Sleep Tight, Get Your Head Right

Things are rolling along smoothly here at BB & B's Midway Atoll Office. I think Ive found, as they say, my rhythm. It takes a while sometimes, you know? Every place has a different rhythm, and sometimes it takes longer to adjust than others. I am very much tuned to the few places Ive lived the past few years......Arcata, San Francisco, Westmorland and El Centro. Drop me off in those towns and I will know exactly what to do. But I'm not even in touch with Ventura, CA, anymore, which is where I grew up. Besides a few fundamentals, high school Steve and my current incarnation differ on several fundamental.....I could never live there again (no offense Ventura friends). The point is I think I am starting to master Midway now, and I'm pretty happy about it. It's a good place to be at a good place to be, you know what Im sayin'? Maybe not.....but I'm ok with that.



Apart from the albatross and tropicbirds, I have been designated as The Chosen One in dealing with the critically endangered Laysan Duck (pictured above), which is, by my count, the second rarest species of waterfowl in the world that is still known to exist (first is much feared, man-eating Campbell Island Teal). Being The Chosen One, that means that I am currently doing all the duck work here on the atoll, and have to spring into action in case one of them gets into trouble. Yes, I am the current Duckstar....until next week anyways. Last weekend I had to "redecorate" this one's nest, as it was accidentally uncovered in the ongoing war against nonnative species. So I camouflaged the area and built an albatross-proof fortification around the nest (the gooneys tend to blunder into things) and hopefully she is good to go.



This is the closest thing we have to a church here. There is a chapel in the big semi-abandoned NAF hanger, but it is obviously haunted so no one goes.