Friday, January 30, 2009

Layoff

December 13th, 2008.
My flight from Bangalore to Kuala Lumpur this morning was bad but what bothered me more is that the home I grew up in Malaysia may be my home for the next few months, or even years. Don’t get me wrong, I love visiting home, it is “living” here I’m feeling a little nervous.


A few days ago in a small conference room in the Bangalore "company" office, I had a conference call with my manager who was in California and my worst nightmare came true; my position has been terminated and I am where near my home in New York. Within minutes, my laptop, cell phone and badge were taken away and I was escorted to the entrance of the office building where a driver would take me back to my service apartment. I admit I have been worried sick about this day but I was also in major denial (or refused to acknowledge I might be a candidate of the layoff) and the worst of all is I had zero back-up plans. Naturally, like any self-respecting Asian, I moved back to my parent’s house.

January 13th, 2009
It’s been a while since my last blog, so I won’t spend too much time bitching about how the “company” has screwed me over because of unforeseen, uncontrollable and inevitable reasons. To summarize my whine, I won’t be able to work in the U.S. right this instance because my H1b visa is no longer valid (I was on my 7th year H1b visa right before I left NYC – 6 years H1b is the maximum for each alien), which means if I get a job offer tomorrow with a U.S. employer, I am not legally able to work for them. However, I was told that the H1b visa resets automatically if you are out of the U.S. for 365 days. I left the U.S. mid-June 2008, hence I have another 6 months to eat and travel.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

South India Jungle Safari

This post is long overdue and so I got my buddy Anand to contribute (without his consent - so is this ok, Anand?). Just to give you a bit of context, the 5 of us took an extended weekend trip to Masinagudi Forest Reserve for a jungle safari. Here's Anand's summary of our trip.
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Candilini!
Can also lah :)
Here you go... as best as I can remember:
Saturday:
Morning Leave Bangalore
Stop at Kamat Lokaruchi for brekker Mysore - Bandipur - Masinagudi - Singarra - Anekadu
Lunch at Anekadu
Post lunch sack out
Early evening walk around the estate
Late evening Jeep Safari
Night Bonfire / Barbeque / Dinner


Saw this leaf while trekking. Check out the thorns.

Lorenzo showing tiger scratches on the tree
Lorenzo pointing at scratches apparently by tigers on the trunk.

Sunday:
Morning trek around the estate -- see heaps of elephant dung but no elephants :(
Breakfast at Anekadu
Post breakfast leave for Forest Hills (Bokkapuram) via Masinagudi - PO: Forest Hills is our second hotel. We slept in tree houses. Anand, Lorenzo and I shared a house call Machaan)
Sack out at Machaan
Lunch at Forest Hills
More sacking out at Machaan
Hike to the water pool
Still more sacking out at Machaan [By now undisputedly our favourite line item :)]
Bonfire
Dinner at Forest Hills


One of the tree houses we stayed at Forest Hills


The rooftop of the other tree house - Machaan

Monday:
Morning -- outstanding trek covering part of the elephant corridor and some tiger trails (See tiger pugmarks, tiger Cave et al) - PO: May I add, total trekked time was about 4 hours.
Breakfast at Forest Hills
Leave late morning for Bangalore -- attempts to get the cook to move to Bangalore do not meet with success :)
Stop at Mysore for late lunch at Hotel Metropole
Stop en route to Bangalore at Channapatna for '5 minutes' to buy wooden toys and stuff - PO: Er, 5 minutes turned out to be 2.5 hours.
Reach Bangalore late evening



Tiger pugmarks

Cheers,
Anand

More Jungle Safari Pictures