Last night in India

Well, I am back to my apartment and finished packing besides my computer. I will soon be on my way to the airport to board my plane to come back to the good, and I understand cold, Salt Lake City, Utah. It will be a long trip back, but it will be good to be back to family, friends, and familiar things. I am calling it the three F's, not to be mistaken by the three f's issued as a list of demands by the Tenant Right League in Ireland from the 1850's. The three f's from the league are fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure. My three f's have nothing to due with land or renting, so they are very different.

The traffic back to the apartment from work today was the worst I have ever seen. It may be that I have never left that early, 7:45 PM. I think this is the first time in three weeks that I haven't worked at least eleven hours! The roads were flooded as well as crowded. You may have guessed that today it rained in Bangalore. Apparently lakes appear in the roads and the amount of walking space on the side walks is reduced by half. Much of the sidewalk is only dirt and quickly turns to mud. As I was walking from the apartment to dinner my shoes got covered in mud which I then brought in to my nice tiled apartment. Luckily, a TriStar employee was standing ready with a broom and mop to clean up the mess I made.

This week my managers manager, Ally, came into Bangalore for the week. Yes, she was only here for a week. She probably was not able to get on a normal sleeping schedule so will be alright coming back to Salt Lake the same time as me. I, on the other hand, have been here long enough to get on a regular sleeping schedule and will probably suffer from jet lag when I get back.I am going to try taking some Melatonin on the plane at the time that would be Salt Lake night. Melatonin helped to get on a regular sleeping schedule in India, so I am hoping it will help me sleep on the plane. Salt Lake night will be while I am on the nice double decker plane from Dubai to JFK. It should be an experience to be on that large of a plane. It is amazing that something so large can actually fly! My direct manager is afraid of the small planes that go from Salt Lake to New York, so it is probably a good idea that he did not come out to India with me.

When Ally got here she took the products team (the team I came to work with) and me out to Leela. This is not Turanga Leela, which some of you Futurama lovers may be thinking of, but a "palace" with three restaurants in it. It was interesting the prices on the menu. Ally decided she wanted to order a coke for dinner. The price on the menu was 300 rupee, or about six dollars. Well, they brought her out a can of coke which had a ribbon across the top which read 20 rupee, or about 50 cents. Needless to say the hotel food, I felt, was very overpriced for what we got. I had been taken to other restaurants in town that were as good, if not better, than Leela Palace.

Not much happened this week. We had an issue on Wednesday and I worked until 12:30 before finally saying I had to go home since I had been there since 9:30 that morning. Sneha doesn't come in until 1 pm, which is the standard for all the operation groups in Bangalore. They work much too late for my liking. I would much prefer to come in early and leave early to have afternoons with my wife. I know I say leave early and we all know that I do not leave early, but earlier than the hours if I were to work the same as Bangalore. If I did work the same hours I would never see my wife, she would be asleep by the time I got home at 11 and I would probably learn to sleep in from working so late.

The project is almost done. We have one segment of testing left which we will complete by a week from today. We had some limitations that would not allow us to test until February was over.

I just got a call saying my cab was here to take me to the airport. I will be there early, but I will be home in about 36 hours!