Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Contemplation

I am sitting here at the DoubleTree Hotel on the edge of Waikiki in Hawaii writing this blog just before I get on a bus for the airport.  I have had 9 days to think about everything and nothing at the same time.  I guess the everything would be memorizing the 600-page Security Plus Study Guide (the purpose for my time in Hawaii) and nothing being those things that we are always weighing and considering in the form of life and career choices.

Anyone who has talked to me recently probably knows I have been considering leaving Vietnam to return to a stateside job.  I would prefer a job on the mainland, but I have also considered coming to Hawaii.  No doubt the air is fresher and the trees are greener here in Hawaii.  Aesthetically, it would be tough to beat this place.  But, the financial hit would be big.  Accounting for travel tickets to Vietnam and the U.S. to visit family and buying or renting a house here in Hawaii would leave little or no expendable income.  Final conclusion? I think I will stay in Hanoi until 1) Someone makes me leave or 2) Megan graduates high school.

The computer training has got me to thinking I might would like to slide careers into the technical realm. That, too, has been put on hold. I don't think starting over at this point is such a good idea.  I enjoy the idea of working with computers all day, but the idea of customer service doesn't excite me so much.  The fact is, if you are working on computers or networks, usually you are dealing with people whose computers or networks aren't working.

So, I think it is good for people to have a little time to sit back and contemplate.  I have had my 9 days in the sun (figuratively; I studied in the room most of my time here) and now I am ready to get back to Hanoi.  Even if I am only there for three days before I leave for the U.S. on vacation.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Taking a class in Hawaii

Since Sunday, I have been in Hawaii.  I came here to take a course to prepare me for Security + certification.  I will take the cert test on Monday.  So, I will be here for the remainder of this week and through the weekend and head back to Hanoi on Tuesday, the day after the test.

I haven't been out much, though I have decided I will try to run every morning before class.  It is easy to run here because the weather is ideal and the roads are very easy to run on.  I do walk to class, which is about a mile from the hotel I am staying in, which gives me a little extra exercise as well.

In the little time I spend outside of the classroom or in the hotel room, I have noticed two things that disturb me.  The first thing is the number of homeless people on the outskirts of Waikiki.  I attribute the large number in this particular area to the close proximity of Wal Mart.  Wal Mart tends to attract the lowest common denominator in society and Hawaii seems to be no exception.  For the most part, these people leave me and everyone else alone.  One asked me for a dollar and another asked me for a quarter (I can only imagine the one who asked for a quarter was in flashback mode, because you can't buy buggars for a quarter here).  I bet the cops aren't too gentle with them if a tourist complains, so they tend to stay clear and quiet.

The other thing that disturbs me is the number of people who smoke here. I think anyone that smokes in Hawaii shold be shipped out... they don't deserve the fresh air here!  I have been living in Hanoi so long that the clean air in Hawaii burns my lungs.  It is so nice to be able to breathe what might be the freshest air in the world, but some just aren't happy with it and have to fill their lungs with smoke.  Go figure!

The hardest thing for me so far is keeping away from the high calorie food.  Take a look at a few of the locals and it gets easier to believe the food is just a tad rich here.  I busted out on Sunday and Monday, but I think I am reigning my control back in now.

The classes are going well, if not a little boring. I can't afford to fail this certification test.  I don't think I could take the derision that would meet me back home in the office.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Heading to Hawaii

Today is my last day in Hanoi. Tonight I will get on an airplane bound for Hawaii for a week of Security Plus training.  I can’t imagine the training will be that tough, so it will be some time that I can relax a little.  Unfortunately, my driver’s license is expired so I can’t rent a car.  The good news is that the training location is less than a mile from the hotel I will be staying at.

This is all coming after a fairly stressful last couple of weeks.  I was responsible for putting together two important visits for high level people who came to see our sites.  That along with the myriad of other tasks I have during a field activity.  It isn’t that any one thing is hard, just that dropping one of a hundred parts of a visit can lead to a bad impression.  It was complicated by the fact that I was tasked with my own responsibilities in other areas making me remote control a lot of what I was doing.

Diep and Megan are in Saigon and I know Diep is thinking about taking Megan to Cambodia for a visit to Phnom Penh.  Megan has a school mate who left last year for the Cambodian Capital and she is looking forward to reuniting for a little while.

My home leave is drawing near quickly.  I will be gone during an important time at the office, but those events did not get put on the calendar until after I had already arranged my trip.  Fact is, there is never a good time to take leave in this job. I won’t let the things I am going to miss affect my good time at home, though.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Can't be in more than one place at the same time...

Things are starting to get pretty crazy at work.  Some new requirements came up and it has changed the schedule around quite a bit.  The upside is that I will be in Hanoi tomorrow to go to Megan's 8th grade graduation ceremony.  She will be a high schooler next year, and that just makes me feel... OLD!

The other upside is that I get to go to Saigon, if for but a night.  I will be doing some field forensic reviews with an old friend who is an anthropologist.  The downside is this new schedule has me gone a lot more overall than the earlier plan and I will be much busier as I get closer to my departure date for the computer training in Hawaii.  And, the home leave that comes up right after that. The other downside - and inspiration for thepost title -  is that I will be unable to manage itineraries that I put together for some VIP visits.  I know someone else should be able to pick it up and go with it, but when something goes wrong it is best to have the guy who put everything together fix it.

I had a small heart attack (figuratively) two days ago when I realized that I am going to Hawaii and my driver's license expired in January of this year.  I haven't even thought about it, because we don't use our DL's here for much at all.  Anyway, the reason this affects my trip is because you can't rent a car with an expired license.  If the training I was taking was too far away from the hotel, I would be taking taxis all of the time and that just would have been costly and time consuming.  After a little research, I found out that my hotel and the training site are only about a mile from each other.  Looks like I will get a little walking exercise every day during the training period.  The weather in Hawaii is much more conducive to walking than here in Hanoi.  One mile in Hanoi at this time of year means I would be sweating through my shirt by the time I reached my destination.  Hawaii temps are much milder... it should be fun.