Ken Sighting

Hi Folks - Ken here. I like to think of Colleen's posts as the daily ice cream we feed our kids after dinner; the kids posts as the sprinkles on top and mine as the occasional banana stuck inside. So here goes the big banana:

First, I want to acknowledge my brother-in-law Peter. Peter is in the critical stage of cancer, and our thoughts and prayers are with him, as well as Jen, Avery, Julia and Dylan. It has been frustrating for us to feel so helpless and far away as my family unites during this difficult time. I've been struck by one persistent image that we saw in a cave in Miri. Ancient cave dwellers cast off their dead in small boats for the trip to the next world. We are thinking of you, Peter, and we wish you a safe journey...

We've had a few interesting firsts recently. We visited the Aquarium, and they had a nice Touch Tank where you could feel and handle some fish. Colleen pulled the Horseshoe Crab out of the water for us to touch, and Alice said "Mom, it says not to pull them out of the water." We all stopped and looked up at the sign that did indeed say just that. "Alice!" Griffin shrieked, "you read the sign!" Alice's conversion to a reader had just been clearly demarcated. As I mentioned to my parents, it was even better than the moment at the Singapore Zoo when two Chinese teenagers were yelling at the sleepy lion in Mandarin. "They're saying 'Stand Up" Alice casually observed. Colleen and I looked at her dumbfounded, and relished the overseas moment.

Finally, Boom ("I'm 4 now, I'm Abraham") came home about a week ago and showed me how he could draw two letters, an A and a B. I think they were working on the first letter of your name at school. Somehow, within a week, he came home and proceeded to write a whole bunch of random letters in no particular order, often not really sure what he was writing. He would write an "N" hesitantly, then look at me wondering if he had written a letter? Same with the R. Sometimes he wrote a squiggly line and I said "nooo" and he said "No, No, it's a fox's tail!" as if that made sense. But he could write lots of letters. So Alice pointed to a sign on the wall, one letter at a time, with his name on it and he wrote his name for the first time. Yet another milestone on our march towards the end of innocence. Now if only he could stop sleeping in diapers...

How do you know you're in a third world country? Instant fines payable to the police officer who pulled you over for a moving violation. Love that. Another benefit of not having a car here.

Did you know Malaysia hired Jack Abramoff at his peak to get a meeting with George Bush to improve their image? He got them the meeting, too.

For those of you who have known Colleen a long time, she is the happiest I have ever seen her since we met in 1991. She is also in the best shape. When I mentioned that to her, she started musing about what good shape she was when she played soccer. I said "you mean 10th grade?" I rest my case.

Many of you wonder what I am doing. I have discovered illegally downloading music and movies through file-sharing web sites. While I'm too scared to do this in the U.S., it is like a national pastime here. In fact, I don't really understand how Hollywood and the music industry tolerate it. American movies and music are our dominant export here. It is not unusual for us to get in a teksi and have current hip hop playing. I can not go to a mall or street market without several people approaching me with pirated dvds for a $1. The cost to those industries must be enormous. So here I am contributing to the problem, at least for a year, but television here is unwatchable. It's pretty addictive to be able to access any movie or any album you were ever curious about, for free. In a nod to Annie Potter, who demonstrated the courage, I've also signed up for beginner guitar lessons. Peace.