No Bowl again for UW

We're getting outcoached in the second halves of each game. We've been ahead or tied at halftime of EVERY game except Oregon, and in that game UW scored right away to tie it up after halftime. Then, downhill.
I'm afraid Tyrone is going to be out after next year. Hopefully Mora will hang on that 1 more year before taking another head coaching job.

What if we don't win another game this year though?

Buenas dias

Today is super super nice out so far. 85 degrees and clear. Barbie and I rolled in with the top down today.

How is your weather?

Flat tire

Here it is:


I should be able to just take that in and have them fix it right? I think there must be a slow leak in this one, could you patch it up?


Ridiculous eh?
Also, it took Nate and me about 5 minutes to get the tire off of the car after the bolts were removed:

.

But, now she'll at least move.

I'm actually out of District Court for real now. Yay! No more traffic court. I didn't have it today.

Mystery Store

You never know what you are going to get in Samoa.

A couple weeks ago, Nate and I went into this store that looks like a shed on the way to work. It always has a sign out front with hand painted signs advertising what they have. We were shocked that it had some things that you can't get anywhere else on the island. I got a few things there that were interesting. Today I went back, and they had a Cuisinart panini press for $10!

OK, the handle is broken.

Nothing several zipties can't fix.

Plus, it works! Fantastic!

Barbie got another flat tire on the way to work today. Less than fantastic. She's spending the night in Utulei but if I remember to bring my camera, I'll get some pictures of the new flat tire. It looks like a flat tire that a big rig might get on the freeway. Maybe Barbie needs dualies.

Movie Review:
Rumor Has It. Not the worst ever, but certainly not that good even as far as chick movies go. For one thing, there was no Hugh Grant, but also it didn't make a ton of sense. I would have been a hell of a lot more pissed off than the guy in it. Kevin Costner was kind of funny. But, I'd put this one quite a ways down on your queue. 3.7 I don't know why I put it in my queue...somebody told me it was really good. Was that you Meg?

Mark Hales is leaving our office and the island to take a job with a firm in Utah. I went up to a party for him.



Here's Mark emerging from the jungle onto Massacre Bay Beach at the end of the hike.

I had to leave about 8 because we were planning a bonfire here at 8 and I wanted to be back before it started. It turns out that since it rained all day today it is too wet, so no bonfire party. But on the way back my car fell into one of the gigantic potholes in Tafuna and blew my front tire. I got the stuff out to change my tire, but I'm missing a crow bar/lug nut tool to both operate the jack and take off the lug nuts. Sweet. Since I don't have a cell phone and didn't bring any cash with me, I had to walk home. It is really nice out though and it was actually a pretty pleasant couple miles in the dark. Barbie will have to spend the night in front of the store where she sits.



It is only 930pm here, but that means it is after midnight at home.

Happy Birthday Dad!



(self portrait--nice tan)

Nevermind

Aghk!

This season sucks!
Huskies D sucks!

BIG GAME TIME

I think today is the day they fix themselves. The hate of Oregon should be able to power the Huskies through the third quarter.

38-17 Good guys.


This is Onterrio Smith. He never recovered from this loss and started his process of inventing The Amazing Whizinator.

Onterrio Smith & the Whizzinator

Oregon...

http://www.fanblogs.com/ncaa/003948.php

Bad football weekend 2

That was AWFUL!
The Seahawks game was horrendous throughout, but the Weaver run on 4th down and not kicking the field goal with 1:30 left are mystifying. What is Holmgren thinking these days? Alexander looks really bad too. Maybe they should not play him until he is healed. Run defense is also a disaster. They'll still make the playoffs, but they need to fix these things in a hurry.

I still like Willingham, but remember when we had Rick and always made the halftime and 4th quarter adjustments to beat the other team? The other teams are making the halftime adjustments and we're just getting smoked after the half. I hope this losing and sucking will stop soon.

On a positive note, Charlie Weis's plan to beat Boston College by buying all the khaki east of the Rockies did not work and ND is 1-6...even worse than UW.

When we got to the airport in Western Samoa, a rental car was supposed to be there to pick us up. Except that it wasn't and it never came. The Budget office never answered the phone. That's the type of thing you need to be prepared for in Samoa. So we took a cab to Apia.

In Apia, Friday night we went to Bistro Tautai. It is like a real restaurant! The service is excellent and the food is good. I don't think it is as good as Apaula Heights, but it is much better than any restaurant on Tutuila by a long way.

Then we went out to Paddles Bar in town for a few drinks and some dancing (my attempt at dancing). We stayed with Maxi at the Manusina in Apia.

Saturday morning, we went to the Budget office. They claimed they didn't know what time my flight was coming in so they didn't know when to get me... so they just didn't show up at all. This is despite the fact that I reserved the car at the airport at 630pm and that I provided the flight information. Anyway, we got the car and headed to Lalomanu. Lalomanu and Taufua Beach Fales is great. We swam around in the perfect water most of the day and had a few Vailimas.


Even Vailima can't ruin Lalomanu.

Saturday nights at Taufua they have a fiafia night, so we watched that.

They made everyone dance too.

Then there was the fire knife dancing.



Do these guys start out this good at the fire dancing? Negatory: (make sure you watch it til the end)


I need to get Markus' and Naomi's pictures and I'll put some black sand beach pictures on here. We went there Sunday. It is one of the best beaches anywhere.

Washington 24
ASU 20

Seahawks 34
NO 14

BC 33
ND 21

Western Samoa (4)

Despite making me sick again, WS was great. I'll give a more in depth post tomorrow maybe, but it included:


A real dinner


Some Samoan fire dancing


but mostly hanging out at really, really nice beaches





and Naomi stealing people's clothes

Movie review: Black Snake Moan= I fell asleep, but what I saw got it about a 5. Not terrible, not great. But that does make 2 Snake movies in a row for S.Jackson. Can he make 3?

I'm glad I'm not a Knicks fan

Allan Houston is coming back.

YUK

What an awful football weekend. WTF Seahawks?

USC? (Adrian, Stanford does play ND)

Notre Dame winning? Awful!

WS was nice, but now I'm getting sick again (though not the same kind). The tropics are killing me!

The Yankees are out- at least that is good. Maybe they'll stupidly fire Torre now.

There are plenty of ridiculous things here and sometimes those things make my job frustrating. But there are plenty of good things here too; here's one of them:

10-Day Business Travel Forecast for
Apia/Fagali, Western Samoa
[ English | Metric ] Printable Forecast


Weather for your life

See Weather Related to...Flights & Business TravelWedding Planner


Forecast Conditions High/Low °F Precip.
Chance High Temperatures Low Temperatures Precipitation Wind Speed
Today
Oct 5 Mostly Sunny
89°/77° 10%
89°F

Sat
Oct 6 Sunny
89°/77° 20%
89°F

Sun
Oct 7 AM Showers
89°/78° 30%
89°F

Check Flight Delays
Mon
Oct 8 Mostly Sunny
89°/78° 20%
89°F

Tue
Oct 9 Mostly Cloudy
89°/78° 20%
89°F

Wed
Oct 10 Scattered Showers
89°/79° 30%
89°F

Airport Conditions
Thu
Oct 11 Partly Cloudy
89°/78° 10%
89°F

Fri
Oct 12 Partly Cloudy
89°/78° 10%
89°F

Sat
Oct 13 Partly Cloudy
89°/78° 0%
89°F

Sun
Oct 14 Mostly Sunny
89°/79° 0%
89°F

http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/tenday/WSXX0001?from=search_10day

Not too unpleasant for October.

Barbie wouldn't work for me today. She's in need of some work. Hopefully she'll get fixed this weekend. The problems seem to mostly be electrical: If I hold the key all the way to the start position, the car keeps running. If it is just in ON, it dies when I start to move. Not very convinient.

Go UCLA!

Have a good weekend.

Columbus Day is Monday

Seven hours of court really wears you out. But, tomorrow looks good and I'm going to Apia after work. I was going to go to Ofu but the flight schedule is not so conducive for attracting business. There's really no reason to go to Ofu unless you are going for a vacation or weekend. Nonetheless, the Friday flight leaves at 11am, which would be fine if you were already on vacation, but if you work here it is no good. My schedule looks so good for Friday at the moment that it is now possible I could be done with court by 1030 or so, but even that is too late to make the flight. Plus, most others couldn't make it. I could take the Saturday flight, but there is no Saturday flight. So no Ofu.

Instead, we're stuck going to Western Samoa again.




Probably half of what is left of the Association is going to Western this weekend too. We're kind of scattered as far as where we're staying, but it should still be a good time.

One bad thing about going this weekend is that I'm going to miss the Seahawks/Steelers GAME.

Ben should be scared.




They don't have this guy:

Or this guy:


Seahawks 31
Stealers 10





What are you all doing for Columbus Day? What?! You don't get it off? That is crazy- it is such an important holiday. Didn't you read about when Columbus discovered America(n Samoa)?

Movie review:

Idiocracy
6.5 It is about this place in some ways. Check it out. It is especially like some of the writing I get in some police reports and some of what I've heard about legislative hearings here.

Anyone paying attention to what the Rockies have done and are doing? It is crazy!

Someone in the FAA must have thought this out

Having the deadline for the AS governor to accept the air traffic tower/control deal being on a Sunday was brilliant. It gave the governor enough time to realize that without taking the deal which would have kept the FAA providing air traffic control for a while, there probably would be no Hawaiian Airlines flights.

Well, Wednesday night, he figured it out and took the deal before the flight on Thursday was possibly forced to not happen. http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=35567

The Hawaiian flights (Thursday and Sunday) are a big deal because it is the only link between American Samoa and the "mainland" (Hawaii). There are no other flights to the US. The mail comes on these flights. It would be a disaster if the flights ended.

Apparently a few years ago, Hawaiian threatened for months that they were not going to make flights after a certain date if the runway was not improved. There were potholes and rocks all over it, making it unsafe.

Presumably the rocks came from the potholes.

Despite plenty of notice, the AS government did nothing. As a result, Hawaiian stopped their flights and there was no contact with the mainland for a couple weeks I guess. No mail; no airfreight; no flight to the US- all because of inaction. This may sound incredible. It is not shocking or surprising to me because that is just the way things work. Ridiculous? Pathetic? Yes, but not unexpected. How did this situation resolve? The governor ordered all AS Govt. employees to report to the airport for several days until the rocks were physically removed by hand (there's a street sweeper on island) and the potholes were filled by the office workers.


As another example of spectacular forethought, there used to be more than one government owned television station broadcasting news, programming from the mainland, rebroadcasts of church, rebroadcasts of flag day celebrations from past years, and rebroadcasts of governor speeches, but now there is just one. Why? Well the tv towers fell apart because, despite warnings to the government that maintenance was required to keep the tower from falling down, nothing was done and the tower fell down. The remaining tower has never received proper maintenance. Shortly after my arrival here, the government was warned that this tower was going to be destroyed without maintenance soon. Nothing was done. Last week, another check was done of the remaining tower and the inspector told ASG that the tower will fall apart probably within 2 months. Nothing is being done to stop it.

But, I guess midair collisions may be averted for a while:

The Airport

There's no acceptable control tower at the Pago Pago airport. Also, the federal government has been paying for air traffic control services here. The FAA gave the government tons of notice that they are going to stop paying for air traffic control after September 30, 2007 http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=35429. But, the feds also said they would give $2M for a new air control tower. One of the conditions of the $2M is that American Samoa agrees to staff the air control tower and use it to provide air control services. So what's the problem?

The governor objected to this plan because he wants the federal government to keep paying for the air traffic control here. He also objected because he wants more than $2M to construct the tower. When it was pointed out that Western Samoa recently built one for less than half that cost (and their airport has far more traffic), the governor was insulted that someone would insinuate that the W.S. tower would be good enough for here. Afterall, A.S. has far superior services than W.S.. One just has to look at the roads here (massive potholes), the public transportation provided by the government (none), tourist facilities (almost none), fine dining (McDonalds), and superior industry (stinky canneries paying $3/per hour) to recognize that just because something is good enough for Western Samoa:

(beaches)

does not make it good enough for American Samoa.


(beaches with trash, ha! we got you Western Samoa!)

Also, since the tower was going to cost around $1M and the federal government offered to provide $2M, that left only $1M to be syphoned off to corruption. This alone is unaccptable, but the condition that the tower actually be completed and used is an insult to the government of American Samoa, and its way of doing things.

The deadline came and went and the governor did not take the deal. Incredible huh? So now there is no plan for the tower. It also has come out that the governor has no plan to pay for air traffic services. The newspaper today has him saying that we don't need air traffic control.

Another thing I wonder if the governor has thought about. Will Hawaiian Airlines fly here without any air traffic control? Is that even legal? For someone who takes so many trips off island, you'd think the governor might have thought this through.

Oh, yeah he has his own plane, nevermind. So the next Hawaiian flight is scheduled to arrive this Thursday. We'll see what happens.