One thing you have to admit about me is that I totally rock as a handy man. I am the next
Bob Vila. I mean just last week I bought a new flat head screwdriver to fix a commode. I bought this new one because I broke my old one using it as a chisel. I could hear my old Auto Mechanics teacher from vocational school (see note below) saying, "Use the right tool for the job," whilst I was doing just the opposite.
Well, today we were walking down the street and I actually bumped into someone I know. This rarely happens because I look just like all the other white people around here and thus I am fairly inconspicuous. Anyway, this familiar face belonged to the man who made our kitchen cabinets.
He asked how we were we asked how he was. Then he said, "How are the cabinets?" Since he has no visitation rights. "Actually," I said "one had a handle fall off." And it had. A drawer handle fell right off and after replacing it a few times, I swapped it with another from a cabinet since it was obviously stripped out. I put the extra handle and screws in the cabinet to be handled at a later date. Then since the handle I stole was from above the fridge, I forgot about it.
"Well, when can I come and look at it?" I informed him we'd be home in 30 minutes if he'd like to come by. Then I forgot about him, too.
Well, he showed up and I led him to the offending handle giving him all the spare parts. He asked if I had a screwdriver. Of course I do and a small ladder, too, for easy reaching above the fridge. Then he quickly attached the handle and pulled on it. Fine. No ... more than fine. Strong! He looked at me like I was an idiot. I felt like an idiot. Heck, I am an idiot. Then he just shook his head and walked away leaving me with my new screwdriver and my shame.
I went back and pulled the handle myself, expecting it to come off in my hand but it didn't. Guess there goes my chance to be on HGTV....
(Now for the note: Many of you may be shocked to know that I, said Handy Man, took not one but two years of Auto Mechanics in high school. This decision was a deeply calculated move on my part. I asked around what program had the highest co-op rate. Turns out it was Auto Mechanics! So I signed on and found various ways to slack off and get three hours credit in the mornings. Its amazing how much you can sleep under a car if you can wedge your hand up in the engine and pretend to be working.
Well, finally my senior year rolled around when people get to co-op. In the old days that meant you left school and went to work. I think they scrapped that stuff nowadays since there is more of a focus on "learning" at schools. The great thing was I had a job at G-Auto, an auto parts store where I worked evenings and weekends. The trick was to work at least 20 hours a week to co-op but it seems it didn't matter when.
That meant each day my senior year I got to leave school at 10:30. I could go and get a
McDLT, which kept the hot side hot and the cool side cool. Then go home and watch
Geraldo! [this was after all 1987]. I could go co-op and work late in the afternoon because the school didn't need to know what time I was working now did they?
So that is the story of how I got out of school with neither an education nor the ability to change my own oil. The moral of the story? 17 year-olds should not be allowed to make their own decisions. End of note)
Isn't this something? We found it at a local department store a couple of weeks back. They had a few others but no Louisville Cardinals, sorry.
The kids did get some gifts.
Books! Who doesn't love books? They are the perfect gift. You can tell by the look on Caleb's face!
We didn't sleep here but we did stay two houses up in a much nicer place. That is a really traditional house!
At some point our hosts broke open this fruit after Craig said he liked it (turns out he was mistaken and was thinking of another fruit). This was obvious when the fruit was about 8 inches from our face. It has a very ... um .... distinct smell. Wes thinks the two best things to do with it are: 1) eat it and 2) drive around for hours with it in your hot car. It made for a nice ride home.
Us chilling in our evening wear. Craig made another fan of the man-skirt this week!
We had an awesome breakfast and the whole table ate for around $3. The guy on the left with the hat was encouraging when he said, "Not all Americans are evil. Just the politicians."
This is actually lunch and cost more like $20. Pretty darn awesome!!
Finally, chillin with a friend. Its been a good week. If you know Wes and Kim make sure you hear their stories. Just remember if you hear any regarding Craig's driving they are most likely not exaggerated at all.
I thought this was a cool action shot.
The whole fountain view. Its dedicated to the Queen of somewhere.
What would historical stuff be without some cool souvenirs? They had shirts, tops, baskets, and the like. We did our part to inspire the global economy.
The night we drove all over searching for a restaurant this is what we were searching for: satay, delicious meat on a skewer cooked over hot charcoal. We just had to wait until we got home and could actually find a place.
Hot flames and a fan and a few minutes later 60 sticks ready to eat! We order lots of food around here. The night before at the Lonely Planet place the waitress finally said, "I think that is enough for now," and cut us off additional ordering.
The finished product! Man this is good stuff. We polished these off and one person, who shall remain nameless (OK, it was Angie), still left kind of hungry. 
Now we are off to the village and we be spending a night out in the country so we'll update again when we get back on Friday afternoon our time!!
This is the building Wes and Kim are in from just up the hill. Historic to say the least.
Hudson and Bethany on top of the hill. Kids have too much energy! Not only did neither the sun nor hill bother them, they ran around the whole time while up there. You can tell we have been in Asia a while since we neither watched over nor corrected them while they were doing so in such an historic setting. I wanted to use "neither/nor" again in this paragraph but I could neither think of a good reason to do so nor a bad one. Sorry.
This is St. Paul who somehow lost his right hand. I'm going to check eBay for it later tonight. I watched two girls taking pictures here when a white guy walked up and they tried to explain to him about two people being in a picture. He, being new, understood them to mean he should take a picture of the two of them. He was wrong and learnt it when he reached for the camera and Girl #1 dragged him to the statue for him to have his picture made with her. He seemed sort of perplexed that they would want a picture of a total stranger but its quite normal here.
Hanging around in town after we went to the hill. Chinese New Year decorations still grace the streets. We decided to play our second favorite Davis family game ... driving around saying, "Where do you want to eat?" while having no idea where any actual restaurants are. This went on for about an hour while people got very, very hungry and we almost ran out of gas. Eventually we just settled for some place we found in the Lonely Planet travel book which was pretty good.
This sort of sums up how everyone felt at the end of the ordeal. Only one person resorted to this extreme. Or at least was photographed doing so...
This stuff is great. More people should eat more curry more often. Especially at breakfast!!
What is not to love about this breakfast? Rice, little salted, dried fish, peanuts, fried chicken, and hot sauce. Just like Grandma used to make. Well, not your grandma but somebody's!
Then we went to this big Hindu festival in our town. Everyone was happy and dressed up nice. They had free food and drinks! We even bumped into someone we knew. It was nice.
Then things got a bit ... um different. You know, in a shirtless-guy-carrying-fire sort of way.
Then it got weirder still. Here Wes is thinking, "What in the world has Craig gotten me in to?!?" He is not shielding himself but rather they insisted he fan the smoke up by his face. The crazy looking guy in the back is a statue. In the center was the chairman of the festival who was a great host to us.
Pretty soon, a thousand people showed up all in yellow. Most of them were carrying bowls of milk on their heads. They had some drums and chanting and things began to feel a bit foreign, if you will.
You can't see this too well. Click on the picture to enlarge and maybe it will help. This young lady actually has two metal skewers poking through her face. That was about as weird as things got. We heard sometimes people put hooks in their flesh but we didn't see anything that bizarre.
Later, we introduced Wes and Kim to Pappa Roti and Chrysanthemum tea. It seems the bread (Roti) was a bigger hit than the canned flower tea. It tastes like your drinking a flower. Isn't that amazing? This was actually after our third meal of the day (i.e. lunch).
Before we broke down and had our supper/dinner at Hamids (we hadn't yet had enough bread on the day and needed some naan), we dug into their suitcases and found a bit of candy and a few other surprises.
These shoes are actually Wes' and not Caleb's.
This Ben 10 guy is actually Wes' too. It seems he is a Ben fan. Who knew?
Sunday we get to attend a huge Hindu festival. Here's hoping we'll be able to hold off culture shock and some very weird stuff in order to take part in this once-in-a-lifetime chance.
We got our weary travelers and made it back to our house just within the past few minutes.
