Work Hard and Play Hard

There has been a veteran guy from work who has come to the customer site. He also stayed in the same hotel with us. We ended up working long hard days and then eating and drinking well into the night. This was a nice revisit to the primary lesson taught at UW-Madison: Work Hard and Play Hard. Unfortunately for my 10 fans, I have left you in the dust...my apologies. I hope we can still be friends.

Veteran Coworker has now taken off. I decided to call it an early night and figured I might as well put together a post. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, so I decided to give some random thoughts and observations about Malaysia. Feel free to comment, e-mail or call me if you want to hear the story behind it:

• Saw a hornbill yesterday. Not my picture...

• Climbed up 15 flights of stairs about 4 times a day for the past week and a half.
• Ate at a fisherman's village restaurant with the Plant Manager.
• Had a full day of meetings in an overly air conditioned room. The CEO said he wanted to visit Canada in January. I told him he could borrow my coat if I was still in Malaysia.
• I had either a chipped tooth or a really thick fingernail in my fried rice a couple of days ago. Veteran Coworker had the other half of it...
• Every other dining experience has been spectacular. The food is great in Malaysia.
• A common greeting in Malaysia is something on the order of, "Good Morning, Have you taken your breakfast?" Or "Hello, have you had lunch yet?"
• Explained the impending doom of social security in the US to a Malaysian while eating spicy chili crab with my hands. Malaysians get to keep all of the retirement money they pay in as taxes and it is invested in the market...they couldn't understand the idea that we pay tax that gets paid out to other people and that this pool of money is not invested in anything.
• Went to the Sungai Pandan Waterfalls and Gua Charas twice (including once with College Roomate). The first two videos are the water falls and the Buddha caves (Gua Charas).
• Partied with the Indian Mafia. They are big Indian guys who wear pinkie rings and gold chains. I have a picture of one of them balancing a cocktail on their head.
• Can not tell the difference between Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, Indonesian and Malaysians. I'm working on it!
• Played Purple Haze with the Filipino Band in the Hotel, twice. Also played mustang sally once.
• I now know a few words in Malay. Salemat Pagi = Good Morning. Terima Kasi = Thank You. Nasi = Rice. Ikan = Fish. Udang = Prawn. Football = Soccer.
• The Sultan of Pahang had his birthday party at the hotel I'm staying at. The last video is of the fireworks that were going off during the celebration. There were glowing chunks of firework shrapnel hitting the building I was in. I stay on the 5th floor and the fireworks were almost eye level.
• Family of 4 on a moped cruising down the highway.

There's more but I'm too tired to type. It was a good run with Veteran Coworker and
College Roommate! Now its time to rest up. Enjoy the videos!