Authorities with the regional conservation office suspect the fire started on a farm when a pile of animal manure that wasn’t being properly stored spontaneously self-combusted.
Last Tuesday night flying back to Singapore from Jakarta I was dozing off and listening to music when I heard the pilot say something about a delay. He said we would be landing at one AM or something. I thought “that can’t be right, we are only 20 minutes away and it’s only 11:30.”
Then we proceeded to make tight little turns over Batam. For an hour.
Now, almost exactly a week later I’m writing this while I wait for my three hour delayed flight from Singapore to Jakarta which is currently sitting in Batam after a drone sighting at Changi.
A few weeks ago I spent two nights in the hospital. I checked in after going into the emergency room for sever chest/stomach pain. This was the second visit to the emergency room for this. I went back at Chinese New Year in February. At that time they hooked me up to all the wires and took blood and the whole nine yards to check for heart issues. No heart issues so they called indigestion and sent me home with industrial strength antacids. I have never experienced any indigestion like this. It was just above the bottom of my sternum and was a sharp pain like someone wiggling a knife in my chest.
Cut to mid-May and I spent one night in agony again for about four hours. I racked my brains to see what I had eaten or done similar to Chinese New Year that could cause it. I couldn’t think of anything. So when it happened again the next week I went back to the emergency room.
Same procedure with the wires and blood and all but, again no signs of heart issues so they checked me in for more diagnostics.
This breaks my 41 year streak of no hospitalization. The only times I’ve spent a night in the hospital was to accompany my wife when my daughters were born.
The next morning the doctor ordered, and performed, an endoscopy. The one where they shove a video camera down your throat and into your stomach. I don’t remember much about this since they put you to sleep but I will never forget the taste of some chemical they sprayed in the back of my mouth just before knocking me out. It was, how can I put this? I can only imagine this is what it’s like to have the Terminator or C3-P0 ejaculate in your mouth. There, you will never get that image out of your head, I’ve destroyed any remaining chance of having a political career and I’ve shared my pain.
Moving on…
I got the results the next morning: Helicobacter pylori [wikipedia.org] infection. A bacteria that lives in your stomach, among all that acid. It’s a bad ass bacteria, yea me. It is also the bacteria which causes stomach ulcers and can cause cancer. On the other hand Wikipedia says 50% of the world is infected —the most common infection in the world! Apparently most people don’t develop any issues.
Anyway, I got drugs, lots of drugs. Multiple antibiotics and various other things to kill my unwanted passengers:
Fred Jablonski’s water bottle, a blue one liter Nalgene bottle, sat on his desk long after Fred Jablonski was gone. He only lasted a day. Showed up and decided that the job wasn’t for him or something, we never knew. In fact, no one ever introduced him to anyone in the the department and no one told us he was gone. But his desk was still his desk months later, the water bottle gathering dust along with the standard office supplies, pen, pencil, stapler and notebook. Fred Jablonski was The Dead Man in Yossarian’s tent. No one could be assigned to that desk the water bottle gathered dust until we moved offices seven months later. But the myth of Fred Jablonski long after the desk and dusty water bottle were left behind.
Fred Jablonski lived on because he became a kind of Spartacus for the software development department. Everyone was Fred Jablonski. See, when we changed offices we also got we one of those phone conferencing systems which asked you to record your names and then announced you when you joined the call. This annoyed everyone. So when you attended a conference call you would be met with a roll call of “Fred Jablonski”, “Freeeed Jablonski”, “Fred Jaaablonski”, “Jablonski, Fred Jablonski” every time a developer joined. The rest of the company had no idea who Fred Jablonski was which only encouraged us for a time. Eventually the company grew and many people even in the software engineering department had no idea who Fred Jablonski was. And so, eventually Fred Jablonski faded…
This is Vinicunca [wikipedia.org]. Commonly called Rainbow Mountain or The Mountain of Seven Colors. This photo was taken some 5,000 meters above sea level after a grueling climb (According to Wikipedia Vinicunca is 5,200 m.a.s.l., but that is the peak and we did not go to the highest point we stopped just above 5,000, so I’ll stick with 5,000 as my personal best). The climb itself would not be too hard, less than 500 meters vertical over a 5 kilometer trail, if it were not for the altitude. The altitude makes every step up, even a gentle grade, work is and the last 40 meters or so is a real lung burning experience. Every 10 steps I needed to rest for 2 minutes to catch my breath. But I made it up, without a horse (you can rent a horse).
For perspective: The highest point in the continental US is Mount Whitney [wikipedia.org] at 4,421 m.a.s.l. The highest point in Europe is Mount Blanc [wikipedia.org] at 4,808 m.a.s.l. (if you count the Caucus mountains on the Russia-Georga border as part of Europe then there are several taller mountains: Mount Elbrus [wikipedia.org] trumps me at 5,642 m.a.s.l. as does Dykh-Tau [wikipedia.org] at 5,205 m.a.s.l. and Shkhara [Wikipedia.org] at 5,193 m.a.s.l. — but that’s lower than the peak of Vinicunca so I’m going to stop there.) And finally, Everest South Base Camp in Nepal is 5,364 m.a.s.l. (North Base Camp is in Tibet at 5,150 m.a.s.l.).
