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

Ofu 2

We wanted to leave Friday night, but Samoa being Samoa, that was just not possible. They were taking empty flights to another island (Ta'u) about 6 miles from Ofu to pick people up, but they couldn't arrange it to drop us off on Ofu after work on Friday. So, we left Saturday morning.



Here's an arial view of Tutuila where I live:


We got to the lodge and headed pretty much straight to the beach, which is right there. The end of the runway is about 40 yards from the lodge. Then from the lodge, it is about 80 yards across a nice lawn to the beach.

In the above picture there's a tornado thinking about coming down and picking up one of those dogs. That's the first real funnel cloud I've ever seen.

On the other side of the lodge is about 1200 or so foot sheer cliffs. It is a spectacular setting. You can see white birds flying around way up the cliffs. It kind of looks like the opening sequence when you first see the island on Jurassic Park (hard to get across in this picture though).


You can just go walk and hang out on the airport runway too. Here's me doing that with a sour apple blowpop:



The water is just fantastic. There is so much colorful coral and fish that you can see them just standing out there without a snorkle. We hung out by the lodge beach for a few hours and you could see neon blue fish swimming around you the whole time. I can't fully explain how clear the water is and how fantastic the snorkling is at Ofu.

Then we headed to another stretch of the beach about a mile or so away. It was (as always) really warm out, which doesn't get across in this picture. It actually was a nice day too, come clouds just had rolled in by the time I took this picture as we left to go back to the lodge:


Where the little jagged mountain and the big mountain come to the water in the above picture, there's a channel which seperates Ofu island from Olosega island. There is a bridge connecting the two islands:


When you jump off the bridge, this is the water you're going into:




Here's Weave, Me and Fred jumping off the bridge between Ofu and Olosega.



Once you jump off there's a little beach at the bottom, but even better there's a large area where the water is maybe 3-4 feet deep where you can just hang out in the water. We did that for a long time. It was a great day.

After most of the day by the bridge, we drove over to Olosega village.



Staying at the lodge comes with meals as well which are very good. We even had Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday night. That was great.

Sunday night we got a fire going on the beach after our poker game finished (ahem, which I won). There was tons of gigantic lightning strikes and flashes in the distance, but mostly the rain left us alone.

Then Monday we headed back home. Here's Ofu from the air (and at an angle):



Today was AWFUL at court. There were something like 30 initial appearances. I think the most I'd had before was 16. The morning session got done at about 1255, just in time for traffic court to start at 1.
Then, when I finally got back to the office at 345, our wonderful staff just let some lady come back to my office unnanounced. She sat down and told me how she wanted her domestic violence case against her husband dropped, and I told her for 20 minutes how I can't/won't do that. I'm exhausted. But, Tuesday is the worst day and it's over.

Movie Review:

Waiting for Guffman: This is an old movie, but I hadn't seen it. It's a Christopher Guest movie, like Best in Show and This is Spinal Tap. It wasn't too bad. The folk singer one was pretty excruciating, so I did not have high hopes for this one (about a small town play). But, it was pretty funny and not too boring. Better than Spinal Tap, not as good as Best in Show. 5.5

The M's seem to be playing better, but they coughed one up today. If they could just get the starting pitching turned around, they actually might have a chance. Amazingly, they are leading the league in batting.

If Ron Mexico gets suspended from the NFL for dog fighting he could probably set up shop out here. There are tons of extra dogs and they seem to like fighting.

Smoke on a plane

Smoke is no problem, yes? Ya ok.

The above is video from the Ofu-Tutuila(here) flight.

It really isn't smoke though, it is just steam because of the super high humidity here.

So this weekend Fred, Nikki, Weave, Naomi, Markus, Liz, and I went to Ofu. It is really, really, really nice there.
The place we stayed is right on the airport.

This is no problem at all since there is a max of 1 flight a day.


Ofu has a couple just spectacular beaches and the best snorkling I've ever seen. It really is incredible. The water kind of makes the other super clear water places I've been to here seem like a sewage treatment plant.



Also, there is an adjoining island, Olosega with a bridge between the islands that you can jump off. Here's a video of Markus and Liz doing that:



I'll add more pictures and info, but I'm tired right now; I just wanted to at least get something updated. Have a good Tuesday.

It is sunny and hot again today. The "cool" stretch was nice, but I was ready for some sun today. Jogging in the sun and heat makes running's usual suckiness even more severe, even when you're running very slowly.

While running, I had some time to think, and I decided that I should put Nate's videos in here.

So, here's what happens when a guy who drank 10 torpedoes is trying to talk with a guy who drank 9 torpedoes. Justin was asleep and Nate woke him up when he was done with his 10 and was trying to tell him that he'd beaten his 9. Enjoy:



Then, Nate went outside and was trying to get into his truck. Weave took me to McDonalds to get breakfast for the drunkards; when I left, Nate was on his tailgate trying to get into the back of the truck. When we got back, he was still there. Then he was trying to tell Maximo something about someone juicing fruit and making jelly or something, try to descipher it yourself:



Today was mostly clear of stink.

When it is raining here, there isn't a whole lot to do. So, that leaves us to do things that are dumb. I've mentioned it before, but Vailima is the "local" beer here. There are no brewerys in American Samoa, but there's Vailima in Western Samoa. It grows there. Right on the label it says "Produce of Samoa". They must use a lot of natural fertilizer on this crop becuase it really tastes like shit. Regardless, we went ahead and got alot of it.


Eight of us decided to take the Vailima challenge. In order to pass the challenge, you had to drink at least 5 torpedoes of Vailima between about 7pm and 7am the next day. Torpedoes are 750ml of the "special" imported version of Vailima. It is special because it tastes even worse than regular Vailima and it has 6.7% alcohol. You could go for the record if you liked. I finished 7 torpedoes by about midnight and decided that was enough.




Mike Keyser made the effort on this one:

though he ended at 3 1/2.

Justin managed to finish 9.


Nate sandbagged Justin. He stayed up waiting for Justin to pass out. This lated for a long time. Then, once he went to bed, Nate totally shafted him (and himself) by pounding 3 more torpedoes to make it 10 right around 7am. I hadn't even looked in the fridge until Nate was getting his last one. I was just shocked about how much Vailima was drank.


Once he had the record, we went over and woke up Weaver, who then took us to wake up Sharon. Sharon deserved it since she didn't show up for the contest. I have some video of Nate during this time, but I'm not sure if it is fit for the blog or not. You know the part when Farva is at the governor's party in Super Troopers? That's about how drunk he was (no puking though).


Then Maximo, Sharon, and I took the garbage walk to Airport Beach since we were already up. The garbage trail to Airport Beach really sucks. It is way longer and much more unpleasant than taking the blowhole route. I do not plan to ever take the garbage route again. The tide was all the way in and the water was rough, so we didn't stay too long. But we took the blowhole route to Maliamai and the blowholes were really huge because the tide was in. There were sprays probably 40 feet high out of some of them. Then Ben was kind enough to pick us up an Maliamai. I went to sleep from 11-3p and then I went to bed again at 730p.

You never know what you are going to get here. Samoa shafted me the other day. I was going to make Tzaziki dip for the Vailima Challenge because I finally found some plain yogurt at the store. It was $4.50 for one large container, but since I hadn't seen plain yogurt at all on island, I figured I should get it.


So I made the tzaziki and was looking forward to it the next day. I hadn't tasted it though. When I did, I noticed it was sweet! Why would you sweeten plain yogurt???? I just don't get it! Sweet tzaziki is not very good.

The M's won today I see. If they would have lost, I think that might have put Hargrove and Bavasi over the edge. This still leaves them 5.5 games out of 1st. That's dangerously close to too far out. If it gets to 8, they have to be gone.

This weekend, we're going to Ofu. Its another American Samoa island that I haven't been to yet. It's on the Travel Channel's list of best beaches in the world. http://travel.discovery.com/ideas/best-beaches/guides/region-list.html It isn't set yet if we are leaving Friday afternoon/evening or Saturday morning becuase that's the way things work here.

Movie review:

Night at the Museum
It has some funny parts and some cool effects. But, it is fairly cheesy and not all that exciting or entertaining. One part in particular was crappy: the girl in the movie has been writing a dissertation on Sacajawea for something like 3 years. Ben Stiller is talking to her about it and mispronounces Sacajawea. She corrects him, but she corrects him to the way most people say it. If you seriously were working on a book about someone for 3 years, and you were going to correct someone about how they said that person's name, wouldn't you at least get it right? I think yes, Night at the Museum says no. 4.5

Today's stink level was clear in the morning, then partly stinky midday, but clear again by mid afternoon.

I can't believe the Blazers got the #1 pick.

Check Weave's blog for more Vailima info and pics.

Sonics

Well, it looks like they are saved. Getting Durant will probably be exciting enough for someone to give them some money for a stadium.

The bad news is that the Blazers are now going to be the best team in the history of the NBA. They have young stars at every position and 2 deep at some.