stx today,comments

anyone know what happened to Hope Gibson, you know the "there's hope for stx" woman that ran for senate a few years back, just wondering if she's still around and if she is why don't we ever see here name in the papers anymore.

trw - I'm not ignoring your questions, I'm just off-island right now and not online much. Today was spent up on the ski slopes of Mt. Bachelor in central Oregon. Awesome day of spring skiing but my legs are going to refuse to work tomorrow, I am certain. Hopefully they will work well enough to allow me to sit on the snowmobiles for tomorrow's outing with my son.

On the GED vs high school diploma issue, trade schools, like employers, whether in the islands or on the mainland, prefer a diploma but have spaces for those with GED's.

Regarding the high number of military flights over STX... we have grown the refueling business to about quadruple the number of military aircraft coming to STX over the past 3-1/2 years. The guys (and gals) love the hospitality we provide during their crew rest periods and choose STX over the islands they used to fly to, such as Curacao and Antigua and Puerto Rico. We've taken at least 1500 air crew members out to Buck Island in the past 14 months on Parrothead and hundreds more on the SeaRay. Many of the air bases are sending more training missions to STX now also, as the generals and colonels have found the crews love our island so much that it is great for crew retention to let them come here a few times each year even if only for 1-2 nights.

Many of the departing planes take a tour over the east end of the island and across Buck Island after take-off. Quite often they make a point of flying past Buck Island if we are out there on the sailboat as they love the photos we take of them. They wish they could get clearance to fly lower than they do, but have to obey a few rules and regs.

The only thing I hate about traveling is that the airlines always lose my luggage. This trip has been a disaster of cancelled flights and re-routings and lost luggage. We'll see how the return trip goes next weekend. Meanwhile I am enjoying the beauty of the mountains and snow but am already looking forward to getting back to STX and the sunshine and turquoise water. If my sons weren't living up here right now, I wouldn't have come to the PNW on "vacation" when there are so many warm places still to explore.

ok Alexandra i'd like to do a thing to maybe pay for night school for people from lavalle,mon bijou,and glynn to go to the complex and take night courses to get their high school diploma, one of the dishwashers at work goes to the complex and says it's like 135 bucks for a 3 month course and they provide the books and stuff. I don't know all the details and i work too much right now to find out but i want to do this, that stupid voice inside of me is just yelling it's head off that i at least make the offer to anyone that is interested. I need to do this but i just don't have the time for the details right now, but the voice inside is telling me to offer something like i did with the homeless guy and the 17yroldguy/kid,lol and trust me i will not get any rest until i do this thing.

when i was sitting at the delly deck on STT with number 2 my sister and jockboyaffleuentgolfertype i told my sister about the voice and she just laughed and said that TRW that is your soul talking, well i just looked at her and said i don't want my soul talking to me i do just fine being an asshole and if i start being nice to people everyone will wonder whats wrong with me,lol who knew you could find your soul at the Delly Deck

Hey, it's an added bonus along with the breakfast burrito. 🙂

yeah Trade,Tara serves it up with a smile there, pouring rain here from east to cane bay, the poor street hookers were just running for cover and yelling in spanish for rides as i was driving through downtown on my way home 10 minutes ago. lol

well i have an unexpected morning off so i'm going over to the complex to see about the night school thing, my mother was a teacher till the day she died and i know the value of an education,where are the regular posters on this thread,lol i'm lonely

trw,
Everybody is off island, and we expect you to take care of things while we are gone. LOL

ok

trw, when you find out about the GED thing could you post? I have three brothers working for me at the condo I manage, the oldest graduated from high school but the other 2 are dropouts. I 'd like them to work on getting their diploma and maybe try to get some marketable skills so they aren't stuck in a low wage job forever. I can probably get the $ to do it no problem but motivating them will be a challenge. I'm thinking of tieing it into their performance and compensation. Then maybe they could pick up a trade and move into the skilled labor market. It's worth a try.
When I first took the job I was committed to not lowering my expectations but of course I have, but I'm still using my expectations as a guide to keep me on track.
Any info will be appreciated. I enjoy your posts and it's evident how much effort you put in to be able to live here and your ambition and purpose are right on. Tanks.

trw, l am lurking but not posting very much because I am being a crybaby, thumb sucking, whinner about being stuck in the states. If you get too lonely you can go over to my house. I am sure the party has been there since I left. You and my daughter know a lot of the same people. She is also giving away all my beautiful fresh vegetables because she cannot eat them all. Please go get some. I had about 50 huge beefsteak tomatoes just turning red when I left. Also green beans, okra, eggplant, squash and peppers. Whaaaaa!!!!!!!! If you go by will you hug my rotties and tell them that I didn't desert them forever.

Beefsteak tomatoes??? Oh, for a BLT with a real tomato!

Come on over to STX. We have loads of real tomatoes this time of year.

I'm not sure if it is the overcast weather or what, but I seem to be running into quite a few people over the last couple of days who have really been down in the dumps. Is this the typical let down after Easter? It just seemed unusual to me to run into so many folks having a tough time right now.....One person who always is upbeat, however, is the Terminex guy (aka "bug guy"). The bug guy has been coming to our condo every month for over a year. In that time we have done quite a bit of construction and painting. We have painted our condo with non-traditional island colors--a rather dark blue for the living room. This month the bug guy came in, stepped into the living room and said "so, you've decide to keep the color, huh?" Everyone is a critic, sigh. I was still glad to see him. We've had quite a few incidents with those mahogany "birds" and for some reason I can't stop myself from screaming uncontrollably when I unexpectedly encounter one. So, I asked for the bug guy's advice. He said, "well, I have some tasty morsels for them, he, he, he." I'm not kidding, he got really excited about it. It's good to love your job. Plus, I haven't seen any bugs since he's been here.

Picking up on Tami & Alexandra's comments on the military, it's got to be pretty tough to keep getting deployed over and over. My sister-in-law's husband, Jamie, is supposed to go back to Iraq in the fall. This will be his fifth tour since the Iraq war started. He initially was in the 101st Airborne division and worked as a bodyguard for General Petreaus. He's actually a chef, so when they were stateside, he was a chef for the General and ran the General's guest house for visitors. He left the General and went to warrant officer school (his comment--"even Robin had to leave Batman"). Now when he goes back to Iraq, he will be in charge of the mess halls in his division. He seems to be enjoying the challenge, but is not looking forward to going back. Jamie and Lisa have three teenage boys who have been raised on incredible, gourmet cooking. I'm afraid they are going to be in for a huge surprise the first time they have dorm food in college. It's funny when I think of our move here and how stressful it seemed for the two of us. Being in the military, Jamie & Lisa and the boys have moved dozens of time, without much comment or fuss. Funny how others can put your own situation into perspective.

I'm doing a project now for a local attorney and am really enjoying it. I've been licenced to practice law for about 18 years, but never really practiced. I decided when we moved here that I would take the bar and practice law. I wasn't really sure I would like it, but so far so good. Studying for the bar has been more of a challenge. I've forgotten stuff I don't even remember learning in the first place! The good news is I have until July to get ready for the test, but boy is it tough to buckle down and study, particularly in this beautiful environment.

I've been watching the democratic primary race with great interest and a little trepidation. I can't decide if it's time for Hillary to pull the plug or keep going, as this is such a historic campaign. I'm just afraid that both sides' supporters are really digging in and the longer it goes, the tougher it will be to pull the party back together and get behind the eventual nominee. You probably can't tell I'm a Democrat, huh? I used to live in western Michigan in a very conservative county. I can't remember the circumstances exactly, but during one election we had to fill out a card registering as a Democrat or a Republican. The woman manning the polling table took the cards, looked at them and put them in the appropriate pile. So, I'm standing in this long line, I hand in my card, she looks at it and puts it on a pile that probably has 3 cards in it, while the Republican pile next to it has over a hundred. Of course, everyone in line wanted to see who the heathen was.

Well, I can tell I am rambling, so I should probably close for now. Have a good evening everyone. Kim

KLJ, just wanted to say I'm very proud of the sacrifices your sister-in-law & her husband are making. That's really rough & probably even more so with kids in the family. (tu)

Good luck with the bar exam. I bet you ace it.

I want to come home.

Jj's crabs are missing him.

JJ has crabs.....lol

so one of the young women i work with came here from the states with her boyfriend,he's 20 she's 19 he works at hess,they've been together for a couple of years, she a hard working young woman,him i know nothing about,well they ran into some problems he's (blah blah blah) and she wants attention,so she has made friends on her own and now spends her off work time running with her "new" friends and has not gone home for the last 2 days,i know 2 of the people she's running with and i think they're both ok people,the one is a young local woman and the other is a puerto rican guy and the 3 of them hang together and smoke pot and go to the beach basically pretty innocent stuff by island standards,i guess i'm rambling on but this is the type of situation that worries me, lol all i can see is "single mother" and i only say this because i've seen this exact type of situation here over the years,these young girls come here in a couple and break up and then they hook up with some local guy, end up ditched and pregnant and then have to go back to the states. She's telling me this whole saga and well me being me just asked "are you on the pill" and she said yes and i said good stay on it, she has'nt reached the sleeping around stage yet,but there are some really good looking young guys on this island with one thing on their minds(jesus god when did i turn into such an uptight prude and father) mothers hide your daughters hahahaha

Trw, amazing what a perspective you get when you're sort of past that stage. I see the same thing all the time.

I spent 3 1/2 hours trying to get my old dial-up ISP to fix my email since I can receive but not send emails since I hooked up the DSL this AM. I called Innovative at first to get walked through it & had a really nice guy help. Then discovered the email problem. I called Innovative & got a real witch who told me to call the old IP so I did & talked to India. He came onto my computer & even dummy me could tell he didn't know what he was doing. Got rid of him & called Innovative & got the same witch who was even nastier. Had to call India again that made the problem even worse so I called our computer guy at work who remotely got on my computer & finally figured it out.

I loathe this kind of stuff. I'd have paid somebody $100.00 to have come out here & do all this for me but noooooo, Innovative is giving FREE INSTALLATION with their new bundling of services. Yeah, it's free because I have to do it. And you have to go BACK to Innovative after the 1st bill to get bundled with your other Prosser services so I'm having to pay $49.95/month for 3 months & then they give you a credit. I will say that it's amazing how fast this is compared to my 31.2 or 28.8 kbps dial-up but I still feel like I'm being ska-rewed without being kissed.

Maybe I'll write a letter to the editor. Oops, owned by the same company until the bankruptcy thing goes through. Couldn't have a drink or a cigarette so I went & had a big fattening lunch. 🙂

Glad to see you posting again trw!

As always, enjoy your stories...

Tamara

LOL Trade you're a trip

Thanks Tamara,i gave up my night job,too many hassels and too far to drive

well i just had another kid at my gate looking for work,so he's coming by this week to dig 10 holes for me,lol i'm good at thinking up busy work,he was pretty nervous while he was asking and i just did'nt want the voice inside giving me guilt trips and then having to chase him down the road so i said yes right away.I hav'nt seen guy/kid for a couple of weeks now so i assume he went over the hill with the fighting cocks he bought,they have fights over in mon bijou

so was the night job the 12 miler or 18 miler? Did I get those numbers right? Are you in La Grande Princesse? One of the properties I love is in Kings quarter Little Fountain, to be exact. How far is that to Good Hope School? I know that STX Country Day is a lot closer but we have a friend teaching at GH....

Tamara