Day 43

The storm died. Ok not really but it is not nearly as bad as it was or as bad as it was expected to be. The storm will be at its strongest for us early tomorrow morning with sustained winds of 50mph. The storm should pass within 150miles of us and we should see heavy rain. I really hope that it floods then I will blow up an air mattress and float down to the bakery for breakfast, I think there on higher ground than us. We were so excited for a big storm but it just died out of nowhere. It does seem to be getting stronger fast but probably not fast enough to effect us. We went to the beach today to play in the waves before we would be trapped at home by the floods for a week but the waves weren't very good. Hopefully the power will still be on tomorrow night, sometimes they turn the power off for fun or something. It seems like if we get any weather at all the power is the first thing to go, but the way things are going we might still have church in the morning. Just in case though if I don't post tomorrow its because we are flooded in so have someone fly in some food. I think I might give up trying to predict the weather, it never cooperates.

Day 42

So badminton was cancelled again today because the coach had to get his heart checked out. Hopefully he will be fine. Tomorrow night we should be getting tropical storm Maria. The eye should be just north of use at about 11:30pm, and by just north I mean like 60 miles. So we will be getting everything the storm has to offer. Maria is expected to have sustained winds of 65mph which is just shy of hurricane force. I'm pretty excited. This may be my last post for a little while, maybe I can squeeze one in tomorrow before the power goes out. So prayers for safety will be greatly needed. I kind of chickened out in the last hurricane and didn't go out in it but since the wind speeds will be a little lower this time I will probably have a go. So pray that I don't get hit in the head with anything to big. I forgot to go shopping for food and water today for the storm, I really hope stores are open tomorrow. It is very common for places to close down the day before a storm here. Well we'll see how things go, I hope to post again shortly.

Day 41

Tropical storm Maria is headed straight for Luquillo Puerto Rico! Its not that dramatic though. The storm should be down to like 40mph by then. No big deal. Today is my little brothers 20th birthday! He's so old. 20 is a big number, he's not a teenager anymore. Anyway, for lunch today we had rice and beans with chicken, this is a very common dish in Puerto Rico and I love it! If people keep making this for me I am going to be fat, I ate so much of it today.  Also Tess made us all dinner which was so good! So I only had to make myself breakfast, well, and first lunch but most people only eat one lunch so I don't really count that. I was trying to store up some fat for the power outage after the hurricane on Saturday but now that its dying down I guess I don't need to. Bummer, I like over eating. Badminton today went very well. I played kristian and Larimar most of the time and they're getting good. I also forgot to wear actual shoes to the gym, I was just wearing flip flops. No big deal right, I'm just teaching the kids... wrong! The coach that volunteers for us could not understand that I could play badminton without tennis shoes on. He told me I need to wear real shoes, like I'm going to get hurt if I don't have enough ankle support. I'm standing in one spot hitting a 3 ounce birdy back and forth. How dangerous could it be? I should have told him what I do with a chainsaw, and I didn't wear shoes then either. It's just easier to climb the tree that way. Ok I'm done typing, thanks for reading.

Day 40

Another storm is in the distance. Tropical storm Maria is on its way to Puerto Rico. The storm has sustained wind speeds of 60mph, it will be considered a hurricane once it reaches 74mph but it might not get there by the time its over us. Who knows, were preparing anyway. One of the plans in circulation is that we cook a meal for each freezer that the school has. That way when the power goes out we can open one freezer everyday until the power comes back on or we run out of freezers and die. It sounds pretty good and the church's chicken down the street has a generator. I grilled some hamburgers for the kids today for lunch, which is always fun. Oh I forgot! So, about the baby bird. Jen said that she saw to adult birds trying to get into the cage that we put the baby bird in. So I went over there and let the bird out and stood back to watch. The little bird still with some of its baby feathers sat under the stairs chirping one single squeak every other second. Then I saw a bird fly in and land on the railing of the stairs so the baby bird came out and hopped up the steps where he greeted his mother. Then she flew away! Leaving him alone. So the bird went back to chirping. Then I guess it was fed up and hopped off the step and began to fly, I could tell it was struggling but it made it into a nearby tree where its parents soon joined. I love a happy ending, mostly because I didn't want to raise a baby bird. Which is another situation a pet snake would come in handy. Unfortunately this all happened before school started so there was no pet of the day today, oh well. No badminton today, the coach called Betsy and said something about a heart attach and someone can't move, I don't know she didn't really understand it all but he said that there would be practice tomorrow so maybe pray for whoever had the heart attack. At this point all we know is that it wasn't Chuck Norris, his heart would never dare attack him.

Day 39

Great success! We freed the van today, and as you well know, freedom is not free. The hole people fought hard but in the end we won. After doing our best to push the van out, we(I) ended up digging out behind the tires and shoving wood planks underneath them. We were able to push the van out of the holes and away from the mud and the hill we would never be able to get up. So the van was then pointed at a relatively dry section of the hill so I drove towards the hill as fast as I could which ended up being like five miles an hour because the tires were slipping in the grass. Well as you can imagine the van didn't get very far up the hill before the tires were spinning in place. So we tried the wood plank technique again but it was not successful. So I took down the rope jungle gym that I made and used the rope to tie the stuck van to the other gigantic white van. Betsy was driving the van in the mud and I was driving the tow van and we pulled the van right up the hill! Then we drank sprite. While I was drinking my victory sprite I saw something moving across the courtyard so naturally I ran after it. Upon my approach I discovered it was a baby bird. It was old enough to escape capture for about seven minutes and but not old enough to fly more than a foot off the ground for 40 feet. It was also about a half a second from being eaten by Lily(dog). The bird is now in our custody and will be tomorrows pet of the day. Too bad we don't have a snake or it could have been pet of the day and lunch for Thaddeus which is what I will probably name the snake. Quite an interesting day, and all this happened after a full day of school including badminton practice. Quote, "All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind." -Aristotle

Day 38

Awesome holiday. Betsy's church came over and there was all sorts of good food. We played basketball, dodge ball, ultimate frisbee, chess, and Othello. Everyone had a great time. Betsy parked one of the huge white vans down in the field this morning so it would be out of the way. Normally we try to keep cars away from the field because it gets muddy and they get stuck, but it hasn't really rained that hard the last few day so it was fine. During lunch I saw a few clouds coming over the mountains and me and Betsy always try to guess how long it will be before it rains. I guessed 20min but only Leo was around to tell. Well almost exactly 20min later it started to rain. At this point I remembered that the van was in the field but it was too late. It was pouring rain.  After the rain stopped and the party ended I went down to the field to drive the van out. I was parked on the hill leading to the field so I put it in drive and gave it as little gas as possible to get it up the hill praying that the tires would grip the wet grass. They didn't. So I let the van role back to the field so I was at least on flat ground were I could gain speed to get up the hill. I put it in drive and eased the throttle. Nothing, the tires spun in place on the soft ground. So I got Leo and Robert to help push but this thing was not going anywhere. We tried our best to wedge palm branches under the tires but they still wouldn't grip. There's no hope, that thing is stuck, so we went with plan B. Plan B is to wait until the ground dries up and drive it out then. This is Puerto Rico, nothing has been dry here since that one time in the late 80's. Oh well, we'll see. Tomorrow is school, I am very excited. I am going to go to sleep early so that I will be able to make up for the holiday weekend today. I still have pluming and chainsawing to do, my favorite! Elizabeth had a dream the other night about the hole people! She said they are about knee high and they are invisible. This is good to know, it would explain why I never see them on any of my stakeouts. There is a pipe by the chapel that has broken so I've dug it up and I will soon replace the broken section. Well Betsy saw me digging and now she thinks I with the hole people. She must be crazy, well she found a quote in a Reader's Digest that she thought would be helpful so I'm going to post it. "The first rule of holes: When you're in one, stop digging." -Molly Ivins

Day 37

If you find yourself in the back of a kayak moving too quickly either hit the person in front of you with a  paddle or get out and swim. Judy and I went to our English speaking church alone today as Jen took the morning to attend to her future mother in law who is in the hospital. I was a great sermon. We had a different pastor than usual and he was really good, smart guy. I don't hate games as much as I did three days ago. I'm learning to lose and win at the same time. I still hate games though. I'm excited for the work I'll be doing tomorrow morning in preparation for both the students on Tuesday and for Betsy's church tomorrow, but there is still a lot of sleeping to do between now and then. Maybe I'll get a chance to go to the beach tomorrow. I'm told surfs up from the hurricane that is 475 miles from my head right now. Category to at the moment.  Not a very long post today, I'm very sleepy. I will end with either wisdom or knowledge you decide which it is. A wise man once told me that often times, indecision is worse than the wrong decision. It's at least true with sports... and marriage.