i went back home that night. the place i was staying at is beautiful - a real tropical island paradise. it was dark out and i generally felt bad about being alone. this place is packed with beautiful couples. I walked along the beach and came to one dark corner of the beach. if the lighting is right, you can see a face in anything. I think its like a rorschach inkblot test. On this night it looked as if someone or something was standing on the boat, looking at me. i tried talking to it, but it didnt answer. I came back to the bar, tried to ignore the beautiful couples, and had some singha. the bartender was really nice and grew up here on Ko Samui and had been working at that guest house for 4 years. He cooked me up some good pad thai.

i woke up too late to meet the sweeds. I went by their hotel and they had already left. So I went down to Trent & Ramona's hotel to see if they were around. I was leaving a note on their door when they walked up. we decided to sign up for a snorkeling tour the next day and planned on dinner that night at the local illegal movie bar. I went back to the sweeds' hotel and met them on the beach. we played in the water and laid out on the beach. i invited them to dinner, but they had plans. I had dinner with trent&ramona (t&r) with "Chicago" playing in the background. I told them how often pirated movies come from the motion picture academy screener edition and a minute later there was the warning, on the screen, about the movie being for voting purposes only :).

the next morning i got up at 7:30am and the minivan picked me up at 8. I met t&r at the beach where a speedboat had been backed up to the beach. i picked through a selection of beat-up swim fins and got on board. the ride out from Ko Samui to Ko Tao was fun. We had the fastest boat on the water with 3 large outboard engines. anything that has to do with driving in thailand is a free-for-all. we buzzed through the water for an hour to one island where we let some people off, then came to out island. there were three small bays and we got into one of them. I had to get used to the mask and the goggles. It was great fun being in the water, but i didnt see any fish. Then about 4 minutes out Im adjusting my goggles again and when i put my head back into the water, 10 very colorful fish are looking right at me. it was very cool. After that I saw lots of fish. whole schools of bright blue or bright yellow or orange colored fish. there were a couple of english guys there, on vacation, who own a chain of bars near liverpool called "the living room". one guy was a career professional bartender and had lived in places like bangkok and hong kong, bartending. he was an interesting character, very british, could always come up with a story if he wanted to and make people laugh. we got back on the boat and went to a restaurant where we had a very good meal of real thai food. then we buzzed to a different part of the island and went snorkeling again. i saw more amazing fish, but eventually lost interest and got back on the boat. i felt good about how that day i had a memorable experience and how i was with people i liked. on the ride back, i thought again about what i should be doing with my life. how to find something that has meaning for me. I thought about the ericsson P800 and how I'd like to make a killer app for that. I thought about portland and about the people in personal telco. after a very jarring ride back, the water was choppier, we pulled up to the beach we left from and headed back to our hotels. Since I was always coming to this part of the island, I changed guest houses to where t&r were staying. We had dinner at a place owned by a canadian, managed by an english guy, and staffed with thai people. by then a full fledged sunburn started kicking in.