Catching Up

I am really behind on our blog posts, so I'll try to do a bit of catching up with these posts. Let's see, what has happened? Well, we went to Agra and never posted any pictures. So I'll start with a Part 1 of our Agra trip. It is entitled "On the Road" and has all the stuff we saw while riding around in the car. It was our family's first trip out of the city to the 'country' and you see some pretty amazing things. In the slide show, look for little cars packed full of people, a car stuck in the mud up to the undercarriage, some monkeys, a couple of camels, women carrying huge bundles of grass on their heads, and lots of very typical things that you see riding around here. Of course, Part 2 - the Agra Fort and Part 3 - the Taj Mahal are still to come - someday.

The trip to Agra was really amazing and a lot of fun for our family. You will see we went with the Clegg family, who have become our good friends. If you come to India, the trip to the Taj is worth the effort. It really does live up to its billing as a wonder of the world. It is a great sight to see and a great love story. The Agra Fort was as interesting to me as the Taj. It has a lot of very different styles of architecture, representing the various kings who lived there. I'll write more on them when I post the other videos.

Anyway - here is "On the Road - Agra Part 1".

On October 7, Rebecca turned 18 years old. What a great age! It won't be long before she is off to the University (BYU we all hope) and Michelle and I will be empty nesters. That is a somewhat scary thought, although we are really looking forward to the whole grandparent gig (congratulations again to Jameson and Becky).

Michelle and I spent some time trying to figure out how we could make Rebecca's 18th a birthday to remember. Finally we hit on the idea - an elephant! So we figured out where we could 'rent' an elephant for her birthday. Well, I have to say that it was a huge hit with her and her friends. All the folks that showed up later in the evening (and there were lots), were disappointed that they missed the elephant ride.

Here's a short video of one of the rides - link here. Here are some pictures of the day.

Here's Raja (he's 45 years old and weighs in at 3 Tons), his trainer (the guy on the ground), his driver (on top of course), and the Birthday Girl.

Some friends that came to ride the elephant and celebrate Rebecca's birthday.

Elephants have really stiff, course hair - who knew about that?

What's a celebration in India without flowers?

And what's a birthday without cake?

Our driver Jogender (on the left) who bought the flowers and arranged the elephant and one of the guards (on the right) who helped put the flowers up.

Our stuff is now here, and I'll publish another post about that in a day or so.

I’m Back from the Land Down Under

This last week I was down in Australia and New Zealand for a business trip and just got home early this morning.  It was a last minute thing as I stepped in for someone at work for presentations on IP Commercialization.  I really enjoyed the sessions and the comments by people who attended indicate that they also enjoyed the sessions. 

My experience on this trip was a bit like traveling back in the late 70’s or early 80’s.  Somewhere between Delhi and Singapore, my laptop decided it wanted to act like a brick instead of a computer.  So scratch email, for the most part and phone calls home (I use my laptop for that).  Although my mobile phone would probably work, I hate to think of the international roaming charges, so it stayed turned off and in my bag.  Since I was a late pinch hitter, I also didn’t stay at the same hotel as everyone many nights.  It was a bit difficult to coordinate the whens and wheres of travel without a mobile phone.  I did manage to get a few email to Michelle so she knew what was going on.  But it was really hard not being able to chat like we usually do.  Yah, I know.  Whine, whine.  It all worked out.

It nice to see New Zealand.  I told everyone that my Mom had lived in New Zealand for about 18 months for our Church, including the immigration officer who stamped my passport.  The people from New Zealand seem to be really thankful that we would spend enough time to fly all the way down there to meet with them.  They realize that unless you are flying within New Zealand, outside of Australia (about 5 hours away), everywhere else in the world is a long, long plane ride away.

The weather is just turning spring down there and it was weird to leave from Delhi where it was still finishing up the monsoon season and step off the plane where the temperature was substantially less and spring was all around.  While we were in New Zealand we met with Weta Digital, who did special effects on lots of famous movies, including Lord of the Rings.  They had a shop called the Weta Cave (Weta are a type of cricket that lives in a cave) that has lots of props and things from the movie, including Aragon’s broken sword and a full size Orc (very scary looking).  They also do a lot of work with Microsoft on Halo and have a full-size drivable Warthog (which I didn’t get to see or drive – darn it).

I also really enjoyed Sydney (what I got to see of it).  It has a fun downtown area and lots of things that you can walk and see.  Of course, all I saw was the inside of conference and hotel rooms.  But still, it looked fun and I wouldn’t mind spending some time there with Michelle and Becca where we could just go see all the stuff.

One thing that was funny to me.  Every meal that was served at the seminars we put on had some sort of curry dish.  I told people that I’d eat anything on the menu except for the curry.  I’d leave the Indian food for when I got home.  They all laughed.  I can tell that it hasn’t been that long since they were able to have a nice steak or anything at all made with beef.

I’m hoping to get the first part of our trip to Agra posted soon.  Sorry for the delay.  It has been a bit busy.