Fancy Flights

Visited India once more. There's no point ranting experiences for fellow readers..you just have to DO IT to know it. However I can enlighten you on the diversity of the airlines/aircrafts that could be afforded on my economy budget.
It all started with boarding a CR7 American Eagle at XNA to reach Chicago.This is one of the smallest, no frills plane one may fly; its too narrow with two seats on one side and one on the other.I fitted in my butt into the single seater and fell asleep to avoid the torture of being shaken like a cocktail drink during take-off.
The next flight was a gigantic leap from CR7. It was a Boeing 777-200; direct flight from Chicago to New Delhi. Mine was the first such non stop flight operated by AA.
They had special parties and guests to launch this event and the airport lounge was crowded lot. We were given special souvenirs and I hoped the in flight food would be special too (you cannot trust AA with good food).
However, the plane is super magnanimous. Just check out this blue print to gauge the enormosity of this beast.

The flight crew was happy to go to 'mystical' India for the first time. To my utter discomfort, I learned that AA doesn't serve free drinks (read alcohol) even on international flights;I don't know how they expect people to survive for 15 hours, in a closed airplane, in coach class, in the company of grey haired 40+ air hostesses without some liquor. I was fortnuate enough, when I could talk an air hostess to get me a free bottle of scotch. I could manage some sleep after that. The food was not alarmingly bad but also not superb. The limited variety of the food, keeping in mind it is an international flight also surprised me. You get better food on Indian domestic air routes. Read further.
Once in Delhi, I had to wait overnight to catch my next flight from New Delhi to Calcutta (Jet Airways). Believe me or not they use a Boeing 737, which is way bigger and spacious than the American Eagle stuff. The food is also sumptuous and plenty. http://www.airlinemeals.net/meals/JetAirways.html This is way much better than what I ate on the 15 hour flight. This feels like home. Good food. Indian hospitality. Prospering service industry of international standards.Mera Bharat Mahan.
The way back to USA from India it was Boeing 737 (Kolkata-Delhi), followed by Boeing 777-200(New Delhi-Chicago). After Chicago,I was to get NorthWest to fly back to Fort Smith via Dallas. Chicago to Dallas was good in a big Airbus. But the one from Dallas to Fort Smith took my wits away. It was one of those SR (short range) aircrafts with propellers driven by GE jet engines. The last seat looked actually like a couch where 5 people were jostling for space.I was seating on a single seat, luckily.That take-off scared me so much that I fell asleep once the plane was in air.The aged air hostess didn't even bother to ask for any beverage. It feels good to be back in USA where you have best of all facilities but the quality of air travel in USA is really not worth mentioning compared to SE Asia.
Let me know your feedback.

Bad Feminism

Myth :Women are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. Most men don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just take the rotten apples from the ground that aren't as good, but easy... The apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they're amazing. They just have to wait for the right man to come along, the one who's brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree.
Now Men...Men are like a fine wine. They begin as grapes, and it's up to women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.

Truth: No apples & No grapes & No Generalization. There are both types in either sexes. There are women who are good at throwing guys of the tall trees inspite of all their valiant attempts and there are men who like being stomped before rejecting her for being muddy.

If you read my last post's comments you will know who have been made into liquor (aka stong bitter beer)....and how the imbecile thinks of Karma (without knowing what it means) as the biggest excuse in life to stomp upon good people..how women need to push good prospects down to make themselves taller and feel high and take 'revenge' for past bad experiences.

Indian Guy and American Gal

According to Monica Bellucci from Chicago, most american (born in usa not immigrants) gals would be very pleased with smart people of my type on a first meeting. And she is right. However I will successfully freak the chick out by giving too much attention and care. I will scare her if I call up the next day. I will make her apprehensive if I speak of relationships even if she is spending the time with me. I will make her feel vulnerable by asking her out even if she is telling me that she likes me. She will think that I'm all excited about nothin and not goal oriented and not for real. And she is right again. This has been my experience with most of the american gals I have hung out with in near past.
However what I have doubts I my mind is that why these gals are shying of care and attention? The obvious melodramatic answers you can expect from chicks will be "I don't know you that much...""..you might be a psycho"..."you must not be for real..I never handled so good guys.." "Iam not used to this, I need my space.." "I'm all by myself..wouldn't a relationship ruin my independance" "you are coming in too strong..".
Well babes, how many psychos or serial killers reported so far in USA were from India and how many of them were IT professionals??? And is life all about having test tube babies (single moms) or is it about having families?? Is love and care and attention wrong?? Is being a little demanding going to brush your ego on the wrong side??Or you read somewhere that cute successful guys can never take care of you and make you feel inferior? Or you have a brain crisis?
And what about appreciating the fact that the guy is a transplant to your country and living an isolated, lonely existence and require true honest someone to spend some good time. That his life may not be as filled up with friends as yours is (you have been born here not me) because there is not much outside work life to look forward to.

Damn the bureaucracy

The wait for the magic Green Card just got longer.
Just check out the details at http://us.rediff.com/money/2005/oct/07visa.htm?q=tp&file=.htm
H1b holding professionals of the highest quality, and tax payers contributing to the US are forced to live in a state of constant flux due to poor adhoc decision making techniques adopted by US law makers.
Please do raise your concern.

You and me babe, how about it?

Wish I could write something like this...this expresses the eternal story of romeo so well
_________________________________________________
A lovestruck Romeo sings the streets a serenade
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made
Finds a streetlight steps out of the shade
Says something like "You and me babe, how about it?"
Juliet says "hey, it's Romeo, you nearly gave me a heart attack"
He's underneath the window
She's singing "hey la my boyfriend's back
You shouldn't come around here singing up at people like that"

Anyway what you gonna do about it?

Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start
And I bet that you exploded into my heart
And I forget I forget the movie song
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong?
Juliet
Come up on different streets, they both were streets of shame
Both dirty, both mean, yes and the dream was just the same
And I dreamed your dream for you and now your dream is real
How can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals?

When you can fall for chains of silver
You can fall for chains of gold
You can fall for pretty strangers
And the promises they hold
You promised me everything, you promised me thick and thin, yeah
Now you just say "oh Romeo, yeah, you know I used to have a scene with him"

Juliet,
When we made love you used to cry
You said "I love you like the stars above, I'll love you till I die"
There's a place for us you know the movie song
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong?
Juliet
I can't do the talk so like the talk on the TV
And I can't do a love song like the way it's meant to be
I can't do everything, but I'll do anything for you
I can't do anything except be in love with you
And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be
All I do is keep the beat and the bad company
Now all I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme

Juliet,I'd do the stars with you any time
Juliet

A lovestruk Romeo sings the streets a serenade
Laying everybody low with a lovesong that he made
Finds a convenience streetlight, steps out of the shade
Says something like "You and me babe, how about it?"
"You and me babe, how about it?"
________________________________________________

Life @ Fort Smith

Day 1 @ Fort Smith: Pensive mood


After 6 months: W/ my colleagues

Relationships and Maturity

Eh! Bad topic. First deal with maturity. Hope that would inevitably land into something to do with relationships (keeping in mind my overworked grey cells) ;-~
Hope we all agree that maturity is something elusive that comes with age, education, exposure to different cultures, interaction with multiple communities and has nothing do with CMM (Capability Maturity Model) practices led down by Carnegie Mellon University for improving the maturity of any process(industrial, techno-commercial). Wish they had a model for improving maturity of a person or a relationship for that matter.

Univ of Wisconsin tells that "When a person can live with her past without being bogged down by it, she remains adaptable, capable of continued change, then she is mature."
The mature individual can accept her own shortcomings, realise her faults and is usually much mellowed about life. The mature person knows that she has to go on choosing alternatives, that each alternative costs something, and there are things she will never be able to do and experience, but then maturity is about giving up a lot and realizing how much to give up. She also knows that there are things she will never be able to do again, that she can never recapture the youth or relive her first encounters with certain experiences. She will give up all temptations for a cause that has long time effect. She knows that her integrity would be continually threatened by practical demands, by seductive temptations, by concessions, by conflicting values, and can only be preserved at the cost strong resolve, love for life and faith in mankind. A matured person would take that extra step (often interpreted by immatures as sacrifice or compromise) to make things happen, to keep falling pieces together, to caress a lonely heart. She would make that effort to survive a relationship that is going through a bad patch or may not have blossomed completely.
I don't see too many trendy and smart youth (both guys and gals) doing such things for their relationships; they are all about move-ons, break-ups, divorces. They are afraid to take that risk as it challenges their ego, dreams, sense of freedom and pride. They are all about take-it- easy.Definitely they are good, attractive, smart people who have a lot going for themselves but they are just afraid to settle. So most beautiful men and women have the most confused and most hazy souls. They think settling down will make them like the other 'schmucks'.

Believe me. Trust me. Having one to relate to, talk to, share your life is something so sublime and special; it makes life so easy to live and enjoy. Extend your hand for the person waiting. Your relationship deserves your maturity not whims. Amen!

Crossroads:Walk carefully

Life has put me in a terrible mess. A cracked ring finger on the lefthand is not the only thing thats going wrong. After a long time, I realized that my personal life is also in a mess, and Iam 28 going on 29. I have been looking for that special one (after the first breakoff) and whenever I thought I met one (@bar, @train,@concerts etc), I realize thereafter that I have been wrong. That I will not be able tolive my life with the 'one'.
I, as an Indian, believe in only one marriage for one life, and so there have been multiple times, when I had to refuse women because I knew things would not work out. Women on the other hand think Iam cute,intelligent, have a good job and make good money, cultured, friendly,caring, a-keeper and so the vicious cycle repeats on. Lets be friends or Iam confused with my life right now has been the excuses that I used..And when I think I can find whom I need, whom I have been looking for, hope God will be good enough not to make me taste my own medicine. I, the born athiest, and spiritual is ready to pray to any God to make this work. Just pray for me and my life. This is important to me. Amen!

Bold Topic

This is going to be a bold topic to deal with.
How much time should you give yourself before you sleep with your date?

Iam sincerely asking for opinions and hope this one would draw some good opinions. Remember, this is true for both guys and gals who wants to love life and are based in US.

Friendly Chat

The status bar on the 17" screen of my Dell Inspiron tells the time as 12.43 am Friday. I came back to my apartment about 30 minutes back after having a "hearty" chat with my friend. He does not know that Iam summarizing our discussions in this blog, so I will not introduce him; however he has been my ex colleague and now he is working with me again.
After a long day at work, we started discussing about Indian music and culture and food (while trying chips and mexican salsa) at his apartment before conveniently digressing the topic to our career goals (me, a technical manager and he a techno commercial sales guy in next 5 years) and work. How we have come up where we are, how we need to evolve more to fit into the ever changings scheme of things, how the company should evolve, about old-school typecast colleagues, about confused colleagues, about jobs in us in the next decade, how small work place differences could snowball into issues, how quality of work life changes across companies (both of us are ex-ibmers) are few of the eclectic subject we debated. And then came the topic that we were hiding, love in our life.
How love hurts, how women are more mature in handling love than men like us, how life in USA changed everything for us, how we (both of us are from Kolkata) have never been taught to deal with the kind of isolated existence that we have in a foreign land ....during our discussion these issues remained no longer just topics but passionate subjects to ponder on; an unbiased perspective on on crushes, infatuations, relationships followed soon. We compared the pain of removal of band-aid from a wound with that of a break off; its less painfull to pull it of fast than to procastrinate. How time is a double edged sword for all relationships; more time to know each other brings two people near only to know more shortcomings and have a painfull breakoff. How we conveniently use blinkers to hide our wounds. How we still long for our first love. And life moves on.
I wish everyone who is reading this takes some time of to have a heart-to-heart chit chat with someone in order to unwind the tensions build within; quest for perfect life is bumpy at best so its good to have a hindsight view of things. Living alone in US then may become a little more easy than it has been. May be girls are so strong emotionally because they talk so much!!!!Nice joke!!!

Hate Miandad

Javed Miandad has always been a pain in the rear for India. Both on and off the cricket field. And now he is getting his son, Junaid, married to the Mahrukh, daughter of Dawood Ibrahim--the most wanted criminal in India, on 23rd of July at Dubai. He seems to be one of those Pakis who loves to hate India for all the wrong reasons and do stuff to antagonise India. The former cricketer is the son-in-law of a leading business family of Pakistan in whose businesses Dawood is believed to have invested heavily; besides ever since Dawood got involved in match-fixing over a decade ago, many Pakistan cricket players were on his rolls. Miandad, in particular, was considered close to him (http://www.rantburg.com/popThug.php?ID=11527&T=Dawood%20Ibrahim).
True unholy nexus.
Invitations for the ceremony has been sent to former Indian cricket captains Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Ravi Shastri and Dilip Vengsarkar, and to Asian Cricket Council chief Jagmohan Dalmiya as well as veteran film star Dilip Kumar and Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray. Hope none of them attend this wedding as the security watch dogs are hawkish.

Taxes and more Taxes!!!

Sometime it's really bewildering to find out how much of your money is sucked by the federal government as part of your taxes. Its so full of inconsistencies for H1Bholders like myself.
Your residency status for tax purposes is completely unaligned from your immigration status. You might qualify as a resident for tax purposes while remaining a non-immigrant alien for immigration purposes. And you end up paying all the taxes of a resident without enjoying any privileges of being one.
A non-resident files a special tax form, pays tax only on U.S. source income, and subject to special rates;conversely, if you are a resident for U.S. tax purposes, you are under the same rules and file the same forms as a U.S. citizen. That means you pay tax on your worldwide income rather than just U.S. source income. More fun is with the Social Security tax.
SS tax cannot be refunded, you can only claim SS benefits if you qualify. Basic qualification is reaching retirement age AND having contributed to SS taxes for 10 years. So a H1Bholder with an ambition of returning back to work in India will have no chances of ever getting back all these SS taxes; they will be enjoyed by the american baby boomers!!!! In today's scenario, the H1B worker gets the same SS benefits as an American worker who stops working in the US before 10 years, which is zero! Isn't that interesting?

Camp Postcards

the tent (Camp Tilden,Cyclone,MO)

the kayaking pirate (big sugar creek)

Take me where I belong

How do you know that you have not been online for a long time just for plain surfing? When you forget your blog id's password. And when your IE address bar cache looses the blogspot address. Or may be both. Or may be lack of any comments on my writings took away the incentives from me for writing anything meaningful about my life. Anyway, the long hibernation from writing what-i-like has been very well spent doing other 'meaningful' things.
Most of the time was invested in establishing the credentials at job (client site) however also managed some time for doing many first time stuff in USA, like attending an american (read catholic) wedding, smooches in the back seat of my car (accidental), go-karting (Hot Springs), camping by a creek and kayaking (Camp Tilden). All of them were fun to a certain moment of time before they become boresome. In normal american weddings, they keep you really underfed (compared to a full blown indian wedding). Lack of space at the back seat can be frustrating sometimes. Go-Karting is good if you can go on forever and have your own race tracks..where you dont have to pay for. Camping is marvellous still you have to pack it up all and clear up the space. Kayaking is good till you get tired of being grounded in shallow water and sunburned.
Dont think me of a damned cynic. Its just that all good things must come to an end. Why?! Dont know. They just end. All types of flights (paperplanes, airplanes, birds, bees, kites etc) ultimately end on ground. Iam on ground now. Just a way of thinking may be. Ciao.

The New Copernicus

No more of Hybrids. It now all about Albert Einstein and the not so recent controversies around him. I was in Princeton few months back as a tourist and walked across the place where he lived and died. And my interests in him got renewed.
He has been referred as the New Copernicus by the famous German Physician Max Planck. However its alleged what we know of him is because of the fact that two executors of Einstein's estate meticulously went through all his letters and documents and destroyed any that could posthumously tarnish his image. We now know of him as the Times Man of the Last Century; the master physicist who came out with the theory of general relativity, quantam theory; a leftist Jew and a radical thinker.

It is being pointed out by various interest groups that Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for his Quantam theory and not for Relativity as everybody knew that he plagiarised the works of his talented, older and submissive wife Mileva Einstein-Marity and claimed the paper to be his solo effort. Check out the following sites for more details on what I am referring about.
http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/mileva.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mileva_Maric
http://www.pbs.org/opb/einsteinswife/classroom/lesson2.htm

Besides, investigation into Einstein's life has uncovered vibrant details of an active love life and unknown facets of his personality;Einstein divorced twice on unfriendly terms, he allowed his first daughter (probably affected by Down's Syndrome), born before his first marraige to Mileva to die or adopted due to his career pressures; and his sons accused him of not being a good father. He was a man of versatile personality and his popularity among the masses is influenced a lot by his persona and his typical outspokenness on international politics and culture of his time rather than his mathematical genius.
(http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/einstein02.html)
The lousy haircut, the cartoonish look, the enigma, the philosopher, the scientist; He Is All; and yet we should not forget that he was a human being with his own shortcomings.

Killer Apps

Sabeer Bhatia is on the roll again. There is this new cool product that bears the name of this Indian technopreneur. Check out this on http://www.instacoll.com
Its a collaboration tool that allows you to share and work with your existing documents seamlessly over the internet (it claims even over low bandwidth). With outsourcing and off-shoring kicking off faster than ever, this product could turn to be the next killer application in this domain; it facilitates sharing presentations and documents, real time.
One another killer app and a great competitor to Mapquest will be the Google maps.
http://maps.google.com/

Check them out!!!

Hybrid cars and Horses

It seems hybrid cars are the new rage. People are maintaining blogs on them. Newspapers are always reporting about them. And there are more of them on the road today than a week before.
I read up some interesting news, where used hybrids are fetching more prices than the new ones, due to the abnormal waiting period (http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2005-04-11-prius-usat_x.htm). I was lucky to have my Prius 2005 within 12 hours. Some one preordered it and then got undecided on the color. And I ended up with that one. I have driven already abt 2500 miles on this one and this is really a cool mean machine.

Once that I have updated you abt hybrid, I will post here a picture of my horse ride.

Name of the Horse: Flash
Type: 3 year old gelding; Quarter Horse
Owner: Kendra Gilmore of Beverly
Ranch:4 Winds Ranch, Alma, AR

Kendra taught us (me and one of my colleague) the basics of horse riding in 10 minutes, and it wasn't difficult at all to try this as Flash is very obedient and smart. He knew that Iam a novice, so he didnt nudge a bit at start till I got him moving kicking with my heels. It was an interesting spring noon, where I learned how not to be afraid of horses and how not to get them afraid of me; how to get up on one and how to get down; how to extend your heels and test your balance; how to bend a little bit to give signals to the horse etc....

Updates!!

My work is taking up toomuch of my 'alive' time. Besides there is the usual rigmarole of cooking,cleaning, laundry, ironing, reading and the list goes on. Life is getting more and more routineed and hence boring except for a couple of happenings. One is the job itself. Something new or the other is happening everyday to keep me at the edge. Another is the comments to my blog scripts. Some Anonymous person is writing venomous comments to my articles without letting me know his/her identity. This is interesting, as the person knows me definitely but wants to hide him/her self behind a virtual veil. It would be great if he/she let me know the name atleast.

Ms Salsa Juicy

The Nomad In Me

I am updating my blog after a long time. I was busy grabbing and digesting my new responsibilities at my new workplace for the last one month. So a lot of updates are here all of your way.
I bought a new Toyota Prius 2005 just before changing over to the new office. I will write sometime about how I got hold of THE Car in just 12 hours when there is actually a wait of 3 to 6 months for this mind boggling 4 wheeler. Amazed!!
I drove it all the way from Chicago to down south Fort Smith in Arkansas. More amazing that I left Chicago for the new job I talked about in my last update and drove down to Fort Smith with my friend. It was long and tiring 9 hour drive and we took it; canceling all previous airline and hotel bookings as I wanted to 'run' the car a bit.
I will attach some pictures of Fort Smith's azure blue sky and my Prius. I named her and the navigation system inside as Ms Salsa Juicy. Well not much creativity here; the color of the car is called Red Salsa by Toyota and the car is juicy enough; it holds on to gas for long time say 45 miles per gallon.

The Interview

This is the story of an interview I had few days back. Now why is this The Interview?? Because this paved the route for a 100K job hop? Or because I attended the interview while travelling in a train, while negotiating with passengers to keep their voice low so that I can understand the questions, while pulling my luggage to a corner of the Chicago Union station, while taking another phone call from my friend, while providing help to a passenger about directions to another train!! Sounds interesting... read on.

It all started on a Tuesday when a consultant scheduled a telephonic interview for me with some one called SG (initials will do..) next day at 3 pm. Well Wednesday the interview happened at 8.30 pm and continued till 9.20 pm with a promise of another in-depth probing of me the following day (Thursday) at 3 pm. Thursday I was supposed to take the 5.05 Amtrak train to return from Springfield to Chicago. So 3 pm seemed good. At 3pm I got an email that the interview has been rescheduled.
The interview started at Thursday 8.05 pm when I was travelling in the double decker train; I was reading "Adventure Capitalist" by Jim Rogers till 8 pm when I discovered that the train was crowded and everyone was speaking with someone on their phone. So I took the stairs down and found myself a low, bright yellow colored stool (with few dark patches) that is used for passengers to get down at stations. I dialed into the conference number to find my interviewers;SG, the Client Project Manager and a Microsoft Project Architect. Intial questions from them lasted for about 25 minutes when the train entered the Chicago Union Station and the Tmobil bars in my cell got to zero; the phone got disconnected from the network.

Once I alighted the station, I found my self a small corner to dial in again. They were there. We started where we got halted. Before that I plugged in my phonecharger as the battery was going down. For next 55 minutes I was grilled by the Architect on anything and everything that is .Net. He was paused thrice; once when my ear was all hot and sweaty with holding the phone so long, second time my friend called up and third I had to provide directions to a guy looking for a particular train. During this time, I also had pull myself and my luggage to a new corner as someone also wanted to share the plugpoint for his laptop.

Once the interview was over we all marvelled at the uniqueness of our experience; we got disturbed by so many things but we achieved what we wanted to do. They questioned me relentlessly and mercilessly and I answered them obligingly, the environment and the circumstances just added a new paradigm to the concept of telephonic interview. SG knew of my blog and told me to write up the experience. I was amazed that they were doing background research about me, however I didnt write the story till now as I was still working with IBM. But now that I have resigned I couldnt hide the greed to share this with the world.

Springfield ain't Fun

Me and the Toyota Echo on a snowy Springfield road
My latest project is in Springfield, IL with the State Education Board. And believe me its no fun to be there after staying in Chicago for so long. There are few things about this place which have left indelible marks which includes:
Lincoln: Mr Abraham Lincoln is everywhere in Springfield. Starting from the Old Capitol to the bars, libraries and museums, cobbled road and Amtrak station:even on the walls of the restrooms of bars and coffee shops, its Lincoln and excerpts of his famous speeches all the way. Even the Amtrak train from Chicago to Kansas City via Springfield is called Ann Rutledge, the name of Lincoln's first girlfriend. People eat, drink and sleep Lincoln. Amazing guy he must had been to exercise such a tremendous influence even today.
No Fast Food after Sundown: All the food outlets in the downtown Springfield are shut down by 7pm and there is no food anywhere. My project mates are helpful; they drove me around to different places for dinner. You have to travel westward and eastward to get food or visit the restaurants of 3 star hotels to fill up your belly every night if you are in downtown.
One way Every way: This is fun. 90% of the streets in Springfield are oneways. I rented a Toyota Echo for a snowy weekend from enterprise. Small and powerful, this new model from the Toyota stable is pretty with not-so-good brakes (may be I was making it more hard on the melting snows).Besides the car had a bad blind corner on left turns. So the fact that every street is one way was actually helpful. It was fun to discover that you never can get lost with this one way strategy.
Small secrets: The pool table in Hilton Springfield does not have the Ball number 8. According to the bar tender, it always gets stolen. This is a very old hotel with broken closet doors, small bathrooms and slow showers. Hi speed internet is not available in all the rooms. They have parking charges.However they have a big complimentary breakfast.
The hotel Renaissance charges $10 extra for Hi speed internet. They too have parking charges.
Try out Hampton Inn. Very modern and up start. No parking. Free internet. And good gifts.
Interesting places for lunch and dinner: Here are a few of the places that I had my lunches and dinner and they were pretty good
*Capisce--at the top of Hilton
*Saputos--just behind Hilton
*Thai Kitchen---on 9th Street
*Gateway to India--for delicious sumptuous Indian lunch buffet
*Steak and Shake
*Alexander's Steak House ---Free style self grilling of food
*Sebastian's---Contemporary American cuisine