Spot Checks

(Dedicated to my awesome co-workers with NRCS.  So proud to a part of such an awesome and smart team!)

So this week was the week of visitors.  We don't get off-island visitors that often so when we do it is usually a lot of fun to show them the work we do here.  Drew, our area engineer came down last week.  We showed him some of our sites and Jorge and I were relieved to hear his approval of us and the work we do.  Not gonna lie, was a little nervous we were going to be raked over the coals.   We took him out to the piggeries and showed him the systems. 

Over the weekend Jorge, Amy, Hobie, Prem, Captain Noonan and I went to Larsen's Beach.  My area resource conservationist came down a couple years back and totally fell in love with this cove.  It really is quite nice, see some of my earlier postings for pics.  He loves it so much its his desktop picture at his office in Honolulu.  Drew enjoyed it and it was really nice that Captain Noonan of the Coast Guard got to tag a long.  She is just an awesome awesome human being.  Smart, tough and very friendly, everything you need in a Captain if you ask me.  We went snorkeling, sunbathed (it started raining so it was brief).  The next day, Drew and I went to the Vatia tide pools.  I love this place because it is so easy to get to and provides such a huge reward for your effort.  Its a great place to take people to see the marine life because its like this little microcosm of fish and other creatures all wrapped in a couple tiny pools.  I love having guests visit here, its so easy to entertain in such a beautiful location.

The work week was busy.  Drew brought us a brand new lazer level for surveying so we spent a lot of time on Monday doing training for that.  This thing is pretty nifty and i think it will be a great asset to us in the field.  We also had spot checks.  Spot checks are my agencies version of quality assurance checks.  Each year, every office gets 5% of our vegetative and 5% of our engineering contracts checked.  They are randomly selected and they only tell us 24 hours in advance which ones they will be reviewing.  Drew reviewed three and found them all to be complete and compliant which was a total relief.  No corrective actions....thank god. 

My boss's boss Donna arrived on Monday.  She is new to the job in Hawaii and hadn't been to American Samoa before.  She was also here to do the 5% vegetative spot checks.  I was a little nervous but she also found no corrective actions which was also very reassuring to me.  Its nice to know that your hard work pays off.  Unfortunately she was only here from Tuesday thru Thursday so she didn't get a lot of time to see much stuff.  I made her promise me that next time she comes down, she come for at least a weekend that way i can show her some of the cool stuff we have here. 

Both Drew and Donna left last night.  Diego (my supervisor here) also left last night for 6 weeks!  So its me and Jorge until June when i leave for Cambodia.  I've been working with Prem to brush up my Khmer.  We've started speaking only in Khmer to each other and we've both noticed that it gets better each day we do it.  I'm hoping to get back to some reasonable understanding before i leave in June.

Almost done with my second semester of grad school, just have my final test and then i need to finish a research paper for this leadership class i am in through work.  8 pages single spaced....ugggg.

On the plus side, last night i picked up Becca Bolks (Andrea's sister) and her friend Katie who on a complete whim, decided to trek down to American Samoa.  They're flight attendants so they were able to get here cheap ($80 which is ridiculous considering it would cost me at minimum $1400).  They will be staying for 2 weeks.  Its a good thing i bought a motorcycle so they can use the car.

Alright, I'll leave you with some pictures from the tide pools.
Peace

Back to the rock!

Dedicated to all the people who are upset with me for wishing for snow while i was back in Minnesota.  Sorry it came late!

Finally back to American Samoa after almost 4 weeks away.  It was a good hiatus from the isolation of this rock here in South Pacific.  It was a solid trip full of trainings, knowledge, games, fast driving, drinking, eating, friends and family, thank you all!

I haven't had time to come back to my blog in a while and for that i apologize.  I know many of you enjoy the blogs i post and wish that i would be better at it.  I will try to keep up with it this time. 

Well it's tax time again.  For me it really sucks.  Not only am i subjected to federal tax but i also have to pay American Samoa tax.  Some of you might be saying "come on Nick, all of us have to pay both federal and state taxes."  Well that is true for me as well, with 3 key exceptions.  Firstly, American Samoan taxes are not withheld from my paycheck like state taxes would be if i were in CONUS (for those of you who aren't versed in the lingo, CONUS stands for Continental United States of America and means the lower 48).  This means that at the end of the year, i end up having no state withholding and subsequently end up having to pay a large sum of money to the government here.  The second reason taxes suck here is that we are stuck using the 2000 level IRS tax tables.  These tax liabilities are much higher than the current IRS tables because of the Bush Tax Cuts.  American Samoa was smart and didn't want to lose tax money so they froze the tables at the 2000 levels.  Finally, there is a 2% wage tax on your income on top of your tax liability, not your AGI, your total wages.  This for me alone was $1500 this year!  For those of you who are wondering, i owe American Samoa $8500!  Thankfully, they are cool with installments.  Last year i went in and paid $50 and told them i would come back and give them the rest once my federal refund was received.  It was quite funny because they were incredibly grateful that i even decided to come in and pay.  I came back in June and paid the remainder interest and penalty free.  Bet you wish the IRS let you do that!

It wouldn't be so bad if i didn't feel like my money was completely wasted.  I mean the roads are crap, the education system dismal, public works rarely work and politicians get paid way more than they should.  Also i don't get to vote but am required to pay taxes.  Now i know what D.C. residents feel like.  Anyway enough ranting.  Although despite all that, i am still here.

Tomorrow is my first big field day after being back.  We'll be hiking, surveying, filling out forms and doing resource inventories.  I am sure i will be covered in sweat by 10am and have gone through 3 shirts by 2pm. We have so many people interested in our programs which would be great if we had the staff and time to process all of the inquiries, unfortunately i will just have to do as many as i can before the deadlines,  there really isn't anything else i can do.  Thankfully Samoans are not are ornery as mainlanders and understand that nothing moves fast on the islands......I mean the speed limit is 25mph for crying out loud.

Well that is all for now.  Oh in honor of the upcoming Mustache/Water Slide/Slip-n-slide party coming up Saturday i share this photo of the planned water slide we are renting.  It is two stories which effectively makes it taller than most people's houses and only 2 stories shy of being the tallest structure in American Samoa.  Should be lots of fun, hopefully there will be minimal injuries.  Also a picture of my new hog "Emma" (thanks to Maureen Ulvi for the name), i bought it for $1000 before i left for vacation but am just getting to enjoy it now!  Stay toasty everyone and remember the warm waters of the South Pacific are waiting for you!

Till next time.