It's December?

1. “Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November”

Well, if you don’t know by now, Katelyn and I are engaged! I must say, I’m the man. She didn’t see it coming.

How it went down…

We had planned to go to a beach for several days leading up to November 5^th. The weather all week, however, was seriously looking like it was going to pose a threat as it rained all week…every. day. I had it set in my head that I wanted to propose on that Saturday, no matter the weather. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” could have thwarted my efforts to propose on that day. Ha! I somehow forgot that it takes TWO people to propose.

The morning started out a little rocky between Katelyn and I. I had a scheduled agenda (time, place, setting, etc.) of how the day was to go down, ultimately sneaking in the proposal at a calculated moment. Katelyn had HER own agenda as to how she wanted the day to develop. Needless to say, they did not match up and a brief stalemate ensued. My whole plan was to propose to her on a beach while she wanted to do something a bit fancier that involved her/us dressing up a bit and maybe going to a beach at maybe this time of day. This is understandable that Katelyn would want to do something a bit more upscale than what we’ve been doing, because at that time Katelyn didn’t stray farther away from our apartment than the maybe 200 yards it took to get to the pool and back. Nevertheless, it was dissolving my plan and I had to act. After minutes of playing the give and take game of our afternoon plans while maintaining poise and not blowing my cover, the plan was now that we would go to a beach for the afternoon (albeit, the beach that I wanted to be at for the proposal…success!) and we were to do something fancy that evening by getting dressed up a bit and going out to eat.

Post lunch, we head out for our destination, Shoy’s Beach. Katelyn and I are traversing by car on unfamiliar territory to get to Shoy’s and when we get to the designated parking area for the beach, we see no beach. After some nosing around, I see a footpath leading to what looks like a shoreline. I coax an uneasy Katelyn to take my lead and head through the footpath to our endpoint. Now, I’ve heard of the term “deserted beach” a time or two in my life. Stateside, I much, much, MUCH more enjoy the less-commercialized beaches of North Carolina as opposed to the Myrtle Beach zoo-esque beaches. I even loosely and undeservingly use the term “deserted beach” to describe those beaches of my preference. But in all reality, the emptiest of beaches I’ve ever been to have all been down here in St. Croix, and those have consisted of roughly 16 or so people. Shoy’s Beach contained not a soul when we arrived. Excellent. So we spend a while swimming and sunbathing, Katelyn seemingly enjoying herself while I kept a close eye on our belongings, hoping a swift tide wouldn’t wash out the engagement ring and take it out to sea (we’re close enough to the Bermuda Triangle where all things lost at sea are never found). A few hours have passed and Katelyn and I are satisfied with the time we’ve spent on the aptly coined “deserted beach” that is Shoy’s Beach. BUT. One more thing left to do.

I ask Katelyn to join me in one final hike up and down Shoy’s before we leave. We walk and walk and…walk a good ways away from our stuff and Katelyn gets a bit nervous about straying too far away from it. I ask her to humor me and keep walking a bit further where we are out of sight of others(yes, there are now about 4 people on the beach at this time). I wanted privacy for this. I stand on a sandy mound, hands at my waist, surveying the area when I notice Katelyn starts to head back. After much coaxing yet again, I get her to stand next to me and look out into all the shades of blue that is both the sea and sky. I then break the silence by saying, “so, could you see yourself getting married here?” Katelyn replies, “sure.” I then ask, “well, could you see yourself getting engaged here?” Katelyn (oblivious) replies, “sure.” I then drop to a knee and pop the question.

…..Thankfully, I didn’t get a “sure” response this time.

2. “Frederiksted Friends”

Part One of the day is complete. We’re engaged, “googly-eyed”, and super glad it didn’t rain. We both spend the rest of the afternoon calling our closest loved ones, breaking the news and what not. Now it’s time for me to live up my end of the deal and take Katelyn out to dinner. We get relatively dressed up and head out to the boardwalk in Christiansted which is lined with shops and restaurants. We end up at “Fort Christiansted Brew Pub”, a restaurant that boasts the only on-island microbrewery. Upon entering the restaurant grounds, we pass another couple and I give them an island-friendly head nod and greeting as we make our way to our table. Our drinks are ordered and delivered to us after a few minutes. We then order and proceed to sit back and watch the sun set. Shortly after ordering our meals, I see the guy from the table we passed on the way in come over to our table. He apologized for interrupting our dinner and then he asked if we were staying in St. Croix or just visiting. We told him we’re here to stay for a few years. Then they pulled up some chairs and joined us for dinner.

We exchange greetings and names. It turns out this other couple is in a similar situation as us. They expressed their desire to look for other people on the island to hang out with and we seemed to fit the bill. And, Katelyn and I were absolutely in the market for friends as well. They are in their mid-twenties, are married, and have just moved to Frederiksted. He is a high school science teacher and she works for an advertising firm, working at home via the web. A wonderful meal with some new friends put the icing on the cake to a day Katelyn and I will likely never forget. New friends Katelyn and I will likely never forget as well.

OH! And the best part (those sneaky snakes). They were especially blown away at how just hours prior, we became engaged. They were genuinely excited and happy for us. So much so that he stealthily paid for our dinner without us knowing and they both left before we had any idea what was going on. Very cool. That day, “everything was coming up Milhouse Katelyn and Ben.”

3. “Brought to You by the Letter ‘H’”

One of the many cool things about living down here is that you are completely engrossed in the island culture. My favorite cultural difference so far would have to be local vernacular. It simply amuses me. It took me a little while to realize why it was so humorously intriguing to me, but then one day…it hit me. They don’t pronounce the letter ‘H’.

One day, me and Anthony (locally known as: “An-tuh-knee”) were having some fun with a few of the guys on the job site (WITH. Not AT the expense of. These guys are very friendly, good sports and ultimately find some way to reverse the jokes, making fun of us whiteys. It’s all in good fun.

Question: “Could I hear you count, starting from the number one.”

Answer: “One, two, tree, four….”

Question: “What does a pitcher do with a baseball?”

Answer: “He trows it!”

Question: “What place is awarded the bronze medal in the Olympics?”

Answer (my favorite): “Turd place!”

4. “hge5y bnr67f”

My days at work are busy. 10-11 hours at work isn’t quite enough time to complete most tasks I want to accomplish before leaving. A small part of the reason I’m not 100% satisfied with my progress is due to our internet and network server performance. The way our network is set up, it runs through my boss's computer. So if he’s not using his computer for a while and it goes idle, my connection to the network is disabled. The internet goes out at random moments throughout the week as well. One knows when they have been disconnected from the network because you get all kinds of error messages while you’re working with or trying to save a file on the server. Personally, I get about 10 “(is not responding)” messages….per day. On top of this, any given day can be a super, extraordinarily busy day in which something arises that needs my attention. So when I get error messages like the ones below, I just want to drive my forehead into my keyboard. *hge5y bnr67f*

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1. “Glad All Over”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDSepEeMgPg

Well. You-know-who made it down here and life is good again. For those of you who don’t know the history of Katelyn and I, we’ve gone through many sad-yet-necessary periods of time where we were split apart due to different circumstances. We spent an entire summer apart when she studied abroad in the country of Jordan while I was in Ohio. We spent a whole school year apart while I was attending my fifth year at Ohio State and she was attending her first year of grad school at American University. Sure, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I’m not aware of any other dating couples who have been together over 5 ½ years and have gone through something like that. But. Now she’s here and baby, I’m glad all over.

2. “Buck-aneers”

The first full day Katelyn was here (10/23), she and I got to enjoy a rad day on Buck Island. Buck Island Reef National Monument, or simply just Buck Island, is a small, uninhabited, 176 acre (712,000 m²) island about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north of the northeast coast of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. It was first established as a protected area by the U.S. Government in 1948, with the intention of preserving “one of the finest marine gardens in the Caribbean Sea.” ….Yep. The point is, it’s lovely there. Now, some of you may say: “Gosh, Ben. Traveling to a tropical, paradise-like island while already living on a tropical, paradise-like island?! Kinda greedy, no?” The thing is we were invited to join several other people on this excursion headed by Joe, the owner of TTC. He borrowed a boat (yes, I was on a boat….insert frat song here) from a friend and sailed it to Buck Island where we pigged out all day and wondered what the rest of St Croix was doing. Sailing over warm waters, crude jokes, a slight sunburn and cool people all make for the best weekend I’ve been on St Croix to date.

3. “But I don’t wanna be a pirate!”

As promised from my first blog…post…..thing, I told you I’d be updating you on any island “trophies” I pilfer for myself. Now, I must mention, the word or term “pirate” has a tad different meaning down here in the Caribbean than back in the States. “Pirate” in the States refers to a rum-guzzling, yar-har-har-ing, peg-legged, swashbuckling, swindling, thieving seafarer. “Pirate” down here pretty much means hippie. All the more reason I could get used to referring to myself as a pirate.

Back to the trophy pilfering. I was at work (what better place to steal things, right?) and was asked to run a tape with Anthony, a civil-y/CAD guy I work with, to dimension the new trailer office that we will be using for the next project that is set to commence in less than a month. We dimension the exterior of the trailer and then make our way inside….to the booty. The first thing I notice after entering the trailer is that it is not completely empty. An old beach towel, a few filing cabinets, a Florida phonebook from 2002 and miscellaneous rubbish scattered across the ground were just some of the non-trophy-worthy things present. Anthony and I continued to dimension the interior of the trailer, marking rooms, doors and partitions when I saw something I had to have. A slick pair of new, old shades! Now, few people know this and Katelyn rags on me because of it, but I had never bought a pair of sunglasses my entire life prior to moving down to St Croix. I gave in then to Katelyn’s badgering and succumbed to buying a brand new pair of aviators. My personal life goal of never paying for sunglasses vanished at the cost of four paper Washingtons (ZZ Top would still be proud though). Stumbling upon this pair of shades in the trailer has since “re-invented” me. Trophy #1. Trophy #2 came just mere seconds after the rush of blood and elevated heart rate from finding the sunglasses. This trophy came in the form of a Florida Marlins baseball hat that couldn’t have been made in the 21^st century. It had the signature green bottom-of-bill design that I adore. Classic 90’s cap. If it was a snapback as opposed to a tetherback, it wouldn’t leave my side.

Act One...

So, this blog is meant to represent your typical, run-of-the-mill boy just graduated college, boy then works for $9.00/hour, boy gets discouraged, boy stumbles upon an opportunity, boy lands first job, boy moves 2400 miles away to a semi-remote, tropical island - journal.  I hope for it to also be a composition of bizarre island discoveries, recollection of awkward moments handled by me, weather log telling you what temperature it is so you eventually stop reading this, list of random things I plan to steal/already have stolen as my “island trophies”, and updated tally of how many wild, jungle boars I’ve killed with my bare hands - journal.

Let’s get to it!

1.  “Donny Potato”

How do you introduce/handle an introduction when you meet a child less than 4 years old for the first time?

“High five!” (Way to prove that that never gets a reaction…..for the third time tonight.)

“Heyyyy, pal.” (Yeah. The cool guy approach. Is there a jukebox anywhere I can thump so that this kid will like me?)

“Hello. My name is Ben.”  (Oh, whoops. Her mom already introduced me as Ben. Why did I just say “My name is Ben?” Now, even the kid thinks I’m a moron. Ahhh. Now what do I do with my hands?)

“Want some of my rum & coke?” (Nailed it!)

2.  “Have a nice day.”

The other day, we had a bit of a scare on the job site.  The workers leave to go home for the night at 3:30PM. Us “higher ups” don’t leave until around 5:00PM. Sometime during that span, someone parked an unmarked truck outside the gates to the site. No one was in it either. Why is this scary you ask? Because there have been incidences where thieves have gotten into the project grounds and stolen equipment, materials, etc. On one specific occasion, $10000 worth of welding leads were stolen. The senior PM got on the walkie and said to the 3-4 of us that were still at work at 5:30PM that this situation shouldn’t be taken lightly. Another piece of information. A murder had just been committed the previous weekend where someone’s guts were hanging out of them in a relatively chill part of the island. So. Here I go marching out on the site trying to find any wannabe copper pipe robbers with nothing but a walkie. Then it hits me that a robber might be inclined to carry a weapon and USE that weapon if he feels he has been caught. Long story short. No worries, no thief was present. The best part of the story is what happened while roaming the job site.

I happen to pass a 42” pipe inlet whilst roaming and notice something huddled nearby. A dog. Now, there seems to be a fair amount of stray dogs around St. Croix and, being the dog liker that I am, kinda want to take them all home. So, I go walking up, nice and easy, to this dog, which is curled up and looking cold, with a generally-concerned-for-the-dog look on my face. I get about six feet away from the dog and the following takes place:

Ben: “Hey, boy. Are you lost?”

Dog: “……”

Ben: “Did somebody dump you off here?”

Dog: “……”

Ben (inching even closer, now encouragingly smiling): “Awwww, it’s OK. Don’t be scared.”

Dog (baring teeth): “GRRRRRRRR!”

Ben (losing all emotion in face and tone): “Have a nice day.”

And I walk away.

 

3.  “Bennie and the Jets(ki)”

This past weekend Tip Top (which, for future reference, will be known as “TTC”) put on a little beachside bash to celebrate Matt and Jen’s wedding from July. Matt, for clarification, is the project manager at TTC. I, am the assistant project manager. (No! Not assistant TO the project manager)!  Anyway, a guy by the name of Rhett happens to be at this party. And Mr. Rhett also happens owns a jet ski. He, with the help of a few of us red-meat eating men, unloaded this thing right along the shore of the ocean. And who gets the first spin? The new guy!

Now, ever since I was little I have always wanted to ride/pilot a jet ski. I grew up having a two acre pond a few dozen feet away from my house and always wondered what it would be like to zip around in one of those bad boys on said pond. So, you can imagine how excited I was to try this thing out. It, like many of my experiences to date on the island, was surreal.

Well. After about 30 straight seconds of my stalling the engine while drifting further and further away from shore (and more importantly, competent operators of a jet ski), I got it to start. At that moment, another thing gets nixed from my bucket list as I’m off. And by “I’m off”, I mean going about 6 mph across some of the calmest water the Caribbean Sea has to offer. Every time I got going fast, I felt like the nose of the jet ski was going to dive right under the water, taking me with it. What a wuss. After I got done riding, all I could think of was how uncanny my resemblance to Lloyd Christmas had to have been (see below clip from 1:45-1:48). Imagine that three second clip drug out for an entire five minute jet ski excursion. That was me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYCwIxdSRQs

All is well. I miss all of my loved ones back home. My mom, dad, brother and family. Family Siembida. Family Carson. Bestest of friends in Columbus. And last but not least…KatieBear. But she doesn’t really count as she’ll be down in (a hopefully short) eleven days.

I hope to keep up with this blog my entire stay in St. Croix. And the phrase “I’ll have a new post in a few weeks”, you’ll learn, will really mean “Meh, I’ll get around to it.” That’s me using “island time” to my advantage.

See?

I’m catching on.