Testing Video

If this works, this is a video of my friends.  The one barking at the dogs is our doc.

Socializing

Perfectly shaped ice cream cone container.

Fish Ice Cream!

The praying mantis in the car.

Food at a birthday party.

I can honestly say that I have not been more social in my life than when I arrived in Guam.  The birthday part was for a co-worker and they are very serious about food.  It was an interesting night.  I didn't really know anyone, but I hung out for a bit and then went home.  It was surprising, however, how much alcohol there was.  In almost all the social activities I've been to, there has been alcohol.  People brought this guy alcohol for his birthday and then drank it before the night was out.  I don't get it.  I really don't get it.  Even if I drank, I don't think I would get it.  What is the huge appeal in getting drunk?  Why would someone surrender their ability to make decisions and be in control of their behavior?  Whatever.

The other pictures are from a night when I was going to go stargazing with some co-workers.  The doc we have here just bought a new telescope and my other friends had one, so we were going to make a night of it.  Well, doc was on call and unfortunately his phone rang.  He had to leave to go save a life and apparently it was a really interesting case, so good for him.  Instead of going out, I went with my other two friends to a local grocery store (the only time I've been, I usually shop in the commissary because it's much cheaper) and I took pictures of their fun ice cream.  When we got back to the car, the praying mantis was inside.  We weren't in the store that long.

So the mantis crawled around a bit while we tried to shush him out.  Then he crawled on my friend and she stepped out and tried to get him off her arm.  Well, he decided he didn't want to be on her arm, so instead tried to crawl up her face.  She didn't like that and started dancing around.  Her husband got out and was like "make sure you get a picture before he leaves."  He then got out and got the mantis on a stick or something so she could take a picture with her phone.  The mantis didn't like having his picture taken, so he jumped at the phone.  My friend screamed and threw her phone.  We all laughed really hard.  Then we let the mantis go on his way and we went back to my friend's and played mariocart until midnight.

Unfortunately I haven't been social in the past couple weeks, so my blog posts are getting a little thin.  I will need to correct that so I have more stories to tell.

The Guam license plate

So this is what a Guam license plate looks like.  I post this per request of my nieces.  It is not very exciting.  But sometimes they put a red flower or a yellow outline of Guam on there.  I think the yellow outline on this one is dirt.  I don't know, maybe it's Guam.  The cars out here are called "Guam bombs" because there is something wrong with all of them.  Sometimes they leak oil, sometimes the windows don't work, whatever.  People don't care because they drive them for a few years and then sell them.

B-52 Tour

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Engines

Tail

I have a special regard for landing gear.

Standing inside the beast. 

Riveting.

Where they hold the bombs.

More engines.

Guess they don't need a water hose.

Big wheels.  Foot is in there for size reference.

Wheels for the wings.

This is the guy who took my picture.  He also took six pictures of himself.  I only included one for reference.

I'm guessing the numbers are the order you are supposed to screw them in?

We took a tour of a B-52 at Anderson AFB.  The plane was skinnier than I thought.  It is all mechanical on the inside, not empty.  All the crew sit near the front.  They were all built in the 50's and 60's.  But they still fly it about twice a week.  They can fly for many, many hours with enough fuel.  I don't remember much more.  They didn't really give too much information.  But it was a nice morning.

Pagat Caves (without the caves)

Behold, I have conquered!

It was a sweaty hike.  Steep and rocky, just they way I like it.  Good thing we went at 0600.

The chasm beneath.

Waiting for people to catch up with me.  It took longer than expected, and I wanted to get to work by 1000.

He jumped in the water, which is fine to do when there is no current.  If there is a current, watch out, major danger zone.

The amount of foliage on this hike surprised me.  It was very dense.

The team.

Stay awesome, tree.

The steep, rocky path.

More steep, rocky path.  I should add the rocks were very sharp.  You didn't want to slip on them.

Rope help.  This is another person I frequently hang with.  He's the house husband of the female in a lot of my other pictures.

The reason the rock was so sharp is that it was coral.  They used to be the home of fishes.  Then they rose above the sea and fishes couldn't live there anymore.  But you can see the imprint of coral here.

This was Paget Cave.  You could go inside and see it, but I wanted to get back so I skipped it.  Guess I'll have to do this one again sometime.

The crew on the other side of the rock.

The view at the edge of the hike.

Sitting on the rock to take this pic was actually really uncomfortable due to the sharp coral.

Again, you can tell it's coral and the view was straight down.  It was definitely a cliff.

This is a quick shot inside the cave.  It was dark and their were bugs.

This little crab went into his shell when I was walking by.  You can see his purple legs sticking out.

For command PT on Friday, one of the guys organized a group hike to Paget Cave.  It was a great hike.  Only problem was it was kind of far.  So by the time we drove there, did the hike, and drove back, it was pretty late.  I left earlier because I wanted to get to work, but some of them stayed behind and actually explored the cave, which is filled with water.  You take a light with you and put it in the water and it illuminates the cave.  The humidity was really high that day so it was constant sweat.  I'm a little bummed my gopro didn't take better pics.  A lot of them turned out blurry, but the hike was gorgeous.  Formal coral that was surrounded by thick vegetation.  Awesome.

Liberation Day Parade

The float getting ready to go.  The blue skirt imitating water didn't make it past the set up stage.  It kept falling off.

Waiting to get started after about 3 hours.  I'm on the end.  The guy giving the thumbs up is a friend of mine, he's a cool guy.  Big Jane Austen fan.

This is the infamous submarine float.  It sprays water.

We had people handing out candy to the kids as we went by.

I don't think it was us that dumped the candy, but it could have been.

Throwing candy to children.

The guy in the back of the truck keeping the generator going for the float.  It was a thankless, dirty job, which he performed well.  I'm just glad they stuck all the water bottles back there.

This was the judge's box.  Our commodore was in there as a judge.  I think that's him standing in white.

The guys driving the float around.

Another float in the parade.

Kids waiting to get started.  It was hot and they were cranky.

The CHICAGO is one of the submarines in our group.  They sent some people to march with us.

The Liberation Day parade is the day Guam celebrates its liberation from Japan in WWII.  I was holding the banner on the end.  It was really, really hot that day.  The parade itself wasn't too long, but they made us line up about 3 hours ahead of time.  I stood in the shade by the back of the submarine float until we started going.  All in all, it was fun.  Funny story, so after the parade, the command provided hot dogs and hamburgers for everyone.  I dropped in and got a couple hot dogs.  Our deputy commodore asked how it was I said fine but I had to stand in the shade by the tail of the submarine until things got started.  He paused, turned to the guy beside him and said, "did she just say the tail of the submarine?"  The other guy said, "you mean the stern? .... stupid JAGs"  It was pretty funny.  So now I know that the back of the submarine is called the stern.  Who knew?