Garazon’s Den

Alison Michelle 21 years old

This picture was among some of the things in the parcel I got today, I always liked this picture of Alison. I look at the key she’s holding and always think how now she holds the key to my heart :)

This past Saturday evening all the girls took Alison out for a night on the town as a leaving party. Alison will likely do a post or write something about it so I will just present a small slide show of some of the pictures

too bad we dont have any video from the karaoke sessions though, I have a feeling quite a few of the girls were feeling pretty good about that time of the evening ;)

Just in celebration of the wonderful news of our visa being approved! Never was there a happier man than me to know that One particular Brit will soon be here! Xxxx I love you Mrs G!

I love the Brits, One in particular!

I do!

Original post here by Alison on her blog

As long as we live, they too will live;
for they are now a part of us, as we remember them.
To live in the hearts we leave behind, is not to die.

The tide recedes, but leaves behind bright seashells on the sand.
The sun goes down, but gentle warmth still lingers in the land,
The music stops, and yet it echoes on in sweet refrains…
For every joy that passes, something beautiful remains.

The month of August will always be a month that in some ways remain more significant than others for both Chester and myself , its been 4 years now since both of us lost our spouses , the loves we had shared our lives with for so many happy years ,
never dreaming at that time in 2004 we would have another happy day without them , how wrong could we have been , well it certainly wasn’t easy , and for sure we spent many miserable dark gloomy days and nights grieving ,
Throughout that time I really did pray a lot to God , he is always there listening
Nicos and Gretchen , I believe with all of my heart that they were there in heaven together , planning a way to bring the two lost and lonely people they had left behind in the world together to share one very deep and devoted love , And they did , they made sure even though we were a huge Ocean apart that we found each other and found a love that could only be described as heaven sent

Today I didn’t want to stand at a graveside and be sad, I wanted to close my eyes and whisper a prayer of thanks for the love we had and the love we have received now , as the little passage above says in the last line
‘ For every joy that passes ,something beautiful remains ‘ and that beautiful something is the wonderful love Chester and I share today and forever more .

Also the beautiful collection of images on the video I found on You Tube just made me realize that no matter how difficult things can be around us in life , we are strong inside when we have Gods Love , the snow didn’t stop those flowers blooming and neither did the grief stop a new love forming for us , we are truly blessed.

Nicos and Gretchen - , As long as we live, they too will live for they are now a part of us as we remember them.

Ah the wonders of a notebook and and a wifi connection! :) Sitting out on the deck now on my second day off of this three day break. A much needed one too I might add. I was worried these days off would be similar to the ones we have had all month with heat indexes near 100 every day, but my break was blessed with a couple of days of cooler temps and a nice breeze today. Unfortunately the wind is coming from the North and the house is blocking most of it, but still its nice out here. With one exception, the heat pump unit is right here at the end of the deck so its always running this time of year and sometimes a nuisance. I guess over the years you get used to it though. I was thinking to have a Skype session with my baby here in a bit, but i dont know if she can hear me over the noise. worth a try though, I love hearing my Geordie girl’s voice, music to my ears. That really is one of the best programs we have used to keep in contact. Most times its crystal clear and no lag at all, amazing to me continuously how technology has advanced even from a couple of years ago. Her I am sitting out on the deck of my home, a wireless connection on this laptop and I took the pic above with my phone and sent it straight to the pc to put in this post. And with the built in webcam I can put in my own photo of me sitting here…

Pretty cool huh? Now let me add the tags and other little tidbits and I’ll post it right to my website. Just a few years ago this would have taken half a day to do probably to get the thumbnails and edit the html.. love it, 10 minutes tops to do this all, just still amazes me  now let me get this done and get on with more importsnt things, like loving up my Cyprus Angel! She’s off too today! ;)

I used to think patience was one of my virtues and that anything good was worth waiting for, I still do believe that. but I have to confess my patience is being stretched with waiting for our I-129F (K1 visa) petition to be approved. Yes I know there’s a huge backlog and we have to wait our turn, but it just puzzles me sometimes how the government can be so quick to want and demand things on a certain time from its citizens or else face the wrath of fines or threats of punishments for failing to comply and yet at the same time can bide its time in providing the the services that those same citizens view as equally important issues to them.  For example, let your tax payment be posted one day late and see what happens! Or fforget to check the little box on your tax return stating you are filing jointly with your spouse, even though you have the spouses name and social security # and W2 listed on the return, and the govt will recalculate the return as yours alone and send you a quite official sounding mail stating you have 30 days from the notice to pay the reconfigured tax amount or face penalties up to x amount of dollars, possible jail time, and confiscation of property among other things. (yes this happened to me and I of course sent them a reply straight away begging their almighty forgiveness for not checking that freaking box and for assuming they had the common sense to realise it was a joint return when both of our names were on it and both signed the damn thing. Sheesh… ) sorry its still a sore spot with me almost 15 years later…

Well is it too much to ask for at least the same consideration when we as tax paying citizens want at least an approximate date to get an answer to our petition, or at least to get some other response than “the case is ‘pending’ ” ? Now honestly I realise there is a backlog and insufficient staff on hand to handle the amount of visa requests that have been submitted in record numbers this past year. On the other hand if i owe them back taxes(which I don’t by the way) do they give a shit if i have the money or not.. NO! … sorry again, just venting… and be prepared, it likely wont be the last vent either in this post ;)

Anyway I just think we are entitled to some semblance of human compassion if they realise that for two people who are truly in love to be separated any longer than we have to be is just morally wrong, plain and simple. Its not like we can afford to fly back and forth for visits every so often, and even if we could its not what either of us want. Do any of these people have the slightest clue what its like to say goodbye to te love of your life at the airport, not knowing when the next kiss will be, or the next time you can wrpa your arms around your other half? they are clueless in that area, or uncaring. maybe you think I’m being harsh as I do realise there are plenty of fraudulent applications made and for probably nefarious reasons too, but there still ought to be some kind of method to take the obviously genuine cases and take the as priorities. No I don’t profess to say how that would be ascertained, but I’m sure with enough thought about it something could be worked up. After all the US govt already has more information on me than I probably know myself! it started accumulating the day I was born didn’t it, with the birth certificate~ then when I was old enough to work, a social security number.. they know where I live, what car I drive, my email address, any criminal record or lack there of, you name it they know it, whether they say they do or not. Oh I’m just frustrated and venting tonight, missing Alison and wanting our days together to start now. Just hate this waiting or wasting one more day apart, even though we are always in touch one way or another, its not the same is it. All i would really like to know is about when we can expect a decision so that we can make some sort of preparations and get things moving. she has her house there to rent, her job to consider, her children and family, and then the actual move. And if we had some idea of a general date it would be of some help as we could at least maybe manage another holiday together if its going to be more than a few months, Yes she could come here on a travel visa for 6 months, but still when the petition is approved she has to be in Cyprus to get the visa! And its not like she could fly back and pick it up, she has to go for interviews and medical checkups etc, so that’s a few more weeks i imagine. Just doesn’t seem right to me to make us go through all this, and they say this is the easiest way to get your foreign fiancee here to the US legally so you can get married. for what its worth to them i am married to her already, in my heart and before God. Bureaucracy … baaaaa

Like I said just venting tonight out of frustration of not having my angel in my arms yet again one more night. it does make it easy to see why there are so many illegals here in this country though, a whole lot easier to do it that way it appears than the route we took :(

so just in the event anyone from immigration should ever read this , I really don’t fault the govt (too much) , I just want my wife by my side, I miss her. please help us and HURRY!

Well i try to keep positive and keep patient , we both do. Sometimes it gets us down a bit, but never enough that we aren’t still amazed and loving each other more with what we have. We try to keep humour in our relationship too, its a large part of it. we always still find things to laugh at and lift each other up. So in that vein I thought I would post this email I got from somewhere, not sure now where it came from or who sent it, but it made me laugh and although its written from a British perspective I think you could change the particulars in it and it would sound just like it was written here in the States..

Dear Minister,
I’m in the process of renewing my passport but I am a total loss to understand or believe the hoops I am being asked to jump through.

How is it that Bert Smith of T.V. Rentals Basingstoke has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a satellite dish from them back in 1994, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date?

How come that nice West African immigrant chappy who comes round every Thursday night with his DVD rentals van can tell me every film or video I have had out since he started his business up eleven years ago, yet you still want me to remind you of my last three jobs, two of which were with contractors working for the government?

How come the T.V. detector van can tell if my T.V. is on, what channel I am watching and whether I have paid my licence or not, and yet if I win the government run lottery they have no idea I have won or where I am and will keep the bloody money to themselves if I fail to claim in good time.
Do you people do this by hand?

You have my birth date on numerous files you hold on me, including the one with all the income tax forms I’ve filed for the past 30-odd years. It’s on my health insurance card, my driver’s licence, on the last four passports I’ve had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I’ve had to fill out before being allowed off the planes and boats over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done every ten years and the electoral registration forms I have to complete, by law, every time our lords and masters are up for re-election.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, I was born in Maidenhead on the 4th of March 1957, my mother’s name is Mary, her maiden name was Reynolds, my father’s name is Robert, and I’d be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and the day I die!

I apologise Minister. I’m obviously not myself this morning. But between you and me, I have simply had enough! You mail the application to my house, then you ask me for my address. What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals working there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don’t want to activate the Fifth Reich for God’s sake! I just want to go and park my weary backside on a sunny, sandy beach for a couple of week’s well-earned rest away from all this crap.

Well, I have to go now, because I have to go to back to Salisbury and get another copy of my birth certificate because you lost the last one. AND to the tune of 60 quid! What a racket THAT is!! Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? But nooooo, that’d be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You’d rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some tosser to confirm that it’s really me on the goddamn picture - you know… the one where we’re not allowed to smile in in case we look as if we are enjoying the process!
Hey, you know why we can’t smile? ‘Cause we’re totally jacked off!

I served in the armed forces for more than 25 years including over ten years at the Ministry of Defence in London. I have had security clearances which allowed me to sit in the Cabinet Office, five seats away from the Prime Minister while he was being briefed on the first Gulf War and I have been doing volunteer work for the British Red Cross ever since I left the Services. However, I have to get someone ‘important’ to verify who I am — you know, someone like my doctor…
who, before he got his medical degree 6 months ago WAS LIVING IN PAKISTAN…

Yours sincerely,
An Irate British Citizen.

Top 10 | Landscape photos | landscapes with a soul. I was just surfing randomly around the web as I often do, going from a link on one site to another one and then another until I am so far removed form the orginal site i dont even remember how I got there. Anyway I stumbled upon this site tonight and saw some of the most amzing landscape photos from around the world. It seems a collaboration of sorts by hundreds of photographers, and i havent seen a single one yet that I can’t call breathtaking. Amazing pictures. There are some related sites indirectly linked to this one, one of animal photography, another of glamour shots, and then portraits, all equally as hypnotizing to view. Enjoy

A sort of unique colour of petunias on the deck. Mom’s taken a lot of care with the flowers, especially with the heat this summer.

I dont know what I did, but somehow I messed up the WordPress installation and had to reinstall it frm scratch. :( Well the good news is I have been exporting a backup file of every post, comment, image and file so its not been too bad a thing and it seems to have made the site work a bit better too. I think the culprit was a WordPress plugin, WP Super Cache, that set something wrong, or either I didn’t know how to use it. Whatever the cause everything is back now … almost Well i lost the user data, not that I had that many registered ones anyway, LOL , but you will have to get a new password. I actually don’t know if there’s a link anywhere to reset yours as I have added all the users back with their original emails so It may be if you try to log in it will show one of those”forgot my password ” tings and you can reset it. I think I remembered Alison’s and have set hers… and Mike I set yours up with the one I gave you to the sub domain ftp login, don’t know if you remember it but I’ll mail you too with it.
Sorry if its caused anyone any problems, and it sure wasn’t that you have been unregistered on purpose! I’m just so freaking happy I still have my posts! :)

A widepread power outage has occurred in Currituck County this evening. I’m assuming it was caused by a severe thunderstorm that passed through the middle and upper parts of the county. I reported it to Dominion Power and just informed it was a widespread outage and should be ban by 8:30 PM. it went off around 6:30 PM. Wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so freaking hot! We didn’t get any of the actual storm here except a few drops of rain. Lot of thunder in the distance though. Must have been a right good amount of damage to cause it widespread like this. I did speak to a friend who lives in the lower part of the county, in Harbinger, as he was coming over to play chess tonight. He reports they still have power there. Glad I have this iPhone and the WordPress app! But unfortunately I was playing a game on it and the battery is low :-( oh well. I will save what’s left to mail my baby tonight ;) just in case