Mechie Cabbie

This happened in a cab I hired to go to the airport for my trip to India. Within first few minutes of interaction with the cab driver I understood that he is a mechanical engineer having 9 years of experience in Ford. (Every person in US has some experience in Ford!!). He asked me about myself and realized I am from his area of interest.. powertrains!

Now my amazing cab journey started with he saying whether he can ask me some questions to judge my knowledge! Yes those were his words! J I was surprised.. replied assertively. What is a HEGO (oxygen) sensor.. his first question. Well, now by questions I felt he would ask some generic questions and not directly the technical details of the operation of an oxygen sensor. My ME 569 days flashed in front of me and I started “storytelling”. Now he interrupted me asking me to answer in exact words.. short and to the point. Aw! Before I completed my explanation, he himself started describing how exactly the switching takes place in the sensor and its other technical details.

How does a crankshaft sensor work, what does it measure? What is engine coolant temperature sensor? How does it control the engine idling operation? Then a couple of solid works and proE questions were followed…… and today this Ann Arbor to Airport journey looked endless! Then he spoke about himself, how he used to interview students like me and what are the current trends in the industry. He spoke about the importance of experience and gave me couple of words of wisdom as he realized that I will be soon making a transition from academic life to industry. He made me appreciate that the real learning starts when one gets into the industry, when one has to learn by himself to keep up with the pace, when there is no set syllabi or pre determined annual examinations to judge you, still there is a need to perform for continuous assessment from peers and bosses and a need to absorb knowledge at twice or thrice the rate of academia to keep up with the competition.

The airport arrived. He did not ask for a tip, neither took any. He urged to remain in touch and waved me saying .. “My friend.. once you step in the industry world, in whichever department you go, make sure to show your extremely accurate engineering knowledge. Your success will depend on how good an (technical) engineer you are!”

The People of America!

It was a great experience to travel more than 8000 miles in 15 days covering the entire east coast and southern America. Starting from Chicago the adventure included NYC, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, Rhodes Island, Niagara, 1000 Island (1840 to be precise!), Virginia, Tennessee and then Florida! During these days I got a chance to interact with all kinds of people, from different backgrounds, different ethnicities and different cultures.

Although America looks the same everywhere with freeways going either N-S or E-W, fast food restaurants wherever you see, smiling people greeting “hello, how are you doing!” just to acknowledge your presence, STOP signs everywhere, Jogging people at odd times of the day or dancing on the rhythm of the music plugged into their ears…. There are different shades to them if one looks closer!

Unlike people in and around 42^nd Street 7^th Avenue NYC (Times Square) who are “upscale” neatly dressed with suit and tie and polished shoes, rushing to their office places in the morning time or sitting on some 83^rd floor in a glass cabin with a mac in front of them and a personal secretary (lady) on their right… the countryside men and completely laid back… Chillaxed!! :P Its simple.. nothing as Grandeur or glittering as you will see on the east coast or silicon valley.

By countryside I mean the people I observed in Virginia, Tennessee provinces. These are the people who tame horses, pigs and cattle, wear hats and 6 pocket jeans, have acres and acres of farm lands and probably a gun. I will call them close to cowboys! These people seem to be more attached to the family. Wherever I went I observed entire family.. a married couple, the in laws and the children.. together (living happily).

Great people with great hospitality! I happened to visit one of their shows (The Dixie Stampede Dining Show) where they portrayed their “cattle skills”, narrated the development

of the race around Tennessee State and enacted the war that took place between the North and South Tennessee. The show was jaw dropping and to add to the flavor the dinner was mind-blowing. We were served one FULL roasted hen!! Along with vegetable soup, boiled corn, slice of pork, a potato and then desert… with NO silverware!! Great experience to eat a full roasted chicken with hands! J The show concluded with countryside music and people dancing happily.

Chinatown is one more shade. Not only people, but everything is in Chinese.. shop names, billboards, prices everything. Its a totally different world when one enters the Chinatown. The buildings have stairs on the outside..The lodges are disgusting with common toilets, there is garbage on the streets.. and also the following sign can be seen in Chinatown NYC.

Florida was all together a different story. Orlando is full of children, tourists.. Thanks Walt! I hardly saw any “Americans” as I descended to south. The Orlando-Miami journey gave a flavor of our good old ST bus (rest is now self explanatory! which includes the driver, passengers, bus, lay over restaurants etc…!). Miami is full of people either from Cuba or Mexico.. I don’t know how to differentiate.. but my point is.. Here I met natives who can’t speak English. Inner parts of Miami had more old people busy in their diurnal activities.. Similar kind of people like you can see when you travel from Panjim to Vasco in the morning. Miami reminded me of Goa except the tourists.. tourists are more “bold” here!! :P

That was my journey.. Next is the west coast… which is one more different flavor of the America… the “Desi America”!!

India v/s Pakistan

(Clarification based on a response: The "cheering against the two teams" was in good spirit as all the people knew each other. It was not due to the animosity but for teasing the opponents! It was not taken srsly by any team)

No doubt it had to be the most nail biting match of World cup 2011, it was also a lifetime experience for me. India v/s Pakistan: it is always thrilling, full of tension, fervor, and enthusiasm.. “Get used to it!” But you just cannot describe the feeling when you are watching the match with a bunch of Pakistanis in the same room.

The match was going to be screened live at central campus. We first headed the library and printed out some “4”s and “6”s placards to show the Pakistanis who would be present in the hall. Everyone was ready to head to central campus and we shared a cab to go there. The venue was already packed. With lots and lots of Indians, the Pakistanis were still seen prominently seen with their green jersey’s and painted flags on their faces. We sneaked inside the room and squeezed onto a table to rest our seats.

The room (which had a capacity of 70) was packed with around 300 people. Noises, cheers, slogans everything was heard except the commentary. Every ball had to be cheered.. either by the blue guys or by the green. We clearly outnumbered the opponents. “Sachiiiiiin sachin..” “jitega bhai jitega.. india jitega.. harega bhai harega Pakistan harega” was shouted on the faces of the Pakistanis but at the same time pin drop silence was seen when Wahab struck Yuvraj and Dhoni bored the audience with his front foot defenses. There was some exchange of uncensored words which ignited the pak ego, but it was nothing more than a blip on the radar!

A blasting inning by Sehwag reminded me the 2003 India-Pak match and watching Shoaib sitting in the pavilion really made me say.. “soch raha hoga.. chalo bach gaya!” The Indian inning was full of enthusiasm and slowly the night outers went for a short nap during the second half. The room was again full during the last few overs and the catch of Misbah sent everyone yelling and cheering loudly. On the other hand the opponents were quietly sneaking out from the room lowering there heads with all sorts of emotions. The celebration followed by “Chakh de”, group photographs and then the presentation ceremony.

It was an awesome experience!!

Amreeki Rail

Departure was scheduled at 7:30am from Lafayette and it was supposed to arrive at Chicago at 10am. My intuition was right! Lafayette-Chicago ho ya Gorakhpur-Dadar... trains have to be late! Good that I booked a connecting bus at 2 and not 10:30 believing on the western efficiency!

We reached the station at 7 and saw no one! Not even an attendant. The entire station looked deserted. Then we realized where the waiting area was and to our surprise it was completely filled with people and supposedly we were the last to enter! The TC greeted us warmly and then told us that due to flood warnings (where we failed to see even a drop of rain anywhere!) the train had to reduce its speed by 10mph. With the American GPS technology, we instantly realized that the train was half an hour late. Finally it came at around 8:15 and I boarded!

Unlike what I had imagined (as shown in classics of 60s!) this train turned out to be a chair car. But it was spacious and comfortable. It started from Lafayette; I waved to Neeraj and fell asleep instantly. I woke up in around an hour and found the train was not moving. I heard an announcement that there is some switch failure and two people are working on it. Listening to this I dozed off. Another hour and I opened my eyes to realize that it’s still at halt. What was new to me that the train had a running commentary, where all they told us was that they didn't know anything, but these two people repairing a failed switch. What was this **** switch!!!! Nobody knew. Everyone was clueless. One more announcement told that there was a goods train over that switch, which is now moved and those two guys can now reach the switch! This made me realize that this so called switch.. is something which is outside, probably on the tracks... and not in our train!!! :P. A couple of more announcements acknowledged their efforts of fixing that switch on a Sunday morning!

What was different was this American manner of alleviating the restlessness by telling "Don't worry... everything gonna be fine... we are together gonna fix this honey!!" (Only the kissing part that usually follows was not seen)

Aisa hote hote finally it got fixed and the train moved. It was some 15 miles from Chicago and we heard one more announcement! "A second switch has failed! But don't worry, this time the people working on it exactly know what the failure is and they will fix it in couple of minutes!" WTH!!! That means previously they were clueless!!! But they did fix it in couple of minutes and we reached Chicago at 1:30.

In the meantime my mom was restless back in India and couldn’t sleep until that switch got fixed and I reached Chicago!

A Fundamental Question

I have a fundamental question:

Q: Why, in first place, human race came and settled at a place where for half a dozen of months its -25 degC?

...and then gradually they have developed technology to counter it!!!

They use tons and tons of salt, infinite fuel to clean the roads, remove the snow, infinite energy to keep the heaters on so that the ducts are not blocked, backup generators if electricity fails, backup stored fuel barrels if the backup generator fuel is finished. :P

Not only this, cars cost more as they should be equipped with heaters, cold start technologies, intruments to clean/scrub the windshields. This white snow also raises the insurance cost! Houses have to have an additional floor..below the ground.. the basement.. where people will feel warm and hibernate in winters... house cost increases!....... and much more!

.....and when it comes, the snowtime, these same set of people fly to warmer places like florida!!!! WTH!

The Equivalent MPG conundrum

Here's some Auto stuff..

This is the age of electric and hybrid electric vehicles. Every company is coming up with its HE (hybrid electric) versions of the cars claiming that they improve the fuel economy. Some numbers tell that the Prius has a fuel economy of 48 miles per gallon (mpg) on city cycle, Honda Civic hybrid was rated 40mpg whereas the latest hype is about Chevy Volt, claiming 60 mpg (combined mode) and 93 mpg (electric only mode).

The basic assumption lies in the fact that this equivalent fuel economy is higher because unlike normal vehicles, in HEVs or EVs less amount of gasoline is burnt. They had to find some way for comparing the fuel "burnt" as "electricity" (which produces no emissions) to the fuel that is burnt in conventional vehicles to come up with a number: miles per "gallons" (where there are really no "gallons" of fuel "burnt" in electric vehicles).

"To reach this number EPA created a conversion factor between quantity of electric energy (KWHr) and volume of gasoline (gallons). They did this by dividing the heating value of a gallon of gasoline by the energy in a KWHr of electricity to get a conversion factor of 33.7 gallons/KWhr." ..states the article below

But is this the right way to do it? Should they account for the energy losses in "preparing" that electricity? after all we should be concerned more towards reducing the fossil fuel usage rather than "increasing" the power train efficiency per se

..and if they do what are the new numbers? are they more realistic?

http://blogs.forbes.com/warrenmeyer/2010/11/24/the-epas-electric-vehicle-mileage-fraud/

This is a very nice article which sheds light on this issue. One of our profs shared it with us. You guys will find it interesting

Open to Interpretations!!

After having Pizza and Coke we headed to Central Campus for the midnight celebration. Me, Anish, Rohit, Vaibhav, Vineet and Yash with Yash having the control over the steering wheel reached central at around quarter to 12 (without taking any repetitive U turns or changing 2,3 lanes in one go). After having a tough time finding parking, we finally got one at some place which I don't know!!

As decided we headed to Grizlly's Peak Restaurant and Bar to see and be a part of the New Years celebrations. The restaurant was closed and bar was storming with people. Screens were put up which displayed live celebrations going at Times Square, NY. With a glass of beer in hand and chatting in a group of few, everyone was waiting for the stroke of 12, to see the famous ball drop, and to get insane in welcoming the new year.

It was going to be 1-1-11 within a minute and everyone including us started screaming the countdown. 5-4-3-2-1 and that was it! The ball dropped, couples kissed, singles danced, sane people became insane and drunk became the eye-catchers. The whole country and hence each and every single person at the bar welcomed the new year with immense enthusiasm! Music was put on, floor changed into a dance floor... and we, a group of 6.. stood in the corner and watched people!

And there she came, a blonde, not-so good looking, but.. guys.. a blonde! She approached us greeting.. "Strangers.. Happy new Year, Happy New year!!" We greeted the same adding to her enthu!. Then she directly approached one of us... aur uske balon se khelkar usko personally greet kiya... Happy New Year!!!! ...Wow!! Now that was unexpected.. we all were stunned and looking at that guy and imagining ALL what could have followed IF he had not jus stood there smiling! Bolta hai... "apna culture abhi tak bhoola nahi hu!"

This was not all. We came out. We were deciding.. Now where? She was there, that same gal, in a corner. And she approached us again.. Looking straight into the eyes of the same guy (I guess he is the most good looking amongst us!) she asked him if he had a lighter! He, along with one other guy.. smiled and said.. NO, we don smoke!!

She went away, opened her purse, pulled a lighter and lit her cigarette!!

We looked at each other, we looked at that guy, we smiled.. Happy New Year 2011.