dean is passing by

hurricane dean is a couple hundred miles south of the DR right now and not expected to significantly impact the DR. certainly not us up here on the north coast. that is because we're protected by the mountain range in the middle of the country that is as high as 10,000 feet and which separates us from the south coast. we just got a blast of rain a few moments ago. this morning we had a nice walk on the beach and it was hazy sunny with some big surf.

wonder how jamaica is feeling though as dean is heading right for them. not looking forward to all the news that will come out of this category 4 hurricane hitting there and what looks to be the yucatan peninsula after that. clients tend to get nervous about hurricanes (understatement) and mistakenly assume that this area of the DR (north coast) is in a high probability zone. not to jinx us or anything but we are not like all other places in the Caribbean in terms of likelihood of experiencing a hurricane. for that, again, we can thank the fact that majority of storms if they even hit the DR do so in the south and then run smack into that mountain range which dissipates them.

Veronica just got done IM'ing with Peter & Marjolein who announced that they will be moving from Portland, Oregon to London where Peter will work on a wind farm project in the North Sea. congrats to them and good luck! keep up the expat life!

speaking of expat life, i wonder how Antony is doing with his first few days in New Zealand. i have been enjoying his blog about the process of obtaining NZ residency, working permits, a new job, and recently the closing down of his life in MA & VT. http://fryphone.com/nzblog/ a big good luck to him too!