My Neighbor

I drove through east Texas today, from Dallas, and saw this on 69 somewhere south of Tyler. Let's hope these neighbors can work things out before the cannibalism begins.

Baby Mocs

During our Silsbee interlude I've been hacking away at a piece of pine that blew down in the back yard during hurricane Rita. It rained today, however, so I wound up inside where I made some baby moccasins out of some old sheep skin I had left over from a rug I made years ago. I'm hoping they'll work for a 6-9 month old. The weaving they're sitting on is a hand-woven cotton blanket with a traditional Lanna (northern Thai) pattern.

Cambodia Photos

We have so many photos from Cambodia, that I just couldn't decide what to put on the blog. This makes deciding a little easier.

Back in the USSA

We never feel more like criminals than when we reenter the US. I have the stupidest reaction when I see immigration. I actually get excited. I think to myself, "Hooray, won't my country be so happy to have me back." Of course that's never the case. Suddenly no one will help my pregnant wife get overweight luggage off the conveyor belt while I am in the bowels of the Seattle airport, seeing our cat through his inspection by TSA, and aren't I an idiot for not immediately understanding that TSA approval is the same as clearing him with Customs. Everyone who's been awake for 22 hours knows that sort of thing.

This flight across the pacific was by far the most interesting I ever hope to have. Since J is pregnant it meant I was pretty much in charge of everything: bags, cat, customs, and making sure she had eaten and was comfortable. But despite unforeseeable things like a shin jarring landing in Taipei and 23 hours spent in what seemed like jail in a Taoyuan City hotel ("those transfer passengers attempting to escape will be escorted back to the airport by the border police and placed on the list of undesirable persons"), and a missing bag (the one we paid an extra ฿ 3,900 for) we made it back, and have been here in south-east Texas for a whole week now. In another week we'll be up in Dallas.

100 Thai Dogs 77-80

Chok Dee

Last night I saw Jens off. He caught a train to Bangkok (it was 2.5 hrs late), and should be boarding his flight to Mumbai as I write this. As we enjoyed those two bonus hours of brother time at the train station we marveled over how much one's life can change in a matter of weeks. He plays poker online for a living, so most of his day is spent doing just one thing, over, and over again (actually, he does a lot of data mining, and acording to his numbers, he may be the most consistently successful online poker players in the world. Hope I haven't outed him). So flying to Thailand, seeing our parents and grandmother, traveling to Angkor, putting 1600 km on a rental car, and helping his brother and sister-in-law pack up to leave Thailand for good, makes for a busy month, and quite a change of pace from the preceding year. Jami and I did those very same things with him, and now, as we camp out at our friend Andrew's place, we take turns scaring each other about returning to the States. We've had a fairly cozy life here; five hours of work a day split 60/40 between us, cheap rent, cheap food, space to work, time to work, and time enough to make a baby with out trying too hard (or at all really). We're a bit sad to leave, and aren't looking forward to the reentry shock. We'll see how it goes this time, but this would be my third bad case in less than ten years. Makes us wonder if we're cut out to be Americans.

I've been editing and uploading photos from the holidays for the past three days. I'll post some to this blog, but the impatient among you can head over to my flickr page. I would recommend the Thailand or Cambodia sets.

100 Thai Dogs 73-76

Pseudoelaphoglossum ambulans

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Giant Crickets

Elinor likes giant crickets just as much as lizards.