Hold on to that nut!

I've been thinking about start-ups a lot these past few days. May be because I took some time off my hamster treadmill to read the story from the yipit guy, Vinicius Vacanti on the grind. May be because yesterday I got an email from Chris about how our app idea about online greetings from a year ago was on the big Apple event yesterday. May be because my driver when I was in Brazil told me that I work too much that I have no time to make money. Oh since I posted last, I got married, changed jobs, moved cities, in Mobile, AL now. Why Mobile, AL is a question I cannot answer. But not for long....I think.

Yep, first post from Motown. Another intercontinental move and a week later, here's a couple of videos I dug out of youtube on my new Stadt. They are pretty lame, but me got no energy for a proper post. Later this week,

SCENE: Last week, Tuesday morning, at the coffee lounge, workplace, somewhere in Duisburg, DE

Collegue: "So how was your visit?"
ME: "Er, he was a rather young guy, Korean, but he did have some good advice for me"
Colleague : "Scrat, stop it, darn, you are beginning to sound like a German"
ME: "Aw, shit yes.. sorry!!....he was a nice guy...appeared knowledgeable...and gave me some good medicine"

That was exactly what happened. My skin goes bonkers everytime things turn a bit cold. And the past couple of weeks, it's been just more rain and summer's slowly slinkin away..I have had this "skin-cold" enmity for as long as I remember..And I am talking about growing up in South India here...people actually like the winter that lasts for may be 22 days there....And my skin couldnt take that...Anyways the gist of the story is that I got a recommendation from a colleague about a particular clinic here in Duisburg...Overall was a good experience, nice doc and all that, gave me sensible recommendations and I walked out happy.....

Turns out this colleague hadnt been to this clinic......had heard about this doctor from someone else and was just using me as a lab rat.....yeah and like we want from any good lab rat he wanted feedback on how the trip to the doc was!......

And that was how the conversation went...every bit of it.....If you did not notice, please pay attention to the fact that I opened the conversation with a condescending view on the doctor's age and made a comment on his ethnicity, before turning to actually answer the question. That is probably taking things a bit too extreme, but I seriously feel the bias against youth here in Germany. Any introduction typically starts as "Name, X jahriger". It is the culture here and I can bring myself ( if I try very hard, to temporarily) accept it, but I havent seen age so obviously stated in other cultures I have worked/spent time with.

I mean I am friggin 29 years old...I am considered old in Eastern countries.....mature enough in the Americas....but no in Germany, dismissed as a 'Junge'...And this condescending view of youth permeates into every pore of the society....a 45 year old guy in Senior management ( Vice President/ Director levels) is considered a freak occurence ( a guy who was extremely lucky and was very guileful)....

Another thing is ethnicity and I am not going to make any jokes about this....I am not judging it as good or bad.....But the time I have spent in Germany has made me much more conscious of who I am....make no mistake.....the crowd( German and otherwise) I hang out with is like me.....we'd have the same lifestyle...eat the same food...listen to the same music.....discuss the same things... wherever we are...Bangalore, Phoenix, Berlin, Shanghai or Dusseldorf.....but maybe, just maybe, that I choose only such people into my 'crowd'.....All I am saying is that the space to make that choice is not so wide here....

Like probably gazillions of expats before me, I am doing a surprise trip to India this weekend. Cliché though it may sound, it is indeed a bit exciting and something to look forward too. My folks dont know yet, except for my brother who I've informed and is flying in the same weekend ( No silly sentiments of a family get-together, just to ensure that my parents are at home!). Plan to call them up just before my connection flight inside India and ask them what's cooking for lunch!

And yahoo!!, hopefully I'll be catching up all the summer I missed in D'land (actually the last couple of days haven't been too bad, someone's been reading my posts!). Before you get the 'you lucky bastard!' going, let me tell you, I'm gone for only a week or so! But yeah, it was a sudden decision , made on Wed morning and after a few miracles later (not least of which is a boss who granted me leave from his vacation island, boy, you gotta love those Blackberry thingies!!), I am all set. Doing Emirates for the first time, without the obligatory long stop in Dubai (I think I figured out how to avoid the long lay-over, let me confirm things before I post it!!). Just gonna hang out, no visits or trips this time. C'mon scrat, it's time get that nut roasted!!

That is how my Yahoo weather widget looks for Duisburg for the past few weeks. Ignore all the dramatic lightning streaks and notice Monday, thats how the past few weeks have been. Dont be fooled by the sun peeking out on other days, the cloud cover is just a CYA for the meteorologists I guess. Because its a live update, those sunny pictures can and do infact become sheets of rain in few min. Summer this year has been quite a disappointment so far, Berlin was much better last year. Actually I dont know what to wish for, being in Germany. Wishing for the sun would be a typical European thing to do, just that I dont have air conditioning systems here. Wait a min, make that 'I' a 'We'. Yes, Europe as a rule doesnt seem to have ac's , funny considering they have had a recent history of warm summers. I had one warm summer last year in Berlin in a cramped up apartment and this year, lo, i got my ventilator ( pedestal fan for folks from India) much before the summer began. Why an entire continent would not learn from experience is puzzling!

From my tiny fans to yahoo widgets to forecasts, weather's big business if you did not know, GE ( 3 ways with Bain and Blackstone if you are from B School, go analyze that) just bought the weather channel for $3.5 billion hoping to use the eyeballs from the website to drive the price of its broadcasting assets when stuff is ( rumored) to go on sale later this year. Read some more details here.

Still remember the days when I used to tease a friend in Bangalore for watching out for the weather forecast for the day before leaving for work. Funny how the widgets are changing my world. They certainly have made it lousier by telling me about how miserable the weather tomorrow and the day after is gonna be!

One of the forums I am on is doing a list of stats on things various members have done over the past decade...readin' thru sure scared the hell out of me...man...got me thinking about my last decade....darn....gettin old....here's the list....

• 1 - Number of hobbies - cooking, enough said
• 2 - Number of times graduated, engineering and mba, both times promised myself never again
• 3 - Number of serious relationships fallen in and out of in the past decade, mainly my fault
• 4 - Number of close friends whom I can call up anytime and ask anything, funny enough all in the last decade and most from CIT
• 5 -Number of times I actually planned and did something, considering its 10 years, thats a lot by my standards
• 6 -Number of great bosses I have had, actually I have had only 7 direct bosses in my entire working life, so I gues I have been a bit lucky
• 7 - Number of countries I have actually spent more than a day in ( and so can expertly comment on)

The rest just doesnt flow on or is not important enough, but not to forget the countless moments of cluelessness, the innumerable days spent wallowing in my bed and the infinite number of times I have told myself to get myself into shape.

Phew, that brought in a lot of memories ( like the red horse dangling from the key chain of a lady professor...if you are from CIT's computer science engineering class of '97....u know what I am talking about)

EDIT: For those of you who pointed out that the topic has a typo, thanks, but 'oder' is German for 'or' and is frequently added to the end of a sentence as an Inquisitive Conjunction for confirmation. I dont get older!( hee!)

This is old news, but for all those who did not know...Here's Duisburg...Well, its sorta a take on how awesomely pathetic Duisburg is.....


duisburgbunny has done this before and has a great translation for all those who nicht verstehe Deutsch here!

Yes, if you see a funny bird logo behind the guy in the video, thats the city's mascot ( well sorta, its in the pedestrian zone of the City center) called the Lifesaver.... I personally think its a bird man doing a fat woman!