QOTD: "The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage." - Mark Russell
Reading: Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant
Listening to: Mellow, Another Mellow Summer
Decluttering accomplishments: got through some of the papers from the living room floor, threw out flyers for events that happened already
Thanks to my obsessive belief that something else must be happening in the world, I have found a new career direction.
You see, I was reading the world news on the BBC and came across a recent story from Tonga. Jesse Bogonoff, who had worked for Bank of America in San Francisco, persuaded the Tongan government to let him manage the money they made from selling Tongan citizenship and passports. (The citizenship sales were primarily to people from Hong Kong, by the way, due to their concerns about the handover to China. As a side note, the government of Grenada has just stopped selling passports, because of the terrorism situation.) In exchange, the Tongan king appointed Bogonoff court jester.
Bogonoff disappeared in early October. Along with between 20 and 40 million dollars, depending on what news source you believe. It seems the Tongans failed to notice that every single officer of the investment company was named Jesse Bogonoff. The reason I love the BBC is that they said the Tongan government was reluctant to release the story because they feared being made a laughing stock.
At any rate, I see a job opening here. I promise to embezzle less than the last guy. And maybe I will even learn to juggle beanbags instead of finances.
In other news, I forgot to mention two celebrity deaths. Nguyen Van Thieu was, of course, the president of South Vietnam during most of the Vietnam War. Helen Robinson was less famous, but more powerful, having been the switchboard operator for the Red Sox for just over 60 years. Other brief notes I have on news stories include a surprising casualty at the World Trade Center - namely, the Helen Keller Archives. I'd have expected Keller's papers to have been in Alabama, not New York. Finally, an obscure law in Colorado turned up which requires women to have the governor's permission to serve in the Colorado National Guard in any role other than as nurses. It's not being enforced and I'm sure it will get fixed quickly, but it's a reminder that our Constitution still has its flaws.
As for the work week, we are back to higher security. My company has instituted a particularly paternalistic travel policy. First, we need a senior vice president's signature to certify that our travel is "mission essential." But the really silly part is that we are supposed to call a designated person in our organization (in our case, it's one of the secretaries) every time we board a plane and when we arrive safely. Fortunately, Rob made the call for us on this week's trips as I would have had a hard time refraining from phrasing it as "Mommy, I'm here safely." I do understand that the company needs to know where employees are and there is probably some insurance requirement underlying some of this, but a more reasonable policy would have us call before only if changing from our scheduled flights and let us call after we got to the hotel (or company we're visiting) or home.
On the plus side, my meetings were less painful than they might have been. (I attribute that to the Yankees losses to the A's.) And I have some minor food pornography, despite this not having been Boulder. One night we went to the Banana Leaf in Milpitas. They advertise as Thai, but the food is more Malaysian. The salmon in ginger sauce was good, but the eggplant in spicy vegetarian sauce was incredible. The other person I ate with was still raving about it the next day. We also had an excellent dim sum lunch at Hong Sing Tea House in Sunnyvale, though I can't really tell you much of what we ate. There was mango pudding for dessert, though. Our other dinner at Tied House in Mountain View was good enough (competent fish and chips and a nice wheat beer) but not really exciting.
Copyright 2001 Miriam H. Nadel