Book Corner - Finished Reading

Silent Partner (Alex Delaware Novel) by Jonathon Kellerman

512 Pages

Paperback

Mystery Thriller

This is my third book by the author and I was hoping to enjoy it. Unfortunately it just dragged on towards the end. I think he could have easily wrapped it up 200 pages earlier.

It did have a good twist at the end, even two twists, but it's almost not worth getting there.

I was really surprised by all of the positive reviews on Amazon. All in all not a good read.

The Utility Bill Cometh

The other day when I walked into our elevator lobby our receptionist handed me an envelope. As I waited for the elevator I went ahead and opened it and noticed it was an electric bill. I tried explaining to her that these usually go directly to the company which she I wasn't able to make her understand so I took it with me and would bring it to work the next day.

I took a better look at the bill to see how much it was and initially I kind of shrugged it off, then I felt bad. Now I know that electricity is supposed to be expensive here, we live on an island, but this bill was big. How big?

I'd say about five times the amount for our home in Virginia.

In Virginia we can keep the windows open and use the ceiling fans and only turn on the air conditioning on the hottest of days. We can't open most of the windows here as they have been sealed shut to keep out the heat. That and one wall has floor to ceiling windows that soaks up the heat.

We have five separate air conditioning units. They are in the bedrooms, living and dining room. But not in the kitchen or the maids quarters (our pantry), why? Because the designers figured that the tenants would not pay for air conditioning for their housekeepers who would be spending most of their time in the kitchen.

The sad thing is that our electric bill is only half of what the people living in houses receive, which is incredible to say the least.

We have been pretty good at turning off or turning down the air conditioners and now that we've seen one of electric bills with our own eyes, even more so.

But the electric bill is nothing compared to the rent on this place, that's a real eye popper.

The Iraq Adventure

The WHAT! Come April 25th I am departing Sri Lanka for the States where I will start four weeks of training for a one year tour in Iraq.

This is something Chris and I had discussed and I was more concerned about her feelings about it and she was okay with it.

As some of you may know this won't be my first time to "The Sandbox" as I did a year in Baghdad during 2005. I was there for the elections and admittedly some bad times. I feel that things have calmed down considerably since I've been there, also I will not be going to Baghdad. I would rather be in the Green Zone, but I'm happy that I was just able to get a slot there as the positions were very hard to come buy.

Unlike my previous experience there the benefit$ won't be nearly as much, but there is a financial incentive that is very generous along with two paid trips to the States (or wherever you want to go) and three paid trips within the region, Basically Chris and I can meet every two months or so and she can catch a flight to Dubai, Amman, Charm-El-Cheik etc.

Where is Chris going to stay during my one year in Iraq? Well right here in Sri Lanka. The company gives you the choice of packing up and going to the USA and receiving a stipend or staying at your current location. Given that she has access to pools, beaches, the apartment is maintained, all utilities paid and we have a housekeeper, she'll stay here. That and we have a friend who will be starting a job in Singapore so I expect Chris will visit her when she needs a break from the city.

I hope to visit the gym more often while I'm there, not like the last time I was there (well honestly I quit going to the gym which was in a big tent after a rocket landed nearby and we could feel the concussion).

Computer Donation to the Boys Home

Over a year ago I went on a company trip to a boys home (orphanage) outside of the city limits. We went there to just have a fun day with the boys.

Initially we were treated to a tour of the home which is on a very large tract of land and has many buildings. One of the first things that we say was the computer classroom. I noticed that they were all shut off. I asked if they were any problems with them and they said there was many. Myself and a few others tried to get a few to work. It was futile, they were all junk.

We continued our tour and was given a karate demonstration by the boys and then we ended up playing some impromptu volleyball and cricket.

It occurred to me that the company often donated used computers and even the worst computers that we get rid of would be better than what they had now. I told the director that I would try.
(open mouth, insert foot).

This isn't the first time that I had some grandiose idea for charity. The last big idea I had didn't turn out well. That's a story for another time.

As it turns out one of the units with the company had just received new computers and they said I could have the old ones and the monitors! Only problem was that they had removed the hard drives. They also had the old restore CD's (software, drivers etc.) that came with them.

My first problem was getting the computers home. Between procrastination and logistics, this took awhile.

Next came the hard dives. I was hoping that some grant money would come through but it never did and I ended up having to buy the hard drives off of eBay. I was trying to get the best bang for my bucks and I lost a few auctions before I finally won an auction for the hard drives that I needed at a good price. Now I had to wait for the hard drives to arrive.

The hard drives arrived and now I had to prepare one that I could clone to the other computers. This took awhile as I wanted to find the best open source educational software I could find.

When I finally got one of the computers the way I wanted it I was ready to clone the hard drive. If all went well I would be able to use a hard drive duplicator at work and the job should only take a half hour tops to clone all of the hard drives. The duplicator wouldn't work with the drives. I needed a plan "B".

I then had to figure out a software way to clone the computers. This took forever but I finally was able to bot the computers from a USB flash drives and clone all of the computers over a weekend. But then two of the computers used different hard drives. Fortunately I had the drives but then the clone image wouldn't work and I had to come up with something new for them. I ended up installing Ubuntu Linux on them.

Then I tested the monitors and realized some of them didn't work. Now I needed more monitors, Back to the company and asked if I could get some used computer monitors to be donated. This took awhile but I got the monitors and got them home.

I'll just fast forward here. I finally was able to get someone to make liaison with the boys home and with some help delivered and set up the computers.

The boys were very excited and dived right into the educational software that I had installed. It was so good to see how happy they were. I'm ashamed at myself for dragging this on for so long.

We are making another trip to the home next month and I'll get a chance to follow up on the computers and I am going to see about getting the company to donate a printer.

Boys home web site: http://mallikahomes.org/parakrama.shtml