Turning into a real slacker these days in terms of blogging. I promise to be lot more active from now on...

Appleton was great, airport was totally awesome, free internet (or maybe I paid... ) and totally a joke to get through. If all airports were like that my life would be so much easier. Got into Minneapolis at 8 pm. Again amazing airport, lots of walking but very european. The Light Rail station was pretty fancy too, almost like one of those cool stations in Switzerland. Took the Light Rail to Warehouse district: which is in Hennepin county, downtown Mpls.

Gary picks me up from there and then we go back to his place. Later that night Kartik and Resh come by and all four of us go to Zeno, uptown MPLS which had great wine and food. Continuing towards the night we went to this really nice place called Chino Latino which had food from all around the equator or Equatorial food. I had couple of watermelon juices with all kinds of mixes in it.

Next day I decided to take a rain check on going with them to Valley Fair which is an amusement park. Instead we went to Egg & I for breakfast and then I spend my time at Walker Art Museum. Both Diane Arbus Revelations and Sharon Lockhart: Pine Flat were facinating series of photographs. They have a pretty decent premanent collection also. Walked through Loring Park which had the Pride booths during pouring rain and caught of glimpse of alternative lifestyle in Twin Cities. Met up with Sid, Katik and Reshma for dinner at Peninsula, which again was really nice malaysian food with excellent roti canai and watermelon smoothie! Experience the nightlift in twin cities with bar hopping between Spin, Barfly, Drink and few other joints. Totally not my thing but I had to tag along.

Next day we went to this really ethnic Cuban place for lunch: Cafe Victor
where we had some really awesome pancakes, mango waffles and traditional cuban dishes. Then we hung around around Calhoun lake, went paddle boating and then headed back to St Paul where my hotel was. Visited Cafe Latte for coffee and dessert and then to Embassy Suites. These guys took a nap and left for Mpls again which I started my week on sunday night, catching up on some work.

Yesterday was a really busy day with Jenny, my customer project manager leaving for her maternity leave, first day of Go live at the hospital here and other issues related to work. I was working all day and then all evening to get things together. Today was similar and having got up at 4.30... I am about to take a nap before I can tackle any work relates issues...

But its been nice catching up.

Just got back from some amazing punjabi food in Appleton, WIScaaanSin!
Continuing my daily Diary:

April 18:
Time for the big day! Mom, Dad sent me 200 bucks for a watch and today was the day to hunt around for an ideal watch. I was so out of touch with the market and I hadnt done any research so I dragged Sumier along, first Dillards at Atlantic Station and then at Macy's and Bloomindales and lots in the middle. Finally decided on a beautiful Coach watch with a white dial. Similar to what I have been using but much more classier put also quite plain and very clear! My condition is, I should be able to see it without my glasses on. Then I met up with a friend's friend who I met online, Bijal. She knew Namit and had contacted me on friendster before, so we met up after the disaster lunch at 'Two to Tango' (damn you Samedi, i remember you praising it!). We went back to Atlantic station, got the watch at Dillards and then got it fixed in Chaplins (really cute turkish jewellery store), then went to PJs for a bit, Copelands (nasty cheesecakes) and then finally she dropped me off to the airport where we spent a few hours in Houstons, chatting about old bombay and getting to know each other.

Flight to Appleton was grounded on the runway for about 1.5 hours with some engine issue that prevented the AC from running but I was pretty engrossed in Wicked and time passed quickly.

April 19:
First day on-site. Got terribly lost getting there and then getting back. Was wearing scrubs for the first time and saw some really cool ortho and GU surgeries. It was busy work because they wanted me to be in the ORs the whole time, and I was pretty happy to see what actually goes on in there. Evening met up with the whole gang from work and went to 'Good Company' restaurant. Went to Starbucks after that and did some work.

April 20:
6 am start, 3 pm finish. Got less busy, legs hurt and this time it was using sports shoes. Dinner with a smaller group at Perkins. Missed Waffle house pecan waffles.Detour to Cold Stone on the way back, oohh berry berry good icecream! Got back and caught up with emails till 11. Started Starbucks routine early in the morning before we hit the hospital.

April 21:
Legs really giving way, tried to sit off and on. 6-4 shift, very tiring. Users getting pretty confident, managed to give less attention and take more breaks. Dinner at Texas Roadhouse, pretty nasty steak place. Cute servers did a nice line dance. Felt very pukey in the night. Managed to work on finishing up the progress report before hitting the sac. Talked to my mom's sis who is visiting the USofA. Talked to my Grandmother, Grandfather and Grandmother's sis who was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis which really sux! I hope she gets allright.

April 22:
Today was a great day, I had someone calling me to wake me up (always a plesant surprise). Day went smooth, took breaks, sat in the main room and talked to nurses about their experience with the system. Made friends with Sanjay, the OR manager who was also from Bombay. Came back and went for a run and then went out shopping for Crocs, which after 3 stores finally found it in the mall. Then dinner with Sanjay and his wife. That was nice, really good food at this Taste of India restaurant. Got back and worked for 2 hours on work stuff... now its time to go to bed.

Awesome new line someone said yesterday: Bad Attitude is a result of Bad Aptitude !

Aight, so 6 days of no blogging... makes me soo mad that I havent been able write anything down specially with so much happening in my life. Quick recaps:

June 15:
Landed at 8 ish.. Met up with Rahul and went to Eccos which was really awesome. Had 3 really nice wine glasses (reminder: Update list on blog) and a decent pasta plate.
June 16:
6 hours on the Phone as usual, nothing exciting. Managed to convince the 'higher up' the need for me to go to Canada to get my US visa stamped. That was exciting, now they will pay for the whole trip! Walked to Nonya to get some lunch, very cute asian place in Sandy Springs just a block from Arpit's place. Pretty good food too. Evening was a lot of fun hanging out with Toral, Arpit, Sumier, Vilas, Vishwas, Soumya, Rahul, Chirag and Amisha. My first attempt at playing Taboo.. pretty poor actually but I learnt finally. Couple of wine bottles, bhel and pizza and that was enough to make me happy.

June 17:
That time of the year: 6 Flags. Tried out the Goliath, Scorcher, Batman, Scream machine roller coasters among others. Nasty Panda express in the morning. Evening went for Dale's dinner to Spoon which was pretty decent. Retired early after a nice chat with Arpit and Toral.

Time for dinner.. will continue later!

Thats what they have started calling me. My customer.. for once when we are getting things done .. and I dont care if that means they call me names! I bet they were pretty happy about our productivity this week, we also did get some ice cream yesterday so we are still having some fun.

This week's been pretty good, cant complain. 12 hours days but very productive ones and the more stuff we finish when I am on site, the less work for me to do when I go back home. Monday was a bitch cuz of the long delay and I didnt get to the hotel room till 11.30 pm.

Tuesday started a little late which I was glad for, day went without a hitch. Lots of getting in the system and building and less desiging this time around. We also did a bunch of validation. Evening we went to Mangolian BBQ again but I dont get very hungry in summer, besides we had chinese for lunch. Worked till 9 pm, so it became a very long day. I did manage to go for a run after that so I felt really great!

Yesterday was not that long a day, but we pushed them a little and it was a 10 hour work day. 12 for some people. Went to Outback on the way back, again I wasnt very hungry but I did manage to eat quite a bit with beer battered shrooms and penne pasta. Shiraz -Wente was pretty decent too. Got back and just vegetated on the bed... watched Inside Man on Pay Per View. Was so surprised with the song Chhayia Chhayia as the start and end theme song, that was really cool. Movie was ok.. nothing amazing, but worth the evening.

Today's been a long day. Little tiffs with Joe, about him bitching about his Coffee and then me overreacting him taking over my computer.. but on the whole smooth. Got a lot of work done, would have been able to do some more but I am not able to connect to my work network right now. Talked to Sumier for a while on the phone right now.. its been forever since that has happened... but its always very refreshing!

Planning on going to Ecco today, its a new place in Midtown.. should be interesting. I just hope there is no delay with the flight!

Today's probably the first time I have felt I need a career change ever since I started work in Healthcare informatics. I got to the airport at 2 pm and my flight did not leave till 8 pm. Just got here in Grand Rapids. No one can pay someone enough to live on the airport. These flight delays are becoming more of a norm than I signed up for. I spent the day on the airport last Thursday also!

It wasnt one of those delays where you know its delayed... it went from 3.15 to 3.45 then change of gate/concourse. Then to 4.25 and then change gate/concourse again. Then at 5.45 they announced another change in gate. Then 6.20 and then for 10 minutes of panic 8.50... I almost thought it was going to be cancelled. Then it was 6.45 and we boarded the flight only to sit in the plane for another hour and final take off was at 8 pm!

The day started off good, I was knocking off my tasks one after the other. But then I faced a technical roadblock and none of the technical people were at their desk. That went on till 6.30 when everyone started calling back...

I get to Crowne and they are closing up the restaurant. Luckily I get them to make me one Pizza... so thats a little silver lining to the totally cloudy day!

Allight so I am back home.. whats the excitment in that? well.. lets see: Familiar bed, striking up random conversation with Toral regarding anything and nothing in particular, home made food, cooking with Toral, watching my TV.... yup and just the feeling of being at home.'A sense of belonging' is a great feeling for us nomads. Thus the excitement.

I havent met up with any of my friends yet. Most didnt even know I was coming on Thursday. There was another story to tell on Thursday, got up really early and left for Airport by 5.30. As usual I am trying to move things back to ATL so I have a big suitcase I was going to check in. Reached there at 6 for a 6.30 flight which would have been ok but she said the flight was overbooked and they would have to enforce a rule. This flight was the same flight I cancelled twice because I wanted to take it easy and take the 12 pm flight though that gets to ATL at 4 pm and that would mean I would miss most of work.. now I had to take that flight. Went back to the hotel, slept for 2 hours and got back to Madison Airport. Now they have internet there so I managed to work from there till 12.30 and then take calls back in ATL by 3.30 central time.

Thursday worked till late but went to sleep early. Friday I was on the phone for 400 minutes! My cell phone plan is 600 minutes and I have been paying a lot of money in extra minutes but I was told they look at that periodically and increase it when they think is necessary. Well.. I hope now they think its necessary :-) I was so tired by the end of it, I helped out Toral with making perfect round chapatis (took me a while to perfect it.. but I did eventually... almost perfect) and then vegetated in front of the TV watching Runaway Jury for the 3rd time and called it a night.

Been running errands since morning. My TUMI bag had a zipper (i called it a chain!) problem so looks like to get a loaner i have to call them for it... that didnt get solved. Bank, Post office, grocery, home depot... managed to get that done. Spoke with a lot of people on the phone, basically catching up.

Evenings going to be pretty full of things.. update later....

Sitting in 'Training the Trainers' class right now where I am the application representative trainer. Its been a good session, 3 people and 3 trainers but they need hands on training sometimes. Rest of the time I have been able to sit at the back of the class and do all my work for next week. Its been a productive day.

Its been a crazy weekend with working from 9 pm to 11 am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Saturday afternoon I managed to do some workout and then in the evening picked up food and coffee before I started work on Saturday night. The night went really slow because I was in the NICU (neo-natal ICU) and FCC (Family Care Center - with mothers and new born babies). Got back on Sunday night and managed to sit in the sun (it was perfect) by the pool , quick dip and then sitting with Stephanie in the Whirlpool and chatting away. Sunday night we went for a nice dinner (about 6 people from work) and then got lost and ended up in Rotunda beach which was nice cuz we got to do some sightseeing and then to work.

Sunday night was great because I was a floater so I was in the Lab, discharge and utilization planning, blood bank, ICU, FCC, Critical Care, Post-Surgery.... so I could see different people use the same system for different things. Got a very good overview and met a lot of people and talked all through the night. Being a problem solver really gives you an ego boost! Got back to the hotel, 40 minute nap and to the airport. Had an important call from 2-3 pm and then slept on plane (sort of) to Minneapolis and then to Madison where it got delayed because the Air hostess had some sort of seizure. Got back at 12, rented the boat of a Grand Marquis that I have right now, dropped off stephanie.

Got about 5 hours of sleep and then back to work at 7 am! All day training today and tomorrow and then dinner in the evening tomorrow with one of the vice-presidents...

Ok.. back to training now...

Photography is the power of observation, not the application of technology. --Ken Rockwell

Inspiration of the Day:
Can a photograph chart the course of humanity? LIFE magazine thinks so. In its '100 Photographs that Changed the World' compilation, reknowned photographers feature photos ranging from the innocent face of a 14 year Anne Frank looking out towards her future to a humble Chinese man refusing to move from the jaws of gigantic tankers heading to Tienamen square. [ more ]

Be The Change:
Read Rockwell's "How to Make Great Photographs" guide and go out change the world! [ more ]

Go live! whoo hooo! Yey.... all that means no sleep and lots of coffee, sugar.. and everything thats bad for you :-)

I was cursing myself when I got off the plane in LA, on the way to Torrence Courtyard (which reminds me sooo much of Reno, its not even funny), tossing and turning on the bed trying to sleep from 5.30-8.30 pm... Why oh Why did I decide to come to this trip with the horrid night shift which I opted for.... Got up at 8,30, got ready and left with this obnoxious girl from work, the kind that I see flowers dying on the ground when she walks.. she basically hates everything in life and makes you realise that... its like bad vibes around her. Makes me feel sad that a person can be so miserable. Ne ways.. so we get lost on our way there (much to her displeasure) and we get there somehow... half sleepy. After the briefing, the turnover from the last shift is very unorganized but once we get on the floor.. then the fun begins!

I am reminded of why I signed up, it is soooo much fun to help nurses and doctors using the software, helping them help the patients around them, the way the system has been configured.. being the troubleshooting guru! Its reminds me why I am joined the Healthcare IT field in the first place. Those 12.5 hours.. all nighter shift pass without a problem. There was this fabulous person from work who was great to talk to and the nurses are amazing. I order dominos and then we get del taco burrito and some spanish haraticho (cant remember now but i found out later traditionally thats rice water) coffee.. it was just so much fun!

Got back an hour ago and being in the good mood I managed to talk to dad before he left for China, went for a run and figured out how I am going get dinner in the evening before I leave for the night shift. Got the cab number (aint no way I am going with that girl again!) and a mexican restaurant number. Now I am ready to go to sleep!

Adious... its been a great 32 hours (6 am friday to 3 pm Saturday with 2 hours of sleep on plane and 3 hours of light sleep on friday evening!).

Feels like I am resuming my life today... packing for my LA trip, I am actually feeling like I am starting it all over again. And the chain of events are about to start... 3 days in LA then 2 days in Madison then 4 days in Atlanta then 3 days in Grand Rapids, 3 days in Atlanta, 5 days in Grand Rapids, 5 days in Minneapolis then maybe 5 days in Madison, 4 days in NYC....

The balls going to start rolling tomorrow.. then it goes on for another 35 days atleast!

Its been a pretty exciting day with lots of work. I was initially signed up for 3 classes today from 8 to 3 but I cancelled one yesterday after I realised how much work I had to do for training for next week. I still had the 8 am class on schedule but had to skip out on it. Was working till late last night (around 9.30) and then went running.... so was really tired and had to skip that class, get up around 8.30 and started working from 9.. almost ceaseless till 1, then class till 3 and then more work till 6. Took a break and visited Vin Santos. Had been a while since I paid that visit!

Got back and packed a bag for Atlanta.. winter clothes this time which will stay there. I dont know when I will have a chance to transfer more things to Atlanta after this time. I still have couple of bag loads to take... before I can start staying at the Marriott or Hilton. Frankly there is nothing wrong with this and I am getting loads of change in other cities, I think I will stick to this place. Always good to see familiar faces.

Need to retire early today, will probably do work till 9, then try and get some running done and sleep by 10. Have to get up real early. Have a phone conference and web demo (my first one) to do tomorrow at 7.30!