Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Waiting Game

So I am still in Winchester, VA, coming up near the end of my second week here and still awaiting my travel documents to Abu Dhabi. Visa papers usually take about 7-10 days after it is submitted. The final documents were not submitted until last Wednesday. I am hoping that my visa arrives soon. I have been listless. After being used to working about 60 hours a week in Germany, trying to fill 8 hours of work in a day is difficult. I have completed all the in-processing paperwork, taken all the IT required training, sat thru all the construction management refresher courses, and attended all the required briefings. Fortunately, they don't require me to sit around at the office the whole day. I have been able to take longer lunches and sneak out early on several occasions. A few things that I was not able to do while in Seattle, I have been able to do here. I finally got cell phone service activated. I took time off to see an optometrist to get new pair of glasses and prescription sunglasses. I went shopping for clothes and athletic shoes. I got my external hard drive fixed (I was afraid that I had lost most of my collection of photos, but they were all safely recovered).

I spent the weekend in DC visiting friends. I walked around the Georgetown neighborhood. Last time I did that was in 1984 when I lived here for six months interning for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I am planning to visit Atlantic City or Baltimore/Annapolis this coming weekend. I guess it is not so bad waiting. I have a rental car to get away as needed.

Just to catch up on my photo sharing, the following are pictures from the last couple of months:

Seattle to Portland road trip with James, Mia, Joyce, and Janice a couple of days after Christmas. We went there for dim sum lunch and walked around downtown area. I can't believe that I got lost as we neared the downtown Portland area. I lived and worked in Portland from 1995 thru 1999.





A picture of me and a co-worker at a pub in Alconbury, UK, Feb 2010.



Fish and chips dinner in Harrogate, UK, Feb 2010. The green stuff is not avocado; it's mushy peas. The fish was good and the peas tasted fine.



My nephew George (Jojie) stopped by for a visit during my last couple of days in Wiesbaden, Feb 2010. First order of business was to get him to try German beers.

Murphy's Bar in Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden Bar

5 comments:

  1. For a nondrinker like uncle Bong, those German wide mouth beer bottles look humungous!

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  2. i had a scare a couple of months ago when the shell to my external hard drive malfunctioned... luckily our IT guy recovered all of the data which consisted mostly of jayan's first year.

    lesson learned: if it's not in two places... technically, it doesn't exist.

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  3. Ron, I agree. And for anyone else reading this, 2 independent storage locations would be ideal. One that you would update regularly (monthly, perhaps) and the other would be the one you use regularly. I have 70+ GB of photos and videos and 110+ GB of music. Unfortunately, this is too much capacity for most laptop. So I will need to purchase a second portable storage device soon.

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  4. My huge photo files (and e-mail) are protected with TWO external hard drive back ups and I just joined a "cloud" storage/download system for $50 a year with Google. It has no size limits and can be accessed from anywhere (I guess even the Middle East?)

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  5. Chucker, Good choice. I have yet to buy a second external hard drive. I may have to look into the Google storage system. Thanks.

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