Daily Report: Upswing, Bits and Pieces

I think my work might be finally turning the corner after six months of rubbish. I simply had to deal with so many changes in my job (all of them negative), that they compounded together to make the sum worse than the parts. Now, I'm getting used to the changes and, more importantly, their effects on my work day. It took a while.

I put the WiFi router down in the TV room and now we have wireless internet throughout the house.

I spilled a drop (one drop!) of apple juice in my keyboard last week and thought for sure that my world would be covered with ants, but none showed up... until today. I came back from lunch and they had found gold. Unfortunately, the only product available to stop ants in The Philippines are these sticks of chalk you buy: You draw a line and the ants won't cross it. The ants will go around it... but that's your problem. How does one draw a chalk line around a keyboard? Fortunately, I had a good idea: I crushed up a bit of the chalk and poured it into my keyboard and then blew it around inside there a bit. Worked like a charm.

Epril had her first official monthly Expatriates' Ladies Charity Meeting today. The first meeting was focused on getting members passports: They had the director from the Department of Foreign Affairs come in and help them fill out passport applications, and talk about visa issues and things like that. If Epril wants to change to her married name in her passport, we're going to have to fly to Cebu for a class of some sort. I'm not sure what that is about. It better not be that I have to miss a couple of days of work for some 20-minute little talk that could have been done over the phone or something.

The electric motorcycle I bought is a real hit here in Jasaan. I think that lots of people are going "hmmm" about the thought of never buying gasoline again. I don't think it's a good primary vehicle for most people because of the 30-mile range (15 miles round trip), but I suppose if you don't mind taking a jeepney into CDO, it could work.

I'm supposed to get my Motorstar motorcycle back from the mechanic today. It's been just about a month. Apparently mechanic Jun is going to have recurring nightmares about the day he agreed to put a rear disc brake on my bike for $120.

The water is still messed up in the house. I would say it's getting more messed up as we go on. It really sucks something awful. The more I get settled into the house, the more I realize what shit is missing, broken, or needs to be taken care of. It's not a big list, and it doesn't make life impossible... but they are minor annoyances that are going to need fixing sooner rather than later.