Thesalonikas, Greece. My great friend and collaborator on this web site is Bill Garsden, second from the right. We were tent mates on the London to Kathmandu leg of this journey and have remained great friends ever since. Bill resides in Brisbane, Australia.

Something happened this day that would change my life significantly. Just after this coffee break I was reading the International Herald Tribune. I noticed an article saying that the US had concluded an agreement with the people of the Northern Mariana Islands that would create a commonwealth and would extend US Federal law, including the Social Security laws, to the Mariana Islands. I wrote the Social Security Administration (for whom I had formerly worked) asking them for a job on Saipan in the Mariana Islands. It was a long shot, but two years later I was living and working on Saipan. I would spend the next 26 years and my entire Federal career there.