Talofa Samoa

I spent this last week in Samoa.
This was my first trip there; and now I have spent time in each of the six countries in the two Church of the Nazarene fields that we work in: Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa.

Samoa was the only one missing, and we don't want a missing country, now, do we?

Dad went to Samoa for some meetings... and I tagged along, taking notes for the meetings, making myself useful, and getting to see a new country!































We were fed very well... the Samoan umu us very similar to the Fijian lovo (island earth oven) which I have grown up with and have no problem consuming large quantities of.















After the meetings, we took a boat over to the island of Savai'i, which is a beautiful, sleepy little island.














































One very unique thing about Samoa is their traditional house, or "fale." Due, I suppose, to the climate of this tropical island country (which could possibly be described as "hot" and "humid"), fales are built with... no walls. There are woven blinds which can be lowered for privacy, but remain up in the day. They are actually very comfortable and cool... I was just about ready to take up residence in one myself, if I couldn't get back to the air-conditioned meeting room!














































You know, I do have a note to give here regarding the air in our part of the world. I have visited these places (such as New Mexican mountains, where my mom's from) that pompously claim to have "air." Bah! When you arrive, in full expectation of promised air, you can find no such thing. Oxygen is thinly spread and apportioned in much too small portions for human consumption (in my humble opinion). And you can't feel the air at all! I mean, I like to be able to FEEL my air. And in my part of the world, with a norm of 98% humidity, at 80-90F degrees, right at sea level, you can certainly know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are surrounded by comforting, thick air. You can almost swim in our air. And that's how it's supposed to be... isn't it?

Attention for Using

... the instructions on my water heater. I laugh at this every morning when I take a shower, and have meant to blog about it for years. So now, as I prepare to leave my home in Navua, I thought, well, I won't have another chance, I might as well do it now. Here we go: the label on the front of my water heater, word for word....

Attention for using

-Type of gas must be fit for the requirement in the heater's name plate.

-Should be mounted out the doors where there is a top ventilation.

-Never use the heater near to combustibles or acidities.

-Do mention to close the gas valve after using.

-Never leave the heater without guard when it is using.

-In winter, please put out the water in the heater after using, so that to avoid frozen.

-Only a qualified technician should attempt to re-install and maintain the heater.


....I love transliterated things. [=

webMASTER

I have spent the last few days coding like crazy... see, we are about to release a new website, and I'm trying to get as much as I can done before I leave my computer and internet.
And no, I'm not going to tell you the new site name yet. Sorry.

ANYWAY, after many solid hours of coding, I've come to notice a few things about my job, which of course I shall share with you all. lucky you.

If you do web coding, then you will relate to this post.
If you do not, then welcome to a little window into the life of a webmaster.

I love the term "webmaster." It sounds so... MASTER-ish. I mean... hello, what do you do, I'm a webMASTER. mwa-ha-ha. Whoever came up with the term must have been a webmaster.
Ok, so now that we have established that I love the name of my job, we shall move on to other things about it.

What do webmasters do? Well... essentially we spend our days staring at a small, thin screen through which we view and manipulate the world. We do this by typing away at a little keyboard in strange isoteric languages and then clicking a magical button labeled "preview" which displays our craftmanship. *type type type* *preview*

I am not quite sure why we must use such weird-looking code, complete with symbols and shortcuts and whatnots, why can we not just type "put that thing here." I have, however, come up with a workable theory. That is this:

We are paid for what we do. If everyone could do it, everyone WOULD do it, and we would be out of a job. Therefore, we must make what we do look as impossible as possible. End of theory. But, fellow webmasters, murder me not. It's just a theory.

The existence of code languages, whatever their purpose, does make for some interesting characteristics which usually mark a webMASTER and set them apart from the other inhabitants of earth.

Characteristic 1: When asked where the mop is, they will answer their mother in the following way:
div class, kitchen. object id, mop. position, relative. float, left. end div. *blink blink*

Characteristic 2: They will have uncontrollable bursts of warning such as, "MOM! SAVE A COPY OF THAT CARROT ON A THUMB DRIVE BEFORE YOU CUT IT UP!!! You might want to roll back to the previous state. Your internet could cut out, leaving you with a half-cut carrot! You really should save a copy."

Characteristic 3: They will be obbessed with spelling: "No, no, spell it c-o-l-o-r, not c-o-l-o-u-r. Even though the latter may be used in the majority of the world by the majority of people, the former is the only one which the programs will accept. If you spell it the latter way, you will end up with *shudder* Default Coloring."


I could continue here, but since probably only a small portion of my audience is getting this post at all, I should probably stop. I shall leave you with a joke, which most of you will probably not get.

There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Amen.

Don't worry, that got most of my coding jokes out of my system. I shall attempt a post for regular, sane, normal people in the near future.

Oh, would you look at that...

...Danielle got bored with her blog's design and decided to change it. Took me an hour, too. Appreciate it. [laughter]

And since I used up all my "work-on-blog" time with changing the design, there shall be no long post, because I have to get back to work.

[sigh]

Around the World in... two weeks

Yes, in the last two weeks we have hit four different countries. I do realize that isn't exactly ALL the way around the world, but it sure did feel like it. 

We have been having fun though... shall I show you each of the four countries? Yes? Ok, here goes.

First up, Papua New Guinea, which affords some great airplane-window shots.

Sorry, that's the only picture you get of PNG... for now. I'll take you on a picture tour of Kudjip later.... when I get back up there with a working camera. May I remind you that my camera batteries have been dead for the past couple months? I got new batteries in Australia... which is the next country on my list. We spent a couple days there, but the highlight was, of course, Krispy Kreme donuts in Sydney! (the only place in this part of the world with Krispy Kreme donuts)

(Dad has a Krispy Kreme donut in his hand there, in case you were wondering what that picture had to do with what I was talking about)

From Australia, we went on to Port Vila, Vanuatu to spend a few days with Uncle David and Aunt Sylvia Potter. Also, Aunt Becky Morsch arrived there to spend the same few days (plus a few more afterward). The few days were packed with hard work... 

aside from the work the adults were doing, Quinton mowed the entire lawn (that lawn is pretty huge!), and I found a school book and read 377 pages of it. *takes a bow* 

Here's some pictures from Vanuatu... I'm sure that you will feel very sorry for us... having to work in such a place...

Yes, very sad, I know. Forced to live and work in such places. .... :)

Finally, country number four... FIJI!!!! Back... uh... home.... from... home.... ehhh, forget it. I have so many homes I can't be bothered with trying to call the right one "home" at any given time. As a matter of fact, I believe I have a right to call most of the airports in our part of the world "home"... I mean, how long do you have to stay in a place before you can say you lived there? I have definitely lived in Brisbane airport. Two coffee shops there to alternate between. Internet kiosks in between them. But not free internet... Free internet is in Sydney airport. But then again, Brisbane has better food in the International Departure Lounge.... 

Where was I? Oh right, Fiji. We got into Fiji and hit the ground running. Hopefully we can get a bunch of this piled-up work done before it's time to fly out to the next country.  Oh, did you want a picture of Fiji?

Sorry, you got one of my brother instead. ...

Annnd breakfast is ready so I must sign off for now. 

Coming up next is my wonderful series of photos titled "My Home"... including beautiful photos of Brisbane Airport, Air Pacific airplane seats, in-flight magazines...... ahh, good memories.