John’s Blog-o-Rama

I’m sitting here in JFK airport waiting to board my flight to London, so I thought I’d try blogging from my phone (so far so good). Anyway, Chu, Sam (Chu’s bro), and I are heading off for a 12 day vacation to Turkey and London. We’re on our way first to Istanbul (through Heathrow) for about 8 days in Turkey, then about 3 days in London on the way back. We’re all really excited for what should be a fun trip. Hopefully I’ll get around to blogging more about it when we get back.

Just read a really good article on cnnmoney.com titled “What it takes to be great”. The article says resarch shows that it’s not natural talent that determines great success, but rather it’s hard work and practice. I don’t think this is anything new, but I would say that the true elements of success are at a higher level: namely passion, desire, and discipline. Of course success takes hard work, but what makes someone do  the work ? It’s really the desire to be great, and the discipline to put in the work to achieve that greatness.

A couple of interesting points from the article:

• The notion of the “ten-year rule”: it takes a minimum of 10 years of practice to achieve world-class status
• Just practicing isn’t enough - it’s “deliberate practice”, or intense practice focused on improvement, that achieves greatness
• Constant feedback is crucial in achieving greatness - measuring performance consistently
• Becoming great at business is possible just like with sports, with the right mindset of practicing regularly and deliberately, with a focus on improvement

I’m heading to Utah tomorrow for 3 days of snowboarding with Andrew and Erika at Brighton, Solitude, and Snowbird, and then 3 days of attendance at the Novell Brainshare conference. I’ll be speaking on Monday at 3:30 on “Server Monitoring and Management with IPMI”, and then attending some sessions and working in the Dell booth the rest of the time. Looks like it’s been snowing all week in Utah, so the snowboarding should be awesome.

March is looking like it will be a really busy but exciting month for me. It all starts off this weekend as I travel to Tahoe for 3 days of snowboarding with friends Andrew and Erika. After I get back, I’ll be in Austin for 10 days until it’s time to head to Salt Lake City for 3 more days of snowboarding (have I mentioned how much I love to snowboard?) as well as attending the Novell Brainshare conference for 4 days. At the conference I’ll be manning the Dell booth and giving a presentation on managing servers with OpenIPMI. On top of that, I’m leading several Linux projects at work, working on the wedding and honeymoon plans, plus all of the early spring yard work that needs to be done. Looking forward to all of it!

Nice blog entry by Thomas Collins (Micah’s dad) on Micah’s chocolatier girlie, Deepika. Girl that loves to cook + guy that loves to eat = recipe for trouble!

As if all the ridiculous whining over the Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas “Hot Coffee” mod wasn’t ridiculous enough (AO rating, ESRB and Senators up in arms), Austrailia has now banned GTA completely. I really don’t get what the big deal is with the modded sex scene that gets people all riled up, especially when there is so much violence and language in the game already. All kids know about sex already…I know I did when I was a kid. Why are conservatives so against any kind of sex in video games? There are way too many blowhards out there with no lives whatsoever if this is what they worry about.

Finally received my luggage, only 4 days late! I had the toughest time this week getting my suitcase transferred here to Bangalore from Chennai. First, I couldn’t find anyone to talk to on Sunday when I arrived, since the BA counter is closed in Chennai, so I had to wait until Monday to talk to anyone. Then it took most of the today to get a response back from British Airways that they had my luggage and would send it. Finally they told me that it would be sent within 48 hours on and Indian Airlines flight, but they didn’t know exactly when. So I waited 2 days and called up yesterday and found that it had finally arrived. So then this morning Charles (co-worker here in Bangalore) took me over to the airport to pick it up. However, they wouldn’t let me into the airport because I didn’t have a lost baggage ticket, so we had to talk to an airport administrator, Indian Airlines managers, and the head of airport security to finally get into the Baggage Services office for Indian Airlines. I was relieved to finally see my suitcase, but then we had to go clear it through customs, which is essentially an X-ray scan. After 2 hours at the airport, I finally had my stuff.

Stomach hasn’t been so good lately…I think it’s all the Indian food. I’ve been trying to eat more “American” food, but even that has its own Indian flare. Hopefully I won’t have this problem for long, but I’m gonna be sick of Indian food for a while.

On the positive side, I’m having a good time getting to know the Dell Linux team here in Bangalore. We’re having some really good discussions on how to improve our testing processes, and I think we’ll really be solid for our next projects. I’m also learning a lot about India, its people, and its history. It’s really interesting to learn the background of why people are the way they are, and this trip is giving me a really good insight into the Indian culture. I definitely need to travel abroad more often.

I made it to Bangalore early this morning after over 24 hours of travel to work with our Dell Linux team for the next 2 weeks. I connected to Chicago, London, Chennai, and then Bangalore, and the flights went pretty well. Flew AA to Chicago and London, British Airways to Chennai, and then Jet Airways to Bangalore. I have to say that I’m EXTREMELY impressed with British Airways and how they treat their customers. The business class seat I had was awesome (full recline, lots of privacy, large selection of entertainment), and it seems like they actually care about your well-being. I will definitely fly them whenever I can in the future.

After getting to India, though, things didn’t go as well. The one suitcase I checked didn’t make it, and I spent all day trying to get ahold of Britsh Airways in Mumbai and Chennai. I’m guessing they were closed since nobody ever answered the phone, Guess I’ll try tomorrow. Unfortunately I don’t have much patience for things like that, so I was upset all day long.

Some first impressions of India:

• I can see why FOB Indians seem like such awful drivers in the US: they’re used to driving in a completely manner from what we do. The main streets here in Bangalore are about 2 lanes wide either way, but nobody pays attention to them. Most cars here are tiny, including LOTS of motorcycles and mopeds all over. People here just weave in and out of traffic whenever/wherever they can, honking and flashing their lights contantly. There is no right of way, other than whomever gets their first has it
• People here are a little pushy and impatient. I don’t know how many people tried it cut in front of me today when I was standing in lines, If you’re not aggressive at trying to keep your place in line, you lose your spot. A lot like the traffic
• Being in a new place so different from the US makes me feel uncomfortable. It’s been a while since I’ve been somewhere this different, so I was a little uneasy today getting around and interacting with people. Luckily most people here speak very good English, so that makes things a lot easier. Hopefully I’ll relax a little as I get used to the place
• After only one day here, I’ve learned to always look like I know where I’m going and what I’m doing. If you look even a little uncertain, the vultures start to swarm over you to take advantage somehow. My main experience with this was at the airport when I first walked out and cabbies were all over me. Luckily I now have the confident look down pat.

Looking forward to meeting all of the guys on the team tomorrow at the Development Center here in Bangalore. More info and pictures to follow soon.

I’m heading out to Big Sky this week for my long-awaited snowboard trip with friends Andrew Bell and Micah Collins. I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard lots of goods things about it from a number of people. The last few years I’ve only been able to get one trip in (the problem with living in Texas), but I should get to go again in a few weeks when I’m in Salt Lake City for the Novell Brainshare conference. Hopefully I’ll have lots of pictures to post on Monday when I get back.

I’ve never been a huge fantasy football fan, but nonetheless I get into it a) because it’s related to football, and b) because I enjoy the competition. But this season has been rough and has really tried my patience. This year I have the best team I’ve ever assembled, and I’m consistently scoring a LOT of points. And yet, due to bad luck, I’m now 4-7-1 and out of the playoffs! This week I put up 99 points, but the guy I’m playing just happened to have Peyton Manning who put up 47 himelf, and ended by beating me by 5. I couldn’t catch a break this year and now I’m done. Maybe I’ll stick to Madden from now on.