Pastries from Sascha

I saved ALL the money that Sascha and Deanne gave me and bought two cakes from Ribbons and Balloons. One for the Rotigotine crew, the other for us peasants. Thanks Deanne and Sascha, hope you both have already bought pastries for a month for both Monheim and RTP with the $100 I sent to each of you.

Last weekend I was invited to the "Annual Town Hall" in Bangalore and accompanied Sundar and Satish. This is an annual event that Accenture Leadership sponsors and lasted from 2pm until 9 pm with skits, dances and singing. The entertainment was all local talent and the theme was Leadership. It was an excellent event.


Sanjay was kind enough to invite me to this event and I thank him for all his support to UCB and for his gracious company and he and Sridhar made me feel at home. They started the event by entering the pavilion on motorcycles!! Below Sanjay expresses his thanks to his employees.

Sundar( far left) and Satish( far right) have many friends at the Bangalore office. There was no way I could keep up with all the names.

A couple of bookends. Sundar and I are in a challenge to see who looses the most weight before I leave. I have the most weight to lose, so I really don't think there will be any competition.

After the leadership events it was disc time. Lots of food, drinks, even ice cream( there goes my diet) Someone likes to dance, guess who.

Mike , we missed you for Dances with Men.

I was resting here and took this wierd picture.

This is Archana and Priya.

Archana and the dancing machine.

Priya and satish.

I had a great time, it was a nice break and I had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Kumaresan who heads up the Narrative Writing on this side of the world partnering with UCB. It is always nice to put a face with a name, unless of course it is my face...LOL..

We all arrived safe back to Mumbai the next day.

All's well

I found this Gloria Jeans coffee shop last week so my affection for strong coffee has been revitalized.

I also found a new friend. I am not sure he quite understands me. I have had several conversatiosn with him but each time it seems to bore him. But I guess that is how you all feel so why should I be surprized???

I finally have recovered from the cold/sickness that I have had since I arrived on January 16th. Also I am close to adjusting to the time difference. I am up each morning by 7/730 am and have laptop on and do my morning ritual of stretching, walking 2 miles and the coffee shop and am into the Accenture building by 10:30/10:45am. You can always (well all according what wireless servive ,I can have 3 different ones in a 5 mile range and then there are times I have none at all) reach me on the Blackberry if there are urgent calls and project related issues. Once at the building I have cable hook up but there are times that I move from one location to the next for meetings and if that happens I sometimes drop the connection before I hook back up. All of you SPARK fans, this means my SPARK connection drops and I forget to log back in. I will try to keep up with that better. I dont keep history of my chats anymore. I don't leave until 9pm unless I have meetings with RTP that require I stay until 11pm. I know, you all wish you had my job, but at the moment it is not open and I am loving what I do. I have the opportunity to mentor a gifted group at Accenture Mumbai that reminds me of the groups at Monheim and RTP. A close group that not only works hard but have fun doing it. It is hard to be a world away from colleagues and keep a close communication, which in my opinion is vital. Last when I visited it was challenging keeping up with my family because of the hours and time difference, but I have SKYPE now and it is so much much better. And its FREE..and I can do videocams with the family and its FREE. I am amazed we cannot take advantage of this within UCB. Did I mention that it FREE?? The free calls in themselves would probably save 80% of our Blackberry charges when we are abroad...I guess because its FREE.

You all know I am capable of beating a dead horse.

So to those of you who truly miss me, John Whiteside....this is my schedule. John and his lovely wife Elizabeth saw Mama Mia(a musical, to all you Bollywood fanatics) at the DPAC, in Durham, NC. The uncanny thing, no, not that John admitting he liked Mama Mia ( he often gets in touch with his feminine side...) but that I heard the song 'Fernando' at breakfast in Bangalore this morning and then again as a piano rendition on the KingFisher plane back to Mumbai.

I was invited to attend a "Leadership" meeting/event at a resort area close to the Accenture office and accompanied Satish and Sundar. The event was hosted by Sanjay. I don't have enough time to write about it tonight. It was a spectacular event is all I can say and that the colleagues in Bangalore know how to treat a guest, as do all the colleagues in Mumbai. Sanjay, I was very impressed and it was most gracious of you to include me for the festivities. Thank you again.

Pictures and a narrative of this event will follow probably by tomorrow night.

RTP, you are just getting up. Heard snow was in the forecast. My B-in-law Dan just emailed from Apex and said 3-4 inches right now, I assume he meant snow....So hope you all are safe and warm in your homes and enjoy the snow.

I was jealous at first but forgot I had the opportunity to see snow in Monheim. Even got hit with a snowball.....everyone loves Bill....Monheim, I hope you are all well. I miss you all and the opportunity to buy pastries and how appreciative and welcome you make me feel each time I drop by. I did not have enough time this last visit to see as much of all of you as I would have liked to. That is usually the case. I do need to come back and get my suitcase of winter clothes. If Sascha has looked especially stylish the last few weeks it is probably because he is wearing my clothes. I know Telse said he looks good in a little black dress so maybe we will be able to see some pictures of that.....

Please all have a safe weekend. It is 37 celcius here...LOL..its like heaven to me. I have found my second home.

Kwality

This weekend for all you RTP folks, I hear that there is a snow storm of epic proportions coming your way.

1.) Get Lots of MIlk!!!'''

2.) Get lots of bread..
If there is not enough bread then:

First weekend back in Mumbai

It's late Sunday evening so I will not write as much for this blog , however I do have some pictures.
Friday after work Tejal and Varsha put some henna tatoos on each arm so that when I walk down the street all the people passing by do a double-take. Seriously, EVERYONE turned around. LOL. They only took like 20 minutes and they are excellent. They are supposed to fade in 3-4 weeks.

On Saturday Satish welcomed me to his home and I had the pleasure of meeting Preeti, his wife. Obviously she made a bad choice and could have done a lot better. A lot better. We went out to a restaurant after looking at 25 volumes of his wedding day(S). I enjoyed meeting his sister again and his younger brother who on our last meeting greeted me with a coconut knife, he must have mistaken my head for a coconut. Anyway we had a great time dining and getting caught up on the family.

No rest for the weary, on Sunday Tejas, Abhishek,Neha,and Tejal took me for a quick tour of a local park/zoo. We saw lions, tigers and deer, Oh MY!! At one point the bus was surrounded by around 30 tigers and lions. I couldn't get any pictures because I was hiding under the seat.

Varsha and Tejal



Satish'as sister, old bald guy, Preeti and Satish.


Abhishek, Neha, Tejal and Tejas.

Tejal on her bike with Neha.

The Pagoda, still being worked on, many people come here to meditate, I will revisit this soon

Neha,Tejal, me

There was a small kiddie park so we had to have some snaps(pictures)

Tejas, Tejal,Abhishek, and Neha

Neha, Tejas, Abhishek

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On the way to the office

This is a view from my coffee shop. The 3 dogs were not here this morning, one was rumored to be held up in a train car headed east. Motor bikes are very prevalent here and it is not uncommon to an entire family riding on one, Mom, Dad, Sissy and BoBo. I have been given the opportunity to ride on Yatin's bike one of these weekends. I'll squeal like a school girl.....Rumor is that a few colleagues are taking me to the zoo this Sunday, I think it might be feeding time and they have ideas. I am thinking of riding a tiger but have been advised not too. I am sure I will listen to everything they say and do exactly as they ask........Dan??? you might want to call them and fill them in. LOL.. Pictures will follow...possibly of an urn with some dust......

Below is taken from my trip to work. the first is taken out the front. There is at times less than six inches between vehicles/bikes/people. That is the picture of an auto rickshaw from behind, the next I took out the back window. The traffic is slow at this time......I am serious. LOL. Beep Beep.

I scream for IceCream

Mithun and Sandeep below are laughing about my claim to be able to eat a mere 2 scoops of ice cream in 2 minutes. The next time will be the challenge. How many people think Mithun looks like the dude from Spiderman II(?) , you know the one with all the arms?

Below is the ice cream that at some time, I will devour in 2 minutes as soon as some foolish person is willing to put up some rupees.