hello again

Hello all that read this blog, apart from myself.

and if there is no one else apart from myself who read these postings, well i dont blame them, its been too long since i posted anything.

life has been going on.... i can beleive its almost 10 months since i came to Bangkok for the first time.

i promise to TRY and post more regular posts on this site, cause it lets me do two things, have a hobby apart from eating and listening to music and also an opportunity to pour my thoughts out.

so till next time, when i have managed to either humour my new hobby or pour my thoughts out...

adios'

pritham

A Martini, shaken not stirred....

Ignatius, has been wearing coolers for the last few days....hes still recovering from an eye operation, and so wears it even while he is working.

Raman, a couple of days back, asked him, if he thought he was james bond.

Ignatius looked over at Raman and said, "No, My name is James WONG!!!"

sawadeekhaaaap!!

i use this phrase for greeting you all to this post, because i got my social security number and my tax ID in Thailand yesterday.

its been 8 months and counting since i have landed here, and it has been fun... to say the least. after all which other project does one get to have time for his hobbies, build one the best collections of music, have time to watch on an average a movie a day, read up on all the novels one missed out on, and even have time to think about restarting guitar and piano lessons!!!!!???

before i get into the kind of work i have been doing here, let me get back to the issue at hand.

my english has been shot to sh*t, my pronunciation is gone to the dogs, i forget sometimes how and "R" is pronounced, on the whole, like my wife told me this morning, i am legally dumb.

adios,
pritham

khun chester's grill and the need for speed

the more i get to know them, the more i know that the samart guys are all pretty nice guys....

they have the "thai" hospitability, i mean they treat us like as though we are their guests....which is all really nice..

to quote an example, yesterday, tuesday evening, after the terrible meeting i had, i came back to the site office to see 4 animated faces looking into their monitors and giving perfectly synchronised squeals and yelps....

well when i walked over i saw that they were playing the need for speed over the network!

now i really love this game.. and, not to sound bashful, but, have beaten the game as well...
so i let them know this, very politely.

khun wirote, the guy i have known longest in samart, suddenly jumps up and says, khun pLitham (as they call me), please play for me, and beat these people...

so i jump straight away into his seat and then we have the mother of all duels....

in the end it was a competition between two of us.. khun ikkasat and me....well the first race he left me eating dirt.. far, far away....

the next, i got my own... and left the seat to khun wirote quite content...

so then we were waiting to leave, manish and me.. and then realise that if we dont push sanjeev and manoj, they might take forever......
so i volunteer to go in, and try to coax them out... on the way, khun ikkasat is eating this burger...and points out to a table saying please.... i look over and there is a tub of chicken, packets of burgers, hot dogs and pepsi and lemon tea as well...
well, i was feeling really bad, i thought some of the samart people actually thought of everyone else and went and bought this for the people who were sitting late....

then khun ikkasat tells me, one of their sub-contractors was making a visit to the site office, and so brought along all the goodies!

well needless to say, we chomped down on all the food, and left from the site office quite content...


on the whole, i would say, i cant notch up another day quite "well" spent!!!

adios'
pritham.

the trip back from the site office on monday evening

yesterday evening - monday 14th june, we left from the site office at around 5:45.

having shamelessly hitched a ride with everyone who had a vehicle (!), we were all very happy to offer a ride to michael, a damn nice chap, to say the least.

coming back to the trip, we went through the chonburi motorway, and then let michael spread his THAI web over the driver, after which we understood that the van needed gas, and he would have to stop on the way.

Sanjeev dished out cash for both the tolls and also the fuel, and almost burned down the fuel station and us by talking on his mobile phone @ the fuelling station.

well before you get too worried, let me also explain that the person he was talking to was so full of crap that this doused out all the sparks that would have ignited any flames!

saved by the crap!!

so then we drop of michael, and then start talking about the wonderful organisation that we work for.

we then hypothesize what would happen if ABB would actually, to use a very nice term, sub-contract integration work to the EAI team.
well, we dont really talk about the revenue models or the organisation structure, but more about Henk meeting with Rajeev, or as we thai's call him, Lajeev, and what kind of a meeting would be held between the two.

now beleive me, we were very true to both Rajeev's character and also to Henk's, and this lead to some laughs, after all there is one saying i have read a long time back, if you neck deep in trouble, laughing is the only thing you can do :)

adios'
pritham

about agenda's, minute's, and crazy americans

i have attended enough meetings with a certain party here, to beleive that 90 % of all meetings are only to spread BS around, let everyone have a healthy dose of it :)


but again, the experience that i am getting is truly unbeleivable....

i know how to construct a sentence on the fly which means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
moreover this sentence does not give anything away, does not commit to anything and definitely does not mean any work for me!!!

now armed with this knowledge i can assure you, i can take over half of the civilised world!

before i start off on my world conquest, let me come back to the topic at hand...

by attending these meetings i have advantages such as :

the access to the much better canteen that the third party has, a chance to keep in touch with my driving skills, by driving to the meeting rooms, and last but not the least, a chance to actually study crazy americans in the living flesh.

now i have only heard people saying crazy americans,
beleive me now, i totally and fully understand the quote now!!


adios'
pritham

CFZ???? first one!!???

Raman had been having bad luck with the CFZ people, bad luck as in they just refused to meet with him...
he had the initial 2 or 3 meetings with them, and then had collected some information, and then met with a brick wall, which told him
"NO HAVE SYSTEM, NO HAVE, MOMENT please!!"


well the "moment" turned out to be a month and 10 odd days, and today they send us a mail cordially inviting us for the initial meeting!!!

brings back memories of Dori in Finding Nemo, u know the fish with amnesia!?

well, like raman put it, chalk one more up for our "experiences" here!

adios'
pritham

YAAAA!!! of course!!!!

for all of you who are on the working (!, sorry couldnt resist it!) level on this project, the title you see denotes to you, almost immediately whom i am talking about.

the day was monday, 14th of june, 2004, the time, 4:00 p.m..

Henk was walking into the site office, with a box of something that looked to me like a box of cookies...

feeling a bit grubby, i asked him, is that something to eat....

Henk gave me this bewildered look and told me, no, i am going to take a dump!!!
only then did i notice that what he had in his hand was a tissue box!!!

not exactly a very nice first posting i know, but thought this would start things off with a BANG!

keep plugged in for more postings..

adios'
pritham