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Stepping Out of the Kiddie Pool

In case you missed the Sunday Morning announcement, Debbie and I got engaged over the weekend! That's right, I got out of the kiddie pool and started making some moves. Now finally we can stop walking around the block to avoid wedding shops and hiding all the wedding magazines at the grocery store before Debbie makes it to the magazine rack :)

I like to think I had a pretty good plan for proposing, and it went off really without a hitch. Last Christmas I got Debbie a Bible but I forgot to write a little note on the inside (my bad), which she repeatedly reminded me of. So Friday night I stole her Bible from her and wrote the marriage proposal on the inside. I had gotten Debbie a season of the Gilmore Girls on DVD for her birthday a few weeks ago but she unfortunately saw it sitting on my porch when it was delivered, so instead I got her this little guy. Then Saturday morning I emptied out the DVDs, put the Bible inside, put a note on the front, wrapped it all in birthday wrap and took it to the beach. After a day of shopping at the outlet mall, we found a spot on the beach and I gave her the present. She opened it, read the note, I slyly got the watch (yes, watch...it's complicated) out of my pocket, she takes the Bible out of the case, reads the inside cover and when she looks up, I'm on one knee! Then it was all over but the waterworks :)

It's no secret that Seinfeld has been an abnormally (and unhealthily!) large part of my life since about the time I started high school. It was thus fitting that with this major life decision looming, things were no different. As I was preparing the Bible and Gilmore Girls case for Saturday's events, Seinfeld just happened to come on the television after whatever I was previously watching. Perhaps acting as a dear friend warning me of what was to come, the following clip played:

Luckily, I was so sure of myself that even Kramer could not convince me otherwise :)

Anyway, check out pictures from the day over here. We had a great day and proposing was just the icing on the cake. Now we're moving into high-gear, trying to get everything together for the wedding by the end of this summer. Thanks for everyone's congratulations, we're both very excited!

Apostolic Faith Youth Retreat 2008

This weekend was the Apostolic Faith Church 2008 Youth Retreat at Seaside, Oregon and Debbie and I made the trip. There was a really big turnout compared to previous years, something like 80 young people attended. It was a good chance to spend some time away from the city, study God's word, and get to talk to people that I don't normally get to talk to. Debbie and I both had a really good time and were able to take some pictures, which I've posted over in the Pictures section. Go have a look!

The weekend's focus was on maintaining holiness as Christians, and Brothers Erik, Will, and Josh each lead a devotional on the subject. We all discussed how important it is that, as a church, we hold fast to our Christian guidelines as the world becomes more and more accepting of things that the Bible tells us are wrong. Brother Erik talked about the function of boundaries that we should be setting up for ourselves, which are used to keep ourselves far away from sin. Brother Will likened these boundaries to wearing a hard hat at a construction site; the hard hat will rarely ever be necessary to save your life, but you still wear it all the time because when it is used, you'll be glad you were always wearing it and the inconvenience of always wearing it will have been worth it. Brother Josh commented we have to make sure we never ease up those boundaries because if we ease up on them one time, then that one instance sets a new standard. As we continue to compromise on the guidelines and get comfortable doing so, the guidelines get closer and closer to letting things into our daily life that shouldn't be there.

Like I said earlier, the weekend was a real treat and I'm glad I went. Thanks a ton to the small group of youth ministers that lead the devotionals, and especially thanks to Erik for putting so much time and effort into making the trip a success. I'm sure a lot of the young people there got to experience a revitalization, so to speak, in their Christian walk and will energize the whole youth group going into the summer Camp Meetings and Youth Camps.

Meet the Mazurczaks

Like something out of a Teri Polo movie, Debbie and I traveled to Richland Center, Wisconsin to visit Debbie's family for Christmas. And, after several delayed flights, one cancellation, a five hour bus ride and a lot of fast food, we made it back to Portland. The trip was a lot of fun and wasn't nearly as nerve-wracking as I thought it would be given that it was the first time I had met her family. They were very nice and hospitable and everyone had a fun Christmas. If anyone is interested in seeing some of the stuff we did, I have posted a lot of pictures from the trip. Wisconsin, though extremely cold, is beautiful this time of year; everything looks like it's out of a Bob Ross painting. I didn't get any great shots but hopefully you'll still enjoy them.

Boom Quacka' Quacka'!

Yesterday, Debbie and I went with my dad, uncle, and sister to Autzen Stadium in Eugene for the Ducks/Fresno State game. It was a good game, in that Oregon pummeled the Bulldogs, although competitive it was not! Everyone had a good time, especially my dad, who got to meet the Ducks' Defensive Coordinator, Nick Aliotti. Well, he sort of met him. ...no, actually he just stood next time him long enough for me to take his picture :-) Close enough I guess.

I've got some pictures from the game to look at here. I'm going to link to pictures on this site from now on instead of Picasa because I think the Pictures section is close enough to finished. Now that I have a place to put them, I'll be uploading a lot of pictures from as far back as I have them. Check back soon for more!

Arcadia Beach Roadie 2007

Over Labor Day Weekend, me and the old high school gang got together for a camping trip. While it was without a doubt the worst planned camping trip ever (especially for Labor Day Weekend), it actually turned out pretty well. We had no idea where we were going to stay but we headed out Friday night at about 8:00 for the coast. Without a place to lay our head, we drove up and down the 101 for 45 minutes in the dark of night, stopping wherever we thought we saw a possible campsite. Finally, around 11:00, we found our final destination.

"Camping Prohibited!" said the sign at the front of the beach, but we didn't care. We didn't really have much choice, really. We saw some cars in the parking lot and investigated a little further; indeed, at least 3 other groups had pitched tents on the beach. So we found a place that wasn't too intrusive and started hauling our stuff down the steps to the sand.

Saturday was a gorgeous day. Bright and sunny, but with a little breeze as well. It was one of the nicest days I've spent at the beach. I didn't leave the beach the entire time, except to go back to the car. I did a lot of reading, took a lot of pictures, and watched Heim almost kill himself. Oh yeah, Heim almost killed himself. He climbed up some pretty steep rocks and after he'd gotten about 30 feet off the ground, realized his footing was largely unstable. We realized it too, when we saw large rocks falling from the cliff and making a loud THUD! as they hit the wet sand below. Anyway, he eventually found a way back down, but it was a little tense for a while. He even drew quite a crowd, as you can see in the picture.

The next morning, we awoke to a loud voice, "You are in violation of Oregon State law. It is a $97 fine for camping on the beach. I'm giving you 30 minutes to pack up and leave, at which point I will start handing out citations. You are all banned from the beach for 48 hours." The ranger was pretty cool; he took all of our id information and then pretty much left us along while we packed up. It worked out for the best, really; I wanted to leave early and this gave everyone a reason to pack up as quickly as possible. We're all just glad he somehow missed us on Saturday morning.

In related news, if you'd like to see pictures of our trip, you can now do so here. Some of you may have noticed that the Pictures section is sort of working now. It's not pretty, but you can see all the pictures in my Picasa account, which is a pretty big accomplishment. There aren't any PHP tools available for the Picasa integration like there was for the Blogger integration, so it's ended up being an entirely different experience trying to make the pictures show up. While the style is nowhere near where it needs to be, the pictures are all there. I did a little home-brew API in PHP to handle all the XML parsing from Google's Atom feed. I'll go through what I did to set that up at a later time and post my code for download in case anyone wants it. I'm not taking the time to make it really robust, but if someone wants to add data that I leave out, they can easily add to it. Look for that in the next few weeks and look for the pictures section to be finished later this week.

FogBugz Road Trip 2007

Debbie and I made the road trip up to Seattle today for Fog Creek's FogBugz World Tour. It was a good roadie, even while both of us were pretty sick. Debbie's at the end of her cold while I'm at the beginning of mine. Still, Joel Spolsky is the most exciting person I've met since Gabe Newell, who I met a few years ago at Valve.

Hearing Joel talk was a good experience, I learned a lot from the talk, and FogBugz 6.0 looks pretty impressive. After he was finished, I waited around and talked to one of the programmers, Brett, about working at Fog Creek. He seems really happy there and I hope to get Adaptavant to the point where programmers are this content with their jobs. In fact, one of the reasons I went was to try to find out what the secret is. I don't know that I necessarily found it, but Joel and Brett both provided some good clues. Oh that's right! I also hung around to personally meet Joel. He was nice enough to talk to me for a few minutes while he cleaned up. Oh, and one thing I noticed about the demonstration was that there was not any kind of check-in or registration system. Also, there were several seats open if you looked hard enough. So if you're on a waiting list and it's not too far out of your way, it might be worth just showing up.

The demo was pretty short, it ran about an hour and then the QA session lasted about as long, but I got a lot out of it. And although FogBugz may not be right for our company right now, hearing about its features and the questions that came up taught me a lot. For instance, Joel mentioned that Fog Creek doesn't do automated testing; we don't either and I wondered if that was a problem. It didn't seem like it would work very well for our projects but I thought maybe I was missing something because I've never done it before. Hearing that Fog Creek doesn't do it gives me some assurance that it's not a requirement for making good products.

Anyway, aside from the World Tour, Debbie and I had a good enough time in Seattle. We visited Waterfall Garden Park, the birthplace of the United States Parcel Service, which was interesting. And we ate at Il Terrazzo Carmine, which was probably a bit more authentic than I care for (on the other hand, I've never been to Italy so I couldn't say for sure) but a nice change from the normal Olive Garden/Spaghetti Factory menu.

Billy Chinook Camping Trip '07

I spent the weekend at Lake Billy Chinook in eastern Oregon with some friends and returned with only a light brushing of sunburn, thankfully. We had a lot of fun fishing, hiking, and sitting around the campfire. It was my second time going to that lake, which is absolutely gorgeous. The lake is fed by 3 rivers and the whole thing is surrounded by huge cliffs in the middle of the desert. This picture I took was at a nice little resting spot we found while hiking, right at one of the river's bends. I took a lot of pictures and uploaded to them to Picasa so please feel free to take a look and let me know what you think. I tried to weed out the boring ones so hopefully you like what you see.

This little piggy is not going to the market

It's been sort of a rough few weeks for my feet. You all remember the floaties brought on by the hours in the air (strangely enough). Well, it hasn't been a whole lot better since I got back. A few weeks ago, I was playing football in the park with no shoes on. Shoeless football in the park is good times, as long as all the people you're with are shoeless as well. Unfortunately for me, Tarp was not at all shoeless. He was, in fact, entirely too shoed. I went out to cover him for a long bomb and he juked when I jived, and that's when I slammed my pinkie toe into the heel of his Vans. After writhing on the ground for a few minutes, we called the game and I limped off the field. I didn't get a definitive prognosis but it left me limping for about a week. The doctor said it was "most likely" broken (thank you, Kaiser, for this profound assessment. I could have told you that).

The fun didn't end there. A mere six days later, Debs and I headed east to Kah Nee Tah with Gary and Crystal to lay by the pool. It was really hot, but I wasn't worried. The reason I wasn't worried was because I never wear sunscreen. I never wear sunscreen and I always get burned. This time, I wore sunscreen. In fact, I applied twice. I figured, the worst sunburn I have ever had was not that bad, and that was without sunscreen. So if I wear sunscreen, even if I do get a burn, it will not be a big deal. And I was wrong.

I laid in the sun in the desert from about 11 am until about 4 pm taking only a break to sit in the shade during lunch. The heat was nearly unbearable. I was constantly sweating even though I was only sitting and reading. And yet, I was not worried. I knew I had burned after I left. 6 hours after I got out of the sun, my entire body was red (well, almost my entire body). But I wasn't worried. 12 hours after I got out of the sun, I had trouble putting my shoes on to go to work. 24 hours after I got out of the sun, I couldn't walk from my car to my house. I had so thoroughly roasted my left foot that, again, it swelled up like a floatie. My right foot was fine, possibly because I was protecting the broken toe by using more sunscreen, but my left foot was in bad, bad shape. For another 5 days, I walked barefoot wherever I went because I could not physically fit my massive foot into a shoe. Getting out of bed in the morning was a chore that took me a great amount of courage and about 10 minutes. As unprofessional as it was, I walked around the office barefoot all day for the whole week- I even walked through the parking lot in the morning with a flip-flop on my right foot and nothing on my left. After one look, though, everyone understood.

The good news is, I'm fine now. Last Saturday, things turned up for me and I was able to live a normal life. I wore shoes every day this week with no problem. The only problem I have now is when I'm at work helping someone (or getting help) and I notice them not paying attention but just staring at my arms and legs, which look like I have some sort of flesh eating virus taking over my limbs. It's rad!

I felt so good this weekend that Debbie and I decided to head up to Multnomah Falls for some hiking. Wow! I'm outta shape! That's the one thing I've learned. It was gorgeous, but unfortunately I was wheezing to heavily to notice. Seriously, though, I need to spend some time on a treadmill. We did it, though, we made it all the way up to the top and got some great pictures. I think next time I'll be sure to take more pictures before we really start on the trail because on the way down, you're too sweaty to want to be in pictures. It was a lot of fun, though, and I plan to go back in a few months after I've spent some time in the gym (or in my dining room, where my weight set currently collects dust). Hopefully me writing that down will make me feel like I have to stick to it.

Home sweet home!

America. Land of the free. Where every shower has a curtain, every toilet has paper, and you have to go all the way to an Oakland Raiders game to see people peeing in the streets. After 33 days in a foreign country and 60 hours of flying, I'm happy to be home. To get an idea of what I really missed about being home, take a look at the first thing I did when I got to the U.S. and then see the second thing I did when I got to the U.S. Something tells me you probably could have guessed both of those, in that order.

I wish I could say it was easy coming home; in one day of flying, Indian Airport Security, Lufthansa, United Airlines, and the Portland International Airport all managed to make it onto my list of parties I care not to do business with. I recount the last 30 hours of my flight with as much detail as I can remember, given that the better parts of my brain have blocked most of it from memory.

Tuesday, June 24, 2007
12:15 AM IST After saying goodbye to everyone in the office, Alec and I head to the airport a little bit later than desired for our 1:45 AM flight. I get to the check in counter with my two carry on bags and two check in bags, the same collection that I arrived in the country with. I'm informed by the lady at the counter that I can only carry on one bag if it has a laptop in it. "What?!" I ask. "It's not Lufthansa's rules, it's India's rule. Security won't let you past with two bags," she explains. "Will these be okay?" asks Alec behind me. "Is that a camera bag? Yes, that's fine," she assures him. She continues with me, "Well, you'll have to put that smaller bag inside your larger bag. If it doesn't fit, take the laptop out and carry it under your arm." "You have got to be kidding me," I exclaim, hoping that I'm the butt of a short-lived joke. "No, once you get through security, you can unpack both bags and take them onto the plane, you just have to pass security with one bag. Sorry for the inconvenience sir." So there at the front of the line with everyone watching, I unpacked all my belongings with great swiftness, shoved my laptop bag inside my rolling travel bag, tucked my laptop, DVD case, and Bible under my arm, and walked to the immigration line.

1:15 AM IST After waiting in the immigration line for 45 minutes, I finally made it through. Alec had some trouble with his ticket because his original ticket was scheduled to leave several weeks ago. It took him about 40 minutes to get it straightened out and I was concerned he would miss his flight but somehow he ended up through the line before I did (you sort of get used to these inconsistencies after being in India for long enough). At any rate, we both made it out with what we hoped would be enough time to make it through security and to our flight.

1:25 AM IST Security was no problem. The security guard took one look at me and hesitated, probably thinking that I had too many bags, but then realized that I was in compliance and let me through. Once through security, I immediately unpacked all my gear again, organized it into its original configuration, and head to the line of people boarding the plane.

1:35 AM IST Alec asks, as we're walking to the flight, what seat I'm in. "33K", I reply. "33K? Hmm, I'm also in row 33. ...possibly seat K!" After closer inspection, sure enough, we had been given the same seat. We stop an attendant while in line to point out the mistake. After making a few walkie-talkie calls, they take my ticket, cross out 33K and write in 25G, tell me to get a new ticket at the next counter, and send us on our way.

1:40 AM IST We arrive at the counter where boarding passes are being accepted. Alec continues to the plane while I wait for a new boarding pass. While getting to the counter, we had speculated that 25G might be Business or First Class and I assure him that if he bumps me into Business Class, I will buy him a coffee when we get home. After 5 minutes of confusion, with up to 7 Lufthansa representatives making phone calls back and forth and some of them asking me what's going on, I am finally handed my new boarding pass...with seat 33K printed on it. "But someone else has 33K," I explain. "Oh we've taken care of it. It's a window seat!" she assures. So I race the 100 feet down to the plan and make it on as the final passenger. As I walk to my seat, I see Alec settling down in seat 25G...in Business Class. He has yet to buy me a coffee.


1:30 PM EST I've gotten over the Business Class incident and have safely landed in Washington, D.C. I know there were a lot of messages over the airplane's PA system about customs but I was listening to my iPod most of the time and didn't hear them. I think I'll be fine. I'm meeting my aunt and uncle from Baltimore here and we plan to have dinner. So when faced with going to the line of people catching connecting flights and going to the line of people staying in Washington, D.C., I go to the latter because I'm not sure I'll be able to leave the airport otherwise. I go through customs with just my carry-on and then meet my family and we have a very good steak dinner. At some point, it occurs to me that the reason there was two lines may have been important for me to pay attention to.

4:30 PM EST My flight leaves in an hour and I'm still a little concerned. I made it through security and to my gate in plenty of time, but I seem to remember something about taking your checked-in baggage through customs playing on the airplane's television. No one staying in D.C. had to take more than their carry-on through customs, though, so I'm not too worried. I ask the woman at the counter about my bags and she assures me, in a tone that made me think she was tired of talking to me before we started, that my bags were checked in to Portland and that they would meet me there. I reiterate the problem just in case, and she reassures me. So I feel pretty good.


8:30 PM PST I'm home! It's a wonderful meeting with the family. Besides the fact that I've been pretty sick ever since my first encounter with red meat in 5 weeks just hours earlier, my homecoming was as good as anticipated. Debbie even met me with a goofy sign to try to embarrass me (it didn't work!). So we head to baggage claim and wait. ...And wait. ...And wait. Finally I get the idea and check with the lady in the baggage claim office. She tells me that, in fact, I was supposed to get my bags in D.C. and take them through customs myself. Also, she tells me that PDX would not deliver them because it was my fault. So I got them the next day (and in horrible condition...I think those Customs guys probably take their aggression from having to clear the leftovers by themselves out on the bags.)

It may have been an unpleasant trip back but I made it and that's all that counts! Things would have been significantly worse had I missed a plane or actually lost one of my bags for good. The flight mishaps were far overshadowed by the fact that I got to be home, visiting my family, sleeping in my own bed, and eating with a knife and fork. So long India, we'll talk again when my toothbrush stops tasting like lake water...

Last weekend in Chennai

My final weekend in Chennai has come and gone, I'm afraid. It's been a great trip but tomorrow I head to the airport. Fortunately, I got a chance to go out and do some sightseeing and general touristy things in my last few days. I met some interesting people and took some nice pictures so I hope you enjoy. I couldn't fit all the pictures from my trip into the blog so if anyone wants a more complete collection, head to my Picasa account. Feel free to leave a comment on the pictures or the blog, I'd love to hear what you all think.

The whole week was a blast, actually, I hate to limit it to the weekend. Tuesday, several people from the office went out to see Sivaji, the biggest Tamil film ever. Luckily, Raj got tickets from his cousin, who works for a distributor. It was a great time. Of course I don't speak Tamil, but the plot was pretty easy to follow and Kalpana was kind enough to give me the play by play throughout the movie. A Tamil movie is quite an experience; you read about it if you saw my Top 10 list. I didn't get to see any dancing and only one person ever threw their shredded ticket in the air, but still the energy was palpable. I'm including a picture of the billboards because I absolutely love the expressions on Rajni's face. They're great because as soon as I see them, I immediately begin thinking of captions for them. Most of them involve Rajni talking about how awesome he is and how much everyone wants to be him.

The next day, Alec and I got the chance to take the whole office out to lunch. We went to a buffet that I can't quite think of the name of. I've included a photo with everyone's name. Unfortunately Hema, Siva, and Jawed were not able to make it. Everyone had a good time, I think. The food was good and the company was even better. I didn't get to eat any goat like I did at the previous buffet, but I did get to try a great deal of Indian food that I had not eaten yet.

Friday we started the weekend a couple hours early to go have dinner with Sastry, who runs the staffing agency where we hired our first several employees and who continues to be a big part of Adaptavant. While waiting for a table, Sastry took us to the "club" inside the hotel. While it certainly was not any place I would be found in the states, I was curious and polite enough to follow him downstairs. He explained to us that dancing clubs are not allowed in Chennai but that he would show us as much as was allowed. There was absolutely blaring music in a dimly lit room with about 15 tables, all with people sitting at them (in the dark). Then we went down another set of stairs to what turned out to be the source of the noise. Guarded by the biggest man I've seen since entering the country was the club- India style. Alarmingly loud Techno music, black lights, disco ball, dance floor, and about 10 wallflowers just sort of sitting in there. They probably had food, but I didn't see them eating. They certainly couldn't talk because it was far too loud. Luckily we were not allowed to stay because it was couples only so we headed back to the Copper Top, a restaurant that uses entirely copper vessels. The food was good and it was nice to spend some time with Sastry, who I hadn't seen since my first week.

Saturday morning we met up at Raj's place where he made us breakfast. Again I had Idly with Tomato, Coconut, Coriander, and Mystery Chutney, Sambar, and Budgie (though I can't verify the spelling. It's deep-fried potato wedges. I remember the name because "budgie makes you pudgy.") While it was my first experience eating on the ground on a leaf, it was delicious. Raj's cooking throughout the trip has always been better than any of the restaurants I've been to. I think I've even picked up a few things so when I come back, you're all invited to my place for homemade Indian food, depending on how brave you are.

After breakfast, we needed to finish up some shopping so in the morning we went to Pothy's, a department store, and purchased a few items. The highlight of this trip was Alec, who decided to try on some traditional Indian wear. We all had a good laugh. He bought that outfit (though in a different size) and said several times that he would "see what he could do" about wearing it into the office tomorrow. My bet is that he doesn't but we'll see. I didn't purchase any Indian clothes for pretty much that exact reason! I'm not sure what this garment is called but I've been told that it's typically worn on special occasions. Most of the time, the men here wear either khakis and a button-up shirt or a Sarong. I thought about trying to find a Sarong but I told the people I was with that I couldn't wear one in the US because it looked too much like a skirt, at which point they all laughed hysterically.

After visiting a few other shops, we stopped by the office briefly. On the way, Raj and Bala were nice enough to pick up mango covered in chili powder. I was hesitant but I ate it. It was good for the experience but it was really bitter and I was out of water. Luckily I got to wash it down with some ice cream a few hours later. Choco Caramel Banana Surprise, to be exact. It was note quite what I'm used to (100% veg, so there was no egg in it) but ice cream is ice cream, I don't care where it's from. Anyway, the ice cream was our last stop before Alec and I had dinner at the Rain Tree hotel. The restaurant is on the roof of the hotel, which offered a great view, though the food was just average.

I had received a phone call from Manu on Saturday, who preaches at all of the Apostolic Faith Churches in India. He lives in Andhra Pradesh, a few hundred miles north of Chennai, but he happened to be in town so we agreed to get together for breakfast Sunday morning. We ate at the Park hotel, again Idly, Chutney, and Sambar (it's like pancakes, eggs, and bacon over here). Manu is another person that I'm very glad to have met. It is great to see the enthusiasm that certain people here have for spreading the Gospel in India. He told me that he will unfortunately not be able to be in Portland for Camp Meeting because his visa was denied, which is too bad because I would love to speak to him again and would love for him to be able to see the Portland church. We talked for about two hours at breakfast about many things, including his past and the work that is going on in Andhra Pradesh. It was very moving to hear about what he is doing and the churches here need our prayers.

Our plans for the rest of the day were sort of an unknown. Alec saw a lake on the map that he said was a wildlife refuge and had lots of birds so we got in the car with Raj and told the driver to head north. Suspiciously, no one at the three places we stopped at for directions had heard of this lake, even though it was enormous. Finally someone pointed us in the right direction and we headed down a dirt road through some villages and to the lake. It was a gorgeous scene and it made me wish I was a decent photographer. Even so, I took several pictures and I think some of them turned out pretty well. In addition to beautiful scenery, I saw probably the largest bug I've ever seen in my life. I sort of freaked out but it didn't look dangerous so I got close enough to take some pictures. Along with that unknown creature, there were swarms of dragonflies, several hiding lizards, and something that kept hissing at me through the bushes but I never figured out the identity of. I was a little uneasy at times but I got over it for the adventure.

Our last stop before home was another body of water. I think it was part of the bay but I could be wrong. There were several boats coming and going. One boat had three children on the end that were tremendously excited to see us; they all waved and blew kisses as the boat pulled away. The picture I included is of water buffalo, transporting passengers across the shallow water to the nearby islands. The local village boy kept pointing at the buffalo and saying "fish", but I didn't see any fish and that was all the English he knew so maybe the buffalo had just eaten some fish. It remains a mystery. There were boats carrying fish to and fro, but I'm not sure how the buffalo played into the equation.

That was pretty much the extent of my last week in Chennai; I'll be on a plane in exactly 24 hours. It is with a bittersweet feeling that my trip draws to a close tomorrow. I'm definitely leaving with the feeling that I still have more I want to do but I also have the feeling that this has been one of the best experiences of my life. The people that I have met and talked to, the places I've visited, and the completely foreign way of life has had an impact on me and let me understand that there really is life outside of what I know. It will be an experience that I will never forget and has made me want to travel to other places.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my trip as much as I've enjoyed writing about it. While I won't be writing here about my day-to-day experiences in Chennai anymore, I do plan to write a few more entries about my trip in the next few weeks. There are a lot of people I met and a lot of places I visited that I did not get a chance to write about. So if you're interested, check back soon. Otherwise, thanks for reading about my trip, feel free to share your thoughts.

Top 10 things to do in India

After being here for several weeks, I've noticed a few things that you wouldn't normally do or see in the US. These aren't all things that I've done myself, but they're mostly things that I have seen and, in some cases, taken a picture of. They aren't necessarily good things, either, they're just the things I noticed the most or that I could think of the most witty quips for. And so here it is, the top 10, hand picked, in no specific order...

10. Pack eight people into an auto rickshaw

Similar to "pack five people onto a motorcycle", eight people in a rickshaw cannot be comfortable (though I've seen both). When your main mode of transportation is bike or rickshaw, you get creative. The personal best that we hit was five and that was awkward the whole way. It's nice when the driver lets someone sit up front but when he doesn't...well there's only room in the backseat for three so after that things just get weird. Unfortunately I couldn't take a picture of the eight-person feat but this shot of a rickshaw should allow you to use your imagination about who sat where.

9. Dance in the aisle at a movie theater

And not just dancing! Whistles, clapping, yelling. Apparently for a bad movie, they throw eggs and tomatoes at the screen and beat the person who brought them. The whole thing is, if they bring the eggs and tomatoes, don't they know the movie is going to be bad? And if they know the movie is going to be bad, why do they go with the person in the first place?! And why does the guy take them if he knows he'll be beaten??! I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!

8. Jackhammer at two in the morning

I'm sure it's because it's too hot to work in the day time- which is valid- but that doesn't make it any more pleasant. Luckily, I've been trained over the course of several years to completely block out all sound while I'm asleep (those of you who have expected me to show up on time for functions starting before 9 AM can attest to that). For this reason jackhammering didn't make it higher on the list and "honking your horn at two in the morning" was thrown out completely. The Mind birds woke me up at dawn every morning for the first few days but eventually I even overcame that.

7. Drink sour and curdled milk

The nice thing about sour milk is the number of places it's available. You're served it at every meal in the form of curd, you get it in your coffee depending on the time of day, and you can buy it in bags at the grocery store labeled "fresh milk". The most delicious example of sour milk is Lassie, which is mixed with sugar and usually fruit. Lassie is actually really good, as long as you can stomach the chunks of curd.

6. Fall from a five story building

I didn't see this happen and I didn't do this myself, but it's bound to happen once someone puts a little too much confidence and weight against the "Window of Death" as it's now known. Full length and protected by a flimsy slide lock, this window inside our office would very quickly find a lawsuit in the US. And I assume that each floor is laid out about the same, which means that there's probably one of these windows on 6th, 7th, and 8th floors as well. A word of advice: if you want to test its strength, hold on to something; the wall it sits on even gives a little when you push against it.

5. Drive on the left side of the road

It's fun, it's intriguing, but don't try it at home (depending on where you live)! I'm not sure why we can't all agree on a standard but driving on the left side doesn't appear to have any advantages that driving on the right side does. Left hand turns are easier but then of course right hand turns are tougher. I'm a little worried about my first time driving when I get back to the states. Watch out!

4. Drive on the right side of the road

Yeah it's not totally advisable but it appears to be pretty acceptable. You know how you're not supposed to park on the wrong side of the street? Well here if you do that, you just sort of ride the side of the street going the wrong direction until traffic clears up. Then you lurch over to your side without looking for an opening because they will get out of the way. And is traffic bad in your lane? Is oncoming traffic clear? Go ahead! It's very common for people to pull into oncoming traffic to get ahead at a red light. It's Thunderdome!

3. Consume massive amounts of ketchup

I had no idea ketchup would be this popular. At the Sheridan Hotel we had lunch and they gave Alec and I four small jars of ketchup, each one sealed so we could be assured it was brand new. This was my first hint that it was a popular condiment. Then I was handed a croissant at the coffee shop with a packet of ketchup. Then our pizza came with ketchup. Finally, I had Chinese food for the first time today and what we thought were bags of sweet & sour sauce turned out to be- you guessed it- ketchup. This must be a ploy by the Ketchup execs to drum up business in non-hamburger eating countries.

2. Take pictures of random strangers

The strange thing about this is that it happened on several occasions. If you have your camera out and you're in public, it seems that there is a good chance that someone will want you to take their picture. The kids I sort of understood but then I was sitting in traffic taking a picture of a building when two guys on a motorcycle caught my eye from across three lanes and started making camera hand motions. Strange. The pictures usually end up being unique and pretty good, so I don't mind.

1. Play netless Volleyball

While it must be more fun than ball-less Volleyball, netless Volleyball has got to be about as fun for most people as just not playing Volleyball at all. The thing is, the net is a really important part of the game. Not for these guys, though. They must love their Volleyball.

Well those are the highlights. I had some others that didn't make the cut but perhaps I'll include those in a different post. I have a few more days still so maybe I'll even find something worthy of an addendum. I have a few outings planned for my last days so I'll at least be sure to write about that so check back soon.

Feelin' fine

I'm finally over my cold, so this weekend was quite a bit more eventful than last weekend. My trip is unfortunately almost over (one week left) so I need to finish up all the things that I knew I had plenty of time to do.

Saturday, Alec and I got together with some people from work to go shopping near the office, in a neighborhood called T. Nagar, which is a very popular place for shopping on the weekends. Alec was shopping for his parents, while I was primarily shopping for Debbie. Much of the experience was a lot like you would find in a US shopping mall. I commented a few weeks ago that Spencer's Plaza, a shopping mall here, was similar to shopping malls in the US. We went to another mall on Saturday called City Center, which again made me feel right at home. There were far fewer stores in City Center, but it was newer, better lit, and cleaner. One of the stores took up about 4 floors (the majority of the mall) and could have easily passed for a department store in the US--and a nice one at that! It was not quite the experience I was looking for while shopping in a foreign country, though, (where's the fun in that?) so we moved on.

What I found far more interesting than shopping in stores was shopping on the street. Street vendors must be more successful here than they are in the states because they're so popular. In this particular area of Chennai, there are storefronts on the side of the sidewalk opposite the street and also little mobile shops on the curb side, creating a sort of tunnel affect. The prices were much lower in the street shops but it's probably largely because I had someone from Chennai with me. One vendor quoted me 250 rupees for an item but when Madhavan stepped in, he requoted 170 rupees, and eventually 160 (even while Madhavan insisted that it was not worth more than 150). The street vendors didn't have quite the selection that the stores had, but it was a great experience and had the added convenience of sugarcane juice stands on every corner (click to see a video). I didn't have any this trip; I figured twice in a lifetime was just begging for some kind of illness.

Once we were satisfied with our purchases, it was off to Chennai's beach. The beach is a nice place to be at night, though it apparently is far too hot in the daytime to be enjoyable and thus is almost entirely empty before sundown. It was just hitting dusk by the time we got there and was very comfortable. There's tons of beach in a small area, as the distance from the boardwalk to the shore is at least twice as far as any beach I've ever seen in the US. The extra room meant there was space for lots of people and lot's of food vendors. One that I found particularly interesting was the guy cooking corn over an open flame. Not only did I take time to take a short video, but I also joined in the good eats. It was okay, but I probably wouldn't eat it again. Imagine biting into charcoal covered with lemon. It was sort of like sweet & sour corn, except the sweet was bitter and the corn was burnt. It was mostly for the experience, though, so it was worth it!

That was the end of our fun on Saturday but Sunday still held some excitement. Catey (my sister) emailed me about a guy from Chennai, named Bro. J. Jerome, who has been in contact with the church about possibly starting a branch here. He said his church, the Living Stone Ministries, has a pretty large youth group so I decided to go out Sunday and see what the service was like. I got the address to the church off the email, along with his phone number, and decided to head out there around church time. Unfortunately when I got to the address (about 45 minutes north of my apartment), there was no church. There were some kids playing cricket, some people standing around, but no church. The driver was getting a little frustrated so I decided to call the number on the email, only to find out that I had not arrived at the man's church, but the man's home! And he was as surprised as I was.

Bro. Jerome hadn't gone to church because of a fever, but even while there was no church service, it was a worthwhile trip. Bro. Jerome very kindly invited me in to meet his mom, wife, and two daughters. We talked for a little over an hour and they were even nice enough to feed me Idly with Tomato Chutney, which is one of my favorite Indian dishes. As anyone who knows me knows, I'm pretty easily put out of my comfort zone and felt a little uncomfortable, but I'm very glad I went to see him! It turned out to be a great experience and one I will not forget. Bro. Jerome is a very interesting person with a kind family and an admirable motivation for spreading the Word of God through Chennai. While meeting new people is not always the most comfortable thing for me, this was something that I'll never be able to experience again so I'm very glad I went.

So we packed quite a bit into the weekend. It's a good thing, too, as time is running out. I have one weekend left, which I'm not entirely sure what to do with. Anyone have any suggestions? Tomorrow is already planned out. Before work, we're finally going to see the Tamil film, Sivaji. I am looking forward to it, even though I don't speak Tamil. There is more buzz about this movie than there was for Star Wars, The Matrix, Playstation 3 and the Segue combined! It's sold out for a month but luckily someone at the office was able to get some kind of insider deal. The fact that I don't speak Tamil will apparently not be a factor, as the crowd will be too loud to hear anything anyway. One girl at the office even bought a new whistle for the event. I guess turning off your cell phone isn't really a consideration here.

So I was at Adaptavant today...

I've been sick in bed over the past few days so I haven't had the typical wild and crazy time that I've been accustomed to since my arrival. On the other hand, the dullest day in India is still something to write home about, right? ...no actually, I slept about 15 hours on Sunday and spent the rest of the time watching Season 3 of 24, which doesn't even seem to be more interesting written down than it was to live through. So I'll skip that part.

Weekdays aren't usually very exciting. The shift (noon to 10:00) is not something I find fun and makes me appreciate my usual 7-4 day a lot. Here I usually wake up and hit the gym (every single day. ...aw who am I kidding, you've all seen the pictures) and maybe eat some leftovers for breakfast before heading to the office, possibly stopping at my computer to see if anyone has put the latest Finals game online (no one watches basketball here!). Then come home after a ten hour day, help Alec make something to eat and spend about an hour watching a DVD, writing email, etc. It seems like my free time has decreased tremendously, which is probably because instead of having my free time in one large block at the end of the day, it's split up between before work and after work. I don't really like it.

Speaking of my office, I took the time to make a short video. Feel free to watch it by clicking on it now:



The office building is very nice. The air conditioning never fails and there's a dedicated barista just serving the 5 offices on the floor.

But as Michael Scott put it, "What is the most important thing for a company? Is it the cash flow? Is it the inventory? Nuh-uh. It's the people." And I've gotten to know a lot of great people here. In fact, Friday we all went to lunch as an office. I managed to take 4 pictures at this lunch, each of which was worse than the one before it :-\ In fact, the pictures turned out so bad that I went so far as to create a collage (again, keeping it real). The first three prompt so many questions. What is Senthil so excited about? Why is Mahalkshmi so upset? And why am I making the hand motions to Little Bunny Foo Foo? The last one is just an example of bad timing. But don't let the pictures fool you, we all had a fun time. I had the Biryani, and so did everyone else.

Between work and sleep, I didn't do a whole lot this weekend. I hope to change that next weekend though, when I plan to do some shopping and sightseeing. I would also really like to see a movie while I'm here. There's a movie called Sivaji that everyone is talking about and opens on Friday. Unfortunately, the movie is so hyped that theaters are charging 1200 Rs for tickets during the first week. To give people some idea of how much that is, just based on my shopping here, that's the equivalent of 100 liters of bottled water, 150 packets of Top Ramen, or 120 standard sized Kit Kat bars. Wowzers! No thanks, I'll wait for the DVD...

Population density

This weekend has been a little less eventful than last weekend but still fun. Saturday we didn't do much in the day time (I mostly slept), but in the evening we went to a vegetable and fruit market near the office. It was a great experience but unfortunately, my battery recharger nearly burned the flat down (that's quite an exaggeration) so I didn't have any batteries in my camera and thus, I have no pictures. I would like to go back and take some pictures, however. It was essentially about a half mile (or a "kilometer", as those crazy Indians call it) of people selling fruits and vegetables. At the end was a vendor selling Sugarcane Juice, which I drank with a great deal of hesitation. It was good, though, and did not make me sick, as surprising as that sounds.


The whole trip was a great experience; I have never been quite so close to wild cows before. I have also never been so close to so many people. Wow. Driving back in the car, we were surrounded by literally thousands of people in every direction. It took us probably 45 minutes to make it to Raj's place, which is maybe a mile away. I didn't think the population density would be that noticeable but it is every day; the buses are so crowded that people literally hang out the doors (see right). Last night I was glad to have the 6 inches surrounding me on every side in the car and I was also glad to not be driving because I would have run over someone. I definitely would have run over someone. It was fun, though, and afterwards Raj made us dinner out of the vegetables we bought, which you can see in the included picture.

The thing about India is that it never ceases to surprise you. There's always something that you haven't seen before. Enter the Saravana stores. Tonight we went out to purchase some kitchen utensils. First we thought we would go to the mall; I'm always interested to visit malls in cities I'm not from because it allows me to compare something that I know from my home to something in a new place. Unfortunately the mall in Chennai, Spencer's Plaza, was pretty much like the mall in Portland with the exception that all the store owners stand outside their stores and ask you very politely to come and see what they have. I would include a picture of the mall here (I did take a few), but it would look surprisingly similar to your local shopping mall. The other difference in Spencer's Plaza was that there were no stores selling kitchen utensils; we spent an hour looking for one that we saw advertised only to find it permanently closed. I suppose that's why there aren't any kitchen utensil stores.

So next we headed to Saravana, a store that is heavily advertised throughout Chennai. It had been described to me as "crowded" but I now realize I didn't know what crowded meant. I'm sitting here trying to think of something to compare it to but I'm not coming up with anything. My first thought is to say that it's as crowded as the Rose Garden seconds after a Blazers game, but it's actually more crowded than that. To get an idea, take a look at the picture to the right. The entire store- every isle on all eight floors- were this crowded. Once we made it to the eighth floor, it took us an hour to get to the isle we needed, find the one item we were looking for, get back to the cashier, pay, and then pick up our bag from the "Delivery" section (which is the counter that bags your items while you're paying). And now that is the largest amount of people I've ever been around.

That pretty much sums up my weekend. I was able to take a video of my apartment and upload it to YouTube so feel free to take a look. Perhaps an error in judgement on my part but I took the video right after working out (I'll include some shots of the gym in the future). This means I look really ghetto in my gym shorts and socks (I may be wearing shoes but it's funnier to think of me in just socks). It would have taken some preplanning and forethought to not walk in front of the mirror but instead I just went for it. This is what I call "keeping it real" and I hope everyone appreciates that. I'm planning to upload several of the photos I've taken onto Flickr in the next couple of days so I'll send out an email and mention it here in the blog when that happens.

Memorial Day Weekend in India

I've now experienced my first weekend in Chennai and have had the chance to even do some sight-seeing. The first stop was Mahabalipuram, which had some very beautiful stone temples. In the picture I've uploaded, the temple you see there was carved out of a single stone. It was very impressive. There were several temples like that; they were very interesting to see and well worth the price. However, as you can see from the entrance sign I managed to take a shot of, some of us had to pay more than "others". I have a feeling that would not fly in the U.S.

The second destination was Auroville, which is essentially a place for hippies to smoke pot find themselves. It was interesting to look at, and there was an enormous gold ball at the end, though it was probably not worth the walk, which left me disgustingly sweaty (see right).

Finally we found ourselves in Puducherry, about two and a half hours away from Chennai. The city was originally inhabited by the French so the architecture of the buildings was a bit different. I've been told that the biggest difference, however, is that alcohol is extremely cheap there. In fact our car was searched twice by Puducherry P.D. on our way out of town. Apparently they would require "a kind of fine" if they found alcohol on us. There was a summer festival going on while we were there and I took a video clip of the nightlife as we passed out of town that you can see here. It's nothing ground-breakingly strange but it's interesting to see the differences between our cities and theirs.

In addition to seeing the differences between the culture here and the culture at home, it's also interesting to see the similarities. See, we got the same stuff here as they got there, but it's the little differences. Example? They have light switches, but they flip the opposite direction. They have oncoming traffic, but they drive into it. Oh yes, and they have silverware, but they don't use it. Thus the picture of me eating with my hands. As they say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. It is every 6 year old's. You wouldn't understand why they call it a "wash room" until you've sat down to a meal with them.

This about covers my exciting Memorial Day weekend, I hope yours has been as eventful. I took some other interesting photos and videos, including a tour of our new office, so I'll post those in the next few days.

First few days in Chennai

I arrived in Chennai, India on Wednesday night and it has thus far been a very good experience. It would have been very easy to be frightened at this point by the experience, but luckily it was described as a much scarier place than it actually is by my boss. I luckily have not seen a single Dengeu fever-infected mosquito and have not been chased off the road by a pack of rabid un-dead dogs--yet!



So far the most concerning experience came in the 24 hours after my flight arrived. The concern was my feet, which as you can see from the photo, swelled up like a couple of floaties. It was as though I was walking on marshmallows.


The heat is bad, but that was expected. The real thing that has caught me by suprise has been the traffic. I had heard that it was chaotic, but I expected it to be a controlled chaos. Now I see: it's bedlam. The best way I can describe it is a 3-way roller derby. It's autos vs. motorcycles vs. pedestrians in a no holds barred winner take all. I made a video on YouTube of it. Feel free to check it out but I mean, it doesn't really do it justice. I've estimated that I could probably last 20 minutes driving a motorcycle here if I was lucky, but after that I would certainly be hit by a bus or something. This is way down from my estimate of how long I could stay on a motorcycle in the states before dying, which comes in right around 45 minutes.

Well those are the high points of my first few days. Nothing especially spectacular has happened. I haven't gotten sick, shopped for gifts, or seen any interesting landmarks- all noteworthy events. Tomorrow's the weekend, though, so we're heading out of town, at which point I expect to do at least two of the three, though it's unclear which two. I'll be sure to keep everyone posted.

How Google almost killed me

I thought I would go over my trip to Pacific City, Oregon last weekend for my girlfriend's 21st birthday so that perhaps I could save some unsuspecting youngster from plummeting to his death! You may not think a search engine could kill a person but Google nearly did.

I hadn't been to Pacific City in a while so I decided to use Google Maps to find the route, as I do before any road trip. I love Google Maps. On the way to the beach, I was thinking how different my life has been in the year and a half that I've been using it. I sometimes sit and just look at other cities or my own city via satellite. I've even discovered areas of Portland I never knew existed. Were you aware that there is 23 square miles of park in the middle of the city?! Neither did I and I've lived here my whole life!

Anyway, going to Pacific City was uneventful but I had to go back a different way because we stopped in Woodburn to visit the outlet mall on the way to. So I put my trust in faithful Google to find the directions from Pacific City to Portland. Around the time that the pavement ended I started to think that might have been a bad idea. At one point we were traveling on logging roads in the Cascade Mountains on loose gravel with no cell phone reception, no power lines, and the only signs of life were a stray dog in the middle of the road, empty beer cans sporadically littered to the side of the road, and a cross on the side of the road. There were no houses or other cars for about 30 minute stretches- which was probably a good thing because it was a one-lane road and I probably would not have seen another car coming around the bend in time to swerve into the ditch! I made it out alive but I'm telling you that had it been raining, snowing (which it is in the satellite photos), or dark, my chance of survival would have been slight. It's a good thing I had a full tank.

Has this ever happened to anyone else? My only other bad experience with Maps was a road that I was supposed to turn left on but legally couldn't (in fact there was a concrete divider, so physically I couldn't either). I heard there was a couple a few months ago who ended up lost in the mountains and died. Does anyone have any horror stories of following the advice of a Maps service? And I wonder if these situations could be a legal concern for map providers. I would assume they have some kind of non-disclaimer that I've failed to read.