CheetahhhhhhhBlog Mark III

Today at 1020AM Vanessa startled awake and shouted “The buffet!” We were all sound asleep. Groggy, I ran ahead and grabbed everything I could while they were starting to dismantle the buffet.

I forgot to mention yesterday, everybody thinks Vanessa is a Thai. People always start talking to her in Thai. When we went to the King’s Palace, I bought two tickets for B350. Then when we entered, they pointed Van to the “Free for Thai” line. So I wasted B350 and was irritated.

So we’re in Bangkok. The trip from Kabul to Delhi to Bangkok was totally exhausting and I do not recommend traveling with small children. We have no choice so we make do, but no, don’t recommend it. Another difficulty is that Air Asia lost our luggage, but we did get it today, thank God.

Anyway I booked on my favorite travel website, jetsetter.com, and got a deal at a 5 star hotel. It’s the Anantara Sathorn and I could not give it a better review. The breakfast buffet is simply wonderful. Unfortunately we slept until noon this morning and were very disappointed to have missed it. The roof pool is very beautiful and romantic with teak floorboards and flowering trees and a view of the city. We got upgraded to a suite, which is really nice, with 2 bathrooms and 2 bedrooms and HDTV etc. Views of the city are fabulous. This was a special 24 hour deal on jetsetter.com and I’m paying 40 bucks a night for a 5 star suite, which you can’t complain about one bit.

Today we went to Bangkok’s primary tourist attraction, the king’s palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. This is a must see. My second time and just as interesting. It was a rather difficult afternoon because Vanessa is a photographer and so I had to lug around her bags and Tristan while trying to manage Bug, who was in a mood, while she shot pics of everything. I’m totally exhausted. Drinking Sing Ha, which is an excellent beer if you’ve never tried it, has a good tang. Need the beer to relax after today. Now I like taking retro-photos with my iPhone, and I was planning on going retro-photo crazy. In case you don’t know, there are a few programs you can buy for the iPhone which simulate old fashioned cameras, like I have one which takes sepia photos for example. Loooove retro photos. I was planning on taking a million but this didn’t happen. Vanessa will be posting photos on Facebook immediately if she hasn’t already and I will post some retro photos too.

Anyway tomorrow I’m going to buy an iPad which I’m very excited about, prices here are only a few buck more than in America. Usually to get an iPad abroad you pay a $2-300 surcharge.

We’re heading to Ko Samet on Tuesday for a little beach relaxation.

Tomorrow we fly out of here, Air India to Delhi at 230PM Kabul time. Transfer to Air Asia and land in Bangkok early the next morning.

My one remaining task is graduation, which we take with all pomp and circumstance here at AUAF, including formal academic robes and a solemn marching in of the faculty. The president of the university has made it very clear in several emails that if you don’t show up for graduation, you’re not getting paid, so I’m going. Hence we fly out tomorrow. Now, I’m a night teacher. Have been for 10 years now. So the idea of getting up at 730AM stresses me out. Despite going to bed early with an ample dose of diazepam, I woke up at 1AM (which is when I usually go to sleep) and have been up ever since. So this day is going to really suck, because nothing puts me in a surly mood more than lack of sleep. Hopefully I can get off campus fairly early and come home and take a nap. I’m not sure of the actual events going on because I stopped reading office email on Monday, after I turned in my grades. I know the board of trustees are there and they’re having a luncheon etc… don’t know what else is going on… I see absolutely no reason why I need to stick around. The only important position I have on campus is as the Chairman of the Curriculum Committee and there is no curriculum review taking place today so I think I’m clear to make a getaway after the ceremony.

So I finished all my grades on Monday. Spent the entire day in bed on Tuesday studying financial journals. I never actually stop working which is unfortunate because I would actually like to be a lazy sod if at all possible. Today we are going quickly to ISK (International School Kabul) to fill out a form for the Bug. Also today we’re going to pack and put everything else in plastic bags and locked cabinets. Theft is very common. I am fully insured but still. The plastic bags are because Kabul is unaccountably dusty and after 3 months this entire apartment will be coated in an inch of dust. No exaggeration.

We’re traveling very light, which is disturbing to Vanessa, who is used to carrying 3/4 our household on airplanes. We had had the brainwave to go to Angkor Wat, which would be fun for the kids. However there is a problem. If you are privy to the problem then you will see we can’t do it. If you are not privy to the problem then I can’t explain. So we will proceed as planned; Bangkok, the Monkey Temple north of Bangkok, perhaps Chiang Mai, then the beaches of Ko Samet. Will be wonderful. I love Thailand. One of my favorite places in the world.

So I’ve wanted to take financial commentary off this blog, besause it was starting to dominate the blog, and the defeated whole purpose behind the CheetahhhhhhhBlog. Moving it around took a few days to get it right. You’ll note that the Teggatz Enterprises Trade Journal now appears as a separate blog. Financial studies and the beginnings of my academic portfolio appear on my prosite. I really like my Flavors site. You are no doubt aware of my Twitter and StockTwits. There is my LinkedIn, my Facebook, and Vanessa’s Facebook, and the old antique Teggatz.com; Vanessa and I also have Foursquare, and we have a Tumbler photo blog; you can find links to all this on the sidebar to the right.

So anyway the Teggatz media empire has expanded considerably in the last year. Today I’ve opened my pages up to web search engines.

To return to my original point however, no more financial commentary will appear here; the daily market comment is on the Teggatz Enterprises Trade Journal, and market studies are on my portfolio.

This time next week we’ll be in the Delhi airport and about to board Air Asia for Bangkok. I booked a fancy-ass hotel in Bangkok on Jetsetter.com at a surprisingly good price. It has a roof pool which I’m quite excited about. Anyway we were planning on heading off to the islands but have made a change of plan, will take the kids to Angkor Wat. Bug will have fun tomb raiding.

I am continually a little bit astounded about how our society has become so youth-oriented, the basic cultural idea being that after age 30 or so it’s all over. I find this ridiculous because young people (A) don’t know shit about anything and (B) have no money nor, if they did, the brains to use it, and (C) have the emotional stability of a monkey, and (D) don’t think about tomorrow. They have one thing going for them and one thing only. And that’s youthful beauty. God bless ‘em for that. But why our culture has become so youth-oriented is a mystery to me.

If you work in finance, the unfortunate thing is that you never really stop working. My wife has complained about this a bit recently. I spend far more time on my stock portfolio than on my day job. This is a temporary situation because the market is in a big state of flux. I need to remind her that I usually don’t sit around all day staring at stock charts.

Anyway for Angkor, Van is going to get a Lara Croft outfit with skin-tight tshirt, skin-tight short-shorts, and big bad girl boots. I already have the full expedition wardrobe, it’s pretty much my thing.

Yit-yit has started forming words. He wants to watch Chuggington (stupid cartoon) which he calls “iton”. Sponge Bob is “is bob”. Dora is “doy”. When the cartoon finishes he runs out to tell us it’s “done.”

I feel really noticably safer now that we killed Osama and dumped his body in the ocean (what, you want me to soften that up?). But it’s true. A mellow vibe seems to have settled on Kabul. The undercurrent of paranoia is gone. The “is it sfe to go to the grocery store” thought always in the back of your mind is gone.

I’m not going to go into detail but I think the Taliban and El Queda are cooked. Sure, maybe they’ll pull off a stunt or two more. But the intelligence we gathered at Osama’s house will enable us to quickly destroy them. They have lost their leader and figurehead. And their bankroll. They’re cooked. Kabul might actually be a nice place to live soon. We tend to forget, this place used to be a tourist destination before the wars.

Today Bug wanted something at the corner store and for the first time in a year, I just walked out the gate with him and down the street to the store. The guard got all freaked and chased after us. I suppose his job is to keep us alive. He speaks little English but I explained “Osama” and made the cutting-the-throat gesture, and said, “I think it’s OK.” The guard smiled and shrugged. He like most Afghans are feeling mildly positive, I’d say.

So I finished teaching yesterday and thank God, I didn’t have anything more in me to give. Totally sucked dry into a husk of a man.

I switched my market commentary to http://teggatz.prosite.com/ which is cooler and it serves as a portfolio as well.

One of my colleagues is married to a Cambodian and the good thing about her is she can cook Southeast Asian food, which is my favorite. Really delicious today. Some other colleagues were there so it was basically a 3 hour gossip session. I am not really interested in gossip so much of what I discovered was totally new.

Exactly 2 weeks to go until we fly to Bangkok.

Apparently silver always rises on Friday the 13th? Well it did this time.

I used to be the most anti-Microsoft person around. Almost as bad as my Uncle John. I used to be a Mac user, and this was back in the dark days about 10 years ago, when it looked like Mac couldn’t survive. I owned that Mac PDA, forget what it was called, and several Powerbooks. I was totally anti-Microsoft. I have to say, every since Bill left the helf, things have been getting better and better at Microsoft. For one thing, I’m sorry but the Zune beats the iPod hands down. And I’m now using IE 9, and it’s surprisingly good, better than Firefox or Chrome. Real surprise there. And as everybody knows, WIndows 7 is a surprisingly good system. SUrprising when you are used to the crap Microsoft was churning out for years. I am still a bit zealous in some ways. I refuse to use Office. I use LibreOffice instead. But you know what? I might just consider a switch… my Uncle John is going to have a fit if he reads this post. But yeah the quality control at Microsoft is way up. And you know what? Now Apple and Google and Facebook are the big giants who are taking over the world. Times have changed. Microsoft is one of the little guys now. So if you’re a revolutionary, you need to adjust your lenses. Everybody has a MacBook these days.

This school year is getting a bit long in the tooth. Last teaching day is Thursday. Exams start Tuesday. 17 days to go and we fly to Bangkok.

For mother’s day we went to the Serena for dinner. The Serena is the best thing this town has going, so where else? For her present Vanessa got a printout of a Burberry wallet and a map to the Burberry store in Bangkok.

I somehow miraculously have managed to quit smoking (again). I started up in Kabul just because of the general stress of the being without my family initially. It’s been really hard to quit this time. I struggled for several months. Anyway the nicotine is out of my body now and with it, the overwhelming desire. I can smell things again.