Thursday was the first time I had time to get some shots of the hotel in the day light. Granted not many but we were heading in to the office quite early. Plus I was a little disoriented. Of all things my room does not have an alarm clock and I had asked for a wake up call 30 minutes late. That coupled with a couple emails that pissed me off derailed my morning so I was late. Generally sleeping well and not affected by the jet lag. If anything I'm staying up longer, I've turned into a night owl. This blog is a couple days late but I'm writing it after midnight. The one observation I keep making is the rift between rich and poor. It's like two societies that occupy the same space but ... read more

I consider myself a progressive thinker and semi-wordly in my view but this conversation with Atul (the COO) was an eye opener even for me. We talk a lot about out sourcing work to India but now India is talking about outsourcing work to someone else. They have their eye on climbing the value proposition food chain and they are hungry and ambitious. This is going to sound harsh but I feel like I must say it. I know us Americans like to talk about "American Inginuity" but that is bull shit. To think that we are inherently better than another country or people because of some national quality is as silly as Germans thinking they are better than Jews. Indians, and other countries for that matter, aren't satisfied by doing dirty work for other countries. ... read more

Checking into the room now, apparently I got a very nice suite with a great view. Several times I have been warned not to tell my boss because she will be jealous. The hotel is the J.W. Marriott so they know how to cater to westerners. Everyone is very polite and willing to serve. Hopefully I won't spend much time here but it is tempting. Royal bathroom, king size bed, super big screen, etc.... read more

Surprisingly, we were in the air on that Midwest Airlines flight and you will be glad to know the glue stick worked on my passport! We (my boss and I) landed in New York's Laguardia with no issues except that we had 10 hours to kill. With that we headed to Newark via taxi to drop off our stuff. Maria can be persuasive so she talked them into holding our luggage so we could go into NY. Maria is a power-tourist, going non-stop. We started by taking the train into Manhattan to see her uncle to drop off our carryon luggage. He happens to run a high-profile art restoration business close to 6th and 32nd and so he gave us the quick tour. He didn't have any Picasso's or Rembrandts but often does. It was neat ... read more

When travel plans go bad, they can really go bad. I don't want to focus on the negative but today I got to the airport just in time to hear that all flights out of KC had been canceled due to the fog. They booked me on the first flight out on Monday but were skeptical it would go. I found out it had been canceled by my colleage but when I called Continental they had changed it to Monday night connecting to my Mumbai flight on Tuesday so I would have spent 24 hours in Newark. I definitely would have been peeved if I had shown up at the airport at 4:30 AM to find that out. When I told continental that I wanted the original Monday night flight to Mumbai they wanted to charge ... read more