howeird | Entries tagged with thailand

Slept in. On purpose. It was a long Saturday. Didn't get dressed until after scanning the 1989 photos and finding the ones from 2004, 2008 and 2012 which needed to go with the Friends of Thailand article. Found a small pile of 1975-77 pix which are too many to scan by hand, I'll have Costco do them. Ed & Umapon's wedding, some of my fellow volunteers in teacher training - teaching English to Thai high school students. I donated one quiz question:
Do you walk to school or bring your lunch?
Also some field trip or other we went on in training.
Too much other stuff on my plate right now, I need to wait a bit till I can bring all my slides in to be scanned. And even then it will be in batches, by album.

Finally got showered & dressed & drugged and bananaed. Attacked the 4-foot-high pile of Stuff in the livingroom, shoved the towels into one lawn trash bag, costumes, a couple of old suit jackets and assorted clothes into another, shirts & jeans cutoffs into a third, bedding and curtains into a 4th, and put three comforters and two blankets into my old lady wheeled grocery basket. Moved the car out of the garage and up to street level, and schlepped all that stuff - it took 3 trips and major amounts of sweat.

Returned the cart to the apartment, petted Domino, and punched the Goodwill location into the GPS. The first turn was wrong - it was sending me to one of the smaller ones in Santa Clara. Tried again, and it sent me toward an even smaller one inn Palo Alto. It did not have the big one in MV-Sunnyvale, so I faked it. The big one makes it easy - donation area is to the side of the store, lots of parking space, but they now have it set up so you drive into it in order, and they take you 3 at a time. What took an hour to get collected, schlepped and into the car took 1 minute to unload. I don't stick around for the receipt - experience has shown that I will not have enough deductions for this to make a difference.

Home, next item on the agenda was to haul electronics to the recycle station, but I decided to do that Some Other Time. Relaxed a bit, spent some time with Domino walking across my lap. Checked FB. Set up the Tivo to record 49ers games (I thought it was already, but Wishlist failed, and decided I needed to see games in low def two days after they were played).

Then to Starbucks an hour before Janice was meeting me, and studied lines. I think I know them now. We'll see this week when we run Act I without books. I have only had one rehearsal for my scene.

8 pm rehearsal for 30 minutes to run the number I was having issues with. This is the one where they had me dancing a doe-si-doe box step with another non-dancer. The AD talked me into trying it the way we had blocked it, and he would decide from there. Tough to do because my partner non-dancer was not there. I was not able to convince him that it was stupid to have me make a lightning costume change and show up as another character downstage. He quibbled about the center stage part - but it doesn't really matter - I'm in the front row, flanked only by leads.

After we ran it once, he removed me and my invisible partner from the box step.

They will find out at dress rehearsal that the costume change won't work. It would have been much smarter of them to admit they were wrong now, and avoid the train wreck. But smart and this production staff won't usually be in the same sentence. The producer who assured me at the start that I would not be dancing told me during my debate with the AG that I should trust the extremely experienced and talented production staff. He's telling this to someone with 50 years of theater experience? Jesus on a tadpole.

One thing they have done well is stick to their schedule, so we were out of there by 8:30. Almost. SInce the whole cast was there the social director (yes, we have one, maybe two) felt obliged to ask if it was okay if we had a taco truck for the cast party. WTF? This is the party which is held the day after closing night/strike. October 7. I will not be there, so I don't care what they do, but to keep us late at a rehearsal to ask this?

There was another announcement, but it was even less important.

So. I'm home, my linen and bedroom closets are much emptier, I cannot believe how much stuff I had which should have been recycled before my last move. And there is still more. T-shirts which no longer fit. One with holes in it which I bought a replacement for (which is in a box headed my way, presumably, around the time I move).

Got email from the woman I met on the boat trip in Phuket, asking me to friend her on FB, but all she sent was a hotmail address. The <> had her Thai surname, but when I looked that up, there were two of them, the one in Phuket may be her but has a different first name. Of course the first name she gave me ("Apple") is her nickname, so maybe that is her real first name on FB. I wrote back suggesting she friend me, but she replied she couldn't find my name. So I sent a friend request to ปรียภัทร์ สุวัฒน์พัฒนากูล (Boripaht Suwanapanakul). We'll see what happens.

Plans for tomorrow:
Team meeting
1 pm mover rep at the apartment
AG rehearsal at 9 pm.

Current Mood: cynical

Sleep was a bit fitful, woke up 20 minutes before the alarm didn't go off. I had turned it back on before I went to sleep, but I guess it didn't take. Set it again this morning using the phone app. Looks good now.

The car almost did not start, battery obviously was drained. The only pull on the battery is the in-dash GPS/audio unit, and that's minimal.

Got to the kennel at 9, paid the lady, car almost didn't start again. brought Domino home (she cried all the way). She looks good - put on some weight and I guess she groomed herself a lot because she looks fluffier.

Left her by the water fountain and went to work. Again with the car start issue.

Lots of folks dropped by to ask about the trip, and there was a bug fixed while I was away so I had that to work on. And some automation too, which took me a long time to finish because the feature had a bug which took a lot of replication. My automation script works, it fails where the bug is.

Called AAA, they have a member deal where they will come out to the car with a new battery and install it. From my phone call to having the new battery was about 35 minutes. It cost about $100, which is a pretty good deal. The battery was due - 2008 car, original 3-year battery.

Home a little early. Programmed my AM stations along the way, FM will have to wait. I mostly listen to the iPod anyway. The 2012 map came up. Could be the unit just didn't have enough juice before.

Domino grabbed some serious lap time, and we sat next to each other on the patio for a while. At the kennel she had a window by the hummingbird feeder, but here she likes to watch the people and their dogs go by. Blew off band practice to spent QT with the cat.

Printed out the music for Anything Goes which I'll need for Sunday night's rehearsal. At work I plugged into the Google calendar the rehearsals for which I'm called. There are a LOT of them. More, I think, than are probably needed. Pretty much I'm only needed when it says "All".

Copied all the trip photos from the CF cards to folders on the big PC by date. Converting them to JPG now.

Dinner was the last of the frozen home made tamarind prawns. Domino loved it too. And mint chocolate chip ice cream, which they don't have a lot of in Thailand.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Groc
Look through Thailand photos for Worldcon material. Will also re-use some stuff, but everything needs to be watermarked in Photoshop and re-printed 12x18. Then Aaron's will mount it and hopefully help me ship it.

Current Location: New Furball Hall

Random stuff entry. On the Skytrain, there are stops with the word Chit in them, in order, mostly:
Ploenchit
Chitlom
Mo Chit

No chit, mon?
My hotel includes a free breakfast buffet. It closes at 10:30. My usual routine has been to be up and showered by 9:30 or 10, flip the "do not disturb" sign over to "please make up room", got down to breakfast, and when I come back up the room has been made up. Minimally. No vacuuming, nothing straightened up, all they do is make the bed and clean the bathroom.

Breakfast is a mix of Thai and western food. There is always:
A pan of Sunny side-up eggs
Scrambled eggs
bacon
mini-hot dogs
ham slices in hot water
a steamer full of dinner rolls
Thai butter (cut into triangles and on ice)
Land O Lakes butter in gold foil
a warmer full of mini-croissants
bread - white, pumpernickel, rye, and a toaster
marmalade and jam
some kind of fried rice dish
some kind of bread-like breakfast food - mini pancakes, mini-French toast triangles, mini waffles
some kind of unidentifiable Thai dish (sometimes it looks a lot like pat tai)
Assorted fruit - now in season are papaya, watermelon and pineapple, with lime slices for the papaya
Some kind of sweet roll or donut
Orange-colored juice, pineapple juice and grapefruit juice.

Most of the time the Skytrain is crammed full, almost as bad as a Japanese commuter train. Thais won't go for being packed in by someone else, but they have a way of trying to fit themselves where there is not enough room. So it balances out.

When the system was originally built, they marked on the platform where to stand -- each door's center was for exiting (two arrows pointing away from the train) off to each side are two arrows pointing at the train at a 45 degree angle. You can see where they made the system expandable, at least two more cars could be added to each train, but that would require painting more arrows. So instead of having a comfortable commute, they have fixed the number of cars and the number of runs, and are now well beyond capacity.

I've seen three very large mangy rats so far, two of them on the main street. One tried to climb up a glass store front. Scared the crap out of a passer-by. One was headed out of the dumpster of restaurant, and one came up out of the sewer near a row of bars.

When I was here in 1975, one of the biggest challenges was coping with traffic which drives on the left. Not a problem anymore because you have to look both ways no matter what side of the street you are in, and also watch for motorcycles riding on the sidewalk. There is zero traffic law enforcement.

They have a special Tourist Police force. So far what I have seen are friendly and almost helpful.

The last three days it has gotten into the mid-90s, even Thais were sweating.

I've been to several luxury shopping centers, which were originally designed to serve the foreign population. They have been totally adopted by the locals. One very swanky place I went to across from where I used to live in '75, was a sea of school uniforms in about a dozen of the coffee shops and "farang" restaurants.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Nana Hotel, Bangkok

Last posting was Thursday's events. Friday was the event I ostensibly came for, to meet the princess, and attend an official thank you at the Thai foreign ministry for 50 years of Peace Corps in Thailand. But they decided to hold it at 8 am, and require a suit and tie. One night in a long sleeved shirt and tie the night before cured me of wanting to do that again in Bangkok's heat. And i don't do mornings. And the whole thing changed because the protocol people got their knickers in a twist and decided only 30 people couold be in the group photo, and I was not one of them. And those 30 people needed to rehearse.

So I had a late dinner Thursday night, went bar hopping (drinking Pepsi or club soda) and watching the show. And processed photos till 2 am. Slept in Friday, then took the skytrain to Victory Monument with plenty of time to walk to the Peace Corps office for their open house. I had never been there before, the PC office was much closer to where I am staying when I lived here. It turned out to be a long walk. It took two hours. And my T-shirt was soaked by the time I got there.

It' a very beautiful building, word is it was a royal residence 100 years ago. Much much classier than when i was in PC. The staff and a bunch of current volunteers had all kinds of things going. Several things to sign, photos to be taken, displays on the walls which showed every decade's main programs except the biggest one (TEFL) my group was part of. Kind of a major fail there. No food or drink to speak of, either. Very odd for a Thai gathering.

Red & blue chairs on the lawn (what, no white ones? ) and a wireless mike which worked like a champ until you touched it. Short speeches from the country director, several RPCVs and current volunteers, all fun and interesting and inspiring. Two people I knew spoke, Nancie who was in my group and is now a world famous cookbook author, and Pete who was our training director.

The new volunteers introduced me to a new concept, called Thai-napping. Apparently this is Thai tradition I had never heard of where one gets kidnapped and taken on a tip or to an event, sometimes in costume, always by surprise or with minimal advanced notice. I had similar trips, but there was always some notice, and it was always consensual.

During the talks I took a few close-up portraits with the 200mm zoom. My favorite kind of shots. Fell in love three or four times. Amazed at how much energy the new volunteers have. Way more than I ever did. Part of it is they had to compete like mad to get accepted by PC, I was chosen without even applying.

I had my picture taken with one of them, Julia, who has startlingly vivid blue-grey eyes, dreds, and so intense that any day I expect her to achieve earth orbit by sheer will alone. Also had someone take photos with my camera of me & Faith, but all 4 were out of focus. The current generation doesn't know about focus, or viewfinders, they are used to using the LCD screen and the phone camera will automatically focus on faces. Very disappointed.

Minutes after the party was over, we had the traditional evening downpour. Two nights in a row the monsoon waited till the event was over.

Took an air conditioned bus back to the monument, and skytrain back to the hotel. Hit the bars again, restocked at 7-11, processed photos and went to bed early.
Photos ( behind the cut )

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: Nana Hotel, Bangkok

With the torrential morning rains and what I expected to be flooding and traffic snarls, at 5 pm I paid the exorbitant 300 Baht ($9.50) fare to go to the US Ambassador's residence, expecting it to take an hour. We were there in 18 minutes. A couple of others had miscalculated the same way, but with our printed invitations and passports and being on The List, the half dozen embassy people at the gate let us in - doors were not supposed to open till 6. At the house, a very classy woman who was in charge of protocol for the event suggested it would be better to go back to the road, cross the street and park myself in an air conditioned coffee shop (there were several to choose from) until 6. So I headed back up the long driveway, and as I reached the gate an elderly American lady was coming in, who introduced herself as Emily. "Ketudat?" I asked. Yes indeed, this is the woman from Peace Corps Group 1 who worked at my first PC posting in Bangkok in 1975. She had married a Thai man, and was in charge of all things materiele for the place I was assigned to. I thanked her profusely for all her help back then. She said it was a long time ago.

When I told her I'd been turned away temporarily, she decided to take the same advice, but she was going to walk way down the block to the pedestrian overpass instead of trusting the crosswalk. Unfortunately, I did not see her again that evening.

There were already a few people at the coffee shop I chose, it turned out they are all current volunteers. And after a while the place was filled with them. Absolutely wonderful people, all ages but mostly fresh out of college. They have mostly been assigned to community development work "here's a list of 12,654 projects which your village may have a need for, pick one and go for it" is how one of them described it.

A little after 6 someone noticed what time it was and we all headed over. I got waved through, since I was already checked in. Same classy woman met me at the entrance and pointed me to the coat rack. No need to actually wear the suit jacket I'd had made special.

There were lots of servers with (non-iced) drinks, canapes, tiny munchy items, and they were everywhere. From the entrance we passed through a large covered terrace, and then to a lawn with a "just in case it rains" tent. There was also one small air conditioned room set up as a small art gallery, which had a poster board with a lot of old Peace corps photos.

I talked a lot. Too much. Listened a lot too, took a few photos. The US ambassador to Thailand is a hot redhead. There were a couple of other power redheads there - very interesting. She had been a volunteer in Thailand (funny, her bio on the embassy site does not even hint at that) and when the short session of formalities began she greeted us in Thai. More than just "welcome". Then we heard a fairly dull welcome talk from an assistant PC director. I think they are between directors at the moment. And a couple of the new volunteers (a clean cut young couple right out of the 1961 yearbook) MC'ed for three musical acts. First up was a FOB young man with a crew cut in a light salmon shirt and matching tie, who was going to sing something completely in Thai. which he did, but he not only sang in Thai lyrics, he sang in the Thai falsetto and chose a song with a 100 mph patter at the bridge. Twice. Lots of applause and cat calls. By now, though, most of the 300+ people had gone back to their conversations, so the woman who sang something simpler in halting Thai who could not be heard even with the microphone, and the woman who sang Moon River in Thai could not be heard 3 feet away. Very sad.

Back to mixing, talked to someone who was retired and living in Bangkok, who was stolen from me by the ambassador after she introduced him as a former ambassador to Thailand and close personal friend. Wow.

And another person was from DC, a former volunteer, she now runs an organization which matches engineers and scientists with policy makers. Of course they are only interested in PhDs.

Some of the art work on the walls was quite beautiful, especially two oils on canvas by a Seattle painter. Jose something.

As promised, they started kicking us out enough before 8:30 to have the place cleared by then. It took a while to find my jacket, there are no labels on it and there wasn't much light. But the material is unique and it it. By the time only one jacket was left, it was clear that one RPCV was leaving without his jacket. Welcome to Thailand.

I joined the small mob heading for the Skytrain station. No need to wait for a taxi, it was only 2 blocks and 345 stair steps to the station, and only one stop from mine. Virtually free because i still have 15 trips left on my pass card. The train was totally packed, but for one stop it was bearable.

On the way back to the hotel I bought 2 more kilos of longans. I could eat those all day. Ate some while I processed the photos and uploaded them to Flickr.

I was hungry and not too tired, so i changed (my shirt was soaked) and went across the street for some noodle soup, took a tour around a few bars (soda water for me - booze just puts me to sleep), bought a package of sliced mango and went back to the hotel. It was about 2 am. I had decided wearing the shirt and tie once was enough, and was not going to get up for the 8 am Big Event, which was going to be the classic Asian panoply of speeches in a crowded, hot, humid hall. I'll be dressed casually for the 4 pm Peace Corps office open house instead. I really want to talk to those volunteers and staff some more.

I woke up at 4 am feeling woozy and disoriented. Checked my Hgl - it was 68. Way too low. Not enough food, too much exercise. Good thing I'd bought those longans. Watched bad late night TV and chomped about 2/3 kilo of that very sweet fruit. By 4:30 I was well enough to go back to sleep. My phone rang at 8 am, I ignored it. Rang again, I looked, unknown number. It was probably someone wanting to know why I wasn't at the Big event. Voicemail failed, probably because I never set it up, and tex essage failed saying I was out of memory. Cleared lot of crap out of the phone and went back to sleep till 9:30. Got up, did my morning stuff, went downstairs for breakfast and read some more Hugo nominees on the Kindle.

Bought some more wi-fi time ($3/hr) and back to the room to catch up on FB & email. Apparently my big sister in Israel phone my 2nd sister in Baltimore asking why I had not returned her email messages. Probably because she hasn't written any in months.

( pictures )

Current Mood: content
Current Location: Nana Hotel, Bangkok

One thing that has changed about Bangkok is the smog is back to being as bas as, or worse, than it was in 1975. My other trips, 1989, 2004 and 2008 it was not nearly as bad, thanks partly to it being the end of the rainy season, but mostly because both the city and national governments spent money and passed laws making vehicles cleaner. I am having a lot of trouble breathing, especially climbing the interminable stairs up to the Skytrain. They did not design that system to be accessible. And it's my main way for getting around.

Today it rained a little, on and off, and that meant all the little leaks sprung up. The usual solution is a bucket, and maybe a mop, and a yellow folding sign. Repair is out of the question. The flooded crosswalk was only slightly more flooded. I was out at about 9, the hotel tailor shop does not open until 10. I went out looking for a hat, and while waiting to cross the main street (a multi-lane divided almost-highway) a crew of road workers converged on the opposite side of the street and did all those things which workers do to make it not be flooded. Except the side they were on was not flooded in the first place, and they never crossed to the flooded side. Welcome to Thailand.

Did not find a hat, but did buy two bags of T-shirts and a pair of swim trunks.

Back to the hotel, went to the tailor, was measured by a middle-aged woman who seemed to know what she was doing. We settled on material and color for suit & pants and a shirt. She said to be sure to come back at 5 for a fitting.

Somewhere in there I had the free breakfast buffet at the hotel. Faux western food, mostly. Nice mini-croissants, though.

Skytrain back to MBK, had a strawberry smoothie and then walked a lot to finally find a floppy hat which would not get in the way of photography. went back to the store which had the Nikon 28-300 new lens in stock, they wanted retail + 3% to buy it with Amex card, but I tried it out anyway. Way too heavy, the zoom is a rotary control which is very stiff. It focuses instantly and looks like it takes sharp pictures. But not worth paying full price + 3% plus Amex's foreign currency fee plus US customs. And I would get tired of holding it pretty fast, so no didn't buy it.

Back to Skytrain, headed to what used to be the last stop at the other end of the line, Thaksin Bridge. When we got there, they announced the next stop instead of saying "end of the line". I stayed on till the end, which was across the river and two more stops. And there was even more track going off into the distance. The newest cars' route list showed about 3 or 4 more stops. Crossed to the other side and took the train back to the bridge. Tooled around and found a lovely park provided by the department of rural roads, with public restrooms. I didn't need one at the time, but they had signs everywhere.

Got to what used to be the water taxi landing, but all I saw were river tours. I finally asked at the biggest tour ticket booth and they said just pay the guy on the boat to get to the hotel where the Peace Corp doings are happening tomorrow.

Back to Skytrain and the stop nearest the hotel. Had lunch at the first place I saw with seating away from the street. Mediocre shrimp & cashews. Weird non-Thai sauce, but okay. Went through two bottles of soda water. Dehydration is serious stuff over here.

The phone was not connecting to the data network, so I figured I had blown through the MB which came with the phone. There is a phone fix place a few blocks down, across from the hotel. It took 20 minutes for them to figure out how to add 2GB to it. Meanwhile this is an enclosed space with a ceiling 4 storeys high, and two Arab moms chose to make their children scream while we were trying to do this. I wanted to stop by the Starbucks there, but screaming children.

Back to the hotel, did some email (the CU replied that they took the hold off of my card. Somehow the travel notice I took an hour from work to go to their office to do was not in their system. As if.) And did some facebooking.

At 5 I was at the tailor shop, the boss lady said she thought the woman who measured me did not get it right, so she re-measured me. Then the actual tailor arrived, he took one look at me and said the measurements were not right, they were too small. He had a prototype of the jacket for me to try on, and sure enough, it needed to be let out about half an inch in various places. He even stuffed shoulder pads in to pin them. I really like the material, it's Navy blue light weight raw Thai silk. Boss lady was marveling over my Thai, and she, me and the tailor had an interesting conversation about English as it is taught in various countries. I am surprised how much of my Thai came back for that chat. I told the tailor that I always get fatter in the evening, it's "nature". Boss lady chuckled and said she could accept that.

She also convinced me to buy another pair of pants and a shirt. The prices are good for custom-made, and for a change it looks like everything will fit.

Back in the room, as I am writing I am eating fresh longans, bought from the stand across the street. Also have a huge bag of rambutan which needs attention.

So here I am, on the agenda:
Take a nap
Grab a cab to Patpong and check out the night life

Tomorrow:
Skytrain to bridge, water taxi to PC hotel. Hang out. Take pictures.

Current Mood: recumbent
Current Location: Nana Hotel, Bangkok

Mostly for

yourbob but possibly useful trivia for Thai food fans. I've mentioned often that Thai restaurants in America usually have good food, but it is not necessarily authentic. One thing they all tend to do authentically is curry. So here is a little tutorial on Thai curries. YMMV.

Massaman curry is for wimps. It is not spicy at all, and goes with vegetables, especially potatoes. I have heard it called Pattaya curry.
Green curry is mild, and goes with beef and pork
Yellow curry is a little stronger, and goes with chicken and shrimp
Red curry is strongest, and goes with anything (because the curry will drown out the taste of anything)
Penang curry is actually from northern Malaysia, and is a lot like Indian curry. It is almost as spicy as red, and is mostly used as a dip for roti. It Goes well with beef and lamb.

The curries named for colors should be those colors. Massaman is grey, Penang is red-orange.

Now for the confusing part. You can order any of these to be mild (1-star) or spicy (5-star) or any of the stars in between. They just use more curry paste per serving. And thereby hangs a tale:

I was In Love™ with a woman who lived in Boston, and I went to spend a week with her there. One of the conditions was I teach her to make Thai food. For starters I decided on Green Curry Beef. We went to the market and were able to find all the ingredients, including

my favorite Thai green curry paste. We went back to her place, and I started showing her how to mix the paste into the warmed coconut milk. She was insulted that I was only using about a teaspoon of the stuff, telling me she loved spicy food, and she could handle anything. She insisted on two tablespoons of the paste. We were making three servings. After cooking it all up and serving with a plate of white rice, she took one bite, said "that isn't so ba....." and put her head under the kitchen faucet. I tried to cut a serving with more coconut milk, but the curry had embedded itself in the beef, and the meal was a total loss.

So even though the curry may be relatively mild, it depends on how much is in the dish.

Current Mood: pedagogic
Current Location: Home

I usually get about one phone call a week. Most of my communication is email and social networking. At work it's email for the formal stuff, but most of the time we just talk face to face or over the cubicle walls.

Today I had three calls, within about 2 hours.

First call was from Kaiser's travel department, to make an appointment for any injections I may need for Thailand. Sounds like one or two at most. My yellow health card from my Peace Corps days is all filled with Gamma Globulin shots, which I remember as being painful for about a week. It does not appear that I need those anymore. They didn't mention it, but I probably need malaria meds, since I may leave the cities and go to the flooded plains of Phichit to visit boss' place. I thought I needed to take care of this right away, but they said June 20.

Next call was a surprise, Travelex had my Thai currency to pick up, a day early. I was gouged pretty badly for the convenience (something like 20%) but I can sell the big bills for dollars when I get to Bangkok and make some of that back. I paid about $500 for 14,000 Baht, Bank of Thailand says they would buy that back for $555. I may just do that.

Third call was also from Kaiser, ( medical TMI ensues ). The earliest appointment they had was July 3, which would be awkward because YOTB has a concert on the 4th, and I'm leaving on the 7th. She said she would call back with a June date. Putting it off till after I returned was out of the question.

Team meeting at 9, Boss was blinking like mad. Turns out his doctor appointments were for

lasik. Whew!

After the meeting, my bug-verification buddy, fresh back from vacation, and I chatted about what we'd left for him to do. He also showed me that a bug I had thrown back to engineering was my mistake - I'd missed a configuration which is cleverly hidden in a file on the machine which controls what gets logged. Turned on the appropriate flag and everything started working, so I closed the bug. Yay.

Lunchtime, had the GPS find a better way to get to Valley Fair Mall, and it did. I parked in the wrong garage, and had to walk about 4 blocks to find the Travelex kiosk, but once there the nice lady took care of business in a friendly, professional manner. I asked it they could also sell me $100 worth of Euros, but apparently six student groups had shown up unannounced and gotten all she had, and the emergency supply was not due in for half an hour. I didn't need Euros, I just thought they might come in handy. And I was reminded at Travelex that I have a bag of Thai coins, which I need to decant out of the fireproof box and take with me.

While I was there, I stopped at the Verizon kiosks both upstairs and downstairs and got two different answers to my question "will my phone work in Thailand?".

They were near the food court, so I had lunch. Note to self: Sbarro's meatballs

probably do not contain any actual meat, and the spaghetti is too thin to have earned that name.

Back to work, the rest of the day was spent doing software updates and double-checking to make sure the feature I was supposed to be working on was not in the build yet.

Took a couple of short internet breaks, during one of which found out (a) Verizon is planning a software upgrade to make my phone global, but the ETA is "this summer", so probably won't be in place when I need it and (b) it is way less expensive to just buy a phone at the new HUGE mega-mall near the National Stadium, 4th floor, and let people know my Thailand phone number. In Thailand, cell calls from overseas are free, they only charge the caller. While I'm there I can have them unlock my Moto phone.

Another short break to look into buying a suit in Bangkok. Turns out the last place I had one made comes up at the top of everyone's Yelp-like lists. And the one near my hotel gets almost as high marks. But neither of them mention Thai silk suits, which are featured at a couple of places not very close to the hotel. And they didn't have the color I want. So I'll wait till I get there, and find out if I need to buy the material myself. And whether they can have it ready for the Wednesday shindig.

Home after work, relaxed out on the patio as Domino explored. She discovered that if she jumped up on my lap it was an easy jump to the top of the railing, and a very quick fall back down because the rail is metal. The last apartment she loved to walk the rail, but it was wood, so she had a good grip there. She eventually got bored and went inside.

Walked to BASFA, remembered to bring the Peace Corps 50th anniversary poster for Chuck, who was in PC recently in Chernobyl. He had just returned from a reunion with his students, maybe it was graduation. He said PC hunted him down and offered him a 1-year assignment starting in August, but it's not feasible for him.

Lightly attended meeting, which meant poor auction prices, I am happy the two items I brought got bid up a bit. I managed a couple of zingers, including my modem ringtone, and bought a Prometheus movie promo T-shirt for $2.75.

Home, it was still 76° inside, 74° outside, so I went out on the patio again, Domino followed, but mostly to yell at me to give her her nightly treats. But before I did that, I walked to the apt. office and picked up the Kindle Touch 3G, got it all provisioned (including the Hugo nominees and some downloaded PG Wodehouse), and put it on the charger.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Read

Current Mood: indifferent
Current Location: New Furball Hall

From my last post, this morning:
Moved my only surviving VCR into the computer room, only to find it does not have S-Video, and my capture card has only cable and S-video inputs. Silly me, I should be able to daisy chain the cable through the VCR. Problem solved.

Other plans for today are to process the photo shoot pictures and post the best ones, watermarked, on Flickr, make a modem ringtone, maybe re-capture some of my old theater clips and put higher resolution ones on the web site. Maybe enjoy the sunshine.

Got the VCR set up after some false starts. My capture card, which I thought had one cable connector for TV and another for FM radio, actually has one for digital TV and one for analog TV (aka VCR). Killed my cable modem connection while discovering that. Now all is well, except when I put the tape cleaner into the machine, it was obvious the audio heads were shot. I went online and bought a replacement machine for about $60 (eBay). After which a friend offered to give me her old one.

Ordered a new, better GPS unit for the camera this morning from a company in HK which has been very good to me. Got email offering to send me the next gen of that model, which is officially not out till next week, if I don't mind it not coming with the new gen manual or the wireless remote (both of which will ship in 2 months). The next gen will be about $40 more but they will send me the new one at the same price I paid already. I said okay. It should be here later in the week, plenty of time to learn it before Thailand.

I processed the photos from the model shoot, they are here. Some of my favorites:

I achieved a watermarking breakthrough - something I needed to figure out before printing the Worldcon art show entries - turns out that in three easy steps, the first one being entirely not documented, one can position it at any corner. I like the lower right, since that's where artists traditionally sign their work. I could build a signature just as easily, but no one would be able to read it.

Made the modem ringtone and texted it to my work buddy. And my middle sister. She has not mentioned it.

And the VCR problem nixed the video captures for now.

I finished the cat fence, Domino yelled about it for a while, then settled down to watching the world through it.

She eventually jumped up on my lap (I took the photo from a chair in the other corner) and stared out of that side (it's mirror image of the side you see here). Until she got bored and went inside and parked herself just inside the patio door, where it was cooler. It was about 86° when took the photo, 74° indoors.

Oh, and while I was putting the finishing touches on the fence, I used one of the small tables to push myself from kneeling to standing, and my hand went completely through it:

That was a surprise. The rest of the day I mostly napped, in between reading from Jar Jar Biggs Must Die. Lunch was two lean cuisine entrees and four amazingly delicious sweet corn cobettes.

Changed both litterboxes, ordered another 3-pack, which should do me till vacation. It is getting very close. I am starting to get pre-post-travel regret.

While I was puzzling out the capture card, I updated the drivers for the display adapter. AMD/ATI has made that a 30-minute install. Too many gamer features, out of which one cannot opt.

Shopped for Nikon's latest greatest telephoto zoom lens, which I dearly want, but no one has it in stock. One site had a message from last year blaming the floods in Thailand for the delay. The lens is, indeed, made in Thailand. When I get to BKK I'll see about buying one, which will mean paying some $$ at customs on the way home, but I can live with that.

I also will be buying a suit, Thai silk tie and dress shirt when I get there. It's not the bargain it used to be, but they also have learned that fat old white guys are really that large. Used to be they didn't trust their measurements, and instead trusted their (always wrong) instincts about that.

Time for dinner, maybe an hour ago.

Plans for tomorrow:
9 am team meeting
call Kaiser about travel shots
BASFA?

Current Mood: lazy
Current Location: Home of the Weird

Routine testing at work, it was a nice sunny warm day so at lunchtime I looked at my to-do list and on it was a trip to Custom Audio to have them fix yet another thing on the car alarm. So far each time they fixed one thing, they broke something else. This time it was the lights did not flash when the alarm armed and disarmed. It had been working before I brought it in to them last weekend to fix the auto-arm not working and then a few minutes later the radio going dead.

It took about 20 minutes for the guy to find he had crimped a wire in such a way that it broke, so he re-attached that, and off I went. Stopped for lunch about 3 miles down the road, when I got back to the car it would not unlock. The alarm would disarm, but the doors stayed locked. Back to CA and it took half an hour for him to fix yet another broken contact. It was a nice warm sunny day, and I stood outside through all these repairs, so at least I got some vitamin D and skin cancer enhancers. I think we're done, but one never knows. I've had the car out twice and the alarm seems to be okay, except the remote is showing PST instead of PDT. BFD. I'm pretty sure I can fix that myself.

Back to work, and soon after I'd run one fun test which "forced" me to listen to a variety of music channels for half an hour, automation guy asked me to join him for lunch. Lately he has been eating lunch at 4, because between meetings and scripting that is usually his first chance, and if he doesn't eat the lunch his wife made, she hurts him. Not really, I've met her a few times, she's very sweet. Which is a better reason.

And then he picked my brain for about 90 minutes on various things. Which is when I noticed that the apartment had emailed - I had two packages to pick up, neither of which should have required a signature. So I wrapped things up on the computer and got those.

Home, previously cooked turkey leg with sliced apples, which I put on a little bit of sourdough bread. Once again forgetting to cut up the celery in the fridge for appetizer. Tomorrow.

Tried to refill a Kaiser prescription online, but the prescription web site was still down (it's been down for at least 2 days. I think they sent a memo, but it was so long ago I forgot what it said).

Took myself out to a night club, watched the pretty dancers, managed to not be asked during my 2 hours there if I wanted a drink. Staff also was not clearing empties off the tables. When they started playing jungle music with highly obscene lyrics, I left.

Still getting a steady stream of pings from the Thai dating service. So far only three were spam - all from countries other than Thailand inviting me to hook up with them on Yahoo Chat.

I have an email conversation going with someone whose handle is Thai for "polite". Her real nickname means "a cut" or "a wound" - I know it sounds weird but it's not about hurting herself, it's usually something about a mark or blemish she was born with. She asked if I really spoke Thai, and I recorded a video of me doing that for 30 seconds (the site limit) but so far it has not been made public. I suppose I should put something on my web site. Audio may be better. Easy enough to make an mp3.

The packages were a new pair of Brooks shoes, to see if they fix the painful knees from the New Balance shoes, and 20 packet of cat treats. Domnio goes through one every two weeks, so they will last a while. They don't go stale, and even if they did she would still eat them.

Plans for tomorrow:
work
Maybe hang out at Starbucks

Current Mood: flirty
Current Location: Home of the Lost

Felt like Friday, but was Tuesday. Routine day at work except for the boss² staff meeting, which was good but the usual suspects shut off the lights and the glare from the screen plus the aircon burned my eyes, had to keep closing them.

Lunch at hometown buffet because: lazy, did not want to eat much. They have a goodly variety of cooked veggies. Sweet corn was sweet.

Had some Italian reduced fat salami for a snack at about 4, keeping automation guy company with his late lunch.

Home, took a nap. Woke up at 8:30, shampooed some carpet high traffic places. Salami made its presence felt in dramatic fashion, good thing I was home and near my Immodium stash.

Been playing around on a Thai singles site, $70 for a membership which will last till my trip. Most of the women contacting me are ignoring my English/Thai note that I'm not interested in women with children living at home. And most of the pings are from women who are from the one part of Thailand which is not in my list of places I am interested in. They also have no way to turn off the "available for chat" feature, so I get to be rude. I did chat with someone tonight because she is from Sri Chiangmai, which has a special place in my heart. Her English is surprisingly good, she credits her Peace Corps high school teacher. But she was only 11 when I was in PC. Her photos did not grab me. Nice conversation, though.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
?

Current Mood: blah
Current Location: Home of the Weird

The weather was wonderful, so I made the trip across the bay to Wat Buddhanusorn and the Thai Songkhran festival. Got there at 9:30 and it was already packed - snagged the second to last parking spot in the back lot. Not long ago, being that early would have meant a prime place in the front lot. My boss was early enough to snag one of those.

Everything was on Thai time, which means "whenever", and they scrambled the order of performances quite a bit. The place got more crowded than I have ever seen it, food lines were forever, and not easy to tell which line was for what. And no places to sit. at. all. Very difficult to secure a place to take photos, unless you wanted to sit on the cement. Or, like boss, are 6' +. I got some good shots, but found that all this time my camera had somehow set itself to lighten every frame by 1 f-stop. This happens often, I'm not sure how. It's supposed to take two hands to make that change.

So I'm running all 300 or so pix through Photoshop batch command to decrease brightness by 50%. It will make a handful too dark, but it's easier to fix a few by hand than a couple of hundred.

I stayed for the dove release, which I had rushed to after scoring a roti (the dessert kind with sweetened condensed milk and sugar). Photos of the doves were taken with a large patch of my shirt sticky, and some also on the viewfinder protector, and the camera strap. And my left hand. After the doves I found some water and got the camera and my hand clean, but the shirt had dried on.

( Read more... )
At 2 pm I tried once more for food, but it was still a long long wait and I was tired and my knees hurt, so after checking out the kids' water fight (which was not as massive as it usually is), I bailed. The real water fight didn't start, judging from boss' Flickr set, till 4:30.

Found the nearest Starbucks, which got me the use of a restroom, out of the sun, and some calories.

On the drive home my eyes were not enjoying staying open, and I remembered that when I woke up at 7 after going to sleep at 1, I had promised myself a nap after the temple doings. Home at 4:30, asleep by 5, for 2.5 hours.

Decided I owed myself dinner out, headed for The Armenian Gourmet. It is not open. It may be permanently not open. Next tried nearby Barn Thai, but they don't do weekends, apparently. Then to Pat Thai, which was open, I had half a duck and seafood, but it was closing time so I got that boxed up and a mango and sticky rice to go. Took those home, reheated the duck & seafood, and finished dinner.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Burlesque meetup in silly valley (I forget where)

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Home

Predicted rain did not happen, but predicted chilly did. Team meeting was short, even though I talked too much. Boss' boss was there, and I kept a straight face when he reminded us he has an open door policy and we can come chat with him any time. He has only been in CA one week out of 4 since he took the job. Apparently he has found a place out here to move to, and is in the process. He's a very nice guy, very open, and does his best to answer questions at the meetings, when he's here. He just needs to be here more.

Closed most of the test cases I'd written Friday. Two need the next build to be tested.

Lunch was at Denny's, sausage smash. First time ever that the hash browns were edible.

Home after work, there was a package to pick up - the new car GPS-audio system. ( Yes, another one ) Now I need to make an appointment to have it installed.

This weekend is Consonance. Maybe I can get it done at the nearby Best Buy while I'm at the con Saturday. Hmm.

Took a nap, then went to BASFA, which started with the announcement that Coco's had booked another meeting into the room at 9:30. Our meetings lately had not been lasting that long because we were ending them early to discuss Hugo awards, but normally we go till 10, and would probably have gone till 10:30 if we'd been allowed to. Lots of people attending who had announcements and reviews.

johnnyeponymous ran the meeting in a way that got some of that done and got us out in time.

Every place we have had our meetings has double-booked on us, but lately service has been poor, advertised menu items not available and now this. Time to consider relocating.

Had a nice chat with Mike McGee, who has written a book series and on amazon the first volume is 99 cents or free for Prime members. Click here. He's a delightful person, picked my brain a lot about Thailand. I overcame my natural shyness and told him a few anecdotes.

Home, fired up the amazon prime vids on the bedroom DVD and discovered that while the Doctor Who logo was here, all the content was gone. Boo, hiss. But found the first season of Downton Abbey. I'll watch the first episode, see where it goes.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Return the drapes (finally got a shipping label from them)
Maybe see The Artist at Santana Row.

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: New Furball Hall

When we last heard from our hero, he was getting ready to adorn himself with the sleep test rig and go to sleep.

The nurse said to not wear it on bare skin, so I put on a bright green T-shirt and stood in front of the bed. I put on the bed the camcorder case which the rig was in, and Domino walked from the corner of the bed where she was grooming herself to stare at me. The rig was all kinds of dangly shiny things, which entranced her. She watched raptly as I strapped the main unit, which is about as wide as an iPhone and half again as long, to the center of my torso. It had a couple of LEDs blinking. There were two other straps connected to it, one went around my waist and the other around my chest. Next was an oxygen sensor which fit on my index finger, and had a red blinking light inside. The instructions said the LIGHTLY tape it in place with the standard medical cloth tape provided. I taped it in place firmly, but not tight. After a couple of minutes my finger felt like it was turning blue so I re-taped it lightly. Then I needed to go into the bathroom where there's a mirror and put the nose thing on. Domino followed me, and watched as I draped the clear plastic tube loop over my ears and taped each side to a cheek after I got the little nubs pointed into my nostrils. It's the same look as someone on oxygen.

Back to the bedroom, get into bed (Domino is still staring at me from a foot away on the bed) and spend the next 90 minutes not getting to sleep. A trip to the bathroom for a little bit of water helped, but I woke up about every hour or hour and a half all night. At one point maybe 3 am, Pumpkin jumped onto the bed and started to curl up against me, but saw the rig and jumped off again.

Finally up at 7, took off the rig and put it back in its case, did the morning stuff and headed for Kaiser to drop off the rig. From there to work, where I got more done by 10 than I usually get done by 1 pm. Lunch with my buddy Quang, I took us to Thaibodia,and the food was good. The waitress looked Cambodian but responded in Thai the couple of times I said thanks or bye-bye. She was way too busy to strike up a conversation with, and I'm not sure she knew that much Thai.

Back to work, there was a bit of research to do on a couple of the tests I'd chosen for today. Most of them were easy once I found video clips with the right kinds of formats. Kept nodding off, though. Or more accurately, mesmerized by the monitor. I was planning on leaving at 5, since I had been there early, but it ended up being 5:30 because I had an overnight test to set up which took more time than I expected. Monday it will take maybe 5 seconds to pass/fail it.

Needed some OTC drugs and snacks, so I went to the Lucky's on Mathilda since it's accessible without getting on the overcrowded expressways. There were quite a few things on sale which were on my "buy it if it is on sale" list. Egg nog, for instance. :-)

Home, in the mail was a letter from the CPA whom I hired to do the parental trust taxes last year, a whole page single spaced with narrow margins, saying that when they do the 2011 taxes, they will only work with the data I provide them, ( Read more... )

So much for taking a nap when I got home. Fired up the PC, wrote a nastygram back saying that they would not be doing any more work for me, or this "Harold" guy to whom the letter was addressed. This was the 6th time they got my name and the name of the trust wrong on an official letter, even after I had gone to their office twice to get it corrected. And I went on to note all the mistakes they had made along the way. But I did not mention the real reason the letter ticked me off - what they had done for 2010 was a final tax filing for the trust. If they were competent, they would know there is no 2011 filing to be done.

Signed up for a photo shoot for Sunday.

Plans for tomorrow:
Sleep in
Drive out to Livermore and look at Thai Silk drapes
Saratoga in the evening for a musical revue written by a local director/composer/playwright who I like enough to put up with it being holiday themed.

Current Mood: asleep
Current Location: New Furball Hall

A not-early day at work, the overnight test passed, as did the follow-up one using one of our torture streams from Belgium. This was one of those days of difficult tests, where I spent as much time trying to decode what was supposed to be tested for as running the actual test. One of those was a test I'd run in 2009, in which I had documented the results well, but not the method of running the test. I had to ask the resident super-genius for a clue, and he figured it out - I was doing everything right but I was using the wrong kind of video input hardware. The test failed to mention that it only worked if the source was an IP multicast, not if it was coming in on a coax cable. The whole day was like that, but I figured all the other ones for myself.

Lunch was at KFC, and that will be my last trip there for the year unless I do take-out. Constant stream of heavily religious Jesus music. They were tuned to KBAY:
Do You Hear What I Hear
Up On the Housetop
(There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR
Silver Bells
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Deck the Halls
Do They Know It's Christmas?
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
Holly Jolly Christmas
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
LAST CHRISTMAS
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
People who like this song:
Angels
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Feliz Navidad
The First Noel
Little Drummer Boy
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Winter Wonderland
Sleigh Ride
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
My Grown Up Christmas List
Frosty the Snowman
Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer
I'll Be Home for Christmas

From their web site playlist for the time I was waiting to order, waiting for my order, and trying to eat. A shame, I like the food, lots of choices, clean place with real chairs at most of the tables, and occasional eye candy.

After work it was time to brave the stupid traffic on Lawrence Expressway. They seriously need to change the timing of the lights for rush hour. And it would be nice if CalTrans or whomever is in charge of the diamond lanes visited a proctologist and put the commuter lane somewhere other than the right-most lane. It is a royal PITA to have to try to move through standing still traffic to get one lane over. Not to mention how not-fast traffic is in that lane at every intersection.

All that to get to Lucky's for paper plates, stuffing mix, breathe-right strips, an Ace bandage and ice cream.

I was tempted to go to the Starbucks there, since the car trunk was cold enough to keep the ice cream frozen, but then I remembered they are all about Jesus too. Probably way crowded what with finals week, anyway.

So, home, fed the cats, and here I am.

Last night's curtain hang was a FAIL. the allegedly thermal protection curtains are way thin - I could see the outside lights through them, with the blinds closed. And the gaffer tape did not stick well to the panel I'd put on the patio door. That curtain is pretty light-proof, I just need to affix it differently.

A thought struck me that I have always liked Thai silk curtains. Went online and checked out a place I have been a few times, Thai Silks in Los Altos, but they only have the bolts of cloth, and I'm not set up to build curtains from raw materials. Not that I can sew a straight line. Some more looking kept bringing me back to Half Price Drapes. The descriptions were not as clear as I would like, not because there was anything wrong with the description but because since the last time I shopped for silk the terminology has changed. Used to be heavyweight Thai Silk was this lovely shiny stuff with lots of texture, because it's not really possible to spin it tightly. At least not by hand, which is the way most of the good stuff is done. But that textured look is now called something else, and what is called Thai silk is closer to Japanese silk, more finely spun and tightly woven. Okay, I asked myself, where is this place? Turns out it is in Livermore and it is open Saturdays. So I will take a field trip. I may not be able to afford a 100W84L curtain in that stuff, but maybe something will be on sale.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
???

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: New Furball Hall

9 am meeting week, so I was at work a little after 8. Spent most of the day looking at the database for tests I could run, and ended the day with one which needs to run overnight. Lunchtime I went to Kaiser to get them to override the hold on my Lipitor prescription, then went to lunch at a hole in the wall on Stevens Creek Blvd which advertised Chinese take-out, but all the featured foods were Thai, and while the woman in charge looked Chinese, the music playing too softly for anyone not behind the counter to hear very clearly was from rural northern Thailand. The non-featured food was all like Panda Express. If I go there again I'll ask her what part of Thailand she's from.

Home after work, watched the Seahawks finally show up for a game, while the Rams did not. Seahawks need to fire number 25 - he's a defensive player, a pass defender. He holds on almost every play, and he celebrates, taunts and is generally a jerk. You would think a Stanford grad would have more brains. He cost the team two extra first downs on the goal line (the team beat back the first 6 downs), and a touchdown. The defensive front line is gonna spank him after the game, for sure.

Halftime was an interior designer festival. The wider bedroom curtain arrived, So I got up on the ladder, took down the two narrower panels, and clipped the wide one in place, which was a bit of a chore because I only had clips for every three pleats. As I got down from the ladder and straightened out the bottom, I saw I had hung it upside-down. Back on the ladder, and fixed that. Then I took one of the narrow panels and gaffer taped it up in front of the bedroom's door to the patio, which is a big window with ineffective slat blinds. That should give me a mostly dark bedroom, especially if I close the door most of the way. I would close it all the way but the cats would yell to get in, and I like to have them around.

Dinner was lunch leftovers. And I am now out of ice cream. Must do something about that tomorrow.

I donated £50 to my UK cousin's wife's project to ride a bike with another midwife across Ethiopia in March to raise money for maternity care facilities and education there. On Facebook she thanked her uncle Howard for the donation. Her uncle doesn't look anything like me. :-(

Called my insurance agent and signed up for the earthquake add-on to my renter's insurance.

Launched iTunes and took a closer look at the album art which TuneUp had added, and ended up scanning in about a dozen covers which they had incorrectly matched. Also corrected some data on about five duplicate album tracks which consolidated them into one album. On the survey they sent to me, I said there was only a 50% chance I would recommend their product. It is not worth the $50 fee. Considering all the work I had to do to repair what it had "fixed", it ought to be free, or close to it.

CO₂cartridges arrived, I'm good for another 4 months or so of seltzer.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Ice cream restocking

Current Mood: moody
Current Location: New Furball Hall

susandennis said she had never heard of lyric books, so I plucked a couple of the ~~pirated~~ pre-copyright agreement books I bought in Thailand in the 70's, and scanned in a few pages. The mistakes are not as plentiful as I remembered, at least in these booklets. I just spotted on the shelf two full sized books which probably include a lot of amusing lyrics, but it's tired and I'm getting late, so here you go. Click on an image to pop up the full size version.

Diamonds Are Forever Cover

Diamonds Are Forever 2: Bread: Everything I Own

Diamonds Are Forever 3: Simon & Garfunkel: The Times They Are A Changing

Diamonds Are Forever 4: Simon & Garfunkel: Kathy's Song, Kosie Color Cake Ad, Thai Music editorial

The Guitar Cover

The Guitar 2: I.S. Song Hits ad, The Brothers Four: El Paso pg. 1

The Guitar 3: The Brothers Four: El Paso pgs. 2-3

The Guitar 4: The Brothers Four: Four Strong Winds

The Guitar 5: Judy Collins: Both Sides Now

The Guitar 6: The Brothers Four: Jamaica Farewell, Sloop John B.

The Guitar 7: Thai write-ups on The Pentangle, Gordon Lightfoot, John Denver, Judy Collins

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Location: Home of the Weird

Went for a manicure, found my nails person doing someone's hair. She said to come back in an hour, so I went to the coffee shop a few doors down, got an almond croissant and iced tea, and powered up the netbook. About half an hour later she waved to me and said she was ready. For the first time in a couple of months the fingernail I had smashed in the car trunk lid was strong enough to take the acrylic coating, so I'm back to having all 10 fingers done. It still needed a snippet of press-on nail to make it extend past my finger, but you can't tell unless you look real closely.

Home, watched some of the Cal-Colorado game. Colorado looked like the better offense by far, but their defense kept making stupid costly penalties at key times. When I turned it off at 2, the game was too close to call.

Left a little after 2 to go to boss' daughter's 5th birthday party. I had gone to #3, I think I missed last year. This is the boss I had kept in touch with after the layoff, and I re-connected with many old friends and made some new ones. One woman said she thought I was handsome, and she liked that I spoke "polite" Thai, and asked if I was looking for a Thai wife. I said sure, my only concern was the woman she had in mind is less than half my age. "No problem" she said. Maybe I'll get a date. I didn't get a chance to give her my card, but she can find me through the hostess.

Boss' daughter has grown a little since I last saw her, but I've seen her at temple festivals fairly recently.

The kitchen was way hot, there were things cooking on all burners, food on the table was being warmed with sterno, and there were also a couple of crock pots going. Home-cooked Thai food, a lot of it was stuff I had learned how to make in Thai cooking class this year. All delicious.

They had rented a huge inflatable jumping castle with slide for the kids - which got busy around 5 when child level reached critical mass.

I stayed till 6, after cake was cut and presents were torn open. The birthday girl dug into the gift wrap, not paying any attention to cards and such. Her friends were happy to help her open the packages.

Most of my team from work was there with wives and kids. I'd met most of the wives before, but some of the kids were too young or not born yet 2 years ago. New Guy's wife looked very familiar, and toward the end of the party I figured out she looked like a tall

lady_leandra.

Pictures will be up on Flickr soon.

In other news, the cats have once again dumped 2.5 weeks of production into the litterboxes in one week. Pumpkin peed on the door mat while I was re-arranging the aquarium (took everything out, the first step in counting how many fish are in there, so I can ask local aquarium stores if they would like to have them). I think I need to schedule a vet's appointment for him.

Speaking of appointments, my Kaiser card was in the mail today, so I made an appointment to see my doctor Tuesday. Need to update my prescriptions before I run out. I hope the insulin pens are covered. It will be soooooo nice not to hassle with deductibles and 3rd party prescription billing.

Also in the mail, a month after they needed to send it, was an explanation of why Blue Cross changed their mind about $350 of coverage they approved when I had the angiogram. Apparently I had exceeded my yearly maximum. Kaiser doesn't have one of those.

Plans for tomorrow:
Best Buck in the Bay gay rodeo, take lots of pictures
Coffee with Janice, who is recently back from a tour of SE Asia.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Late-nite Starbucks

Started the day with a look at my account on the Blue Cross web site and confirmed I am still covered. Called CVS and the pharmacist was able to save me about $1k by submitting the prescriptions to them instead of the the fly-by-night insurance company my current contractor offers. He said I could pick up the meds this afternoon.

But life happened.

I had a lunch date in Unon city at the home of Pannee, the woman who teaches the Thai meetup's cooking classes. She and her husband are delightful people, and she wanted me to meet a nice Thai woman who is single. "Noi" turned out to be a very sweet woman, cute, and a little shy. Only a little. She had me read her palm first thing. I had learned to read Thai by studying a palmistry book, but it has been 30 years since I did a reading in Thai, so our hostess had to help translate a little. Noi's hand is very straightforward - good heart, good mind, she will live to be at least 70, and like me, her travel line does not intersect her heart line, which is bad news for our relationship. :-) No, I do not believe in palm reading, but it is entertaining and allows me to innocently hold hands with lovely women, which is why it is on my calling card.

Noi is an LPN, she does in-home elderly care and right now is looking for clients, so if you know anyone within a reasonable commute from Fremont/Union City who is looking for routine in-home nursing care, let me know and I'll pass it along to her. She is also a licensed cosmetologist, and can do haircuts and manicures in addition to the usual LPN duties.

Lunch was excellent - Pannee's own recipe for spicy chicken wings, Som tom (papaya rind salad), and a noodle salad, which she said was a Chinese dish her father taught her. Noi brought watermelon, which was our first dessert. Pannee's husband Warren was there too, he is a great story teller, and so if Pannee. They got me to sing a couple of bits of Thai songs I sort of know, and Pannee sang us a couple of songs about her home town Chiang Mai. Noi is from Khonken, up in the NE, which has its own language and songs too. The next dessert was mango with sticky rice. And later on Noi brought out more watermelon, and even later Pannee handed out pineapple ice pops.

We just kept talking out there by the pool, having a great time, and it was 5:30 before we broke it up. Pannee suggested I stop by a Chinese restaurant down the hill on the way home, but there's also a Marina Market there (jam packed with Asian food) so I went shopping first. The restaurant was full with a line out the door, so I took a rain check on that, and drove home. By then it was too late to go to the pharmacy, but that can wait till tomorrow.

The additional printer came in handy again, printing envelopes. The bottom feed on the main printer doesn't handle those very well.

Caught up on Facebook, enjoyed the many Reaver songs people were making up on

lemmozine's page. I came up with a good one too. The main idea was to take a song about Rovers and re-purpose it to be about reavers - a la Serenity/Firefly. Almost as good as brunch at Conflikt.

Caught up on email, too. Sent in my bye-bye note to the contract agency. They get as little notice as my conscience would allow because of their massive lack of communications skilz.

Plans for tomorrow:
Call the IRS to find out if the CPA has contacted them yet about the parental 2009 taxes. And if he hasn't, to start the wheels rolling myself.
Work
CVS and get meds
BASFA to drop off with

johnnyeponymous a PS2 for WorldCon and also see

yourbob if he makes it. And the Usual Suspects.

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Location: Furball Hall

The plan today was to photograph an event at NASA, but it was all cloudy when I woke up (late) so I bailed. This gave me time to drive to Sunnyvale and look at Aaron's art shop's buy one, get another for a penny frame sale. Hundreds of frames, and none of them were the kind I was looking for. There were 8x12 mattes, but they fit in a 12x16 frame, and all I have are 12x18 (which I later discovered is the smallest size made in the frame type I like to use). And they cost $10 each. It cost less to order some more 12x18 frames and reprint the 8x12s into 12x18s. So that's what I did.

Which is kind of a bummer because it means fewer photos in the display, but kind of an advantage because it will make designing the layout much simpler, and if reality does not match my design (mounting hardware and peg holes being an inexact science) it will be easier to punt.

From Aaron's I went to have my nails and hair done, and the owner of the shop once again pulled a fast one and had the New Lady do my nails, even though my favorite was available. So my favorite offered to do the haircut, which gave her a chance to tell me how to make sure she did my nails next time.

New lady did okay, but she was slow and deliberate and not an Artist. She's in her 50's, so she makes up for in experience what she lacks in talent. But I still prefer my favorite. One of the staff, whom I call The Princess, was wearing super-tight jeans and a top which she knotted toward the bottom to show off her butt. It's a lovely view, which probably goes all to hell when she takes the jeans off. I'll leave that adventure to her husband.

Had lunch at the Bad Chinese Food place next door, then dessert at Clocktower coffee shop, where I went online and ordered the frames and prints.

Home for a bit, decided BB&B would be a great place to find a B'day present for a friend who invited me to her beach party tomorrow. Spent more than an hour, and found the perfect desk fan for my work, and came close to buying something for a present, but nothing was quite right. Then I remembered that I have a whole treasure trove of batiks I bought in Thailand in 2005 to either sell or give as gifts, and the birthday girl would love one, I'm sure, especially if I included some documentation on the post-tsunami women's collective where I bought them. So that's ready to give to her. Whew.

Thawed some KFC for dinner. Watched Vanessa Williams search for her ancestors on Who Am I? which was a rerun, I had seen it before, less than a year ago, but I only remembered small bits and pieces. Weird because it is all the way through quite memorable.

Plans for tomorrow:
HP7.2 matinee, 3D, maybe IMAX, but maybe not, because I don't like the limited leg room in IMAX theaters.
Heidi's beach party

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Location: Furball Hall

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