So, what did you expect?

Just to set the record state, this is not one of the students from the University of Hyderabad. This week has started out with good points and not so good points. Let’s start with the good points. I gave a marketing lecture at the University of Hyderabad on Monday to the incoming MBA class. I don’t have the pictures that were taken, but will share them when they arrive on IST. The campus for the school was deemed too far away for students to come to class only seven years ago. Now, of course, there is construction all around the campus and throngs of students in the various studies darting around in the same traffic patterns on campus as on the streets of the city. So, what do you expect?
I received flowers and a small framed Indian print. I had lunch with the faculty and had a wonderful time. It was a Cinderella story. I got back to the hotel, changed my clothes just in time for my next scheduled appointment with the relocation people. A knock on my door was a message delivered from the desk from the relocation people saying that the appointment was cancelled due to the political strike that was taking place. It wasn’t safe to go out and there was a government threat of a curfew. So, what do you expect?
I did a lot of correspondence yesterday, virtually all of it by e-mail. I have a neat new Samsung smart phone. Deb and I have matching Samsung smart phones. It’s like the “Dueling Banjos” of phones from Deliverance. You know who the backwoods picker is – me! I got a pre-paid card from Vodaphone. Now THERE’s a brand you don’t hear about much in the USA, but every other entrepreneur in Hyderabad is a licensed Vodaphone agent, just like they are licensed to sell the state lottery tickets. Deb got a month-to-month plan. Her phone works. Mine does not. So, what did you expect?
Today started with a little uncertainty. In fact, India is something of a mathematical proof of the uncertainty principle. You can think you know where something is at any one time, but you can’t figure out when the thing is going to be where you want it to be. Conversely, you think you know when something is supposed to be where you want it, but you don’t really know where it is. Heisenberg must have lived in India. Deb’s passport was required for Indian customs to screen the shipment of our stuff. Allied-Lemuir took the passport on Thursday last week as part of the necessary documentation. Well, to keep the story short, customs didn’t give the final OK on the shipment until Saturday, Sunday they weren’t there, and Monday, the agent ostensibly was caught in a traffic jam caused by the strike. Soooo, the passport was to be returned today. It finally got here. We can only guess what state our shipment is in. So, what did you expect?
Oh, yeah, House Hunters Hyderabad. Of anything I am absolutely sure of, you will NOT see an episode of this on HGTV. We started out in Gachibowli. Now this area has been identified as THE place to be in the next 3 years. There is building everywhere. And where there is building there is. . . . RUBBLE, huge piles of rubble. Some entrepreneurs will find something to do with the rubble, but not today. Supposedly we were no more than 10 minutes from Deb’s office, but I swear I couldn’t see over the rubble to know where I was. I’m not going to bore you with the different properties we saw today, but the best one was the Indian version of your grandmother’s 1950’s decorations. But it was relatively clean, had A/C in every room, and water every day. We’re movin’ forward. So, what did you expect?