Brown Motion

A man from Yavatmal district (in India) walks into a Starbucks in Dallas.  He shuffles his way to the cashier and asks for tea.  She asks what size.  He quickly gathers that there are small to large versions and points to the cup display indicating tall.  He does so with trepidation since 'Tall' appears to be the shortest cup in the lineup.  He questions his own wisdom but he needs a cup of tea. She asks for his name.  Stunned momentarily with this turn of events Vyankatesh pauses.  That is his name but to trade a name for a cup of tea is unusual he thinks. Then she repeats her question.  He decides to go for it.  Vyankatesh Mouleshwar.   She stares back.  He stares back. Then she resigns herself to the fact that she is a Starbucks employee who has been trained to work with all sorts of customers and begins to pen the name on the cup.  Now not very astute or trained in matters of circumference and font sizes she begins wit...

It is fun to be drunk.  As in it certainly creates a sense of happiness for some individuals after imbibing certain beverages that decrease alertness but enhance the buzz. Now there are more reasons to be happy.  Recently Taco Bell partnered with a local ride hailing service to allow these semi conscious folk to press a button in their phone before they lose all cognizance (and their phone) to call for this taxi ride which will also drive itself past the nearest Taco Bell that has your order waiting to go. Or the drunk party could suddenly wake up in the middle of this trip and update their menu through an in car screen.  All in all pretty messy experience if I am the driver.  Carrying drunks may or may not be the smartest thing but now we have a gooey, cheesy food item in a paper wrapper that gets added to the mix? This according to the company is a test run so we will see how the supply demand side plays out but it does inform us about the trends for humanit...

No it is not scary like HIV but I suppose depending on who you ask it may be.  See HOV or High Occupancy Vehicle was a term coined to describe a transportation appliance that contained at least one additional person than the driver during the course of said transport activity. The local and regional governments decided to dedicate lane or two on the congested highways for such vehicles with hope that it would reduce vehicle density on the roadways allowing for reduced infrastructure spend (in terms of building more lanes).  It also let the folks sharing their vehicle get somewhere faster than those stuck in the other lanes. Now an idea with good intent can go south fast.  As in there are way too many people using the idea to go fast in the HOV making for a very tedious crawl unlike the advertised experience.  Then there are as one would expect the cheats.  As in single occupant vehicles hiding between legit vehicles. So now we got a cluster - a bad one. ...

I sat through 2 days of lectures on Attribution and Marketing.  Attribution is  the action of regarding a quality or feature as characteristic of or possessed by a person or thing. Well so that is the text book definition and it is essentially what I was there to learn about. In the context of identifying audiences to whom I might target an offer to.  An offer to spend at a restaurant or buy another shirt they do not need or something to essentially keep the conspicuous consumption theme alive. The gentleman lecturer was a veteran of having sold many a thing in his life - mostly media - which in today's lingo is anything that constitutes a message that reaches a variety of consumers.  His background as a salesman sort made him the father figure to preach the gathered flock (we were all employees of the same organization who signed up for this) about the nuances of what makes for good marketing and what was cutting edge today. Frankly a lot of the tried stories...

It was going to be triple digit heat.  Everywhere you looked.  In our vicinity.  So we figured we would visit a cool body of water.  It had been a while.  A long while.  We went to Lake Tahoe.  Straddling the CA and Nevada state borders it is the largest of any alpine lakes in all North America. At a height of over 6,200 ft above mean sea level this amazing blue water was very inviting. Of course it also meant taking our chances with many like minded folks taking their conveyance to the mountains causing a big traffic jam.  It was not too bad.  We did get out early enough to beat a large horde of wanna get away crowds and made it to the lake in 3 hours. The rim is around 70 miles in circumference but we chose to visit the South end and do some hiking followed by a visit to the exact opposite end also on the California side and wade the waters on the shores. The south end was an inspired mile long hike along the slope on a portion cal...

I thought I was getting a raise.  Instead I got raised on a Ferris wheel.  This was the employer's annual summer celebration. At ATT park.  In San Francisco.  It was a beautiful day to be by the water.  Socializing with some long lost colleagues that were indeed still colleagues. Just in different parts of the org and in different physical buildings.  It was more an opportunity to take in the park inside and out - with a chance to sit down on the green and also walk into the locker rooms and such for those that dig that sort of thing. Pose for pictures with the 3 Giants Baseball trophies from the past decade etc. Below are some sights from the day

It was early morning.  In the east bay in summer.  Here day time temps were soaring into the 100s - inching to 106 F.   That is hot. Sizzling. So I decided with a good friend of mine to do some good.  Get some walking done and also breathe in some cool morning air.  How about a view to go with it?  Done. We went hiking in the hills behind Berkeley CA in a nature reserve called the Tilden Park.  The trail was called Nimitz trail named after a US Navy general from the WWII. The views tell the story.   Walking amidst the moist cool air, amidst eucalyptus groves and scaring away little bunnies we traipsed some good miles whilst enjoying scenic vistas of both the bay in the west and a local water reservoir to the east. The fog was streaming in with the windstream making for some amazing optical illusions.  To boot very little traffic - we passed may be a dog walker or two otherwise it was pristine beauty all to ourselves. ...

Mount Vesuvius.  Some readers might remember it from their elementary school geography.  This guy blew in 80 AD - it was then and still is an active volcano. The almost 2,000 year old tectonic event caused so much damage that it entirely buried a bunch of Romans that hung out in the area.  One such was the town of Pompeii. In the Campania region of southern Italy we find this site of a major excavation labeled as Pompeii Scavi.  You can reach the place by train from Naples.  No more than 45 minutes. Get off and walk to the main gate under 10 minutes.  Then spend a whole day wandering around the stone cut roads and buildings imagining life 2,000 years ago. Turns out it looked not much different than say a well developed suburban township you might find in the states today.  Below are some vistas that were captured by yours truly during our travels... Modern Church in Naples Train station entrance to the underground line connecting to t...

Explosion of colors.  Warm, Very Warm.  Western edge of Italy.  The five little villages that are a major draw for sun worshipers.  To us it was a nice detour from Pisa. A Trenitalia service runs right along the coast due North West connecting these little towns.  The word Cinque Terre literally means Five Towns. Here is how it looks like in the middle of summer - There are cool tunnels that lead you from town to town if you are in the mood to walk them. Drink lots of water or lick a lot of gelatos.

Pisa, Italy.  Capital of the region of Tuscany and seat of a University founded by Napoleon.  Hardly known for any of that though this little town on the Arno river is best remembered for its leaning tower. It is a bell tower around 700 years old in a campus that contains holy churches and a cemetery.   The tower itself at about 200 feet tall is leaning substantially to one side and looks ready to tip one day.  People pay in time and money and queue up to visit the bell at the top. We saw it from below amidst many folks trying to get whimsical angles with it showing them supporting or pushing the tower with their bare hands -a sort of optical illusion.  There are many attractive sculptures and brass work to be ogled at just wandering the acreage around the tower. Again it is amazing how well preserved the grounds and the buildings on it still look seven centuries into it. The train ride from Firenze is about an hour and one can choose to spe...

There is a lot to take in anytime you visit a new place that is marketed to have a variety of attractions.  And Italy is no different.  Depending on your taste and mood you might find a spot you absolutely fall in love with and just chill for a while.  Or you might want to feast all day on a buffet of sights and keep moving. We are the latter category.  Why not taste a bit of everything and then decide if you want to visit again?  So we covered a lot of territory - 2,800 km in 14 days and hitting about 12 cities from top to bottom. Most travel was on trains - the bullet train is called Frecciarossa reaching max sustained speed of 300 kph and then some with regional double decker trains that also do a good 150 kmph - India by comparison runs their fastest train at this speed. There was also boat and bus and taxi travel in certain locales. Here are some highlights - Meeting the Pope - at the Vatican - Wed is a papal audience - you are one of 50,000 atte...

I am self aware of my fading grey matter and the cellular activity needed to retain memory so this is as much a log for myself as it is for the scattering of readers that visit on occasion. So while it is fresh in my mind from few hours ago when we concluded our Italian excursion I want to jot down some of the unique memories. 1.  Meeting people with a varying background - On a train bound for Italy back from the Swiss lake region of Lugano we chatted our way down with a couple who was also checking out the region on a short break from life.  Their life was of retirement in a southern Turkish region but having a friend get married in Italy was reason enough to visit.  The gent, a former diplomat with the Venezuelan government in Caracas was based in the gulf region for over a decade and had managed to travel with some who's who in the sands of Arabia.  Now nostalgic for his adventures and saddened by his home in a mess (read Venezuelan crisis) he was happy to...

Some Hollywood types have filmed along the fabled coastline.  The Amalfi coast.  It is part of the southern province of Salerno along the Tyhrennian sea that seems to cling by its nails to the rugged rock face that drops into it for a visit. Buildings jut out as the bus drive takes us from Sorrento (where we arrived moments ago by a narrow gage railway) to the once coastal village of its name sake, Amalfi.   It is a good 90 minutes of theme park like roller coaster. There are thousands of oohs and gasps as the traveling tourists know not if they are stunned by the way the driver drives (seemingly reckless) around the hair pins on the treacherous terrain as it dips and leaps along the coast or the amazing emerald green waters and the bungalows that defy gravity and rise on the edges. Those with a sketchy knowledge of the Hindu fairy tales aka Ramayana might be forgiven for remembering the Parmatma or praying to Sita (the bus company is called SITA and the approachin...