It's on its way!

Right now a Nikon D80 is on its way to my apartment!!

:-S But the lens (Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor) is getting delayed... Amazon says they'd ship it as soon as it becomes available... So I'm going to have to admire the looks of the D80 for few days before I can admire its output.

I also bought a Nikon branded backpack for the camera together with an extra Li-Ion battery and a Sandisk Extreme III 2GB SD memory card.

I'm going to miss a macro lens for a while... but hopefully not for long.

Sleepless in Milwaukee

The first week or so since I came here, I didn’t had much of work. So I was able to get over the jet lag and work on the initial settling down.

But then it struck. We ran in to a release and I had to work late in to the night and get up early in the morning for status update calls. Most of the days I’m getting less than six hours of sleep.

What’s worse is that I’m still not doing any coding. Part it of has to do with the fact I came over here towards the end of the first phase of the project. So I didn’t want to dip in to the coding at the last moment. So what’s left apart from coding isn’t that attractive. You know, writing technical documents, sitting in long and boring calls, and speaking with people who like long boring discussions etc. etc.

My financial situation is kind of stable now. The per diem check had arrived last Friday to my earlier address and I was able to go pick it this Monday. But now, I don’t have time to go deposit it to the account. So the camera is still pending.

Amidst this entire busy schedule, I managed to watch few movies as well :)… Sleepless in Seattle - the 1993 classic of Nora Ephorn staring Tom Hanks, The Bourne Ultimatum of Paul Greengrass staring Matt Damon, and Namesake the latest film by Mira Nair staring Tabu, Irrfan Khan and Kal Penn. And if you were to ask me, I’d say Namesake is the best out of the three. Tabu is my favorite actress of all time and her performance in the film is one of a kind. Oh.. and I finished watching Prison Break season 3 up to episode 8 as well.. :”>

How long has it been?

It's been two weeks. But still no photos... I'm yet to buy a camera. The money I had was put on for settling down. I'm yet to settle though. I need to buy a car. Need to take US driving license etc. etc.

I hope I'd get some free time after this week. So hopefully I could feel more settled by January. So those of you who are waiting for photos may have to wait some more time..

Moved in

I rented an apartment at Sunset Ridge last Saturday and moved in today. The sole reason for delaying the move is I didn't had internet at this place. Now I got a 1.5 MBPS connection. Hopefully I'd get a mobile by the end of this week.

But apart from that, I'm running in to a financial crisis. I still didn't get my per diem and the money I brought with me is running out fast. If I don't get some money by next Monday, I'm doomed.

I've already missed quite a few photo opportunities, so would buy a camera as soon as I could spare thousand five hundred bucks on it.

End of a week

It's been a week since I came to Milwaukee, WI, USA. This time, things wasn't as smooth as it was the last time I came to US.

To start with, I found out just as I landed in Chicago that my VISA petitioned had expired without me knowing that there's a renewal for that. Then, my flight to Milwaukee got canceled and I had to spend all the cash I had with me on taxi's. To top it up, my luggage got delayed and I had to buy cloths etc. to survive till it arrived three days later.

And then, when I went to open an account with JPMorgan Chase Bank, which is the closest bank to the place I'm staying, they started to ask for various address verifications etc. Which I didn't had to the last time with Bank of America. And when finally they did open an account for me.. they misspelled my name x(... and didn't include my SSN in the records.. x( !@#$%..

So apart from all that, I'm suppose to share an corporate apartment with another fellow till I find accommodation for myself. I hate sharing houses, especially with people I don't know. This bugger is not that bad or any thing but I'm irritated by certain things.

Housing poses another problem.. I looked around a bit and all one bedroom apartments costs around $800 to $900. That's without furniture, internet etc. and the price excludes water, electricity and gas. So if I go for a apartment that costs $800, then I'd be spending about $1000 per month or a little bit more on accommodation. Where as shared accommodation would cost less than half of it. But I'm willing to bare that cost for the peace of mind.

Right now I'm sharing a car with my QA lead, mainly because I need a car for finding apartments and daily groceries etc. and sharing is cost effective. And the fellow isn't they type who'd make it a bad experience. So I'd probably stick to that sharing agreement for some time till my financial situation becomes good.

But the problem right now is that I haven't received per deum as of yet, so I'm running out of money pretty fast. And I'm afraid that it would get delayed more, judging by the experience I had so far with the bank.

I was hoping to buy a Nikon D80 as soon as I come here. But it seems it would have to wait for another month at least.

One thing which runs smooth is that I'm not that busy with the office work. I do have to stay up late in to the night to communicate with my offshore team and get up early in the morning for a status update etc. but during the day, I have enough time to attend to finding apartments, preparing documents for logistics etc.

Which reminds me, I have to file a reimbursement request for that taxi ride..

I'm in Milwaukee

I came to Milwaukee, WI on last Saturday.

As usual the flights were really long and boring. This time I flew to Heathrow, and then to Chicago. My flight from Chicago to Milwaukee was canceled due to bad weather but by the time it was canceled, I had already checked in the baggages for the flight and couldn't get them back. So I took a cab to Milwaukee from the Chicago air port leaving my baggages behind. It was a cross state drive of about two and half hours which cost $290.

The following day I called the Milwaukee airport to find out whether my baggages have arrived. They wanted me to come there to identify the baggage as there were too many !@#$%... So I took a cab again and went to the local airport to find out that my baggage is not there!

I didn't had any cloths in my hand luggage so I went to a local outlet store and bought some cloths and returned to the apartment. All this cost me over $450 within two days. Now I'm totally broke and have only couple of suits till they find and return my baggage.

To top every thing, it's damned cold here so I can't walk around to get to know the place.