Hammertime at Scubataha

Ahoy me hearties! I can speak like this because I’ve been at sea. I certainly haven’t been at sea this whole time (since my last blog entry), but I was winded since making that Thriller Video.

Why have I been at sea? Glad you asked. Jen and I (and 18 other teacher friends) were on the scuba expedition of a lifetime. You know it was life changing, because my friend Fred and I made t-shirts to commemorate the event. And we got tattoos that match the t-shirts.

We flew to the island of Palawan (known for monkeys that do naughty things in public) and then boarded the Stella Maris, which is much like a Carnival cruise ship in quality, but nothing like that in any other way. The Stella Maris then set sail for some crazy atoll, Tubbataha, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. An atoll is an island that started to grow up from the ocean, but then gave up about one foot short of breaking the surface. Then, in tropical places, coral goes apeshit on the atoll and grows everywhere. Fish like coral and warm places, so they go to atolls for spring break, much like people.

Our dive master’s name was Ivan Drago. He was actually German, but he was muscular, blonde, and if he ever said, “I must break you,” at any point in his life, it was probably during the filming of Rocky IV.

Our ship then parked near the atoll and we scuba dove three to five times every day. Even at night. It was crazy-go-nuts. We saw sharks, sea turtles, octopi, iridescent jellyfish, and more. There were two highlights. One was a hammerhead shark that was nearly as awesome as MC hammer. The second was a giant manta ray. Manta rays and hammerhead sharks are famous for disproving the theory of Intelligent Design because there is absolutely nothing intelligent about their design.

Then we sailed back home. This consisted of 12 hours of rocking back and forth so intensely that I went into the fetal position and promised myself I’d never go on a boat again.*

All in all, awesome trip! Definitely doing it again next spring break!


* Did you ever see that Bugs Bunny episode? The one where the ship rocked one way, and the soup slid towards Bugs, and he took three quick bites. Then the ship rocked the other way, and the bowl slid towards Yosemite Sam, and he took three quick bites. It was exactly like that. I live in a cartoon.

The Thriller Music Video

It's complete. Make sure you watch this so you know the moves for the wedding.

The Time Has Come the Walrus said,

To talk of many things.

Last week we had no classes in the high school. Instead all the kids and teachers were out in the provinces on service trips. Myself and the some students stayed in the village of Tugdaan at a school for indigenous kids. It was really boss, and I should say a lot of inspiring things about how moving it was. Those things would all be true, but I’ll let the pictures speak to that when I get them online. Instead let me comment on how 21 rich city slickers watched how pork goes from being alive to becoming pork chops. I’m pretty sure half the kids became vegetarians. (No worries Gants, not me!)

Upon returning to the city, I ran my longest pre-marathon training run at about 19 miles. It was not very fun. However, you should all be aware that if you are white and running in the Philippines and someone shouts “Hey Joe!” They are speaking to you, because you are representing GI Joe. But, if you actually stop to recite a moral lesson about not hiding in a refrigerator while playing with your friends, and then finish the lesson by saying, “Knowing’s half the battle. Go Joe!” They will stare at you blankly.*

My friend Elaina and I choreographed the thriller dance for the wedding. This consisted mainly of us watching the video, and then telling ourselves how awesome we were. Would a How-To video be useful for you all to practice before the wedding? Don’t say I won’t do it.

* Does anyone know what the hell I’m talking about?

The Manila Marathon - Prelims

I’ve decided I’m going to run a marathon. There’s no backing out now, as I ran 16 miles yesterday. What better place to run your first marathon than Manila? It’s the most humid place on earth and the particular marathon hosted here is technically uphill. (It starts on the bay and follows the river inland). It also starts at 4:30 in the morning. You’d be crazy to not take part in such an enjoyable experience.

The Philippine Marathon

That aside, I’m all in. I’ve been training since about Christmas-time. I won’t bore you with the training schedule, but don’t think for a minute it doesn’t still involve my good friend San Miguel. In my training, I’ve learned a lot about the Philippines. For example, it is illegal to run with your shirt off. When the sun is out here, it gets hot, so I figured I’d just take my shirt off while running through one of the local neighborhoods. I was quickly stopped by an official looking man with a gun.

Guy with Gun: Sir. What are you doing?
Sweaty Ringo: (pause to acknowledge the obvious) Running.
Guy with Gun: You cannot run with no clothes on.
Sweaty Ringo: I have no clothes on?
Guy with Gun: Sir, we have gotten complaints.
Sweaty Ringo: Complaints?
Guy with Gun: You pay a fine sir.
Ringo: (pause, silence)

Here we came to a draw. I had to run with a shirt on because he had a gun. But, he could not extract a bribe, since I obviously had no cash, nor even an identification to confiscate.* So I ran off.

The race is less than a month away, on Feb. 24, so look for race results on the blog sometime then. Until that time, I’ll be running a lot. With clothes on.

* I was not so lucky when pulled over on my motor bike. On that occasion, the policeman rode with me on the back of my motorbike around the corner, where he extracted an exorbitant bribe from me in order to return my driver license.

The Monster Dance

Good news my friends. The wedding of myself and Jen will be really awesome. Here’s why.

We decided that it is not entertaining for the first dance of our wedding reception to be only for the bride and groom to slow dance to whilst Bryan Adams sings “Everything I Do (I Do It for You),” from the hit movie, Robin Hood. We talked to several reputable sources (ourselves) for suggestions, and have concluded there is only one option.

Choreographed Thriller Dance!!!! Woooooooooooooooo! This will be our first dance. It will be involve multiple people.

You love the monster dance? I know you do. And how about that zombie shoulder shrug? It’s in. You want to see bridesmaids and groomsmen in full-on wedding regalia reenacting the greatest video ever? Me too. Done.

Of course this means the rehearsal dinner is now a real rehearsal. Make sure you are stretched out.

Oh yes. June 30th is looking very probably like the day. Please clear your calendars and try to forget that I may have….
A. Missed your wedding.
B. Attended your wedding, and horribly embarrassed you and your parents.
C. Caused several of your past relationships to fail, due to our super-hard-core lifestyle exhibited in Columbia, Kansas City, Denver, St. Louis, Australia etc.

In A Box - Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake Digital Short

If you enjoyed the Chronic of Narnia 1/10th as much as i did (or 1/1000th as much as Dara), you will like this. Let me know if the link stops working.

Good Night Bangkok

Jen and I are leaving Bangkok tomorrow. I fear that the rest of the world will seem predictable and mundane. This is because i have now seen it all. I realize that you readers would like me to describe the wonders and horrors that I saw. I'm not ready for that. I will need a good deal of time and an equal amount of therapy before i can fully release my mind from the fetal position it is in.

All in all, Bangkok has been fantastic. Jen and I loved it. Recommended for all. Except children. and conservatives. and those with morals.

Now we're back to the the Philippines for a tropical Xmas!

wooooooooooooo.

One Night In Bangkok

Bangkok, Oriental setting
And the city don't know that the city is getting
The creme de la creme of the chess world in a
Show with everything but Yul Brynner

As I'm sure you all know, one night in Bangkok can make a hard man crumble. So just think what an entire week is doing to me.

Currently Jen and I are in Sin City, Thailand. We arrived Saturday and met Jen's former roommate, Lisa, and her husband Tim. This was not a coincidence, as they teach English here in Thailand. However, their hometown is lacking things like go-go dancers, booze, and illegal items, so they were as excited as I was. We all swapped stories and drank beer out of a giant bubble gum machine that they brought to our table. I'll try to include a picture someday. it was awesome.

Next day we saw China town and rode around the river in boats like we were in Miami Vice. We also saw more than our share of dogs humping in the street.

Tim and Lisa had to leave. Jen and I then saw some kick ass temples and buddhas. After cleansing our souls, we bought lots of trademark infringed objects, pirated movies, and other stuff that seemed awesome at the time, but maybe tomorrow won't seem to be the steal that we thought it was.

Today we swapped hotels to something really swank. I celebrated this by buying a T-shirt that said, "Movin on Up" I'm sure this T-shirt was produced illegally. somehow. Tonight the club scene is right near our new hotel, so Jen and I will see if we can make the world our oyster.

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free

Ringo and Craig's Xmas Video

My friend Craig and I were nominated to MC the staff Xmas party here at the International School of Manila. We thus decided to make a documentary video of our preparation for the event. I hope you enjoy it. Special thanks to Kevin for editing. Also thanks to Anna for helping us entertain the people for the remaining 2 hours after our video finished.

My International Music Career

For the first time since the glory of days of KC and KT (Kansas City and Kevin Taylor) I’m in a band. We’ve had many names: The Whatevers, Powergrade, Sexpatriots, etc. I encourage you to offer suggestions. It is made up of my fellow colleagues and me. (Soula, James, Tricia, and Jen Smith) This is fitting, since my social life strictly revolves around colleagues. Good thing it’s a big school, and filled with great people.

So far we’ve had two gigs. The most recent will perhaps explain my school. It was a foam party held at the high school. If I had suggested “foam party” at any public US high school, everyone would picture some freaky-deaky scene from Cancun, and answer with a resounding “No.” Not at ISM my friends.

Not only was there a foam machine, there was also a stage, a slip-n-slide, 4 gazillion dollars worth of sound and light equipment, inflatable decorations, and roadies to set it all up. I’ve never had anyone installing microphones on my drum before. It was the definition of crazy.

Plus, from what I could tell, everyone was sober. And they remained fully clothed. I’m pretty sure that in the US, neither of those two events would have happened.

Crazy.

Anyway, we played cover songs and it was awesome. We did No Doubt, Jet, Green Day, and my personal favorite, Presidents of the United States of America (Peaches). I’m going to celebrate their entire collection. I recommend you do the same.

Trivia Night and the FPA

Assuming we are not on strike or taking shelter from Typhoons, Tuesday’s are trivia nights. Our team name is the FPA. As you should know, that stands for Fist Pumping Action. Which obviously means whenever we get a question right, that we exhibit a ridiculous amount of one handed pumping action. Sometimes both hands if we’re especially riled up.*

This would normally cause us to be hated by other teams. Fortunately for them, we don’t get to fist pump very often, as we are not very good. At least not very good at answering questions. However, we win the costume contest every time. We award this prize to ourselves. This is easy to win since no one else dresses up.

Just in case someone decides to challenge us for the costume prize (hard to do since we are also the judges), we switch up our costume weekly. We have also gone as Golf Pros and Tennis Hos, and The Whig Party to name a few.

action photos!

* I have to give citation to the KC based group known as the Boss Tweeds for giving us the idea of turning trivia into a costumed affair, and specifically to Aaron for bringing fist pumping action back into my life.

Why I Live in Manila

One of the best things about moving to a new place and making new friends is that you can recycle some of your best material. When looking at the picture above (assuming my internet allows it), those of you in the States are probably thinking, “Ho hum. Ringo’s in the astronaut costume again.”

However, at my friend Steve’s 30th birthday, people actually broke into applause for the astronaut costume. The theme of the “fancy dress” party was 60’s and 70’s, but no one expected Neil Armstrong to show up.* Jen and I were immediately facing a half dozen flashing cameras. Sort of like facing the paparazzi for about 30 seconds.

I fully understand if you readers are questioning the part about “applause” and “flashbulbs.” I tend to believe that people are always applauding my actions and taking photos. However, Jen confirmed it. It really happened.

* "Fancy dress" means "costume party" if you hail from the British Commonwealth. I'm not really in the habit of using that term, but i like to sound of it. Almost as much as "Aluminium."

Motorbikes

I ride a motorbike to work every morning. So does Jen.

If anyone such as Kevin, Dre, Gants, etc is reading this, they’re probably laughing their ass off if they can see the picture. These people either own, or have previously owned a legitimate motorcycle. Mine is certainly not a motorcycle. It only has 110 cc’s, whereas I think a real motorcycle has something like 4 x 106 cc’s. My bike in the US would probably be classified as a “scooter.” I’m ok with that. It is at least shaped like a motorcycle.

Actually it’s shaped like a dirt bike. I know this because the guy who sold it to me, said, in broken English, “This not dirt bike. It look like dirt bike, but if you jump…….” At this point he made a symbol with has hands as if breaking a large branch over his knee. I promised him I would not pretend to be playing Excite Bike.*

It doesn’t really go very fast either. But that’s OK also, because neither does Manila traffic. In a taxi, I could spend 40 minutes traveling 4 miles home after work. Most of this time you are stopped. With a motorbike, you are allowed, actually expected, to simply ride slowly through the stopped cars to the front of the traffic light. It’s a pretty great system.

Jen and I also have extremely large helmets and padded motorcycle jackets. The padded jackets are probably a bit much, especially since it never drops below 75 degrees here. But having big elbow guards makes me kind of feel like Barry Bonds, minus the part about being a douche bag.

* I used to make some pretty rad courses on that game.

Monkey Sex and Cardinal Victories

After observing monkey sex and lizards in the underground river, we boarded an outrigger boat and set sail for an island paradise. (This is the best opening I’ve ever written.)

Eventually Jen and I arrived at the island paradise resort of El Nido. You can only arrive by boat (although I guess parachute would work as well), and the best part is they play a welcome song for you on the dock as you arrive. Once arrived, your “activity director” sits you down to plan out the following day for you. Then you are shown to your air conditioned room that receives electricity 24 hrs a day (quite a luxury in island paradise). Afterwards, you are allowed to graze the giant buffet lunch served 3 times a day, every day. Then you are allowed to meet with San Miguel, which for you non-Philippine dwellers, is like meeting with Auggie Busch or Pete Coors.

Jen and I were interrupted from our building of true Philipino friendships* by another welcome song. Our colleagues (JB, Tara, Fred, and Sandy) had just arrived. I put their names down because they might read this, and people like to read about themselves. My 4 colleagues promptly told their activities director that they did not want to do any activities except “building true Philipino friendships.” This greatly hurt the feelings of their activities director, which meant the resort disliked my colleagues, but liked me and Jen. We all spent a lot of time with San Miguel on the beach, and even played an ingenious version of bocce ball throughout the resort’s restaurant and bar that involved coconuts and some acrobatics. I did not win, but I heartily thank JB for enlightening me on that game.

Jen and I used our pull to convince the resort to point their satellite skyward every morning, and set up their one television to watch the Cardinals in the World Series. Unbelievably, I was able to watch the final 3 games of St Louis’ greatest moment in sporting history. I fully represented America with a great deal of profanity, high fives, and humping the air in jubilation. You also know that the fist pump was in prime form.

We stopped scuba diving in plenty of time to fly to the next island paradise. (This was key so as not to explode on the airplane.) However, I was a little disappointed in that Sangat Island reserve was no where near as posh as our last home. I sat in my powerless, dark, sweaty hut with dejection. 30 seconds later the monkey parade began! No more than 30 feet from our hut! And what do you think those monkeys did as soon as they realized they had an audience? You guessed it. Monkey sex, Act II. These monkeys (and monitor lizards as well), were around throughout our stay. Pretty awesome until I tried to approach baby monkeys for photograph and the male leader nearly attacked me.

In all truthfulness, the highlight of this island was the scuba diving. Jen and I dove down to see half dozen giant Japanese ships sunk during WWII. Some of them over 2 football fields long. It was crazy shit.

No we are safely back in Manila. No monkeys here, but still plenty of opportunity for building true Philipino friendships.

* This is what every bottle of San Miguel says on it

PS: the picture seen is what happens if you google "monkey, cardinals." It is entitled "Boots the Monkey." I don't know what it is, but I can't stop laughing.

Those Crazy Monkeys

My apologies on my absence from the world of blogging for several weeks. I have no one to blame but myself. And my shitty internet connection. And being overworked. And power-outages.

Jen and I just returned from my new favorite holiday at International School Manila entitled “2 Week Fall Break!” Unbelievable how awesome my life has become.

We decided that instead of exploring other exotic countries of Southeast Asia, that we instead would explore some of the 7000 islands of the Philippines. This decision was aided by the fact that some member of the Philippine Work Visa Committee actually has our passports still, and I did not know who exactly to bribe.

We headed south to the island province of Palawan for tropical island paradise. It did not disappoint. Our small plane touched down in the province’s capital, Puerta Princessa. The main attraction here seemed to be the bizarre fact that there were 8 tricycles (local taxis) per every one traveler. A real buyer’s market. I used my slick negotiation skills and non-existent Tagalog to obtain a tricycle ride to the next town, which we all agreed was about 12 km away. The driver promptly drove us exactly 12 km into the middle of a rice field, pointed to his odometer, kicked us off the trike, and drove off. Great. Undaunted, we flagged down a giant jeepney (the Philipino equivalent of a bus) and made our way to the town of Sabang.

In Sabang, one could take the 6 km “Monkey Trail” to the Underground River (a World Heritage site!). This trail involved little more than sweating my balls off until we found ourselves surrounded by about a dozen monkeys staring at us hungrily and waving their opposable thumbs around to show us they meant business. Being accustomed to stupid tourists, the monkeys remained focused on our hands, since in all their past experiences, food occasionally was produced from hands. We did not fall for this. The male leader monkey quickly got bored of us, walked over and gave the business to the female monkey of his choice. I nearly fell over.

I do not have photos of this spontaneous act of monkey sex. Don’t even ask. Even if I did, what sort of blog would this be if I published that type of imagery?

Then we continued along the trail and I nearly fell over again when I saw a leopard about to be eaten by a Komodo dragon! In reality, it was only a sleeping housecat, and a giant monitor lizard.* But these crazy lizards were about 4 feet long and did not even notice me. They had no opposable thumbs, but they also had no natural predators. So they just stared at me and walked past. Thank god no one was giving those goddamned animals any booze!

Eventually we took a boat trip through the Underground River. I don’t remember much about the river though. I couldn’t stop thinking about what horrible things were going to happen when those crazy monkeys got a hold of those god-damned reptiles.

The pics of the craziness

* No housecats were harmed in this blogging episode. I honestly don’t know why.

Celebrate Good Times, Cmon.

Celebrate good times.

What a pessimist I was in my last entry! STrike is over!

The remaining 4 people on the board resigned on stage at our meeting this evening. School's on like Donkey Kong!

"Union's on strike, He's Down on his luck, its tough"

Wow my life is interesting now! I don’t even have to make my own drama.

We are now in day 2 of the strike. Yesterday afternoon at our faculty meeting we learned that two more Board of Trustee members (the bad guys) resigned, leaving only 5 of the original 10. They now don’t have quorum and are impotent (ha ha), BUT the remaining board members are digging in and putting up sand bags.

We then needed to vote whether or not to continue the strike. Fortunately, the entire team of principals walked in and announced that they were also now on strike as well. They then all dropped pants and showed that they spelled the words “K-I-S-S O-U-R” on their asses, and directed this towards the remaining board members.

Teachers of course voted to extend strike alongside the principals. Board members had till 8 pm last night to resign. They did not, because they are subscribers to the douche-bag-philosophy. Thus, I had to call 10 of my students and tell them there would not be school today. NOT fun. One board member, in a burst of professionalism, texted the teacher community with the message, “As parents, we think you should all be fired.” We are currently looking for a service that delivers flaming bags of poo to his doorstep. No luck yet.

Today one more Board member resigned (the guy mentioned above). I spent a few hours calling parents trying to get the 800 votes we need to oust the remained 4 board members. I will honestly tell you that if I had to be a telemarketer to put bread on the table, I would starve. Wow did that suck. It’s not easy explaining the situation over a fuzzy connection to a mom who speaks mainly Japanese. But, I think I added a few votes for the good guys. We only need about 150 more.

And so....we meet again in a few hours, but I am not optimistic that the remaining board will resign, nor that we will get enough votes soon enough to have school on Friday. The bullshit will likely last the rest of the week.

Again, check out www.ismstakeholders.com if you are really bored.

We're Strikingl, Bitches!

Warning!!!! Like anything I write, this is NOT to be taken as 100% factual.

Sorry to be only updating you all on the past, namely the Indonesian adventure. Let me fast forward to the present, because it’s become immensely dramatic.

Jen and I (and the rest of the faculty and staff and International School of Manila) are on strike. Here’s the quick and highly biased highlights.*

The Board of Trustees has pulled a lot of douche bag moves. They got themselves elected last year in a questionable and dodgy process of absentee balloting. They’ve been micromanaging the school ever since. The principals of elementary, middle, and high school sent a public letter to the board that could be summarized as follows: “You’re a bunch of douche bags; we refuse to work with you.” The board thought about this, and then sacked the superintendent. They escorted him out of the building, past students, surrounded by armed security. **

Most of us faculty and staff were hired to our nice jobs by the super and principals, so we asked the Board to show up at a “What-the-Fuck-is-Going-On Meeting.” The board did not show up.

So we did not show up at school today. Fortunately, several hundred parents did show up to sign petitions calling for resignation of the board. Hopefully strike will end soon when resignations occur. So far, 3 of the 10 Board members have resigned.


* these highlights are not meant to be entirely taken as fact, but close enough for those of you who will never have any dealings with international education

** Almost all security is armed at international schools, this is not abnormal.

Across the Heart of Darkness

So if you read the blog last, we finished a long, shaky (and yet awesome) boat trip past Komodo Island and some of Eastern Indonesia. We were on the western side of the large island of Flores (100 miles) across. Our flight left for Manila in a few days, but we flew out on the Eastern side of the island. How hard can it be to travel 100 miles? How hard could it be to build a canal across Panama? The answer to both these timeless questions turned out to be the same: “Pretty damn hard.”

pictures that don't really prove it

We sat in the less-then-desirable-town of Labuan Baju reading our Lonely Planet about how terrible the roads and busses were on this island. A bus actually pulled up right next to where we were eating. Great! A young lad, clinging to the outside, promptly leaned over and vomited. Not so great. Bus = not an option.

4 of us decided to hire a driver and an SUV type vehicle to drive us across over a few days. So 3 Americans, one Swiss, one crazy-ass driver set off through the wilderness armed with several karaoke tapes, Carlos Santana, and the Backstreet Boys. Things were bound to be awesome.

Windy roads would be an understatement. The back seat was considered blissful, because at least you didn’t have to watch certain death awaiting you around the next blind curve. Our driver Matt, assured us this was normal. Not overly encouraging, but at least he had lived this long.

He took us to a rural home of a woman distilling Arak: fermented coconut milk, distilled so as to become jet fuel. Whilst the process of this was fascinating, I would rather drink tequila w/ tomato juice, and that’s saying a lot.

We stopped for two nights in the town of Mony (yes, just like the song, “Mony, Mony”). We stayed with Matt’s brother, Bryan. We got to experience some kick ass things like a natural hot springs in a rice paddy and these 3 crazy volcanic crater lakes (the chameleon lakes, all different colors). What was especially bizarre was that when we returned for the 2nd night, a drum set and guitars all appeared, so we rocked out. I played the drum set with actual sticks ripped off a tree. It was classic. I also tried to drink Arak. Ugly stuff. The best part about our lodging was they had a dumbbell set like Marky-Mark used in the video “Good Vibrations”

We somehow made it alive across Flores in time for our flight. Granted, no one knew if it would actually take off or not, nor when. We just hung out at the airport all day. They had a metal detector, but it wasn’t plugged in. Eventually a plane showed up, and some nice man decided to let us get on.

We flew to our new home in Manila.

Burninating the Oceanside

So the blog is still retroactive. Pretend it’s a month ago………

Bad news. Time to get on a boat again. We were booked, not for a 3 hour tour, but for a 3 day tour. It promised to show us several islands and the famed home of the Komodo dragons whilst carrying us to more-Eastern Indonesia.

Pics of Boat Tour and DRAGONS!!!

We booked with Perama, which is an Indonesian tour company, but also sort of like a summer camp. I’ll try to explain. We first bussed across the Island of Lombok to see the great things Perama was doing for the community. The first small town was our rock star tour stop. As soon as we get off the bus, there is a small marching band (all playing gongs, drums, and chime-type things) decked out in Perama T-shirts. We then are then marched along in a parade (in our honor) to the center of the village. As the band plays us along, every child in a 5 mile radius starts filing out of doors, windows, and the air to see the parading whities.

We crowd into a courtyard to see “traditional dance.” I think there was some dancing, but I don’t remember it. Because then this little guy walked out with a wooden shield and stick. So did another guy. A third man, a referee of sorts blew a whistle and put some money down on the ground. I figured I was a millionaire, so I did the same, as did the other whities. Soon the ground was full of cash, one stick guy was praying, and I realized they were not fucking around. They proceeded to beat the shit out each other for three rounds. I don’t know where that money actually went, but I do know boxing seems like a boring sport now.

Then we got on a little ship. The first night Jen and I decide to sleep up-top under the stars while we traveled. Worst idea ever. We nearly got swept out to sea. Only the gods of friction and gravity saved us. The best part of the boat trip was that the boat crew performed awesome dances at night and in the mornings. “The Perama Dance” consisted of captains, cooks, cabin boys, etc, doing a serious multi-version rendition of the electric slide. The next morning we were lined up on the beach and led in musically accompanied stretching exercises. It was awesome.

We soon arrived at Komodo Island. Unhappily, we were told that the dragons were mating, so we might not see one. I figured though, since there are 7 males for every one female, some dragon guy must not be getting lucky. This proved correct as we saw two massive guy dragons ambling around. How do I know they were guys? Because their names were Trogdor. Both of them. They were awesome. No worries about safety though. The most dangerous things were the souvenir salesman at the dock. One poor guy showed interest in buying a wooden dragon, and the salesmen went into an orgiastic frenzy I hope never to see the likes of again.

Soon the real danger would begin….