Lemony Snicket's and the Fighting Irish

Last week was mostly spent at a conference at the University of Notre Dame. This University is in a place called South Bend in Indiana and the best way to reach it is to fly to Chicago and drive 2 hours from there on three or four different freeways. 

My first stumble was with United Airlines. They were 45 mintues late. Apparently they were waiting for the incoming aircraft. No sorry. No apologies. 5 minutes before boarding time, they pushed it out 45 minutes.

My plan was to drive from O'Hare airport to my sister who lives 20 minutes from the airport, get some rest and start driving first thing in the morning. The flight which is supposed to land at 10:15 in the night, lands at 10:50 and the pilot announces "There seems to be a traffic jam at the gate with three planes stuck in our area. So this will be a few minutes". After doing three rounds around terminal C, he finally gets us in. It is 11:10! Traffic jam in an airport?! Experiencing this for the first time after so many years of flying. 

Raced out of the gate to find the Budget Car rental, only to realize the one has to catch a Budget bus that takes you offsite and then you get your car. The Budget bus guy circled the airport twice to fill up the bus before deciding to exit and there is a jam at the airport! It takes him 20 minutes just to get to the office outside the airport somewhere.

Then the fun begins. I am 15th in line and there are a whole bunch of simply frustrated people standing in line in this middle of nowhere place. The guy in front of me says he has already been in line for 35 mintues. Apparently the new cars that were being returned were not automatically showing up on the computer. So after doing paperwork, the guys at the counter were manually going out to the lot, assigning a car to the contract and sending the customer on their way, a process that took 10-12 mintues per customer. 

There was no sorry, no apologies from the counter folks. "If you want a car you can wait for however long it takes. Your other option is to call corporate and get a refund." is what this guy told a very frustrated lady with two small toddlers.

I watched helplessly, as a few other angry folks in the line moved over to Avis, which was the only other counter in that area. To their credit, they were in and out in 15 minutes.  Before you know it, the Avis line was full and by now I had already waited an hour!

My sister has almost given up on seeing me that night and she texts me to say "just call us when you get to the parking lot". Finally got a car assigned to me at 12:55 AM after a sudden improvement in the counter speed for the last four customers in front of me. Made it to my sisters place at 1:20 in the night. We chatted for a few minutes and my sister said "I will get up in the morning and make you some breakfast!". I almost teared up. It was already 1:45 in the morning. 

So set the alarm for 5:30 and my sister is already up making me idli's for the on road breakfast (and lunch) and she has packed me some stuff for dinner and the next days breakfast given my allergy history. In short enough to cover me till the return trip through her house to O'hare!

Gladly took all the food and started driving over to Indiana. Then came sequel to Lemony..

Google maps put the time at 1 hour 55 minutes and gave me nice directions. So given that, and the fact that it was raining like crazy to the point that using the windshield viper at max was still useless, drove at a steady pace. Just 10 minutes before I got to the exit for Notre Dame, got a rude shock! The time jumped an hour from Central to Eastern time! Almost cried. Why would any state have some counties on different time zones?! Why?!

Unlike flight timings where they tell you the arrival time with the local time in mind, Google Maps is not smart enough to tell you that when you arrive at your destination you will lose an extra hour.  Luckily there was enough time for me to go do the formalities there. 

There was a short break from all this angst when spending time on the campus. What a beautiful campus! Apparently, it was the day they showed all the new kids a tour of the football stadium. Thousands of kids all wearing green "Fighting Irish" T-shirts crossed the roads as the few conference goers waited patiently to find their parking lots.

Checked in later that evening into the Inn at Saint Mary's. Given that this place is in the middle of nowhere, this hotel was awesome! The best room I have had a chance to stay in to date on any business trip. For 100 bucks (with a discount for being part of the conference) I got a room with a Jacuzzi! 

When it was time to come back stopped by my sister's place again. My Chai buddy who still lives in Fermi Lab after all these years showed up and we caught up. It is amazing how you can catch up on 3 years in 30 minutes with friends.

When it was time to leave, United did it again. Boarded early morning in Chicago and they pushed the time of the flight by 40 mintues, shortly after boarding. The announcement was brief :

"There is fog in San Francisco and that is causing delays in air traffic control. So the flight is delayed, ONLY by 40 minutes. We might make up some time in the air. Thank you". 

No apologies. No sorry. Nothing. The old lady next to me said "ONLY by 40 minutes. See, they know we all cooped up here like rats and we got nowhere else to go! That it why she takes that tone".

We discussed in bullet points, how:

- SFO being two hours behind will almost always have a pre dawn fog

- by the time our flight gets to SFO 4 hours later, the fog should be gone

- what a pathetic excuse etc. etc. 

Somehow the talking moves to how often I travel and we get to "how is traveling in India"!

I told her about an India trip two years ago, when our flight got cancelled and we were offered seats on a competitor airlines flight to the same destination at no charge. She went "What?!" and I said "Yes. There is competition now in India and customer service is getting better because they know if they do that, the folks will remember what they did and come back!" and now we have gone from "We are extremely sorry that the flight is delayed by 10 minutes" just a decade ago to "It is ONLY 40 minutes delay".  

We both agreed that we live in interesting times. 

Finally made it back home to kids who rushed into my arms. Lemony Sicket's was over!

Both United and Budget car rental want feedback on my user experience as of yesterday. It should be fun giving them radio button answers on a scale of 1 to 10, not that I think it will make a difference!

Life is an adventure. Get to go to new places, meet a lot of new people, experience different things that improve  understanding of the surroundings and open my eyes to the world and if I am lucky enough to keep traveling, see changes and patterns. 

This was one interesting trip!

Make vadaams when the sun shines..

It has been hot outside. Temps are topping 100F. 

We have been staying indoors for the most part and enjoying the cool dark house with Kulfi's etc. 

When you get this kind of sun, it would be criminal not to use it wisely. Was reminded of my grandma yesterday and how she would make us watch the Vadaams in the backyard. She would boldly go into the project knowing that she had excellent security guards in me and my brother to ward off the crows, sparrows and squirrels.

This morning we made Vadaams.. 

So far so good. My little security guards are not taking as much interest in holding a stick and chasing away squirrels, bunnies and blue jays! So we have a new approach thanks to an idea from the MIL.

A disney Simba is watching over the vadams.

So far he has been good. The birds are on the trees but have not dared to venture down. We will let everyone know in a week how the vadams turn out!

Name-onic..

If you have a name that is not so common in the country you live in and anything more than a Jack or John is given up as "too complicated", you tend to start giving folks a mnemonic just so they can get your name right.. at least the spelling part!

This moring there was a yoga teacher who taught class. Apparently she has been teaching at BYSJ for a few months but this was my second time attending her class. Asked her for her name after class and she said "what is your name?"

So I gave her the mnemonic "It is Sundar. Sunday with an R" and she smiled. The real issue is that most of the folks who are told "Sunday with an R",  forget the R part and call me Sunday which is worse!  

Flashback to the early nineties..

Having spent precious rupees just spelling out SUNDARARAMAN NARAYANAN to various university admins to find out that they cannot find my file or GRE or TOEFL scores and going over the name over and over again, a strategy was deviced.

Had gotten tired of making AT&T richer and my parents poorer by the day..

Thanks to one of those admins who recomemnded she asked me to spell my name on the ISD call with a word for each letter. She had asked me "N as in Nancy or M as in Mary?" and I went "Voila! that is it. I can now spell my name to these folks who are unfamiliar with long names and get it right the first time!"

Still remember talking to Judy Trachtman who was our Admin head at Drexel shortly before I came to the USA for the first time to check on something about my I-20.. She goes "Spell your name for me kid!" and I go "Sugar Uncle Navy Dates Alpha Rainbow..." and she just started laughing and said "Oh my. You are special. What a colorful picture we paint!" Will always cherish conversations with Judy.. again, I am digressing.. 

Coming back to the name.. Sundararaman was too complicated for anyone. So came down to Sundar and my thesis advisor asked me "Can I just call you Sun?" and my jaw dropped. Not because of the additional 50% discount that was being asked of my name that had already been cut in half... but because there was a Chinese dude by the same name in the department roster! 

That is when I came up with "My name is Sundar. Sunday with a Rainbow at the end!" 

The ones that do get it right based on that mnemonic say it "Sondaar" which is as close to it as they will ever get. The short sound for the u and the a?

Have given up on it, a long time ago!

You should hear Jr. and the little one introduce me to non-desis.. they introduce me as "my dad soondaar!" 

I laugh on the outside...

Brevity and me?!

Four years ago, when Twitter was just picking up, yours truly did sign up and was even flattered by the following..

Then did a little clean up and never went into twitter. 

Why?

Composing those 140 character Haiku's was getting to be a challenge for a guy who probably holds the Guiness record for the longest run on sentence ever written in a blog, like this one for example...

Recently though, life has been very busy. Watching Bill Clinton in the Colbert report talking about Tweeting got me to take a second look at that account and I am hooked. 

BTW, my twitter login is NOT sundar72

It is sundar_72

Someone beat me to sundar72 inspite of me staking that login on every new thing that became big.. Really hope that folks who start new things make you login using your google or facebook login id. Otherwise it creates some mass confusion people!  sundar72 @aol @yahoo @gmail @quora @facebook etc. etc. 

but sundar_72 on Twitter.... and for some strange reason Monster.com! 

One advantage of having your own website is being able to put your Twitter feed as a Page in the site..

There is this Travelog and then there is the Traveltwig.. 

Now we have a place for run on sentences and chopped up sentences..

Yay!!

When the time comes..

A few days ago, was going through a horrible time with the nose bleeds and all the other symptoms that come with an allergy attack. Thanks to all the cotton type stuff floating around in the air, a bee that decided to sting my leg and the temperature fluctuations in general. 

It was impossible to sleep with all the pain and I definitely did not want to go and get yet another prescription for Amoxycilin 500 and go through a cycle of switching sinus problems to stomach problems which is usually followed by a week long diet of only rice and yogurt to bring back the good bacteria in my stomach. Normally would go do Yoga just when the nose starts getting blocked and things would get back on track.

This time it was past that point and had to suffer through it. With all that pain, was trying the many tricks to just get to sleep. First it was patting myself on the back just like my mother used to do when same thing used to happen as a kid. That didn't work. 

Then suddenly out of the blue, was reminded of a song that my father used to play on a Philips Gramaphone record player to put me to sleep.. did a search on youtube and found one instance of the exact same song by M.S. Subbulakshmi and voila, was dozing off. What a divine voice! Even for someone who did not understand the words as a kid, the imploring voice always used to put me to sleep and calm me down!

Have been listening to this song a few times in the last week just reminiscing about the sound of that player and the needle moving slowly towards the center of the black disk in the glow of the night light when we were little kids. 

I am soo going to go buy a turntable and see if my dad still has those records in the attic and play them for Jr. and the little one!

Yesterday there was a weird dream. I am in bed dying. For some strange reason, everyone is around me and they know I have very little time, but there is a struggle and I am having difficulty letting go.. Then my sister, Jr. and the little one all sing this song in chorus and I let go and die. It was one of those dreams that actually made me sweat and sit up in bed! Funny thing was that I am older but all of them look the way they do today!

It was  a dream.. so whatever! Played that song for the kids today and said "if someday I am lying on my death bed, please sing this song for me and will leave this planet a happy man!" The kids got all pissed off for my mentioning death beds and said "we will never ever sing this song". 

Now I have my work cut out for me..