Skype comes through...

Skyping over a 128-kbps network turns out to be a marginal experience, although there is no telling what part of that overall capacity was used by my calls yesterday. The performance of the computers at work is heart-wrenchingly s-l-o-w, while that of the machines at the Fili seems slower than when I had dialup in Pagosa (~1.7 Kbyte/sec, if memory serves).

And though the quality of the Skype calls was marginal, at least I got through, which is more than I can say about my efforts with the telephone key sequence that grants access to one of 4 landlines back to the States (I've been keeping track: 5 calls completed out of 87 attempts).

* * *My one-day fasts don't exact the same toll on me as the daily treadmill workouts. First, once you get used to the idea of not eating for a day (i.e., you can suppress the idea that somehow, you're going to starve to death as a result), it's fairly easy. The one exception occurs when you unavoidably find yourself in a social milieu where people are snarfing up high-calorie food left and right, as I did last night (I managed to keep my consumption down to half a Slim-Jim and a couple of swallows of beer; given how much food I declined, I think back and consider it a miracle).

Second, when I got on the scales this morning, they stood at 219, which is a new low for me (and yes, granted, even after eating my usual moderate breakfast, my weight increased, but since I generally weigh myself first thing in the morning anyway, the new low number seems significant).

(I am probably devoting way too much space to issues of diet and exercise, lately, but the subjects have been on my mind. I shall try to moderate my remarks in the future so as to dispel any impression I may have created of having become an old fogey.)

* * *The satellite container arrives today, and I'll be supporting operations to offload the container from the railcar inside of the полтинник and get it set up for satellite loading tomorrow. Word has it we'll be flying out early in the afternoon on Friday (though doubtless, the afternoon Moscow traffic may cause us to spend more time getting from the airport into town than getting from Kazakhstan to Moscow).

The latest news that addresses a question that's been on my mind is that the hotel will allow us to leave whatever stuff we want to in our rooms (there's not much "drive by" traffic around here, and hotels work differently around here, anyway). It sure would be nice not to have to haul all my stuff back and forth, but I'm going to have to select what I take and what I leave judiciously.

For sure, I must call the airline on Saturday to find out if I'm flying on Monday. If not, I'll have to go to Plan B.

Cheers...