Who Can Really Say?

I've been working for the weekend like you won't believe. After all, there was no last weekend for me, unless you go back 2 weeks ago. I lost half a day of the actual last weekend in time zone travel, and woke up bleary in the middle of the day Sunday. I crashed and burned on Wednesday but made a fortunate recovery by tonight, Friday. Now I feel like I'm kickin' butt and takin' names, even if that only means I'm sitting in a hotel room in the so-called Silicon Valley of India, Hyderabad.

And so it goes. Last year I mentioned how pleasant, helpful, and solicitous the staff is here at the Taj Banjara. They remain that way six months later, to a fault. I may be a legend in my own mind but if I hung around here long enough I'd start to believe it.

Upon arrival I was surprised how many of the staff recognized me. "Hello Mr. F___! How are you? It is so good to see you again!" Their smiles stretched from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. Well. Maybe they're well coached, but if that's so they do a good job of it.

So the weekend beckons and my plans are in flux. The Master Driver, Arafat, is off with his family tomorrow so I'll spend the day around the hotel grounds. I may explore some of the near environs beyond. It's not so much that I fear for my safety in the greater city as that I'm allergic to heat stroke. On Sunday Arafat will take me on another tour to sites I didn't see last year. I'm not sure which so you'll just have to wait to find out.

On a side note, I've shortened the length of the main page that loads when you visit the blog. If you're trying to catch up and the earlier entries have scrolled off the bottom, all you need do is return to the top of the page and click on the link to the right for "India 2007". You'll get them all. Also, most of the recently posted photos can be clicked to get a larger example of the picture. Go ahead, do it -- make my day and kill my bandwidth. Really!