After my post yesterday, I thought of a few more things I meant to say – some of which were in my other, universally acclaimed by all who ever read it – namely: me, post that was accidentally deleted:

• TV: My little 19″ tv that is owned by my landlord died last week, so I bought a new tv. Part of my newfound laziness stems from my current habit of sitting around playing Xbox games at night versus running, etc. Games are about $1.50 a piece here, so it’s hard not to buy everything that comes out – and they get the games before they even come out in the U.S. somehow. Also, I bought the box set of DVDs for the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” series on HBO (created and starring Larry David, who was also the creator of “Seinfeld”). I had seen a few episodes before, but never the whole thing. It is really funny. There have been several times where I’ve laughed out loud at some of the predicaments Larry gets himself in. If you have seen it, I would recommend it. Anyway, given my Xbox and DVD-watching habits, I quickly went out and bought a new, 29″ Panasonic tv. Nothing too fancy – no HD or flat screen, etc. – just a big, old-fashioned CRT tv. But it was only $280, so that’s good. Anyway, I’m all set. Thank you for your concern.

• Camera: My Canon SLR is finally repaired. It took a while – and a couple of different repair shops – to dial in the problem and get it corrected, but it’s done. So now I can finally use my new zoom lens that my friend Glenda delivered to me when she and Jun came to Vietnam a couple of months ago. I am glad to have it repaired before I go to Myanmar in April.

• Myanmar: Speaking of which, I wanted to point out that it is not just Thao’s opinion that the Vietnamese name for Myanmar translates to “Country of the Electric Noodle.” I also looked it up in the dictionary and asked one of my classes at school. It checks out.

• Shorts: I mentioned my current flouting of Vietnamese custom and tradition by posing as a tourist and wearing shorts around. One downside – and maybe one reason the Vietnamese themselves don’t do so: Last week I burned the shit out of the back of my right calf. I parked my motorbike somewhere – I don’t even remember where I was – and as I got off, the back of my right calf hit the exhaust pipe/muffler of the motorbike to my left. It hurt like hell and I’ve now got about a quarter-sized burn mark on the back of my calf. I don’t know enough about burns (thankfully) to know whether it’s a first degree or second degree burn, etc. In Mississippi the official designation would be “Son, you done burnt (not burned, burnt) the ever-living shit out of your leg.” Which I already know. But anyway. It’s a fairly common problem here in Vietnam apparently. While they don’t wear shorts, a lot of the women wear skirts, and I commonly see burn marks and scars on the backs of women’s calves as they ride around town on their motorbikes. So I am not alone. If by “not alone” I mean I may be the only man in Vietnam with a burn mark on the back of his calf because the other men don’t wear shorts, but at least I am in solidarity with my burned/scarred nguoi Viet sistren.

• James and Erin: When I was going over my list of possible visits/cancellations, I forgot that my friends James (who I used to work with in Atlanta) and his wife, Erin, may come here in July. They haven’t fully confirmed yet – the last I heard James was looking at booking flights – but I hope they come!

• After posting those posts yesterday, I rode my motorbike downtown and hung out for a few hours. I am trying to buy some extra memory for my laptop. I want to buy a gigabyte of RAM, but my laptop has some old style of RAM – 333mhz as opposed to 667mhz – which means nothing to me – that is hard to find. I’ve supposedly zeroed in on a store that sells the old-style RAM, but they were closed on Sunday so I’m going back this morning. I’m going to buy a new laptop altogether later this year, so I don’t want to spend too much, but it would be nice to give this old laptop a bump in the meantime if I can do it without spending too much money. After that I did some shopping – I bought two pairs of black socks – I brought a ton of black socks with me over here – and even bought some additional ones at Sam’s when I was home in December, but they’ve somehow almost all disappeared and I’m down to my last two pairs. I don’t know what my various maids have done with all of them. Maybe they sell them on the black market because I will tell you this – it is hard as hell to find a decent, normal pair of black dress socks in this country. Someone told me that Vietnam is the largest exporter of socks in the world. That may be the case, but if it is then they are exporting 100% of them and not directing any socks to the domestic market. I’ve looked all over the place. Anyway, the ones I bought yesterday are okay but not great. So Dad, get ready to bring me a bunch of socks when you come here in June! After that I went and bought two shirts – knockoff Polo dress shirts for $15 a piece. “Fixed price.” They actually look pretty good for knockoffs. Then I went and ate at my favorite Indian restaurant here, then home to play a little Xbox (I finished Rainbow Six Vegas 2 yesterday – good but basically just an extension of the first game – also too short), then watched a movie. I rewatched “Layer Cake” – which I still think is an incredible movie. One of my favorites. I watched it with subtitles on, because I have always had a hard time picking up on the heavy English accents in movies like “Layer Cake,” “Snatch,” etc. Great movie. Also, a great soundtrack, which I had forgotten about. I am not a big Rolling Stones fan, but I have to say that song “Gimme Shelter” is pretty incredible. Anyway, it did turn out to be a lazy Sunday, but I got more done that I thought I would.

• So today, it’s about 10:00am right now and I am back at Gloria Jean’s. I’ll finish checking and responding to emails and reading the news on the internet, then head back downtown. I’m going to try to buy that RAM, I’ve got to go pay a bill, and I need to buy a couple of things for my camera. Then I’ve got my Vietnamese lesson from 4 to 6pm, and sometime I’ve also got to make sure I’m prepared for class tomorrow. They’re observing us teach a class this week – part of determining whether we’re going to be offered a new contract after this semester, so I need to do a good job tomorrow.

I can’t remember if I’ve ever posted anything on this blog about one of my favorite bands – and I’m too damn lazy to do a search to see if I have – but if you haven’t ever listened to Neutral Milk Hotel, you should.  They were a loosely formed band – really just the lead singer Jeff Mangum and whomever he happened to be jamming with at the time – based out of Athens, Georgia and part of a group of collaborative musicians called the Elephant 6 Collective.

In 1998, they released what is one of my favorite albums of all time, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.  I can’t remember how or where I heard about it – it may have been when I read an interview with Michael Stipe of R.E.M. and they asked him about the music scene in Athens at the time and he mentioned Neutral Milk Hotel.  Or I may have already had the CD by then – I can’t remember.  But when I first got the CD, I didn’t really like it.  It was kind of hard to get into and wasn’t really my normal style of music – with the horns, etc.  But like with “On the Radio,” by Regina Spektor, little snippets of the lyrics kept catching my attention.  The one that finally got me – that made me really sit down and listen to the entire CD and realize how great it was – was this lyric:  “And here’s where your mother sleeps, and here is the room where your brothers were born, indentions in the sheets, where their bodies once moved but don’t move anymore.”  I was like “Did he just say what I think he said?”  So that got me.

And a lot of other people feel equally strong feelings about In the Aeroplane Over the Sea:  http://onavery.blogspot.com/2007/09/im-very-skeptical-man-and-dont-believe.html

Anyway, Neutral Milk Hotel hasn’t released anything since In the Aeroplane Over the Sea in 1998, at least not that I know of.  But it is still one of my favorite albums, and I continue to hear things in the lyrics that intrigue me/freak me out.  Here are a couple of songs (if they work) and the lyrics:

Two-Headed Boy, Pt. 1

Two-headed boy

All floating in glass

The sun it has passed

Now it’s blacker than black

I can hear as you tap on your jar

I am listening to hear where you are

I am listening to hear where you are

Two-headed boy

Put on Sunday shoes

And dance round the room to accordion keys

With the needle that sings in your heart

Catching signals that sound in the dark

Catching signals that sound in the dark

We will take off our clothes

And they’ll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine

And when all is breaking everything that you could keep inside

Now your eyes ain’t moving now

They just lay there in their clouds

Two-headed boy

With pulleys and weights

Creating a radio played just for two

In the parlor with a moon across her face

And through the music he sweetly displays

Silver speakers that sparkle all day

Made for his lover who’s floating and choking with her hands across her face

And in the dark we will take off our clothes

And they’ll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine

And when all is breaking everything that you could keep inside

Now your eyes ain’t moving now

They just lay there in their clouds

Two-headed boy

There is no reason to grieve

The world that you need is wrapped in gold silver sleeves

Left beneath Christmas trees in the snow

And I will take you and leave you alone

Watching spirals of white softly flow

Over your eyelids and all you did

Will wait until the point when you let go

Holland 1945

The only girl I’ve ever loved

Was born with roses in her eyes

But then they buried her alive

One evening 1945

With just her sister at her side

And only weeks before the guns

All came and rained on everyone

Now she’s a little boy in Spain

Playing pianos filled with flames

On empty rings around the sun

All sing to say my dream has come

But now we must pick up every piece

Of the life we used to love

Just to keep ourselves

At least enough to carry on

And now we ride the circus wheel

With your dark brother wrapped in white

Says it was good to be alive

But now he rides a comet’s flame

And won’t be coming back again

The Earth looks better from a star

That’s right above from where you are

He didn’t mean to make you cry

With sparks that ring and bullets fly

On empty rings around your heart

The world just screams and falls apart

But now we must pick up every piece

Of the life we used to love

Just to keep ourselves

At least enough to carry on

And here’s where your mother sleeps

And here is the room where your brothers were born

Indentions in the sheets

Where their bodies once moved but don’t move anymore

And it’s so sad to see the world agree

That they’d rather see their faces fill with flies

All when I’d want to keep white roses in their eyes

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[The Gloria Jean's cafe where I hang out plays a lot of really good music - my only complaint is they constantly play the same stuff over and over again and need to insert some fresh material - but at least it's good.  They play this one song that I've never heard before - but I kept catching bits and pieces of the lyrics and thought they sounded very interesting so I looked it up.  The full lyrics are below and I think they're pretty incredible - also a link to the song itself, if it works.  Regina Spektor, "On the Radio."  Mad props.  Mad props.]

“On The Radio”

On the radio
(oh oh oh)
On the radio
On the radio – uh oh
On the radio – uh oh
On the radio – uh oh
On the radio

Damn, I have gotten so sorry about blogging (see my comments about my increasing laziness below).  I tried to rally a few days ago, but when I typed for an hour and then hit “publish” only to see my blog post disappear into the ether forever, it kind of took the wind out of my sails.  And believe me when I say that that post was hilarious.  Hilarious!  Definitely the funniest thing I have ever written or even conceived of – and probably the funniest thing ever written by any human being in the history of mankind.  It’s my loss, it’s your loss – let’s be honest here, it’s humanity’s loss.  Anyway, it’s gone.  I don’t have an hour to try to recapture even a portion of the timeless magic that was that post, so I won’t even try.  (Well, actually, I have an hour.  I have several if I want them.  It’s Sunday morning and I am sitting in the Gloria Jean’s cafe with absolutely nothing planned for the day but chilling.  So maybe I’ll type for an hour.  Or four.  But I doubt it.)

So, off the top of my head:

Myanmar

I am getting very excited about my trip there on April 25th.  The good news is I have my visa already.  It’s supposed to be a relatively difficult place to get a visa if you go through the ordinary government channels, but you can hire a private company with the appropriate “connections,” and pay $75 instead of $20 and it makes the process a lot easier.  So I did that. 

They email you a list of 16 questions (with subparts) that you have to answer, and you email those answers and a copy of your passport back to them and they get you your visa.  The 16 questions were very detailed and also interesting.  “Your father’s name?”  Why do they need my father’s name?  “Your physical description: (a) height, (b) weight, (c) hair color, (d) eye color, (e) skin color, (f) complexion?”  I guess I understand that they would like as much identifying information about you as possible, but I’ve never had to fill that out on a visa application before.  Also, they have the copy of your passport photo, so seems kind of unnecessary.  Of course I answered “6′8″, 365 lbs., black, brown, black, cystic acne” to the above.  Got to keep the junta on their toes!  Hah! 

They also ask you what your occupation is, which is a legitimate question.  But I’d done some advanced reading and it turns out the government will only let certain people into the country.  If you put down “journalist” your visa application is automatically denied.  I wasn’t sure what to put – I didn’t want to put “teacher” because civil unrest, protests, etc., always seems to involve students in some capacity, and I didn’t want to raise the specter of me going there to work with some dissident student group or something.  Also, “attorney” or “lawyer” were out – they would probably think I was some ACLU or Human Rights Watch attorney or something.  I stuck with “business consultant,” which could mean pretty much anything.  Or nothing.  Which is kind of the point.

Anyway, it worked because I received my visa.  So I fly out of HCMC on April 25th, spend one night in Bangkok (probably just at a hotel near the airport b/c I get in late and leave for Myanmar early the next morning).  I fly into Yangon (Rangoon) on the morning of the 26th, spend the nights of the 26th and 27th in Yangon, then take a train from Yangon to Mandalay on the 28th.  Spend the nights of the 28th and 29th in Mandalay, then take the ferry (if there is one) from Mandalay to Bagan on the 30th.  (There may be no ferry because (a) it’s the extreme low point of the tourist season there, (b) they don’t have very many tourists going there right now anyway, and (c) the Irrawaddy River on which the ferry runs may not have enough water in it to support the ferry.  It’s actually pretty sweet that it’s the low tourist season.  First, I don’t really like to be around other tourists.  I think that is a fairly common sentiment of the expats living here – we don’t mind being around each other, but we tend to avoid the tourists.  Now in Myanmar, I am a tourist myself – but that doesn’t mean that I want to be around other tourists.  Also, I have to admit that even in Vietnam, I sometimes take advantage of the fact that I am going to look like a tourist no matter how long I live here or what I do.  For example, when I first moved here, I would never wear shorts unless I was at the gym, pool, beach, etc.  The adult Vietnamese don’t really wear shorts – some do, but not many – and I wanted to be ultra-respectful of their culture, etc.  But then I realized two things:  (1) it’s hot as hell here – which didn’t really take me too long to realize.  I had a pretty good idea of that by, say, July 14th when I first walked out of the airport; and (2) the tourists all wear shorts and the Vietnamese think I am a tourist anyway, so what’s the point of trying to “blend in.”)

Anyway, I’ll spend a couple of nights in Bagan, then back to Mandalay for one night before catching a train to a mountain town called Pyin Oo Lwin.  I’m going there just so I can say for the rest of my life “Aww yeah, like that time I was chillin’ in Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar.”  Seriously, the main reason I’m going there is because the train ride up there is supposed to be really scary – goes straight up a mountain doing switchbacks the whole way up and sometimes if you put your head out of your window on the train, you’re looking straight down the cliff!  Also, POL (as all the cool people call it) is supposed to be very beautiful itself.  We’ll see.  After Pyin Oo Lwin, I go back to Mandalay for my fight to Yangon on the morning of May 5th – my flight back to HCMC (again via Bangkok) is later on the 5th.  And I’ll start back teaching on the 6th.

My favorite thing about Myanmar – so far, considering that I haven’t been there yet, is that I asked my friend Thao how to say Myanmar in Vietnamese.  She said it’s “Nuoc Mien Dien.”  I asked her if that meant anything in Vietnamese and she said “Nuoc” means country – which I knew, like America is Nuoc My – “Mien” is a type of noodle, and “Dien” means electric.  So I said “You mean I’m going somewhere called ‘Country of the Electric Noodle.”  And she said “Yes.”  I love that!  Why in the hell they would call Myanmar Country of the Electric Noodle I have no idea, but I love it!  I want  a t-shirt that says “Electric Noodle Land” – it sounds like a bad Jimi Hendrix song.  (I also want two t-shirts in Vietnamese, one which says “Ngheo, Do va Gia” – which means “Poor, Dirty and Old.”  I don’t really know why I want that one – I think because the Vietnamese don’t really understand self-effacing humor.  They seem to be big on “face” and impressing others, etc., so why someone would wear a shirt advertising themselves as “Poor, Dirty and Old” would probably blow their minds.  The other shirt will say “Dau Bu” – which means “Big Head” but which is a Vietnamese insult for someone that is not very smart.  It’s apparently used for children a lot.  Someone told me that even though it translates to English directly as “big head,” the English equivalent is more like “water head.”  Anyway.)

Okay, enough about Myanmar.

School

I am continuing to enjoy teaching a lot.  My commercial law class had their midterm exam on Friday.  I had to “invigilate” 72 of the 230 total students taking commercial law this semester while they were taking the exam – which sounds very sinister – “I hate to tell you this, but I am going to have to invigilate you.” – but is just the Australian word for “monitor,” apparently.  Another teacher, an assistant, and I invigilated the hell out of those 72 students, let me assure you.  I didn’t see anything that looked remotely like cheating – but I did see a lot of puzzled looks and a lot of shaking of hands in the air after the students had been writing frantically for an hour or so.  It brought back some lovely memories of law school and bar exams.  There were two questions – one on common law negligence and one on the Australian Trade Practices Act – which is kind of a defective products/consumer protection statute in Australia.  We teach Australian law because RMIT is an Australian school and Australia uses the British common law system just like the U.S., England, etc.  It might make more sense to teach Vietnamese students Vietnamese law, but the idea as it’s been related to me is that they will be working for or with foreign companies so they need to have a general idea of the British common law system and the legal concepts it uses.  (Or maybe, and probably more likely, the teachers – myself included – are probably here teaching law because they were burned out on actually practicing it wherever they’re from and so the last thing they want to do is to have to learn yet another legal system – Vietnamese.)  Anyway, I have to grade the second question about the Trade Practices Act for all 230 students in the next 10 days or so, so that will involve a fair bit of work.

I’m staying pretty busy with my job.  My schedule is not that intensive as far as actual hours teaching goes, but there is a lot of other stuff that goes along with that really does eat up a lot of time.  Also, I’m trying to go above and beyond this first semester to make sure my contract is picked up – because the next contract will be for a whole year instead of just one three-month semester.

My other classes – two business case studies classes – had to give their midterm presentations this week.  They researched the organizational deisgn aspects of companies like Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Yamaha, HSBC Bank, etc., and presented in class.  Some of the teams did excellent jobs.  Most did reasonably decent jobs.  A couple bombed completely.  I try to be fair – I realize how hard it is to do detailed research and make a presentation in a second language – but if it was obvious that the students didn’t really do any work and didn’t really have an understanding of the material, I have no choice but to ding them.

I’m starting to get to know some of my students better.  They’re pretty shy and take a long time to warm up to you – I think the traditional teacher-student relationship in Vietnam is very formal.  But I like a lot of them.  They’re actually pretty funny and have good senses of humor.  I try to make my classes fun and interesting – which is easier in law than in business case studies.  But overall, it’s been a great experience – and I think it will only get easier in subsequent semesters since I will have already gone through the material once, will know what works in class and what doesn’t, etc.

Uncle Creagh

Since I mentioned my Uncle Creagh’s surgery on here, I wanted to give a quick update.  He had the surgery on the 26th, and it was a very serious operation – more serious than I think I realized it would be beforehand.  He had some scares after the surgery, but is apparently stable now and doing well.  He’s still in intensive care and will be there for a few more days, but it sounds like the worst is behind him.  Needless to say, our family is all very relieved and happy that it went well.  I know you’re probably not doing too much blog reading in the hospital Creagh, but if/when you ever read this, I’m glad everything went well and I hope you’re 100% better soon!

I Am Lazy as Hell

I don’t know what it is, but I have realized that I am starting to get very lazy over here.  Maybe I’m just acclimating to the tropical climate, but whatever it is, I am turning into a bum.  I had some pain in my right hip for a while – I think I was overdoing it on the running a little bit, so I haven’t been running for about 10 days – or doing anything else remotely similar to exercise.  I can still feel the pain in my hip a little bit, but not enough to keep me from running, so I need to get back to it. 

Also, I haven’t had any coffee since last Saturday – so about 8 days now.  I have been drinking a lot of green tea – which has nowhere near the amount of caffeine in it that the lattes I was drinking had, so I think that is making me feel lazy too.  I had gotten used to “spiking up” on caffeine first thing in the morning and then sporadically throughout the day to maintain it, and now plain old green tea and whatever energy level I naturally carry that are having to bear the full load.  The idea is I will wean myself off of the green tea too after a while, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. 

But I am seriously lazy.  Sunday is the only day that I am really completely off of work over here – I am technically off Sunday and Monday, but on Monday I have my Vietnamese lesson and I have to prepare for the next week of classes, etc., so it doesn’t feel like an off day.  Anyway, the point is that I have gotten where I don’t make any plans at all for Sunday – I just keep it completely open so if I just feel like sleeping late, vegging out all day, watch a movie, play some Xbox, etc., I can do it.  I feel a little guilty because I should be out exploring this crazy city, etc. – and I am out doing that a lot of days – but I also relish just being able to do nothing much.  And I’ve also started taking naps.  I sound like a grandfather or something, but some days during the week, I have a class in the morning and then not again until late in the afternoon, and after lunch I will go home and sleep for 30 minutes or an hour, then go back to work.  That’s pretty damn lazy.

The only other time I’ve done that was when I worked at a technology company in Atlanta called Radiant Systems back in 2001.  I had very little work to do there – I seriously think I could have gotten all of my work for the week done in one day – so I was bored a lot.  I lived in my buddy Alex’s house right across the street from work, so some days after work I would walk home, sleep for an hour, then walk back to work.  Rarely did anyone ever ask me where I’d been or say they’d been looking for me or anything – including my immediate supervisor – whose cubicle was two cubicles down from my own.  The few times he did ask me where I’d been, I’d just say “In a meeting,” and he’d go, “Oh, okay.”  I’ve never worked anywhere that held more meetings – everybody in that place was meeting with everybody else all of the time – so “in a meeting” was about the best excuse I could have had and he never asked “With who?” fortunately. 

This is also bringing back memories of my second day on the job at the Environmental Protection Agency in Atlanta in 2002 (immediately after my Radiant Systems gig).  The night after my first day at the EPA, my old roommate Dave and I went out to $3 pitcher night at Moe’s in Virginia-Highlands.  I drank way too much and was sick as a dog the next day.  I had to go to work – it was my second day on the job.  I got to my office and shut the door – thankfully I wasn’t in a cubicle – but I was so sick that I threw up in my garbage can in my office (and later had to carry the garbage bag from my office down to the men’s bathroom).  What I really needed to do was sleep – but my door didn’t lock and I didn’t want to be sleeping there at my desk and have my boss or someone walk in on me.  So what I did was to lay down on the floor with my feet against the door – so no one could barge in on me.  I slept like that for a while and then I said “To hell with it,” and got up and just left work.  I drove home and slept for a couple of hours then drove back.  Thankfully, no one had been looking for me during my absence.  So I really started that job out on the right foot! 

(Some of my former coworkers at MMM will also remember the time I came to work and could do nothing but sleep on Gerald’s couch for a couple of hours before I finally gave up and went home.  You know when you walk through the door and people immediately start telling you “You look terrible,” that it’s going to be a rough day.)

Anyway, the point of all of this is I am getting very lazy, so if I come home in October about 30 pounds heavier and don’t do anything but lay around eating potato chips and drooling on myself, at least you’re being warned in advance.

Visits

My dad is supposed to be coming here in June now.  He was coming in February, but had to cancel his trip when I got this new job and wouldn’t have been able to hang out with him very much while he was here.  My semester break is in June, so he’s coming then and that should be a fun trip. 

I am trying to get my mom and stepdad to come in December.  They are thinking about it – more seriously now than before, I think, and I hope they will come.  My stepdad is all for it, but my mom is a little wary.  I think once she gets over here, she will realize that it’s no big deal and will have a good time, but I think the whole idea of traveling to Vietnam is a little intimidating to her.  She also doesn’t really like to fly, so a 25-hour flight is not that attractive to her.  I told her she could knock out about 10 hours of it with sleeping pills, but she said she doesn’t want to be groggy for a day or two after she gets here.  I said “You’re going to be so jetlagged when you get here that you’re going to be groggy whether you take a sleeping pill or not!”  So anyway, I hope they will be here for Christmas.

My friend Michelle (who used to live in my condo building in Atlanta but now lives in NYC) was going to come in May in connection with a trip to China for work, but her trip to China has been put off, so she won’t be here in May).  My friends Will and Ashley were going to come in June but are not coming now.  My friend Sharla may come for Thanksgiving, but that’s about the only other trip on the horizon right now.  So if you want to come see me in Vietnam, come on over!

Conniving Fakery

I’ve been told by Tim that the flag I bought about the “Armed defense forces, Hue, 1969,”or whatever is 100% certainly fake.  I said “But it looks old,” and Tim said he’s personally been to the factory where they soak new flags in tea to make them look old, have Vietnamese workers scrubbing new zippo lighters with steel wool to make them look old, etc.  Oh well.  I still think the map I bought is legit, but who knows?

Okay, I am having a hard time thinking of anything else to mention, so I guess I will sign off here.  I think I did type for more than hour.  I guess I need to get out of this cafe so I can go resume my laziness.

Sorry again for the infrequent posting.  I’ll try to get better!  I hope everyone is doing well.
 

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I just spent about an hour typing a long post and when I hit publish there was some glitch and it just disappeared. I am bummed!

This is pretty cool – you can consolidate up to eight “club cards” – Sam’s Club, Kroger, Publix, Home Depot, etc. – into just one card.

I only have a couple of cards like that here in Vietnam, but it definitely would have been handy back in the U.S. where I had at least 8 of those cards bulking up my wallet.

www.justoneclubcard.com

http://wonkette.com/371154/sinbad-has-officially-ruined-hillary-clinton

So I have basically a week off at the end of April, and I just booked a ticket to Myanmar (formerly Burma). I’ve been jonesing to get out of Vietnam and check out somewhere I haven’t been before – the only trips I’ve made since I’ve been here have been two trips to Cambodia – and I’d already been there twice before (once in 2001 and once in 2004) anyway.

So after playing around with a bunch of fares and flight schedules of the various discount airlines, it turns out I can fly from HCMC to Bangkok for about $150, and then on to Myanmar for another $180. I don’t think $330 is too bad for an international trip!

I fly to Bangkok on the evening of Friday, April 25th, and will just spend the night in an airport hotel as my flight to Yangon, Myanmar is early on the morning of the 26th. I fly back to Bangkok on Monday, May 5th, an back to HCMC later that same day.

I do have to get a Myanmar visa, but I am hopeful that won’t be too difficult. It should be an interesting trip!

[By the way, I know all about the human rights situation in Myanmar, etc., and I thought long and hard about going there. But a lot of the articles I read said that one of the reason the average Burmese (Myanmarese?) is suffering right now is because there are very few tourists going there - so the hotels, restaurants, tour operators, etc., aren't making any money. The articles do encourage you not to stay in government-owned hotels or to use the government-owned tourist agencies - because that money just goes straight to the military junta, but that if you avoid that you're really just helping out ordinary Burmese who could use a few bucks. So rightly or wrongly, I'm going to go check it out.]

My Uncle Creagh, who lives in Birmingham, Alabama (and at least claims to read this blog!) just found out he has to have some fairly major surgery in a few days.

So Uncle Creagh, I just wanted to: (a) test whether you really read this blog; and (b) let you know that you will be in my thoughts and prayers over the next few days! Good luck!

*For those of you curious about the name Creagh, it is an old family name in our family. It’s a Gaelic name, and I’ve always heard that it translates to “laurel branch,” which is kind of confirmed in the text of the article I’m pasting below – it says “O’Craoibh, of which Creagh is the anglicised form,” means “branch.” (Of which Creagh is the angilcised form!?! I’m sure many of you out there who have never seen the name Creagh before think that “Creagh” could use some further anglicisation itself!) The article mentions Creagh Castle, and I remember some years back my Uncle Creagh was on a business trip to Ireland and actually visited his namesake castle! That’s supposedly a photos of Creagh Castle above.

Anyway, here you go:

THE CREAGHS

Another family with a long-standing connection with Doneraile were the Creaghs. They are descended from the O’Neills of Thomond who in a battle against the Danes in Limerick wore laurel branches to their helmets, thus earning the name O’Craoibh (branch), of which Creagh is the anglicised form. From the eleventh to the sixteenth century the family was settled in County Limerick, where, in 1312, John Creagh. of Adare. was Mayor of Limerick. The date of arrival of the Creaghs in Doneraile is not clear. but one branch of the fainily appears to have settled in County Cork by the sixteenth century: Christopher Creagh was Mayor of Cork in 1541, and a man of great influence and power amongst the native Irish. His direct descendant, John Creagh, was ancestor of the senior branch of the family, the Creaghs of Ballyandrew and Laurentinum. His secomid son, Doctor John Creagh, was living in Doneraile at least as early as 1760, when the followimig advertisement appeared in the Cork Evening Post: ‘Wanted, a servant to manage a small garden. If he is a single man, well recommended, and not corpulent. he may hear of a place by applying to Doctor Creagh of Doneraile. Dr. Creagh married twice, first a Miss Ruddock of Wallstown by whom he had one child, Catherine,to whom we will return later.His second wife was Judith Ussher from Co. Waterford,and by her he had another daughter, Mary, who in 1779 married Kilner Brazier of Lizard, Co. Limerick.Their son, George Washington Brasier-Creagh, was ancestor of the Brasier-Creaghs of Creagh Castle. This house, originally called Castle Saffron, and standing beside a well-preserved tower-house, one-time stronghold of the Roche family, became a Creagh property in1788, when Dr. John Creagh leased it from Mr. William Love. The original house was built by John Love before 1750 and is said to have contained rooms with plasterwork by the Francini brothers.Creagh Castle, as it became known was destroyed by fire towards the end of the eighteenth century and was rebuilt in 1816 by William Brasier-Creagh, incorporating the old front of the original house, which gives the building a somewhat earlier look. The two bay addition on the south side of the house was built in 1911 to provide a larger drawing room and is in exactly the same style as the original block. William’s brother, George, also made many improvements to the estate, including the spectacular Gothic entrance gates and gate lodge, which were built in 1827. Doctor John Creagh had a younger brother, Michael, who leased the townland of Laurentinum from Lord Doneraile and built on it the main seat of the Creaghs. shortly after his marriage in 1741 to Catharina Parker. Laurentinum House was originailly three-storey in size, but the top storey was taken down in the late l840s or early l850s and the house reroofed. The new roof has a very low hip and wide projecting eaves and gives the house a somewhat nineteenth-century feel.

Catharina and Michael had one son, John who drowned in the Awbeg when young. Michael seems to have lost his wife at around the same time as he remarried in 1745. His second wife was Mary sister and heiress of Captain Richard Gethin, and he was succeeded by his eldest son, Arthur Gethin Creagh who in 1770 married Isabella. daughter of William Bagwell. MP, of Clonmel. Co. Tipperary. They had five sons and five daughters, and three of their children are of particular interest. The second son, the Rev. John Bagwell Creagh. built a house known locally as the Hermitage on the townland of Ballyandrew. This is an ancient towniand. where Druids are said to have had their sanctuary near the medicinal well before St. Patrick came to Ireland. This townland came into the possession of the Creagh family by the marriage of John’s grandfather. Michael Creagh, to Miss Gethin. but it might have had an earlier connection with the Creaghs as well, because the area is famous for two ghosts. both related to the Creagh family: the first one of these is known as the dog of the Creaghs: the second is the ghost of a Miss Creagh. who, when her lover had been killed by her father, came by an untimely death.

Hermitage House is a good example of early nineteenth-century vernacular style. There are one or two other examples of this style left in North Cork, hut none in as good a state of preservation as this one. The original dwelling house, which existed before the Hermitage was built, now forms part of the courtyard to the rear of the house. This was the home of the Atkins family who are interesting in their own right. Richard Atkins. who lived in the house in the early eighteenth century, married Anne. only daughter of the O’Sullivan Beare. Richard was killed by a fall from his horse returning from Hunting, and his only child,John Atkins, was an ancestor of Thomas Davis.

There is another house of interest near the Hermitage. This dwelling, Saffron Hill Cottage. was built by the Rev. Edward Sayers, who was appointed curate of Doneraile in I 708. It later became the home of Kilner Brasier, who married Mary, daughter of Dr. John Creagh of Castle Saffron, and most of their children were born at Saffron Hill. One of them, George Washington Brazier-Creagh, lived here up to the time of his marriage and before succeeding to Creagh Castle. He afterwards sold the property to Viscount Doneraile, whose mother-in-law, Mrs Lenox-Conyngham. lived here between 1852 and 1861. The second child of interest of Arthur and Isabella Gethin Creagh was their eldest son, Michael. He lived for a time at Kilbrack Cottage, which is said to be the oldest inhabited house in Doneraile. It is of a complex structure, being originally a three bay, single-storey cottage. The roof was originally thatched and the house adorned with an ornamental bargeboard but both features have now disappeared. A fourth bay was added to the facade early on and a one-and-a-half-storey extension was built to the rear. A severe landlord, Michael became unpopular with his tenants, and in 1829 he became a target of an assassination attempt by the \Vhiteboys, now called locally the Doneraile Conspiracy, the idea of which was to get rid of three landlords, Michael Creagh, Vice-Admiral Henry Evans and George Bond Lowe. On a January night that year, Dr. Norcott of Cottage, Doneraile was returning from a party with his daughter, when two persons fired at his carriage, wounding the coachman and footman, and sending several bullets through the carriage. In a court case which followed, it was revealed that Dr. Norcott’s carriage was fired at by mistake because it closely resemnbled that of Mr. Creagh’s. The prisoners had a lucky escape as well:,they were initially sentenced to be hanged, but the sentence was afterwards altered to transportation for life. From 1835 to 1849, Kilbrack Cottage was the home of the Very Rev. P. Sheehan, Parish Priest of Doneraile (not to be confused with the famous author Canon Sheehan, who lived at Bridge House. Doneraile, some fifty years later). According to local tradition, he was forbidden by Lord Doneraile to have two horses on his carriage and in an act of defiance harnessed two mules to it instead. In the l860s. the house was owned by Edmund Boycott, brother of the infamous Captain Boycott.

The intended assassination of their eldest son frightened Michael’s parents, and, anxious to move to the safety of the Main Street, purchased and demolished Doneraile House, the home of the Synans, in 1830. Here they commenced the building of a large townhouse, starting with a coach house, an attractive cut-stone building with limestone arches, which was completed in 1832. Creagh House a five bay, two-storey townhouse over a high basement was finished some five years later. Although it might not appear so from the outside, this house was built for serious entertainment. The reception rooms are huge and noted for extravagant plasterwork; they were linked across the main hall to form a ball room on big occasions. Elizabeth Bowen, who was related to the Creaghs by marriage, refers in her book. Bowen Court, to parties and wedding dejeneurs for over 200 guests at Mrs Creagh’s in the 1870s. Creagh House has another claim to fame, and here we come to the third child of interest of Arthur and Isabella: their second daughter married Matthew Shaw, and one of their children, Isabella, married the famous English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, who no doubt visited his wife’s grandparents at Creagh House during his trips to Ireland. The Creaghs occupied the house until 1892, when it was leased to Edward Croker, JP. until his death in 1910.

Laurentinum, the main family seat, remained in the Creagh family until December 1847, when it was sold in the Landed Estates Court to Stephen Fagan. The Creaghs of Doneraile subsequently emigrated to Australia and the name has disappeared from Doneraile.

http://www.iol.ie/~nodonnel/gentleman’svillage.htm

So the other day I was driving home from getting coffee in Phu My Hung, and my motorbike engine started sputtering and coughing. I immediately looked down at my gas gauge because I knew I’d been pushing it. Sure enough, the needle was below “E” – if there was an indicator where the needle was, it would have read “Bone Dry.”

Anyway, I thought I had this nice big reserve tank, so I reached down and flipped what I thought was the reserve switch. The engine came back to life, so I figured that did it, and I could make it to a gas station. (The reason I was pushing it on gas in the first place is because there are no gas stations in Phu My Hung. I had been buying gas when I drove back into downtown HCMC, but I didn’t want to make a special trip there just to buy gas. Or maybe it’s just because I’m lazy. Either way, the point is I was out of gas.)

But after driving just a little further, my engine started sputtering again, and this time it went down for the count. Fortunately, I was at the major intersection there in Phu My Hung – I’m not sure of the names of the roads, but basically I was sandwiched between Lotteria and KFC on the road heading north (for those of you who might know where I’m talking about).

As I waited for the light, I tried to crank the bike back up a couple of times, but it was no use. So when the light changed, I pushed my bike over to the side of the road Fred Flintstone style – sitting on the seat of bike and pushing myself along with my feet. I noticed that there was a security guard with a walkie-talkie sitting on a chair out in front of the KFC, so I figured I’d ask him if he could call me a cab and I’d go pick up some gas.

But as I swung my leg over the seat of my motorbike to get off and stand up, I noticed that an old xe om driver had driven up right beside me. He was pointing at my motorbike in the general vicinity of my gas tank and saying “Xang? Xang?”, which is Vietnamese for “Gas? Gas?” (or maybe it’s “Petrol? Petrol?” or whatever they call it here but you get my drift).

I said yes and he pulled a liter of gas and a red plastic funnel from his motorbike, I popped my seat up and opened my gas tank, and 30 seconds and 20,000 dong (about $1.25 USD) later, I was good to go.

Where else can you run out of gas and, literally before you’ve even had time to get off of your motorbike (or out of your car or whatever), someone has driven up and offered to sell you gas to get you back on your way?!?