Oh, the Japanese

I haven’t been posting for a while because…hmmmm, how do I say this? All of the interesting things in my life are in the category of things I can’t write about, and everything else is boring as toast. I guess I can say this — Marti interviewed for and was offered a new job, but he didn’t take it. His place of work offered him a raise and a promotion instead. I’m happy with his choice, although I was sweating it for a while. I just took a new job and it’s always a bit stressful to make that sort of change, and I was worried about both of us having new positions with a lot of unknowns. However, a raise in pay is always welcome, and we honestly love his boss to death. Marti’s boss is just about the nicest human being on earth, and I am not kissing ass when I say this. Marti’s boss probably has no idea I have this website and that’s fine, but regardless, I can’t think of a single bad to say about him except that sometimes he is too nice and we wish he’d be a little more assertive and self-promoting. Who could possibly replicate a boss like that? So we’re glad, I think, that Marti’s current department was able to counter-offer.

I’m currently in Phoenix in a very cushy hotel. I got the opportunity to go to a NASA-sponsored training and they offered me a stipend for travel. It was generous enough to cover our gas and food and an overnight stay in a nice hotel, and we decided to pay for two more nights and stay and enjoy goofing around Phoenix for a few days. We’ve been to the pool and zoo and to First Fridays, a very cool art thing that happens the first Friday of the month in Phoenix. There were a lot of hippies and art of varying degrees of skill. I bought some student pottery for a song and we enjoyed the ambience of ganja and the sounds of street bands floating up and down the public road.

Anyway, before you all fall asleep, I wanted to insert a video here that I found amusing. It’s sort of a Pavlovian experiment, as you’ll see, and shows how well Japanese people are conditioned to react to certain social cues. Since I’m so boring right now and have no new drama to report, I thought this might amuse and brighten your day. Cheers!