Cloudy on a Sunny day

That's exactly how I feel right now.

My mind wants to contribute to all the glorious programs I am supposed to be writing, but the heart really is somewhere else. I think I know why, I've had difficult conversations with 3 separate people at work in the past 10 days. And 2 of those people have designations which have the word 'Chief' in it. (Tells you how stupid I am isn't it?).

It's not that I am a difficult to get along with, It's just I have been trying to make a point to everyone that people should just do their job, if everyone did their bits, the world wouldn't come crashing down on the rest of us who are taking up jobs of those slackers. I am tired of picking up the phone asking a question and always getting the same response 'I don't know' or sometimes it's 'I didn't know, I was supposed to do that'. It's you job damn it!

So well...I'm glad I've talked about this here, now I've vented.

Oh..another thing is..I'm getting my Tuesdays and Wednesdays mixed up every week. I wake up on Tuesday knowing it's Tuesday, coz I fast on those days, but somehow during the day, my mind had a timer of it's own, the day becomes Wednesday and I get a rude shock when i realise that it's not Wednesday yet. And then on Wednesday, I take the trash out, check the sprinkler coz those are Wednesday jobs and then somewhere in the day, the timer goes a day back!!!! But this makes Thursday (more) the best day of the week!!!

The cloud is hanging low, but the sun is trying it's best. We'll just see how today goes. And hopefully rain will come and all shall be happy and good again :)

4 Years...

It's 4 years today, when I first joined my current job and might I add, my very first full time, paying job. I have so many memories here, so many great friendships, so much learning - both programming and sociocultural. It's been one hell of a ride, exciting sometimes, sometimes painfully slow and dull. But for the most part I love my job and love everyone (almost) I work with. No matter how much I crib and moan, I still love it. Come Monday I will again be sad about the weekend being over and dragging my happy little butt to Fort Worth, but I still like it :)

Augustus

So, it's a well known fact that I am a little loopy in the head ;)

Now that we have that said and done with, here's one more thing to add to the looney tunes.

I have never really liked the month of August, just never cared for it for any reason. Never wanted to acknowledge it, never on the list of when things will happen or get done. Just NEVER. It's not without reason though. August has not been a very happy month in my family. There have been many tragedies in this month. When August roles by, everyone in my family is praying silently that nothing untoward happens.

Now two years back, things changed, out of nowhere!!!

I graduated in August, landed my first job is August and Gourav and I got married in August :) Now I just wait for this time of the year, the heat is lessening, the rains are here, it's also the time when work is not crazy, we start planning fun things to do when fall rolls by, it's the time when parents are visiting, people are graduating, weddings are happening.

Maybe it's because I am turning more into the 'glass is half full' person or maybe being not in India and away from a lot of the family makes me see things differently, maybe this August has so far been great! Whatever it is, I don't hate you anymore Augustus, don't give me reason to :)

Oh so that's James?

This past weekend, my company organised a summit meeting for all the pharmacists, here in Dallas. Now let me tell you something about my company and my job.

I work at the Home Office of a retail pharmacy chain, and I am a software developer whose job duties includes help desk for our pharmacies. The stores we have are spread all over Tx from Lubbock to Corpus Christi. So I speak to the pharmacists and techs all the time, but have never seen 90% of them. We had all formed images in our heads based on the voices.

Ok, so last Saturday, all the pharmacists came to DFW for the summit. I was very excited to be able to meet these people now.

Here is a picture which sums up my joy in meeting the one person I really really wanted to meet and had never met though she's only in Waco. I am really glad we had a chance to meet and there were a tonne of other people I met. Should I say this I wonder, oh well...Almost no one was the way I had imagined them to be :D Not in a bad way or anything, but just different. And I have heard similar things said about me :)

Jerome Seinfeld

So on Saturday, 19th July (this is for my own reference) , we went to laugh at and with Seinfeld . On the wednesday of that week, Gourav told me about Seinfeld coming and thus started a frantic search for the best tickets. It was a tad bit expensive, but oh-so-worth-it :)

So we reached well in advance, anticipating traffic problems. We had really good seats (center). Promptly at 7, the opening act started. It was some guy who's fairly popular, but we had never heard of him. He was really funny! For the life of me, I cannot remember any of his jokes, but they were good.

And then came the man himself, he got a standing ovation. It was rather impressive the way he joked about Dallas and the North Tollway, making us feel like he loved our city as much as we did. Oh and the 'heat'. He didn't do the 'What's the deal with...' routine, which was cool. He did do 'Hello Newman' and pointed out some of the funniest things about everyday things. Like *69, blackberry, the cellphone is now superior than face to face conversations and such. He's one helluva guy. The QnA section was funny too, with people asking him 'do you miss george' and his response 'naeh, it's hard to miss fictional people'.

So happy that we got to see Seinfeld. I feel like I've seen one legend in this lifetime atleast. :)

These are a few of my favorite things:

In no particular order :

Chai
Maggie Noodles
Movies
Pride and Prejudice
Books
Chocolate
Mcvitties Digestives
Google
Chipotle
Thai food
Reading blogs
Gossiping
Malai Kofta
Lil kids
Java
Samosa
Listening to and watching the rain drop
sleeping
Running
DDR
Grey's Anatomy
Big Bang Theory
Dumb charades
Pictionary
Name, place, animal, thing :D :) :)
Weddings
My faded blue shorts.
Reading old mail


I noticed how much food is there in my list. hmmmm.

Desirama

Almost every Desi has some funny stories to tell about their first few days in the US, in a land so different from home. Be it the pedestrian walking signals or cooking one's first meal here.

So I was talking to my Dad and we were sitting in a drive through and I was suddenly reminded of my very first drive thru experience.

I had been in US only a few days, maybe 1 month. I was sitting in the library and it was around 11 pm, when my friend Varnit comes and says, he's hungry and that he doesn't have any food at home. We agree to go to the Taco Bell on cooper street about 3/4 mile away. Now we didn't have a car but we thought we'll walk upto it. So off we set to get some tacos.

We get to the store, and poop, it's closed, but Hallelujah, the drive-thru is open. Lord have mercy. We begin to walk towards it and all this time we'd been discussing the menu and how super hungry we were. Just as we are approaching the Menu board we see this sign that reads 'All patrons must be in a car, anyone on foot will not be served....'. And we finish reading this sign and hear this loud honk from behind us, there's a bunch of people in a car honking at our pity little sorry faces. We run away embarrassed and feeling dismayed, not just at the prospect of not getting any food, but also at the thought of having made such complete fools of ourselves.

Now when we look back at this incident, it's so funny to us, but back then we had been almost in tears and felt so sorry for ourselves and so ready to take a flight back home :)