Yikes!  You had me going off to check on our Manila server and clients (who are off today).  From the USGS website it looks like the quake hit on the east side and our staff are on the west.  So it looks like we're all good (from an IT perspective anyway), I was able to log in and everything appeared up.
 
Glad you made it through with only a small inconvenience Dave!

Last day on the island. Sheesh, that went by fast.
 
Tomorrow we drive to Manila, an all-day journey, spend the night there and then take off for Seattle by way of Tokyo, another all-day journey. We'll buy junk at the airport for triple the normal price just to get rid of our excess pesos, have one last halo-halo in the airport restaurant, and then sadly wave farewell to our island paradise from our window seats. And immediately start planning next year's trip.
 
My granddaughter is till trying to figure out how it is we can leave on Friday at 9:45 AM and arrive on Friday at 9:45 AM. I said, "you know how when you call your cousin in Denver it's an hour later there? Well, it's like that." I don't think my explanation helped much.
 
Best of all, for the first time in 25 years, I leave uninjured. Knock on coconut.
 
 
 
 

And then you sleep for a few days to get rid of jet-lag! 
 
Have a good trip back Dave! 

QUOTE: "Best of all, for the first time in 25 years, I leave uninjured. Knock on coconut."
 
Beats being "knocked out" by a coconut, like on Gilligan's Island!
 
Safe travels, Bit!
 
Bob
 

So just to confirm: this entire vacation was "smoke free"?

bitflipper
My granddaughter is till trying to figure out how it is we can leave on Friday at 9:45 AM and arrive on Friday at 9:45 AM. I said, "you know how when you call your cousin in Denver it's an hour later there? Well, it's like that." I don't think my explanation helped much.

Maybe you can get Bubba to explain it for her?

sharke
So just to confirm: this entire vacation was "smoke free"?

 
??

eph221

sharke
So just to confirm: this entire vacation was "smoke free"?

 
??

The new (temporary) Mayor of the Philippines is a lunatic who hates Americans (we evidently rejected is travel VISA when he wanted to visit his girlfriend going to school here).  He's already personally executed three people on the streets because he claimed they were drug dealers.  At least one is simply thought to have had weed on him for his own personal use.
 
Since Dave smokes legally in Washington, well, you should now have enough of the picture. 

Just rolled in...46 hours, 16 timezones, including the worst traffic in the world. Incredibly, Manila traffic has actually improved with the completion of light rail - only 4 hours for a north-south traversal, which would have been at least 6 hours back in the 90's. Of course, it wasn't rush hour. Flight delays for bad weather. Given that it's normally a roller-coaster ride coming into and leaving Tokyo anyway it's just as well we waited out the high winds. As it was, only the first 2 hours of the Tokyo-Seattle leg was a lose-yer-lunch white-knuckle carnival ride. I've had worse. 
 
7 weeks now, drug-free. My head is clear and I no longer crave truck tacos. 3 weeks of country air, swimming, fish, rice and veggies. I'm a new man. So you better believe I'm lighting up a doobie tonight, and might even go snag a taco since the chicken salad left in the fridge 3 weeks ago is looking a little suspect.

I respect your strength and conviction, you big ol' tower of jello.