A Day at the Offices, w/ shopping digression

Mon. 10/11 Sitting in my office at 11:00. Let's start there, shall we? Actually, you can skip the first half of this post and go right to the charming and riotous photo montage below this post if you'd like. You can click on any pic in the tour for a much larger version. I hope the "desk" in what was to be my office (I have a different idea) was built by disgruntled workers during one of the colonial episodes of Indo's past... for a child. I know the wall "cabinetry" wasn't, because I can see through the paint. Moneyflow problems have held up the purchase of equipment, but not of signage, so aside from welcoming the occasional prospective student, there's little to be done in the office, except pay other people to paint after hours, which is a job I'd gladly have done myself, except it would have been rude of me to deprive someone else of earnings (very true). But today, I sat with my laptop at aforementioned desk for a bit, preparing a student registration form, and interrupting myself with the cursed cell phone, SMSing ( a cumbersome instant messaging system that's cheaper by far than speaking on the darned thing, so it's the way of Indonesians...) condolences to a radio staion manager who for sad reasons had to postpone an appointment, finding out where my office manager was (more on that later, perhaps), tracking down my ironing board -- kinda hard to lose one of those, but leave it to me...(in Rio's van). Mainly I was there to help our new front office assistant get used to me. This desk faces hers through a door directly, and everytime I look up, she jumps up. Then again, that's not at all uncommon around me in these parts -- be nice when I see less of that "whoopie cushion with a smile" on people's faces (more later) ... Business meetings in my apartment all weekend,

a shopping aside
(well except for Round 2 of Rio and Tom's shopping bonanza). It ain't Costco, but it's close, and one of them is just below the coolest mall full of tech stores. Every major tech company has it's own store, and then lots of private merchants are on the floor below. Like wall-to-wall Best Buys, but in a complex competion-cooperative relationship. Some take credit cards, some don't. The Creative Labs shop doesn't. So you go to the private guy next door/down the hall/downstairs. You go in, say "speakers", and they show you what they got. You say "Creative?" and they say "just a minute". Out comes a small catalogue. You point, "how much". They call next door/down the hall/upstairs. Of course, it helps if you let your Indonesian friend do the talking, because then it moves faster and the prices come down. You get a price, say "OK" eventually, after looking away, coughing, showing disinterest, and once in awhile getting lucky, then they *poof* vanish around the corner, down the hall, upstairs, whereever, for a few moments, *poof* materialize with what you're interested in. And charge it. Eventually you go home and plug in your 9100-song MP3 player and the world is perfect again... after blowing the main fuse in the apartment TWICE, that is... which costs you two more layers of sweat going to the mechanic's room... And uh, the movies are on the 5th floor of that mall. ALL the movies. AND all the TV. EVER. Digital Surround Sound, widescreen, as cheap as the water, literally. And it's not air conditioned up there, and by now we all know what that means.
more or less the end of shopping aside

And aside from me, who needs it? 30 or more of the cable channels are English. Bring the kids, folks. Or, "no matter where you think you're going, you've never really left America"... Nickleodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney, Disney Kids, 3 varieties of MTV, Discovery, Discovery Travel, Animal Planet, Nat'l Geographic, ESPN, Fox, CNBC, CNN, BBC, HBO, Cinemax...
end of shopping aside and subsequent diversion

So my executive colleagues suggested we have all our meetings at my place, and I was happy to agree. Fewer cabs, good music, no sweat, plenty of tea, and a table for six or eight... One day it might be terrific to go to the office... but as you will see in the mystery tour, it's a mixed bag at the moment.