Holy Crow!

My bad! Looks like we fell off the edge of the blogosphere. A whole lot has transpired in the past few months for sure. I started a job in May, lost it in September due to funding, I traveled to Guam and Saipan for business for a month, Kuma is still good, Lindsey's job is great, went to Amanda (our Peace Corps sitemate) and Josef's wedding near Chicago, visited Lindsey's family earlier this summer, and have gone swimming a lot.


It was great to be able to spend some time in Minnesota this past summer. We ended up spending a little less than a week and we were able to celebrate Derek's graduation and see a lot of the extended family. We had some great weather up at the lake, and then it became classically freezing and Lindsey and I almost went into hypothermia.


We then flew from Duluth over to Chicago, were we stayed with our good friends Mat and Karen for one night, and then headed over to Woodstock on the train. We were the classic wedding crashers who promised to stay in a tent in the yard (too lazy to set it up). It was such a fantastic, beautiful wedding and we were both so glad to make it. There were also a lot of my Peace Corps group members there as well (shown in the picture) so it was great to catch up with all of them.


Amanda and Josef had been living in Burma, where they attended this incredible hot air balloon festival, which gave them this amazing idea. There were about 100 of these balloons that had a small candle inside of them, which inflated the balloon, and then it took off. It was simply gorgeous. A really incredible, memorable wedding.


I started a job in May with a company doing disaster planning course development and training and in August I was lucky enough to travel to Guam and Saipan for a total of 3 weeks to help co-teach some courses. This picture is from the inside of the remains of a Japanese pillbox that still sits on a rocky outcropping on one of the beaches in Guam. There were some incredible ruins and reminders of the WWII history


This was in the southern tip of Guam and I guess Magellan landed here about two months before he was later killed in the Philippines (courtesy of Wikipedia, it turns out Magellan named Guam the Island of Sails because there were so many boats...and changed the name to Island of Thieves a few days later because some of their smaller boats went missing). It was a really beautiful island and actually felt bigger than I thought it would. Some quick notes of interest: cock-fighting is legal and hugely popular, the Navy is moving a huge base from Okinawa to Guam, the local raw beef that is "cooked" in lemon juice was amazing, it's only a 3 hour flight from Japan, and there are basically no birds because the Brown Tree Snake has literally overrun the island.
Off to Saipan! Saipan is an island that is part of the Marianas chain (Guam is a few hundred miles south of Saipan) and is part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas. Saipan has a much stronger indigenous culture than Guam and also felt incredibly small. The local residents whom we were teaching were incredibly friendly and we ended up going to a few of their local BBQ's. Also, I had a blast exploring some of the local WWII sites here as well. This picture is of the last Japanese gun emplacement on the island that is still intact, in its original site. It was an eerie place to visit in a remote part on the southern tip of the island.


The park ranger at the National Park museum near my hotel told me about some of the lesser known/visited sites. One of them was this pile of bombs! All of this unexploded ordinance was just put in a pill and left to rot, it was pretty hard to find, but an incredible place to explore. The whole beach area was just covered with rust and shrapnel. I was informed that standing and/or jumping on the bomb pile was not advised.


This was one of the BBQ's that we attended and I wish I could remember this fellows name. He is related to the famous voyageur Mau who basically saved the form of traditional pacific navigation. It's a fascinating read on ol' Wikipedia if you have the time. Anyway, this guy was showing us the model of a boat that he actually built and has sailed around Micronesia. The longest trip he had done was around 500 miles, all with traditional navigation methods, incredible. He was the kindest, most friendly soul and was very concerned about the island's youth letting their history and culture fade away.


I finally got back home after abou 4 weeks on the road, and Lindsey and I spent last weekend hiking around Volcano National Park! It was super nice. We then went to the beach, out to dinner, and had a good old time. Love my wife!


Lindsey and I standing in front of the sulfur pits at the park...mmm! So glad to be home, but just this week I also found out that funding ran out for my job! Shit! So, I've got one more week of work and them it's back to the job search. I've applied for about four positions here already and two of them are actually related to Planning, which is promising. So, we'll see what happens, but my stint as a world traveling businessman is over for the time being, and right after my Hyatt Gold car arrived in the mail!