The journey continues...

Happy Passover!

Well well well… where do I begin? It has been a long time since my last post, and you might have guessed that I am back home. And I am. Sort of. There were about 3 weeks between my last entry and the end of my time in India. I hope that I will write about them retroactively in the near future, because I continued to have an amazing time filled with countless new experiences with incredible people. For now, however, I am fast forwarding to the present.

As I write this I am a few miles ‘up’ somewhere between Atlanta, Georgia and the large red fruit some people refer to as ‘New York.’ To be honest, I was sad that my time in India was coming to a close, because I had really gotten to enjoy blogging, and had gotten a lot of (what seemed sincere) good feedback from people who really enjoyed reading it. But this is a travel blog, after all, so once I was back it was all over… right? Well, conveniently for me, and for you if you are still reading, I am now in a job in which I travel every week. So Hemispheres will live on. As much as possible, I will try to keep the content limited to my travels and cultural experiences. There is one cultural experience in particular that has motivated me to start my fingers flying across the keyboard again, but we’ll get to that in due time.

I got back to the states about 4 weeks ago. I spent a week ‘on the beach’ hanging out in the ThoughtWorks office meeting people informally, catching up on administrative stuff that had piled up while I was away, and waiting to be assigned to a project. Most importantly, I spent every minute I could with Rachel. I was infinitely glad to have that week with her, because I could have been shipped off immediately upon my return, jet lag and all.

As the week progressed, my class was all busy emailing back and forth trying to figure out what projects everyone was being assigned to around the world. Towards the end of the week, I was put in touch with a project manager in Atlanta who said ‘come on down!’ We spent that first weekend in Minneapolis with the fam’ for a wedding shower for Rachel. It was SO much fun! Just a terrific weekend! Thanks to everyone who help make it so special. Oh yeah, and for all the wonderful presents, too!

Then Monday I was off on the first of what is to be many many trips to Atlanta. I had never been to Atlanta before (except for the airport), and I was looking forward to getting to explore a new city. I was especially looking forward to the weather being a little warmer than it was in Chicago. That was a bit of a shock coming home from India, expecting spring. I’m on a great (in quality and quantity) team, and on a good first project. It is good because we are able to do our work almost completely in line with the way we try to do it, and so I can learn our ‘best practices’ right off the bat.

So I’ve now been on the team 3 weeks, and am learning fast. I’ve learned a lot about the project, and also a lot about how to do my job (well, I hope?). To give you a quick and vague idea, the project is a website along the lines of something like an ebay. And for those of you who don’t know (and why would you, since I graduated with a psychology degree!), I am a Quality Assurance Analyst. What that basically means is that it is my job to figure out how to break the software. I push it to (and beyond) its limits to see what happens. You know when you are on a website and you click somewhere and you get a screen of ‘garbage?’ My job is to find where that might happen so that the developers can fix it before you ever get to it.

I am really enjoying the work. I find there is actually a lot of thinking involved that is related to psychology. I have to think about the user, and what they might do, and what they might want to do. I also have to think about the mindset of the developer, and discover assumptions they made while programming that have left holes in the system. I am happy to say that from my perspective, the project is in really good shape. It is very stable, and working well, which means I really have to work hard to find the bugs. But they are out there, which is a good challenge.

Really, even though I find it interesting, I think it sounds pretty boring when I talk about it. But either it isn’t as boring as I think it is, or Rachel is a better actress than she thinks she is, because she really seems to enjoy hearing about it.

Like I said, the team is really great. We go out for lunch and dinner, sometimes in large groups, sometimes in small groups. We hang out. We have fun while we work. It is a very relaxed and casual environment, while at the same time we are working hard and making serious progress.

Enough already, Benjie… on to the cultural experiences! I have not spent much time in the South before this, so it really has been quite interesting. I am working a lot (four ten-hour days), so there is not too much time to get out into the world. But when I do my eyes are wide open. The biggest thing I notice is that everything moves a little slower down here. And by a little slower, I mean a lot slower. The prime example (and place where I spend the most time) is in restaurants. It isn’t that the food takes much (or any) longer to get cooked, because I have gotten some meals very quickly. And it isn’t that they are busy, because that factor doesn’t seem to affect the situation. Along those lines, however, I have noticed that the Lantians like their restaurants. At lunch and dinner time, all of the restaurants in the area have totally full parking lots. Last night I was at a place, and thought ‘wow, it isn’t really that busy for a Friday night,’ only to realize that it was, indeed, Thursday.

No, the slowness cannot be explained away, it is built into the mentalities of the servers themselves. There is no hurry to greet you at the door, seat you right away, take your order, bring you drinks, bring the bill, etc. They are very friendly about it; there is just not that sense of urgency that I usually expect when I am in a restaurant.

And it isn’t just restaurants. I get the same thing at the airport. In one instance the guy checking my ID was moving so slowly it looked like he was made of molasses! Oh, while I’m on the subject of airports: So they have a display case with all of the things you are not supposed to bring on an airplane these days. First of all, since we know that they don’t catch half of the contraband that is brought, is it really smart to give people ideas? Second, one of the items in the case is a chainsaw! Really? People have tried to bring chainsaws? And if someone were so confused as to the state of the post 9/11 world that they would bring one, is it happening so frequently that you have to put one in the display case in each airport? Can’t you just tell them: ‘you can’t bring that.’ You have to show them that it is part of the display because otherwise they wouldn’t believe you? Come on.

And now on to the real reason that I decided it was time to start blogging again:

I have spent all 26 years of my life without ever touching a gun. Three weeks in Georgia, and I went to a shooting range and shot three different kinds of guns. To make the situation slightly more incredible (though that is hardly necessary), afterwards, I realized that it was on the first anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting.

So where do I begin? To start off, it was a team outing. Not the whole team, but a good chunk (and some more are going next week). One of the guys on the team is a gun owner, and he chaperoned our little activity. I had only a vague idea of what to expect as we drove out, but it went something along the lines of this: A big open field, with people shooting from one end at bull’s-eyes at the other end. Kind of like archery. I was wrong.

We drove up to what looked (except for the sign on it) like a bowling alley in the parking lot of a strip mall on the outskirts of suburban Atlanta. Even though we had directions how to get there, and I was also navigating with my GPS-Google Maps phone, we still missed it because it was not at all what I expected. An indoor shooting range? OK, I guess. So we take our pictures outside, and then the guy who brought us (fortunately) thought to ask who had never been shooting before, and briefed us on what to expect, and what to do and not do. So we go in, and it actually had a lot of similarities to a bowling alley. Well not so much similarities as feels like you have entered a parallel universe version of a bowling alley. I’ll explain. First of all, you walk in and there is a guy behind the counter to check you in, get you supplies, assign you a lane, and take your order. But instead of saying ‘we want to bowl,’ you have to sign a waiver. Instead of bowling shoes you get ‘eyes and ears,’ which are safety glasses and earmuffs. Instead of a lane with pins at the end, you get a lane with a mechanical string to move your target closer and farther. And instead of a drink order (thank God), you order bullets (oy vey!). The final difference which made me pretty uneasy was that instead of pins, you were aiming at cardboard outlines of a human being. Good times (he says sarcastically).

Bizarro world did not end when we walked in the door. Instead of a shop selling bowling balls, shoes, you know, that stuff… they sell guns. Lots of them. And did you know you can rent guns? Just take a moment to think about that one…. I’ll wait…. You with me? Ok, then I’ll move right along.

So we got our ammo, put on our eyes and ears, and went to our lanes. What I wasn’t prepared for were the other people there. There was a police officer shooting some very big and loud guns. That I understand. Then there was the guy who was dressed kind of similar to the police officer, with pants with lots of pockets, a camouflage shirt, etc. He was also practicing with a wide range of large and noisy guns, but I got the distinct impression that he was not a member of an officially chartered, governmentally funded military or civilian force. Then there was the guy who brought his gun in a Tommy Hilfiger shoulder bag. I really wanted to take a picture of that, but alas… Then there was the woman wearing sandals with her bright red painted toenails peeking out. A couple who took turns (she also had painted toenails).

Then I had to laugh at our group as well. I think there were 6 of us, two who brought their own guns, one who had been shooting before, me and another guy, who hadn’t, and an Indian man who hadn’t. I only mention that because in the America we are living in, I feel like anyone different sticks out a lot, especially in Georgia. I wondered what they thought of us.

So then came the actual shooting. My first try was with a .45, then I tried a 9mm, and something else that was much bigger, but used (I think) the 9mm bullet, and then I think a .40? I don’t know much about guns and bullets, so please don’t ask me to explain what any of that means, or any other details… I was told some, but I just don’t know. I do know how not to shoot myself or anyone else though, and that was key. I’m happy to say nobody pulled a Cheney.

While the whole thing was kind of surreal and scary, it was a very interesting experience, and it was interesting to learn how to load the various guns, make them ready, what the heck a safety is, and basically all the stuff you hear about in movies or read about in books but don’t really know what they mean.

And I must admit the target practice aspect was fun. I could see how that would be enjoyable. But I definitely would prefer to have a circle that I’m aiming at rather than a human outline with the ‘kill zones’ highlighted. There were various dots spread out on the sheet, and I picked one in what would be a non-lethal area and pretty much aimed for that.

I must say, for my first (…?) time, I was reasonably satisfied with my ability to get all of my shots in a relatively small area, even as I moved the target back to be more challenging. As far as that ‘…?’ goes, while it was an interesting experience, I don’t think I’ll be heading back any time in the foreseeable future, so ‘first time’ may definitely be ‘only time.’

An interesting thing is that I don’t really think the experience had much of an effect on my overall feelings towards guns and gun related issues. I guess that is a good thing, it means my views are nice and solid, not to be swayed by that funny thing called ‘reality.’

This blog entry has been written in memory of Charlton Heston.

"Those who shall not live by the law, shall die by the law!"

– The Ten Commandments