The above is my 2006 Jeep Commander that I smartly bought in January 2007 – about 6 months before I moved to Vietnam and left the Jeep parked in my mom’s garage! I didn’t sell it before I left because I wasn’t sure how long I’d be over here, whether I would be moving back [...]

Mary Ellen keeps telling me she’s going to post her photos from her trip soon so I can get a few of them up on Orangwutang, but so far all I have is this teaser photo from our dinner at Temple Club on Mary Ellen and Tony’s last night in Vietnam: I’ll post more as [...]

Here is a great post from the Viet World Kitchen blog for those of you planning on visiting me here in Vietnam.  I’ve been here for around five months – eating all over the place – and haven’t been sick once (knock on wood).  Mary Ellen and Tony didn’t get sick at all during their [...]

I heard from Mary Ellen, and she and Tony both made it home without incident!  She’s going to post her photos in the next couple of days, and I will get them up here as soon as possible.  Some of them are pretty funny.

1. Staying at the office all night “watching” football on the internet is better in theory than in practice, especially when: (a) your internet connection in Vietnam is too slow and buggy to really watch streaming video; and (b) even after you determine you’re not going to be able to watch the games you wanted [...]

I just put Mary Ellen and Tony in a taxi to the airport.  Both of their flights leave Vietnam at around midnight, with Mary Ellen flying through Seoul and Tony flying through Tokyo.  Tony gets back to Atlanta about 2:00pm on Sunday, and Mary Ellen gets back at about 6:00pm on Sunday due to a [...]

I love this photo that my friend Cristi sent of her daughter, Darby (on the left), and Darby’s friend, Giovana (!), having a princess tea party.  They really look to me like they were very focused on their tea party and are both so put out by the interruption. I think Cristi should enter it [...]

Got back from Hoi An yesterday – pretty much exhausted.  I met Mary Ellen and Tony at the airport at about 5:45pm on Tuesday.  They went straight from their trip the Mekong Delta to the airport, so we ended up having a couple of hours to kill before our 8:00pm flight.  You can see how [...]

If this posts properly, I’ve figured out how to post photos directly from my iPhone using a free web service called www.iphoneslide.com. We’ll see. We’ve had a good time in Hoi An, and our shuttle to the airport leaves in about an hour. I am heading back to HCMC and Mary Ellen and Tony are [...]

We’ve just had something very sad happen in our immediate family.  My sister’s dog, Oscar, whose nickname was Oscar Bud, passed away over the weekend.  He was very old – I don’t think anyone knows exactly how old because my sister got him from the pound – and had not been doing very well for [...]