Italy and France and the week of 25th Feb

Hi,
Sorry No photos this edition, Hope to do that when back home.
Its been ages I had posted the info in Website. As I am sitting in the Los Angeles, Airport, British Airways Lounge waiting for the flight to take back to Bangalore, I thought I would put my thoughts thro the public computer.

Well, I had a great visit to Italy and France in the last week of January. I had been to Atessa, which is 300 Kms from Rome. The food, people were great, so was the passion for football. I also had a great time visiting Rome went thro Colosseum, Ancient ruins, Italian Parliament. I was very fortunate to have the company of Lio, the Guy who picked me all the way to Atessa and back to Rome. Lio was a Italian Canadian with a fluent English. So he was able to tell all the things about Italy. The Bread and Olive Oil are out of the world and I was drinking it in Mini cups soaking it with Bread.

France too was Fantastic, The weather yes at -5 deg was something new. But I got adjusted. The drive from Luxembourg to Epinal in France of 300 Kms was so straight, that if you shoot an arrow it would reach Epinal. I also a good tour of the city and food was reasonable.

The week of Feb 25th was great, I brought my Daughter to the USA for a 2 week Scholarship. She had received this sponsored by Honeywell. (www.presidentialclassroom.org)
She had been to so many places in Washington, DC and met people like Buzz Aldrin, Senators etc. She learned a lot. There were 160 students from Age 14- 18, she was kind of the youngest.
This week also I got in touch with my cousin Dhuruvan, after 27 years, and he met my daughter in DC. I also got in touch with my classmate after 24 years over phone and plan to be the focal point. We studied together in Madurai. I also a good meeting professionally, the purpose for which I came to LA as well as had quick tour with walk on the Redando and Hermosa beaches.

So take care, Will post Photos and other thoughts soon. As I got to leave the Business lounge for security Check. The LAX airport is also a theme for the song, "LA International Airport" which I use to hum in College days.
Take care and Stay healthy.

Bye
Karthik.

The Big Brother

I am in Guangzhou, China this week for 2 weeks on Business travel. I am very excited to be here in this great country which has culture, value and civilisation that is as old as India.No wonder they are the big brother of India.

Guangzhou is in the southeast China and is about 100 Miles north of Hongkong. This is a city with a population of 5 Million. The first impression is China is Huge and the infrastructure is vast. The roads are well developed for transportation. After seeing quiet places in West, it was fun to see people busting on the roads in 1000s. You feel you are in Bombay or Bangalore. The traffic is chaotic, there are 3 to 4 people traveling on 2 wheeler and the bus conductors screaming for passengers / working out negotiations reminds you of the Indian street scenes.

Yes, English is a big issue in streets and even in a big city like Guangzhou is no exception. You struggle to communicate what do you want. In my case being a vegetarian, its a nightmare. Anyway the experience to be in the land of Confucius is great.

Hitting 190 KMPH

Just to let you know that the proverbial Wolf caught up with me after 12 years of international travel, I am talking about the Luggage lost in Transit in international travel.

This happened at Frankfurt airport on the transit via London. My only checked Bag was not loaded in the BA flight to Frankfurt, Sunday.

With all the hand baggage restriction, you can imagine that I didn't carry anything other than Laptop (that too charger was in the checked baggage to reduce weight, you are allowed only 7 Kgs), So it was a hell of a time over the last 48 Hrs.

That's life is it not. Fortunately I managed to buy all the spares that are needed to sustain self in Neunkirchen (closer to France) and yes the positive was a great shopping experience for all your needs and this was done in an Hour. My German colleagues were very helpful all throughout. I think British Airways also did a great job, I tracked the progress thro their website.

Some learning I guess.Let me see how I prepare a better Plan B for future travel.

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I also had a very good 2 weeks trip in Germany, I spent the weekend in Frankfurt and it has changed a lot in 12years since I last visited. I also had a chance to travel on the Autobahn from Frankfurt to Hamburg and the distance of 512 Km was done in 4 Hr flat. At some places we hit 190 Kmph as there are no legal speed limits (See photo) That was fantastic experience. The car I traveled with my Colleague had also Global Positioning System (GPS) which just directs you where you want to go.(You just select destination), Its amazing where technology is going.

This trip was also a good learning for me as it gave broader safety perspective in to German legislation, requirements etc.

Take care and have a great great time and looking forward to Holidays.

Regards

Karthik.

Completed MBA, Bucharest et al.

I hope all had a good festive time.

I am delighted to inform that I had completed the MBA-HR course of IGNOU. It took 3 years, 6 semesters and 19 papers. (1 paper in the second attempt, which delayed the results by a year, Never had a clue as to how I missed the papers, almost all folks who attempted the paper in HR during Dec 2004, had to reappear and complete. I think this was great and I had lot of learning. I now had to complete the project work which I am doing on corporate social responsibility. I expect to hit the steam soon.

OK, Now to my Bucharest visit. I had a great time in Bucharest. Romania is an upcoming nation like India. The situation is no different with the growth. The only difference is unemployment is practically zero and so they are looking at Romanians from outside the country, (Romania is smaller than greater Bombay with 20 Million people, Bucharest is 2 Million) mostly in Spain etc to come back and build the nation. The traffic jams and disorderliness reminds you of Bombay. The accent people speak reminds you of the James Bond movie (Russia with love etc). The hotel Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel was very good.

I hope you are also aware that Dracula has its origin from Romania, so its also called the land of Dracula.

The great thing that attracted me to Bucharest are the Architecture, Bucharest has the world's second largest building which now houses the Romanian Parliament. There are many beautiful buildings. It appears, Nikolai Ceausescu, who ruled Romania in communist times from 1965 to 1989, built and showed many great things to Romanians how great things can be, showed people what better things are and never allowed them to enjoy it.

Of course, one of the other thing of striking nature was the prettiness of the women in Romania. I usually never bothered about that anywhere else to take notice, But this was a striking nature in them. I think there is something that is different and comes close to Indian beauty, I guess. Needless to say, I shared this with my wife as the first email from Romania and to few women friends I have, so the issue is settled I guess.

I had also chance to meet my classmate Krishnan, in New Jersy after 5 years, we met for the second time in the US the first one in 2001 after 18 years. I plan to find the rest of the guys of our college and lets see how it goes. We did our graduation in TCE, Madurai. Pl find the photo with his family taken in Morris town, NJ.

I am reading the book "Execution, the discipline of getting things done" by Larry Bossidy, the ex- chairman of Honeywell. Larry turned the company around. If you want to know about the Honeywell culture, that's the best book to read.

Take care and catch up with you soon

Karthik.

Liverpool

I thought I will do this Blog with the color of the Mersey Derby the football teams of the city, Liverpool and Everton.

So I got a chance to visit the Historic city, which is an hour drive from Preston and went around the city. The Albert dock which is one of the biggest port docks I had even seen extending miles and miles. The Liverpool skyline looks very Victorian the architecture very unique.

I had chance to stand on the banks of the Mersey river which meets in to the Atlantic on the coast of Liverpool.

The biggest moment was the 2 hrs I spent at the Beatles museum, I am sure many of you know that Liverpool is the birth place of Paul, John. It was great going thro the metamorphosis of the group. It was an emotional experience. Especially the last segment with John's Solo career where the song "Imagine" plays out. It is difficult to control your emotions.

This week travel and all the enjoyment was possible to the fantastic effort by my boss Anthony Wareham (He is based out of Manchester). Anthony and Kate took their time off from their busy and Hectic schedule, to take me to football, dinner, lunch as well as to Liverpool. Thanks to them, this was one of the most memorable weekends. It is a dodgy thing to push a weekend in business tour, this one was very different.

PL find the photos of the Mersey River, Albert dock and Beatles Museum.

Have a great week ahead.

English Football League

Today I had a chance to come to terms with the English football league. I had been to a I division English league match between Preston North end vs Sunderland. Preston is the place I stay and so I was in the home team fan club. I sat on the top grand stand view and was in the crowd of 20,000 people for this sold out match. The atmosphere was electric and something fantastic, after seeing cricket crowd in India, I should say this is different, with all the comments etc that come from the stands. It was a great experience to see live about English football over which you hear about Radio and TV of late now.

Preston won 4-1 for the records so there were plenty of goals.

I also visited the national football museum in Preston, This team was one of the premier founder of English football league in 1888, so has lot of historical significance and contributed a lot, It was great to see all the world cup action snap shots, as well as to hear about my English favourites like Linekar, Gascoigne, Cantana, etc etc and see the actions in replay in this huge museum.

I also bumped in to former Manchester United captain and Irish football player Roy Keane, Couldn't get his autograph though. So it was a good time and the 4 hrs went just like that.

Pl find some of the snaps.

Things are going great, I had a good time in USA and I look forward to my Romania visit. I am learning a lot here, and the scale of operations are huge to say the least.

I am reading Tipping point by Malcom Gladwell, Will comment about that book soon.

Take care

Karthik.

Mozilla Firefox

Snap 2.

This was a memorable snap, this was all done with team work at Monsanto Bellary site(The first site I assumed charge in 1999-2000,great team and caring people- ofcourse the travel to that place is another story) the date 5-5-06, is significant as that was the date I put in my papers. My mother and Daughter are in the background.

Snap 1, This was an unexpected pleasant surprise from Monsanto, this came to me after a month of my departure all the way from Australia. I was overwhelmed by this gesture I must say. This was all possible due to team efforts at Monsanto.

Take care
Karthik.