Apparently it’s my destiny to misplace things this month. First my glasses and car keys, then my AMEX card, and now the power-cord to my laptop.

I packed up to leave work in the morning and grabbed my cell phone, laptop and put the LAN cable back where it belonged but I didn’t do the most important thing. After unplugging my power-cable from the laptop, I forgot to unplug it from the wall and pack it back in my case.

Of course, when I returned to the hotel I immediately crashed for some much needed sleep. When I woke up and decided to try to work for a bit – posting blog entries, fixing up some participant guides, playing around with the NK website layout – I discovered that I was powerless. Since I couldn’t work (my battery charge was super low) I had to *gasp* find new ways to amuse myself. Needless to say I finished off another book.

Since our offices are spread out over the city – and I was planning on working out of a different one this evening – I had to high tail it to the one I was at this morning in order to recover my power-cord and then schlep my way over to a different office for the remainder of the shift. On the bright side, when I arrived at the first office, the power-cord was just where I left it (and still plugged into the wall).

Now, maybe I should find one of those kiddy leashes and start attaching all my possessions to me so I don’t misplace them in future!

Technorati Tags: lost, power-cord, laptop

It’s here! I can eat, sleep and breathe again.

For years, I’ve watched those cheezy AMEX commercials where people lose (or have stolen from them) their ID, money, etc.

Today, I am profoundly grateful.

Somehow the hotel (I’m convinced the building has a mind of its own) has discovered I wanted to stay somewhere else this trip. First it was the crazed channel flipping and random porn exposure on the TV. Then, the gift shop was out of calling cards so I couldn’t load my phone to call home. Now, the bathtub is broken! So much for my plans for a relaxing soak after work…

The maintenance staff will need to fix the faucets tomorrow. Hopefully they’ll read the note on my file that says I work nights and decend upon the room at a reasonable hour.

The guests are FIFA crazy and only Vince – our transplaced Filipino-Canadian desk clerk from Toronto – cared that Edmonton had lost the Stanley Cup in game seven.

Technorati Tags: travel, hotel

There is much to be said about returning to a hotel you’ve spent the bulk of the last 7 months at for an extended stay. After the mess of the last 24 hours (the amazing experience of travelling business class not withstanding), it’s nice to see a familiar face in the middle of the night to welcome you as if you were a long lost friend.

Of course, anyone who’s willing to try and figure out why your TV set is randomly changing from the Hallmark channel to a porn channel at 2am in the morning is always going to rank high in my books. At least now I have a nice “omg! porn” story to match mom’s Ontario motel story 😉

Update: Apparently the TV was set to a test remote signal so everytime someone at the hotel was working on testing whether or not the TV remotes or systems were working properly, my TV randomly jumped channels to match what they were doing. What’s really disturbing about this is that they never seemed to be testing the random cable channels or standard pay-per-view movies.. the testers seemed addicted to checking the “adult movie” section. Now that the embarrassment of talking to everyone at the reception and concierge desk about my random channel surfing TV is over, I have to double-check that none of the pay-per-view moments I was exposed to show up on my bill. On the bright side, they’ve reprogrammed my TV to only accept signals from the remote in my room, so I should no longer be plauged by TV testers in the housekeeping department!

Technorati Tags: travel, hotel, tv remote, broken tv, random channel surfing

I think I have been going about my Manila travel journals the wrong way. I have been so fixated on how much the Philippines ressembles North America or Europe in culture that I haven’t not really paid attention to the differences. The wonder and awe that I belive runs through the journals I kept while in India seems to be missing from my log of my travels to Manila. It appears I’ve had blinders on that I wasn’t able to see past. I am hoping to rectify that with this trip.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again before I leave – the Filipino’s and Filipina’s I’ve had the opportunity to meet are incredibly friendly and happy individuals. They have recently been voted the 17th happiest culture on earth. Interestingly enough, Canada ranked 111th in comparison.

General information about the Philippines.

• Official Country Name: Republic of the Philippines
• Also Known As: The Philippines, The Philippine Archipelago
• Capital: Manila
• Total Area: 115,830.65 square miles (300,000.00 square km)
• Population: 82,841,518 (July 2001 est.)
• Estimated Population in 2050: 153,913,427
• Languages: There are two official languages in the Philippines: Filipino (based on Tagalog) and English. In addition, there are eight major dialects spoken on the various islands: Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocan, Hiligaynon or Ilonggo, Bicol, Waray, Pampango, and Pangasinense.
• Literacy Rate: 94.6% (1995 est.)
• Religion: Roman Catholic 83%, Protestant 9%, Muslim 5%, Buddhist and other 3%
• Life Expectancy: 64.96 male, 70.79 female (2001 est.)
• Government Type: Republic
• Currency: 1 Philippine peso (P) = 100 centavos
• GDP (per capita): $3,800 (2000 est.)
• Industry: textiles, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, wood products, food processing, electronics assembly, petroleum refining, fishing
• Agriculture: rice, coconuts, corn, sugarcane, bananas, pineapples, mangoes; pork, eggs, beef; fish
• Arable Land: 19%
• Natural Resources: timber, petroleum, nickel, cobalt, silver, gold, salt, copper

More Information can be found at the following sites:

• Government of the Philippines – Official web site
• Philippines – CIA World Factbook
• Philippines Archipelago
• Philippines – Wikipedia