During one of my winter vacations from Woodstock, when my dad and stepmother were living in Bangkok, my dad and I did a scuba diving course. Dad had started diving during our year in Hawaii (1966), and I’d been hearing his stories about it for as long as I could remember. Getting certified together sounded like a fun father-daughter activity, and it was.
Our instructor was “Dusty” Rhodes, who had served with distinction in the US Navy during the Vietnam war, and had then settled in Thailand. I did not realize until years later that the preparation he gave us went far beyond typical scuba instruction.
In my many moves around the world, I have brought with me a few items that remind me of specific times, places, people, and adventures in my life. This painting is one such.
While we lived in Thailand, my parents acquired some interesting pieces of original and local art, which moved with us and formed a familiar backdrop to our homes from Bangkok to Pittsburgh to Connecticut. We did not take much when we moved to Bangladesh in 1976, most of it went into storage. Sometime while I was attending the University of Texas at Austin, our household goods were moved from storage in Connecticut to my aunt’s property in Texas, where our old dishware may still be languishing in a disused falling-down barn full of rattlesnakes. I later rescued a few items, including the above which had been painted by our family friend Irma, an artist who owned a Scandinavian design shop in Bangkok.
Japan does bathrooms better than anywhere else, including public toilets.
Singapore – June
We went to Singapore (first time for both of us) because Brendan was co-chairing a SREcon, but we took some extra time to sightsee and get together with friends and fellow alumni of Woodstock School.
Update Aug 16, 2021: If I were still unvaccinated today (or even weeks ago), I would of course have a completely different view of the risk: the risk of me getting COVID is now much higher, and hugely outweighs the risk of blood clots. Risk is always relative.
First, let’s get a few possible misconceptions out of the way:
I’m not an anti-vaxxer
I already got my flu shot, as I do every year. I have been vaccinated frequently throughout my life, having lived in many “exotic” countries when you had to travel with a vaccination record to show you weren’t carrying yellow fever, typhoid, etc. I raised my daughter in Italy, where kids cannot go to school without being fully vaccinated. I had no problem with this, in fact I considered it a favor when we were reminded to get her childhood vaccines on time and it was easy to do so with the family GP. Her entire school was once given Hepatitis B vaccines without parents even being informed. I had no problem with that, either. I am grateful that vaccines exist and have even gotten better over time.
