independence day

normally a time of celebration for hondurans and american ex-pats alike today wears a different face on this little island of utila.

there is still celebration but not because of the united states and its eternal vigilance in the defence and nurturing of freedom.

it’s because of the stance this small country, the poorest in latin america, has taken towards democracy.

in what is believed to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world the honduran supreme court, congress, and military did everything by the book, exactly the way their constitution said it had to be done.

they took the required steps they needed in order to get rid of the cancer that is chavez and zelaya.

and to what end?  freedom.

what price will they pay?  isolation.

isolation from the very country they looked up to as a bastion of democracy.  a country who refuses to even consider a study of the evidence against chavez and zelaya.  an avowed enemy of the united states on one hand and a more than willing puppet/acolyte on the other.

in fact, the united states supports these two hyenas while, at the same time, turning a completly deaf ear to an old  friend who, at times, was the only friend the united states had in this part of the world.

but that’s ok.

because if the united states is too tired to continue carrying the torch, honduras is more than willing to pick it up and take their place as the light of freedom for the world.

do you hear that sound?

it’s the sound of  john wayne and thomas jefferson spinning in their graves.

happy fourth of july.

winds of change

the day after the change in honduran leadership looms quietly and, on the surface, it’s business as usual.

the fact that hugo chavez has threatened  military action against this country comes as no surprise to anyone.

he’s a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur and this is going to put a crimp in this part of  his cocaine highway.

what is troublesome to the people of this little island is the fact that obama and clinton are taking sides with chavez, ortega, and fidel against what hondurans have done in accordance with their own constitutional law.

maybe hillary believes that, since her husband is above the law, her buddy mel is too.

before you judge these people you should know that, during mels’ term, honduras has achieved a record level of homicides in latin america as well as putting the price of basic essentials out of reach of the average citizen.

so they’re pretty happy about what has happened here.

what they’re not happy about is going to war against the united states in order to support a wanna be dictator.

a new vision

it seems the local methodist church decided to come down to the island with a medical brigade and provide everyone who needed them with glasses.

i was thinking that , since i was in the market for a few new beer mugs, i’d go down and see what they had.

it turns out these were the kind of glasses that actually make you see clearer, not the other way round.

anyway, i now have a new pair of spectacles.

on the surface of things you might think this would be a good thing.

the problem is that i can see clearly enough now to see just how ugly my friends are.

and if they are that ugly, well…

this necessitates the implementation of a new ARMS (Avoidance of Reflective/Mirrored Surfaces) policy effective immediately.

i’ll only be going outside at night for a while.

up on the roof

(this is a test of the “send a blogpost to your blog from your e-mail account” system. should this have been an actual posting it would have been made through the normal process. you may now return to your normal internet random surfing pattern.)

this weekend (today and tomorrow) marks the beginning of the latest incarnation of the roof top bar and cafe at bay islands college of diving.

featuring cheap beer (bacon), breakfast offerings (bacon), spectacular sunsets (bacon) and star sightings (bacon).

not to mention some of the biggest lies told throughout the entire history of mankind.

such as: “I’m not drinking tonight.”
“I’m leaving in the morning.”
“I love you.”

some of our offerings might include (but will not be limited to) the ever popular beer battered double meat deep fried cheeseburger,the bacon bloody mary, and the veggie burger with bacon.

then again they might not.

this ends our test of the “send a blogpost to your blog from your e-mail account”

thank you both for reading.

still shaky

it’s been two days now without any perceptible earthquake activity and i still can’t sleep.

last night was cheap beer night on the roof (a three story building) and all i could think about was another earthquake.

it almost made my beer go flat.

there was a guitar there and that kind of smoothed things over.  some swedish guy sang a song while his brother played.  i couldn’t understand the lyrics (we told them they could sing whatever they wanted as long as it wasn’t abba) and i couldn’t dance to the music.

but at least it was the launch of our open mic night.

we’re going to try for movie night friday.

i’m thinking the 1974 version of  “Earthquake!” with Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner.

if i time this right we’ll have it in sensor vision.

adjustments

ok, i think i’ve made the adjustment to all of these earthquakes and tremors.

i  am now capable of waking up, registering in my mind that it is, in fact, an earthquake, and rolling back over into a nice, albeit shallow, sleep.

mother nature, noticing that i am, in fact, adjusting, has decided on another tactic.

she has now taken to throwing mangos at my roof.

this particular variety of mango is called, locally, the common mango.  it’s about the size of your fist and is more of a nuisance than a food.  unless you happen to be an iguana or a mud crab.

last nights episode was such that, when i left my place this morning, i had to literally kick mangos out of the way just so i could walk to the street.

added to that is the quaint little fact that the doctor fly is ubiquitous when the mangos are ripe and you have a pretty effective method of psychological torture combing sleep deprivation, tripping, and painful fly bites.

i don’t think my mom likes me anymore.

pirate posting

posting this on a computer that someone apparently abandoned temporarily since mine is still mierde.

everything is actually relatively quiet these days, most of my problems tend to stem from lies, backstabbing, and general tomfoolery.

trying to get the rooftop bar up and going tonight with cheap beer on the roof.

this is actually just a drill to test the concept.  it’s got a long way to go before we’re up and serving beer battered double cheese burgers and veggie burgers with bacon.

but i suspect it won’t take long.

hopefully the griddle still works.  then it’s breakfast tacos and banana pancakes.  and all kinds of fried stuff.

bacon wrapped jalapenos and bacon bloody marys for breakfast.

i’m starting to drool a little.  (oh wait, i always do that.)

i’ll let you know how it turns out.

incommunicado

due to circumstances beyond my control (h-p builds a piece of shit laptop) i will be incommunicado for an indeterminate amount of time.

shake, rattle, and roll

up until the other night i smugly thought i knew what the phrase “did the earth move?” meant.

i had a few chapters left in that lesson.

i had gone to bed early that evening.  like before sunset early.

so i was pretty rested by 2:30 am.  and feeling pretty good about myself for being such a good boy.

two minutes later all that changed.

i heard a groaning like nothing (literally) i had ever heard before.

i was just about to say “wtf!?” when the shit hit the fan.  again, literally.

the bed, no, the room, wait, no, the HOUSE was shaking like  nothing i had ever experienced before.

i said to myself, “self, this is either a bad ass earthquake, a case of demonic posession, or the ex has found out where you live!  either way you’ve got to get out of this shit and get out NOW!”

i am still unable to explain how i got dressed and out of there.

when it was all over all that i lost was one jelly glass that had fallen off the table.

my bottle of Jim Beam had merely moved to the edge of the refrigerator top (where he used to live) as if to look over the edge to see what had happened.

of all the stuff inside my fridge the only thing that came out was a bottle of gatorade.

considering that everything else in there was either butter, bacon, beef, or cream cheese i’m not really sure if it was an accidental death, suicide, or  he was thrown out.

i’m going to go to tranquila bar now.

i think i’m suffering from Post Traumatic Earthquake Syndrome.

atittude

there i am…thinking…”why is it sometimes so hard to accomplish the things i want to accomplish?  it’s not like i have large goals.  i’m a simple human being who only wants the things that would make a simple human being happy.”

so i go back to the simple times of my youth (when rainbows were still in black and white and tv was a series of hand sketched flipcharts that you flipped through really fast between your forefinger and thumb) and thought about how satisfying those tomato sandwiches were when we didn’t have anything else to eat (except for the odd grub or the perfectly normal catfish).

i still had more than half a day of sunlight so i deemed it appropriate to begin the hunt for the elusive tomato.

after several hours of tracking i decided to rest.

then, suddenly, there it was; a glimpse of red through the brown, dried out frond of a long dead clump of celery!

i leapt up, threw open the cooler door, and grabbed my quarry firmly about the middle section (being careful to keep my fingers free of the sharp teeth hidden cleverly beneath the stem) and flung it into my shopping bag before it had a chance to react!

victory was mine!

back in my humble cave, basking in the afterglow of a successful hunt, in the light of another world class sunset, i had the best bacon (you didn’t think i was going to leave out the bacon, did you?) and tomato sandwich i’ve ever had.

it’s true.

it’s the simple things.