Tour Dairy - 2

The last couple of days have been real fun. I ventured into the freeways with an enthusiasm that a child would display while entering a candy store. I decided to go to a place that I was familiar with - Fremont. My colleague and I got back from work to the hotel, had a quick wash and off we were on my Ford Taurus screaming past exits on the 101 South towards Dumbarton bridge. The evening traffic on this route was heavy but nothing compared to the 1999-2001 period when traffic moved bumper to bumper.

When I got on to 880 South, a wave of nostalgia swept me back in time as I saw the Thornton Avenue exit. I was on my turf now and I needed no maps to guide me. I drove straight to Coconut Hill on Cedar Blvd and we got some frozen Indian food and snacks. We then drove to the New Park mall and ambled around for sometime before we returned to the Coconut hill strip mall. We ate at Woodlands and the food was really good. oh! How I wish this hotel existed when I lived in Fremont. My wife and I could only go to Udupi if we wanted some authentic (well....more or less) South Indian food.

On my return trip, my colleague commented - "so are you getting used to the roads - I can see you are more confident now". That made my day.

Today we decided to go to Sunnyvale and had some decent food at Saravanabhavan. I probably overate and am struggling with my tummy even as I type this blog.

It has been a very busy day with tons and tons of work piling on my plate. I am filling in for two others who are going on vacation this month. On top of this was the announcement of yet another acquisition by Oracle. This was followed by some serious gossip on the acquisition with a sales person who had sold Oracle's product against the acquired product in the midst of fierce competition. The guy was wondering what he was going to tell his customers now. :)

Life at HQ is what you can call as "Boring" - with a big B. There is hardly any face to face interactions and the whole place is like a museum. Quite and dull. Each man/woman is unto himself/herself - people do not go together even for tea or coffee or lunch. If you are to go to lunch with someone, it has to be planned in advance. No dropping in at a cube and asking "Lunch?" ;) No group chai sessions or the animated discussions on Oracle v/s IT services companies or the debate on reservations. The place is vey quite and dreadfully desolate.

Given this scenario, I guess it makes real sense to outsource for the Americans. If interactions are by Instant messenger, phone or email even within the team here, then how does it make a difference if the person is sitting here at HQ or at far away IDC?

Met an old colleague of mine and went all nostalgic for close to half an hour. Will meet him again later during the weekend for a further dose of nostalgia. :-D

The next time someone at IDC crib about food at the cafeteria, I am going to ship him on the next flight to HQ and condemn him to lifelong sentence of food at the cafeteria here. :p

Ciao then. I am signing off for the day and will post later this weekend. We plan to go out someplace nice.