CALtrain

Most hilarious quote of the trip!
"CPE is a Mess, it can't match the success we've had at CO" - Manager of the failed AC7 CO program!

I was confused whether to detail this training trip to SJ on my project notebook or on this blog and decided on the latter, so only a brief summary is presented here.

I came back after a fantastic trip to NY after which I just had a couple of hours to drive back from the airport, shop for my parents' essentials during the week, pack up and drive again to the airport, park the car and catch the 4pm flight to San Francisco. It was a miracle that the flight got delayed by 35 minutes! This just gave me the time I needed to get on board!

The 737 flight from Paris to SFO via DFW was very smooth and comfortable thanks to AA's More Room guarantee in the Coach segment. I slept through most of this flight, only forcing my eye open to get the attention of the air host to get some Coffee after which, I went back to my dreams.

Upon landing at SFO, I checked my messages to find that Rathish would be delayed since he was going to watch Spiderman-2 in a special screening at Sony. So, I rented a Buick Century after turning down a Mitsu Galant (to try something new!) at the Avis rental agency. It was a pleasant drive interspersed by phone calls on I-280 enroute to Campbell, where the Pruneyard Inn was located. The hotel room was one of the most luxurious ones I've stayed in. I can only remember three other which were either on par or beat this one: The Renaissance in SFO Downtown, DoubleTree Suite in SAN & Crowne Plaza in Dallas. All those were interview travels and understandably, I could not really enjoy any of those stays entirely; by the time the cherishable interview results were out, I was back at my tiny but cozy room in West Lafayette! This room was far too big for one person and had all the required amenities.

Rathish came up to the hotel and we went to dine at Thai Pepper, which was good. I was too exhausted for the day which spanned 3 time zones and a little over 24 hours!

The training day began with Zhicheng, Srinivas and I have a leisurely continental breakfast at the hotel and we drove on a Lincoln Towncar to the SJ office. The greeting was not necessarily very warm and we got down to business straight away with some technical questions being fired at us. We managed to deal with them quite easily since we had already anticipated these queries. Then came the quote of the trip, stated above during lunch at the Cafe Pomodoro. It was hilarious and we could not help but laugh behind the towels! We came back in the afternoon to some extensive overview presentations, frequently interrupted by meaningless questions and sometimes good ones. I met Mike Locke, who was a much reverred contributor to the DSL software codebase. I even offered a half salute to the man for sitting through my presentation. I found out later that he either did not have much else to do or that he loved our presentations so much, that he would sit through each and every of them! ;-)

That evening, I was exhausted and wanted to relieve some stress. Hence the Alcoholics Anonymous reconvened and had some fun! Soon it was time to look forward to day two. The next two days in training were pretty much detailed deep dive sessions, which were well rec'd, but were understandably overwhelming for the audience. The only notable meal during this time was a freak out at Rock Bottom beside the Pruneyard, one of the most expensive dinners I would have had thus far!

The training was by and large successful, but we were not too pleased at some of the commentary and childishness brought forth by the SJ folks. However, I found out from Bill Santini, that there is a predictable pattern during these transitions and the curve is like a valley, going down steeply and then coming up gently... Denial and Opposition are the first two stages going down... then analysis is the stage that stays flat and rises slowly at its tail end and then the recovery phase which brings it back up to its feet or perhaps with a little stoop.

Friday evening was the day when Rathish, Vinod and I went to the Bombay Buffet. It was a fabulous meal! We relished the variety and the quality of the dinner and it could only be spoiled by what followed it, a trip to Naz8 theaters to watch Veer Zaara!!! More about this movie coming up in my Movie blog! At the end of this torture filled experience, I had to be at the receiving end of some bashing, coz I suggested and even insisted we go to this one ;-)

Saturday was spent in the company of Gopal and his family to begin with and then with Rathish in the evening. We drove around for a long long time, cherishing our moments from HCE and here in the US. We are looking forward to celebrating a decade of friendship in August 2005. Its almost 10 years since I first met this guy in HCE and it certainly does not seem as if we have aged 10 years since!

Sad part of this discussion which continued through our dinner at Amarin Thai, though, was that we also brought up the fact that the communications between people in our friends' circle was not up to the mark these days. Some things are understadable, while others are inexcusable! I am sure we will come out of this phase! It may never be back up to where it once was, but it will not be at these lows either!

On Sunday, I went back to Gopal's and enjoyed the company of Shivani and Shyam. I always love watching kids and the way they pick up things so quickly. I feel I can learn a thing or two from them, which I may have forgotten over the years! We went to Michael's a golfer's restaurant. The kids enjoyed watching the birds (I mean the real ones) ;-) We all went to a hike through Shoreline and climbed up a hill, to get "a bird's eye-view" of the East Bay looking into Fremont. It was a great sight and an about-turn gave us a beautiful oogle into Google!

I bid goodbye to Gopal & Prasha and headed back to Rathish's place after which, we were about to head out to Dinner, when we heard that his roomie, Vinod's car had been rear ended. This rendered the car, un-drivable. So we went and offered him some moral support before the tow truck came in and hauled his car back to the apartment. Then, when we were at Saravana Bhavan, came the curse of the trip... the same curse that hit me during the Columbus trip.. I don't need to say any more!

I began feeling sick and it seemed to be some kind of food poisoning! I have never experienced this in a long time! It was really painful and I had to bear it throughout the flight back to Dallas via Chicago. After I arrived, I found that Rathish also had similar problems.. we are not sure whether we should sue Saravana Bhavan or Amarin thai or you know who!

All in all... seems like my out of TI experiences were way more memorable than my in-TI experience. It was also notably, my 5th meeting with Rathish this year and my 4th with Gopal!