Posts Tagged ‘travelogue’

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The Greatest Inspiration of All

By Chief Oddball on May 5th, 2009 at 7:53 am

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We’ve finally made it back home. And home, as it turns out, is the greatest inspiration of all.

It was a bit of work getting here. You know how it goes — nearly 48 hours of nonstop travel across four separate flights, some lasting an hour, some lasting 13. Countless carrying of heavy bags, sitting in cramped quarters for a veritable eternity, and feeling the ever-increasing desire to just lie down and sleep, even though you can’t. But as these excruciatingly long trips go, this was about as smooth as it gets: Perfectly-sized layovers in each airport, no delays, no luggage snafus, everything exactly according to plan.

Except one thing.

I wrote in my last post that I thought my wife Apple was getting a minor cold. And it probably would have been minor, if she’d been able to rest and recuperate in bed as she needed to. But instead she had to travel and go without more than an hour or two of sleep for two days, in the exceptionally dry recycled air of one airplane after another. Let me tell you that by the time we got home, “miserable” doesn’t even begin to describe poor Apple’s feelings.

But here’s how my new outlook on life — and the lessons I learned in Thailand — came in handy during what could have been a very painful journey home. Normally, I admit, I’m not the most patient guy in the book. If things don’t go according to the plan I’ve laid out, or the routine I’ve set, I can get very irritated and unpleasant. While traveling, things are apt to take a detour from your expectations, so it would occasionally be stressful to travel with me. And Apple doesn’t like flying much either, so we were not a good pair when things went wrong.

I’d like to think, however, that such behavior is behind me. This time, even as we were in the airport waiting for our first flight, I could see that Apple was suffering terribly with her runny nose and a headache. My first, base inclination was to become annoyed at life, ask the rhetorical question of why she had to get sick, and be upset because I didn’t want her to suffer. But then I realized, if I’m in a foul mood, that’s only going to make her feel worse. As her husband, it’s my job to care for Apple, protect her and support her. And I couldn’t do that if I was being a grouch.

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Departing

By Chief Oddball on May 1st, 2009 at 10:02 pm

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Tonight’s our last night in Thailand. Tomorrow, the festivities begin! I kid, of course. Tomorrow the trip home begins. Which may seem like a festive occasion, but is really just a hurdle to be crossed before we get home. Long flights are always a chore. A chore that may seem a little bit more comfortable this time, I realized, because I’m more than 30 pounds lighter than I was the last time I got on a plane.

We’ve packed everything, disassembled my desktop computer and returned its components to their original boxes, and cleaned up our room. Tomorrow we’ll get up around 8:30 and have a light breakfast, then some family members are coming to pick us up and take us to the print shop. Apple’s getting her hair washed and prepped for the trip, we’ll have lunch and then head for the airport around 1:00.

From here in southern Thailand, we fly to Bangkok’s Don Muang airport, the nation’s major domestic hub. Then we have a good number of hours to journey by taxi to Suvarnabhumi, Bangkok’s “other airport” through which all international flights travel. We have a connection in Seoul, then another in Atlanta, before we finally get home to Florida on Sunday. As David Hasselhoff said after every turbo boost, “Whew.”

Apparently though, the word didn’t think we had enough disasters to contend with, so it gave us swine flu. I wouldn’t be at all concerned, except we’ll be traveling on planes in very close proximity to other people, but there’s no choice. So we’re taking face masks and hand sanitizer. Ironically, I think Apple managed to get a minor cold from her nephew, so it’s probably us who people will be looking at with abject horror. So the face mask might work both ways, in her case. It figures!

I’m taking Monday and Tuesday off from work, so I’ll have time to ease back into the groove of U.S. time. I’ve pretty solidly acclimated myself to GMT+7, so that might take more effort than usual. I also might be dealing with a technology crisis straight away: I fired up my Slingbox today for one last channel-surf, and found my TiVo HD stuck at the “Welcome – Powering Up…” screen. At some point it rebooted for some reason or other, and during the reboot it locked up. The only way to fix it is to physically pull its plug, and there obviously won’t be any of that until I get home. (I’m at least glad it didn’t crap out the week we got here!)

The bad news is that a TiVo getting stuck at the “Welcome” screen, if not a fluke, usually indicates a failing or failed hard drive. Which would be ridiculous and maddening, because the 1-terabyte drive I put in there myself is less than a year old — and because we’ll then have lost six months worth of recordings that we’d planned to catch up on. Hopefully the damn thing is just stuck and a reboot will cure it. But if worse comes to worst, I’m bringing home a 500GB hard drive that I’ll throw in there to get up and running fast. And I guess not having hours and hours of shows to catch up on would be freeing, in a way. ;)

It’s hard to believe that we’ll be back in our own house in just a couple more days. Our nice clean house, I might add, thanks to my parents, who brought in a housekeeper to freshen the place up. We’ll be ready to jump right into our new life…or is that our old life?

During our travels, you can keep up-to-date on what’s happening over at my Twitter. Or, y’know just look at the sidebar.

Seeya back in GMT-4!

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Ten Things

By Chief Oddball on April 25th, 2009 at 4:15 am

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In my last post I promised that this was coming, so now here it is.

Ten things I miss about the U.S.:

  1. Family. Since my parents have a habit of visiting Florida once every couple of months or so, going for half a year without seeing them has been different. I’m looking forward to seeing them again, as well as my grandmother and my good friends up north when I next travel to Michigan sometime this summer.
  2. Driving, American cars, and the freedom that comes with. You probably can’t really appreciate the importance of being able to choose your own destination, and thereby your own destiny, until it’s taken away from you. Because otherwise, really, you’re beholden to somebody else, whether it’s a family member, a roommate or the local bus driver, any time you need or want just about anything. Think about that the next time anyone wants to make it harder for you to choose your own method of transportation. Plus, I really miss seeing the kind of cars on the road that we have in the U.S. They’re far more…interesting.
  3. Western food. I like many different kinds of cuisine. But when you get right down to it, I have to give the nod to culinary creations from the western world as being my favorite. Exposure of this kind of food in southern Thailand is limited mostly to club sandwiches (seriously, almost every place has one), cream of mushroom soup and pizza. I recognize the health benefits of Asian food, but you know what? Right now, I can’t wait to get home and eat a burger.
  4. Internet technology. Thailand still has a little ways to go when it comes to Internet connectivity, and the seriousness with which said technology is taken by Americans. In the U.S. today, the Internet is on its way to becoming a full-fledged utility, like water and electricity. Surveys show that people are ready to drop cable TV like a hot potato in this economy, but not their Internet connection. Here in Thailand, when your Internet services flakes out — and it does often — the technicians at the ISP consider it with about as much importance as you would the complaints of a three-year-old who didn’t get as much ice cream as he wanted. I can’t tell you how good it’s going to feel to get back home and have web pages instantly appear and downloads complete in mere minutes instead of an hour.
  5. Peace and quiet. This is all a function of where you live, naturally. But I’m a big fan of serenity, and I’ll say one thing for our stodgy gated community in Florida: We get a lot of serenity there. Between our housemates, the all-night dogfights outside and the thumping music that went on until just before 3 a.m. this morning, urban Thailand is a whole different ballgame. When we get home it’s going to feel like we stepped into the Cone of Silence. Except that ours actually works. In fact, it may just be too quiet to sleep. That might be, ah, a problem.
  6. English-language media. It’s going to be refreshing to hear the English language spoken regularly again, on TV, in movies and by people around us. It’s been easy to fall into my own little world here when I can’t understand the conversation around me. Although I’m starting to pick out words now — at dinner tonight, for example, I knew when my brother-in-law ordered a guava juice and that he asked the waitress for the small size fried chicken and shaomai appetizers. Hey, it’s a start.
  7. Cooler temperatures. It gets hot and humid in Florida, sure. Not this hot and humid.
  8. Domestic travel. Apple and I want to go more places and see more things in the U.S. and Canada, while we’re able. Our first order of business will be to take a few days’ vacation on a beach somewhere on Florida’s east coast, where there’s nothing to do and not even any mobile phone signal to be had. Further down the road, I hear the Disney Vacation Club is building a resort on Oahu, Hawaii that should be done in 2011…
  9. Outdoor exercise. My workout sessions in Thailand are limited to an indoor exercise machine. I’ve been itching to get back on my bike and feel the wind on my face while I’m getting a workout at the same time. (But first, I need to take that goddamned broken hub protector off.)
  10. Online gaming. I want to get back to my legit Xbox and reliable Internet connection so my friends and I can play against each other online again. What with the ISP instability, it just got to be impossible here.

Ten things I’ll miss about Thailand:

  1. Family. It’s a foreign concept to an only child who was born to two only children, but Apple’s big, traditional Chinese-style family is like a big, warm, friendly unit, and it’s pretty cool. Sure, it’s also full of drama and craziness that can occasionally send Apple over the edge, but I’m sure she wouldn’t trade it for anything.
  2. Crazy freedom. “Sometimes I think there’s too much freedom here,” Apple sighed at one point during our stay in Thailand, which seems like an odd concept to a Libertarian. I can see what she means, though — sometimes the lack of laws, regulations or active oversight on just about anything makes it seem a little more like anarchy than monarchy. But in a way, it’s refreshing and freeing knowing that you don’t have to worry about getting sued if someone falls in a hole in the street outside your place of business, or that if you make a simple mistake, it’s not likely to cost you everything you have.
  3. Beautiful beaches. I speak particularly of Koh Samui, which is bar-none the most beautiful place I have ever been on this earth. But there are other great beaches all over Thailand, as well. If you like beach destinations, you couldn’t go wrong by coming here.
  4. Fresh fruit, natural ingredients, et al. Thailand is filled with exotic fruits like the Phuket pineapple (much tastier than the ones we get at home), Thai guava and mango — and that’s just for starters. Just about everything you eat was cooked with fresh ingredients, including fish that was caught the morning you ate it. Best of all, there’s been relatively little introduction of preservatives, pesticides or crap like the Great Satan itself, high fructose corn syrup, unlike back in the U.S. I mean, they still make soft drinks with sugar — and they taste great!
  5. Cheap stuff. Sometimes inexpensive merchandise costs what it does because it’s garbage that will fall apart on you three days after you get it home. But most of the stuff in Thailand is a bargain for someone making an American salary, yet the quality is excellent. Clothing is the best example; it’s the same damn stuff you buy off the rack for $60 at home, except it costs $3 here because the place where they make it is next door. Even the high-end stuff is affordable; we never went to the Fuji Japanese restaurant because everyone always warned us that it was way too expensive, but when we tried it, we found it to be a great value considering the quality of the food, and still cheaper than an equivalent meal in the U.S. All in your perspective, I guess.
  6. Working in a different time zone than everyone else. It’s quite freeing indeed when 99% of your coworkers are busy working while you’re asleep — and more importantly, while you’re busy working, they’re not available to interrupt you. It’s also much easier to set your own hours; I’ve been getting up at 10 a.m. and working until 7 in the evening these days. It just works for me. I supposedly have that freedom at home, too, but I know my boss prefers it if I match hours with his people at HQ, so I essentially live on Central Time. It’s a bit more grounding.
  7. Corporations that don’t suck. I don’t know whether American corporations just like to take advantage of people, or whether they need to because the American government is taking advantage of them. Either way, the consumer usually gets the shaft. Compare this to Thailand, where in many industries, there are still lots of perks to be had just for patronizing a particular business. Banks hand out free swag like it’s going out of style, families build up entire catalogs of free dishes and glasses just from sending in proofs of purchase to vendors, and mobile phone companies — get this — just sell you a SIM that you can put in any cutting-edge phone you want, no contract needed. Is that cool or what?
  8. Thai massage. I just finished having perhaps the best massage I’ve had yet. And at the cost of about $10 per hour, there’s no way you’re getting anything like this in the U.S. for a similar price.
  9. Medical care. If you’re a Thai national, you can get medical care for a couple of bucks if you’re willing to put up with a grungy ward and undesirable conditions, or a few hundred bucks if you want something better. You can take your child to the doctor as many times as you want, even if you just have a question — if the doctor finds nothing wrong, you pay nothing. When you go to the dentist, it doesn’t suck. I mean, it’s amazing.
  10. Simpler lifestyle. People here, by and large, live the kind of life I wistfully alluded to in my previous post. Most of them work hard, do their jobs, and spend their off hours with family and friends. There seems to be a lot less frenetic rushing around and inability to leave work at work, if you know what I mean. Family is still a very important concept in Asian culture, and one that we Americans should want to rediscover.

One more week to go.

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Random Hoo-Ha

By Chief Oddball on April 19th, 2009 at 6:32 pm

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I couldn’t think of an appropriately witty title for this entry, nor could I decide on a particular subject — so what you get is, indeed, a bunch of random hoo-ha.

Hard to believe that yet another weekend is already two-thirds gone. Normally that would be a bad thing, but right now it just signifies the march of time bringing us ever closer to our return trip — an event for which Apple and I are both very anxious. This week we’re going to start packing, just to make sure everything we want to take with us actually fits in our luggage. I’m going to leave almost all of my clothes here, I think, and get some new ones when I get home. I need more stuff that fits; almost everything I brought is so big on me now that it makes me look like a partially-deflated balloon.

Yesterday was a good day. Apple and I both went to the family dentist for check-ups. It was a walk in the park — I was in there for about 10 minutes, and that was that. Sure, my mouth was a bit sore for the rest of the day, but that’s all. I think the visit cost about 10 bucks. Why can’t dental care in the U.S. be like this?

I had another one of those relaxing and energizing Thai massages in the afternoon, then we went to “Taste At” for dinner. Yeah, that’s actually the name of the restaurant. It’s a cozy little steakhouse that serves up the best Italian cuisine that we’ve had in Thailand. They have great lasagna, but the problem is they rarely have any available. Such was the case last night, so I ordered a steak. Imported New Zealand sirloin in mushroom sauce. It was pretty good, but honestly not as good as Sizzler (another western restaurant, which has a higher quality presentation in Asia than it does in the U.S.). Taste At’s spaghetti is much more highly recommended. We also had excellent tomato soup and a salad with grilled herb sea bass. Tasty.

After dinner, we tried to watch the ever-popular film Slumdog Millionaire last night, but I gotta be honest with you…I just wasn’t feeling it. Apparently Apple wasn’t either, because about halfway through she said, “Okay…I think I’m done with this movie.” So was I. Not sure what happened; I mean, it didn’t seem like a bad film, but we just weren’t in the mood I guess.

So today we had a light lunch at Hachiban Ramen, then went over to what Apple calls the “healthy market” to stock up on some natural juices, supplements and remedies. Now it looks like we’ll (thankfully) be relaxing for the rest of the evening. I have some new ideas for my story kicking around in my head — I already have most of the remainder of the tale planned out in notes on my iPhone, which I jotted down during the last long car trip we took — and I want to put them to paper. Well, virtual paper, you understand. Part of the hurry is that my friend Pooch is really wanting to see what I’ve written so far, but I keep putting off sending him an update, because every time I think about what I want to write next, I’m afraid I might have to change parts of the last scene to make them “gel” together. It’s a challenge. But this is one of the most personally fulfilling stories I’ve written since…I dunno, 2001?

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Three Weekends Left

By Chief Oddball on April 10th, 2009 at 11:16 pm

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It’s Saturday tomorrow, and the beginning of the first of our final three weekends here in Thailand. We’ve already got them all planned out, too, although you would expect as much from us by now. After spending the entirety of every weekday within the same four walls, working 80% of the day and mostly losing myself in daydreams and fantasy for the remaining 20%, when the weekend comes we like to get out of the house and do something.

So tomorrow morning I’m going to get another Thai massage in the afternoon. I sometimes wind up doing a little work on Saturdays (since our Friday night is Friday during business hours back home, and sometimes new stuff comes in). But my boss is out of town until Monday, so hopefully nothing new will show up.

On Sunday, Apple and I are going on what’s become our traditional “Sunday outing.” This time we’re going to the grocery store / big box mall down the street and picking up the weekly foodstuffs, but more importantly we’re having sushi, ramen noodles and takoyaki at the restaurants there. (And then maybe we’ll get some hot pretzel sticks from Auntie Anne’s…yes, that Auntie Anne’s.)

Next weekend we’re going to see the dentist on Saturday. The weekend after that, I’m getting my hair cut one more time, then we’ll walk to Lee Garden Plaza for dinner (Pizza Hut, I think) and some shopping.

Most exciting of all, the weekend after that is when we fly home! We reserved our choice of seats on the various flights yesterday, so that’s done. I imagine trying to pack all of the stuff we want to drag home with us is going to prove more challenging than we think, but I’m sure we’ll manage. I personally won’t mind leaving some clothes here — hell, most of the attire I brought looks like freakin’ clown clothes on me now, since I’ve lost over 30 pounds!

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A Weekend in Koh Samui

By Chief Oddball on March 3rd, 2009 at 8:41 pm

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Apple and I spent the weekend in Koh Samui, and the experience was so incredible that I’m going to post about it here, despite the fact that I really feel rather dead right now. Is this feeling due to the inevitable gloom associated with having to put an end to what was possibly life’s greatest vacation, you ask? Probably so, and it’s also possibly due to the major sunburn I’m still nursing. But with working hours (thankfully) over for the day, I can no longer hold back from espousing how great the island of Samui is.

A little backstory: Koh Samui is an island — “Koh” is Thai for “island,” actually — in the southeastern region of Thailand that’s well known as a favorite tourist destination, particularly for westerners of all stripes. During our first couple months of marriage, Apple and I watched Jules Asner spout off about how “Wild!” Samui was on her E! network show “Wild On!” and since then we’ve had an underlying desire to travel there ourselves. Now we’ve finally done it. And while we’re not exactly the world’s wildest couple, the short two-and-a-half days we spent there definitely rank among the best of our lives.

Originally we had planned to visit Samui in March, but everything sorta fell into place rather abruptly in late February, so after I cleared it with my boss, we decided to head out on the last Friday of the month. To kick off the trip, late Thursday evening Apple and I went to Sittara Spa for another one of those two-hour massages, which was an excellent way to just chill out and get things started on the right foot. The next morning, we set off for Samui.

Friday, February 27

Because we embarked from Hat Yai, getting to Samui was a bit complicated. Samui caters to westerners, who mostly arrive in Thailand via Bangkok, so you can fly directly to Samui island from Thailand’s capitol. But from Hat Yai, if you want to fly, you have to go via Bangkok — which is nuts, since you fly right over the island and waste a bunch of time and money connecting in Bangkok for no good reason. Your other option is to take a bus to Surat Thani and then cross over to Samui island on a ferry, so that’s what we did.

To be honest, it was a lonnnnng day. We got up at 6:40 AM and went to the print shop where Apple’s family works, so that we could get a ride to the travel agency. We were then taken to Hat Yai’s bus depot via tuk-tuk at 10:30. The bus trip itself was pretty long; after a variety of stops in various towns, we made it to Surat Thani around 5:30. It was great to finally get off the thing; although the seats were comfortable, the air conditioning wasn’t effective enough. The ferry departed half an hour later. The ferries that run between Surat Thani and Samui, incidentally, are so huge that the bus went along with us, as did a whole bunch of other cars and trucks. The good thing about that was, we got to leave our luggage on board the bus and didn’t have to drag it up on deck with us.

On the ferry to Koh Samui

On the ferry to Koh Samui

After a 90-minute ferry ride — on which I started nodding off, since as I noted this day was lonnnnng — we got to the island proper. We then retrieved our bags from the bus and hired a taxi to take us to the Samui Orchid Resort about 25 minutes away. Yeah…we did a LOT of traveling before we finally wound up getting where we wanted to go!

By the time we finally checked in, it was 8:30 in the evening and we’d both had fairly little to eat all day. The hotel restaurant closed at seven o’clock, so the front desk staff recommended that we take a stroll up the street to a little cafe a short distance away. It was dark by then and very quiet — all of the other guests were in town visiting the carnival that was running that night — which made us feel like we had the whole island to ourselves.

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Run for the Border

By Chief Oddball on February 8th, 2009 at 4:20 pm

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Make a ruuunnnn…for the borderrrrr…Taco Bell! Okay, sorry. The ’80s just came back to me unbidden, as they so often do. Today Apple and I made our own run for the border: The border of Malaysia, rather than Mexico. However, what was going to be a fairly routine visa run and shopping trip turned into a bit more of an adventure than we expected.

Our Thai visas allow us to stay in the country for 90 consecutive days, after which we have to leave. If we re-enter, we get another 90 days. We can do this over the course of 12 months. Most people in our situation make quarterly “visa runs,” wherein they simply cross the border by car into a neighboring country and then come right back. So because our initial 90-day allowance was due to expire on the 12th, we arranged a trip to Malaysia.

Apple’s hometown is just 50 km away from Thailand’s southern border with Malaysia. Her mom and aunt came with us, with the intention of doing some shopping over there before coming back home. Malaysia is actually a more advanced nation than Thailand, with its own auto companies and everything, although I had the opposite impression somehow before learning the truth.

We set off this morning at 9 am, which was just as well because the house was going to be in an uproar all day (wiring repair, plumbing repair and the Sunday morning housecleaning all at once). It took a bit more than an hour to get to the border at Padangbasar, during which time we passed through some rural and fairly pleasant scenery, including great plantations of rubber trees, one of Thailand’s biggest exports.

As soon as we got to the border, however, we ran into trouble. Apple and I were all set to go through — we got our departure stamps and everything — when it became known that her mom couldn’t go through because she hadn’t brought her passport, which meant none of us could go through, since she was the only licensed driver. Apparently, Thai citizens don’t normally need more than their ID card to cross this border, similar to U.S. residents visiting Canada in the old days. But just yesterday, a big-name Thai judge went through without a passport, and when he got to the Malay side, they decided they wouldn’t let him through because of it. There was a big uproar, so now passports were being checked for everybody.

This presented a distinct problem: We’ve already been stamped, so now we have to finish the trip, but how? Fortunately, there were a couple of guys on motorcycles at the border who apparently serve as a for-hire shuttle service for people doing visa runs. So while Apple’s mom and aunt waited, we each climbed onto the back of a motorcycle, strapped on helmets and rode off toward the Malay border (which wasn’t more than about a kilometer away, I’d estimate).

It was my first time on a motorcycle, much less on the back of one in Thai traffic. But the whole thing was like an amusement park ride. I was reminded of the Honda Fourtrax 70 quad that I used to have, and I found myself contemplating (if only for a moment) the idea of getting a bike as a solution to our travel dependency problem here in Thailand. After a short round-trip, during which our passports were checked and stamped innumerable times, we were back on Thai soil with a fresh 90 days of entry. Cost of the for-hire motorcycle ride: About $1.50 per person.

After that entertaining new experience, we stopped for lunch at a deserted restaurant along the rural highways of Songkhla. This brief respite turned into another story to tell, as the proprietors of the restaurant seemed woefully ill-equipped to run a business.

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Invigorated

By Chief Oddball on January 30th, 2009 at 6:35 pm

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Hey, where’s the post about the giant robot angst? Suffice it to say, I’ll finish the second part of my Evangelion-themed entries a little later than I expected. In the meantime, my attention has been bouncing like a pinball from one new idea to another, and by now, my minor rediscovery of anime is only one facet of my overall sphere of inspiration.

The creativity explosion that I mentioned having recently has been fueled even further by events of this week. On Wednesday evening, after my work was done for the day, Apple and I went back to the Sittara Spa (first written about here) for a two-hour Thai massage. Apple had experienced one already during this trip, and she wanted me to try it as well. I’ve only had two full-body massages in my life, one of which — a Swedish massage I had at a Thai resort during our 2004 vacation — was pretty good, and the other of which was terrible. When it comes to massage, I feel like I could take it or leave it. Apple really wanted me to try Thai-style massage, though, and talked a good game about how great it was, so I went along.

Well, any hint of doubt I might have had as to the effectiveness of Thai massage went out the window. In a word, it was amazing. We each had a two-hour massage regimen administered with the two of us together in a private room, which was appointed with all manner of relaxing sounds, scents and temperatures, and it was probably one of the most simultaneously relaxing and invigorating experiences I’ve had yet.

When we got there, we were shown to our respective locker rooms to change into a set of provided pajama-like, loose-fitting clothes. When I say “locker room,” this was nothing like your local YMCA. The room was paneled entirely with natural wood, warmly lit, and featured two saunas, several marble-tiled showers and a huge spa tub. There was nobody else in the whole place; it was like we had a palace to ourselves.

Next, Apple and I met up again in our private room, where there were soft mattresses on the floor that we were to lie down on. A young Thai masseuse was appointed for each of us, and they started by first washing our feet in a basin of warm water that was filled with small, polished rocks. After that, the lights were dimmed and the actual massage began.

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Whipped.

By Chief Oddball on January 22nd, 2009 at 1:07 am

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And I mean tired.

Yes, that’s my excuse for why this site was neglected for the past week. I actually was on track to maintain the “post once every two or three days” schedule that I had fallen into since the new year started, that is until the Scheiβen hit the proverbial Lüfter on Friday.

I was just coming off a week of exceptional productivity at the office, wherein I actually finished ten Flash animations — plus an impromptu 11th on just hours’ notice — thereby crossing off my entire slate. After this feat, I was ready to enjoy a quiet weekend here at the house in advance of the Chinese New Year festivities on the 24th and 25th. But right at close-of-business on Friday evening, our Asia/Pacific office advised that they wanted me to review the API documentation for our software development products in advance of the following week’s major release.

Review all of the API documentation? I thought in bewilderment. That basically amounts to a 500-page, jargon-filled reference manual. They must be talking about something else. They weren’t. After clarifying it with one of my bosses, who heads up the AP office, I learned that I was indeed being tasked with going through the last 8 months’ worth of haphazardly-assembled documentation, acting as editor and proofreader-in-chief. An for extra fun factor, a large portion of this documentation was written by our Chinese developers, whose native language is obviously not English.

The ESOL-style writing I can handle, but when you combine the unique English grammar mechanics of a native Mandarin speaker with the fact that I have very little idea how to actually use our products — I’m not a .NET software developer, after all — it makes for an even larger challenge than you’d expect. I’m finding myself able to get through approximately 50-60 files a day, depending on their size. And their sizes do vary greatly. I always groan inwardly (okay, not so inwardly) whenever I open up the next file and discover it’s 3500 lines long.

These files aren’t Word documents or pure text, either. They’re C# source code. We use a C#-based help authoring system that compiles into a Windows standard CHM in Visual Studio. So I’m making my edits in the source code, using a software development tool that has no spell checker, no ability to wrap overlong lines, and only a rudimentary find-and-replace engine.

So, naturally, I had to tell the AP office that there was no way, absolutely no way, that I was going to be able to review all of the documentation in time for this week’s release.

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Sunday Slacking

By Chief Oddball on January 11th, 2009 at 12:16 pm

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Finally, another Sunday has arrived, that coveted day of the week on which I (usually) do no work. I put in some time at the office yesterday, managing to wrap up another two Flash videos, leaving 10 more to go. Some additional components of an ongoing sidework project arrived, but I’ll save them for tomorrow; the deadline is still two and a half weeks away. Today, I’m going to relax.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

Apple hasn’t been feeling well the last couple of days — I think she got a cold, probably from her nephew Achi, who has been sick a lot lately — so neither one of us has been sleeping all that well. But putting a positive spin on it, I was able to get up this morning at an earlier time that I usually do, even during the work week. Our housekeeper is here today, doing the big Sunday housecleaning. While she’s busy, I’m hanging out on the back patio with the laptop, as you can see from the picture.

The weather is fantastic. There’s a strong breeze blowing near-constantly, keeping temperatures mild. The reports say it’s about 82°F out here, but it feels more like a pleasant 76 here in the shade. Given that everybody I know back home — family, friends, and colleagues — is dealing with historic snowfall, ice and winter storms, which in at least one case has brought with it a cracked house foundation and a leaking basement, I think I should be exceedingly thankful that I’m here right now. (Although I’m sure the weather at my own home in Florida is fairly pleasant right now, too.)

I should also be thankful, I do believe, for the work I have. With new reports of layoffs at my dad’s company, and the increasingly bleak employment and economic statistics coming out of the United States, it’s a good time to be gainfully employed. It’s an even better time to work for a company that seems to be in a fairly good business position, as my company seems to be. January, a historically dead month at my workplace, has instead been full of new business, new releases and custom contract work this year. We’ll be putting out four new product versions next week, releasing a major update to a fifth shortly thereafter, just landed a couple of new contracts for our most expensive service as well as several hundred hours of new contract work. I don’t know what’s going on, but I am the absolute last person who will be complaining.

It’s also good to know that my colleagues and acquaintances outside the office are doing well. A guy who I’ve done sidework for in the past, for example, just had his flagship product bought out by a large medical diagnostic firm, and I’ve been subcontracted to make some changes to his website (which I previously designed and deployed) at the buyer’s behest. It’s a good time for him, I’m sure, financially at least. Ironically, this is the same way this guy has made his fortune (he’s retired and in his mid-forties) — by creating innovative software startups and either selling them or getting bought out. He managed to sell one of his solutions to the government of almost every state in the U.S. before cashing in his stake. Not a bad way to get rich. And yeah, these are good contacts to have!

On a more personal front, I finally got around to posting a bunch of pictures to my Flickr account. The photo gallery integration with Oddball Update still hasn’t been completed, but you can see them all on the Flickr site just as easily. I’ve created a new set just for photos from this trip, so I’ll be filling it up with any pictures I might take on an ongoing basis. You can keep checking this same link to see new stuff as it’s added. And eventually I’ll get the Flickr integration up and running…I just have to fix about three dozen HTML files first. :rolleyes:

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