Here we go, we're getting serious about putting a site in place that we can post to. This the first real test of it. These are some random words, thank you for your patience. Oh yeah, for those who don't know me, I'm type-o and mis-spelling prone, and I apreciate email with corrections.

That's a random picture. As you can see, we have new 86°F, 94% humidity friendly haircuts.

This concludes this test of "December 2001 Log of Dave & Jeanie". More real content should follow!

We procrastinated aquiring the currency of our destination, Thai Baht (pronounced like the 'bot' in 'robot'). Banks needed at least a week, so we exchaged as little as we figured we should (the $25 gift from Gram & Gramps seemed convenient) at the airport, as their exchange rate is poor with a service charge of 5USD, and shop around for the best deal in Bankok. We then geeked out a bit and exercised our high school math skills answering the following question. How much should we have exchanged to get the best deal, considering the exchage rate was poor (so you should exchange little), and there was a transaction fee (so you should exchange a lot to minimize how much of the transaction went to the fee)? Equations and graph plots were scribbled on the receipt of the transaction under interogation. The answer is as little as possible, so we did good.

Lunch was good. I really liked the raw, thin sliced, peppered, smoked salmon (maybe we caught that very fish this year!). A reminder that with new places, comes new tastes. What fun!

After three hours en route, Jeanie noticed a flight status update on the video screen. As most might know, our course was not a straight line on the map, but an arc bounding up north and then south again (try it kids, you'll find this funny path is the shortest for a piece of string on a globe). What was surprizing was how close we were to my hometown, Homer Alaska US. We cruised just south of the Barren Islands (between Homer and Kodiak Island (where we went fishing last year)). We continued toward the Alaska Peninsula, crossing the path from Anchorage to King Salmon we flew not long ago on our way to the Bristol Bay fishing grounds. The video switched after we hit Lake Illiamna, so I'm not sure what other familure places this exotic flight brought us.

It took me a sec to see it but there's an ocean of ice below us now. Slow waves moving through islands of what had looked like land in the sea.

We succesfully packed light, with only a school bag size backpack each. I think that's super cool, and time will tell if it's sustainable. After scribing this relatively short entry on the PDA though, I think it'd be worth our time to sacrifice our (mostly) minimalist mantra and pack a collapsable keyboard. They aren't too big or heavy, its use is optional, and maybe I can find one for cheap in Bangkok.

I found this memo on the PDA I never posted. With only five hours down (it's been pleasant though), and twelve hours to go until Bangkok, maybe I'll find some more.

Did I tell you all? I moved almost twenty minutes of a Thai language audio cassette that Jeanie's folks gifted us to the PDA. It'll get a few more listens in before we land.