Customer care and the ‘book of rules’

It was in the evening of of Friday, the 26th of May, 2006, that I rushed out of office, drove as fast I could to the Dallas airport, requested the queue-monitoring-officer to kindly let me jump the queue (else, I would miss my flight), got myself security checked, and ran to the designated gate with my shoes, belt, wallet etc (which, you have to remove and pass through the scanner at any US airport) clutched tight in my hand, and at last panted with relief when I saw that the plane was still boarding, me being the last one to get in.

The flight was to Spokane, estimated time around over 5 hours; the airlines was ‘Frontier‘, and it was my first time flying with them (which eventually became the last too, as you will learn shortly).

Arián Kenobi and the mystery of weird dreams

Alright, I just puffed up the title to sound like “Hardy Boys and the mystery of the missing bottle” or “Nancy Drew and the mystery of the toothbrush” – nothing mysterious about what I’m putting down here… but, just… you know… weird!!!

So, last day, I see this dream: A fine Saturday morning at Ipswich. I get up from bed, open the door to the balcony, and I step out to watch the beautiful scene that’s seen from our apartment. But, what do I see??? I see a railway track instead, laid out just outside the apartment complex… and there is in fact a train approaching around the corner… I could hear the sound… the train came around, and what do I see??? Its me, at the front of the train, and I’m cycling a pedal, which is pulling the entire train behind me!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, the engine is a cycle-rickshaw kinda thing, and I’m pedaling it!!!!!!! :-O

Getting my figure at Madame Tussauds!

Its been a short while since I had got my weekends out of Ipswich, so when Jojy threw in the idea of a day out in London, I was already on my toes. Planned out the schedules on Friday night, and Saturday was decided as the day!

To cut a long story short, we reached Madame Tussauds at around 4 PM, after much roaming around in London! This in fact, was my second visit to a Madame Tussauds; the first was the one at Las Vegas, back in 2004. To be frank, I kinda liked the London one more… may be because its been four years since, and I don’t really remember much of my previous visit now… but anyway, that’s not the point here. Btw, before I get to the point, lemme just shout out just this one piece more – Nicole Kidman’s statue!!!! Oh boy!!!

The apparent illusion of the ‘impossible’

Its been three weeks since I joined the gym here at Ipswich. And I’ve been there only three times ever since!

Well, day-before-yesterday, I tried to reason with myself on why I don’t make it there, and to my own surprise, I came up with cartloads of reasons, and at last my conscience sighed and exclaimed, “brrrrrrr… I think its impossible to do it in my current circumstances… may be I should just cancel my membership”…!

In early 2006, when I was in Irving, there came a phase where I started loosing control of my eating habits, and I started putting on weight… so much, that one day, I stepped on to a scale, and it showed a freaking 210 lbs!!! (that’s around 105 kgs)…

Greeting the morning sun…

There are three versions of ‘getting up in the morning‘, that I have experienced in my life:

1. I jump up from bed no matter whether it is 4 am or 5 am
2. I get up from bed at around 7 am
3. I force myself up from bed at 8:00, 8:30 or even 9:00 am

Observing, analyzing and interpreting these patterns have been extremely interesting, which ultimately I could relate to steering parameters. Surprisingly, a generic representation of all those parameters comes in a simple question – “Is there something to look forward for, in your day?“.

The Happening

Alright, so, last week I decided to checkout M. Night Shyamalan‘s latest movie, ‘The Happening’. Most of my friends had read reviews (I never do, to escape prejudice), and had got a notion which says “The Happening is a movie where apparently nothing happens” So, no one really responded to my call for company for a trip to the cinema, except for a sarcastic “hey, best of luck” )

The cinema was around half full, and considering it was a Saturday, and that a week since the movie was released here at Ipswich, UK, and of course, that the reviews had been suggesting negative, it seemed pretty good.