In Taiwan internet booth at Chang Kai shek (spelled wrong, but I can't figure out how to spell check because of Chinese language protocol) Airport

We have a 8 hour layover here, so we are just walking around, freezing to death.. It's 60 degrees here if it is a degree, let me tell you. We both have shorts and sandals and t-shorts, Karen of course brought her "hoodie", but we are quite uncomfortably cold, nonetheless..... There would appear to be some decent restaurants in the airport here, so we are eyeballing the "big bowl of soup" places here. The first leg of our trip was pretty quick, besides sitting on the tarmac for an extra hour, then in a holding pattern for about 30 min. ..... Thankfully, I have my iPod, and I am listening to a very good podcast by some personal development guru.. I like to listen to that stuff. A good recharge on the batteries.

In the airport lounge in Manila

On our last day here, and we found the best deal... All you can eat buffet, 10 minute scalp massage, all you can drink (had a congac)and nice aquariums and real quiet.. what a releif after getting dinged with another 'immigration" issue... almost home!!

Almost home

Well, we are all packed up and cleaned up, and ready to hit the road. Just in time, too. It's getting much, much hotter with each week. Last night it was rather inescapable... It will be great to get some fresh air and see everyone. Karen Is REAL excited about coming home. She misses everyone a lot, and I am happy for her to be going back for summer. We have things in order for our school in Baguio next year, so all we have to do when we come back is to find an apartment.. (shouldn't be too hard)

I finally got my cr-- stuff together for my immigration "situation". That was yet another lesson that I am forced to learn the hard way. But they say it builds character. .......

Good News and Bad News

First of all, the good news.... We went to our new school to start our processing yesterday.. Everything pretty well seems to be in order, and the new school looks good.

The bad news, given my time constraints and money issues, my North American Summer Tour 06 looks pretty short and exclusive.... I have to make some hard decisions about where I can go, and how much time I can spend.. More details will follow as I go along.

Well, we got screwed

I have been going after the elusive "student visa" for 6 months now..... In order to get things done immigration wise in the Philippines, you have to "play ball"....I have a "friend of the family" inside that was "helping me". As it turns out, after a lot of money, time and energy, they produce for me a completely useless visa. The date on it invalidates my schooling that I have taken, and prohibits me from going to school in Baguio for 1 year! Of course, nothing like receiving this news 72 hours before my scheduled flight home. To make matters worse, I need to get a couple of other letters so that my visa is not "used up", therefore causing me to have to restart the entire procedure. Since there is no time to get this done within our scheduled return, we must unfortunately extend our return flight home to the 28th... Karen was real upset, I have managed to retain my cool. I am starting to get used to this stuff. I suspect that the woman helping us is basically ripping me off, but at this point, I cannot jeopardize the time and effort I have spent going to school here ,therefore she has me over a barrel.

Some pics of Dinner!

Lola can whip up some serious grub. (That's Filipino for Grandma)

Some new Stuff

I have outfitted my blog with some new gadgets to make it easier to use. (As if it is functional to actually "use" in a productive way, haha!) I have added an email subscription service, so that when I post something new, you will be emailed. Also, I have a selection of my recent posts for interesting websites that I have found. You can click the link, check out the website, and observe my asinine comments. I only "feed" the websites that I have bothered to comment on. This website roundup is from my latest online craze, www.digg.com where you go and find some very interesting and soon to be popular websites or cutting edge information, submitted by people. It is a kind of public bookmarking system that lets you see what people find interesting. Sometimes, you find it interesting too. I enjoy some of the side banter that happens when people don't agree with your opinion. It is user moderated, so that means that you can actually make a good point, and the idiot that responds that you should just go @#$@#% yourself, gets his comment voted down and moderated out. This type of thing is new to me, but has been around in other forms for a while. The site is quite tech oriented, but I still manage to blow an hour a day reading it. I have RSS'ed the feed so that I get the info that I want. I recommend learning how to do this (RSS if you want to save time by picking and choosing the content that you want.

Anyways, we are almost at the end of the school year. The school didn't surprise us when they announced yesterday that the school year was to be extended one week!! This being two weeks prior to the end of the year!! They fail to realize that some people like oh, I don't know, students and faculty might have other plans, like say, non refundable or exchangeable airline tickets. We have a workaround on this, so I just shook my head and laughed when I found out. It is amazing to see the differences in what is acceptable to people. I think many of the students are looking forward to the extra week of school. I can't say that for sure, but I suspect it. What the heck is up with kids these days??

21st century blog meets 20th century Phone line

Hear my exciting nasal voice (sinus issue this week) here!!! Wow!!! This is neat, because you can call a number and leave an "audioblog". Good for road warriors and travelers. Hey, that's me!

Earthquake!!

Well, so much for bad things in 3s. You can add Earthquake to the list now. We were sitting at our computers tonight about 30 minutes ago and the room started rocking around. We ran downstairs and waited a while. Nothing. Ok, so we went back. And now I am writing it here, for all!! Breaking News.. Disturbingly, When you go to google "earthquake alert" or anything like that, you can't find a current alert notice or anything. I hope there isn't any tsunami. For the record, I told Karen, "I loved you!" as I grabbed her hand and ran out the door. Her reply, "I love you too."