For the last couple months now, one of my neighbors started to renovate their house. Since they had no place to part their motorbikes, they decided that the front of my house could be a great location. In normal circumstances, I would not mind. In the past, each of my neighbors rebuilt their houses so they had no choice but to park their motorbikes in the area near my front door. They ALWAYS made sure that the motorbikes were moved when my housemate and I needed to leave our house.
This neighbor would not get the similar treatment from me or my neighbors. For one, in the last 4 years that I lived here, the old lady from the renovated house always went through our trash. At times, she would not even clean up the mess she made. To make matters worse, the children from this house would steal my mail, open it and return it later. I received many “opened” letters.
Hence, when they started to block my front entrance, I would let them know I was not happy. Several times they found their motorbike in the middle of the alleyway. It was not just me that did this, my other neighbors would take their motorbike from the front of my house and move it to the middle of the alleyway. This makes it easier to thieves to steal them.
Nope, after two months they never learned but at least now when they see me, they run.
We are all wondering where they got the money to build their new house. I suspect they may have been responsible for the stolen motorbikes the last couple of years in my alleyway. There is a chance they also stole my black cat nearly two years ago as well.
It looks as if their house is nearly finished so I can get my free entrance back again…
(I was trying to leave my house)
(When I came home)
It just hit me today, when I was upstairs I heard an ambulance go by my house on the canal. For some reason a memory from my youth back home in Centralia, Washington, popped into my mind. Everytime the fire trucks, police cars or ambulance turned on their sirens, the dogs, I mean all the dogs, would howl at them.
In Saigon, there are dogs everywhere, at least one per house. My old dog, Lucky, used to bark at them throughout the night on the terrace. Yet not a single dog howls at the sirens, and there are many here.
Has anybody ever noticed that?
It just hit me, I have now stayed in the same house here in Saigon for 4 years. My landlord collected the rent again. The way things are currently going, I may stay here until the summer or when I make the move to Japan.
The condition of the house is still okay. The bottom portion below my room is always clean. Where my housemate lives, it tends to be very dusty. Expats tend to be a very lazy bunch when it comes to cleaning houses I noticed.
On Sunday I will give the entire house pre-Tet cleaning. It will be an all day venture but probably the last thorough house cleaning by me.
I have had minor issues the last couple months related to my room. It needs a new paint job, it’s wear is showing.
Overall, despite the rants about my house, I will most likely miss it when I leave. I definitely will miss the neighborhood.
Until then, though, I am still here so I will enjoy the remaining time I have here…
Hard to believe it has been one week since I last posted. The last week has a lot of meaning for me.
The US Marine Corp’s birthday was on Nov. 10th followed by Veteran’s Day (Nov. 11th) and the day I entered Marine Corps boot camp (Nov. 13th). Do not forget, I was discharged on Oct. 21st a couple weeks before. This year a lot of memories of the Corps came back. I think it was primary spurred by my return to the weight room. I want to get in the same physical condition as I was in the Marines. My 30 minutes – 2 hour per day workouts are showing some results, I have lost about 6 kilos (13 pounds) in the last 3 weeks. I got another 8 kilos (18 pounds) to go and I think I will reach it in about two months.
The drama with EVN still continues. Last Thursday they came to my house, unannounced and turned off my electricity. They did not even ring my bell before. The bill for the last two months, even the one in question, was paid but EVN refused to send somebody out to turn it back on at my house. They wanted some “coffee” money to turn it back on. This is one of the most corrupt companies in Vietnam and I plan to continue to fight them. A consumer protection agency will help me, a friend will set up an appointment for me.
Facebook is blocked again by both Viettel and FPT. You can still view Facebook with VNPT and the mobile phone carriers. This is a huge response to this by the Vietnamese Internet users, they are passing around DNSs to get past the newly dubbed “Great Firewall of Vietnam”. OpenDNS will become popular with Internet users in Vietnam in the next coming weeks. Twitter, and some fear, LinkedIn, may be next.
Lastly, some of you may be surprised, I am using Windows again. I fell in love with Windows 7 last Saturday. It is amazing. It is one of the best Desktop Experiences I have had in a long time. Microsoft listened to their customers. Even Linux users, such as myself, like it. If Microsoft plays it’s cards right, Windows 7 will be a “Linux Desktop Killer”. One question I would like answered, though, is how much open source code went into Windows 7. I suspect a lot. 
Well, time for my evening workout now…
Today we visited EVN to finally complain about the August electricity bill. Of course it was a bit frustrating but at the moment, I do not have to pay my electricity bills until the problem is resolved.
In short, they went through the same excuses that the workers who checked my meter went through. First they tried to blame me for not being home when they checked the reading. I said I was and gave them the electronic receipt of my power readings that their employee gave me. Then they said it was not the accurate form since the employee wrote his cell number on it. Yeah, they said that.
They were trying to convince me that my normal usages was 560 kWh per month until I showed them the readings from the last 4 years. After one hour they decided to possibly give me a new power reading. If the numbers were the same, they would consider refunding me.
What I did find interesting was that EVN admitted that somebody could steal electricity from my house even though the power meter was IN my house. They said it could be done down the power line away from my house. They said that we had no proof, though, so we still had to pay. This is interesting since several friends told me that it does happen. Former employees work together with employees from EVN to steal electricity.
For me, they probably thought that since I am normally not home when they checked my reading that I would not notice. They never suspected that I would actually keep my own records. You know, you weren’t home so we had to guess your reading which was LOWER than actual. Hence I had to pay the remaining electricity the next month. It would have worked but I happened to be home for the August readings.
EVN did tell me to turn off all my circuit breakers in my house and to check the meter a couple hours later, not the actual meter. If the meter still moves, they want me to call them. That means somebody is taking my electricity.
Overall though, I will have to pay regardless of the outcome.
This is Vietnam…
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