Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Reporting from Honolulu, Hawai'i. We just got back from the mormon Polynesian Cultural Center today (will write more on it later) to see a bunch of fire trucks and police cars in the road near our hotel. Through a series of inquiries we discover that it was our hotel. A room on the top floor had managed to catch fire. We were paranoid for a few minutes that we had left our stove on or something. Turns out that it was in an empty room one floor above ours and over one column on the outside of the hotel but still too close for comfort. We still don't know the cause or extent of damage to the burned room. Our belongings should be safe however and we may be able to go back to our room tonight. My mother got my grandfather a room in the hotel next door because he has anxiety problems and so after having a room near ours burn he'd freak out back in our room. We are using internet on the hotel across the street's computer on a special favour due to the circumstances. Gotta run now though. Don't want to wear out our welcome and we want to go recheck the status on our hotel.
Monday, June 28, 2004
Sitting here at a cybercafe in Cairns, Australia now. We plan to leave on a midnight flight to Guam tonight. Flight loads on it look okay but we'll have to see for sure. Once we get there we have to fly through either Japan or Hawaii and both of those flights are quite overbooked so we may well get stuck in Guam. Not too shabby a place to get stuck though. Bet you suckers wish you could be stuck in Guam instead of working a 9-5 in the good ole US of A.
I'll write up my 50 million page post of the trip report when I get home so be prepared to read a ton. Lots to tell. Hopefully I jotted down on my notepad all of the parts that you guys will find interesting and perhaps a few that you will not.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Now I'm in Hamilton, New Zealand. Lots more to write. Danger, intrigue, and mystery. Okay, none of the last two and a little of the first. We managed to land ourselves in a car accident on the way to the Brisbane airport. A few scratches and various parts of our bodies are sore. For me it is my neck. It'll be okay though. The poor people that we were staying with will have to get a new car because theirs is now trashed. Their son was driving with half of our party and the rest of us were in the rental car in front. We in the front car stopped to avoid being hit in a roundabout by an oncoming car and the son driving the back car didn't see that we had stopped and slammed into the back of us.
More to write but no time. Over and out.
Saturday, June 19, 2004
I'm still in Brisbane, however we'll be leaving tomorrow for New Zealand. My mother hasn't informed us much of the intinerary but I'll post more when I know. After New Zealand we'll be headed back to Oz but to the Cairns area for Great Barrier Reef type attractions.
Gotta go to church today because everyone in my family and our hosts are mormon but at least today will be more restful and we can use that. In fact, I think I'll go hop in the hot tub and rest right now.
Over and out.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Again I'm on a short time on an internet kiosk. Counting down at 5 minutes, 3 seconds...
I'm now in Brisbane, Australia. Lots to tell, the amount grows every day that I need to write. Since last writing we've left Japan after seeing many wonderful things and spent a day in Guam where we went to the beach and I met a from Arizona in the water. Hot, nice, the works. Her name is Rachel. I don't know much more than that. I'll never see her again. Oh well, I guess these things aren't meant to happen. Just a fun little fantasy that happens on vacations. When I get back I'll work on more steady aspects of life.
3 minutes left and I have other online things to do.
Over and out.
Monday, June 14, 2004
I am on a stupid internet kiosk so if there are typos or this entry seems to end early because I have to post before running out of time then deal.
I am jotting down notes to blog about when I have more than 7 minutes remaining so expect a long post sometime in the (near?) future about our adventures. We are currently in Narita, Japan using the internet because my grandfather caused us to miss our bus and now we have an hour and a half wait for the next one.
We went into downtown Tokyo yesterday. The Imperial Palace is apparently closed on Fridays and Mondays so we were not able to enter therein. We were able to see some other sites which I will describe at a later time.
Today we are going into downtown Narita where we hope to see a mockup historical village area and a beautiful park. As far as I have been told we'll leave here the next day to fly to Guam.
Tara, my 19 year old sister, is supposed to meet us in Australia but is scared to death and threatening not to come if we don't spell out every detail of her trip.
Time's low. I'm out. Be back later.
Saturday, June 12, 2004
I will be leaving in approximately 3.5 hours to go to the airport where I will hopefully (standby) board an airplane to Newark, New Jersey. From there I will hopefully (again standby) board another airplane en route to Narita, Japan. We'll hopefully spend 2 days there, a day in Guam, and then several days each in Australia and New Zealand. Again, this is all subject to standby flight loads. I should be back around the end of June or first couple days of July (subject to flight loads). I'll have the phone on until I get a flight to Japan so if anyone needs me they'll have to call before then.
I'll try to find cybercafes or other ways to access the internet to post about our adventures (in my family, it is always an adventure) around the other side of the world as the trip goes. I'll also try to check my email so if anyone needs me quick, hitting me up at naugrim at gmail.com is probably the best way to do it.
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
On Sunday, my family and the cousins/aunt/uncle that are in town went to the Line Creek Nature area. We walked along and tried to keep the kids from killing themselves. Erik and I were bright enough to wear swimming suits under our clothing and bring towels so that if we wanted to wade in the water we could.... and so of course we did. We slid around on the rocks and waded in the water and caught a frog. Then we jus tsat and allowed the water currents to run past us. It was all fun and games until we started finding little black wormlike creatures. We freaked out and got out of the water quick and began pulling off all of the leeches that were crawling all over us. We think we got them all eventually though it took stopping periodically and even finding more once we were in the car. We showered when we got home. If anybody sees a large black bulbous object projecting from any part of my body in the next few days, please inform me so that I can kill that motherfucker.
Saturday, June 05, 2004
Finally a quiet moment to write!
I arrived home in Peachtree City, GA about 3PM Eastern time yesterday afternoon. After hours of monotonous driving, entering the house to be bombarded by an entourage of wild kids wanting me to play was quite irritating. My mother was happy to see me but reminded me quickly how mad she was that I hadn't called her the entire trip. I quickly informed her that there were many people I didn't call back and that, in fact, the only person I called the entire drive was my father because he could answer car questions and look up Mapquest to help me get unlost every so often when I'd stop for gas and get lost in the town.
Day 1:
I had intended to leave early but kept having delays and was having trouble getting ahold of my sister to get the power invertor which I knew I was going to need. Started to leave to try to find a walmart to just buy another one and she finally called back, so I had to turn around and go all the way back. Ended up getting the invertor and giving her a ride to school. Bought a tape adaptor kit to plug into the laptop to play my music on the car speakers, which, while factory, are better than the builtin laptop speaker. Got going at about 10:30AM Mountain time with Pink Floyd and Led Zepellin playing on the laptop and drove and drove and drove. Northern Utah was pretty and the beginning of Wyoming wasn't so bad. Then it got boring and when I entered Nebraska... Bunny wasn't kidding... it is hell. Rather than stop in the middle of that I just kept driving. I told myself that I was going to make it to Lincoln before I stopped or else. Ended up buying caffeine pills to assure that I would make it. At approximately 9PM I took one and it seemed to have helped. At approximately 12:30AM I took a second one. That was a big mistake. It helped a little at first but not much. Got briefly lost in Lincoln and decided I didn't want to stop yet so I kept going. Got to Hamburg, Iowa and decided it was time to stop. Felt bad having to wake the motel manager up at 3:30AM Central time but I needed a room so I did. Shitty little hotel though. Put the key in the door to unlock it and when I tried to pull the key out the lock came right out of the doorknob with it. Fought with it and put it back in the door. Luckily there was a bolt lock inside as well. Layed down in the bed and felt tingling sensations because of the exhausting drive and caffeine pills. At 5:30AM I woke up in pain. To show how much of a geek I am, for some reason my brain interpreted the pain as a database problem and it was trying to come up with the right SQL command to issue to fix the database to make the pain stop. Eventually it realized that it was stomach cramps, not a computer. A painful trip to the bathroom later and nearly puking but managing to prevent that, I was able to go back to bed.
Day 2:
Left Hamburg around 10AM and began driving. Iowa and Missouri are barely less boring than Nebraska. I talked to my dad for a while as he helped me plot how far to go that day and answer more car questions for me. When I got near St. Louis I thought I was going to die. The traffic was terrible and at many locations it was stop-and-go. Being inexperienced, driving stick, going up hills, merging in traffic in the middle of downtown St. Louis during rush hour is not cool. I was glad that I was snacking on baby carrots instead of chips or something unhealthy because I chewed through the whole bag of them in that city. To be honest it scared the shit out of me. I had never wanted to be back in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska than during those moments. Once I got out of St. Louis it was still busy traffic and I had to stop for gas. If I'd gone a little further it would have been calmer but I didn't and exited onto another huge road with stoplights going up hills and again, on a stick, that's bad. I tried to turn to a gas station and found it required a membership card so I went to find another. Freaked out in the traffic again and tried to turn to another gas station and turned a road too early and next thing I knew I was driving around corn fields. Managed to find a gas station, called my dad again so he could help me figure out where the hell I was and how to get back to the interstate. Ended up talking for about 45 minutes which was good because it let my nerves and the traffic calm down a good bit. Got started again and was planning to stop in Nashville, TN. On the way traffic slowed to a crawl because of an accident. When I finally passed it I saw than an 18-wheeler had fallen on its side and slid partially down the hill on the side of the road. The rest of Missouri and Illinois and Kentucky were all boring too. When I entered Tennesee I wondered why we don't visit there more often as I found it to be really beautiful there. As I neared Nashville, traffic was getting nasty again and the city looked big enough that if I was not liking the night traffic I knew I wouldn't like the day traffic around there so I kept going. I ended up stopping about halfway between Nashville and Chattanooga.
Day 3:
Got out at about 10AM Central time. Drove for a few hours and I still thought Tennesee and northern Georgia are beautiful. When I started seeing signs for Canton I thought of Katzinjammer but realized I have no idea how to contact him offline and so continued. Got onto 285 and traffic slowed to a crawl again. Called my dad and he looked up traffic reports and such to try to help me see how long I'd have to wait in stop-and-go traffic. After a little bit it got going again and then I missed my exit because I had written my directions wrong in my shorthand notation (so that I didn't have to search as hard to see what the next exit was while driving). Had to turn around a couple times but made it to 85. When I finally got off on the exit to 74 toward Peachtree City I had the dorkiest grin on my face that I was finally almost there. A bit later I finally got home.
I spent last night hanging out with Keirku and God. We talked about all sorts of strange and disgusting things. It was great. They kissed a lot and God got more boob action than he had intended thanks to my carefully guiding his hands and distracting Emily and feeding temptation to him.
My mother and aunt and uncle and the kids all went up to Helen to go tubing today and then they are going to Stone Mountain tonight. I would have liked to go but they were leaving at 7:30AM and I didn't go to bed until 3AM. The peace and quiet is nice though. Jeremy is supposed to call me today and if he doesn't I may hang out with Greg and Miranda if they happen to stop in Peachtree City. Otherwise relaxation all the way.
Over and out.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
My boss's family is quite obviously mormon.
Last night when I came in and went downstairs to go to sleep, I saw some of their daughter's campaign poster's to run for class secretary. The poster says in big print:
-------------------------------
SECRETARY
ITS
A
WOMAN'S
JOB
Vote S******** G******
Junior Secretary
-------------------------------
(Censored for privacy)
Traditional gender roles are a very big thing in mormonism.
Today my boss's wife told me that I should get a haircut because I'm such a "handsome young man" and shouldn't wear my hair like this. Mormons, especially, but not limited to, at BYU are very concerned about their image and looking good to impress others.
She also asked me if I am planning to go on a mission. I told her flat out no. She asked if I am LDS (mormon). If it wasn't for the fact that my boss knows that I technically am I would have just told her no and that's what I plan to tell most people that ask from now on but since she is connected to him I told her yes. She pressed repeatedly to know why not and I just told her I don't want to. So she told me about how I need to remember to put God first in my life and how important it is to go on a mission. Give me a fucking break.
Foibles of inexperienced driving and lessons learned:
1. Get directions to your destination from your current exact location. The current city is not enough. I drove around Gilbert trying to find the road I was supposed to be on. I ran into an Albertsons store and got directions from there when I bought my red bulls, dr. pepper, flavoured water, and green tea in a bottle.
2. Never forget your camera. I forgot to take my camera with me to Arizona and so I missed out on some absolutely gorgeous scenery going up through Arizona and Utah.
3. The speed limit on all 2 lane highways is 65 MPH even if you are in the middle of nowhere. The nice policeman billed me $107 to teach me that fact along with the fact that going 76 in a 65 is not okay. Given that I was gonna have to pay that much I decided to get another lesson out of it and asked him how I am supposed to know that out of all the cars he wanted me (and the guy in front of me). He told me that that waving motion he did while aside me doesn't mean "Slow down so I can get into the lane in front of you to get the next guy" but instead means "Your ass is mine, motherfucker." Well, that's not how he said it, but that's what he meant.
4. The person that invented cruise control is my new personal hero.
5. When you go up mountains, you have to shift into a lower gear. I didn't know that. I kept wondering why whenever we went up the first mountain everyone else was chugging by at 40-45 MPH and I had my pedal floored and was only pulling 30. I figured I just had a shitty car. On the next mountain it was even worse and I was barely pulling 15 MPH while everyone else went chugging by as usual. I thought I had remembered something about downshifting so I went from 5th to 4th and the engine sounded like it was trying harder but it wasn't going any faster so I put it back in 5th where at least it was quiet. I didn't want to try shifting down further because I was paranoid as all hell that I would stall it or go to slow and it would stop. I have enough trouble getting the pedals just right to get it started from a standstill on flat ground and was not about to try it on a god damn mountain. That shit was steep enough I would have rolled right back down or off the edge.
6. You have to pull the stick to turn the lights to bright. I had seen it had three positions to turn it to: off, little circle, and big circle. My stupid assumption was that little circle is normal lights and big circle is brights. So when it started to get a little dark I turned it to little circle and kept driving thinking I was cool. Afterall, not a single person was flashing lights at me or anything to tell me I was doing something wrong. At about 9PM I realized that the road in front of me wasn't any brighter than it was earlier when I had expected the lights to now show up better. I watched signs and none of them lit up in front of me. Perplexed, I remembered that some cars you have to pull the stick to make the lights bright so I turned to big circle and pulled while there were no other cars around and was really, really embarassed to see it get a lot brighter. Apparently I'd been driving around for the past 2 hours with just my parking brakes on. Good thing I didn't get another ticket for that one.
7. Driving at night is boring as shit. My short term memory went to tell while doing so. I'd just kinda zone out but keep driving safe and straight and then I'd snap back to reality and I think I was driving more wavy when snapped into it than when zoned out. Also, even while snapped in, I could pay attention and drive but if you tried to ask me what happened 5 minutes earlier I'd have no bloody clue.
8. Stoplights suck majorly. Once in Provo I hit stoplight after stoplight. Every time I saw one I'd hope like hell it turned green before I got there because if I'm going slow but not quite stopped I can recover fine. But if I have to completely stop and put it back in first I have trouble. For about 4 stoplights in a row, when the light turned green I'd try to go and stall it, restart the car, and then I'd always get it on the second try but I'd stall it on the first try every time.