A Search For (My) Life

Wow. Every year I show up back home in Louisville, thinking Derby will be good, but there’s no way it can top last year. Every year I’ve been wrong. This year was simply fantastic. My good friend Dan Winn made it into town and I got to meet his brother Matt Winn, who I’d only known electronically until now. Instant friends.

There were so many good times this week, it’s hard to run through them all, but here are the highlights:

• 5 hour happy hour with Joe Wheeler, Amy Wheeler, Rob May and Todd Earwood. What a great group… hope to see more of them whenever I’m in town.
• Thursday at the Turf club in Churchill Downs with Larry Shapin and Ladonna Nicolas and their friends Sherry, Chris, Patty and Earnest. Great seats, good company, and learning about how to handicap the races…
• Crazy Thursday night, starting with dinner at Jacob’s house, then out with Matt and Dan on Bardstown. Much drinking and debauchery, ending in deep fried Oreos at 5am.
• Rainy Friday running… skipped the Oaks and went to the Barnstable Brown Party with Larry and Ladonna, who generously offered me a ticket. Drinking Grey Goose, dancing and hobnobbing with celebrities like Hugh Hefner and his girls, Edward Norton, Run DMC, Eddie Money and his daughter, the Lachey brothers, and many others…
• Another 5am night followed at 4th street, where I waltzed into every bar and VIP section, cover-free, due to my fancy schmancy tuxedo attire, and a little ‘playing the part.’
• A beautiful Derby day, dressed up for the infield/paddock with Matt and Dan. More running into friends, drinking mint-juleps, and general craziness.
• Wild and crazy Derby night, starting at the Pendennis Club after another dinner with Jacob and friends. Then to Bardstown road. Chalk up night #3 that lasted well past 5am.
• A fantastic brunch with Jacob’s grandparents.

What a Derby. I had an absolute fabulous time with Jacob, Matt and Dan, and was really glad that Dan made it into town all the way from Seattle. I’ve got another day here before heading back myself, but I am consistently impressed with my hometown of Louisville… The city is always improving, the people are beautifully warm and I love running into old friends. Love it.

Another year, another Boston. This time, the crowds and weather did not disappoint, and it was a fantastic race. I was happy to be staying with my friends Jeff Pham and Kalid Azad at Jeff’s place in Boston, which was right next the course. I even made it to see the Women’s Olympic Trials Marathon, which took place the day before. Also in town from Seattle was Hannah Beren, a friend and fellow runner, as well as some of my teammates from Club Northwest. At the expo on Sunday, I bumped into Jeremy LaBuff, an old teammate from Rice, Ashlee Vincent, a friend from Portland, and met my cousin Kristin Martin, who runs for Northeastern. The world gets continuously smaller, and the running world, even more so…

Although I didn’t do much marathon specific training, I got a case of goal-inflation a few weeks ago when I realized that the New York City Marathon this fall was a lottery system, so no guaranteed entry unless you have a competitive start qualifying time. For males my age, that’s a 2:55, which was about 14 minutes faster than I ran Boston last year. I had not entered a marathon with a specific goal/pace in mind before, which made this race different. I always have target goals, but no real consequences if I don’t hit them.

After waking up at 5, and heading over to meet Hannah at the buses, we finally made it to Hopkinton and the Athletes village at 7:30. The 2.5 hour wait passed surprisingly quickly, as each trip to the port-o-john took 45mins thanks to the massive lines.

I started out pretty far back, and went out slow at just over 7 minute pace, thanks to the crowds. Boston is the only race I ever run where I’m so far back in the pack. Humbling. The race went surprisingly as planned, and I had really even splits, despite the rolling course. I was varying between 6:32 and 6:46 for most of the race.

The Wellesley Scream Tunnel was glorious as usual, and I stopped for a quick kiss from an adoring fan, which slowed me down by about 7 seconds. I was cursing myself later, because at mile 20, I was behind pace by 45 seconds, and still had a couple hills to go before heading into the homestretch. I managed to work the hills at 6:43 pace and for the 3rd time in a row, I was clueless that I was going up Heartbreak hill. There are so many other rolling hills prior, I’m never sure when I get to that final one. I pushed hard on the downhill following Heartbreak and hit mile 22 in 6:16, which got me within 20 seconds of being on pace.

My legs were really starting to hurt with 3 miles to go, and I constantly switched back and forth between saying “It’s okay, I won’t hit 2:55, I can go 2:56 and it will still be okay. Maybe they’ll let me in NY anyhow” then I’d get angry and swear at myself to keep pushing. I hit mile 25 on pace, and with one mile to go, I had exactly 6 minutes and 40 seconds to hit the finish line before 2:55. It came down to the last 800 yards on the home stretch and I pushed hard, and came in 6 seconds under my goal at 2:54:54.

I was hurting pretty bad and a bit shaky so they took me into the medical tent. I wasn’t celebrating yet because it wasn’t for another hour that I learned that I had gotten my time. I had stopped my watch after I crossed at 2:55:11, and was scared that I had missed my goal by a couple seconds.

Hannah had a fantastic race as well, coming in at 3:16. My friends Kalid, Juju, Momina, Jeff and Ash were all at the finish waiting for me. If it were not for my Boston friends, I probably wouldn’t return every year to run this race. They truly make it a worthwhile weekend, and the race is that much more fun when you can celebrate at the finish with friends.

Since returning from my trip to India, I’ve reconnected with a number of friends, and I routinely get the “So,… what are you doing now?” question. After fielding it a number of times over this past weekend, I thought I should do a better job of getting the word out to my friends.

I’ve been out of Microsoft for over two years, and after working for an outsourcing firm on contract for a year, I split off and decided I could do a better job of it myself. I had been working with the one company that had approached me, and I wasn’t tremendously happy with their work, so I decided to go to India myself, find the best companies possible, and work with them instead. This let me cherry pick the best, as well as spread the number of services I could offer to my US clients.

Now that I’m back, I’ve partnered with three firms (working on the 4th). The first is a market research firm, called ValueNotes, who is like an outsourced version of Forrester or Gartner, and does custom research reports in a number of industries. Competitive research and customer intelligence are specifically what I deal with, and any size company that needs to know more about their customers or competitors is a potential client.

The other two companies are in the more familiar IT sector. Synerzip does software development for funded companies, and Verisoft specializes in doing software testing. Both of these companies focus on creating teams and long term relationships.

I chose these three companies because I trusted their management, and found that their hiring practices were sound. There were a multitude of other factors involved, but those two things went a long way to solving a lot of the issues most people complain about when it comes to outsourcing.

So now that I’m back, and I’m working on the client side of things, which is reaching out to companies who want to utilize resources overseas, and need to find a provider they can trust. I’m happy to talk to anyone who needs to know more about outsourcing. I’ve made a number of contacts in India, in a number of industries where outsourcing now takes place (including software, market research, legal services, publishing, telemarketing, etc) and I’m happy to talk to friends of friends who need to know more about the landscape there.

How can I help people you know? To make it simple: If you hear someone talk about needing more resources, or about outsourcing… point them my way. I’m happy to help out in whatever way I can.

You can reach me at craig (at) dossantospartners.com, and my company website is www.dossantospartners.com

It’s been a while since I made any real changes to my diet. Back in April of 2005, I tried a 2 month stint of focusing on whole grains and good fats. From what I remember, it was the social implications that were the kicker, as I had a hard time finding things to eat when I was outside the house, and thus the diet limited my social life.

Since then, I’ve started stocking my house with 90% healthy food, and then eating whatever when I go out. This has had mixed results, because when there is poor food in the house, I tend to eat it all, and when I’m out, I eat a ton. And I’m out fairly often.

In addition, when I say ‘healthy food’ in the house, it basically meant less junk food… it didn’t guarantee a balanced diet, and it certainly didn’t mean I’ve been getting enough vegetables and fruit. My diet at home has consisted of mostly carbs. I also eat a healthy amount of Clif-Bars, nuts, dried fruit, and peanut butter.

A number of factors have come together to push me toward a healthier diet. Last year’s Ironman training taught me how to identify how I felt with what I put in my mouth. While a healthy diet would have been optimal, I was struggling to get enough calories, and was eating just about everything in site (to the tune of 7000-9000 calories a day) and still losing weight. During training I could feel distinctly how a lack of salt or lack of carbs had an impact on my performance.

After traveling this winter, I had 2.5 months where I’ve had almost no ability to control my diet. I ate what was served and was available. Mostly, it was great, tasty food, but it was usually heavy, and in India, they eat three fairly large meals a day. I found that my sleeping patterns changed and were much more variable than usual, depending on how much and what time I ate. (Dinner with my family was routinely close to midnight.)

Finally, the biggest influence has been the recommendation of the book “The Omnivores Dilemma” by Michael Pollan. This book traces four meals back to their origins, and in doing so unveils a lot about the American food industry. In short, it’s been just plain shocking.

I like the way Pollan puts it in his NY Times article. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

So I basically started with a complete revamp of my diet when I returned to Seattle in late January. Now, almost 6 weeks later, I’ve gone less hardcore (and therefore it’s more socially viable long-term) but have still continued with major changes to my diet. I’ll write out the gory details in Part II.

Tags: , Diet, Eating, Food, Michael Pollan

Well, it took a while, but Superbowl Sunday finally kicked me back into life here in Seattle. It’s been 10 days since I returned, but it has truly been the hardest reverse-culture shock I’ve had in all my travels. I haven’t figured out why, because I’ve definitely been abroad for much longer time periods. It was my longest trip to India so far, and this time I feel like I was more delved into life outside my family.

Coming home involved a long, overdrawn 33-hour journey, which included 9 hours in the New York airport thanks to looking at my wristwatch (still on India time) and missing my connection. I came home to the comforts of my house, my room and my bed, all of which were welcome. Mostly I just wanted to stop living out of a bag. However, my social life here, felt completely out of place. Until Sunday, I felt like I was watching myself interact with others in 3rd person. India always has a grounding effect on me, and this trip was no different.

The world here initially looked like it was made of plastic. So shiny, and machine created. In India, it seems like you can see the connection between your environment and how it was created by humans. Whether you’re buying food at a market, or looking at street signs that were written in paint. It’s difficult to explain, but I really felt so much more in touch with humanity while there. In all it’s glory and disgust. Whether you’re being pushed by 45 sweaty Indian men in a Bombay train, or just walking past the hordes of people on the street, I was routinely, and literally, in touch with humans during my day to day existence.

As an American (from the land of wide open spaces), it’s suffocating, and frustrating at first. But after a few months, it feels more comfortable, and returning to the US felt like entering a place devoid of human connection. My morning runs here were peaceful, but strangely quiet. I can go the whole day here, and see less than 50 people easily. I saw more than that by 11am while in India; like it or not.

No matter what the differences, I cannot deny that this country, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, is my home. I am happy to be with my friends again who have made me feel great, because I know I was missed.

Tags: India, Seattle

Well, at least I can say I that I ran it. The most accurate description of the marathon, is that I put the appropriate amount of time and effort into it. The race was a bit more organized but less well-planned than I had anticipated. On one hand, the course was well marked out, and they had advertisements the entire way. Sadly, there were a lot of indications that Mumbai doesn’t really understand the physical requirements of a marathon that well.

Getting to the race venue, there was a lot of confusion about where to go. There was a lot more commotion than I anticipated. (Roped off areas, lots of speakers and music, people throwing out free things to mobs of thrashing Indians). We had to walk about a mile to get to a large field, where people were milling about, and it wasn’t entirely clear where the runners go. There were 1/2 and full marathoners, and corporate and sponsored teams, and I think the directions were different for each group.

I entered into a fenced off area, where you couldn’t see over the solid fence. I felt like a horse at the track, because all of a sudden, one of the walls slid to the side, and everyone piled out. There really weren’t that many runners in the full marathon; I’m guessing less than 2000. I was fairly close to the front, but didn’t hear any gun go off. We passed an archway and a clock at 1:53, so I figured the race had started.

The race course was quite nice. A lot of it was along the sea, and it was fairly cool in the morning. Water (small bottles) were readily available during the first 20 miles, though it was spread out rather haphazardly, so I didn’t know when it was coming.

I was carrying my phone (I didn’t find the race bags, so I didn’t have anywhere to put it until after the race) and was pleasantly surprised with phone calls from my friends back home in the States, much to the amusement of the spectators. Technology truly is amazing. I can talk to friends 12,000 miles away while running a marathon.

I ran pretty easy, and was having no trouble at all until about mile 20. Besides water, there was a ‘energy drink’ that was available. Not only was it available, it was also clear, and in the same bottles as the water, so it was like playing Russian roulette when you went for a drink. It was the nastiest energy drink I’ve ever tasted. It tasted like a really bad version of tang + salt + sugar, all partially diluted so that at the end you get a nice shot of the powder straight in your mouth.  I gagged and spat the first time I got it.

By mile 20, things had spread out considerably. Water was sparsely available, and with the lack of carbs on the course (no gels, or bananas, etc) the few people around me were dropping like flies. I started to feel dizzy and light headed, and knew I was going to tank if I didn’t get some fuel. I stopped at a roadside stand, dug out 10 rupees and bought some salty chips (carbs + salt). About 10 minutes of stumbling in the hot sun, I recovered, and was able to keep running fairly normally.

Surprisingly, it was really the lack of fuel that stopped me from running better. I was on target for about a 3:13, which is not bad considering my prep and that I was not racing hard. However, the tanking cost be about 20 min total, and I came in at 3:33.

Oh yeah, and since they timed the 6K and 1/2 marathon to finish before the marathon, by the time we got to the last few miles, nobody really cared. The crowds were using the streets as usual, and I had to fight my way through to find the finish line. When I got there, a group of volunteers were standing and chatting, and looked at me as if to ask why I was there. I asked where the food was, and the first guy brushed me off, and the second gave me a vague reference to something behind him. I went to another roadside stand, and got more chips.

All in all, it was quite the experience. Nothing like hearing people cheer you on in a language you don’t understand. Occasionally I would hear (insert heavy Indian accent) “Go Uncle, Go!” from little kids, or “Go India!” as people assumed I was a local. Special thanks to Ashwin, Gerard, and Liesl for coming out to cheer me on, and to Alfie and family for opening their home to me afterwards.

Tags: marathon, mumbai

I signed up for two marathons this week. Not because it was the physically or fiscally smart thing to do, but because it’s running and I guess that’s what I do. I’ve often wondered why I’m blessed/cursed with running as my ‘thing.’ Some people’s ‘thing’ is technology, some are great writers, others play music… and I can move forward relatively quickly for a sustained period.

Anyhow, the sign-up procedures for the Boston Marathon (this coming April 16th) and Mumbai (tomorrow morning, about 8 hours from now) were so drastically different, I thought I’d write about it. Granted, I signed up for Boston 3+ months in advance, and Mumbai the night before, but nevertheless, here’s the synopsis.

Method of application:
Boston: Online.
Mumbai: In person (the online payment wasn’t secure, so I didn’t sign up the prescribed way back in December). Today, I took a rickshaw to a train to a cab to get to the World Trade Center downtown.

Time taken to apply:
Boston: 10 minutes.
Mumbai: 2+ hours.

Number of lines I had to wait in:
Boston: Zero.
Mumbai: Five.

Cost to apply:
Boston: $110.00
Mumbai: About $5.50.

I could not believe how cheap it was to sign up for this marathon. They charged the same amount for the 7K, Half-Marathon and Marathon. I did sign up as an Indian though… had I signed up as an international competitor, the price raises to $30. The Boston is $160 for international competitors. Granted, there were no T-shirts given for Mumbai, but they do have timing chips (which took a significant part of the 2 hours to set up), and they gave out a goodie bag with my race number and other random (useless) advertisements and food products.

But the money in the US marathons isn’t for the T-shirt and medal. It usually goes for the race support, insurance, and closing the course to traffic. My main question is: which of these three is going to be skimped on due to my $5.50 price tag? Just to be safe, I’m going super easy tomorrow to avoid needing medical aid. Also because this is possibly the worst race buildup I’ve ever had, and I’ll admit it’s a bit pompous to think I can just nail this without training. I’ve run less than 1/2 of what I do on a normal basis over the last two months, and I was out late last night. Oh right… and this is the only (and hopefully last) marathon that will be fueled by Indian food.

Nevertheless, tomorrow will definitely be an experience. I’ve heard the crowds cheering are crazy, but all three races (7K, 21K and 42K) are well known as the “Mumbai Marathon,” so I’m hoping people come out to cheer for more than just the popular 7K.

No matter how many times I have thought about it myself, or talked with other travelers about the roller coaster of emotions when traveling, I have not been able to stop myself from going through highs and lows during my trip. I find that it is much more pronounced than during my normal day-to-day life back home. Perhaps this is part of the allure of travel. The down moments make the highlights extraordinary, and I always feel changed by the experience.

Last week at this time, I was literally counting the days until my flight home. The amount of trips from city to city in the past two months has been exhausting, and I found myself longing for home. I spent the weekend (extended into this week) at home in Mahableshwar, and even took a trip to my family’s lake house on Lake Tapola for my uncle’s birthday. It was exactly what I needed to get back into the swing of things and I’m now counting the days until I’m forced to get on the plane, and leave India.

After looking through pictures of the last year, I am slightly apprehensive about returning home to the life I was leading when I left. It seems so distant and far away now. Now that I’m fairly used to things over here, it almost seems like I wouldn’t fit in, at least in the same way. I’m sure that in reality, I’ll jump back into the swing of things right away, but I’ve been surprised at how different I feel, just in the last week. When I was in Brazil in 2006, I was there for twice as long, but the change in cultures, and my day-to-day life was not as different as it is over here. I think a lot of this is because my social life takes a large portion of my time in Seattle, and here it is largely non-existent outside of my family gatherings.

In other news, I was in my first accident on the way back to Pune from Mahableshwar. When I arrived here, nearly every car that passed would raise my heart rate. I was not used to being missed by mere inches and continuing normally down the road. Once, while walking in Goa, I was knocked on the shoulder roughly, and turned around to discover the culprit was a bus. Since those first few weeks, very little phases me, and I’ve lost the fight or flight instinct when cars pass closely by.

The day before yesterday, I was in the backseat of a car headed down to Pune, and dozed off while listening to my Ipod. I was awakened as the car braked sharply, but I found that even in the midst of the accident, I was quite calm. It wasn’t until I actually saw the two guys in front of us fly off the motorbike that I realized this was a real accident, not another close call. Thankfully, everyone was fairly alright, minus a few scrapes and bruises. A small price to pay for getting rear ended by a car when no one is wearing a helmet.

The car actually fared worse, and started leaking radiator fluid, so we overheated and had to pull over again 20K down the road. We were stuck for a few hours but eventually I made it to Pune.

Since I last wrote, I’ve been on a whirlwind of travel, mostly for pleasure. I had 5 friends come visit me in Mahableshwar for Christmas, and from there we traveled to Goa for New Years, then down south for an excellent houseboat trip in Kerala, and then I came back north solo to Pune for my cousin’s wedding, and now I’m finally back in Mahableshwar for the final time. Since being in India, I’ve attended a Catholic wedding of a friend of a friend, a Hindu wedding of a friend of my cousin, a family wedding (cousin) in Goa, and another cousin’s wedding, which was a triple hitter since I attended the court wedding, Hindu ceremony and Catholic ceremony. Whew!

I’m now back in Mahableshwar, after a few business meetings in Pune… I’m hoping to celebrate my Uncle’s birthday with him before heading back to Pune for more meetings, then to Bombay for a few more before finally returning to the states on the 24th. It has been quite a journey so far, and after all this travel, I can honestly say I’m eager to stop living out of my backpack.

As always with long trips, I’ve experienced the ups and downs of being elated at all that is new and exciting in India, to being homesick for simple things like my bed and my guitar. This afternoon, my uncles were asking if I was still in the same house in Seattle that I had been living in when they had visited a few years back. After showing them pictures of my new place in Seattle, I was momentarily transported back to my life in Seattle.

I’m sure everything will play out normally, but right now, I have a hard time imagining myself resuming life as usual back in Seattle. I guess two and a half months is enough to get fairly accustomed to things over here, even if I do miss the comfort of being at home. I looked at pictures of our potluck dinners at the house, and those times seem so long ago. Every time I travel for a long period, I’m shocked at how easily the experience can make normal life at home seem so foreign.

I’ll leave you with a spattering of photos from the last few weeks. I take full responsibility for all the jumping photos, as those are a favorite of mine. Take for example, the last two photos of my cousins and friends… isn’t the second jumping photo more interesting to look at?

Tags: friends, India, mahableshwar

A number of people have been asking me how business has been since I arrived here. I’ve now been meeting with Indian companies for over a month, and while I am far from exhausting the available resources, I’ve gotten a pretty good picture of the service (outsourcing) industry over here.

I chose to go broad in my meetings, and have looked at a number of different industries including, legal services, publishing, healthcare, call centers, IT development, Multimedia and design, and even a few venture capital firms. In addition to looking for quality partners for my outsourcing partnership, I met with directors, CEO’s and founders of a number of companies or VC firms simply to pick their brains. This was hugely valuable in assessing where my value lies in being a US liaison to these service providers.

What I’ve found here has surprised me. There are thousands of service providers here, but it is truly hard to find the high quality ones. I started out with a database of 1000’s of companies, contracted a research firm to pair it down based on my criteria (which has changed after getting here), then did my own online research based on the company’s web presence, and questioned people over the phone.

Even with all these steps, I still found that after over 30 meetings in 4 weeks, I’ve found only a handful of companies that I’ll likely be doing business with. Not all of the rest were bad, but some just didn’t fit the profile I was looking for. However, I was surprised that I was running into that problem after taking the steps that I did.

This has shown me that it must be extremely hard to find an appropriate vendor if you are in the US. Without some extensive research, coupled with a trip over here, it’s really a crap shoot. I can now understand why I get so many complaints about the pains of outsourcing. This made the last month more difficult than I imagined, but it also lends more value to what I end up bringing back, which are high quality, trustworthy, capable companies.

The economy is booming over here, and the marketplace (not just in service providers, but in other industries as well) has been flooded with competitors. I do believe it’s somewhat of a bubble, but not too large of one. India has a huge amount of potential, and is still uncovering it. The issue is that not everyone who enters is ready to, or has the competency to take on the customers that approach them. The media-funded idea that the Indian market is tapped is nonsense. The amount of competition has made hiring and retention harder, as the infrastructure here is trying to keep up with the demand. However, there is still a lot of room for growth, and new industries in outsourcing that are popping up constantly.

I’ll be taking off the next few weeks (from meetings, anyhow), and vacationing with friends and family in Mahableshwar, Goa, then Kerala. When I return to work in January, I’ll be doing a second round of meetings with the companies I’m partnering with, and should be coming home at the end of January with an offering I can be proud to offer.

Tags: dos Santos and Partners, India, Outsourcing