Going to Honolulu (on business !)

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I've been away from here for a month, because *every evening* I've been spending time "fixing" (and backing-up) the Photo Library on my PC ... and I'm *almost* finished recreating the Photo Albums that I had *before* the program-upgrade crashed my old library. But I'm not completely finished *yet* ! ....

My boss (and *his* boss) have been *very* generous, and they agreed to send me to a course/conference in Honolulu. The course starts on Saturday, and I'll be travelling there tomorrow. The conference concerns "Detectors used in Homeland Security" [ = detecting "bad guys" and "bad things" at airports and ports, and on roads, using X-Rays, etc].

It will take 22 (!) hours in total to get there, and I'm *not* looking forward to the trip (*and* the jet-lag after I arrive).
But the weather should be much nicer in Honolulu than it is here currently in Holland !

My boss allows me to add on some of my own annual-holiday-leave to a business-trip, and so I'm going to spend an extra 2 days in Honolulu, and then also 1.5 days in San Francisco on the way back to Holland.

[I'm a little bit unhappy with this trip (!) because I had *already* arranged a trip to Paris this weekend, and it has cost me 150 euro's to cancel the trip ... I have also been told by "The Experts" that Honolulu is not a very beautiful place - and I will *not* be travelling to any other part of Hawaii, and so I might have the worst possible combination - I travel to "Paradise" - but I only stay in the *worst* part of it !].

Meanwhile ... I've been busy studying Japanese. I actually have lessons from the same teacher at *2* different levels - the higher-level is almost impossible for me, and the lower-level is a great opportunity for me to practice in a relaxed way. I'm sure that my teacher can see the difference in me bewteen the 2 classes ! But I'm making v-e-r-y slow progress ...

For the past few months I have been the "temporary" drummer in a band. (The wife of the other drummer had a *very* difficult pregnancy, and he needed to take extra time off). The band has now asked me to be the *permanent* drummer ... (which is *great* for me) ... but they haven't yet told this to the *original* drummer.
I'm afraid that there will be problems in the future if they don't tell him soon.

Also the house-building continues in Chiang Mai.
I'll try to put one of the latest pictures of the house here when I can find the time.
The house should should be finished next June/July.
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