My New Favorite Invention, The Hobie Wave

I should have taken a picture of this thing with the sail up, but this is the boat I have been sailing. Sailing it is more awesome than I could have ever imagined, and also very easy.

Captain "happy bubbles" Loiselle

Halloween

Today Tracy and I woke up at 6:30am so I could drive her to the Westin where she would be working her second days at Cruz Bay Watersports. I dropped her off at 7:15pm and headed over to the Marketplace so I could sit outside and use the wireless internet (wifi) from Surf Da Web. Ever since I started using their wifi, I actually started getting notable amounts of work done. Kudos to me!

I sat there today and accomplished quite a bit. I went to Starfish Market downstairs for lunch. They have a deli section where you can purchase hot food at rather inexpensive prices. So I bought some breaded buffalo chicken for about $4 and a quart of skim milk for $3 and chowed that deliciousness. I worked from about 7:30am to 2:30pm and then I decided that the highly non-ergonomic table I've been sitting at was done having me as a guest.

This is when i decided I would go take a sailing lesson. So I drove up to Cinnamon Bay where I had met that guy Richard Metcalfe. He gave lessons for all sorts of water-things, but I was interested in learning to sail a Hobie Cat. I walked up to the booth and asked if it was a good day to take a lesson. I was concerned because that tropical storm had passed us over a couple of days ago, but we are still covered by the outer swirls of the storm. There was wind but it was a little overcast. Rich said it was a fine day to sail, and with that, I went to the bathroom to change into my swim trunks.

Now I'll have to admit, I was a little nervous. The last time I went on a sailboat I got a little nauseous. I just kept repeating to myself what my friend Dan had told me, "Dude, you've been in a small Cessna on one of the windiest days ever." True that. Why is my body so scared of water these days? Anyway.. I am determined to get over it and learn to sail.

Rich and I dragged the Hobie out to the water as he began to explain the basics of sailing. In now time we were out in the water, letting the wind fill the sails. He explain the basics of how to pull on the ropes and control the sails. He also explained how to make turns with the rudder, and how to switch sides of the boat when turning. We went out about a quarter mile into Cinnamon Bay. While we were out there, a small squall passed overhead. That was quite refreshing. There's nothing like being rained on while you're in the water. I feel like it really bonds you with the sea.

Rich explained how to read the wind off the water and how to sail back to shore against the wind. When we got back to shore he jumped off and then told me to go sail the thing myself for a while. There wasn't much wind when I went back out by myself. I was able to sail away from shore pretty easily, but getting back took me a while because the wind kept shifting directions. But eventually I got back and as we were pulling the boat back ashore, I kicked a rock and put a hole in my right big toe. Oh well, boat bites, as Phoebe calls them.

Feeling successful for the day on a number of counts, I went down to the Beach Bar to treat myself to a delicious Bushwacker. After that I went to hang around at the Westin so I could be there when Tracy got out of work. I bought a shirt from Tracy with her uber-discount (Thanks Tracy!) then I went to the lobby to wait for her. To my dismay, the free wireless internet access was gone! Gasp! Now I need a name and a room number. What a pack of rat bastards. I tried to work for a bit locally an catch up on my journal, but all of a sudden it was Bug:30 (about 4:30) and they were all over my legs. Apparently the bugs hadn't gotten the memo that I am a local. You see, apparently, after you're here for a while, you don't get bitten by mosquitos. What kind insects! After all, we are supposed to get the local discounts!

After Tracy got out of work, we went back to the house. She sat down to unwind after a long day on her feet with barely any nicotine, had herself a sandwich, and watched some TiVo. I went upstairs to share a beer with Phoebe and listened to her boast about her Halloween costume that she would wear tonight

At the end of the night, Tracy felt too sick to go out for Halloween, so we stayed in and went to bed early.

Bushwackers! Yummy!

My New Office

Tracy On The Car Barge

A Rainy Saturday Around The House

It's been raining here for a couple days now, and I must tell, it's quite boring here in the rain. It's difficult to drive downtown because of the steep hills with the rain running down them. Unfortunately, I didn't get full coverage on my car, so I'm scared to crash it myself. That would be the end of a good investment. Therefore, we stay home and try to entertain ourselves here.

I got a little work done today on my new desk but it's still quite annoying. I playe dguitar a little while Tracy played on Facebook, pretending to be a pirate. We mostly stayed in all day. We made one trip to Pine Peace market to buy cookies and beer and then we came home and hung out with Thomas upstairs where we baked our cookies and watched Smokin' Aces until Phoebe came home. We chilled with her for a bit and then we went to bed. Nothing special today except for my delicious cookies.

I was also happy to find out that my friend Dan booked his tickets to come visit us in November. How exciting! I hope it's not as rainy when he visits; though I hear the rainy season is just about finished.

My New Desk, Phone, Bob, and The Halloween Party

Today I woke up and started working at my new desk with my new wireless access point in place. The new desk sort of solves my posture problem, but doesn't change the fact that my Internet is sooo slow.

I ended up chatting with my friend Lukas, trying to figure out how I can get my work done faster. The speed of the Internet has put a serious damped on my productivity, and it seems like I'm endlessly waiting around for files to save. I am way too impatient for that, as I'm sure any web developer would be and the waiting is just excruciating.

I modified my software to stop using SSL, VPN, text editor.. trying to eliminate anything causing additional overhead. We made it better, but it was still slow. I just didn't quite understand because my transfer rates weren't that bad. Then Lukas pointed out that maybe it was due to latency issues. Round trip pings to Google average at about 1000ms. That seriously sucks. If a page contains 10 elements, for the request for each element to go through, it takes like 10 seconds to load a page. Excruciating!

After I spent most of the day trying to code 1 feature, I ended up taking a drive to Surf Da Web so I could test their connection. So far, I hadn't found anything decent on the island. So I paid $3 for 15 minutes just so I could surf to a couples sites and check the speeds. Lo and behold it was amazingly fast! Obviously this was the place to be. So I had a couple options now. I could pay to sit at their desk at Surf Da Web which is about $75 a day, or I could pay to use their wireless which is about $50 a month, but I would need to find a place to sit, or.. I could try something more clever.

The guy who owns Surf Da Web is William Culver. He's currently on his honeymoon but he should be back soon. I want to ask him if he can set me up with some pimp internet service at my house, or if I can rent a desk in his office from him. They have a lighting fast T1 and that's what I really need. This could be the thing that I'm looking for. Well, I know they have what I want, now I just have to find a way to smooth our the details.

After that, I was going to go to the beach, but it was raining really hard and I overheard some people saying that downtown was filled with traffic from people attempting to get up the big hills in their cars but failing. So I ended up driving away from town, but instead of imediatly going home, I drove down to Chocolate Hole so I could sit by the beach and maybe go snorkeling.

When I got there I met this dude named Bob. We ended up chatting about the island, its history, politics, boats, himself, myself, and he was kind enough to give me a couple of his beers. After talking with Bob a while, I realized that he was a very intelligent guy with an interesting and seemingly successful past. He also offered to let me come check out his house and test the internet there. He was also willing to let me work there if I found the connection to be sufficient.

So I ended up following Bob to his house in my new Suzuki. He lived atop a hillside in a very nice house with an awesome view. He had a retriever named Bo who was playing with a tennis ball when I got there. I followed Bob inside and he pointed to his laptop and allowed me to check it out. Instantly I realized that his Internet was definitely faster than mine.

We sat and chatted for a while. I had been gone about two hours and I knew Tracy was waiting for me. Bob then got a call from his son who needed a ride. He have me his telephone number and said to call if I needed to use his internet. I was definitely nice to meet him, and I'd like to find other reasons to hang out with him other than usurping his internet.

I drove back to the house where Tracy and I discussed going to the Halloween party at Happy Fish in the Marketplace. Tracy put on her beautiful hand-made green princess costume and we headed to Happy Fish at about 7:30pm. When we got there they told us the party started at 10pm, so we drove downtown and hung out at the Beach Bar to kill some time.

We ended up hanging with these two cool dudes, Dominic and David from Baltimore. They were visiting staying in David's timeshare. We also met this guy named Zach who was there with a wedding party. The wedding party was being all loud and rowdy. Tracy, Dominic, David, and I ended up playing trivial pursuit with the cards on the bar.

At about 10pm we headed over to Happy Fish, ordered some $2.50 Heinekens. Phoebe's ex-boyfriend Greg was playing with a band there. We met a lot of cool people in some great costumes. We even met our neighbors Mike & Terry whom we had not met before. It was raining pretty hard all night while we were on the covered balcony. At about 1:30pm we drove home, cooked up a pizza, chowed, and went to bed.

It was a great day despite me still wanting to strangle the Internet until it's dead corpse lay twitching on the floor. At points during the day I even entertained fantasied of leaving the island, thinking I had made a terrible decision and a great misjudgment. But in the end, it still seems like I had a couple more options to check out. I also got our local phone working today, so now I can at least have conference calls without interruption or VoIP distortion.

First Trip To St. Thomas for Supplies

Today I woke up early, but this time I did not have to wake up to catch a ride! Instead, I figured I'd try my hand at working again. I still didn't have a desk or a proper full signal to the Internet upstairs, but I set myself up on the futon and began to read my email.

A lot of problems have been building up at work while I have been able to solve even the simplest of error tickets because my Internet is very very slow. Sometimes I run bandwidth tests and get between 150k and 300k. Although last night I saw Phoebe downloading at 30k, and I've been able to upload at 30k, so I'm not really sure what the problem is. I don't think the DSL likes me using SFTP over VPN or something.

I was able to hop online and talk with Nancy a bit, log in to fix a couple bugs, but then my back started to hurt from sitting on the futon. I tried to put up with it for about another hour until I gave up at around 1pm. I decided I would take my new car on the car barge over to St. Thomas so I could shop for a desk and chair among other things.

So I called Phoebe and asked her if she would like to come. She asked me if I knew where I was going and indeed, I did not. So we emptied out her car because it was bigger and drove to the new ferry dock for car barges. Like an expert, Phoebe backed onto the car barge, then we sat back and watched all the other big trucks and cars fill the ferry.

It only took about thirty minutes for it to bring us to St. Thomas. Once we arrived, we drove off the ferry and began to make our way to downtown Charlotte Amalie. First we stopped at Radio Shack where I bought a wireless access point that plugs into any standard wall outlet. Phoebe and Tracy went into Urban Threadz to look for clothes but came out 5 minutes later with nothing in hand.

Then we headed to the Tutu Mall and K-Mart. Phoebe bought an iPod car charger and FM transmitter, and also a case for her new iPhone. We stopped in a couple different stores but Didn't really buy anything, and then we were off to K-Mart.

At K-Mart I bought a computer desk, chair, night stand, sheets, pillows, blankets, hamper, laundry detergent, lamps, and lots of other household items. I ended up spending about $550 on stuff. Ouch. After that we stopped by McDonald's and pigged out on fast food and then we headed back for Red Hook so we could catch the ferry back to St. John. All of that took about 4 hours or so, but I think it tired us all.

When we finally got back home, Tracy went to work making the bed, night stand, hamper and stuff while I tried fussing with my new internet device. In the end I don't think I needed it, and I really don't think it works that well. Oh well, I can return it and get my $180 next time we go to St Thomas. I also tried to build my new chair, but it was missing a piece! I could plainly see there was a hole in the box where it had been removed and tape applied to cover the hole. Bastards!

We ended up going to bed early so we could snuggle in our new bed!

Freedom At Last! Wheels!

Today I woke up early again to catch a ride with Thomas downtown. I know, this line is getting boring, but it's the truth! I wanted Thomas to come check out the new 2001 Suzuki Vitara I wanted to buy. This time, Tracy woke up with me and came downtown because it's far too boring for her to sit at home alone and I don't blame her.

So the three of us hopped in the car and drove down to C&C car rental. When we got there Thomas began to inspect the car while I started chatting with some of the guys who ran the place. After giving it a cursory glance, Thomas gave me the thumbs up and then bolted so he could get to work on time.

I told the people at the car place that I was definitely going to buy it so we could start the paperwork process. I just wanted some wheels! So they charged my credit car and added an extra 6% for doing so. The total came to $4770 from the sale price of $4500. Oh well, c'est la vie and you know how I feel about the banks down here for not having my cash ready.

The signed the title to me and told me to go get the bill of sale notorized. So Tracy and I walked to the notary but apparently she had stepped out for a bit. So we walked to Connections because I was informed that they also had notary services. When I got there, the woman refused to notarize it because the seller was not present. Screw that. So we walked back to the first notary but she was still not there. Then we walked back to C&C and told them that the first woman was not there, and Connections wouldn't do it with Charlie present. They explained that the first notary does it without Charlie present as a favor because she knows him. So it was settled, we had to wait for her to return because it was very unlikely that Charlie would show up to get something notarized because he has another job driving heavy trucks all day. Nothing to do except wasting time by going to breakfast!

So I brought Tracy down to Bringin The Fun and introduced her to the proprietor, Alex. We both ordered everything bagels with cream cheese and proceeded to munch. I know how Tracy likes her bagels and I think she really enjoyed the place. She was wondering why the place was so empty, which is exactly what I liked about the place.

Once we were done, we headed back over to the notary who was finally there! She signed it, stamped it, punched it with her funky stamp, charged be $10, and told me go to to Window 2. Mind you we're standing in a building that somewhat resembles a trailer in a park with signed painted in black stenciled font. Luckily the place is freezing cold on the inside and Bob Marley was playing on the radio. Every place has its trade offs I suppose.

The woman at Window 2 was some royal case of mean. She didn't say much to me, but she had an incredible attitude problem. Now I understand I'm at the DMV, but this place was empty. She probably only has to wait on one person an hour. What's there to be all pissed off about? She took my papers, gave me a hard time for writing "Jeff" instead of "Jeffrey" and scolded me saying, "We don't use nicknames in the Islands." Whatever.

So I filled out my paperwork while Tracy ran back to C&C to get the license plates. Eventually I handed the completed paperwork back to Ms. Meanie along with the plates. She gave me number and told me the cashier would call my name. So Tracy and I waited for the cashier to call my name. Once we were called up, the woman gave me an approved bill of sale, took my $40, and told me to go get insurance and bring back proof so they could then give me the registration and plates.

So Tracy and I walked all the way across toWe only had to wait a little while before they woman invited me to sit down. At this point Tracy was sitting outside chatting on the phone because she found a cellular service sweet spot. Insurance for a car in St. John is only $200 a year! They don't have much for coverage, but nobody really drives faster than 30mph around here, so I can understand why. I wrote the woman a check, she gave me an insurance card, and we were on our way. We went back to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV), the gave us the plates, we went back to C&C, put the plates on, and drove away!

At this point, with freedom in my hands, it was time to go apply for a real telephone, since my Vonage phone was being a bitch. So we drove to Innovative and I sat down with a lady there who made me fill out this huge superfluous form with all this unnecessary personal information that should not have been required to get a telephone. I tried to leave some of it blank, but the woman started yelling at me, telling me she's just doing her job, blah, blah. They're not kidding around here. Customer service people would rather bitch you out than help you. Anyway.. It literally took 45 minutes as I watched her talk on the phone, slowly search and peck as she data-entered my form into this ancient mainframe screen. This is really a 10 minute process in the States, but not here. I won't go into the amazingly boring details of this process, but in the end, she said I may get a phone in two weeks, at which point I can apply for DSL. Wonderful.

After all that, I had an extremely large headache. Jumping through hoops all morning was not my cup of tea and now it was about 1:30pm. So I decided, we're going to the beach. Why not, we have wheels! So we drove up to Cinnamon Bay. As soon as we arrived it started to pour down rain pretty heavily. I handed Tracy my backpack and dove right into the bay, rain and all. I love the rain, especially being half-naked in it. So I swam for a bit and eventually realized that it would be much more fun with my snorkel, and I was also wondering where Tracy was hiding out in all this rain. So I got out of the water to go look for her.

I found her hiding in the women's bathroom avoiding the rain. So we both decided to go catch a bit of lunch to wait for the rain to stop. At the cafeteria we ordered some drinks and food and chowed them. The rains finally subsided, then we walked back down to the beach. I was about to head straight for the water, but then I saw this guy on the beach renting our Hobies. I started to talk to him for quite a bit about taking lessons. At first he was hesitant to talk with me and a little uneasy. But after a while he was chatting away as I was asking him questions about sailing and what it's like to have been living on St. John for over 30 years.

When I was finally done talking to him, Tracy and I went snorkeling a bit. The water was a little cold, but that was okay with me. We both chilled out in the water and sand for a bit, and then we both got tired and headed home. On the way home we bought some groceries and dropped off the garbage. Then we watched TV, I attempted to use the Internet which is still giving me mounds of trouble, and then we went to sleep.

Soft Tops Are Cheaper and Banks Suck!

This morning I hopped a ride downtown with Thomas as he was going to work. I went to the bank to see if my address change had gone through since we faxed the paperwork last Thursday. Surprise, surprise, it still hadn't gone though. Still no local ATM card for me and all my money still hasn't cleared. What a farce banking is down here.

After that I went to Bringin The Fun and paid for a month's worth of wifi use and ordered an egg sandwich. The sandwich was must more delicious than the ones I usually make, and I deduced that it was because Alex used butter on the toasted roll and I usually just use the bacon grease. Boy was that sandwich delicious.

So I sat down to use the wifi and begin some long awaited work. Boy was paying for a month in advance a mistake. The Internet was so damned slow, I barely got one feature coded in a full day's work. How annoying! Trying to upload a simple 5k file is a chore and a half. While I was working there, there was a pretty kickass squall hat came rolling through. They say during these months that the rains roll through hard and fast. These are the strongest rains I have ever seen and they're over in 15 minutes or so.

Phoebe and Tracy had gone to the cable company today see if they could solve our cable woes. Apparently there's a 10 page waiting list for cable boxes. Nice! Only in St. John! That's what my landlord told me to tell myself on the harder days.

Later Phoebe went to work and let Tracy and I have the car. We went to dinner at High Tide. While we were eating there an iguana strolled up past us on the beach and stopped. I grabbed my camera and took some video. FInally I got a good shot of the iguanas down here. I think they're cute.

After dinner, Tracy and I hightailed it back over to C&C car rental and waited around for Charlie. He had called me in the morning to tell me about the gold hard top for $7000. When he finally showed up I told him that I couldn't afford the car at $7000, and if he lowered the price we could do something about it. But instead I took a green 2000 Suzuki Vitara 4WD for a test drive with Tracy. I went around the extended block two times. It seemed like a decent car except it really had no balls on the bigger hills. But the A/C worked and it seems to be a nice functioning ride. I tested the brakes, listened to the transmission, engine, CV joints, drove in reverse, checked all the lights, gave it a little speed/stress test of my own, and then returned the car to the shop. I told Charlie that I'd come back to buy it tomorrow.

What really pisses me off is that the money I deposited last week still has not cleared! So I don't have enough liquidity to buy the car. Instead, I will have to by the car on my credit card and pay Charlie an extra 6% to do so. How annoying!

After we were done test driving the car, Thomas called to tell us that the power had gone out at home and that he would call us back if he needed a ride. So Tracy and I went and sat down at Joe's Rum Hut and had a couple drinks to wait until Thomas called. This gave us an opportunity to talk about or move thus far. We've both been a little frustrated with the change.

Eventually Thomas texted us, begging us to come get him. So we drove back up the mountain, grabbed him and then drove back down, parked, and started drinking at The Front Yard. Thomas told us that today our new hot water heater was installed and that he got to take a nice hot shower. This made Tracy very happy; except now there was no power!

After a while, Thomas called his neighbor to see if the power was back on, and got his answering machine; a good sign. So Tracy and I drove back up the mountain only to find out that the power was indeed back on, but there was no water! Oh well, no surprise there. Only in St. John.

Later I had to go pick up Phoebe and Thomas from downtown and bring them back to the house. Tracy came for the ride. That was at about 11:30pm. When we al returned, Thomas told me that when the power goes out long enough, you have to hit a manual switch on the pump to get it working again. He showed me how to start it up again, and also how to switch the cisterns. Very good to know.

After that, I went to bed so I could wake up early in the morning and show Thomas the car I am about to buy. With any luck, I'll be driving it tomorrow!

Test Driving

Today I woke up, worked for a while, and then hitchhiked downtown. I stop by C&C and got to test drive a 2000 Suzuki Vitara 4WD 4DR hard top. It was a nice ride but the guy wants $7000 for it, and that's more than I want to spend. I want to be able to sell the car to our friends here when we leave, so I need to keep it in a reasonable price range.

After that I went to the Beach Bar, had a Mahi Mahi sandwich and a couple Bushwackers. They I walked over to Bringin' The Fun which is this nice all day breakfast/wifi cafe. I talked with the proprietor, her name was Alex, and it seemed like a genuinely cool place. Then I caught the $1 bus to the top of the hill and walked the rest of the hills home. Tracy and I ended up getting the TiVo to work and we watched Futurama and Family Guy which we had recorded from home. Hopefully tomorrow we will get the cable to work.

Hanging at The Westin

Today I woke up to the alarm at 7:20am again but then I snoozed until about 9:30. I made breakfast and swept the dead ants again and Tracy woke up soon after. She was very hung over form the previous night, but still had a pretty cheery attitude. I started getting my backpack ready to go downtown. I looked out the window to see that Thomas was already gone with the car today, so if I wanted to go downtown it would be hitchhiking. Amazingly, Tracy wanted to come too. So we packed our bags, lunches, and water bottles, and hit the road. One woman picked us up while we were hitchhiking and dropped us closer to town. I was heading for Cruz Bay so I could rent a dinghy.

The road was hilly and tough, Tracy was still working through her hangover. We had to stop every once in a while to let her catch her breath and so she could yell at me for walking too fast. But before we arrived downtown, I stopped at one of the car rental places to check out their cars again. I hung out at C&C Rentals for a while and check out their white soft-top Vitara and a gold hard top. I think Tracy and I both liked the gold hard top the most. So we talked to an employee there named "Stretch" and he gave us the run down on the cars but said to come back on Monday and talk to Charlie.

After we left C&C I went to Dolphin market for a gallon of water while Tracy went to the Beach Bar to get a burger. I ended up getting sidetracked by Alfonso "The Supply Guy". He's this broke ass who roams around town trying to do commission-based favors for you. He really doesn't do a very good job. I told him I was looking for a car a couple days ago, and now he makes me follow him around while he tries to find cars. Today I followed him to about 3 places until we found nothing. Eventually he asked me for $10 which I denied him, and I told him I'd talk to him the next day. I really didn't want to whip out my wallet because it had like $1000 cash in it from when I messing around with deposits and shit, and I guess I forgot to deposit the large sum.

When I got to the beach bar Tracy was eating a hamburger and a bushwhacker I shared some burger, fries, and bushwhacker with her and then I walked over to the dinghy placed called Noah's Little Arks. I met a guy named Wade there are proceeded to ask him questions about the dinghies. He said they were out for the day and the rest were broken; he said to come back tomorrow or call and make a reservation. This sucked because I was really looking forward to renting a dinghy.

So Tracy and I hopped a cab and went back to the Westin. We went to the water-sports center there hoping to find a jet ski or dinghy, but there was no luck there as well. Oh well, so we hung out in the awesome pool at the Westin and by the hammock and the pool-side bar. We had a great day in the pool. Later, Thomas picked us up on his way home from work and we went back home to watch Joe Dirt on cable even though the Red Sox were playing Game 7. I'm still not even sure if they won. I hope they did!

Pictures Online

I've begun taking lots of pictures with my kick ass iPhone. It's very handy to have around to take pictures easily without having to bust out your camera. I'll be posting pictures of our adventures here: http://flickr.com/photos/phishy/sets/72157602554083548/

Enjoy!

Hawksnest & Cranium

My alarm has been set to go off at 7:30 for days; ever since the other day when I had to wake up real early to bring Thomas downtown. So I woke up and hung out on the Internet in my living room for a while. I usually sit there and wait for a sign of life upstairs via Thomas and Phoebe footsteps on the ceiling.

So I spent the morning creating a Blogger account, uploading photos to Flickr, looking up blue book values for Suzukis, making breakfast, and browsing St John real estate from a stapled paper packet. Tracy woke up at around 9:30 or 10:00 and I think I heard Thomas rustling around upstairs. But it didn't sound like the kind of rustling that I was used to when he leaves for work, so the next time I looked through my back window for his car, and realized he was gone, I was quite surprised.

After Tracy had been up for a while, I got sick of the Internet and I wanted to go downtown. I really wanted to rent a dinghy for the day a go cruising around the bays. But unfortunately, I can't really do that unless I ask someone to drive me downtown, because I can't really take the car for the whole day like that, in case someone else in the house wants to go somewhere. Nonetheless, I packed up my bag and asked Tracy if she wouldn't mind hitchiking downtown. She agreed she would, but then I thought I'd try to give Thomas a ring to see if perchance if would be returning for lunch. When I reached him on the phone he said he would be back shortly and that he reccomended going to the flea market downtown to see i there was any furniture we could use.

So when Thomas came back, he had me help him unlock Phoebe's iPhone, then let us use the car for a while. Tracy and I went downtown to check out the flea market, but there was nothing of interest there by the time we showed up. All of the furniture was gone. So we went down to see Carmela, a woman who was supposed to be selling us a car. One of her employees drove us to the lot and we got to test drive the car by driving it back to the dealership hut. The windows didn't open and there was no air conditioning. By the time we got back to the hut, I was sweating from head to toe. That's when I decided we weren't buying that car. I think Tracy felt the same.

So we ended up going back to our and driving north out of Cruz Bay to go to the beach. We stopped at some of the overlooks along the way and took pictures. Eventually we stopped at Hawksnest beach and played in the sun and sand for a while. We saw a recently married couple taking pictures on the beach, and there was some bigger waves breaking on the beach. I snorkeled out to them and almost got my ass kicked by the waves nearly smashing me into the coral.

Later that night, Phoebe, Thomas, Tracy, and I went over to Fran and Ryan's house. We played Cranium, ate some burgers, and barely watched football. Cranium was a fun game except it made me feel terribly stupid. I found out that I can't do a Jack Nicholson impression, i forgot who said "That's all folks", and I dont know who Zsa Zsa Gabor is. It came down to the wire by Tracy, Fran, and I wont by a hair. It was quite an upset since they seemed to be doing so much better than us.

After that we went out to the Front Yard and played darts and drank. Tracy got drunk the fastest and ended up outside chatting with some West Indian dude. Eventually Tracy couldn't keep her feet anymore and we drove home and went to sleep. It was a fun day.

Day 5

woke up early to write everything thus far
went downtown
address change attempt at bank
searched for car
made bank deposit
returned wifi modems
tracy applied for job at westin
used internet in westin lobby
returned home
internet was working
set up vonage phone
thomas made delicious pizzas
watched "Waiting" and went to sleep

Day 4

dropped thomas off in morning
chilled downtown alone
returned
looked for cars
phoebe went to polic
went back drank beer, played asshole, and cards
fell asleep by 7pm

The Third Day

changed address
stopped at landlord's again
went to get the internet
went to beach
tried to set up internet

The Second Day

Tuesday I woke up and started cleaning the house. I immediately swept the living room and carpet and then started in on the kitchen. The kitchen definitely need a good scrubbing and organization. I went through the cabinets and took inventory of the pots, pans, silverware, glasses, etc. I put the stuff we would not immediately be using in the closet, then I washed and organized everything and put it where it was convenient for me to reach it. Then I proceeded to scrub the walls, stove, oven, and countertops. That took a while, but when I was done there was a sense of accomplishment. We now had a clean and functioning kitchen. That's a good place to start for a fat guy!

Around noon, Thomas, Tracy, and I went to go meet the landlords. We sat in Rick and Carol's office and they gave us a run down on the island, like how to be polite and greet people with "Morning", "Afternoon", and "Evening", how to turn down a West Indian while your boyfriend is sitting next to you, and telling us that 20% of the people on the island have AIDS. That fact Phoebe did not believe when I told her later, but I will look into it more.

Rick told us to make a list of the things in the apartment that did not work and to get back to him. I signed over my three Bank of America money orders totaling $2250 and they made me a copy of the signed lease. Overall Rock and Carol seemed like very nice people. Tracy even got to help out by asking such important questions as when the hot water would be fixed (which they claimed they had never heard before), and if we bought furniture if they would reimburse us. Thanks Tracy!

After that I went to First Bank of Puerto Rico while Tracy and Thomas went to Connections to check stuff out. Connections is a mail service, post center, internet spot, bulletin board, etc. Opening an account at the bank took a very long time and in the end I didn't receive my temporary bank card because I forgot to get a post office box first. Oops! Note to self, do that in the reverse order next time.

After that I went to Connections to open a mailbox for Tracy and I. I also took a look at the bulletin board in search for a car. I took some pictures of some prospective leads with my iPhone camera and then we were off to Starfish Market the grocery store.

Thomas dropped Tracy and I off there while we scoured the store for everything we thought we would need. We had a little list of things to buy like soaps and sponges and stuff, but the food we just started throwing in the cart. We nearly filled the whole thing. Food is quite expensive. The bill ended up being about $220 and we really didn't get much. I kept the receipt so I can show it to anyone who asks.

Tracy and I came back to our apartment and unpacked the groceries, then we went upstairs to hang out with Phoebe and Thomas and have drinks and watch television. Eventually we went to sleep so I could wake up in the morning and drop Thomas off so we could use the car.

The First Day

Tracy and I arrived on St. John on Monday. The flight experience for me was quite horrible. On the first leg I became motion sick due to my sinus infection. On the second leg, as we were descending, incredible pressure mounted in my ears rendering me temporarily deaf and did not go away until later in the evening. It sucked immensely.

Thomas picked us up at the ferry docks a little late, so we had some time to just site and chill on the dock and look around and the beauty of the setting sun on the west side of the island in Cruz Bay. I went and grabbed Tracy and I a Bushwacker from the Beach Bar. As soon as I had returned, Thomas was there, double-parked and ready to get our bags in the car.

When we returned, we greeted Phoebe, she gave us a tour of her place and ours, then Tracy and I stayed in our new place to unpack a little. I tried to set up the cable television and was successful except for setting up the Tivo because the phone was out. The hot water was non-existant. There was also no Internet. The place was a little dirty but I didnt have time to conquer it then.

That night we went out to La Tapa for dinner and drinks with Phoebe, Thomas and their friends Ryan and Fran. I had met Ryan a couple times over the the last couple years but he didn't really remember me. We came to find out that Fran works at The Westin selling villas and apparently makes a shit-ton of money. This information was pleasing to Tracy because she has decided in her mind that she wants to work at The Westin, and hopefully Fran could help her out.

We enjoyed dinner at La Tapa. I had saw delicious tuna and tons of bread, Tracy tried various cheeses. The girl loves her cheeses! Ryan and Fran chatted about their trip around the world, Tracy and I were relatively quiet, as Phoebe and Thomas chatted with their friends. I was super tired from waking up a 3am to go on the flights from hell, yet somehow everyone convinced Tracy and I to come out and have drinks with them.

Fran ended up picking up the almost $400 check from La Tapa (thanks so much!) and we headed over to the Front Yard for more drinks. We sat outside on the white plastic tables and started sucking down Jager Bombs and beers. About 10 minutes into it, I started getting another bloody nose from my sinus infection. I thought this was just great since we were now living in cocaine-central and I'm about to run into the bathroom with a bloody nose looking like I've had a rough night. Oh well, I don't really care what people think about me here, it's just kind of hilarious that it happened on the first night.

So I'm in the bathroom for like 15 fucking minutes trying to get my thinned out alcoholic blood from leaking out of my nose. It just won't stop. I got through tons of tissue. So eventually I just ball a piece up, jam it in my nose, and walk out with it hanging out my nose. I'm not sure if everything thought I was crazy or stupid for returning in such a state, but again, I don't give a shit. I'm was not about to spend the entire night in the bathroom bleeding out. Life goes on.

We end up drinking shitloads of liquor and spending yet more money, until finally it looks as though Tracy and I are going to pass out. We were commended for being "troopers" for enduring an extensive dinner and drinks session after such a long travel day, and then we were escorted home by our good friends and new neighbors.