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Seadog, thanks for pinging me to that Australian story. I know Melbourne well and used to live in St Kilda.

Lady, my two feline friends would like to say an aussie hello to you.

Hi everybody. Well the return to Taiwan is in full swing. I have more friends there than I realized. And it's true my Chinese was just getting really good, so now that I'm calling back there I can use it again, it's only been 3 months, feels very natural.

I also got to take care of lots of odds and ends since I came back, I had an old bank account I couldn't close that had a small monthly fee, so I closed that, and I bought some hard to find books, and settled a few other things.

I wasn't really done living in Taiwan anyway, but I definitely needed to come home for a spell. Feels like I've been back here for years, but it's only been 8 weeks. I have a number of job leads, and reservations in Taipei, and my tickets confirmed, so soon, zooooooooom I go, back to Taiwan.

I might reduce my retirement farm to just one acre! Hah, that'll show'em, then I can buy it next year! Build a log home myself (small with one room and a kitchen) and put up a greenhouse, with a windmill for 'lectric, and I'll be writing and surfing all day.

Of course I might be 400 miles from the smallest small town, but that's what satellite Internet service is for!!!

But I'm definitely not staying outside the US for 3 years again. At most two years, but I'd like a return visit every year. It really recharges your batteries to be back on your own turf, just a brief bit goes a long way. No matter how many foreign places you live in, your own home always seems more 'real' than the other places!

That's a beautiful basket of cats you have there!