Good morning,

Yesterday I watched the jury selection portion of a trial. Today is the start of the rest of the trial. I'll be in there pretty much all day probably. Yesterday took so long because the other attorney asked so many stupid questions during voire dire. It got pretty boring.

So it snowed again back in WA eh? It is 85 degrees at 730am here. Today looks like an extra nice day.

Movie reviews:

The breakup: 5.5
Gridiron Gang: 6+

Anything exciting going on where you are?

It is about 7 pm right now. It's kind of like a scene from a movie right now. It is fairly windy, but still probably 83 or so. My house is sort of a long rectangle and the two long walls are all windows that swivel open. I have them all pretty much open. My door is open, so the wind is blowing through here pretty nicely. The sun is about to set so I'm watching my little sunset view of orange tropical clouds through pretty strongly swaying palm and banana trees. The wind is a little loud too, but the breeze is really nice, extremely comfortable, and a nice change. I'm waiting for my dinner to finish cooking and then I'm going to watch a movie during dinner.

I went by the cell phone place today to see what is up with my voicemail. They're working on it. That'll be nice so that when people call and I miss it, I'll know who it was.

I put an ad in the paper for someone to sell me a crappy car. You can see it for yourself on samoanews.com if you are interested. 2 guys called me so far. I looked at one today. It was a total POS. Spraypainted green (and not the car spray paint) with paint all over the windows and some nice replacement flower panels inside, this car's best feature was that when the guy came to show it to me, it didn't start. He says it runs well and just needs a starter. I'm probably going to pass unless he wants to sell it to me for $500 and fix the starter. Another guy has a 96 Nissan for 1300. That might not be too bad. I'm going to look at it this week.

Tuesday, I'm going to be probably watching a trial all day.

Saturday, I went snorkling with my neighbors, the Colettis at $2 beach. It is called that because you have to pay $2 to use the facilities. It is a really nice place. The snorkling area is nice too, but it is fairly small. Tisa's is much, much better. I tried to bodyboard there, but the water is only about 1 foot deep where the waves crash, so I got some coral gashes and gave up on that for that location. I'm including some pictures of $2 beach. So, $2 beach is still good. It has snorkling that's good but just not as good as some other places here. It would be a great place just to hang out BBQ and have some drinks. There's this big rock that separates the shallow side from the "deep" side. This provides a nice little feature. By the shore there's a channel that varies between about 3-5 feet. The waves come in at different times on the sides of the big rock, so that the channel flows one way, then back. So you can float there and let the current take you and float maybe 35 yards. Then it changes direction and you float back. You could enjoyably do this for a long time. It is kind of like the lazy river at the MGM. Not as consistent, way fewer people, but also a pretty ideallic (is that spelled correctly?) setting.

Saturday night, I played in a poker tournament and lost. Sunday, I got up fairly early, got something to eat, read for quite a while, and then I took about a 3 hour nap. It was an uneventful day, but the rest was really nice since I'm still not acclimated to the weather, but also to living by myself. I've only ever lived by myself for 9 months out of more than 31 years, so it takes some getting used to.

I ran again tonight. Running really sucks, but it was less crappy today.

Movie reviews:
You, me, and Dupree: 6.5

The Protector: I don't know, maybe a 1? It is just awful. The best thing I can say about it is that it is in color. I think it is worse than Ghosts of Mars. Really, and that is saying something. The plot is stupid, ludicrous, boring, and the action is boring and stupid as well. Don't see it unless you want a movie to compare to so that you know where the low bar is. Jerry, you like crappy movies though, so you should see it and let me know where it ranks on your bad movie list.

Today I watched High Court for about an hour, then went to coffee for about an hour. After that I went to Distict Court for about 20 minutes, then to lunch. After that, I came back here, looked for something to do, was given one case, I finished it, now I'm on here and contemplating going home early.

I'm going to need to have some sort of bleach bath for my sandals. I have 4 or 5 pairs, but the main 2 work pair are starting to stink. I washed both of them, that that seems to only help for about half a day.

I don't really know what is going on this weekend. I'm playing poker tomorrow. Aside from that, I'm just going to try to put together the machine.

Have a good weekend.

So I got started on putting together the excercise machine. Holy crap, you should see the diagrams. I've never seen more complicated directions for something like this before. I think it would be easier to put together a uranium centrifuge. I worked on it for about 90 minutes before I had to quit for the evening. I was sweating more than my dad working outside on a hot day. (that's a lot- I now weigh 125lbs from water loss) I guess it'll be the weekend before it gets finally operational. It is just too frustrating to spend an entire evening working on.

The last two days I've woken up with really puffy eyes. I was thinking I was just tired, and I was, but now I think it probably is the MSG in the Chinese food- so I think I'm going to give it away to a dog that hangs out here. So pretty soon she'll look like a bloodhound I guess.

No pictures today, but in lieu of that, I'm providing a link to another guy's blog who has a ton of pictures from last weekend's events. http://weaver-in-samoa.blogspot.com/ There are ones from both days.

I watched Sin City tonight. (remember, I write these at night... right) I give it a 6.7

My goal for tomorrow morning is to go running before work. We'll see if I can make myself do it. I really hate running, but I need to get some cardio in. I also hate getting up extra early. I could probably run/walk combo to work in about an hour or so. It takes me about 20 minutes to get to work in the car but the max speed is 25 and there's traffic. The downsides are: running in a manskirt and that I'd be soaked from humidity by the time I got there. There certainly is no shower at work. There aren't even any fricking pens! I've asked assistants 3 times about pens. 2 times ladies gave me their (presumably only) pen, and another time a guy just had a pencil, but he advised me where good places to buy pens are. I'm not buying my own pens for work- there have to be some, but everthing is so unorganized nobody knows.

I'm guessing that the Huskies have played themselves into a position where even if they win their last couple league games and then get to the conference finals and lose, they won't make the tourney. They should just rest their good player(s) to make sure Brockman is rested for the tournament.

So Ichiro might leave if the M's still keep sucking. That's not much of a surprise is it? I think he won't if we get better, but if it is the same crap, he'll have to be traded at the deadline. The M's can't pass up the pile of good players they could get for him if they know he can't be kept. Money won't be an issue, but sucking will.

I'll try to bring my camera to work and have someone take a picture of me in a manskirt. Maybe I'll include a picture of the ridiculous diagram. I'll see about doing a better job of lighting this time.

I saw Lewis County wants NASCAR? They don't even have enough pavement to provide 3 lanes on the freeway. Lots of hicks though; maybe they could get it built on a volunteer basis.

Update: I got up to go running and it was raining unbelievably hard. It is still raining. I've never been in rain this hard. 5 seconds in it and you are drenched. At least it is warm still.

This first fish is one from the Georgia Aquarium.





I'm starting to get my stuff somewhat organized at home. I know some of you may be shocked, but I cleaned the kitchen last night and it made it much more pleasant in there. Also, an old lady came by selling stuff she makes. I bought this wall hanging from her for $50. It is made out of tree bark with dye made from the tree, hibiscus, and other things that grow around here. She said she makes those to make a little money and that all of the materials cost her nothing since they grow wild here. I thought it was a pretty fair price. Also, she threw in a tiki carving. I'll include a picture of the hanging. Also the pictures of my house aren't too good, but if you are trying to figure out what is going on, there's a canopy hanging over most of the living room. I think I'm going to remove at least part of it. The ceiling is probably 15 feet high. The thing I bought is the brown and cream colored thing not the big piece of cloth hanging up. I have some seriously ugly curtains right now too. Jaymie might like them though, there are turtles on them.

Yesterday was the worst weather day by far. It just poured all night and then in the morning was still at it. It finally cleared up about 3pm, and then was pretty nice after that. Still hot at all times though.

I also bought the workout machine from Cost U Less. I can't rationalize paying $50 a month to work out in a crappy gym, especially when I have so much extra space at home.

For dinner, I mixed the "lo mein" with the curry, and that was pretty good. Hong Kong House may not be the best quality, but they don't cheat you on quantity. I have plenty left still to have dinner tomorrow and maybe Thursday too.

I got my bodyboard yesterday. So from Hawaii, it looks like mailing stuff takes about a week. Who knows how long my stuff I mailed from the Rock will take to get here. Everyone here is guessing about 2-3 months. The post office said 2-5 weeks I think. Supposedly, my stuff that I shipped was going to get on an earlier ship than planned. I don't know if that happened and if so when it is supposed to get here. The original day was March 19.

I listened to the gipsy kings very best 2 cd set as reccommended by Shane. It is really good. Thanks bittorrent.

Adrian, did you see I joined your stupid NASCAR league? Unfortunately, we don't get the ocho over here, so I won't be able to follow it too closely.

Huskies: I don't have much confidence right now... even less than 7%. I don't think they'll get thrashed anymore, but I also don't know if they can pull out the close ones at all yet. They could conceivably pull it together finally and win the tournament, they have the talent. But, I'm not hopeful at all. 4%. (oh, and I mean win the Pac-10 tournament)

And now... the unsolicited baseball predictions- standings edition:

NL East

Atlanta 91-71
Mets 87-75
Florida 86-76
Philly 76-86
Washington 55-107

NL Central

Chicago 93-69
St. Louis 88-74
Houston 88-74
Milwaukee 85-77
Cincinnati 76-86
Pittsburgh 61-101

NL West

Los Angeles 92-70
San Diego 88-74
Arizona 82-80
Colorado 74-88
San Francisco 71-91

AL East

Yankees 96-66
Toronto 89-73
Boston 86-76
Tampa Bay 71-91
Baltimore 67-95

AL Central

Chicago 96-66
Minnesota 87-75
Cleveland 83-79
Detroit 82-80
Kansas City 60-102

AL West

Seattle 89-73
Anaheim 86-76
Texas 79-83
Oakland 76-86

So the answer is no, I didn't sit at work doing all this crap. I write these at home the night before and bring them in to upload- so starting tomorrow, I'm going to write in the present tense when doing that instead of past. Now... know what I mean? Or maybe you had another question. That answer is no also. I've never picked any team to win the AL West beside Seattle.

I saw my first gecko at my house last night. He didn't do the robot dance though.

I'm out of the hotel and "moved in" to my new house. Since my stuff while arrive here at an undetermined time, who knows when I'll actually be moved in. But I'm in my house at least and out of the hotel.
So I have 3 bedrooms plus a fairly large living room. There's a carport with a nice BBQ that I am buying from the last guy who lived there.

I found out that the gym is $50 a month. I'm just going to buy some equipment from Cost U Less, which is like mini Costco. This seems like the best idea especially since the gym is not air conditioned, has limited hours, and I have the 2 extra rooms.

I'll take some pictures tonight and put some up tomorrow.

This weekend was pretty fun. On Friday, I played sloshball with about 20 people. It's whiffleball except that you pitch to your own team, you can't strike out, and second base is a cooler. If you get to second, you have to crack a beer and can't put it down until it is done. We played for about 3 hours and I only got out 2 times, so it's a miracle I felt ok on Saturday morning. Sunday morning- not so much. We had a Special Olympics with most games involving drinking. My team took gold, but I felt like something else the next day.

Here are some ratings from the weekend:

Movies:
Kingdom of Heaven: 7
Date Movie: 3
Scary Movie 4: 5.5
Beer:
Taurasi: 2.5
Vailima: 4.5
Vailima export: 3.5
Red Horse: 7
San Miguel light: 7
Chinese food:
Hong Kong House: 4. Their soup and curry are not bad. The Lo Mein was fricking spaghetti.

Any particular questions or curiosities about here?

my phone number is 684.252.1323. I'd use a calling card though. That could be the difference between 5 cents a minute and 2 bucks a minute.

I don't have any new pictures, so I'm posting one from Susan's wedding place, one from the Georgia Aquarium that doesn't compare to how the snorkling is here, me at CNN, firecrackers, and Silver Lake from a couple weeks ago.

I went over to check out my new place last night. The guy whose office I inherited lives there. He also tricked me into volunteering to do my absolute favorite thing: no- not painting or roofing, but moving! Yay! Actually, I'd rather move than go to the doctor or lots of other things. I think I'd rather get stung by a bee though. Would you rather get stung by a bee once an hour for 5 hours or move for 5 hours? (not a rhetorical question) I think that if I didn't know or fear the bee stings were coming, I'd take the bees. But the dreading and worrying about the bee stings would make it worse. But the guy and his family seem really nice, the moving starts at a reasonable time, and I really don't have any other plans, so no big deal.

The house is not exactly a luxury accommodation. I'd put it probably a little below our house on 25th. Nicer than the House though (plus no about ready to blow up gas smell). On the upside, it is pretty big: decent size living room, 3 bedrooms! So, I'll have plenty of room for visitors. I couldn't find a gym, so I had been thinking of making one of the rooms a workout room, but apparently the gym does exist and supposedly is pretty nice according to information obtained today. Overall, the house is better than I probably could have expected. It has 2 cement walls and the other walls are pretty much completely slatted window material that can be opened or closed (with security wire on the outside). It's nicer than my hotel room. Plus, it has a papaya tree, a few banana trees, and several pineapple plants. I'm going to plant some basil nearby. I bet everything will grow like crazy here. Before anyone gets any ideas, weed is punishible by 5 years in the can. A friend of one of the lawyers here is in the pokey as we speak for bring a joint on the plane. That is monumentally stupid, but 5 years... come on. It should be more like 5 bucks.

When I left the house it was dark. It was the first time I'd actually been outside when it is dark. It was just fantastic out last night. Tons and tons of stars- only obscured by palm trees. Plus, with a low of 81 it is very comfortable outside at any hour.

Today my boss called me into his office and for the second time since I've been here he told me that he just expects everyone to do their best and that's all he can ask. If you win you win, if you lose you lose- no pressure. That's pretty rare I think. I might be able to be provisionally admitted sometime next week and be able to try to handle some easy District Court stuff. The thought of that doesn't make me nervous at all, so it must be easy eh?

I bought 4 more manskirts yesterday. Now I have ones that are black, khaki, blue-green (not teal), dark brown, light brown, maroon, and green. I'll have to get a picture of me with one on and post it. They should allow manskirts at home when it is warm. You really can't beat it. It is so comfortable. One of the public defenders today reccommended that I get some tailor made though because you can pick out lighter material to make them even cooler. I'll have to do that. So when you come to visit you can use one to wear around as a manskirt or just a skirt if you are a girl since I'll probably have about 30 soon. They're $8 each. Today with my dark brown manskirt I am sporting a Hawaiian shirt, no tie, and a wood nut necklace because it is casual Friday (even at court).

I appreciate all of your comments and read them. So far I think Shane's toxic foot comment is the best. Did you notice I added a couple pictures from snow camping? There's a nice one of drunk Andy Lentz at about 1030am playing bacci.

Today's confidence level for the Huskies making the tournament: 22%. I almost put 15%, but they could lose all their games and still win the Pac-10 tournament. That makes it seem like I think there's a 7% chance that they'll win the conference tourney when I really think it is better than that- or at least if I don't now, I will by the start of it. It should be noted as comparison that my confidence level for the M's making the playoffs is currently at about 45%. Sonics 0% with the hope that they lose all of the remainder of their games. I don't appreciate Steve Nash sitting out the Sonics game either. You screwed us Nash, there's no way we'd have won if you played. Why?

If I remember one of these days I'll video part of my drive to work and put it on youtube or my myspace page. So, expect that around 08.

Oh, also, I have a belated movie review. I watched Little Miss Sunshine on the plane. I give it a 6.5. It is a fairly high quality movie actually, but sort of depressing for most of it. The last 10 minutes took it from a 4 to its actual rating. So, it is worth seeing, but as far as semi-weird movies, it's no Garden State. I also watched part of the Last King of Scotland. Ghost Dog did a really good job, but I got kind of bored with it and fast forwarded to the end after about 50 mintues, so I probably can't rate it. I also watched half of X men 3, but then the flight ended so I can't rate that one either. There, I just took 5 minutes that you'll never get back. More of the same impending. Another thing I'd like to give a high rating to is USB2 ports. (D O R K, huh?)

Have a pleasant weekend.

F! Pitt! (I don't know how to make the upsidedown exclamation point on here, but if I did, I'd have put one before the F)

I guess spring training starts today. Great.

Moving into my house today???... negatory. Supposedly Saturday.

Today is another day of watching court. Supposedly there are some interesting cases to watch. Certainly, I welcome the 5 weeks or so to watch court and get things straight, but I think if I had to, I could do District Court without screwing up so bad that it really matters so much. I might feel like a dumbass, but that’s short term and nobody’s going to get off because I don’t know what I’m doing.

There’s District Court and High Court here. District Court is DUIs, disturbing the peace, traffic, and other minor things. There are a lot of disturbing the peace here. If you are drunk and yell obscenities in public or even in your house if it is overheard you can be arrested for disturbing the peace. That means if any Husky games are on tv here, I’ll have to watch them in a soundproof chamber.
The rest of the cases go to High Court. Usually, they start out the new guy in District Court until they hire the next new person, then they move up to High Court or to civil cases. I think most civil cases involve chief title successions or communal land disputes. I don’t really know anything about that stuff, and really don’t know how it would help me to know it once I’m back on the mainland, so I’d probably prefer to end up doing High Court criminal cases. I guess in my case, they’re going to have me get familiar with both courts, then handle District Court for a week, and if that goes ok, I’ll go straight to the easiest High Court cases and the District Court lady will stay there. In addition, I have the consumer protection cases- that part is mostly good. I like helping people out that get jacked by The Man. But, it probably also has some people that are just complainers. We shall see.

So this job is certainly not the highest paying attorney job in the world, but people really respect you here. Titles and positions are big here. Chiefs of villages, doctors, and lawyers get a ton of respect here. Everyone who knows what I do already refers to me as Counselor. That’s a respected title. It is crazy really: if any judge was walking around Longview or Seattle, they’d pretty much just be treated as anyone else- and I’m the lowest guy on the totem pole here. Also, I met a judge today; I was in there with another attorney who has been really helping me out to get a search warrant. For one thing, the head lieutenant was there with a police detective. We were just in chambers, not in court. At least in Cowlitz County, that’s a somewhat informal situation. I’m certainly respectful there, but I never called the judge “your honor” while in chambers. Here, the judge certainly didn’t seem to be looking for it, but the cops were completely silent unless they were asked to answer a question by the judge and they prefaced each sentence with “your honor”. This is only my 4th day, but so far, this looks like a good situation. My boss looks like and seems kind of like Hunter S. Thompson, but without the drugs.

Supposedly, I will get to move into my new place today. We shall see. I actually give it about 40%. It’d be nice to get in there, but if not, I can wait another day.

On a sad note, I saw that the stupid cougs beat UW for the 4th time in a row. That is really not good. Not good for the obvious reason, but also because now the Huskies pretty much have to: 1. Beat Pitt away or 2. not lose any more pac-10 games or 3. win the pac-10 tournament. That is not so good (borat voice).

The pictures today are from Tuesday of the Queen Mary 2. It’s the largest cruise ship ever built I think. Traffic was JACKED getting into town Tuesday. There’s really not that many cars here, but there also are way less roads. I’d say there are about 75% as many people here as in Cowlitz County. I’m guessing there are about 20% as many cars as CC. But, I’m guessing there are about 4% as many roads. Plus, the max speed limit here is 25 mph. If I remember, I’ll try to include some pictures of my drive to work. Very nice, I like (borat again).

Spring Training starts in what, 2 weeks? So when I’m in my office, I can watch it on gamecast . So a 7pm eastern time game would start a 1, and noon once EDT starts. Fantastic. No Ron Fairly or Dave Henderson: wicked awesome. Not being able to take advantage of it sucks.

At work

Well, I'm here at work. At the moment I don't have anything to do. I'm supposed to go to court, but my assistant had already taken the car to serve some subpoenas and she's not back yet. I'm just supposed to go to court to watch though. Apparently that is going to be my job mostly for the next month or so: watch court. That's good I think. I'll actually have a good idea of what is going on before I have to do anything. It'll take 4-6 weeks at least for the bar association to get around to admitting me anyway, so I don't have a whole lot else I can do.

Today I wrote a letter for a guy who is getting screwed a little by his car dealer. That's the extent of my real work so far.

Yesterday after work, I went snorkling at Tisa's bar not too far outside of Pago Pago. It is unbelievable. I've never seen anything remotely close when snorkling. The water is perfectly clear and there are so many fish it is ridiculous. There's a greater concentration of fish and coral than in the tropical section at aquariums. Plus the water is about 85 degrees (no exaggeration- it could be warmer).

Also yesterday the Queen Mary 2 was in town.

Here are some pictures of my first sunset here on Monday(cloudy) but also you can sort of see how clear the water is.

Made it here

Here are some Hawaii pictures



I made it in to American Samoa last night about 930. I was picked up from the airport by Lancaster from the AG's office. He gave me a sort of rundown about how some things work and was extremely nice and helpful. Today's my first day at work. I really have nothing to do. I went to court to watch a short hearing and I talked to my boss for quite a while. Pretty much I'll have to wait for about 5-6 weeks until the bar association gets around to admitting me. Until then, I'll do some watching court, shadowing people, and trying to find things to do mostly it looks like. Once I get admitted I'll be doing prosecutions and consumer protection actions.

It is really hot and humid here. I wore pants today but I hope to have time this afternoon to pick up some mandresses. It is just too hot for pants and dress shoes. There is air conditioning in the office that keeps it about 90 degrees. I guess it broke for a while and it was about 105 inside all the time. Sweet!

I have internet at work, so that is really nice.

The past few days I was in Oahu with Jerry, his brother Jimmy, Jimmy's wife Paulina, and their friends Joe and Joey. It was super nice of Jimmy and Paulina to let me stay for free at their condo. It's across the street from the beach, 21st floor and super nice. Did some snorkling. Jerry got hosed by the airlines though. He was supposed to leave at 8am, but instead didn't leave until 930PM.

OK, I'm tired, I'll do a better job of updating later.