Goodbyes

Well it certainly is official: the only thing between me and the 12 hour drudgery of a plane flight is the CEO running down the tarmac yelling at the pilot to stop (as if 747s were made to stop on a dime). The amazing thing is that I wouldn't mind so much if our intrepid CEO did reenact every romantic comedy ever. I believe it is what the self-stylized experts call Stockholm Syndrome, except in my case the assailant is an entire country and the helpless victim is a clueless technician.
As of yet, I've avoided making serious comparisons between the two countries (key word here is "serious") because I may be a little worried about the inevitable conclusion. In order to avoid a dreary but insightful blog post (we can't have that now can we?) I'll delve into the less serious conclusions:

• Rabbits are wonderful pets; I plan to have a dozen upon my return. But if that old fart Fibonacci is to be believed, I'll get stuck between 8 and 13, which is undoubtedly an uncomfortable position to be in.
• Atheism is less accepted here than most French passports at the INS. In some lines of questioning the locals here will run out of possibilities for me after just two: Christian and Buddhist. I know I shouldn't enjoy these conversations but I can read them like a book, a book that says: "But he's too nice to go to to hell!". Maybe it's the masochist in me showing through.
• I thought they were joking about Christmas in December. I thought they were joking about 3 nannies watching a single child. I thought they were joking about whale sharks with more shark than whale in their blood. When they turned out to be right about all three, it's time I gave up my life as a cynic.
• Text messaging is a fantastic way to communicate. It's socially democratic, more efficient than a call, and text chat is slightly easier to decipher than most 128 bit encryptions. The only problem is when you have a company cell which has been in the hands of too many people you don't want to know anything about. Home loans and free car offers are one thing, but when it turns into clueless sisters wishing you a happy birthday 6 months out of season or jilted mistresses left in the rain on Valentines Day it's high time you go shopping for a hacked SIM card.
• SIM card shopping, by the way, is a hackers paradise. I've never seen an iPhone cracked before last month. At which point I saw 4 iPhones cracked simultaneously off one computer while the stall nearby was peddling hacking services on every phone except those on a very short list. When it becomes easier to list the code you haven't broken it's time to give up eliminating piracy and start taxing it! The hack fest as I like to call it, was bigger and better than an engineering job fair circa 1999, booth babes and all.

That was a rather truncated list but it managed to avoid the true meaning of this post long enough for my total word count to exceed its limit.
See you all on the flipside!

Souvenirs!

I don't want to jinx anything by talking about my voyage home too much. But as this is last weekend I'll have to go shopping. So what do you want from the Philippines?
So far I've purchased enough pearls to rebuild an entire oyster and enough rum to make you want to eat said oyster. Among other things that are delightfully cheap here are "barongs" (traditional Filipino shirts) and sarongs and basically everything hand made.
What do you want? What have you always wanted from the south pacific but could never quite justify the 15 hour plane flight?

Speaking of which, if you are in the south pacific one of these days, call me up! I can send you to every hidden paradise in these islands. I've traveled more than most of our engineers combined and have seen enough for to fill a dozen vacations.

How do I manage to be homesick for two homes?

Happy Daylight savings! Today I get an hour older as I will not be celebrating the clock change.
This weekend I have nothing to report: just a lazy weekend hanging around and recovering. But the weekend prior I hit up my local haunt for diving down in Sabong. I've been there three (two?) times before and have reported on it. Even still it never fails to surprise.
Hugo (the resident turtle) made an appearance on our night dive. Everyone instantly forgot the planned dive profile and went off chasing him into the deep. As he passed within 3 meters of me I got an amazing impression of his size; he is easily 1.5 m long and his wingspan clearly dwarfs my own. Last time we caught him sleeping on the bottom so this was a real treat.
The second surprise was waiting in our hotel room gift basket: free viagra. That should give you a decent impression of the local recreation and age demographic.
On the other hand, many things weren't all that surprising: decent weather, calm seas, good food, good company, and ridiculously cheap gin and juice.

Last week, 3 managers conspired to delay my flight home. This week it was two VPs. Next time it'll be one CEO or a partridge in a pear tree; it's a toss-up. But seriously, this time I will put my foot down... lightly. I will be flying out March 20th just in time for a wedding I haven't RSVPed to and a long-delayed game of disk golf.

Last time I flew back to the states I made a list of all the things I had missed. I fear this time the list will be longer and will only contain things that I will miss from the Philippines. Starting with this: