Nov 3rd

Mon Nov 3, 2008

Woke up early, plenty of time to get ready for work. The shower is very European. I've taken pictures (soon to be uploaded). Aditya told me that I should turn on the heater for the shower about 20 minutes before taking the shower. Don't leave it heat for too long or it will be really hot!

The kitchen is stocked with basics, so I was able to have a treasured cup of tea (Taj Mahal tea with milk) before I left. Oddly, I also chose to have a banana for breakfast, something I rarely do. This was a good thing as the pipeline folks here eat lunch at about 1pm. I choked down my pro-biotic and malaria pills with my tea (waste of good tea!!), and I was ready to go.

Angela came by the apartment to take me to work. When I asked her what time she would come by, I originally suggested 8am. However, the office doesn't start until 8:30am, so she came by at 9am instead. ("Whew!" thought this night crawler.) The clocks in the apartment were off by 1 hour, so I didn't know which were right - the clocks or my watch. (Watch was right, clocks are now reset. :-) She hailed the autorickshaw as easily as any native New Yorker hails a cab. We got in, and she told the driver where to go in Hindi. (The drivers do not speak much English.) After a short journey of about 20 minutes, we were dropped off in front of our building, a tall, dark glass building behind HyperCity and the InOrbit mall. The fare was 17 rupees (Subtract 101 from the number on the meter). The driver i not tipped.

Our office is on the 3rd floor. It is very modern, and wonderfully decorated. We are all on one floor, and the pipeline folks (Sam, Aditya, Chingkhei, and Sijo) are distributed among the pods (aka "cubes"). The pods seat about 10 people. Having the staff distributed keeps them close to production and in the loop for problems. Most of the pipeline folk sit near the windows, since they do not need to work in the dark (like lighters and compositors). In general, the whole office has soft lighting and is not nearly as dark as my office in LA. BTW, offices here are called "cabins."

Aditya gave me a tour of the office.

Lunch was very tasty Indian food. Mmmm.....

I brought chocolate to the Tech Team meeting and it seemed to be much appreciated.

I had dinner next door at Little Italy, above the Croma electronics store. The spaghetti was tasty, though oddly spicy (with bell peppers). The people sitting next to me were speaking Spanish, so I felt right at home. Yes, Jeff, you can get cheese pizza there!

Nov 2nd

Sun Nov 2

Landed at about 12:30pm at BOM airport (Mumbai). It is warm and humid, very tropical. My coworker Aditya met me as I came out of the terminal, and we headed off to the apartment so I could drop my luggage and change into some jeans and cooler clothes. After a brief tour of the apartment, we headed out to the International Animation Day in Mumbai, which R&H India helped produce.

http://www.asifa.in/

This is a big animation event in Mumbai, and everyone was there. I met many people from the office here: Vani, Prasad, Sam, Sijo, Chingkhei (aka Sapam), Angela, and Meghna. Chingkhei put together a cool flight simulator (hardware and software). Wow, straight to my heart!

Aditya and I nipped out for a pizza lunch at Not Just Jazz By The Bay overlooking the bay. He told me that many tourists (from India and elsewhere) come to walk around the bay.

Then back to the Animation Festival to watch the awards ceremony where they showed some cool shorts and gave out awards.

Afterwards, we returned to the apartment. It took about an hour (Sun evening) and we saw part of a wedding on the way. I also saw 5 people (a whole family) crammed onto 1 motorcycle! Once there, I promptly crashed into bed and fell asleep.

Nov 1 Portsmouth, here we come!

Slept in a bit, and then headed out to Portsmouth to see the Daleks exhibit at Spinnaker Tower. http://www.spinnakertower.co.uk/ Very cool!

Oct 31st Happy Halloween in the UK

My friend Rosie picked me up at the airport and we headed to Sainsbury to pick up a few last minute things for her awesome Halloween Party for the neighborhood kids.

Oct 30th

Thu Oct 30 16:16:22 PDT 2008

Leaving the office today. I'm off to pick up my luggage, then off to the airport. Rachel D. is giving me a ride. My flight is leaving at 7pm from LAX. First stop: London to visit my friend Rosie and her family. I'm arriving in Mumbai on Sunday morning. There is an animation festival happening in Mumbai that I have been invited to... I'll go if I'm not too tired.

Catching up the year (or, 2008 in Review)

Lots has happened this past year.

January
In January, I moved back in with parents in Orange County (now called "The OC") while I worked on what to do next. My parents are very cool, so this was OK for a while.