Regroup
Received word last night that, while we won't know for sure until Monday, the feeling is that the contract they're vying for is "not going to go our way".

We knew this possibility was there. We may even have known it was likely. But that didn't keep us from getting our hopes up, despite our best efforts. This is a bitter pill, especially for Marjorie who has already quit her job.

It will all work out. We knew there would be stumbles along the way. We really aren't in a bad position. This weekend we will regroup and figure out a new plan of action. Still, it stinks when your fate is up in the air like this.

Some new pictures to differentiate us. Marjorie went with the blue-footed booby. She is also questioning my manhood, picking such a cute little creature as a red panda for my image, but they're cool creatures...

Speaking of manhood, I'm going to the doctor to lose mine tomorrow. Seriously. Hey, blogs are supposed to have saucy personal details, right? Zing!

AND IN RELATED NEWS

The front page of today's NYTimes they cite Bush claiming he is a "patient man" with regards to Iraq. Really now, what the hell is he talking about? The man is so trigger happy towards Iraq it's almost unbelievable. Why do we have a moron as our president? I blame Florida!!!!!!

WEST NILE! WEST NILE!

There are 6 confirmed cases of West Nile virus in Georgia this summer. Everytime I get a mosquito bite, I get more paranoid about it. Still, it's fun to run screaming "west nile! west nile!" from the car to the door. I suppose when we get to S'pore we can change our screams to "dengue fever! dengue fever!". Ah, the vector-bourne diseases. On a not unrelated note, I'm going to start taking the typhoid vacination pills (with live virus!) tomorrow. Yum.

Unbelievable
From today's news:

Touring areas in Oregon devastated by wildfire, President Bush on Thursday will propose easing regulations and environmental reviews to speed the removal of timber from fire-prone U.S. forests.

Though his proposals, first outlined Wednesday, prompted howls from environmentalists, the Bush administration said changes are necessary to clear forests of a decades-long buildup of highly flammable materials.

I'm speechless. Could he be any more in the pocket of big business? It's difficult to believe we kind of elected this guy.

The voice of reason has spoken
Politics in the state of Georgia became decidedly less kooky just yesterday. Two goofs from opposite ends of the spectrum -- Cynthia McKinney and Bob Barr were both rejected by Georgia voters. Sanity prevails.
Mr. Barr made the news recently by accidentally firing a handgun during a reception. If only he had managed to shoot himself in the foot, it would have been the most poetic thing that has ever happened since the dawn of time.

Awww yeah, my goodness
Beck last night was hot and cold, I thought. He's utterly charming and confident on stage, and was chatty all night. The off-the-cuff moments were great, including a song he made up on the spot about Atlanta. But I found his new stuff boring. Still, the man deserves credit for refusing to just rehash past successes. And I never realized before last night what an amazing voice the man has!

Pictures
We'll try these pictures for now to differentiate who's typing what. I think I can figure out a way to have them included automatically, but it'll take some digging. Also, we'll need to find a picture of me where you can tell that I have a chin.

Woo hoo, four hours to solo-acoustic Beck! This could be our last real concert for years to come -- Singapore is pretty out-of-the-way for major artist concert tours. I heard the Cranberries (who I don't even like) were there a year or two ago, but not much else...



RANT
I believe this posting is logged on as Mark, but this is Marjorie.
Two days of unemployment and it's starting to sink in that I don't have any more paychecks coming. I have to ask my husband for money. Yuck. When/if we find out we have a job in Singapore, or elsewhere, I think it will be easier for me to handle being jobless, but for now it's a difficult pill to swallow.

Ideally, I'm not working so I'll have time to do all those time consuming tasks to get us ready for the move, like getting copies of our medical records, refilling prescriptions, etc. but, as always in life, this doesn't go as planned. Inspite of all permissions I'm apparently not able to pick up Mark's records-he has to be there in person. This truly pisses me off, because I know doctors can access your records with a signed release-I should have the same access to my husband's records (with written permission, I believe in privacy) as a random doctor!!! But no, Mark has to take time off from work to do it himself, which makes me wonder how my not working is really helping. Oh well...

On a brighter note, we're going to see Beck tonight.That's cool.

Bats and crabs and lizards, oh my!
Some reasons to get excited about moving to Singapore -- we realized this weekend that we'll be weekend-outing-close to Gunung Mulu National Park in Malaysia and Christmas Island. Not to mention Tioman Island where we visited last year.

Ouch
Marjorie and I just got our shots, and boy are our arms tired. Hepatitis A and tetanus. We also picked up the typhoid vaccine -- it comes in pill form. It's weird -- it's a live virus, so we have to keep it refrigerated until we take it. Really creepy that we have to swallow this stuff.

Somebody got into my car last night. I'm not sure how, because the doors were locked when I came out this morning, and there was no sign of break in. But my glove box was open with a few things scattered out of it. Plus, some CDs were swiped from the passenger side door pocket, and Marjorie's sunglasses I think. The stereo was untouched -- it was probably kids. They got the cases for two Tom Waits CDs, which happened to have some other CDs inside them (my CD changer is in the trunk). I still haven't figured out which CDs might have been in the cases -- I think one was a Weezer bootleg and the other may have been empty. So at least the little punks won't be able to resell them.

Marjorie here: We need to adjust the fonts so that my entries look different than Mark's. The preview sale went relatively well. Less interest than I expected but we sold a lot of the bigger items, which is great. We've decided that all future sales will be to the first buyer with the money. "Saving" things doesn't work well, and can potentially cause strain on your friendships....long, uninteresting, story.
I'm so anxious about the 24th. If we don't know anything, one way or the other, by then, I'm going to totally lose it. I don't do well with uncertainty. I'm sure this move will give provide us with lots of uncertain situations, this is probably just the first challenge, so I should just let go a little and embrace the chaos.

This is the first blog entered through my new notebook computer. It came, despite Dell informing me by email that they couldn't ship it until the 28th. Strange. Maybe they'll send me another one then.

The preview sale went pretty well. Got rid of a lot of stuff, and whipped up some tasty margaritas (we have a bottle of Cointreau to use up before we move). Our friend Rob and Ally came by in their new dark blue 1963 Cadillac, replete with tailfins. It's totally rad.