It’s been a while since I penned something. The main reason is that I didn’t find that mental space to relax a bit and note down my thoughts. Too many things were happening, or else I was always restless, or else I was searching for something..
Now realized that the SSL expired for the site, and being a very neat person, I couldn’t face the site showing up with errors and warnings. Hence generated the new SSL and binded it to the web server. Now till Sep site should be secure.
What happened since the last post? The most important one is that I moved to Netherlands. I was working out of Dubai for a couple of months after I joined my new organization. But the work is Dubai was as a contractor, since my company didn’t have an office there. So we were all outsourced to a remote payroll firm. I didn’t like that arrangement much, and requested my organization to move me to one of their offices. This was the closest and here I am. I am also closer to my daughter.
My current role is owning the delivery of the world’s first Offer and Order management system, for a truly digital airline that’s starting up. I would never say no to such an opportunity, always liked challenges. And my focus has shifted tremendously from money minded decisions to career focused decisions. So, while I might be paying 45% taxes, I get the opportunity to work in a great program, which few other aviation professionals in the world might have access to. The organization I work for, is relatively new and full of individuals whose passion for changing the aviation industry is paramount. As a result, the organization is always in the limelight, and we are constantly attending workshops and conferences and aviation festivals.
I settled in nicely into the role and enjoy my work. I get the opportunity to deal with great industry leaders including CEOs, business leaders and industry architects who shape the aviation industry. Of course, it’s not an airline, but I think that part of my life is probably over. The knowledge I gained there is best used in building platforms and systems for aviation industry.
During Christmas, I visited my daughter for a week at London. After a long time, I had a peaceful Christmas. Christmas Markets, midnight mass, mulled wine, Plum cake, my daughter’s willingness to suffer me full time for five days and nights, all made it a wonderful, memorable Xmas time.
I travel a lot now as part of my work, and like this phase of my career. My earlier job was very stationary, and there was little chance of travelling outside. Here it’s all about customers and client visits and meetings and workshops. When I started my career at IBS, this was my role. Now, it seems to be coming back as a full circle.
In Netherlands, I stay at a province called Utrecht. It’s almost 30 minutes from Amsterdam by train. I moved here for two reasons, first being the proximity of my friends, and second being cost motivated. It’s a quiet place and though I spend almost one hour and a bit daily commuting to office, I am ok with it. I like the time in the morning when I can work quietly on the train preparing presentations or planning for the day. Evenings when i get out of office, it’s dark being winter, and though I reach home around 7, I can’t do much activity outside. I can only wait for spring to come and day light to increase, and then hopefully get more active. In Dubai, I used to walk 6K daily. But here, maybe 2K. However, food habits here are more healthier, so weight wise I am able to control.
I visit Dubai maybe once a month, en route to my customer site. I try to work my Friday out of Dubai, since my customer working week is Sun-Thu. So rather than travelling on Friday and lose one working day (some people might be ok with it, I am not), I work out of Dubai on Friday. Then Saturday I take a day off at my expense and Sunday I return. I think my Dubai friends have started getting irritated at the frequency I call them to meet.
My daughter is now into her third year. One more year, and her classes will be over. Then the kids will start rushing around to get jobs. I hope she gets somewhere good, and develops a good work culture with quality more than quantity. She did her second year internship at AWS, and this year also has some offers at hand. However, internship is different from a permanent job, and that’s what would be the defining moment of her life.
I had invested in the Indian share market. After four months of investing, I ran up a 60% profit. However, now it’s been another 8 months, and it’s still the same. In fact, the market indices have really crashed, for an economy that’s supposed to grow at 7% or so. I get the feeling there’s lot of hype and play going on, and unless we invest in reliable stock, it’s going to be a volatile ride. Companies with less profit are showing very high ratios, maybe because of foreign investment (or shady book keeping practices). Now with the US presidential elections done, and Mr. Trump bringing it all back to USA, companies have started divesting their Indian market share. The reason I said this – its good to have a diverse portfolio. We should be able to spread our wealth amongst real estate, shares, rich metals like gold, bonds, life insurance policies etc. Once you invest, you can sit back and watch it grow. I would think that in ten years time, overall we would get at least 100% growth.
Netherlands is the country of canals, with the land mass below sea level. The way the country escapes flooding, is through a vast network of canals which keep the water moving. A visit to Amsterdam is not complete without a canal ride in one of the many boats. The whole place is very well maintained and though the taxes are high, I believe it’s going to good services. Including old age pension. Just imagine, for those like us in private sector who never had the option of pension, the government will take care of us. Even if we get sick or injured, the kind of support from the government and even the organization we work for, is immense.
While I was in Netherlands, in this short time, I managed to lose my wallet. It contained all my residence permits, National Identification cards, licenses, credit cards, debit cards everything. It was a big irritant, making me feel empty without all those paper security tokens. I had to file a police complaint so I could apply for Dutch residence permit replacement. It took almost two months to get a replacement card. I also had to visit Dubai to apply and get all my UAE documents. It was a good learning, and now I keep all the important cards separate. Wouldn’t want to be caught up in that situation again. Luckily, there was not much cash.
Overall, in Netherlands, there’s robbery at a higher scale than Dubai. Of course we are used to the security in Dubai and so anything abnormal is a shock to us. In reality, these things exist all over the world, from India to America. Where there’s money, there are people who try to get it the easy way and the wrong way. And there’s a perception that Indians keep gold at their houses, and so it’s easy to break in, steal it and leave before the house owners/tenants come back.
I take lot of photos wherever I go, but post the good ones on my Instagram channel (ba.ab573).Earlier I used to post them here, but it’s too much of trouble uploading these photos, trimming them etc. So instagram is much easier that way.
All my furniture in Dubai is kept in storage, need to figure out what to do with it. It includes my liquor collection, so I really need to decide quickly. When I gave my apartment for rent, I thought of it as a supplementary income, what will help me offset the tax cuts here. Unfortunately my tenant decided not to pay the rent and has been staying there for two months now. I recently sent him a court notice and now after one month I need to file a court case to get the tenant evicted. So for all those people out there trying to make a quick buck (like me), keep in mind that things can always go wrong. But we should look at the positive side, I was able to understand the legal processes and policies involved in the rental side of things. I was able to see how a court notice looks like 😀
Will try to post one blog a week, so that I don’t lose touch with something I really like doing. I don’t think too many people read my blogs, I write mostly for myself. Just to feel for ten minutes that I am a great author, and if I wanted, I could create a novel etc. Of course we all know how far off from truth that thought is.