The customer meeting in Austin had just gotten over. My sales team, happy with the proceedings, dropped me in my hotel. It was getting close to noon. And I had a long drive to Houston. To catch a flight to Cincinnati. Then drive to Lexington. Yes, I trust my driving more than those small planes with multiple hops when it comes to certainty of reaching my destination.

The margin of error was going to be small. I had the prospect of accidents on 290 or simply get blinded by sharp thunder showers. As luck would have it, both happened on my way. Fortunately, I am writing this from my flight to Cincinnati.

But before I left Austin, I had a chance to catch up on another intersection point from the past. For exactly 25 minutes. I was aware that Srinivas Palamarthy was nearby and a few calls and text messages later, we found ourselves at Annie’s bar and cafe. I always thought that our paths crossed in i2 only. Today I found out how wrong I have been.

Not sure why this never came up in any previous conversations (we worked in the same group for some time and I have talked to him before multiple times), but I realized today that he and I are from the same engineering college. Separated by only two years. And he lived in the hostel/dorm adjacent to mine!! I had many friends there and often visited that hostel/dorm! He recognized all of my friends and gave me some updates too!!

So this is the third intersection with him. College, working together and a chance meeting in the city he lives in now.

Srini, as we were prone to calling him, has remained the same. Physically, emotionally and intellectually. Looking at him, he does not seem to have aged even one day from the last time I saw him in 2003. He is also the same humble guy that can put you at ease from the moment you run into him. He has this unbelievable way of making you really feel good about yourself. I was certainly very proud of how his career has progressed and how he is crucial to RetailMeNot’s vision and plans. Good to see humble people like him succeed in this world.

That was the message Shruthi and Hank had written on the back of the nice gift they had for me this evening. As always, it was a delightful evening with this great young couple. Shruthi’s dad and I have worked together virtually in every company I have worked in. Having seen Shruthi ever since she was a few days world to now when she is a working lady living her own independent life, it is almost impossible to believe how fast time can fly by.

Their message for me was a reference to, of course Austin’s reputation of keeping itself “weird” as well as Sharmila calling me “quirky”. Speaking of Sharmila, Hank and she has a common background – both are or have studied Architecture in Texas (UT and UTA).

It was simply great to see them again. It has been many a moon since I stepped my foot in Austin last. Could not have gotten a better welcome!!

Remember how one evening, while spending a few idle hours with my inlaws in our backyard, I realized that Bidisha is a relative of mine? Bidisha being the person that we got to know regarding a nanny and while my family has met her, I have never met her. Of course, since she is my new found relative, I had figured that I would meet her next time I was in Dallas.

Last night, after 1:30 am (I am sure too much drinking was involved 🙂 ) I got a message from Amitesh that her husband was in our town. He (Amitesh) was able to get the three of us together for lunch on my way to the airport.

That was a great hour. He is a SMU professor. Most of the discussions were around the fallacy of prediction methods – from biases in selecting independent variables to faulty assumptions in correlation methods to the almost impossible problem of finding discontinuous functions mathematically (unfortunately, real life does not work in a smooth curve). It was a very intellectually stimulating discussion. The yellow curry at Thai Spice was not bad either!!

Now I have two more books to read, thanks to Neil Bhattacharya!!

Another intersection point with a great friend and colleague from the past. After the day long meetings last Wednesday, I grabbed my rental car and drove to the spot Stefanie and I had agreed to meet. If you are ever in the Milwaukee area, do not forget to have a drink or dinner at Seven Seas in Hartland. It is a beautiful restaurant set up in a very rural setting on Lake Nagawicka!

But the real excitement was in meeting Stefanie after 12 years. It was fascinating following her journeys from Germany to Dallas (where we worked together) to Seattle and now Wisconsin in a place called Oconomowoc as she moved every time her son in law and daughter moved just so that she could stay close to her granddaughters.

It was a delightful evening listening to her stories – and she had some really funny ones – and getting caught up on our old friends from the yesteryears. We used to sit in cubicles next to each other and we certainly remembered a lot of the funny events that had happened around us!!! There was that false anthrax scare at office!!! Apart from work, she was also a big part of my personal life. She was the person who was there with me in the hospital when we almost lost Sharmila to a miscarriage and was absolutely the most helpful person ever.

The funniest incident that we recalled involved a customer. As a background, Stefanie had a great, impressive looking dark green Mercedes SEL 500. And I was driving my much-battered Honda Civic (which eventually died on the road). In a conference room, myself and my team were engaged with a prospect and as the meeting started getting late, I was simultaneously sensing that we were going to get the deal. As the meeting slipped further, I let the prospect know that we had canceled his cab and I would personally drop him. That would give him some more time and also give me an opportunity to deal with him one on one if he wanted to go over some of the negotiation points.

And then it struck me that taking him in my beat up Civic might not give him all the right signals. I called up Stefanie and asked her if she would mind pulling her car up so I could drop the prospect. Stefanie, being Stefanie, immediately jumped on it and in a few minutes pulled her car up in front of the office door where I and the prospect were waiting with the rest of the team who had come down to say Bye.

As I drove off to the airport, I started chatting up the prospect and we started getting to know each other and our families. And as I pulled into the airport, he made an interesting comment – “If you don’t mind, may I say something?”. “Of course”, I said. “I am really impressed with your stature in your company and how fast you have reached there. I do not think I have ever seen any executive’s admin pull up his car from the parking spot before.” And I was like “Oh! Boy! This is going to be interesting”.

Finally, as I dropped him off, I blurted out .. “Well, Steve, I have something to say too”… and then explained the whole situation. We had a great laugh standing next to the drop off point. Turned out he was not much into cars either.

We got the deal the next day. I took Stefanie out for dinner that day to say Thank You. And this Wednesday was the next time I had dinner with her!!

I hope to run into Stefanie again down the road…