2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Tonlé Sap (I)

The Tonlé Sap ( ទន្លេសាប, "Fresh River" or "Great Lake" in Khmer) is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia.  The size of the lake varies during the year, anywhere from 970 to 1160 square miles/2,500-3,000 square kilometers in the dry season to over 6,200 square miles/16,000 square kilometers in the wet season, seeing an increase in lake level up to 33 feet/10 meters.  The lake is considered part of the Mekong River system, connecting with the Mekong river through the 75 mile/120 km long Tonlé Sap River.

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An interesting fact:  The bulk of the water that inflows into the lake is due to the Mekong River (over 53%).  Due to the nature of the weather, in the dry season the Tonlé Sap drops below the level of the Mekong River and thus effectively the flow of the Tonlé Sap River is reversed (sort of) until the restoration of the water through the monsoon season.

Departing - at least where we did - seemed like leaving any dam related dock I have left in my life.

The buildings were a mix of businesses and residences.  The poverty of the countryside was more visible here.

Once we got beyond the shore it began to look more like a large body of water.

This is, I believe, a radio station.  The pillars on which it stands suggests the extreme difference in the water heights.

At some point we entered the main body of water.

A Buddhist Temple. Again, the pillars are impressive and suggestive of the seasonal change.

A Visit To A Former Boss

This past weekend I went to visit my former boss who retired earlier this year.

The drive was approximately 2 hours North/Northwest of New Home 2.0, over the major river in this area, past a port or two, and into a lovely green part of the world largely forgotten by almost everyone but its inhabitants and logging companies.  It was not "remote" in the sense that it is far away, but it is in a valley isolated from freeways, towns, and tourist destinations. Likely no-one goes there except for a purpose - I, myself, would not have found the place without a last minute text letting me know to go beyond where The Computer In My Pocket's instructions ended.

It was not quite the end of the world, but I think you can see the end from there.

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I have, on the whole, been blessed with a series of excellent bosses.

I use the word "boss" by choice, both because that is the word I started with all those years ago with my first job in high school and partially because it covers any range of titles (from supervisor up to VP or Head) that had authority over me.  "Manager" truly is a job title, not a necessarily a role, and the more modern phrase of "People Leader" seems precisely wrong: not all people are leaders, and not all people leaders lead their people, or at least, lead their people well.

My bosses have indeed been excellent bosses overall, full of knowledge and insight and understanding - and where they were not excellent bosses (or even good ones), they were generally good human beings outside of their role as my boss, which helped ease the strain a bit when friction arrived; if nothing else, you can find some humanizing element to center on in difficult conversations.  From all of them I have learned - mostly good things both in terms of knowledge and wisdom, from others simply how not to be that kind of boss.  Most of them lightened the load where they could, taught me things that only experience can teach one in an industry where the practice is as much an art as a science, and most importantly taught me in turn how to (hopefully) be a good boss as well.

Much like any teacher in school, in some way they live on through me (although, to my knowledge, all of my current industry bosses are still with us).

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We had the most of splendid of visits.  She showed me her property with its various outbuildings and places she practices her various arts (now much more full time), and her extensive garden (the picture above is what she sent me home with, which represents. 0.00000001% of her output:  cabbage, three kinds of onions, three kinds of garlic, shallots, and jams and salsas). 

We chatted about work, both over the lunch that she just "whipped up" of onion soup made with fresh onions and shallots from the garden and homemade bread and later after the tour.  She offered some wisdom, gave some suggestions, listened to me kvetch  about the current state of work affairs - which has not really changed since she left (of course they have not) - and gave me insight into thinking more about what my own next few years might look like  - if there is an advertisement for "retire as soon as feasibly possible", she and her husband are prime examples.

I am grateful, of course.  Grateful for the conversation, grateful for the gifts (sauerkraut is now in the crock and cabbage soup has been made and I now have garlic to plant for Winter) - but mostly thankful for her kindness and guidance and, by extension, the kindness of all the bosses I have had.

You really never know how each and every relationship will influence those on the other side of it, even years later.

A Year Of Kindness (XXVIII): Be A Memory Of Kindness

 

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Nine months into my first industry job, I evacuated the entire second floor of a building.

It was an innocent enough thing:  removing a 4 L bottle of nitric acid from the acid storage cabinet, it hit the floor at just the right angle to crack it.  The acid began to leak out. I was not sure what to do, so I looked at it, dithered a bit, then went and found my supervisor.  Within 10 minutes the lab was shut as the acid outgassed and the second floor evacuated. All on the day of the company Christmas party, where I when scheduled to be Santa's stand-in but instead got my fingers taped up for (very) minor acid discoloration and sent home. 

Over the weekend, the rest of the team came in and completely wiped down the lab and everything in it.  No-one asked me to come.  No-one said a word about it afterwards.  It was just part of what people did.

I have memories like this scattered across my life and memory:  The Director and Uisdean Ruadh who looked after me at my worst, friends who guided me when I was being an idiot, a young tow truck driver who offered me half his sandwich when I was cold and miserable looking after I hit a curb and bent my rim the day before I was to leave for Japan, my coworkers after my being laid off.

A thousand stars, lit in the darkness of despair.

I have lost track of many of those people.  I doubt some of them remember the acts they did at the time.  But those acts keeping me thinking of them at odd moments and in the moments when I castigate myself for mistakes.  

It costs nothing to be kind.  But the act and the memory will live on long, long after events and perhaps even the acquaintance.

Be someone's inspiring memory.  Be kind.

The Places We Love Most

 

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There is a place in the far Northwest of California the runs along the coast where at one time, military bunkers were installed.  I cannot completely tell you the place now and the pictures and names I look at do not look familiar to me, but I would know it in an instant if I were to see it again.

That spot was the last time I took a trip with three of my college friends.

Two were my roommates from college, one a young lady that we had all more or less taken up as one of our own.  We hiked in along the coast, spent the night, then hiked out the next day.  I say hiked; these days likely I would have called it a day trip.

But there was a moment here, a moment of passing that was not reflected in any of the other activities of graduation or moving or traveling on would reflect in the weeks ahead. 

It was not that this was home.  But it set with me that for all the change that was coming forward that we had enjoyed two wonderful years living together (at least the three guys as college roommates).  It was a marker, a place to both say goodbye to and go out from.

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There are places that figure in my life because of my memories and associations there:  my house growing up, my grandparent's house in town, The Ranch, even my hometown.  Those hold a lot of joy and memories for me as the represent the people that were there as much as any other thing about it.

But there are other places as well, places that were not necessarily "people" based but I can see and feel them even how, places that somehow grounded me at points in my life.

The woods behind my best friend's house during middle school where we ran amuck as young boys should, tearing through the forest, building forts, camping out.  The Director's House in high school, where I spent many a day (and night) in harmless shenanigans and planning as the world was our oyster at the time.  The track around my hometown high school, where Usidean Ruadh and I would walk for hours and hours, talking about everything and anything under the sun.

Sometimes it was - or is - the streets around the places I lived, where I could walk and think and allow my emotions to work themselves out.  A Rabbit Shelter, where I felt useful every Sunday no matter what the week was like.

Places that gave me some sense of belonging to someone or something, places to turn where the universe felt cold and uncaring.

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Not every place is like that of course; there are a score of work locales that have merely been places that I exchanged time for labour, churches where the relationships were deep but I moved on due to a change in location, the "favourite" restaurant that - for various reasons - was not longer visited.  There are memories there too of course, often good ones.

But never the sort that reminded me of the rather important point that somehow I was grounded, that I belonged.  

That, as the quote says, I was never as lost as I believed.

Having A Plan

The whole thing started in late May when I broke a tooth.

I am a stress consumer of snacks and - conveniently - at work there is a large container of mint Life Savers.  I was stressed and not thinking and bit down; off came a part of a molar on the right side of my mouth.  I did not crack the tooth (fortunately), but there was a new set of sharp edges in my mouth which created problems for my tongue.  I tried to manage it for a day, then made an emergency appointment at the dentist.  She ground it off and reminded me that I needed to not do that (also, that my enamel was pretty much gone there and any future repairs would be less "delightful".

I resolved this was not going to happen again.

To help manage this process, I did two things.  The first was to reload the food tracking app on my phone and make myself use it to keep track of everything I ate (and hopefully shame me into not gulping Life Savers like candy).  This also drove to the fact that with a hike coming up in the near future, I needed to carry less of "me" around. (Which seems to be working:  I have completely stopped consuming Life Savers, reduced my overall snacking, and am down almost 10 lbs.).

The second - tracking my food as I was - is that it re-ignited more fully using my bullet journal to track my overall activities.

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I have used a bullet journal - or dot journal, or (I am sure) a host of other names - off and on for six years.  In short, there are a multitude of ways to use it (which really appeals to my "Let me keep trying things until something sticks" nature); the core is using a series of "bullets" or check marks to track activities that need to be done, are not done, or need to be moved.  There are as many ways to do them as there are personalities and plenty of resources to do it (Dot Journaling:  A Practical Guide).  

The other great thing about them is that one keeps a table of contents up front and then enters information as it happens - no matter what; thus it becomes less of a daily planner and almost more of a journal or information source.  In mine, I have weekly plans, conversations with my career coach, items from a book, plans for things - all there in sequence and a table of contents entry, ready to be recalled.

A challenge of learning to use it for planning has been "what" to include in a weekly plan.  Over time, I have learned that activities that I will always do as a routine need not be there - reading the Bible in the morning for example, or studying Old English.  Other things - things that I might let slip or find a reason not to do - benefit greatly from being an item to check off.

It really is true:  there is something indefinable about checking something off that actually creates more of an incentive to complete things.

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The system of writing things down and getting them done was working - in fits and starts to be sure, but working (one of the great challenges for me in this system is to accept that everything does not get done and sometimes an arrow pushing something to next week is okay).  I felt like the needle was starting to move in parts of my life.

And then, last weekend, I took an outing.

The outing was not the issue.  The fact that I spent money on the outing was not the issue (this was known up front).  What was the issue was the fact that I had not planned out how much I intended to spend.

No, it was not astronomical and no banks were broken.  No gambling was involved and no large sums of money were lost.  But it forced me to recognize there was a gap in the system.  

Planning was not just for the things I wanted to accomplish.  Planning was for those things that were fun as well, if for no other reason than insuring I left with the same sense of fun I had planned for.

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It was a good lesson for me - especially after the relative success I feel I have been enjoying with the system I have cobbled together.  It is really good practice for whatever not doing my main line of work will look like, whenever that day comes (I keep hoping more quickly, but we will have to see).

It is good to have some level of spontaneity.  It is a better to have spontaneity with a plan.

A Year Of Haiku (XXVIII): Slow Motion

 

Summer's fireworks

explode at the speed of blooms:

lingering petals.

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Meals In Siam Reap

Between our visit to Angkor and our visit to the Museum of Angkor, we had two lunches:

Sadly for the first lunch, I have no notes.

Possible similar to a fried wonton?:

Soup:

Fish, vegetables, and rice:

Fruit for dessert.  I cannot remember the dish to the right:

The second lunch (fortunately this time, I took a picture of the menu):

Deep fried chicken with sauce:

Vegetable Korko creme soup (Green papaya, jackfruit, pumpkin, eggplant, ivy gourd, long bean, cream):

Stir friend chicken with ginger and Khmer field rice:

Dessert was (wait for it...) - fruit!:

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Museum Of Angkor Wat (IV)

 One display at the museum were carvings of animals that figure prominently in Khmer mythology

The Turtle (both pictures late 12th - early 13th Century A.D.), a symbol of wisdom and strength:

The naga (10th Century A.D.), the many headed serpent, ruler of the underworld:

The elephant (late 13th - early 14th Century A.D.), one of the most prevalent of animals represented:

The Inscription of Samrong, late 12th Century A.D.  Containing writing in both Sanskrit and Khmer, from what I can find it represents a list of donations to a temple.  (Writings in Old Khmer - only extant on stone - start in 612 A.D.).

The inscription of Preah Ko Temple.  There are two inscriptions one in A.D. 879 celebrating the lineage and deeds of King Indravarman I, and one in A.D. 893 by his son Yasovarman I.

For Leigh:  a display and discussion of Khmer fashion:

Apsara (a female spirit of the water and clouds, equivalent to a nymph or fairy), 12th Century A.D.:

Another Apsara, 12th Century A.D.:

It was an excellent museum, informative and well designed.  Certainly worth the time if you find yourself in Siam Reap.

Orange Interlude

 

Today's post is sponsored by A The Cat, who insists I have better things to do than write a post.

Regularly posting will resume tomorrow (or whenever I can fully get my keyboard back...).

A Year Of Kindness (XXVII): Loaning Our Strength

 

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One of the interesting things in doing a series like this is the very different thoughts that present themselves, ways of looking at things like humility or kindness in different ways.  Today's thought - Kindness as loaning someone our strength - is one of those items.

If I think about it initially, that seems counterintuitive to me.  When I am kind, it is myself that is taking the action.  It is not a loan as I would typically think about it, a temporary giving of something that I possess.

But if I think about it a little more, I realize my understanding is shallow.

Some of the times people have extended their kindness to me were times when I was truly in a spot of weakness - depressed, feeling lost, often reeling from the results of my own sin or thoughtlessness.  In those moments, the kindness of others never once reminded me of my current condition or how I had gotten there. It gave me the strength to get through the moment.

Sometimes that loaning of strength through kindness was for a moment.  Sometimes, as it turns out, it was for years. But in my case, the people that were kind, that lent me their strength, were never stingy about it.

We are all stronger than we think we are - and having that strength, we can afford to lend it to those in need of a little kindness to help them be strong in their own times of need.

I can show my strength.  I can be kind.

The Allotment, Mid-July 2026 Edition

The Allotment (as I am fondly calling it) is the 10' x 20' allocation I have in the local Community Garden.  It is a 10 minute walk from my apartment; currently going, watering, and coming back takes about 35 minutes, 50 minutes if I take the long way back. 

Half One.  Sadly, this part is heavily shaded during at least part of the day.

Half Two.  The wood chips are available and people make their own paths.

I have at least one tomato! (Actually, I have more.)

My beans have been very successful.  The bamboo stakes are a fairly recent addition.  I have to admit I quite like them as they inexpensive, easy to place, and I do not mind if one breaks (as opposed to a tomato cage).  I ended up using kitchen twine to tie up the tomatoes as I could not find the other twine (which, of course, I found after I had used the kitchen twine.  The hazards of moving.).

FOTB (Friend Of This Blog) Eaton Rapids Joe had suggested trying soybeans to improve the soil. The two pictures below represent an experiment of sorts: the first picture are the seeds planted in bare soil, the second buried beneath the mulch which covered the plot.  I am not sure in the difference in return is solely due to the planting, as the second plot is also more shaded.

My one grain for the Summer was buckwheat.  It has done incredibly well; the bright pink flowers are cheery.

Almost too faint to be seen below are five to seven onion seedlings.  From seed.  No-one is more shocked than I.

I got to this plot relatively late (for me) in the year, around April.  That said, everything here is an experiment at the moment; if I get anything I will be tickled pink.  But I already find myself saying things like "I need to start getting ready for Autumn" and "What grains will I be growing for Winter?"

I may not get much this year, but it is a lot of fun.

Travel In The Near Abroad: Mt. St. Helens

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"Vancouver!  Vancouver!  This is it!"

- Last words of David Johnston, volunteer observer on 18 May 1980

If you are of a certain age and generation, you recognize the picture above without me having to say anything:  Mt. St. Helens on 18 May, 1980.

The eruption of Mt. St. Helens was the end of a process starting that previous March when small earthquakes indicated the volcano might be going active again.  On 18 May, an earthquake caused the north face of the mountain to weaken and slide, allowing the mountain to explode.  It was the first volcanic explosion in the U.S. since 1915 (Lassen Peak).

57 people died, including David Johnston (above), a volunteer observer for the USGS.  Lahars - volcanic mudslides - wreaked havoc on the local area, destroying Spirit Lake and reaching as far as the Columbia River 50 miles away.  Damage estimates were at $1.1 billion (1980 value).  The ash plume rose 80,000 feet into the air.  Forests and fish were devastated.  The explosion was 26 times as powerful as the Hiroshima atomic weapon.

(The Wikipedia article here has all the specifics.)

 

In 1982, Congress set aside 110,000 acres (445 square km) for the establishment of Mt. St. Helens Volcanic National Monument.  The National Monument abuts private forestland as well, giving a view of recovery both natural and man-directed.

The park is approximately one hour North of Vancouver, WA.  There are two roads into the park, highways 503 and 504.  We took 504, the more Northerly route.  There is a rather lovely visitors center on 504, which gives a history of the region.

The road drives through a recovering landscape.

A view of Mt. St. Helens and the beginning of the Toutle River.  The river course is not fully established yet.  What you see below as the river base is 40' higher than it was before the eruption.

It was a splendid day for wildflowers.

Currently you cannot drive all the way to Windy Ridge/Johnston Observatory due to a slide across the road. 

An interesting note is that life returned to the eruption zone far more quickly than anyone anticipated.