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!