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i was supposed to meet mark downstairs for breakfast at 8am. when i checked my watch, i was shocked to see it was 7:52. i shot out of bed, gathered my stuff, got dressed, and checked out. it took me just 8 minutes to get ready. my grand plans of slowly waking, watching some morning tv, taking a shower, all unrealized. i'd slept for just 4 hours, still not enough. the free hotel breakfast was just some food in a small rec lounge, more than a dozen travelers crammed inside, trying to find a place to stand and eat, a wall-mounted television tuned to CNN. we arrived at the museum by 8:30. we were supposed to ask the museum guards to let us into the barn to work but when we checked the doors we were horrified to learn that they were unlocked, with ten thousand dollars worth of electronic equipment inside not to mention all the priceless historical firefighting artifacts.

there wasn't much work to be done today, just finishing up a few remaining bugs. i got the key repeater to work, and with the flick of a light switch can easily turn on all the lights or stop the movie. by noon i was already finished. we gave some museum staff one last review of the two interactives before calling it quits. it took us a while to get to the airport. it took forever to find a gas station to refuel the rented PT cruiser, and the GPS kept giving us impossible directions and recalculating new ones. from the rental office we took a monorail to the airport. security check was a maddening series of directions: take off your shoes! take out your laptop! remove all liquids and gels! put your cellphone and all metal objects into your bag! show your boarding pass! show your photo identification! once we were through, we had a late at the airport food court, got some chicken sandwiches from the A&W root beer stand. mark left for his gate (on the other side of the concourse and involved riding a shuttle bus) while i had an hour and a half to kill before my 6pm flight started boarding.

since i had a low seating number and they were boarding general ticket holders starting from the rear of the plane, i was one of the last people to get on the plane. all the overhead bins were filled up by that point, which every business traveler taking up all the space with their mini carry-on travel suitcases. i pulled out my laptop and my camera equipment and ended up shipping the rest of my stuff in cargo. since it was rush hour on a friday, there was some serious tarmac congestion and we didn't take off until about an hour later. even with an hour delay we still managed to get into boston by 7:30. i slept pretty much the whole time, that uncomfortable upright plane seat sleep where my head is constantly snapping awake as soon as i doze off.

arriving at logan, i still had to go downstairs and wait for my backpack to show up on the carousel. then it was a 10 minute wait for the silver line bus to take into the city. on the red line i sat next to a girl who already reeked of booze 8:30 on a friday night. she had a hard time sitting up straight, but preferred to be bent forward, elbows on knees, supporting her head with her hands, wobbling back and forth.

i got a burrito at boca grande before coming home. the house was empty, my roommate nowheres to be found (probably at a friend's house; apparently he has a lot of local contacts). when he finally did come home around 11:30, he told me he'd been at the office this whole time. he had on a sports jacket, real old school style. he was eating in the kitchen and we got to chatting again. i showed him the lonely planet central asia guidebook i bought a few years back when i was thinking about visiting the stans. we got to talking about mongolians, and he told me that genghis khan was actually of turkic descent (as are the kazakhs, uzbeks, and kyrgyzes) but history has labelled him mongolian, despite the fact that turkic and mongolian cultures are different. he told me the kazakhs are a mixed race people, a blend of asian and european genes. of his 10 siblings, none look the same, with some being tall, others short, and even one with blue eyes. i told him in that way it's very much like america, where people here are mostly of mixed nationalities as well.

i may go to sleep early for a change tonight. past 3 days, i've slept a total of 8 hours. i'm due for a deep slumber and no better day to do it than friday night.