Yes, it has been a long time since I posted. I think more the two weeks! I think I have never blogged soo infrequently !!. And the reason for the same is ………… yes, you guessed it right……. work.
The past three weeks have been very very hectic. Kind of in meetings all day long. There have been days were I was in meeting for the entire day with a 45 mins lunch break. And then, during non office hours, I need to catch up with my mails, do some documentation stuff, co-ordinate with the team back in India and…. setup my home. We did have a long weekend in between(Sep 3-5), but we were at home, setting up things. Bought quite a lot of stuff for our house, and it took quite a lot of time and effort to assemble and setup things.
Well, Houston as such is a much bigger place compared to Kingsport. Lot of places to go around, but so far, I haven’t got a chance to do much of exploring around, except for Walmarts and Targets around :).
The weather at Houston is pretty decent. Its not as hot as I expected. Or, may be I am lucky to totally avoid the Houston summer. The weather is comparable to the weather at Mangalore, my home town. And…………..no hurricanes too so far! (touch-wood!!)
Extremely sorry to all the people who have left comments on other posts. I was just not able to reply. Will try to catch up with it soon.
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September 10th, 2006 at 10:51pm
Finally said bye bye to Kingsport yesterday. There are somethings that you never forget in your life. And my stay at Kingsport is one among them. It was my first city in the US, calm and peaceful with very scenic surroundings.
I also got a chance to interact with some really great bunch of people, both at work and otherwise. They were always ready to help, very friendly and full of fun!
My next assignment starts on Monday i.e, 21st of August at Houston for our client (BP). I would be back working on web-based stuff, which I love!. For the last 6 months, I was in more of VB.net and VB6 kind of environment. It was good. Anything to do with computers/Internet is fun for me :).
But, above all, now I get to stay with my wife. So, now we can finally get rid of long Skype/gTalk calls.
On the work front, I am all set for the next challenge!
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August 19th, 2006 at 11:32am
After staying away for more than 8 months now, I would be finally staying with my dear wife!. If all goes well, I would be relocating to Houston soon. My assignment here in Kingsport would end on the 18th of August.
It has been a long wait, and both of us have been looking forward for this to happen since long. Now that its in sight, both of us are really happy and excited about it. Hope all goes well as planned.
Well, that also means that the past couple of days have been very hectic. One of my friends/colleague would be replacing me at work here at Kingsport. Its his first visit to the US too. So, Its kind of a deja-vu feeling for me, when it comes to setting him up, both at work and otherwise. Around seven months back I was in his place……. Anyway, the show goes on!
So, this also explains the why my blogging activity has come down in the past couple of days. :D Should be back to normal in a couple of weeks from now. i.e., once I settle down at Houston.
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August 10th, 2006 at 06:52pm
The weekend passed by with a blink of an eye. This was by far the most memorable weekend in US. This was my second visit to a big city in US. The first one was Charlotte (around 2 weeks back). But the city of Houston is much bigger then Charlotte.
Almost everything went on as planned and I am writing this on an Airplane heading back to Kingsport. I started off on Friday evening from Kingsport at around 5 PM, and since there are no direct flights from Kingsport to Houston, I had to take a flight via Atlanta. The flight was pretty much on time, and I didn’t have too much of time with me to explore the Atlanta airport. Reached Houston at around 8.15 PM CST, pretty much on time.
We had made an online reservation couple of days back for a rental car for the weekend from National car rental. We had actually booked for a Compact car to go around. But when we went to pick up the car from National on Saturday, they told us that they did not have a compact car with them to offer us …. and guess what? … they upgraded it to a SUV for free. Jeep - Grand Cherokee. Wow… Both of us (me and Chitra) were thrilled!! Well … this was my first (major) driving, and what a vehicle to drive. It was almost brand new, with just 1750 Miles on it, and it rocked.
The rental Jeep that we got! - (Click to Zoom)
So, at around 9 AM on Saturday morning, we started our journey to the NASA Space center. Driving through the big city traffic thought a maze of flyovers and exits was a good experience and was much easier that I had actually thought. My wife had done all the homework of getting routes and maps to reach NASA. We reached NASA space center at around 9.40 AM. We had to wait for a couple of mins for the Space Center to open up, but that was not a problem.
Space center entrance - (Click to Zoom)
The NASA space center is a must see if you are to Houston, especially if you are interested in space, science and technology.
Controls Inside the Space Shuttle Cockpit - (Click to Zoom)
Controls Inside the Space Shuttle Cockpit - Top - (Click to Zoom)
Some Capsule - (Click to Zoom)
Lunar Vehicle - (Click to Zoom)
Skylab mockup - (Click to Zoom)
They showed us a couple of movies and then there was a Tram tour of the NASA facility at Houston. They showed us the Historic Mission control center, from where more then 100 space missions were controlled. They have preserved it with all the original equipments. i.e., we are talking about the equipments that were present in the 1960s and 70s timeframe.
The Historic Mission Control Center - (Click to Zoom)
After that, they took us to the current Mission control center. Actually there are two; one is for the space shuttle program, and the other one for the International space station program. And, since there is no Shuttle in orbit as of now, there were no people at the Shuttle mission control center. But we did see people working at the International space station Mission control center. Live. Real people. Real stuff! And everything is just state of the art!
Space Shuttle Mission Control Center - (Click to Zoom)
International Space Station Mission Control Center - (Click to Zoom)
From NASA space center we travel to a place near by called Kemah Board Walk. It’s a recreation center in the Galveston bay area. And that was too good. This place has a mini amusement park, and lot of fun. Both of us enjoyed it thoroughly.
Kemah Tower - (Click to Zoom)
From the top of the tower - (Click to Zoom)
Kemah Area - (Click to Zoom)
Kemah Parking - (Click to Zoom)
We specially enjoyed the “Beast” speed boat ride. It’s a super speed boat which can carry around 60 people, and it cruises at full speeds splashing water all over. In fact, many of the passengers sitting at the rear end of the boat get fully wet!
Boat Ride (not the one we rode on… this one is a slow moving boat)- (Click to Zoom)
Sunset - (Click to Zoom)
It was 6.30 PM by now, and we were already late. Actually, we had decided to have a dinner/get together with Chitra’s lovely & very helpful friends at a restaurant called London Sizzler on Hilcroft Ave. And we had a map with us showing how to go from our house to this place. But we did not know exactly where this place was. The map showed us the end point, but it wasn’t detailed enough. And the end result was, we were going round and round the same area to find the restaurant. And to make it worse, we did not have any contact numbers with us. (I know its stupid… but that’s precisely what Murphy’s Law states!) After around 45 mins of searching, going round and round, we managed to find the place. It was like so close but still far. We knew it was just somewhere round the corner, but just could not locate it.…. and by this time, all the people had already come and were waiting for us, and were worried too!
It was a major relief for us as well as all others to see each other
The food at the restaurant was good, but the company was better. We had a nice time chatting. The best part was the surprise at the end………:) A birthday cake! Yes… my birthday is just around the corner… March 7th.
My Birthday Cake - (Click to Zoom)
Was a wonderful evening! On the way back home from the restaurant to home, we made sure that we had numbers of all the people with us, and that we knew the route properly. Reached home safely at around 11.45 PMish.
Today morning we went out again, but this time to a shopping mall called “Galleria“. It’s a pretty big mall. We spend some 2 hours in the mall, had some food, went around etc. There is a huge Ice skating ring in the mall, but we weren’t adventurous enough to try it out (also, the timings for public staking did not fit our schedule).
We started back home at around 11: 30 AM. Returned our rental SUV back to Nationals at around 1 PM. Athul & Saki (Chitra’s friends) were kind enough to drop me back to the IAH airport. And that too on a Merc!! Wow!…
My return flight to Kingsport is via Cincinnati and it started of a bit late. I.e., by around 30 mins. But I have a 1.5 hr stop over at Cincinnati, which should take care of the delay!
All in all, a great weekend!
Update : Also I would say I am lucky to have some great friends at Kingsport!. Sugatha dropped me all the way to the Airport on Friday, and Andy picked me up on the way back!.. Had dinner at Andy’s house on saturday night. Thank you guys!
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March 7th, 2006 at 06:50am
“Houston, can you hear me?
Ground control, can you feel me?
Need permission to land”
- from Robbie Williams › Rock Dj
I would be off to Houston this weekend to meet my Wife who has been there for nearly 3 months now. Would be flying today evening i.e, Friday evening, and would be back Sunday night at Kingsport.
We plan to visit the NASA space center at Houston and some other places around…. …again, its just a plan. Lets see how it goes. Will try to get some snaps and post it here in the next couple of days! :)
And..Because there is no direct flight between Kingsport and Houston, its going to be a long journey!
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March 4th, 2006 at 01:06am
The next two weeks are kind of going to be very hectic. My wife, would be travelling to US of A again. This would be her second work assignment in US. She would be traveling to Houston, TX. So, lot of things to do. Starting for finding accomodation to buying and packing stuff. This time we are a bit relaxed since its her second trip, and her travel itineary is almost the same as the previous one. (except for the final destination - which was Norcross, Atlanta, GA last time)
In the mean time, our entire family has planned to go to Tirupati this saturday to visit Sri Venkateswara Temple. We should be back by Monday end of the day. Lot of people would be around, so I think it wont be a boring trip.
And then the following week, I would have to travel to Chennai on official work!. So, lot of running around for the next two weeks.
In office too, some new and intresting work as come up. Getting a chance to work on a software called eRoom and Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 ( or Windows Sharepoint Portal Services on Windows Server 2003). But most of the folks at office are on vacation since its festive season here in India. Specially people who leave quite far from home are on leave. So, office is kind-of half empty. But no major impact on work/projects.
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October 27th, 2005 at 12:59am