Мне не спится...

I woke up around 2:30 am and tried to fall asleep again, but the lights were on between my ears, and I finally gave the effort up around an hour ago to take care of the half-dozen or so items that occurred to me in the course of trying to drift off.

None of it is of overarching importance, I guess, from the Big Picture™ perspective:

print out the glossary that I skimmed a while back, so I can review it again on the plane,

make sure my "to-go" USB drive contains my latest TMs,

export the project-specific Russian and English files I "aligned" to a file on my "to-go" USB drive

scrub Galina's webmail account (I've been getting warning messages about the account approaching its quota; deleting the real estate spam takes care of the problem)

Still, there comes a point where, despite the fact that you know your tail will be dragging at 6 am if you get up at 3:30, you get up anyway.

* * *Easter sort of snuck up on me this year.

This was brought home by a sign on the front door of the Christian book store that opened its doors a little while ago in our strip mall, to the effect that the store was going to close at noon on Good Friday.

I read this yesterday, as I passed the store on the way to pick up some laundry soap, and had a momentary disconnect.

Good Friday.

When's that?

Oh... yesterday?

Despite my intention to have a second egg-coloring escapade with Huntür this year (the colors didn't come out too well on our first try) we didn't. Still, we did share the experience, and I did show Huntür a trick I vaguely remember my grandmother pulling off, where she would wrap an egg in the brown outer skin of one or more onions, wrap the result in a cloth, and then hard boil the egg. The result - in my grandmother's hands and in my eyes - was always astonishing, or maybe that's just my memories talking. The result of Huntür's and my experimentation exhibited color, but it just wasn't the same.

I thought I had scheduled my flight out of Durango in such a way as to give me at least a little bit of time with the family today. I thought wrong. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we'll have to leave at 8:30 am or so in order to make my flight, and that leaves precious little time, if any, to visit with family.

Happy Easter, everyone (and my wishes for the best of this season if Easter has no significance for you).

Cheers...

El Paso...

Not much to see, so far, as the hotel is about a three stone heaves from the airport (a hypothesis I am not willing to put to the test, for obvious reasons). The flights down were fairly short: an hour from Durango to Denver, and then 90 minutes from Denver to El Paso. My layover in Denver was slightly longer than both flights combined.

I met two of my colleagues upon arrival, and between the three of us, we experienced one piece of lost luggage (not mine) and a rental van that wouldn't start (dead battery). After reaching the hotel, I met Galina V., with whom I worked in Kazakhstan during my first launch campaign in 2003.

There's a meeting at 2000 to tag up (I may as well get used to military time). I hope there will be a trip to a supermarket in the offing afterward, as there is no restaurant in the hotel, and the establishment itself is surrounded by other hotels, with car dealerships, a Pizza Hut, and a Jack-in-the-Box on the other side of the avenue in front of the hotel. I really would like to get off on the right foot, food-wise, and avoid the fast food route, if at all possible.

The hotel itself is a Chase Suite, and the rooms are okay, I guess, even if the buildings were laid out by someone who must have been a rabbit in a previous life. One thing that does bug me is the lack of free Internet access, which runs $6.00 a day (presumably, that means a 24-hour period) for broadband quality connectivity. Unless forced to by a need to up/download large files, I'll probably stick with NetZero, though.

There is a free computer in the lobby, which I am using right now, and which has a time limit of 15 minutes (though there is nobody else here, so I figure I'm off the clock).

I really should get back to studying terminology, though. Later.

Cheers...