Picture/Privacy Policy

I started this blog for two reasons. One is that I want an easy way to keep in touch with friends and family in the States and other places around the globe. The second reason is that when we were preparing for our move, I had a hard time finding information for people like us. I found several blogs for old American dudes who wanted to move to the Philippines to marry young Filipinas who would wait on them hand and foot, and I found a couple of blogs by single people who came over, and one by a couple in the Peace Corps. There is a great blog in the sidebar of this one about a family who moved here, and it was very helpful, but I wanted MORE! I figured if we were looking for more, there were probably others going through the same thing, hoping to find someone else who had been there before who could prepare them for what they were about to embark on. Because of this second reason, I don't want to make this blog available to friends and family only.

This brings up some security issues, though. In American terms, my family is not wealthy at all. We are comfortably middle-class. I would say that our chances of being robbed in the States would be slim, but since we actually WERE robbed in the States, I can't quite say that. Let's just say that had we not lived in the ghetto in the States, our chances of being robbed would have been slim, because we just don't stand out financially when we're there. Here, however, we are amung the Upper Crust (tm). This still rather blows my mind, but there you go. It's all relative.

Because of where we live and the lifestyle we can live here, there is a chance that we can be targeted for crime. This is not to say that I walk around in fear. People are very nice here and I have no worries on a day-to-day level. However, I don't want to be making it easy for those who DO look for targets to single us out. And there are people here who do use technology to find their targets. If you are moving here, be aware of that, and guard your information accordingly.

For this reason, I do not use our names in the blog. I'll use initials if I can't get away with not naming someone specifically in the telling of a tale. This extends to our househelp, too. Please follow this practice in comments you might make on this blog as well. The kids are to be refered to as "the kids" or their initial ONLY.

Also, I will not be posting any photos of our adventures here. Because it is a public blog and I cannot control who sees them, I have decided instead to post all photos on Facebook where I can set them to only be visable to friends and family. What does this mean? Well, if you are a friend or family, then you need to have a Facebook account if you want to see photos of the children. Once you have the account, let me know and I will send you a friend request. Once you say we are friends, then you will be able to see the photos. If you are not a friend or family, then you are out of luck for those photos. Sorry, it's just how it has to be so I can feel comfortable with this blog.

I know that this may come off as paranoid, but it's not. It's a precaution. One of the mailing lists I'm on over here just had a report of someone being targeted by a local gang. They are almost positive that they got the information they needed to con their family from their daughter's MySpace account which was open for public viewing. She had filled out a bunch of those "getting to know you" type quizzes and it was all the information the gang needed to convince the family's househelp to take all the jewelry out of their house to bail the father out of jail, and on the way, the woman was robbed.

Incidentally, quizes like this make you a target in the States, too. Really. Quit filling them out!! We honestly don't need to know your porn star name or the name of your first pet or your favorite color or first school. Those quizes give people enough information to con your children and gain access to your bank accounts, because a lot of them involve maiden names and things that are answers to security questions when you forget your account number. It's just not worth it.

So, yeah. Please respect our privacy guidelines. I know I have been lax myself, but I've just gone through and redacted names, and deleted comments if they had one of our names in it. From now on, I intend to be very strict with myself. If you want to know more or ask specific questions about something, then feel free to email instead of commenting here, or comment on Facebook. Salamat!