Not much; what's new with you?

I haven't been posting for a week; I feel like we haven't really caught-up.

(Speaking of catching up, I'll finish writing about the Amritsar trip...eventually...but it'll be backdated.)

My boss left post. I'm now entirely in charge of propaganda my division in Western India for the next month. Be very afraid.

In practical terms, it (hopefully) shouldn't mean that much. I have more visa whiners to deal with, and I'm entirely less patient than my boss was, so that's probably not a good thing.

(random caller: "I need your help getting a visa."
Me: "Ok, here's the consular website which describes how you can make your appointment."
RC: "Er...no, I need your help getting a visa."
Me: "This is how 99.5% of applicants do it. Is there any particular reason you're rare?"
RC: "You see, I was refused a visa before."
Me: "Ah. Not so much rare. But any idea why?"
RC: "Well, I think it's because I'm a doctor."
Me: "Yes, I'm sure that's it. We routinely turn away wealthy professionals. It's part of the 'huddled masses' directive.")

It also means more interminable after-hours "official" events and more direct contact with the Washington bureaucracy, so that might mean both less time to write and more absurdity to report, but we'll see.

Let's see. What else...

Oh, we had a fire thermal event. While I was still at work, K reset the breaker on a stopped air-conditioner and switched it back on. The outside part of it, on a small balcony, promptly burst into flames. K put it out with a fire extinguisher, but the apartment smelled like smoke for a couple days. It was a nice change from the exhaust fumes.

There's been a rash of fires lately -- a bit counterintuitive for the rainy season, but apparently the moisture is shorting out a lot of wiring. It's hard to keep insulation on Indian wiring, if it was even there in the first place, as sugar ants will happily eat warm plastic. I learned that, too, in Thailand, while uncomprehendingly watching ants bore out my cordless phone from the inside over a period of months, not figuring it out until it became a useless shell.

All fires, no matter how minor, have to be reported in cable format to Washington, which makes for some pretty damn entertaining reading, especially with everything rendered in flat cable-ese. For instance, it was through this format that I learned that a colleague's coffeemaker spontaneously combusted and was put out by his maid, who was delayed in noticing the fire because she was "having a bath in the master bathroom, some distance away." That isn't a normal part of an Indian maid's routine, and might explain why we haven't seen said colleague's wife around much lately.

I also learned that after the smoke detector went off in another division recently, employees noticed the smoke was coming from the smoke alarm itself, which then went on to ignite. I've mentioned elsewhere the hardships that face the person in charge of facilities here. I continue to admire the new person in the job, especially because he continues to be so cheerful. If you're in charge of maintenance and the like and the smoke detector catches fire...well, that's about the time you're entirely justified in throwing in the towel and admitting defeat, I think.