You can sail the seven seas!

Village People - In The Navy - The best video clips are here

Well, guess who was in town this weekend... the Navy! Haven't seen so many Americans since I left Seatac. Roving groups of buzz cut & tattooed young guys terrorizing Singapore... Well maybe not terrorizing, but certainly somewhat obnoxious and definitely out on the piss. I kept thinking, wow, my Dad was one of these guys like 35 years ago, probably drinking in the same places as well. Too bad they don't have the snake show anymore- hopefully my Dad can respond with what exactly the snake show was? Also made me think 'jeezus, I'm getting old' as none of these guys looked like they we're old enough to drink.

Monkey Troop!

Malaysia! So the best thing about our Malaysian getaway was the wildlife, specifically the awesome Monkey Troop and the super cool 3 foot long monitor lizard that I didn't get a picture of. Once I saw the Monkeys (these guys are sitting on our porch eating bags of goodies from one of our neighbors) I couldn't help but sing Homer's Spider Pig song with Monkey Troop in place of Spider Pig - I must be going insane because I'm singing it right now (and laughing hysterically).

Seriously though Desaru, Malaysia was cool, super nice beach, literally miles of open sandy beautiful beach surrounded by Casuarina pine trees, and some other unknown foliage, and few palm trees, warm, clean-ish shallow water and blue skies. Really can't figure out why it hasn't been super hyped and made into an international destination - maybe it's the Muslim bent towards no alcohol - it was difficult to get a beer and a glass of (sugary) wine. Maybe it's the lack of international investment as the place was run down (think 70's grandeur) and generally full of locals and the odd European family. Maybe it's just that they don't want the rest of us there!

One sad thing - or not depending on your perspective (if you're Dick Cheney), was once you left the beach it seems the whole of southern Malaysia has had its lush rain forest stripped bare and replaced with Palm Oil plantations, which are being planted as fast as possible to supply the worlds need for biofuels. Seems like a shortsighted mistake to raid our food supply for the needs of industry and moving our butts around- and remove untold square kilometers of virgin rainforest in the process. A bit hypocritical to say anything as America certainly got where we are by using our (and others') resources to the fullest extent -but hard to see lessons learned elsewhere not make their way to places like this. -Dave

Migraine!

Today I got to experience my very first migraine - what a strange sensation. Started out my day same as normal, roll out of bed, brush teeth, make coffee, turn on the computer, yadda yadda. So I'm sitting here reading the latest drama on the pathetic Sonics when I realize that everything I focus on kinda disappears, or blends into the background- I'm thinking this is weird, maybe I have some sleep in my eyes or something - go wash my face - come back and it's still happening. Not quite at freakout mode yet, but am thinking WTF? So I move away from the computer and go to the window to try something else, and while I'm trying to focus on roof across the street I fail to focus on any specific details for any length of time and I'm also visualizing these weird zig-zag stair step artifacts in my peripheral vision... very eerie, and very disconcerting (especially as no drugs are involved -this is Singapore!). At this point I start checking my motor skills and speech and whatnot thinking this can't be good - head back to the computer and start typing in symptoms into Google, reading what I can, and about this point in time I start feeling a headache come on from the back of my head, and I'm really weirded out, start thinking to myself "what is the emergency # in Singapore anyway?" (999 by the way) -when I happen upon the Mayo clinics site and it turns out I'm having a Classic Migraine with Auras - and a really typical one at that. So as I discover this the headache spreads from the back through to the front of my head then settles over my right hemisphere - where it stays for the next 4 hours, and my vision promptly returns to normal.

The headache was not excruciatingly painful, more annoying and a bit much to work - definitely once the mild nausea set in I was stuck on the couch for the duration. Once it was over it everything was good again- very weird, I feel for everyone who has to deal with those on a regular basis... A happy Wednesday to you all, -Dave

Laid Back

Had ourselves a nice laid back weekend enjoying our chair/chaise lounges (mentioned in the previous post) and it was really lovely sitting next to the pool enjoying the sun until the sewer cleaners came by and let us know that sewer isn't full of distilled water...

Enjoyed a nice walk around Fort Canning park, which is a sort of Greenlake-esque park which would be great to exercise around if it weren't 30 C and 80% humidity....

Added a few pictures to the flickr thing, hopefully there'll be more when we get out of dodge and into Malaysia next weekend.

Cheers!