So here's the deal. I suck at editing these things so I'm just going to give you the skinny on what the pictures are about all in the beginning and you can then scroll down. First you see me posing with the white bull of the Tillamuck cheese factory. Then I'm out hiking with my family. My little sister and I are tight like unto a dish. My family is really cute. Next you see my car, recently purchased upon my return to the northwest. Finally, you see me at a Mariners game. Upon close inspection you'll see I'm the only one without a date. Sucks to be me in Washington.

Alright, so I guess you've all waited long enough. It's time for the newest edition of what appears to be my bi-annual blog posting. Anywho, I'm probably just going to post more pictures and have less dialogue on here. A picture doesn't necessarily say a thousand words, but it's much more colorful than a thousand words. So here goes. I'll break this up into a few different posts so things seem a little more chronologically sound.

I'm uber tired and in a few short hours I'll be heading down to see Mt. Vernon, aka ol' Georgy Washington's stompin' grounds and then going to a Nat's game so I'll keep this semi-short and try to make up for it in the morning or when I'm good and ready. Capish?


K, well for starters, I'm in DC now. I'm seeing stuff like this White House thing. We did that tonight. I couldn't help but notice that they do a pretty good job with the lawn. I don't know how ol' Dubya finds the time.











Here we have my workplace. This is the mothership of Terrorism.com, aka the Terrorism Research Center. Seriously, the place looks like a war room and I expect Jack Bauer to come walking in any minute and demand answers from me. The do a great job of keeping it not quite fully lit so that it keeps a bit of the movie mystique. So I've started my work as an intern/grunt in the office. I sit at a computer and go through a list of websites that are either associated with extremist groups (KKK, The Black Panthers, Greenpeace, etc...) and then check to see if the website is still active or not. I update this information to a spreadsheet and add any additional information as it seems pertinent. It's kinda cool, but it starts to ware on you after reading about the 500th group that's pissed at Exxon for killing the planet. I mean seriously, is it really that big of a deal?




My apartment is great. I live in Alexandria and for once in my life will be living near black people. LOTS OF BLACK PEOPLE!!! I love it. Being the minority was something I grew accustomed to in Hawaii and I'm glad to be keeping that status. I take the subway to work, which is about 4 blocks from my pad. It's a good 45 minute ride and I'm happy to say that it lacks the strong scent of urine and drunk vomit that the mass transit in Estonia perpetually emanated. Life is good.

Well, that's all you're getting for now. Stay tuned and don't be a terrorist.

Well, Hawaii, it's been fun. You've treated me well and we've had some really good times. We laughed together, you put me on the slow road to skin cancer, and surrounded me by occasionally scantily clad women. What more could I ask from a tropical island? Lets take a look back at a few of those times.

Here we have my beautiful Reuben sandwich. This is prime example of the fine cuisine enjoyed by Al and myself during our honeymoon semester in Laie.



We shared many a bonfire. Here was our last. As was often the case, Shem worked the guitar and harmonica.











Michael, my little Filipino roommate, taught me all I know about seduction. Here he shows us the pose he used to win a contract for Calvin Klein.















Shaka Steel gave us far too few performances, but when the did favor us with a diddie it rocked the house.






This shot is the party at Houghton's pad after we finished our final papers. He taught me tons and inspired my future in terrorism, the study of terrorism that is.






Our relationship with the soccer girls meant dinner and fun on many a Sunday afternoon.










I made a lot of friends in Hawaii. Some loved me for my personality, some for my mind, but most loved me for my irresistable hair and sideburns. It had to go eventually but I enjoyed it for a while















Al and I enjoyed a few Saturday hours wasting time on his computers. What a good-lookin' guy he is!












Kokua Fest was amazing this year. My only regret is that we went on 4/19 instead of 4/20, when the contact high would have been exponentially greater. In any case, Dave Matthews, Mason Jennings, and Jack Johnson were off the heezy.







This Reuben sandwich is one example of the fine cuisine enjoyed by Al and myself. To this day I have not discovered a sandwich greater, nor do I anticipate finding one.







Jack gave us a pretty good going away present. This was as good of a way to break up finals week as any I could have asked for. Life is good in Hawaii.








Hawaii was where I was introduced to Audi and my understanding of the Men's Movement, post-modernism, Chacos, and rugby will never be the same. This is us at our "last supper" before I got the heck outta Hawaii.

So Saturday we made south to Crouching Lion, a hike whose grandure and majesty are perhaps to much for the faint of heart.

Here we have the crew. From top to bottom you see Shenley, Al(bert), Cami, Erika, and Joseph (notoriously named after Joseph Stalin, much to his embarrassment).

We all knew the dangers ahead of us, but the possibility of ankle scratches and bugbites were no match for the combined will of this hearty crew of adventurers.











As is often the case, I took some of the spare moments to practice some of my modeling. I'm hoping to have a runway show coming up in April. Your comments and support are always welcome.








Just a pic of me looking glorious.










Always a fan of cliche touristy pictures, I thought it necessary to include the classic "foot shot" once we got to the top of the rock. I'd like to also take a moment to thank my sponsor, Teva, for making this hike possible.






What's that? You think we look rugged and deeply thoughtful? I couldn't agree with you more.












And here you see Al and Joe making their way slowly back to the group. Lacking the mountain-goat-like skills of descending, they took a little longer than myself. Bless their hearts, they tried.






All in all I'd call the day pretty amazing. We didn't quite reach the summit because of a sore ankle in the group but we had a jolly old time. Afterwards we soaked at Hukilau Beach for a few minutes, cleaned up, and headed to Papa Ole's for lunch before vegging out for most of the rest of the day. Life is grand. I wonder what it's like in Utah...

Brandon informed me on Friday of a free concert happening at Schofield Barracks on Saturday. With that, we packed up our gear and headed out around 2:00. Our first stop was at Maui Mike's fried chicken restaurant. Brandon made the ill-fated choice of selecting the chili BBQ sauce. I think it's safe to assume that it will burn just as much on it's way out as it did on it's way in....

Next we made our way to the concert. There were drunks and hicks aplenty. I got a little misty-eyed because I hadn't seen so many cowboy hats and carharts since being home.


I got pretty into the down-home country feeling that was going around, as can be seen here. The first girl that sang didn't really do much for me. Bowling For Soup sounded good but I was a little nauseous after their continual self-promotion as "the greatest rock band ever to play." Finally, Montgomery Gentry got up and the true redneck inside of me was released. Quite a good time was had by all, especially the guy in front of us who passed out after about a dozen drinks.

Last night was a festival of fun in Laie. While on my way over to the bowling ally I stopped by the temple. They've finally got the fountains back up and running. They'd been down for a while now. I realize that I kinda detract from the beauty of the temple in this picture, but hey, it's my blog and I'm a bit of a narcissist.






When we finally made it to the bowling ally we started our game but after one frame the machine broke. After 10 minutes of nonsense they finally got us another lane. I bowled a mediocre 5 frames before the machine broke again. This time it didn't matter much because we had to run to go see the movie Juno. IT WAS AMAZING!!!! The perfect combination of Napoleon Dynamite awkwardness, Gilmore Girls dialogue (not that I, or any self-respecting man would ever watch Gilmore Girls), and the wholesomeness of a story about teen pregnancy, not to mention a kickin' soundtrack. Two thumbs very much up.

So in honor of one of the greatest civil rights leaders of all time, Brandon, Ashley, Jeremy, Rebecca, and I went down to Electric Beach for some snorkeling and scuba. I don't really know how ocean sports and civil rights are connected but we sure did have fun! Jeremy was the expert who made made all of this aquatic magic possible and made sure we didn't drown.

Brandon and Jeremy took the first dive while I snorkeled and, unbeknownst to me at the time, got a wicked sunburn.


This is right before Brandon and I took the second dive. We didn't see any turtles or anything too exotic, but I did get rocketed about 150 feet by a blast of water coming from an underwater pipe. On a scale from one to good I'd give it an amazing. I just want to remind everyone back in Washington, Idaho, and Utah that it is February and while you're up to your arses in snow, I'm swimming with turtles. Deal with it.

This was one of the few happy moments during Foodfest. The event went off brilliantly but the process of getting it to that point was craptastic. The clubs are consistently on the verge of violating health codes, the vendors don't listen to a thing you say, and the garlic shrimp I bought was cold. Sigh... it's over now.

One of the major pains in the can that accompany being a political science major is continually being asked what I think of the election. Frankly, the last 2 years of campaigning have driven me to apathy towards the whole thing. The primary process is nothing but a bunch of moderates trying to posture themselves like extremes of their party so as to win the party votes they need to make a run in the Summer and Fall. As soon as that's done we'll have two moderates and little progress towards a united nation.

I do get a little ashamed when I think of things in these terms. It's important that people vote for the best candidate in their eyes. My single vote is of virtually no consequence, but my activity is important inasmuch as my attitude partially represent the American body politic. Given the choice, I'd rather see myself as a member of the half of the population that participates, regardless of the insignificance of my single voice. I'm just a single drop of water, but I'm still part of the current.

More important, I think, is the election of local representatives. Presidents make grandiose proposals but say nothing about the two houses of Congress they have to fight to get anything done. It is these representatives that we can sway, to some degree, with our votes and concerns. In the national election I am only one of 100,000,000 voters. In my home state I'm one of 3,000,000. In my home district I'm one of 600,000. That might not sound like amazing odds, but it's better than 100,000,000.

Long story short, it's important to think about politics for the whole nation, but it's more important to think of your local leaders. Federalism works because of this. God bless James Madison.

Just the first Spring rain breathes new life into the barren Winter world, so have the combined exortations of my friends Brandon, Al, and Ben brought another life into the barren world known as the "Blogosphere." Sam's Last Word is your worldwide resource for all things Sam, including, but not limited to, rants, musings, prophesies, cries for help, poems, threats, recipes, contests, book/movie reviews, indocrination, and travel logs.

I guess this blogging venture is more of an inquiry into how much I really have to say. If I only write in this twice before I die that should tell me that I've either got very little to say or that I'm not vain enough to think that anyone cares what I have to say on here (which doesn't necessarily mean that I think all people who have blogs are vain... well, maybe it does).

My only real apprehensions towards making this blog is that others will see what a poor writer and shallow individual I am. Bear with me and try to over look my spelling and grammar mistakes as I will try to over look the grammar mistakes of those who respond (if anyone responds), though I make no promises of not pointing out stupid ideas and opinions.

So, here goes. One small step for the internet, one poorly placed step for Sam.