Pacific Arts Festival 2

I'm a little worn out. It was great that we actually had things to do on a nightly basis. But, it is just a week and a half of events, so most people felt like we better see as much as we can while it is here, so you end up staying out late (by American Samoa standards) every night.

So, did the miracle weather and overall lack of problems despite the overall lack of planning continue?

Amazingly it did. It had rained so often during the past few months; I can't recall 24 hours without rain since April or so. I think it rained maybe one hour during the entire festival. And not just no rain, it continued on with the best weather since I have been here. About 78-82 every day, low humidity, lots of sun. It has been great. The arts festival participants along with the passengers of a huge cruise ship that was in for a day got the best face of this island. They will surely tell their friends this place is an island paradise.

Here are some pictures from the Arts Festival:











OK, wait, why was I worried about this? Well, you can read back on some other accounts of problems here, but on the lighter side, here are some of the pre (ok, when I say pre, I mean, maybe finished the day before or even the 2nd day of the festival) festival decorations:









OK, back to festival pictures:










When Taiwan got done, their leader yelled: " yay Samoa, go! go! go!" It was hilarious and ridiculous, but she was very enthusiastic and a big hit with the crowd:







Torabind Islanders (between Australia and Papua New Guinea).


"my hat is like a shark's fin"
Torabind Islanders are huge LL fans.


In the middle of the festival was Oscar's birthday party at his house. It was a 70s/toga theme. Doug, Nate, and I tried to do both. It was fun, as are most events at Oscar's.




Doug got tired:


Have you had pulse energy drink/liquor drink? Anyway, I had 2 and by the time I got home, I figured it was around 1am or so. Yeah, it was 6. I was first alerted to this possibility when I noticed it getting light while I was jabbering at Naomi and torturing her by preventing her ability to sleep with said jabbering. So, it was probably reasonable that Doug was tired. Happy Birthday Oscar!

And, some more arts festival:



The festival officially ended yesterday.



It was supposed to end on Saturday, but the Governor had to go to the coronation of the new king of Tonga, so it was cut short. That is just ridiculous. But, with the festival not being a disaster, the gov probably is looking pretty good for re-election (if you believe that very many people vote for who they want---I'll get into this later). Looking good because of the festival working out well in general, but even more for the fireworks. These were some of the best fireworks I've ever seen. Imagine having a fireworks display for 4th of July at a medium size American town (maybe somewhere between Longview, WA and Redding, CA). Then put yourself IN the fireworks. This was a decent display for a town that size, but the fireworks only got shot about 50 feet off the ground before they blew up. It was really cool, and a little scary, but mostly just great:


Add to this that a lot of people had never seen fireworks before. It was aweseome! People just screaming because either they had never seen these in person before, or didn't know fireworks like this even existed.

It was too bad that the finale happened on a Wednesday and everyone had to go to work the next day because everyone was really jacked up after the fireworks and possibly could have stayed up all night.


Movie reviews:

The Devil and Daniel Johnston:
(groan) I remember watching Jeepers Creepers with Seigel and both of us were pissed about the time the movie ended. He said something like, "WTF? I guess you can just throw any pile of crap idea for a movie at a studio and get it made". Well, that's kind of how I felt at the end of this one. No, not the end, the whole thing. This movie is really not good. Don't watch it. It isn't entertaining because of it's awfulness. It is just crap. This is a documentary about a crazy guy that some people think is famous and some sort of a music God. There are only two groups of "famous" bands and people that I've ever even heard of however. One of them is Sonic Youth. OK. The other one is Butthole Surfers. I saw Butthole Surfers once in college and that was a pretty decent show. But, Butthole Surfers were playing at a UW Kappa Sigma party. Anyway, that was the best part. Don't watch it! Just because it is so weird, and not horribly done, I give it a 1.

Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay:
Dumb! Really really dumb! Not believable. Totally inappropriate humor. Also, pretty funny: 6.5

Everything is Illuminated:
Not too boring, not too exciting. Kind of weird (in a good way), but not funny enough to be really good. If you run out of movies to watch, this might be tolerable: 3.8

Ms/Trade deadline:
I think the Ms got a fine deal for Rhodes.
I don't know what was really offered for Ibanez. If it was 2 major leaguers, I can only guess they were ones that Toronto wanted to get rid of, so no problem with not taking that deal. I can't believe the Ms weren't approached about making Ibanez part of the Manny deal; maybe they preferred Bay, I don't know. But, if the Ms got the same offer the Pirates got, we should have taken it: again, just speculation.
Washburn: If the Yankees offered Gardner and Igawa for Washburn, I don't know why we didn't take it. Gardner could be good, could be worthless; probably he'll end up like J.Reed, but it is better than nothing. Igawa probably won't be great, but he could be decent and still, he makes about $8M less than Washburn.
WHY ARE CAIRO AND VIDRO STILL ON THE ROSTER????????? Cairo even started today! What is going on!??!! I'd rather see us lose all the rest of our games this year than see Vidro or Cairo start another game. If Riggleman is trying to win games to keep his job, he's losing any chance to keep it, at least in my mind.

It'll be August 1 by the time you read this: my birthday!

Oh, and in honor of my birthday, the Governor gave us a day off Monday. Don't you get Monday off? Really, we need it from all the arts viewing. Now if they could only mix in some things to do and see throughout the year...

Pacific Arts Festival

So far, it is a miracle. No humanitarian disasters yet. Lots of the venues here would be mudholes and the audiences (should they show up) would be drenched if it rained. But, after months of routinely bad weather, it has been perfect weather, with the exception of a little drizzle for maybe an hour a couple nights ago.

Yesterday was probably the best weather day since I've been in Samoa. 79 degrees, low humidity (comparatively), and almost no clouds (very rare here). I was sick though and didn't get to enjoy it, but it looks like today is about as nice and I'm feeling much better after 11 hours of sleep and pretty much resting all day yesterday after a very brief morning court appearance.

Also, the Arts Festival events have been really great and entertaining. It is such a novelty in the first place to have a bunch of people walking around that you don't know, but the performances have been very interesting and the groups are so friendly and happy to have people interested in their culture and art, it has made for a really fun time so far.





The internet is so slow today that I'm going to have to cut my update short here because I have to go. It took about 3 hours for it to finally upload just these pictures.

I'll have more later.






Now I'm off to Oscar's (and sort of my) birthday party at his house. It should be really fun.

Update for Goat Island review:
It can't be a 9.5 and 6 or whatever. We went again, the service was unbelievably bad even for here. As bad as the Deluxe Cafe. The food was also nothing special this time. I was pretty disappointed. So, like most places (every place except Sook's, McD, and Carl's), it is inconsistent at best. So I'm going to have to lower it to 7 on island (still is a nice location) and 3 or so off-island, though my last experience was a -10.

OK, I have to go

Food poisoning

I think. Either that or some flu type thing has been kicking my ass from the inside the past couple days.

I left my camera at Samoa Steve's place I think, so I'll have to retrieve it before I can add some more pictures. This weekend was not super eventful, but mostly enjoyable. Golf Friday. It continued to be bad weather here, so we played Risk most of the day Saturday. Then Saturday night we went to Liz & Markus's wedding reception put on by Liz's co-workers. That was pretty impressive. It was quite a production, and all done by her co-workers without any request or expectation on Liz's part. They had tons of food, a live band, and had 2 sets of traditional outfits made for Liz & Markus.

Then Saturday night around midnight, I started to feel not so good. Yesterday, I pretty much couldn't move. I even had a fever, which is pretty rare for me. Today is better, but still, I can't go to work, unless I can work from the restroom, which if you've seen the restrooms at my office, you'd think is not a viable option.

Check out Jeremy's blog. He got to go to China for work. Pretty cool.

Manu'a Flag Day

We got today off from work to commemorate the anniversary of the islands of Ofu, Olosega, and Ta'u joining Tutuila under U.S. control.
I think having Wednesdays off should be made a more permanent feature of work weeks.

Today Team Puppy (Matt, Doug, Naomi, and I) did a couple of short hikes. First we went to the hospital to eat lunch, but of course the cafeteria was closed for the very important holiday. So we hit the hike which starts in a rock quarry (very safe looking excavation) back behind the hospital.

There is a lower falls and pool, which we thought was it.

At the top of the falls we walked around a little and around the corner of the creek, there's another falls.




Today was another really cool weather day (maybe a high of 78). We got in the pool, but it was a little chilly due to us not being used to a heat index under 90.


Here's Matt jumping in:

Afterwards we went up to the big WWII guns that are on the west side of the harbor (there are apparently some on the east side as well). This is a newly cleaned up tourist attraction.
There's a shantytown on the way to the guns.

It is really nice at the top of the hill though:


There is another gun up there as well that hasn't been restored yet.


Check out this very safe, permanent, and professional wire stringing job we noticed up near the guns:


At Sadie's by the Sea, they recently finished building their new restaurant named the Goat Island Cafe!!!

Restaurant Review: Goat Island Cafe
It is really hard to believe that this place is on Tutuila. It feels like you're in Western or some other place. It is nice in there, there is outdoor seating and sliding glass walls. You would think that in such a warm place, there would be many locations to sit and eat outside. Incredibly there are hardly any.
Maliumai has outdoor seating, but their food (aside from their poke) is not edible. The food at the Goat is good. We were all shocked and spent about two hours there on a little mini-vacation from Pago. On island: 9.5 Off-island 6





The other day a whale was apparently stuck on the reef near my house. Some local kids hauled it in. Guess what happened to the whale next?

If you guessed: (x) tie its tail to a rock, you were correct.

It died of course, but according to Alden and April(in this picture with the whale) it was probably from being attacked by other animals at sea.

Naomi is getting pretty good at Bust a Move

69 degrees

This morning it was 69 degrees! I for sure didn't think it would get close to under 70 while I was here. Also it rained as hard as I've ever seen rain today.

And as a followup to the cleanup post. People mostly were through "working" by 10am and then everyone went home then. And, the DPW guys were just hanging out mostly watching people clean up trash from their trucks. Oh, except a few guys also illegally mined sand from the beach and also bulldozed part of a creek (but they were sure to leave the trash in it)

ASG! Yay!

75 degrees

I'm freezing. Right now it is the coldest it has been my whole time here. 75 degrees. I'm still wearing a t shirt and shorts, but I'm considering putting on sweats.

This last weekend we had a good sloshball game, a bonfire, and then hiked to Palagi Beach on Sunday. Pretty good.

Some pictures...
Wyland, the muralist (apparently he's famous, though I hadn't heard of him prior to being here) came down a few months ago and put this mural on my office building for the Pacific Arts Festival:

Some local Seahawks grafitti:

Alden breaking out some music:

Naomi's temporary tattoo for Rutger Day (ask her what that is):


Swimming in a little pool near sliding rock:

Action shot of Barbie by the canneries:

Planting a little garden:

Lunch at Sook's:



Outrigger paddling:



Restaurant review:
Crap fast food stand in Tafuna
On the main Tafuna road if you're coming from the main road towards the airport, you pass KT2 mart and then right before a stretch of road with no buildings on it is a little stand on your left. They have the usual really bad local fast food, but they also have a sign for fish and chips. Naomi had the fish and chips, I had some fried chicken. I'm pretty sure that was the worst fried chicken I've ever had (including when I tried to make my own and burnt the hell out of it while making a giant grease mess). I'm positive that the fish AND the chips are both the worst I've ever tasted of either and could possibly be the worst thing labeled as food that I've had the misfortune of eating--- strike that, tasting because it was so bad I had to spit it out. Horrendous isn't strong enough. ZERO

Do you all have big plans for Manu'a Flag Day? It is Wednesday. I actually forgot that we had a holiday this week until yesterday, so it is a nice surprise 4 day week.

Island Cleanup

The government has a very large Department of Public Works that is supposed to build and maintain roads, keep the trash picked up, keep the public areas' brush trimmed, and lawns mowed.
The road projects don't get done by DPW, so the government has to contract that out. (they recently contracted out the re-paving of a 1.5 mile stretch of road for $8.1M)

DPW was supposed to rebuild the public market. But then they realized they'd have to do some work, so after tearing down the roof, they wanted to burn the debris. This is old roofing materials that may contain asbestos. There is probably 4-5 pickup truck loads of debris. I know because I've had about 7 months of looking at it. DPW asked EPA for a waiver to burn it because they said it was too hard to pick up the debris and haul it away. EPA denied that. So they kept asking for a waiver. EPA said no. DPW said it is too hard then and they can't do it. Instead of forcing DPW to do their job, ASG contracted out the re-building of the public market. (this is probably a 4000 square foot space, but the contract is for over $1M)

So what does DPW do? Nothing. There is a washed out section of road on my drive to work. It has been that way for a long time before I moved. Instead of fixing it, when it washes out and is full of nearly impassible potholes, DPW leaves it for a week or so, then they throw on a truckload of dirt to smooth it out. Guess what happens when it rains again?

Anyway, you would think DPW would have plenty of time to pick up trash and keep things neat looking around the island. You'd be DEAD WRONG. They do none of that. Even the Governor has had to hire a private yard service to keep up the brush around the entrance to the residence. So with the upcoming humanitarian disaster (Pacific Arts Festival), the Gov has decided that the island needs to have some of it's trash picked up. So tomorrow every ASG employee is supposed to go to their assigned location around the island and pick up trash and trim the brush. This starts at 8am. I have court at 9 so I don't have to do it. But this situation is ultra-pathetic. Plus, I don't expect the showing-up rate ASG wide to be much more than 50% tomorrow, nor do I expect the "work day" to last past 10am. This place just doesn't stop amazing!

The last time we played sloshball, it rained, but we played anyway. The weather looks pretty bad for this weekend here, but we're playing again. Here's a picture from last time.



Also, I figured out how to get N64 games onto my Xbox. I now have Mario Kart64 and Bust a Move 2. Woohoo!

4th of July

I hope everyone had a nice 4th. No fireworks at all here because they're illegal. Aside from that problem, it was a pretty great weekend.

Golf on Thursday after work.

Friday, pretty much all day BBQ/party at Matt's. He hung out in the pool, played bacci ball, ate lots of food, and had no beer shortage. It was just a nice, fun, relaxing day.

Friday was so nice just hanging out and really not doing too much, Matt, Doug, and I pretty much hung out all day, watched a couple of movies and did nothing else. It was great.

Saturday night, Oscar had everyone over for a going away party for Ayla at the Mexican compound. Oscar just went crazy with the cooking and being a fabulous host, as always. Some of the best ribs ever and tons of other great food. Great party/girls doing shots- probably the best party in a while.

Sunday was another big day of hanging out by the pool.

Happy birthday to my sister Meg. She's an old donkey now.

Movie review:

Wall-E. For a movie with pretty much no words for an hour, it does a good job of holding your attention. This movie is much less of a comedy and a kids movie than the other Pixar movies. I thought it was pretty high quality. Also, I liked it because the spaceship part reminded me of Samoa. 8

Music review: Djavan. I'd never heard of him until a story about him on The World (the best radio show www.theworld.org ). Check it out. All I have right now is Ao Vivo vol. 2 and that is great.

Sonics are still gone, M's still suck, otherwise things are pretty good here.

I didn't take my camera this weekend, so I'll have to wait until Naomi gets her pictures from her camera for some 4th pictures.

Here are just a few I took recently:

Uggggghhhhhhh

What the hell?

I mean really. What was Nickels thinking?

a. I watched that trial, and you know what, Oklahoma deserves a basketball team.
b. Eh, it'll be fine, we'll just get the Celtics in here no problem, and everything will be just fine.
c. I'm really tired of being mayor. I wish I would do something really stupid and pointless so I could lose my job.

Of all the horrible low points with the Sonics:


This is much worse. And it makes it worse that it was self-caused. The city sure looked to me like it was going to win the lawsuit. The city certainly should have anyway. They showed what they had to show to win the case.

But, instead of fighting, they just took $45M. After Nickels said it wasn't about money, just pathetic. Sounds kind of like A Rod to me. Except far less understandable.

$45M over the 10 or so years the city is without a team is 4.5M per year. Regardless of what you think the Sonics bring to the local economy, it probably at least exceeds that amount. So why do this?

There should have been plenty of time to think out the eventualities of what to do if the city receives whatever offer. There is no reason and no excuse for a time crunch caused horrible decision. Even a complete loss at trial with the Sonics paying zero is preferable to giving up. At least then the city could appeal and force the team to stay here for 2 more years while the Schultz lawsuit could play out and possibly (probably) Bennett's friend David Stern would step in and work out a settlement so that OKC gets an expansion team right away. Instead, Nickels gave all the options up for essentially nothing. Great job.

Here's the mayor with Ernest Borgnine:


Oh, I guess it is councilwoman Jan Drago (who actually bought into Bennett's lie that he'd move the Sonics to Vegas if it turned out OKC wouldn't work out---please, his plan all along was (quite obviously) to move the team to OKC).

Just disgusting!