Not All Who Wander Are Lost

...And Counting

Not doing much these days 'cept stressing about Dhaka. We did take a few hours off today to go up to Brattleboro and visit with Darcie's parents, and see her brother and his girlfriend, who were in town helping Darcie's father strip and revarnish his new boat; we went into town to see Virginia at Mocha Joes, too, but a parade for Korean War vets was impending, and she was too busy caffeinating the masses to chat. Took another few off this evening for a cookout with other faculty and their families, nominally a send-off for the Sheideggers, who are off next week for a year-long Fulbright fellowship in Turkey.

Mostly, though, I've just been sweating the small stuff. I've read the eco-friendly Lonely Planet guidebook several times, most notable for being the only guidebook on Bangladesh in the English language, and checked out Virtual Tourist on the subject of Dhaka, which mostly just confirms the LP folks. In my spare time, I worry about losing my functionality due to bad drinking water or smog (according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, one can expect burning eyes, rasping lungs, and a sore throat within a few hours after arrival in the capital city, but no one says what happens after a few days, or weeks, and it worries me). I found the web site for the Royal Park Residence, the hotel where most of the participants and co-leaders will be staying, and it seems nice, if a bit suburban -- smog notwithstanding, I prefer to be in the thick of things, I think.

And I've been sweating the technology, too. The potential for disaster is immense -- our institute subject (Teaching and Communicating with Technology) sort of begs network access, working computers, and all the trimmings; I've planned redundantly, putting all the materials I think I'll need on both CD, disk, and laptop, but we'll still need netowkr access much of the time, and the network there is supposed to be pretty iffy. Then there's data projection -- without which, we end up just talking at people for nine days, which plumb sucks and no bones about it. In about an hour I hope to finally speak to George, the principal of the school that's hosting us, to confirm whether they have a data projector for us to use; if not, I'll have to lug a bulky projector halfway around the world, since the "good ones" here at school are all installed in classroom ceilings. I would have spoken with him earlier, but I couldn't remember which way daylight savings time worked, and was afraid to call and accidentally wake him up.

Expect a good Monday Mosh tomorrow -- yeah, I know we're long overdue -- and then maybe a little something Tuesday before I leave. After that there's no guarantee I can blog, but I'll do what I can. 'til then...