tuesdays in turkmenistan: a new year, no promises

For sophisticates like myself living 13 hours ahead of the lagging West Coasters, the New Year has already arrived. In fact, it arrived nearly 12 hours ago to great and glorious fanfare for the neutral nation of Turkmenistan. And we were playing Mario Kart Wii when it happened. It was as awesome as you think it sounds.

Interestingly enough, yesterday was a holiday in Turkmenistan. Well, sort of. By decree from the great and glorious neutral leader of Turkmenistan, they did a bit of horse-trading for the days. Basically, Saturday was a "normal" working day and Monday become part of the weekend in its place. So people with "normal" jobs had Sunday (as is typical), Monday (traded for Saturday), and today (New Year) off. Strange and magical indeed. Of course, the business I'm in does not take days off. In fact, Sunday was a ridiculous mash up of semi-panicked activity to get a few things out the door. In the end, it's yet another day off added to the already absurdly long list of public holidays in Turkmenistan.

Of course, since you are reading this, you are literate. It also means I'm back after a four week hiatus. I'm not sure where I have been. It was dark and a bit stuffy, so perhaps a broom closet or stuck under a large tea cozy, but I'm free once again. Free to post intermittent and irregular updates and also free to travel back Stateside on Friday. Eight weeks in this time and it is time to start taking some of my accrued days off. I have a few small items for myself, but do wish to share with people when I get back. The most novel one is the English-language Turkmen newspaper I snagged while I stayed in a hotel in Ashgabat earlier in my rotation. (Why was I in a hotel and not a staff house? The staff houses were full since several people were in town. Why was I in Ashgabat? Business totally and in no way related to activities of the CIA. Yes, that sounds right.)

I'm not sure what the game plan is while I am in the U.S. There are some nebulous plans to visit a guy from work who lives out in South Carolina. Perhaps a swing through my storage place and then a drive back across the Southwest with a stop in Los Angeles. It's all quite wonderfully vague. And something about furniture moving.

leaving on a jet plane

Leaving on a jet plane, still got that A380 route. (Sing it to the Peter, Paul and Mary tune.) Lufthansa is still running the A380 on this route despite now being on what I call their Winter schedule. Last year, they switched to the 747 in November. This year, according to the lady who checked me in, they will try to run the A380 to SFO until January. The route is popular enough that they are (were?) looking for 10 volunteers to take tomorrow's flight instead. The offer was rather generous and if I was not meeting up with a friend at a set time and place, then I would have more seriously considered their offer. As it is, I'm ditching the lounge soon and will go board in 10 minutes. See everyone in about two months.

tuesdays not in turkmenistan: home so briefly

Whelp. I'm in California, but leaving again on Saturday. Another short-lived trip back, this time for a mix of travel and visa reasons. I will be spending a few days in London before returning all the way back to Turkmenistan. And my return to TUM is essentially fixed due to my visa expiration which is coming soon. I need to be in the country when it expires so they can process the extension with my passport.

headed home again

I'm headed to the airport in about two hours. Hopefully, it will be less of a silly season than what was going on when we landed this afternoon from Balkanabat. I'll be in the Bay Area only about a week-and-a-half before heading out again, though I'll be stopping over most likely in London before a full return to Turkmenistan. Anyway, touching down at SFO in about 27 hours.

tuesdays not in turkmenistan: that was fast

Two weeks went fast. Well, not even two weeks, more like 13 days. I'm hitting the road again today, on my way back to work. Some of the statistics from the last two weeks:
* 6 different beds slept in
* 1 wedding attended
* 650 miles driven
* 2 rental cars
* 5 airports visited
* 3 flights taken
* 2 upgraded seats
* 6 states touched
* 1 driveway resurfaced (partially)
* and 1 very cute nephew played with

Back in six weeks this time.

tuesdays in turkmenistan: a sham?

This isn't going to come out well. I know because I've tried to write this entry several times, but today I'm just saying screw it and we'll go for it and see what happens. Even the post from two weeks ago was an attempt at this, but it ended up going a different direction. Related to all that is this concept of who you are. Who you are is in theory a pretty specific thing. You occupy a set physical space and are a particular being. Your concept of self should be well grounded, but I have this idea about people as symbols. I've held this idea for a long time. Not held in the sense that I firmly believe it and base significant portions of my worldview around it as a central tenet of my existence. More like I have had this idea for many years and use it to help understand how people perceive their relationships with one another. The core of the "people as symbols" idea is that we never really know each other. We don't know the very core and essence of another person. Instead, we only know them for what they represent to us, what they symbolize about the world for ourselves. Think of the person you are closest to in the entire world. Do you know them as them and understand how they see themselves and what they perceive? Or, instead, do you see them for what they mean to you in your life and even when you support them, it's because of the reciprocal feedback and enjoyment you may get from that? This isn't meant to be a cynical idea though it can come across as such. Perhaps the real point is that true empathy is impossible since you can never know exactly what another person is feeling or thinking. It is entirely possible that my interest in this idea says a significant amount about the relationships I have with those around me, even with people to whom I am relatively close.

Why does this matter and why is it "all a sham" in my post title? It's complicated and I'm desperately trying to steer this entry into a direction that will eventually sort of tie into that title. Maybe. Amongst the thought about this people are symbols idea has come some thoughts about what I represent to other people. It is the natural reflection of what other people represent to me. And it makes me wonder about who I am for everyone. See, this also ties into another idea which is that we all act differently around different people. Again, I tried to write about this three weeks ago and did a dismal job then. The point is that we're a bit different in front of our parents compared to our siblings compared to our friends compared to our co-workers. And even within these groups, we have specific behavioral patterns and roles which we fill and how we complement (not in the 'hey you're cute' way, but the 'hey, this piece fits nicely way') others in different ways depending on the relationship we have with that person or group. I've been mulling this over. Yesterday, I was not literally on fire at lunch and dinner. It's my free-zone here in the canteen to say anything and everything that comes to mind. For all the childhood shyness and general dislike of public speaking, I really enjoy talking during mealtime here. Perhaps it's partly out of a not-so-secret love of the sound of my own oration or a dislike of the awkward silence of a bunch of semi-strangers eating together or one of the few precious times where we're not "at work" in the sense that we're not metaphorically (nor literally, I hope) chained to our desks or maybe I just have a lot on my mind and like to make people laugh. If I may humbly submit, I am very funny at mealtime. I'm not entirely sure how or why this is possible. It's a mix of filling an otherwise silent void with my inane ramblings about the absurd peculiarities of both this work and this place, my willingness to say anything (perhaps too often for shock value), the sarcasm that never ever ends to the point where people have told me it's hard to tell if I'm actually being serious at meals even during those times I am trying to be serious. Evidently, along with having this seemingly odd rep for talking a lot during mealtime, I also have a rep for pulling all manner of statistics and citing research on whatever the topic of the day might be. If you're talking about it, apparently, I've read about it. Well, why not. I consume a lot of news. All sorts of crazy news too. People believe something more if it rhymes? Sure, why not?

That was a long-ish tangent but the point is that I am a certain person in a certain context with the people here. For the most part, these are not people I work directly with in my own segment, which helps me further compartmentalize. Is that person any more or less the "real" me? I further joke in a somewhat meta-sense that "my whole life is a sham" which is a line I am shamelessly stealing from Seinfeld. In that show, George is responding to someone who has just said that he (not George) is living a lie. In response, George says "I lie every second of the day. My whole life is a sham." I use that line frequently here because, well, because there's a bit of truth to it. Not that my existence is somehow not true, but that the projection of me that people see here is not entirely accurate. It's difficult to say if it is more accurate than other facets of my personality though because that again touches on this concept of self and who you are and if there is somehow a core you that is always there, never-changing. This is coming out so badly, but I need to soldier on. I even carry on this joke a bit further by pointing out the suspicious lack of photos and how I've never shown any real evidence that I am who I say I am. It is all part of my ruse as a Chinese guy from Kazakhstan pretending to be American but secretly working for the Russians. Perhaps I am Burn Notice. Referring to a person (in this case, myself) as a TV show reminds me of a Simpsons quote. Humor me here:

Homer: I think the government has better things to do than to read my mail.
(cut to agents reading letters from a bag called 'Simpson Mail')
FBI Agent: Most people write letters to movie stars. This Simpson guy writes to movies. "Dear Die Hard. You rock. Especially when that guy was on the roof. P.S: Do you know Mad Max?"

Comedy gold.

Back on point. I keep answering the same basic questions to people. I try to be patient because while I have been here surprisingly close to a year, I have not told everyone everything about every facet of my life. The basic questions usually cover these four topics:
1. Questions about past: Where are you from? What's it like there? School? Degree in?
2. Questions about family and friends: Parents? Married? Why not? Brothers/sisters?
3. Questions about interests: Hobbies? Days off plans? Play sports?
4. Questions about work: Previous work locations? What was it like?
Yes, it is all polite conversation. And yes, all the answers should stay the same, but every time I answer a question, it's not that I give conflicting information, but sometimes I give a little more or a little less. Do I go into the particulars of who I lived with in college? What level of detail do I share about my plans for days off? I share different things with different people. Is that because it is what I think they want to hear out of polite conversation? Or do I share more or less depending on what I want from that person and how well I want them to know me and thus in turn how well I want to know them? In the end, everyone knows me, but a slightly different version of me which makes perfect sense. This isn't a phenomena that is somehow unique to my existence. Everyone you know has a largely similar but still different set of information about you based on their unique experiences with you. Combined with their own experiences of everyone else they know, they have formed and shaped some perception of you that fits with the rest of their worldview.

Thus far, I have managed to expend a great number of words to basically say that everyone is unique and we can never know exactly what someone else is thinking/feeling. So what? The what is that while I am unique in the sense that everyone is unique, I suspect my uniqueness has the quirk of being more different to more people. My compartmentalization of my life has led people to fill-in aspects of my life that I do not otherwise share. Perhaps their attempt at filling in the blanks is incomplete and even largely sub-conscious, but people see what they want to see. I think this is why people here will often say I look Turkmen or Kazakh. Sure, I might look local, but contextually, that is what people here would expect to see so they fill in whatever they need to in order to complete the context of my existence. This is starting to not make sense (or perhaps never made any sense) so before this entry ends, again in relative failure compared to its ultimate objective, I want to get across this idea that if I'm different enough to different people, do I actually change? Is my awareness of others' perceptions also shaping my own actions and ideas and becoming "self-fulfilling"? It's not like there will be some problem of inherent inconsistency between different perceptions people have of me that will lead to some incompleteness-induced implosion. (That sentence has too many words that start with the letter "i".) The problem is about being able to hold and shape one's own vision of himself or herself, specially my vision of me. No, scratch that. That's not the problem. That is merely an attempt to make the problem sound more important than it really is. The problem is why do I even think about this in the first place. What does my interest with this subject say about what I think of my own life and my own choices? This goes into ideas about the Dunning-Kruger effect and Impostor syndrome. It is a deep interest in self-awareness and what that means and implies. So close, but so far from where I wanted to go with this post.

tuesdays in turkmenistan: did i tell you this before?

I see many very different people in many very different contexts who know vastly different things about me and have vastly different relationships with me. Perhaps it's two primarily different contexts or sort of three. Nonetheless, the moderate uniqueness of what I do relative to where I am from leads to many questions back home about my job and work and industry. I have a set of spiels of most of the common topics. What I do (which is my worst commonly used spiel), what SLB does, how a well gets drilled, why we do certain things to certain wells, what Turkmenistan is like, etc. Correspondingly, my own life and pre-Turkmenistan set of locations is relatively unique here so I also field a lot of questions about what California is like, where else I worked, what did I do on my days off, where should I visit in the U.S., etc. Again, the common questions get a stock sort of spiel. As a sort of side note, I evidently have a reputation at work for talking a lot during lunch and dinner, though not with my mouth full. I also laugh a lot during most meals. A lot a lot. ALOT? The reason being that outside of the specific confines of the office, I consider the canteen (and rec room) to be a sort of free zone where I will discuss all manner of subjects. It often takes an absurdist turn and I routinely say, "Within these walls, it's a free country" and then go back to being pleasantly absurd.

The result is that I see many people and answer many questions and I end up feeling like I am repeating myself. That's probably because I am repeating myself. The same spiels over and over with perhaps some variety thrown in, but the core information does not change. That's fine and all, but I lose track of which anecdote I have told to which person. Have I told this specific person this specific story/insight/absolute truth? For sure I've spoken with that person before and for sure I've told that story before, but in combination together? This is where it gets hazy. Did I tell you this before?

If you ever find me to be repeating the same story, it's OK to just stop me. I'm not keeping a list of all the different people I know and all the knowledge I have attempted to impart upon them. That would be silly since that's obviously the Easter Bunny's job.

tuesdays in turkmenistan: switching modes

Each time I come back here, I do a bit of a mental switch. It's not just the time zone difference, which is now back to the nice 12-hour difference with DST in the U.S., though this change takes a couple days to fully settle. It has more to do with the very different life I have here and how separate I keep work from everything else. I keep different silos for work and friends and family and while all those areas have some interaction, they don't overlap all that much. When I'm here, I am squarely in the work silo. It is a realm of e-mails and spreadsheets and talking to people about things and stuff and other areas where I have an unfathomably difficult time explaining what I do. More importantly, it is kept out of my personal life. This blog, my Twitter account, personal e-mail, etc are not shared with people here. Facebook is an exception, but the thing about my Facebook account is that I also keep it separate from everything else. I only post the most mundane of comments on my travels and haven't shared a photo in over two years.

The other day, I was joking that nothing I have told anyone about my life back in the U.S. is strictly corroborated. Do I have the family members I claim to have? Did I go do the things with my friends I talked about? There's no reason I would lie, but there's also nothing that would disprove that all my stories are not elaborate tales of fiction. And while I'm not prone to telling hyperbolic stories about what I do on my days off, I also often say that great line from Seinfeld when George says, "My whole life is a sham." It's not so much a sham as it is a potential (but not actual) lie. I work here, I live here, but I'm not what I would ever call fully here.

tuesdays not in turkmenistan: saturday edition

What can I say? My schedule and regularity pretty much go out the window when I'm back Stateside and trying to cram a couple months worth of social life into a couple weeks. Also, it's also very tiring when I'm at work and I mostly just want to rest and rest and then rest some more when I am back.

For all practical purposes, I was away for eight weeks before coming back right before New Year's Eve. I am increasingly understanding of the 7x3 rotation and why seven weeks is more than enough time in a camp. Amusingly enough, I'm going to try and stretch my coming rotation out as much as possible, but I think it will still result in missing some social engagements in April/May. However, we've had some personnel changes and I'm not sure what the schedule is going to look like now and how much accommodation is possible. My time in Turkmenistan might actually be easier to bear if I was still working in the field and getting out of the office more. Instead, it's room, work, room, work, repeat, etc. Additionally, there's no such thing as a properly staffed location in this company. Either we have too many and need to fire or transfer people or we have too few and don't necessarily need to hire, but instead need to get more out of the people we currently have. Combined with the relatively high-stress nature of the business where the omnipresent sense of time equating to money (except for the state companies!), the feeling that the next mistake could very well be your last with your employer, and that you're living in what is essentially a metal box for seven weeks can really drive you a bit batty. On some level, you have to, well, I don't want to say "not care", but you do need to disengage and draw some boundaries.

Living at the camp, the lines that most people think of when it comes to work/life balance and separation really don't exist. Everything there is essentially work and that constant grind is what is so taxing. It is also ultimately unhelpful and counter-productive if some boundaries are not staked out. I can tell when I'm not productive. More importantly, I can tell when fatigue is setting in because fatigue largely transmutes itself into apathy with me. But the boundary drawing is left to everyone to figure out on their own and it's admittedly something I'm pretty terrible at and for those who have had to put up with that fact, I'm sorry. Being back this time, and partially pulled along by some work computer issues, helped me at least put a first stake in figuring out those boundaries.

This time around, I did relatively little work at home. One could argue I did almost no work, which is sort of the point of days off. I replied to just enough e-mails and filled out enough forms and spreadsheets to avert what I hope are any serious issues. It felt good to not work, but the creeping worry is always there since regardless of how things are supposed to be, it's my mess to deal with when I get back so one eye is always trying to keep a lookout. Still, I stayed busy with plenty that was not work this time around and I'm very happy about that. I had something to do or someone to see almost every day I was in town and that's a good sign. I want to keep staking out some more, well, stakes, until I have boundaries setup between work and everything else. Let's see how that goes while I'm away, which starts in a couple hours. Until then, I'm out until probably late March or early April.

55 days

Back by popular demand, me! In less than 12 hours, I'm scheduled to depart Ashgabat, city of oddness, and begin my 24 hour journey home. Yes, 24 hours is a lot of travel time compared to the typical commute or even cross-country flight. But it's pretty amazing that I can go halfway around the world, crossing through 13 time zones, in less than a day. (No, running in a circle right at the North or South Pole does not count as crossing all the time zones!)

It will have been 55 days since I left by the time I step off the plane at SFO. Somehow, that seems inexplicably longer than saying nearly 8 weeks. And yet, 1,320 hours just seems nonsensical let alone 792,000 minutes or 4,752,000 seconds give or take a few thousand. This has been a long pull made longer by my relatively short time off last time, a series of difficult (and ongoing) operations for one client, and how few expats have been in the camp the last couple weeks. It really helps to have a good mix of people to hang out with after hours and it's just been a bit lacking lately. Plus, while I generally find Christmas/holiday parties to be terribly awkward, I'm still just a tinge bummed that I missed last Friday's party due to the canceled flight. At least I took in the hopefully once-in-a-lifetime experience of 11 hours on a train in Turkmenistan.

I'll be pretty busy my first roughly 32 hours back. Saturday night is theoretically open, but potentially subject to the whims of traffic. And after that, it's almost wide open beyond some planned new-unclage time. Perhaps some skiing, perhaps some lazing about, but definitely some Skrillex. Just kidding, I only listen to post-dubstep, whatever that is.

back in town, staying busy

I have been back in California for a few days now. It's been low key so far, but about to get much busier with a wedding, road-trip, Vegas-trip, then DC trip planned for an exciting flurry of activity.

eight weeks in - on my way

By the time this posts I will have started my journey back to the U.S. from Balkanabad. First, a short flight back to Ashgabat, an evening there, then a red-eye to Frankfurt via Baku, and ending with a nice nonstop to SFO. (I can taste the airline miles and they will taste like premium status after a couple more rotations. Perhaps this time I can avoid ending up in a middle seat.)

This first hitch through Turkmenistan has been a little longer than the prescribed seven weeks and that is fine by me. It was a good run with a lot of atypical challenges which I can envision becoming typical challenges. Carrying over the sentiment from last week, this has been really great. I look forward to being back in California and I look forward to coming back here in about three weeks.

In the meantime, it's time to see family and friends, eat some different food, and generally have a good time. Maybe I'll sprinkle in just enough work to make sure I have a good transition back and all will be good.

back next week

Barring a change in my flight plans, I will be landing at SFO next Wednesday and should be around for about three weeks, though I do not have a return date at the moment. With that said, what's going on in the Bay Area? I've also been noodling around with the idea of trying to go by the greater Los Angeles and possibly San Diego area before August 20th. And then there's that thing the weekend after that with that guy who is going to do that other thing a couple months from now. You either know what I'm talking about or not. (Hint: It may involve poor fiscal decisions.)

Rotation is going to be wicked awesome. Oh wait, wrong regional phrase. I meant hella cool.

weddings as happy days as the culmination of a series of choices

I have been very pleased to have been able to attend a couple weddings of friends of mine both recently and about 6 months ago. Furthermore, my schedule should hold up well enough for me to attend another one in August. This is in stark contrast to much of last year when I missed three weddings while I was mired in Africa. These next couple years look to be the ones where many more friends will get married. Weddings are fun and pleasantly low stress for non-participants. Actual participants have a fair bit of work to do but for everyone else it’s a party and everyone likes a party except for maybe this guy. Offbeat generational film references aside, everyone is presumably there by choice and gathered to celebrate something that is, simply put, positive.

If you’re concerned this is heading towards something that belongs on Lifetime, fret not, as we will venture back to the titular topic of choices. There is a feeling I want to convey about seeing so many friends in long-term relationships and either married or rapidly moving that direction. It is the classic 'what if' feeling of wondering how my life might have gone differently with a different set of choices. I don't want to project a sense of envy or jealousy onto my friends as they are my friends so of course I want them to be happy and have good lives but there is no doubt that I look and see something different than what I have. The counterpoint is that for all I know, people look at my life and think I am living some life of adventure, travel and have become an international playboy/spy (maybe?) and wonder what they are missing out on. The answer is airline miles. That is what you are missing out on. I can assure the CIA that I am not a spy (yet and thus theoretically employable) and assure my friends that I am not living the high life of decadent luxury and meaningless sex. I am living a life. I am living the end result of a series of choices I have made including choices of both action and inaction. In that same vein, we don't get to live out every possible scenario of our lives that presents itself. Well, at least not in the particular dimension that you are aware of. We make choices and the different branches of opportunity are winnowed down. However, over time, new and different branches appear.

(Other than airline miles, you are missing out on the travel and the culture and what is generally a very exciting life that I think I do an amazing job of making it sound quite boring. While I may think 'what if' at times I also think that the apartment/condo/house and couple-hood and suburbia or gentrified urban living is so mundane. This isn't embedded reporter status in Afghanistan, but it's no Pleasantville either.)

Back on our starting topic, relationships are the result of choices. People do not apathize their way into a long-term relationship and expect to be happy about it. (You say that apathize isn't a word? It is now!) And long-term ones require many active choices that I have elected to not make for quite some time and that speaks to my own priorities, regardless of whether or not I have even been fully aware of them. My friends did not just wake up one day and find themselves in five-year relationships. (If anyone did, you should probably see a doctor.) For every one of my friends who is already married or soon-to-be married or not-soon-to-be married-but-already-dating-the-last-person-you-will-ever-date, I extend my congratulations. A long series of choices has resulted in something positive that you must now keep making good choices about to keep. Meanwhile, I will make my choices over here. I think there is a BBQ in the grotto tomorrow.

send offs

Before I left for Turkmenistan, I was back in the Bay Area for an extended period of time. I haven’t spent that much time in California since I started working. It might have even been about as much time as all the other previous trips back combined. Regardless, it was a time that was both long and short. It was ultimately longer than I had expected to stay and long in a strict chronological sense. However, it had a endless feeling of shortness with the expectation that I might leave quite abruptly. With this dynamic, it was frustrating to be unable to make meaningful medium-term plans and be perpetually expecting some news about my visa.

Despite the frustration, my extended time at home was quite meaningful and enjoyable. It gave me a chance to reconnect with family and friends and everything had a more ‘adult’ air. Of course, I am still in many ways an overgrown man-child as noted when I was out to dinner with my brother and others one evening and upon entering the restaurant I remarked, “Oh, this is an grown-up restaurant.” By that, I meant it had the food and atmosphere of a place you would not likely find children or teenagers, or at least not ones who thought it would be a good place to revisit. I can, upon need, “age it up” but I am a largely casual person. Additionally, work has always been mostly casual as the business cares much more about results than any variation of looks and appearance. Perhaps the one great exception is that if there are problems with a piece of a equipment then it damn well better look like it has been well maintained. Regardless, work is hardly pulling me into the world of three-piece suits and bowler hats.

Back to the enjoyable aspect of my time at home. Not only did I reconnect with people, now that I have my coming work rotation, there is the sense that I will not become such a stranger anymore. There was also a mildly running joke amongst my friends that Turkmenistan is so far-flung, that I might not come back. I can assure you that I have a return ticket that I intend to use. It is also not too terribly far away with its paltry 12 hour time zone difference. It was good to see so many people and see “home” or at least the closest facsimile to where one of my own might one day be.

I appreciate the time everyone made for me, and have previously made for me all the other times I have darted in and out of the Bay Area like the vagabond I have become. It is high time I acknowledge that people are busy and have lives and jobs and families to tend to in contrast to me being on vacation whenever I have been in town. Thanks everyone for your time. I’ll be back in August. And I have been taking pictures, maybe.

a passing

This post was supposed to be something else, but circumstances dictate a change. It is now about a friend, or to be perfectly honest, a friend of a friend who is not returning. A high school classmate has died. An inbox full of two days of facebook group messages has informed me of the passing of Gianni Manganelli.

In high school, we were not friends per sé, but had occasion to hang out through someone who was a very good mutual friend with both of us. Gianni was quirky in the good way people use that word. However, I have not seen Gianni since high school and I do not know what kind of man he grew up to be. His eulogies will be left to others who were much closer to him as anything else I could say would only demonstrate how little I knew the present-day him.

We meet so many people, stay in touch with only some, and deeply connect with and care for just a precious few. If we're not careful, we lose touch with a lot of good people. I think I have some long overdue e-mails to write.

las vegas, a return to

That was time well spent in Las Vegas over the weekend. It was actually my first time in Vegas in five years. It was also probably the first time I truly embraced the absurdity of Vegas. No more worrying about the excess and obvious fakery about the city. Just pure embracing of the silliness. And a lot of walking. Anyway, to good fiscal decisions.

on staying in touch

I'm pretty bad about staying in touch with people. This makes me somewhat curious about whether I do the whole family and friendship thing right. I'm out here, in the wind so-to-speak, and a long way from everyone else. I have all the modern tools for staying in touch, but vastly under-utilize them because for me, the rest of the world is very much 'out of sight, out of mind'.

Don't get me wrong, for the most part, I feel like when I'm back "home" that I can pick up right where I left off and everything feels comfortable. If someone asked me for a favor, within a pretty broad range of reasonableness, I would probably not hesitate to help if I had the ability. But there's a long in-between time when I am not around and when I am not around, all that pauses in my head and when I come back, it's like I have not changed much. However, I am fully aware everyone is busy living their lives and getting engaged/married or doing whatever it is people with more traditional lifestyles do with their time. It's actually been quite surprising, though I should know better, to see so many friends (presumably) enter into the last romantic relationship of their lives.

Like my last post, this isn't going anywhere in particular. It's just an observation about myself and how I interact (or don't) with people. Just remember that I do remember you even if it doesn't seem like it. And I would go a long way for friends and family if in need.

old friends

I've seen a lot of people while back in the Bay Area. In that sense, it's been really good to be back for these last couple weeks. And now, I'm a day away from heading back to work in a galaxy far, far away, that possibly exists a long time ago as well. I'm not really sure about that last part. Air travel causes relativistic effects, right?

Every trip home for the last few years, and especially this one and the one back in March has had a checklist feel to it for seeing people, hitting up certain restaurants, and trying to run various errands typically related to work-related paperwork or banking business to deal with while I'm near a branch. In a way, it's good to be busy, but at the same time, I almost always return to work not feeling very rested. Of course, that may have something to do with the 20+ hours of flying time and about 10 hours of layover time I will have between the time I takeoff from SFO and the time I land in POG. I know the obvious solution I will hear from many (and have already heard), which takes variations on the form of "quit your job and come back to California". No, not with the unfinished business to, well, finish.

Despite all this, I saw someone from college yesterday I had not seen since graduation and it was great. Great to know people are doing well, in particular this person has seen some ups and downs in the last six years, but is in a much better place now. As cliche as it may sound, I'm happy to see that my friend is happy and doing well and moving forward with life.

In general, I've seen several people I have not seen since college graduation or even longer ago from high school days. In the sense that it means anything, these are my 'people'. This is where I am from after all and this is the closest thing to a real home I have, but it's still not home. Yet.

ronin christmas

One of my favorite movies, perhaps because it leaves itself with an element of mystery in the end, is Ronin. Plus, it has excellent car-chase sequences that feature not only superbly great driving and power sliding but also no ridiculous car explosions.

There is a great sentiment expressed in a line (or two lines if you will) between two of the primary characters:
Vincent (Jean Reno): What do you want for Christmas?
Sam (Robert De Niro): My two front teeth.

Sounds about right.