Guest Post by DC - New Vibes

Hi everyone! My name's DC and I'm a little nervous, this is my first time posting on a blog! Please excuse my excessive use of exclamation points, I'm just so excited because I love football! You Americans might call it soccer, but now that I'm on a team down here in the Caribbean, I call it by what its known as worldwide.

Yeppers, you heard right. I'm on a team down here! Its called the New Vibes, and these fellas are the returning champions of the Caribbean league. I met a few of them when I was out at Green House with my roommate/mentor Tim. He had so many girls just hanging all over him that he sent six of them to a table with a guy in a Ronaldino t-shirt. None of the girls were looking at me nor acknowledging my presence (which is good because between you and I, I get nosebleeds when I get nervous) so I asked the guy about his shirt. He told me that since Tim was such a great guy, he'd let me tryout for his team as keeper.

I played D1 soccer in college, so I felt pretty confident in my abilities. I get to the stadium and start warming up. Before the game the teams line up face to face so they can hear you when you wish them good luck. I'm not sure the best way to put this, but I was the only muffin that wasn't burnt. The other team's goalie spotted this right away and started a sing-song musical chant that went something like "they got a white guy, they got a white guy, and he's their keeper, and he's their keeper." Can you imagine that?? I mean its my first game and there are already people making up chants for me! This is the kindest league ever! Since the sweetest mints are compliments, I figured I'd return the favor and tell him that I liked his jersey, it really brought out his eyes. The only downside to the entire affair was that the field was actually a baseball diamond, and my goal line was all dirt.

We ended up winning 5-1, and guess what? I made the team! I'm going to be the starting keeper on the New Vibes! After the game the guys asked if I wanted to go out with them so celebrate the win, but I told them that I was too tired for ice cream and went home instead. But wait - the story gets better. Practices are Sundays at 7:30am! This may be fate, because that's my favorite time of the week to play!

The Dream Outlives The Man

If I were to say that the particular bar that would host the evening's festivities was called Green House, what would you think? I for one thought it was going to be a nice bar with an affluent crowd and perhaps a special on mojitos. In fact, it was a dark dingy hip-hop blasting dance party. Why would that be the bar of choice for the evening? Because DC had a fever, and the only perscription was more Rae Rae.

She had been texting DC all night flirting and begging him to come to Green House because it was the last night on island for a number of the Hooters girls and that was where they wanted to spend it. It was nice getting pat down for weapons on the way in, because I knew that once we got inside we would be safe. I especially wasn't hiding a gun where my dong usually goes, but thanks for checking there extensively anyway. Sorry for saying dong mom.

We get our beers and walk around, looking for Rae Rae. When we found her she had some weird growth on her lip - it was in the shape of a six foot white guy. About five minutes later she left with this dude. I felt bad for DC - all night she had been leading him on, and for this? DC was like Martin Luther King Jr, though, because the dream did not die with him. Sitting in the next barstool over was Brittany, the Hooters waitress who gets confused about pretty much anything, but specifically what someone takes with them when they ask for the rest of their food to be wrapped.

I start talking to her and for some reason she seems really into me. Maybe it was the Dakar Noir I was wearing. I go to the bar and get another round, and upon my return she is gone. The way DC described it this morning was that she was on the phone and did an impromtu demonstration of her 100 meter dash. Regardless, her bolt meant one thing - we were the last two white people in this bar.

No big deal. At least not until DC spotted some dude in a Ronaldino jersey. Long story short, DC is now the keeper on the best soccer team in the Caribbean. His "tryout" is a game tomorrow night. Now seems like a good as time as any to mention that we saw Michael Jackson last night. I'm not even joking around - this guy had a light blue bedazzled translucent blouse unbuttoned and over a white wife beater with black pants, sunglasses, a classic MJ hat and a white glove. He even had the lightening skin and jerry curl. It was like a Halloween costume.

After a while we decided that we had enough of the cast and crew of House Party. As we exit the establishment we see one of our familiar taxi drivers. This guy is actually a really good guy, and his brother is too. The best way to describe his brother is to say that he is a Rasta that runs a bodego out of the back of his pickup truck. For the first and hopefully only time in my life, I bought a cold cheeseburger out of the back of a pickup truck and then took a taxi home.

Get Lost Chris Daughtry

I feel like every Tuesday post is going to start the same way: "So it was Monday and we were planning to stay in. But then..."

This time the "But then" is the fact that Adam, Kasia and Mariusz wanted to go to Red Hook. Specifically - Duffy's, which is slowly becoming my favorite bar because of the homeless Rastas and cougars on vacation. Seeing as how they only had two nights left before they were leaving the island, I couldn't resist.

So we get east and walk into Duffy's, and what's this? A group of eight cougars with mostly empty drinks? Just what the doctor ordered. After a quick "get here now" text to DC and a quick drink, I found myself getting a little frisky on the dance floor with Colleen, who is turning 40 this Thursday.

Twice in my life I've had something happen to me that I like to call the Really Phenomenon. This was the second time. Basically what happens is you meet a girl, have a short conversation and go your separate ways, only to have her come up to you ten minutes later and introduce herself to you again, remembering nothing from the first interaction. The first time this happened to me I was in Philadelphia and we were at a bar called Drinkers. I was ordering another round of $1 PBR pounders and a girl came up and asked if I had any quarters. Seeing as how I didn't have any quarters because you don't get quarters back when drinks are in dollar increments, I asked her what they were going to be used for. She pointed to a cup placed high on a shelf on the wall behind the bar, sharing that if we make a quarter in there the whole bar gets free shots. She told me that her name was Clairie and that she did promotional events marketing for the Wachovia Center. We shared a few laughs and I returned to my friends.

Ten minutes pass, and I get a tap on my shoulder. It was a girl, and she told me that her friend thought I was really cute and wanted to meet me. I'm always game to meet girls that think I'm cute, even if it has only happened three times. She steps out of the way, and walking up with outstretched hand is Clairie. "Hi, I'm Clairie, what's your name?" There's only one proper response to this, hence the name of the Phenomenon. And no matter how hard you try, you can't hold it in. REALLY?

So back to last night. Colleen and I are going all Patrick Swayze/Jennifer Grey when the song ends and I return to my drink. This time the Really Phenomenon took only about two minutes to recoil. I dance my way back over to Colleen and she slurs "What's your name?" Before I even have time to respond a Chris Daughtry lookalike comes stumbling across the dance floor and bumps into us. To a drunk cougar, nothing is better bait than an American Idol contestant, so her focus quickly shifted to making out with this dude. That's when the Eva Longoria stunt double said "heyyyyy I was making out with him" and I decided to walk away. After all they don't make mouth-condoms.

Our ride home that night ended up being a taxi that was a pickup truck with two rows of seating in the cab. When we commissioned this taxi's services, we didn't realize there were going to be three Rastas in the cab that were going to ride with us the entire trip. Safe to say, I stayed pretty quiet.

The Return of Rae Rae

To start, I need to apologize in advance for any misspellings. I was not supposed to work this morning but Kier got a migraine and asked me to cover the rest of her shift. I am pretty sure I'd blow at least a 0.22 right now (blow? gayyyy)

I have to start with the current - about 17 seconds after Kier left, a friend of the family that owns this establishment came into the office, seeking a computer with which to check the internet. He speaks Polish, Russian, German, Afghanistan, Dachshund, Martian and MS-DOS, but he does not speak English. He put his phone on speaker while checking his voicemail - and I don't know if its a Europe thing, but his PIN was probably 700 digits long. I felt like he was trying to play "Louie Louie" on his brick. To punish him I'm playing Jay-Z's "December 4th" over and over again - a great song, just not 300 times in a row.

Alright, to last night. Everyone's shifts ended (including DC holding down the bar and walking into the apartment with $500 in ones) and we decided that we should steer ourselves over to Shipwreck. We got a chance to hang out with the Family Meal Fridays crew, so we were all just around the same general area when something happened. I don't mean to get anybody alarmed - its just not a very common thing down here in the VIs.

Ok here it is - a single girl came up to DC and started flirting with him. I know, right? Nothing but love for DC - he is not the issue in this connundrum. The problem is the severe lack of single girls on this island! Every girl here is seriously spoken for.

So a beat passes until she decides to introduce herself to the rest of the table(s). A resounding "Hey y'all, my name's Valerie Rae" overcame the vicinity, and I dropped everything (the sweater I was knitting): I had heard this voice before. "But where?" I asked myself, accidentally out loud. Was it from work? Was is from a beach? No - the "Hey y'all" was too distinguishable. One thing was clear - this girl has worked at a Hooters.

I snapped my head around like a switchblade and screamed "My God - You're Rae Rae!" Rae Rae had been Master of Ceremonies in the prior week's Sunday football exploits, specifically when she got Mini to crow for us. Rae Rae has a thick southern accent. Other things Rae Rae has include knee high socks in 80 degree weather and an 11 month old child.

After some serious dancing and some serious drinking, we somehow got home. They even played "Call on me" so I could do the workout dance. What's on tap for tonight? Well its Sunday so I think we'll take it easy, maybe just some karaoke at Fat Boys. And maybe three fingers of glenlivet. And maybe a few rounds of shots, although one shot is all I need.

Family Meal Fridays

We started a weekly tradition on Friday night that will go on for at least one week, and its called Family Meal Fridays. The concept is easy to grasp - we gather and share a meal and our stories from the week and a whole bunch of booze so that we don't drop our entire paycheck at the bar.

The inaugural dinner was cooked by Beth, and she made a delicious Chicken Parmesan and Eggplant Parmesan. I was in charge of delivering the liquor, and for that I had to make my first trip to Cost-U-Less.

If I could take a moment and praise the driving experience on the island. Cons include a very mountainous terrain and cars that park in your lane and just throw on the flashers (much like double parking in NYC except there is not "single" car to make it a "double" park). Pros include how much sense it makes to drive on the left side of the road, how everybody stops to allow you to turn, and the fact that there is no open container law.

So after a series of sharp turns and 45 degree inclines, I found Cost-U-Less. Beth had already brought over one JV bottle of white wine, so I picked up a handle of rum, another JV bottle of white, a Varsity bottle of red, and a case of beer. Inspired by Annmarie - a JV bottle is the normal sized bottle of wine, a Varsity bottle is 1.5 liters. Kier's two sayings are "Bitches be crazy" and "This ain't no JV." She sure is special.

Justin and Smitty coach a high school football team, so they show up after their practice and dinner starts. By this point everyone was about two drinks too many into the night, so it was less of a "dinner" and more of a "feeding". We were animals. It was like we'd been fasting for the month of Ramadan, except taking nights off too. With the snap of your fingers there was no more food and a whole bunch of dirty plates.

...more like what didn't we do that night. We played Apples to Apples. We played guitar and sang off the balcony. We told stories. We laughed, we loved, we prospered. At one point Justin took my phone, called DC's phone (who was sitting next to him) and had a three minute conversation with his voicemail about which GI Joe was the best (and got in an argument about it with himself and threw a chair, it was pretty intense). My vote is for Snake Eyes.

In the morning there was no alcohol left. All of it was gone. While we were sleeping a hurricane must have come through our apartment because it could not be described as tidy. I looked in the mirror to check the travesty that was looking back, drank a pitcher of water and went back to sleep.

"One Shot is All I Need"

DC and I were hanging out in the apartment before his bartending shift just letting time pass by. Perhaps it was this severe lack of things with which to occupy our time, or perhaps it was the riveting plotline - but we found ourselves watching Sniper 3. I don't know if you've seen Sniper 1 or Sniper 2, but you don't get that sense of completion until you watch the entire trilogy.

Anyway there is one scene that I feel best sums up the movie/experience/adrenaline, and it has become my new favorite catchline. When it was explained to Tom Berringer's character (the main character, and yes he was the title sniper for all three movies) that he may only have time for one shot at his target, he swings around and looks just to the left of the camera, saying, "One shot is all I need."

"Seriously? That's you're new favorite catchphrase?" YES. The reason is this: next time you are at a bar and someone turns to you and gives you the nonchalant "hey man you want a shot?" just turn to him and with conviction declare "one shot is all I need."

We should have followed that advice that night. DC was closing up the bar and Todd, Kier and I were his only customers - waiting for him to get out so we could all scram. It was Monday, we were going to give our livers a break. That's when a certain gentleman came up to the bar with a bottle of Pernod. This wasn't any random dude, this was a privelidged guest who had ties to the owners. He also spoke no English.

After some time, we realized he was asking for a rocks glass, a brandy snifter, a pack of sugar, a coaster and a straw. This man wanted to do shots. The specific variety of shot he had in mind goes as follows - you dissolve the sugar in the Pernod in the snifter. You then light the Pernod on fire to warm it. Once warm, you pour the shot into the rocks glass and use your coaster to cover and trap the vapors in the snifter, drink your warm sugar shot from the rocks glass, and use your straw to inhale the reserved vapors. An optional move (an option only selected by our Polish friend) was to mime a bench press after the shot and a military press after the vapors.

After too many of these we ended up in the pool with a varsity bottle of wine, a twelve pack of beer and no lifeguard on duty. Then we woke up in the morning. The in-between part is a little hazy.

God made it snow, Brady made it rain

I apologize in advance for the length of this thing (just found my new favorite pickup line).

On island there are only maybe three places that serve draft beer. Hooters is one of them. They also have the football package. A quick Venn Diagram illustrates how that puts Hooters in an exclusive situation on Sundays. We walk in for the 4pm games and are welcomed with a resounding "Welcome to Hooterssssss!!!" We get our pitcher and our shots of tuaca and order food.

By the time I was full, I had finished all but three of my chicken wings. I asked our waitress Brittany (although she probably spelled it with an 'i' at the end) for a take-out container, jokingly adding "I have a dog at home." She FREAKS - "YOU CAN'T FEED CHICKEN WINGS TO A DOG!" But I calm her down, saying that Ziggy is a special dog and that she's really smart and that she'll be fine. So Brittany goes to grab my plate and asks quite possibly the only question I didn't (nor would ever) expect to hear: "Would you like just these three wings, or do you want all these bones too?"

No thanks, Brittany, I'll stick to the wings that have yet to be consumed.

Shortly after that, Todd's lady friend Ashley came in and had a special treat - cookies. I was stoked, because I love chocolate chips. These were a little different, they tasted kinda like granola and moss. About 30 minutes later we all suddenly felt very relaxed and at peace. It was then that waitress #2 (Rae Rae - I shit you not) started chatting with DC about how he looked tired, and needed to wake up! He insisted that he was fine, but Rae Rae from Mississippi was determined.

She walks away and returns a minute later with waitress #3 (didn't catch her name, lets call her Mini). She was very short. She was so short that her head didn't even come up to the side of the table. Lincoln Hawk would have loved her. The only thing shorter than Mini was the amount of time it took her to lose all her dignity. Rae Rae tells DC once again that he looks tired, and he needs a wake up call. Then, turning to Mini, she says "DO IT GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

This is the part of the story where Mini starts to crow like a rooster. Not like a Peter Pan crow, I'm talking about a straight up rooster crow. My favorite part however was when she was done crowing, because she just turned and walked away as if that wasn't the strangest thing any man, woman or child saw that day.

Marveling at our incredible experience, we walked across the street to Mojo's - a very cool bar because its like an open air hut and instead of stools they have swings hanging from the perimeter. It was now that we should have decided to go home. But when somebody said "Fat Boys" and "karaoke Sunday" in the same sentence, that thought went right out the window.

We sang three songs - LFO's Summer Girls, NSYNC's Bye Bye Bye, and Journey's Don't Stop Believing. The crowd was eating out of our hands. My roomates from my former life on Audubon Street would have loved it. I never leave my fans unsatisfied, so only because they begged for it I gave them an encore.

We had to pick something everyone knew, something they would recognize but not necessarily expect. The choice was obvious to me: Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart. The moment the first few piano notes were struck, a euphoric wave swept over the crowd. We needed no microphones. I might as well have been holding a baton - conducting the crowd that was my orchestra. We even got the screaming chorus down to the whisper of the second verse at around the 2:20 mark of the song. Gustav Mahler, eat your heart out.

And so, with scratchy voices, sweat swabbed shirts and a brand new fan club, we ventured home on the left side of the road.

My Friend Likes Little People

We first discovered this anomaly my first night on island when we went to Fat Boys, a bar in Red Hook. My friend, who for the purposes of this blog I will call Lincoln Hawk, introduced her short friend Alex in "Laundry Position" - that is Link came running through the crowd around the corner of the bar holding Alex on her hip like a laundry basket. The thing was that they both were acting as if this was the most normal thing that could have been happening, and when inquired as to why they were in this particular Kama Sutra-esque circumstance, Hawkman revealed "I loooooove little people"

Fair enough. Everybody has particular likes and dislikes, and Alex is a short person - so it fits.

But then a couple of days later we were sitting around the apartment and Lincoln said the following words: "I want to birth a midget." DC and I immediately stopped what we were doing and looked at each other. Most people say "I hope my baby looks like me" or "I want my son to be good at sports" or at least "maybe it'll have hair". But disclosing a preference for such a specific variety of human means one thing - she had thought about this for a while.

Still, upon further review we decided that this too was reasonable. After all, the smaller the child, the easier the childbirth, right?

Then the other night happened. We were sitting at the bar enjoying the view, when suddenly - unprovoked - Hawk tells us that for her 30th birthday, she wants midgets. "Not like, as a gift," she explained, "I want 20-30 midgets at my party, just running around like little animals."

I think its time for an intervention.

Tuesday 10/13 - Cougars on the St. John Ferry

The hotel owner decided to give us all the same day off, which won't happen again for a while because one of us is most likely always going to be working. We decided to celebrate the only way that made any sense - drinking and the beach. Why drinking and the beach? Because its Tap Room Tuesday.

So we roll ourselves out of bed around 10:30, determined to make the 11am ferry. I think we caught the 1pm. Because Kiersten is so sheltered and anti-social, she only struck up conversations with two separate married couples on our 20 minute boat ride and recruited one of them to join us to Cinnemon Bay instead of the slightly more touristy Trunk Bay. After meeting up with some friends at the beach and spending a few hours hiding in the shade because my French-Canadian heritage dictates that sunshine is concentrated evil, we headed to the Tap Room for some R & R and Trivial Pursuit.

Dusk swept itself throughout the islands and we decided we would grab some food over at Woody's before taking the late ferry home. While we did not see him this particular visit, Kenny Chesney will often grab his axe and play a late night, rum-driven set as he only lives a short walk away. "How do we know that Kenny really plays there and its not just some local myth?" you may be asking your computer screen. Well, I can't confirm anything, but I'll let you know if I see a guy with a tucked in sleeveless shirt, puka shell necklace and a cowboy hat. I love his style, he's like Larry the Cable Cowboy.

On the late ferry we sat across from a group of older ladies that took a particular interest in DC. Thankfully his judgement wasn't too impaired, because the one cougar looked kind of like Chris Farley as the Lunchlady.

And of course, the night would not be complete without a quick visit to Duffy's. DC decided to lay some knowledge down on the locals as he put on a display of the most earth-shattering and innovative dance moves this island has ever seen. I'm pretty sure the earth literally quaked. Oh and it turns out Kenny was actually at Duffy's that night - don't worry, Kiersten found him.

Monday 10/12 - A Worthy Adversary

Since stepping foot on St. Thomas (and even for a while before that), I had been told about the ultimate drink. Its served at Duffy's, and its known simply as the "shark tank".

Normal drinks are served in cups, right? A pint glass here, a rocks glass there... but these mere vessels are no match for the shark tank. So what is it served in? A fishbowl. In go a number of mixed spirits (the exact recipe is guarded as heavily as Marino's sauce recipe) and a blue punch to add the appearance of water. Finally - and this is where things get interesting - plastic sharks are placed tail down and 151 is poured into their mouths until they are full. Top it off with a couple of long straws and you're good to go. We did three in one night, but I'm sure we will take after Usain Bolt and continuously break our own record.



Possible side effects include but are not limited to: blacking out, bluemouth, mind blowing dance moves, John Cena impressions, breaking up barfights, stealing straw hats, befriending rasta taxi drivers, trusting those with a pot leaf on their shirt, and Eiffel Towers. Women who are pregnant, could become pregnant, or want to maintain a shred of dignity should consult their physician before drinking a shark tank. In rare cases, you will remember the rest of the night.

Its called a Brullet.

And it isn't to be messed with.

Thursday 10/8 - Poseidon Look at Me Now

Its 7am. We've had maybe 30 minutes of sleep. Doesn't matter. Its time to go out on a boat.

We rented a boat for the day and cruised the British Virgin Islands. I was nervous that they were going to give me a hard time about not having a passport and using my New York ID and birth certificate instead. They never even opened up the folded up copy of my birth certificate. They really have these islands on lockdown.

The trip started with a quick stop to the smallest island I've ever been to. It was crystal blue waters crashing on the whitest sand I've ever seen in my life. Think about a Corona commercial - now take all the other people away. This was it. There are times, and this was one of them, that you have to ask yourself if this is really your life. I sometimes feel like maybe my plane crashed and I just didn't realize it and now I'm in heaven.

The day was filled with speeding around from beach to beach trying to perfect our long distance drinking technique. That, for the record, is when you reach your beer out as far as you can in front of your face and try to pour it in your mouth, using the wind as its vehicle. Usually (read: always), it doesn't go so well.

For lunch, we stopped over at an anchored and converted pirate ship called Willy T's. We all did back flips off the top deck. I should say everyone else did back flips off the top deck - when I tried I only rotated about 7°. I think it would have set the record as the world's worst ever backflip, if only there had been an official around to score it.

The moral of the story for the boat ride is always wear sunscreen. I thought I knew this rule, but the following morning I was a glowing hot pink. I looked like the Kool-Aid man if instead of a spoon to mix him they used a bar of plutonium. I think Ella, the breakfast lady, put it best. In her thick island accent Friday morning, she said, "JA LOOK LIKA BOIL LOBSTA!"

Wednesday 10/7 - Bedtimes are for Hosers

We knew we had to be up early. We knew it was supposed to be an early night. But when logic presented itself, did we oblige? The answer is a strong a resolute NO.

Let me back up. We went to Wikked at the Yacht Harbor thing to eat dinner with some of our new co-workers. Mojo Chicken Tacos with the local hot sauce = heaven. Those who have seen me eat Mighty Taco in Buffalo, NY know that a little face sweat it a common occurrence when hot sauce hits my lips. Let me tell you - this was a whole new world.

So after we ate our more responsible (read: intelligent) friends decided they were heading back home because we were all due to be ready to leave at 7am for a boat trip. Kiersten, DC and I looked at each other and kinda gave them the communal "nah, we got it", making our way to Fat Turtle.

Imagine a turtle. Now imagine it standing upright, with dreadlocks. That is what the owner of Fat Turtle looks like. He was the best to us, and eventually he led the pack of vagabonds and random sailors to the new hookah bar on island called the Hubbly Bubbly.

I think now is the best time to explain a certain happenstance that occurs on St. Thomas. I like to call it the Barbie Principle. Basically what happens is this:

1. We walk into a bar.
2. Everyone looks at the blond that came in with us.

3. We get free everything.

So - as we walk into the Hubbly Bubbly, the Barbie Principle is in full effect. Kiersten is immediately swooped up by an 80 year old (that she allegedly made out with?) and the owner of this fine establishment. We found a table, and were not spared any amenity. Free hookah, free beer, free food - it was clear that any place we took Kiersten, we would be treated like royalty. And they spared no priviledge for her either. She dropped her beer - completely her fault mind you - and with a lightning quick "habala gabala" from the mouth of the owner she had one girl sweeping up the glass and another serving her another beer. They even let her into the DJ booth (you had to go through the kitchen and up a set of stairs) so she could so elequently scream through the mic "YO TIM AND DC.... BITCHES BE CRAAAAZZY!!!"

So it gets to the end of the night and we need to go home. After all, its 4:30am and we need to be up at 7am, going home is the responsible move, right? Small problem, though - all the taxis have gone to bed too. You could call the next move a bad decision - but we had no reason to believe so at the time. The owner of Hubbly Bubbly offered us a ride home and we accepted.

Granted the man drives a Mercedes AG something and its probably the nicest car on island. Granted its "one touch everything" as he kept pointing out. Still - when he stopped in front of Club 75 (which I believe is some sort of ghetto discotheque) and left us three white kids in an unlocked car in arguably the most dangerous part of St. Thomas so he could get some herb, we felt a little unsafe. Its all good though, when he got back he told us that everybody knew whose car it was and that nobody would dream of disrespecting it. Oh yeah and then he showed us his gun.

Who buys herbs at 5am anyway? And from a strip club? I think it was oregano, maybe he was getting up early to make a sauce.

Tuesday 10/6 - I Got Pooped on by a Booby

Originally, the trip to St. John was supposed to be a trip to the beach.

We boarded the 1pm ferry to another one of the beautiful territories in the USVI, St. John. Deciding it was a bit too early for a beach run and that we were way overdue on the day's first beverage, Kiersten, DC, Beth and I stopped in at Tap Room to get a little R & R (rum and root beer). It wasn't long before we spent the entire day at this fine establishment. Soon we were visited by Brent, who was captaining the Island Girl and taking tourists from their cruise ship to St. John and back. After some laughs he told us we could save our return ticket for the ferry for another day and offered us a ride home on the Island Girl with the tourists. Of course we accepted.

Kiersten and Beth are naturally outgoing people so it wasn't long before we had a dialogue going with the Cuban family in front of us. The father understood English but could not speak it, while DC understood Spanish and spoke very little. While DC, the father and the son were struggling to understand each other, Kiersten was showing the mother houses and claiming that each was "Nicholas Cage's house", "Barbara Streisand's house" or "Shakira's house". Mind you that none of those people live here.

That's when it happened. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a "booby" as "Any of several tropical sea birds of the genus Sula, resembling and related to the gannets." Basically, it is St. Thomas' version of a seagull, and they were swarming the Island Girl.

They had been flying by my head the whole boat ride, so it had gotten to the point where I was ignoring them. And just like with girls - as soon as I ignored it, it shat all over me. I caught its release out of the corner of my eye. In my mind I quickly calculated the trajectory of the Booby bowel and I knew it was headed right for me - but suddenly I was paralyzed. Like a baseball player tracking a pitch, I watched as it splattered down my right arm and on the chair behind me. My blue and white striped shirt now had strong accents of gray.

I've since been told that it is good luck to be shat on by a Booby on a boat. I'm not so sure I believe it.

Monday 10/5 - Your Arrival Time is 3:18pm

As I boarded the plane for my connecting flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico to St. Thomas, I found myself compelled to send out a few "Just in case I never told you, I love you" text messages because I was quite certain this was the vehicle in which I was going to die.

How small was this plane? Well, when the "this is your captain speaking..." spiel rang through the plane, I turned to the guy next to me and said, "Dude I'm sitting right next to you. You don't have to use the loudspeaker."

After a quick 28 minute flirt with death, I stepped off the plane and into the 85 degree sunny weather. I quickly made my way over to the bar which was conveniently located right next to the baggage carousel. I asked the barkeep for the local beer, and she passed me a Presidente - but before serving it to me she rubbed a napkin around the inside of the mouth of the bottle. When I asked her why, she explained (in a language that I'm pretty sure quite possibly could have been English) that there is sediment on the inside of the bottle, and she showed me the newly dirtied napkin as proof. Looking back, this hasn't happened with a single other beer that I've been served on island, nor need it have been done. Maybe she had a special batch.

I got my bag and met up with new roommates - Kiersten and DC. There are three things I immediately learned about St. Thomas:

1. There is no open container law.
2. Beer koozies are king.
3. Not all beer koozies have bottoms.

I discovered rule #1 when I saw that Kier and DC had open beers in the front seat of the minivan. I discovered rule #2 when I noticed that both were equipped with koozies. In an action widely known as the "ceremonial first beer" DC passed me a Presidente and a koozie to help keep my beer cold. Upon inserting said beer into said koozie, I discovered rule #3. I am a firm believer that this set a precedent for the rest of my stay (or hopefully just my first week) because I've spilt a beer in every establishment I've since visited.

Hello. My name is Tim and I'm a Life-aholic.

Good morning class.

The purpose of this blog is hard to define. After all, why does one document their thoughts and experiences for the world to see?

Well, I just moved to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands one week ago to take a job at a hotel. I've have had so many incredible experiences in the past seven days, yet when I try to recall the events that occurred and the order in which they took place, I am at a loss. So here we reach the first reason to have this blog - documentation.

YET - mere documentation is not enough. I know my attention cannot afford its time be wasted with stale words and storylines. Neither can yours. The words that make this blog their home don't always have to be true, but they do have to be entertaining. And so we have reached reason number two to have this blog - entertainment.

I just stared at the wall for three minutes, in a trance, because I thought I saw a bug. And so we have reached reason number three - I have a short attention span.

And finally, there is one more reason this blog should - nay MUST exist. The reason is this: My Friends are Going to be Bored at Work.

There that about covers it. The next few blogs will be flashbacks (yes John, like in LOST) so that I can try to get everyone up to speed. You stay classy, Internet.