Springtime!

We've been quite busy the last few months. First we spent our Easter week in London with lots of sightseeing and three concerts. It was a great time and money well-spent!

Apparently someone had managed to hack into my US bank account in March so my bank blocked my card. After checking it turned out that the hacker spent my money to sign up for a few dating websites. Quite disappointing to see s/he had so little imagination haha!

We've finished puzzling and booking our return flights to Kuala Lumpur (KL). Since my institute will pay for the trip from KL to Sapporo, and from Sapporo back to Funchal, I had to get a flight from Funchal to KL. Asnida still had a return flight from A-dam to KL so she need flights from Funchal to A-dam and from KL to Funchal.
Sound complicated? Try finding cheap flights that actually connect ha! But we managed and I've now depleted all my bank accounts.

Let's see if the Portuguese IRS will give me any tax return. We got Asnida's fiscal number and online log in info so I filed my taxes last week or so. Had a colleague assist me since the online system is in Portuguese. But it should be easy to complete future taxes filing.

Of course we're still diving, I try to dive every Saturday and Asnida joins every other Saturday. Last weekend she finally went on her first boat dives after 8 shore dives which include her 4 OW dives. She was a bit nervous and afraid so it was good that we got our own dive guide. She seemed fine on the boat ride to the dive spot and once she got underwater she was having a great time. I on the other hand struggled with my buoyancy and felt overweight so I'll ditch some weight for my next few dives and see what happens.
After our safety at 5 meters depth for 3 minutes I signalled that we could slowly surface and that she should watch out for the buoy so she wouldn't knock her head. She managed fine and I stayed underwater while swimming towards the boat's ladder. She got there soon too but felt sick and as soon as she got on board she started throwing up. Might have been the nerves or seasickness, although the waves were just rocking slightly. We bought some seasickness pills so we'll see how her next boat dive goes.
Afterwards I was a bit afraid that she wouldn't want to go on boat dives anymore but while walking home she just kept on talking how excited she was and how much she had had underwater.

Oh yeah, Asnida also dove with a 10 liters tank while everyone else had a 12 liters tank. She's small and doesn't use much air so she surfaced with more air left than I did. Even though I have 7 times as many dives as she has....
Anyway, once we get to the Perhentian Islands she'll be like a fish for sure!

Finally, my 2nd underwater video attempt:

Will go for 3rd attempt this weekend. Let's try to find it's charm!

First of 2012

Apparently I haven't posted here since December. Perhaps facebook is killing my blog? Ha!
In the meantime Asnida got certified as an Open Water scuba diver and I got certified as Rescue Diver. We've done only one dive together after she finished her course, possibly the next dive will happen on Saturday.
She definitely needs to practice to improve her buoyancy to avoid killing the coral reefs once we get to the Perhentian Islands in July.

I ordered an underwater housing for my camcorder back in January but its saga hasn't ended yet. It actually has been in Funchal for 2 or 3 weeks now but I don't have it in my possession (yet?). Basically customs confiscated the package and I had to hire a mediating company to release the package. After paying an additional hefty 20% tax the package should now be delivered to M-ITI. That was the message on Friday.
Of course the danger is that the package doesn't get delivered and send back to the US. So I'll check tomorrow afternoon and call the mediating company to bug the local customs again. It's quite annoying knowing the housing is very close to my apartment but I can't simply go there and pick it up. Bureaucracy deluxe.

About a month ago someone emailed me to ask whether Archaic/Vampire magazine has ceased to exist. Indeed going to its URL leads to nowhere. Since I quit back in 2009 I haven't kept track of it and I guess it just went downhill even further until it imploded. Oh well, renaming it from Vampire to Archaic was done ironically and turned out to be prophetically. Kids these days don't read magazines anymore, they just download music and listen once or twice before deleting.
The only downside of the magazine vanishing is that all those reviews and interviews I wrote between 1997 and 2009 are gone too. Though it seems that a few bits have been saved on wikipedia and band websites. For some reason mostly comments from my reviews on early Arch Enemy album.
Oh I don't miss the reviewing and interviewing but it's a shame that this trip down memory lane is evidently gone.
Guess I'll just blast Entombed's "But life goes on" and Dismember's "And so is life"!