Never Looking Back

Tomorrow I head off for America with Megan to celebrate the holidays at home. Diep didn't want to go this year because she has some unfinished business in Saigon, and because her back hurts when she sits on the plane for transpacific flights. Megan and I will miss Diep, but we will only be apart for two weeks... I think we can all handle that.

I won't be back in Vietnam until after the new year.  As with every new year I am sure I will have some resolutions in hand.  I may have actually listed my resolutions in a post last year, but I am not looking back to see just how miserably I failed. Never looking back may just be the best approach for me to adopt.  Sure, there are those who tell us that we must learn from our mistakes.  With that, I agree.  But I don't want to dwell on those mistakes and failures.  I don't see the purpose.

So, I will barrel into 2013 with no regrets.  I can only hope this coming year treats me better than 2012. In 2012, I felt overwhelmed with the work load and new job I started.  The only good thing I can see in this waning year from my perspective is that I was able to set myself up for some monumental successes that should begin with the year 2013. Most good things come off the back of blood, sweat, and tears.  Everything else is just luck.

So here I am, never looking back.  I hope I am still young enough to keep looking foward.  I reckon I have a few more good years in me. I need to capitalize on those coming years.

I feel good now. Last week I suffered a bout of what I believe was Sciatica.  Basically, a pinched nerve, or bunch of nerves, that caused my lower back and hip muscles to tighten to the point of severe pain.  I doubt there is anything I can do about it, except hope it doesn't pop up again.  I just sat on my ass for a week and let it work itself out.  I guess I could have gone to a doctor, but my feeling about doctors on things like this is they can't do anything except charge you for medication to ease the pain and inflamation. I can get that on my own.

Feeling inspired...

I believe my sister's inspiration is contagious. I see that she has posted several blog entries in the last couple of weeks on her site and she has inspired me to want to do the same. Unfortunately, where the spirit goes the mind does not always follow.  That is to say, my inspiration will be in the mere form of a lowly sitrep. I attribute this lack of real spirit to jet lag.

Sunday, I got on a plane and traveled East, stopping briefly in Seoul and then continuing on across the International Date Line to the Island of Oahu.  I felt upgrade-fortunate because I was upgraded to business class from Hanoi to Seoul, my colleague and traveling partner was upgraded in auto rental (he is now my Chevy Malibu Chauffeur) and then when I arrived at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, I received an upgrade to the Rainbow Tower (which, by the way, has nothing to do with alternative lifestyle choices).  

I will be in meetings all week and leave on Saturday. I arrive in Hanoi Sunday night and leave again on Wednesday for a couple of weeks in Mobile, visiting Dad.  Megan will be traveling with me while Diep takes care of some things in her hometown of Saigon.  Megan will also take a detour to DC to see her friend for a couple of days. This will be her first independent trip in the U.S. and I think she is pretty excited. I am excited for her because I know in my heart her life adventure will blossom this year.  The choices she makes in the next few years will drive her the rest of her life and the excitement of those decisions and experiences is powerful. 

I had some back pain the past couple of weeks that has left me tender in my core region. From what I have read, I believe I have experienced sciatica.  I believe this is pretty prevalent in men my age... especially when they refuse to act their age in the gym and on the road.  I believe I brought it on with over exuberance in a new program I had and this time traveling will make it easier for me to take it easy.  I will begin anew next year in January and hopefully reach new heights.  As much as I have denied myself, I believe I will have to concentrate on my diet more than exercise next year if I want to stay pain free.  Walking around with an extra 20 pounds on me, no matter how otherwise fit I am is not good and I have to do something about it.

I am not sure how often I will update during the holiday season.  So, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Helicopter Inspections

Eevery six months, we do helicopter inspections of our contracted helicoper company to esnure safety of flight for our personnel and cargo. Our helicopter company has grown in the commercial arena leaps and bounds since I first flew on one of their aircraft in 1991, but many things remain unchanged. 

The helicopter company is a Vietnamese state owned enterprise (SOE) (a sort of hybrid between a government orgaization and a commercial entity).  These SOE's were born out of the communist system and offer a government entity the opportunity to make capital from commercial business with the government assets they are assigned.  Our servicing aircraft are Mi-172s, that look much like Mi-8s and Mi-17s. They are Russian manufactured aircraft, and the pilots are military personnel transferred to the commercial company.  Most of the pilots are senior colonels in their late forties and early fifties who cut their teeth in Russian training and Cambodian warfare.

I just finished interpreting for a group of inspectors at the helicopter company today, and in closing we drank copious amounts of vodka... Russian vodka.  Toasts were made to those inspectors who were here on their last inspection, the inspectors who would return on the next trip, the new facilities at the company, the success of the inspection.  And as we ran out of righteous toasts, we were forced to toast every new menu item that arrived at the table.  Needless to say, I am still "toasted" as I sit here writing this blog. And, I am writing this blog for fear I would otherwise delve into real work and find myself un-screwing things I did today, tomorrow.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I found myself sitting at the table reminiscing about the early days when I first arrived in Hanoi. There were dishes on the tables and smells in the air that took me back some twenty one years to when I first arrived in Hanoi. The simple pleasures of eating simple foods and drinking simple drinks.  The uncomplicated banter that military men talked under the now cold, misty, and cloudy skies of Hanoi.

I won't shed vodka tears over years gone by, but I do feel that empty feeling in the pit of my stomach wondering if I spent my youth the best way I could.

iPhone as my witness

This morning I ordered the ham and cheese omelette at Highland Cafe in Serena Tower. Eating at the Highland on Sunday has become somewhat of a ritual since we don't get breakfast at the Fraser on Sundays. I, too, being a creature of habit regularly order the ham and cheese omelette that come with three pieces of french bread and a hash brown. As often as not, the cafe does not have hash browns and the staff will apologize and offer french fries to replace the hash brown.

This morning, however, Diep was quick to notice there was no hash brown and the staff was just going to forego any  apology or offer to substitute for another side item. She immediately pulled out her iPhone as she called the staff over. It didn't occur to me at first what she was doing, but it hit me quickly enough.  You see, Diep has developed this habit of whipping out her camera or iPhone to document whatever injustice - great or small - she has experienced. It begins as a subtle threat that, if her injustice is not properly addressed, she will post the picture on the internet - usually by means of her Facebook account - so that ALL of her 66 friends can unite in solidarity against the monster she is fighting.

Oddly enough, the tactic seems to work. This is even funnier when you realize that in a country like Vietnam, it is unlikely anyone would ever win a lawsuit against a company for serving coffee too hot, or mopping a floor without proper signage to prevent a slip or fall that could break a hip. I can't recall ever seeing any such lawsuit filed against any company for such violations, or perceived violations.  Nevertheless, the staff will usually cower and put on their biggest "sceart" face offering proper deference to my wife.

In the meantime, Diep's computer memory is filling up with photos of flat tires, broken pipes, plates of hashbrown-less omelettes, and any myriad of other malfunctions we encounter in life. Lord knows it is someone's fault, and this injustice will be documented. My iPhone as my witness.

Moving into the Christmas Season

I had to change my title page photo after reading somewhere that my sister just couldn't get into the Christmas spirit this year, even after admitting it has long been her favorite holiday of the year.  I know what she means! Christmas has been my favorite holiday as well... Some of my fondest memories come from Christmas season.  Some of those memories may lean toward the Christmas season because that is the time of year family photos are taken, family visitors arrive, and celebrations take place.  Thus, the memories linger in the photos much longer than, say, even birthdays.

No doubt, this season for me will be the busiest ever. I will be traveling throughout the month of December, and even into January. Fortunately, I will be making a trip back home as well.  It will be good to be in the U.S. during the holiday season this year.  It seems like it has been forever!

Megan is really excited because she hopes to incorporate a trip to D.C. to see a friend when we get back to Mobile. My little girl is growing up.

Politics and Facebook Don't Mix

I guess different people manage their social media life in different ways. I am talking specifically about Facebook, though there are other social media applications out there that serve different purposes. For example, I have a Google + account that I like to follow what other people are "trending" about and I use Panoramio to geocache my photos and view some of the splendid photos other people post . I may have one or two other accounts out their, but I haven't used them in so long, it isn't likely I will return to them any time soon.

But back to Facebook, I imagine some people choose their friends on their like-mindedness while others chose their friends based on who they are related to, who they knew in high school, college, who they work with, who they play sports with, etc.  And, sometimes that like-mindedness mixes in with the other categories; but, sometimes it doesn't.

I try to be liberal about the way I view other people's views. That is to say, I really don't care what people think, believe, adhere to, aspire to, compulse or obsess over as long as it doesn't affect me.  Saying "I don't care" may sound like an exagerration, like maybe I really do care but I want to pretend I don't. In actuality, I don't care. That has put me in a bind of sorts, because now I have all of these friends from different walks of life, different sexual orientations, different beliefs and different politics. I thought it would be cool because, in my virtual world, I could learn about and impathize with other people.

Unfortunately, I find that I really don't want to impathize. Not in a malicious way, but more in an apathetical way. I think people expect so much out of life, in so many aspects of their life that they are very vocal - or whatever that is when you are typing instead of speaking - about what they think, believe, adhere to, etc.  Also regrettably, some people tend to care what I think, believe, adhere to, etc, but in a way that wants to change my mind about something, or worse yet, in a way that I feel judged.  Actually I don't feel judged because as I said before I really don't care.  And, that is because I think I have thought my tenets in life through before going out to everyone in the virtual world and proclaiming things that BE.  Actually, I thought it through so well that I will almost never spontaneously say something on FB that I think would make people disagree with me.

I keep it simple by posting pictures, and statuses - or is that stati for plural? - that are very finite, i.e. this is my family at this place, I am somewhere, I saw something - things that are very hard to dispute. I think people enjoy those posts and I know I like seeing that on other people's walls... no matter how boring those people may be.

I guess I am working something out in my own head right here on my blog. My dilemma is this:  Though I try to respect everyone's opinion, I don't necessarily like to read it. Especially when that post makes me want to respond negatively - even when I don't care. So here I am trying to convince myself to ditch all of my "friends" who I consider to be the most politically vocal.  Technically, I could just hide them and they would never be the wiser, but for whatever reason I really don't want to do that. And that is weird, because, with the innocuous posts that I put on, it is very unlikely that I would get any one of these people riled up enough to respond to one of my stati. Maybe it is because I feel my silence would be some sort of tacit approval to whatever it is they are posting, when in fact, on one hand I think it is distasteful to bait your friends with one-sided comments, reposts, shares, memes, etc, and on the other hand, I don't care.  I was hoping the end of the election would be the end of all of these malicious posts, but it hasn't been. Not yet. 

So all ultra-conservatives and liberals out there are on notice. My "friends" list may be getting smaller in the near future. Next on my list would be the people who post picture after picture of that cute dog or cat that needs a home. While I understand the sentiment, I just get tired of scrolling through them.  My final goal is to cut my morning FB wake-up check down to around five minutes rather than the 20 it takes me to get through the night's updates at this time.

Firsts

I have been gone since the beginning of November and thought it might be time for an update.  For those who are paying attention, my job has changed a little bit and now I work in investigations. I am currently the team leader for a miniature investigation team scheduled to work until next week. The idea is to address some investigations off the beaten track so a larger, more expensive team doesn't have to go off the grid to do the same thing. The concept is to save money without sacrificing quality.

Anyway, because of what I just explained, I have spent more waking hours in a vehicle or airplane than I have in a hotel or on a site. That is just the nature of the game.  Through the mission, however, I have done a few more firsts in a country I thought there weren't very many firsts left for me.  For example, during this trip, it was the first time I ate a coconut grub... actually about four of them. Not sure I could have eaten them raw, but these babies were stir fried, and filled with tasty warm grub juice. Actually, "tasty" might be a deceptive word, because it does seem to imply "good" when I wouldn't want that impression to get out.  During that meal, we also allegedly had liquor made from a distillation of stewed mouse marrow, "rượu cao chuột". To top it off, we had fresh durian (stinky) fruit.  It was a little ripe and resembled in no distant manner baby puke on a large, smooth seed pit.

Other firsts include riding on National Highway 14 from Saigon to Pleiku.  One of the most miserable rides in Vietnam I have yet to take.  Expressway? Not! First time? Yes. And, I experienced a first when I stepped on a thorn - several, actually - that were long, strong, and sharp enough to go right through the sole of my Merrel hiking boots, barely penetrating the sole of my foot. After the first one, I felt like I was in a mine field, constantly afraid the next thorn was going to be a little bit longer.

We are on a timing break in Danang before heading to Dong Ha, Quang Tri Province tomorrow.  Nice to have a break from the driving, even though it is catch up time on reporting. 

Sorry I have no pictures to post. I only have my work computer and due to security, can't download pictures from the camera to the work station. Hopefully I will get time to post after I return to Hanoi.