San Francisco Chronicle - Arrival

Letters I wrote to friends while I was in SF in Sep'05.... a chronicle for my old age : -)

22 September 2005

Okie so here I am…had a pretty hectic first 2 days to be honest!

Almost lost my spectacles again at the HK airport :- ) got a tour of the entire airport (and its massive, believe me) including the ferry train in my efforts to retrieve them. Air journey fm HK to SFO was a killer – there was a time when I thought I would never be able to walk again coz of the cramps! But no major cribs there.

Am currently staying in a suburb called Castro Valley which is about 45 mins fm the main city (where my office is). Its’ a small, quaint little place with a very good looking front desk attendant! Alas, he was only there the first day, and no Bret, I haven’t implemented any of your suggestions – yet. Castro Valley is a small town with a single main road (called Castro Boulevard) and beautiful surroundings – ideal for just walking, which I did yesterday on my way back from the station.. The weather’s a lil chilly in the mornings & evenings, but day time warm and sunny – hope it stays this way over the weekends too!

The other guy on my project arrived ystrdy nite – he’s a Blorean whoz been with Mphasis for 5 yrs (!!!) and is abt to get married. He has a cousin who stays 15 min away from our hotel, and has graciously offered that I tag along with them over the weekend – which I don’t mind at all since the cuzzin has a car! Apparently there r quite a lotta other Mphasis folks in town too – shud meet them once we move here over de weekend.

People here have been nice & helpful till now – esp when compared with my Frankfurt experience! Esp in Castro valley – everyone smiles and chats with everyone in the bfast room, and there was this really nice woman who gave >me directions to my hotel at the station and chatted for some time – we parted with a warm shaking of hands (no Bret she wasn’t hitting on me, or me on her!).

I notice a huge population of Chinks here (to include Chinese + SE Asians) – no wonder the flite fm HK was full. Also a fair population of Indians who r obviously here for IT work – there was this couple in the train yesterday, with the guy talking abt how he needs to go home to choose a girl (in deference to his mom’s wishes), and the girl talking loudly in Hindi giving him gyan on priorities and marriage – quite interesting : -)

The project’s also q interesting – organizational structure and interpersonal conflicts related to a platform which was adopted 2 years ago and is gonna get phased out in another 2 yrs. Have had various meetings, and the problems and the apparent solutions are quite obvious, but there are soo many softer issues involved that its gonna be a challenge making the recommendations and more importantly, bringing a structure to the approach and solutions. And technology is quite interesting – dude the industry is so much evolved than the BPO space, and there appears to be so much to do, I am very tempted to say no to IBM and join Solutions.

To be very honest, am still not sure about IBM – cant say why. The CRM’s here are also quite a bunch– Abhijit is very professional and consult-ish, Rakshit is a typical Punju (married thank God!) – loud and aggressive, and he’s an IIM-A to boot : -) Georg looks and talks like a professor (he wears those Harry Potter-ish glasses) and has bugs bunny teeth.

U know wot...as I write this mail, I can look upon the valley from my window - curving roads lined with trees and picturesque houses, with the cars winding up, and the sun setting in the background - its beautiful!

and oh yes - today i went to the exercise room. 130 cals - not bad no : -)

So thatz quite a bit! Please keep writing in with ure updates..so long and have fun!!!