My lap top crashed two weeks before leaving Vietnam. Technicians in Saigon, San Francsico and Tacoma failed to resurrect the files that I had last backed up in December. Next I sent the laptop to Florida where, so I understood, they could repair and resurrect the file. The promised two week turnaround turned into 4 weeks and two days ago I found out they could not do any better than what I was told in Saigon. With a little luck I get the lap top back the day after I leave for Amsterdam, this Wednesday….. To make matters worse, I had sent in a good story that I spent a lot of time on in Vietnam, about the basket boat and boat building. The publisher received my CD with the pictures and manuscript and it turns out to be blank…. At the request of one of the members of my church group I sent her a group of pictures I had taken that week in Cambodia. I had hoped to be able to have these back. She lost the zip file in her hotmail account….. Besides the photos I lost all my e-mail correspondence/attachments for the three months and many of the addresses from the new friends I made. If you are one of them, (re)send me a mail. The pictures that I inserted from time to time on this blog are all preserved in the web library, but they are in a compressed format.
All hope is not yet lost. There are, but often expensive, ways to extract lost files. But why all these dead ends?
Yesterday I drove to Vancouver to have lunch with Colette Riml. I had hoped to catch a few other friends in Vancouver, the Nesbits in Bellingham and Ken House in Stanwood but all had conflicts. I stopped in Seattle and purchased an AIS (Automatic Indentification System) VHF radio for “Fleetwood”. This assures me that I can see the locations and direction of the vessel traffic in my VHF radio range on a small screen. It also has a an alarm that will wake me up when a vessel approaches my area. I can then also call up any vessel to coordinate any course changes if necessary. This will make me sleep even better and take a lot of the guess work out of distances and direction. I also purchased a good used back pack I found on Craigs List in Bellingham. I liked the one I borrowed from Donnovan for the Indochina vacation.
The weather turned sunny and warm in the afternoon. Rose Marie let me use her late model Jetta Wolfsburg edition. With the sun roof open I took my favorite scenic drive down Chuckanut Drive. Few know that this curving road along the Puget Sound shoreline south of Bellingham was named for a brave Squaw who performed a similar operation as Lorena Bobbitt. Through the sleepy little hamlet of Edison where “Fleetwood” was built in the 1979-1980 winter, where nothing has changed in the last 30 years. I took the below picture at Bayview. This is the view from the Bayview cemetery, on the hill above. This is where I want to be buried after 2037. Roman has another 2 1/2 years to make it to a 100. He is hanging on and still displaying his fighting spirit, sense of humour, mischief and love. I will see him again in the next hour. Last Wednesday he was trying to tell me something but he cannot bring out the words any longer. But he can talk with his hands, eyes and and face. I believe that he understood that I will be away after this Wednesday. Tears welled up in me. But somehow I do not think that being away and not seeing him again will change our friendship much from before because his presence and love will still be there.