April 29, 2009

Sorry, y’all, for not posting much in April.  We’ve been working a lot, just trying to get things finished up before we go on vacation in May, so we haven’t been out and about looking for adventures. 

However, in the past couple of weeks my art dealer Pious has brought us a couple of masks and 3 spears.  As Chaun so eloquently put it, “Are you gonna carry those around in case there’s a war or something?”  Going by the motto, “Always be prepared”, it seems logical to say, “Yes.”  Of course, if I did that, I would probably look silly and would thence get voted off Project Runway because my outfit would be “too mismatchy”.  Aufwiedersehen. (What?!  You were expecting this thought-train was going somewhere NOT ridiculous?  We have 9 days until we leave for vacation - SINGLE DIGITS - so I can be as silly as I want.)

April 23, 2009

A little randomness to start the day...

Said to me at the gym this morning: "Did you used to lift hay bales out on the farm or something?"

What I wanted to say: "Yes, and I eat small children for breakfast and am able to leap tall buildings in a single bound."

April 18, 2009

Does anyone else think this is pronounced "Sour SOAP Juice"?

April 12, 2009

These are some photos that were actually taken in March, but I figured I'll put them on the April page now that I've finally gotten around to sharing them.

We were on our way to the airport really early in the morning and it was clear enough to see Carstenz Glacier.

And there was a nice sunrise, too, so we stopped to take a couple of pictures.

Further down the road, we passed the stand of trees that we call "The Dr. Suess Trees". 

It was a great start to the day, although one that we knew was going to be stressful, since we were attempting to fly back to the US with 24-hours notice to the travel agency, and the Indonesian government was currently in possession of our passports.  So here is a list of how that went:

• Got to see Carstenz Glacier. 
• Got to see a colorful sunrise.
• Waited for government and travel agency offices to open. 
• I then spent an hour at the travel agent, checking, printing, rechecking, and changing flight iteneraries.
• Eric spent an hour at the Indonesian Immigration office getting his Resident Status renewed because it was going to expire in a week.
• We went to the airport and arrived 45 minutes before boarding time.
• Meanwhile, our passports were traveling all over Timika to get stamped and signed by proper authorities, since I also needed a new Re-entry Permit because mine had expired THAT DAY.
• We had apparently missed a landslide that had closed the road between Tembagapura and the lowlands for a couple of hours that morning.
• Fifteen minutes before boarding time, our passports showed up at the airport. 

For the whole fifteen minutes we sat there waiting, we kept thinking, "Did we really just miss a landslide? Did we really just get BOTH of our passports through all of the Immigration stamping/paperwork process in a matter of 2 hours?  That would never happen on a normal day."

Later, as if to punctuate the stressful yet fortunate day we were having, as we boarded a connecting flight in Bali there was a Mariachi band standing at the door of the plane, singing "La Bamba".  Eric and I looked at each other with that same glint in our eyes: the one where you have to reassure each other that this really is your life and you are not in some kind of NyQuil-induced dream state; the one that says, "Yep.  This day is just plain weird."

 April 3, 2009

It snowed here up at the surface mine on April 1st.  No, I'm not even April-fooling you!

I don't know who took the photo - it was sent around on email here.