India Day....I don't know... I'm in heaven!

So I met the beautiful women named Zuleyka Rivera. They say she's the most beautiful women in the year of 2006. I guess that's why they crowned her Miss Universe.

She only spoke Spanish and a little bit of English. But I managed to get on stage and ask her in Spanish if she could take a picture with me. She immediately pushed everyone out of the way to take a picture...with whoooo....ME!. Major props to my best photographer Roger Hoover he is the man.

India Day 8: 4th July was nothing compared to this

Matt lighting the "Mummy" and shot out a hundred rounds of fireworks.


Me lighting up a Rico 400 round firecracker modified for optimal explosive performance.

India Day 5,6,7: Diwali

The "Festival of Lights" is what it's called here in India and it symbolises the victory of good over evil, and lamps are lit as a sign of celebration and hope for mankind. It usually occurs in October/November, and is one of the most popular and eagerly awaited festivals of India (thank you wikipedia).

What does that mean for me? I get to blow up the biggest and baddest fireworks I can find. Fourth of July sucks compared to this. Roger, Matt, and I had our driver take us to a stand where we eventually wiped them out for their best fireworks. I'm definitely taking some video footage. Too bad I can't do this back in the Bay Area.

India Day 4: The art of honking

The day I walked out of the airport and into my car I thought my driver had the worst case of road rage cause he would honk that horn every 5 seconds...I'm not kidding every 5 seconds. Well I've been noticing everyone honks their horn every 5 seconds. It turns out that they honk horns not to flip another dude off but to alert a driver infront or next to you that you're with in proximity. So instead of using your turn signals you'd honk your horn before you would merge into another lane.....except there are no lanes. It's just one strip of road and everyone just piles in and plows through narrowly missing other cars, motorcycles, or pedestrians. So if you hear me honking my horn, I'm not flipping you off....I'm just saying hello ;-).

India Day 3: room service

I think these pictures pretty much explains it all :-). I felt lazy one day and had breakfast early in the morning in bed. Then realized I needed clean clothes so I had someone hand wash my clothes and press them. At the end of the night I relaxed back in my room with a nice traditional Indian dish....Damn that was good. I feel like a KING! Don't kings conquer land? hmmmmm...I should conquer some land.

India Day2: The streets of chaos

So this morning as I was going to work it was the first day light I've seen since I've arrived in Chennai, India. I was surprised by how 3rd world it is for a place where large informaiton technology offices are located. Half the roads are still made out of dirt with the shoulders with litter. Houses are made out of brick or straw or little aluminum. Manual labor for construction is common. Actually manual labor for anything is common (they won't even let me server my own food...sorry dudes thats cool and everything to be pampered but I don't like to be dependant on things).

Traffic is worse than NY or LA. It took me an hour for me to go down 10 miles. This is because there's no organization when people drive in the streets. Pedestrians, motorcyclists, buses, cows, dogs, and cars all share the same road cutting each other off. I'm not kidding. I freaked out when a father, son, and daughter riding on the same motorcycle with no helmets cut me off not realizing he could have been hit if my driver wasn't looking. Seems like it's common because all the motorcyclists were cutting everyone off including buses. Now I'm wondering how often are there accidents here?

India: Day 1

So after spending 22 hours flying, eating, sleeping, and having champagne literally shoved down my throat I've finally reached Chennai in the middle of the night.

Apparently they lost one of my suit cases. Someone from Lufthansa was helping me out and said it never got onto my transfer plane on time. Then they handed me 8000 ruppees...I was like what the heck is this for I don't want to sell my luggage. But I guess it turns out since I was in business class they automatically compensate you for your troubles :-). Score!...that's like 150 bucks!.

Next I walked out to be greeted with someone holding my name up. I'm thinking...what are the odds of an Indian named Ricardo Gomez? It turned out to be my own personal driver (score x 2). My Driver tells me he's gonna be my driver for the next month :-). Next he hands me a brand new cell phone to use all around India (score x 3).

I finally arrive to my hotel and it just hit me. How do I tip out here? I usually give taxi drivers a couple of bucks in the US. So I guess taking into account people make a fifth much and gas is still just as expensive AND makes a standard salary....100 ruppees cool? that's like 2 bucks. But damn what are the standards of tipping in India....sooo I found this online:

1) Guy that tries to grab your bag and take it to the car at the airport.
2) Airport pickup/dropoff driver
3) Bellhops taking/placing your bag from/into car
4) Bellhop bringing/takig bag to/from the room
5) Room service delivery person
6) Local run car driver
7) Hotel restaurant/bar waiters
8) Waiters outside hotels

So do y'all tip all of them while in India? How much do you tip them each?

Here's how I do it generally:

With regards to Person:

1 above. Only gets tipped if I ask for the help and he's not pushy. (For those that try to milk me, I have a bunch of old Turkish lira that look good -- a million old Turkish Lira, you know, a big amount :D -- which I give them. They can't even get it converted into two INR. :D ) Never more than 40-50 rupees.
2 above. Never more than 50 rupees.
3 and 4 above. Never more than 50 rupees and only to the person who did the last or biggest delivery step.
5 above. 50 rupees regardless of bill
6 above. 70-100 rupee tip per day for local run driver if he negotiates down things on my behalf but never more than 300-500 rupees per month in total.
7 above. Never more than 100 rupees regardless of tab.
8 above. Restaurant waiters never more than 10% with a cap of 150-200 rupees.
Not tipping has not yielded me any trouble either. There have been some trips where I have not even tipped more than 200 rupees in total on the entire trip and my service the follow-up time was not impacted negatively as far as I could tell.

Damn I did good!

36000 feet in the air and sleep deprivated

I'm on wireless internet in business class 36000 feet in the air. I just can't figure out what day is today and if I'm supposed to be sleeping. In a 14 hour span it's been day,night,day,night....wow....I think I'm seeing little gnomes running around the cabin.

Spinach E. Coli outbreak linked to cow manure

I found this article about Spinach, E. Coli, and cow manure.
I ate some spinache dip today so does that mean I just ate a mouth full of cow manure with a hint of E. Coli? Am I gonna die?

India

So I'm gonna live in India to work for about a month. So I'm thinking I may try to check out the Taj Mahal. This is great since I definitely need a change of pace.

I could never stand being in one place for too long. For example for each year I was in college I lived somewhere different with different roommates. Another example, I have a house but I sleep there half the time (think this is more of a commute issue). But interesting enough I'm happy to have a sleeping bag in the trunk of my car and go visit friends and crash on their couches. I like the comfort to see and be in different environments. I wonder why that is? Maybe I don't like to be confined to boundaries which could explain my phobia of living in the middle of San Francisco. Ehhh traffic, cars, long commutes, too many people, stepping in dog poop, noisy, smells like pee everywhere, bums chasing you down for money. I'm going wayyyy off topic .... done .

So the plan would be to be in Chennai India from October 14 - November 14. From what I understand it's one of India's "silicon valley's" the other being in Bangalore only an hours drive. I'll just make my driver drive me there to at least check out the area ;-). Did I mention a driver? hahah yeah!

To prepare for this trip I had to endure 4 freakn painful shots, spend a day at the Indian consulate in San Francisco to obtain my Visa (minor complications), and spend the majority of time at work in meetings discussing the game plans and progress of the trip.

So what should I bring back from India?