yesterday was excellent and today is the big 165

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yesterday i got to tear into the customer a bit, laughing at them in front of them, rolling my eyes and hanging up on them a couple times (i only got hung up on once). it's almost enjoyable to be able to act this way in front of these people. they know so very little about turbines that the questions they ask are quite entertaining, if not absolutely ridiculous. i was called on the phone at least twice yesterday to answer a question in the field. i answered them both on the phone and went on my business. the first call, i'd already answered the question as it was posed by the man doing the actual work, problem solved, then about an hour later the head bobblehead (HBH) called me up asking me about it, i toldhim it's resolved, no worries, but he insisted i come out and look at it. i did, we three conferred and even the worker was doing his best to help me make the HBH feel stupid. EXCELLENT! then second call, HBH called and asked me a question, i gave him the answer, then he called me out because there was some confusion. i go out, and a sub bobblehead (SBH) recited to me almost verbatim the answer i told HBH. WTF kids?! i just walked back to the office. wasn't even worth the effort.
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so last night emma needs to go get her sari blouses so i tagged along, we were going to be adventurous and try one of the restaurants o nthe way back from the sari shop. being it was a bit warm, we took an auto-rickshaw. we were putting down the road and some buses are coming in from the cross road at our right, but the rickshaw driver doesn't want to stop or back up (i'm guessing it is a passive form of indian road rage...). they don't EVER seem to want to backup... so he didn't... and the bus decided to run us over. after some grinding of metal, our driver BEATING on the side of the bus, and the rickshaw beginning to tip, the bus decided to stop and see what the problem was. the problem being our rickshaw crunched into it's side. it was awesome, my first indian accident and i was in probably one of the least safest modes of transportation. i'm not sure if any of you know that i have a strange fascination with touching moving vehicles. i had actually touched the bus in front of this one as it passed, and due to collision, i could hardly avoid touching this one as it was inches away from my person anyways. i was excited, emma was too but still she had a little more to worry about. had we tipped, i'd've fallen on her. then i would have to agree that that would've sucked. but luck was on our side. minor sheet metal damage to the rickshaw, probably damaged the driver's pride more than anything. then back to the hotel and whiskey (i sure know how to wrap up a story).

i wrote a piece-a-piss excel program to figure out how long i've been out of the country, today i entered "1" (for in my amazingly brilliant algorithm, 1="out of country"), and up popped the magic number (no... not 42), but 165. this year, i've been out of the country for 165 days. 165 * 2 = 330. 330 days is the limit one must stay out of the country in order to get their taxes back. so after today, i'm on the far side of the hill, i've traveled further than i have yet to go. it is awesome. i'll have to read the IRS rule again, but i do recall, once you are out 330 days, the next year you still have to be out 330 but you get to count half the days from the previous year. so i'm pushing on. i was getting excited. i was going to get ridiculously drunk and stupid on this day of days (i have very little to look forward to here). coincidentally, the customer has invited us to a cocktails and dinner party tonight. now i can get riciculously drunk and stupid on their dime (or rupee in this case). the last time the customer paid for a party, i ended up having HBH walk me to the vehicle as my legs had long ago given up on me, and enjoyed a full early morning doing the projectile vomiting thing and passing out on the lovely cold bathroom floor (no pix, sorry kids).

i wonder what joys await me tonight...