US embassy, on the ball

I went into town today for some electronic parts and to see the US embassy. I found out yesterday that the British embassy was letting UK citizens use their satellite phone to call home. Talk about upping the game: satellite phones. They're around USD1.5 per minute to use, and the phone itself is pretty big and costs something like USD1000, but a king can't shut them down. I doubt the US embassy is remotely as magnanimous as their British counterparts, but my mother's probably freaking out I've been incommunicado, so it's worth a shot. Hey, I have a better chance than if I were a citizen of some country that doesn't have an embassy here - say, Tonga. But when I got there, the place was locked up tight, with a sign that said citizen services are 1:00PM-4:00PM Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. There was a notice on the door addressed to all US citizens, dated February 1, that said US citizens should maintain a low profile and stay updated on the news by going to the State Department's website or by calling the embassy's Kathmandu hotline phone number. Way to go US embassy, real helpful. There's no internet and no phones and there haven't been since the notice was put on the door - that's why I'm standing here, jackass.

The electronics store was a better experience - the guy who speaks Russian asked if my circuit worked, and whether I needed a few more parts to tune it up. Nice place.

A couple days ago, looking through the tools cabinet at the office, Ewan found a bathroom spring scale. We both weighed ourselves, and it said I'm 93 kg [205 lbs.]. Now who knows when the last was the scale was sent to NIST for calibration, but give or take two kilos, I've still lost a lot of weight. Last time I weighed mysefl was mid-October when we got back from our trek to Annapurna. Our machinist, KC, told me I had gotten thin, and put me on his foundry scale. It said I was 99 kilos [218 lbs.]. I bet when I came to Nepal, I was around 105 kilos - that's was a big fine 231 pounds. Have I lost 12 kilos? Best shape of my life.