Life is good...

Sunday is a big day for me, for all of us on Kwaj I guess.  I can't believe I made it thru without the nap that I've been taking.  I run around like an ant all week after work, then drink a little too much on Saturday, which amounts to 6 beers in 4 hours.  Last Saturday (Feb 14) we got off work early at 3:30.  I rode the bicycle I stole to the cafeteria where the only bike in the bike rack was mine.  I left the bike I stole there, grabbed mine headed to the Kwaj lodge and changed clothes and headed to the gym.  I did my normal half hour of intense workout, then headed to the pool to swim ten laps ( half mile).  I rode back to the lodge threw some laundry in the wash then rode back to town to buy a bike rack.  Then came back to put another load in and then head out to the other side of the island to my lab where the tools are, and put the rack on the back of my newly acquired bike, along with the homemade "basket".  Then I tried to get back quickly because the timing on the washing machines was running out and I didn't want to tie them up.  So I basically did a sprint triathalon after work...then went to the bar and drank a few beers....but made it to sleep by 9pm.  So Sunday....get up at 5am...mess around eat something then head to the beach for volleyball with the strict volley ball crowd at 8am...play til 11am....head to the cafeteria for lunch, eat, then head home to make phone calls back home then head to the marina...go out sailing for 4 hours.  Come back at 4:30, head to the cafeteria, eat, then go home shower and head to the beach for more volleyball.

LIFE...is good

Feb 20, 2015

what I'm about to say is a lifelong ambition of mine....I went surfing today after work.  That's it.  I have a 9' Dewey Weber surfboard that I bought a month ago.  Tonight ...I actually rode the thing...not like once but 8x.  Its a monumental feat in my mind...OH and here are some pics from last weekend.  I went sailing with a guy I met at the pool and his buddy who met us at the Marina.  While I waited on them to get there, because I'm too hyper to be on island time, I snapped some pics of the morning catch.  I'm fairly certain I just need to hang out there with some baggies to get some great filets.  Ono, Mahi mahi, tuna......its all good.   The pictures show mainly Ono....a fish I've never heard of before, but it tastes good.  There is a pic of the sharks that hang out in the marina to eat the scraps from the table where they clean the fish.  The other pics are of the small boat marina on a typical sunday morning.....and then there's a typical Sunday evening Sunset at Emon beach...

 

 

Feb 21, 2015...

 

I found a Thai lady on the island that gives massages.  John, the guy who sold me the nice surfboard, told me about her. It turns out she's his neighbor.  I show up on the bike and John's wife Christy is outside (its their anniversary John told me earlier that day when I called him to give him a surf report)(He said he couldn't go surfing).  She asked me if I was getting a massage.  I wonder if she knew that I knew it was their anniversary.  "Nee" answered the door.   She's a short, Thai woman, that I find out later is my age.  She and I were born in the year of the horse.  Apparently we are hard working hyper people.  I agreed.  She opened the door to their dome (Kwaj dome....no time to explain...) and I see a typical living room (except its round everywhere) with a gray balding guy who never looks up and I assume he is her husband.  Nee ushers me back to a bedroom where the massage table is set up next to a treadmill and maybe a gliding sort of thing used for excercise. 

 

It was a great massage.  Nee can't handle silence, which is fine.  Her broken English is completely understandable.  It was a great massage.  No complaints.  It's only my second professional massage so I don't have much to go on, except that the first will be hard to live up to.  I was so relaxed at the end of the first one that I just wanted to spend the night, right there.  Just shut the damned door and leave me.  She didn't.  Nee's massage was good, but despite getting only 5 hours of sleep the night before, I was not ready to sleep.  Maybe it was the way she crawled up on my back.

 

 

My (surf coach) Shawn invited me to go boating with 3 others tomorrow morning.  He's a good guy who would yell nicely while a wave was about to overtake me at the "Pit".  "GOGOGOGOGO!!!"  Ok so it's not so much coaching as it is cheerleading.  Regardless, I'm getting better.  Anyhow he invited me to a half day of recreational snorkeling off this rock.  Its good to get off this rock.  Here are some pics.  We snorkeled and his friend Tim had a spear fishing gun.  I was looking forward to him getting a fish, because it would mean the sharks come.  Maybe if I were the one shooting getting the fish back to the boat I wouldn't be wishing for sharks.  Only one showed up.  Tim said the sharks in these islands are "assholes".  Here are the pics.  Its a yellowfin tuna he shot , then an Ono he caught later on the line.  We are having a cookout Monday night to eat them.

 





 

 

 

 

 

March 1, 2015....

 

 

I took a walk today with a girl I met.  More about that some other time.  We walked Ocean side just up wind of the run way.  It was really hot, no wind, or very little.  On the way back we stepped out on to a beachy area and I got in the water.  I went in above my waist.  I've never felt current like that before.  I got knocked off balance and in a matter of seconds got swept about 60 feet down the beach before regaining my footing.  It kind of scared me.  One rip current and I would have been gone....well not gone...but out where the waves would have smashed me into the coral at the very least. 

 

 

March 6, 2015

 

 

Someone on the local "swap" posted a BC (buoyancy compensater ? along with an "air2" for $300.  At the shop it sells for $450.  So now I'm going to ad scuba to the list of things to do on the weekend.  Dammit.  There is way too much to do out here.

 

We played Ultimate tonight.  My two lab techs, Ray and James, Phelia, Gary the engineer and way over my head boss that we sub contract from, Greg - the new electrician that is winning me over when he's sober (although he cusses too much) and then after Gary pulled a muscle Katherine showed up.  She is the oldest and wisest of the M children that have come to be the backbone of these games.  Phelia, originally from Jamaica and a great runner, Gary (until his injury), then Katherine and I stomped the competition.  Ray, James and Greg.  They had the height, but not the throwing skill and not the athleticism.

 



 

 

 

 

 

Valentines Day

Qwenton...put out some more dirt.  I asked him, because the leader of boating license class said if you land your boat on Ebeye they will arrest you and throw you in jail naked.  Qwenton said it depends on who you know and how bad things are politically at the moment.  He said he knows a guy who has been naked in a jail on Majuro for 4 years eating only fish heads and rice. He thinks he might be out now. 

Feb 11, 2015

I got off work at 4:55 rode the bike to the hotel (1/2 mile), changed, made it to the gym 1 mile away at 5:10, did 100 toes to bars and 100 80# curls, left there and rode 3/4 mile to the pool, got there at 5:47,changed into swim trunks, did a quarter mile swimming, left there at 6:10, went to the cafeteria (1/8 miles) ate a little,stopped by the grocery story (3/4 mile) then road to the rec center by 6:30 (1/4 mile) to take boating license class.
There is plenty to do here.  In fact, there is too much to do here, and I like it all, although I would still say I like Ohio better.  Maybe after a month and a half, I'm just still homesick.  I do know I'm sick a little still over Benji, and bummed a little still about how things were left with one long time friend.  I am guessing all this will change shortly.  It is a small island, pretty easy to make friends, everyone is really nice.  I do know the long time residents don't seem to like people too much.  I mean they use words like "crowded" and "all those people" and they talk about Roi (Namur) like its great because there are so fewer people on it. 

Feb 6, 2015

I heard the other day, Quenton(sp?), the mechanic who married the Marhalese woman on Ebeye who now lives in Enon Oklahoma with their kids, went to Ebeye several years ago, got really drunk and woke up the next day married.  I keep hearing stories like this. 

Feb 7, 2016..

An email to John, the former father of Big Red (my surfboard) who asked how "the pit" was this morning.  "The Pit" has to be the surfing spot.  I'm sure he mentioned it, in between me sucking down salt water while sitting there listening to him telling me some tips on how to surf...........


The pit was good I think, but as I was paddling back out, exhausted, feeling old, burping salt water, and bleary eyed...I think I saw you out there north of the pit.  I have been out there everyday this week.  The past two days were intimidating and only served to wear me out for the one day (today...Saturday) that was meant for me.

I have kept BIG RED in great shape and treated her well, in the hopes that some day she will return the favor.  She might be mad at me this week because all she has offered me is the bottom of a wave, however today..

I learned ..while trying to catch a wave....to move her forward if I'm late in catching and back if I'm early.

It was a  good day.

Oh, also something I may not have mentioned.  Our temporary housing, the "Kwaj lodge" wasn't really designed for privacy.  The room across the hall has ductwork (like 20 x 20" ductwork) leading into my room.  I can hear the idiots across the hall better in my room than standing next to their door in the hallway.  I've had to listen to the latest idiot talk to his Phillipino girlfriend on Skype way too much.  "yea honey that's the bed back there....its not big enough for the both of us but I still wish you were in it with me" or "I can only afford to send 2000 pesos this time sorry honey, its all I can do "  ($40 American) or ....."yea that's the shower...I wish you were here in it with me".  I thought the guy was in his twenties cause I could here him saying in a belch "oh yeaaa" or "howya doin"....Then I hear him tonight talking to someone outside the room in the hallway..."I can't go tonight ..me and my new roommate are talking about gaming".  I gotta get a look at this guy.  He has to be twelve.  I open my door to go to the bathroom. The idiot is some curly haired chubby guy in his mid to late 30's.

I am once again proud to be the man I am.  Thank you jerk off from across the hall.

February 8,2015........................

Becky...I've been learning alot out here. I keep thinking of this quote from confucious ----The Master said, Even when walking in a party of no more than three I can always be certain of learning from those I am with. There will be certain qualities that I can select for imitation and bad ones that will teach me what requires correction in myself....

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I can safely say you and Marty have given me qualities to imitate. Out here, unfortunately, I have found many bad ones that will teach me "what requires correction in myself" so goes the quote. I paraphrase and say..."qualities I do not want to emulate"

I'm learning from others how to be a better man, unfortunately its from looking at the bad side.

February 2015

A letter to a friend.....

Its our Saturday night here, but actually its Sunday at 8pm.  We work, pretty much the whole island works Tuesday to Saturday, so we have Sundays and Mondays off.

It's turning out to be more of a money thing than an adventure thing.  I mean, it is a beautiful island in the south pacific, but its more of a working island not geared so much towards tourism.  I have only been here a month so maybe things will change.  I am going to get a boating license, which will allow me to rent a boat and take off to other islands (most are uninhabited) and surf or scuba or kiteboard with some people I have met.  I have my kiteboarding stuff here now, and I bought a surfboard.

Most of what I do here is kind of domestic/mundane.  I work out a lot, play beach volleyball twice a day on sundays, surf if the tide is up after work or if not on the weekend during the day, and for two weeks now I have gathered enough people to play ultimate Frisbee on Monday evenings.  Its a small island with about 1200 people on it.  I am going to get recertified with the Scuba stuff...its something I'm not all that into, but I can't come clear out here and not dive I hear...there is just too much to see.  There is a free ferry to get to Ebeye (I've read its the armpit of the south pacific) which I've heard and read is the most densely populated place on earth.  All living is squalor, partly due to our involvement in the 50's and partly due to the Marshallese Monarchy system...

There are no private vehicles, so everyone ride a bike everywhere.  I'd imagine I've put around 400 miles on mine (we have a work truck that my lab tech and I have put 200 miles on in 3wks).  The food is cafeteria food with over cooked meat, but there are a lot of healthy choices.

It is basically an Army post, but hardly any military guys are here.  Maybe 5% active military, and they are hard to distinguish from any one else.  I am considered an Ex Pat.  They are paying me well, and the first 97k is tax free if I stay away more than 330 days, and don't come back for more than 30, which I will only get two weeks off in July anyhow.  Real work hasn't started and won't for another month or two, but it promises to be busy.  I am officially the "lab manager" for the materials testing lab for San Juan Construction based out of Colorado.  Its a strange skill set and bunch of certifications I've picked up over the past ten years.  This job will boost my resume tremendously, so I take it very seriously while I am at work.

Luke I will leave you with a pic of one of the beautiful trimarans (sp?) that I've seen down here...
and some other pics