Ray Allen traded

At first I was disgusted. But, maybe it is not that bad.
I hate to give up Allen becuase he's the best shooter in the world. But:
- they haven't done much lately with him
- they got a high pick who will have a low salary
- they got Delonte West who makes like $1M/year and is getting pretty good
OK, never mind. This trade sucks. Why get rid of Ray and then take on two years of Wally making near the max. You unload Ray's max salary, but you have to pay that to someone. Shouldn't it be the best shooter in the league instead of not the best shooter in the league? If this was football it would be a good trade, but since you can only play 5 guys at a time, I don't understand.

I got my Vonage hooked up thanks to Gonzalo's computer expertice. So, my home number is 206.501.2135. Regular rates calling Seattle apply, so you don't have to worry about ridiculous phone bills now. The down side is that it is just my home phone, so if I'm not here you won't be able to get ahold of me. But, I think it comes with voicemail. If I can figure out how to get that set up that might be helpful as well.

new tv

I got a new tv recently from Gonzalo. It is great because it works and it works all the time.
The one I had before, I bought in Portland from someone off of Craigslist for $30. It didn't work very well. That tv very well could have been in fine condition before I took posession of it however. I put it in the back of my truck near the cab and took off. The tv did about 4 somersaults before it smashed up against the tailgate. Then I had the tv ride in the cab the rest of the way. When I got home, I plugged it in and it worked. That doesn't really mean that it got broken during shipping though either. The tv would sometimes work for hours with no problem. Sometimes it would work for 2 minutes before shutting off. If you left it alone, it would eventually turn back on at some point. That could be 1 minute or 3 days. To make it work, you could beat the tv and it would sometimes come back on. Sometimes it wouldn't come back on.

I have a car too, but I'll get to that later.

Finally updated

Sorry, sorry. I know it has been a long time. I was sick for a week after my last post. That was pretty neat because for some reason, we still haven't hired any new attorneys since I've been here, despite the fact that we're 5 attorneys short of a full staff. This makes no sense at all to me. The pay here isn't great that's true, but plenty of jobs are overrun by applications at prosecutors' offices everywhere for similar or less pay. They give us housing and the chance to live in the South Pacific. Anyway, this means that since I have court every day and the other attorneys have other court, I pretty much can't call in sick without totally shafting someone. So I went to court and then after the court part ended, I went home and went to sleep. This not only sucked but left me unprepared every day. I think the judge recognized my plight though, so he was pretty easy on us. Last week, I guess I don't have a good excuse.

Last weekend (the 17th), I was feeling better, so on Saturday we went to check out Nuuuli Falls. There are really 3 u's in a row. The trailhead to this place is about a 5 minute drive from my house. I'd heard that the falls are easy an easy hike and weren't all that spectacular.

We drove to the trailhead, which is a pig farm and headed up the trail.


Unfortunately, we lost the trail right away and ended up hiking up the creek for a while (maybe 25 minutes) before we found the trail again.






After that it was only about 5 minutes or so hiking to the falls.

I was shocked by the falls. They're about 80 feet high and are pretty impressive. At the bottom, the pool is about 6 feet deep. It is really refreshing. There's not much cool water around here since the ocean is like bathwater. You can go swim under the falls. It was extremely pleasant.





Nate's shoes broke on the way back, so he improvised.


Then, after we got our excercise in, we made some spodde in the vat. It was pretty good and still was good later when it was recharged by wine and rum.


Ruth and Shelley went to a wedding and brought back a giant plate of food too:



On Father's Day, we hung out here and did nothing except watched dvds all day. We did leave the house for about 5 minutes to go to McDonalds. McDonalds is always packed, so it was shocking when we went there and there were zero cars in the parking lot. The place is usually packed even at 4am. We got the $15 family meal:


Last week, I was feeling much better and everything went mostly smoothly aside from traffic court which had a super long calendar. The weather has mostly been pretty cool for here lately.

Shelley's daughter Bonnie is in town to visit. On Friday we went to Rubbles Bar for dinner and then came back here and hung out.

Eventually there was dancing:


Saturday, we got up to go hiking. After some difficulty finding the trailhead, we made it to the place where you park, which is just on somebody's land. We asked some high school kids there if this was the way to Massacre Bay. They said, "you want to hike to Massacre Bay?" I informed them that they did and they said ,"are you sure?"

After some initial problems finding the trail (becuase you just walk by several peoples' houses and through their yards), we started down the hill.

For this hike, you drive to the highest point (I think) that you can get to by car on the island and head down towards the north side. At the top is about the nicest place to live that there is on the island. There are tremendous views from there and the air is noticably cooler.



The trail was muddy and really steep in portions. It was kind of hard to keep from falling down in many places. Bonnie did almost the entire hike down barefoot though. It didn't even seem to faze her and she jumped from fallen log to fallen log a few times.


It took us about an hour and forty minutes to scramble down to the bay. It is a very nice place.




We swam in the water for quite a while and then explored around the area. There are old fales there which are pretty run down. There's also a monument to some French sailors that were killed, hence the Massacre part. Apparently, during the 1700s a French ship was in town and things were going ok. When they were heading out, they decided to show off their guns and shot over the heads of the Samoans. This was taken as a threat and the Samoans attacked the ship before it could leave. 38 Samoans got killed, but because of the slow reloading of guns back then, a bunch of Frenchies got beaten to death with clubs as well. The French put up a monument there:

Towards one end of the bay a cool stream flows into the ocean.

The hike back nearly started badly by losing the trail, but luckily Markus was paying attention to where we were going.

We made it to the top in about the same time as we took to get down.

Don was massacred by the hike.




But, he made it.

Since last I posted, I've learned that the best sandwiches on the island (by a long, long, long ways) are at the hospital cafeteria. I've now been there 3 times for lunch. Most sandwiches here have one slice of Carl Buddig meat with not much else and on a tiny piece of bread. The hospital versions are piled so high you can hardly eat it.

This weekend, our Association activity director was off island and we didn't have anything planned by Friday morning. I thought maybe it would end up being a weekend to just relax and do nothing. Then poker @ the Keyser Palace with skip and go nakeds was suggested. There wasn't much interest in the poker, but Samoa Steve was interested in the skip and go nakeds--- and it was his birthday, so we did that.

skip and go nakeds are drinks. You make them in some sort of a vat. The ingredients are vodka, beer, pink lemonade, and ice. Sound bad? It isn't, especially after you have had a couple.

Gonzalo assigned himself the job of causing everyone to drink a ladle at a time.

Which results in:
Trogdor the Burninator









Then Gonzo finished it up.


Steve and Jeff wanted to go to the bowling alley after the S&GNs were pretty much gone. Merideth (Jeff's wife for non assn. people)thought that Jeff probably should not go. Steve objected to Jeff not going, so in order to get his point across, he walked up to the table where the vat was and moved it off of the table. He then walked back to the other end of the patio and picked up a broom and put it between his legs, like a witch. Next was a running charge ending with flying through the air onto and through the table.

Hilarious. Plus, it worked- they both got to go to the bowling alley.

During the day Saturday there was a sports festival at Utelei Beach, which is downtown near where I work. Check out this sign.



Later on in the afternoon we played sloshball, but I didn't bring my camera. The game came down to the last at bat yet again. This time the good guys lost.
After the game, we came back to my place for a BBQ and bonfire. That was pretty fun. Here are some videos of the bonfire being vaulted and jumped over:













I paid for those videos though. Right before they were going to make the first attempt, I realized I needed my camera so I ran inside for it. Once in side I was running to where the camera was so as to not miss these first degree burn defying acts and I smashed my little toe into the leg of my table- breaking it (the toe).

Sunday I went hiking to Fogatele Bay. It is a marine sanctuary area that is reachable from at least a couple routes, but ours was probably a 3 mile one way hike, which would have been easy if not for my toe- but it still wasn't that bad. It was a beautiful day, and I brought my camera, but failed to charge it=no pictures.

Friday night there was a hilarious video of Gonzalo dancing, which he deleted, so I am only left with this poor imitation:

Movie reviews:

A Scanner Darkly:
This movie is a cartoon of live actors where the cartoon looks like the actors. It was kind of cool for a while. But, the story kind of drags on and isn't resolved very well or thoroughly at the end. 4

300:
Apparently back in the day wolves' eyes lit up like headlights at night...I did not know that. This movie certainly takes some liberties with reality, but it is a good story and is entertaining. The ending is just ok. Girls will like it becacuse standard issue battle gear was the same uniform now used by the Chippendales. Overall though, it isn't bad- 5.5

I am pretty encouraged by the Mariners lately. Their starting pitching still sucks, but they just keep winning. They wouldn't have won very many of these games during the past few seasons. There seems to be a great improvement. Right now they are 4 back of the Angels and 1 back of the wild card. If they are close to making the playoffs, I think they'll have to put Morrow in the rotation. A 3 man playoff rotation of Felix, Washburn, and Morrow might not be too bad at all. Weaver pitched the other day and didn't suck too bad.

I'm sick today. If we weren't so understaffed, I would definitely have called in sick today. If I'm still sick on Wednesday, I might be able to not go in if a couple hearings get waived- which I think they will (are you reading this Ruth?).

))-><-((

Since the last post, the week finished out at court without anything happening that you would probably care very much about. That makes almost four months of that so far. It is still too cold and too long at court. This weekend, we played poker (ahem, which I won) on Friday and I had one or two beers. Saturday, I didn't do a whole lot, but I did get to see 2 more Entourage episodes courtesy of Nate. Saturday night, a few of us hung out here. Sunday, I didn't do too much aside from having a delicious dinner courtesy of Sean and Jessi and I watched a couple movies at Weaver's house.

It was pretty rainy and stormy much of last week. The surf was the highest and roughest since I've been here. I didn't take any pictures or videos of that, but I did take a picture of another bus. So, let's say you are thinking of going into the transportation business. You want to name and decorate your vessel appropriately and the idea of painting a picture of your bus on your bus is already taken, what name would you choose?


Titanic, of course. I don't have a picture yet, but there are two of these. The other one has a picture of the Titanic sinking. I think they should have been a little more original and gone with Hindenburgh, Challenger, or Lusitania.

Here's another great idea, the London Olympics logo. Whuuuuut?


This note was left for me upon my arrival from Upolu with Adrian and Meg. I've been meaning to put it up here. Everyone who knows me knows that this must be some sort of joke since I am always organized and have these sort of things.


Here's Ed the dog having her own rave:


Movie reviews:
Me You and Everyone Else We Know:

This is a really weird movie. There is one scene that is one of the weirdest I've ever seen. You should see it, but just know that it is WEIRD and somewhat over the line. It's a hard one to rate. I'm going with 7.3 right now for originality.

Capote:
I fell asleep. Not because of the movie so much as the fatigue. I'll have to try again at a later date.

The M's are doing well right now because of their offense. The starting pitching still sucks, but if the offense can keep this up until the pitching gets settled down, they'll be in good shape. Jeff Weaver is back soon; Friday I think. Yuk. I hope he is fixed, but I fear that he'll keep up the sucking for a few more starts until he is cut and the M's eat the $8M. Ideally, once he sucks, he'll accept a demotion to AAA. Then, maybe later on in the summer he can have one last chance.

This weekend, I have no plans. Any suggestions?

Late Happy Birthdays to Shane and Jerry. Here's a song for you that you might not have heard for a while: Here