Lazy Blogger blogs! Oh my...

So I've been told to get back into this here blog as I've slacked off on it for quite a while. What I guess I should say is that I have big news. Sarah moved out here in November to continue practicing acupuncture on Guam and keep me company. This has been  very welcomed event. So for those who don't know, meet Sarah.

Here is Sarah chowing on a rib at Proa. I might have mentioned Proa before. It might be the best island food I've had. For $13.95, you get ribs, chicken, red rice, and an amazing drink called a calamansi Cooler. calamansi is the Guam version of lemons or limes. Basically it's a really tart tiny lime. But juiced together with sugar, sprite or tonic water and a dab of gin, you get some awesomeness. At home, the calamansi cooler has become the official drink of this here house. However the can of Japaneseness I'm holding in my hand seems to be a canned Pina Colada and YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW AWESOME IT IS. Also, I clearly look drunk.

As I've mentioned in earlier post, Guam has been a great place to consume Asian junk food. I pink box was some sort of Korean Valentines day cookie. Basically it was a bland cookie kind of like Yam Yam with some sort of chocolate/nutella like substance smooshed in between.

Guam hasn't been all gastronomic all the time. We do get outside and enjoy nature....sometimes. These are from Tiragi(I swear I'm spelling this wrong) beach just off Anderson Air Force Base. It's basically like Jurassic Park when you drive down this little road snug onto a cliffside. You half expect to see terradactyl swoop on by.

Above are a couple images of the Dedado flea market. We were told to be there  by  6am so we can get the good stuff. But mostly everything seemed to be old clothes or veggies or roots that we had no idea how to cook. So we settled on some local eggplant. Then there is this one guy who sells Avon supplies out of his truck. Weird.

So we were jonesing for some straight up American fare a few weeks ago. We went bowling.  And we won prizes!

A couple days ago I decided to go fishing. We caught nothing, stared at the coast and cursed the day. However I think it's confirmed that I have the fishing bug. It was beautiful along the water in the wee hours of the morning. I just wish I brought home dinner.

It has been oddly difficult to not make a Lost reference on this Island. I do not in any fashion plan on starting now. It would be highly likely that the five or so of you who actually read this thing would never read it again. So I'll spare you.

On the 24th, I will have officially reached two months into my appointment. A milestone for the over anxious such as myself. I've been buried in the bowls of building 100, with the rest of GIS crazies pounding out maps or in my case, relearning Arc Map, and learning the ways of the Geo Readiness Center before I move to another department. It's been fruitful actually. I have about one month left on my rotation with them before I shuttle off for a new department.

So I've been in incommunicado lately so allow me to fill you in.  During this time, I housed a 24 year old intern named Bobby. He likes boat shoes,  the Atlanta Braves and Frasier reruns. He seemed confused when I mentioned the Mighty Boosh and uncomfortable when I revealed my fandom for the Phillies. He now lives in a condo in Mangilao with an enlisted guy who owns a 72 inch flat screen tv. You know what that means..High Def Frasier!

Bobby came and went, and during this period time the house experienced a prolonged power outage, a loosening of the tile balconies and just this morning, a mini flood during a storm.  Despite all of this, I managed to snag an awesome coffee table and a tv, albeit one without AV inputs so that long awaited Netflix order of Precious will just have to wait a bit longer.

Speaking of Netflix, are any of you readers familiar with Netflix remorse? It's when you have a movie long ago ordered that arrives at your house and can't remember why on earth you wanted to see that movie in the first place? I just received three of those. One of them is a mellow drama with Woody Harrelson. It's going to be a long weekend.

Well actually I do have one cool thing to do this weekend, my former photography professor for AU asked me to snap a few shots of Guam for a little alumni presentation for the department. I'm thinking images of the beach, carabao, chickens, grilled meats, and maybe the pollution from the Piti plant.

Speaking of images...blam....

 Dog on a roof.

 Dude in a loin cloth chopping up coconuts. I enjoyed the coconut.

 Folks getting crafty at the Island Fair.

 More craftiness.

 And more craftiness at the  Night Market.

 Touristy stuff.

 

Last, what the hell is this..a Philippine Deer is the answer!

More to come.

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.