Merry Go Round

The bugs came out again today. Similar to the episode in mid-August, no one seems to know what happened. It came like a soft rumbling in the ground, like a coming earthquake. Luckily the scale did not tip over. The first inkling came at dawn when the support staff called me at home as I was getting ready for work. My mobile phone rang at about 7:30 am when I was dressing. Earlier, he received a call from the warehouse at 6:30 am and tried the usual next steps to get it running but the program just didn’t work. So he called me an hour later after his futile attempts. I did not check my laptop right away, thinking I had time to have a quick breakfast and drive to work. My plan was to have everything fixed by 8:30 am; not too bad a delay for the warehouse. But as I got to my desk at 8 am, it looked like something had changed. It was acting strangely. We were in for a wild ride today.

We got to work checking everything in the server, logging into systems and making phone calls to the warehouse. The support staff walked over to my desk as we fiddled with the keyboards, looking at the computer screens for any sign of a logical solution. But it was a mystery. The system was hanging in the warehouse, stalled by some invisible barrier that we could not find. It seemed like some malevolent virus was stalking the network, mischievously delaying the packets of data whizzing by, creating havoc at the warehouse. We just could not find what was wrong. We tried the usual steps again which the staff had done earlier. It seemed to have stopped working but suddenly it started to work, sending down the reports from head office down the wire to the warehouse.  We had beaten the bug. Or so we thought. We called the warehouse and asked them to try again. But the fellas got the same erroneous response. The program was not working at their end.

So the rest of the day was spent helping the fellas remotely, printing their reports and doing the other stuff that they normally do. Otherwise, work would stop and the product will not be delivered to our loyal customers. So we continued helping throughout the day, and the fellas did not show any irritation except for that sweet old lady, a grandmother actually, who displayed a brief flicker of contempt like a flash of a steel blade sinking into your flesh. A problem ticket was created in the help desk so the root cause could be found and fixed. But like a bumbling idiot, we watched the ticket make its way around the globe, first to the warehouse support staff in Bangalore, India. After chatting with him, he went to check their application, found nothing wrong and transferred the ticket to IBM. But not before alerting his boss here in South Carolina, so we got into a short group chat to make sure it was not caused by their application. So the ticket made its way towards a different group of folks.

Soon the hardware folks were chatting me up on the problem. A person I worked with in past based also in India. So we exchanged screen captures, information on the problem, possible avenues to check and so on. But it was an exchange of polite accusation, trying to point the blame towards each other with civilized courtesy. But we would not budge, sticking to our logical constructs in our minds until another path was found to divert the problem to the application team in Cleveland, Ohio. So sent these folks an email with screen captures of the server errors. So far no reply yet as of this moment. Soon a head honcho from IBM called me, a nice guy actually, with a good reputation and respected by the department. It looked like the wire was not upgraded as planned and the bandwidth was not increased. I was skeptical since I suspected something was adjusted in the back end and were not told. Some confidential security measures were applied to prevent any virus or malware attacks and affecting our program. But it’s my old paranoia, my suspicion that there is some secret conspiracy happening behind my back.

In the meantime, we were still getting phone calls from the warehouse as they tried to get on with their work.   A problem came up at the end of the day and I had to get assistance from another Indian colleague beside my cubicle. I walked over to him and explained the problem and he worked on fixing it. Meanwhile, no word from the folks in Nevada. They seemed to have no problem working with their program. It a strange world indeed when two parties are using the same program but only one party having problems. One assumes it is the size of the transactions. But that is the nature of the ‘cloud’ where problems strike in the ether and one does not know where the glitch is.  The merry go round with continue tomorrow if the problem is not fixed. But the head honcho said that the bandwidth will increase tonight. We shall see. I had planned to go to the gym tonight but just felt tired. The merry go around is getting to me too. After a while, the folks in Ohio replied to my email and found no problem at their end. The problem ticket remains open in the ether with no ownership.

August Nights

This week is hot August nights in Reno, Nevada. It is the biggest event of the year according to the locals. The main attractions are the old, vintage and classic cars assembled in front of the hotel and then paraded down the main street in down town Reno. Almost all the cars are lovingly restored with great paint jobs and high end engines although some cars keep their parts genuine. It is the biggest car convention I have ever seen. It’s pure luck that the assembly of cars was right in front of our hotel. A live band played classic rock and pop songs. Most of the people who went to the convention seemed to be in their fifties or sixties although there were sprinkling of young people here and there. The weather was just right, a bit nippy despite being in the desert. I learned that Reno is about 4500 feet above sea level which explains the cool temperature despite being in a near-desert landscape of surrounding brown, tree less and majestic mountains.

The first day we arrived, on Sunday, we hit a few balls in the hotels’ driving range, played bowling, bought toothpaste in Wall-mart and had an excellent dinner of roasted duck.  The next day on Monday, we went to work, set up the computers, did some tests, and processed the first batch of transactions. There were problems but were fixed as the day went on. Go live was officially the next day. For lunch, we drove to ‘Border Town’ a small restaurant cum casino near the Nevada - California border. After work, we drove to Lake Tahoe with our other colleagues who arrived that afternoon. We had dinner in a lovely restaurant beside Lake Tahoe called Garwood located in the California side. I had a salad topped with trout. We drove back to Reno through the Sierra Nevada Mountains surrounding the lake and back into Reno along the highway that followed the Truckee River that flowed into Reno city and towards Pyramid Lake. I was exhausted when I got to my room as I woke up early and went to the gym and exercised for 30 minutes in the early morning.

On Tuesday, the new system went live although there were problems in the label printer. It took a while to fix but it got going to complete the work. We had to go back to the hotel at noon and pay our bill as our company had authorized payment for that day only. Earlier our credit cards were declined as the hotel was registered as a casino not a hotel in the computer system. So after resolving that snafu, we ate lunch at the hotel restaurant. I had pork fried rice which I also had on Sunday along with wanton soup. We returned to the office and continued the work. There was another glitch at the end of the day were the interface could not be uploaded. So we called the Indian support team at head office to fix the bug. The problem was soon fixed and we drove back to the hotel were we had cocktails during happy hour at the lobby bar ($1 per drink) and we had whisky and coke and rum and coke. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant where I had pork spaghetti. Afterwards, we walked out in the company parking lot where the car convention was taking place. We took pictures of the vintage cars in pristine condition.

On Wednesday, most of the major issues were fixed. The business leader wrote a status report and sent out an email calling the roll-out a success. We struggled a bit in getting the second printer to run and managed to fix the problem near the end of the day. There is a remaining problem in the carrier report and forwarded the issue to our contractors in Ohio. We had lunch again in ‘Border Town’ where I ate beef liver in onions with mashed potatoes. The day ended in high spirits and the team went to down town. We visited the known hotel casinos Silver Lake, Circus Circus and El Dorado. We walked along the main street and took pictures of the famous arch sign ‘Reno – the Biggest Little City in the World’ and took more pictures in the bridge beside the Truckee River where a group of teenagers were riding their skateboards. We walked back to the Silver Lake hotel and had dinner where I had a miserable dish of Hot and Sour soup and Hong Kong fried noodles. After dinner, we went out in the street again and watched the parade of cars where an emcee entertained us with jokes. It was the most impressive parade of vintage cars I have ever seen.

We went back to the hotel and after depositing my things in my room, I went back down again with my camera to see the cars assembled in the hotel’s massive parking lot. I took more pictures and watched the band playing in a stage at a corner of the lot. There were a lot of people walking about, dancing and listening to the music. I returned to the hotel and I saw my office colleagues drinking coffee in the hotel lobby bar. I joined them and had butter pecan ice cream and later a martini as we watched the couples dancing in front of the live band and the people walking about the casino lobby. We exchanges jokes and stories while we watched the dancing forms and the beautiful girls. My two colleagues were old friends for nearly 30 years in the company. It was fun to watch them exchange old stories and reminiscence of long lost friends. I went to my room at about 10 pm and went to sleep immediately after a shower. I brought a lot of thing to read and an audio book to listen too but I was too tired.

This morning our two other colleagues flew back home while my team mate remained for the day. We will both leave the next day but my flight is at noon while his is early morning. We had breakfast at the usual cafe, where I had 2 eggs, sausage, hash brown and toast.  We drove to work feeling a bit tired after the last 4 days of activity. It was a slow day today, I wrote emails, sent meeting invites discussed relevant subjects with users and tested the remaining business cases. My boss called me to ask how things were in the project. I gave a quick report and discussed the coming requirements. I had lunch of cheeseburger and garlic fries and came back to the office. It was an excellent day with the sun shine out in the blue sky and the brown hills surrounding the horizon. The office lay in a valley near the main highway and the scenery was spectacular as I gazed out the window of the office. We still have not decided what to do in the evening although we would go back to the hotel to take a rest.

Reno Journey

Next week I will be in the good state of Nevada in the city of Reno.  It will be my second time in this quaint city near lovely Lake Tahoe.  The only thing I am worried about is the plane ride into the city where we descend through perilous air pockets caused by the surrounding mountains. Reno is a small casino town very much different from the great oasis of Las Vegas like a poor cousin to a mega billionaire. But Reno has its charms with past echoes of oil and gold mining and legendary Western towns like Carson City made famous by Hollywood cowboy movies. It is a more family friendly town compared to the glitzy sin city of Las Vegas. Nowadays the town functions more as an adjunct to Lake Tahoe with its picturesque lake, ski resorts and scenic mountains. Reno is also near the site where the great pioneers of the past perished in the snow bound hills north of Tahoe. This was the pathway westward from the cold Northern cities where people strove to reach the sunshine paradise of California.

It is also the path way of the great railroads built by Chinese coolies ‘shanghaied’ from China - railroads that link the American continent from East to West. The story of the Chinese travails is still to be told – a neglected chapter in the civil rights story of America. The hardships experienced by the Asians justify their claim to being rightful citizens of the Western perimeter where large Chinese communities exist in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver. This is the distinction of the westerns states with a large proportion of Asians crossing the Pacific into the promised lands of California, Washington, Oregon and the Canadian provinces facing the great Ocean. There are more Asians of Chinese extractions in Reno than the Southern states along the Eastern perimeter. One feels more at home in the west with the diversity of Asians who live here.

Reno is also the locale of the John Huston film, ‘The Misfits’ starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift on a story by noted playwright Arthur Miller (and Monroe’s husband). It’s a film that has multiple legends as both leads died after making the film – making it their last known work. The story is also worthy with the theme of the dying west. Reno represents a city who has seen better times in its history where legendary wildcatters stuck gold or oil, cowboys and gun fighters, gamblers and misfits. The landscape of barren hills and near desert like conditions reminds one of the romances of the old west. Now it is a struggling city trying to live up to its giant sister city of Las Vegas and in the shadow of Lake Tahoe one of the most beautiful places in the world. It serves as a place for recreation of Northern Californians likely from San Francisco going to Reno to gamble in the way Los Angeles residents go to Las Vegas.   

We will stay in a large hotel near the airport called the Grand Sierra. The lobby contains a statue of a rider and his horse depicting the travails of the Pony Express. It has a large lobby with gambling tables and slot machines and multiple restaurants. It is a nice place to walk around and observe people. Hopefully I can try to explore places I have not seen in my last trip and use its sports facilities and pool. The project we are working on requires us to install a program in a number of facilities spread out across the country. This will be our second site and we have been testing the application all of this week. There are a few bugs but we hope to fix all of them before travelling west.  It feels like the old days when I used to travel the different sites in Asia like Bangkok, Tokyo, Ohta, Shanghai and Shenyang. It is a different place from the Asian cities that we use to frequent. But the temptations and the difficulties are still the same.

The journey to Reno is a culmination of the project that started 2 years ago when I transferred from Singapore. Finally we are in the end game where the program is being rolled out to the different sites. The team has overcome a lot of obstacles to get here and there were moments where no one else seemed to be leading except me. It is not one of those large or highly visible projects in the company but one that has its own share of complexity and problems with significant changes in project personnel. It feels like being the last man standing. One is also involved in another much larger project where a larger system is being deployed to the different sites as well. We have pulled forward a bit as we got off the gate slightly faster and there may be a slight element of rivalry. But both projects are moving forward breaking out from the seeming inertia and gridlock that prevented its progress. Travelling to the different sites is the final culmination of the work.



This week has been about testing to prepare for next week in Reno. Most of the time was spent writing emails or meeting with IBM and our software contractor in Ohio, working with our support team from India and doing remote tests with our Reno team. It’s been a slow week – a much slower pace than in Asia – a place that seemed to be working on steroids. Issues were found and fixed in a relaxed pace. I also attended a good seminar on Civil Rights in the nearby Furman University – one of the most beautiful colleges I have visited. I also attended a seminar on Cloud computing and volunteer teaching in nearby schools. It was an exhilarating week where the debt ceiling crisis was finally resolved amid nerve racking fights in congress. Yesterday the stock markets worldwide crashed amid worries about the global economy but the job figures came out today with some optimistic gains, contrary to the prevailing opinion. It looks like a promising future lay ahead – capped also with the president’s birthday this week which was a fitting end to the previous political struggles in Washington.

D-Day

Deployment day is today after several months of work. Finally we are a breath away from go live. It’s been a long project with almost 2 years of unceasing labor, confusion, big breaks, difficult challenges, redemption and resolution. But the way is not clear yet. Today will be the first remote test. But everything will be in place with everybody on call to respond. The ball is with Big Blue who has repeatedly delayed the deployment that caused us to stay the weekend in Nevada. It was a good idea to stay because the allotted 2 day stay was really not enough. But it was a hair rising ride with combination of a structured methodology, agile methods and the usual seat of the pants confusion. Nevertheless, it has reached this point which is a major step despite what happens today.

There are a lot of problems in the start-up and most folks are spinning the story wrongly. One’s perception is the key and despite the difficult journey one feels that definite progress has been achieved. My old boss is leading the charge despite moving to a new position a few months ago. He is still fully invested and there is no way he could leave it alone. He even admits that he caused the mess. Sometimes I feel that he is thrashing out wildly like an old boxer using the old moves to fight the enemy but the enemy has evolved with the rules of the game changing as well. So he is like an old fighter fighting a young challenger with new rules. Fortunately, he is not alone and everyone is pitching in to help move the project along.

It was an eventful trip with a great weekend of travels around the lake, to the nearby mountains and ski-resorts, playing billiards, exploring the casinos and great food in different restaurants. Reno is an old mining town with vestiges of the Wild West. The cities nearby evoke memories of romantic time: Carson City, Virginia City, Border Town, Lake Tahoe. These are cities heard or seen in the old Western television shows or movies with legendary actors like John Wayne, Clint Eastwood or Steve McQueen. It’s a thrill to be in the actual place where all those stories actually happen. There is a large bronze statue in the hotel lobby of a horse and rider in tribute to the Pony Express. The Pony Express is that ancient relic of delivering mail where one rider handed off the mail to another fresh rider until the destination is reached. The bronze plaque says that the record was achieved in delivering the news of the victory of Abraham Lincoln from East to the West states.

Its fitting that the pilot is done in this city of pioneers where individual labor and sacrifice is the key to success. We will find out at the end of the day if everything will turn out well. Last night after dinner we went to the center of town to the excellent hotel Silver Legacy. It’s an old hotel – the best I have seen so far with elaborate carpets and well lighted places with elegant slots machines and gambling tables. This is an old replica of a silver mining rig that looks like the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was designed by Eiffel himself for his friend, who was the richest silver miner in Nevada, The hotel was built in the site of the silver mine that made him rich. There was painting in the lobby of scenes from the Wild West – cowboys in horses, Main Street with dusty lanes. The huge silver rig in a dome that replicated the sky above gave the exact feeling of how it was like in those days.

Asian Pioneers

The Donner Party memorial is a few miles north of Lake Tahoe. It’s a memorial to the party of pioneers who perished in the terrible winter of 1846 and 1847 on their way to California. The pioneers with their families got caught in a mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada. We went to the memorial after circling Lake Tahoe. We traveled from Reno. It was a spectacular drive with the mountain tops covered with snow. The mountains of the Sierra Nevada surround the city of Reno, which lies on a flat plain. The mountains around Lake Tahoe are snow capped but the mountains towards Las Vegas are semi-desert, with no trees or snow. These mountains are filled with rocks and large boulders and covered with brown earth. It is in striking contrast to the mountains towards California which have fir trees and snow.

The memorial had glass cases filled with old relics. There was one case about the Chinese laborers who worked on the Western railroads. Chinese laborers where often ‘shanghaied’ or kidnapped from China to work as indigent labor. The casinos in Reno are full of Asians mostly of Chinese immigrants. I can’t help but think that these Asians are the descendants of those railroad workers. The exhibit talked about racial purges and it would not stretch the imagination that these purges where aimed at the Chinese communities who have settled near the railroad stations. The nearest town is Truckee with a highway going to Reno. I can see the railroad tracks from the highway as we drove along the highway to Reno. The hotel I stayed in has slight traces of seediness, unlike the one in Las Vegas. These were a lot of young people in the hotel casino and most had their ski gear, ready to ski in Mt. Rose which is north of Lake Tahoe.

The television series ‘Kung Fu’ is about a Shoalin monk and his adventures in the west. A martial arts expert in the land of cowboys and Indians. At that time, it was a unique story because the history of the Chinese experience building railroads, the racial struggles, the rise in prosperities of Chinatown were never known. I had always thought about the rich merchant Chinese who lived in the Philippines and not the indigent Chinese laborers who were exploited in near slavery conditions. Slavery seemed to be the exclusive story of African Americans and the story of the other races that were treated harshly has not been told. So I was glad to see the exhibit about the Chinese laborers in the Donner party memorial. It was like their struggles and contributions are finally being recognized. The Chinese heritage and other Asian immigrants have every right to be in the country because of the contribution by their country men in the country’s development.

It’s like everything is turning full circle. It is ironic that China is buying Treasury bonds to keep the country functioning. Asian sovereign funds are helping Western countries survive their financial problems. Instead of the manual labor of the past, it is the money and skills that are the contributing to the economy. On a personal level, I am here for work, installing software in a warehouse, something that I have done many times in Asia; in Thailand, China, Japan and the Philippines.  Now the assignment is in Nevada, where Asian laborers have toiled in a previous century. In a certain way, nothing has changed and the world has always been a global economy, where different actors from foreign lands have always worked together. The pendulum has swung in the opposite direction with the East ascendant. It feels like one is riding a wave at the right time. There will be opposition as there usually is and the messy deployment in Reno is an example.