Per E's Request . . .

There's not that much to tell about Songkran, but I'll share what I can.

The festival started on Wednesday. It's a New Year celebration. The Thais don't need much of an excuse to have a party, and they celebrate three different New Years. The Western one, the Chinese one, and Songkran.

The water pitols started coming out Tuesday evening and they continued on through till Friday evening. The whole city turned into a state of water warfare, but most of the action occured in a placed called "Kao San road", which is known as kind of haven for backpackers due to the high concentration of young foreigners and the cheap hotels. Apparently young Thais are drawn there also, especially during Songkran. It's where just everyone goes who is looking for fun during the festival. I, being an old geezer, wasn't interested in having a water fight so I stayed away from Kao San road. Besides, most of the action takes place during daylight, during which time I had to work.

A second big wet spot, though, is right where I live and work, here on Sukhumwit road. I live on Soi 4 which also has one of the main "entertainment complexes" of the city. The workers and patrons of this complex, as well as all of the bars and restaurants surrounding it for 3 or 4 blocks, all got into the action. For me, that was the Green Mile. I could navigate around the folks outside KFC and Starbucks, but I have to walk down Soi 4 to get home. And so, 2 out the 4 nights I was completely drenched. Little kids with water hoses, older kids perched onto of 3 story buildings taking sniper positions with super soakers, and scores of merchants standing in their businesses with buckets of water to throw and anyone and everyone.

Friday, actually, I almost made it. The "entertainers" had put away their guns because it was late by the time I walked home (about 7:00). I was about 2 blocks from my apartment I saw this group of regular Thais dancing about with numerous water propelling devices. They were obviously having a great time and very inwardly focused. So, I tried to scoot around behind them. I almost made it, but had to pass in front of one guy, about 25 years old. When he saw me, he called out to his friends, took me by the arm and led me into their little circle, and they all just poured water on me.

That's the thing, in many cases it's like a baptism. We go to eat at this little restaurant across the street from work. On Wednesday as we approached the girls that work there just took a little water and poured it on our arms. There was no soaking, so that wasn't the point. It was more of a little bit of ceremony.

Now Songkran is over I can walk the streets again in safety.

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Live, from Bangkok

Hm, ok, well maybe a few hours old by the time you read this. But I can swear that as I am writing this I am live! Wooohoo!

Ok, I guess I'm a little giddy because I finally completed the descriptive analysis for the Thai data. I've been working on it all week trying to meet the deadline of today, and I did. About 400,000 records, about 400 fields per record. It shows that Thailand fits right into the epidemiological pattern that TASC saw in Vietnam and Bangledesh... namely, that injury is a major killer of children and the major killer of kids older than 5. For a developing country, that's a very important finding. With scarce resources to invest in health and education, a society is basically throwing away that investment if a kid makes it to age 8 and gets killed because he was playing in the road.

Anyway, that's work. Today is the last official day of Songkran, and I have not been immune to the water. I've been hit twice so far... and I'm sure it'll be very wet on the way home today. Mind you, when I say I've been hit I mean that I've had a bucket or hose turned loose on me, completely soaking any and all clothing.

Have a luncheon tomorrow with Chit, one of the leading public health scientists/advocates in Thailand who also works with TASC periodically. We'll go over the data I finished today. Oh, the other funky thing is that MegaBoss is planning on me speaking at a donors conference in Atlanta sometime in the fall. That'll be intimidating... the audience will be some pretty important folks at UNICEF, the CDC, and other public health institutions, not to mention the donors. Still, it'll be fun. A free trip to Atlanta... wait, is that a good thing?

Hm, what else. I guess that's all for now. I'm still mulling over the question of foolish dreams vs. ones worth pursuing. I think I'm gonna give this one a little chase... but I'm not 100% yet. Oh, I also have to write a letter to Tulane to declare my candidacy for the phd program. It looks like my teacher will have plenty of work to keep my on the payroll come the fall... now it's just a matter of 1) getting focused, and 2) getting accepted. Do I want to come back to Tulane? Is it possible for me to stay here and take classes remotely? Would I want that? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

Thupt.

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Ramblings

I get in these moods where I am so self-reflective that I can't see outside through the fog in my head. It happens occasionally, and luckily for the world I now have a convenient place to share those thoughts with the whole world. But, that's OK, I'm trying to become less guarded, anyway. And what does it really matter?

Thank you, Sammy, for the unexpected words of support... although I expect it was more of just a jab at "the interventioner". Made me laugh, anyway. I don't know what I'll do. I carry this crazy vision around with me everyday, it influences my choices and colors my conversations, but the reality is that its just a dream; reality is far less accomodating. When is it brave to chase a dream? And when is it just foolish?

On a more mundane note, I saw a couple of odd sights this morning on my way in to work. Rolling down Soi 4, on the street, mind you, was a Seque Human Transporter (aka SH*T), complete with a Human! It's the first time I've seen one, it was very quiet. Seems like an idea whose time has not yet come. It's too big and fast to safely move on the sidewalk, but it's too exposed and slow to move on the street.... well, US streets anyway. He was moving fast enough for the Soi. And it's so expensive! Seems like the best idea for its use is in places like airports, factories and warehouses, where the area is big and someone may need to travel quickly and easily from one end to the other.

Also, there was something odd going on at the JW Marriott on Soi 2... I walk past it on the way to work, and there was security there waving what looked like metal detectors over taxi cabs as they pulled up to the front. Is this a new general level of security, or is a VIP staying there? If so, who could it be, hm? And what were they actually waving, anyway? I would think a metal detector would be pretty much useless, since the whole car is metal. But that's what it looked like...

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TASC's New Website

Yay, I've build a website. It's pretty simple, but more effective at communicating our mission that the previous one.

Bossman#2 wrote the copy in Publisher, I cleaned it up in Dreamweaver.

Check it out:

www.tasc-gcipf.org

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A Pear-y UnManly Dissertation

Anyone expecting details will be sorely disappointed...

So life in Baton Rouge was pretty good. I must say I was happy. Family and friends, little stress, freedom to geek out on games or movies. But there was one key element missing: true love. My grandmother keeps asking me "if I've found that little girl yet." I tell her (for example) "No, grandmom, not yet! I've been looking everywhere, too! Under rocks, in the closet... I thought I saw her yesterday underneath some heads of cabbage, but it was just a piece of fuzz." My grandmom is ... gosh ... upper 80s. She laughs at that joke, it's like a running gag between us.

I have several friends that appear to have found true love. Marriage is not always easy, or so I've been told, but is made possible when two people are working together to make it work. When both give and both are committed to the same ideal. I believe love is all you need... but love is not what most people say it is. Love is not butterflies in your stomache, or the groove of your hip. It's not quiet breakfasts spent together or late nights on the dance floor. It's not flowers or chocolates or jewelry or watches, not champaign or tuxedos or raw oysters.

All those things are wonderful and bring you together, but love what happens after all that. It's partnership, a shared future; it's knowing what your partner is thinking just by looking at her. It's complete trust. It's listening and being heard. Love is when you cease to be "I" and become "We". Love is submission.

What do you do when, after 32 years of being content with solitude, and one thinks he has found someone to love, but that someone is just out of reach? Like a succulent pear on the end of very long branch in a tall tree... if you could just stretch a little but further, you might pluck it... but more likely the branch will snap you'll take a very hard fall. Emotionally, psychologically, professionally, everything is at risk. The reach is long, the fall is hard, but the pear's nectar is sweet. What do you do? What if you tried before, only to take that fall? What if you know that its even further out than it looks? But it seems to be right there... just... at the end... of your fingertips...

What do you do?

Don't answer that question.

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April 4

32. That puts me halfway to 64. 1/3 of the way to 96. So that means that, if I'm particularly long-lived then I'm only 1/3 of the way through with my life. If you figure that grown up life began at 18 (with college) then I've only lived 14 adult years, with about 40-55 more to go.

I guess I'm not dead yet :)

Thank you to all that wished me a happy birthday. Kristy, you have to come visit. Smiling at pretty girls is par for the course. Actually, yesterday I started to get a little blow-back from that. I live on Soi 4, which (keeping this a family-friendly blog) has many bars. Seeing me walk by everyday and not introduce myself to the patrons of these bars has apparently made some of them a little bitter, because one of them said some unpleasant things. It seems that, on Soi 4, at least, Thailand is the land of smiles so long as you are a visitor with baht to spend.

Anyway, that wouldn't spoil my day. Although I didn't do much... a little bit of work, I watched "In Good Company"... played some pool... I was pleasantly suprised when one of my Thai friends that I met last summer gave me a present. It was a fine day.

Today, though, it's raining hard. My pants are soaked from walking about 8 blocks in the rain. Soi 1, which is where our office is located, is flooded. No one else came in today, which is good because I can use the time to get some work done for Mike before he returns tomorrow.

Oh, and if you didn't notice, my mom updated the Wanda Rouge post yesterday. Wanda Rouge has moved on to the great pond in the sky. No word yet on if we will soon be seeing Wanda Taupe swimming in the hills of North Carolina.

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