May be today is a blessed day! When I step out of my hotel I saw this!
As usual, we took a taxi to AIT. This time communication
with the taxi driver was a bit difficult. Neither he understands English nor does
he know the whereabouts of AIT. A disaster; right? He exited the highway way
before we get closer to AIT, and of course we got lost. He asked a police
officer, but we had no idea what they talked but we know we are in the wrong
place. Finally, with lots of difficulties, and surprisingly with our lead, we
got to AIT. When we got to the room where our electronics are located, one of
Dr Nitin’s students, Sanit, who has been very instrumental for the entire our
installation process, told us a kind of bad news. The internet lab head called
the student last night (~11:00PM local time) and yelled at him, saying “you are
a student and you shouldn’t contact me directly on my phone, etc” (because Dr
Nitin used Sanit’s phone when he tried to reach her yesterday evening).
This is the internet lab that I'm talking about!
Now I’m
shaking! I ask Sanit, “does that mean we can’t use her lab?”, Sanit doesn’t
know but instead he would like to find out if the permission she gave to Dr
Nitin still stands. Sanit rushed to the lab to learn more about it. He called
me while he was at the internet lab, and told me “yes we can use the lab”. We disconnected
everything and moved to the internet lab. While we were in the middle of
reassembling everything, we were told to “freeze everything” (just to use the
exact word) until she (the lab head) comes and talk to us directly. Well! I had
to be so diplomatic here. I told the secretary that “we’ll not do any permanent
thing, we are just testing the site until she comes and if she said no we’ll
pack up and go”, the secretary agreed and we plugged everything and started
testing. The site is much better than the previous, but still the mysterious current
is there but it is very weak compared to the previous one. While we were doing
that one of the senior staff at the lab came and “interrogated” me with
different familiar questions (because I encountered similar questions wherever I
put my instruments); like what I measure with it?, why in Thailand?, what is
the importance to the country?, what do AIT get out of it?, etc; and I
patiently explained everything. He then went back and called his boss and
confirmed me that “Yes we can use their lab space” and even gave me a better
and secure room to put my electronics. Holey Molly! While we started digging,
the lab head showed up and Dr Nitin introduced me to her. She also asked me
several questions like her staff did, and after I explained everything, I took
the opportunity and invited her to come to my seminar this afternoon so that
she can learn more about what we do with the instrument. She happily agreed to show
if her other meeting winds up early.
Game started!
Computer plagged in!
We went for lunch, letting the instrument run for a while. Fortunately,
today was international day at AIT. That means each country brought their nation’s
food and sales it at the food fair. We bought our lunch from there and rushed
back to work. Since we have only half day left with long weekend (because of a major holiday in
Thailand, a kind of New Year), the team had to split for the afternoon
duty. I went to my seminar and Kathryn and Dan decided to stay around the
instrument and follow-up the outdoor work. Because of the coming major holiday in
Thailand and international day at AIT, there were no that many people at the seminar.
Guess what? The internet lab head and her senor staff showed up to the seminar
which went out very successfully. It seems that the seminar completely changed
hers and her senor staff’s attitude, because after the seminar they both come
to me and couldn’t stop thanking me for bringing two of my instruments into
Thailand. She assured me that she will do everything she can to keep my
instrument safe. Listen this, all dedicated IP address (two) and its configuration
completed within an hour after the seminar. Did she do something about it? I do
not know. But I know one thing, her senior staff came to me before he left for
home and told me this, “to make your data flow successful and to avoid any
internet traffic, we gave you a completely separate IP address”. Thank you so
much man!
International day food fair at AIT!
Group photo after my seminar (VP woman is the second to my left)
Sensor in place!
Antenna on the roof!
Outdoor work completed!
Finally, the instrument get the right spot, data
flow confirmed by my body, Matt Magoun, the real time data is already online, all
outdoor work completed, what else; none just go back home. As a good bye, Dr
Nitin and his two graduate students took us to one of a big shopping mall. We had
dinner at one of Thai restaurant in the premises of the shopping mall, where we
had to sit on the floor with legs crossed. Initially, I thought it’ll be hard
for me to sit that long with legs crossed, but actually it was fun. We had delicious
dinner and sadly, we had to say goodbye to everybody, which we did and went
back to our hotel by taxi, no AIT van today because all the drivers went home
for the holiday. We got to our hotel safely, and tomorrow is a free day since
we completed all our tasks today. Last definitely not least, I sincerely thank Dr
Nitin and his two bright and very help full students (Rajesh and Sanit),
without their help the installation would have not been possible.
Went to this shopping mall!
Pictures inside the shopping mall!
Headed to this restaurant!
If you need food you need to sit like this!
Wow! Poor fish, look at him!
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