Thank you

Thank you for your sympathy yesterday. It sucks to get bad news when you are so far away from a hug. There is nothing you can do to make it better, a hug won’t make it better, but it will release nice chemicals. 

Fortunately we live in a magical era of technology. Decades ago when I went on my first international work trip, as an independent consultant, to Benin, I had to leave the hotel, walk to the business that let you make international calls, stand in line, pay money, go into a booth with a curtain, call, and talk as quickly as possible. 

Later, when I worked for my first international development company, the company would pay for a three minute phone call home … every week? 

Last night I was able to use an app and “call” a friend and talk for 2.5 hours, get my social contact and comfort. I felt so much better by the end. 

Today we worked in the office and it was fine.

But tonight we had dinner at a restaurant set in a bird sanctuary. I thought it might be dumb to bring my camera. I should have brought my camera. Kings Crane is gorgeous. The local ducks are fascinating. There were other birds that I have no idea what were. Maybe there were a bunch of white egrets in the tree across the lake from the restaurant. The restaurant was open air. 

Lots of people from the office came, so I got to spend more time talking with people I hadn’t spent any time talking with earlier in the trip. They are all fascinating, intelligent, terrific people. 

Just the other day I discussed an opinion piece that argued for taking weapons we capture from Iran and giving them to Ukraine. We just captured a bunch of weapons from Iran that they were shipping to be used in the war in Yemen and the US government is trying to figure out how to legally give them to Ukraine. 

UK Defense Secretary Wallace pointed out that 97% of Russia’s military being in Ukraine, depleted rapidly, and 2/3 of their tanks ruined, increases the rest of Europe’s security. 

Others estimate that Russia has lost 40% of their tanks, and a much higher rate of their good ones. Ukraine has MORE tanks, because they keep capturing Russian ones.