Would be nice if this guy can collect anything from the judgement.

Oklahoma Man Wins $10 Million Judgment Against a Spammer: "On Thursday the 22nd, Robert Braver, an Oklahoma ISP owner who is a long time activist against both spam and junk faxes, received a default judgment of over $10 million against high profile spammer Robert Soloway and his company Newport Internet Marketing. Soloway has frequently been cited as one of the ten largest spammers in the world."

(Via CircleID.)

Posted by mikki at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We arrived at Bonaire's lovely Flamingo Airport, located conveniently next to the Donkey Sanctuary, early enough for them to go through our checked baggage by hand before loading it onto the American Eagle ATR. The flight took off about 20 minutes late, but that was not a big deal at all, since everyone's connections had at least 2 hours (ours is 7) to wait. I actually caught a nap during the flight, and we landed here at San Juan, where we found an electrical outlet, some happy fun wifi, and a pretty good Dominos branch, and all is fine with the world.

So what am I confused about? Well, we arrived at one end of the airport, were put on busses, and let out at a door close to where we landed. Then... the walk. Yes, we walked. And we walked. Wes estimates that the walk was about 1/4 mile. And walked. All the way to the happy fun customs/immigration area, where we got up to the front of the line, and then stupidly realized we hadn't filled our customs forms out because we hadn't been given any on the plane like normally happens. Banished from the line, we went to find the form to fill it out. Right under the "Welcome to the United States" sign were several forms that we figured MUST have the right one in them. WRONG! NONE of the forms were in English!

This is the part where I'm most confused. "Welcome to the United States" was in English. But in order to get an English language customs card, we had to ask specially at the American Airlines "help me cuz I'm lame" desk. A very confusing turn of events indeed.

Once we got the form filled out, and went through the happy immigration man, we found another curiosity of American airports - no free carts. That sucks. $2.00 per cart, and for scuba people like us with 120 lbs of gear each....well, you can figure. So we got our stuff, we went painlessly through customs (hooray), and thankfully the AA check in for baggage was RIGHT THERE so we could dump the stuff and run like crazy to get to our flight that we only had 6 hours to get to :-).

Yes, we are looking forward to getting home.

Posted by mikki at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are no happy fun underwater pictures today, however our above water pictures may be seen at this great link

We woke this morning to quite the thunderstorm, with lots of rain and wind and all that stuff. It was quite the fun. Today is the most unhappy day of the trip, since we get to spend it packing. And with all the gear we have, that is not a trivial task. There is the dive gear, which consists of buoyancy compensators, regulators, find, masks, repair equipment, wet suits, etc., and the photo gear which consists of more pieces than most people imagine. Housings, strobes, strobe arms, strobe arm connectors, repair equipment, spare o rings, grease, batteries (shitloads of batteries), chargers, lenses, camera bodies, memory cards, ports, etc. Then there is the regular stuff you have to pack for vacation. Put it all together, and we each have approximately 120 lbs of baggage that thankfully is on wheels.

On the last day, one should not dive too close to one's flight. DAN says 12 hours but we stretch it a bit. We had the option to dive this morning, but chose not to since we are pretty well exhausted by the great time we had. The "last day" is also the "scuba equipment drying day" in hopes that things dry enough before you have to stuff them in the dive bags where they will spent a mushy journey home.

And, of course, the list of things that have to be done when we get home goes through one's head...as the brain begins to seep out the ears. Oh well. Such is life. Maybe someday we can live here :-)

Posted by mikki at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's Underwater pictures are at this happy fun link.

Yet another beautiful day on Bonaire. I don't quite understand how anyone could have a "bad" day on such a fabulous island as this, even if it pours with rain. Today I switched to wide angle while Wes shot macro. We went out on the reef in front of Habitat (which we still think is the finest reef on Bonaire) for a time, then went out to the Salt Pier with Netto. Netto is one of the divemasters who has been here forever, knows everyone and everything about the island, and is kind and open to tourists. Most Bonarians are quite nice to your face, but would rather not deal with you if they don't have to. Rather similar to Americans in that way :-). Netto, however, is an exception, sharing with us all kinds of interesting information on island life, island regulations, laws, etc. One of the Bonarian sayings, "don't hide and throw stones" is quite an interesting one. He explained how when you hide and throw stones, they can still tell where the stones came from and know who did it.

We had a lovely dive at Salt Pier where I had a French Angel who must have been a professional scuba model because she would go to every place I pointed to and pose. At the end of the dive, we became part of a bait ball. That was a truly interesting sight. Thousands upon thousands of anchovies, swimming all together in a circle. As we came up to them, they surrounded us, still swimming in circles. It was truly beautiful. As we climbed out of the water, we found the pelicans were swarming, getting ready for an anchovie feast. It was a lot of fun.

When we got back, we barely had enough time to shower and get ready for our trip to Casablanca, an Argentinean restaurant with a MASSIVE amount of really great food. It was hard to believe the quantity of chicken, steak, ribs, blood sausage, etc. that we had. The meal was great, the company was wonderful (Luv Monkeys, Eli, Dan, and Karen the divemaster and her husband Bud.) and we ate entirely too much and fell into bed for a very nice sleep.

Posted by mikki at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once again, when the world has shown its compassion to the United States by giving us money and goods to help us, and perhaps thought that we aren't really so bad, our Baboon in Chief has to SCREW THINGS UP again.

I just had to shut off the TV in disgust. Here's our president, standing before the UN, and giving them the same lame ass speech he's given us for the past 4 years. The same babble babble "weapons of mass destruction" babble babble "terrorism" babble babble "september 11, 2001" babble that anyone who already has an IQ over perhaps 43 has rejected. And once again, I am embarrassed.

Would it have really hurt this idiot to have said "THANK YOU" and stepped down from the podium? Would it really have been SO DAMN HARD to shut his flapping gums after thanking the other countries for the generosity they showed us in the face of national disaster?

Once AGAIN the goodwill of the world has been thrown back in its face and once again they will think about the worst in us rather than the best in us.

Posted by mikki at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's underwater photos are right here

Another happy fun day on Bonaire. I could get use to this. Went out to two dive sites today - Windsock and Small Wall. Both were beautiful. Windsock is by the airport (go figure) and had some interesting cleaning stations, LOTS of juvenile spotted drums, and lots of eels. Small Wall had two frogfish in the same coral head. That was really cool.

We got to see our friend Walt, the tech diving instructor who was our rebreather teacher. Really nice guy and fun. Our other pal, Jason, was not on the island this week, and we missed him. However, we will survive and continue to have fun despite these little stumbling blocks :-)

Silly me got too much sun yet again, so I had to take a long afternoon nap. Nap was broken up by Wessipooh wishing me to get my arse out of bed to go to dinner at Capricios, our favorite restaurant on the island. It is an Italian restaurant that has some of the best wine in the Caribbean, having won the Wine Gourmet award every year since 2002 or something like that. Anyway, the food as always was fabulous, the deserts more so, and the wine, even the "house wine" was yummy.

Posted by mikki at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's underwater photos are at this happy link

As usual, we really don't want to leave the Island, although our time is growing short. I am recovering from the whatever bite, and was actually able to do a bit of diving, which is always a good thing. Did a boat dive and did not die, although I DID jump in without my weight belt. (Gee, why can't I descend.... I wonder what's going on.... ooooops). As always a quick trip back to the boat to ask nicely for one of them to hand my my belt yielded much better results than hanging out on the surface all day :-) I got to be the day's "disaster diver." *snicker*

Today's boat dive was at a site called "Knife" on Klein Bonaire, which had been closed for many years and recently reopened. The Bonarians take preservation of their coral reefs VERY seriously, and periodically close sites that look like they have taken damage through storms, overdiving, boat problems, etc. in order for them to recover. Although there are many dive sites on Bonaire, it is always interesting and fun to see one that we have never seen before.

Every time we come here, we seem to spend time plotting and planning how we can eventually LIVE here. We have all kinds of ideas in the works, and we will see if one day they become more than dreams.

Tuesday night is lobster night at the Lion's Den (the restaurant next door to Habitat where we much prefer to eat :-)) and we had a magnificent dinner with John, Deane, Eli, and Dan. They are all fun people who are good to dive with.

Only 2 1/2 dive days to go :(. Bummer central. You can't dive to close to flying, since the change in pressure can possibly do bad things to any residual nitrogen in your system, and you may get bent on the airplane. Not a fun thing to do, so we will be good and follow all DAN (Divers Alert Network) guidelines like good little people who wish to live a long time :-).

Posted by mikki at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's underwater link is right here You may notice that today there are not as many different photos. There is good reason for that. I spent the entire day, except for a short jaunt to town for fluids, either in bed or in the bathroom. You see, I was the victim of some type of bite overnight.

The locals aren't sure if it was a spider, a scorpion, or whatever, but whatever it happened to be, it knocked me for a LOOP. Add to this a certain person's snoring all night, and I had no sleep and was very sick. The bites on my hand were itchy, large, and starting to have icky dead spots in them. I couldn't keep down any food or liquid for most of the day, but I am much better now, thank you.

Hopefully I can find the dive doctor tomorrow to make sure I'm ok before hopping into dah water again. Happy bubbles to all, and to all a good night.

Posted by mikki at 01:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's underwater pictures are right here

The slow season continues, as we are preparing for our 2pm boat dive. Today was mostly just relaxing, peaked with a moment of uh... almost pissing ourselves :-). Wes' water glass spontaneously exploded, glass and water everywhere. Now I know that my reflexes are not those of James Bond, because I didn't immediately dive under the table in fear that a sniper with a silencer was taking aim. Although I was rather tempted to raise a sign saying "We are really CANADIANS." :-).

It is indeed strange being here on the anniversary of 9/11, since we were actually HERE on 9/11 itself. You can see what happened that day if you are interested at this handy link. Today, on the other hand, our biggest fear was avoiding the "disaster family" who is on our 2pm boat.

As it was, the disaster family stayed away from us, the dive was beautiful, and you can see the pictures on the portal page at Cyberdive.org

After a fabulous dinner at Lion's Den (I had the shrimp and lobster combo) we went off to attempt to collect the Luv Monkeys at the airport. I say attempt because when we arrived, we hung out and hung out and hung out, until a nice taxi driver told us that the flight had not left San Juan yet. When we went back to the hotel to check the information on the Internet, we found that the flight is SCHEDULED to leave at 10 pm, which would get it into Bonaire around 12:13 am. This means that the Luv Monkeys sat in the airport in San Juan from approximately 11 am until 10 pm. American Eagle SUCKS. Just plain SUCKS. *sigh*

Posted by mikki at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So here we are in Bonaire, and, go figure, Katrina is on their minds here as well. Cable TV brings CNN, BBC, Dutch and German television into most homes on the island, and many have been closely following all of them.

Frankly, the people here are completely confused. The Dutch offered help immediately, and it was rebuffed. The Dutch offered help 10 years ago after the first series of studies that showed that New Orleans was SO in danger. The people here are amazed at the finger pointing between state, local and federal governments, and the fact that it's STILL so completely messed up there, and rather than FIX IT, the politicians are screeching at each other, having stupid photo ops, and whining.

Government has ONE function - to do the bidding of the people who provide consent for its existence. The government is here to take CARE of the people. Why else would we give it so much money in taxes? Why else would we allow it to do things on our behalf? The American people AND America's politicians forget that government is OUR servant, not vice versa. Those who COULD not help themselves were left to die. There is no excuse for that, either in my eyes or in the eyes of the people here. No amount of "it wasn't MY responsibility" will change that fact, either.

Filling the agency charged with disaster management with political cronies with NO experience is something that happened in Soviet Russia, not in the United State of America. A municipality that stuffed its poorest and most desperate into the Astrodome, then marveled because it ran out of supplies and services, rather than bussing them out when everyone else evacuated is something that happens in "other places." A governor who sits there whining about other people's failings rather than doing anything as simple as calling out the National Guard happens in banana republics. If WE as Americans can't understand how this could happen, imagine the bafflement of the overseas people?

More later, as I try to fathom how some Americans who never had to worry a day in their lives where their next meal is coming from, can possibly say the poor in the Gulf "deserved" what they got for "not leaving."

Posted by mikki at 06:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And our immediate thought is - not on American Airlines. Besides the lovely attitude with our friends at Dulles, we arrived around 11 am in San Juan. The flight left at 5:50 PM. The good news was that free WiFi was available, and the restaurant we chose had really good food. The bad news was that sitting there hour after hour really wears on you.

After the wait, we were then put in an ATR for the flight to Bonaire. Two hours in WAY too close quarters. There was NO leg room. The man in front put his seat back and SLAMMED into my knees. I'm not that tall. There were a lot bigger people than I was who were stuck in these tiny seats. RJ seats are surprisingly comfortable, but I don't know if they just put too many seats in or what, but it was utterly impossible to get comfortable.

Once we finally arrived, and finally got our HMS Rental Truck, everything else was peachy keen. We are going to have a nice pleasant sleep tonight, and then get signed up for WiFi in the morning so I can post things and be a happy Psycho Sensei once again :-).

Posted by mikki at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, here I sit at a happy fun Free WIFI spot in San Juan en route to Bonaire for a vacation we can't really afford, but need. Just two days ago, I got home from Albany for a "business" trip (kind of). The difference in the two trips was remarkable.

I flew Independence Air to Albany from Dulles for 38.00. Yes, that was 38.00. Despite this low fare, I was treated fabulously by the staff. I checked in online, printed out my boarding pass, proceeded directly to the gate, went through security which had ZERO people in front of me (I thought I was in an alternate universe) and had a comfortable on time departure, an on time arrival, and a flawless happy flight. The flight home was similarly wonderful, despite a flow control issue that left us on a taxiway for 20 extra minutes. The pilot made up the time in the air and we arrived on time.

This morning, we arose at 4 AM (yes, the Psycho Sensei got up at 4 am...mark this day on your calendars) and got to the airport pretty close to our two hours in advance. We travel with a truckload of dive gear and underwater photo gear, so we find ourselves quite burdened. Wes dropped me off since now daily parking is in the South 40 and it takes forever to get back. The hope was for me to check in and deal with the bags, hand him his boarding pass, and we both go through security and board. However, this was not to be. A rather NASTY gate agent (who first admonished me for not waiting till she called the next in line and instead going to an empty kiosk... bad me) told me that TSA regulations state that she can't check Wes in, nor take his bags until he is physically present. I told her there was no such TSA regulation, and asked whether it was an airline rule, or what. She said she didn't know, so I asked for a supervisor. I asked him the same question and was told "It doesn't matter if it's my rule, the airline's rule or the TSA's rule, you're just not doing it." I asked again whose rule it was so that I could never again fly American if they were being so inconvenient for people, and he said "fine" and turned his back on me and walked away.

So, I went forth and dragged my bags BACK from the counter to the TSA X ray machine and waited. And waited. And waited. When Wes finally got back from parking the car, our original check in friend looked up and saw him, then pointedly left. We FINALLY got through that line, then through security (which really wasn't bad. They seem to have improved very very much, thank the Gods), and arrived 8 minutes before boarding.

Now, this American Airlines flight was at quite a high fare, and quite inconvenient (with a 6 hour layover in San Juan with not very much to do, and not even good enough shopping :-)), while Independence Air was at a low rate, so that wasn't the difference. Perhaps the main issue was that Independence Air goes out of its way to be CONVENIENT for its passengers. It has used convenience in an efficient manner, and has found that it indeed keeps prices lower. Making things easy for the customer often results in cost savings, and removes layers of useless steps thus eliminating positions for ineffective or rude employees, thus saving money even in the face of higher prices for fuel.

Passengers on domestic flights are "allowed" to use self service check in terminals. Half of them were inoperative. I tried to use one to check US in, but despite having reservation numbers and the credit card used to make the reservation, the system couldn't find it. Couldn't even check Wes in THAT way. It said domestic only, so even if they did find the reservation, we likely couldn't have completed the check in process, but I thought I'd try anyway.

Such simple concepts. Treat the customer right, look out for their convenience, have electronic aids that WORK, and don't be rude and nasty. It is a shame that some of our iconic American companies have not yet figured out that making the customer HAPPY is not only good business, but can save them money.

Posted by mikki at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we lost an American Icon, albeit one we might want to throw things at when he was on tv. Gilligan, the Skipper's "Little Buddy," perpetual inhabitant of Gilligan's Island, passed away today.

All of us over the age of 30 or so have memories of Gilligan's Island, whether it be re-runs or even those first run programs. One of my personal favorite memories was when I worked for WMUR-TV, Channel 9 in Manchester, NH - the seemingly "All Gilligan, All The Time" station (when we weren't doing the comedy News 1/2 hours :-)). As Gilligan was walking across the island, and I was passing through the control room on the way back upstairs to the newsroom located in the attic, our chief engineer, Maurice Wynn, was under the audio control board, yanking wires out like nobody's business. Unfortunately, one of the wires he pulled was the one that made the booth microphone "live." For those who have never heard of a "booth microphone," the booth was where you put the actual human called the announcer, who said things like "this is Channel 9, WMUR-TV, Manchester" when you didn't have enough technical capability to use recorded station identifications or tag lines to commercials. Anyway, the booth mike was live, as Dave Meuss said all too clearly, "What the FUCK is he DOING?"

The phones lit up (all three lines) with people whose small children had heard the evil words during such a wholesome and cherished bastion of clean television as Gilligan's Island. To make it worse, our hero himself, happened to be on screen at the time. And thus, the Gilligan's Island audience in Manchester, NH in approximately 1980 lost its innocence.

Gilligan, Goddess-speed on your next journey. Just make sure it's not a three hour tour.

Posted by mikki at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CNN just ran yet another story about people who refused to leave their homes because the evacuators could not or would not take the pets along with them. Before condemning people for not evacuating when they "should have," think about all the thousands upon thousands of pets that have been left behind to starve or die of lack of clean water. Think about how much you care for your familiars, your loyal pets, these parts of your family that mean so much to you. Then decide whether you could leave them behind.

As I write this, Bushi, one of our dogs came over and laid his head on my knee, looking up with big brown eyes as if to say "hell no, you can't leave me. I'm too damn CUTE.

To a lot of people, their pets ARE their family. They are loyal, loving, and would do anything they could to help you. When you are called upon to help THEM, can you just turn your back and leave? I couldn't. We have 3 parrots, 2 cats, and now 10 dogs, and I am not prepared to leave any of them behind if we are told to evacuate.

This pair who didn't leave were twin nuns who would not leave their parrot and their dog. Rescuers could not take the animals as well, so the Sisters refused to go. It took many days for people to come back, but they did come back, and they took their animals with them.

If the ASPCA had the resources to get all of those animals and house them and feed them and take care of them while their humans evacuate, that would be one thing. Unfortunately, humane societies are strapped for cash during the best of times because we, as a society, treat our animals so damn poorly that there HAS to be organizations to take care of them when we do not. They're doing the best they can, but unless we help them dramatically, we can't be certain they can handle what is clearly our responsibility to handle ourselves.

Bottom line is that if you are going to evacuate people, you MUST make allowances for them to take their animals with them. Otherwise, many will choose to stay. We should not condemn them when they make that choice.

Posted by mikki at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've all turned on the TV and seen "important" politicians giving their pontifications about the status of refugees, standing there proudly in front of destroyed areas, or frolicking with evacuees at the Astrodome or whatever, but how many of us are aware of the practical effects of the disruptions that these 30 second soundbites cause?

For example, my good friend and wonderful person Laurel lives in Lafayette, LA. Many evacuees are at their Cajundome. Laurel tried to volunteer at the Canjundome and was told to come back the next day because Laura Bush was doing a photo op. The next DAY!. Volunteers were prohibited from helping people for an entire DAY so Laura could speak about the dire situation for 20 seconds on CNN.

Now, add to this, the TFRs that pop up whenever these "important people" move. There have been significant numbers of volunteer pilots flying supplies and people into and out of the ravaged area airports. However, today our Shrub in Chief is showing his face all over the Gulf. None of those general aviation flights will be permitted within LARGE areas around wherever the President decides to go. Obviously, this hinders, not helps.

Perhaps if the press would focus on some of these disruptions caused to the very relief effort these people are trying to promote, there might be fewer restrictions placed on those who are REALLY trying to help.

Posted by mikki at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)