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A Glimpse Into Our world

We just received the first transmission from our advance duo that is preparing to install a new artwork in Hong Kong. We typically send these probes to make sure that the site is  good to go before deploying the balance of our crew (seven more people to be exact).

I typically find myself waiting for this first communication with something akin to holding one's breath. Considering that each piece that we build consumes thousands of hours and gestates over a period of some eighteen months, I am always a tad giddy and somewhat anxious during this limbo.

And it is in these moments of suspended expectation that I find my team's unusual character particularly refreshing. Instead of some mundane assessment or an email detailing how exhausted they are after the flight around the world, I am certain to receive something far more colorful and idiosyncratic. In this case, it is dear Arlen who chimed in first by issuing the following salvo. For those of you who are less than hip and perhaps pushing on in years like myself,  his entrée of "tl;dr" means "too long; didn't read" and is a delightfully cynical quip that almost augments the comedy of the hyper-technical summary that ensues:

Subject: Wheels down.

tl;dr: we have internet in spades. the hotel is nice.

Got a SIM. There's a 7-11 in the Sha Tin MTR Station Mall. Super easy to get to, unlike certain countries that will not be mentioned. You do need to do the whole APN config thing, which I can help you with.

I've got 4G seems to be plenty fast. SMS to the US is ~$0.25/ea, phone calls appear to be $0.03/min to HK or US, which seems insane, but I could be reading this wrong.

Ari and I are sussing out reasonable places to eat and the hotel seems great so far. Steve, you'll be glad to know the minibar is comped. Unclear on exactly how the laundry works, but there's some amount of free laundry. The in-room wifi is super easy to set up on any number of devices. It's a little late at night, but I'm pushing 17Mb/s symmetric with a 5ms ping (!). Pinging the shop shows a TTL of 52, 1% packet loss, 210ms ping. Not bad for trans-pacific.

We should set up an rsync to Pixie [shop server] to back up photos and such as we shoot them.

Thanks for lining up the hotel stuff, Jennifer.

MUJI, UNI QLO, H&M and other fine retailers with fewer capital letters are within spitting distance of the hotel, you might as well not bring nice clothing.

That's about it, I'm gonna pass out. I'll be up around 0700 HK time. Ari and I are going to have breakfast here and head to the site.

Word.
--a

Welcome to my world and what makes it tick, and to those who make it tock.