Keith and Lacey

I had a flashback today about Ko Phi Phi.  It came into my head while listening to a new song called “Swim” by Jack’s Mannequin.  The lyric, “I found a tidal wave begging to tear down the dawn,” triggered my memory of Ko Phi Phi.  This island was devastated by a tsunami on December 26, 2004, about 8 months before I showed up.  So I had this random thought about Ko Phi Phi and Googled it to look at pictures or whatever and ended up on Wikipedia where I read this:

As of 2009, Phi-phi Islands are under investigation after two tourists, one American girl, Jill St. Onge and one Norwegian Tourist, Julie Michelle Berghiem mysteriously died while staying at the Laleena Guesthouse. Their cause of death is unknown, however alcohol, drugs, and food poisoning have been all ruled out of the case. Tourists are strongly urged against traveling to Phi-phi Islands without knowledge of the potential dangers.

Whoa, what?  Apparently, they developed a cough, along with their roommates (Jill’s roommate being her fiance, Ryan Kells) and were dead within 12 hours.  This site is tracking progress, or lack or progress, on the investigation.  If you want to experience something haunting, read her last blog and the comments following it.

When I was there, I was taught how to scuba dive from an instructor named Cole Mansfield of Barakuda Dive Center.  (There’s some pictures of Barakuda along with the owner soon after the tsunami about 2/3 of the way down the page here; I was told he’s the most amazing diver cuz he’s like a seal.. ha).  I found another haunting link, which looks like a list of survivors that was posted right after the tsunami.  Notice Cole is listed.

Strange and tragic.

I guess the only picture I have of Cole is his bare back.

The owner of Barakuda (”the seal”) taking a nap.

The water level reached in this cafe.

The strip that was devastated.

I was in the middle of reading about request scope in Dependecy Injection, a software developer nerdbook, when this flashback entered my brain and now I’ve spent most of my morning reading and thinking about these Ko Phi Phi tragedies.  It’s hard to go back and concentrate on work after bumping the emotion button.

Since it’s August and we like to complain about how hot it is, I think we should remember once again our previous winter.

We shoveled snow.

We wrote in the snow.

We shoveled snow.

And we shoveled snow!

We had a pretty big snow year in 2007/2008 so I kept telling Lacey last year that there was no way we would have another big snowfall.  I was wrong – we had way more!  So there’s no way we will have another big snowfall this year.. Right?

For all the winter photos, go here.