Ten to Go

Okay, so May is over. I enjoyed you May, I really did, but I can’t say that I’m sorry to see you go. June, same goes for you. No hard feelings to either of you, just take comfort in knowing that I’ll be giving July and August the same treatment. September and October I’m not even recognizing. I’m going to mark time with the shamsi calendar for most of the fall, so even November is going to get the short end of the stick. And December through March are pretty much going to sail by, so who cares what happens in those months?

This is not to say that I won’t be back around next year, hoping that the same months will go just a little bit slower, and that May in Boise will be much warmer. I must say that it has been easier to bear the lack of camping when I hear that it’s so wet and soggy in Idaho. I fully expect the clouds to lift for the last half of July, when I’m in town, but until then – I’m sorry but I wouldn’t mind if it rained the whole summer in the US. Is that wrong?

That’s right – I have a leave that will be starting in 38 days. I’ll be home for about two weeks and Layne and I will be, come hell or high water, in the mountains near Stanley, camping near Soldier Lakes. We’ll most likely leave on a Wednesday and come back on the following Sunday. So if you are reading this and ask yourself, “I wonder if I could go?” well you just asked a question with an obvious answer. Of course you can go. We have all kinds of extra camping and hiking stuff, so send me a note and I’ll send you one back. In this note I send back, I’ll tell you about the details of the hiking adventure. And if you are reading this and think to yourself, “I don’t think I could hike for days in the mountains! I’m from San Francisco!” then you just thought something that is completely untrue. You may be from San Francisco – that part is true – but you can definitely hike 4 miles and then spend a few days fishing and walking around! (This qualification also applies to any of you thinking you can’t go because you live and/or work in: Missoula, San Diego, Birnumwood, Georgia, British Columbia, or Eagle.)

After the hiking adventure – Layne will have to go to work, so I may be out for a day to go and climb Borah Peak. Anyone interested in going should send me a note. And if you don’t know what kind of treatment you will get if you send me a note, please read the previous paragraph; the gist is that I will send you a note in response.

So what can you accomplish in two months in a new job in southeast Asia? If I said a shit-ton, would it offend anyone? We’ll see. But in any case, I will have developed four significant scripts that save the equivalent of 30 hours of manual work each month, but the most important improvement is a database to replace hundreds of spreadsheets used to track Accounts Payable for the program. What’s that you just thought? Must have been something like, “You know who’s awesome at improving stuff? It’s that guy they call dBase.”

Two months down, ten to go. And that’s the last I’m going to say about it. Don’t wanna break the streak.