How about this goat? Can I have $20 for this goat?

After he caught the goat, he tried saying soothing things to it in baby talk ("Ohhh, yes, him's a pretty little goat, isn't him?") and holding it on his lap and rocking it. But that was just a freaked-out goat.

A turtle! I caught a turtle!

This albino Olive Ridley turtle was rescued from a fishing net years ago, and then got swept out of her pool by the tsunami, which swamped the whole hatchery under eight feet of water, destroying everything and killing the parents of the man who runs the place. Every household in these beach neighborhoods lost family members along with their houses, but somebody found Lily and carried her home.

Cuddly little things.

Isn't it remarkable how Dad loves to cuddle with all animals regardless of how prickly or wet they are, how hard they bite, or how desperately they do not want to be cuddled?

Turtles!

We followed this little hand-painted sign to a turtle farm on the beach; where supposedly this old man who buys turtle eggs from the locals hatches them and puts them out to sea. We pulled up and he started jabbering and showing us a fenced-in garden plot with little mounds staked out with initialed notes. Great, I thought, he's got nothing to show us so he's making a big deal out of his turtle graveyard. I liked him a whole lot better when he started scooping away sand from one mound, because anyone who is so willing to exhume a grave so you can have a look is okay in my book. He uncoverd some soft eggshell fragments and then suddenly there were flapping, struggling baby turtles everywhere. Live animals buried in the sand just seem terribly unnatural; we could not have been more startled if he had uncovered a squirming litter of puppies!
Afterwards we each took a handful of turtlettes over to the pool where they could swim for a couple of days before being released.

Hard at work on the job site.

The two head honchos conferring while the worker bees wait for orders. We had great weather for working while Dad was here - cloudy enough to hold back the heat but no rain. Nope, it didn't start to storm until we took a couple of days off to drive around the south tip of the island. Then we got a nice typhoon/monsoon combo that made the gorgeous beaches and jungle temples really memorable. Oh well, Dad always enjoys leftovers and rejects and mistakes better than perfection anyway. He was a very Cappy Hamper.

Hard at work on the- Hey, I'll bet we can climb this thing!

"Dad, you don't have a harness!"
Ok, yeah, gimme that tool belt, and a couple of t-shirts and your purse strap... Voila! I'll be real careful. Bye!
He doesn't look too high up on the last photo but he was actually 140 feet up. The workers were genuinely frightened.
Note to Mom: When he talked me and Kev into all three of us going up together we only went up to about 60 feet. It was exhilarating; the wind was fierce and the tower was swaying and you could see rolling jungle for miles around!

Still hard at work on the- RECESS TIME!!!

Our tower install site was on the sports field of an elementary school, and when the bell rang, the kids would come tearing out to find their new best friend and Dad would drop whatever and race to get in the lineup (like his little worshippers would make him wait in line for anything). It was like Field of Dreams on meth.
Sorry these pictures take up so much room, but they're kind of priceless.

This is what happens when you turbo up your trishaw. Tough to talk your way out of a ticket when you don't share a language with the cop. Especially when said cop is laughing too hard to listen. You still owe us 5 bucks, Dad. P.S. Yes, he's barefoot.

Move over Porsche, Dad's got a new toy!

I grabbed the camera as quick as I could, but this was about 0.03 milliseconds after I showed him how to start the thing. I had looked forward to giving him little driving lessons, but... Two days after this, he navigated the bumper-car asylum that is Colombo ALONE, and a day after that he rigged the thing up so that it would go WAY over the speed limit (74 km per hour, I'm not kidding, and the limit is 40). It still flies like the wind, and the employees are in awe of David Racecar Man.

A Sri Lankan Wedding

Dad's first day here we had to go to a wedding in a little village out by the factory. He fell in love with the flower girls of course, and the feeling was mutual, though they were so shy. I would post a picture of the special chickens they had cooked just for us, but it would be a little too graphic for a family blog. Dad sang "Fa ra ra ra ra" with his, but nobody got it. Mine had a tail. Not feathers, but a tail. I wish I could explain, but... there you go. I didn't eat the tail.