Puppy Love

I started the day asleep on the kitchen floor. Puppy and owner were having some anxiety last night after the first middle-o-night potty break, so puppy and owner crashed together on the kitchen floor.

The kitchen floor is slate and we haven't turned our heat on yet. Needless to say, restive sleep eludes me.

Jen started her shift at 6am and I got to sleep in the bed. While I slept, Jen took puppy on a moonlit walk around the park, fed her and took a shower with her (not actually with her). At 7:30 I got up (again) and took puppy for another walk. This time CJ went with us and shared training duties. Hit the park again. The walk was good. Puppy, CJ and owner had a good time. Jen left for work and I worked from home again. Puppy protested, but two walks prevailed and she eventually laid down.

Two walks did the job. She wasn't ready for another walk till about 4pm, then dinner, then another walk with CJ. Puppy couldn't finish last walk - too tired and too many distractions (new people and dogs everywhere).

She's not getting the whole only pee outside thing. Hopefully soon.

- b

Puppy Proof

I'll be the first to admit it. She's wearing us out. She has way more energy then CJ had at this age. She also appears to be a lot smarter. Jen took her on a half mile walk and Gretchen herded Jen the whole way. CJ couldn't walk that far, let alone herd, till later.

Last night wasn't too bad as far as sleeping and the crate, but I doubt we'll ever get to go to work again. It took both of us, working shifts, to keep her occupied and good.

Granted, Jen and I are both kind of sick and exhausted from last weeks travels.

The vet visit today was good. She slept through it. Found out she has tapeworms, roundworms, Coccidia and fleas (the fleas and tapeworms we knew about). Got her medicine to get her on her way to healthy. Now if we could just get her to take the pills.

I realize I owe wedding pictures (two of them now), but my hands are a little full at the moment.

- b

Meet Gretchen

We drove 10 hours to get her.

I think now we're all infested with fleas.

She's a good dog.

- b

Late Night Flights

Twice in a week I've taken the same flight to Tennessee. Twice what was supposed to be late ended up later.

- b

When it rains...

Nothing beats riding Downingtown

Had the best ride since July. It was pouring. The wet leaf covered roots were death ("if you can dodge a wrench...").

It was great. Endurance is lacking and I avoid big logs, but the rest was bliss.

Moments of cold and soaked were surrounded by happiness and contentment.

I'd give up racing completely, if every ride could be like that.

Victory still had Dark Devil Casks and a new Oktoberfest - leftever something else. Next week it's HopWallopeen!

On the way home I heard a song from Puscifer. I'm almost ashamed, but I had no idea.

- b

Two Weddings...

and a funeral

in a week

really

- b

Not Good

I'm not getting a whole lot done. A month ago, I had everything. Now I'm struggling.

India haunts me still.

At least the fall colors are coming in nicely.

- b

Battery's Dead

I've got tons of pictures from my sisters wedding. I'll put together a page(s) soon and randomly show some things here.

Special things like this...

- b

Shabby Chic

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Bike Life

Neglect

Support

Suspension



- b

Dried Up and Low

- b

Life IS Good

For Me

And maybe a little better for others

- b

Dark Devil Cask

This Weeks Ride:

Victory Storm King Cask + Victory Hop Devil Cask = Sleep Hygiene

Two Weeks From Now:

Fresh Victory Hop Wallop + Halloween = Jail Time or ER visit

Life IS good.

- b

Jet Lag Part III

Each morning I wake up an hour earlier.

I have too many evening and late night commitments for this to continue.

- b

Jet Lag Part II

It's kind of weird being so wide awake in the mornings when it's so dark outside.

- b

Home Sweet Home

I'm Back.

It's a little weird.

- b

Bob Has Left the Building

Worked today.

Interviewed a ridiculous number of entry level candidates. Heading home to pack, then off to catch a plane.
- b

Bajaj XCD

This is a commercial for a motorcycle sold over here. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure they capture the whole public urination thing.

Bajaj XCD

Speaking of commercials, there's also a few for skin whitening creams, but I'm not getting into that.

- b

Guru

I'm not normally a Bare Naked Ladies fan, but this lyric struck me as pertinent.

- b

Ramble On

Had my first home cooked meal in almost a month last night. I think it was one of the few meals I've had here in India where I could taste something other then hot spice. It was delicious. Hospitality was excellent too. One of my co-workers invited me home to have dinner with his family in Delhi. It was a very nice way to wrap up my stay here.

Before going to his home, we hit a few sights in Delhi. First we rolled by one of the parliament buildings.

Then by the India Gate

Then off to the Akshardham temple. Unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures at the temple. Security was really really tight. It was pretty cool. I probably could have taken a hundred pictures there alone.

So the dust storm that started two weeks ago is still going. I guess it's not really a storm, but a way of life. I'm not even sure it's dust or a storm. When I ask, some people say it's dust from the deserts to the west in Rajasthan (most logical explanation for me), others say it's dust from the construction here, or pollution, or fog, or they don't know what it is and laugh at me for asking or caring. Sorry. When I can't see the buildings on the other side of the road, I get curious. It's just one of many very different experiences for me here. Sort of like seeing people bathe from a bucket on the side of the road.

This morning was the first morning in a few days I haven't woken up with little red dots all over me. I think the rain last Friday gave a little boost to the mosquito population around here. The rain last Friday has screwed me again!

So far I hadn't needed to apply bug repellent before going to bed. After a couple of mornings of red spots all over me, it was time to change my game plan. At first I thought it might be bedbugs, since the mosquitos hadn't bothered me (too bad) till this week. After a little research, I determined it wasn't bedbugs. They bite in patterns of three spots (breakfast, lunch, dinner) as you move and disturb them while they're feeding (on you). I applied the repellent before turning in last night and no new red spots this morning.

The mosquitos over here are definitely different then back home. Back home they're aggressive and buzz as they attack. Here they lazily fly in circles not appearing to care about you or are too diseased themselves to be aware. Either by chance or sneakiness, they get you when you least expect it. Currently there's a bit of a Dengue Fever going around Delhi. Lazy or not, they can make you very sick.

- b

Brilliant!

In a country I've found to be pretty conservative (they censor HBO), I'm impressed with their approach to educate people and children about the rising AIDS/HIV epidemic.

Watch commercial.

If the picture isn't clear enough in the last shot , it says No Condom - No Sex.

For more info see Heroes Project

Conservative is more subjective when viewed with a global perspective.

- b

Facts & Figures

The United States is third in the world in geographic size and third in the world for population (if you don't count the EU).

India is seventh in the world in geographic size and second in the world for population (even if you count the EU).

US - 9,826,630 km²
India - 3,287,590 km²

US - 300 million people
India - 1.12 billion people.

The US has 1/4 the number of people that India has in four times the space!

OR

India has four times the number of people that the US has in 1/3 space!

- b

Got An Upgrade

Came home the other day to find this installed in my shower

Yes it's a soap dispenser, but what's key is the label

I think that says it all.

- b

IPA

IPA = India Pale Ale. I'm in India. Where's the pale ale? A friend was kind enough to point this out to me, so I did a little research.

India Pale Ale comes from English India Pale Ale. During the 1700s, it was brewed in England and sent to the British troops in India. To survive the voyage, they took normal pales ales and made them hoppier (a natural preservative). This also made them stronger. Once it got to India, it is believed they watered it down for the troops, while the officers got the original strength version.

Overtime the brew has weakened from it's original strength. From what I've read, I'd say todays American Double and Imperial IPAs are more like the original.

With the British troops gone, so is the beer. I'll just have to settle for Kingfisher Lager.

- b

All Work and No...

That was me yesterday alone at the office with no AC and no food. It was a national holiday yesterday (Gandhi's birthday). No one came to work, but me and the guards.

Tonight it's dinner with the team. I'll try not to make an ass of myself.

- b

Frontier Town

It's just a matter of perspective. It's like stepping back 150 years to the wild west when things were new and development was exploding. I'm sure frontier towns like Santa Fe once had streets strewn with trash and animal feces.

While the big cities back east (New Delhi in this case) were clean and orderly.

Gurgaon is the new wild west. It's bustling with deals and business opportunities - moving too fast for infrastructure and regulation. San Fransisco's youth was sure to have had transient housing and shanty towns as more permanent structures went up all around.

click image for larger view of the tents

Only thing missing is for me to get drunk, shoot someone and visit a house of ill repute.

- b

Wake Up People

A Senator solicits sex in a public bathroom and all hell breaks loose. Another can't differentiate between church and state (guiding principle) and all he gets is criticism?

- b

Living in a Box

This past month my life has been encapsulated into two closets.

So the picture only shows one. The other closet is full of dirty clothes. These closets are (were) the only thing private for me this month. They're the only thing I can lock. When I'm not home, the door to my room remains unlocked. I've recently figured out the door to the entire apartment remains unlocked most of the day too. The care takers are there 24/7, but I've seen other people around. Some look like cleaners or delivery people. Others I'm not so sure about.

I'm pretty sure I'm safe from the caretakers. When all you have is a thin mattress on the floor and two outfits to wear week in and week out, what would you do with some other dudes stuff? There are also 3 posts of guards you have to get through to get to the elevators.

Four weeks into it is hardly the time to worry.

- b

Gone Native

Found out this weekend I'm the only foreigner to have have eaten repeated meals at the guest house in Gurgaon. None of the previous British or German guests have been able to hang. They all eat breakfast, which is just spicy eggs, but they've never had dinner or lunch at the guest house.

I wonder if there's anyway I can work that into my bonus for the year? It should at least be worth the money I saved the company by not going out every night for a month.

- b

ps. One of the guys I work with here has been in the hospital for over a week. He's got Typhoid. He's doing better now, but it's still scary stuff.

Geography Lesson

I've been asked a few times where New Delhi is in relation to the States. In the most simplest terms, I can put it this way.

Start in Orlando, FL and go east. Go east across the Atlantic and across the top of Africa. Go across the bottom of Saudi Arabia, then across Oman and the bottom of the Persian Gulf / top of the Arabian sea. There you will hit the top of India. Go east a little further and you hit New Delhi.

India is completely north of the equator.

New Delhi feels like Orlando and southern Texas. Somewhat looks like it too.

- b

Mall Rat

This weekends trip to Dharamsala didn't happen. I left work at 5pm Friday and it bright and sunny. When my ride picked me up at 6:30pm for a 9:20pm train departure, all hell had broken loose. It was raining buckets. It was raining like a hurricane was raging over north central India.

Ok, so it's raining?

They don't have the infrastructure to deal. Everything flooded. The roads were lakes. Nobody was going anywhere.

Finally we made it to Delhi. It hadn't rained as much there. It was dryer, but now we had Friday evening traffic. My driver did his best. It was actually kind of fun speeding through the round-abouts and through traffic. I saw some beautiful areas of Delhi. The India Gate at night is quite spectacular.

At 9:30 we still hadn't made it. It took us three hours to miss my train, so we drove home. Took only an hour to get home. In that hour I made a bunch of phone calls. They weren't all happy calls. I spoke with Jen and my mom. That went fine. Then I called the place coordinating my trips. This didn't go fine. I realized the trip was booked, reservations made, and money spent, but I was hoping for a little customer service. My expectations were not met. Then I called my boss and things got worse. Something I worked on all week, wasn't right and now it's holding up the schedule. That sucks. That sucks a lot. At least now I had all weekend to get it fixed.

But I couldn't. Thursday night when the power blinked and came back up I got the following when I tried connecting to the internet.

Somebody hadn't paid the bill and it still wasn't paid on Friday. Could my weekend get any worse?

I got up Saturday and started watching movies I brought. I watched The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy back to back. I had some lunch and decided to hit the malls. There were two within walking distance of my apartment. The walk wasn't far, but it was hot. The air stunk and the beggers and begged. The first mall was the nicer of the two. It had a movie theater, shops, restaurants and bars. Playing at the movies was The Bourne Ultimatum. Should I make it a marathon?

I walked on down to the second mall (the one I've been buying my water from). It was bigger, but I didn't find it as nice. It was similar to the first with shops, movie theater and restaurants, but it also had clubs. Clubs like night clubs. I didn't like the movies they had playing their either.

I went back to the first mall and bought my Bourne tickets. I had three hours to kill. Without going away this weekend, I had some cash to burn. I had planned to buy a bunch of souvenirs in Dharamsala, so now I had extra cash. Nothing looked appealing. There wasn't a whole I was willing to spend my money on, then have to pack up and carry back to the states, so I spent my money on food and beer. First I went to a Pizza Hut. The pizza was like our pizza, but they put red capsicums on it and that tasted a little funny. Just now I realized, I had three Pepsi's with ice. I'm not supposed to drink ice (could be tap water), so now I'm all freaked out. After the pizza I walked around then went to one of the bars. Finally some beer!

Those are two 650ml bottles of Foster's. It wasn't the best, but I got my buzz on. Shortly after I saw the movie. It wasn't bad, but I think I got a little overloaded on Bourne for one day.

Watching the movie was interesting. They have assigned seats in the theater. The seats are real comfortable and recline nicely, but the experience is less then desirable. The people next to me talked through the entire movie. I would have said something, but everyone was talking. It wasn't necessarily out loud, but enough you could hear it throughout the theater - talking and cell phones. There was also an intermission.

After the movie I headed home. As I was approaching the steps to the ground floor of my apartment, a rat ran by. I mean I guess it was a rat. I saw a cockroach in my room last week the size of a mouse. I suppose this could have been a mouse the size of a rat?

Sunday I worked. I still couldn't connect to the interet, so I worked offline. I tried calling a coworker to find out if the office was open at all, but the number he gave me was wrong.

About 6:30 I cleaned up and went back to the mall. This time I got tickets for The Contract. With Morgan Freeman and John Cusack, how could it be bad? Don't waste your money. Luckily it only cost me about $4.

I went to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner. I have to say it was the best Ruby Tuesdays meal I've ever had, though I had enough to keep me from going back any time soon. They also had beer, so maybe that had something to do with it.

- b