See you Chommoro.!

It's about time... I found a place of my own to call home..and so far...it's turning out to be a little rough to settle and in the words of some fictitious cowboy I just made up in the swamplands of my brain, "I've never met a bronco that didn't want to get broken". I'll leave the silence to you dear readers. Moving forward...


I live in Mongmong now. You've heard of it? Lauren Squires, my ol friend from the AU days and current linguistics prof at U Michigan mentioned that worlds like Mongmong, Gabgab, Lamlam, Toto, and Dandan(need to find this sign) is called reduplication and apparently, it's a big thing here in Guam. From what I have understood, Mongmong means heart or the beating of a heart. Mongmong....mongmong...mongmong. You get the idea...It's also pretty much geographically located smack in the middle of the island...hmmmm

Anyhow, in other good stuff news, Work is getting busy with some cool training modules coming up . I have an AutoCAD training and workshop next week and then in December, I have more facilities training and possibly a trip to San Diego for two weeks doing more training in February! By then I hope I should have my CAC card which will enable me to be a little more serviceable as an employee rather than being stuck in my cube reading training materials and reports and eating bags of cracker nuts. 

Now onto the new place. It's a smallish apartment, about the size of my Greenbelt place.  It's been a bit hectic with the move in. Pretty much nothing has gone according to plan. I noticed the oven was only partially functional. My landlord, Noel, came by with a brand new oven. Figuring the problem was electrical,he proceeded to fiddle with the electric box, the oven in turn shorted out when a breaker blew out. So this new oven he lugged up the stairs, broke within the first 5 minutes of it living here.


There was no hot water for the first several days. Thankfully cold showers are not all that bad over here on our hot and humid days.  The renovations they said hey needed two weeks to do, never happened.  I arrived on Sunday to move into an apartment that had not been painted or cleaned and had ant hills in the bathroom  It was gross. very, very gross. So Noel came by and did the best he could to clean it up. I still need to mop.

I don't want to get all snobby American on my landlords and give em  one of these "hey this is how we do it on the east coast" and get a lawyer like my colleague at work has suggested...but this island definitely runs on Island Time. This is no exaggeration.

So Bobby the roommate arrives tonight from Norfolk, VA at 2am and he will have no bed to sleep on...at least we have the couch...

!!Update!!

Since I last saved this draft. The bed arrived and dare I say it's more comfortable than mine. I extracted Bobby out of the airport around 3am, we made it to K-mart to get a comforter for the bed and Payless car rental to pick up his car. It was a late night and this morning I awoken to the sounds of hammers and contractors working on the unit below. Looks like it's a light sleep kind of day.

Now onto pictures. I've been pretty lax with the camera so here are a few snaps of life from the last few weeks. Here I am in front of some mountain somewhere in the south, representing the only Philadelphia football team worth rooting for (Go Owls).

I think I've mentioned the rain before but I have not had the opportunity to snap a picture of it in action. This is what we get when a typhoon band sweeps across the island. I'd hate to see this with 175 mile and hour winds. I think Echo would blow away to Saipan. It would make a nice, fuel efficient and cute reef.

Granted the stormwater drainage is pretty amazing around here. I don't know if it's a combination of good drainage planning or natural drainage or the hot weather that usually follows a storm.  If this was the east coast, it would be underwater monthly.

Mike gave himself the absurd challenge of fixing up this 1986 blazer. The transmission is busted it looks like a ton of work. As I mentioned to mike, he could probably customize it like this...

I've been meaning to get a good shot of this building for weeks now. I always pass it heading to and from work. I have no idea what it is or who lives there. But its awesome. The beach is right outside the frame of the picture. I'm tempted to stop and knock on the door one of these days.

I have also been meaning to get a shot of the dude who walks his carabao up Rt. 1 with his dogs sitting on top for weeks now but the guy has been pretty elusive. I managed to snap this bigfootesque shot on my way to work  last week. 

So I'm told, his name is John. Don't know about the carabao. more to come on that later. I have a goal of getting him closer on camera and perhaps doing a quick interview...hopefully he won't slice me open with a machete. Irrational fear..I know.

And last...the view from my balcony at sunset. I need some patio furniture. This is perfect for sipp'n and lounge'n.

More to come....

Carabao!!!

I have seen several herds of these guys all over the island, but none staring at me in a thicket of jungle. Creepy.

This herd roams around near our offices. I always have to slow down. It's just all too surreal.

Big progress this week. I finally mapped out my plan for the internship and it seems a rotation in Hawaii, free AICP testing and AutoCAD MAP training will happen. And that's just the beginning. More to come on that one.


I now have a place of my own. I'll be leaving Santa Rita and my inflatable mattress for Mongmong. I move in September 19. Nympha the landlady invited me to a party the Saturday before to hand over the keys. I like Guam. It's damn hospitable. Mike bought a truck from a guy up at Anderson AFB and in turn, the guy invited him fishing! That don't happen back east.

The Mongmong place is a 2br and 1 1/2 bath. It's a pretty quaint little place but the balcony is what sealed the deal for me.

I'm picturing grilling and lounging with a drink after work. Maybe some dominoes. I like it.

It comes partially furnished with a couch. It's been far too long since I've had a couch. Honestly.

You get the idea. It's not perfect, but I think it will do for now. I just realized there was not a door on the full bathroom. I need to ask about that....

So I decided to take in a hike and celebrate by new residency status. I visited Mt. Lamlam. It kicked my tenderfoot ass!

Though I didn't make it to the summit due to the fact it was late and the trail is pretty difficult in the rain(try walking up and down a slope surfaced with slippery red clay). I managed to get some nice pictures however.

Let me drop some science. Mt. LamLam is the tallest mountain in the world if you measured from the bottom of the Marianas Trench to the summit. So if Earth had no water...I would have been standing on the top of the world..Kinda cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Lamlam

I will conquer  Mt. LamLam, perhaps in the dry season and earlier in the day. I have been thinking it might be good exercise to hit the southern mountains every other weekend or so and get a few hours of hiking in. It felt good for sure once I got over the initial shock that I indeed had been exercising.  The breeze up there was pretty nice.

The beach wasn't too bad afterward either. This was taken at Asan. I was standing next to a bombed out Japanese pillbox. Spooky. This beach was one of the Marine landing objectives for the liberation of Guam in 1944.

I don't believe in Santa Rita!

 Sorry everyone, the title of this post was a failed attempt to make a Sublime pun. See what I did there? Santeria....Santa Rita...get it...yeah..

Here I am, in a barely furnished house in Santa Rita, Guam.

I am sleeping on an air mattress. It might be like this for a couple weeks until Nympa (yes Nympha, I know) has the Mongmong place ready which should be in the middle of the month or two weeks from now depending on how fast her contractors work on the place.

Santa Rita is a small suburban community. It's pretty quiet. Mike, my host and colleague at NAVFAC is planning on importing his fiance soon. And she in turn will bring dogs. There is a yard. A grill is mandatory. 

This morning I found a dead gecko under my mattress. I've been told to get used to such things.


Now Dan Black has mentioned to me that this blog is starting to take the shape of the tv show House Hunters International. So without further ado, here some some images of another place on my wish list. This one is in Asan. Yes, I want it.

It's a 2br, 2ba overlooking Asan Bay. I called the landlord and left a stalkingly high number of messages. He won't call back..hmm. Perhaps the heavy breathing and my creepy repetition of "I want it" scared him away.

According to the residents the guy is off island much and not terribly available anyhow.
I know the the efficiencies go for 1000 and has a beautiful overlook of the water.

For example.....
 

These are the efficiencies.

I could deal with this.













Look, Boonie Kitteh, with raging butt tumors!

This little fella was stalking rooster when I walked by. He didn't want his picture taken understandably.










Car!

The car is now mine. Now the beauty with rooming with a former Air Force mechanic is that a total auto dummy like myself, gets instant auto consultation. It seems the brakes are dragging causing the "engine noise" that's been driving me nuts. As it turns out, it was not the engine at all, except for maybe a loose mount that is aiding the rough idle. The tires are worn as well and need replacing. Perhaps with the next paycheck, I'll get the ol Echo up to snuff.

For now, I am seriously considering rims.

The Echo



New fave snack chip, Better than potato chips..Goes great with a screening of Titanic Two!