Some Random Pics of Rota Island

We are still sans-apartment, but Suz's boss and her husband graciously and furthermore, heroically saved us from homelessness (or, at least, draining our wallets at the hotel) and put us up in their guest room until we find a place.

One thing to note about them outside of how omnipotently hospitable they have been to us is that their house is the nicest house we have seen on the island. I'll ask if I can take some pics of it and post them. Why it hasn't been featured in a house magazine or on HGTV is beyond me...

Anyway, Suz is over at school and I have to go and paint some tables for the school. We'll be back later. In the meantime, please enjoy these random shots of the Southern Coast of Rota Island except for the first one, which is the swimming hole up on the north coast. More to come.

Here's a Quick Update

Sorry we have been out of touch for the past few days. It has been a really stressful time.

We are having some trouble finding a place to live because all of the landlords who own the places we are interested in are either in Saipan or are in places unknown, and therefore, we are stuck in a small hotel with no internet service until we can figure it all out.

Right now, we're in Suz's classroom, where she is hanging pictures and I'm trying to figure out why my email is all screwed up. There is internet access here, but since it is in her room, there is a block on a lot of sites like Photobucket, so it's hard to upload any pics (I hate using blogger to upload pics.)

Here's one of Harry and Angelo up in Saipan. I'll upload a lot more when we get settled. I'll tell you this about Rota: It is a beautiful island; perhaps the most beautiful place I have ever been. However, despite its beauty and the almost unsetteling friendlyness of its people, we are left feeling a little lonely, especially because of our internet situation and lack of a working phone. Hopefully this is just a matter of adjusting, but just in case, we ask that you do keep in touch and remain a little more patient than usual until we get our housing and phone sorted out.

We'll catch you tomorrow. Right now, we have to go and see a lady about an apartment.

Love,

Andrew & Suz

I'm Sitting Next to Angelo Right Now.

More Later.

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Checking in from Tokyo Narita Airport

Real quick:

We made it to Tokyo @ 5:00pm yesterday afternoon. As anticipated, the hotel for our layover got all messed up and we had to find our own,

We'll be in Saipan @ 3PM Saipan time if anyone wants to meet two unimpressive and slightly obtuse Mainlanders.

Look for the married couple who look sick of each other.

Gotta run and board the plane.

Love

Andrew & Suz

Busy Busy

I'll check in later on this evening.

It's crunch time and Suz and I are scurrying about, trying to get everything out of the house.

If you live near Quakertown, PA, there's a great place to donate your furniture, cookware, and (small) appliances. They are a Mennonite organization, but they do not attach testimony to their charitable services, so you that shouldn't be a concern if you were worried about it. From our experience with them, they have an uncanny dedacation to helping the poor and incapacitated, so anything you were thinking of trashing would be better served over there.

It's called Caring and Sharing and it's in Souderton, Pa. on 113 just off County Line Road.

We're making another dropoff today, so I'll update this with more info later on.

Lastly, I'm it, it seems. I'll do that later tonight. After which, I shall tag Suz.

:)

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Some Juicy Meta

So you guys over there know, I'm updating my blogroll as fast as I can. Please keep in mind that I intend to do some real designing when we get over there, thus, the site's kinda messy look will change.

Also, if I didn't get to your link yet, please forgive the delay. We're swamped.

Suz will be contributing soon, too. She's a lot busier outside of the house than I am, so she hasn't had a lot of time to place herself before the Nerd Machine™.

Also, we have pics, I just can't seem to find the camera right now to upload them.

Some emails I got indicate that there's not a single palm tree or 'tropical' image on here yet. This is because we have yet to arrive and enjoy some palm trees ourselves. Also, it helps (IMHO) indicate that we aren't actually residents of Rota until the 25th, when we begrudgingly lurch out of the airplane and look for the nearest bed.

We hope you are enjoying this poor excuse for content anyway!

Love,

Andrew & Suz

Speaking of poor excuses for content:



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What Kind Of Music Is Hip in the CNMI?

I like a wide range of music, from issimo to Jazz and back around to industrial. Moreso, I like to play and hopefully, my guitar won't get squashed on a steamer to Rota.

One thing to note is that to my wife's (et. al.) chagrin, I have an uncommon affection for the Cocteau Twins. In all I've heard thus far, and believe me, I've heard a lot, they reach right in and put their fingers on my soul.

Howzabout you?

While you're thinking, enjoy (or loathe) this clip:




PS:

Lush!



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Bank Horror Stories

Where have I been lately?

Welp, Lemme' put it this way:

If you are a person moving out of country and want to keep your bank, let me save you some time:

Forget about it.

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I just went through the most annoying 2 days of my technical life trying to set up a check scanner. From the moment I opened the box and read the (incomplete and lousy) directions, horror ensued. Couple that horror with waiting forever for some tech people to call me back and Tobe Hooper would be horrified.

First off, no one asked if I used Windows. I don't. I am a graphic designer, therefore I use a Mac. Further, I hate Windows, but I digress. It seems that with all of the swashes and globe graphics I've been looking at over the past 2 days, my check scanner absolutely will not work in Mac OS.

I thought to myself, "no worries, I'll just partition my Mac and install Windows (yuck.) Long story short, my XP wouldn't install because I don't have service pack such and such and Windows Update wouldn't install it properly. And so, I reluctantly reassured myself that I could spend the 200 bucks I didn't have to upgrade to Vista, so off I went to pick it up.

Get home, re-partition my drive, install Vista.

At last, the phone rang with a tech support person. After all that, he said in a crushingly mild tone that "your scanner won't work even if you have XP partitioned on your Mac." and worse (and to the contradiction of the system requirements on the scanner packaging,) "It wont work with Vista on either system."

Awesome, then!

So now I sit holding a $200 copy of that piece of you know what, Vista that I can't return and a rock shaped like a scanner, its "DEPOSIT NOW!" logo strewn across its face in Comic Sans Itallic (eew) mocks me in Pantone 181C.

Worst of all, I have absolutely no Idea how I'm going to handle my deposits when we get there. Right now, I have my father as a signer so that my temporary billing address can be at his house and he can make deposits; but that's a micky mouse way to run a business in the long term.

So much for me!

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If anyone over there can lead me to the best bank that has a branch on Rota, I'd be grateful. In the mean time, don't ever buy a PC, of course; but, more importantly, don't upgrade your Windows if you use a check scanner. You'll be stuck with me in banking hell.

:)

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El Master Listo

Over at the Saipan Blogger's spot, there's an excellent list of CNMI bloggers, many of whom will likely be hazing us when we get over there.

Click here to chiga-check it out!

Thank you sir, may I have another.

Pics tomorrow, BTW.

Thx,

Andrew

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Back

We're back... Discuss.

Here's a topic to get you started:

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Right now, it's 96° in SE Pennsylvania. Yesterday in Bennington VT, it was 94° (which is very hot for even Southern VT.)

Saipan and the CNMI have one of the most equable climates in the world. (Average mean temp= 83° F)

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We're pretty busy, so we'll get back to you later.

In the mean time, how are we doing with this blog thus far?

PS: Somewhere across the Pacific, there's a guy named Angelo whose phone will be ringing soon. On the other end will be two folks who haven't forgotten to call, but just haven't had a lot of time lately.



:)

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