| Author | Message | ||
     Captpete |
It's been a while since i've posted anything over here, or even visited the BadWeb. But I feel I need to keep my name in the hat, so I'll pull one from the archives of my Guam drivel: Living on the Fault Line Well, we had a pretty good little earthquake today. That’s three in the last two weeks, but the first two passed by unnoticed by everyone I know here except my friend Jonathan, who claims if he’s sleeping, he always wakes up just before they hit. I could see where a man could use that little quirk to his advantage… if he was real quick about it. “Hey honey. Did you just feel the earth move?” “Get off me, you old goat! What the hell’s the matter with you?” The center of the one today was right smack in the middle of the little Island of Rota, located about 35 miles north of Guam. (You can see it on a clear day.) 6.3 on the Richter scale. I can only remember feeling two others besides this one in all the time I’ve spent out here. The first one was a doozie. Jim and I were eating breakfast at Jan Z’s, a little restaurant at Agat Marina just down the street from where I live. It wasn’t a real big shaker, but the noise was something I’ll never forget. I really don’t know how to describe it; it was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. I couldn’t identify it at all, but I was instantly afraid. It was a different kind of fear from all others I knew. It was nothing like a ‘boo’ in the dark, or an, 'oh, ••••, we’re going to crash.' There was something primeval about it. It came from deep in some instinct, passed on to me from thousands and thousands of years ago. The only word I can use to describe the source is, I was hearing the END… of everything. But of course, IT ended, and that was that. The other one I remember was one night when I first got out here on this trip, and was staying at Jim and Donna’s while I was apartment hunting. I woke up and it was still dark, and I thought Donna was shaking me, waking me up so I could get to the bathroom before Jim got there and pitched his tent for his morning routine. (Nothing vain about him.) But then I realized first, that the whole bed was shaking, and then that it was shaking because the whole concrete building was doing the same. No noise this time, and I smiled a little in acknowledgement, thought, “Ah, it’s an earthquake,” and went back to sleep. But today, I had just walked into K-Mart. I mean, thank heaven for K-Mart, but I still don’t like shopping. So, as an incentive to not put it off for too long, every time I go there I treat myself to a little deviation from my loose vegetarian diet and have a slice of pepperoni pizza. They have a little cart on wheels just inside the door with a very focused Filipino woman and a cash register behind it, and she was counting my change as she was pulling it from the register when all of a sudden, I was weaving around like a drunk, trying to keep his balance. Here it comes, I thought. This is the big one. I thought about my cardiologist taking all my money for those useless stents he put in my heart - twice. And I was pissed that I hadn’t finished the boat yet. That was the first half-second. Then I noticed that the pizza cart was rolling around on its wheels, and I couldn’t figure out how that woman was doing that with her butt while she was counting change with her back to me. That took another half-second. But I’m an old hand now, the light bulb flashed, and I thought, cool… it’s an earthquake. And then it quit, and the woman turned around and started counting my change again as she was handing it to me. “You didn’t just feel that,” I asked? She finished with my change, looked up at me, and said, “What?” I thought she meant, “Feel what?” So I said, “That.” And once again, she said, “What?” Then I realized she had to choose between listening to my question or counting, and had gone with the counting. Her first what, was what did you say? “You didn’t just see that cart wheeling around when you turned to hand me my change?” “Huh?” “The earthquake!” “Huh?” Man, she was focused. A little while later, Jim called me on the cell phone and the first thing he said was, “Did you notice it?” “What,” I said? (Here we go again.) “Well, if you didn’t notice it, I’m not going to mention it.” “What?” “You got a package today, but I’m driving Jon’s van.” And then I started looking around my truck to see if I had failed to notice a package in there someplace. Was that what Jim wasn’t going to mention? Had Dewey eaten it? “What?” “Your package is in my truck, but it’s in the shop and I’m driving Jon’s van. If you need the package, you can go to the shop and get it. Just tell ‘em you have to get a package out of Jim Ryley’s truck. Tell them to call me if they want, but they probably won’t bother.” “Jim! What the •••• was I supposed to notice?” “The earthquake.” “Oh, yeah. I was getting a slice of pizza at K-mart when…” And I ran out of minutes on my cell phone. Sometime later in the day, I got back to the house and the first thing I noticed was a broken bottle of rum in the middle of the kitchen floor. ••••! I’ve trapped another one of those compound cats inside the house. Now we’ve gotta go through that again. It took me two weeks to get the last one out. I couldn’t get him out of his hidey hole, and every day while I was at the boat he would eat Dewey’s food, crap on the living room rug, (at least I had Dewey to clean that up for me), and then he took to pissing on my couch. That’s when I got serious about bagging him up and re-locating his •••. But that’s another whole story The next thing I noticed was that all the bottles of the good rum, (The Captain Morgan crap – I didn’t buy it – was the one that hit the deck.) were rearranged on the top of the fridge. And then I saw that all the pictures were crooked. Ahh – ha! The earthquake. Those things are tough on breakables. Jim used to take great pleasure in showing off his collection of antique Handel lamps and tobacco containers. But you have to learn how to roll with the punches. Now, without batting an eye, he proudly proclaims that he collects cracked Handel antiques – the perfect ones are much too expensive. (The new ‘cracked’ tour is just as long as the original; still good for two or three yawns per customer.) I guess it’s a good thing I’m too consumed with trying to get this boat fishing before I am truly broke to bother “socializing.” If the earth ever did really move for me, I’d probably just call Jim and ask if he’d noticed it. What? | ||
| Blake |
Hey Captain (Shark Assassin) Pete! Thanks for the great tale. You are a wonderfully gifted story-teller. If any of y'all haven't already checked out the Captain's log documenting his adventure in Gaum rebuilding a fishing boat, adopting a local canine, launching the boat and testing the fishing grounds, you are missing some really fantastic stuff. It's interetesting as heck and abounds with drama, humor, and always leaves you waiting anxiously for the next installment. Check it out... www.fugitivemarine.com | ||
| Rocketman |
Cpt Sir!!! Stop dilling around and write a bloody book  Be well you ole sea dog, and keep 'em coming. Rocket | ||
| Captpete |
Pretty soon, Sean. Soon as i go broke looking for these fish out here and can kick back in debtor's prison with the time to write.  | ||
| Road_thing |
And what about Dewey the Decimal Dog? Gotta be some good stories, Cap'n, keep 'em coming! rt | ||
| Captpete |
Dewey the Decimal Pointer. He’s been the inspiration for a good chunk of my material. Now that Blake’s outed my website, you can check him out there. His whole thread is under Musings, which will take you to the contents for all the Dewey stuff. The latest stunt he’s pulled is the silliest of them all. Somehow, he’s got the notion that a ladder on the dock is a didgeridoo. Or, as Blake suggests, a ladder-a-doo. CP | ||
| Paulinoz |
Good to here from yer Captain, was half an hour late this mornning to work after following blakes link to your web site will catch up on a few more of your adventures tonight. Looking at the pic of that shark on your boat, to borrow the line from a famous Shark movie "you need a bigger boat" but thats only my opinion. | ||
| Court |
You know . . . an earthquake or a natural disaster. . . yeah, I can handle that. But . . . I am having visions of a Pepperoni pizza at a K-Mart in Florida and, largely for preventative reasons, I am scheduling an appointment with a therapist. Great reading! | ||
| Jb2 |
Capt. Pete, As always a great read. It's been nice to be in the loop and get the links to your latest stories. First thing I do, after I read them is go to work and tell my boss you got a new one up. He's an avid reader who also wants a... Anyway, keep your fingers outta-der-mouths 'cause you can always fall back on the writing. JB2 | ||
| Captpete |
Good luck, Court. It never was much help for me, though. | ||
| Captpete |
And Paul, yer damned tootin' I need a bigger boat. Why you think I been callin' it a •••• pot? Oh, heck, Blake won't let me say that. How 'bout pee pot? The deck house on this little thing is smaller than my stateroom on the last one. I sure miss the room. And the 3-ton AC unit on the house roof, and the full-sized fridge in the galley, the microwave, the automatic coffee maker, both TV's, and... well, I don't miss the hair dryer so much these days. But don't get me wrong, the 'Reaper' is an ocean-able little vessel, in spite of her size. As soon as I get all the little kinks worked out of her, she's going to be sweet. CP | ||
| Road_thing |
Hmm... "kinks" "Rim Reaper" Are you trying to tell us something, Cap'n? rt | ||
| Captpete |
Ha, ha, ha. Old news, Thang. We did all that six months ago. Like I said then, the deviates are welcome to come aboard and have a go at Jaws any time. The experience may not shorten their lifespan, but I bet it will have that effect elsewhere. (If enough of 'em show up, I can open a hot dog stand. Or go into the Very Lifelike prosthesis busines. The first visit is free. The second's a little pricey.) You Dumpster-diving poser, you. How would you know anything about this subject anyway? You one a those guys who keeps his computer hidden in a closet behind lock and key? Back there in your secret place? Safe from Mrs. Thang and the little Thanglets? You mess with me, and you can consider yourself outed! Yeah, man. You be Dumpster-diving for real! CP | ||
| Road_thing |
Hey, let's leave my secret place out of this, you fishy-smelling sea roach!  rt | ||
| Captpete |
Yeah, you just keep talkin'. The Rim Reapin' that goes on out here might just be a little different than what you're used to in that closet!  The little pee-pot was not copping that lean to starboard before we drug this guy through the boarding gate. | ||
| Henrik |
Capt. Looked at your site; Good stuff - I'll read more. The pictures of the boat before you bought it ... you mean to tell me you saw these pictures and then *still* went ahead and bought it. Man, you're either nuts or brave ... or a bit of both  Good for you. Thanks for the stories - as always a great read. Henrik | ||
| Road_thing |
What's that dog doing to that fish?  Sick mo-fo's, both of ya...  rt | ||
| Firemanjim |
OK,I give up,used Blake's link to www.fugitivemarine.com and it goes to the homepage but I cannot go anywhere else or see anyway to get there.Help?? | ||
| Henrik |
If you wait just a split second after the page loads, the "enter" button appears just below the hit counter. I'm sure it's designed to keep out people with short attention span - seems to be working too Henrik | ||
| Mikej |
I can't see the enter button with my local version of IE, but can with Mozilla, so it might be your browser too. | ||
| Henrik |
so it might be your browser too. I know you're just being kind Mike - I still think it's just his attention span  Henrik | ||
| Captpete |
Works w/ the three major browsers for me. If you've got a bunch of tool bars showing in IE, the Enter button might be out of site at the bottom of the page and require you to scroll the page down to see it. It also requires a couple of seconds for the Java crap to load before the button is active. | ||
| Captpete |
Jim, you can also try hitting the F11 key, which will take you to the full-screen view, getting rid of most of that toobar crap. Or, if you've got one of those fancy keyboards that assigns special functions to the "F" keys, you can click View in the tool bar and then Full Screen. Or, you could make your life easier, and download Mozilla Firefox. | ||
| Reepicheep |
If it still fails, just try this link: http://www.fugitivemarine.com/contents.htm | ||
| Captpete |
I know, Henrick, I should learn how to use something beside my 2000 version of Front Page, but it's so darned easy to use. I'm just getting started dealing w/ html, and FP throws in so much superfluous code that it’s mind-boggling. Especially if you keep tweaking a page, making little changes. (Message edited by captpete on October 20, 2005) | ||
| Turnagain |
please give Dewey a treat for me
| ||
| Henrik |
Hi Capt. I know about FP and it's little quirks. But it does the job  I'm really just raggin' on the Fireman If you do choose to change software or method, may I suggest you look into Blogging, like Peter used for his Dakar site. It's hosted by a http://www.squarespace.com. They have good samples as well as explanations of their features on the site. If you want to stick with html, then Macromedia Dreamweaver is hard to beat. It's a tad less user friendly than FP, but if you go through the included tutorial you'll get the necessary basics down. Henrik | ||
| Blake |
Dang RT, you're one preverted dude aincha? Care to swap bookmarks? LOL! BTW Captain, you look ten years younger in than the last time I saw ya. Must be all the hard work and clean living. I agree with Henrik. The Fire Man needs to be ragged upon as much as possible. | ||
| Road_thing |
I don't know what's perverted, but I know what I like! rt | ||
| Firemanjim |
Ya,pick on the poor frustrated fireman--rained out for the umpteenth time now.How the heck does it deluge in S California at this time of year--and in the DESERT,fer pity's sake?? And yer still too tall-- Hey,any of you bozos see me on the tube?We burnt up 100 million in wine last week.Got to talk to some hot reporters,and a verrry sexy ATF agent,mmmm.God, red wine smell makes me sick now,but my boots and gloves are so well marinated you could eat em.Lucky I am not a big wine drinker--now if it had been beer in that warehouse-- | ||
| Henrik |
Sorry about the rain Fireman - I have my fingers crossed for a better season next year. But burning wine ... that's just wrong man. Henrik | ||
| Captpete |
That's right, Blake. Amazing things start happening when you get into that mode. Twenty pounds of unwanted and un-needed midriff fat melts away, you're back on cigarettes to the tune of a couple packs a day, you start grinding your teeth during the night when you're not dreaming about the good old days and the old flames, and you spend more time talking to your dog than you do people. (But you don't complain about the company you keep. Way less controversy in your personal life.) It's great! But I've promised myself that if I ever get this thing working out here, I'll never eat another 18-cent helping of Raman noodles again. | ||
| Blake |
Yeah Fire Man! I too vote for moving the rain from desert to the vinyards! Height envy... it's a horrible thing.  Don't sweat it, your 7' tall in my book. Short folks live longer too don't they? At least as long as they don't let their butt get too big. Oh...  ... high there Henrik. Capt, Sounds ideal all except for the cigarettes! Don't make me come out there. I'll start selling tickets to your new fishery cum cash-cow on ebay.  At least stick to the "Lights" okay? |
