Volt

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Are there only like 40 people on the island? Are you bored out of your mind?

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As of today, there's 48 people here of which ~30 are from Thailand.

This place has its ups and downs. There's a workout gym, basketball gym, pickleball (we even had a few tournaments), bowling alley with three functional lanes left (barely), pool tables, ping pong, shuffle table, the beach, snorkeling.

2018 was like a non-stop beach party. The female volunteers were party animals. Karaoke all the time. Too much partying honestly. I'm on call 24/7 so I participated lightly, but it was fun.

2020-21 through winter into summer was sometimes miserable due to constant raining, very windy, and cold. Bicycles are our main transportation, so always a wet butt. Although, it was definitely less stressful than being in the medical field on mainland during covid.

2023 - A lot of people throughout the summer here for a big project. Up to 92 and a lot more ladies. Beach, summer, ladies, kinis...it was nice.

Now - its back to blah. At least its warmed up and there's the beach and snorkeling.

Starlink had been a game changer here for the obvious reasons, but it's made almost everyone very lazy as they mostly stay in their rooms outside of working hours.

TD is on the island. Took the first pic yesterday. The second one was on a clear day.

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Midway Atoll (colloquial: Midway Islands; Hawaiian: Kuaihelani, lit. 'the backbone of heaven'; Pihemanu, 'the loud din of birds')[3][4] is a 2.4 sq mi (6.2 km2) atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the United States and is an unorganized and unincorporated territory. The largest island is Sand Island, which has housing and an airstrip. Immediately east of Sand Island, across the narrow Brooks Channel, is Eastern Island, which is uninhabited and no longer has any facilities. Forming a rough, incomplete circle around the two main islands and creating Midway Lagoon is Spit Island, a narrow reef

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Yes, it is loud. Albatrosses make a helluva lot of noise. 99% of the adults are gone now and the chicks are everywhere and starting to die off by the 100s, then 1000s per day.

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Of the 1.5 million Laysan albatrosses that inhabit Midway during the winter breeding season, nearly all are found to have plastic in their digestive system.[74] Approximately one-third of the chicks die.[75] These deaths are attributed to the albatrosses confusing brightly colored plastic with marine animals (such as squid and fish) for food

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Stomach contents of dead chick. The black marker was just like one of the big permanent markers many of us have used.

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The Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, encompassing 590,991.50 acres (239,165.77 ha)[5] of land and water in the surrounding area, is administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)

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Pics of the island and a few memorials.







Graves of three unknown Japanese soldiers that died during the attack.



Interesting story about Marine Lt. George Cannon, the first Marine awarded the Medal of Honor in WWII, and a “bombproof” building that wasn’t.
This is the building still standing today. I’ve been in there a few times.





I’ve got 100s of photos from here and need to put them together in an album for all to see.

I’ll swim out and give y’all an update.

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We just had two ships pass by yesterday that didn’t report that they would be close by.

One of them had both a Japanese flag and what the FWS manager thought was a US flag. He said he could see men lined up looking towards the island and thought they were paying their respects.

When I heard FWS talking about it on our radios, I jokingly said pirates were coming for us.

Once I went with my dad and older cousin to see a double feature, Prom Night and The Exterminator.

I was 8 and yes, I had nightmares that night and had to go to the parents' room to be able to sleep that night.

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like he is stuck in some uncharted island in the middle of the Pacific

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Yeah, like me

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Back in my college days (and a few times since), I met quite a few ladies because of the dance floor.

I only do hex bar deadlifts since I read this article about Ryan Flaherty. He's a trainer that has trained top athletes in all sports. He specifically talks about the "force number" and how he improves it by having his athletes do a lot of hex bar deadlifts during his sessions.

Men's Journal

"Flaherty is drawing up quant-based workout programs for tennis superstar Serena Williams, Bayern Munich midfielder Mario Götze (who scored the deciding goal for Germany in the 2014 World Cup final), USA Rugby speedster Carlin Isles, and countless Major League Baseball players and USA Track & Field Olympic athletes."

"Jared Goff of the University of California and North Dakota State’s standout Carson Wentz"

"Over several years of refining his approach to helping star athletes build power, explosiveness, and speed, he has developed a proprietary formula that yields a single crucial metric that informs everything he does.

He calls it the “Force Number.”"

"Flaherty found that the Force Number calculated from a one-rep max for the hex-bar deadlift yielded the exact same correlation as the ratio derived from force-plate treadmill numbers. He also discovered that the bigger your hex-bar deadlift, the bigger your Force Number"

"In 2014, Flaherty used the hex-bar deadlift to skyrocket Manziel’s combine numbers. Manziel arrived at Flaherty’s camp with a maximum hex lift of 530 pounds, a vertical leap of 27.5 inches, and a 5.09-second 40-yard dash. Weighing 201 pounds, his Force Number was 2.39. After two months of Flaherty’s deadlift program, Manziel had packed on eight pounds of muscle—and could lift 680 pounds for a Force Number of 3.2. Official combine stats recorded Manziel with a 31.5-inch vertical leap and a 4.68-second 40-yard dash, an improvement of about 0.4 second."

I grew up in Houston and my family had a weekend season package where we went to about 15 or so games a year for about 7-8 years.

I was at the game for his 5th no hitter.

One time we sat about five rows behind and just off to the side of the catcher and it was amazing. I could hear the glove pop and then hear his grunt.

His curve ball was unbelievable.

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Here's an alternate view on GH:

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Side effects in 40-50% of people (joint pain, swelling, carpal tunnel)

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I'm out. I deal with this too much as it is. Nothing like waking up a few hours earlier than the alarm clock with one or both hands screaming at you.

Sitting on the toilet with the trash can in front of you, eh?