Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

So it is about 10:30 AM in Manila right now. I talked to Gina a couple of hours ago, she arrived safely and has already completed her first day of work at the customer's office (technically she is into her 2nd day of work right now).

She said that the flight was not too bad and this time around she made a couple of friends.

Apparently Hotels.com has opened a call center in Manila, she ended up sitting next to a couple of guys from the Hotels.com's Dallas office.

She described them as Sales Guys and that they were going to Manila for three weeks. Apparently they are rotating sales folk through the Manila call center as part of training. (She didn't say whether it was the call center's training or the sales folk's training, my guess it is the call center's training.)

Apparently, the this was the first time for these two sales guys to visit Manila, they didn't know how LONG a flight to the Philippines was going to be. Having known a few sales folk in my time, I am sure that it was merely a lack of reading the ticket and doing the math. Because in the end, knowing how long you are going to be stuck in the airplane doesn't really matter, it isn't going to make the time go by any faster.

However, from what I am told a bag (of holding +2) containing a bunch of McD's food. The bag was rumored to contain chicken nuggets, cheeseburgers, snack wraps and I am sure there were some french fries.

They might have been thinking that it was the last time that they were going to see American food for three weeks (if you can really think of McD's as food). Gina said that one of them proclaimed 'The Stash' as emergency food in case the food on the flight was bad.

Gina said they seemed surprised when she told them that McD's existed in the Philippines.

Wait till they hear that KFC is making a killing in Taipei.

The Hotels.com guys had the same travel arrangements as Gina (For the most part).

Fly Coach and stay in a really NICE hotel, or fly business class and stay somewhere not so nice.

Both Gina and the Hotels.com guys choose to fly coach and stay someplace NICE, the Shangri-La hotel chain.

However, Gina is at the Edsa and I believe she said the Hotels.com guys were at the Traders one (across town).

Gina is getting to be quite the experienced international traveler, she told me that she helped the Hotels.com guys get through customs in Manila, since they were rookies.

I do find it sort of interesting that the Hotels.com guys are going to be working US hours (for the most part, they start work at 11PM Manila / 10 AM Central), while Gina starts her day at 9AM Manila / 8PM Central.

Just for the record I am stealing a bit of the wife's thunder here and blogging vicariously through her, because well she has been to the Philippines a few times now since her last blog post and I am not sure she is going to post anything up on FiveDogQuartet.com or not.

For me, it is just the same old with working and playing too many video games.

Speaking of both of those things call to me.

Laterz

Gina flew off to the Philippines on Friday the 28th and arrived on Sunday the 30th. While, this isn't necessarily a normal definition of time travel, the there are several things to keep in mind here.

For instance, I spoke with her while I was making dinner this evening (Monday night), this while she was on her way to breakfast on Tuesday morning.

The is already in tomorrow, while I am still in Today!

Ok, Ok I know she isn't really in the future. But that type of mindset may help you understand this next bit.

So my wife's birthday is on the 29th. She was on the airplane for her birthday. However, I would like to think that she was crossing the international dateline (though I am pretty sure she was a few hours away from that when the airplane crossed that median).

However, as far as I am concerned she ended up skipping the 29th, thus negating her birthday for this year.

And as it so happens, this year is her 30th birthday.

Which means that if she skipped the 29th of March, then technically she never turned 30, so she gets to be 29 for another year.

Apparently someone at work made a joke about how she isn't turning 30, she is just going to be celebrating the first anniversary of her 29th birthday.

Anyway, Gina is having a good time in the Philippines so far. She is going to be there for about 2 weeks, returning to Austin on the 12th.

That means that I am living it up bachelor style with the dogs.

I am trying to get them to respect me more. I am pretty sure they think I am just one of the pack, except I'm extra tall and have thumbs (which come in handy for opening things like cans of food and treats).

John finished up the gate he was making for Gina. It is custom fit to go across our wider than normal opening between the living room and the dining room. The height is perfect, not too high and not too low. The couple of previous gates we have had (from Wal-Mart or Target) tended to be too high, tends to make for banged up shins.

John does great work, when I get a chance I will post some pictures. John stated that if anyone else is looking for a custom crafted gate he might start doing them as part of his side woodworking business.

Well, I am going to see if I can finish my expense report tonight.

Laterz