Gotta Dance

I drove north to attend a 3 year old's dance recital and a 20 something's graduation picnic, and to spend time with most of my family. What a great feeling to drive that 400 miles to Berkeley after sitting in the passenger seat for 11 weeks. For some reason, the traffic seemed much lighter than usual.







We attended Maggie's recital first. We sat through 3 pages of dances. The many girls and 4 boys were cute. Nobody knew how to dance. Well, maybe a couple. They were fun to watch. The choreography, done by the adults of course, was the most interesting thing to see. Lots of hip waggling and lying on the floor waggling feet. What would I have done with several novices? Probably nothing too different. Our little dancer had a ball. She didn't care how she did. She had a cute little costume and an opportunity to strut her stuff in front of an adoring crowd. The crowd was adoring their own little darlings, but that didn't seem to make a difference. We met on the lawn outside the auditorium. Karen, Peter and I got a moment to appreciate our little dancer. Then Natalie and Kevin got their turn. Maggie is in love with bouquets. This event was made for her.


After a brief stop at Kevin and Natalie's, we went to a picnic celebrating Cathie's impending graduation. She has earned her Master's degree in Marriage and Family Counseling. As my many friends with this degree know, this is just the beginning. There are lots of hours to put in to reach her final reward. Cathie is a very hard working woman. I think she will thrive with this challenge. She is off to Mexico next to work on her Spanish for a month. Another challenge that she will probably ace. Her brothers and their wives were there. Jeff and Sandi and Sandi's sister and brother-in-law came up from San Diego. And masses of Cathie's friends. It was good to see all these folks honoring Cathie for her accomplishments.

We had a good time at the picnic and decided to carry it on the next day at Karen's. Karen and Peter were flying to Alaska the next day, so we decided to just have breads, meats and cheeses with some interesting accompaniments. The idea was to have little fuss so Karen wouldn't work herself too hard. She had clean-up, which is always difficult after I cook or "prepare."
We had a good time anyway. Nephews Chris and girlfriend Gabriella are on the left, Mark is hiding behind Trina. It isn't that we've waited forever for these young men to find women who complete their lives. We are hoping that these are the two, because we really like them.

And Maggie worked her magic on all of us.

How Was India? What's It Like to be Back?

How do you sum up 11 weeks? India was:

• Hot
• Crowded
• Absolutely opposite LA in every way
• Fascinating from a historical and cultural perspective. Also current events. This is a thriving old/new/developing country.
• Filled with gracious and beautiful people (opposite LA in most every way.)
• It was just like being at home until something typically Indian happens (house boy walks in, lights go out, hot water disappears in 3 minutes).

It was a great experience, I'm happy that I was there. I'm happy that I was there for 11 weeks so it could seem like being home. I'm happy that I'm home.

What's it like to be back?

This is weird. My job is gone. But not totally. We are in constant contact with the people in Bangalore. When they have a question, they instant message us. If it is urgent, they call us on the hot line. There are still 6 people in the office, but we will start leaving soon. It works out well. IBM is learning more every day so they won't need us as much.

I have time to work on projects, between instant messages, and see old friends. I never seemed to have time to walk around much when the phones were ringing constantly. We still have things to resolve for IBM and we have processes to put in place that will make things run smoother for both sides of the world. These are interesting. I can actually apply my whole brain to their solution. Imagine!

I had no problem with jet lag. I told Bill that I thought it was my hyper-slow metabolism. It will probably take a few weeks for it to realize I'm not in India anymore. I still have one more malaria pill to take. Do you think my body will realize I'm gone when it isn't filled with Malarone anymore?

I cooked a pork roast that we've been eating every day. Love pork and missed it in India. Adrian cooked fabulous salmon. Love salmon and missed Adrian's cooking. So the food cravings are out of the way. I don't eat much beef ever, so please don't ask if I missed it in India. I didn't. I even ate beef while there, but the beef and lamb both tasted a little off. I haven't eaten chicken and shrimp every day here like I did in India.

And so the blog changes

If you were just along for the India ride, I bid you adieu. Now you will be seeing pictures of my family, birthday party, trips across the US and miscellaneous thoughts about the future of the LA Times and Tribune Company. Thanks for joining me. It was fun to know that people all over the US were looking at our experiences in Bangalore. But I know that hearing about my personal journey to retirement won't interest anybody but me, really.

Bye, all.

And I Don't Miss You At All

Not

Every one of you holds a special place in my heart. I think I will have to call every help desk number at least once a day so I can talk to all of you so I can hear how you are doing.

Here are the four aisles of desks that seat the agents and their supervisors. Many wore Indian clothes on this day because I was wearing my new Indian shirt and pants that Ramesh's dad made for me. I wanted to say goodbye to each of them, they have all become a special part of my adventure. But I could not get one word out. They must all know how much I will miss them. I've put the rest of these pictures on the website: http://picasaweb.google.com/pnorman811

Laura and I decided to plan twin outfits for the day. This time the matching peaches was not a mistake.

I'm home. I left later Friday/early Saturday and arrived in LA at 12:36 on Saturday. Too time warpish for me. I'd like to say that I will only fly Business Class in the future. It certainly has its advantages. Price is not one of them. I guess I will have to remember that the trip is not the journey.

This trip and this journey were both fun and educational. Please stay tuned, however. The adventure of leaving The Times is just beginning. I have 4 more months before I actually leave. Tomorrow I get to see what has happened to The Times while I've been gone.

Another group of people that I don't miss at all are the friends who left during the recent buy-outs and terminations. It's happened before, we should get used to it, but each parting hurts. I was supposed to leave before these people left. I hope they all have interesting futures like I am planning for myself.

Stay tuned.

We Didn't Plan This

We didn't plan a lot of things. That it would take more than 11 weeks to get our team working 24 X 7, for example. An interesting thing is that we currently aren't open every second of the week. The LAT team is pretty much covering the hours that we are open in LA at 100% of calls. I can't wait to see what the folks in LA are doing now. I'm thinking they are still pretty busy.

One reason that the LAT team is feeling fairly confident is that they have great help in LA just a phone call away. Whenever they have a question, they are chatting. This almost takes the place of having a Fred on the other side of the partition from you (see several earlier posts for Fred references.) The guys in LA are fantastic. They do everything they can to help the team in India get better. We all have an immense loyalty to the people at The Times. It's important to make this work well.

LAT has merged with the team that handles 4 east coast Business Units. None of these are sending us a lot of calls, so they are able to handle the work load. One of the BU wants to go 24 x 7, but the other 4 aren't ready. I don't know how they will work that one with the limited staff and small number of supervisors. We don't want to let a BU down, so all effort will be made to do that.

Team 2 keeps improving. They are working hard to keep their 4 BU happy as they continue to learn. It's tough.

Another thing that wasn't planned was that Laura and I would be wearing the sameish outfit yesterday. She lives in 901 - 9th floor - and I live in 406 - 4th floor. Imagine my surprise when she showed up in uniform. We were going shopping, I wanted to exchange a little string of sapphires that no one could see on my big body for something more noticeable. She wanted to make undisclosed purchases for people who never will read this blog. We spent the whole day explaining that this was not planned. Ramesh was pretty amused.

What is planned is my departure. Nahum beat me in getting his suitcase packed almost a week early and just keeping out a few things that got stowed away each day after wearing them to work. I had trouble believing that all my stuff would fit into my big bag, my carry-onish bag and my green Book Awards book bag. Chandan was going to lend me a suitcase. So I had to pack all but a couple of things just to see if things would fit. They do! I'm giving away food and booze to those who will accept such things. All chocolate has been consumed by me and the folks at IBM.

Ramesh's dad finished my clothes. I'm wearing one thing today. I've asked that all the women in the group wear their pretty clothes today so I can take pictures of what has inspired me to try Indian clothes. I'm wearing it now. It is very comfortable. It's not as sparkly as theirs, but that isn't really me, anyway.

Look for pictures tomorrow.