Almost Forgot.

We leave today. The core of our journey will be Sumatra, a place red hot with malaria and the mosquitos that cause it. We have our medication, pills we take every day and continue to take for a few days after we return. Marty called last night to go over a few things. He reminded me to bring mosquito spray. Good, because I forgot to pack it.

We leave Cincinnati at 9am. From here we fly to Los Angeles, then to Tokyo, then to Taipei where we sleep for a few hours, and finally on to Jakarta. So, we start on a Saturday morning and arrive there Monday afternoon. There's an 11 hour time difference. It's about 5:30am now in Cincinnati - 4:30pm in Jakarta - so travel time is a little less than it looks. But it's still a long journey.

Personal messages. I've gotten questions from a bunch of people asking why Bill Brinkmoeller's name was first on the mass email I sent out alerting people about this trip and this blog. He was first because I like him most.