Daily Report: Humming Along

Epril speed tested the cellular internet at the new house today: 327 Kbps up and 339 down. That's fantastic... especially for $20 per month. And it will (should) only go down as often as the cellular network goes down... which is close to never here. (As a point of comparison, the cable internet here at the current house tested at 502 Kbps up and 236 down... and I've been paying $100 per month, and it goes down once or twice per month for an hour or two at a time, and an additional once or twice per week for 10 or 15 minutes at a time.)

Epril and Susan did some packing and moving today... mostly decor and the first bits of Epril's now-considerable wardrobe. (She has more shirts than the next 20 people put together... but at least she never pays more than $4 or $5 for a shirt, and they are nice shirts, so it's not too bad.) The girls hired one of the local vans that drives folks around the neighborhood for the day to drive them out to Jasaan with the first load: $14 for the trip.

I had a chili dog from Jollibee for lunch, and some bar-be-que chicken for dinner. I bought some Hershey's strawberry syrup after discovering that it was a key ingredient for fruit shakes in the local restaurants... thinking that it might be a viable alternative to fresh strawberries (which don't exist here) in strawberry margaritas. Wrong. Very wrong. God I miss Bob's strawberry margaritas.

Several people have asked me why I always wear a bandanna. Simple reason actually: Upon moving to Thailand 6 years ago, I discovered that as I've aged, I've developed the sweatiest scalp in history... day or night, as long as the weather is anything warmer than cool. (I perspire no where else on my body either... just up top.) Being bald, that meant I was always trying to keep sweat out of my eyes. I started off by always wearing a black newsboy cap that I had (I hate baseball caps), and that did an okay job of soaking it up. Then I started driving a motorcycle and wearing a helmet, so the hat got left behind and I went for a couple of years just walking around with constantly-soaked shirtsleeves. My friend Rick always wore a bandanna out in the sun, so I tried that, and have stuck with it ever since. And yes, since it has become a sort of "visual leitmotif" or distinguishing feature by which people remember me, I suppose I wouldn't give it up unless forced to do so. And no, it's not because I'm self-conscious about being bald: I started losing my hair when I was 16 years old; that was an emotional hassle settled long ago.

Epril squeals and giggles whenever these "Jonas Brothers" come on TV (which seems to be constantly). They don't seem particularly good looking or talented when compared to boy bands from the past. Well, if anybody knows any redeeming value they might hold, or any worthwhile songs they might have written, I'd be happy to know about it.