Googol vs. Google

What do Googol and Google have in common? 1 followed by 100 zeros happens to be the number of man-hours of work lost by the world economy due to employees fooling around with Google and Google Earth. Actually, I read that the founders of Google intended to use the word 'Googol', but misspelled it while doing a copyright search. 'Google' was registered, and though they eventually realized their mistake, they decided to stick with it.

Work on Wednesdays is generally slow for me. New orders have already been received and production plans have already been set. As long as everything goes smoothly, I simply wait for shipments to start on Friday and Saturday. That's why most of my blogs are posted on Wednesday, and why today I had time to document my place in the world (in the physical sense) with Google Earth.

Here's Southeast Asia.

From this Google perspective, it looks like Thailand and I are in the middle of it.

Here's a closer look. It may be difficult to read, but there are two yellow markers - the northern one is Korat and the southern one is Bangkok.

55% of my life is spent in Korat, 40% in Bangkok.

The remaining 5% is spent somewhere in between - Highway 1 and Highway 2 run most of the way between Bangkok and Korat, but most of my time is spent idled on Highway 32 due to Bangkok traffic.



Here's a view of Bangkok. My office is in the center, and Nuch's house is on the western side of the Chao Phraya River. You can make out the old airport to the North and the new airport to the East. Everything in between is the definition of urban sprawl.

The distance from Nuch's house to my office is only 6 miles, but it takes me over an hour to get there during rush hour.




Here's a close-up of my office and my old apartment (a 5 minutes walk to work). I knew there was a park, but never realized there was also a golf course near my building. For that long-awaited day that I trade in my Toyota for a Bell Helicopter, there is a helipad on top of my building.




Here's Nuch's house. It's the orange roof to the bottom left of the yellow marker. On the Western and Northern sides, it's surrounded by untamed Thai jungle. Everyplace else is wall to wall concrete and absolutely teaming with people.

Heading northeast from Bangkok and away from the traffic, smog, and piles of people, here is Korat. The town center is in the middle with my home to the Southwest and my factory to the Southeast.

The town is surrounded by an ancient mote with the Ya Mo shrine on the eastern side. See my Ya Mo blog.


My factory is the longest building on the far left - about 100,000 sq ft. The other factories make athletic shirts for Nike and laminated vinyl for automotive interiors.

There are two lots across from my factory. The large, empty one is where the buses park. The smaller one just across the way and surrounded by trees is where the Repo Man hides all of his repossessed vehicles before they're auctioned - the place is always full.



Finally, my home. You can see it's just a short walk to the park, Bung Da Lua.


My place in the world may be far away, but at least I'm easy to find.