Immeasurably More

Dear Reader, When I checked out of my Santiago hotel room this morning, the message light on the phone was still flashing. Actually, multiple lights were flashing. Two on the phone by the bed, two on the phone on the desk and one on phone in the bathroom. I assume this means that someone called me, but I don't know who. The first time this happened was sometime last week. I never even noticed the flashing message lights until I turned off the lights to go to bed. When I picked up the phone, a recording of a woman's voice said (in English), "You have a callback request. You can still make a call by pressing * and dialing the number as usual." And then the phone dialed some number and started ringing. It was 11:30 pm and no one answered my call before the second ring which was the fastest I could hang up the phone. The lights blinked on. Out of curiosity about the way things work, I picked up the phone again, pressed * followed by the "voice mail" but...

I've been on elevators all around the world. Glass elevators at shopping malls. Elevators in office buildings that only visit floors 1-15. The world's fastest elevator in Building 101 in Taipei. All of these elevators work on the same principle. The passenger approaches the elevator door and presses one of two buttons. The upper button calls an elevator to take the passenger up; the lower button brings an elevator to take the passenger down. Sometimes there is only one button which makes the decision that much easier. Once the passenger has boarded the elevator, there is a large number of buttons next to the elevator door, usually labeled with numbers and each representing a floor in the building that houses the elevator. Sometimes difficulties can arise at this point from carelessness on part of the passenger. They may neglect to insert their hotel room key into the key reader before selecting a floor. They may have boarded an up-going elevator and choose a downward ...

You know how friendly they are at Starbucks? They ask for your name and write it on the paper cup so the barrista can shout it when your Mocha is ready? My name according to the Santiago Starbucks staff? Lassie. *woof*

On the flight from London to Sao Paulo, they served yogurt for breakfast. I looked at the expiration date and read 02 Jul 17. That's some seriously long-life yogurt. Actually, upon second reading, it was 02 Jul T7. Whatever T7 means. I ate the yogurt and I feel fine.

Dear Reader, I'm off again tomorrow on a round the world tour - 2 weeks in Santiago, Chile, followed by 2 weeks in Sydney, Australia. Per company policy, I'm responsible for paying my own hotel charges and then expensing that back to the company. No big deal for the average person. If only I were average!! Because I so recently received my UK visa and even more recently was added to the UK payroll, I'm in a little bit of a situation financially. I have very little money in the UK at present - like 100 pounds, which is not nearly enough to cover 4 weeks of hotels. I can't get a credit card here, because I haven't been in the country long enough, which means I have to pay for my hotels with my US credit card. But then I pay that bill with dollars and get reimbursed in pounds. I had been reserving the money left in my US accounts to get me through a year or so of Sallie Mae payments, and it's frustrating to have to reallocate that money with no expectation of...

There is a bridge between my office and the center of town. I was arranging to meet a co-worker for dinner and was trying to give her directions to the restaurant from the office. "It's over the river and through the woods," I told her. She looked confused. "Where are the woods?" Pause. "It was a joke... like the song... nevermind. Here's the address."