Work Conference

I go to a conference for my job every 6 months in Atlanta.  I was just there two weeks ago.  I try to meet new people while I'm at the conference for networking and also to help with hopefully getting more projects for the company I work for.  However, being one of only a few women out of hundreds of men attending the conference can be interesting.  I took a couple of guys to dinner one of the nights and then sat next to one of them during the meetings the next day because he was the only one there from his mill and I was there by myself that day.  He's a really nice guy, we talked quite a bit.  When I was getting ready to leave from the conference, he gave me a hug goodbye.  I don't really get that.  I also got a hug from one of my company's salesmen and another one from a salesman that I know from a different company.  Why can't I just have a handshake?  I think I'm too nice.

I also just received the following e-mail from another guy that I normally talk to each time I go to the conference (who, by the way, is married and has 3 little boys):

Ann,

I'm very sorry we missed the opportunity to get caught up during the Fall 2010 BLRBAC session. To be quite honest, being able to spend some time with you during these semi-annual sessions has become a highlight for me (ok, I admitted it!).

I want to thank you again for sending along my urgent recent request for assistance. Paul's input helped immensely.

But none of that helped with my Ann fix!! haha

Hope to see you soon.

errrr.....awkward!

A couple of stories...

Story #1

My little sister, Leah got married at the beginning of September and then had her reception a couple of weekends ago.  Her reception was down in Centralia, where my family has gone to church forever.  I knew I would see a bunch of people from church and was looking forward to talking to some of them.  I did get to see a few of those people, but there was one lady I talked to that just makes me laugh.  She has a daughter that is a little younger than me and I haven't talked to this woman probably in over 10 years..maybe?  So, the first thing she asks me after we say hi to each other is, "how many children do you have now?" 

So, I bluntly said, "I'm not married." and smiled. 

And then she said, "Oh, well you're going to have A LOT of children."

After which, I said, "well, I'm not married, so who knows?"

And then she just started talking about how all of my sisters and me look so much alike.  I just thought it was funny that she really doesn't know anything about me and what is going on in my life but automatically thinks I must have a lot of kids.  Is that because my mom decided to have 12 children?  I'm not mad about what she said to me, I just think it's weird that she would ask that first. 

Story #2

I saw Minus the Bear play at the Crocodile last week (awesome performance, by the way).  I was with my friend, Corinn and decided I really needed earplugs.  I went up to the bar to buy some and there was a girl standing in front of the bar, who at first, I thought was working because she asked me, "what are you drinking?" 

But when she asked me, she put her arm around my back, just a little.  I thought, hmm, that's kind of weird, but it was loud, so she needed to shout for me to hear.  So I was waiting my turn and she ordered her drinks (at which point I figured out she wasn't working there) and then she turned to me and said, "are you sure you don't want anything to drink?  You can put anything on my tab."

So I said, "oh thank you for offering, but I'm ok, I'm just getting earplugs."

But I did tell her that I liked her headband, it was really cute.

And then she told the bartender I needed earplugs, because that's what girls do for girls when they like them.  And I bought the earplugs and she brushed my back and then walked away. 

I really can't remember ever being hit on by a woman before, it was kind of flattering because she was really cute, but at the same time, why couldn't it have been a guy?  Seriously?

the dangers of biking!!

Joseph has threatened me that he will remove the link to my blog from his blog since I don't ever write on here.  I've decided I am going to try to start blogging again.  TRY...

Jared and I are planning to bike/run in a duathlon next weekend.  I've been biking more this summer and I think I'm pretty ready to bike 12 miles and run 3 miles.  Last weekend, Jared and I went on a practice bike ride near Lake Sammamish.  It was a fun ride, right next to the lake and it was good for me to ride with Jared, so I would push myself to go faster.  On the way back, we turned onto a trail and I noticed it was a little wet and had leaves on it.  I thought to myself...I should slow down, it might be a little slippery.  But, it was too late, I got to a corner too quickly and my rear tire slid out and I hit the ground in seconds.  Jared was right behind me and crashed as well.  His bike actually flew up and on top of me.  I'm still a little bruised from it.  This was the worst of it:

Ha, ha, I know it's disgusting.  It's still healing up, I should have a nice little scar from it.  I had just talked to my almost 8-year old nephew a couple of days before about his bike wreck, he had it pretty bad with his chin, elbow, knee all looking like my elbow.  The last time I wrecked on a bike was when I was 9, so this wasn't fun.  I'm just praying it doesn't rain on Saturday for the race.  I will be so much more nervous, if it does!

Monkeys!

I only have time for a quick note and I don't know when I'll be able to post again because I'm leaving tomorrow morning for another paper mill.  To get there, I will drive 4 hours, fly 2 hours and travel by train 6 hours.  I am not looking forward to it.

The monkeys were back in the tree in front of the house I'm staying in this morning.  They were jumping from branch to branch, they're so cute.  Although, as I was taking photos of them, one got on a lower branch and started making these awful screeching noises at me, it was scary.  He was not happy with me.  I tried to get some good shots, but there's only so much my camera can do.

The one above is an action shot, you can see the monkey jumping in the bottom, just to the right of the center.  Anyway, there were two different kinds, one with a black face and one with the white/pink face.  There were also a flock of these huge birds with a big beak.  They were so neat looking.  The monkeys were chasing them out of the tree for a bit.

 

And then I had to go to work.  At least there are some neat things to see around here when I am not working.  And as far as work goes, we have wrapped up what we came here to do.  I don't know if I've mentioned it.  We were starting up a system we designed.  It's a pollution control system.  Which, I think is pretty ironic considering each morning I leave my room in the morning, the sky is completely filled with smoke from everyone burning their trash.  And then inside the paper mill, I see all sorts of tanks overflowing to their sewer that shouldn't be sent to a sewer line.  But they might have a treatment system for the sewer lines, I'm not sure.  Anyway, I guess it's good that the paper mill is starting somewhere.

Some of the animals in town

There are animals walking around freely all over the place here...cows, dogs, pigs, goats.  I guess the cows, pigs and goats are actually owned by people, but they just let them wander around.  Like today at the market, I asked Raju about some of the cows and he said the cows will just try to get some free food and that is how they end up eating.  I feel bad for the stray dogs, they are all over the place, but most of them do look fed and not too scrawny.  I think people feed them, probably because they think they might be that dog when they die. 

If you look close at the one above, you can see two cows in the middle of the street and two motorcycles dodging them. 

Oh and here are some of my roommates.  I think I've seen 4 different frogs so far. 

I've seen a group of monkeys here, too.  They were playing up in the tree in front of the house I'm staying in one morning and then they were playing up on top of the temple another evening, but I haven't seen them lately.  Hopefully they'll come back before I leave.  It was so funny watching them play on top of the temple.

Sunday Market!

There isn't much to do here in the evenings, so if you like reading about what I'm doing/seeing here, then you are in luck.  Thank goodness for wireless internet!

It's Sunday evening here and I had to work in the morning and then a little in the afternoon.  I haven't felt too comfortable walking outside of the mill complex by myself and luckily, Raju went outside with me today.  Sunday is a busy day around here.  This is the day most of the people do their shopping.  The market is just outside the gates and was packed this afternoon.  There were quite a few vegetables that I have not ever seen before, but I've probably been eating them.  I don't really know what I'm eating most of the time, I just know if I like it or don't.  So far, I've liked most everything.  They have so many different varieties of vege dishes.  My favorite thing so far has probably been the mango Slice soda...so yummy!  Anyway, some shots from the market:

They had so many dried red peppers!

I still got a lot of stares in the market.  I guess I do stand out quite a bit.  I'm glad Raju went with me and explained what a lot of the vegetables and nuts were.  We walked by this sweets stand and he told me he would buy me some before we leave and that they are so delicious.  I'm a little leery, though.  He had me try this sweet milk dessert thing the other night and although the taste of it was ok, it had this really weird texture.  Most of the sweets at this stand looked more like spices.  So, we'll have to see.

More of Dandeli

I had a little bit of free time this afternoon while some things were being fixed on the system. I took a walk around part of the mill complex. They have all sorts of buildings here, a research center, hospital, gymnasium, employee's club and lots of housing. I was walking down one road but decided to turn around because it was where people lived, these houses were tiny and not the bigger apartment buildings they have here and it was even more run down than the rest of what I've seen. They also have a playground across the street from the Hindu temple. They even have teeter-totters. I loved those things, too bad parks don't have them anymore at home. You can see a couple of buildings behind the park, those are some of the apartment buildings.
I had to take a photo of their ambulance parked outside the hospital, it is a van that is probably only 4 1/2' tall. I rode in one of them (not the ambulance, but another van) and they technically seat 8 people.

Another day in Dandeli

Today was a very slow day. Even though there is an overabundance of people working at the paper mill, they aren’t able to fix things very quickly. I sat around most of the day waiting for a few fixes to the system I’m working on. There is definitely too many layers of management here since it takes forever for decisions to be made and then for someone to actually do something about it.
I am used to waiting around during start-ups but at least at the other start-ups I’ve been on, the operators will talk with me while we’re waiting for things to be completed. Here, I just sit and wait and don’t talk to anyone, except Raju once in a while (he’s not all that talkative). Anyway, it makes for a pretty boring day. As I was sitting and waiting, I was watching everyone that was “working” in the control room. There were a couple of guys that were really working and then at one point, there was at least 8 guys just sitting around talking, doing absolutely nothing. Labor is definitely cheap here if they can have all these men sitting around doing nothing all day.
Every time I am walking around the mill, I get long stares from everyone. I think other paper mills in India have female engineers working at them, but not this one. The only females I’ve seen so far are the ones cleaning things up around the place. They sweep the roads with brooms made with branches. I’m not sure why they bother sweeping the road because they are mostly dirt. Some of the men just stare for so long, it kind of makes me uncomfortable. So, I’ve started staring back at some of them and that normally makes them stop. It probably is worse because there are so many people working here, so I have to walk by lots of different people who keep staring. Ugh.
As I was leaving for the day, one of the security guards asked me where I was from and talked to me for a bit. He was really nice, has two sons, one’s an engineer and the other a doctor. He is retired from the Indian army. He told me his name, but it was over 5 syllables, so I have no idea what it was, even though I tried really had to say it back to him. It was nice that someone finally talked to me. And then when I went to dinner, the Japanese guy here talked to me for a bit. He’s really friendly and pretty dorky, but nice. He asked me if I’ve been to a bunch of spots in the US that he’s seen…Niagra Falls, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon. We talked about Ichiro and Jojima. I guess Ichiro is from a town that is near where he lives. And then there is one other guy here on a start-up that is Indian that has spoken to me a couple of times. He’s really friendly, too and tonight he told me I’m looking very beautiful. What a nice guy after the long day I’ve had.
Here are a couple of photos of the house I’m staying in (nothing fancy, if they painted, it would look so much better). We have a guy there all day that is there to wait on us. He gets me bottled water (I have 3 huge bottles in my fridge) and I think he just looks over the house while we're in the mill. He's nice, he brought me some mango juice today.

And this is the Hindu temple that isn’t too far from the house I’m staying in. I can hear their prayers being broadcast every night for about an hour. I have a recording I’ll try to put on here another day.

And a pretty bush with these neat red flowers. I saw this group of about 20 teenage girls walking on the street towards me and I wanted to take a picture of them because they looked so beautiful in their brightly colored saris. I feel weird just taking pictures of people, unless I can be sneaky about it and have them not notice. I was unsucceful. I'll try to get some people shots, though.

My first day in an Indian Paper Mill

It was interesting to see the inside of the paper mill today. The first thing that stood out to me was how many people were working. The parking lot is right next to the front gate and it had hundreds of bicycles and motorcycles parked in it. Raju told me there are probably 1,000 direct mill employees and probably a few hundred more that are contract employees. At a paper mill this size in the US, there would probably be a few hundred employees. I guess it’s good that so many people are able to have jobs, but it seems like a waste because a lot of them aren’t even doing anything. For the system I’m working on, I normally will have 1 or 2 people helping out at a paper mill in the US. Today, I think there were six different people with us at one point. But only 1 or 2 of them were actually doing something helpful.
And then I saw what some of the people working there were doing and it seemed like busy work. I saw this huge puddle in the road when we first walked in this morning and then at lunch time, the water in it was being manually scooped out into buckets by two barefoot women. It was pretty dry by the end of the day. I’m sure it fills up with water all the time and these women scoop it out every time, but why don’t they just fix the road, so it doesn’t fill up with water? I also saw men who were barefoot or wearing flip flops working all over the mill on all sorts of little projects. Projects that would take a day in the US, but here, it probably keeps them busy for weeks. And it is weird to see them all wearing flip flops when I wear steel-toe boots.
The other weird thing from today was all the stray dogs inside the paper mill. I saw at least 5 of them. I feel really dumb taking pictures when there are people around, but I snuck in a couple. I’m going to try to take more over the week. Here’s one of the dogs just lazing around in the middle of the mill.

I'm sure you can't see this photo very well, but it's depicting what to do in case of an emergency at the mill. The middle square on the top has this title: “On getting information about any gas leakage use available mode of transport to move away quickly from the place.” The funniest part of it is the mode of transportation they show in the cartoon. A motorcycle with 2 people on it, a bicycle with 2 people on it, and 2 trucks completely packed with people in the back. They definitely know how to pack people into vehicles here.

First Thoughts of Dandeli

Dandeli is built around the paper mill. Most everyone that lives in the town either works at the mill or supplies something to people that work in the mill. Raju told me he thought there are 100,000 people living here, but I don’t know because I have only seen a small portion of it. There is a whole community within the gated portion of the mill. I think most people that are employed by the mill live here, there are a lot of buildings that look like apartments and there are more that are houses, like the house I’m staying in. I’ve also seen a temple and a hospital. All the buildings look pretty run down from the outside.
The house I am staying in has three different rooms for people to stay in. I think it used to be a normal house and they converted it into a guest house. My room is pretty simple, but I have cable tv (the only thing I’ve watched so far is their music station and it is so awesome, I love Indian music videos, they crack me up), a little fridge and my own bathroom. And two twin beds right next to each other, so the room is a little cramped. I think the room next to mine has two guys sharing it, but I haven’t actually seen them, I’ve only heard them. And I’ve heard everything. I think one of the guys must be sick because he sure has the runs a lot. Totally gross. There’s only a false ceiling, so all the sound carries right into my room. I had to sleep with earplugs last night because their tv was on so loud and the guy keeps coughing over and over and then going to the bathroom over and over.
Anyway, my bathroom is just an open room and there is a shower, but I couldn’t get any hot water out of it this morning, so I used the buckets and scoopers to wash up. It worked and wasn’t as bad as a cold shower would have been.
We have each of our meals at another guest house where there’s a big kitchen and an open room where all the people visiting the mill eat. I guess there are two different places we can eat; we’ve been going to the vegetarian house to eat since Raju is Hindu. It’s all Indian food and has been pretty good so far, some of it is a little spicy for me, though. And I’m trying not to get sick while I’m here, so I’m only eating things that are cooked. They’ve given me a couple of desserts, but I have passed on them because they’re made with milk. I’m sure I would be ok, but I just don’t want to risk sounding like my neighbor. The other house has some non-Indian style foods since there are people here from Germany, Japan, China and other parts of India starting up different equipment at the mill. I’m not the only white person eating there, but I am the only female eating there. And I haven’t seen any female engineers in the mill. I think that must be why I get all the stares from everyone else working there. It’s kind of annoying.

Getting to Dandeli

I'm sitting in this community room where we just had lunch in Dandeli. This is the town where the paper mill is located. I'll tell you a little about my trip getting here. We flew out of Bangalore early this morning to Hubli, which is a teeny-tiny airport. They use a tractor to pull the baggage cart things. A driver from the paper mill was there to meet us and we took off down the road.
Drivers down here drive like they are in a race; I think most of them would do well on obstacle courses. We were first on a larger highway-type road which had enough room for our car to pass a motorbike while a huge truck was coming from the opposite direction. We soon took our exit, which was a dirt road that looped back under the highway we had just gone over. It was definitely not a normal exit, but people started using it as one. It put us back on a paved road, but not very wide and no markings on the road. There was just enough room for a car and a truck on the other side. Unfortunately, there are way more people/animals using the road than just a car or truck. I wish I could have taken some pictures as we were speeding down this road, we saw so many different things. Most of the area is farming, I saw fields of corn and sunflowers, women out in the fields carrying pots on their heads, cows with their horns painted bright blue and red, children in school clothes and children half-clothed, men sitting in front of shops.
The road was being used by cattle, men with carts full of hay being pulled by cows, people on motorbikes (a family of 4 was the biggest group I saw on one), children, dogs, chicken, monkeys, trucks with large loads, buses and cars. And the cars, like ours, were the ones passing all these people and animals. Our driver was going around 50 mph most of the time. Every time we approached one of the above, he would honk his horn and then whiz by them sometimes with a bus or truck only missing us by a few feet. I wasn’t as scared as I thought I would be, but it’s probably because I’ve had somewhat similar rides in Thailand and Honduras. Although, those rides were not in such rural areas with so many people walking on the road or on a road that was so narrow. There were a few times that I thought we were going to get hit, but these drivers are pretty good. He would just slam on his brakes if he got too close to hitting someone or didn't have enough time to get around a slower vehicle.
Not too far from Dandeli, we came to a stop because a couple of cars were blocking the road and a bunch of people were on the side of the road. I knew it had to be an accident and I didn’t even want to look over. I looked, though. It was so awful. Two men must have been hit on their motorcycle and were in the ditch. One guy had blood all over his face and I could see the other guy being held up by someone, I don’t know if he was alive. It was really upsetting. If these people would just drive a little slower, those men wouldn’t have been pushed off the road. It seems like such a preventable thing.
Anyway, I made it here and I am glad we had a good driver.
Later today, Raju, (the Indian rep I’m working with) told me that he had never been the way we came. Normally, it’s about another 45 minute drive that is on the main highway.

Bangalore, India

I arrived in Bangalore around 1230am last night, after traveling for 22 hours. I spent way too much time sitting in a plane. I was on Air France and flew through Paris, but didn't get to see any of the city from the air because it was so foggy. I was hoping to at least see part of Paris. I really need to visit Paris. I watched a few French movies to make up for it. The cutest one was La Petit Nicolas.

When I finally made it to India, the hotel had a driver waiting to pick me up with the little sign. The drive over was pretty quiet, there weren't a lot of other cars out (probably because it was 1 in the morning), but every time the driver went through a crosswalk, he would honk, which I thought was a little weird because there wasn't anyone out. I found out today why he honked. That's all they do while they're driving here, honk to let you know they're about to run you over, honk to let another car know they are in their way...lots of honking. I had to take a video, which I'm having troubles putting on here. I'll have to try later.

Here are some pics of the road around here, nothing too exciting or pretty.

I'm staying on Brigade Road, which is next to MG road, both of which I had read about as being good places for shopping. I did get out and found some nice deals on a few things, but I really didn't like how dirty everything was out on the sidewalks and all the loud traffic around me. I went into this department store that had all sorts of things on sale. The weird thing about that store was how many people were working there. I would look at one or two racks of clothes and one employee would come up to me and just stare at me, so I would say, "Oh, I'm just looking, thanks" and then I would get to the next couple of racks and another person would come up to me and start staring. It was so weird. First, that they had so many people working there and then second that they wouldn't ask me if I needed any help, they would just wait for me to say something first. And then when I was making my purchase, I asked the guy if they took American Express and he shook his head no so I asked him if they took Visa and he said, "we take American Express or Visa". I guess shaking your head no means yes here. So confusing.

I had read about a huge botanical garden here, but I didn't have enough time to find it. It would have been nice to see some more green. I did see two small garden patches, but there was garbage thrown all around it. I really should have found the botanical garden, so I could know there was something really pretty here. Maybe I'll have time on my way back home.

Heading to India

Yes, I do still have a blog and yes, I've decided to revive it. Maybe I'll do a super post and put up some pictures from last year. But for now, I'm going to share my experiences with my upcoming trip to India. I leave this Saturday and will travel for 20 some hours to Bangalore, India. I'm going to end up in Dandeli at the West Coast Paper Mill for my work. I'm helping them with a start-up of one of my company's systems. It should be an interesting experience.

The wikipedia link for Dandeli appears to be written by someone promoting the wildlife sanctuary, and I wouldn't mind going there, if I get some free time. I might get to see one of these creatures: elephant, tiger, leopard, gaur, flying squirrel...especially the flying squirrel.

More to come. I hope I have internet at the guest house in Dandeli, so I can put up pictures while I'm there.