Michael's Photoblog

The Waters of Samoa

2012-01-27T17:08:00.002-07:00

The Waters of Samoa

My wife sprawls on the surface next to me, her masked face peering down into water so clear it’s almost like no water at all. Below, hundreds of fish, a thousand maybe, flash their silver underbellies as they dart in unison, controlled, it seems, by a single brain. We fan our hands against the pull of the current, what the Samoans call “ava.” It’s not a dangerous ava though. We’re safe.

We came to see the turtle. But he’s off somewhere else, doing whatever turtles do—eating or sleeping or burying eggs in the sand. Not that much different from our life here, actually, only instead of eggs we bury our children right up to their laughing faces and then watch them wriggle out to find hermit crabs.

If this were Hawaii or the Caribbean, I’d be swimming into people; bikinied bodies lining the beach, reclining, offering their flesh, a malignant sacrifice to the heathen gods of beauty as currently defined. But this is Samoa, and on a Saturday afternoon we have the beach and, it feels, the entire Pacific Ocean to ourselves.

Why is that I wonder? Must be a comfort thing. The flight to Hawaii is long enough without an extra five hours arching up over the fattest part of the earth and into the southern hemisphere. The boil water notices for e. coli can’t be good for tourism either. And then there’s the fetid smell rising up off the tuna factory, spreading out over the harbor like a fog. But that’s all on the other end of the island. Here the breeze smells only of hair-stiffening salt, and the water is clean and warm, washing away the stick of sweat and the heat of the equatorial sun.

I look down at the coral, reaching up to me like colorful fingers pushing through the sand. It’s dangerous, the coral. Sharp. More likely to hurt you than a shark they say. But coral doesn’t slip silently through the water toward you like a shadow, pushed by the whip of a muscular tail.

My wife gives me the thumbs up and then her flippered feet begin chopping at the water, pushing her clumsily toward the shore. Even with our artificially elongated and flattened feet we’re not well equipped for movement in the water; the fish must think us so awkward, so uncivilized, like fat, baseball-cap-wearing Americans in Paris.

On Monday I drive into Pago Pago to pick up a package. They don’t deliver packages to our post office box on the west end of the island, just letters and notices of packages.

On the way back, I stop at the Lyndon B. Johnson Tropical Medical Center, a hospital that looks salvaged from World War II, like a black and white memory my grandfather might dredge up on his way to a real hospital somewhere in the States.

My friend the artist is there to have puss drained from his foot. We met by chance and our friendship grew over stacks of faded art books, images of Van Gogh with his bandaged ear, cypress trees, Monet’s beaches and fields of poppies. Who would’ve ever thought I’d find myself sitting for hours in a Samoan hovel, fans clacking, ants marching single-file to a crumb, looking at Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Renaissance paintings.

“Hello old friend,” I say as I come into the hospital room.

“Who’s there?” the artist asks. He’s gruff like that and sounds gruffer because of the phlegm thick and yellow in the clear plastic hole in his neck, a tracheotomy he once told me he didn’t think he really needed. You take your chances at this hospital.

Today my friend looks like Vincent Van Gogh or at least what Vincent might have looked like if he’d survived his insanity—straggly white beard growing down his neck, sharp nose, sharp eyes.

“It’s me,” I say. “What they got you in for this time?”

“Oh it’s you. Hello.” His face softens but not much. It’s his way. I know he’s happy to see me.

“I brought you a picture,” I say and slide a faded computer printout of a Monet onto the tray next to the food he hasn’t eaten.

“What’s that?”

“Have a look.” He sees it. He tells me it’s very nice. I point out how the red sails pull in the color from the top of the bluff. It’s the way he sees color in a painting; I’m repeating things he’s told me.

“It’s very nice,” he tells me again and I know he likes it.

We talk for a while. He complains about the nurses. I ask if he’s going to start painting again. He says he might. The skin sagging off his paintbrush-thin legs makes me think he might not. But you never know. Artists can surprise you—if they’re good.

“You see what they done to me last time I come in for a bad foot?” he says, and pulls back the covers. I look down. His big toe sticks up like a hitchhiker’s thumb, the other toes are missing.

“Gangrene,” he says. “It’s terrible for diabetics.”

Gangrene? Gangrene? What is this the civil war? These are my thoughts but I don’t say them.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “This one’s getting better though.” I look at his other foot, wrapped in gauze. “Drained a full cup of puss out of it.”

We’re quiet for a minute and then he says, “I like this doctor though, he’s trying real hard. I think I’ll do a painting for him when I get out. A seascape or something.”

I nod. “You’ll have to show me before you give it to him.”

“I’ll show you,” he says matter of factly.

The nurse he’s been waiting for finally returns from lunch. I say I’ve got to get back to work and it’s not a lie. He thanks me for coming and that’s not a lie either, he is thankful, and I’m glad I came.

Outside it’s hot and the air clings to my skin like a dirty sweat. As my pants brush against my sticky legs, I think I can feel the new mole I discovered in the shower that morning. It’s not painful, but I think I can feel it, and I imagine cancer spreading under the surface of my flesh like a black gangrene, like oil spilled in the clear waters of Samoa.

I know there’s no dermatologist on the island, but I go back in to the nurse’s station and ask anyway. She shakes her head. I don’t bother asking about a pathologist.

Epilogue*

After a rusty-scalpel biopsy (well maybe not that bad), the word from the pathologist in Hawaii was…definitely benign and somewhat hypochondriac.

*(for the benefit of those who care)

2011-11-24T00:43:00.000-07:00

Recent afternoon at the beach. Look at these of Emma. What a flirt. I'm not looking forward to her teenage years.

Helen and her good friend Melinda.

Ants

2011-11-01T17:46:00.000-06:00

Question: where are all these ants when I can't see them?
Answer: I don't know.

Question: how do these ants know when I have dropped an apple core into the thirteen-gallon, Rubbermaid liner-lock trash can in my office?
Answer: I don't know.

Question: how to I prevent this problem in the future?
Answer: put apple core in zip-lock bag before disposing. Ah, the life of ease here in paradise.

Another Bed

2011-09-22T01:15:00.000-06:00

As it turns out, making a nice bed out of wicked bad knotty pine is about as hard as making a nice Sunday School class out of wicked bad naughty boys.

Here's my best effort. The wood gave me fits. I sanded, I stained, and I sanded some more but at the end of the day I was dissapointed. To add insult to injury, my daughter, Mary, for whom the bed was made, still prefers to sleep on the floor.

Lesson learned: don't trust the fella's at Ace hardware to lash the best wood to the roof of your car.

But it was still fun to make.

Pinewood Derby

2011-09-11T03:46:00.001-06:00

The pinewood derby has come around again, that time honored tradition of encouraging eight year olds to use saws, hammers, and power tools with finger severing potential. I respect the cub scout program, but come on; do you really expect responsible parents to allow their children to make these things themselves? So, like the rest of the dads in the ward, I was up late hacking and sawing at blocks of knotty pine, trying to fashion something that would meet my children's elaborately imagined designs. This year Matthew went with a local theme and requested a canoe. We wanted an authentic outrigger, but couldn't make it work and still fit on the track. Here are the results, complete with q-tip paddle.

Benjamin decided on a less traditional design -- he wanted a finger. Helen, with an ego-crushing lack of confidence in my wood-carving skills, feared that the car would end up looking like another finger-shaped appendage, so we added a diamond ring to avoid any confusion.

Quick and Dirty

2011-09-11T03:12:00.001-06:00

So, before school started, Helen wanted some cubbies or shelves for the kids. So, I put these up late one evening. Nothing fancy, but they're sturdy and do the job. No plans (other than in my head). I'm pretty proud of myself for working around both the light switch and the outlet.

Creepy Ad

2011-09-07T14:15:00.000-06:00

So, I go to check my hotmail account this morning and there is an advertisement on the side of the screen informing me that this guy is searching for me here in Pago Pago. If that is really the case, I'm changing the locks at the house and purchasing a firearm. Seriously MyLife, why are your computers showing that I would fit in the same demographic as middle-aged women who are attracted to either (a) Earnest Hemingway or (b) escaped convicts? I'm just saying.

Spear Fishing

2011-08-31T18:38:00.002-06:00

There’s nothing there in the dark that isn’t there in the light…except for fear. But when you are 100 yards out at sea, diving in 30 foot deep water and all you have for protection is a three-pronged spear, an underwater flashlight, and your ability to swim, there’s a lot of fear. At least there is for me.

A friend and I went spear fishing several weeks ago. Apparently the swift darting reef fish fall asleep at night or at least slow down and so the optimal and perhaps only time to nab one with a spear propelled by an enormous rubber band is after dark.

So into the dark Pacific Ocean we went. The beam from the flashlight looked like a long fat light saber, cutting through the black water. Other than in the direct path of the beam’s glow it was anyone’s guess – sharks, barracuda, eels? I just couldn’t let my mind wander. "Swim and don’t think" was my mantra. You see, I’ve got a problem with that – my imagination. For example, I was never good at baseball because every time I got up to bat, I imagined the zit-faced pitcher hurling an out-of-control, rock-hard baseball with his newly muscled pubescent arm directly at my jaw. I could see (and hear) in my mind and in vivid detail, the cracking of bone, the spitting out of bloody teeth, the screaming of women, and the little bubble of blood that would form when I exhaled through my nose. So, I usually backed out of the batter’s box as the pitch was delivered, obviously making for a less effective swing and a short lived baseball career.

So anyway, that’s how my mind works which should help you appreciate why swimming in tropical, shark and eel infested water’s at night could cause some imagination induced trauma for me.

Fortunately, we survived the night. My friend speared a small zebra-looking fish which we rushed up on shore (after a short detour through a shallow coral reef) before the blood attracted any silent predators. Now that I think about it, that’s what makes the water scarier than say hiking for me. If I’m hiking and run into a bear, for example, I imagine there will be some sort of roar or growl as a sort of mark-set-go to start the race between me and my hiking partner (i.e., you don’t have to outrun the bear just your friend) and at least I’ll have a chance – depending I suppose on the foot speed of my friend. But in the water, there’s no growl, roar, pounding of clawed feet over dirt and rocks, just bam, and your arm’s gone and you’re leaving a trail of blood in the bay like some leaking oil tanker and as a consolation, if you survive and happen to become a professional surfer, they might make a movie about you.

Oh and I forgot to mention. I was nursing an ear infection that night as well and each time I dove down, chasing after some fish, the pressure felt like someone was pushing a twelve-inch needle into my ear canal. Yeah, it was awesome.

So, my spear fishing career, like my baseball and rock climbing (fifty foot fall/three nights in the hospital and one fully conscious catheter insertion) careers was short and painful, both psychologically and physically.

My new personal handbook for fishing has officially been amended to require the following:

(1) full use of visual and auditory senses (olfactory recommended but not mandatory)

(2) an environment where I have a locomotive advantage (i.e., solid ground – these feet weren’t made for flipp’n)

(3) either my father or a paid professional to deal with any fish that I should happen to catch, including but not limited to hook/spear removal; gutting; head, bone and skin removal; and packaging for transportation

I think I’m still okay with snorkeling – catching fish on film in relatively shallow waters during broad day light has not triggered any imaginary trauma, yet.

Survey Says

2011-08-24T19:49:00.000-06:00

So, my fashion design didn't make it in to the voting round of fifteen. But, I did get an honorable mention. Here is what the email said:

"Thank you for entering our Dare to Design contest! While your design did not make it to the final 15, it DID receive an Honorable Mention from our design team. Please accept this $15 gift card from us for your design. Thank you again!"

Do you think everyone who entered got an honorable mention just to try and make them feel good? If you entered this contest or have in the past and received an identical email, let me know -- especially if you know you're design was really bad and did not deserve an honorable mention, because I'm kind of thinking that's what happened to me.

Anyway, enough of that silliness. Recently I have built a built-in bookcase/shelf set up and am halfway through a toddler bed. Photos to come sometime soon.

Design for Shabby Apple (plus flexing, spitting, and other manly stuff)

2011-08-10T16:49:00.005-06:00

Before you start reading this post, I require that you raise your arm and make a solemn pledge to read the entire thing, all the way through, right to the end. If you’re not willing to commit to that, you’re perusing without permission and will not be authorized to use anything found herein to form an opinion about me. Agreed? Okay, you may proceed.

Okay, so as both of the loyal readers of this blog already know, I am working for two years in a quasi-governmental job in American Samoa, which is really just code for super laid back lots of free time.

The other day when checking my email for the hundredth time, I see there’s something from this women’s online clothing store called Shabby Apple. Why am I on the email list for an online women’s clothing store? Well, my sister and sister-in-law are gaga about this Shabby Apple place and so being the awesome brother I am I once got them some birthday presents from there, or maybe it was just a gift certificate, I can’t remember, anyway, that’s how I got on the email list.

So anyway, from time to time Shabby Apple has this contest where all you have to do is design some clothes and then post it on your blog and if you’re in the top 15 everyone votes and the winner gets free money (that phrase “free money” has always seemed contradictory to me, but anyway, you know what I mean).

So, here I am, in American Samoa, checking my email and it occurs to me, I like free money and I’ve seen clothes before so why not give it a try. How hard could it be right? So I pulled a sheet of paper out from the printer, grabbed a pen and fifteen minutes and three email checks later, voila. I’m a fashion designer. Well, we’ll see. Anyway, of course I don’t have any colored pencils or pens or whatever to color my design so I had to use the super awesome free paint program on my computer. Not the best, but whatever, it’ll do.

Anyway, now stay with me here fell’as and keep reading, it gets more manly down below, I promise. Here in Samoa the guys wear these skirt things called ie faitaga and I’ll admit, I’ve got one and I like wearing it. This is manly stuff, trust me. It’s like a South Pacific kilt – rugby players wear them, football players wear them, guys who live in a place call Massacre Bay wear them. Trust me, manly.

So anyway, I’m thinking, maybe the ladies would like to wear these as well. It’s basically a wrap around skirt with pockets, and there’s this belt kind of thing that threads through to keep it up. Pretty simple, pretty easy, pretty nice. No pleats so they have a flattening effect as well although with my ripped manly six-pack abs that’s not really an issue for me. On my design I tapered it so it will be a little more figure flattering for the ladies (the one I wear kind of makes me look stocky – or maybe that’s just my rock hard muscular legs, hard to know really). I also threw a strip around the bottom with a traditional Maori pattern. Could do floral pattern instead. Anyway, the top, which I understand is called a blouse, although I’m really too manly to have every had a conversion that actually required me to use the term “blouse,” has kind of a gathered fabric thing that looks pretty nice – I’m sure less manly men would know the proper fashion term for that, but whatever, I was probably busy lifting something really heavy when everyone else was talking about that.

Bright colors – I chose blue and yellow but it should be pretty easy to mix that up – red, orange, whatever as long as it has a bright tropical feel. Maybe even a floral print, although I'm kind of O.D'd on that down here right now (and it was too hard to draw). Another idea is grey or navy with pinstripes for the skirt if you really wanted to dress it up, but then you kind of lose the tropical feel. Now that I think of it, maybe the pinstripes with a white top. Hum. Oh well, I'm done thinking about that now -- got to go back to thinking about flexing my muscles for awhile. Oh, and definitely sandals (I haven’t worn shoes, except to church, in months).

So, right, hopefully the ladies at Shabby Apple will like this. If they do, anyone who made fun of this post will have to vote for me so I can get my free money which I will not be sharing with you haters.

If you have any questions about the design, feel free to leave a comment, but I probably won’t respond because most likely I’ll be out hunting wild boar with my bare hands or buying some power tools or something.

Peace out.

P.S. I am supposed to link to Shabby Apple Dresses, so here’s the link. Go there and buy all of their super awesome modest dresses.

Neighboring Island (Aunu'u)

2011-08-09T01:56:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday we took the boat to the neighboring island of Aunu'u. The swells were large and the boat was small, but we all survived. Apparently the beach on Aunu'u was pretty ugly after the tsunami in 2009, but it has cleaned up nicely. As you can see, the kids had a splashing good time.

Apparently Daniel saw a fish.

After, we went back to the main island and hiked up to the World War II cannons at Breaker Point.

Photo from Night Hike to Nu'uuli Falls

2011-08-01T02:25:00.002-06:00

My friend was nice enough to send me some photos from our early adventures here on the island. Here is a photo that goes with this post. It was our night hike up to Nu'uuli falls:

Their must be some weird camera trick or perspective problem or something that is making my flexed arm look so small.

Honking

2011-08-01T02:06:00.001-06:00

The honk, in American Samoa, does not mean the same thing as the honk in the States. Here, when someone honks it can mean (i) I'll wait for you to merge into traffic, (ii) thank you for letting me merge into traffic, (iii) I recognize you and am acknowledging that fact in a friendly way, (iv) I see you on your bicycle and do not intend to run you over, (v) thank you in general, (vi) you're welcome in general, (vii) other friendly acknowledgments/greetings. I'm explaining this because it can be confusing at first. However, there is a special technique for doing the Samoan honk of kindness and friendship -- as I call it. It is a light tap, a quick and soft beep beep or sometimes just one quick beep. If done properly it actually does sound friendly. For some reason I can't do it. When I try, it comes out as more of an angry blare no matter how lightly and quickly I tap. I think I've upset a few people I was actually trying to thank. I'll have to spend some time alone in the garage practicing before I try again. In the meantime, people are also into giving the wave to say thank you to fellow drivers. I've already got that one down.

Pola Island Trail/ Vatia/Afono Bay

2011-07-26T01:55:00.000-06:00

This morning we set off (fairly) early to explore the north side of the island and the national park. You'll know when you're in the national park when you start seeing garbage cans available to the public. For anyone in the neighborhood and interested, we followed Road 1 to Aua then drove up over Afono Pass and then followed the road around to Vitia. Great drive, but very steep roads -- I keep thinking these roads would be impossible in the snow, although the idea of snow and cold are fading from my memory. Intellectually I know snow exists, but emotionally it just doesn't seem possible that anything could be cold. The photo to the left is of Pola island. We took a short (like fifty yard) hike to a spot where you can see Pola island from the mainland. I understand there is another trail (just opened this week), around the other side and that from there you can snorkel out to Pola island. Would be a good adventure for another day -- without kids.

Here is the coast after the fifty foot hike. Nice beach but rocky with really big waves. Not for swimming in, but great scenery. The rocks are a little hard to walk on too. It would be easy to twist an ankle if you aren't careful.

This is looking the other direction toward Pola Island. Cool arch in the rocks. I also love the color of the water here, especially in the spots where it is lighter.

Why is it that on every hike, even ones that are only fifty yards long, little boys feel like they have to find and carry sticks. Is it programmed in their DNA? Some sort of hunter-gatherer instinct left over from the last ice age?

Here are those big waves I was talking about. I think waves are really cool. I understand how they happen, but they still seem magical to me. I could sit and look at them all afternoon.

Hannah and her Nana looking out at the water.

Two lovely ladies negotiating the wobbly rocks along the beach.

I think Benjamin's favorite activity in American Samoa is climbing trees. If you can't find him, check the trees. He is in heaven.

Coming back over the pass, this is the view down into the bay on the other side. This is also the trail head for our second hike of the day, the lower Sauma ridge trail.

We saw some local wildlife along our hike. Other than bats and sea creatures, there aren't really that many wild things in American Samoa -- thankfully no snakes.

This is the end of the lower Sauma ridge trail. Nice views of the ocean. It was a steep decent however.

Mary hitching a ride on the way back up.

After the hike and a picnic we went to Afono Bay to cool off. We didn't bring swim suits, so the kids just stripped down and the adults (except for me) went in with their clothes on. You can see Daniel was happy to be in the ocean.

Mary went in the water a few times too, but mostly she hung out with me and Emma near the shore.

As her reward for staying with me on the beach, I took lots of cute photos of Mary. Love this one for some reason.

I told you they went in with their clothes on.

Coming in after a long day fighting the waves. This was actually a pretty nice beach. No sand, which was a drawback, but fairly shallow and some small waves for the kids to play in, body surf, etc.

Daniel, the Samoan warrior.

Matthew makes friends wherever he goes. Here he is organizing water games with some local boys. Can you guess which one is Matthew.

I think Helen had more fun than the kids.

Ride to Work

2011-07-25T14:36:00.000-06:00

Nice ride in to work today. Lots of cloud cover which both keeps things cooler and motivates me to pedal hard to arrive before the silver-dollar-sized raindrops start falling.

Woodworking Skills

2011-07-21T02:26:00.002-06:00

I’m not going to lie, weekend projects around the house have never really been my thing. I think that is because they usually are not my thing – they’re someone else’s thing like hanging curtains for my wife or hanging photos for my wife or assembling shelves for my wife. You get the idea. I realize I should be more charitable and take great pleasure in doing those things, but, well I’m still working on it.

Anyway, last weekend the stars in the southern hemisphere must have aligned because my wife asked me to do a weekend project that actually really excited me. I have always had this dream of taking wood and building something with it. When we lived in California I jointed habitat for humanity simply because I wanted to develop some awesome carpentry skills; however, all they wanted me to do was work on their legal issues. Big disappointment and I eventually dropped out. So, when my wife asked me to build a bed for our son Daniel (and to be used by Helen’s mom when she comes to visit), I was all over it. I made my plans and headed off to the hardware store to buy some tools and lumber.

Let me just tell you, it was great. I had so much fun. The bed wasn’t super hard to make or very fancy, but it took some time and elbow grease and at the end of the day I actually had something that looks and functions like a bed. I tell you, honestly, nothing I have done professionally has brought me as much satisfaction as making this bed. I think it must be because when you build something tangible you can see where all your effort went, that you actually produced something you can point at when it’s all said and done. What can I point to as an attorney? A bunch of emails, contracts, upset people? Hum. Not quite the same. Anyway, thank you dear wife for giving me this great project. I’m up for any more building projects you need – bedside tables?

Here I am with the raw materials. I had to make two trips to the lumber yard, because the plywood wouldn’t fit in the car with all the other wood.

Actually, the only tools I had were a jigsaw, drill, and a palm sander I picked up at the store because I didn’t want to sand the whole thing by hand. Two good helper as you can see above and several others not shown in the photos here. Everyone wanted to hammer in a nail, but I was only using screws in case I need to disassemble at some point down the road. So, the kids took my hammer and some nails and went to work on their own. Let’s just say the garage is now booby trapped with small pieces of scrap wood bearing half hammered bent nails.

Starting to take shape here. My biggest concern was finishing and then finding out that mattress wouldn’t fit. But I didn’t want to bring the mattress out into the dirty garage. So I measured twice and held my breath. (Thanks Helen for taking the photos to document this adventure)

Getting more confidence now, pleased that yes in fact this will be a bed.

It’s hard to say which part of this project was the best, but certainly the staining and varnishing are right up there. What magic to see the wood transformed in to something that looks really cool, like you actually knew what you were doing. Really I just followed the instructions on the can.

Here it is, the finished product in its new home – Daniel’s bedroom. I realize most people will have stopped reading before they get to this point, but I just love looking at this photo.

And here it is, fully functional with mattress and all and me enjoying the fruit of my labors. I’m so into building now. I want to get more tools –a router, a dovetail saw, a table saw, the list goes on. Ahh, deep joy.

The Commute

2011-07-18T17:12:00.000-06:00

After several weeks of driving a company paid for rental car, I was told I am on my own. I get a monthly car allowance; however, it’s not enough to even make a lease payment on a subcompact manual car from the Ford dealership (by the way, that is not due so much to the low amount of the car allowance as it is to the high amount of the lease payments).

I’ve always enjoyed cycling, so I thought I’d give that a try. One of the families we have become friends with is leaving the island for a month and the wife told me I could use her husband’s bike (hope he’s okay with that) while they are gone.

The bike is actually pretty nice – a Specialized mountain bike (see photo to the right only the one I am using is red); however, the salty sea air has taken its toll on the components (glad I didn’t bring any of my nice bikes down). The frame is also too big for me. But it will work for a month while I try to find something of my own. Unfortunately, a month may not be enough time. No bike stores on the island. I found some good options online, but most places won’t ship to American Samoa and the ones that will have quoted me shipping in the neighborhood of $900 – for a bike that costs half that much.

So, unless I can find someone who is leaving the island and wants to sell their bike, it looks like I may have to buy one of the Huffy bikes from the local Costco-style store.

The commute in is only three miles. The first two miles run parallel to the coast and there is a nice cool breeze. The last mile; however, is a raging inferno of death heat. I showed up at the office soaked through two layers of clothing and dripping sweat from my chin like an NBA player standing at the foul line during overtime.

Fortunately there is a shower at work. Only cold water comes out but that isn’t too intolerable given the heat and the fact that it only comes out in a trickle anyway. I’ve hung my clothes out to dry in my office – hopefully they won’t be damp when I put them back on for the ride home. I brought a lava lava (man-skirt) and shirt to wear at work. I have given up on socks and shoe except for at church, so I threw some flip flops in my backpack as well.

So, the cycling commute looks like it may work out. The biggest danger – being attacked by dogs on the way in. I didn’t have any problems this morning. My friend the bike owner has also put a squirt bottle full of vinegar in the water bottle cage to fend off any attackers. Good to know I’m covered just in case.

Top Ten

2011-07-11T15:18:00.000-06:00

Top Ten Favorite Activities in American Samoa (from last weekend)

10. Swimming in the ocean

9. Getting out of the ocean and feeling cool for a minute before feeling hot again

8. Sitting in front of a fan

7. Sitting in front of a fan eating ice cream

6. Driving around looking at the beautiful island

5. Feeling the air conditioner will driving around looking at the beautiful island

4. Taking nice cool showers

3. Getting out of nice cool showers and feeling cool for a minute before feeling hot again

2. Standing in front of an open freezer while reaching for a tub of ice cream

1. Meeting wonderful people

Food Poisoning

2011-07-11T14:48:00.000-06:00

No matter how good it smells, do not under any circumstances eat the BBQ chicken from the roadside stand. Ask my wife Helen if you want the unpleasant details.

The Turtle and Shark Lodge

2011-07-04T01:43:00.002-06:00

The road to the Turtle and Shark Lodge would make the surface of the moon seem like a smooth ride. After several minutes of bouncing along under the thick jungle canopy, we arrived. The spontaneous extension of a Sunday afternoon drive, we had no intention of making a reservation -- we were just exploring, checking things out. The best air conditioning on the island, it seems, is in the minivan we are borrowing, so car rides in the afternoon are a favorite.

The Lodge is perched on the edge of a cliff. And beyond the black cliffs, turquoise water stretching on for what seems like infinity. What is on the other side of all that water anyway? Antarctica I guess, unless you happen to veer a little to the west and hit Tonga. And to the north, on the other side of the island? Nothing until you hit that sticky-outy tail part of Alaska and then the Arctic Ocean. When I think about that I feel very isolated and vulnerable. So I try not to think about it.

Anyway, we parked the car in what looked like a parking spot at the Lodge. There weren't any other cars. The kids were bouncing off the seats and the air conditioning, turned down to 60 degrees, was actually starting to feel too cold. We decided to get out, stretch our legs, and let the sun sap some of the kids' energy (could it be that because Helen and I are taller and therefore closer to the sun that it drains our energy faster than the kids'? Not likely, but it definitely does have a greater effect on us for some reason).

After crossing a small, well kept field, and what turned out to be a putting green, we came to a little platform surrounded by a railing overlooking the ocean. This is nice, we thought, and then we heard a hiss, like a dragon, coming up from the rocks far below. Then a mist from the caverns.

So this must be how stories about things like sea monsters and puff the magic dragon got started (well not puff the magic dragon, which reminds me, some people at the end of our street have a very strange farming operation going on. Hum). Anyway, after the puff -- a roar.

And then kapow, water shooting up everywhere. This made the other blow holes seem like sissy impersonators, like going to a preseason WNBA game after watching Dirk Nowitzki in the finals.

After seeing that, of course my wife and kids wanted to go down the scary looking stairs with no handrail to get a closer look. Didn't seem like a good idea to me, but as you can see...

Well, no one got swept out to sea, thank goodness, but I had no idea of the real danger we were in. When we came back up we decided to have a look around the rest of the place. With a blowhole that awesome, surely there would be other cool things to see. We found a tennis court but not much else. My wife had the good idea to get a brochure or something from the front office -- perhaps we could come here for an anniversary or something. The front office looked closed. Not unusual for a Sunday in Samoa. As we turned to go back to the car, we were met by a barefoot Samoan.

"Can I help you?" he asked and it wasn't one of those are-you-looking-for-a-toilet-or-the-vending-machines can I help yous, it was more like a what-are-you-doing-here kind of can I help yous.

"Just looking around. It is very beautiful," I said. "I hope that's okay."

His eyes darted, his weight shifted from one foot to the other.

"Where did you go?" he asked.

"Just down to the blowhole, looked around a little."

"You should make an appointment first," he said.

I explained that we were just out for a drive, saw the signs for the lodge and decided to drive down and see it. We thought we might spend a night there some time. His demeanor eased up a little, but then we heard them. Barking from around the corner and then a rottweiler and his two German Shepherd looking pals.

"It's just that," the man explained, "if I know people are coming, I lock up the dogs."

"I see," I said.

"They don't like kids," he said.

He shouted at the snarling dogs and told us he would walk us to our car. I'm not exaggerating or employing a common phrase casually when I say that I believe it was divine intervention that saved us from those dogs. If they had come upon us before the Lodge owner was there, I am sure one or maybe even all of us would have been mauled.

As we drove away, the dogs nipped at the car. The rottweiler even threw himself into the side of the car. What if he bites a tire? Images of a certain scene from Jurassic Park crowded rational thoughts out of my mind. Forget the potholes, I thought, and sped down the road, leaving the savage animals behind.

They're Finally Here

2011-07-01T15:27:00.001-06:00

The night air in the airport clung to my skin like a dirty sweat. People were everywhere mulling around me, dressed in bright clothes, beads or flowers around their necks, welcome banners custom made rolled up in their hands. They were waiting for someone, their hero – the local kid who had made it big in the NFL coming home to a hero’s welcome – one of them, but now all moneyed up and famous, bringing with him a cohort of recruiters and coaches, all searching for the heir apparent, the next thick necked, broad shouldered, flip flop wearing diamond in the rough.

But not me. I couldn’t care less about Mr. NFL whatever is name is (Troy Polamalu). On some level I suppose I’m glad that he’s done well, hasn’t forgotten his roots, but I was waiting for the arrival of my wife and kids – it had been nearly a month -- and Mr. Big Time’s big return was just making things harder for me.

For a week I had been chasing leads, trying to find the right person that could give me a special pass to get through security and into the baggage area so I could help my wife and kids with eight suitcases, seven pieces of carryon luggage, a baby, a toddler, four just past toddler age toddlers, two strollers, a car seat, and whatever else they brought with them.

The first guy I contacted about access to the luggage area no longer had the authority to grant passes. The second guy sent me to the third guy. The third guy had to talk to the fourth guy who never got back to him. The fifth guy new a woman who is related to the fifth guy, but she either forgot to call him or he was off island. I can’t remember.

So, the day of my family’s arrival came and I had no pass. I imaged my wife and children, huddled in the corner of the airport, collapsed in exhaustion, roaches and rats crawling around and over them while their luggage circled endless on the conveyor belt, too impossibly heavy and voluminous for them to even attempt gathering.

I had one last hope. A friend from work was coming with me to the airport to help get the luggage home. He knows everyone on the island, or so it seems whenever we are in public and in a rush to get somewhere. Surely he would have some contact, some string he could pull, some favor he was owed that could get me through.

I explained the predicament. He understood.

“Come with me,” he said.

I followed as we made our way, stopping ever few feet for him to greet friends, toward the customs office.

Inside the ceiling fans did little but push the flies back down. A group of men in pale blue uniforms sat behind desks, slumped and lounging, swatting at the flies, percolating small shining beads of sweat on their brows.

“I just explain to them, okay?” my friend said with a laugh. He always laughs.

The exchange began. Why weren’t they speaking in English? Where they trying to hide something from me, or is this just how “special” deals are made, favor’s granted?

I tried to read their faces. They laughed. Is that good? Just small talk or have negotiations begun? Do they find my predicament funny, my appearance (I was wearing a lava lava). Now my friend’s eyebrows were pinching together above his nose. Not a good sign. More laughing. Hum. The guy who seems to be the leader of the blue shirts is shaking his head. More explaining from my friend. Everyone is nodding. This may just work. A miracle in the eleventh hour. More laughing and then my friend turns to me.

“They say we have to talk to the Treasurer.”

Great the old deflect and dodge technique. I’ve seen this one before. My heart sank.

“We go find him. He is here,” my friend said.

I smiled at the blue shirts and waved. They waved back. Nice but not particularly helpful.

Back in the crowd my friend informed me that he had seen the treasurer earlier that night and that he knew him -- but not very well. “But it’s okay,” he told me. “We’ll find him.”

Making our way through the crowd, my friend stopped to greet people. Was this the treasurer? They were speaking in Samoan. They said good bye. We moved on. A few more greetings, some men, some women, no Treasurer. Finally my friend turned to me and said, “I think he is maybe in the VIP lounge.”

Great I think, off to the VIP lounge we go. But, apparently, we are not VIP material. So is that it? Game over? Sorry Monson family we gave it the old college try. My friend shrugged, “We can go wait for them over there.”

We took our position at the end of a long tunnel that leads up from the baggage area. The crowd suddenly moved with a collective gasp and then cheers. My friend pointed to a TV screen and there was the football star coming down off the plane. I watch the screen intently, waiting to see an exhausted woman and six tiny children come tumbling down the stairs behind him. But they don’t come.

“Maybe you go a little closer to look for them,” my friend said.

What’s the point I wonder, but I go anyway.

Just a few feet away the customs officials were loitering, mostly watching the TV screens or talking to the people holding banners. I checked to see if they were carrying guns. Don’t see any, but even the smallest of them easily outweighed me by a few hundred pounds.

I watched them for a minute. They didn’t care, they weren’t watching, who would it hurt really if I just walked down? Then again, I would get hurt if I got tackled and deflated under the crush of 400 pounds of Samoan flesh, but things were getting desperate. I checked the TV again. Passengers were now flooding down the stairs, forming a slow moving river of bodies flowing out of the plane and into the customs and baggage area. My wife and kids could already be out. Time to act.

I checked the guards again and then walked forward briskly, looking straight ahead, trying to make it look like I was on official business. It was a technique I had used at jobs in the past to make myself appear busy. It had worked then but the stakes were higher now.

Past the first few customs officials. They didn’t even notice or if they did, they didn’t seem to care. The baggage area came into view. Almost there. Focus. Stay on target. Don’t look nervous or uncertain, just march straight in there.”

“Stop.”

Oh no.

“You can’t go in there sir.”

I turned. A Samoan stepped in front of me.

“Just for ticketed passengers.”

“My wife and kids are traveling, they have bags -- eight or ten, they need my help.”

“But you can’t.” He put a hand up to my chest.

“You don’t understand it will be physically impossible…”

Just then I saw the head blue shirt from earlier. He sees me. I give up on the I’m-on-official-business façade and shoot him the most desperate, pathetic, raised eyebrows, scrunched shoulders, palms up expression I’ve got in my bag of expressions.

He frowns one of those poor-sucker friendly frowns and waves me through. The beefcake Samoa guard tells me to stop.

“No, look, he says it’s okay.” I point to the head blue shirt with me eyes. Beefcake has apparently heard that one before, but at my insistence turns and sees the head guy. "Okay," he says, "go on." Bless you, I think to myself, a thousand blessing to you and the large family that is waiting for you at home.

After scanning the baggage area and not seeing the wife and kids, I turn to the luggage rack. Coming toward me are bags with bright colored ribbons tied on their handles. Instantly I know they are ours, I know it the way I know my son, Daniel, will tell me he loves me “super duper” as soon as he comes through the gate, I know it the way I know my daughter Emma will say “dadeeee” and cry when I put her down to finish getting the luggage, I know it the way I know my wife will be exhausted but some how under control. And I am right on the luggage and the other things too.

Snorkeling

2011-06-27T19:27:00.000-06:00

Almost a month on the island and I finally made it out snorkeling. The water was clear and warm, the fish were colorful and awesome, but by far the highlight of the day was having a giant sea turtle come swimming by. No joke. I tried to chase him, but those flippers move pretty fast. This photo is not the actual turtle, but the one I saw looked just like it. Pretty cool.

Slipping on moss in the dark

2011-06-23T01:49:00.019-06:00

I made a new friend. No, not the gecko that creeps out from behind the curtains when he thinks I am not looking. A real person this time. He is an attorney down here working for the attorney general's office. He got to the island two weeks before I did, so we are figuring things out together. The other night we decided to go exploring. I had heard about some waterfalls that only took about 5 minutes to hike to, so between the time we got off work and the time the sun set, we decided to give it a go.

Things started off bad. Trail? There was supposed to be a trail right? Well, we started down what we thought was the trail, but it ended up in the river. So, we went sloshing up the river -- that's got to lead to the waterfall, right?

When the water got too deep, we scrambled along the uber slippery rocks along the shore. That neither of us slipped and broke our necks was a miracle.

At the five minute mark there was no sign of the falls, not even the sound of rushing water in the distance, just the croaking of frogs and the quite flutter of bats' wings overhead. (Lots of bats down here by the way, fruit bats though, not the bite-your-neck-and-give-you-rabbies kind. Oh, and it's illegal to kill the bats. Apparently they are pretty tasty but the population was dwindling so the Samoa government put the kibosh on killing the flying rats, but I digress).

We pressed on for another five minutes. Still no sign of the falls, and darkness was starting to close in.

"Should we turn back?" I asked. "Don't want to have to find our way back in the complete dark."

"Let's keep going, it's probably just around the bend."

I agreed and we pressed on. One bend lead to another. The darkness thickened around us, especially in the shadows of the thick jungle foliage.

Finally, as the sun was sending its last bending rays of light over the horizon we arrived at the falls. Were they awesome? Yes. Of course I forgot my camera. That may be a good thing though because otherwise I surely would have dropped it in the river somewhere along the way.

The hike back to the car was in fact as difficult and frightening as I had anticipated. But we made it with only minor scraps, bruises, and mosquito bites. I didn't even put my hand down on a frog when I tried to steady myself. That may have been the biggest miracle of all.

The next day I found out (1) there is in fact a trail, (2) it only takes five minutes if you are on the trail, and (3) there are even better waterfalls if you go past the first one. Oh well, I'll save that adventure for another day when there is more light. Here are the falls we made it to -- a photo taken by someone (my good friends the Temple family) with enough sense to go during the day.

A Day of Choices

2011-06-21T04:00:00.005-06:00

Saturday was a day of choices, some considered and some spontaneous. None were of eternal import, but it was interesting (at least to me) to see how they affected my day.

Choice 1. I had two options for starting my day – (a) go to the ward and help clean or (b) go with a local hiking group to climb a mountain called “Rainmaker” (I know, awesome name huh). So…I went to the ward. I just figured I didn’t come here to go hiking, although I hope to find time for that too.

Cleaning the bathroom, let’s just say except for an absence of graffiti it was about the same as a West Wendover truck stop. I did what I could with a spray bottle and paper towels, but what I needed was a water cannon, a large brush with metal bristles, and several gallons of undiluted Clorox bleach.

After cleaning, I was invited by some of the young men to play a pick-up game of basketball on the church’s outdoor court. We had a lot of fun. Considering I was in flip flops, I did alright. Hit a few jumpers, missed a few layups --pretty much what you would expect after not having played for a few years. Took a charging foul in the lane by a driving Samoan. The next time I just let him have the basket.

After laundry and lunch, I went to the office to Skype with the family. They weren’t online, so I decided to head into town to get a new book from the library. Now, you wouldn’t think there would be traffic jams on an island with a speed limit of 25 mph and only one main road, but there was. Apparently, there was some sort of Olympics going on in town not to mention it being Father’s day tomorrow so everyone was out shopping. Anyway, I jettisoned the idea of the library half way into my journey and went to Carl’s Jr. for lunch. I've got to admit, I’ve never been a big Carl’s Jr. fan before, something about the cheese. But here in American Samoa it's good. I mean it’s really good. Maybe they get their cheese from a dairy farm in New Zealand instead of the Kraft wax factory, not sure. But whatever it is it makes a huge difference.

Back to the office to Skype with the family. Isn’t Skype amazing. How can something be so awesome and free? It’s like chocolate with no calories. Had a good visit with Helen and the kids. Seems like I've been gone forever. I’m glad we finally have their tickets lined up and they’ll be coming soon. After we finished Skyping, I decided to head home. Surprise! That’s my car sandwiched in behind all the others. Apparently, that nice singing that was come up through the vents while I was in my office was some sort of well attended religious meeting.

“How much longer?” I asked a guy who had stepped out of the meeting for a smoke.

“Maybe half hour.”

Okay. Back to the office. I heard laughing as I climbed the steps.

When I came back down an hour later the cars were gone. Phew.

By now it was about 4:30. Choice number 2. I could either (a) go home and eat some eggs, carrots, and bread for dinner or (b) try and find that awesome snorkeling spot I read about on other people’s blogs.

I still hadn’t made up my mind when I came to the street that I was guessing, based on cursory review of Google maps, was the turn off to the snorkeling location. What the heck, I turned down the road. This was the spontaneous decision.

After driving for a few minutes and one wrong turn I found it. Well, I say “it” – not the snorkeling location, but the trailhead that leads to the location. Here it is. Pretty nice, huh. Along the black rocks in the background you can see white plumes of water, shooting up in the air. More on that in a minute.

This is looking back on where the trail starts. There’s a convention center/resort thingy back there. Not really sure what it is, but they were getting ready for a wedding reception that evening. Pretty nice place for a reception.

After walking a short distance, the coast turned into black lava rock, carved by years of pounding waves. Here is a photo just before the waves hit.

This one is just after.

For the next quarter mile or so this is what you see. Even cooler is that in lots of places there are these holes in the rocks. The waves come rushing in, disappear under the rocks, you hear a distant, buried rushing sound and then – geyser time (of course, being an amateur photographer I didn’t get a good shot of the geysers blasting 100 feet into the air, but trust me, it was impressive). Here is the best shot I got.

(Yes I know I wrote "throught" but it's late and I'm too tired to go back into photoshop and fix it)

Basically, it is like Yellowstone national park only with a nice cool ocean breeze, no smell of sulfur, and no tourists wearing t-shirts with cartoon moose on them -- no tourists at all in fact. I was all alone.

After the blow holes I came to a fork in the road. Hum. Go into the scary looking vegetation or take my chances with the waves along the coast?

Not feeling particularly Robert Frostian, I took the road that looked more traveled by (through the bushes) and, as it turned out, it made no difference. Both paths joined up and took me to the same place. Sorry Señor Frost, but it’s true.

Getting closer.

Last thing you see before you arrive at the snorkeling spot are these two “pill boxes.”

These were built during World War II so soldiers could sit inside and defend the harbor from Japanese warships. You can see the hole in the nearest one for the guns. Now, for a war that ended in a nuclear blast, this means of defense seems to me a little, I don’t know – medieval. But, apparently it had a deterrent effect because the Japanese never attacked American Samoa. It was either that or the Japanese just couldn’t be bothered. Hum, guess we’ll never know.

After the pill boxes, I arrived.

Okay, why is this a primo snorkeling spot? First, if you look out in the distance you can see the waves breaking. Big waves. The kind that shoot 100 feet in the air when they go through blow holes. But, because they break out so far, you have lots and lots of calm water for snorkeling. Second, crystal clear water. Third, deep but not too deep. Fourth, what was the fourth thing? Oh yeah, its jam packed swarming full of brightly colored tropical fish. I knew there was something else.

Of course, the drawback to my spontaneous decision to come on this adventure was that I was completely unprepared – no snorkel, fins, mask - not even bathing suit. And not feeling spontaneous enough to go in naked, I called it a day and headed back.

When I got back to the trailhead, I happened on these guys. Yes, they are holding on to rope so that the waves don’t crash them into the obsidian rocks or wash them out to sea.

For the kids

2011-06-18T17:00:00.000-06:00

It's not Lagoon, but at least it's something. Public library in the background.

The Island

2011-06-18T16:54:00.000-06:00

The island itself is alive. It comes in, creeping. We build houses and walls, but the fight to beat it back is perpetual. The island doesn't rest, it keeps on growing in the hot humid air, patiently reclaiming. This photo says it all.

Haircut

2011-06-14T15:45:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday I decided it was time for a haircut. The shaggy look in the heat wasn't working. So, after buying a few more cleaning supplies, I went looking for a barber’s shop. After driving for a few minutes I found one, a small cinderblock building. I parked and stepped inside. My first concern was price. I didn't want to get all the way to the end and then get a $40 bill. Besides, I only had about $15 cash and this didn't look like a credit card kind of shop.

Inside, two old men were sitting, one by the barber’s chair, the other on a bench upholstered in red vinyl. They both raised their eyebrows when I stepped in. I tried closing the door behind me, but it wouldn’t catch. The man on the bench grunted, which I understood meant don’t worry about it. I didn’t.

“How much?” I asked.

The men looked at each other.

“Price?” I tried.

Finally I saw a white board on the wall with prices. Kids were $8. Adults, where were the adult prices.

“Ten dall’a,” the guy on the bench said.

Then I saw it. Adult cuts -- $10. I had ten dollars. The barber motioned me over to the chair. The sheet went on and tucked in around my neck like normal – good sign. He ran a comb through my hair. Was he getting it ready to cut or trying to figure out why it wasn’t black and curly? I wasn’t sure.

The barber grunted. It was deep and throaty and may have been a Samoan word. I couldn’t be sure.

“Um, business man,” I said. It was a term of art I had heard other barbers use to describe the sort of haircut I was after. I hoped he would recognize it. No luck.

He shook his head. “Short,” I said.

“Sho,” he said.

I tried to show him with my fingers. He didn’t seem interested. Spinning my chair, he pointed a comb at the posters on the wall displaying hundreds of young men in profile, each sporting a different haircut. Good. I menu. I can order up what I want. Let’s see, where are the photos of the business men, the elders, the white people. None, none, none. All black. Tight stiff curls carved with names, images of athletes, lines, and shapes.

“Huh?” the barber grunted pointing at the wall again.

“No, not exactly, I don’t see…”

Apparently out of patience, the barber turned the chair so I wasn’t facing the mirror, snatched his electric clippers, and went to work.

He came at my hair from interesting angles, not using his free hand or a comb to pull the hair away from my head. He was carving more than cutting. My only hope lay in the fact that very little hair was falling, whatever the damage was at least it wasn’t deep. But then again, for $10 I didn’t want to be shaggy again in a week.

After two or three minutes, he pulled out a straight razor, cleaned up my neck, slapped on some aftershave stuff and spun me around. Not as much damage as I had expected, but not much improvement either.

He spun me around again and pulled off the sheet. Wait! Ten dollars for two minutes and a fraction of an inch of hair, I don’t think so. “Shorter,” I said. I’m a black belt in charades; I’ll get my point across. I lifted my hair with one hand and showed him the length. I made scissors with my other hand and demonstrated just to make sure he got the point.

Another grunt and the sheet when back on. He didn’t bother to tuck it in around the collar this time. More carving. More locks of hair gathering around me. Another two minutes, a spin in the chair, a quick look in the mirror. Fine. I decided to cut my losses (bad figure of speech I realize given the situation).

I handed over the ten bucks and headed out to my car for a better look. Let’s just say, if I were relying on my looks for success in life, I would have gone in and demanded my money back. But since my looks are, if not a liability, at least not an asset, I decided to live with it. At least the hair was off my neck. I ran my fingers through my hair to shake out some of the follicle shrapnel and drove home to do some more cleaning.

A few local secrets

2011-06-09T01:42:00.001-06:00

Okay, I am starting to learn a few of the local tricks of living in American Samoa. First money. The money here is very flimsy and soft -- feels like tissue paper. I guess it just never gets retired, so the same bills from the sixties are still in circulation. I was next to a guy at McDonalds the other day and his dollar bill actually ripped in half when he pulled it out of his wallet. The fibers just came apart. Also, if you want to be like the locals, you hand your dollar bills over all wadded and crinkled up, not flat and smooth. Maybe it's because they're trying to disguise that the bill has come apart and is in three pieces. Finally, most places accept credit cards, but the cashier usually has to dissapear into a back office to run it.

Second, the Sa. Okay, all you BYU alumni out there, remember when they would play the national anthem over the loud speakers and if you didn't stop and salute, you would get dirty looks. Okay, now imagine that only enforced by Goliath-sized samoan men in red skirts -- that's the Sa. Every day in most villages, a village official will come out at 5:55 and start banging on an old gas canister (like ones used to fill balloons at the grocery store). This is the five minute warning. At 6:00 more banging and the Goliaths come out -- they are called "aumaga” and are the non-deputized village police. Now, if you are driving on a main road, you can continue during the "sa" but if you stop -- there's no starting again. If you're walking, you stop and try to get inside somewhere or at least fold your arms and look somber, avoing eye contact with the aumaga. If you're driving on a side street, you stop the car. Most people go inside, except the aumaga. Seven minutes of reverence are observed then more banging and you can go on your way. Presumably, people are praying in their houses during the sa. One of my friends who has lived here a long time said that once in his village when someone flagrently violated the sa, folding chairs, rocks, and coconuts where thrown at his car. He was lucky that one of the aumaga didn't pick up his car and throw that too. So, the sa, apparently serious business. Sounds like kind of a cool tradition, actually. I applauded the commitment to religious devotion even if it does run somewhat afoul of certain fundamental principals, such as agency. However, when I learned that the reason this tradition is continued today -- village chiefs get money from the cultural preservation department to keep it going -- it became a little less cool. Wonder if they get a bonus for vandalizing the cars of violators.

The People

2011-06-06T23:58:00.000-06:00

If islands grew in proportion to the goodness and kindness of their inhabitants, I don't suppose the entire Pacific Ocean could contain American Samoa.

The people here have been so wonderful to me. People have taken me into their homes, given me delicious food, and sent me back to my hotel with the next two meals, carefully wrapped. I came to the island with no car, and tonight I have two, just because that’s the way people here are. Take mine, a person I only met the day before told me, keep it for as long as you want.

I went down to the hotel reception to heat up my dinner, and someone saw that I didn’t have a drink, so they brought me one.
I was talking to a lady in the hotel lobby while I ate and somehow we got on the subject of pianos. My daughter is a classical pianist, the woman said. Right, I thought imagining a plucky version of chopsticks. You should come hear her sometime, she said. I’d love to, I said. And I meant it because I don’t have much else to do in the evenings. Actually, the woman said, she will give you your own concert right now. This junior in high school then sat down at the piano and played as well as I have ever heard anyone play. Technically challenging stuff played beautifully. I applauded and they were so happy. So was I. It’s a very good place here. I am sure there are problems too, but the people I have met have been so friendly and helpful. I found a house today to rent. They are giving it to me at an amazing price. The wife wasn’t even planning on renting it, but was willing to just to help me.

American Samoa -- Pago Pago

2011-06-05T02:21:00.002-06:00

So I discovered today that all this time I have not been in Pago Pago. I have been west of there. So, late this morning I went to the bus stop to go exploring. Here is a bus stop:

After awhile a bus came a long:

Just like in Alice in Wonderland, since I didn't know where I was going, I didn't think it mattered which direction I went. However, after about a quarter of a mile, the bus driver told me he was finished working for the day. Sorry, ride over. Okay. So I got off and found another bus headed the other direction.

Here are some photos from the ride. Sorry some are blurry, I was hanging out the side of a bus.

Here is downtown Pago Pago:

On the way home I stopped at McDonalds for lunch. Apparently it is graduation week here in American Samoa and everyone goes out for fast food to celebrate. Very long story short, I waited for over a half hour in line to get my Asian Salad (too much fast food this week and not enough vegetables). Now, I have seen a lot of amazing things since I have been here in American Samoa -- amazing senery, rain the size of silver dollars, super friendly people who like to talk about religion -- but by far the most unbelieveable thing I have seen in my two and a half days here is a family that spent $150 at McDonalds. Now I admit it was a large family, both in number and girth, but I would have guessed $75 at the most. The bags of food just kept coming, and I kept waiting. Wow. Incredible.

It was stake conference here today, so I went to the priesthood session and the general session (back to back 4:00 and 6:00). Most of the talks were in Samoan, so I didn't get much out of it; however, I have never heard better singing anywhere in the church. Everyone sings, and everyone sings well. Hearing the music alone (the choir and even just the congretation) was worth listening to the hours of uninteligable vowels streaming out of the speakers' mouths. The singing was powerful both in volume and spirit. I look foward to two years of listening to these beautiful voices.

One last thing, I woke up with the first pinch of a sore throat this morning. Did I sleep with my mouth open? Is it a common cold? Have I been infected with the recent E. Coli outbreak on the island? I don't know but it's fun to speculate.

One last photo for the kids, I believe these are vines for swinging - Tarzan-style:

The Rain

2011-06-04T00:55:00.001-06:00

So I'm sitting in my hotel room this morning, getting ready for the day when suddenly there is this roar outside. What the heck? I opened the door and experienced my first Samoan rain (I called it a "storm" and was mocked mercilessly by the locals). Apparently this is normal or at least not uncommon. But I've got to tell you this was no April-Showers-Bring-May-Flowers-West-Kaysville shower this was a get-the-kids-and-the-animals-and-meet-Noah-at-the-boat downpour. Unfortunately, these photos don't do it justice, but here's what I've got. (I'm going our armed with my camera tomorrow for some better photos).

Talofa

2011-06-03T13:37:00.000-06:00

A few quick photos. Here is the waiting area in Hawaii to get on the plane to American Samoa.

Outside my hotel:

2011-02-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

On President's day I took my little brother and his wife and my little sister, Sara, and her husband on a snowshoeing trip up to the Salt Lake overlook in Millcreek Canyon. I had a great time. Here are some photos taken my sister, Sara. Thanks for sharing Sara. And thanks to everyone for coming on our winter adventure.

Poor Girl

2011-01-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

My two year old daughter, Mary, fell and cracked a bone in her leg. Apparently she didn't break her leg, just cracked the bone. Whatever. Anyway, she limps and looks very sad and cute but has been brave through the whole ordeal. To make things worse, she has barfed the last two mornings an hour before I was planning on waking up. Nothing better than cleaning up vomit at 6:00 a.m.

Jumping

2010-11-17T21:07:00.005-07:00

Here are some photos of the kids jumping on the trampoline. This first one is exactly as I shot it. No cropping, editing, etc. I don't know why but I really, really like this photo.

These next two of Mary where taken by my wife and I really like them also. Good work Helen.

Weekend in Midway

2010-10-25T20:48:00.012-06:00

We spent a weekend at my parent's home in Midway last week. Lots of good times although the weather turned bad Saturday afternoon. Friday evening we had a short bike ride around the neighborhood. Sorry no photos. Saturday morning we went on a family hike in the Wasatch State Park. Here are some of the happy hikers.

Here is Benjamin taking a break in a secret spot along the way.

We stopped for snacks in this nice little field.

After our hike we drove up to the top of memorial hill. Looks like we've got some fine soilders in the making.

More Family Photos

2010-10-11T14:31:00.009-06:00

I've never held myself out to be nor do I consider myself a portait photographer. Too much pressure I guess. But from time to time people ask me to take their photos. Here are some I did for some friends recently -- I charge them nothing so no one feels like they didn't get what they paid for.

Mount Timp Redux

2010-09-02T20:58:00.018-06:00

Here are my photos from the Mt. Timp hike. We got an early start and hiked in the dark for awhile. After about 45 minutes the sun came up.

Here we are taking a short break in a lovely little valley on the backside of Timp.

Lots of great wild flowers. Reminded me of Albion Basin.

Nice little waterfall. We saw several waterfalls on the hike. We also saw some mountain goats but they were too far away to photograph.

This is Emerald Lake and what is left of the Mt. Timp "glacier" in the background. We saw a few people trying to slide down it, but they weren't making much progress. Most of them actually abandoned sliding and were just walking down. We decided to come back down the trail.

Here's Rick coming through the boulder field. Rough going through this stretch.

Here is a good shot of the valley that the Timpooneke Trails comes through. We were on the Aspen Trail. The two trails meet up just past where this photo was taken.

Here we are at the saddle. Those guys are are headed along the trail toward the summit. You can see how the trail goes along the ridge. Steep going from here on out, but the exposure wasn't as bad as I had expected.

Me at the saddle. The whole purpose of that hat was not to get sunburned. Still got a little sun on my neck.

Here we are getting closer to the summit. You can see the trail snaking its way up the mountain on the right side of the photo.

Looking south from the summit. This is the trail you follow if you want to go to the "glacier."

Here we are at the summit. Great shot of Dave's head. You can see the triangulation station in the background and the crowds.

Mount Timpanogos

2010-08-17T13:21:00.005-06:00

Some high school friends and I climbed Mount Timpanogos the other day. This is a photo on the way up just after sunrise. This was a great hike, but if I ever do it again it will be on a weekday. The trail was very crowded and it was hard to find a place to sit on top.

Here we are on top with Utah County in the background. These photos were actually taken by my friend Rick. I will get mine up later.

Anniversary In Oregon

2010-07-11T21:34:00.025-06:00

We went to Oregon for our anniversary. Oregon is awesome -- especially when you pick the one week each year when it doesn't rain. The beach ones are at Cannon Beach. Haystack rock in the background.

Photo taken just seconds before I got a flat tire.

In the Columbia River Gorge. Waterfalls galore!

This is our awesome hotel in Portland.

Portland Rose Gardens.

Japanese gardens. Admission = $9.00 enjoyment = $3.50

Pinnock Mansion. Admission = $8.00 enjoyment = $8.00 (Helen says more like $1.50)

View of Mt. Hood from Pinnock Mansion.

Family Olympics

2010-07-11T20:56:00.013-06:00

Helen organized a family olympics while her family was visiting from the U.K.
This is my new favorite photo of Mary.

Benjamin was intense on the bouncy ball.

Hannah intense at soccer (a.k.a. football).

That's actually my cowboy hat -- I was just letting her borrow it.

Helen dominated on the pogo stick.

More Baseball

2010-07-11T20:51:00.004-06:00

Hannah and Daniel playing baseball at their sports camp.

Baseball

2010-07-11T20:40:00.007-06:00

We signed Matthew and Benjamin up for baseball this spring. They loved it, but games twice each week turned out to be a lot.

Sports Camp

2010-07-11T20:20:00.006-06:00

Here are some clicks from Hannah and Daniel's sports camp earlier this summer.

The Zoo

2010-03-20T21:36:00.007-06:00

We had a little family outting to the zoo today. No zebras, no bears, no lions, but we did find a few animals.

The forearm on this monkey looks just like my friend Dave's - thickness, vein, and hair.

Ms. Mary

2010-03-20T21:30:00.004-06:00

I love these photos of Mary. The first day it felt like spring, the kids all went outside to jump on the trampoline. Mary climbed the ladder and tried to join them.

Benjamin did a good job of keeping Mary off the trampoline.

Baby Emma

2010-03-15T16:11:00.002-06:00

Here is a photo of Helen and Emma on a Sunday afternoon...

And here is another one.

More Emma

2010-02-21T21:16:00.008-07:00

Here are some more artsy-fartsy photos. The proud papa. I actually may have been asleep here. It was a very late night.

Update on Emma

2010-02-21T20:40:00.002-07:00

Helen's grandfather, Joseph Picknett, passed away on Saturday. In honor of that great man, we have changed Emma's middle name to Josephine. Here are a few more photos.

Emma Grace is Here!

2010-02-20T20:30:00.002-07:00

Emma Grace Monson was born on February 19, 2010 at 11:49 p.m. She weighed 8 lbs, 5 oz. and was 21 inches long. We are not sure where all of that dark hair came from. We're glad to have her here safely.

Ready for Spring

2010-01-30T21:36:00.002-07:00

Hello, yes I still do exist, just not so much in the blogsphere any more. Kids are ready for spring as am I, so we went outside today to test the weather. A few good ones of my darling, Hannah, although truth be told she spent most of her time out side tormenting her brothers.

She's quite fond of those pink boots. Never seen them with the pink pants before.

Benjamin trying out the skateboard again. All paded up and ready to go.

I think I heard that most skaters actually do wear argyle socks.

And then there's Daniel. Matthew not very photogenic today, so I'll have to post some of him later.

I'm not going to lie, having kids is pretty great. Can't think of a time when people have actually jumped up cheering when I came into the room, but I get that every night when I come home from work and that's some good business.

Popular Photo

2009-10-21T08:45:00.003-06:00

I posted this photo on Facebook and, even though I thought there were better photos I had taken that day, this is the only one that got comments. It's hard to figure out what people will like in photos and why. Or maybe I am just strange and different from the rest of humanity...I mean I know I am, but maybe when it comes to what photos I like as well.

Adam's Canyon

2009-10-18T21:18:00.010-06:00

We had a fun Saturday afternoon in Adam's Canyon. The fall colors were fantastic.

Helen and Mary taking a rest.

I just liked the light on these leaves in a shady spot on the trail.

Looking up. It was a perfect fall day.

Good little hikers.

Portrait Photography

2009-09-20T21:33:00.003-06:00

I have never considered myself a portrait photographer. In fact, I have intentionally avoided the stress of trying to take photographs that are intended to be pleasing to anyone but me. However, our good friends asked if I would take their family photos. Here are the results. Thank goodness for image editing software.

Cecret Lake

2009-07-25T21:09:00.005-06:00

The family and I made our annual hike to Cecret Lake about a week ago. We got a late start so it was crowded and the light was bright and directly overhead. Anyway, the late start gave the rock climbers a chance to get out and on the mountain. Here is a shot of one of the climbers.

The wild flowers were out as well. There were lots, but they were mostly blue and white, with only a few red Indian Paint Brush, so they didn't really pop for the camera.

Mt. Whitney

2009-07-01T20:23:00.003-06:00

Had a fantastic trip with two great friends, Jason and Dave, to climb Mt. Whitney. We left our hotel at 3:00 a.m. and were on the trail by 3:45. We hiked in the dark with headlamps for a few hours and then were treated to a great sunrise.

We passed some pretty mountain lakes before we crossed the treeline.

The mountains were very dramatic.

The top was not easy, but it was worth it.

Erik and Sara's Wedding Dinner

2009-06-06T06:42:00.004-06:00

My sister Sara and her (soon to be) husband had their wedding dinner last night. Here are a few photos.

The beautiful bride:

The handsome couple:

One of the unlit torches (liked the colors):

The entertainment:

Flowers:

Food:

And a viking:

Overall a fantastic night.

Ben Lomond Hike

2009-06-02T09:58:00.002-06:00

It's been a long time, I know. Sorry. No time to take and post photos. Last Saturday, I climbed Ben Lomond with two of my very good friends, David Fawcett and Robbie Wayment. Here are a few photos of Old Ben.

Here is a photo of Pineview Reservoir early in the hike.

Great views of the Wasatch Front.

We ran into snow about 1000 feet below the summit.

This shot shows the angle we were climbing up through the snow just before the summit.

Robbie and David in the snow on the final push.

Willard Peak as seen from the summit of Ben Lomond. Would have been fun to bag that one as well if there had been more time and less snow.

At the end of the day we had a great hike, great company, and made it home safe and on time.

Soccer

2009-04-25T20:41:00.010-06:00

It was freezing cold, but the rain stopped so the soccer match was on -- the first of the day. Our side was down two players, so Matthew and Benjamin played the entire game.

Things looked good during warm-ups.

We were even able to find the back of the net a few times (still during warm ups).

Once the game started, things got ugly. The black team was good.

The other team brought a ringer. If I had a hair sample and the right equipment, I'm pretty sure I could have proved that the curly haired kid below is Valderrama's offspring.

We brought our A-game and our best moves.

But at the end of the day, we mostly just had fun.

Our teammates brought it today as well.

Dead Horse Point State Park

2009-04-13T08:54:00.003-06:00

Here are the photos from Dead Horse Point State Park. We got there late morning, just as a storm was rolling in.

Moab and Arches

2009-04-12T21:45:00.005-06:00

The family and I spent a fantastic long weekend in Moab, Arches National Park, and Dead Horse Point. Here are some of the photos from Arches. I'll do Dead Horse Point in a following post.

The weather threatened all weekend, but cooperated on Friday. The skies were overcasting giving me a nice diffuse light even at noon.

Our first stop was the Windows and Turret Arches. The short hike to the base of the arches was just right for our young kids.

On our way up to Double Arch.

Turret Arch.

At Sand Dune Arch.

Gott'a have a catcus photo.

Delicate Arch viewpoint hike.

Next to Balancing Rock.

Balancing Rock with the sun coming through the clouds in the background.

Dead trees that I liked.

Two of my favorite girls waiting for dad to finishing taking photos.

A few more random shots as we were driving to our hotel.

Flying v. Invisible

2009-03-24T19:45:00.009-06:00

Here are my top ten reasons for thinking that it would be way cooler to be able to fly than to be invisible (feel free to rebut with any counter arguments if you disagree).

1. You could get places way faster.

2. People would always be saying, "Hey, there's that awesome kid that can fly." If you were invisible all people would say is, "Where'd old what's-his-name go? He always seems to just disappear."

3. If you were always invisible you'd probably stop wearing clothes -- I mean what would be the point if no one can see you anyway, right? But then what if your invisibility powers ran out.

4. If you were invisible and you had to escape, you might be able to make it, unless they threw sand on you or paint or something. Then they'd total be able to tell where you were. If you could fly, you could just take off and be gone -- paint or no paint.

5. If you could fly, NASA would probably be really interested in you and you could get a free tour of the space shuttle or something awesome like that. If you were invisible, men in white space suits would probably attach enormous tubes to your house, capture you, run a bunch of tests, and then force you to inspect nuclear facilities in Iran or spend years learning Russian just so you could eaves drop on Vladimir Putin.

6. If you could fly, you could get above all the pollution and breath some fresh air. If you were invisible, you could probably see all the disgusting pollution going into your own lungs.

7. If you could fly, you could pretend you had a magic carpet. You could pretend the same thing if you were invisible, but the carpet wouldn't actually fly and no one would be able to see you on it anyway, so that wouldn't be nearly as cool.

8. If you could fly, you could pretend like you could just jump really high. Then you could win lots of Olympic medals and probably play in the NBA. If you were invisible, you probably wouldn't have those option unless you happened to be a naturally gifted athlete and could turn off you invisible powers -- I mean really, who's going to pay not to watch somebody play basketball.

9. If you could fly, you would never have to pay for a plane ticket again. If you were invisible, you could sneak onto planes, I guess, but if the plane was full, you'd have to cram yourself into an overhead compartment, stand in the aisle the entire flight, or wait for someone to fall asleep and then sit on their lap.

10. If you could fly, you could wear an awesome costume with a cape and a special symbol. If you were invisible, you could make a costume, but that would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?

(By the way, these photos turned out super grainy because I cranked the ISO all the way up to 1,600. That was the only way I could get a fast enough shutter speed to capture the movement in the bad light. This may have been one case where it would have been okay to break down and actually use my flash, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.)

Things I don't think

2009-03-18T20:29:00.009-06:00

Okay, so it's been a really long time since I've posted. Two reasons I think: first, I just haven't had any time to go out and take photos and second, I haven't really had anything good to take photos of. So, the other day as I was driving into work, I saw a new sushi restaurant that is just getting ready to open and the thought occurred to me, I don't think anyone really likes sushi. My next thought was, it would be fun to come up with a list of things that I don't think. So here it is. As it turns out, I think about a lot of things, so the list was shorter than I thought it would be. At least it gave me some photo ideas.

1. I don’t think anyone really likes sushi; I mean it’s raw fish, common on, really, quit pretending and go eat something that’s cooked.

2. I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk on your cell (or other) phone while on the toilet. I get an involuntary shudder each time I’m on the phone with someone and hear a flush.

3. I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to eat more than two handfuls of Skittles in any one sitting, unless you are willing to purge.

4. I don’t think there are really enough hours in a week to be a dad, have a job, have a church calling, take up photography has a hobby, take up hiking as a hobby, take up soccer as a hobby, learn to play the guitar, and finish a painting before my wife’s birthday…and yet I can’t stop thinking I would like to buy a road bike and get back into cycling.

5. I don’t think I would have survived past the age of twelve if I’d been born before the Renaissance…without glasses I can’t even trim my own toenails let alone scavenge for food.

6. I don’t think domesticated animals really are all that “domesticated”; I think they’re mostly just patiently waiting for the right opportunity…did you hear about that monkey?

7. I don’t think everyone who smiles is necessarily happy.

8. I don’t think anyone really enjoys being tickled once they start puberty. It must be a hormonal thing or something. What’s nice about being prodded by other people’s fingers in unusual places? For some reason, though, my kids (thankfully all prepubescent for a few more years) can’t get enough.

9. I don’t think going downhill on Rollerblades, a skateboard, or other wheeled contraptions that don’t have a reliable braking system is either safe or fun.

10. I don’t think international travel with five kids under the age of six is as exhausting as trying to roll Roseanne Barr to the top of Mt. Everest, but it’s pretty darn close.

11. I don’t think there are really more than maybe twenty people in the world who are really good at golf, and even they hit it into the rough sometimes.

12. I don’t think I’m going to shave until my wife gets back from visiting her family (week and a half).

13. I don't think truly pure water has any flavor, although my brother insists that it does. Think about it though, if water had a flavor it would have to taste kind of like something. What does water kind of taste like? Can't think of anything, can you...proof that water has no flavor. You can feel the cold or hot of the water, you can taste impurities in the water, but water itself is tasteless, or at least so I contend.

Farmington Bay

2009-02-23T09:18:00.005-07:00

I've been hearing lots of people talk about Farmington Bay recently and how may cool birds there are out there to photograph. So, last Saturday while the younger kids were napping and Helen was working on her lesson for Sunday, I took Matthew and Benjamin and we drove out to Farmington Bay to take some photos of bald eagles snatching fish out of the water.

I let the boys bring some binoculars so they wouldn't get too bored. After a few minutes, the boys figured out that staring at the empty blue sky, even through binoculars, ain't that great.

After awhile, the boy's ditched the binoculars. Benjamin kept himself entertained by playing with bones that he found (no doubt full of rabies and other dangerous germs) and climbing on the gates.

I kept myself entertained by photographing the plant life. I liked the golden glow on these backlit beauties.

Here are a few more. I just couldn't bring myself to take photographs of seagulls.

Eventually, Matthew had had enough and annouced that he was going back to the car.

As we were driving away, a hawk or at least a hawk-looking bird swooped down close enough to the car to allow me to get some photos. Image quality isn't great, because he was still a long way away, and I had to crop rather drastically in my image editing software, but at least I got a bird.

One more.

We drove a little farther, and I spotted a black and white speck sitting on a rock about a mile away. I stopped the car and took approximately fifty photos of the only bald eagle in the area that day. However, the eagle was just too far away, so unfortunately nothing post-worthy. (I even threw rocks in the water to try and get the eagle to take flight (don't worry he was well out of striking distance and probably hearing distance as well); if I'd had a fish or hot dog or anything, I would have waived it above my head to get the eagle to swoop in closer and attack me -- a few talon wounds would have been worth it for a great photo, but alas, I didn't even have that much luck).

As we were driving away we came across these bulldozers. It must have been all that thinking about birds and then seeing these bulldozers that reminded me of my all time favorite children's story Are You My Mother. I loved that story as a kid.

Saturday Afternoon

2009-02-16T08:52:00.004-07:00

I don't intend for this photoblog just to be photos of my family, but I just don't have time right now to track moose through the mountains all afternoon. So, another post of my cute kids. Hannah insisted on wearing these orange goggles in the bath and all afternoon. I like this one of Helen and Hannah. The ceiling made a nice clean background.

Here is another one of Hannah being silly with the goggles.

The afternoon sun was making interesting shadows on the bed where Mary was resting. I thought about using some fill light to get the shadows off Mary's face, but didn't want to lose the shadows on the sheets.

The Kids

2009-02-09T09:01:00.004-07:00

My wife took our two oldest kids to a birthday party last Saturday. I stayed home with the younger three. I figured that since I would be chasing them around the house anyway, I might as well be chasing them with a camera. I was focusing on composing photos from the back to the front, in other words, making sure that I got good plain backgrounds. Of course, no one wanted to hold still and act cute in front of the black table cloth I draped over the fridge, but I did get luck on a few photos. Here are the keepers:

This one is by far my favorite. I shot it from across the kitchen with my big lens. The background was just lucky.

I like the background on this one of Daniel also. Too bad he had chocolate chip cookie crumbs all over his face.

This is the only good one I got in front of the hanging table cloth. Not an amazing photo, but since I went to all the trouble of hanging the table cloth -- an exercise that involved tucking inside the fridge, magnets, and chairs -- I thought I was entitled to post at least one.

This last photo was taken just as I was wrapping up for the day. I saw these nuts spilled on the table and it reminded me of a photo my good friend Aimee Roth Smith took of some Cheerios. I was still using the long lens, but switched over to macro.

Sunrise

2009-01-28T09:40:00.003-07:00

Here is another sunrise photo. It's kind of ordinary except for the little clouds that caught the sun.

Daniel in the Hood

2009-01-26T09:12:00.002-07:00

Helen was messing around with the camera the other night taking photos of the kids. I love this one of Daniel. Proof that candids are better than posers.

Saturday Morning

2009-01-19T09:02:00.003-07:00

Last Saturday morning I got out my camera and tried to work on some of the things I learned from the book on photographing family and kids that I just read (see last post). Mostly I was trying to simplify backgrounds, particularly by using the floor as the background and shooting from different angles. Here are the results:

Book on Digital Photography

2009-01-16T21:41:00.005-07:00

I just finished reading a book on digital photography that I checked out from the library (add library to the litany of free photo resources recommended on this blog). The book is called Photographing Your Family (and All the Kids and Friends and Animals Who Wander Through Too), by Joel Sartore with John Healey. The book was actually published by National Geographic, and Joel is in fact a National Geographic photographer.

Anyway, as I read I took notes on two yellow post-it notes and the back of a receipt. I figure I have a better chance of keeping those notes to refer back to if I put them here. So here are my notes in no particular order:

When starting a shoot think 360, bird's eye view, worm's eye view.
Shoot straight down with the floor as a background to avoid clutter.
Background is very important. Compose your shot from the back to the front.
A great quote: "Shoot candidly. Nothing bores me more than seeing photos of people standing stiff and smiling just because the camera is on them. They all look like bowling pins."
Something the best photographers always strive for is to shoot the unexpected.
Slumbering kids, spouses, friends, pets -- all can make excellent pictures.
Look for a place with natural light without too many distractions.
Here is a very valuable insight I got from the book: before a photo shoot go through the following steps (1) adjust to the appropriate ISO as this will affect all other settings -- 100 for bright day, 200 for moderate light, 400-800 indoors or at night, (2) turn off flash, (3) select priority -- is depth of field important or is freezing or blurring action important (I would also add set white balance to proper setting)
To minimize background, use a long lens and a small aperature.

All in all this was a pretty good book. There were lots of photos so it didn't take long to read. However, some parts seemed like space filler. For example there were entire sections devoted to photo ideas. Some of the ideas were pretty good, others were less ingenious such as take photos of your kids playing outside and take photos of your kids playing inside and take photos on the 4th of July.

My recommendation is check this book out if you find it in the library, buy it new if you already own Photoshop and all the camera equipment you'll ever want and still have plenty of money to spend.

Gimp Image Editing Software

2009-01-16T21:12:00.007-07:00

So, I went out to lunch with my good friend Rick the other day, and I was telling him about my new hobby. I also happened to mention that I was using Picasa for my image editing software because I was too cheap to buy Photoshop. Rick suggested that I try Gimp. Gimp is image editing software that can be downloaded for free and is basically a poor man's Photoshop. It has many of the same features as Photoshop such as curves, cloning, layers, etc. I realize that those fortunate individuals out there who actually own Photoshop probably consider it blasphemy to even mention Gimp in the same post as Photoshop, and I'll admit that Gimp isn't perfect, but it gives you a lot of options at an unbeatable price. I actually read somewhere that Gimp is sort of a ghetto version of Photoshop Elements. I've never used Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, so I can't really give a fair comparison. All I can say is that of the free image editing software out there, Gimp is by far the best thing I have come across so far.

Before you go out and download Gimp, let me warn you -- it is not very user friendly. There are, however, lots of tutorials and help you can find online, but be forewarned it will take quite a bit of trial and error before you get the hang of how Gimp works and where everything is.

So, my first experiment with Gimp was to try and "save" a photo of a buffalo that I took when I went out to Antelope Island. The buffalo is great, but I must have been metering off of the dark buffalo fur because the snow all came out electric white. Here is the original photo that I took.

See what I mean by electric white snow in the foreground. So, I decided to try and use Gimp to get rid of that white and make it look more natural. I will spare you a full history of the trial and error it took cloning, copying, blurring, etc to try and turn the nuclear-fallout-looking snow into something else. I also realize that those who are proficient with Photoshop and other image editing software will make wicked and justified fun of my sophomoric attempt to rework this image, but below is the result of my first attempt at reclaiming a disappointing photo. At the end of the day, the lesson for me is, take a good photo initially. Trying to fix things takes a long time, generally doesn't turn out great, and isn't nearly as fun as stalking a half-ton horned beast with a camera.

ISO and White Balance

2009-01-13T09:02:00.005-07:00

Long time no post. Sorry. I was busy all weekend playing in a soccer tournament. Lot's of fun, but I was too afraid to leave my camera on the sidelines while I was playing. Anyway. Ever since I got my camera I've had trouble shooting indoors at night, which is a particular problem for me since the only real free time I have to take photos (other than weekends) is indoors at night. Basically, I don't like using the flash and when I turn the flash off and adjust the aperture and shutter speed to compensate, all my photos come out with an eerie orange glow, like I am taking photos inside a pumpkin or something. So, being the resourceful guy that I am, I went to the library and checked out some books on digital photography. Sure enough, there was an answer out there, and here it is.

First, you have to change the ISO setting. I was pretty afraid of ISO when I first got my camera. Kind of like being afraid of the dark -- its not what we know that scares us, it's what we don't know. Anyway, here's the skinny on ISO: in the old days, ISO referred to how sensitive the camera film was to light. These days the film has been replaced with the camera's sensor, but same idea. In bright conditions you want use a lower ISO like 100. The quality of photographs is better with lower a ISO -- colors will be more saturated and details will be better preserved. However, if you are in lower light, like at night and indoors under electric lights, increasing the ISO to 400 or 800, will allow you to take photos without using the flash. Also, if you open the aperture wide (lowest f-stop your lens will allow), you can still have a reasonably fast shutter speed so all those cute photos of fast moving kids don't come out as a blur. The draw back to increasing the ISO is that it creates noise. Noise is camera-talk for a grainy texture. It's a trade off, but better than the washed out effect of using a flash, I think.

Second trick is adjusting the white balance. Again, initially I was very afraid of white balance settings. To understand white balance you need to convince yourself that light has color. Some light is warm and reddish, some is cool and bluish. Camera makers, being the smart guys that they are, figured this out and gave digital cameras an automatic white balance setting that causes the camera to take the color out of light. However, this is really bad if, for example, you are taking photos of sunsets or nature and you really want a warm glow in your photos. Additionally, the auto white balance setting is a fairly blunt instrument. So again, camera makers being smart guys, give you the option to adjust the white balance settings, basically letting the camera know what lighting conditions you are shooting in so it doesn't eliminate something you want or compensate for something in the wrong way. So, last night I set the white balance to incandescent lighting and presto, we no longer lived inside a pumpkin. When shooting nature, I set the white balance to sunlight or cloudy, depending on conditions. It's a cool little trick, worth messing around with. Of course if you're super savvy in photoshop, you can do white balance clean up on the back end as well. But nothing's better than getting it right the first time. Okay, enough talk. Here are some of my indoor photos from last night using my new found ISO and white balance knowledge.

The following photo is of post-family home evening treats. Using a low f-stop (large aperture), I get a shallower depth of field, so Hannah is in focus but Benjamin is a little blurry. I think that's kind of cool and artsy, especially since I know why it happened and actually meant to do it.

The following photo is a good one of Helen and Mary.

These last two photos were actually taken by my wife. I was in the car on my way home from work and this sunset exploded (this is the type of sunset I wanted on Antelope Island). I was wishing I had my camera. I called my wife on the phone and, in an amazing display of marital vulcan mind melding, she said, "I thought it might be you, I was just outside taking photos of the sunset with your camera." Thanks wife. You've got a great eye.

More Buffalo

2009-01-06T08:46:00.002-07:00

Here's one more buffalo.

Great Salt Lake Photos

2009-01-06T06:54:00.004-07:00

Here are some of the photos I took on Antelope Island of the disappointing sunset. This first one doesn't really have any sunset in it at all, but I like the blue colors.

Here is one as the sun began to sink more.

Last one I can post without embarrasement.

One last thing. I was reading a photography book recently and the "photography" advice was: when photographing in the cold, take a pair of fingerless gloves to keep your hands warm. When I read that I thought, come on, why is that in a book about photography. But when I was out in single digit temperatures last Saturday taking photos, I realized the value of such practical advice as my bare hands went from cold, to numb, to immobile.

Buffalo

2009-01-05T08:46:00.004-07:00

Lately we have been having some amazing sunsets. So, last Saturday I decided to head out to Antelope Island (amazingly patient family in tow) to take some photos. My idea was to get an amazing sunset with awesome reflections in the shallow smooth water that surrounds the causeway leading to the island. Shortly after paying the $9 admission fee to the park, however, I discovered that the shallow smooth water was frozen over and covered with some very non-reflective snow. Strike one. Next it became apparent that instead of a spectacular explosion of a sunset, all I was going to get was a soft, glowing, fizzle of a sunset (I'll post some photos later anyway since I stood out in the freezing cold to take them). Strike Two. Then we came across two very large buffalo only feet from the road. Home run. I quickly switched to my 300mm lens, jumped out of the car, and started creeping towards them. No fences, just me and the half-ton, horned brutes. They were mostly just rummaging in the snow looking for things to eat. They did look up at me a few times however which made for some great shots. I'm not sure why the snow covered grass in the foreground came out neon white. That's not bad touch-up work. That's just the way the camera recorded it, and I'm not savvy enough and don't have good enough software to get rid of it. Anyway, it was a very fun unexpected surprise.

New Template

2009-01-01T22:19:00.006-07:00

I've changed my template again. I really think the black background makes the photos look better. Oh, and I discovered that in my excitement to put larger photos on my blog, I was making some photo's so large that they didn't fit on some screens. So, I'll be toning down the size of future photo posts. I've also started adding labels to my posts as any easy way to categorize and search for things.

As I was categorizing, I realized that I don't have any photos of my oldest son, Matthew, up yet. Here is one of him as a sheep in the family Christmas nativity. I'm also putting up another one of Daniel. I've never seen a child as excited about a shepherd's crook as Daniel was.

Sunrise over Farmington

2008-12-31T09:02:00.006-07:00

The other day I took my camera in to work because I was going straight from work to a Christmas program for the kids. As I was driving, a beautiful sunrise came up over the hills of Farmington. So, I rolled down my car window, navigated by sense of smell, and started snapping photos. I'd like to do more nature photography; however, its not easy to get out. I like the colors in this one, but it would have been better if there were some foreground in it, I think.

Family Christmas Pagent

2008-12-29T09:19:00.007-07:00

Here are some photos of our family Christmas pagent. I may put some more up later, but I really like the kids as the wisemen in these photos, especially Daniel.

New Lens

2008-12-28T23:29:00.013-07:00

Okay, so I was going to start out this post by apologizing for not having posted recently, but since I am apparently the only person that ever checks this blog with any real frequency, I will spare myself the whole throat-clearing apologetic preamble. Anyway, I got a totally awesome new lens (or is it "lense," I'm never sure) for Christmas. Basically, I can take photos of skin pores from across the street. Well, not quite that much magnification, but still very cool. Here are some shots I made with the new lens. The first one is a shot of a globe willow tree in our back yard. It was my wife that actually suggested the shot. I hung outside my upstairs bedroom window trying to find an angle that would not include the neighbor's trampoline. Unfortunately, despite my contortions, you can still see the shadow of the tramp in the upper right corner. I also lost the full shape of the globe which is what really would have made the photo nice. Considered jumping the back fence and moving the neighbor's trampoline, but they have two dogs, and although just pups, I don't care much for dogs, or explaining to neighbors for that matter. The second shot is a little bird's nest that I was able to zoom in on. I'll get some Christmas photos up soon, too. (By the way, I just checked and apparently "lense" is not even a real word, although I think it does work in the plural somehow. Still don't you think plain old "lens" looks like it's missing a letter?)

Big Photos on Blogger

2008-12-22T21:54:00.017-07:00

As you can see below, I've figured out how to put big photos onto my blog. This photo was actually taken by my wife on our little point and click, but I thought I'd put it in anyway to show how ridiculous I am. Yes that's my twenty-two day old daughter hanging from my neck in a sling while I try to figure out how to adjust the apertaure on my camera.

Okay, here's how you do it (the big photos not the sling or the apertaure).

First, you've got to download a new template. The problem with the Blogger templates is that the posting width is very narrow. You want to find a template that has a wide post column. I found some free templates prepared especially for photo blogs at http://www.ourblogtemplates.com/. I'm not sure I'm in love with this new template, so I may keep shopping, but it will do for now. Oh, and one drawback on choosing a new template, some of them, like the one I am currently using, doesn't make it easy for you to have your profile accessable to your blog guests (there's probably a way to get it in there, but it's too late tonight for me to figure it out). So, if you're really concerned that people know your favorite books, movies, and your "sign" a new template may not be the thing for you. Whatever site you download the new template from should have instructions on how to incorporate it in to blogger. It is actually pretty easy. Here are the instructions I followed: (1) download template and save it on your computer, (2) in blogger, go to Layout > Template > Edit HTML page, (3) choose the file you downloaded from the "Browse" button and then press the "Upload" button, (4) when it asks you to delete widget say yes (this is where you lose your profile and other fancy things you may have on the side of your current blog), and (5) view (and clean up) your new blog.
Second, store your photos in an online image hosting service. I uploaded my images on to http://www.photobucket.com/. I think http://www.flickr.com/ works as well, but I have never tried it. Both sites are free. Photobucket appears to have image editing software that may even be more robust than Picasa. I haven't had time to use it very much, but it looked like there was a lot of stuff there.
Third, copy the information in the "HTML for websites and blogs." It gives you full size and and thumbnail options. Go with the full size since that is the whole point of this exercise.
Fourth, in the Blogger Create Post panel, click the "Edit HTML" in the text Editor and Paste in the HTML you copied from Photobucket or Flickr.
Fifth, these next two steps will be easier if you have some experience with HTML. In order to keep your photo from being too big, you want to go in an set the width. You do this by going to the HTML you pasted in toward the end of all the computer gibberish but before the final ">" type "width="700px". That will tell the computer how many pixels wide you want the image displayed. You can set the height as well, but that may mess up the proportions, so best just do to width.
Sixth, to prevent the image from hanging off to one side or the other, you want to tell the computer to center the image. You do this by finding the very first "<" and right before that type: "<" then the word "center" then another one of these ">". Then find the very last ">" and right after that type < /center >, only don't put in any spaces. (Sorry about all the "type this, then this, then another one of these," and "leave out the spaces" nonsense, I'm just not smart enough to show you how to do it without the computer interpreting it as actual HTML code.)
Ta da. There you have it. Not that hard really. May require some additional tweaking after the fact, but at least we're getting closer. Enough blog business. Let's get back to photography.

Picasa

2008-12-19T09:00:00.002-07:00

Okay, I downloaded some new free software -- google/blogger affiliated Picasa. It's not Photoshop, but compared to the free software (PictureProject) that came with my Nikon camera it makes a world of difference. For example, compare the photo of Daniel at the left with the same photo below. On the one below, the strong back lighting put Daniel's face in shadow, which came out particularly dark when I uploaded to Blogger. With Picasa, I was able to add some fill light and bring Daniel's face out a little more, which is nice because I really like the tongue on this photo. So, for all you poor/cheap photographers out there, Picasa is definately a step up from PictureProject. (Note: all you can do in PictureProject is crop, take out redeye, and make albums. Lot's more can be done in Picasa, especially the latest version).

Colors

2008-12-16T09:30:00.004-07:00

Okay, so I was up late last night uploading the post below. When I get to the office this morning, the colors on the photos look way different than they did at home (i.e., not as good, darker, etc.). The blue in Hannah's eyes in the first photo is completely lost. Is it blogger, my monitor, late night bleary eyes, all of the above, I don't know...turn out the lights and I'll glow. I don't think it's the monitor because when I open the photo outside of blogger, it looks good. Also, is there a way to get photos on my blog to be larger? I would like that. If anyone knows, share the secret. Otherwise, I will look it up an let you know.

First Snow

2008-12-15T22:05:00.012-07:00

We got the first real snow of the year last Saturday, and of course the kids wanted to go outside and play. So, I followed them with my camera and got some great shots, including one of my all time favorite photos of my daughter Hannah. No cropping or anything on this one, just pure photographic serendipity. Here's another one of Hannah that I really like. Here's one of Daniel the cheeky snow eater. I really like the white background on this one. Again, no cropping -- this is just the way I shot it. You may not be able to see it on this smaller version, but there was a little piece of bluethread on Daniel's chin in this one. I realize all you Photoshop-spases out there could get rid of that imperfection and probably put a snowflake on his nose and a reflection of raindeer in his eyes, but whatever; I'm just doing my best here with what I've got. One last one of Daniel. This is after we came inside and were drinking hot chocolate. It's the tongue. Okay, so what I've learned is that I've been too distracted so far monkeying around with camera settings, etc. I mean, I'm just trying to learn how to use a tool better, so its okay, but at the end of the day, it is the subject matter that matters. Is this blog starting to sound like the final scene of a Dougie Howser, M.D. episode? Maybe the better question is, does anyone besides me remember Dougie Howser, M.D.?

Low-key images

2008-12-13T21:51:00.016-07:00

Thought I'd try some low-key shots today. I switched to spot-metering and concentrated the exposure reading on the light values that still retain subject detail. I wanted to shift mid-tones into shadow areas. Here are some of the better ones. Still not as good as I had hoped, but at least, for the first time, I actually messed around with the settings on my camera and got close to the results I wanted. Would have been better if my son Benjamin hadn't been wearing a yellow shirt, but I am starting to learn that, although good sports and generally indulgent, the rest of my family isn't necessarily as enthusiastic about my new hobby as I am. Fair enough.

Snap'n with a Tripod

2008-12-12T08:40:00.007-07:00

The return of my tripod was refreshingly easy yesterday. I left work five minutes early and it only took two minutes to exchange for a tripod with all the parts. When I left the store there was an amazing sunset. Would post a photo, but didn't have my camera with me. Note to self, always have camera with you.

Last night I messed around with slow shutter speeds. Mounted my camera on the new tripod and started taking photos of running water. Unfortunately, the only waterfalls I could arrange came out of the tap or containers I poured into the sink. I wasn't able to get any "silky curtain" photos like you see in magazines, etc. -- maybe because I wasn't shooting the right kind of water, maybe because I really am clueless about how to work my camera, or maybe (likely) both. However, by going to macro and cropping a little I did get some close up shots that I liked (see new heading for this blog). Monkeyed around with the flash a little as well. I figured out how to turn it on when not in auto mode. For some reason I had this idea that using a flash is bad or amateur or something. But apparently it is necessary as there appear to be certain limits beyond which you cannot compensate with just shutter speed and aperture adjustment (at least with my lens; I wonder if a better lens would make a difference)-- especially in a dark house at night (which is were I will be doing most of my practice until spring).

Last thing, this photo was not taken last night, but I'll post it anyway. It's little Mary's hand holding my wife's finger. I like how the index finger is in sharp focus and the rest of the photo is a little blurred. I wish I could say I did that on purpose, but right now photography for me is like my golf game, a few lucky shots mixed in with lots of failed attempts. Oh, need to do something about editing software as well. Not sure I'm ready to pop for full-blown Photoshop, but I can't even put in black and white in the free software from Nikon that came with the camera. I can do it on the camera itself, but not on computer. Hum. I think this photo would be better in black and white, maybe.

Tripod Woes

2008-12-11T09:07:00.003-07:00

So yesterday I went to the store to buy a tripod for my camera. I've been reading a lot about photography and apparently a tripod is like super important. So I got one. Later than night after the kids were in bed and my wife was playing board games, I set up a still life scene and pulled out my brand new tripod. After a few minutes of trying to figure the dumb thing out I realized that the mounting piece (the little bit with the screw that attaches to the camera) was missing. Also misssing was the carrying case. So now I have to go back to the store today and try to get a replacement. Deep joy. Anyway, that's why there are no new photos today. I could have posted one of the blurry ones (hand held at slow shutter speed), but I won't.

Getting Started

2008-12-10T15:27:00.009-07:00

I realize, of course, that every Sam, Dick, and Harry with a finger, at least one functioning eye, and a digital SLR camera thinks that they are Ansel Adams. Well, I'm no different. I got a camera and a tripod and I've started clicking. After nearly filling up my memory card with mostly overexposed, poorly metered photos I realized, I gott'a do something with all these images, so, ta da...welcome to my awesome blog.

My first subject was my daughter, Mary, born December 1, 2008. Funny thing is, my favorite photo of her was actually taken by my wife (or possibly mother-in-law). I cropped the photo though, so, you know, I should get some credit I think. Isn't it strange that people start out small enough to fit in a bathroom sink.

Okay, one more photo of Mary. This one I actually took.