PICK BARBARA!

UPDATE: The links to the video now work. But if something goes wrong again, just go to islandreefjob.com and then click "all applicants," and then click the drop-down menu and select "American Samoa." Browse through all one of the videos and select Barbara's

There seems to be some kind of tradition going on with this blog: Every time that I say exactly what I'm going to be blogging about next time, I end up writing about something else. So I'll write about riding around on the buses...soon.

So anyhow, I helped my friend Barbara make this awesome video for her application to The Best Job In the World, the job of being the caretaker of a tiny island on the Great Barrier Reef where she would get paid $100,000 to live in a giant house on the Reef and blog about diving, hiking, snorkeling, and generally adventuring* on the island for six months.

So anyway, please go here and watch the video. Then rate it five stars. Then share it with all of your friends, relatives, and casual acquaintances and tell them to do the same. Then rate it five stars again on your school or work computer. Then go to your local library, log on to every computer, then rate the video five stars each time. Then drive to the next town, sign up for another library card, and do the same thing again.

Did I mention that if she wins, a lot of people will see that video that I helped make? And that I will get to be one of her guests on the island? Oh. They will. And I will.

Even if she doesn't win, Barbara, who is originally from Italy, will continue adventuring** like she has been doing for the last ten years. Her contract as a Marine Biologist here has ended, and she will be leaving us soon. And by soon, I mean that while typing this, I looked out the window and saw the plane that will take her off of the island come in for a landing. While leaving the going-away party for her and someone that I didn't really know last night, she spoke some great words of wisdom: "You only leave once!" Later on, I realied that sometimes her accent is a little heavy sometimes, and that she actually said "You only live once." That makes a lot more sense.

Next, she plans on visiting friends in San Francisco, then mountain climbing in Oregon while visiting other friends there, then possibly heading up to Alaska to meet more friends during the Idiot A-Rod Iditarod. Presumably not as a contestant. You can follow her further adventures on her blog, which is on the list of blogs to the right. I think that she's really shown us the value of making lots of friends along the road of life. That's something we should all be doing for a very good reason:

To get more people to watch and rate the video!


*It's a real word! No, really!
**Even Firefox's spellchecker says that it's a real word!