1-Year Lockdown

L-I-V-I-N

I’m feeling a little guilty for not blogging in months, but I’ve been a little busy – I’m logging at least 25 hours of overtime a week – and I’ve been sick. Some of the folks think it is a virus, and others swear it is the food. The doc came firmly down on food as the culprit in a meeting today. Not that I entirely blame the dining hall contractor either. It’s a tough deal, but the military doesn’t have this problem at Camp Eggers, Phoenix, or down in Kandahar.

Security being what it is here in Afghanistan, pictures of the compound are verboten. I can take pictures of my hooch, but my stuff isn’t here yet so there isn’t much point. I’m sure I’ll have something to post soon. I am hearing horror stories about consumables shipments (food, wine, etc) being packed with household effects, and of bottles bursting on the plane. So I’ll probably be taking pictures of that for insurance purposes when it does get here, and I’ll be happy to share my misery.

Those Funny Swiss

It's not everyday that you get hit by unintentional comedy so profound that it sends the whole office running to Google to see if it is an early April Fools joke. Nor do you expect that kind of thing to come from the Swiss. Then Friday afternoon, the Swiss trade office sends this:

Eliana Burki and Her Funky Alphorn

 

There is a web site, and it has sound. The concert is at the Taipei Water Museum. Really, what else do you want from me. I'm not sure how this article got written, because I couldn't do it.

 

News

OK, I'm back in Taiwan. Two pieces of news:
Andrew Hayden Miller arrived at 10:44am Nov 2nd, 2006 via C-section.  He is 20 inches and 7lbs 3oz and doing perfectly fine. Once again, the day after I leave the US.

HiNet, our local internet provider associated with former telecom monopoly ChungHwa, is offering 10Mbps FTTB (fiber to the building) for the same price I'm now paying for my much slower 768/128 aDSL. Maybe I'm overly excited about this but it's still hella cool.

Oh, and Vegas was great. I guess that is three.

Wheeler Wedding

OK, I’m back in Atlanta for a few days after my brother and Nicole’s wedding. It was fantastic, and I don’t have any pictures. I guess that’s why they pay the photographer. When pictures become available I’ll put them up.

 
Congratulations to you both!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:
I became the last person outside of North Korea and this Maori bushman child to buy an iPod. I got a white Nano.

The Bad:
My “Millions More” neighbors here at the hotel. They wouldn’t shut up last night.Also, United’s sorry excuse for business class on domestic flights.

The Ugly:
Whoever though that it would be a good idea to make a TV show with Geena Davis as a female president should have their fingernails removed with rusty pliers.

This list is not exhaustive. I had about five other things I wanted to rate as bad, but I have forgotten them already. One had to do with the Pentagon police and traffic control around Pentagon City.

Unnatural Disasters

Blake Ann makes a good point: I don't post enough. Maybe it's just because there hasn't been enough happening lately. Like most other people, I've been watching a lot of Katrina coverage between typhoons. Number three this season was Katrina-size and hit us the Thursday after Katrina. Number four is due on Sunday. We had another earthquake this week as well, but it was only a 2.5, which doesn't even count. Think mild turbulence on a flight, only at your desk (the kind that doesn't even make you guard your coffee). So, Stacy and Geoff excluded, I feel I am as much a natural disaster expert as anyone.  Here are my thoughts:

Even bigger typhoons are not that bad here because of the geography. The mountains chew up most of the wind, and we don't have much problem with storm surge. What we do get are mudslides, washed-out roads, and localized flooding. Taipei is in a bowl (but well above sea level) so the mountains keep the wind from getting too bad.

The second reason is that we have a ton of them every year and they build for it. Power and communications lines are buried. Most houses are concrete or brick. Someone here learned a lesson from the three little pigs.

FEMA screwed up, but not nearly as much as the governor and the mayor of New Orleans. FEMA's job is to provide support to state and local emergency management agencies. The state authorities remain in charge. The governor had control over the Louisiana National Guard troops and chose not to send them in at the beginning because of how it would look. Once reports of out-of-control gangs started being reported, CNN told me we were not seeing troops because the Louisiana constitution prohibits the declaration of martial law. That could've been a mistake, but it showed the mentality.

Anyway, what do you expect? Louisiana government has always been either incompetent or corrupt.

Lamity Lame Lame

Taipei is so lame.

It’s not that I don’t like Taipei, but I just got done reading what Stacy and Geoffrey did over the weekend, and I can’t compete with that.

Nowhere in Taipei are there random ninja shows, and unlike Geoffrey, I don’t happen upon a shrine where the Dalai Lama just happens to appearing (even thought that didn’t happen this weekend, it still counts). But who cares about the Dalai Lama? Ninja shows!

I saw these traditional lanterns that are really small hot air balloons. You write your wish on them and light then let them take off. The downside to that is that the dangling flame that powers its flight doesn’t die out before it lands. So, they land, burning, on the highway, on a roof, or in the forest. But hey, it’s good luck if you don’t live nearby!

Crap

Man I’m glad I left Bosnia… Apparently some crazy guy was running around attacking people with a cordless drill and killed someone. Of all the ways to go…

 Oh, so the typhoon cut south at the last minute and when across the middle of the island instead of hitting us, but it stalled over the mountains and dumped rain which ended up flooding most of the island and washing out a bunch of bridges.  Everything is OK here though.

 I’ll be starting a new feature: Things I meant to write about but couldn’t make a full column out of. It’s inspired by some of the quarterly cables from the Pacific islands. Topics include cosmetics/skin whitening, crazy women, and my first home brewing failure.

Stormwatch

The clouds break up a little then, here comes the rain again.
-Rainsquall, Richard Buckner

The first bands of the typhoon have passed and we are catching a little break. The main body of the storm is expected to hit Taipei around 8PM with the closest approach around midnight. I’m refilling my emergency water jugs because I just remembered that the water in them was a year old now and if we get flooding the water will most likely be undrinkable. If we lose power than I’ll have little way to boil any. Well, my neighbors at least. I have a gas burner on the balcony because you can’t boil a five gallon batch of wort on my electric stove.

I’d be nice if one of these happened during the day so I could get some pictures.

Update 7/18 12:10AM: HaiTang has stalled a bit. After a couple of hours of relative calm, the wind is picking back up. Me, I'm watch Three Amigos. For some reason I got the "He's so famous, he's in-famous" line in my head.

Anyway, I'll try and post some video.

He’s Coming Right for Us!

Super typhoon HaiTang that is. It’s supposed to be hitting us Sunday night. Earlier today they were expecting it to go directly over Taipei, but the new track has the eye about 60 miles south. Either way, it’ll get windy and the office should be closed Monday.

Why do typhoons get to be called “super typhoons” once they hit category 5 level and hurricanes are just category 5 hurricanes? I’m personally in favor of “super cyclone.”

Anyway, I have to go shopping like everyone else in town. My milk expires tomorrow and I have to have enough for my lattes Monday morning. I also need supplies to make rum and juice hurricanes, because who knows how long we will be stuck inside.