BS: Settling in Guam

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 11:02 AM

Jeeze, Brett. I guess your karma was not suited to retirement. Are you paying dues for your own juvenile sins against teachers, by any chance? Enquiring minds, etc.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 12:50 PM

A raft out of Rice Krispies Treats? In your humidity? Will it float? Will she lose points if it doesn't? If the hungry hoards eat it before you grade it, does she fail?

I will wait with breath bated (or baited as the case may be). Happy thanksgiving.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 01:24 PM

The word is 'bated, Sins. The apostrophe is lost through usage, but it is a contraction of abated, or held short.

ANd after all, a raft of Krispies Treats need only float as far as the teacher's imagination.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 05:55 AM

She brought me a sample of the raft material to "test" and it tasted fine.

Wakana and I stopped in to the students house in Ipan to see how the filming was going. We found three of the group (out of twelve) sitting around in the shade talking and doing nothing. The rest were nowhere to be seen but these swore they'd already built the raft and it works well. They said it was in the water. I have a vision of that raft soaking up seawater until it sinks on filming day.

Life can sometimes throw a curve ball at you. Yesterday we went to eat our thanksgiving turkey at the house of one of Wakana's co-workers. Wakana had been looking forward to it for some time because she really likes the woman. She even baked an apple pie for the occasion though it turned out more like an apple crisp. It was still delicious though.

We arrived a little late. They were waiting for us so they could sit down to eat. We walked into the dining room and there was another one of Wakana's co-workers, a woman that Wakana cannot stand. I might even go so far as to say she hates this woman. I felt so bad for my dear wife.

So we sat down to eat. The hosts were B'Hai. The husband had many stories to tell about his travels. These included working in Russia in Sakhalin, working in the Yukon, and traveling in Japan and other Asian countries.

About an hour into the visit I complained of a headache and asked Wakana to take me home. Of course, I had no headache. I was avoiding the one I would get if we stayed any longer and I had to listen to Wakana complain about that other woman.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 04:21 PM

That was quite noble and smart of you, Brett!

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 29 Nov 08 - 09:45 PM

This morning we went to Agat early to do laundry. The laundromat is near the town office and the fire station. It also looks out, across the post office parking lot, at Agat Bay. To the left is Gaan Point Park, the secondary landing point for the Americans when they landed to take the island back from the Japanese.

The town is building a very nice evening market center. This is not a line of store fronts. Instead it is an outdoor market similar to a farmer's market back home. There is a line of small buildings that will be permanent market stalls and a long covered area that will be individual tables selling things. At the far end is an outdoor covered stage with a green room in the back. It is a really nice facility.

Wakana walked over to look at it while I stayed with the laundry and my newspaper. After we loaded the dryers I wandered over myself. The sea was calm with only the faintest suggestion of rolling waves. It was pale green up close darkening to dark blue out near the horizon. A bank of clouds hovered over the scene. Out on the water a tourist boat sat either a dive boat or a whale watcher. There were some other boats farther out. As I stood there a rainbow blossomed, a complete arch of color that ran from Orote Point on my right to where the sea disappeared behind Gaan Point.

I could only stand in awe of the sight and wish Wakana were with me.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Nov 08 - 11:00 PM

Completely awe-inspiring when you describe it all. What a beautiful home.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Nov 08 - 08:08 PM

Brett-

You will be thrilled to hear that white flakes of stuff are now filling up our driveway.

Have a nice day!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Barry Finn
Date: 30 Nov 08 - 08:20 PM

Jesus Bret!! You got a newspaper????
You should be writing for the paper!
Ever see the movie "Shipping News" where the lead says he can't write & says what do I write about, Oh a big storm is about to devestate the island? He then askes what if the storm blows out to sea? Headlines "Island svaed from total distruction from big strom".

Go for an interview, bring in a laptop & when you're asked about anything you've written open up this thread.

Ok, as a part time contrubitor.

Good luck evening shoppin, it's sounds as if shoppin during sunrise might even be better,,,,depending weither the mall's on the eastern or western side of the island.

Happy thanksgiving
Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Nov 08 - 11:27 PM

I second that, Barry!

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 01 Dec 08 - 03:45 AM

Charley, I was talking with Dad the other day and he mentioned the low temperature. At the time I was sitting in my kitchen with the windows open and a slight breeze flowing through the house. I was in shorts and t-shirt and considering the lawn mowing project I had ahead of me. Later it turned out that the fuel line on the mower broke so I had to go into town to replace it.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Dec 08 - 12:32 PM

Brett-

It was so fortunate that the mower fuel broke. Sure calls for a nice cooling drink while one meditates the situation, and appreciates the warm tropic breeze flowing through your open windows. Maybe I'll open my windows today and think, or drink, tropic!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 02 Dec 08 - 05:08 AM

As a follow up to the project I assigned my juniors your should know that I am impressed. I had only one raft that I consider close to a failing mark. I had a couple that were marginal Bs and most of them were gems of creativity and imagination.

The largest is about three feet long and is incredibly detailed. They made a brown clay figure to represent Jim lying down on the deck. There are three little fish near him as well as his fishing pole. The A-frame wigwam has a woven coconut frond mattress and pillows and a fire pit just like it was described in the book. There is a clothes line with a shirt drying on it. There are also some fish hanging there. I asked about it and they explained that they were drying the fish for later!

The best, in my opinion, was made by a girl working alone. The raft is small but wonderfully conceived with proper scale and detail. It was built thick and heavy, the way a plank raft should be made. The wigwam was raised up a (scaled) foot as described. She had some rolled blankets and the fire pit in there too. There are extra sweeps on a rack and a steering sweep over the stern. She even has coils of rope laying on the deck.

One pair of girls created a diorama of the raft on the river. They cut a curved slit in the bottom of the box so they can make the raft move down stream. Another young lady built the house that floated past Jackson's Island. Huck and Jim find a dead man in the house. She took a block of foam and painted it blue. Then she built the house out of Popsicle sticks. But WAIT! There's more! She made the roof so it could be removed and then recreated the scene inside the house complete with wallpaper and graffiti.

I was very impressed. And very happy. I'm afraid my expectations were not very high.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Dec 08 - 08:03 AM

maybe there's hope for them

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Dec 08 - 08:19 AM

Neat!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Dec 08 - 03:14 PM

Pictures!? Goodonya and them!

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Dec 08 - 03:46 AM

Pictures!

I posted some pictures to my Facebook page today. There are now pictures of some of the projects and others of life at home.

I hope the link works.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Dec 08 - 08:04 AM

Only members can access Facbook.

sandra (not a member)

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Dec 08 - 08:50 AM

Grumble, grumble, gripe, gripe

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Dec 08 - 09:08 AM

Joe ([e-mail]) can load them on the Mudcat photowebsite

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 07 Dec 08 - 02:14 PM

This weekend consists of four days of no time off. Friday we took the whole school off to a religious retreat. Each class went to a different church. The sophomores went to St. Anthony in Tamuning. Essentially we teachers rode herd on them keeping them from getting into trouble.

Saturday Wakana and I made a run into town on some errands.

Sunday I had to supervise the Sophomore car wash. The kids were raising money for their future class activities. Attendance for the kids was mandatory. About half of them showed up. I had a two hour shift from 10:00 to 12:00. My relief did not show up at all. I was told he had a sick kid at home. I had to stay until 2:00. I was exhausted and sunburned when I got home.

Wakana had decided to drive me to the car wash and run some errand while in town. The extra two hours were not in her plans. She was in a hurry to get home because her students were performing in a Christmas concert that night. She had to get to school in time to marshal the students and give them one more practice.

I got home and had time for a short nap and then I was up and heading for Wakana's concert. I arrived and met a friend of hers so we sat together to watch the concert. It was pretty good... well, it was a high school concert featuring a bunch of boys forced to sing. The only groups who showed any real life were Wakana's because she was out in front of them, leading them and dancing to show them the moves they were supposed to do. She put a lot of her energy out there and it showed in the boys' performance.

Today we have no school in honor of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. We have to be at the cathedral at 3:00 for the procession around the block carrying the little statue of Mary, our Lady of Camrin. Not looking forward to that. I'm already sunburned.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 10 Dec 08 - 03:23 AM

We survived the weekend and now are struggling to survive the week. This is the last full week of school before the semester exams. I need to write two tests. By next Friday it will be all over... for a while.

We have our tickets for Japan. We are leaving on December 29 and return January 3. Unfortunately for Wakana that means leaving her precious cats to board at the vet's office. And we have to drop them off the day before we leave and we cannot pick them up until the day after we return! It'll kill Wakana.

Recently Guam defeated, once again, the efforts to bring legalized gambling to the island. With this vote the dog racing track in Tamuning closed. They had claimed they would have to if they couldn't institute gambling. So, they closed, and they gave away all the dogs. Today there was a story in the paper that people are abusing some of the dogs. There was no effort made to make sure they went to good homes. I read the story to Wakana while we were driving home and she burst into tears. She has such a soft heart for animals. It took a while for her to calm down. We stopped at the Chalan Pago Hao Mai for fresh lumpia and iced tea. That helped.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Dec 08 - 10:38 AM

DO I see a dog adoption in your future? I feel the same way as Wakana and cannot stop the tears when I hear of such abuse AND, I hate leaving my cats for any reason!

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 11 Dec 08 - 04:44 AM

Yesterday I tuned in the weather channel and saw that there was almost nothing to the east of us. Tonight we are battened down for the tropical depression that formed just to the east of us and is blundering past us now. It is supposed to strengthen into a tropical storm during the night. All the school activities planned for the evening have been canceled.

Wakana and I stopped at First Beach to look at the surf and it was pretty impressive. First Beach is a bowl shaped body of water protected from the waves by the reef about a hundred yards out. I have never seen any rough water in the basin. Tonight huge waves were pounding the reef and washing over it and into the basin, filling it and leaving no room for the water to get out. It was very impressive. The wind was like a wall slamming into you from over the water, carrying salt spray and the smell of the sea. According to the weather channel the eye of the storm is just fifteen miles south of Guam.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 16 Dec 08 - 04:57 AM

Today was the last day of classes before Christmas. We give the exams over the next two days and then we are on vacation until January 5. In about two weeks we go to Japan for New Years and then home to work again.

We want to take advantage of the time. Wakana is concerned that she has gained some weight and wants to start walking. I need to get on my bike and work up some muscles and work off some weight myself. We also want to reorganize the living room and kitchen. And I need to repair the lawn mower and get the grass cut.

And we need to relax and recover a little of our sanity.

Yesterday one of my students commented about how excited she was about getting out of school. I told her she had no idea what being excited was all about. We teachers were ten times more excited than she could ever be.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 23 Dec 08 - 01:17 AM

Christmas vacation and I went Christmas shopping today. I was feeling good until I got to the Agana Shopping Center. I met two students from ND and they told me that the missing kayaker is one of my students.

There went the festive feelings. I feel like crying.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Dec 08 - 06:46 PM

horrible news for family & friends when everyone else is celebrating

hugs
sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Dec 08 - 07:34 PM

Participating in today's search are 10 members of the fire department and seven members of the of the Guam Police Department to search the shoreline; a GPD Marine Patrol Boat; three jet skis; and a helicopter from the Coast Guard, he said.

That doesn't sound like a very big search team. Couldn't the military help out?

Brett, I hope you do let yourself cry; there's no same in having compassion and love for your students. My sympathies on that this is happening, esp. this time of year. May they find him so there will be peace of some kind for his family and friends.

luvyakat

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 23 Dec 08 - 10:49 PM

I had a moment of hope when I looked at the PDN website today. They stated the kayaker's name was Jerod Quan, not Jerod Untalan. Then I checked out the comments and found one from his mother berating the paper for reporting his name and for getting it wrong. His name was Jerod Quan Untalan.

Still no progress on the search.

The story I got from his classmates was that Jerod and four others were kayaking out near the surf line. Jerod was in a double kayak and it went over in the surf. The other boy is OK but Jerod disappeared. Two of the other boys were other students of mine.

Jerod is a member of a group at the school that is very tight. They call themselves The Brotherhood. These boys are not a negatively styled gang but a positive group who see a chance for change in the way people treat each other. Jerod's disappearance will hit them hard.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Charley Noble
Date: 24 Dec 08 - 10:10 AM

Brett-

Very sad.

It's always such a loss to lose the adventurous ones. They are the ones you always remember.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 24 Dec 08 - 08:42 PM

Today is Christmas Day on Guam. Wakana greeted it like a child waking me at 5:00 AM. We went out to open presents though none were wrapped, hers or mine. She did get a wrapped present from the cats. It was a lovely rectangular rosewood tray with slatted bottom and angled ends. I gave her exactly what she asked for, a Dremel tool with extra cutting bits for carving and a poplar plank to carve.

I got a Dilbert calendar, some bandannas, a Jeff's Pirates Cove dew rag, and a Guam T-shirt.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 24 Dec 08 - 08:45 PM

Merry Christmas to one and all.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Dec 08 - 09:54 PM

Merry Christmas, Brett and Wakana! I have finished making the pies and cranberries. Now I am waiting for the sweet roll dough to rise for the Swedish Tea Ring for breakfast tomorrow!

luvyakat

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Charley Noble
Date: 25 Dec 08 - 09:25 AM

Brett-

It's a little gusty today but very sunny and in the 40's for temperature. The rain last night lowered the snowpack but there's still plenty of snow around and it looks like a great travel day for our house to house family visits.

Card is on its way to you and Wakana and will probably arrive some time in the Spring!

Cheerily,
Charley noble

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 12:27 AM

Charley, we got the card today. Thanks. We didn't send any cards though Wakana bought three boxes of them. Some day I will have to get organized.

We are leaving for Japan on Monday morning early and so had to take the cats to the vet for boarding today. They are closed tomorrow. Wakana cried most of the way home. She will not see her cats again until January 5... in the afternoon... after work.

She wore herself out with her tears. She's asleep now.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 01:10 PM

Brett-

I'm absolutely amazed that our card arrived so fast!

It is stressful for cats and people who love them to figure out good ways to deal with them (the cats) when you must travel. Our best compromise is to keep the cats at home and hire a neighbor to check in on them; we now repay the caretakers by taking them out to dinner or dinners if we're off on an extended trip, or cash if that is more useful. However, this fall we did no major travel and our kitty gang is quite content!

Have a good time revisiting Japan.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Amos
Date: 27 Dec 08 - 09:40 PM

Safe travels, Brett, and a prosperous Year to you both.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 12:05 AM

Happy New Year to all. I see that you have about 40 minutes left in 2008. I have been in 2009 for 13 hours and 20 minutes so far. We just finished our traditional Japanese New Year lunch. There were three lacquer boxes full of goodies, at least goodies for the Japanese palette.

Most of them were very tasty, oishi, but some of them did not meet my excruciating tastes. There were tiny whole crabs cooked in some red sauce. There were whole shrimp, uncooked. A batch of red-orange fish eggs. Salmon wrapped in seaweed.

But there were plenty of wonderful tastes there also. Beans, three types, all sweet and tasty. Ham, eggs, A lovely egg dish rolled with some kind of sauce. And much, much more.

One of the main points of the meal was the beautiful arrangement of the bfood in the lacquer boxes and the arrangement of the table. We ate in the tokanoma room, a formal room in the house. We drank toasts to the new year in sake and another drink. We ate while Wakana's father explained the meaning of each dish. it was a very pleasant time.

Last night we ate traditional soba noodles for supper then had our baths. At 11:30 we drove to the local Shinto shrine to make a new year wish. There were lots of lights and a bonfire to help people keep warm. There weren't very many people there when we arrived but we seemed to be only the first. The line formed up behind us. We had to step up to the altar, drop our wish money into the box, ring the bell, clap our hands, make the wish, bow and clap our hands again. After we made our wishes we stopped to have mochi in red bean soup.

We then drove over the the Bhuddist temple. There we were to ring the temple bell. We were in a line for a long time but finally got up to the platform. Temple bells are shaped differently than western bells. They are more cylindrical and do not have the "bell mouth" we otherwise recognize. This bell was loud and held it's resonance for a long time. It is rung with a long heavy pole hung horizontally and swung using a rope. Each person got one chance to ring the bell.

Oops, Aund Sachiko has arrived. Got to go.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 12:13 AM

Ah, that sounds so lovely, Brett...a very nice way to enter the new year with such observations. I wish we had more of those types of traditions over here. Thanks for sharing. Happy New Year...still a little under two hours to go here in Colorado.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 12:56 AM

Happy 2009, Brett!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 03:45 AM

Happy New Year

I spent New Year's Eve working on a jigsaw & listening to national radio's New Year program. There were calls from folks all round Oz saying what thay were doing (transport drivers delivering stuff, folks celebrating or working)

At midnight a great noise filled my place with all the celebrating folks in my suburb (Sydney's entertainment centre) yelling & yahooing. I ate a bowl of steamed vegs around that noisy time then eventually went to bed.

sandra (7.45pm Thursday 1st Jan)

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 09:29 AM

Sounds great, Brett!

Judy and I and the kitty gang had a quiet evening at home, sipping wine while we watched our lighted Christmas tree, which looked very nice through our wine glasses.

It's well below zero with the wind chill this morning...

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 10:36 PM

Wakana says it snowed but I was busy doing dishes and didn't see the few flakes she saw. It is around zero here but that is in degrees C which makes it about thirty two F.

Aunt Sachiko stopped by and we drank green tea and ate some chocolates she brought. Wakana and I showed her the photo album we have with us. After she left we sat in the tokanoma room and talked then went out to the sushi restaurant.

At the restaurant we sat at a counter and watched as plates of sushi rolled by. We just took whatever looked good. Each plate had two pieces on it. I tried some of the shrimp, and some other ones. I let the ones with whole raw squid go by. There were even hot dog sushi and hamburger sushi. I tried the sushi with the hot dogs on it. I had to.

By the end of the meal I had fifteen little plates stacked up in front of me. Each one cost one hundred and five yen or about a dollar. The others also had stacks of little dishes. Total cost was about forty five dollars for the four of us. And very tasty too.

Today Wakana is packing up some of her personal possessions to finally take home. We'll need to make more room in the bookshelves at home. We will ship the winter clothing home and some of the books and carry two boxes with us. We'll probably have to pay the overweight charge.

There is a store here, Cainz, which is a handyman shop selling lumber and hardware as well as housewares. I buy some wonderful tie down straps there whenever I come to Japan. I walked around there the other day and noticed a little piece of hardware that I had searched for desperately back home (in Maine) but never found. I had been convinced that SOMEONE had to make one. I started noticing other such things that I had been looking for in my life and never found in any American hardware store. There were little sheets of plexiglass, both clear and colored, small rolls of sheet metal, brackets in many sizes, and other items I had looked for once upon a time. I am so jealous.

They also have wonderful methods for making the most of a small space. There are rolling wooden racks for moving stuff out of the center of the room. There is a shelf system consisting of wooden uprights cut to take wooden shelves. The end result looks very nice. I noticed styrofoam blocks shaped like concrete blocks. When I asked Wakana she said it was the same as the college student's bookcase made with planks and concrete but these were cheaper and easier to carry.

I'm having a great time here but we go home tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 06:33 PM

Very sad year so far. I am still dealing with Jerod's loss and now I learn that a dear friend back home has died. No details yet but I am going through a lot of tissues. I'm not looking forward to the classes with Jerod's classmates.

All the students are down in the gym at a memorial mass for Jerod. I took my home room down and then settled on a bench outside where I let the tears fall.

Now I am in my room and treasuring the quiet. Too soon the kids will be back.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 09:14 PM

Have some {{{{{{Hugs}}}}} Brett. My condolences.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 04:35 AM

I am surviving. Kelli went to the memorial and so did my nephew. He read an email I had sent to Kelli describing my memories of Doug so I guess, in a sense, I spoke at the memorial too.

The kids are dealing with Jerod's death in different ways. A number of his friends are depressed and two of them have broken up with their girlfriends which makes it even more difficult for those two.

In the meantime Kelli and I are in constant communication with Doug's wife trying to keep her spirits up. She's living with her parents now. That isn't any difficulty because she works for her father as a CPA.

I whittled a plug for the broken water line and clamped it in place. It seems to be holding. The plumber cannot get here until next weekend. The water system has been a mystery since we moved in. There are water spigots all over the place and none of them work. The broken line went to the only one in the back yard that worked. We dug up the line next to the meter and found some ridiculous blue hose coiled up in the ground. I decided to have the plumber install a new line (that meets code) from the meter to the house and damn the rest of the water systems.

I gotta go take a shower.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 10:03 AM

Why do I have a bad feeling about what will happen when your plumber installs the new line from your meter to your house? Maybe it has something to do with the dream I had last night about our own house flooding from the new plumbing install in your old apartment upstairs (it's getting a new full bathroom).

By the way, you'll never guess what we found behind the wall between your small bedroom and the bathroom, almost three feet of "lost" space and a huge archway; it's now the grand entrance to the new "rectangular" bathroom. According to the old comics that were stuffed here and there, the space was walled off in January of 1944, when the Phantom was just being installed upon the death of his father. I bet you didn't know that!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 08:54 PM

IBD! (I'll be damned!) That's amazing. I love it when things like that happen. In 1979 a friend and I were hired by the St. Francis College in Biddeford (our alma mater) to help rip out sections of Stella Maris Hall so they could renovate it into the medical school that is there now. We opened up one wall and found they had been insulating with newspapers. One of the news stories was about the new line of forts being built to protect wagons going out to the Oregon Territories. I always wished there was some way to remove the paper from the wood but it was well attached.

Wakana and I are busy rearranging the living room and cleaning. I snuck off for a few minutes.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 06:10 AM

Last April Wakana and I went to the mayor's office to request a load of crushed coral to fill in a few holes in the back yard. They never delivered. More recently the garbage truck has not been picking up our trash because the trees were overhanging the road. One of the neighbors must have complained because they cleared out ALMOST all the trees by pushing them down with the backhoe. They did not clear the last section nearest our house and once more the garbage truck did not pick up our trash.

Today on the way home from work I stopped into the mayor's office. I requested the load of coral and to have the trees pushed back. I then proceeded home and lay down for my after-school break. I heard some heavy machinery somewhere but thought nothing of it. Wakana came home and told me there was a backhoe working on the trees. Sure enough the mayor's office had mobilized immediately. After he finished with the trees he brought in a load of coral for the muddy road the farmer uses and one for us to use.

I like this mayor and Talofofo in general.

Subject: RE: BS: Settling in Guam
From: Naemanson
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 08:01 PM

Not much to report. It's Superbowl Sunday which means last week was Catholic Schools Week. We had a conference on Friday and we have Monday off because of the game. They started having game day off because school attendance plummeted like a rock on Superbowl day. Most of the kids stay up to watch thee game and that keeps them up all night. So we have no school.

Wakana and I are planning a low budget retrofit for the kitchen. We'll paint the cabinets and put knobs on the doors. She wants me to build an additional cabinet to fit in next to the refrigerator and I want to rip out one set of cabinets and build a set of shelves to replace them. We will do all this over Easter Break when we have ten days off.

A long time ago I looked into getting a turntable that I could use to record my records into digital mode. Back then they were over $400. Recently I looked again and saw they are now around $150. I think I'll get one next payday.

By the way, if any of you are tall and having difficulty finding t-shirts look at Duluth Trading Company. They have a long tail t-shirt in sizes up to 3XL. I've been buying my t-shirts from them and love the shirts. Good tough work shirts. I just ordered some more.

My parents are shipping my little guitar back to me. I left it with them by accident and then told my niece she could use it but her parents were afraid she would break it. So it's coming home.

I've been digging this morning. We need to replace our water line from the meter to the house. I've been digging a trench to get it underground so we don't hit it with the lawn mower. The plumber was supposed to come yesterday but he was sick. There is some kind of flu going around.

About a week and a half ago we came home to find Neko with a huge gash in her side. We rushed her off to the vet and then when she got home we had to keep her inside for a week. Then, a few days ago Wakana began to worry about Mama Kitty. She was listless and didn't follow her around. She took her to the vet and they found an abscess in her butt. Now she is confined to the house. These cats are expensive.

I guess I better get back to work. I need to fix my folding workbench and then build some sawhorses to get ready for Easter break. I also need to repair the silverware drawer and get ready to build some bookshelves for Wakana's books.