Tim’s Ramblings

Just a quick update.

I made it safely to Manila in the Philippines and it’s now 2am and I’m utterly jetlagged. Landed around 11:15pm local time and then somehow managed to get to the hotel and everything all safe and sound.

The city I saw was through traffic and the highway and lots of cars as we sped along to the hotel. But even though it was close to midnight on a Sunday night, all the clubs and the bars were hopping and lots of people milling about. It’s also been a long time since I was last in a developing country. As usual, the workers and the drivers and such were very attentive, the hotel is very nice with a huuuuge room for just US$150 (a far far cry from the closet in Tokyo for US$100…) and you first get a sense of a nice friendly place….but when you stop to look a bit closer you also see some appalling poverty that is literally sharing the same streets as the most prosperous businesses. Kids no older than 7 or 8 holding babies no older than 1 crossing the streets and begging to cars stopped at a red light…that kind of thing.

I’ve forgotten that this is pretty much most of the world…

Anyway, my experience so far has just been the airport (it’s the same everywhere for all intents and purposes) and the hotel. Tomorrow (or later today) me and the 2 others from my company here will be visiting a new reseller here as well as a reseller candidate from Malaysia who came up here as well to give an all day sales / techincal training. Then on Tuesday we need to leave the hotel at like 3am to catch a 6:15am flight to Tokyo. So I probably won’t see much of anything of the Philippines this time around. Maybe next time.

Oh…why so early? Security. Lots of it. Fun times…fun times…

It’s now past 2am. I am not sleepy. My alarm is going to go off in 3 hours and 45 minutes to get me to get up, get ready, check my machine and make sure my presentations and demos are tight, get breakfast, then meet in the lobby at 7:30am.

I should at least turn the light off and see if I can get more than an hour of sleep.

More updates to come!

….escalator??

Yup. The world’s smallest escalator is in Japan. At the Kawasaki More’s department store to be specific. It’s uh…5 steps. Total. Even certified by the Guiness Book of Records back in 1989!

Why was it made? I don’t know. Was it specifically to get this record? Maybe… Was it part of some buliding before it became a department store? Maybe… All I know is, there is only ONE and it goes down only and there are actually more stairs to go down (normal ones, not automatic) AFTER you get off the escalator. But the best part is, people use it as if it’s totally normal. While I was taking pictures, people were looking at me like they had no idea why I thought it was just downright hilarious. They would step on the escalator. Take 5 seconds to go down. Then take a few more steps, go down the normal stairs, and be on their way like it is the most normal thing in the world.

Fantastic.

I love this country.

(^_^)

We really do work here in the Cleveland office. We really do create a top of the line international buisness software. But every once in a while, after regular hours, we have some event going on. Like a monthly “Happy Hour” where pizza is free but beer is $1 and there’s a theme. All the money goes to charity and it’s a nice thing they do. Of course typically I’m not here…boo.

But this week I was. And the theme was Rock Band. You get with your friends, get a band together, perform, get scored, win a prize :) I wasn’t around the office at all so I didn’t make a band but I at least helped a band get ready the night before :D

Anyway, it was a good time. As you can see!

I swear we really do work. For real.

(^_^)