DERCOSYST

This may seem like a queer analogy, but I am relishing the similarities of traffic on Interstate 35 and Mumbai traffic. Lately due to the new place of residence the oppurtunity to drive this stretch daily through downtown Austin, Texas presented itself. By no way is it as bad as S.V. road Andheri Station or Borivli Station. But these goras around this redneck paradise rant about the traffic conditions, crawling pace etc etc. Some flex their office times, some take the back roads, some sweat it out in their cars. Recently I had the oppurtunity to ride along with Mr Bob Savicki our departments' technical staff. The poor guy broke in to nervous sweats and chain smoked through the apparent 15 minute ordeal. That reminds me I have to dedicate a post to the exploits of Mr Savicki or more commonly known as the Big Daddy.
Nevertheless I absolutely enjoy weaving in and out of traffic, cutting people off etc. counting the number of times I get flicked off. People are in this little town are too nice for me. The good thing about driving a car compared to a motorcycle is that it encourages human interaction, a smuck smile in return for a middle finger and every other imaginable hand signal. A lady the other day gave me the elephant signal (hands on the ears and tounge sticking out), last time I saw that was in kindergarten. On the contrary on a motorcycle since your face is inside a helmet your only weapon would be a turn around middle finger as the poor shmuck bites the dust. In a way, deep inside me, where the little known sanity within me resides, it thanks the fact that I am not riding this route on a 100 hp crotch rocket.
On a different note I will be leaving for California, San Deigo to be precise, for a few days. It will be a good trip, but there is a catch. Why the fuckin hell is there a catch? Always? It will be time to bid adeiu to RD. It was comforting to have a good friend in close proximity, but hey California is the land of oppurtunities. Lets be glad for the guy.
I am leaving you readers with some homework. Read the article here. The next post will be the nemesis to this article. Do not get me wrong, I have nothing against Americans, most of the American professors around me are freakin genius's. Many of us cannot imagine to live up to the standards set by great American researcher's. Funny as it might seem, the most enlightening experiences in my three years here have been research meeting with these people. The time when imbeciles like me gather our scraps of paper with results on it and approach the almighty's with help in interpreting them. It has been three years but you still learn something every day. Learning to think is difficult!

My advisors needed me to measure this particular value for a sand. It took me around 10 hours of work to get the damn value. This being a well known researched quantity in the oil patch. But nevertheless I had to do it. What were they thinking?
1. I am good with lab experiments, that is why I was hired, definitely not that 'he needs more experience with it.'
2. They repeat in every other meeting that my time is valuable and undergraduate slave services will be provided SOON.
3. A gazillion other undertakings are proceeding simultaneously.
What are the chances that sand that passes through a seive will magically contort into another anamoly.
On the other hand, I have tickets to the Megadeth, Dream Theater, Fear Factory show next Monday.

Very eventful friday I must say. I couldnt do much on thursday due to the meeting the next day with Dr Bryant. With that out of the way, smirnoff and a movie at Mayank's. Mohanji provided us a dal-rice dinner. Friends of Farron, Vasanth and Nena called me during the movie and invited me to go downtown. Thankfully I might add. Invariably in downtown Austin, Texas or more familiarly known as 6th street you run in to a lot of ABCD kids. 6th street to the unkown is a street with around 50 odd bars unifying people with the common goal of getting wasted.
This time it felt nice to be in a group of 20 odd of them, odd because they seemed normal, especially after the FOB/ABCD movie. Thanks to Farron for showing me the other side of brown! What happened next is I wake up the next day with a hangover. I remember people buying shot after shot. Ending the night with a fish pond. A fish pond is literally a gold fish bowl full of alochol. Thanks to some Viet-cong chic who helped me finish the damn behemoth.
Once again thanks to all the people who emailed me the next day. Nirav, Shantanu, Neil, Ramesh, Niraj, Balla, Amey Karnik. Hardik and Ankush who called me. Special thanks to Liying who bought me a CD. Apparently nowadays CD's are HDCD's, damn I had no idea. And ofcourse Okhtay for letting me in to my own apartment Sunday morning, I was locked out the whole night.