Columbus, Indianapolis

Posted on by Maryam

I was flying American Airways to Indianapolis. First I had to transit to Charlotte and make my way to Columbus after that. It was a hectic schedule. Tight too.
Charlotte seemed to me to be a pretty decent place. I barely had time to catch my breath when I found myself sitting on a super cute airplane headed to Indianapolis. Woohoo!
By this time, I'd had my fair share of OJs! (hint: airline service, free drinks for passengers).

Landed safely and went to collect my luggage when I saw a sign with my name on it. I knew it was my limo driver come to pick me up to Hilton hotel downtown. This guy was South American, specifically, Venezuelan. Pretty nice guy. Said he was training to become a pilot. Apparently, you had to have a general degree before you could train to become one, which is the same as trying to become a doctor in the states. I really wanted to take a photo of the ultra cool limo. I think it was a cadillac, but I thought I'd look too touristy. haha.

The journey downtown took all of 20 minutes. I got a good view of the city (read: various shopping malls and restaurants galore). Hilton was right next to TJ Maxx, which is, according to my sister, a really cheap place to shop. Yay me!

The place to go for budget shoppers like me

The view outside my hotel window

Another similar view, except you could see the roof top from here

Hilton wanted my credit card for verification purposes so I handed them my Maybank Visa Debit, for all the good it would do me and went straight to my rooms. Sigh. Talk about a jet setting day. I was exhausted! I had a mind to check out TJ Maxx but found myself asleep in no time. I even forgot to order dinner!

The next day I had to wait for another limo to pick me up and send me to Cummins HQ in Columbus. That journey took another 20 minutes I reckon. Columbus was such a quaint little town and according to the driver, Cummins was its main lifeblood; generating work for thousands of people and putting Columbus on the map. A lot of people were indebted to the company. I was deposited at the main Cummins office where the front of it was dedicated to a mini museum with some Cummins engines. We had a whiff of the stinky scent of skunk on our way there. It was decidedly unpleasant I can tell ya that.
Vicki, a really friendly, Southern lady who was the security officer manning the help desk, helped me to breakfast at their cafe. I had some vegetarian omelette and some sugar free Lipton tea whilst waiting for my host, Whitney Booze, to show me around the facility. Even had my fill of the interesting historical artifacts and bits and pieces of Cummins through out the years.

The various Cummins engines throughout the years

A brochure I picked up

Indiana is big on NASCAR, and that car competed in one of the races, of course it was using Cummins engine

These engines are for industrial purposes

Shot of me, having fun

This is a marine grade engine, it has filters specifically for marine environment, even the materials used are different

This is a typical engine used for off road or industrial purposes

Cummins 'for the people'

First order of the day was getting introduced to the High Horse Power (HHP) people at Cummins Marine in State Street. They consisted of Application Engineers, Service Engineers with backgrounds mainly in Mechanical Engineering. I was introduced to Bill Burns, who was to be my tour guide for the day. Now Bill was a really pleasant host, he drove me through the really back-water part of town, 'rural America' according to him, and I saw rows and rows of corn. Even then, Indiana isn't the main exporter, Kansas is! The thing about Bill is he's from Alabama, and his accent was exactly like Forrest Gump! I kid you not! It was awesome. We finally arrived at the manufacturing plant (Seymour Plant), the main plant for Cummins.

The rows of maize

A factory that manufactures the parts for Cummins engines

Typical houses in rural America

Another house

My visitor pass

Bill walked me through the plant, but not without a brief safety video I had to watch at the start. I had to wear safety glasses and a bright neon vest before I was cleared to enter the plant. My first impression was how large it was compared to the plant in Charleston. The engines were a very much bigger as well. The plant was arranged similar to the one in Charleston but with a lot more people working at the engines, so the output was obviously much, much higher. Bill really knew his stuff and explained to me the various parts that went on a typical Cummins engine. Turns out, he'd been working at the plant for all his life, starting from a lowly shop boy and finally ending up as the head supervisor! By then, he knew how to dismantle and put each and every product Cummins has back together again. Cummins provided training to their employees, so Bill was a journeyman, who learnt mechanical engineering. He was truly indebted to Cummins for improving his quality of life, and for allowing him the opportunity to reach heights in his career. He was officially retired, but with all the knowledge and expertise he's gained through out his years working there, Cummins contracted him for consulting work. Interesting stuff.

With the really friendly Bill Burns

The Cummins office layout at State Street

All the documents, mini library

Whitney's cubicle

So that's how I whiled away my morning: touring the Seymour plant and getting a good look at the top secret Hedgehog; Cummins first foray into the really high horse powered engines for the marine market.

I then headed downtown for lunch with Whitney. We talked about random stuff and interesting engineering stuff and family stuff. She's an interesting person, Whitney is and really nice to begin with. Turns out she went to Virginia Tech and she worked all her four summers at Cummins as an intern. She practically paid her way through college using the stipend Cummins paid to their interns. You know how much they pay them? 3500 dollars a month! I could live happy with that much money for all my days. haha. But of course, I found this info from the current interns I had the chance to meet when touring their test cells at the tech center. There was Eric, a 5th year student in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia Missouri University and another, Scott I think, from Scotland. He came all the way from Stratclyde. Also, a graduate in Mechanical Engineering, currently pursuing his masters. Both of them were really great to talk to. Especially when whinging about all the courses we had to go through. haha

Couldn't take any pictures at the tech center since everything was kept tightly under wraps. There was this whole section dedicated to their EPA and IMO Tier I and II testing. Everything inside was kept sterile and within strict standards.

Me with Whitney, head application engineer in Cummins marine

I had a whale of a time. Getting back to State Street marked the end of my Cummins trip. I had the whole evening to myself. Arrived at the hotel around 7 pm to find out that my debit card had been rejected. I didn't think they'd use it to actually deduct money! I thought it was for verifying identity purposes. lol! Well, after straightening things out with Lisa Pasmans, the go to girl for all my financial stuff over in the states, I managed to smooth things out. The concierge was starting to give me the suspicious stares already. I freshened up and headed out to explore Indianapolis! :)

Of course had to stop by at TJ Maxx.. Found a really cute pink striped blazer which I was dying to buy but I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how it'd fit into my current wardrobe back home. It was too thick for one, and the color was all wrong! So I reluctantly settled for a black and white blazer instead and an awesome jumpsuit as well.

Swanky hotel to stay in

Look what's just across the street!

The yummy blazer

The yummy skirt, which I had to let go since the lining was all of three quarters!

I got this blazer instead

Interesting fixture

I memorized some land marks to get to Circle street mall when I was in the limo back to Hilton so I made my merry way over there. I got some Godiva chocolate truffles after deliberating over all their wonderfully delicious array of choices. They weren't cheap too, so that was a major deciding factor. Just wanted to see what all the hype was about is all. And something for the family when I reunited with them :)

In Circle Street Mall, one of the anchors

ehem ehem

I checked out H&M while I was there and boy did they have a boat load of cool stuff! I spent a looooong time at their accessory rack. They had an ultimate collection of rings and bracelets and so much yummy stuff, I just didn't want to exit the shop! haha. And then I saw Forever 21, and spent my dying minutes before the entire mall closed, over there, haunting the accessory rack (yet again!) Say one thing for the USA, say they have the most awesome collection of finger candy!!! >.<

H&M on sale!

The mall reminded me of Pavilion

I was reminded of my empty stomach and searched out their food court. Met some muslimahs and gave salam to them. And then ordered some sushi and fish burger from A&W. Plus root beer.

The food court

When in doubt, always return to the familiar

Back to the hotel, my new Adidas sneakers were doing surprisingly well considering the demand I've put on them. I didn't even feel any aches walking back!