Giles Shaxted

Ok so I have had some unexpected but not so shocking news. I recently, while applying for a mortgage, found myself taking a medical with full blood screening. The results came from a testing lab in the USA and went straight to my insurance agent. Now this is where i got pissed off.

I Miss my Red Stripe

Many people may know that here in Cayman due to duty and customs laws when you get a parcel and sometimes even bulky letters they ask you to pick them up. Upon receipt even if it says gift on the customs label and you say it’s your birthday you have to stand there and watch them open your gift, and then pay them $2 for the privilege of having a gift ruined !
Well my results were at my Insurance agent and in a similar manner to the post office the guy decides to ruin my news by saying he has some bad news about my insurance, I have been turned down. I need life insurance to get my mortgage plain and simple. He then proceeds however to tell me it is because of my medical labs that I have been rejected. He promises to send an email copy of the results.
I am now sat there waiting for my results to come through. All i know is I applied for life insurance and my blood says i can’t have it! My mind jumps to the conclusion I am dying and I had now idea but i just found out accidentally. The next 10 minutes of waiting were not nice, I was IM’ing my dad and just starting to get a little bit upset.
Well end result, turn out I am just an idiot. For two reasons. The tests showed my liver was spewing out high levels of enzymes and proteins that happen when it is swollen. Livers swell like that due to reacting to Hepatitis C or over usage thanks to toxins like alcohol. The icing on the cake though was that I had been out the night before the medical test. I forget the reason why. But my alcohol level in my blood was 26 (on their scale which has acceptable levels of 0-10) I was way over.
Well Dad and my doctor whom I visited later in a rush to get an HIV test for another life insurance agent who is trying to sort me out quickly. Anyway, end result .. I have to quit drinking for 3 months. And not just heavy drinking, but all alcohol. I am thoroughly bummed out. Life will be pretty boring. it’s not a tough thing to do (3 days so far) it’s just a pain when the main form of socialising here is at a bar with a beer !

found at thelope.com

Posting in here seems to be almost pointless right now as everything is in pieces, and it seems as though there are no whole’s in my life. I’ll give a quick read out of what I mean:

• I have more things to do for work than I care to think about, so much so I forget about them and that seems kinda pointless for example I have accounting to do, marketing to do, and today I have more scheduling for the low season to do.
• I am in the midst of buying a house. I think I have done everything I can do now. But I don’t own a home yet I need the bank to get their arses in gear and do the finishing off parts with their lawyers !!
• I have countless projects of my own almost always on the go. I have limited them down to one for the time being as I think that will be the quickest and easiest to get done. But at the same time as this I have started another project a friend came up with, which is very exciting and could be very very special if we can do it. It’s just a shame all these projects are web projects. It makes me feel a bit too geeky. On top of which I am having to learn PHP and MySQL. It is coming along ok though.
• Oh and due to living out of a hotel for the last 2 weeks my diet (as in what I eat) and drinking habits have all gone awry. It’s just not nice living out of the cheapest hotels there are just because you are waiting on a bank. Which reminds me .. I may be living in my 2 bedroom on my own when i move in, unless anyone wants to live in Ocean Club Ocean front with me !!

Ok so that little lot may seem really petty but it’s amazing how a few little things can just upset life and make it seem arduous to keep up with everything just because your life is thrown into disorganisation from having to live in a hotel. I don’t have all my stuff, I don’t have a comfortable space to live in. I pity the people I know who live ot of hotels most of the year.
UPDATE: This hoteling it for now what looks like 3 weeks is not only inconveniant and a complete life dis-organiser but it is also going to cost me more money than I would like. I may have to say goodbye to a vacation this year, we’ll see.

Female croc caught in Cayman
Photo: Tammie C. Chisholm

Animals especially marine animals never cease to amaze me. Everyone is guessing the Croc came from Cuba, Hispanola or Jamaica which are all places to have known living crocodiles. I however would like to think that this animal has been living right here in Cayman and that sightings of other crocodiles are true. There is just too much unexplored swamp land for us to say for sure that we have no crocodiles living in Cayman. Coolest thing though .. this gal was having a blast out in the open sea. Always nice to know we haven’t scared everything off from the deep blue yet. I still find it very amusing that the newspaper just mentions the fact that a local speared it with his spear gun. This is interesting as Spear Guns I thought used to be illegal, but after a quick google i find a Government article on the Laws of owning a Spear Gun in Cayman Which is shocking as there is no need for Spear Guns in Cayman apart from for sport, and to be honest we don’t have that many big fish left .. so leave them alone. But whats worse is .. It is probably an “American Crocodile” or if it is a “Cuban Crocodile” they ar eboth endangered and so Spearing them must be illegal … especially when unsanctioned. However this is Cayman and it was a Caymanian who did it. Therefor the local that did i will be commended on protecting innocent people here in Cayman that were in danger from the reptile who just so happened to be the furthest point away from the most inhabited area of the island. Good going. UPDATE: I just found out this evening, unofficially of course, that during the so called capture of this Endangered animal via a spear gun a few other things happened or should be known.

1. The Department of the Environment didn’t exactly have nothing to do with the capture of the animal, I believe the official words they used were, we were not involved. However They apparently backed away from the process when the Royal Cayman Islands Police took to the air in the Cayman Helicopter and started shooting at the Crocodile with a handgun !! (ok so now that is two people who have attacked an endangered species)
2. The Gentleman who used his Speargun to injure the crocodile (again an endangered species) apparently did not have the appropriate license to either own, possess or use a spear gun here in Cayman as per the rules I found before.
3. As of yet no charges have been put against the man, no plans have beenmade for the best welfare of this wild animal, who if not naturally resident here (in which case should be allowed to roam as she did) has swum a very long way to get here and just like a cuban has been arrested .. but rather than getting deported may get put in a cage and on display for the rest of her life.

It seems that Amazon.com is carrying shark fin soup through a third-party vendor, Pacific Rim Gourmet. With all the controversy surrounding shark fins and the horrible practices used to harvest fins, Amazon should be ashamed to be carrying shark fin soup and should rectify the problem immediately by pulling all shark fin products from their catalog.

What you can do:

1. Leave feedback at Amazon’s product page for Dragonfly Shark Fin Soup
2. Send e-mail to Pacific Rim Gourmet at customerservice@pacificrim-gourmet.com and write a letter of protest to:
   Pacific Rim Gourmet
   75-5660 Kopiko Street, Suite C7-210
   Kailua-Kona, HI 96740
3. Write to Amazon.com at Advantage Customer Service (advantage@amazon.com) and
   Investor Relations (ir@amazon.com)
4. Spread the word through your webpage, blog, etc.
5. Boycott Amazon.com until they comply
6. Join our discussion in the Wetpixel.com forums

[EDIT: Less than 48 hours later after a small bombardment from Wetpixelites and a few others I assume Amazon has made the product unavailable, however there are more out there selling to countries where it is illegal such as Asianfoods.com]
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