Las Vegas to Lansing.

Ambiguity is the word that perfect describes the life of a consultant. Though there are scheduled durations to a project, but never are they stable. The duration of the project keeps changing, like the recently concluded project which was scheduled to go till the next year got scrapped in two months time. As I mentioned in the previous post, I considered my project in Vegas as a paid holiday. I wish I stayed there a little longer.

Along with this ambiguity there comes a positive side, you are on the move all the time. Having kicked out of Vegas with a little notice, I was lucky enough to find another project in Lansing, the capital city of Michigan state (i.e. the great lakes state). Michigan is one of the northern states in US that is bordering Canada. There is a road here in the city of Detroit, which goes to Canada. Out of the four states that I have been, Michigan seems to be the one with less development. Though the state is home to some of the major car manufacturing companies the roads here not as great as they are in California or Colorado. Looks like the recent economic downturn has effected the state very badly. But the positive side effect is the state is re-building the roads here out of the funding they have from the sanctioned bail out package.

Don't know for some reason I liked taking the long route via LA, may be the thought of being in LA for a stopover fancied me. I have been in LAX airport several times, but never in the domestic airport. Traveling to Lansing from Las Vegas via Los Angeles is not a wise decision, but this meant that I had to take a red eye flight from LA to Lansing. The experience of taking a red eye flight is horrible, you are traveling the whole night, without any proper sleep. I wouldn't appreciate this experience, but really have got loads of appreciation to those consultants who travel coast to coast in the red eye flights. Anyways, my red eye experience was bad, I was not asleep for more than an hour in that four hour flight. Adding insult to injury was I spilled a glass of ice cold water on my pants and seat with about 30 mins into the journey and had to deal with it for the rest of the journey ;-(.

I landed at Detroit airport early in the morning with half asleep and rented a Subaru, a mini SUV, I wanted to drive this car for a long time and the lady in the rental location was generous to rent this car at an affordable rate. I had to drive from Detroit to Lansing, i.e about 90 miles (around 1hr 30 mins) in a chilly weather and without proper sleep. This was my first long drive alone, though I was on road trips many a time, but never was alone. So took up to driving, it was a totally different transition from one extreme of the world to another extreme. It was like, I was thrown into some remote part of America. Dude, the roads are small, it's woods all the way on either sides of the road, sometimes you can even find Deers on the road.

After driving for 90 minutes I was at the hotel, and wasn't surprised to see the Indian contingent at the hotel. Now I got used to finding Indians in any part of the world, the first time I was coming to US, I felt it will be hard to find Indians. Right now, I feel, it is hard to find any place without Indians. Mind you I am not being sarcastic in the above sentence, but being proud that we Indians are ruling the world ;-). The moment I was waiting for in the last 90 mins to hit the bed once I am at hotel had to be delayed for another 90 mins as I was very early to the hotel from my prescribed check in time. With the only option of going to my friend Mr.S's place, went to his place and crashed for a nap.

On getting a message that my room was ready for occupation, returned back to hotel, freshened up and hit the road again. This time to meet my buddies at Jackson, my consulting firm is doing another project here which is just 30 miles from here. My buddy Mr.Cool dude, has moved to this project about 7 months back after he returned from London. I met him after a gap of one year, the last time we saw each other was when this dude left LA for London. It's always a great pleasure to meet your friends and especially the one's who are really close to you in thinking..etc.
I am impressed by this guy. Anyways, I was in Jackson by 2.30 PM and among friends on the first day.

We went on a small long ride to a near by lake, btw Michigan is known for its lakes and it really should be for the number of lakes that are here. Had a classy time sipping Starbucks coffee at the shores of a lake. I always imagined of Jackson as a big city similar to LA by the descriptions given by another friend Mr.Sk, the fitness freak, but in reality it is totally opposite of what I imagined, but it is cool. Couple of weeks back I was thinking I never lived in a village, now here I got my wish is fulfilled by being in these towns of Lansing and Michigan. Sk is a fitness freak and is athletic too. He asked to jump over a small fencing, I under estimated the fencing height and went for a jump which resulted in me crashing on the stones with free fall. There I go nearly missing a fracture on the first day of my stay in Michigan. However, later the day was made more memorable by playing cricket. Though we lost both the games we played, it was a little different experience from playing tennis. Thus after the dinner with my buddies at Outback, returned home and crashed in the bed after an eventful day.