Someone stole the ROUTER!!!

[LoyalTubist]

I haven't been here for two days because someone stole the router for the LAN (local area network) in my apartment building. We have a pretty good high speed Internet service here in this high rise. Some of the tenants get their own (A)DSL or cable TV service so they can get what they need uninterrupted. Our network is cheaper than dialup. We pay less than $10 a month.

Anyway, I came home from work on Thursday and was downloading some MP3 files when everything on the downloading program went red. I thought maybe the site I was getting them from had pulled the rug from under me. So I tried to listen to Internet radio and check my e-mail on Yahoo.

Then my wife called the guy who runs the network in the building. He said that someone stole everything that wasn't nailed down in his living room! It took a couple of days to get back online--the man has a life, too.

I think part of the problem here is the front door of most Vietnamese houses. Padlocks are how houses are locked. In downtown Saigon (Districts 1, 3, 4, 5, 10, and Phu Nhuan), the front door is typically one of those cage doors, like you see on freight elevators. Then there is a regular door, which doesn't usually have a lock. Most people don't spend a lot of money on their padlocks. They break very easily. The nice thing about the cage door is that when one spouse leaves early in the morning, he/she can lock the door on the outside and the sleeping spouse can unlock it by reaching outside.

When I moved to Saigon, I lived in District 2, a rural area of town. (Rural districts include 2 and 9). I miss that house, except for one thing: We had a door that could only be locked on one side. When my wife would leave for a few hours, she would keep the front door unlocked. I would go to the shower, keeping the door unlocked so she could come back in. I would often get visitors who came into the house without knocking, sometimes meeting me in the shower or in the bedroom where I was changing clothes!

Our problem in District 2 wasn't so much the fear of people wanting to steal what we have. It was more often the police coming by to see how we were doing.

[Brucom]

Wow, good to know.
Could you draw an outline of the contiguous Districts 1, 3, 4, 5, and 10 for us?
(Don't worry about Phu Nhuan.)

[Uncle Buck]

If there is a fire, how much longer does it take to get out of a door locked with a padlock?

[windshieldbug]

Get your kicks... on Router 666!

[LoyalTubist]

Wow, good to know.
Could you draw an outline of the contiguous Districts 1, 3, 4, 5, and 10 for us?
(Don't worry about Phu Nhuan.)

The District numbers in Saigon have nothing to do with location. 14 are numbered and 15 have names. Each District is divided up into 28 wards, which also either have numbers or names. Yesterday, when I got finished with my third (in office) surgery (if I have to stay in a hospital, it would be better for me to get the work done in Singapore!) I had a business appointment in District 1. I didn't know how complicated the district was (and the painkilling drugs I am on make my chauffeur-driven motorcycle rides lots of fun!) I had to go to an ice cream parlor in District 1 from the doctor's office near my house, also in District 1. To get to that parlor, I had to go through Districts 3, 5, 7, and 10. Maybe my driver knows how dopey I have been lately.

Can't spend too much time here.