So I had this really mellow yet fun trip to Buffalo this last weekend, and it was nice to hang out with Saurabh and Arul. We just chilled out at home for the most part. Also played some cricket, watched some Mash and cooked a bit.

Then I got back in town, met up with some amazing people whose shared similar reading interests. It was fun, and then this friend tells me last night at around midnight that she is on her way to Chattanooga in the morning. I jumped at the idea of driving to Chattanooga to see Jaro, and asked if she was fine with it. She said yes, God bless her soul. So I dropped a mail to Jaro and asked him to call me in the morning to wake me up and also let me know if it was okay to drop in on such short notice. He said sure, and called at around 8:45.

So I got to Chattanooga and am here for the day, and will be leaving in about an hour and a half (7pm). So while I was here, we all went for an Indian lunch to this Indian Taj Mahal place, which was quite good except that we were kind of late and the food was a little cold but still had good taste to it. Got out of there to come back to Jaro’s office. Met his dad, and brother among others. It’s such a cool place to work. Met Don too.

Then Jaro and me went downtown for a bit, and he showed me the town where he grew up. It was fun, and we got coffee from this really cool coffee house in the Art district, The Rembrants Coffee shop. I had their Iced mocha and man was it good! Still sipping the remnants *slurp slurp*. Man now I’m kind of sad I didn’t come here to work. But it’s all good in the end.

That’s it for now.

… “Agar tu phone katega to mein tujhe maar dalungi” – Me to Nammy. I mean WTF!!!

.. can really make your day.

Okay so let’s tackle both the aforementioned and seemingly disjoint topics, one at a time.

United States Postal Service:

So as you can see from my last post, I needed to track down M-bags. I called up USPS all set to be huffy-puffy and talk tough with the rep. on the phone. The last time I called the woman was telling me to go hop from one USPS to another to find the damned bags.

But this one was real nice, and gave me some really vague locations to check for the M-bags. I called the first one of the numbers offered to me, and viola, they had them! I was impressed. There was only one hitch. It was a 20 minute bus ride away, and they were closed on Saturday. So I hauled ass at 3:00 in the afternoon to get there and hopefully come back with 2 M-bags. Now the fun begins.

I got on the bus from the Five Point Station going East. For the first time I felt insecure as I passed through older parts of Atlanta. I felt like it was home. The roads were dirty, there were actually people on the streets, etc. It felt like there was life there, as compared to the concrete jungle close to GATech. So, insecure I say? Well I don’t know, I kind of felt like staying in the US had softened me and I felt lost already.

I’m sure you could guess what I thought next. How will I survive in Mumbai if I was feeling like this already? Well there is nothing a firm resolve cannot overcome, not to mention the feeling passed once I got off the bus *grin*.

So anyways, I walked around a bit as I was so happy just to be there. Soon I found the post office and managed to get the bags. And man what bags these were. Looked like huge bags that beach bums can be seen carrying around collecting rubbish in. And to think I was going to have to carry two of these clumsy and big bags all the way back to GATech.

So I folded one and put it into the other, hauled it over my shoulder and started off with a lanky walk (:P). People were staring at me, as I was in shorts, had disheveled hair, had a dirty bag/sack over my shoulder, was listening to an iPod and had a book in the other hand. They couldn’t decide if I was trying to be hip (while being a bum) or being a bum (while I was actually not). I just kept smiling and nodding at all the ladies, and carried on.

Managed to reach the station in one piece, and kept wondering what a sheltered life I had been leading all these years. It just popped into my head, so don’t ask me where that came from.

Got on the train and on my way home.

Women:

Oh well, is there ever to write much here *cheeky grin*? Simply wanted to say that I always seem to notice how women I meet on the metro or anywhere else, always smell like freshly washed towels and it’s refreshing.

Current life status:

So now I’m really free!! Exams are done with, and things are looking up. Just have a couple of things to do:

1) Need to find M-bags from USPS (harder than one would think possible).

2) Talk to my landlord about my deposit, as I leave before the lease ends.

3) Start packing!

I hope to tackle the problems in the order given, though 1 and 2 are on par in terms of importance.

On another note:

Pushkar’s parents and younger brother are visiting us for a couple of days. Feels nice to have some family around. Not to mention the truckload of sweets we got from Nagpur (the home to Haldiram). They will be with us till the end of the week, and on Sunday or Saturday night they fly to California to visit the Grand Canyon and a couple of other places in the Orange County.

On the home front:

My parents have seen my reasoning and thus I am back on track with my current plans. The next step as some of you know, is to talk to that someone and see if things can be worked out to our advantage. If it does work out, I’ll be the happiest nri-non_business_minded-working_class-gujju ever!!!

On the professional front:

Working at HFI is going to be one hell of an experience. I spoke to another person from the company yesterday, and I realised how much I really knew and how much more there was to learn. I think it is going to be a very enriching experience.

A lot has happened this past week. This is going to be a long rant (by comparison). Comments are welcome, as this post will be strife with questions:

On a very personal front

.. umm actually it was more like through Tech after the rain in the morning. Decided to take my camera too, as the weather was kinda grey and yet there were many things to be captured: My latest model

The day started with my going to work around 8:30. We are at the verge of the launch of the second version of our website, the ADA Game at www.adagame.org.

Worked till about 11:30 when Marsha (my boss for the last two years) took us out to lunch, as a celebration for my graduation as well as for my having found a good job. We went to Mirch Masala (she was enthusiastic about it) and ate our heart out. Got back and worked for a bit, before heading home.

I just about land up and home and Pappu drags me out to go get something to eat and maybe see a car for Zach. But Zach has no idea where the dealer is, etc. So we end up just getting something to eat, and then decided on checking out The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Pretty interesting movie, and fairly well made.

Got back home around 9:30, and then just lazed around for a bit before calling up people in India. Started with sayanbaba, and spoke to her for a bit. It was fun to hear about her escapades in Sri Lanka, and I heart her even more now. Then spoke to Manish and was glad to learn Kavya was doing great.

Fell asleep around 1:00 or so and got up straight at around 1:30 today afternoon. Slept really well. Now am at the library with Pappu, about to start coding on some ADA Game stuff. Will then just chill out for a bit.

I did take some pictures today, will upload tonight or tomorrow morning.

So the class came to an end today, and I feel relief beyond reason. Why? I’m not really sure except that it feels like an accomplishment par excellence.

We were a bunch of seven people who had come together to work on a project, and were having a really rough start. There was a lot of backbiting, and people weren’t wiling to work together. Tensions were running high. Technically we were a really strong team and if we held it up, we could really take the class head on. But simple things such as scheduling were getting in the way.

This is where I realised the need for a manager/strong management. We were all technical people, engineers. This was new to us, and was akin to what our other professor spoke of in class about how it was different managing technical teams when compared to marketing ones or others.

But we soon ironed out our problems and worked as a team, which lead to fantastic results including a very realistic and fully functional prototype.

That aside, was a pretty fruitful day as I met up with Mayank and caught up on some good reading material.