Wednesday, May 15, 2019

its been awhile....I have discovered what it is to "work" again.....

May...Mid May

I left a place of employment at least 15 years ago that I grew to despise.  Initially, it was great, perfect.  I worked hard, extremely hard, but it was mainly physical work at the beginning.

Being 18, when I started there and healthy and strong as an eighteen year old boy is, with as much energy as race horse, I excelled.  It was only physical to start.  Unload trucks as fast as you can.  No worries, I clogged their systems with so many packages they stopped me often.  I would wait at the back of the truck, triumphant that I shut them down.  After the initial pain of getting used to the labor, my body loved it, I dropped my overly hyper energy in that work.  So they made me a supervisor.  A supervisor aged 19, in charge of 45 year olds.  So they figured out I was worthy of some other things and was placed in the position of "Simulator".  I reveled in that position too.  Trying to make order of complete chaos in a 3.5 hour period was mental, and I loved that too.  In 3.5 hours I took 300 phone calls, 3x that in radio calls on 3 channels.  I wore a headset, had foot pedals to answer the phone and radio calls, two key boards and 6 monitors sat in front of me.  Behind me there was maybe 50 or 60 buttons that controlled all the conveyor belts moving the packages in the 3/4 million square foot hub.  I will never be able to explain how crazy that was, but I enjoyed it somehow.  I was young, sharp and full of willingness to succeed and loved the challenge of it.  The tours they brought through labeled me "the brain center of the hub".  My ego ate it up, so I loved it.


A few years later, well I was there 18 years, so when I quit, finally, I came to the realization that as hard as I worked, only more work would be pushed on me.  They offered me a full time position delivering packages.  I leapt and loved it, initially.  After running like an idiot for 3 or 4 years killing it and breaking records delivering packages, skipping breaks and just working my hardest I realized they would only reward me with more...….work.  

That is the last time I felt like I worked.  I quit.  I knew they would run me to death so I left it.  Fortune shown on me that I was able to.  I was 37

Monday, February 4, 2019

February, 4, 2019...too many commas and too much kiting...

Life. Is. Awesome.

"Never thought I'd be...."  today I add to this never ending list...

Never thought I'd be tied to a bunch of aerodynamically shaped air filled fabric, spinning thru the air an eighth of a mile from a dump of a country that is mistakenly labeled a "third world country".

We went kiteboarding again at the causeway.  I like to refer to it as the "dump" for two reasons, its just north of the Ebeye dump, and it just sounds more ..junkyard dog.  As I'm sure its been explained before, it's the causeway north of the dump, where supposedly the sewer treatment plant on Ebeye spits out.  NO more on that later.

"Third world country" used to mean a country that hasn't taken alliance with either capitalists countries like the good old 'Murka, or socialist countries which included the former Soviet Union, China, etc.  Now "Third world country" refers to countries with high mortality rates, an unstable and inconsistent economy.  Thank you google ...I just learned what I was trying to say in the first place, that the Marshall Islands and specifically the 17,000 folks living on Ebeye shouldn't be considered "third world".  They are some "top of the line" people.  Great natured, friendly, and completely admirable.

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

January early, 2019 KITING....

So the wind is back in the Marshalls.  Maybe I should only speak for the Kwajalein Atoll, regardless its back and so is kiteboarding.

I would guess most people are clueless in regards to what kiteboarding is, or how it works.  Its kind of magical, incredible, and sort of reeks of French craziness, although its origins are American.  I'll skip the history of it, except maybe touch on my personal history of it, and try to explain it.

A modern kite for kiteboarding is a "C" shaped deal or somewhere between a "C" and the parenthesis "(".  If you tied lines to the ends of those two characterizations...oh shit just google it.

Most of us, especially from the states, have held our hands out a car window going down a two lane country road and played with the speedy air going past.  Parallel to the air and the hand stays put.  Raise the front a bit and the hand wants to take off (read up).  Modern kites are like that, just like that.  They have two lines tied to the front of the kite using a bit of a bridle.They go 60 feet or so to a loop that is hooked on a harness attached to your waist. These are the lines that keep the kite flying like your hand when you hold it parallel to the wind while riding down the road at 60mph.  So you have this somewhat huge wing shaped deal about the size of two queen bed sheets in area flying above you.  There are some air filled battens and a leading edge that is also air filled to about 8 pounds of pressure. The air filled battens hold the kites shape. The two lines that come to a loop and are hooked to your waist harness go thru an 18" or 20" inch bar that offers no resistance. The bar has a hole in it that slides around the two lines.  At the end of the bar are two "back" lines that are tied to the back of the kite.  These two lines are attached statically to the bar, while the bar slides over the two front lines that are attached to your harness.  So the deal is, if the bar is pulled tight it engages the back lines and makes the kite do just like your hand would hanging out the car window going down the road and you raised the front up.  

There are different kite sizes for different wind speeds.  There are also different attitudes on how that plays out.  Once you gain confidence in your abilities to fly the kite and maintain control in crazy situations you want a big kite in big wind. A 12 meter kite in 25 mph winds is what we had last weekend.  Normally when we go out with the 12m kite, the winds are around 20mph.  With that combination, you pull in on the bar and you get tugged up a little when the kite is directly above you.  It feels like you are just a bit lighter on your feet.  12m kite and 25 knots left me ten feet in the air when I pulled the bar back.  Incredible what those things can do.  Pull the bar back and its like an alien abduction.  Instantly you are sucked up, straight up.  I say "sucked up" but it is obviously pulled up, it just feels like your are sucked up.  You come down a little down wind, but gently.

completely awesome day....

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

October 30th 2018...more ....thoughts

I don't know...

I can't explain how fortunate my life has been.

I've worked hard my whole life.  I started baling hay at 12.  The bales weighed half of me.  At $3 an hour, nobody could stop me from moving them.  The Rough's fed me this awesome dinner after a day in the field.  He was older, grandpa aged,  and complained about the raspberry seeds getting stuck under his dentures.  That family lived quite far away, but I made a little money, and it slightly cut my energy levels helping me sleep at night.  The dinners after a hard days work were amazing.  Being the smallest didn't seem to  cut me much from the hierarchy of the situation.  The "hierarchy" was established by work ethic.  At that time, I had no idea what "work ethic" meant.  Getting the bales of hay stacked into the loft was the task.  At 135 pounds dealing with a 70lb bale of hay coming up the conveyor belt followed by more less than 5 feet apart in the loft of a barn in 100 degree temps was a challenge my body loved in some sort of sadistic way that I've seemed to carry with me.throughout life.

The next farm was pretty much similar to the first, except I was 13 and practically an adult.  Somehow my weight hadn't changed, but I was nearly 2 inches taller.  The Blacks had pretty much the same thing going.  A tractor pulled a baling machine, the baler spit the bales onto a wagon where one guy (Donny Black) would stack the bales on the wagon.  Another older guy, Dave (Black) would take the trailer full of bales of hay to someone's barn they either owned or rented, and we would stack them in the loft.  These were basically the second farmers I worked with while in my nearly preteen years.  The first ones spoiled me completely with the complete "dinner after a hard days work".  It was an amazing thing that dinner that the Rough's gave.  You might imagine a 13 year old skinny kid, a bit shy, after a day of expending energy moving 600 bales of hay, waiting for Mrs Black to come out of the house and say that supper is ready.

It didn't happen.  She never came out.  Dinner didn't happen.

SORRY for the interruption but I just googled "baling hay" because I wasn't sure I was spelling it right.  I was desperate.  I hate to use "google" for much of anything after seeing how much my young friends seem to rely on it, rather than learning things on their own.

The Blacks lived down the road from my parents house.  We had two acres, Mr Black, Addison Black,  had 200 just south of us and much further down Borror road.  Mr Black would sometimes pull his glasses out of his gray mechanics looking shirt complete with chest pockets and a collar, and put them on to look at the mole on my neck.  He thought it was a tick.  It happened several times while I was young.  Now that I'm older, I understand how year after year you might make that mistake forgetting how you made the same mistake last year.  Mr Black, at 72, was probably in better shape than I am now at 52.  He told me once that he had never had an ounce of trouble with his teeth, until he went to see a dentist at 64.  The dentist was bent on removing his wisdom teeth.  Addison, Mr Black, had not only not seen a dentist nearly his entire life, didn't have a toothbrush until he was 40.  He also told me some cool stories of the trouble he made as a youth, but asked me not to share.  Sorry.  Mr. Black did tell me that the Chevy pickup truck that he recently bought (1994) for 24k cost more than the entire 200 acres he owned.  He also told me about hiding the electric fence wire in the place where him and his buddies knew the dairy farmer down the road pee'd in every morning.   Mr. Black had great stories.  I kind of , well, myself and a friend, kind of, well duplicated Mr. Blacks electrocution thing ..with a modern twist.  Myself and a friend used a taser on the copper pipes leading to his dads shower.  We might have gotten away with it had we not been laughing so hard.

Thursday, October 25, 2018

10-26-18...just some thoughts....

Thursday here.  It started out rainy and cloudy.  At lunch the rain had stopped but the clouds continued.

Liz called to tempt me into something active.  Surfing or running up the hill, the one hill on island.  Yesterday was similar in all respects except it might have been a bit windier which really didn't play a part.

"oh no....I don't think the surfing will be good, a bit of south in the wind, plus it's winter time  now"

"no, i have no energy, its winter time...it's cloudy...it's unmotivational...it's a perfect time to rest and just chill ...that's what wintertime is about"

so the latter excuse was for Wednesday, and the first for Thursday.  So its kind of reversed but you understand the thoughts a bit.

It's been stated here before on this ramble, about how there are no seasons out here.  There is no real change of seasons.  At best its a shift of a half hour of sunlight at sunset.  Of course it's also at sunrise but since there is work 5 of 7 days a week sunrise change isn't as notable.  Being from Ohio, where the seasons are incredibly different compared to living 8 degrees off the equator (Ohio is around 44).  Cool weather comes, storms come, leaves change, sports change, clothing changes, wood is stored, lawn mowers get winterized along with boats and days are ten hours shorter.  That is what happens at 44 degrees off the equator.

8 degrees off the equator, the trade winds come back and the days are an hour shorter.  That's it.

Compare those two paragraphs.  I came from the first paragraph.  Living in the second paragraph means missing the hibernation time that the first one never mentioned.  Hibernation.  That, in Ohio, was what I considered the excuse to chill.  Its cold outside, it's dark.  Sit home and relax because your activities are limited.  It was awesome.....the woodstove was lit, it was incredibly perfect to be warm by fire and watch movies.

Shift your mindset back to this place.  This place where the water stays 85 degrees year round.  Where the air stays pretty much the same, because its an island surrounded by water that stays 85 degrees year round.  So the only real difference here is that after Turkey day there is wind, tradewinds averaging around 23 mph, and the sun goes down at 6:35 instead of 7:08.

Winter in Ohio lasts at least 4 months.  Four months to hibernate.  Four months to rest.  Limited outdoor activities due to limited light.  It's a perfect system for an active person.

Here, 8 degrees off the equator where the daylight only shifts a bit, and the temperatures will never have you hiding inside to hibernate, one must embrace the slightest resemblance of winter and dive into it head first to hibernate.

So it was cloudy and rainy for the last two days...……………..and I happily hibernated for a few hours after work instead of surfing or running or ……..




Tuesday, October 16, 2018

10-16-18....I wonder why my posts are coming so far apart.....

Maybe because its not as new as before.  I hope its not because somehow the late troubles this place has had has taken some momentum from me....

I'm going to chalk it up to being so busy enjoying things out here, I'm too tired to be enthusiastic about updating this outlet.

That being said, it must be a pretty worthy experience that has brought me back.....

Liz and I, and whomever we could drag out, have been camping on the 6th or 7th island up on the west reef (read 17 miles thru the lagoon ) for at least 20 weekends this year.  We've cleaned it up, raked paths around it, burnt some of the plastic bottles, taken some of the glass bottles back to Kwaj, and generally made it a little private retreat.  It's easy to get to during the not windy season.  The non windy season here this year has extended its visit.  Normally , as I see it, the trade winds are back by mid October and somewhere in the 15 knot range.  Today, Oct 16, it was calm.

Last weekend we gave Camp T a break.  We stayed home due to lack of wind and only a sailboat for travels to the island.  I was kind of aching for some physical action. Tim, Liz and I went surfing early Sunday morning.  Peddling the two miles down to the "shark pit", one of the surf breaks was a nice physical change from just waking up on a deserted island with nothing to do physically but go snorkel or take a walk.  Surfing, as already stated in previous blogs is very very physical, even after having built up some muscles.

We surfed until the tide took the water away from the reef, making it a little to shallow to be safe.  Tim left then.  He didn't really leave because of the depth, but more about an obligation of a family breakfast at the chow hall.  Liz and I stayed for another half hour, which resulted in a few scratches from the coral for her because it might have been a little shallow.

So we left surfing.  I reminded her that I promised myself sunday morning that I needed some hill running if we were on island.  So, we were close to the hill, and we both ran up it and walked down it enough to satisfy our lungs.

I'll have to return to this ….to get to the point...……….but not tonight


Tuesday, September 18, 2018

9-18-18 Pictures...of random great times and places and peoples

Its a grouper.  Add a little rice, some coconut oil and Cajun, and wowowwoowwow


The campsite has been cleaned up a little.....

Oceanside of Torruji, or Tonleli, depending on who you ask.  Doesn't mater its gorgeous.

This would be lagoon side of Tonleli/Torruji….shallow for hundreds of yards out which makes it tough to bring the fish you spear back.  The sharks are shy until about a foot or two of water.

So hermit crabs run around on this little sand filled island like ants.  Thousands upon thousands of them.  The big area we cleaned up with the rakes was empty when we arrived the next time.  Word got out six hours later and they surrounded us.  We bring food.

Normally you would see hundreds of black spots on this beach, I'm not sure why they aren't there in this pic


Hows this for a campsite?

It looks like a field.  That little white spot with the green on top at the end of the brown is an island normally.  This is a super low tide (read big moon).  All that brown is the reef.  You can walk (albeit a slippery ankle breaking walk) nearly two miles to Ebeye, three islands away.

So from the Helicopter they do these things called "reef sweeps" where they run most of the way around the Atoll and check things out.  Pilot whales can be checked out too.


So this is the a common site while camping on the islands out here.  They are full of plastic.  Maybe "full" is a bit of an exaggeration.  There are bands of this type of thing everywhere on all of the islands I've been to out here.  This is just the stuff the island caught.  So much got blown by, or washed over.  Please don't use single use plastic bottles....or $2 flip flops at the beach.

Cole, Liz, and I....camping is good
 This is Ellep.  24 miles up the lagoon.  Farthest I've been with the little Hobie.  The lagoon side on top of the water was just ok.  The Ocean side, however, was the most beautiful canyon filled reefs I've seen out here.  We need to return to this place....a complete 10 hour session of snorkeling could happen on the oceanside in those beautiful surge channels.


The surfboard was brought up in the hopes of some surfing, where the waves ended up in the deep pass, as opposed to on top of the reef.  It made a great table.  Ok so this is Bikenell.  THE most beautiful island and water out here that I've seen so far....and in case my return doesn't happen....the rest of the pictures on this post are from there.....incredible