Many thanks to those who have sent birthday wishes, emailed, called, sang, actually sent paper cards, or some combination of the above. It's not terribly sexy to have your birthday on a Tuesday, particularly when it's election day as well, and even less on an election year like this one where you're voting for exciting stuff like school board and other state-level stuff. Yawn. But I did have a lovely birthday massage (thanks M, C, and T! you guys rock!) that was reeeeeeeallllly niiiiiiiice. It was mostly your standard swedish/shiatsu/reflexology/aromatherapy type of thing. But the woman also worked in just enough deep tissue massage to make it interesting. If you've ever had deep tissue work, you know how the pummeling can sometimes make you feel like you were hit by a truck. The more it hurts, the better the massage, right? That's kinda the point. But my new best friend Vera had just the right balance of tough love, and the end result was tres fab. Anyone in the area looking for a fantastic massage, I highly recommend Massage Works.

Right, so since I haven't checked in in a while, I thought it was time to post a quick update. The housing market continues to flip us the double bird, so we've had to formulate a new plan. Plan B? This is more like Plan x=πr²√Θ. But that just keeps things interesting. Anyway, the current working plan is to put the house up for rent while we travel. Sounds reasonable, yes? The rental market is actually pretty strong right now, especially in this area where you have military families and World Bank and State Dept and other transient groups. But it does present a new set of challenges. The two biggies are (1) scrounging up the money to travel with, and (2) getting the mortgage payment at or below what we could hope to rent for. We were aided a bit on the second issue by a new, lower ARM (which I still think was a clerical error but who's complaining). And to chip away at the first issue, I've dusted out the ol' resume and have been looking for an IT contract gig. I'm also looking at a few bartending options, just because I think it'd be a fun way to pull in some extra cash. Stay tuned for updates on that!

We're aiming for a departure date sometime in early summer, ideally to coincide with Eric & Dey's wedding in San Diego on 6/7/08. We may follow the SE Asia/India itinerary, but that may need to be adjusted for weather considerations. I'm open to suggestions! The timeline can be a bit more open-ended since there aren't any other family obligations on the books. (My sister is only allowed to get married if she consults my travel schedule first!) So we may wind up traveling for more than the allotted year. We'll see. First things first. And the first item on my to-do list is finding a j-o-b. Second item is world domination, in case anyone's curious.