Substantive updates

Okay here are some substantive updates:

We hired my replacement at work and he comes on board on Monday April 3rd. After that I stay for 3 more weeks and leave on April 21st. I've asked that it be considered a leave of absence for 3 months, so there is some connection still to Juniper for a while.
So I can't back out now ! since my replacement is on board. Its for real !!

Of the options that I talked about in one of the early posts: I finally felt that it was not the right time to pursue eGovernments, so told Srikanth so. I would like to be more free and do stuff on a ad-hoc or part-time basis for some time rather than an intense full-time job. As I blogged earlier, I visited Timbaktu and talked to them and there seems to be something useful I can do there. Here's an email from the person I talked to there:
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Dear Vijay Krishna,

Thanks for your mail. Hope all is well with you and Santhosh.
The need of documentation support is much...given a chance I do
not want to sit at the table at all ..I am begining to feel less human
with too much contact with table and computer.But then, you have to make
a choice..my need is now..for me the details can all be worked out once
things start.

Anyway, it is your choice. i see taht you need to do certain things.
Please get in touch when you are free......good luck Regards... .
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I was suprised at the plainitive tone of the email. Anyway these are very
respected people who have been doing work for a long time and it would be a privilege to work with them. So I will go ahead and work with them in the documentation support area that is talked about. Timbaktu has many donors and donor agencies, and one of the problems with that is that there is a lot of reporting and proposals that need to be made in order to make these donor relationships work. This is what is being talked about in the mail. As any reader of this blog will have found out I can write indefinitely (even if of doubtful value), so perhaps I can channelize this constructively for Timbaktu. We haven't worked out any of the details but I think it will work with me spending about 50% of my time there and the rest in Bangalore. While in Bangalore I can try to do some other stuff so I widen the range of contacts and exposures and learnings.
Sound reasonable ?

There are atleast two things that I haven't followed up on yet, one to meet the people at Rural Innovations Network, and the other to meet the IIT-ians doing organic farming somewhere in Karnataka. Initially I thought that I should rigourously follow the original plan and meet them before deciding what to do. But it just wasn't happening, I wasn't able to make the time and logistics work to meet them. Anyway the Timbuktu opportunity is a good one and I don't want to make a long drawn out decision. I will talk to these other people anyway when I get the chance.

And some other stuff:
Priya has been talking to various animation institutes about taking a course and switching to the animation/graphics industry. Prospects in that industry seem very bright, but it will be tough to make the transition.

Priya's hols are coming up and I would like very much for us to take a European vacation. There is lot of documentation for the visa formalities and I am bottlenecked there currently.