New travel itinerary

Our flight to Bangkok tomorrow has been canceled.  The current plan is for us to fly to Singapore from Seattle next Monday (12/8) and stay in Singapore for 3 weeks, then fly to Bangkok ~12/29 or so.

BKK could be open as soon as a week from now

If all goes as planned, the protesters will leave the BKK airport and it will resume operation about a week after that point.  Apparently there are a few things you need to make sure still work after letting thousands of people off the street roam through your airport unsupervised for a week or two.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=135126

Likely change of plans

We likely will not be flying to Bangkok on 12/3 like originally planned - we likely will be flying to Singapore first.  The new itinerary isn't confirmed yet, but when we do go we'll likely be staying in Singapore until the situation in Bangkok has calmed down a bit.  As there is no solid timeline for when the airports in Bangkok will be reopening, we are not sure how long that will be, but we will be very comfortable in Singapore in the meantime.

Thanks for all the well wishes and concerned emails - don't worry about us!  Microsoft is doing a good job of looking out for us and our safety.

...while Chris has his first day at Microsoft

Today was my first day of orientation at Microsoft.  Lots of talk about the corporate culture, it seems like a great company.  I think I'll really like working here.

Note my wardrobe's best attempt at Microsoft blue.

Sam does Seattle...

Sam went out on the town today and saw many famous Seattle sights - pine trees, the ocean, the Space Needle, the original Starbucks, and the Pike Place "Fish" people.  It was foggy in the morning and rainy in the evening, but the afternoon was very nice for Sam's day out.

We made it to Seattle

And we are staying very close to the Microsoft campus in Redmond - here is a rented office outside our hotel.  Check out my new parka, too - stylin'!

Tomorrow I have new employee orientation (NEO) - should be fun!

Thanksgiving

We were able to get in one last holiday with the family - here we are with my parents.  We ate lots of good food, and had a great time!

BKK airport is currently closed

This is the airport we're set to fly into late next week.  Hopefully the situation will be resolved peacefully and without violence.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php?id=132341

Snow has arrived in Madison!

Perhaps a bit sooner than we thought, snow accumulated overnight in Madison.  Forget a white Christmas - we're looking to have a white Thanksgiving this year!

We're pretty sure there won't be snow on the ground when we arrive in Bangkok.

Our old house

We were very fortunate to close on the sale of our house on 10/24/08, after just 21 days on the market.  The market for homes really is tough for sellers right now.  The fact that we backed up to a park probably made it happen - otherwise we might still be trying to sell it!

We'll miss our home, but it was a great place to live for the 9 years we had it.    

Always be prepared

Yeah, I was a Boy Scout - and the idea of always being prepared for what you might encounter has stuck with me.  Here are some of the books I've been reading to try and get ready for living in Thailand - I'm sure it's just scratching the surface, but hopefully getting my head around this material will help ease the transition.

Goodbye, Harold

Today I'm selling my car, Harold.  I've had my car for 10 years now, and it's been a great car.  It's a Chevy Prizm, and it doesn't even have 60,000 miles on it.  We're selling it to our neighbors, who plan to drive it past 250,000 miles, so it's good to know it's going to a good home.

My car is the last big thing we have to sell before we go - Sam already sold her car, we already closed on the sale of our house, and we've sold or gotten rid of all of our furniture and 95% of the rest of what we owned 6 months ago.  We won't have much stuff when we get to Bangkok, which will make it much easier to live in an apartment again.

Snow is coming to Madison

Yesterday it snowed a bit in Madison.  It likely won't be long before the serious snow comes to town.  Though we'll probably miss the change of seasons while we're in Bangkok, we have mixed feelings about the snow.  Sam, being from Taiwan, loves snow - it's a rare treat where she's from.  Chris, having been raised in Minneapolis, has seen quite enough snow to last him a lifetime, thank you very much, especially after the record-breaking 100" (!) of snow Madison had last year.  Either way, we should be leaving town before the snow starts really accumulating.

We're moving to Thailand!

We'll be moving to Thailand at the end of November 2008.  We are creating this blog so that our friends and family can keep track of us and our life in Bangkok.  Watch this space for our pictures and thoughts.