First Thanksgiving

God bless America!
Today I experienced my first Thanksgiving on US soil. While the lunch, the 15lb golden turkey, the lattice cherry pie, the sweet cranberry mousse, the mouthwatering corn pudding, more grazing, family time, and live football is all behind us now, I'm still incapable of moving! I must've picked up 5 lbs today and there is still more grazing to be done. And then some! Wonderful.

The large retailers like WalMart, Macy's, Target, Best Buy, and others are opening their doors tomorrow at 0500 hrs for their BIG Thanksgiving Sale. Already the more eager participants are camping outside the doors of these stores to be the first to the merchandise.
Traffic has been horrendous - it took us three hours to get out of Miami and past Fort Lauderdale - all of 55 miles.

Winter has now firmly arrived even here in tropical Florida. Already there is a briskness to the early mornings and evenings that has us pulling out warm clothes for the first time.

Wishing a Blessed Thanksgiving to all our American friends and family!

Marco and Sarah

South African Perspectives on the States - Part I

As a newcomer and still a relative outsider, there's still much strangeness about my newly adopted country - I that lacketh the cultural background and thus sufficient understanding of these intricacies!
Here's a humorous look at some sport phenomena:

Americans, and none the least Floridians, love their sport. Twenty miles South of our home is the NASCAR Oval of Homestead. Here, on certain chosen evenings, rupturous, screeching and wildly motoric noise erupts from within the high picked fences. According to the Miami Herald, Nashcar racing is the #1 growing sport in the country. I don't understand - who came up with this sport? Some dude watching his clothes spin in the dryer one day, "Gee this looks like fun. Let's make a day out of this!"
And where did they come up with the name? Maybe two Southern boys were trying to impress each other one day:
"Hey Bubba, did ye see ma new wheels?"
Bubba: "Gosh, nahhhssss car!"

And the football. They got it all wrong! Throwing a ball forward? Holding on in the tackle! Not passing the ball? It just doesn't seem right. Does anyone know that the 1904 Olympic Games was the last time rugby was held as an Olympic sport. Guess who's the last official holders of the rugby gold medal? The United States of America.

The draft system in football is another of those strange new concepts that I still have difficulty in grasping. How do the fans in Florida justify staying loyal to a sports team? Players are always changing and moving to other cities or states.
Therefore, a Dolphin fan is, in fact, cheering for his team's clothes to beat the clothes from another city! The same player wearing a different shirt - "Tackle him hard! Boo! Kick his shin!"
(Afterthought: I have to admit though, that I'm really starting to enjoy this sport.)

And lastly - according to comedian Jerry Seinfeld, a professional wrestler in America is struck down by a folding chair once every thirty-five seconds! While the referee is looking the other way, of course.
I've had a startling revelation regarding pro wrestling: The guy with the most ridiculous nickname will always win the fight. "From California comes the iron man, Hank the Purple Hammer Armstrong! And in the left corner we have.... Bob!"

Blog Visitors

A bunch of you have started your own Blogs since my introductory e-mail a few months ago. I have enjoyed reading from and about you, having not seen most for a long time.

Those of you who had started Blogs recently will be interested in the Webblog Site Visitor-function that you can instal. It provides you with all kinds of interesting info regarding the hits or visits your Blog receives. This week I we had 46 hits, compared to last week's 71, with each visitor spending an average of 12:49 minutes browsing through our pages.
There has been a steady increase since we made the Blog official in August. Those first four weeks we had less then 15 visitors/week.

It has been a pretty busy week and I apologize for the weeklong silence. There'll be news tomorrow.
Thank you for the e-mails and the comments.

A Visit from Grand Cayman

My good old friend Lundi Koen and her husband Juan made a quick stop in Miami this past weekend, and became our first "outside" visitors in Miami.

It was a first time meeting with Juan and also the first time in nearly four years seeing Lundi. Altogether a very enjoyable, although rushed few days. There was lots of catching up, reminiscience and shopping tours around the city crammed into a tiny time slot of two days - before finding myself on Sunday waving them goodbye at the airport.
The flight back to Grand Cayman is less than an hour. Distance-wise they live about as far away as Jacksonville, where our parents live. We should build a bridge!

We look forward to the new week -which includes a holiday on Friday! - refreshed by their visit.

Back in Miami

It's life as usual in Miami after returning from a week of R&R in Northern Florida with our family.
Our unexpected Wilma-induced long weekend became a proper, enjoyable week-long holiday after her Category 3-winds tore at Southern Florida. I won't bore you with old news details about the devastation she caused, but there are still thousands without power.

The last hundred odd miles to Miami on I-95 was pretty eerie, driving at night past Boynton Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Hollywood, and Northern Miami, some areas engulfed in total darkness. Gas is in high demand at the few open gas stations and we spend an hour at one station, just to drive off with only 4 gallons of gas.
Although all the trees in our area has been blown over or damaged, along with many roofs, other then lots of debris, we're thankful that there is little damage.

Last week thousands of people stood in lines for hours on end for water and gas and the complaints in the media against the state and federal governments were endless, just as it was in New Orleans after Katrina. It goes beyond me why mature citizens cannot heed warning calls and stock up on neccesities for them and their families in advance. Urgent warnings have been bellowing through all available state media when Wilma was still advancing towards the Mexican coastline, 5 days before she made landfall. Governnor Bush has said as much and made a mocking of the accusors. There is only so much even the most efficient government can do in a crisis situation of such magnitude.

I'm still actively seeking employment and in the meantime I'm substituting at a high school on a regular basis, while also doing a bit of freelance writing and editing. The problem with being unemployed is that as soon as you wake up in the morning - there you go - you're on the job! I've also learned that man was definitely not designed to be a home-maker and if I cannot kill the meat I prepare for dinner, at least I can go and buy it at the convenience store!

Sarah is counting her days at her present school and we appreciate Morrison and it's excellent administration just so much more. So too do we miss the Asian attitude towards education and educators. These little ones unfortunately do not strive for the same academic standards, nor do they attach the same meaning to the words respect and accountability. (There you have the core reason why any country eventually loses greatness.)

Dan and Mindy Slaughter, whom we have grown close to the last couple of years in Taichung, spend the last few weeks at Morrison before returning back to Oregon. They said they felt like they were home again.
We can just imagine guys!

Pic - Playing tourists in St. Augustine, America's oldest settlement, dating back to the 1580's.
- Sarah and her Mom on the battlement of the old Spanish fort.