Where do I start?

We went shopping on Friday to pick up a duffle bag for me because we're taking a road trip this weekend. Ramesh took us to Commercial Street which lived up to its name. We found a vendor selling duffles and I surprised myself by questioning the pricing. I got a pretty reasonable price on a nice size duffle bag -750 Rupees or just over $18.

After that Peggy had Ramesh take us to lunch at the Blue Ginger. I still wasn't sure about eating, but the place was beautiful! It is all open to the outdoors with lush landscaping all around. I had some veg and glass noodle soup because of my timid stomach, and ate the noodles with chop sticks. I tried to use the chop sticks to pick up a small piece of chicken and was so amazed that I had done it I ate the whole piece without regard to the knot in my stomach. Suddenly I was feeling better. It was hunger! I even had ice cream for dessert, but I couldn't tell you what kind it was. It was very good and we learned later it was diet ice cream.

We headed into IBM and Citrix was down (again!) so the team couldn't access ITSM (our help desk software). The weren't sure what they were going to cover at that point so I volunteered to do an Orlando Sentinel spiel. I explained to them how we create 3 partitions on a PC and 2 on a Mac, what network shares everyone connects to, what kinds of computers we have, how the Mac folks change passwords, just an overall to give them a better understanding of our computers, images and configurations. I talked a bit about Orlando weather and the daily thunderstorms. Some of the IBM folks that have worked at other call centers said that Americans are always curious about the weather where they are calling. I explained about Phat Phriday and how Technology has come together as a team and we wanted to make sure they feel part of our team. I stressed that they could contact us if they had any questions about anything, just as any of the Analyst do now. I think we are all going to get along rather well!

Upon returning to the apartment I had a task and dinner! Peggy fixed some pasta so I stopped by her place and made myself a plate. I settled in on my new couch (that Deepak and Gopal finally switched) with my pasta, a coke and my laptop. I started working through the Knowledge Base. Our Knowledge Base is a tool that will assist our team in India as they troubleshoot or route calls for us. It needs to be as concise and complete as possible. I went through each entry making sure it was understandable, consistent and pertinent. I made notes as I went and Alex (bless his heart) was getting emails of all my edits. I stayed up pretty late and got about halfway through. I went to bed at 1am because Ramesh was picking us up at 8am. I figured I could sleep in the car.

I did not sleep in the car. There was too much to see! Our journey was a little more than 200 miles but took us over 7 hours. As we drove on some not very good roads, my mom's voice was in my head talking about the rocky road to Dublin! The trip took us through a National Wildlife Sanctuary where we saw an elephant hiding behind a tree (there's a joke in there somewhere) and lots of monkeys. I was so thrilled to get this photo of one of them.

The end of the journey brought us to the top of a hill where a very nicely appointed Holiday Inn was waiting for us. The views of the mountainside were beautiful if not foggy as it had started to rain shortly before we arrived. At check-in we were presented with small glasses with a pink liquid. It was our welcome drink. I thank them very kindly and discreetly set it aside. I had no idea what was in that glass and was just starting to feel better. When I got to the room the first thing I checked out was the bathroom. There was a tub, but best of all NO BUCKET! I think I can get a normal shower and a normal size cup of coffee!

I am going to curl up in bed with my laptop and continue going through the Knowledge Base. But best of all, I haven't heard a car horn in several hours!