And so, third time's the charm - I was finally able to head to Austin and arrived 8 days late after having to rebooked my biz trip for two times (thanks to the admin who aided myself in this long process)... The new AMD HQ Campus in Austin was huge and was very impressive. Reuniting with my Austin counterparts went smooth as everyone was friendly; although some of the folks I met last year were not working there anymore.
The week went by quickly as there were no downtime and I was swamped right from the beginning. Due to repeated bombardments of the hurricane brothers Gustav and Ike on the eastern coasts, I had to scratch plans of visiting the windy city (Dallas) this weekend, pity that it was the only remaining close-by city that I hadn't visited yet :( And so, my coworker and I drove out west to Frederickburg; the sleepy German influenced town did not change much compared to my visit from last year and there were much activities along the main city block as musicians were out playing their instruments. The most interesting was a cool laidback Texan enjoying the nice weather and just playing his music without even noticing passerbys... It's also interesting that along the city, most of the folk were holding onto a bottle of beer in broad daylight (it's illegal to carry beer outside the house in Canada), so it was quite new to myself.
Anyways, it was quite relaxing day today having a short roadtrip, and taking lots of pictures using some new techniques my colleague showed me last Friday.... Well, it's all good so far and hopefully my trip to Austin will continue to be a good one next week as well :)
And so, with a blink of an eye; my 2 week business trip is coming to an end and I will return back to Toronto on Sunday. Despite having much trouble crossing the border; it was pretty good to visit the new company campus, meet with the team, and to associate a 'face' with names of people that I had been always exchanging emails with. Folks that I had met with in Austin are friendly, and I liked their sincere and genuine attitude... Despite I was brought up in Toronto, I somewhat preferred the work atmosphere here down in Austin.
Chairing and attending calls between Austin / Toronto / Sunnyvale is a very normal thing in everyday activity here, and by comparison; I see that the Toronto folks are more crafty and political. At one point, the team here and myself were fed up with the antics of some 'individuals' up in Toronto; and all of us had a common thought: "Dang, just let us get back to our work; you political clowns..." Oh well, I guess there's ought to be these things in a company this large, and I've seen much worst when managing a team in SH, so luckily it's nothing new to myself. Anyways, tomorrow is a day off to scenic locations of town to snap more nice pics and to stroll around some malls before heading back towards the end of the week... Here's some pics of Austin using new techniques my co-workers were showing off to me earlier :)
