10,000+ miles from home

And exhausted.....

I'm in Bangalore India on a business trip. The time difference is 12.5 hours ahead from the SF bay area. I'm wiped, my body doesn't know what to do and when sleep wise.

This is my 4th trip in 5 years. I do love coming here. We work with a team of employees here that supports the work my US team does. It's very valuable coming here and building in-person working relationships. We spend a lot of time with our teams here over the phone and on IM on a day to day basis. Making the effort (it's a 22 hour journey) to come here and spend time with them is extremely valuable.

The days are long, 11 hours of meetings yesterday after only 4.5 hours of sleep in the prior 48 hour period. I was hopeful I would sleep on the plane. Not having anyone demanding anything of me was eerily unsettling and I just couldn't quite my mind. I also drank more wine and champagne that I should have, the red wine from Portugal was just too tasty.

I will try to take some pictures of my experience here and post in a couple of days. It's inspiring and disheartening at the same time. There is a considerable amount of poverty here, right in your face. The India people are fantastic hosts, very giving of their time away from their families when we descend on them for a week.

The hotel is one of the best I've stayed in here and the staff is very accommodating. Me and my sometimes over opinionated self was mentioning the sub par hair dryer while at breakfast in the hotel yesterday. Someone from the hotel must have overheard me. When I got back to my room last night, there was a fabulous full power hair dryer with a hand written note for me. I felt bad, but at least it won't take me 45 minutes to dry my hair today.

An added benefit of being here is seeing old friends. I am lucky to spend time with the US based and India based teams I used to work with. Very smart and very kind people. Lots of laughs will be had...

I can't wait to get home and see my girls though! I miss them terribly and very happy for current cell phone technology. I'm able to get real time updates and pictures of them, I love it!!! Emily had carrots for the first time yesterday and I received pictures of her eating them, yeah!