Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!

As some of you may know, Isaac and I spent last weekend in Singapore, otherwise known as the country where everything is illegal.  You may remember some time in the 90s that some kid got caned in Singapore for vandalism.  I believe caning is still practiced in Singapore as a punishment for certain crimes and since Isaac and I have never been caned (thanks a lot Mom!), we decided to try to do as many illegal things as possible so we could experience the joy of caning.  Also, it would liven up our blog.  No one cares about the cobra anymore.  *sigh.  You people expect too much!  We still love you!  So, without further delay, here is a chronicle of all of the things we did that were illegal in Singapore.  Please PLEASE, don't try this at home.  I think in America the punishments are far worse for these crimes.  You may even be deported to Canada!  *shudder

Eh!

1.  Pay less than $10 for a beer  Actually we paid $9 and that was the happy hour price.  Ok, so we didn't actually break the law because we paid for our beers BUT we weren't happy about it and I think that complaining about $9 HAPPY HOUR beer is illegal so BOOM!  We are so dangerous!  BANGKOK dangerous!  Hahahahahahahaha!  Ok not funny.  Moving on.

2.  Chewing gum You can't find chewing gum in Singapore ANYWHERE and as a gum addict I HAD to have some so I brought my own!  TAKE THAT!  I only chewed gum on the first night on the way back from the airport but I was extra annoying and blew bubbles to challenge authority because that's how I roll!  Are you scared?  You should be!  I can totally understand the rationale behind outlawing gum.  I mean, gum is known as the gateway candy.  It starts with gum.  Then before you know it, it's cigarette gum!  And the next thing you know you're waking up in a pool of your own vomit because you've been snorting pixie sticks and mixing pop rocks and diet soda!  The world can be a very scary place for us addicts.  Wow I could write a book about this!  I'll call it "A Million Little Reese's Pieces".  Maybe Oprah will endorse it even though her show is over.  I'm pretty sure she will.

3. Spitting  This is just gross, and I totally approve of this law, but Isaac had to do it. We were drinking slurpees and Isaac said they were too sweet so he needed to spit the excess sugar.  Definitely understandable.  At least it wasn't as bad as that time in high school when Katie had a cold in the winter and decided to spit a green lougie out the window in Paul Farrell's front yard.  It totally froze to the spot and we could still see it there for like 2 weeks!  Sick, katie!  You would DEFINITELY be caned in Singapore for that.  I think they do DNA testing on all street spit to find the perps.  Good thing we left the country right after Isaac spit!

This is pre-spit.  He is overwhelmed by sweetness!  You'd think he'd be used to it after almost 2 years of marriage to me!  

4. Taking your shirt off in public:  If you know Isaac, you know that he cannot be expected to leave his shirt on for more than 20 minutes at a time.  Especially when he's getting his picture taken.  Nothing says classy like a shirtless pose next to a merlion!  The asian tourists behind us really seemed to enjoy it.  I think we JUST missed the police raid for shirtless pedestrians.  So close!

 

5. Playing cards or having fun at restaurants: Isaac and I love to compete at most things but, particularly at the game Skipbo.  We find that we run out of conversation topics and Skipbo makes it ok to not talk.  Also it's good practice for losing graciously, not that either of us needs practice at this *cough cough ISAAC.  Whew I must have an allergy to something.  Anyhoo so we were at the fine family establishment of Hooters and proceeded to start a family game of Skipbo when the waitress informed us that we couldn't play cards there.  I can only guess that it is ILLEGAL and at any moment Hooters would have been overrun by police trying to bust us for playing a game.  Then what kind of a reputation would Hooters have?!  I shudder to think!  Good thing she stopped us from destroying their wholesome image.  It was also nice to pay $70 for a dinner of chicken wings and a salad.  I think it was the cheapest restaurant on the island.

6. Getting free drink refills on non-alcoholic bevs:  This is pretty much true for any place outside of the U.S. but that doesn't mean that it is any less frustrating!  One of the things I miss the most about America is the never ending soda at restaurants.  Oh right, and I miss my family too.  Sorry Mom!  :) 

  *sigh.  If only we COULD have broken this law.  Alas, we could not.  Don't worry though, when I got thirsty I just drank my spit.  mmmmm foamy!

Me swallowing my spit.  Refreshing!

7. Paying less than $100 for a hotel room AND getting a window: Seriously, the last time I stayed in Singapore I had to stay in a hostel and share a bathroom and STILL didn't have a window in my room!  This time we splurged and actually stayed in a private room in a real hotel!  We even had our own shower right over the toilet.  This place was CLASSY.  But, we should have known that it is illegal to have a room with a window unless you spend AT LEAST $150/night.  Oh well.  Who needs to know what time of the day it is anyway?  This way we slept until about 10 am every day and had no idea!  It was great!

Look how well rested we look after inadvertently sleeping the day away in our windowless room!  Notice the plethora of rooms with windows.  None of those rooms were ours.  :(

8. Holding snakes that are smaller than 10 feet long:  No, this isn't really a law in Singapore but it's the only way I could excuse showing this amazing photo of Isaac at the zoo!  It pays to be the only foreigners in the audience at the night safari....................and to be really obnoxious and loud in the front row until you are picked to go on stage.  Worth it!

Please don't hurt me, sir, I let you get on stage!

The cobra in our kitchen was MUCH bigger.

9.  Not recycling: Even otters recycle in Singapore!

Ok so I wish I had 1 more things to write about to make a top 10 list, but I don't.  And let's be honest, you're sick of reading this blog anyway and are ready to get to really important things like washing your socks.  I totally understand. 

Oh yeah and just so you know, we never did get caned for breaking the law in Singapore.  I guess we'll have to deal with that.  I'm sure someone will want to cane us later in life.  Here's hoping!

Here are some more random pics of our trip!

Slytherin House

I can now leave Thailand with a clear mind.

For the last few weeks, something has really been weighing me down.  I would have hated to have left Siam without accomplishing one of the goals I set when first learning I was moving to Southeast Asia. We are only five weeks away, but when Becky and I got home this afternoon, my dreams came true; and then I soiled myself.

After a nice weekend in downtown Bangkok, Becky and I open the door to our house and noticed our loyal guard cat, Danni, did not come running to the door.  Instead, she was on full alert at the back door.

Danni was courageously (or stupidly) cornering this:

I have had it with these mutha-effing snakes in this mutha-effing kitchen.

Yeah, that is a cobra.  Yes, I was scared.  However, fear was not going to stop me from capturing this moment, so I first went for the camera and then tried to save our daring feline.  Danni was toying with this thing like it was a gekko, and the cobra struck at her a few times before I was able to grab her.  So far so good, she seems to be OK.

After arguing about what to do for a while, we decided to go get a Thai guy from next door.  Why?  I don't know.  I think that my thoughts were that he had probably dealt with this before.  Well, his response was basically, "Holy crap, that's scary, lets get out of here."  I agreed, but we pressed on.

"I know! Let's poke it with a stick!" 

Proceeding with caution.

Finally, we were able to get the back door unlocked and get the snake to leave.  I would like to say that, while it may look like I am merely taking pictures, I did actually open the door.  So I wasn't a total pansy.  Plus, I have a long documented history of snake wrangling.

To my Dad.  We did it!  We finally did it!  No more ridicule from you about not seeing a cobra.  The even better news is that when you come to visit us in India next year, you can hold one of these guys in your hand!  Get excited!

Enjoy the pictures and videos below.

Isn't there a Bronx Zoo Cobra joke in here somewhere?

Spring Break 2011! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sorry, I'm still in party mode because Isaac and I just got back from Spring Break!   Yeah!  Isaac and I decided to go to the Philippines this year because, although we have both already been to the Philippines, we did not go together so it doesn't count as us having been there.  Also, we decided that after spending ridiculous amounts of money on trips to Japan and Australia this year, we should probably take a vacation that was cheap.  So we headed to the Philippines for our 2 week spring break and the story shall unfold below:

Let's start from the very beginning, a very good place to staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaart:

Day 1:  If you have read our blog before or have listened to Isaac and I talk about our travels you should know that we have had some amazing luck with transportation on vacations.  Just kidding.  I think we've had terrible luck.  We've missed busses, trains, and been re-routed to some terrible airports.  Read some previous blogs if you care.  Or just skim them if you get bored, Mom.
  

We continued our lucky streak on this trip by getting screwed by a late flight and the horrible terminal layout that is Manila international airport.  We were supposed to take 2 flights on our first day.  We flew to Manila and then had a connection flight to Puerto Princesa 2 hours after we were SUPPOSED to land in Manila.  Alas, our flight to Manila was an hour late.  This would have been fine, if we could have easily gone to the terminal where our connecting flight was located.  Unfortunately, Manila decided that it would be a good idea to have 3 terminals that are about 5 miles away from one another and the streets are usually full of people, jeepnees, bicycles, dogs, children, and people peeing on the street.  Needless to say, moving between terminals when you are running late for a flight is pretty frustrating.  By the time we got to the correct terminal for our connecting flight we were told that our flight was totally full and there was no way we would get on the plane.  Also it was the last flight of the day to Puerto Princesa. 

Isaac was even keeled in a stressful situation and calmly walked out of line making a point to undo all of the lane dividers in his path.  On security guard tried to show him the way to follow the path that had already been created for people in line but he informed him that his way was more efficient.  Take THAT Cebu Pacific Airlines!  Good luck putting up all of those lane dividers again!  You'll never get those 30 seconds of your life back, just like we'll never get on our flight!

After realizing there was no way we would leave Manila that night, we decided to go to the Philippine Airlines customer service counter and demand justice!  As a frequent visitor of airline customer service rooms, I have to say that Philippine Airlines needs new decor.  Powder blue couches with random brown stains on them are so 2000-and-late!  At least they were comfortable to sit in while we waited for 3 HOURS!  I think that Asian people don't know how to handle angry Americans, or Texans for that matter.  We explained that we missed our connecting flight because our flight to Manila was an hour late and they kept trying to tell us that we should have allowed 3 hours for some reason, even though there is nothing on their website that explains the horrible terminal design of Manila.  We didn't know!  Luckily this made Isaac angry and his powers only grew stronger.  He proceeded to follow one representative around for a while and refused to sit down when asked.  He also helped himself to a cookie that was on the man's desk.  All of these Jedi mind tricks clearly worked their magic because somehow Isaac managed to get us a free hotel stay for the night, buffet dinner, breakfast, and round trip private car from the airport, to the hotel, and back the next morning for the first flight!  

*Isaac edit - I calmly explained to this dude that we missed our connection because his airline was an hour late.  He looked at all our information for a while and then said, "Well sir, you need to allow two to three hours between flights."  

"Great," I told him, "we allowed two hours."  And this is when things went downhill.  He kept saying that we needed to allow two to three hours and I kept telling him that "two hours" is the first part of the statement "two to three hours!"  He didn't seem to get it.

He made it seem like he was going to get our flight taken care of (we were going to have to buy another ticket) and told us to sit down.  So we sat and waited for about an hour and a half.  That is when I decided it was time to use 'the force', as Becky said.  Yes, I did eat his cookies.  I also offered them to another employee, but she declined.

The hotel was super nice too!  The only drawback was that there was no tv remote in the room and the only thing on was Fox News.  This did not deter our tv watching, although I think watching Fox News started to change me.  I now have a strange urge to invest in Gold......

Day 2:  We headed to Puerto Princesa bright and early and finally made it to our hotel.  It was pretty nice but there wasn't much to do in the city of Puerto Princesa.  We got a massage in the room, ate some Filipino food and that's about it.  

Day 3: We booked a tour to an underground river in this giant cave and left at 7:00 am.  We were a little confused why we left so early when we spent the first hour in Puerto Princesa at a gift shop but we didn't question the "system".  After driving for about another 2 hours with stops along the way at other gift shops we finally made it to lunch.  We spent about an hour and a half on the beach that every tour group goes to for lunch and then it was time......to wait some more for our tour which only lasted about 30 minutes.  It was a pretty neat cave though.  And our guide told us it is the ONLY underground river in the world.  When I told her that I thought there was one in Costa Rica, she said: "Oh, if you want to know more about underground rivers you can look on the internet".  Sound advice.

Happy Easter...is Jesus!

Snakes in a cave!

After our boat ride was complete, Isaac and I had to wait for the other group members to finish their tour so we decided to check out the Monkey Trail that was right next to the cave river.  We also saw some monitor lizards on the way!

The monkey trail was cool and we saw monkeys but after about 15 minutes our boat driver came running up the trail and told us that we were not allowed to be there.  Apparently, after 3pm all of the poisonous snakes go for there afternoon walk on the monkey trail and we weren't allowed to be there.  They like their privacy.  Well, we read the signs for the trail and there was nothing about the snake afternoon walk so how were we to know of our impending doom?  Regardless, when we arrived at the bottom of the trail our knowledgeable guide was very upset and told us in broken English that we must ALWAYS ask permission from our non-present guide to go on monkey trails.  Isaac told her that maybe we would have made the cut off for the 3o'clock trail walking if we didn't stop at every gift shop that existed on the island.  She didn't like that.  She was pretty quiet the rest of the trip so we didn't get to learn about how to use the internet to look things up about the Philippines.  

Day 4:  We took a van to El Nido which is about a 5 hour trip.  Van trips in Southeast Asia are always interesting because you never know what "van" means.  The one we had was actually pretty comfortable and we didn't even get a flat tire!  We did have a girl who was throwing up for most of the trip but that happens a lot.  In El Nido, we didn't have a place to stay and were talked into staying at this house with apartments "close" to town.  It was actually in a local village far away from the downtown area of El Nido but it was pretty cool to see where the "real" people live.  Both Isaac and I agree that the people in the Philippines are some of the friendliest people we've ever met.  Also, they can play basketball on any kind of turf there is.  Grass, dirt, rocks, sand, you name it!  Our accommodation was nice, but there was no electricity and it was uber hot.  We learned that fans make a BIG difference when you are trying to sleep.

Day 5:  We took a snorkeling trip and saw some of the most beautiful corals and sea creatures ever!  The water was very blue and there aren't nearly as many tourists in El Nido as there are in Thailand, so the beaches were very private and the water was clean and clear.

I loved this beach.  You can see the entire beach in this photo as it was surrounded rock on both sides.

On the trip I managed to offend this Scottish girl basically every time I opened my mouth.  We were on a really small boat and I always try to make friend quick when I know that I'm going to be trapped with a group of people for a long period of time in a small space.  Right when we got on the boat, I was ready to chat it up and I overheard this girl talking about a tattoo on her wrist that was a circle.  Someone asked her what it meant and she said "Oh, I don't know, it means anything you want it to mean".  So I said: "I think it means the number zero".  And she said "Um, no, it's NOT zero".  And I said: "Well I want it to mean zero".  And then she was silent.

"Hi, I'm Becky.  Scotland sucks. Let's be friends!"

Isaac told me I wasn't making a good impression, so I apologized.  She looked pretty angry but I was ready to patch things up so I asked her what she did for a living.  She said she was a teacher in Australia.  Yes!  We had something in common!  So I asked her about Australia and talked about how it must be hard to live there on a teacher's salary because it was so expensive.  Apparently, this is really offensive and she told me off so I shut up and tried to re-group.  I was able to chat with the other people on the boat who were British and much more receptive to me.  Later, while eating on the beach, the Scottish girl wanted to talk about her scuba diving so she started telling a story about how she had seen all of these dolphins and I said "mmmm delicious".  She looked at me like I was the spawn of Satan.  Everyone else laughed, but I later found out that she teaches marine biology and is in love with dolphins.  Whoops!

Finally, I managed to offend her once more when she was telling a story about her friend who can eat a lot of food.  And I said, "Ooooh Haggas!" Silence.  She just looked at me, so I explained, "You know, you're Scottish so you eat Haggas".  No response.  It was at this point that I gave up trying to talk to this girl and pretty much just focused on nature and hoped to avoid her for the rest of the trip.  Other than my offensiveness, the snorkeling trip was really awesome and we enjoyed it a lot.

Day 6: We rented a dirt-bike to explore the island on our own and I realized that dirt-bikes are REALLY uncomfortable if you are the passenger and are riding on bumpy dirt roads in a wet suimsuit with chafing issues in 100 degree heat with a helmet that doesn't fit and bobbles into your sweaty face about every 5 seconds obscuring all vision.  Go figure.  I was a grumpy goat pretty much the whole time and refused to be in pictures and was a jerk to Isaac all day.  The views were really pretty and people were really nice but chafing makes you cranky no matter what.  Isaac was really great at dealing with my temper tantrums so that bodes well for when we spawn....also for if we ever ride a dirt-bike together again.

"Smile!"

This is why you take an uncomfortable 5 hour bike ride.  Completely deserted beach.

Day 7: We took another Van back to Puerto Princesa for the night before our flight and ferry to Bohol.  We got a flat tire on this trip and whilst waiting for the driver to change the tire, we met this super awesome German couple, Sabrina and Johannes.  We eventually made it to Puerto Princesa and ended up running into the German couple AGAIN at dinner and then the next day at the airport.  Apparently, they were also taking the ferry to Bohol.  Crazy!  We also learned that they live in Freiburg which is my favorite German town I've been to!  We got to chat with them quite a bit at the airport and on the way from the ferry and then we ran into them AGAIN on our last night on the beach in Bohol.  See pictures below.  We're hoping to annoy them more and maybe see them again when we visit Germany.  Isaac hasn't been to Germany yet so my trip doesn't count. 

Really didn't see this coming...not.

Day 8: Travel day to Bohol

Day 9: We hung out at the pool all day in our awesome beach front Villa:

Day 10: We traveled by motorcycle (yes I was able to get over my chafing/crankiness enough to take another trip on the back of Isaac's bike) to the beautiful Chocolate HIlls.

Hehe. Making chocolate hills.

Looks like Isaac has a little chocolate hills on his upper lip and chin.

Later that night we rode to the beach to eat and then got a flat tire about 6 km from our hotel.  About 10 people stopped to ask if we needed help which was very sweet, but there wasn't really anything they could do.  Another man took the bike to some shop near his work and "fixed" the tire by pretty much ripping it to shreds.  At least he tried.  The moon was full so our walk wasn't in complete darkness, so that was good.  It wasn't that bad of a walk, although I wasn't pushing the bike . . .

Day 11: The bike was repaired and we took a ride to a Tarsier Sanctuary to see the worlds smallest primate!  They look silly:

Day 12: Hung out at the beach and ran into Johannes and Sabrina again and had a nice dinner with them.

Day 13: Flight back to Bangkok!  Goodbye Philippines!  We will miss you!  

My Athletic Prime

I was in seventh grade, a seventh grade Texan.  I was going to play football.  Of course, I was also less than 5ft tall and might have weighed 80 pounds.  I vividly remember my mom crying both when she signed the permission slip and then again the morning of my first practice.  Confidence instilling stuff!  Adding to my budding ego, there were basically two descriptions given to me: pain in the ass, by my teachers, and cute, by every adult in the world and any girl that could be considered even remotely cute.

I lasted one season.  The highlight of that would be one series on defense (I 'played' corner back) where I played three straight plays.  On the first play, the receiver, who must have been eight inches my superior, shoved straight on to my rear.  Fortunately, the ball went to the other side of the field.  On the final play, the opposing team, Truman Middle School, ran a quarterback option right at me (smart) and I tackled the quarterback right after he made the pitch.  15 years later and I can still vividly remember this.

As an eighth grader, I tried out for the basketball team.  I was, admittedly, terrible.  Somehow, you don't know these things when you are in eighth grade.  All I remember about try-outs was that I had a fast break and shot a fall away jumper from the right wing over Pat Chilton's outstretched hands and made it.  I was sure that this would get me on the team.  I was wrong.

As a freshman in high school, I had sprouted up to 5'1" and was tipping the scales at about 95lbs, soaking wet.  My friends, Seth and Blake, convinced me to join the wrestling team.  I was actually really excited and thought that I could compete.  Then I realized that I was still ten pounds shy of the lowest weight class of 103 pounds...and that I would have to wear a singlet.  Could anything be more frightening to a pre-pubescent freshman boy than wearing a singlet?

I quit.

No worries though, baseball was coming in the spring; baseball was my sport.  This might have been the one sport that I really felt confident playing.  I had played since I was old enough to pick up a bat.  I once let my dad take stitches out of my face because I didn't want to miss a game.  The doctors appointment was the same time as my game and he gave me two options: miss the game and let the doctor do it, or play and he could do it.  This was the biggest decision of my life, and I was only eight years old.

I should have known that I was in trouble when I was not one of the ten freshmen guys in off-season baseball.  Still, I was buddies with most of these guys and they assured me I had a chance.  To this day, I am not sure how they got into baseball before I even had a chance.  With 3000+ students and no freshmen team, the coach apparently didn't see need to keep me.  I think I knew this was going to happen, but I was still devastated.  I played city ball and got ready for next year.

Singing and dancing is a sport right?

Next year, same story, although I was up to about 5'3" and broke the century mark on the scales.  By junior year I was close to 5'6" and I graduated at 6'1", perfect timing for me to join the football team. Ahhhhhhhhhh!

That is the history of my high school athletic experience. A sad tale indeed.

So how did I get from that kid to someone who is nearly unbearably competitive/confident?  I could go into that, but this blog is really too long already.  The short story is that I realized I was relatively athletic while playing in a counselor basketball tournament while working at Sky Ranch Summer Camp.  I was playing with my friend Quinn Vidrine and he kept telling me that I was a lot better than I thought I was.  This was also the last time someone ever told me that.

So now that you have some background, I bring you to my athletic prime.  I play slow pitch softball in a Bangkok softball league and we won the year-end tournament this last weekend in perhaps the greatest softball game every played.

We stormed through the first three rounds undefeated to make it to the title game.  All we had to do was win one out of two games to take home the trophy.  We started off pretty slow and had a disaster 5th inning where we gave up eight runs.  It didn't get much better and we found ourselves down 10 runs in the bottom of the 7th (the final inning).  We were down to three outs and everyone was expecting a second game.  Most of our team was thinking about a second game at this point.

That is when we began our onslaught.  Our worst hitter started things off with a single up the middle.  A few batters later, I came up with a couple of runners on and singled to plate a run.  We were down 13-12 with two outs when my boy Ryan came up to bat and tied things up with a double.  13-13, two outs, the winning run on second base, and our best hitter is up to bat.  The smart thing to do here is walk him.  The only thing to do is walk him.  I actually thought they were going to walk him and our four hitter to get to me.  Instead, they chose to pitch to him.

And that is the story of how the Big Canadian, Bruce, brought home the championship with a walk-off two run homerun!

I was voted all-league left field and was invited to play in an international tournament in Jakarta next month.  So, a mere ten eleven years after graduating high school, I finally made the team!

2011 BISL Champions

Comeback of the century!

Back Row: Tenn, Bob, Isaac, Daved, Dan, Bruce, Tim
Front Row: Phil, Tim, Ryan, Pao, Dave, Eli, Rick

Grandmother

I woke up Wednesday morning to a few emails and a couple of Skype messages.  My Grandmother passed away.  She was 88 and spent her last day visiting with family.  I wish Becky and I could be there to celebrate her life and be there for my Mom and the rest of the family...

Grandmother and Grandaddy in one of my favorite pictures.

We will miss you Grandmother.

Thoughts on Japan

DONATE HERE - Red Cross

We got this email from our good friend Steve today.  He works in the heart of Tokyo at an international school.  Hopefully it will give a little different perspective than what you are seeing between updates of Charlie Sheen's diet.

Hi Beck and Isaac,
It is eerily quiet today, Sunday afternoon. I just went for a bike ride, I have never seen the streets so empty, even on a Sunday. There is a feeling of anxiety here, with some folks predicting further quakes possible. 

Friday at 2:45 I had a little guy in my office. He was drawing me a picture on the marker board. It started shaking, rocking, and for a few seconds I thought shit, this is it. I grabbed the boy, squeezed him and I under the desk, and books stated falling. No announcement yet to clear the building. I thought, seriously, as soon as I hear a big crash I'm heading for the door. 

My office is on the 1st floor. 4 floors of steel and concrete above me, I thought my chances would be good to get this little guy out to the track, and if things start collapsing, we are not in the best place. 

Soon after, the 2 minutes of rocking felt like 20, but an announcement was made from the main office to clear the building. All students had helmets, everyone exited the site, we stayed with them on the turf for two hours. 

Most kids went home on the buses at 4:30, I was at school until midnight waiting for parents to come get their kids. Most walked, or took buses, which were crawling along, and at midnight there were still thousands of people, walking quietly, but trying to get home. Trains were all down. All roads were pretty much blocked a few hours after the quake hit, two of our teachers started walking to be with family, they figured three hours of hoofin to get to their wife and kids. 

I'm fine, one day I just pray it doesn't explode here in Tokyo, it will be devastating. My thoughts and prayers are with the people up north, and the nuclear plants are leaking, a few of them anyway. 

You take care, I miss you guys to, wonder when I'll see you again. One day perhaps, sooner than later I hope. 

Love to both of you, and you can share this email with friends if they want one Tokyo guy getting thru the EQ in Tokyo. Bye for now.

A few more thoughts.  Twitter became real to me last year during the #redshirt protests in Bangkok.  It was a fast way to get raw information without the filter of media.  The #tsunami in Japan has shown, again, the power that is in social media.

We found some of the best coverage on the earthquake and tsunami was not CNN, BBC or Fox "News".  We actually turned to Aljazeera.  I hope that they let us back in Texas having admitted this publicly.

The counselor at our school is from Sendai, the town in Japan closest to the epicenter of the quake.  She has let us know that her family is all OK.  Working internationally makes the world feel very small. 

iBeck

DONATE HERE - Red Cross