fix the buy.

Went perfectly well with DTC (English speaking and spanish) and then the NSC call centers too.
Was about to send george a mail about the tests, when I got a mail from him to do the tests.

Right on time!

Then had to go out of the room as Joe was trying to have a meeting there.

Started setting up the installation of Tools and Client on my machine. only finished around 5:30pm
12:30pm Brought lunch from the cafeteria and had it at my new desk. Then around 1pm headed out for the Kick off meeting for the project that I have been brought here for. Saw a bunch of new faces that I will be interacting with the next few months. So far I may be guaranteed work upto Nov-2010.
Not sure after that what.

4 to 5 was CTSH meeting got introduced to another bunch of new faces and got to see ajit heading his team. Good work.

Got a mail from Katie regarding the movers. Got to coordinate with her about the logistics of moving all my stuff and the car. At last after 17 days.

5:30 was the walk back, not so tiring as I was walking at a lisurely phase.

might as well got out for a walk and check out the neighbor hood.

VISHU

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

VISHU...... NEW YEAR, NEW DAY of NEW MOON. Time for new beginnings and new phase of life.

A time for forgetting and forgiving and moving ahead as friends and wishing every living creature the best of lifes sweetness and happiness.

A time to let go off old baggage , resentment, bad feelings and negativity. Move ahead into the new phase. Thus symbolizing the true essence of New Year and new Beginnings.

Got to work on the Shuttle service. Took more that 30 mins as it went to all the other locations of the company. Rather prefer walking on a good day that the shuttle.

At work, was lost in the maze of emails to HR and Ajit to help with the time sheet. As there did not seem to be provision for entering the time for Mar 30 and Mar 31.
Frustrating with people not knowing how to fix the screw up.

The good thing was towards the end of the day, I was allocated a Desk with a phone. Cheers to that. Now I have my own office phone with voice set up.
Walked back with Sudendo and Rajshekar. As they live close by the office. I had to walk another 20 mins with the load of 2 lap tops on my back.
Almost 7pm and its really bright outside. maybe I need to go for a run again today. :)
and need to start working on finishing the Cad Taxes. been putting it off for too long.

Ended up doing some light work out in the empty main hall and some yoga stretching. Is this how life is when one does not have TV? I am tempted to continue this way. ;) And will be saving a bundle on Cable connection too.

Fire Fighting day

Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Okay, wake up early 5:30am , do some yoga and light work out. its becoming a good routine.

Today I have to walk for 30 mins with two lap tops on my back to work. no more the luxury of a car. And get busy with the fire fighting of some issue that got reported yesterday....

off to work 7:30am EST

started off from home around 7:45 got to work around 8:15 carrying two laptops . On the way took out the trash from yesterday nights cooking. Was not able to find any closer to my house, ended up carrying that half way to work and dropping it off in the trash bin at penbrook.

George comes in around 9:15 and shows me how the defect was caused. Then sets me up with access to the Dev boxes and tools for me to start my analysis. Start with the prep work of documenting the code. Downloaded text pad for easier reading of code.

Do a couple of tests on DTC for English and spanish speaking and the problem seems to be there in both. So tell george about it and he tries it in NSC and Viola! there is problem even there. So he realises that its got to do with some code he put in. Goes into Service request tools and delets it.
Next compilation of code was supposed to be by 2 pm and we could test it, latter got to know that it will only be ready tomorrow. :(

So around 12 try to get a ride to the Orientation center, but no one seems to be free. So decide to walk. Get out of the office to find it rainning.. aaahh Another 30 mins walk in the rain to the center for taking my pic and got my Id. Then walk back to the office in the rain, reached back by 1pm. Was feeling hungry by then, get food from the cafetria... hope I don't end up paying for it again and rather have my sweet home cooked food.

Talked with narayan on the walk back to office and got to know that he just brought a new black Honda CRV for about $28k. Cheers, maybe we will meet again this week end at the temple.

Filled up the Medical and other benefit from online for CTSH.

Guess I am feeling tired and sleepy, did not have coffee or is it cause of waking up early. Need to start meditating at the new house.

I have to try to take the shuttle from work. lets see where it starts and stops. just got the details of their schedule.

And maybe go for a run around.

This place feels so peaceful away from the city, with laid back people. Freshness of the air and lots of green around. Early morning when I woke up could hear the birds singing in their soothing way. Thou it sounds like its close to NY when one reads that its just 2 hrs drive, not many unerstand that its a place to visit as a tourist, not a place where one can make frequent visits.

Guess I am really ready to retire in a peaceful place and not much into the hectic City life any more..... well do miss the energy I like to feel from the crowded environment. And this place seems to have places to go visit . There is also a national park close by. Just saw a advertisement for a 1 BR condo, just about 100 k. maybe I should plan on buying one instead of paying $1250 per month as rent it could go towards my mortgage. hmmmm

Had gone for a run around 8pm, listening to Merengue on my new iPhone, thats why I was feeling tired.
But good healthy start to life here. Without TV and just me and my lap top and my phone.