From: Mark Faccin <mfaccin@rogers.wave.ca>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 16:52:17 -0700
To:
Subject: Goodbye....

Hello, just thought I'd drop you all a line and let you know what's
happening.... As of Sunday, June 21st, 1998, I will no longer be in the
country. I've accepted a full-time position as a Scuba Instructor/Divemaster
with Bob Soto's Diving Ltd in Grand Cayman, B.W.I.  I dont have an address
yet, as I dont have a place to stay yet, and there's also no such thing as
mail delivery on the island. I will however, get a PO box in a little while,
and when I do, I'll let you all know what my mailing address will be.  If
you'r getting this email, then I'll have your address with me in the
islands.  You can still email me at mfaccin@home.com or you can leave me
mail at docjelly@yahoo.com but I cant guarantee that I'll get back to you
right away, because I'll have to go to the pub and use their terminal to
check my mail, and I *really* dont see myself going to the pubs and bars all
that much.... HA!

Anyways, I'll be keeping in touch, if you want me to send you a postcard
with the view from my new 'office' then reply to this and send me your snail
mail address.

AND, if yuo're thinking of coming down for a visit, drop me an email first
and give me a little notice and I'll make sure the place is cleaned up
before you get here :)

Talk to you all soon,
hugs and kisses :)
-Mark
mfaccin@home.com
docjelly@yahoo.com
mark@clubtek.com

Well... where to begin... First of all, I wrote that in June 1998. Eight years ago I left Vancouver headed South. At the time my plan was to come down here and work for a year, maybe two. Like that happened. I never did get a PO Box. I used my work address of PO Box 1801GT right through until last month when the former owner stopped paying rent on it. I've since moved it to another PO Box. I guess you could say that for the last eight years I've had "No Fixed Address". :)

How about those email addresses? rogers.wave.ca ? That's about as 1997 as a barbed-wire tattoo. They switched it to @home.com and even that's gone now, too. I still have that Yahoo address, but the only time I check it is when I get a "new mail notification" and nine times out of ten it's spam that didn't get caught. And how about that last one, huh? Clubtek.com! No one but Ork, Rich or Rick would even know what the hell that is. I hit it with a browser and it's a domain parking thing with tons of popups so save yourself the grief. Eventually I had a @candw.ky address and that lasted til about 2000, but I never really used it, either. Hotmail came and went (I still only have a 2mb mailbox, compared to 1gb on Yahoo and 2.7gb on Gmail) and in January of 2001 I registered this domain name and created my mark@ mailbox.

Back in 1998, Cayman only had dialup access. Even that was expensive and you had to have a landline first. PD's pub had a computer at one end of the bar and you could order a beer and check your email for 60 cents a minute or something like that. Eventually they had four computers down in that end of the bar for a mini-internet-cafe. When I came back from Texas in 2001, Cable & Wireless was beta testing DSL. The prices were ginormous and even today, in mid-2006 I'm paying $74 for 1.5mbps down and 512kbps up. Internet cafes are everywhere and wireless access is prevalent. I ran netstumbler on my way to work one day and driving down the main road I managed to find about 30 hotspots and most of them were "open" and unsecured.

Fortunately (for you) not too many people came to visit that first year that I was there. I was living in a 2bd/2ba 500 sq. ft apartment with three other guys. No amount of forewarning would be enough time to clean and bring the standard of living UP to that of the Delta house at Faber College. The first month or two I lived there I had a mattress on the floor. After Mikey and I STOLE a bed out of an un-occupied unit that was left unlocked down at the Divemaster Ghetto, I got Mikey's old bed and had a frame and box spring to put my mattress on. Ultimately, Mikey and I moved out and moved in with Zac & John to found Cayman's own "Delta House", The Ranch. Richard (twice) and Shannon were the only two who braved staying in that apartment. That apt was so disgusting that when Claire would come over, she wouldn't sit on the couch (aka "The Sponge") for fear of sticking to it.

So here we are eight years plus a month since I sent out that email. So much for "heading down south for a year or two". Some of you may be thinking "Eight years? I thought you had to leave after seven?" and you're right. Cayman's current immigration policy states that after seven consecutive years, you're out. In my situation, I left for 13 months in 2000 and came back in 2001 so I won't be asked politely to leave until September 2008. Of course, by then I'd technically have nine years of residency and might be able to apply for permanent residency. I'm just going to play that by ear. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst and all that sort of thing.