Marianas: Capt Fokai @ Saipan’s Grotto

Magical place!

The Saipan Grotto!

Miss Korea Visits Guam

Thank you for stopping by the beautiful island of Guam Miss Korea, Sara Kim!

Friends, Family & Manta Rays…again

Taking time out to celebrate life..Island style with things important.

Enson Inoue is doing some pretty cool things with his missions up north and stoked to support his efforts.

Earth & Water

Vibraci’onososDeBueno!

Recently had theopportunity to share in teh good vibes with the FokaiSoCalProject extended familia in Mexico.

In just 24hours…you can get a tattoo. tour a Golf Course, Chill with Pedro , DrinkRattleSnakeTequila,Get rid of your family’s bad karma, hold a cougars paw and a Shaman’s eagle feathers if you happen to cross paths with these amazing human beings.

A Man measures you the way you meaasure him..A positive attitude and good intentions can take you further in life than you might imagine.

Thanks sincere Luka and Roach..FreestyleTattooStudio..all day!
much respect and more to come with our kin and their kindness South of the Border.

Por Vida!

MuchRespect:MasterLloydIrvin

Via, www.crankeffect.com, MasterMarketer, MasterMartialArtist, Master Human Being. We feel honored, we are priveledged. Thanks you sir for all the support

GhettoFabrications&FokaiOffRoad

Congratulations Duane Taitano of GhettoFabrications and 671Motorsports

DeJaVu from April 13th, 2008

GoodVibrations:FokaiPaintball

FokaiPaintball gives back in gathering toys for Guam Memorial Hospital Pediatrics. It is amnazing how, in the hustle or boredom of everyday life, we can forget those less fortunate. Thank God for those who remember. more than proud. actually humble to stand behind such a collectivity of GoodIntention. Give and Ye Shall receive. FokaiPaintballRise.

GoodVibrations:Ed-Stock

Rocking for a reason: Ed-Stock draws hundreds touched by local musician

Sometimes in life you experience moments that make you want to be a better person.

Like watching 700 people pay $10 each to help someone who once helped them.

Ed-Stock, held on Sept. 7, raised $7,000 for one of Guam’s musicians who was weighed down with medical bills.

A stroke of bad luck

Edgar Flores may be best known for his work with the band D.U.B., but many people remember the little things he’s done for them.

One Saturday night in August, Flores was jamming out with D.U.B. when he started to feel unusual.

“My body wasn’t acting the way it normally did. I noticed the left side of my body was getting weak,” Flores says. “At the end of our second set, after the second hour into the night I just went limp. My whole body just went down.”

D.U.B. frontman Kevin Iwashita says the band has been there for Flores through a number of medical problems, but they weren’t prepared for this.

“We had no idea what was going on,” Iwashita says. “You see Edgar’s had bouts with his health since almost the beginning. He contracted a virus called Guillian-Barre Syndrome that basically attacked his nervous system right around the time we formed D.U.B. He also threw his back out and was out of it for a while. Then earlier this year he started getting vertigo. That night we all thought it was just his vertigo acting up and then he started saying his left side was getting numb and his speech started to slur. He asked if he should go get checked and we told him not to take any chances.”

Flores went to the emergency room and learned he’d had a stroke. The man so used to picking guitar riffs and harmonizing vocals couldn’t walk and was having trouble speaking.

When Flores’ good friend Dee Cruz heard about what happened she decided to put together a fundraiser.

Ed-Stock is born

Cruz put together events in the past including Shiro’s Head: L.A. or Bust.

But this time she knew things would be a bit bigger because of all the people Flores had helped in one way or another over the years.

“He doesn’t see the negative parts of people. He sees the positive side of them,” Cruz says. “If there’s anything he can do to help them, he’s the kind of person to do it.”

While initially Flores declined her offer of help, Cruz insisted on going forward. As she began planning she found there were a number of people there to help.

“I had my first meeting with my staff. On this I had 10 people working for me. I had my first meeting with my staff at Ralphy’s. I put it on my facebook and 25 people came to the meeting,” Cruz says. “I had band members coming down saying, ‘We’re going to play for you, when do you need us.’ Everybody starting signing up. I got floods of emails, phone calls and facebook messages. It was the name of the band and ‘Hey, we’re there. If you need us we’re there.”

Cruz secured the bands, the venue and the volunteers but she was stuck when it came to choosing a name.

“I needed come up with something really big that has all these bands. At that time we were at 12 bands. Lollapolooza came up, Lilith Fair,” Cruz says. “Then I thought, ‘Edgar Stock, like Woodstock.’ I bounced it off my cousin Lisa the next morning and she’s like, ‘Just leave it as Ed.’”

In total 18 acts rocked the two Ed-Stock stages for more than seven hours of entertainment.

Pay it forward

Every band that took the stage had a story, a kind word or a dedication for Flores.

Hundreds of people packed into the bar and spilled out onto the patio of Ralphy’s– sweaty, elbow-to-elbow, but still smiling. Each took the opportunity to give back to a man that had helped them in some small way in the past.

For Flores, it was incredible to see so many people who cared about his well-being.

“I had no idea that many people would come out,” Flores says, smiling at the recollection weeks after the event. “I really felt loved that night. It was an amazing night. It was the greatest night of my life. That’s the one thing I can say. It was the best night of my life and I want to thank everyone for it.”

Still rocking

Flores is now going to physical therapy and slowly recuperating.

“I’d say my left side of my body is about 70 percent back to normal. My leg is about 60 percent. I’m able to walk and that’s what I’m happy about. It’s just weird because I can’t wiggle my toes. I’m trying. I’m looking at my toes and I’m like ‘Wiggle man! Wiggle,’” he says, laughing at the defiant appendage.

He’s kept his laughter and easy kindness throughout the entire ordeal. He’s even able to surmise why it all happened to him.

“For a while I was mad at God, ‘Why are you doing this to me? I’m a nice guy. I’m not hurting anybody,’” Flores says. “I guess for me to break down and bring everyone together the way it happened, maybe that’s why.”

Cruz says there are still donations coming in to a P.O. Box set up specifically for Flores. She also says the t-shirts sold at Ed-Stock were such a hit they’re working to print more to sell online.

Meanwhile back at the gigs, even Saturday nights with D.U.B., Flores says he doesn’t plan on ever walking away from music. He also hopes to help other aspiring musicians achieve their dreams as well because that’s just the kind of guy he is.

“Thanks to everyone who came out. I hope we can get together the musicians once a year at least and do something, not necessarily for me but to get together and celebrate our music as a people, as a group of talented artists,” Flores says. “Hopefully Ed-Stock will be the beginning of something greater.”

- Stephanie Godlewski Pika staff smgodlewski@guampdn.com

Originally published October 1, 2009

• 

Photos courtesy of Heather R. Colson/m-eyeworldphotography@live.com Ed—Stock attendees enjoyed food, drinks, live entertainment and good company.

Photo by Jacqueline Hernandez/Pika

Edgar Flores

Stephanie Godlewski/Pika/smgodlewski@guampdn.com

Many of Guam’s local bands came together to perform at Ed—Stock.

Stephanie Godlewski/Pika/smgodlewski@guampdn.com

Ed—Stock attendees enjoyed food, drinks, live entertainment and good company.

Stephanie Godlewski/Pika/smgodlewski@guampdn.com

Many of Guam’s local bands came together to perform at Ed—Stock.

Photos courtesy of Heather R. Colson/m-eyeworldpho

Many of Guam’s local bands came together to perform at Ed—Stock.

Photos courtesy of Heather R. Colson/m-eyeworldpho

Ed—Stock drew a diverse crowd.

Photos courtesy of Heather R. Colson/m-eyeworldpho

Many Ed—Stock attendees also bought T-shirts made for the event.

Photos courtesy of Heather R. Colson/m-eyeworldpho

Many attendees of Ed—Stock also bought T-shirts made for the event.

Photo courtesy of Heather R. Colson/m-eyeworldphot

Ed—Stock attendees enjoyed food, drinks, live entertainment and good company.

GodIsRealGoodVibrations:PleaseRead

Ariz. woman finds taxi driver is a kidney match

Donor cabbie says giving the organ is a ‘whole new kind of lift’

	Rita Van Loenen, of Gilbert, Ariz., left, sits with Thomas Chappell, of Phoenix, at her kidney dialysis treatment appointment, in Tempe, Ariz. Chappell, a local taxi driver who had been driving Van Loenen to her dialysis appointments, shocked her a month ago by offering to donate his kidney to her.  View related photos
Ross D. Franklin / AP

 

Video: Wonderful World

updated 2:19 p.m. ET Aug. 24, 2009

PHOENIX – Rita Van Loenen had no idea that a trip in Thomas Chappell’s taxi cab could end up being the ride that saves her life.

“There are better odds of getting struck by lightning,” Van Loenen said. “A random taxi driver offering to give me his kidney and all these pieces match. There has to be something behind this. How can this be?”

Chappell, who has been driving Van Loenen to dialysis appointments, shocked the Gilbert, Ariz., woman a month ago by offering to donate his kidney. But even more shocking to her was that doctors found they had the same blood type, that they were compatible.

 ”He calls me all excited. If we were a closer match, we would’ve been siblings. I was ready to fall off the floor,” Van Loenen said.

The Phoenix taxi driver said he was a man of faith and that a higher power wanted him to step in.

“By then, me and the good Lord already had a talk. He said ‘Tom, you go give her one. It will work,” Chappell said.

Diagnosed with kidney disease
Last year, Van Loenen, an instructor in special-education methods, began feeling ill and experiencing water retention in her legs. She went to see a doctor and was diagnosed with kidney disease. With kidney failure setting in, friends and family were tested but there was no match.

In February, she received her cousin’s kidney but that transplant failed. One day, Van Loenen, 63, found herself telling Chappell, 56, about how her son was now going to get tested. Chappell decided to add his name to the list.

“I said ‘Rita, your son’s a whole lot younger than me. He’s got a lot more years. I’m gonna go down and go through the process and see if it will work.’ I don’t think she really believed I was going to.”

The gesture evoked tears of gratitude from Loenen but she was still skeptical.

“A little bit in my heart I didn’t believe it. He said ‘give me the number’ and I have transplant number at Mayo (Clinic in Scottsdale) memorized.”

The two first met more than three months ago. It wasn’t an auspicious beginning.

Chappell was half an hour late picking Van Loenen up for a dialysis appointment.

“When I got there she was not happy,” Chappell said. “And I can understand it now. She’s sick and all these things she goes through … The next day, it just so happens I got her again.”

‘A whole new kind of lift’
Since then he has — and he insists it is by happenstance — been her taxi driver three to four times a month. For the last month, Chappell has started undergoing the arduous process of donor screening, undergoing numerous tests and exams. But none of it has brought second thoughts.

“This has put a whole new kind of lift in my boots. I never knew what it felt like to give somebody life and that’s what I’m doing,” Chappell said.

Van Loenen said Chappell never asked for any compensation. She still can’t quite believe his level of commitment.

“I’ve never known anybody so enthusiastic to get a body part removed,” Van Loenen said.

After the transplant, which hasn’t been scheduled yet, Chappell will need to tread carefully. He will have to rest between four and six weeks but his work has promised to cover his lost wages.

 

 

Click for related content

 

Mo. woman donates kidney to her neighbor

“I’ve had drivers do some pretty incredibly amazing things for no charge. But this is just over the top,” said Jim Hickey, national sales and marketing director for the company that owns VIP Taxi. “We’re just so proud of him.”

Van Loenen said that, thanks to Chappell, she can actually make plans for the future.

“Whenever I tell my friends or my family, they just find it so incredible,” Van Loenen said. “They do call him an angel. My friend says there’s angels everywhere. That’s the right way to capture it.”

GoodDay:June14th,2009

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