Journey to Samal » Internet

eBay from the Philippines

Randy C — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 23:06:00 +0000

As I continue down my slow, but steady, path of Spring Cleaning, I’ve found myself selling on eBay to a much larger extent then I ever have previously. I’ve learned a few things along the way. One of the most significant is the fact that if I offer international shipping I will have a better chance of selling an item, and probably at a much better price.

I had always been leary of offering overseas shipping due to the extra costs involved, and potential problems that could arise from a shipment that was lost or damaged. The options for shipping carriers aren’t that great, either.

To my surprise, I’ve actually been having fairly positive results with my efforts so far. As I mentioned, a few items went for much more than I expected, and those went to places like Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. I even sent a couple of small table lamps that were made of blown glass, and therefor somewhat fragile. Everything has arrived in perfect condition.

So how have I done it? So far I’ve only used USPS Priority Mail for all packages. A majority of the items were small enough to fit in the Priority Small Flat Rate Box, which is pretty reasonably priced and very reliable (so far). It is also pretty quick, at least for international delivery.

The items that were too big for the Priority Small Flat Rate Box were still sent USPS Priority, but in my own packaging. The size and weight determined the cost. If you know that up front, the delivery cost can be calculated by eBay depending upon the destination. Your customer will know before they buy the cost of their shipping.

One downfall of the international selling is that PayPal charges you an extra percent for customers outside of the United States, even Canada. That extra percent is for your total amount of your sale, including shipping. Since you are now also charged a final fee from eBay on the shipping, the extra cost of shipping international can really eat into your profits. I’ve countered that by adding a handling fee, especially on the more expensive and/or heavier items.

This all got me to thinking about how I could make this work from the Philippines. There are a number of items that I could see listing that I’m sure would have interest around the world. That’s not a problem at all. What to do about shipping from the Philippines, though?

I’ve had mixed results in having things sent to me from the Philippines. FedEX has been reliable but VERY expensive. No, to make this work I’d need to use PhilPost or find another carrier that was reliable and inexpensive. PhilPost offers a number of different international options, and truthfully I haven’t had a chance to try them all. Not all would work for every item or every country:

Letter Post
Letters, cards, and other printed matters for delivery in any part of the world.

International Express Mail Service (IEMS)
The fastest means of sending documents, goods and other time-sensitive items abroad. Currently, the Philippines has agreements with 50 countries for the reciprocal exchange of EMS items.

Air Parcel Post
The most convenient and economical means of sending merchandise and other bulky items to foreign countries worldwide. Air parcels are transported to the country of destination by air.

Surface Parcel Post
The cheapest means of sending parcels to foreign countries with which the Philippines has bilateral agreements. Otherwise, parcels may be sent only through intermediary of the United States of America. Surface parcels are transported to the country of destination by interocean vessels.

Insured Parcel Post
Parcels with a maximum insured value of P5,000.00 may be accepted for delivery in selected foreign countries. At present this service is available only in Switzerland and USA.

Registered Mail
Letter post items destined for foreign countries may be accepted as domestic registered mail subject to the same conditions as those of domestic mail.

International Reply Coupon
International reply coupons are sold to postal customers for use in prepaying reply postage from other countries, present rate is P 115.00 per coupon.

I know some there have had problems with PhilPost, but I’ve really only heard about incoming packages issues, not the other way around. That’s not to say they don’t exist, and that’s what I need to look into further.

I currently have a small package on it’s way to me. I’m not sure what service was chosen, but I intend to research it further after it arrives. That’ll give me a good idea of time and cost, at least for one service option. I may test a few others, too, and see if if I can’t find a reliable/affordable solution within PhilPost. That would probably be the best fit for what I’d like to do. If not, I’ll continue to look.

Oh, there might be a couple of other things to work out — like PayPal, for instance, but eBay from the Philippines just might be in my future.

Shop Maintenance

Randy C — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 22:14:05 +0000

Well this will have to serve as my post this week, because of the need to have spent so much time on this unplanned project.

The Journey to Samal Shop is offline, or under going maintenance.

If you try to access it the message should say something like this :

We are currently performing some scheduled maintenance.
We will be back as soon as possible. Please check back soon.

I wasn’t planning on spending the weekend rebuilding the shop, but the version of Zen Cart that I was running was not only older but getting quite troublesome. Mulitple server changes didn’t seem to help the issue, as it seemed that certain files were difficult to change, etc.

Anyway, I decided to move everything over to OpenCart, which is what I had to planned to do “someday”. OpenCart is an open source ecommerce shopping cart system that is much easier to use and configure (compared to Zen Cart), at least for someone like me that hasn’t spent the time to know these programs in and out.

I have run into a little snag. Well I ran into a few, but I was able to find solutions to all except the current one. I don’t think it will keep me from putting the store back up soon, but I’ll continue to see if I can solve it before I do. OpenCart has a nice support forum that I’ve posted my issue to.

Unfortunately I haven’t added any new products to the shop. I’ve got ideas for that, too, but realistically I’ve only got so much time I can devote to this kind of stuff right at the moment. Now when I’m retired, that’s a different story, and I hope I can do more with these sites.

So that’s been my weekend and the reason for no new post other than this one

10/5/2011 Edited: For what it’s worth I think I have it working. Needs some attention - maybe a new theme, etc. but should be functional. Let me know if you see anything out of place. FWIW the support forum provided the fix, and my many thanks to them.

Work on Samal Island

Randy C — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:15:57 +0000

One of the things I have to determine by the time I retire is whether I will continue to try to earn some extra income, or just live off the pensions that I will receive. This isn’t as cut and dry and it used to be. These days you can easily (relatively of course) earn income online and from anywhere in the world. Samal Island is about as remote as you can get, being the tropical island it is.

I have interest in earning an online income, as well as you may, also. There are a lot of resources, online of course, to get you started in that direction. I don’t plan on going into them in this article. Instead I would like to explore what work is available for an expat in such a limited region and limited job market.

For the most part I believe one would need to consider running their own small business. A store, restaurant and service related are the types of things I’m thinking would work. Of course, these are not going to make you lots of money and could potentially require a great deal of work. That is the trade off, at least for me. How much work will I want to do?

Farming and agriculture offer some interesting possibilities. The Samal Dairy Farm is an example of a need that is being successfully met right there on the island. Raising cows for milk and cheese is not in my area of expertise, but it shows that there are possibilities for the right product.

I can see some coconuts, mangoes, bananas, and even coffee as items that could be grown and sold for profit. In some cases you might need to have a specialty, such as organic, to compete. Exporting of things like coconut oil could also be worthwhile, again if your product was specialized enough.

I’m sure there are a lot of possibilities. I suspect when it comes down to it, I and going to explore what I can do online. That’s where my interests are anyway. It’s a competitive world out there, but if you can find your niche you can can make a living even on a place as remote as Samal Island.

Note: another post from a blog that I haven’t maintained to this point.

Free Messaging to the Philippines from the US

Randy C — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 19:29:38 +0000

The Philippines has always been ahead of the curve, especially compared to the United States, in regards to text messaging. I don’t know if they still hold the title, but they are known as the texting capital of the world. We are rapidly catching up though. Just check with any teenager here. There is a good chance you will get no response on a phone call to their cell, but a text almost always returns a quick reply.

It can be pretty expensive to send an international text from the US. Some plans are better than others, but I believe my AT&T plan charges me 15 cents each way. Thankfully there are many other options now.

SMS to SMS

If you are just wishing to send a straight text message (SMS) to a cell phone in the Philippines, there are two choices that I have found that are free and work most of the time.

Chikka is an old standard that many in the Philippines are familiar with. There used to be an application that you could download and send a text from there, but now it seems that you just do it within the browser. The problem with this method are you must be at your computer to send a text, and replies come back to your computer and/or your email if you have that set. I also find this to be very hit and miss as to whether the message is sent and received. When there were no reasonable alternatives, this was the best method I found to send free texts.

Yahoo Messenger has allowed free text messages for a long time also. When I tried them many years ago, it was even more unreliable than Chikka, but I do not find that to be true anymore. Additionally, now that smart phones have the YM app, you can send texts right from your phone. Incoming messages are alerted just like a text messages. This is completely free from within YM, the sender in the Philippines will probably still be charged their normal outgoing text charges, with incoming texts being free to them.

IM to SMS

If your intended receiver has YM set to mobile, all Instant Messages (IM) will be sent to their cell phone as a text. There is probably no real advantage to someone from the US who is just concerned with sending a text, as it works the same from this side, but it is another option. Of course if you are at your computer, you can just send the IM, and not need to worry about whether they are online or on their phone.

IM to IM

If your recipient is the owner of a smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry and Droid) they would also have access to the Yahoo Messenger app. This makes things even easier and free for all involved. There are other options at this point such as MSN Messenger, AIM and even Skype. You wouldn’t need to do texting at all, just use IM both ways and enjoy free instant communication.

Skype has also added video calling, which means you can video chat phone to phone or phone to computer. Apple’s iPhone has Facetime which does the same thing. This is really great technology when is is working, but I find the quick text message to be much more useful most of the time.

All in all it is much easier to stay in touch with someone in the Philippines via messaging than it used to be. Sure beats the high cost of regular phone to phone texting, too.

Internot Philippines

Randy C — Sun, 08 May 2011 16:54:41 +0000

While the rest of the world has this thing called the internet, the Philippines has their very own version, which I have dubbed the Internot. Not cheap, not fast, and not at all reliable. Even when it is working it’s not robust enough to handle much of what the internet is being used for and where the net is going.

I had high hopes, and still do I suppose, that things would improve with regards to the internet in the Philippines by the time I were to retire there. Well, things have improved, at least in theory, since I’ve first started visiting there, but in many ways they really haven’t.

As I say “theoretically” the speeds have gotten faster. That may be true to some degree, you can get a faster plan now, but not only are these speeds MUCH lower than here in the US (and from what I can tell much of the rest of the world), they are very hit and miss. There still seems to be a major bottleneck with the Philippines pipeline, so you are going to be limited regardless. Just try doing something like video chat with Skype, or streaming video. Sure it works (sort of) sometimes, but most of the time you are going to get disconnects, poor video/sound quality or very slow downloading.

I also see what I would term “net congestion”, when at times the speeds just drop to almost unusable levels because there are too many people sharing the connection. Possibly this is only a problem with DSL, I am not sure. The weather seems to play a factor here, too. Sometimes the torrential rains will cause very poor connections. Again, I am not sure why that would be, excepting that poor wiring must have something to do with that.

The most obvious and consistent problem is just a plain brownout. For those of you not from the Philippines, that is what we call a blackout, and depending upon where you live in the Philippines they can be infrequent to a daily occurrence. Regardless of where you live there, they happen much more often than they should. It is just a part of life there, and it is taken for granted that they will occur. Of course, it can be really difficult to access the internet if your connection is dependent upon electricity.

While the local providers continue to offer new and better plans, it is going to take a commitment by the government to improve the backbone before any real progress is made. At least that is the conclusion that I’ve come to. Maybe there will be other ways to accomplish this that I don’t really understand. As wireless technology advances, maybe the need for wired will no longer be needed. I do not see that being the case so far, as even the people I know using wireless conncetions are having similar issues with the signal.

I know that the Philippines is very concerned about tourism and becoming a retirement destination. It is with issues like this that I am not sure that they fully understand the statement that is made to those contemplating visiting or retiring there. When people have choices, something as significant as this can help sway their opinion in another direction.

I hope to see a plan proposed to bring the internet in the Philippines up to world standards. Better yet, I hope to see it actually happen.

Our Menu Has Recently Changed

Randy C — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:25:00 +0000

I’m not sure I’ve ever called a company that has an automated message system that hasn’t had their menu change recently. Must be difficult to keep the menu the same, because no one, I mean NO ONE, can do it.

I’m no fan of these automated systems in the first place. They go under the guise of being a service for the customer, when if fact they are nothing but a convenience for the company you are calling. They are supposed to get you the information you are looking for, or to the department that can get you that information, but more often than not they are just delaying your trip to a “live” person.

That live person may not be any better, I’m afraid, but at least you can plead your case, assuming they actually understand English. Sorry, I’m not a fan of the foreign call centers either, but at least the Filipino call center employees are comprehensible, for the most part. Problem is they don’t usually have the ability to solve your problem. The call centers do provide lots of jobs in the Philippines, so I always say “salamat”, whether I get satisfaction or not.

I’ve noticed a few companies that seem to “get it” and have moved away from these automated systems, back to a real live person answering the phone. My insurance company, Pemco, is one of those. It certainly makes me think more of them now. There was a period when I felt their service had really deteriorated, the automated answering service was a part of that, and I had considered changing companies. I’m not sure what happened, but I feel their service has since improved once again to the point that I’m happy to be with them still.

I guess if a company is doing so well that they don’t need to be concerned with their service, or how it is perceived, then more power to them. Just don’t tell me that it’s for my benefit. Let’s at least be honest about that.

Photo credit: catherinesherman.wordpress.com

Remithome – Transfer Money to the Philippines

Randy C — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:31:35 +0000

It’s not often that I find the service from any company worth praising anymore. Remithome is an exception to that. I have been nothing but pleased with their service for the four plus years that I’ve been using them.

As most of you know some the ads that are served on my site are from Google, and I have no control over what they decide to display to you. That’s all based off the information they have about you and think that you are interested in seeing. I don’t see the same ads as you do, even on my own site.

That’s not the case with a few other ads I display. I’ve had an ad for Remithome for most of the time I’ve had my site up. That’s been my choice. I’ve even had to go to the trouble of building my own ad and link, because Remithome doesn’t have a normal affiliate program. They have a rewards program, that is basically a referral program where if the referee receives a credit every time someone signs up via your code.

The point is, I have the ad on my site because I feel they offer great service. I’ve had a few people sign up over time but not a lot, so it’s not like I’m really being paid to endorse them. I do so because it is so rare to find a company that I feel I can.

They way some companies treat you nowadays make you wonder if they care at all. My sons flew back to NY recently and again I was basically forced to use Delta for their flights. That’s been the case since they bought out Northwest Airlines. The choices just aren’t good from Spokane to NY.

I absolutely despise using Delta. As far as I am concerned they have some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Things like setting up unaccompanied minor pickups on the phone and then not ever having it in the system when you go to check in, calling their customer service number for any reason and having your call refused because they are too busy, changing flights for minors and NOT notifying the parents, having the highest fees for minors, charging for everything under the sun, etc. – well I could go on and on, but you get the point.

This last trip we decided to have my 16 year fly with his younger brother to save on the unaccompanied minor fee and offer a little piece of mind to my youngest son. When we arrived at the airport to check them in I found out that the older son could not accompany my youngest because he was not 18 (come to find out later that had recently changed. I guess Delta needed another way to squeeze a few dollars out of us). I thought that was really strange, and asked the attendant why that was. Probably not the best question, as I should have realized he had no clue, but his response was classic and totally caught me off guard. He said, “That’s Delta policy and if you don’t it, like fly another airline.” WOW!

I know we’ve all experienced such apathetic service, and the reason for my rambling about it is to emphasize the point that when we do get the kind of service that we can praise, we need to do so. Remithome has given me the kind of service that is worthy of praise.

Since we paid off our land I thought that we would no longer be needing Remithome on a regular basis. That ended up not being true, as I have since started paying for my Bisaya lessons through them. As always the set up for the new recipient was smooth. The first transaction went quickly and without a hitch.

Remithome has very competitive rates and a variety of ways to deliver your money including door to door and direct bank deposit.

If you are in need of a money transfer service to the Philippines, you would be well served to look into Remithome whether you use my link or not.

JtS Update – Server Move, Holiday, etc.

Randy C — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:56:22 +0000

Just a quick update to let you what’s going on here.

Sometime last week, not sure exactly when, the server that I was on was moved. I was a client of a Virtual Private Server and my host decided to move for reasons that are beyond this article. Suffice to say that he decided to move to a Developer VE Server, and I’ll let you read all the details, for those of you that understand that stuff.

I consider myself fairly technical, but I guess that’s all relative. When it comes to things like this, I get over my head pretty quick. I don’t know all that RT had to go through to get things working for him and everyone else, but I do know what things we’ve been dealing with for my site.

You may have noticed the lack of the JtS Shop working (more likely you didn’t , some strange characters in the text, and my lack of responding to email. All those issues seem to be resolved at this point.

In addition to the server move and issues, I’ve been out of town. I haven’t really had the time, or the access, to check the site out further than the obvious. I’ll try to do that as the week goes on. If anyone sees anything unusual, please feel free to let me know.

During this time I was spending the holiday weekend at my mom’s in Tucson. The idea was that I’d update her computer to a newer operating system, that among other things would allow me to help her remotely via screen sharing. That plan didn’t go exactly as I had figured.

It’s probably a good thing I went down, because it ended up that her hard drive failed. I probably helped it along with the install, but it definitely is gone. It took about 24 hours with Diskwarrior to figure out that it wasn’t going to come back, but I was able to save almost all of the important data.

I managed to get her back and running again, but she’s booting off an external drive. The iMac that she has is not something that is easy to replace an internal drive, not by any stretch of the imagination. That coupled with the time restraint I was working within required the external drive band aid.

That alone would have been enough, but for some reason the large update files were failing when downloading, and they were taking between 1.5 & 2 hours to download. After about 4 of those failing, I had to find another way. I was finally able to download those overnight to my MacBook and transferred over that way.

So this is just my post to tell you why I didn’t post this week. I expect to get back on track next week. I also plan to start my Bisaya lessons back up. But you can see how my plans have gone recently.

Using the iPhone on Vacation in the Philippines

Randy C — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 18:10:56 +0000

As those of you who care, and probably most of you that don’t, already know there is a new iPhone coming out in a couple weeks. The iPhone 4, as Apple is calling it, is a big step up in many ways from the previous model. For those of us that still have the original Edge (2G) only iPhone, well it’s a major advancement.

The new iPhone has many new features. Depending upon your needs (or wants) they may or may not seem important. For me the faster processor (same as the iPad), the HD video, the ability to run iOS 4 and finally being able to use 3G are what make this an easy decision to upgrade.

Some of the new features of the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 are:

FaceTime – face to face video chat
5 Megapixel Camera – with bulit in LED flash
Voice Control – voice activated control for calls and songs
Retina Display – 960-by-640-pixel resolution at 326 ppi
Multitasking – run and switch between apps instantly
Folders – keep your apps organized
iMovie – edit video, add themes and music, and share your movies
HD Video Recording – HD (720p) up to 30 frames per second with audio

We are making plans to visit Davao and Samal Island later this year. I had already been looking into a Flip Minio HD video camera to shot some high def video while I was there. In my mind I’ll no longer need that video cam, as the new iPhone shots high def in 720P. I also plan on leaving my Canon PowerShot A710IS at home, as I can shot stills at 5 mega pixels and even though my Canon is 7.1 mega pixels, it’s not enough of a difference for me to carry around the extra device, in addition to the chargers and cables.

An additional benefit, and one that I’m pretty excited about, is that I can use my original iPhone in the Philippines on one of the local carriers there. I’ll need to unlock (jailbreak) my iPhone and then buy a new sim card with load. I should be good to go and have local cell phone access the entire time I’m in Davao/Samal. I will need to research a bit for the best coverage for Samal, but this should be very handy. I can use the same charger and cables, so I’m not bring anything else along other than the extra phone. Of course, I could unlock my iPhone 4, but I’m not willing to do that. I’ll leave that for those more daring than I.

I had hoped that Apple would announce that Verizon would also be carrying a version of the iPhone. That has been rumored for some time now, and I suppose will happen sometime later this year or early next. I don’t want to wait for that, and will make my pre-order on Tuesday. So another 2 years with AT&T, but that’s the price to pay at this time.

The Minnesota Vikings are Dead. Long Live the Vikings!

Randy C — Sun, 23 May 2010 22:13:33 +0000

We moved to Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota, in 1964. I turned 10 during my first year of exposure to the expansion Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League. They were only my second favorite team over the next few years, coming in behind the Minnesota Twins Major League Baseball team. This was probably more a matter that I played baseball but not football.

The Vikings were on television every Sunday (as I remember) and with the temperature reaching a -41 degrees, there was nothing better to do than park yourself in front of the TV for 3 to 4 hours. They were a fun bunch to watch regardless of the reason. They didn’t win much the first year or so, but they had a lot to offer.

For starters they had this skinny little quarterback that would run 20 or 30 yards BACKWARDS just to gain a few yards forward. They also had a couple of bruising running backs that never gave up, often gaining yards emerging from a pile of players after a play was seemingly over. Mostly they had a defensive front four, the Purple People eaters, that meant they were never out of a game. A 9-7 score was not uncommon for these purple clad Vikings.

We moved from North Dakota to Tucson in 1969. By that time they were becoming my favorite team and were a force to be reckoned with. In the mid ’70s the Twins were beginning their sell off period for any player of talent, and eventually lost me altogether when they traded my favorite player of that period, Rod Carew, in 1979. I continued to follow the Vikings whenever they were on the TV, and through the statistics in the newspapers. It also helped that they were successful and often made the playoffs.

I continued to follow the Vikings, even more intently, as moved around over the next couple of decades. While living and working around the Seattle area I subscribed the Viking Update weekly magazine and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, just so I could get more information about the games, upcoming players and transactions. I can remember coming home late a night and reading Sid Hartman’s column with the inside scoop on the Viking before I eventually dozed off. And for those of you familiar with Sid, he was really was the only source of inside information back in the days before ESPN and the internet. Later when Sunday Ticket become available, I was an early subscriber, just so I could finally watch each and every game.

Like any Viking fan of 45+ years, I endured a lot of heartbreak, four Supers Bowls and numerous playoff games but NO Super Bowl wins. There was an NFL Championship in there, before the days of the NFL-AFL merger. I’m not complaining (too much), as there have been lots of great moments and games. To be clear though, I’ve grown accustomed to being disappointed. I was not at all shocked when they gave the NFC Championship to the New Orleans Saints this past year in a game that they had dominated. Let’s just say that I’ve been there and done that, been there and done that, been there and done that, etc.

Looking back at my life I can honestly say that there have been very few things that have been with me as long as the Vikings. Some family, but that’s it. They been with me through the good and bad, and everything in between. They have been fixture. I have leaned on them, heavily at times, to take my mind off of matters that I needed some mental relief from. They outlasted many girlfriends and an ex-wife, most of whom never understood my interest (obsession?) with this football team.

For many years now there has been discussion (rumors) of the Vikings leaving Minnesota due to the lease on the Metrodome (the older indoor stadium they currently play in) expiring. The story goes that the Vikings are near the bottom of the league in earnings, and in fact being close to not showing a profit at all. The previous owner, Red McCombs, raised the issue to new heights, and many were very relived to see him sell to the current owner, Zygi Wilf. I always felt Red was in it for as much profit as he could get, and would do whatever was in his best interests, regardless of what might become of the team in Minnesota. I personally believe that Zygi has done a great job since buying the Vikings, but it seems he has finally reached his boiling point, too.

Last week the owners of the Vikings released a statement basically spelling out their frustration with the stadium situation and the fact that the Vikings were not going to be able to stay in Minnesota if a new stadium isn’t committed to before the Metrodome lease expires next year. The threat of the Vikings leaving has bothered me for many years. I didn’t appreciate Red McCombs approach to the matter, but my feelings have been slowly changing over the years.

First when it became apparent the the people of Minnesota aren’t willing to have ANY kind of tax implemented to help fund a Vikings stadium is very revealing. There have been multiple solutions proposed but all have been quickly dismissed. The governor(s) and legislatures,, for the most part have been very cool to all proposals but at the same time have given new stadiums to the Minnesota Gophers (college) and the Twins.

I can no longer fathom why the state of Minnesota doesn’t want their number one product but that seems to be the case. Best Buy, Target, Frito Lay (?), are all products of Minnesota. At least I think they are, but I’m not positive and that’s my point. Outside of the local region, what is Minnesota known for. I bet those of you in the Philippines know of the Vikings. At least a great portion of you. Could you name anything else from Minnesota? Maybe the Twins or the Timberwolves. Possibly Hubert H. Humphrey, if you are ;politically inclined. Why would you want your greatest asset to leave? I don”t know the answer, but I’ve become convince that they will.

Not only have I become convinced that they will leave, I hope they do. I no longer believe Minnesota deserves the Vikings. A new stadium would create many new jobs, would allow the attraction of events that they currently can’t get, and would be a boon to the area surrounding. The cost to build a new stadium will never be lower than it is currently, and the Vikings are willing to throw in about a quarter of that. What more do you want? I’ve heard for years that they can’t possibly support a new stadium with the state of the local economy. That’s schools have to come first. I guess it’s hard to argue with that but why has the state of Minnesota been such a mess for so many years, and how did you get those other stadiums built? Maybe it’s time to be honest and say you don’t want the Vikings. Not if you have to pay for them.

So here it is – if the people of Minnesota don’t care if the Viking stay, neither do I. I’ve been watching the Minnesota Vikings from outside the area for many, many years. Today with the internet it’s easier than ever to follow them. It doesn’t matter where I am, or where they are for that matter. I plan to follow the Vikings when I retire and live in the Philippines. It may or may not be live, but I’ll get the games one way or another. If they are from Minnesota, Los Angeles or Manila – I don’t care anymore.

I don’t suppose my allegiance to the Minnesota Vikings matters one way or another to anyone. But if I have these feelings, and I’ve been a loyal fan for well over 40 years, imagine how others must feel. From here on out I’m a Vikings fan. The Minnesota Vikings are Dead. Long Live the Vikings!

It IS Cheaper to Live in the Philippines