Virtual Monday

It didn't feel like a work day when I got up this morning, but I managed to get out a little early. There was speed limit+ traffic on 101 except for the stupid bottleneck where 85 dumps into 101 - one lane on the left and two on the right, where I needed to merge right from the diamond lane across 5 lanes to my exit.

Still, at work 15 minutes early,  while chatting with AG about his Friday phone interview with Apple. It did not sound like a fit. One interviewer was all about stupid math puzzles, another wanted him to write some complex code on the spot which has no practical application in automation scripting. And one asked why he was wanting to leave Amazon for Apple - the answer was he wasn't, the interview had been set up by a recruiter headhunting him.

Break room had bananas and Kind bars, and a few oreos, but no eggs. Diet Cokes were there but not as cold as usual.

And much to my surprise, the three HVAC techs who swore on Friday they would be done by Monday were still working. By the end of the day they had apparently recharged the HVAC unit with refrigerant and had it running. 100° on the outside wall, 67° in my room, so it must have been working. They still have some thermostats to install and ceiling vents to align, but I think they will be done with the ground floor tomorrow. Not sure if they will be doing the unoccupied upstairs as well.

There was lots to do test wise. Got new firmware for a unit which needs a pair of upgrades, but  it didn't work. Wasted a lot of time trying, may waste some more tomorrow. Boss came in for sync after lunch (Thai ginger beef & mint fudge cookies) with an assignment to run some automation suites on one of the more stable units. It is not looking good. May ask for help tomorrow - she said she would be visiting again with some other goodies.

And she's lining up training for us on the pre-release app.

And there was a bug reported on one of the prototype boards, one which isn't working at all, so I ran it on a related machine and did not see the issue.

And she wants to get me another prototype (we've been asking the mfg for months) to test. I may need to add a table to my empire.

Break time - there is a new re-stocker person who has a very attractive figure. Nice hair, too. And there was one pretty visitor as well.  It was just the 3 of us.

Home, in the mail was USPS' new slick magazine for stamp collectors. Very well done, but it's only for current and future stamps, nothing truly collectible.

Last night I replaced Spook's beds in the bedroom and office, and after a brief sprawl across the office one, she has instead been using them as barricades, hunkering down behind them. Right now she is parked on the runner carpet just outside the office door, keeping an eye on me.

Late last night I gave in to curiosity and pawed through the box of letters-to-me from my Peace Corps/Israel days. Either I filed them in order as I received them (possible) or grouped them by sender/date some time later (plausible),  but it made for interesting revelations. By far the most mail from other PCVs was from Bev in Satun, who arrived on site about the same time I arrived in Haad Yai, her group a year after mine. Satun is on the other side of the peninsula from Haad Yai, at the time a tedious 5-hour bus ride (no trains) through hills, flood zones and nothing much scenic. I remember when she first arrived two or three of us went to her house to paint the inside. I have photos.



Either Steve or Ed. Don't remember.





Bev on the left, Joe (?) on the right.

I did not find Bev attractive at all, but she was being driven insane by this far-from-everyone/everything assignment, so she wrote to me a lot. I'm pretty sure I was her nearest PC neighbor.

So I looked through her letters, and the first one I found was one of the last, as I was considering either (a) staying on another year in Haad Yai, (b) leaving for Israel to play Uncle Howard or (c) moving on to another volunteer or UN post elsewhere. This is what she wrote:
“I met Mary Badovinac, and you really should stay, she’s transferring to university of Songkhla in March or May. I didn’t get much time to talk to her, but she’s lovely to look at, and seems fairly intelligent.” Songkhla is the provincial capitol of the province Haad Yai is in.

Mary's transfer was an extension for another year, which came with a free home leave, and she never returned to Thailand to claim it. 

She had warned me she might hook up with her boyfriend again, but I really expected her back. In that shoebox there are no letters from her. I have since found her on Facebook and LinkedIn, sent her an FB message, but she rarely is on there.

Also in the letter box were several from a librarian PCV in Thonburi, which is now part of Bangkok. She seemed to have a thing for me, so I looked her bio up on the Friends of Thailand pages. Turns out she had been one of the first ever PCVs, Group 6 in Tanganyika, and this was her second rodeo. She was 18 years older than me. Probably still is. Found her on FB, in upstate NY, with a hyphenated surname. 

Enough already.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Maybe What You Will at The Pear theater.  Hang out at the Google building next door.