Sanctuary

She has finally packed her bags.

I just realised that we don’t know if we will ever be there again.

Our little paradise in the middle of nowhere. 110 km from Metro Manila. So many trips, up and down, on a road that brought us close to death, but closer to each other.

Seven years ago, I would never have imagined that this little refinery town would have so much to do with my life. Now, our lives. Well, it even features prominently in our wedding photo-shoot.

My two years there, the best two years of my life, that yielded some of my closest friends, wildest experiences, most important self-realisations,… And, my wife.

On the way in, a carefree graduate, fresh out of school, on an everything-paid graduation trip. On the way out, a worried boyfriend, fresh into a relationship, staring at Mount Impossible.

I promised to keep coming back. I kept.

A special place.

Bait

An opportunity. To be a leader of men. In a rather small way.

As the rule book says: from self-mastery on to delivery through others.

The pay will not be great. The feeling is.

To be a deputy. To one who oversees a hundred tanks, a dozen wharves, a fair share of the ships that sail the Straits, and more than a hundred men.

Should I?

Tick-tock

What do I want with life - perpetual motion or stillness in time?

It is a bit disconcerting – the idea of not heading someplace. And, of not knowing where I am.

Silos

I work for a fairly large Anglo-Dutch multi-national. In our office building, our co-tenant is another fairly large Anglo-Dutch multi-national. Multi-nationals work in mysterious, yet rather similar ways. Or, so I found out at the supermarket queue.

Behold the concept of a transfer price! As integrated multi-nationals have different modules of their supply chains residing in different countries or tax jurisdictions, they use a concept of transfer pricing. This ensures that different legal entities that belong to the same global corporation treat each other at arm’s length, charge each other competitive market prices, and do not exploit any favorable tax regimes along the supply chain. However, incentive-driven individuals within the same corporation (at least, within mine) spend hours, days and weeks haggling over what price to charge each other, so as to lock in attractive bottom-lines for their own business units, and harvest correspondingly handy performance bonuses.

Right now, I am stuck in the middle of one such intra-company deadlock, where we seem to have completely forgotten that our main customer for the deal is an external one. Curiously, it would seem that I am not the only one with this headache today. The lady ahead of me, in the queue downstairs, was poring over a densely populated printout titled “Transfer Pricing Schedule”, while paying for her milk and bananas. And, the logo in the corner of aforementioned document belonged to aforementioned fellow Anglo-Dutch multi-national.

Alas, I did not get to see how much they were charging each other for my Dove soap bar.

Saturation

I am fat. Especially around the waist.

I can't deny this anymore. And, I should not.

67 kilos, here I come.

Genius

The guy who came up with the idea of the housefly markings in the Laufen urinals, for target practice.

Self-fulfilment

In an earlier post, I wondered how conscious man is the instrument of the cosmos' self-awareness. Each one of us, then - by extension.

So, I contemplate the power of wishful thinking, of self-fulfilling prophecies, and by an obtuse extension, prayer.

The mind says wiggle, and wiggle does the toe. I wish, and the cosmos rearranges itself, and becomes.

My wish. The cosmos' wiggle.

Chequemate

I like to sign cheques. Even if it is for hardly a dollar or just the odd cent.

I can imagine why checking accounts are still popular in this age of ether-money. Signing your name on the dotted line... a sure sign of your creditworthiness... that someone else is ready to take your word...

For many of us, the easiest oath that we will ever take.

Evermore

And, to our beloved corporation, we say: Less government, more corporation, please!

Friends

A sitcom from another time. A portrait of the now. At Hillview Green. It's time.

Exercise

... is the key to happiness. I am convinced. And, I am getting started. We'll see.

Vent-ows

So, in what could be considered one of the great rip-offs, Microsoft has managed to convince Shell to install Windows Vista on over 100,000 computers worldwide. And that too, after Shell users have been waiting with bated breath for almost ten years – to be delivered from the distant past that is Windows 2000. Delivered, we have been – from the past into a black hole. I mean, even Microsoft has abandoned Vista for 7. But, not to worry, this relic will be preserved within Shell for at least another decade.

Colleagues who have recently taken up the yoke (some say the crucifix) that is Windows Vista, encourage me when they say that the instability lasts (only) a month, after which your machine stabilizes or you become numb (or dumb). I blog for posterity. So, here goes from today’s Windows Vista special edition:

1. All my quick launch buttons have disappeared. Naturally, the disappearance of the Show Desktop button has been an unmitigated disaster, given what follows.
2. MS Outlook closes unexpectedly, restoring my profile to a distant point in the past, and resetting all my personal preferences. The icing really is the timely message which alerts me to the incoming missile, and says, without any serious commitment, “Windows can try to restart MS Outlook”. Nice try.
3. Internet Explorer crashes unexpectedly and is unable to download anything. During one of the failed downloads, an unrelated folder on my Desktop vanished. Nothing is safe.
4. Windows 2000 was not without its faults. However, as I liked to say, Mac for the home, Windows for the office – where an ever-ready IT helpdesk slays all the dragons for you. Today, our helpdesk guy laid down arms. After a patient battle that lasted 2.5 hours. Now, they don’t want to talk to me anymore. The last straw.

Note to self: Development need: Learn how to become billionaire selling trash.

Interestingly, other than the fact that I lost a few hours today, none of the above should really stop me from chugging along now. Except for the sticky terror that some unidentified demon lurks, ready to vaporize a day’s work. For a moment’s whim. Without a moment’s notice.

PS: I watched a lot of TED on my iPhone while on hold with the helpdesk guy.

Happy Friday.

Rain

Life is good. I am happy.

The pitter-patter of a gentle drizzle on my umbrella never fails to remind me of that.

Routine

Things are moving along nicely, in our relentless pursuit of routine. Which is not a good thing in itself.

We've signed up to our first home (leased, nevertheless). Joint bank accounts. Phone lines. Adjacent numbers, even. Lounging about with mutual friends. Date nights (we actually watched Date Night). Breakfast in the favourite places. A Sunday afternoon spent swimming and reading. Very long conversations, face-to-face. Our first piano. Tussles over whether the handkerchiefs need folding or pressing.

And, I never knew she loved walking as much as I did. Well, there was always the car.

I am liking the looks of this thing they call married life.

Waiting

Tonight is the night. It has been a long wait. Almost five years.

I can finally feel the butterflies in the stomach. I have been feeling them for about ten minutes now.

And, the palpable relief. As of a marathon runner who does not have to put one step in front of another, any more.

And, the excitement. For us, and our life as man and wife. And, for her. New place. New work. New life.

A new phase. A positive change. A fresh beginning. A little bit at a time.

Homecoming

She's coming home. Just a little behind me, but coming home nevertheless. Finally.

Conscious Man

Said the cosmologist Paul Davies,

"Through science, we human beings are able to grasp at least some of nature's secrets. We have cracked part of the cosmic code. Why this should be, just why Homo sapiens should carry the spark of rationality that provides the key to the universe, is a deep enigma. We, who are children of the universe - animated stardust - can nevertheless reflect on the nature of that same universe, even to the extent of glimpsing the rules on which it runs. How we have become linked into this cosmic dimension is a mystery. Yet the linkage cannot be denied.

What does it mean? What is Man that we might be party to such privilege? I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama. Our involvement is too intimate. The physical species Homo may count for nothing, but the existence of mind in some organism on some planet in the universe is surely a fact of fundamental significance. Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor by-product of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here."

Not merely Homo sapiens. Homo conscius, in fact.

Proverb

As I flip to April on my desk calendar, it says:

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. - Japanese proverb.

Nice one that, just for me, on All Fools Day!

Engineering

So, we ran into an operational issue during a negotiation with a counterparty. Potential deal-breaker, maybe. And, I heard myself saying, "Don't worry, I am sure there is a technical solution to every operational problem. We just need to find out what that is."

And then, I caught myself thinking, "The engineer dies hard".