Updates and such

So I got a very helpful response to my question regarding pictures on the blog from Michela, friend of a friend of the butcher's housekeeper's nephew who lives next door to our friends Amanda and Blair in London (or something like that) and loyal reader.

So now pictures should open into a more manageable size when you click on them, provided I remember to click on the HTML and edit the size from 1600 to 800, which I will probably forget much of the time.

Anyway, thanks Michela.

She also went to the trouble of going to youtube.com (where we upload the videos) and sending me a message through that as we don't have comments on this here blog. She suggested we have comments.

So okay. You can now make comments. Keep it clean. My mom reads this blog.

On a different note, I am starting to feel a bit overwhelmed with everything that I (we) have to accomplish before we leave. A newly-added UXO visit at the beginning of March has just added to that general drowning feeling I have and necessitated moving our packout from March 6 and 7 to February 26 and 27. And new things raise their ugly heads on a daily basis. Like today I received my W-2. Oh, taxes. Due while we are on home leave. Argh!

So I have made a heartwrenching decision. It's actually one Katherine has tried to talk me out of. I will not, afterall, be visiting Khammouane and Bolikhamsay this weekend on my fabulous visit to the Kong Lor cave and the Wildlife Conservation Society's research station in the middle of a rarely visited Lao national park. Instead, I'll work and prepare for packout. Just as fun, really...

On a more positive note, I saw a sign in Luang Prabang that made me feel, just for a moment, that maybe I'd died and gone to heaven.

(you might have to click the picture to see it in all its glory)

Turns out that it was just a massage parlor owned by the same people who owned a pizza place next door, so they were trying out a little advertising synergy. The strange thing is, though, earlier in the day we were talking about aromatherapy massage and I had said I would be interested in a pizza aroma.

Anyway, I can always dream...

Finally, 28 days and counting. It's going fast.