Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Daily Report: Friends In Distress

I didn't bother doing any work today, primarily because there was none to do. Instead, I'm putting in for some more vacation time over these few days to cover the lack of work. I spent most of the day blogging instead, and got the rest of the photos from my trip put up.

Riza's grandmother in The Philippines died today, and Mike and she went to the airport to see if they could get her on a flight to Manila. (Being New Year's Day, all the travel agents were closed.) They finally succeeded in finding a flight at 1:00 a.m. This was Riza's first grandparent to pass, and she was a wreck. She should be back here in Thailand in a week or so. She of course gets my condolences.

I also went with Epril to visit Willie at his house today. He is laid up in bed for the next few weeks while he recovers from being in a motorcycle accident. He has a good-sized cut across his nose and eyebrow, quite a bad cut around his outer three toes on his foot, and the worst injury is an extremely deep lengthwise gouging slice into his arm.

Willie was coming home from a bar, but wasn't drunk. He was pulling out into traffic on Second Road when he got T-boned by a guy driving on his motorcycle way too fast. (I kind of wish Willie was really drunk and caused the accident himself: I hate being reminded that you can be doing everything right while out on the road, and still have calamity find you.) Anyway, Willie is pretty pained, and Epril and I will be stopping by to see him as often as we can.

Epril and I spent the evening watching Law & Order, and then a documentary on Francis Scott Powers, and his U2 shoot-down.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've always been a bit surprised that you haven't gotten a car. You certainly have enough money to do so. Moving to the Philippines of course negates the need, but drive carefully until then (and consider getting a car over there).

Jil Wrinkle said...

I don't want a car because it is impossible to park it anywhere I regularly go, and I only go around Pattaya. I'm going to get a car in The Philippines, but will still drive a motorcycle most of the time.

I'm actually extremely careful on my motorcycle, and drive slowly and conservatively. Also, when I'm driving I keep about 50% of my mind on the road, and about 50% of my mind on how much it is going to hurt me (and Epril) if I get in an accident. That manages to keep me quite focused... which I like to think (Willie's case to the contrary) that I'm as safe as I can hope to be.