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| Few men in a boat That title there has very little appropriateness except that it has been prompted by the influence 'Three men in a boat' has had on me. We were many men in many boats, or rather rafts; and there was no 'Montmorency the dog'. Warning: This one is not going to be short, by any means. For those who donot want to read there are photos at photos at http://www.picturetrail.com/kkps The occasion was a Rapid5 team building effort. By the way, we are now a 100+ company, and half of us being in California and the other half being in Texas, and we having new 'facilities' - as they are called here - now, in both locations, our CEO decided that we (at Texas) are going for a rafting trip to California - so that we could get to see the California facility and feel more oneness. Also, our CEO did mention that he is a 'semai' (semi - as it is pronounced here) professional rafting guide - which later on at the end of the rafting trip invited exclamations of the sort of - 'good god! we didn't join a company whose CEO is a mountaineering buff'. The trip was planned for Saturday and Sunday, but we got a day off on Friday. So we left Texas on Friday morning and landed in 'Saan-hoosay' or even 'Saan-oosay', spelled SanJose - one of the main cities that constitute the Silicon Valley. It was my first time at SanJose airport. I do not know whether I missed this earlier in SanFrancisco airport - anyway, the SanJose airport has beautiful ads of the sort of 'Virtex E - 3.2 million gates' - anybody who is back from a nice vacation (again, as holidays are called here) will be immediately jolted into reality. Out of the airport - after learning how hot Texas really was - we had this nice 20 minutes drive to Rapid5, 180, Baytech drive, San Jose, CA. Though I had been to CA earlier, this small drive was a real nice one. Both sides of the streets we were driving through were packed by beautiful 'facilities' of all 'silicon giants' - Sun, Altera, Cisco, Hyundai, Cypress, ... and then there were the start ups like Rapid5 who occupied a small part of some big building - I was disappointed that we didn't have a big board like those giants. But then one day we are going to become big BIG BBBIGGG. Rapid5 CA was good - it had a lot of desis. I was again amidst some Kannada. We played some 'ping-pong' (as TT is ... ...), I brought a card up that none of the software engineers (smart ;-) as they are, always, everywhere :-) at CA could bring up (because they had the current limit on the power supply they were using lower than required) and was off on a three hour drive (supposed to be three hour drive, which took six hours because of the Silicon Valley traffic). The bus drive was fun, because beer was flowing in the bus, and there were people in the bus inebriated. There were people - led my boss - commenting on every thing on the way - like 'Hey! look at that cow!' and 'Tracy! How can that be the name of a town'. We reached the camp by 8.00, our tents were already set up for us. BTW, Rapid5 provided us foam pads and sleeping bags. The camp was at the bank of the river that we were supposed to raft. This was the American river - the only way to explain the river would be to mention that it had a pebbly / rocky bed. There were rest rooms (as ... are ... ...) and showers (with shower curtains) near the camp site and we had dinner at a near by bar - of course, the camping was less exciting than cdot trek camps - which lacked all these; but we had all other flavours - like talk about rattle snakes and bears This trip also made me more at ease with all my American co-workers, the way they were shouting and whistling when there was a break in a slide show, etc. The camp had a kitchen shack. A few of us desis were up to business early in the morning trying to lit up a fire in the kitchen and get some tea when a guy showed up - obviously shocked at seeing what we were trying to do. He happened to be one of our guides. Later on, after he helped us have our tea, more guides appeared - though they looked like cooks first - because they were busy cooking breakfast for us. We, as the restless crowd-ers by near the kitchen we were - had to be told explicitly at least three times that "Gentlemen (and ladies) - breakfast will be served 'eightish'". Though this piece of information drove away the understanding crowd for some time ... Finally breakfast was called, and after this one of the guides, Emily, gave us a form to fill. It said in the very first few lines - I understand that this is not a Disney World Fun Ride. I may die, get hurt or be lost. And we were supposed to sign it. After this followed an orientation - this was real good. We were told what to do and what not to, graphically and hilariously. We were given simple life saving instructions like - If you fall in water, the direction your guide will point to will always be the safe direction and NOT the unsafe one (like - the guide will not point at a rock saying look there is a rock, don't swim to it). We were given good life jackets, which, we were told, will bring us up floating in water, in less than three seconds. We were also told that the guide is, in most cases, going to save you once you fall in water, but after they finish laughing at you. Then the raft was launched. We had life jackets, paddles, and I had my water proof one time use camera that I bought from Walmart for < $10. We were seven in our boat, and our guide. The raft was basically two air filled tubes on the sides held apart by seats plus a bottom. We were asked to sit on the tubes - i.e. the edge of the raft and they were real hard too - and - I still have pain in my ... It reminded me of riding bicycle. The guide gave us first lessons like what we should do for his commands such as forward, backward, left, right and duck (that is when the boat is going to hit a rock, duck or else you are in the water). Then we started rafting, i.e. we started paddling following the commands issued by the guide. At least, if nothing else, I found out what river rafting was. There is this river, flowing smooth, but at some points along the way it gets rough, just at some places, mostly at turns, or when there is a rocky bed. These rough areas are called Rapids. Depending on the roughness, the class of Rapid varies from one to five. The river we were going through had only up to Rapid3. The guide guides us through, and does lefts and rights and takes the boat to plunge into holes in Rapids. That is all the excitation about. You surely do get wet, may get thrown out, etc. etc. Anyway, the amount of excitation is completely controlled by the guide. He may decide to avoid a hole, depending on how good the team in the boat is, etc. We got our team work right (basically synchronization of paddling), and closed the first days account without any casualties. The Rapids were exciting (that is - trying to be not thrown out of the boat, and getting wet), and of course no photography was possible. I had to be satisfied with photos of the non-rapid portions of the river, mostly. River rafting may be more fun for the guide, who decides the lefts, rights, and all, but the fun for us was limited to how well we execute his commands. At any rapid, we really never knew what the guide was trying to do or the thrill in doing it, I guess you will never get that in a guided rafting trip. Lot of people were having fun along the river, all by themselves, in kayaks. On the second day, a boat of another Rapid5 team got a hole, people were reshuffled across boats, and of course, there was no team work right in my new boat. At a rapid, our boat hit a rock and I was thrown out. But I managed to cling on to the boat, and was pulled in. A lady in our boat who also got thrown out in the same incident had to be rescued by us by going back upstream (of course, I did show chivalry while pulling her in, but after I was safe in the boat :-)). BTW, the rafting is, by gods grace, always downstream - and we ride a pillow of water released from a dam upstream. Therefore, timings are also important. So that is the end. At least, you should know by now why our company came to be called Rapid5 Networks (and not Mt.Everest Networks or something like that :-). 8-21-2000 |
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