Number 30

Another quiet day yesterday. Picked up my suit, which I think looks really well made. Had lunch with Aom at his favorite little Thai place. Got gas in the car before Bruce got back. Lastly we stopped at the flower market to get some flowers for Wendy's birthday. Everyone kicked in a few baht and Aom picked out some nice flowers.

"Chaired" the Monday morning staff meeting which started around 3PM and was a pretty amusing time. Most importantly I watched the end of the 5 day test match between India and England. The nice thing about cricket is that you can go away for a few hours, or days and when you come back they're still playing, England was up by 387 but India came back to win. Very big deal. My favorite parts of cricket, that I've now come to understand, are when they stop for; lunch, drinks and tea. I'm trying to find a cricket ball to bring home...

Bruce and Wendy flew back from the Philippines with about 10 suitcases so we all greeted them at the house and helped get everything inside and unpacked. They had some good stories about the end of the conference and their trip back and then Wendy went home to have some Birthday time with her family.

Today I need to pack and head for the airport around noon for my flights to Vietnam. First to Bangkok and then to Hanoi. Hope to have decent Internet there to continue the blog and email. Sam and Dave, my new best friends, have invited me to come to Laos over Xmas to visit. They, along with Thip and Nang, got permission from Bruce to go home over Xmas as the school term is over and there's nothing for them to do for a week. They haven't seen their families for 2 months so I told them they needed to be with them and not have a guest to take care of. They insisted, so if Joe doesn't come out here during that time I might go. I still want to get to Pai and maybe an island in the South and I still think they need to spend time with their wives and kids so...who knows?

Late last night I had a nice talk with Bruce while we sat outside and checked out the moon and stars. He's heading for the US today so we had a "debriefing" session of sorts. I really admire his passion and dedication to helping people and his occasional excess of intensity doesn't bother me. In fact it seems more like that neurotic Hebraic thing more then anything else.

And so, yesterday clearly qualified as another good day in Chiang Mai. We'll see what Vietnam brings today...