Specialist

Accumulated frustration is high enough that I've declared vacation time around Thanksgiving. I'm scheduled to land at Swampy on Sunday 23 Nov, shortly before midnight, and fly out Sunday Pearl Harbor Day. I just put the airline and hotel reservations in place.

"Lucy", directed by Luc Besson, starring Scarlett Johansson. The story is basically a joke. The ideas under the story are extremely thought-provoking.

Shouldn't that be "platitudinous ponderosity"? "Ponderous" is an adjective, and I don't see a noun nearby for the adjective to be modifying. (I'm an engineer, Flash. Words on paper are a significant part of my stock in trade.)

A 400cc thumper with a KICKSTARTER! And it's available in the US!! WAY COOL!!!

Actually, with a little effort, you can treat the period and hyphen keys ALMOST like an iambic paddle... Hm. That's HORRIBLE thought: Use an Arduino to do paddle-to-text. Many years ago, while in ICU, intubated, no ability to talk. Friends almost had to go get a straight key and code practice oscillator, before we could track down a pad and a pen. When they finally let me out of ICU, I had a stack of many pages of "conversation", in my handwriting, almost all of it perfectly lucid, most of it I have NO memory WHATSOEVER of writing.

Election Day is scheduled for about 2 weeks from now. Depending on the quantity and quality of the brown matter that impacts the rotary air impeller between now and then, and afterwards, I *MIGHT* be back in town ca. late March-early April, or late April-early May. I have to schedule around work, and I am not even remotely crazy enough to be in town during Songkran.

I can't help but think that Tucker Max would take that last one as a personal challenge...

Oh yeah. I *NEED* the change of scenery on this trip. BAD.

T minus 35 days and counting. I go to the airport hotel five weeks from tonight, for a Dawn Patrol flight out Wednesday 6 Nov, landing Swampy Thursday night, staying for two weeks. I will be in a seminar 11-15 Nov.

I can't prove it, but I suspect that I was working at Texas Instruments when that story happened. We went through some ugly layoffs while I was there. (On second thought, it might have been before my time: I think I recall hearing the story from a coworker.) There was also the insider joke: "What color is a temp worker's badge? Gold." At that time, TI used badge color to indicate longevity. Gold indicated 20+ years with the company, as I recall. I realized things were seriously wrong at TI when I encountered a former coworker, a control systems Ph.D., at a local job search networking group. I'd been gone from the company for two years, and then had gotten caught in the Nortel meltdown. (TI has never recovered.)

Some years back, I lived in Dallas for several years. Scarborough Faire, a local Renaissance fair, was held every year. There was a glassblowing shop, doing goblets, wine glasses, plates, and the like and I got to know the glassblowers, to the point that they remembered me and called me by name, even though we only saw each other a couple of times a year. (The fact that they were my go-to guys for wedding presents probably didn't hurt any.) One day, someone said something about "recycling", and he pointed out that basic glass was nothing but sand and energy, and the best way to "recycle" glass bottles was to wash them and reuse them, as that was a LOT easier and cheaper than crushing them, melting them down, and making new bottles out of them.

T minus 27 days and counting. Arrive BKK 1 Sep 10:40 PM (unless delayed landing...). DEROS 16 Sep.

Yes, definitely please continue to keep us updated.

T minus 26 days and counting... Arriving late night 4 July, DEROS late night 16 July. I might actually find myself going TO Suvarnabhumi in broad daylight. (The blizzard that blasted Chicago and iced Dallas a few months ago delayed my arrival some ten hours, and made me fly the other way around the planet, so I actually arrived in broad daylight, and still made it to the hotel in time to get breakfast.)

Three weeks from tonight I drive to the airport, to catch the Dawn Patrol flight. Ten days in Bangkok. The seminar was cancelled, but I already had plane tickets, with Biz Class upgrade confirmed, and NONREFUNDABLE hotel reservation. So I'll just have to find something to do to keep from being bored out of my mind while I'm in town 5555555555...

I'm not sure about that 5555555555. I remember escorting one of the greeters at Shark in for a drink. She wound up being a non-starter the one time I pulled her, and now only goes short-time, while I strongly prefer only long-time. Cute, yes. My real stunner stories have all come from NEP, all along.

T minus 2 months and counting. Airfare is in place, trans-Pacific Business Class upgrade confirmed both ways, seminar fee is paid. I still have to decide which hotel I will use and make the reservation. Probably Royal President.

T minus 2 weeks 9 hours and some minutes to departure.

T minus five weeks and counting.

Troy, the "Drippy Dick? I Wish That Was It" thread in the Health area contains the details. I land late Sunday night the 12th.

Dude, he said coumadin (warfarin) tabs, not Viagra.

No, the club T-shirts for one of the most exclusive organizations on the planet: The DVT/PE Survivors League. It started as an in-joke between Hugh and myself: There are no meetings, there is no newsletter, there are no T-shirts, and we've already paid our dues. Now that there are three of us on here, and it looks like two of us will be in town at the same time, it might be good for a laugh to get the T-shirts made. To become a member of the League, you must survive, and recover fully from, a Pulmonary Embolism that stemmed from a Deep Vein Thrombosis. We do not recommend you try this: Pulmonary Embolisms are usually fatal. It is a weak attempt at black humor, laughing in the Grim Reaper's face.

Ditto. HH Hm. Maybe we are going to have to get those T-shirts made...

T minus 6 weeks and counting.

This is for a one-week vacation trip. I go back again in February, for a seminar, for about ten days or so. The funny thing is I'm looking forward to easy access to Thai food as much as I'm looking forward to "other things"...