Well, by golly, it must be time to update.
I was doing pretty well with the monthly update routine but it's been getting hard to manage. So, y'know, forgive me'n'stuff. Or not. As you please.
Here goes.
1. Airports and Hotels
SPOILERS! (Click to view) So, yeah, me whining about travel. I travel a lot with my job, and it's something you get to look back on as part of your life's long journey. But it's a collection of short, intense trips that don't involve much relaxation or tourist-ing.
Last September: a week in Taiwan. I was in Taipei in 2003, so it was almost 4 years to the day that I went back. This time I saw a little more, including missing a fast train south and catching a slow train by mistake instead. I kept a few people waiting, but it all worked out. I did get a day free in Taipei to walk around, spend some time in some museums and grounds, and climbing
Taipei 101, from which you can see a few shots below.
November -- Indonesia. Not quite two weeks, spent between the islands of Lombok and Timor (always via Bali).
January started a trip that involved spending five out of six consecutive weeks in hotels and airports. It started with three weeks in Vietnam (Hanoi and Can Tho) and then TheFuckOffGirl came over and we spent a week of time off. Our plan to spend a weekend in central Vietnam was somewhat hampered by her getting sick in Hanoi, but we did get a few very pleasant days in Hue. I don't have the photos from there loaded on the laptop, but I'll post them at some point.
A close shave flying out of Ho Chi Minh city. I managed to leave my laptop back at the hotel. Getting back from the airport to central HCMC and back again in time to check in was, shall we say, stressful. TheFuckOffGirl was less than impressed, but we made the flight.
Then there was a week in Canberra. Then a week back in Sydney, then to Indonesia and a series of hotels, ranging from comfortable tourist-friendly places in Bali to what were close to camping huts without flush toilets. Then another drama re getting home -- our flight was cancelled, and three of us had to buy tickets on Garuda to fly home via Melbourne. Good times.
Now I'm back home, more or less. At least until mid-year. Maybe I'll be going to Sweden, we'll see.
2. Work Dramarama
SPOILERS! (Click to view) Where to start?
My psychopathic colleague is, I think, self-immolating. He's trying to fight with everyone (mostly to undermine me), but it seems like things are collapsing around him. The new Dean (he started today -- see previous entry where we were about to interview the candidates, and yes, that's how long since I last updated) is going to be fairly unprepared to tolerate such manic and unhinged drama-queenishness.
It makes for some interesting email exchanges while I'm in hotel rooms in other countries.
Other than that, things appear to be going quite well, both for TheFuckOffGirl and myself. Change is in the air, and I think it will be for the good.
3. Ner Fus Nar Gool
SPOILERS! (Click to view) The popular part of my updates is undoubtedly where I tell people the latest anecdote about TheFuckOffGirl. So here we go. On the weekend, she borrowed my laptop and ended up IMing with an old SG friend for an extended time. Later, said friend did confirm that "she was everything I expected." She gives good IM. (She's in Melbourne right now and responded to my message tonight with You? Again?) She's a charmer. We've been watching quite a bit of The West Wing lately, just FYI. I like the show but this more to her instigation than mine.
So Ner Fus Nar Gool is her Star Wars name. Don't ask why, it just is. When I opened my suitcase in Vietnam on the first night I was there, she'd left me a little love note on the top of my clothes, signed Ner Fus Nar Gool". You really don't need to know the origins of the name, just to know I was totally charmed.
She has lately taken the expression "Right to die" and applied it to the idiots she sees around her in traffic. If a pedestrian wanders out on the street in dangerous proximity to the car, she opines that they would be "right to die". Occasionally she yells it out the window.
Then there's The Glom. That's when I'm in her vicinity when she's at her own computer, and I am expected to "glom on", which is a combination standing hug and nuzzle. It is the act of a supplicant, and she acts appropriately haughty and imperious. I'm doing well if I can get her to melt.
4. Miscellany
SPOILERS! (Click to view) Lately, I've mostly seen movies by watching them on the plane.
I watched "The 3:10 to Yuma" on the plane back from 'Nam, when everything was dark and most people were sleeping. It was pretty disturbing in those circumstances.
Lastly: I've tried reformatting the fux0red text in here, but it's not behaving. *sigh* Or maybe, now, it is behaving.
IPOD
RADIO
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