Today I saw (in no particular order):
an ant that looked like a spider
a 4 inch centipede
a rhino beetle the size of a mouse
the electrical wiring for the server coming staight from the pole without going through a circuit breaker
the MAF hanger
Josh eat three meals without washing his hands
Corn Pops that looked like Kix and tasted like something other than food
the power go out once
my laptop modem pick up a radio station through the phone line
some Venezuelan guys snooping through the yard
the new server connect to Redlands and transfer mail
I'm feeling very Latin today. I haven't quite got my sleep schedule figured out yet, my body is still adjusting to the heat (which isn't as bad as I expected) and the coffee maker died. Most of the time, I lack the motivation to pick myself from the chair I sit in. Today we didn't get a whole lot done. We pretty much finished with the wiring. We now have a ground bus that is pounded-flat copper tubing soldered to 2/0 AWG (3/4" diameter) welding cable, run out the wall and attached to a grounding rod. I think it's overkill, but Josh insisted. Riding around town today I got to marvel at the skill of the road workers here. This part of Venezuela is all rocks and boulders. Instead of trying to remove a boulder from where they wanted to put a road, they just sort of paved around it, resulting in huge rocks sticking out of the middle of the road. That takes tallent! The streets are always populated with people, whether they be going someplace, talking to someone or just sitting around. Tom tells me that most people want to get out of Puerto Ayacucho to Caracas. Most people in Caracas want to get to Miami. If they really want to get out of here, working they're way out obviously isn't their plan. I don't really like making blanket statements about people like that because there are always exceptions, but this is just what I've observed of the culture in general.
I had a real hard time getting myself going this morning. It was almost 10:00 before I'd showered and eaten. That's okay, though, because we're ahead of schedule and are waiting on Redlands before we can begin testing the system. I finished up the grounding stuff this morning and connected to Redlands over a secure tunnel through the local ISP (neat stuff). I spent a while this afternoon creating a web page for myself regarding this project. Just as I was finishing up, it crashed on me and I hadn't saved. I should know better, but that's what I get for using beta software. Something pretty funny happened last night right before I went to sleep. Josh stood up on his bed to get something he'd stuck in the drop ceiling and put his head right into a fast moving, metal-bladed ceiling fan. It whacked him on the forehead, knocking him off his bed and on his butt inside the closet. This created a large amount of noise. I was trying so hard not to laugh since was in quite a bit of pain. He already zinged himself with 110 that day. Actually it's become a daily occurance for him to do that. Monday it was on the "widow-maker" (an electric water heating shower head) which I got myself on this morning. Today we discovered (actually Josh did, again with his hands) that the wire to the light in the server room was frayed and touching the metal frame of the drop ceiling. The whole ceiling had 110 volts going through it. I think we've got it straightened out in there now, after removing or replacing every wire in the building. Well, that's been my day.
"Time to wake up, sleepy head" seems like something I'd hear from my mom when I was about 7, but this morning it came from Josh who thought that I should get up just then. Okay, so it was nine o'clock. It was easier to get going this morning that it has been the past couple. Made it through a shower without touching the widowmaker. Spent most of the day tracking down and fixing interference from the HF radio coming across on the phone line. The modems don't like it much when the radio broadcasts. We rerouted some wires, double checked our grounds, contacted people who should know, etc. and at the end of the day determined that that a lot of the problem was caused by the radio amplifying noise from the charger/inverter. Some of it is coming in on the ac line, too. We haven't come up with a sure-fire solution yet, but we'll have to before we leave. In the afternoon it rained and really cooled off. It felt sooo good. Actually it hasn't been nearly as hot here as I feared. While it was raining, three military jets circled the town at least half a dozen times. We're guessing they were waiting for the weather to clear a little so they could land. We ate dinner tonight at Bruce and Wendy DeVries'. Good chicken and rice. It was the nicest dinner conversation since I've been here. They've got a 7 year old son who's real into planes (of course, when your dad's a pilot). He's going to have a 747 with four bombs when he grows up and his two friends are going to help him fly it. Sounds like a plan to me.
We took the day off today. July 5 is one of Venezuela's independence days (I guess they have multiple) and everyone in town will take that off. The plan was to go to the river today and work on Monday, but it was rainy all morning and cool in the afternoon so we didn't do that. Maybe some other time. For dinner we went to a local Arab restaurant. They did real good shishkebobs (sp?).
I didn't even realize it was the 4th already. This morning I woke up to no power. The shower was cold, due to the widowmaker not having electricity. We went to the spanish church. It was pretty uncomfortable because I had no idea what anyone was saying and only one of the songs was a translated english song. It was small, about 30 people or so in a basketball-court-sized concrete block building. They were all friendly and very passionate about whatever they were talking about. We ate rotissary chicken for lunch. It was pretty good but Josh and I kinda got sick - Josh especially. Worked on evening out my funky tan this afternoon. Had a pot-luck type thing at the church this evening. Actually had a decent conversation with Josh tonight. Tired... sleeeep...