Everything’s good here – I’m settled into my routine for the semester and enjoying it.  I’ve got two commercial law classes and one negotiating transnational agreements class.  The negotiations class is really fun – we do a lot of role-playing exercises where the students actually negotiate real scenarios and they really get into it and argue them out very thoroughly.  I’m impressed.

Thao is doing well.  She’s sitting here watching a Vietnamese soap opera of some sort while I surf the internet and realize that it’s time for us to get moving – just before 11am on Saturday morning.

I slept for about 11 hours last night.  Went out for beers on Thursday night with a friend and was tired all day yesteday.  Last night we went to dinner, went to the Master’s Cup cafe for Thao to practice her English, then came home and watched Silence of the Lambs.  Damn I didn’t realize how long ago that movie came out – Jodie Foster looked like a child!  We are all getting old.

Anyway, nothing at all on the agenda today.  Not sure what we will do.  Tomorrow I will have to work a little bit – the negotiations class does take some preparing for, and I usually knock that out on Sunday so I won’t be so pressed on Monday and Tuesday.

I have a cool trip coming up in a couple of weeks – my buddy Anton is getting married on August 1st, and on the weekend of July 24 – 27th, a bunch of us are going away for his bachelor party weekend.  We fly from Saigon to Dalat, then spend all day rafting and biking from Dalat (which is in the highlands) down to Nha Trang on the coast.  Then spend the weekend in Nha Trang.  I went to Nha Trang in 2001 when I was backpacking around, but haven’t been back since.  Should be a fun weekend.

What else?  Let’s see.  I woke up last week to find out that Michael Jackson had died.  Have any of you heard about that?  I’m sure it did not get much media play in the U.S.  Good lord.  Anyway, today I woke up to the news that Sarah Palin had resigned as the governor of Alaska.  Weird.  Makes no sense to me.  If she wants to run for president in 2012, it seems like remaining governor and having that public platform until at least the end of 2010 would have been a better move.  Oh well, I am sure that many Alaskans are breathing a sign of relief.  McCain’s pick of her as VP looks worse and worse as time goes on.  Not that there was anyone he could have picked that would have allowed him to beat Obama – but I don’t think she helped.

I also noticed the following little jewel earlier this morning – if you ever had any doubt that the airlines don’t give a damn about their customers, this should dispel it immediately:

It’s like they’ve decided to conduct an experiment to see how shitty an experience they can make flying while still staying in business.  They will probably be the next industry nationalized by the government.

I played a little COD4 with my buddy James last night.  He and his wife Erin are off to Peru and Argentina for two weeks effective today.  Sounds like a great trip they have planned.  I hope their dog has not gotten to James’ passport recently!  Ha!

Okay, I’m out.  Happy 4th of July to everyone!  And on that note: