CheetahhhhhhhBlog Mark III

So the big news is I’m being published. This is a big deal in academia. I wrote a paper on “Integrating Etymology into the Afghani Classroom”. By chance I have an appointment with the provost tomorrow and it will be pleasant to remark that I just had a paper accepted for publication. It’s also a nice botox injection for the CV.

Vanessa’s officially an AUAF employee now, except for the all important detail of signing the contract, but apparently it’s been decided. All good.

I’ve had a cold for a week now and just can’t get rid of it, and everybody at the university has it also, I’m sure we’re all just going around re-infecting each other. The problem with classrooms is they’re big Petrie (sp?) dishes.

We’ve really been enjoying the show Damages, which my sister recommended incidentally. We’re starting season 4 and it’s kind of exciting because it involves Afghanistan. I am sure horrible war stories occur out in the provinces, there’s a war on after all, but Kabul is really just a dusty run-down city where once a month or so a lunatic blows himself up in a police station, or something like that. So you see these dramatizations of Afghanistan and for us in Kabul it’s almost other-worldly. This is not to downplay the security situation, which is serious and causes me concern. But yeah there are these scenes of Afghanistan in episode 1, season 4 and I know these things are supposedly happening 200 miles to the south, but it’s hard to imagine…

ANYWAY partly because of this cold I don’t have a lot going on. I work and then come home and crawl into bed.

So we went to the US consulate and Vanessa’s visa to the US is now being processed. Hopefully this will be a quick and simple matter.

It isn’t finalized, but Van seems to have a job as a dorm supervisor. This primarily will give us a bigger apartment and also I won’t have to listen to her complain about not having a job. Also it’s one of those rare jobs where she can take care of the kids at the same time.

The university senate convened and somebody nominated me for president. This caught me off guard, I actually didn’t know what to say when I was supposed to stand up and give a speech. Anyway I lost by 2 votes but it’s mildly gratifying that half the senate supported me. Didn’t actually want the job so I don’t know what I would have done if I’d won.

Those knuckleheads in the US government are again going after offshore money. As you may know, I keep my money offshore, most of it is either in the Philippines or the Isle of Man, neither of which are going to tell the Feds much unless there is some evidence I’m a drug smuggler or something (which I’m not). The invasion of my privacy and my right as a free man to keep my money where I want is what makes it irritating. Also I’m swiftly crossing the taxable line. If you live abroad and make under $80,000 there is no tax. This year however I will easily clear 6 digits and so I’m going to have to deal with tax. I’ll wait for April before I deal with that but I will say this. I do not recognize Washington’s supposed right to tax US citizens globally. Of course Washington doesn’t care what I think, but we are the only country in the world to tax globally, and it makes no sense. Also, to return to my first point, I do not recognize Washington’s supposed right to pry into my affairs that occur off US soil. I suppose I sound like a Libertarian and I suppose that’s because at heart I am. Give me liberty or give me death!

Well first of all, partly in response to comments from my mom and dad, I will say that my family takes extraordinary security precautions, much more so than most internationals here in Kabul. For example, we shop at local stores, not the stores where internationals frequent. We never go anywhere by ourselves; we always have a guard and driver. Most internationals can’t tolerate such restriction on their freedom of movement, but we wouldn’t even consider anything else. Point being we are pretty much safe, and we would not remain here if this were not so.

As a professor, a businessman (Teggatz Enterprises LLC is a hedge fund), and a father and husband, I seem to have absolutely no free time any more or any time for myself. I am a great believer in productivity so I recognize this as a problem and need to schedule downtime, because ultimately this makes me more productive. It is rather remarkable, however, the number of things I have to deal with. I woke up at 9 and it’s now almost 2, and I have spent the entire time doing various paperwork, etc etc. It never ends. I long for a simple life. I don’t suppose I’ll get that any time soon unless we move to Capoocan.

I have mentioned many times that I am big on long term planning. I approach this from a somewhat scientific project-management approach. Anyway I am immensely pleased with reaching some of my long term goals, such as the liquidity of my trading account and my bank balance. These are really hard things to accomplish as I’m sure anybody on a salary is well aware.

Anyway one of the problems with the attacks last week is the US embassy shut down and this was when Vanessa had her appointment to get her US visa re-issued. Problem. Bigger than you’d imagine because in 2 weeks her Afghan visa expires and I need to give her passport to the Afghan foreign ministry to renew it, and they will keep it for a month or longer. This presents problems such as knowing when to buy airline tickets to the States. We’re trying to get the visa appointment rescheduled ASAP. A real point of stress, this.

Our landlord in Manila has turned out to be a very dishonest scoundrel and has not paid the condo association dues for a year, and the condo is now hassling us. This potentially may cause problems… we will shortly be packing our Manila apartment up and putting it into a warehouse, in preparation to ship everything by container to Madison in approx. 18 months.

Bug loves school. Tristan is now saying “mommy” which Van is happy about.

Anyway now I’m turning off the computer for the rest of the day, about 12 hours of downtime.

Doubtless you have heard about the large scale attacks on Tues. By some stroke of fortune I had taken a sick day that day. This is good because the Taliban actually made an attempt to attack the university. We are heavily protected because many children of high officials and warlords, and many ministers etc, attend the university. So we’re heavily guarded and we have our own security as well. The Taliban modus operandi lately is to drive a car with explosives up to a wall, explode it to make a hole in the wall, and then rush in with automatic weapons and RPGs. In the case of the university, the police shot the explosive car to pieces before it could get near the university.

This attack was to commemorate the 9/11 attacks and the Taliban likes to attack on anniversaries. They are interested primarily in media exposure.

Naturally we were rather freaked out and Vanessa spent the night crying.

Bug enjoyed his first day of school, and apparently the teacher was impressed with his Batman backpack and his dinosaur collection.

Klout is a website that rates your influence on the web. Another similar site is Peer Index. I am a very active financial blogger but my Klout score is 18, while Vanessa’s is 42. This is because she is very active on Facebook. I generally ignore Facebook. Apparently companies these days check your Klout. I’m not too concerned because it doesn’t really apply to academe.

So this is a special weekend in Kabul. First of all, yesterday was Masood Day. Masood was one of the great leaders of the Northern Alliance which fought against the Taliban before the US invasion. He is a national hero if you’re not a Talib. Apparently the kids at the dorms were having a party and dancing around. Secondly, today is the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, as I’m sure the entire planet is aware. Interesting article in yesterday’s London Times incidentally about how the attack was ideologically one of resistance to modernism, globalization, and liberal democracy. Anyway the Taliban seem to like to attack on high-profile dates because they want media coverage. This makes their suicide bombing somewhat predictable. All of Kabul is on total lockdown and NATO patrols are out in force. I can tell because my wireless keeps going out. The big NATO bobcats, big armoured attack vehicles with a machinegun turret, apparently have some sort of signal jamming device. So when they pass by, suddenly your phone, TV, and wireless go out. Anyway no work today obviously, the university is a target. The Taliban generally prefer soft targets, ie, targets that are not well defended, and the university, Bug’s school, and our house are all heavily defended. So I’m actually not concerned in the least (knock on wood). If I was a Talib I’d hit something outside Kabul which is less defended, and I bet you a buck that’s what will happen.

So the major new I suppose is that the dollar is now in a clear uptrend. Thank God. I have been paid in petrodollars or dollars for a decade, and even though I progressively have made more money, I’ve also progressively watched my real spendable income slowly deteriorate. Been a tad depressing. Europe is firing up the printing presses which means the euro will steadily deflate and the dollar will rise. Might even be able to take a European vacation one of these days. We have direct connections from Kabul to Frankfurt and Vienna.

Another good piece of news is that I have (knock on wood) successfully shorted the Swiss franc and made a mint. Not rich, but I made a few month’s salary.

Bug is starting school today. We take him in today and have our first parent-teacher meeting. Haven’t actually got the contract yet so I don’t know how much this is going to bleed me. It’s the International School, where the diplomats and local warlords send their kids. Because of the local warlords I think the place is about as safe as it can get.

I’ve been really preoccupied with the start of term, which is always work intensive. Should be smooth sailing from here until midterms.

We have an appointment at the US embassy on the 14th about Vanessa’s US visa. You may recall, her passport was stolen in Manila, which contained her 10 year visa, which incidentally we had to go through hell and high water to get. This time it should… SHOULD… be a simple matter since she already has a visa issued. Keep your fingers crossed. We plan to fly home to the States on the 19th Dec but obviously I’m not going to buy tickets until we know we can actually go.

When you live in a place like Kabul, the thing that keeps you going is the next holiday. About a day after we landed, the university president had a party. It was nice though a little surreal because people are drinking sangria while guards with submachine guns are visibly patrolling around. Anyway everybody had just landed 24 or 48 hours ago and the primary object of discussion was what you’ll do in 4 months for the Christmas holiday.

Me, I’m really looking forward to a white Christmas. Tropical Christmases just aren’t the same.

Bug has learned how to browse the toy section of Amazon and every day I end up spending an hour or two discussing Lego pirates or Lego dinosaurs with him. I have a box of my old Legos sitting around somewhere at my dad’s house and have promised them to Bug. He is more than a little excited about this. He might be a little disappointed though because back in my day, legos were just blocks. Nowadays Legos are really fancy, like pirate islands and tyrannosauruses.

The thing about the Philippines and southeast Asia in general is when they see a white face, they jack up the price three-fold. Now, our apartment in Manila was originally rented by Vanessa, and at a good price. The landlords have discovered that I’m her husband and are attempting to extract more money in nonsense which is not on the lease, and are also attempting to raise the rent by 50%. I wrote them back a polite email pointing out that “you’d think you’d be happy to have a tenant who always pays on time”, which is actually a real rarity in the Philippines. They have not responded. I am not in the mood for extended negotiations so am basically planning to have Vanessa’s mom come and supervise a moving company packing everything up and putting it into a shipping crate. This is cheaper than rent anyway and actually just makes sense because in 18 months we’re going to ship everything to the States anyway. And with the money we save we can just go sit on the beach in Boracay which is better than Manila any day. However if the knucklehead landlord regains her senses we will keep the lease, though this seems unlikely. Landlords in the Philippines think they own your ass. I have had to explain to Vanessa a dozen times, and she still doesn’t believe it, that we don’t have to give the landlord money just because she cooks up some bullshit reason, and furthermore, that it’s a free country and we can move our property anywhere we want any time we want. She thinks we need various permissions to do so. I have said we don’t need anybody’s permission to move our property and furthermore, we aren’t going to solicit anybody’s permission either.

I don’t mean to neglect my blog but it’s the beginning of term and I’m super busy. Also I have a lot of things to deal with right ow, like Bug starting school, getting Vanessa’s US visa replaced, etc, etc, truthfully I have so much to do I can’t really deal with it all. Anyway I will blog soon.