Week 27 - Another week in Purgadice, The Days Don't End.

[Sept 29 - Oct 5]

Monday 29

I watched Taxi Driver a few days ago... there are so many great lines in that movie... and Robert DeNiro's voice I mean...

Travis Bickle: The days go on and on... they don't end. All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, I believe that one should become a person like other people.

That is just great. I have been writing. I want to write something decent for a change, not sure what the story should be though. I tend to focus on using characters with sanity issues. Insanity, seems like the one place left that is magical... you know viewing it through the eyes of madman you can invent anything you want. Plus being in Vanuatu can definitely create some stress and make you question your own state of mind.

Back to a more blah note of the day... My Principle and I went into the TVL/Digicel and talked with them face to face. Tomorrow we better get the flybox system I am just sick of their lame ass excuses. If we get it then it think we will have a functioning internet versus the partially working hit and miss crap we have at the moment. TVL should change its name to WDAPIS "we don't actually provide internet services". No that is a not that good... it should be a funny acronym, ugh... I can come up with a better one but I am tired.

5:00pm
I spoke with a few people back home and miss being there. I miss being apart of something that matters. Seems like when you build or complete a project in the states people say thanks... good work or encourage you in some ways and actively participate in the project with you. I miss that feeling of doing something that matters. I wonder if I will feel like that again here.

So far nothing in the last few months means anything here. It is almost pointless. Dig a hole, fill a hole. That is what they made my dad do doing basic training in the army for months, pointless work. Fix a PC, a PC dies. So what. No one here bothers to watch me to learn how. Oh well. Trying to not give up hope. Maybe I can find a way to get a dedicated counterpart versus a full time over worked teacher/counterpart. If he spends all his time in a classroom how is he supposed to learn anything about supporting a network and fixing them, or learning new things. He/she won't = pointless.

7:00pm
This looks interesting as well: https://ello.co/wtf/post/about-ello
New social media app... this was bound to happen. Sorry facebook stock, I might have to sell you in a few months if this really catches fire. I sort of hate facebook so I hope it does gets popular.

And now for my next magic trick, my counterpart ask me to: find a user password cracker to unlock a PC because a student forgot their own password. Not surprising. Until I began issuing out password to people using a pattern I never forget and locking their reset ability, people at my school would forget or changed their password so fast it made my head spin. Some would forget their password the second they finished entering it. It annoyed me to tears. And these were adults.

The easy solution blow the whole HD away. But I am tempted to hack into this piece of junk computer. Wonder what kind of tools exist for such things now.

Oh and I am working on making a new set of door to this beat up old junk
of a locker in my bedroom:

Not bad eh... need to get a left handed door set tomorrow.

I got stupidly two right handed ones.

Grr.. Love wasting money.













It feels nice not having to look at ugly clutter. Back in my condo I tossed every non essential thing in a storage locker and I had a very starkly ornamented home. I miss that.

(30) Tuesday

7:00am
Shit it's tuesday.

2:31pm
It was looking like another nothing day... but a miracle has happened. TVL brought us the FlyBOX... Yes. 1 Meg... unlimited, 21,000K (210usd) per month. Hell Yah. All the computers connected. Not much hassle except for one and I think I can fix that... now... I have to contain my enthusiasm. I am going to see how it looks tomorrow. The next day and for the next two weeks... It it stays up and running HOWALUYA!

Also got my antiboxics from Mike... and installed a decent antivirus software on my mac because I am paranoid now of all the viruses on these usb that float around the school.

Decently productive day. This is what it looks like when the students have internet again:
happiness.........

This is was the last PC I got working in the office and I took this alice in wonderland photo of the










place to show you...

Then,

 I was having too much fun not to use this panorama upgrade on the IOS 8.0.2
Not to take this photo of the front gate of my school

Here is a nice little writeup in the local paper about Peace Corps in Vanuatu: http://vanuatu.peacecorps.gov/history-peacecorps-vanuatu.php

(01) Wednesday

This got done this week... I mean internet day 2... was fine. Woohoo. Lets see what day 3 brings.

I worked on a few things, cleaning the wood workshop... it was so filthy I removed 6 wheelbarrows of sawdust and crap that they burned in a fire it was so gross.

Second I cut a piece of lumber to make my new cabinet doors and almost finished it.

Need to figure out how to deploy gepi into WAMP to migrate off this one PC and use it for the principles computer.

Went to Rich's place and fixed up his house preventing cockroaches from entry into his home via the drains... I put screens on them all.

Played Ultimate frisbee, it was kids day it seems... not a real game just sorta playing gently for the tiny ones.

(Oct 02) Thursday

Two am... and I am awake. Looking at glasses and talking with Mary HAYAT Krotz on FB.

Just about to order some ray bans... maybe. Order them at 4:00am and Screwed up on one value ARG... dammit why did mess that up... feels like office space when the superman virus goes wrong because of some small value and the guy is lamenting his plight. I am that guy too.

10:44am
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This week should be titles getting shit done week... finished another cabinet door. Looks great.
Downloading new prince album... wonder if the purple one sucks again or has renewed his sound... fingers crossed.

Installed office on onld PC and making it new and shiny again...
Trying to figure out WAMP still.... ugh. But once that is done then I am golden.

Time to walk into town and see whatever happened to the MUG molly gave me to cut the bottom out of... if that guy found a blowtorch and did that... victory.

Tomorrow Len visits my site and then... that is over.

Walked into town took some more panoramas.

I love how the panoramics distort stuff like this car, how it became a super mini.

Had this for lunch... and it was really good.

SEE... I was excited enough to take 2 photos.

11:23pm
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Worked a few hours in the Lab I think one PC's network card is burned out... the other I cannot figure out why it cannot connect to the server. Very odd.

I made two new web accounts today...

New social network I hear about and wanted to see it.
https://ello.co/da5id_

and a reddit account.

Was very curious about both. Not sure what to do with either.

(Oct 03) Friday

 Had my site visit by Len happened this morning... made him some potatoes too while I was at it... I was hungry.

 I suggested that we ask the principle to either hire a dedicated IT counterpart or another teacher to reduce the amount of classes Samuel has so he can actually have time to learn how to support the lab and computers at the school. If he is teaching 7 classes there is no way he can learn how to be an effective IT support tech.

 Not much else going on really. Would like to get a network card to fix one computer. Have to look into that idea.

Looking at some old photos wish I had some canvas to paint on.

So........ back to thinking.

4:oopm
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Alright walked over to rich's place and met up with Hunter, Monica, Mike Stafford, Bryan and Kate... and Rich. We went to the sarakata bridge and jumped off twice. This photo is from a smaller bridge but has a decent photo of me... the ones after this are on the big bridge but you can barely see me.

It is a little disturbing not gonna lie... I am not sure how far it is down to the water from the top but it must be at least twenty feet... maybe even thirty feet. I feel like taking a rope over and meaning how far down it is. I am going to walk over there and use a rope ot measure it to be accurate.

After "convergence" as we called the jumping off the bridge we had a true sausagefest grilling party at my place. We ate 29 sausages on garlic toasted buns, with mustard, ketchup, onions, fried potatoes, and after some cheesy chips ala microwaved while watching Broad City in Cinema One (my living room). It was a pretty epic event.

(04) Saturday

Gave mr. Stafford the hotel David Treatment... pancakes, hashbrowns, eggs, coffee while polishing off the Rick & Morty a-thon... he is now fully MOrtified. Another to join into full membership of my church of humor.

After that I went into town bought a new bike tire, and groceries from LCM before it closes for the most of the day... and went home to blog.

I sort of wonder where Mike Hawkins disappeared to... even Len is wondering where he is. Guess he's MIA... you out there Mike? Come back... join the Peace Corps world again... Don't disappear like Hunter did for months on end... oh well.

Well time to measure the bridge. I am betting its like 30 feet to the water.

12:19pm
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NO. I was wrong. It is 20 feet, almost perfectly... at low tide, at high tide it is 17 feet from bottom of where our feet were on the bridge to the water below. That is like the height of a light pole / power line pole. It is pretty high to jump from that to the ground. Look at  light pole next time and ask yourself how that would feel landing on the ground... but hitting the water is obviously not going to hurt like hitting the ground. It still is for me a bit of an adrenaline rush. I felt exhausted after hitting the water twice.

Not sure what to do now. Guess read and work on short stories.

I have not seen the cat that hangs out around my place... I named him Linklyn. Very friendly and most importanly a killer of rats. The place has not had a problem since she showed up. Linklyn has a huge tumor on her face/neck. It's a little scary and sad looking. Rich is in love with this cat. DON'T STEAL MY CAT... you are gone in like 2 months, I need this cat to keep the rats away.

4:00pm
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So my bike had a flat tire and Rich volunteered to help me fix it. We put it together and walked over to the gas station "paradise petroleum" and tried to fill it... but it had a flat. The new tire. Flat. Things here are sold as junk.

Lamented for a few minutes... considered getting the store to exchange it... but then Rich went to his house and found a patch. We patch them up and talked to this Ni-Van from Malakula as we killed time. He fixed one Rich fixed the other. Rich commented on the patch job the No-Van did as being better figures he probably patched a couple million tires in his life here.

And it worked WOOHOO... I can bike again. Thanks Rich.

Then we went back and watch some more Rick and Morty. Everyone should be Mortified if possible.

5:00pm
Rich fell asleep after two episodes so I decided to write and read again. Almost halfway done with this one book "Miles Walker You're Dead" by Linda Jaivin. I like it. About an artist and people who live a crazy life in Sydney Australia. I highly recommend reading it.

It rained most of the day on and off... I like how cool the air feels at the moment. It really is nice almost like air conditioning but not as frigid. And there are not many kids running around screaming their brains out because it is raining just a few birds singing some shit I never heard before unfamiliar sounding they are all very short calls, ka-zaah, ka-zaah and betatabeta... but with them overlapping it is a constant noise. I like it. Mostly the lack of screaming kids (like a murder just occurred) is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo nice. Anything but that I will take.

(05) Sunday

Not much going on at the moment... rained a bit. Len visited me one last time to fill in an eval document. I did not run to meet him I just sat at my house and waited for him.

Skype session with my folks. It was nice. Not much going on back home. Temps are dropping. They are going to go for a walk. We used to have a shopping mall near my parents house in the area I grew up called Apache Plaza. It was one of the first big malls in the USA... Houston had the first, Minneapolis had the second with Southdale but this plaza was built in the 1961 and maybe since it was not large enough to be labeled a Mall it did not make the record books. But it was a great building. I miss it. It was demolished in 2004. We talked about this

building... click around this site to see the glorious decline of a 70's and 80's centerpiece of my childhood: apacheplaza.com It was a great place to walk around in the middle of the winter.

But it was getting creepier since there were no stored left just a dead shell. That place was magical in some ways. One of my most fun jobs was at this mall... in the Black photo shop, which later became Ritz... then when that left it was a empty store. Ritz camera, I think is pretty close to bankrupt now yup... dead: Ritz_Camera they filed for bankruptcy. I think mostly smart phones killed the camera. Oh but back to the mall, the bowling alley was the best. It had my favorite arcade game ever, Star Wars, where you get to blow up the death star. And it was a great bowling alley.

4:oopm
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We started making a homebrew...

week 26 - The internet is dead. Long live the paper and pen

(22) Monday
I keep trying to fight the seemingly inevitable getting TVL's internet service and my school to work together. I have nearly 99% given up on them. One last attempt at getting the fly box if not I will ask to switch over to Digicel.

When my internet at home Digicel runs slowly as i download things like Escape Velocity Nova or http://www.avira.com/en/free-antivirus-mac#start-download-mac I just use Lynxlet... A lynx port
version the original browser:

Lynx:

What I like about this goofy browser is it reminds me of the 80's when nothing worked right but we were happy we had something.. The Atari 2600 is a good example of that. It still works too this browser and since sometimes my connection speed is so painfully slow this browser ignore image data, javascript and everything else that requires more bits of useless bandwidth that does not change the content of the site I want too much... it's great... 80's ugly and yet useful Lynx.

And this little Silly game I am playing: Escape Velocity is a gem that Bryan got me into...

...again this is very dated software (2003ish), but still fun. Not ultra high end graphics but its very playable.. and with an old school look. This company that makes this game also wrote Defcon... which is what one of my favorite nerd movies is based on WarGames... which is the reason one of the reasons I loved computers and writing code... the main character (played by Matthew Broderick) David (movies with David Characters also a weakness of mine, yes because my name is David) at one early point in the movie Changes a girl he likes D in Math to an A by hacking into the schools computer... and She kind of falls in love with him.... This is pretty much every nerds dream, doing something with a computer and a girl likes you for the end result, and yet this is pretty much never the case.

This game makes me think while playing it "One day I will conquer this world." Oh you can see one of my ships, I upgraded to a fighter it's hovering above the saturn like planet watching some capital ship duke it out.

5:00pm
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Waited all day for anything with my principle making a decision about the internet nothing. So I played a lot of video games.

Then I got word from the paycheck gods... and Hunter sent his usual we got paid text... so I ran into town and bought a ton of great groceries... I will eat like a king for the next week or so. The golden items, cereal, potatoes, a big Bailey's, mini hotdogs, some ham, eggs... and bread. I am in food nirvana for now. Tomorrow we have a mexican night with the Whippits (it's their real name and yes I always think to myself, whip it good) the Missionary family... Thank god they live here and are so nice to us.

Back to more video gaming and an Irish coffee. :)

8:48pm
---------
Hung out with Jes and Mike Hawkins, I guess I spelled his name wrong probably once... he reads this blog... if you see a Hawkings... that is a typo. Sorry Tumas.

Thomas as hung out he is a G22 Vol that stayed and got married and has to two kids here in Santo/Luganville. It was a good time... albeit a little chilly. We were at my favorite Nokemal... HQ. They have good burgers for 250-350 VT, so like 2.50-2.50 usd.

Now I am back home and ready to launch back into my space adventure of EV Nova.

(23) Tuesday

I did not sleep much again but watched a pretty amazing sunrise. I think waking up at 3am. That is normal for me though. Good time to think and or read... and not many people running around yelling like they do here so often during the day. It's wearing off (it driving me nuts) it used to bother me a lot, all the Ni-van whoops and hollering... I guess everything is just so shocking or funny to them that they need to make weird noises. But at 3am, thankfully there is none... so I can read without being distracted.

If anyone knows me that know that I LOVE coffee. I drink pots of it some times in a single day. But this Tanna Coffee they sell here is so powerful that I have to add milk to it. I am used to drinking black coffee nothing added all the time in the states, but this coffee is so raw its like sucking on the tit of the cow for milk... it just overwhelms my taste buds.

But today I am looking forward to the Missionary party... and my folks did some serious digging around to get my prescription so I can order some sunglasses.
Something like these:

But if it does not happen its ok. I just want something that is polarized and protects me from this harsh sun. I really like the ran ban look too and all the new colors are nice.












3:00pm
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TVL promised ot bring over a new modem the Flybox that I wanted 3 weeks ago. If that happens I think the connection problem goes away. Finger crossed.

9:00pm
---------
TVL never came of course but dinner at the Whipits was amazing as usual. They had make your own tacos, tons of chips and dip, lemon aide, and after cakes, and Rich and I bought ice cream and root beer for root beer floats. Best dinner I have had in ages. I starved myself all day so I could bing at this event.

(24) Wednesday

Midnight. Woke up my normal midnight time and started writing. Finished Asimov book and now am sad I have only one left to read.

Len one of the Admin IT people from the Peace Corps, is going to visit my school next week on Friday. And I am trying to figure out what I will do in November, as things totally die during break. I might try and visit Vila for a conference and then with counterpart fly to Tanna and visit the volcano since he has family there. Something to consider.

noon
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Worked on finishing my long talked about murphy bed. Yeah... it works. It was looking kind of iffy for a moment there putting in these large steel brackets and mounting them with 1/2 bolts is not easy. They are a little bit off but I think they will last a few years. It was a pretty ambitious project I think.

2:30pm
---------
Met with TVL again... and they are going to give us a flybox modem, as promised the 5th time now this time they say they will give it to us on Friday. I am as you can guess, holding my breath. But if we do get it which somehow I doubt we will, this will be a great demo to see if the satellite connection solves our school woes.

7:oopm
---------
Well... all day I have been fighting a small cold. And now I am trying to think of a short story to write for the next van am. I skipped the last one because I did not have any great ideas and I was trying to write comedy which is the hardest things to do I think... unless you have an animated TV show and you have time to create a following and characters. But writing a one time stand alone story with less than 1000 words... that is really hard.

The kind of comedy I like is not like a whiny or like crude... the comedy central show broad city is pretty great or Rick and Morty is great but I don't want to copy them either even though R&M is basically my internal voice on life.

Might be better off skipping comedy. I went down a sci-fi path for a bit too... that is because I was reading Asimov books. Those too are pretty tough to write (sci-fi) in less than 1000 words and I was again trying in my head to be funny and it backfired horribly. I like the idea of a mystery and we had one sort of in our town... the egg conspiracy, I coined that phrase here for the 3 week disappearance of any eggs in the stores. It was not really a shortage either it was well... might write a story about it... however the that title "The Egg conspiracy" sounds more like a reproductive thing than food shortage, right?

I was up and down all night as usual. Just could not sleep plus the cold makes it worse. Started on a new short story.

(25) Thursday

7am... and I think I will try and work on a couple things, gate for short exit from house, and a cabinet face for my large locker so I can lock the cabinet up.

Also trying to get a list of pen pal names from the school next door. It is part of the world wide school program. I have a 4th grade teacher : Greensboro Day School 5401 Lawndale Drive Greensboro, NC 27455 

Looking forward to getting this started.

Should be a busy day.

2:oopm
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I am sick just don't feel like moving but I went into town checked on parts to make a new cabinet door and lock for the locker in my bedroom. Ordered a couple peice of wood to be cut. Then checked on my friends internet they are working again fine. Wish the same was true at my school. Ate a bit then slept for a few hours. Not very interesting I know but that is life. Watching Taxi Driver to cheer me up.

Rich and Bryan are at my beach practicing for the triathlon swimming bit at the beach by my house. I would join them but I can't I have a fever and am coughing too much to be outside doing stuff.

That's it... oh and I found a guy that will try and use a blow torch to cut this Mug bottom into a circle:

so that Molly Geisern can make a necklace or something out of this. Not sure how this will turn out. If I had used a hammer it would just shattered, I looked a grinder that would take about 6 years. Then tried a saw again not designed for ceramics more for metals... so that did not work. But a blow torch.. that has a shot. Or it could melt the whole thing.

(26) Friday

I have been really sick all day. Went into town got a few partd to build a cabinet door. Spoke with TVL they have me the run around again... as expected No FlyBox. I almost don't care anymore.

Now I am going to hack my brains out, sweat bullets and not sleep for 15 hours. Maybe tomorrow I will feel better.

(27) Saturday

I feel terrible. Probably will do next to nothing and such today except sleep and hurt. I am working on short story... was think in of going to Vila for a conference in November... I think I will pass. I really hate going to Vila. Maybe January I will go instead.

10am and I am just dripping in sweat. I feel half crazy. Love being sick in this country. It's just great.

(28) Sunday

Had a short skype session with my mom and dad and Mila... they are fun to talk with. Trying to figure out a way to get some sun prescription ray ban wayfarer glasses to me... very tricky business. I would order this one pair I found here: http://www.selectspecs.com/prescription/confirm/

But they are 300 bucks... and if I goof up I am trying to figure out with they will let me return them.

Wow another day. I still feel like death warmed over but soon maybe I will be feeling better... Got to skype with my friend Julia... I love her, have known her for almost a decade now. Seen her through a million changes and we are still in my tight as ever. She said she might visit me here... I doubt it will happen but I don't doubt her desire to visit. It is just expensive flying to the middle of nowhere. She told me some stuff I never really think about, such as I am the kind of guy that never lets people go.

I agree... I have friends I see once in a hundred years but I nag them via email or text message every few weeks... how are you... what's up... hi... most of the time people don't reply but I always want to retain my friendships. And she is thankful I don't give up on her. She lives in New York City and life goes at the speed of light I am sure so it's easy to forget about your small town friends from Minneapolis but Julia is someone I will love forever, like Annie and Mary... just a great soul and super funny. I will never forget the look on my dad's face when Julia and I tried to steal my neighbors canoe at 3am to use on the tiny lake near my parents home on Silver Lake. He thought we were total idiots but that is just the sort of random crap we'd do.

It's raining and the music festival is not going so great no that this bothers me... 90% of the music is so terrible it should be barred from being pumped through speakers. I wonder how the triathlon is going... Rich and Bryan are in it... with the rain and all it might make it worse or cool them off... not sure which would be worse.

Week 25 - The internet saga continues.

(15) Monday

Still no widely available internet at my school. We shall see if we switch to Digicel or see if we can get a different kind of service from TVL. I am doubtful we can get the new Flybox device setup without having an 8gig cap on data. That might last a week or a day depending on what the Nivan's do when the service is back up. Most likely they will start chewing up the data immediately.

But I can probably get some money to buy a new power supply and fix the server. That is at least a small victory.

Having no internet though is a major problem and I cannot seem to find a good solution.

3pm
---
New power supply did the job, and one computer is back up and running. No luck on configuring network to work for internet. This week is it though, we fix it or switch to Digicel and get off DSL. I am starting to think that the ISP limits the number of addresses or something but I am not sure if they can control that.

Midnight
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There is a virtually dog war going on in my compound at school. I was already awake but when 20 dogs are running around barking their brains out trying to kill each other it is hard to ignore it.

So I went back to reading about network crap... this will put 99% of the population into a coma but this is what I do at midnight read and attempt this on my PC's at school.

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Disabling DHCP on the Router

If you want to manually configure every client, you can disable the router from handing out and managing the addresses automatically. Bring up your router's web-based configuration utility by typing in its IP address; for example 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1.

Log in and find the section where you can change the DHCP settings, such as on the General, Network, or DHCP tab. Once you find the DHCP settings, there should be a checkbox or option to enable/disable the server (see Figure 5).

Uncheck the appropriate option and save the settings. Then from now on, users won't be able to access the network or Internet until they've configured a static IP on their computer.

Microsoft Windows

DNS settings are specified in the TCP/IP Properties window for the selected network connection. 

Way to configure a static IP  you input the same IP details:

• IP Address: Pick an address within the same subnet as the router. For example, if your router is 192.168.1.1 (subnet 255.255.255.0), you could go with anything between 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.255, or if it's 192.168.0.1 (subnet 255.255.255.0), 192.168.0.2–192.168.0.255 would be the range.
• Subnet Mask: This would be the same as your router, probably 255.255.255.0.
• Default Gateway: This is your router's IP address.
• Preferred DNS: You can either enter a DNS server's IP address, if you know it, or simply enter your router's IP address.
• 4. Disabling DHCP on the Router | Next Section

Changing DNS server settings on Microsoft Windows 7

1. Go the Control Panel.
2. Click Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center, and click Change adapter settings.
3. Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, right-click Local Area Connection, and click Properties.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, right-click Wireless Network Connection, and click Properties.
   If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
4. Select the Networking tab. Under This connection uses the following items, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) orInternet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) and then click Properties.
5. Click Advanced and select the DNS tab. If there are any DNS server IP addresses listed there, write them down for future reference, and remove them from this window.
6. Click OK.
7. Select Use the following DNS server addresses. If there are any IP addresses listed in the Preferred DNS server or Alternate DNS server, write them down for future reference.
8. Replace those addresses with the IP addresses of the Google DNS servers:
   • For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.
   • For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844
9. Restart the connection you selected in step 3.
10. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.
11. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

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That was cruel or horribly boring of me I bet. Oh well.

6:00pm
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Had a great time talking with Miss. Annie in Minneapolis. She has a new apartment and she looks great. Wish I could fly her out here for a month. She's one of my best friends.

(16) Tuesday

1:30am
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Working on a short story while two dozen dogs run around the compound trying to kill each other, and singing a murder orchestra of howling, shrieking and barking.

6:00am
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Got to talk with my parents on Skype... everything is going ok back home. Guess it is full swing of fall back in MN... temps in the 60's.

11:00am
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It's hopeless! I tried everything I know to get this internet working but I failed. Problem maybe me... I just am not that great at network crap. Or it is TVL, they are a terrible provider.

So my principle yelled at them a lot and now they are shipping us a new flybox router from Port Vila that has a satellite connection. Glad he is yelling at them not me. I know (I believe) this new router will do the trick. I used it once with a data limit of 8 gig and it was worked great until the data ran out. The new box has no data limit. We will be the only location on Santo with the new device. But have to wait for it to arrive. Bet it is going by boat. That means wait wait wait... and wait some more.

So instead of being depressed I am reading some Isaac Asimov Foundation's Edge to distract me for a bit. Later tonight we are having a Taco Tuesday party at my place... WooHoo Taco's.

11:30pm

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Had the majority of Santo's Peace Corps over for our first Taco Tuesday, Hunter, Mike Stafford and Hawkins, Jes, Kate and Bryan and Rich only Sam did not join... which is too bad she woulda liked it I think. Kate is pretty skilled at cooking compared to me, guess that is no surprise, if anyone knows me I rarely cooked back in the states. She did most of the work adding spices to the ground beef and making a tomato sauce but everyone chipped in nicely. The hard shell taco's I found in town were not crunchy like I was hoping they would be but they were still ok. The wrap style ones Bryan brough were probably better.

I put on some Tv shows I torrented... Broad City 2, 3... thought I had them all on a flash drive but did not find them... so I threw on Robocop. Half made it through to the end. I forgot it was a long movie like 2 hours. They left about ten. I stayed up till about midnight then took a nap until 2 am. I think the gecko's making their loud chirping noise woke me up, but since I have internet again I figured I would blog.

(17) Wednesday

Hardly slept... too much internet... 4:22am... then work up again at 9am.

Checked the lab, internet dead. TVL totally not working. I wash my hands of that for now. If the new router shows up great. Until then I will work on other problems.

My friend Annie back home had some tragic news, her brother died. Not sure how, or what happened but I am thinking of her and wish I could talk with her and listen.

2:00pm
----------
Just ate an awesome hot and spicy pizza at Nemo's with two of my Peace Corps friends: Jes and mike hawkins... NICE LUNCH, as Mike would say, in a really loud funny voice and Jes would shake her head in frustration sort of. I am going to miss Jes and Mike's reactions to each other when Jessica leaves in November. I think she misperceives what I enjoy about their interaction. She think (wrongly) that I like seeing her suffer or be in misery from all of Mike's semi absurd but usually hilarious comments. This is not case.

What I find enjoyable is the fact that they differ so dramatically in personality types and yet tolerate each other enough to hangout. I like it how Jes corrects Mike when he says something ridiculous on purpose to get rise out of Jes and how she is able to fend that off telling him how he's wrong. I theorize that when she first got so site here in Santo, that maybe she was less vocal and now she is more out of her shell and does not take crap anymore. I like how Mike is always Mike just being loud and funny. That's it. Bet she never reads this blog, but I know Mike does.

6:00pm
------
One of my best friends talked with me on skype for the last hour about her brother recent death. He died alone and no one knew about it for days until they found his body. It was really hard listening to all the details and I feel terrible for her and her family. It brings back a flood of memories of when my best friend David Potosky died in 2012 from brain cancer. So painful to think about her experience and how it makes me remember mine. Wish I could have been there to console her in person.

(18) Thursday

Not a whole lot going on at the moment... I should get a T-Shirt that says that. Fixed two computer for students and reading a book. Very underwhelming, trivial, help desk tasks.


11:30 am
---------
TVL showed up with a new modem from Vila. I was disappointed that it was not the new model aka the Flybox but we plugged it in and the lab is back online. Will test the computers in the office when they come back at 1:30pm. Fingers crossed.


7:oo pm
----------
Whew....... SO, My counterpart and I used the most absolute brute force approach to discovering all cables and pathways to my schools Janky internet setup. This involved labeling all cables with ID's and pulling all the plugs and testing each one, 50 or more cables to find out where each lead. This in addition to removing all the old decaying junk they were using, switches that might be burning out with new shiny parts we brought. If I only ignored my Peace Corps advisor and brought my 100lbs case of hardware I would have been able to repair everything 3 weeks ago, but I did not bring all my equipment. Oh well.

Through this three hour exercise of misery I managed, as did Samuel, to discover where every cable goes. By doing so we fixed all the connections to the school. We have internet again. Yeah me. I still wish I had a pisant network admin to do this menial task versus having to perform it myself.

Now if that is the case in the morning I will be shocked, since it seems every time I am on the brink of success, it all falls apart the next day.

midnight
--------------
There was a power outage, then i stumble across this once the power came back: The Earth Is About to Be Bombarded by Two Solar Storms
On Monday night, a minor solar flare gave off a first magnetic cloud. Then on Wednesday afternoon, a major flare from the same sunspot region gave off a bigger CME. Thomas Berger, the director of the Space Weather Prediction Center at NOAA, said that both are aimed at the Earth. The first burst is forecast to hit Earth sometime Thursday night, and the second should arrive around midday on Friday.
========
I wonder if the power outage here was caused by the solar flare.

(19) Friday

The power outage might be the reason for the internet access being mostly down. Strangest thing is that the server, the lab and the most of the office PC's have no connection yet, the secretary's PC, which is usually the worst one of the lot at getting a connection has on this morning.

I cannot fathom a reason for that. I cannot even make a direction connection to the router using 192.168.1.1 not even the login screen appears after 3 reboots and a direct connection. Did the storm burn out the new router. Maybe... is my school possessed by internet demons maybe... That is just as likely a cuase as anything else.

10:19pm
-----------

So Lets see.. I basically have no confidence that TVL will ever provide help enough to solve the lack of internet working at my school ever. They lied about sending the FlyBox and send a shitty netcom box to use DSL which I SAID NOT to... but come monday I will try demanding a flybox setup or recommend switching to Digicel.

But the best part of the day was in indoctrinating Rich in the cult of Rick and Morty TV. We watched 7 episodes and had some of my homemade fries and a chicken sammy er sandwich. Great time. Contracts to Rich's friend Calvin for his kid which he texted about 40 times during the watching of the shows... Uhm... can't sleep as usual... so I will read the internet stuff until 3am. Yeah.

(20) Saturday
--
Just Sitting around my house updating my iphone... IOS-8.0 and took a panorama of my living room/kitchen:

Guess I am going to go workout with my Rich and Bryan at 10am... but I am a little sick... hm. oh well.

10am
-------
Worked out with Rich and Bryan early morning torture. Then played a old/new video game called Escape Velocity Nova... made in 2007 I think. Goofy game.

3:30pm
---------
After a decent nap I went over to Santo East and played Ultimate Frisbee with the 15-20 regulars. Decent game of ultimate very competitive. I think I have gotten a bit better lung capacity of that game is pretty taxing. The Ni-van guy that play with us can run at nearly light speed.

7:00pm
---------
Then hung out with Jes and Mike at a kava bar. Shared some stories... Mike found a place that had Dad's root beer... that is pretty unusual here oh and its Mike's b-day tomorrow... sadly he seems mostly interested in hanging out with his best friend Jazz Dave. Maybe he'll swing by town though.
Just as I was typing this, a drop of water hits my computer, then I look up and see guilty faced lizard, A gecko pooped on my mousepad... Yeah little jerk. oh well, it was kind of funny.

(21) Sunday

Can't sleep as usual 12:56am Sunday just barely... The dog war has begun again sounds like one is being murdered or something. Looking forward to a paycheck.

3:48am
---------
So after a few hours of trying to get the jist of this Escape Velocity game (which annoys me because I get killed by these raiders after a short bit of work) I quit and went back to reading. I am almost done with Isaac Asimov Foundation's Edge. The ending is building up to be a little too perfect and that is annoying. I think he got a little too idealistic probably for him a natural evolution of his writing hoping to make his fictional world, a future world of humanity, governed by non-corrupt benevolent rulers like the Philosopher kings idea that wrote about in Utopian kingdom Kallipolis... but it all all too cute and perfect for me. I should probably sleep... but I am thinking about my friend Annie hoping she ok, and also curious if I am going to hangout at home or go to Aore island tomorrow with Kate and Bryan. I have no money though... probably have to pass.

Ahh here comes a small rain storm... sounds nice on the tin roof... wipes out the sound of stupid dogs and roosters... thy have to take shelter and shut up.

8:14am
---------
Well about 4 hours sleep average. Trying to get my parents attention on their computer... I hacked/logged into it remotely and am blasting some Alice in Chains until they hear it and go downstairs and see whats up... Then I can turn it off and we can skype. Pretty funny.


 3:30
-------
Rich and I biked over to Lope-Lope Resort/beach later in the day than normal. It is the first time I have been there... great spot because it has a river that form a decent sized pool of cool water and then just 20 yards away the ocean and river meet. This is good because after being in the salt water you can rise off in the fresh water. Took a couple photos on my iphone.

5-7pm
--------
The Santo crew met Mike at Maklin's Nokemal for his birthday shell... even hunter showed up an hour into the event. I gave mike a can of MUG rootbeer. We have Mug on the island now... hope we can keep getting it... nice to have some decent root beer from time to time.

Week 24 - Trying to get a second wind

Monday September 8th - Sunday 14th

(8) Monday

8am
-----
The goals for Monday are quite numerous. First I need / want to get the internet back up. I think it is a router that burned out or bad wiring. Next I want to get a way to scratch the junk off the floor and repaint it with concrete paint to make cleaning the filth off the floors easier. Then I will request getting material to build new tables and benches for extra computer work spaces. After that I will try to get Rex the Academic advisor to help filling in content to the website, check it out... I have a template made for it but it needs to be filled in with French content:http://collegeluganville.wix.com/santo after that I will work with Samuel my counterpart to make a network map of the school and use students to help document the network.

All of that is pretty ambitious but I think we can make headway on several these items.

2pm
-----
So yeah it was asking too much. I tried to get our internet provider TVL (Telecom Vanuatu Limited) to show up today but the never did. I tried 3 times last week. No show.

Worked on a friends internet too... that was hit and miss. What a pain getting the internet working in this country.

On the plus side I was lucky enough to get a package from home. WooHoo. I have a new concrete bit set and some nice bed sheets, a decent soap and toothpaste, Can't be happier. My parents ROCK.

And I finally got my copy of the VanAm our Peace Corps local magazine. I have been waiting for one for 2 months or so. That is good news on the mail delivery today.

4pm
-----
I never expected TVL to show up but they did last minute, in fact I went home and fell asleep until a student knocked on my door to tell me there were at the school. I ran up to the lab and worked on fixing the internet. I had partial success. Not sure why it is failing to connect on many of my computers. Maybe my switch is configured wrong? No clue. Granted this is not the most exciting thing for many of you to read about but this is my work.

After messing with the computers for an hour I decided to relax and deal with it fresh tomorrow.
I hung out with my Nivan family next door and invited them over to watch a movie at my place we ended up watching the New Robocop. I felt a little bad about how violent the movie is because the whole family came over some of them are pretty young.

(9) Tuesday -
It is 7am and I just woke up, about to shower and try fixing this internet issue. Fingers crossed!

8am
------
Well no luck. TVL is avoiding us again and I am getting really sick of this problem. I wish we could switch to digicel they seem to have a more reliable internet service.

9am
-----
So I decided to make some bacon, eggs and hashbrowns and then build Sam's other book shelf and wait for TVL to show up.

I am really surprised I did not get sick from last night. I forgot that 3 out of the 4 of my neigbors were sick. I was kind of dreading waking up all hacking shit plus trying to deal with this internet mess. Plus ever since I gashed my finger in the ceiling fan because in this country I am giant and the ceiling in some places are way too close to be right... my finger has been infected and hurts a bit. I keep making a joke to Rich though that pain does not hurt, its only chemical impulses telling you information about body but in and of itself its not real. I think that was a matrix like line that I modified. Ok enough dickin around on the internet time to make a bookshelf.
6pm
------
Busy day. I managed to fix the internet problem at my school and at a friend place today. Router issue it turned out to be. Fingers crossed the problems are solved. I also managed to finish Sam's second book shelf. You can probably tell when i am super busy by the lack of energy I have left in me to write details... hard to blog when in the middle of a firestorm of work. I think i am just gonna sleep.

(10) Wednesday

I think I woke up first at 1am, then started reading facebook. Nothing exciting was going on. Then I noticed my pinky finger was in pain. One thing to know about living in a tropical environment is that any little cut or abrasion becomes immediately infected. I mentioned at that i cut it in an eariler post... but now after trying to clean it the thing is gross looking. I hate not healing normally. Why is it this way? Is the air full of diseased particles here?  

After reading a few hours I got hungry. Is it weird to make some breakfast at 3:20am. Oh well that is what I am doing. After some food I wrote my a poem for my mom's birthday today... 

7am

------

 When to the computer lab and fixed the server internet. Then helped a friend with her computer. 

Then had a quick skype chat with my mom. She is doing pretty well. Forgot to say hi for Mary but can't remember everything. 

11am

-------

Went to have my infected finger looked at the hospital Mark loaned me 300vt. Mark is great... have to pay him back next time I see him.

2pm

-------

Woke up from a great little nap and now I will work on a dead computer and see if I can pull a miracle out of my hat and salvage it.

3pm
------
Fixed two computers. I rock. But sadly the TVL lady came back and swapped out the modem/router and half the network went down again! So frustrating. But it's fine I will bang my head against a wall all day tomorrow and try and resolve why for no understandable reason half the computers work and half don't (meaning connect to the internet). They are all configured the same way.

7pm
------
Went to play ultimate frisbee decent showing of people 14-18 players. Two new baby docs, simon is a decent player. I did alright, I just don't like running all the much and this a game that requires a lot of running. I wish they played kickball or something else silly like that. Even volleyball from time to time or basketball would be fun. Maybe after the fix my school court that has not had a resurfacing in 30 years we can play bb at my school.

(11) Thursday

On a random note...One of my most valued possessions is my potato masher... it was shipped here last week from my parents and it is the one i grew up having mashed potatoes made with... it must be made in the 1950's because it is solidly built and can last another hundred years.

8am
------
Time to get a haircut and hangout with Penelope from Ratua... then act as muscle for a problem at Rich's site. He needs a bit of backup. Could be an interesting day.

The day did not turn out like I imagined it would. I went by logging place helped them with an email problem, solved it... then went to get a haircut and meet up with Penelope. Then I got a call from Steve Cullen a Peace Corps on Maewo, was passing through town and I ate some Pizza with him since Penelope ditched me a second time because her boat showed up early. But Steve and I had a great conversation about incentives and motivation in context of about how to get our counterparts or others that we work with to help with the work, versus a common experience of them sitting on the sidelines and just expecting us (Peace Corps) to do all the hard work. One of my constant problems is that my counterpart has 4-5 classes and he has no time or energy left to help support a computer lab that is constantly under the attack by 400 students and 30 teachers that want to treat the lab as their personal facebook/torrent download machines. I have the advantage of having a actual server setup unlike my last PC that had nothing setup to protect the machines from being destroyed. However they are still under attack and in need of maintenance. What I really need is a full time tech support employee for the school. I might have to suggest this for next years program especially if we are awarded the click grant and expand the lab to 20-30 PC's. PC's running Window's 7&8 sucks bad enough on their own in comparison to Mac's to have to support but really I am not able to teach my counterpart all the tricky nuances of how these shitty machines work without really full time effort. When I leave without a true tech support these machines will all die and the beautiful lab I am building will decay and return the death throes I found it in when I started in March 2014.

2:00 pm
----------
After all that I returned to my school to deal with the continual bullshit of the downed internet. We came to the conclusion that my current router is not designed to handle a network switch with 10 or more computers connected to it. That is when we charmed the TVL people into letting me try the new system that is not yet in place and has not pricing scheme even setup. This is the device.

B681 Flybox
	• HSDPA 7.2Mbit/s, HUSPA 5.76Mbit/s • Wi-Fi • Ethernet ports • WLAN/WPS button • RJ45 Ethernet interface • RJ11 phone interface • Built in internal 3G antenna • External antenna interface • Supports NAT, built in DHCP server,DNS Relay, SMS, Firewall • Plug and play

I has 1 meg unlimited speed. And it took about zero seconds to configure and get my network to find and use. I love this thing. I hope we can keep it.

4:45pm
----------
Went over to Rich's site because he needed help with aka muscle... The SDA's were being pretty obnoxious for the last 4-5 weeks blasting their sound system from 6-10pm playing some cult preacher tv show stuff, that is pretty phoney, and drama queen like, on their giant projectors. It's a bit hard to not bit a little judgemental of some of these cult figures that run amuck here. It just seems like they have such a good time preying on people, that have no money to give, that embrace so eagerly anything a white person says. But before we could even address the subject of maybe turning the 6 large speakers down a notch, the SDA lady tells us the program ends this weekend.

The other good news for the day is that I think I am finally healing... all these bizarre skin afflictions that I see other have I thought I was immune but no. The antibiotics have kicked in my lymph are less swollen too. Yeah.

Ever feel like you need a drum set. I need a drum set.

(12) Friday

Power supply on the server burned out today. Not a great start to the day. I get to try and find a replacement. And money to get one. Joy. The computer is about 6 months into use and it burned out the power supply. Wow. This climate is designed to kill computers.

It ended in failure again, the fly box router as great as it is in Luganville right now the service is with a 8gig data limit and that is somewhere about 20,000vt a month or roughly 200.00usd. This is too expensive for my school. So the option were limited, get a new router for 20,000vt and see if an improved 1meg ASDL connection would work. Maybe. Or wait until monday and see if TVL can provide us unlimited Flybox option and then if not consider switching to Digicel. So two full weeks of no stable internet at my school.

5pm
------
I met up with the new group of baby docs and we had a pretty night starting at Deco stop then making out way to Aqua which for maybe one of the rarest times did not completely suck. I got groaped of course as did everyone on the dance floor but oh well.

Tomorrow we are going to a beach and later a BBQ party at my place. Should be fun if the rain would let up and actually be sunny for once in two weeks.


(13) Saturday

I went with the baby docs to Aore and went the hidden beach area. Little different than the last time I went a month or so ago. It was fun, wish it would have been sunny.

But the movie/bbq got cancelled. I am a bit sad about that. Oh well. Life in Santo.

Here are few photos from the beach:

.








(14) Sunday

Just read this... on facebook thought it was pretty interesting.
Regrets Of The Dying: http://www.lifebuzz.com/5-regrets/

After many years of feeling unfulfilled at her job, Bronnie Ware set out to find something that resonated with her soul. She ended up in palliative care where she spent many years helping those who were dying. Some time later, she compiled a list of the 5 most common regrets expressed by the people she cared for.
Credit: huffingtonpost.com

To read the original text and everything go to the link above... but these are the items in that list and my reactions to them for my life.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. Nope. I feel like I live pretty true to my life. I wish others reacted better to my way of living and seeing the world though.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. I corrected this mistake of being a slave to work about 5 years ago. I call it volunteering. Helping others is probably the best thing in life. Making millionaires millions more not interesting at all.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

 Nope. I do this shit all the time, and mostly it falls on deaf ears. Sometimes it doesn't but no matter what I will always be honest with my feelings and tell people them flat out.

 4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 

 Again I try and try to do this all the time... but most people they fade away.

 5. I wish that I had let myself be happier. 

 This one however I get, and I do feel unhappy often... mostly disappointed maybe... that is life though. 

Richard Pryor once said in reaction to the question "do you think life is a one big joke" and he said "no its not one big joke... its a million little jokes, all lined up and strung out through a whole lifetime, slapping you in the face one after the other."

But check out this gecko... these things are all over the place:

12:00
---------
So rich and I just worked out. Four set of pain and misery but it was a decent workout.

After making some burgers we are planning to go to Lope Lope for a bike ride. Rich, Bryan and Katie, Mike Stafford and think that is it.

More photos pending:
And here they are...

Week 23 - Final term of the year.

September 1-7

-----------------------------------

(1) Monday -  

You ever feel like not waking up? that is me today. It's 7:36am. I had a dream about an ex-girlfriend. Nothing too crazy. Just remembered how she once said to me while walking at full speed, together arms locked, in some enclosed building or maybe even the skyways in downtown Minneapolis... she said, "how great it was that we walked at the same pace." Then I woke up and remembered, I will most likely never see, or talk to her ever again.

This thought kind of makes me sad of course but after thinking about it for a long while (an hour or so) I created a absurd little Rick & Morty like rant (great show if you don't know it download an episode) ... where Rick is lecturing Morty about not wasting too much time chasing Jessica around, that eventually he's gonna have to pull the band-aid off and face the facts... that love is not an endurable thing for most people, look at me Morty one of the smartest people you know and I failed miserably at it... whatdaya... think...burp...the chances are that you'll fail. Pretty grim Morty.

The first time I got up this morning was at 10 minutes before dawn. I sat on the ledge of my bed stared out at the front door at the row of trees, towards the beach. I watch it go from near blackness to one of the best sun rises I have watched that intently for as long as I can remember. It might have been twenty some years ago that I went on fishing trips to Canada with dad to have done something like that.

It was perfect and the sky was mostly cloudy, making the sun pinball around the clouds, like hitting the jet bumpers, which of course lights them up. It was like watching a wizard play the 70's style Dr. Who pinball game in the basement of Caffetto's coffee shop. Man I miss that coffee shop. It is a beat-to-shit and kind of dirty place with one of the best coffee bars in the front of the shop. It has swivel chairs from the fifties as well. The walls are covered in old spanish war ships and English ships of the line. The barista's were all funny and some crabby but really cute as well. I could sit all day.

I thought about taking a photo after I saw all the colors swirling around... but by the time I got this idea to take a photo... it was too late.  To get the ideal position I would need to run with my camera down to beach, walk around to get past the bend of tall trees, to maybe just maybe get the right shot. There was not enough time. Then I sat down and ate a bowl of cereal.

Not much excited ended up happening Monday. I met with Sam bought some lumber to make her some book shelves. Walked around town met some people from a cargo ship from Canada and hung out with this French guy for a bit. He was a card player/world traveler. 

(2) Tuesday - 
Today is starting out ok... No insane or just annoying dogs barking their heads off all night, no roosters... nothing!!! It was just nice and quiet most of the night. After weeks of non-stop noise and shit I finally slept. I am sure tomorrow the dogs and roosters will be at it ten times louder to make up for a nice night. I used to be the biggest dog lover, but this country has turned my opinion. Maybe it just the way the locals own and treat their dogs kicking them whenever they see them, how they run wild in packs at night, how they attack you if they don't know you. I carry a stick when I walk around my campus at night because they try to attack from time to time. Even though most of them are cowards, I kind of hate these nasty local dogs all covered in lice or fleas.

For today, lets see... since no one is interested at my school is learning anything computer related so I will collect the lumber make some book shelves for Samatha and then hang out with a friend from Ratua Island, Penelope... Not sure what she wants to do. Maybe go to a blue hole or something.

I wish the Ratua/Malo project was ramping up. I miss working on projects. It is hard to adjust to the complete underwhelming challenge of working and living here.

Scratch that... for the last hour (7:30am - 8:30am) I spent trying to troubleshoot a mind-numbingly stupid problem at my school. They have 3 wireless routers. And they have people that break in to my school's compound and steal their internet... who really gives a shit my principle does. So he asked me to lock down the wireless. I did on one of the three routers but the other two have had their password changed so I need to reset them to factory defaults but in doing so I might interrupt the office internet for the day (because they use these routers as a daisy chain to connect the other locations in the school) and I dont want to have to waste my time troubleshooting that all day. So if they would give me a key I could work on it at night like IT techs do in every place on the Earth versus doing network changes during the day.

Back home again 3pm... the lumber place cut the board wrong so I will return after lunch. Guess I can look at the wifi issue again. So annoying. I almost wish I had my usual contract work to occupy my mind like in the states with 5-10 million budget, 10-40 developers, me in the middle of all the action as usual, so I could assign a network admin to diddle around with the router while we developed a massive program that generates millions. Oh well. I miss all that troublemaking and political wrangling to get it all solved.

4pm... and the network problem is solved... internet locked down.

Ok so I was feeling pretty shitty today I admit it. Not every day in Vanuatu is Paradise but Rich and Molly came over for a bit. Rich made me work out which was great. I feel so lazy and weak without the Soap Factory keeping me busy building and smashing stuff. We walked around my beach and I never really explored it... there are some pretty cool things to see. It must have been relics from WW2 an old shipyard and a beached ship rotting away. Hope we can have a beach party there this weekend.

(3) Wednesday -
It was an interesting day, starting with the brief skype chat with my family and Jerry and Linda. I showed them my house and Samuel stopped over (my counterpart) and spoke a little Tana local language with them. They thought thats was neat.

Then I ran around in circles trying to 1) Fix my school internet outage, 2)dying router likely cause, fixing internet issue at a local lumber milling company, 3) getting a power solution for Malo island, 4) eating a pizza... 4) being sent back and forth to TVL (phone/internet company) to fix internet issue at both my school and lumber company, 5) talking with Daria, Megan, molly, Patricia (German baby-doc) then being so worn out I just wanted to sleep but instead I 6) started writing in my blog.

Missed ultimate frisbee again. One day I will make it again.

(4) Thursday -
8 am means back to fixing internet problems, hopefully the school gives me money to buy a new router because I think the problem is the ancient one we have in the lab.

I might try and bang together Sam's bookshelf... wish I had a nice router I want to put curves on the top to make it look neater.

I found a router made one book shelf. might add a support in the middle but for now here is a photo of it:

I forgot I took a photo of the commercial they aired when I lost my wallet. Hard to believe they made a radio commercial for a lost wallet.

And I would be lost without my trusty bike: I love this bike

I think I figured out why I was not feeling particularly happy lately, I forgot to take my thyroid med for a few days. I knew something was off. That can affect mood and stuff. Well I suck at remembering sometimes.

Turned out to be an interesting day. Few peace corps vols had a layover in my town Emily, TRW, Phil, Megan for the week, and they went to beachfront for kate's birthday. They have a salt water pool we same in. Alban and her friend from Paris Vladimir (not sure how to spell that) were there. I inviting them for the beach party we are having at my site.

Since I don't have a huge hunger for pizza at the time Ieft the pool area and headed into town to grab some groceries. I then found out something very interesting. I want to call it the egg-conspiracy. There has been a serious egg shortage in Luganville for a month now. No one can find any eggs. I get lucky from time to time and buy a bunch, but today I went to LCM at the closing hours which tends to be the time of restocking and saw 4 different people walk out with stack of egg trays, some 30 some 40 or about that. I asked about it they kept saying all out. but more and more restaurant owner employee's came in and left with eggs. There is no real shortage, there seems to be a deal setup with certain people to hold eggs in the stockroom and sell them to preferred customers. I stood there and asked my friends that work there how is it they get eggs... and no one else can... then she (the lady I know) said I save you 12 for Saturday. I knew there was no shortage. It is a friend system. Well if you can't beat them join em right? Let's see how this turns out.

(5) Friday -

All day I battled the internet, at my school and a friends house and lost both fights. But come monday there is a good shot at fixing them. I was lucky enough to get a new 16 port switch for my school which will be extremely handy because it is faster than the old one and we can use the old one in the teachers lounge to expand their access to the internet. We are moving away from wireless because it is easier to support (they always forget passwords) and more secure from being pirated and chewing up our bandwidth.

The new baby docs were at Deco stops happy hour and at aqua. They are all great just like the last group but I miss each groups that leaves.... hard making new friends and watching the leave in 4-6 weeks.

(6) Saturday -  

Today I managed to find a bunch of eggs for both Bryan & Kate and for Rich. Score!

Later today we are walking down the Saracata river and cliff diving into the river. Should be interesting.

Well just got back about 5pm... took some photos of the river jump:

(7) Sunday -

Most of the Santo Peace Corps are heading out to Champaign Beach today. I decided to stay home and read a bit (nearly done with the asimov series Foundation's Edge) write and just think a bit. I think that is maybe the one thing we have in common amongst PC, is a lot of time to think.

I watched a storm cloud approach. I can't recall ever caring much about watching one except once when I was with my dad on a fishing trip on Lake Superior. It's pretty cool seeing a mist form, then the trees near the beach started to dance around moving up the football field before starting to hit the tin roof. It sounds like highway traffic. Maybe not that epic sounding unless you're hear to see it but it was great.

last night I did not really sleep until about 5 am. then work up at 7am. So 2 hours is little less than my normal but oh well. I was talking with a friend of mine Kat Luna on skype, seriously she's one of the coolest women I know back in Minneapolis and an amazing artist. She works/volunteers at the Heart of the Beast Theatre doing a variety of things including puppetry, acting, set building and so on. I invited her to visit Santo, which she is now considering. I met her in 2009 and never forgot it even though all she said was hi.

If there is a way we will try and organize an event of some kind. Maybe she can have a puppetry workshop and a performance. I would love it if we can organize some kind of class to teach how to put together a more epic parade like we do in May in Minneapolis. They love parades here but they do it in such a strange way... all massed up in one big bunch screaming their heads off and laying on their car horns. Not very interesting if you ask me. The MayDay parade is one of the coolest events of the year in my home town. I am dreaming big but might as well. If we could have street performers and stilt walkers, masks, dancing and music that would be so amazing and I think people here would want to do it. All you need is cheap materials to make these. Who would I contact to make this happen? Is there any suggestions... ok desperate attempt to solicit advice from whoever is reading this blog and I see there is traffic 50 people click on this blog yesterday, leave a comment come on.