visa photos on the cheap

Between taking the time to get a visa (or passport) photo taken and paying the $3-$4 per photo (the usually come in sets of 2 for around $8) we decided to handle the task ourselves.
Here's the list of supplies:

1. digital camera (we used a D90 with an SB400 for better lighting)
2. tripod
3. white foam core board (had some from other photo projects)

After reading up on the guidelines on travel.state.gov and using epassportphoto.com's handy sizing and alignment tool we've got a set of 6 (it was 5, but I photoshopped the page to 6) passport photos each, and we just have to spend ~$.20 to print off some 4x6s at Walgreens. Net result: $.03 per photo, not bad considering we're going to need 2 for several of the visas we need.

another shot and malaria stuff

After another trip to Passport Health (and another $224) we received our second shot (of three) for hepatitis A/B. This is our last shot before we leave in September. Our final shot will be when we return home in the spring of next year.

As mentioned earlier we were a little worried about our malaria medication, doxycycline, and it's side affect of increased sun sensitivity. After some awesome help from some of our medical friends we were informed about an alternative prophylaxis (a fancy term I learned, basically meaning 'preventative medication') called Malarone. It's said to have fewer side affects than doxycycline and is just as effective. However it's one side affect is it's cost. I called up our local pharmacy and was quoted about $25 for our supply of doxycycline and $880 for a comparable dosage of Malarone. No, I didn't misplace any decimal places, it's basically 35 times as much...that's a lot of sunscreen. Needless to say we'll be having our doxycycline prescription filled. We've also heard the increased sensitivity to sun doesn't affect everyone, but only time will tell.

Wikitravel has a pretty good post on malaria: http://wikitravel.org/en/Malaria.