All posts by johncohn

Thursday night – in my prime

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Happy birthday to me. !. I’m a prime number again (53 ! )   .many folks think I’m older/// but i rationalize it this way.. if I can’t act mature.. at least I can look mature 🙂 .  I’m very happy to be this age. I love many people and feel loved in return. Can’t ask for more than that.. !  Here I am about 52 years ago.. hey.. I’m still smiling !!!

I’m celebrating the first birthday I can ever remember away from home. I miss my family.. both talked to Diane and the boys today.. and heard from lots of freinds from all over the place  (Thanks !!!) . It helps that I’m in a very cool place. I’m at a work meeting in Goa on the western coast of India.. I spent the day with a group of about 40 folks from my company..Some I know.. some I’ haven’t seen in years and some I’ve never met.. We had some really good technical discussions.. Then we met some very cool folks from another company for dinner. It is really fun and fascinating talking to folks from a completely different work culture..These guys are very smart and aggressive and are growing fast. I had some great conversations comparing and contrasting our two companies’  philosophy’s  and cultures. There are many, many areas of common ground.We’re going to be all working together for the next couple of days here and I’m really looking forward to it.

 

I’m also looking forward to another long run on the beautiful beach behind the hotel. This place is famous for it’s unspoiled beeches. In the 70s it was a major world-wide hippy hangout. I read a pretty interesting book on that a few years back called ‘Goa Freaks’ Being here I can certainly see the appeal of moving here and just hanging out.. It’s a paradise.

I placed a coupe of SamStones on the beach.. I always feel Sam .. I feel him even more strongly on  Birthdays , hand holidays. I guess that’s natural.. but.. it’s so hard sometimes..

Hey yoganauts.. can you read this guys shirt ?

I came back to my room just as a beautiful slice of chocolate cake was arriving to my room.. complete with candles and a knife wrapped with ribbon. It turns out that this nice lady at the hotel desk happened to notice that today was my birthday when she saw my passport at check-in this morning.. How nice is that ? Not only that but one of the servers at dinner brought me a happy birthday veggie finger food plate after some guys sang happy birthday.. But wait.. there’s even more..

New friend Monica brought me a vintage Univac discreet transistor logic board from her husbands collection as a birthday present


I just called Diane again and she helped me eat my cake .. she sang happy birthday as I blew out the candles.. A virtual birthday party. Nice way to end the day

 

OK.. lots of interesting stuff comng up these next two days .. and I only have had 3 and a half  hours sleep in the last 24.. so I’m  goign to sign off. Thanka again for all the good wishes today.. it means so much to me.. !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Wednesday night – EGL

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Greetings from Bangalore.. gotta make this short. I need to leave for the airport before 4AM.. Great and busy day.. my head is swimming with all the things I learned.  I saw so many freinds and met so many cool new people. I’m really energized by the technical progress the team here has made in the past few years. I can’t go in to details here.. but the energy, creativity  and skills here are so impressive (and humbling).

 

Anyway.. a few pics from the day..  My day began trying to figure out what to do about the pint of maple syrup that blew up in my luggage.. All of my clothes had a sweet glaze .. I had to send them out for laundry

I woke early to have breakfast with freind Shridhar at 7 Am.. it was great catching up with him.. He came with me in my taxi to EGL which gave us extra time to catch up.

Here’s trusty Kumar negotiating the Bangalore traffic while Shridhar and i had our meeting.. I’m glad he’s driving.. not me !

Still sacred cows on the road.. but I notice far fewer on this visit then in my previous 6 visits here.. wonder why ?

My day (and entire visit) was masterfully orchestrated by my good friend Govind. He told me where to be.. what to say.. when to eat,   THere was not a spare second in the day.. he even arraigned for me to meet a few freinds as I moved between meetings. He’re my old freind Geeta .. she showed me pictures of her beitiful 18 month old.

The day ended with a great tour by Pushpin.. .. I managed to bring two other friends along.. My buddy Vish.. who’s now the CTO here.. and my freind Shankar.. who lives in Chennai. but happened to be in town.. Great seeing all of them..

Vish and I had a quick dinner.. then I came back.. hopeign to ge right to sleep..

Unfortunately.. I started reading email.. gotta sign off now !

Nite all, nite sam

-me

ps.

Hey.. tomorrow’s my birthday !

Tuesday night – Munyata

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Long, busy and fun day… I woke at 7 refreshed and pretty much feeling on time zone.. After a quick breakfast I met my driver and new freind Kumar for the ride to IBM Munyata.   He’s a good guy ..quiet.. and a good tourguide

I loved the rush and chaos of Bangalore traffic .. though I confess the novelty probably would wear off pretty soon.

I managed to snap this picture of a building label that  I keep seeing “National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Insects”  The NBOAII likely sits in front fo the NBOAUI “National Bureau of Agriculturally Unimportant Insects”

Got to IBM in short order. This line of people I’m told.. is new hires.. There’s a line like this most days.. WoW !

I took the stairs.. good thing I’d finished my coffee

I gave a talk for a bunch of people today.. many by phone.. not sure the message came across, but I so enjoyed doing it. I ran into several freinds including my doppleganner patent buddy.

then a quick lunch with freind Rajesh (Dosas !)

Then a bunch of really great meetings with the teams here in India.. They are doins amazing things here. It’s so cool to see how much the team has grown and developed over the 8 or so years Ive been visiting. Simply remarkable..

 

We had an early dinner with freinds at a Rajastani Tali place.. they kept bringing cool bowls of stuff.. each dip or spoon was a surprise.. would it be sweet ? savory ? spicy ? Weird ? .. I had a little of each (sweet spicy, savory, weird) ..overall very. very tasty.  they are not giving me hot enough spices.. must seek some out ..

Coincidentally, my very good freind Wolfgang from Texas was also in town with new freind Mindy and several very nice guys I haden’t met from IBM Boebligen Germany

The Tali place had no beer so afterwads we corssed the street to another restaurant and had a beer together.. note that Indian Beer floresces green with an ultrovilet laser.. just like tequilla.. whats with that ?

Another good round of conversations. Wofgang and I talked about our kids .. and the difficultyof being a gen y-er in these times.. very good catching up with him . Also great catching up with old friend Murali..and hearing about his recent wedding (congrats )  he was kind enough to give me a ride back to my hotel

Now I jst gotta sleep.. More from EGL tomorrow !

nite all, nite Sam

-me

Monday night – boiled beans

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It’s so nice being back in Bangalore.. not much has changed Well.. one thing that has changed is that I see the more use of the new/old spelling of the city which is Bangaluru which means “boiled beans”. Wouldn’t it be cool to live in a place called boiled beans. ? ( I spoke to a women in my new department who lives in Oatmeal, TX)

So.. all in all it’s been a great trip so far though it got off to a bit of a rocky start. I got in an hour late this morning (4AM).. and my bag didn’t make it. This nice guy helped me locate the bag.. which was still in Abu Dhabi.. He did notice that Thursday was my birthday and wished me a happy birthday. He was helpful and happy at 5AM.. I love the people here. !

 

here’s me in the cab..  at 5:30 am.. I got to the hotel and caught 4 hours of sleep.. t

then my ride picked me up and drove through the colorful chaos of Bangluru   ..

After a great afternoon of work.. seeing many freinds, My buddy Govind and I had dinner at one of the Hotel’s restaurants.. A South Indian place I’ve eaten in several times.. it was very tasty.. we ate on banana leaves just like we did at Chandu’s sister’s house warming a few years back.

We ate these cool rice flour pancakes.. appam .. I think they’re called

There was live music at the restaurant.. very nice place !

After dinner we had pan.. it’s a betel leaf surrounding cut up betel nut, spices and lime (not as in citrus as in calcium oxide) .. good for digestion.. and wonderful disgusting to eat.. i love it

Govind went home around 9.. I walked him out.. here’s my hotel by dark

 

 

 

Now jet lag is seeping in.. I’ll end here for the night

more tomorrow

nite all, nite sam

-me