The other side of the world...

It continues to amaze me that almost all of my friends and family (excluding of course all of my new friends in Bangalore) are on the other side of the world from me. When I call my girlfriend when I get home at night, its first thing in the morning for her. When I wake up in the morning, folks in Seattle are just wrapping up work for the day.

I've been working with a team in India for over a year and a half now and I have gotten used to the logistics of it all. But its still a mindbending experience.

My commute to work is pretty short and not incredibly interesting but I'm still capturing shots of some of the sights. Here's a minaret from a mosque:

From Bangalore Day Seven

Despite some unrest and difficulties, its inspirational to me to know that India is a land of Hindus, Christians and Muslims all living together in relative harmony. If you think there is diversity in America you are way wrong, we would face real challenges trying to bridge as large of gaps of language, religion and culture (and even of diet, the first thing you are asked in every restaurant is whether you are veg or non-veg.) I guess these guys have had a few thousand years to work out how to get along. And it was pointed out to me that India is the worlds largest democracy, a feature worthy of respect. The public discourse is vigorous and healthy here!


This morning, Vikas showed me the worlds smallest coconut.

From Bangalore Day Seven

Also I never tire of the brightly painted trucks here. These are everywhere, the equivalent of US 18 wheelers from what I can tell.

From Bangalore Day Seven

sure beats the hell out of sillouhettes of bikini girls, or 'no fear' stickers.

back to work... peace, out!

Shakin the Potato Tree

Ok so I woke up this morning to this terrible racket outside. I go out on my balcony and there is some dude sitting in the tree shaking the hell out of it.

From Bangalore Day Six

As soon as he saw me he started climbing down. The doormen and security guards helped him out with a ladder.

From Bangalore Day Six

This tree has these weird things growing on it that honestly look like potatoes. Was that what he was after?

From Bangalore Day Six

Also I found out that the women sweeping the street DO work for the city. They are everywhere... and they do a damn good job, honestly, considering how much dust and crap is everywhere.

Major Meat, 4 day Weddings, and Psychedilia

Thus far on this trip I have not tired of noticing the subtle cultural differences between the US and India, despite the whirlwind of activity that work here has become.

First off, I cannot sort out my calendar. My laptop automagically synchs with Seattle time every time I log into to work over VPN. And tho I got pretty used to converting Seattle time to Bangalore time, I cannot wrap my mind around the opposite. I actually have 2 cells phones, one set to Seattle the other to Bangalore so I can tell what the fuck is going on. (Its the same way with the exchange rate. for some reason I cannot wrap my mind around converting $1 to $44 rupees. even when I try to round up to 50, I still have no gut feel for it.) So this morning when I got to the office, I realized I was late to give a presentation to all of the dev and QA leads here, explaining our entire business model and systems architecture. yikes! I think I did ok, once I got started. I think my training in musical improvisation has held me in good stead ;^) I was really dancing a bit but I pulled it off and answered all of the questions the team posed to me.

Not long after this I went out to lunch. Every day I am getting to go out with a few of the guys, trying to get to know everyone a little better and do some cross-cultural pollination. Today's destination was Kabob Studio (Major Meat!, as some co-workers told me when they recommended the place.)

From Bangalore Day Five

From Bangalore Day Five

From Bangalore Day Five

From Bangalore Day Five

From Bangalore Day Five

These guys look so serious... they were just laughing with me moments before I grabbed my camera and snapped this. I think people are getting tired of my tourista schtick. Too bad for them, I'm not!

From Bangalore Day Five

Best thing about Kabob Studio was the portable BBQ they put in the center of the table.

From Bangalore Day Five

After lunch, we made some really good progress on bug resolution and really put my mind at ease. The dedication that this team shows is truly remarkable. They are willing to do whatever it takes, and repeatedly assure me that 'we cannot fail.' That is what you want to hear...

Based on our progress, I was happy to get out of the office by 10:30 (about 1 1/2 hours earlier than the past 2 nights... thank god too, its starting to wear on me.) On the way home I noticed a few places that were having parties or receptions... in India, when there is something going on, they drape the entire building in what we would call christmas lights. As anyone that knows me knows how I go a little nuts with the christmas lights, you can imagine I was loving it.

From Bangalore Day Five

Across the street from my hotel, there has been a wedding going on pretty much since the day I got here.

From Bangalore Day Five

From Bangalore Day Five

I've been to an Indian style wedding in Seattle. It lasted about 4 hours (just the ceremony) and when done I was wondering why the hell they couldnt have opened the bar earlier to help me get through the experience! However I was informed today that real Indian weddings normally last 5 days or more.

From Bangalore Day Five

I was on a roll snapping photos, so after walking over to snap the wedding lights and decorations, I caught a few of the hotel. Its so psychedelic 70s!

From Bangalore Day Five

From Bangalore Day Five

And check this out: the front page story in the newspaper here is how conservative mobs are planning to roam the streets on valentines day, looking for young couples holding hands or kissing, and force them to marry on the spot. We teased one of the devs that this might be his best chance to get a girl!

From Bangalore Day Five

Bugs, Bugs Bugs

And I don't mean insects. I was fighting code bugs all day that kept getting resolved then reappearing... a very frustrating day. I'm tired and cranky and have a headache. So today I will keep my bitching to myself and share some photos...

I'm not sure what this thing is. But I had them for breakfast... it is basically a spicy donut, full of onions and peppercorns and such. they are good.

From Bangalore Day Four

MMMM

From Bangalore Day Four

Decorations out front of my hotel. I've noticed a recurring theme of floating flowers in small pools or bowls of water...

From Bangalore Day Four

From Bangalore Day Four

Not sure what the hunger strike is about. Though I do know that Feb to June is a hellza long time...

From Bangalore Day Four

I mean, with all of these freaking coconuts everywhere, theres no reason to go hungry

From Bangalore Day Four

Caught one of the 'please sound horn' trucks

From Bangalore Day Four

In the US I know many folks that have small saints, angels or Jesus on their dashboard (one of my buddies used to have what he called his 'parking angel' LOL); here its Ganesha, the half human half elephant god... I surretipitously snapped this on the way to work this morning:

From Bangalore Day Four

I've been working very closely with one of the dev leads here on these bugs and issues, which means we have both been in the office until midnight the past few days. We took a walk down the street to grab some chinese food for dinner (I've actually been to several good chinese restaurants since coming here.) Over dinner we had some interesting discussions. He was surprised to hear that there are those that follow astrology, tarot cards and feng shui in the US. I was surprised to think that many of the things that shape (however subtly) me and my partner's world view are fundametally at their core derived from Indian mysticism. I know my honey would really enjoy it here, the more I talk to folks.

Outside the mall is a fountain and a golden statue of Ganesha (the same statue my driver has on his dashboard.) My colleague explained to me that Ganesha is used to bring you luck in new endeavors. I told him we should get some Ganeshas, all that we can ;^)

From Bangalore Day Four

From Bangalore Day Four

One unfortunate thing that the US and India have in common is firsthand experience with terrorism. Maybe we DO need more of Ganesha's luck, all of us.

From Bangalore Day Four

(From what I gather matrubhumi means 'country' or 'motherland')

Picasa Face Recognition

Picasa is a pretty amazing piece of software.

It's a little confusing (sometimes I have to dig around to figure out where my pictured ended up, both on my hard disk and online) but my impression is that its so feature rich, I'm just suffering from overload. For the most part it Just Works, which is the correct mantra for user experience. And frankly I am kind of a power user when it comes to software, so the bar is higher (and a little different, as I like to have complete control over my PC) for me than for your average user.

But the coolest feature is after you upload your photos, on the web if you mouse over a picture of someone it recognizes a face, frames it and prompts you to 'click to name.' You can then link each face to a contact, and it offers autom complete, remembering all previous contacts, deduping the same people, etc.

Google, I salute you. Another good mantra of user experience: innovate and exceed your users expectations. Maybe I have been under a rock too long just working on back end code but I never expected such a feature to work as well as it does. Probably this is the beginning of SkyNet and we are all screwed but I am embracing the horror.

On jet lag, flush toilets and Johhny Cash...

Jet lag is a weird thing. I've travelled across the US a handful of times and dealt with the 3 hour difference (from Seattle, its +3 hours on the East Coast and -2 hours in Hawaii) and frankly never had much issue with it. I took one trip to Norway (-9 hours) but it was purely vacation, so I was out at the pubs till 2am pretty much and never really noticed the jet lag.

On this trip I've had to both get used to the +12.5 hour difference (wtf with the .5 anywhoo?) but also these guys work on a very different schedule than I do. (Back home I tend to work from 7am-6pm; here they tend to work from 10am till 10 or 11pm.)

I've tried to follow all of the advice: don't nap during the day (except my first day off the plane when I was dead beat,) exposure to sunlight in the morning, the jet-lag diet (which involves several days of alternating feast-and-famine.) However what I've found is that no matter what, I am dead tired between 10am and 5pm here... and then restless and awake during the night. And when I do finally get to sleep... at 12, 1am, 2am... I wake up exactly at 3:30 am. Eigh!!! It's messed up. Thank god there is internet in the hotel.

One of my buddies back home asked me yesterday if I had flush toilets. Everywhere that I have been, at least, has had western standards of plumbing and amenities. Clearly there are people here living without that, but I think the past few years (especially here in Bangalore, from what I understand) there has been an incredible push of modernization and westernizaion, driven by the IT sector. I'm worried about the effect of the worldwide recession on these guys (companies have already been failing and cutting jobs here, so they are already feeling it.) It just makes me more determined to do my part as I feel that my company will really be able to contribute to the recovery, in the long run.

To prove that I have working plumbing, here is a pic of the Smallest. Bathroom. Evar.

From Bangalore Day Three

Check out the weird sink that looks like a bowl on the table. Its actually attached. If you turn the water on too much it will totally shoot up out of the bowl, which I found out the first day I was getting ready for work.

From Bangalore Day Three

I can barely fit my fat ass into that shower. and the sink has 2 mirrors in the corner, which means that when you shave or brush your teeth, you can see 3 of yourself. It was confusing, as I didn't know which guy to look at!

Which brings me to my final point. I finally got some real spicy food here in the past 24-36 hours, and it was wonderful. But thank god for that flush toilet... for I went down in a Burning Ring of Fire.

Bangalore Day Three

On the way back to the hotel yesterday, I actually saw several Farsi walking their camels down the feeder road next to the highway. I need to always have my camera ready for this crazy shit!

The first thing I woke up to see this morning from my balcony was a woman sweeping the street with a bundle of reeds. I suppose I am such the gawking American business/tourist but I have never seen this before...

From Bangalore Day Three

What I wonder... does she work for the hotel? the city? ( doubt it.) she worked her way up and down the street, maybe she just lives here and wanted to clean things up. I dunno!

Here is some crazy combination between an auto-rickshaw and a truck. The crazy vehicles here continue to amaze me... also, this is a small one. there are some trucks with the exact same front half, but a much larger cargo area, sometimes full of people in the back. I'd hate to be back there, I can easily imagine someone falling out.

From Bangalore Day Three

the other thing I noticed today (but did not manage to snap a picture in time) is the instructions on the back of buses and trucks to "please honk horn" ha you would never see that in the states. It would be like wearing a note on your back that said 'kick me.'

Speaking of kicking, apparently at the company I am working with, they have a twisted tradition: on your birthday, first off the birthday boy/girl has to take their team out for lunch. (Kind of the opposite of how we do it in Seattle.) We had some really good Chinese food. Then, when they bring out the cake, first off they grabbed him and proceeded to kick him in the ass pretty brutally! then, they smeared cake all over his face.

From Bangalore Day Three

Live action movie of the beating:

From Bangalore Day Three

And the aftermath:

From Bangalore Day Three

From Bangalore Day Three

its all in good fun, but geez I am sure glad its not my birthday for many months!


My policy for today was: every team member that came into my office to ask a question, got their picture snapped. Secretly its my way of making sure I can put all of the names and faces together later, don't tell!! also I want everyone back in Seattle to start to get to feel like they know these guys, even if its just through me. So here's the unlucky ones from today:


Nagendra... rock out! This guy works late into the night, fueled only by youthful enthusiasm and Iron Maiden lol.

From Bangalore Day Three

Shriram and Gurpreet

From Bangalore Day Three

Me, with Elangovan and Chandru (Elangovan clearly trying to hide behind me ;^)

From Bangalore Day Three

Shriram, Uma and Naveen

From Bangalore Day Three

Rubin

From Bangalore Day Three