Fame and Sports News

Saturday morning was the annual Carnival mile road race. Tara, Dave, and I all ran the one mile race. All three of us placed in the top four in our age groups! We were told our official race times would be online later that day, so I checked the online newspaper - The Source. But when I pulled up their sports section, the latest story was about last weekend's practice swim race on St. John that we did in preparation for the Beach to Beach Power Swim that will take place over Memorial Day weekend. Much to my surprise, Dave and I were both mentioned in the article. Here's the best part:

David Nielsam from St. Thomas finished the one-mile course from Maho to Cinnamon Bay first with a time of 24:05, and his wife Kendra Nielsam was not too far behind him. David and Kendra are training hard, preparing to defend their titles as last year's overall winners on the intermediate course in both the men's and women's divisions.

Apparently my time of 35:08 doesn't qualify as "too far" behind Dave.... I don't know where they got their information. Dave is actually planning on the full 3.5 miles this year, and I haven't decided yet. (And I'm not sure we've been training at all, let alone hard!)

Tara and I are featured in The Source's story on J'Ouvert. The photo of the street part shows the back of my head, and Tara's face. Click here for the photo - it's big, but you have to let it load fully as we're at the bottom of the photo in the middle. Look for the white girls.

My reluctance to choose a course for the Power Swim race is due in part to not wondering what I'll physically be up for as this coming Sunday is the big St. Croix Half Ironman triathlon (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run). I signed up for it a few days ago. I've been training for quite some time (at least biking and running) but I was a little skittish about actually committing to the race until after I rode the bike course on the 21st. I went to St. Croix on the seaplane for the day and tried the route with a friend I met at the March sprint triathlon over there. It's notorious for its brutal hills, including "The Beast", described on the race's website as "a 600-foot climb in a stretch of highway 7/10 of a mile long with an average grade of 14 percent and a maximum grade of 18 percent." It's not as steep as a lot of the St. Thomas roads, but it is long and a bit ridiculous. Each 1/7 of the distance of the Beast is marked on theroad, so you know how much further you have to go. I rode the first 1/7, walked the next 1/7, rode a bit more, walked, etc. I had to stop to walk because my legs hurt so much and it was so steep, I felt likeI was going to fall off my bike if I didn't stop. Walking up the Beast is just as difficult though, and slower, but it uses different muscles. It took me over 15 minutes to get up the Beast! Luckily, once you get to the top of the Beast, there is a lot of downhill coasting to rest your legs. Send your good triathlon thoughts my way this weekend please!

It's Carnival, Baby!

This year's Carnival theme is Culture, Mas, and Rhythm for Carnival 2007. (it always rhymes.) Mas means party. Sunday I got my hair braided with my friend Gaylin. Now everyone thinks we look the same. Two white girls with the same braids, about the same length hair, roughly similar body size. At the food fair yesterday someone said "weren't you just here?", I'm pretty sure they were thinking of Gaylin.

My friend Tara (from UCSD and Boalt) is visiting from Alaska right now. We went to the Food Fair together yesterday after she arrived on the seaplane via San Juan. Earlier in the day, Dave and I had scoped out the fair. We bought spicy hot tamarind balls from the same vendor who sold them last year - we were very excited to discover that the vendors set up in roughly the same location. I learned that spicy tamarind balls, as opposed to just sweet/tart ones, are a Trinidadian thing. We had whelk (a sea snail, like conch) and rice, as well as saltfish cakes and a saltfish pate. Dave got maubi to drink (pronounced "mah-bee" - I learned after coworkers teased me ("what did you have? please repeat." "did you hear her? she had mow-bee!" :)) We also bought some pumpkin fritters and banana fritters. Friends who will be joining us this weekend from San Juan have been very excited about tasting the pumpkin fritters. Good thing we bought some in the morning, because by the time Tara showed up, fritters were all gone. Most of the places were out of pates too. But Tara got a ginger sugar cake and we bought a doucana (doo-cah-nah) which is a side dish that is always sold in a tin-foil wrapped log. It is made with spices (nutmeg?), banana, coconut, sweet potato, and maybe some corn meal, and it's wrapped in a banana leaf for cooking. We each had a bite with dinner last night and I wished we'd bought more!

This morning was J'Ouvert. It's one of those things that just can't be described - you have to experience it! But I'll do my best - it's a big street party that starts early in the AM. "Warm up" is at 12:30am, the actual event starts at 4:30am, but it's island-time. We got there by 8am this morning; it stopped raining just when we were walking out the courthouse door. About five bands make up the "moving parade" - each band is on a huge truck the size of a semi, but with space for the band, and no side walls. They drive maybe one-two miles per hour and are surrounded by dancers in the street. We are the dancers though. Everyone joins this party as it moves down the street. You can work your way from one band to the next. We found the free booze truck too and got our free Coors Lights and Cruzan rum. If we hadn't found that, we'd be stuck paying for it, but it seems that everyone is selling booze on the side of the road outside their pickups or at a table stand. It's really, really loud, and crowded. Even though it was overcast, it was pretty hot and humid from the rain. I learned from last year that it's important to bring a change of clothes to work! After we were all done "jumping up" (dancing), the court has a pot luck breakfast for all the revelers where we tell everyone about our J'ouvert experience. Maybe 1/3 of the employees here stay at work; 1/3 take a vacation day; and the other 1/3 of us participate in J'ouvert.

Photos will be uploaded later!

Taxes and Carnival Queen(s)

Taxes are very confusing here in the V.I. We pay taxes - we use the federal 1040 forms. But the forms get sent to the V.I. Bureau of Internal Revenue; the building near the health food store. We can hand deliver them. And the taxes we owe go straight to the V.I. too. The confusing part is ... well, not really worth going into very much. But for example, we're not supposed to receive W2 forms. We're supposed to get VI-W2 which is a little different. If you work for the feds, it seems you get a regular W2 and have to either complain until they send you a VI-W2, or tweak it when you enter the data into the forms. If you don't know what to watch for, then TurboTax is not the solution. Also confusing was the deadline - the IRB website said Monday; the newspaper said Tuesday. We don't have a "state" tax form, b/c the V.I. is the "state", but it's also the "federal" taxes.

In other exciting news.... Carnival is here. This is the first of two weeks. I'd say next week is what really counts. But over the weekend the Carnival Queen pageant was held. And yesterday they had "Carnival at Schneider Hospital", which apparently involved the Hospital Carnival Queen competition. As far as I can tell, participation was not limited to those in the hospital. The Junior Calypso competition was tonight, but I forgot about it. I was interested to watch elementary school children calypso (if that's a verb...). Calypso lyrics are often politically charged. The words are spoken quickly sometimes too, and given the dialect, it can be difficult for us to understand at times. Roads are closed near the Carnival Village which is being set-up by all the people who will have food booths next week. Those people are busy painting over last year's decorations for the new theme.

Next week Carnival will be in full swing. Monday the Village opens - lots of good local food will be available for lunch and dinner all week. Wednesday is the Food Fair. Thursday is J'Ouvert. Friday is the Children's Parade. Saturday is the Carnival Mile race and then the Adult's Parade. I have friends coming from Alaska and Puerto Rico to participate in the week's events as my blog posts from last year were so exciting!

My sodas all expired yesterday.... I will continue to consume them until mold grows on the aluminum. That could happen any day... Oh yeah, and they're advertising in the paper again for people to try-out for the national soccer teams. That still seems so bizarre to me. They had try-outs last year - most countries maintain a national team at all times. Here... well, I know people who were on the team. Some quit because it was too disorganized. Others said it just kind of fell apart. The BVI couldn't even put together a men's team because they didn't have enough players. Last year I tried out for the women's national soccer team with dreams of playing in the World Cup qualifier. This year, they need a team for the Olympics qualifer. It's the all-american dream. I'll think about it.

Best Before - More Signs You're in the VI

We've been neglecting the blog. We know. And I know this is a little boring since the subject is repetitive of a recent post, but here it is anyways. A few more signs you're living in the VI:

You're drinking a soda that expires in 3 days. You checked the date because it doesn't taste very fresh or fizzy.

You've been served multiple beers in a restaurant with a "best when served before" date of a month or two ago.

When cleaning out the refrigerator at work, you and a coworker check some coolwhip. It expires last August, but she just bought it last week.

You've actually seen expired boxes of cereal.

You don't bother participating in the grocery store's "we'll give you $1 for every expired item you find" game, because it just isn't that challenging. Besides, if they removed all the expired items from the shelves, they'd be pretty bare.

You go to the pharmacy to buy new cough drops, because yours have melted to the paper wrappers. You buy the kind which are individually separated by plastic with a tinfoil backing that you can punch the cough drop through. It's obvious the cough drops were sitting upright, as the bottom half have melted down. They're stuck to the tinfoil. Expiration date? this month.

Real milk - it's hard to find and it doesn't last long. Might as well stick to the reconstituted stuff, or the boxed soy milk that doesn't have to be chilled until it's opened.

You keep vitamins in your office so that they're in climate control 5 days a week. The ones at home discolor, like the Valentine's Day sweet tarts did. (they still taste good though!)

Your freezer is full of foods you wouldn't have ever thought needed help keeping fresh.

You go to Las Vegas for about 40 hours for a friend's wedding. You spend almost 2 of those hours in Target. The Hershey kisses you bought melt within 10 minutes of taking them out of the refrigerator. And your friend who went to DC for the long weekend also spent 2 hours in Target. And your friend had a 5 day weekend because she works for the local government - they get Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Monday off from work. Sometimes you wonder why you work for the feds.

Well, my nearly expired soda is finished, so it's back to work for me! Carnival is coming up soon so hopefully we'll get better about posting so you can share in our adventures!