Here She Comes...

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Miss Indonesia pagent. The same group that owns our magazine runs it, so most of our office was there. It was a quite an Indonesian experience, with everyone, including us, dressed up in their finest batik. We sat right behind the family of the eventual winner, Miss East Java, so that was kind of cool, but by the third hour I was ready for it to end.

A few days after the pagent Miss Indonesia herself came to our office for a photo shoot and interview - she's our cover girl for the June issue. I should have done the interview but I chickened out. She goes to school in Australia, so she speaks perfect English, but I let one of our ocal reporters interview her. I did manage

to get a photo with her though. It was quite a scene as all the men in the office lined up for snapshots. Haviva got quite a chuckle out of it.

Now Even the US Agrees

Over the weekend the US State Department removed its travel warning for Indonesia!

The weekend between deadlines

It seems deadlines are constantly upon us, but we are trying to make the very most of the weekends when we can get away. This past weekend was a great escape. It was a combination weekend celebrating our friend Manoah's birthday and saying goodbye to our other friend Liz and a bunch of us headed down to the fabulous beach villa in Pelabuhan Ratu. It was a great weekend of absolutely nothing but playing in the water, reading (and napping) in the hammock and eating. LOTS of eating. It was great. Now it is back to work...

Party with Papuans

A couple weeks ago we went to a house party at our friends and, just because they thought it would be fun, they had some dancers from Papua for entertainment. Sadly, I had not made it to the party yet when they did their real dancing, but Howie caught some of the action. By the time I arrived they were back in typical clothing, but still dancing up a storm and teaching people some moves. It was pretty cool to see. What shocked Howie and I was how normal the whole thing was to everyone. "Oh yeah, there were some Papuan dancers. Whatever." I don't know about you, but these guys do not look "whatever" to me.

Keeps getting better!

The second issue of HighEnd and HighEnd Teen has hit the stands and is getting, much to our surprise, a great response. Howie and I went to the polo club to interview some teens about playing polo and they when we showed them the new issue of HET they responded with things like, “Wow! This is so cool!” and “I totally love this magazine!” This of course totally made my day and has shed some happy light on all the long hours spent making the magazine look as “awesome” as it does.

The sad news at HighEnd is that Trish is leaving us so she can stop writing about rich people and go back to her real love, actual journalism. This coming issue will be her last and our very own Howard Parnes will be taking over as managing editor of HighEnd. Let’s hope he can keep his end high enough for the promotion. His first test will be Miss Indonesia on Tuesday night – our first socialite event! We are VERY excited and will be sure to report back to you who wins Miss Favorite (the fan vote), Miss Friendship (the word congeniality is just too much here) and Miss Most Beautiful Skin (i.e. the whitest).