almost SLEEPLESS IN VANG VIENG (in Vientiane and Bangkok too!)

The nights in Vang Vieng were lullabyes of Beer Lao 

and a lei of grilled pork intestines.

From Patuxai, I raced from two meetings to the eternal rains 

of a national dialogue.

I was kip-less in the train, baht-less at Chatrium as the tracer 

was unleashed in Manila.

For the sake of rights and security, generative AI deep learned

VUCA and the C Risk Matrix.

The Onion Router browser will shield  ISPs, DNSs and VPNs 

from metadata's digital repression.

Baguio revisited, annihilation photons reported back, a temple, 

Suan Phlu is also Lumpini and Patpong. 

The trains led us to Hua Lumpong, a prayer at Wat Trimit, and the crowded markets of Yaowarat.

We ate Wat Arun for lunch after peeking at Wat Pho's massive feet and the guarded gates of the Royal Palace. 

Bangkok's holy trinity lulled me to sleep but I smelled of Chang Beer in each early morning that I wake up.

INTO THE STORM (How Our Shoes Got Wet at the Igorot Stone Kingdom)

We thought we eluded Typhoon Carina until it caught us at the Igorot Stone Kingdom...

where storm rain cascaded down steep streets
flooding the dining room of a Farmer's Daughter
and made us wait with love almost lost in a Trulab.

Suddenly, we were enveloped in a storm of surreal and scary hospital appellations...

adenocarcinoma with a lepidic growth pattern from NDCH  

who can do a thyroid transcription factor 1

but not the thyroglobulin immunostaining at BGH. 

We have descended into the storm amidst a flurry of weekly meetings, I-JET matters, the national dialogue in Vang Vieng and a regional convening in Phnom Penh, a forum and a summit in Vientiane, and early morning email catch ups that not even the payment of P216,000 for my labors in May and July can dissipate.  

My shoes were soaked as I sought refuge in leftover pinatisan, day-old carinderia food, an early birthday bash, and even paid the bills despite the still missing remittance from May.

I prayed for divine intervention from San Sebastian and the Sacred Heart of Jesus to deliver us to the best oncologist that we can afford as I forced my way through wet bike trails.

St. Luke and one of the doctors in Nueva Ecija responded with an encouraging initial prognosis and a positron emission tomography scan schedule on July 31. 

One day at a time.

I prayed during my Grab ride to the airport after checking out of Hop Inn-Morato, then waited for almost 6 hours for TG 574 in Bangkok before arriving into a  late night wecome reception in Vientiane...

CAST AWAY (The Blog not the Movie)

No, this is not about the FedEx guy who survived a plane crash but ended up being marooned in an island for 4 years until he was rescued by a cargo ship.

It's about a plaster cast for a wrist hairline fracture that was opened with an oscillating saw and a cast spreader two weeks after the Legends of the Fall.

And bursting from the plaster fragments are bits of Year 3 and Women Leders' Summit budgets, logistics for the Vang Vieng National Dialogue and the Phnom Penh regional convening, the usual weekly catch ups, a CSO mapping, and regional HR matters.

We attended a friend's funeral too and had beer for breakfast while he was being cremated. 

My consultancy fee for May remains in limbo but the order for an optical coherence tomography of the optic nerve head was finally delivered along with the payment of third quarter SSS premiums plus an inquiry on teaching license renewal and catching up on a missed PMU meeting.

The cast has been broken but the The Conjuring in Baguio is still inconspicuous and for that, we entreated St. Rose of Lima's divine intervention for next week to be all well.  

Beer poured in the highway on Tuesday and Friday nights where Wednesday's adobong bibe frolicked because Richard Carapaz finally won a Tour de France stage before Thursday's kinilaw na bangus and inihaw na hito, Saturday's menudo, and Sunday's calamares were unleashed.

Then there is one tire change in four stages of my mini-TDF in between the weekly laundry, a living room rearrangement and a bit of Ironman work...