Long Tuesday

It wasn’t that bad… really. Though it is twenty minutes after two in the morning. Out Video TeleConference (VTC) ran over an hour and a half long with the Malaysians. See, we have to be nice to them and not just talk business. So when they want to talk, we have to want to talk. Even though we want to go to bed. But I’m a little wired on strong coffee that someone made this afternoon. Thanks, Trad. Good coffee.

It’s still raining here. I remembered to bring my coat this morning, but we didn’t need it when we all went to lunch. But we did need it on the way back. And on the way back, I ran into my old buddy Mark (who was my neighbor in Memphis). He’s a physical therapist doing some work here with a temp agency. Go figure. He’s digging it because he’s working only nine hours a day and only five or six days a week. Lucky #@#$&(.

But in life we all make choices and his choices lead him to be a physical therapist. And me? My choices are walking in mud, walking in puddles, or walking on gravel with rocks the size of your fist. Thank goodness we don’t have moon dust to live with.

I took an hour and a half break this evening to take a mind break at one of the gazebos on the campus. There’s an older guy there that I’ve seen before and I stuck up a conversation. His name is Kevin and he used to live in Brazil. Kevin met his wife in Brazil, and his father-in-law is a descendant of American confederates who left the Confederacy after the Civil War. The FIL remembers his great-great-grandmother (who was alive back during the war of Northern Aggression) only speaking English. And every time the FIL comes to the states to visit, the first thing he does is go somewhere to get a biscuit. He loved his great-great grandmother’s biscuits and real American biscuits remind him of her. I thought that was a really neat story.

I remember reading something about the American migration after the Civil War in Mental_Floss a month or two ago. Kevin said that the American population in Brazil has pretty much been assimilated into the Brazilian culture. Though there is a famous cemetery, where a bunch of Georgians are buried, near where he used to live that President Carter visited back in the 70s.

And it’s time to rack out. One more journal entry and another day is over. Good night.