A Flurry Of Activity

The drama never ends.

With Jenny’s employment visa no where in sight and with her 90 day vistor visa soon ending, we spent two or three days working out backup plans to get her and Maeli out of Hong Kong. Project Refuge had options for the two to travel back to the US, or to Macau, or take a small tour around other countries here in Asia. Now that I was making firm plans to open an office here (see below), Jenny and Maeli could get dependent visas on my investment visa once that paperwork went through. Thus we were prepared to tell Jenny’s current visa sponsor, a teaching agency here in Hong Kong, that she would simply not work during the summer as previously planned and attempt to get a visa thru me instead. With talking points in hand, Jenny visited their office last week only to find out, before she had delivered her message, that her visa had arrived that day! We still need to make a short trip to Macau to “activate” her visa, which corresponds well with a weekend conference I have in Macau soon.

So with the visa situation much more clear, we can now move ahead with hiring a domestic helper to help us watch Maeli during the day. Jenny and Maeli will just have to wait until Christmas to visit the States.

At the same time, I am moving forward with plans to open an office for JadeTower here in Hong Kong. William and I have been refining both our code and our startup business plan all year. I’ve often felt like for every two steps forward, we take one step back. But at least that’s progress.

Over the last week or two several puzzle pieces have fallen in place for us. This means a few slight changes in direction, but nothing we hadn’t considered before. Consequently my days have been full of meetings and planning sessions as we re-organize and I learn the details of opening a foreign subsidiary in Hong Kong. I plan to write much more about this on our Cubicle Muses weblog, so watch that space for updates.

Finally, I’ve been elected a director of the Apache Software Foundation, which, in addition to helping to plan our conference in November (OS Summit Asia), has further convinced me that I need to work on my time management skills and get things organized. I’m very excited (and humbled) to serve in this new role.

So our adventures and misadventures continue. And here, we thought settling down on the lazy island of Lamma would encourage some peace and quiet. Maybe next year.