Visiting My Brother 2

While visiting my cousin, who lives near the St. Lawrence River 1000 islands area, we visited a Remington Museum (lots of cowboys and indians).  It was wonderful to look at his sculptures close up.  Don’t touch but there was no glass blocking the 360 degree views.  They had a number of duplicate sculptures.  Each is numbered in the order it was cast.  Over time it can be seen how the sculpture changes.  Fascinating.  (no pictures.  I’m not sure they would have allowed it).  Made me want one – full size.

We also went on a boat trip on the St. Lawrence among the islands.  Nat’s family owns a modest small island where I have visited many years ago.  Made me want to live on an island.  Well, I made it even if it is a lot bigger (210 sq miles vs about an acre).  I say the family island was “modest” after seeing the spectacular homes built on some of the islands.  A very enjoyable trip (no pictures).

Toward the end of my visit we went for a boat ride up the Hudson River past Marrest College, the Culinary Institute of America, and the Vanderbilt summer cottage (i.e. mansion).  All of them are truly impressive buildings from the water.  We then went for a bike ride over a railroad bridge which has been turned into a walking/running/biking trail.

Roy told me about the bridge.  By accident, it never needs to be painted again.  This is what Roy told me:

The steel [the bridge is made of] had passivated. That is the term that is used when a metal has formed a protective layer on it so the metal can no longer react with water or oxygen. Stainless steel is actually highly reactive, but it rapidly forms an impervious layer of oxide on the surface which does not let oxygen through to the metal underneath, instead of a porous, flaky layer like the rust that you normally think of. Many metals passivate like this, including Aluminum, Chrome, Titanium and i’m sure may others.

The Poughkeepsie railroad bridge is one of the first to be built from steel instead of cast iron, and they certainly did not know about this, so it must be luck that the steel alloy behaved this way. That bridge was abandoned for about 35 years before it was revived as the Walkway Over the Hudson, and when inspected was found to be in very good condition.

Visiting my Brother

I visited my brother in Stormvile, NY in the beginning of July.  We did some visiting, went on boat trips, hiking, and some bike riding.

Our first trip was to visit cousin Lois and her husband Nat.  Their house on Nat’s family farm is “off the grid”.  When they went to build they discovered that there was no power to the property and that it would cost about the same to go solar as to wait a very long time for the electric company to come and hook them up.  So, they went solar.  They do not stay there in the winter but during the summer their one bank of solar panels supply all the power they need with batteries in the basement.  I didn’t notice any difference.  I really would like to do the same.  The problem is that if electricity is already installed it takes a very long time for it to pay for itself.

We took the usual family pictures with that solar powered house in the background.

Me, Roy, and cousin Lois

Me, Nat, and Roy

Our next trip was to visit my nephew Edward, his wife Kristina and their children.  Katie and Ellie I had met before but they didn’t remember me.  After a little bit of “shy” they both became real chatterboxes.  The baby is about a year old.  Katie will be starting first grade of home schooling.  Wow, does time fly.  Some pictures:

Edward, Kristina, and kids.

They got nice kids!

Baptism in the Sea at LCG

The church I worship God with here on Guam is the Lutheran Church of Guam.  This church is unusual in that over half the members are not “born to” Lutherans.  There are Baptists, Catholics, and I don’t know what other backgrounds people come from to worship God.  I am actually one of the older members in age.  There are few members that have been members for many years.  Most people come to Guam via the military or their jobs and when their tour of duty is over, they are “deployed” to their new post where they serve God with another congregation of believers in Jesus Christ.

One thing surprised me.  I knew that the Lutheran Church believes in infant baptism.  This is true at LCG but quite a few adults or young adults have been baptized.  Coming from a Baptist background I was surprised by the ceremony of being baptized in the sea. A couple of pictures below from the latest baptism performed by Pastor Jeff Johnson.

Witesses

Baptism

Baptism in God's beautiful creation of Guam

Miscellaneous Guam Plant/Animal Stories

The is a story about some avocados and a papaya.

I have finally succeeded.  I have tried and tried to get an avocado pit to sprout. Here are 2 of the 4 avocados I was given from a local tree.  They were ripe when I got them.  I think that is why I had success!

Very tasty before being planted

This shows one - the other is now taller than this one

A couple of weeks before it was wacked

For a while I watched a “weed” growing out of the pit where the water meters are. It was being well watered because there was a leak in one of the water lines (not mine). By the time is was cut down it was almost as tall as me and in blossom. A volunteer papaya I found out. The trunk was a couple of inches thick and in a couple of weeks it would have had papayas growing on it! I wonder what they had to use to hack it off.

I also have a new roommate.  A four footed brat named Akuoang (Iggy for short).  You might recognize Iggy as Tim and Melody’s cat.  It’s nice having a room mate.  She is my second alarm clock.  My regular alarm clock goes off and then the Iggy alarm goes off.  My regular alarm I can turn off.  The only way to turn Iggy off is to shut her out of my bedroom.  Actually, even it my regular (first) alarm is off (like on Saturday morning), the Iggy alarm still goes off.  I think it has something to do with breakfast.

I think Iggy is a 95 % Siamese with the blue eyes and brown / tan and white markings and the very distinctive mustache complete with voice, personality, and snotty attitude.  The other 5 % is pure Guam boonie cat.  Tim and Melody rescued Iggy when she was a kitten.

Goodbye to Friends

In mid June we had a “Ladies Night Out” at Shirley’s in Agaña to say farewell to Melody Plaxton, Laura Peters, and Marci Martinelli.  That is one of the hard things about Guam.  Friends leave.  Melody has returned to California and will be teaching.  Laura has a new job half way around the world and soon Marci will be returning to the mainland.  Jeff Johnson, pastor of the Lutheran Church of Guam, has a way of putting it.  People don’t leave.  They are sent by the Lord to a new place to serve him.  We still miss them:

Laura	Melody
Samantha Owen and Marci	Joyce & Mae
Lots of food was enjoyed!	Here's Me - I was told I should post picture of myself

Has the Rainy Season Started?

Wet Feet

One might ask why one would ever upload a picture of a set of feet. Well, they are wet feet. It has been cloudy for the third day today. I went swimming on Saturday at the Agana public pool and got sprinkled on. I went swimming on Sunday and got rained on. Today, as I was getting ready for a bike ride, it started to pour so I waited until it stopped shortly thereafter. When I got to UOG (University of Guam), it started to pour about 2/3s of the way round the campus and quit while I waited for it to stop so that I could see.  That left massive puddles on the road to soak my feet as the water ran off down the drains.  Thus very wet feet.  It also poured for a short while earlier in the day. So, the question is, is the rainy season starting? It is kind of hard to tell because the dry season was wet this year.

You also might wonder why I am wearing (in this case wet) socks. My feet actually get cold. I wear sandals rather than sneakers because sandals dry overnight. Sneakers take days to dry out. But that leaves my feet out there getting cold in the headwind I carry around with me.

More pictures from Jeff’s Pirate Cove

I got some pictures from Carolyn who was the friend that was part of the group of four that went to Jeff’s Pirate Cove.  Now that I have gotten over my senior moment (I checked with Carolyn that I remembered her name and she had another term for my forgeterry (BF)).

Carolyn came to Guam as a short term missionary teacher who has spent most of her time helping Tim and Melody pack because they are returning to the mainland after spending over three years here serving as full time missionaries at Pacific Islands University.  God has really blessed the school by sending Melody as teacher and administrator and Tim as maintenance supervisor and all round handy man and both wonderful followers of Jesus Christ.  I will miss them as examples in Christian living as well as lifetime friends.

There is a small museum with this mural painted outside.  I got a really nice picture of a model of a traditional fishing boat (I assume).

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Here I am with the great Pacific Ocean to my back.  It was a really nice, breeze but HOT day (especially in the museum which had no A/C and no breeze).  I love the sound of the waves constantly breaking on the barrier reef.  Guam is wonderfully made by God as the tip of the tallest mountain on earth.  The bottom of the mountain is at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.  This is what I have been told as I have not personally gone down to the bottom of the mountain to check it out.  The Trench is behind me.

Carolyn got a beautiful picture of a crab coming out of it’s shell by being sung to.  It was large enough to have me thinking about crabs pinch and had bright beady eyes on eye stalks.  I’m holding the shell in the tip of my fingers as far from the claws as possible.  All the crabs we bothered with our singing retained their homes and were returned to the sand.

I think there is a Gecko in the house.  Well, it eats bugs.  A very useful occupation.  I keep a towel jammed under the front security door.  Brown tree snakes, monitor lizards and cockroaches come to mind. A fairly large animal could come underneath and the inside front door is FAR from being air tight.