Court in the Time of Cholera

I didn't feel very well the last day in Savai'i. Then the Tuesday back at work, I could bearly make it in. If there was anyone available who could have reasonably covered for me, I wouldn't have gone in. It was pretty miserable. Then I was mostly sick all week and the next weekend.
The next Sunday night/Monday morning I was super sick. I thought it was food poisoning, but now think it was something like giardia. It was BY FAR the worst sort of intenstinal distress I've ever had. We had eruptions from both ends. Not so nice. I couldn't physically make it in on Monday and I actually called in sick Monday and Tuesday.
About this time my normal, semi-messed up ankles (from mosquito bites and itching) got horrendous. My ankles and calves were disgusting oozing messes that were all swollen up and looked like smallpox. I think that when my immune system bas busy thing to bust the cholera, it let in the leg infection. I should have taken a picture then.
I was better Wednesday and went to work. Thursday, I was back to Tuesday status. I went to work and had court all day- but it was pure torture...just awful. Friday was merely not so good. I slept and did nothing Friday after work. Saturday, I felt better and helped Ruth move, but by the end of it I was exhausted at about 5pm. So, to avoid having my ankles amputated and to avoid dying from cholera/disentery, I broke down and Nate took me to the hospital. They gave me some antibiotics. Things were dramaically improved by Monday. Naomi had the great pleasure of keeping my disgusting ankles covered in fresh bandages. Sorry about that. Now I'm getting close to being back to normal. Even my leg rot has mostly healed. But, it was good times.

My Vonage phone is still down. I'm hoping to remedy that tonight or at least this weekend. We'll see. My cell phone got stolen so at the moment I don't have that either. My home phone is 684.699.8221, but hopefully I'll only need to use that until tonight when my vonage gets fixed. We shall see.

Maybe my sickness was caused by the Mariners. What the hell was that? Say you are leading the wild card race and trail the division leaders by a game or two going into a series with the division leader, what do you want to do? Lose 17 out of 22 games? Well that's how the M's went about it. Simply inexcusable. They have to get rid of Bavasi. We could have gotten something for Soriano or made him a starter instead of ending up with probably the worst starter in the league Horacio Ramierez. I like MacLaren, but I think he probably has to go as well. There's Bobby Valentine, Tony LaRussa, Joey Cora, Larry Bowa, and Joe Girardi. Pick one of them and get a new GM.
The pitching problems are harder to fix. They have Felix, Washburn, and Batista. They need 2 more. Maybe Morrow can be one. The other? Here's who could be decent and available:
Bartolo Colon (hurt- so the M's will probably get him)
Freddy
Jason Jennings (this would be my pick)
Matt Clement
Kenny Rogers
Livan Hernandez
and that's about it. The rest either suck (worse) and/or won't leave their team.

I'm pretty impressed with the Dawgs so far. It is great that they thrashed Syracuse and beat Boise. The Syracuse game was even on TV here. That was fantastic. They could have beaten Ohio State as well if those two bad plays in the 3rd didn't happen.
This week: UW 30 UCLA 24

Seahawks: Blech! They haven't lost a game that the had won like that since all 3 of those Rams games and the Cowboy game of 3 years ago.
Hawks 38
Cincy 20

Special shout out to Zach Bays: How about those Irish? I think I have 12 more rushing yards so far this season than their entire team; though I am tied with them for wins.

Labor Day weekend, Ruth, Fred, Nikki, and I went to Savai'i in Western Samoa. On Friday though we stayed in Apia and went to Apalua Hights restaurant. It is a fantastic place in this big old mansion overlooking the city. They have terrific food as well. At least I think they do. I'm afraid I've lost my ability to tell what is actually good here since the quality is somewhat less at most places on Tutuila than say the Palace Kitchen (or the Pastime). Anyway, I think I might have had the best sashimi ever there. Really, it was incredibly fresh and as soft as butter. I also had filet mignon which came with 2 filets. Sashimi appetizer, filet mignon and about 4 drinks at the nicest place in the country ran me about $25 or so with tip.

Saturday "morning" we went to the market and then headed to the ferry dock to get to Savai'i.

See our ferry?


That is because the 1pm ferry left at 1240. Nice. We got there at 1245. So, we had to wait until 4, take that ferry,
and then when we got there, the rental car place was closed so we had to take a cab all the way across the island to our place at Vaisala. Savai'i is the largest Polynesian island except for New Zealand and the big island of Hawai'i.

Vaisala is nice though. Nice little beach and pretty decent rooms. The food was ok. I'd rate it slightly more comfortable than a fale resort, but not as cool because you're not in a fale right by the water. Also the food is not inclusive so it is more than 2x as expensive and the food isn't up to Lalomanu fale standards. It is still a cool place, it is just that Lalomanu is awesome.

(I tried to grow a beard)

The next day, we got our rental car delivered to us and checked out the northwest corner of the island where we climbed up a giant banyan tree and took a canopy walk. It is super high up there. I don't think the pictures can really get across how high it really is.






The banyan trees in the pictures got their tops ripped off by Hurricane Val several years ago.


Then we drove to the end of the world.

Around here is the closest you can get on land to the end of the day. The international date line is not too far off the coast. Can you see it?


Then we went to the little town of Manase on the north coast of the island and stayed in fales there. That was a really nice place.



We had a good time hanging out with a cool couple from New Zealand there.


And Fred made some kava:



The next day we headed to the ferry to go back to Upolu. On the way we stopped at this place where you can swim with tons of huge turtles. The turtles are very interested in people.


The market in Savai'i is hilarious. It looks like something you might find in Afghanistan or something. It is definitely wayyyyyyyyyyyy more ridiculous and crappy than anything I've seen in Mexico. They pretty much don't have anything you'd want unless you really need to do some laundry by hand. The floor is mud. The stalls are just jammed together and all have the same things. There are dogs running all over and half of the place is taken up by guys just sitting around playing checkers and smoking- crammed together at sawhorse tables in the mud. I actually enjoyed it though, it looked like I was definitely somewhere foreign. I guess I do live a long way from anywhere.




I didn't feel too good that day. I don't know if I was already getting sick from bad tap water (giardia has been suspected) or if I was about to eat was what actually got me in the future. We went to this 'restaurant' with precooked food sitting out and since I was starving I had some of it- though nothing looked good. My policy about eating things in foreign countries or from vendors is usually take zero precautions. I've gotten food poisoning from this a total of 2 times in my life from a Mexican place in Greece and from a Mexican place in Seattle. Neither place is known for delectible Mexican food. This crap I got was scrambled eggs with sausage and curry chicken. The curry chicken was way below par but edible. The eggs were repellant. Blech. One of the worst items I've ever eaten (look out rotten egg nog).

So we got on the ferry. This time it was the small ferry. The small ferry is about the size of a tugboat. It clearly was not made for hauling passengers. There are a couple plastic chairs on deck. Otherwise there are wood boxes (supposedly full of life preservers). We picked some boxes and sat down.
They looked like good boxes because it had started to rain and they were under cover. And then...


The drainage features of the Lady Samoa II were highlighted. The basic thinking with this engineering is to let the water build up on the top deck and then once the level gets to the inch or two level of the lip around the top deck, just let that water drain wherever. If there are any palagis available, that's the place to drain it. So, we were maximum drenched, sitting in a waterfall for the 90 minute ferry ride. I was cold- which would have been a plus if the ride was 10 minutes, since you are never cold in Samoa.

eclipse

It was a nice night for the lunar eclipse.
These pictures and video probably suck, but here you go...hope you like crap.

Up to Aug 19

Weave left us on our island to go work for the man. Of course, I hear that they have real restaurants in Chicago and they actually pay enough that he's already bought a house. Whatever. I bet they don't have all you can eat papaya there.

To date, Weave's going away party was the last event that the Assciation actually organized and did anything somewhat planned.
The Friday before Weave's Sunday flight, Nate took the day off work and decorated my porch like a Samoan fale would be decorated for a fa'lavelave. A fa'lavelave is pretty much any big family event, but is usually a funeral or wedding. The whole practice is now a cause of many problems because people are expected to give a ridiculously large portion of their income to these. For example, I had to give $200 for my deceased boss's fa'lavelave even though I hadn't been paid yet at the time and had never met him. Then when it was over, they gave us back $40 and a bag of frozen chicken...very strange, very complicated. Family members that make much, much less than me had to give much, much, much more. Partially for this reason, you see a ton of brand new $45k trucks around the island because if you have the money saved, you'll have to give it at a fa'lavelave so they figure they might as well get something for the money.
Anyway, Nate did a great job getting the place together.


The idea was to treat the going away party like a funeral. We picked up Weave at his house and had a funeral procession around Tafuna. He got to ride parade style in Barbie. Don Shaw provided "police escort" with his scooter.


When someone dies here, you make a t-shirt and buttons to memorialize them. So Nate set that up for everyone as well. Pretty great.


Everyone took turns giving offerings to the spirit of Weave. In Samoan style, the host gives some things back to the offerer. Weave usually did this in the form of making people drink.
Nate served as high bullshit talking chief and was hilarious... and did a fairly accurate representation of some Samoan speeches I've seen. The key there is emphasis by repetition emphasis by repetition emphasis by repetition emphasis by repetition emphasis by repetition, like you say the same things over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until the audience gets it and/or falls asleep.




We tried to make it as authentic as possible, so Nate also got a #2 size pig for the event:


Everyone brought a ton of food:

There was also plenty brought to drink as well:





The next night, we played poker and Weave won.

Sunday night there was another really big turnout for his final going away before catching the plane...and then he was gone.

Everyone already really misses Weave. The Association now has no direction. So get on it Mike and tell us what we're doing this weekend!

On August 19, the M's were in first place in the wild card and 2 games behind the Angels in the west.

Internet is still down at home. It is down at other people's houses too, so it isn't just my fault with trying to password protect my wireless, now it is the internet company too. Bad news is that I can't use my Vonage either. Good news is that since it is down, it forwards calls to my cell phone.

I haven't given up on the M's yet, but they are very frustrating. If they can turn this around and make this the last losing streak of the year, they can still recover, but it has to stop now.

UW 27
BSU 23

Seahawks 41
TB 17

My internet at home is messed up so I haven't been able to update since last week. It is possible it will be fixed today, but we'll see.

Great job by the Huskies. Boise is screwed!

Fantasy Football Draft Today

So make sure you are signed up and ready to go!

It is at 8pm Pacific (4pm Samoa).
What time is that in B.Farmerland? midnight?

Ack! The M's are losing again right now. This is a huge game. If they lose again, they're almost out of the AL West race. Win and they're still within 3 and they keep it managable. Why do they ever pitch to Vladimir?