Hola !! Its been a loooooong time since I blogged! Well, nothing new...this is how my blogging habbits have been from the beginning..*sigh* So, I found this nice add-on to Friefox, Scribe Fire (was reading Cheezo's blog the other day when I came across it). So just by pressing F8 key, I now get this nice neat editor where in I can put in the contents of the blog! No need to acutally go to the blog link, and then after lot of clicks, get to entering the blog! So hopefully, now I should be more regular ;-)
Been quite tied up for the past couple of months. In April, got to know that I have to go to Portland, Oregon for a week-long team meeting. Just preparing for the trip kept me busy throughout...first realized that my passport was expiring in May and for getting a VISA, the mimimum validity of the passport should be 6 months. And getting the passport renewed is not too easy, especially, if you are applying under Tatkal. Reason, you need some million documentary proofs, attested by gazetted officers (God alone knows where to find them unless you already know someone who is willing to certify your existance as a fine citizen of India). Gosh, that was a tensioning week, trying to get all the docs in place !! Finally, got passport within 3 days of application (which was surprising).
Now comes the VISA application process. Not that difficult, but time consuming..again preparing the right documents, obtaining invite letter in the *required* format can become a pain. So the invite letter I had from my US manager was apparently not in the right format..had to get it re-sent to me !!! I had to get a photo clicked for the VISA form. And I was appalled to find out that too was not in the *required* format...issue was, one of my ears happened to be covered by my hair !!!!! God bless, the VISA desk refused to take it..
Thankfully, the trip to Chennai for the VISA interview went smooth. I entered the US Embassy at around 8:45 in the morning (my interview was scheduled for 11 something). And to my surprise, I was out at 9:30 itself!!
I then had the whole day with me to kill..just spent sometime visiting the tourist sites around there..went to Marina beach in the afternoon..had an interesting incident there, which I shall post later.
Then after that came the actual preparation for the trip in terms of shopping ;-) Thankfully, this didn't have to an extensive one as it was going to be only a week-long stay..and I mostly had all the stuff I needed.
My US trip was cool! Just the thought of having got outside India and setting foot on a foreign land was awesome! Its an experience..my first foreign land was Frankfurt. The journey was long (duh! need I say that) and I slept most of the time :-D Times when I was awake, I could not get myself to do anything usefull..I either read some magazine or watched the movie that they were playing :-) Have uploaded some pics on picasa, will post a link here soon.
After coming back from the trip, been busy catching up with work items...pending tasks, etc. I also started writing an article on RT scheduler..its finally done! And hoping to get it published soon... haven't heard from the editor yet, but keeping my fingers crossed :-SS
So that was a quick summary of what I have been upto...hopefully would be more regular from now onwards !!
Been quite tied up for the past couple of months. In April, got to know that I have to go to Portland, Oregon for a week-long team meeting. Just preparing for the trip kept me busy throughout...first realized that my passport was expiring in May and for getting a VISA, the mimimum validity of the passport should be 6 months. And getting the passport renewed is not too easy, especially, if you are applying under Tatkal. Reason, you need some million documentary proofs, attested by gazetted officers (God alone knows where to find them unless you already know someone who is willing to certify your existance as a fine citizen of India). Gosh, that was a tensioning week, trying to get all the docs in place !! Finally, got passport within 3 days of application (which was surprising).
Now comes the VISA application process. Not that difficult, but time consuming..again preparing the right documents, obtaining invite letter in the *required* format can become a pain. So the invite letter I had from my US manager was apparently not in the right format..had to get it re-sent to me !!! I had to get a photo clicked for the VISA form. And I was appalled to find out that too was not in the *required* format...issue was, one of my ears happened to be covered by my hair !!!!! God bless, the VISA desk refused to take it..
Thankfully, the trip to Chennai for the VISA interview went smooth. I entered the US Embassy at around 8:45 in the morning (my interview was scheduled for 11 something). And to my surprise, I was out at 9:30 itself!!
I then had the whole day with me to kill..just spent sometime visiting the tourist sites around there..went to Marina beach in the afternoon..had an interesting incident there, which I shall post later.
Then after that came the actual preparation for the trip in terms of shopping ;-) Thankfully, this didn't have to an extensive one as it was going to be only a week-long stay..and I mostly had all the stuff I needed.
My US trip was cool! Just the thought of having got outside India and setting foot on a foreign land was awesome! Its an experience..my first foreign land was Frankfurt. The journey was long (duh! need I say that) and I slept most of the time :-D Times when I was awake, I could not get myself to do anything usefull..I either read some magazine or watched the movie that they were playing :-) Have uploaded some pics on picasa, will post a link here soon.
After coming back from the trip, been busy catching up with work items...pending tasks, etc. I also started writing an article on RT scheduler..its finally done! And hoping to get it published soon... haven't heard from the editor yet, but keeping my fingers crossed :-SS
So that was a quick summary of what I have been upto...hopefully would be more regular from now onwards !!
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