My next job

I went out to walk around a little and make an image or two. Just up the street I found a moto driver taking a nap on his moto. I don't know if this is comfortable or not but he sure looks asleep.

I walked up to the central market, and found that the old grocery markets that was on the south side had been demolished and replaced by a street. WOW. It makes the area smell a lot better.

From the central market I walked down street 130 and saw remnants of the French past an Art deco building.

Then I found the Shere Punjab Indian restaurant an Indian friend has recommended. Now that I know where it is I will go back.

I walked along the Mekong and watched the boats large and small.

I walked back through my neighborhood and I saw the same moto driver stretched out on his moto. 

I had taken the first photo 1 ½ hours ago and he was still snoozing away. This is the job I want.The only problem I see is that I may be too tall.

Internet in the third world: when you need it?

I have a weekly conference call with our client in the USA, that call is 8:30 PM Phnom Penh time. I prefer to make that call from home rather than going back into the office. This evening when I got home I turned on the computer it took the internet a while to come up but it did. At 7:00 PM the internet dropped and was still out at 7:30 pm. I called the service provider and got the standard answer "shut down the modem for five minutes and turn it back on, we will call you back." Ok, I turned it off and five minutes later back on, nothing and no call from the service provider. I called them again, their number was busy, that indicated to me that they were having problems which would most likely not be fixed to allow me to participate in the conference call.

I hopped on my moto and headed into the office. The call went well but there was some follow up that I needed to do right after the call, by the time that was done it was about 10:15 pm. I had hoped to be asleep by then.

When I arrived back home, the landlord and his family were asleep so I parked at a guarded parking spot around the block. Parking there is expensive, $1.00 for the night.

The internet is working now, I hope it is still working for my 06:30 AM call with the partner in Salt Lake City.

After the accident

You know that after exercising hard the worst day for pain is two days later. That is also true for an accident. The day after the accident I did OK, but the day after that, little things started to show up, the six inch long and three inch wide bruise on my calf, my left thumb did not want to bend without a lot of pain and my neck being stiff.

I was lucky, the weekend which gave me time to recover. I stayed home Saturday and napped. On Sunday I put on my back pack and walked to the market, I found what I think will be the last sweet corn of the season, that went into the back pack and then pineapple. After the market I walked to the store and added a few more things. I put my backpack on and started to walk home, my shoulder said "not so fast", the top of my right shoulder was not happy with the weight. I put on the waist strap to take the wait lower and saved my shoulder.

Monday a few more bruises showed up, my right elbow was an interesting shade of yellow and blue and there was another yellow bruise that showed up below my shoulder.

The only thing that really still hurts is my shoulder, that is the most problematic when trying to sleep.

Moto accident

Sorry I have not write more lately but I have been exhausted and my shoulder has been hurting a lot.

On my way to work a few days ago, I made a right hand turn. The traffic in the other lane was backed up because they were waiting for a light. I saw a moto coming toward me in my lane and I was watching it to see what stupidity he would do. He passed me and all of a sudden a tuktuk clipped me from the right. I was not watching that side enough because I was watching the crazy on the other side.

In a flash I was on the ground. I got and I seemed to be ok. I did not seem to have any bad injuries. Someone helped me right my moto and I drove the kilometer to work. At work I got my first aid kit out of the moto and went to the bathroom in my office to clean up my knee, elbow and outside of my right hand. I scrubbed away any dirt and then realized I had gauze pads but no tape. I went to the receptionist who had shown me the DDD first aid kit. I put Batadine on the abrasions and then the receptionist taped down the gauze.

The abrasions are not the problem, when I hit the ground I must have landed hard on my elbow; the problem is my shoulder which did not contact the ground. I think what happened is l landed with a lot of weight on my elbow and my shoulder took the strain.

Lifting my right hand from my lap to the mouse and from the mouse to the keyboard hurts. You do not know how often you make that move in a day.

The worst part of the accident is it ripped up one of my good pair of pants. It will be hard to find a replacement for someone my size in Cambodia.

How I know it has been a stressful week: grocery stress index

Saturday afternoon, after leaving work, I went to the grocery store. When I walked out, I realized I was a bit stressed. How could I tell leaving the grocery store?

Stress level indicators:

Low stress: going to the market purchasing fish, fruit and vegetables. Cooking mostly at home

Average stress: going to the market purchasing fruit and vegetables. Cooking a little at home

Medium stress: going to the market purchasing fruit and vegetables letting most of them spoil because I have not cooked them. Cooking very little at home

High stress: not going to the market but going to the grocery store. Purchasing large amounts of chocolate, cheese, strawberry jam, butter and other comfort foods. Not cooking, eating out almost all the time

Last week was a High Stress week.