Factory Work Day 1

I fell asleep sometime Friday night on a plane and when I woke up I was in the future. I finally made it to Thailand. My cousin Jesher also works "in the family biz" in the Thailand office so he met me at the airport and we went to see the elephants so he could send his kids some pictures.

Got to the hotel, watched Fever Pitch, passed out. Woke up and had no idea what time it was. Pulled it together to take a shower, grab a sandwich and super yummy fries, and pass out again, this time watching Lucky Number Slevin. This morning I got ready to some awful movie featuring Ashlee Simpson's old nose. Don't judge me on the movies, I have my choice of the movie channel or BBC World News if I want to watch English TV.

I am just about at the end of my first day in the Thailand office and factory, and I didn't get fired.

I now have this vision of Pepper in uniform, scooping me up from some factory line and carrying me away into the sunset to the tune of some Joe Cocker song. Hey, it could happen.

Friendship Night Goes FAR East for the Holidays

I worked. I packed on Sunday. Said good-bye when I could. Ate a good Turkey meal with the fam. And now I am killing some time at the Manila Airport and then I'll be on my way to Thailand.

I could be in my new home in Hong Kong sometime this week, or next, or in a couple of weeks, but it'll be soon.

Friendship Night won't be the same without it's favorite cast of characters, but I know you'll all make appearances sooner or later. I really don't care to make new friends if I could just keep the old ones close. If you are reading this, your are probably my friend, and you have probably met my other friends and you very well know that you're all are made from the best stuff on Earth.

I magically traveled through space and time and somehow tomorrow is Monday which means I have to go to work. To do what I'm not exactly sure. I wonder if I'll have time to catch up on Heroes or The Office or Grey's.

Why is everything below my knees so puffy, and why does the airplane food upset my stomach so?

I miss you already. Howabout visiting me for your birthday?

It's Called Foreshadowing.

The spring before last, I went to Tucson with Lettie while she was being wooed by UofA. We attended a dinner and I sat next to a faculty member who recently moved from six years in Hong Kong. I asked her how she liked it. She said she loved it. I thought maybe I should go to Hong Kong.

I was in and out and around the country for a year and a half with “Clever.” I missed my friends, I missed Silver Lake, and I decided to cool my traveling heels for a little while and take a job at home. However, this was not the universe’s plan for me.

I had a couple of opportunities that never worked out. I pursued a job in SF that would have been a year of production work, and that didn’t work out. But it did get me to thinking that maybe, just maybe I could be ready for a regular paycheck. I looked into government work, which I’ve been thinking about for a while, but since I do not have a Ph.D and firearms skills I’m not even qualified to be a janitor.

The pocketbook had been empty for too long when, before tagging along with my father on a business trip throughout Asia, my mother said, “Why don’t you work in the Hong Kong office?” And I said, “Ok.”

I leave Friday. I’m really excited about going, but stressed out about leaving. I just started packing on Sunday and have not a lot of time left to do so because I just started working in the Northridge office. I’ve squeezed in some time for friends, and I feel like a jerk for not having more time to say good-bye, but that just means I’ll just have to come back soon. Which I will. When I was a recruiter for UofA, and those Valley parents would express sadness for having their children go to school so far away (a whopping 1 hr plane ride), I would tell them that they always come back. And they do.

Bangkok/Ayutthaya/Hong Kong/Manila

I went on this monster trip with my dad but didn't get to do as much as I like because I had to spend a few days in the office and we were also constantly on the move. There was a lot of plane food to be had and I was over that. I was also pretty over the hotel buffets for breakfast. It was getting to us to the point that when we got to Hong Kong we opted for a McDonalds.

Some highlights - riding an elephant amongst the ruins in Ayutthaya, Thailand, wandering by myself via metro around Hong Kong, watching bad movies on the "Star Movies" channel (come on people, they aired Speed 2!), cruising around in a tuktuk to visit ancient ruins, lunching with my cousins in the 5th largest mall in the world (Mall of America does not even make top 10), and the murder of the head of the legal department of the commission of elections outside our hotel in Manila.

I'm so happy to be back, sleeping in my own bed, hangin with the Cougar, and catching up with my friends. I'm terribly jet lagged though. Can't make it past more than a few hours of sleep. Dang.

If You Needed Only One Reason to Love Thailand

I am accompanying my father on a mighty business trip to Thailand, Hong Kong, and a stop in Manila.

On our way to the factory in Simburi (sorry if this is spelled wrong, but my google search is coming up in Thai) from Bangkok I spotted a LIGER mart. I'll do my best to nab a picture.

We left LA Thursday night, was in and out of sleep on the 18 hours on the plane, not counting a layover in Guam and a few hours in Manila. Flights like that are rough especially when you are by yourself or like, in my case, when your father leaves you in the 91st out of 95 rows while he is in first class. It's fine, I guess I'm used to it since he's done this before.

Saturday we arrived in Bangkok, and I was immediately upset when I realized I had virtually no time to see the city. We squeezed plenty in though. Paps and I went to see one of his favorite things, Muay Thai or Thai boxing. He watches it all the time on TV.

Well the signal's a little weak here so more pictures and stories to come.