Week 3:

I wasn't quite able to accomplish my goal of taking the CCNA test this past weekend, but I've gotten pretty far in study nonetheless, and will be ready to take it in the very near future. We also were unable to go to Rameesh's wedding, due to transportation issues and work schedule. His wedding is tomorrow (June 1st), so give him your congratulations on his wedding website, linked in the previous post.

We went for a short day-trip to a monolithic mountain called Savandurga just in the rural area just outside of Bangalore, guided by Savio, a friend and former travel-agency guide for India. Looking at the mountain from the bottom, climbing it looked like a daunting task, but thinking myself to be in decent shape, I tried going straight up the face of the solid block of granite. I made it about 70% of the way up, but I hit a part that was too steep/slick for my shoes to get traction, and ended up crab-crawling my way back down and going back around the side to meet with the others. Since I was shuffling down on my hands and butt I've managed to get blisters on both palms and starting on my feet. En-route to the bottom, I passed two little Indian kids, hauling it to the top...barefoot. I have pictures of them as they are going up the face. I'll see if I can figure out the photo-bucket slide show or some other way to get more pictures up here.

While waiting for the bus on the way back, a little girl asked Chase for the empty sprite bottle he had. When she got it, she broke out in a huge smile and ran to show her friends. We became instant celebrities in the villages sub-10 group, and had a group of kids waving us goodbye as we left on the bus. Ever seen The Gods Must Be Crazy? We've probably started a process that can only end by that little girls father throwing that bottle off the end of the world.

Work continues to be great experience, and as any good job, at times very challenging. However, I can tell I'm approaching the part of the learning curve where it's starting to show a little bit of horizontally asymptotic behavior. I'm finally getting my pansy tennis-shoed American feet under me.

-Scott

Ramesh's Wedding Invitation

Quick note, here is Ramesh's wedding site, including a picture of Ramesh and Lakshmi, his bride-to-be. They'll be getting married on June 1st.

Week 2:

I've now been in Bangalore for a little over 2 weeks, and it simultaneously feels as if I just arrived and that I've been here for months. Work at the Cisco TAC lab is fantastic! Every single day I am learning new configurations. Among other things, I've configured a stack of 5 Cisco Catalyst 3750 Switches, several ASAs (network security devices), a bunch of 6500 Series switch chassis, done work with redundant fiber lines, and done image restoration on about every type of device Cisco sells. Somehow the service cases that come in have managed to ween me into this stuff, typically introducing me to one or two new handleable things at a time, rather than throwing me straight into the tricky stuff. Looking back even just two weeks it's clear that the lab setups I'm working on now would have taken 4-5x the amount of time when I started here.

In addition to all the lab experience I've been gaining, I've been studying from a CCNA Certification book by Todd Lammle, so far I'm 500 pages through the 800 page text. My goal is to take the test this upcoming Saturday for the cert. After that I'm going to have to start splitting my study time between CCNP certification and LSAT study.

After CCNA Study and some StarCraft II matches with friends back home on Saturday morning, Chase and I grabbed some lunch further into Bangalore, and joined a poolside party put together by the Ives Club, a group mostly consisting of expatriots here in Bangalore. It was really cool to speak with people from around the world that have been here for everywhere between 1 week and 3 years and hear about their experiences. I got to meet a ton of people, including a few girls that I could probably take out without creating some kind of familial caste war.

Went to Church at the 2nd Branch Building this Sunday, which is my favorite branch. Whatever Chase may tell you differently, it is my favorite branch because of the exceeding righteousness of the people, and has absolutely nothing to do with the fantastic air conditioning in the building. Although the branch is really small by Utah standards, the lessons are incredible! It's very clear that the lessons are well though out, and a lot of preparation goes into them. The teachers do a great job of connecting the lesson with their situation and culture as well. While teaching about Ruth, a connection was made regarding the relationship between Ruth and her mother-in-law, and the relationships of mothers-in-law and daughters here in India. I had no idea, but evidently most mother-daughter-in-law relationships are pretty tense, so much that the teacher used a pair of wooden daggers to symbolize it. Are mothers-in-law that difficult in the US?

We've been invited to attend the wedding of a coworker, Rameesh. The wedding is going to be held about 12 hours away from Bangalore, so it would take the entire weekend and the a bit, but an Indian wedding isn't something I'm going to pass up easily. Hopefully I'll have more updates about that next week.

-Scott

First Post!

This blog has been set up as a running journal of experiences while working in Bangalore. The name of this blog, Silicon Nagar contains the two essences of this experience. Nagar is an Indian word meaning "colony," and is frequently found as part of localities within Bangalore, such as Ramamurthy Nagar or Indira Nagar, which were originally autonomous villages. Over time these villages grew together, forming Bangalore. Bangalore is frequently referred to as the Silicon Valley due to the reception of IT call centers from the United States and Europe, from which is pulled the "Silicon" of this blog name.

Bangalore has recently become the home to branches of several tech companies, including Hewlett Packard, America Online, Brocade, and most notably for me, Cisco Systems. Many of these IT companies have set up shop on the outskirts of the city, such as the Marthahalli area on the eastern side of Outer Ring Road, adding yet another "nagar" to the city.

I'll update this blog as possible while I'm here working at Cisco and learning about India's country and culture. Please email me if you have comments or questions.

-Scott Pack