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10:16
So, how did you wind up in Guam?
@BESW
My parents met as students at the local university.
He first came to Guam with the Air Force during the Vietnam War, and moved back a few years after he got out.
She came here when she was nine; her whole family was following her dad's job as an air traffic controller.
Have you lived there your entire life?
Barring four years of college in South Carolina (during which time I visited Guam regularly), yes.
The first 25 years of that (including the college time) was in the rural south of the island--mostly very unusual places for a white guy to grow up.
Yeah. Most of the people I know who've grown up in similar places are either children of missionaries or other volunteer workers.
Aye, that's a common assumption about me.
The most common, though, is that I'm associated with the military. The lion's share of mainland Americans on Guam are military, military family, or military contracted.
That means people who look like me are generally new to the island, not staying long, and not especially interested in the island except insofar as it can entertain them while they're stuck here.
When I meet people, I try to give them as many context clues as possible so they can more easily fit me into their social schema--because I don't fit into any of the standard niches.
10:29
I see.
I'm kind of like stumbling across a human family living in the middle of an all-elf town where the only humans are travelling merchants.
Guam's my home. I love it and I know it well. I'm invested in its struggles and I rejoice in its victories. But while I'm local, I'm not native and it would be extremely inappropriate of me to act like it.
Here, have a picture.
Me and a friend on an old Spanish bridge down south yesterday; he's visiting from Hawaii and I gave him a tour.
10:47
Wow, that looks like a stunning place.
The north end of the island is a lot more developed, but yes. I love living here.
@SQB [wave]
When I was in Tanzania I showed the students this picture of my parents' house in Finland: cs.helsinki.fi/u/kviiri/winter_in_finland.jpg
That's not how it is every year though. This year there was almost no snow at all for most of the Winter.
Ooh, wow.
Where in Finland, if you don't mind my asking?
(I see it says Helsinki in the url...)
Not at all - that's in Helsinki. Outskirts of the town.
I met a Helsinki busker last year in Haifa.
11:01
Cool, did you get their name?
I have a friend who's been travelling around Asia and I think he does a bit of busking.
Probably not Taneli, then.
He was in Haifa for the Bahá'í International Convention, as was I.
Nope. It would've been quite a coincidence!
SQB
SQB
@BESW [wave] Which one is you?
@SQB Stockier one on the right.
SQB
SQB
(Not that I can make out much besides the silhouette).
11:11
That is somewhat intentional.
If the chats weren't Forever and Googled I'd feel a bit more free to post myself.
Umm.... here.
Tiny!BESW, from earlier in the same trip yesterday.
 
3 hours later…
14:16
It's very late and I should be going to bed, but I have some online friends who I can poke about text rpgs tomorrow.
Ok.
I know of a couple sites but I am looking for more serious RPers. People who care more about the story rather then drama which is generally what I run into.
I suspect text rpgs are on topic for the site, but your question may not be in scope.
@BESW Text RPs would not be in scope really. Text RPs have no set system they follow thus the format of this site wouldn't fit any question for them. A combination of RPG and the literature site would be perfect for them though.
We've got plenty of system-agnostic RP questions here.
@BESW Hmm. Maybe some very specific questions. Do you think my question would fit? Wouldn't it turn into a list question even with my specific criteria?
14:21
It looks like a list/shopping/lfg question right now. I don't know enough about text RPGs to help you turn it into a game rec, if that's possible.
There is this:
5
Q: Sites for finding online RPG players for a play-by-chat RPG Campaign?

NocteAre there any online sites in which you can look for people that are looking to play in an online play-by-chat RPG Campaign? I'm thinking of running a Pathfinder campaign for Skype (text only) and I don't have a group of players.

I don't think it would be. It seems like text rpgs are Dieing out slightly. Those that do exist are almost solely smut rps.
I imagine they move.
@BESW Not quite but thanks for the look see.
When I was in college, there were LJ RPGs all over the place.
LJ?
14:23
Livejournal.
Ah.
One of the regulars in sf&f.se chat moderated a couple Harry Potter RPGs on LJ.
Hmm.
I thought one thing you'd find helpful with that question above is that by looking at the answers you can get a sense of what's where on the Internet and maybe start tracking down where to focus your searches.
 
9 hours later…
23:18
Our rainy season lasts almost half the year (the other half is dry season), and it's usually erratic showers and downpours with bright sunshine between.
After a rain, steam rises from the road like ghosts.
However, the rainy season is also typhoon season; we haven't had a direct hit for about ten years, but just last weekend we had a big one pass pretty close.
Having a typhoon pass nearby means aggressive patterns of wind and rain alternating with sudden calm, as the feeder bands of the storm go over us.
That's exactly how it is here in Colorado. It pours for, say, 15-30 minutes, depending, and then the sun comes out. We also get marble-sized hail here and there, sometimes bigger hail, and sometimes tornadoes. Yeah, I heard about that Typhoon :/
The dry season is bright and sunny with strong, steady trade winds.
We never get cold precipitation, and our only tornadoes are mini ones that form inside typhoons.
Allow me to post a SNOW picture!
[claps hands excitedly]
I've never seen snow fall and stick to the ground.
On the mainland I've hiked up mountains with snow on 'em, and I've seen snow fall in SC but it always melted as soon as it hit.
That's the state capitol building with its dome sticking out of the treetops. It was the view from my office. I have this shot for all four seasons.
I really love snow. It makes me feel cozy. I don't particularly like driving in it, but otherwise I love it.
@Richard -- What about you? How's the weather over in the UK? Aside from a lot of rain (I've heard)?
23:26
@Slytherincess - Decidedly summerish. 20+ degrees and sunny for the past week or so. We didn't really have a winter this year either, only two days when the temp even went sub-zero...
And yes, it does indeed rain a lot over here in blighty
Brr. 23 is about the coldest we normally go, and that's at night.
23 to 32 is our typical max/min range, I think.
My mother remembers a day in her childhood when it dropped below 18, and the palms died.
@BESW - If it went up to 25 degrees, I'd be cranking out the BBQ
Mmm steak and chicken drumsticks
@Richard Let's see, you're on Celsius, so I think I double that and add 30 ... so around 70 F? Today was 97 F here, but we have air conditioning, thank God. I have a pair of British Wellies, but it doesn't rain enough here for me to use them -- I keep them because they're awesome :D We don't have mud issues, though.
@Slytherincess 20C = 68F.
(Guam's usually the 75F-89F-ish range.)
Ugh, Farenheit.
23:31
Hush, it doesn't make sense to us either.
In the UK we only use °F to describe temps above 100. By contrast we use Celcius to describe low temps.
@BESW Well, at least I was close! My Canadian husband, who knows Celsius, taught me that little trick. It gets you into the general vicinity of the temp in question.
<--- Is not personally responsible for Farenheit :))
Double it and add 30 is an excellent trick
I know nothing metric. I couldn't even begin to tell you what a kilometre equals.
kilometer? Kilometre? <doesn't know>
2km ~= 1.25mi
(Actually a little less.)
Metric is easy and fun to math, and it's great for science, but it has some trouble with being practical for everyday use because its units didn't grow organically from need.
Being divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6 makes time and length a lot easier to manipulate in marketplace-y ways, while Farenheit--for all its warts--gives more granularity to the span of temperatures humans normally encounter.
23:39
When my husband moved down to the states from Canada, sometimes I would drive his car to work, and the speedometer was in kilometers and I had to take the stance that I would just go with the flow of traffic and hope I wasn't speeding, because I had no idea what the speedometer reading meant.
Orly? All the metric cars I've seen had imperial units written smallwise along the dial as well.
@BESW - When you say "humans normally encounter", you forgot to add "assuming that those humans live somewhere that's ungodly hot"
I'm kind of blind :))
@Richard You experience more temperature variation than I do.
@Slytherincess Fair enough.
The colonies are unpleasantly warm.
23:42
Yes, I'm sure it probably had that, although I don't recall it offhand. It was a really old car, too.
I don't have much experience with old cars. They fall into piles of rust before they turn 20 around here.
Truthfully, though, I really do have a problem seeing at, say, arm's length. It's all blurry at that distance. But if I wear my reading glasses, everything in the far distance is blurry. I suppose I need bifocals, ugh.
I've been nearsighted enough to need glasses since I was ten.
My speedo has KPH under MPH on the dial. It came in handy when I drove overseas.
2
Your... speedo.
23:49
Not a banana hammock, a speedometer
Speedo with a dial.
I was having fun imagining a swimsuit with a speedometer.
@BESW I leave for four minutes and suddenly SPEEDOS!!!!
@Slytherincess You're welcome.
[sigh] What is it that compels people to write answers to things they know nothing about?

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