Rhythm

Things have been fairly slow here in Hawaii, although I have done a few new things recently. One such thing is the tidal pools at Mokapu'u Lighthouse. I had sailed past the pools a few times, but never knew that you could so readily walk to them from the lighthouse path. I went with Tom and Hollie and some of their friends from Tom's school.

The pictures explain them better than I can, so I'll leave you to those, but the sounds that were involved do require some describing. Apparently the ground we were walking on was more of a ledge hanging over the water than a solid surface all the way down to the ocean floor. There were a couple of holes by the base of the hill and it was possible to see the water through them. The most interesting part of the holes was the way that the waves would make them breathe every so often. Besides the saturated air that would occasionally spout from them, the sounds made them an attraction. The sound was what one would imagine a giant ogre sounding like after being woken unpleasantly. It was a deep, angry sounding gasp that would come and go every so often. I guess you'll just have to trust me on this one: it sounded more like an ogre than water.


Later that day Tom and I rode up to the North Shore on our motorized two wheeled vehicles (by putting it that way I don't have to call him out on having a moped). I don't know if it was because I ran that morning right before hiking or if there was something misaligned in my spine, but the ride made me really sore. I was happy to get to Haleiwa where we had some good Thai food and shave ice. The ride back was less painful, but that may have been because we took the H-2 to H-1 to H-3, which was faster. The next day, we headed to the sand bar with Tomollie and their future sister-in-law Melissa (she is engaged to Tom's older brother Nick) and her sister Michelle.


The following weekend I tagged along with Tomollie and their school peeps to see a MUSICAL, Miss Saigon. I was led to believe that it was a play. It's not. It's a musical. It was good, but not at all what I was expecting. It was a sort of drama/comedy (dramedy?) with a good portion set in strip clubs. That's all fine and well until you learn (after the show is over) that the girls dancing in their panties are sophomores and juniors in high school. Call me an old maid, but something about middle and old aged men watching high school girls shake it just doesn't seem proper. I felt a little dirty. That's not to say that I didn't watch, but you get the point.

This weekend, a long one in honor of Discoverer's Day (or Columbus Day, depending on what you prescribe to), I did a lot of sleeping, reading, and spent some time at the sand bar. I ended up going to the sand bar alone since no one seemed really keen on going. It was a bit of a bust. The water was kind of gross and the weather was not ideal. Plus, I ended up getting a little sick to my stomach. I usually bring soy milk to drink, but I decided to go with apple and orange juice this time around. As you might guess, a gallon of fruit juice can make one's stomach a bit sour. Believe it or not, beer is what made my stomach feel better.


Since my trip back from the sand bar (in the pouring rain) I have been doing a whole lot of nothing. Reading, sleeping, swimming, and jamming out to The Polyphonic Spree. Tonight I have class and tomorrow is another Wednesday night TV-on-DVD. We are going with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, in case you were wondering.

Vacation

Where do you go to vacation when you live in Hawaii? The answer, obviously, is the Upper Midwest: Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan.

The past two weeks I had a vacation on par with a summer vacation in grade school. No work, no pressing appointments, and no unwanted obligations. I slept 12 hours a day. I read 3 books. I saw family and multitudes of old friends. And I drove over 1,400 miles in my rental car with good company.

The impetus behind going back to the Midwest was Josh and Anna's wedding (if you scroll back to June 2006, you can see them in Hawaii). Josh is an old teammate/roommate/friend from college and he was always the main driver behind our house parties. Going to the wedding was eerily similar to having a house party on Spooner Street. A lot of the same faces (and most of the old roommates) as well as a lot of drinking. While I stuck with beer and White Russians in college, the wedding reception was a Russian one. That meant a lot of vodka (the following morning I learned that it was actually "too much" vodka).

An old friend from Hawaii, Juliet, was my original date for the wedding, but some last minute stuff came up and Kate was my 'knight in shining armor' (in reference to the rehearsal dinner at Medieval Times... it's a stretch, I know) and agreed to go with me. From what I remember, I had a great time. Plus Kate and I got a bonus road trip out of the deal, with bonus miles driven due to my poor route planning.

The ceremony itself was very nice. In true Josh and Anna style (maybe more so Josh), the atmosphere was very relaxed and jovial. Oh, and they got me a sweet "Madeline & Nine" flag for my boat, so not just Josh walked away a winner. Congrats to Josh and Anna!

After the wedding, I began the hibernation. I spent three days at my parents' house sleeping and reading. I was incredibly and blissfully lazy. Since the weather was cloudy and rainy anyway, I didn't even have to feel guilty about it. Perfect. I skipped a planned trip to Minnesota in favor of sleep. I would generally shudder at the thought of missing out on traveling just to waste the days languishing in my parents' solarium, but in this instance, I really needed the rest. Plus, I really cut down on my carbon footprint, right? I'm probably an Earth warrior now.

Next was the U.P. This year it was only Adam, Justin, and me. Only about half of the participants from high school, but I'm glad we got to make the trip. I got to catch up with Nic in Wausau, as well. He came shopping with us. Not for clothes, but for food. Much more appropriate.

The weather in the U.P. wasn't great, but it could have been much worse. We had some rain and some clear skies, but the most fortunate thing was that the bugs were by and large gone. One year we went up there in September and were forced indoors due to swarms of black flies. Not this time around. We were able to hit all of the wickets for a successful cabin trip: chop wood, cook meat over fire, bonfire on the beach, drink beer, play cards, beach walk, smoke cigars, and sunset photo. Another notable difference from high school was that the conversation focused mainly on insurance, home ownership, and affordable family cars. We are officially old(er), or at least the married guys with kids are.

(Note the wife and kids)

After that I spent three days in Madison hanging out with my sister and college friends. Beau came down on Tuesday and we went to the boathouse. At this point I should mention that I stop in to see my old coaches every time I am in Madison. Up to this time around, I never got any free stuff. That all changes when you walk in the room with a two-time Olympic medalist and world record holder. The T-shirts and hats were flowing like wine. I drank them in.

In case I haven't mentioned it before, I love Madison. It is such a beautiful city. I'm happy that I had a chance to live there and I will probably live there again in the future. This trip really confirmed for me that when all is said and done, friends and family are the most important thing in life. Lately I have been looking into to building a sweet underground cabin in the Rocky mountains, but not being able to connect that with the people I grew up around turns that idea into a pretty postcard more so than a viable option for me. When I mentioned that at the cabin, the guys recommended that I get a sweet underground cabin in Wisconsin that they could help watch for me. Good idea, but not quite yet.

Back to Madison. While there, not only was I able to catch up with old friends, but I was able to see all of my old favorite places and drink all of my old favorite (and comparatively cheap) beers at the Great Dane and Essen Haus.

Lastly, I was able to travel to Milwaukee to see my little sister and meet her boyfriend before heading back down to Illinois. I crashed at Sheng's place last minute (thanks!) and found my way to the airport first thing in the morning.

Once back in Hawaii I set out for an overnighter at the sand bar. The weather at the sand bar was amazing and the fish were out by the thousands. Due to a lack of wind, the water was especially clear. Besides the schools of less exciting fish, we saw a hammerhead and a ray.

After getting some food at home I worked on my car a bit (but it still leaks oil...) and bought a slightly defective 42" Sony HDTV with some weird color patterns on a section of the screen. I really can't complain. I just did the math and it turns out I bought it for 6.8% of the original purchase price. That means that I more-or-less paid what the original owners did in sales tax for the whole TV. Even if it turns out to be a lemon, the risk/reward ratio was too good to pass up. I think this is the first TV I have ever actually owned. I've always just used roommates'. The only real downfall here is that now I can't pretend to be snooty and use the line, "I don't even own a TV," whenever I'm really dredging the bottom of the barrel in bouts of one-upmanship.

Yard Work

Tomorrow, Saturday, we are having a party at the house. I have been in San Antonio all week (I am typing this from the airport... free wireless!), so I wanted to get as much prepared last week as possible. For better or for worse, I was only able to work in the yard.

My roommate Valerie was trimming some vines and I joined her in the yard around 9:00am. Before all was said and done around 1:00pm, it looked like we felled an entire forest. After that I had to prepare for the trip. We'll see how much more house cleaning I get to tonight, but I'm guessing that after 14 hours of flights and layovers, I won't feel like doing much.



One of my pet peeves is low hanging trees. I like being able to walk without ducking, at least when I am outside. The yard is now very walkable.


Green waste pick-up is the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month. We'll see how long it takes to stuff this, piece by piece, into the green waste container - twice per month.

San Antonio was a good time. I was recently promoted at work to a mid-level manager type position. One of the benefits is that I should get to travel more. This was my first trip since the promotion and I was supposed to take another one the first week of September. I think that is the same number of work trips I have taken in the last four years.

The Alamo. Pee Wee Herman, we salute you, but there is no basement.


There was an outdoor airplane museum just off I-410. This is an SR-71 Blackbird. The metal felt like aluminum foil. I still can't figure out of it was a real plane or just a replica. It seemed too light and thin...



And, of course, what is a work trip without experiencing something new with your coworkers? This was my first time getting serenaded by a mariachi band. Muy divertido.

Over the Mountain

This past weekend Paul and I went for a little hike. It was supposed to be a 14 mile, 2 day, round-trip excursion. The plan was to hike to the top of the Koolau ridge from the Honolulu side, to the end of the Stairway to Heaven , camp out, and return the next day via the same route. While that sounds simple enough, it soon turned into my own personal Vietnam.

The planning for this trip was minimal, at best. Paul and I had talked about doing the hike before, but never really all that seriously. I think it was Thursday or Friday that he asked me if I wanted to go and I said I would. Not because I really wanted to, but because it would be a good change of pace and because I would be glad I went once it was all over. The plan was for me to finally get my motorcycle brakes fixed (it only took 5 Saturdays!) and meet Paul at his place afterward. Saturday morning, I grabbed my pack, threw in a tent, sleeping bag, and camelbak bladder and was off.

We started a little later than planned, but were still on the trail at the reasonable hour of 2:00pm. We walked the jeep trail at a good clip and made it to the base of the mountain in an hour and a half. From there we began our climb. It is important to note that this particular trail is rarely used, probably because there is a perfectly good set of stairs on the opposite side of the mountain that brings you to the same destination. The trail from the backside is about 7 miles whereas the Stairway is only about 2. The lack of traffic has it's benefits and drawbacks. On the plus side, you have the whole mountain to yourself and get to enjoy all the raspberries you can find. On the down side, the trail can be hard to find due to the excessive growth.

The growth is what led us astray the first time. About 10 minutes into the initial climb, we started going vertical. At first it was fun. We were doing some easy rock climbing, getting to use our whole bodies to propel us instead of the typical hiking with only our legs. The trail was well worn in this portion because it seems that a lot of people have trouble staying upright (us included). We were sliding on our bellies and grabbing onto whatever we could find; roots, trees, clumps of grass, vines, rocks, etc. The fun was turned down a notch when we realized that we were 45 minutes into the climb, about 1/3 of the way up the mountain, and struggling to find proper holds. I'm a pretty tall guy and it was getting to the point that I was leaping from one foothold to grab the next tree up. I don't want to make that sound more dramatic than it was. The climb wasn't exactly vertical, but it wasn't exactly walkable either. It was very steep and getting steeper and required the participation of all limbs. It was after the first time I had to jump for a hold and was not able to find a safe place to go next that we decided to call off the hike for safety reasons.

As we struggled back down, we were trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. After all, we had a loaf of french bread and an angel food cake that we had to eat. By now it was right around 4:30pm and we were well worn, as well as covered in dirt, scratches, and sweat. As we reached the bottom of the trail I told Paul, "I don't remember that being vertical. There's a switchback trail around here somewh... there it is." Just like that we were back on track and on hour way up the mountain. It took less than 10 minutes on the switchback to reach the same height as the vertical climb.

We had decided to press on. We still had enough daylight to make it to the top and we didn't have a really good excuse to stop. At this point I should mention the poor physical condition I am currently in. I stopped working out regularly about 3 months ago. I have lost 12 pounds of mass in that time and all semblance of strength and stamina. I point that out so that you will believe me when I say that I about burned out my lungs out of my chest on the rest of the upward climb. Dizziness, panting, and an incredible burning sensation in my legs are what I got out of the next two hours. That, coupled with the previous 45 minutes of strenuous vertical climbing equaled finishing off my entire supply of water before we even reached the top of the nearly 3,000ft ridge.

Once we reached the top, with Paul out of water as well, we came to a decision point: do we turn around and return to the car or do we press on and beg someone to pick us up on the other side of the mountain. Because we already failed in this summit once and because it would be shorter to go down the opposite side, we pressed on. No sooner had we decided this, we came to our next obstacle: a dead body. Ok, ok, it turned out that it wasn't a real dead body, but just some contractor/construction plastic in the shape of a body. Looking back, it was probably a pretty funny site. Two guys yelling at a pile of plastic, looking for sticks to poke it with (how else would you know it was dead?), and trying to figure out the next move. In the end, with no poking sticks in sight, I ended up using my foot to tap the mummy shaped trail blockage. The plastic was empty. With that potential administrative burden removed, we pressed on once again.

Paul called our friend Ralia and she agreed to pick us up at the bottom. We tapped into Paul's secret reserve of Lemon Lime Gatorade (32 oz goes fast!) got our second wind, and walked along the wind swept ridge as the sun slowly dimmed behind the clouds.

As we approached what I remembered to be the top of the Stairs, a cloud from the windward side enveloped us. Timing is everything, it turns out, because that caused us to miss the trail. About forty minutes later, as the sun was giving off it's last glow, I realized that we had definitely gone too far. We were now at least one ridge back from where we needed to be. We had already doubled back once without success, but I was positive that we had gone too far... or had we? It was a long time ago that I last climbed this... So much indecision.

Long story short, we decided to set up camp, despite not having any water. Then we realized that we were extremely thirsty and at least 12 hours away from our next drink. We doubled back once more. We explored every trail and learned that we took the wrong trail while enveloped in the cloud. This is a good point to mention that I did bring a lot of safety gear for a situation such as this. I had a headlamp, Leatherman, rope, duct tape, and a lighter ready to come to our aid. I was so concerned about bringing that gear that I even doubled checked that I had packed it as we were locking up Paul's car at the base of the trail. For an unknown reason, I confirmed that I had my safety kit in my pack and then took it out and left it in his trunk. Bold move, I know.

We made our way down in the dark and hurried to meet our friend. Of course, nothing is ever easy, especially when you forget your GPS. We fumbled around in the dark woods for a while talking about how good drinking things would be... water, iced tea, Gatorade, juice, milk, and the like. Being really thirsty makes it hard to concentrate on anything but quenching that thirst. Score one for Maslow. Eventually linked up, made our way back to easily accessible water, and were back on track to self actualization.

The next day we went to the reliable old sand bar. Ralia came out with her very inquisitive 7 year old son. After doing my best to explain how a rudder made the boat turn, how an internal combustion engine turned the motor's propeller and how that in turn made the boat go forward, what a semi-circle was, why my boat didn't have a mast, and answering whether or not he could steer, we zig-zaggedly (the answer as to whether or not he could steer was "yes") made our way to the sand bar.

Today, three days later, my body is still wicked sore. On a positive note, I have decided that it is time to start working out again. I'm really not old enough to hurt this bad 3 days the fact.

Pen Pal

The story of my pen pal...

Twelve years ago I met Kate at some sort of church function in Green Bay. We were both there against our will and she introduced herself to me because she said I was the only person that looked more miserable than her. That was back in the glory days of skateboarding and long hair. We hung out that weekend and became pen pals. We have kept up, on and off, for the past dozen years, meeting up occasionally throughout high school and college. I went to see her a couple of time in New York when I was living on the East Coast.

That brings us to a little over a month ago. Through the magic of Facebook (not that creepy Myspace business), we found out that Kate had some time off and viola! (with an accent in there somewhere) She was on a plane for a much needed vacation in the land of sunshine and slippahs.


We had a lot of fun. We kept the plans simple and flexible and ended up fitting in a lot of sights in her short 5 days here. We had an overnighter at the sand bar, went to Maunawili Falls, went surfing (sort of), hung out on the beach, hiked the Lanikai pill boxes, took a quick drive through Waikiki (the best way to see Waikiki...), and enjoyed lots of conversation over dinners of fish and rice (and a brat in order to pay homage to our Wisconsin roots). Oh, yeah, Kate also went skydiving when I was at work. I'm pretty sure that was one of her highlights.


Other than that, things have been plugging along. I have been doing a lot of what I always do. I go to the sand bar, I have dinners at my house, and I sometimes hike or go to the beach. This past weekend on the boat I asked myself if I should be expanding my horizons a little. I do pretty much the same thing, all the time. The answer I came back with was, yes, it's good to mix it up, but no, there's really no need to change. I just really love doing what I do. Until that changes, what's the point in forcing change. If it's not broken, don't fix it, right?

Cock-a-doodle-doo

Two roosters recently showed up in the yard. They are either best friends or lovers, because they are never more than a few feet apart. Another thing is for certain: they love our back yard as much as I do. Having roosters is nice, in a way. They add another dimension to the back yard. Before we only had trees, flowers, coconuts, papayas, bees, song birds, and lizards. Now we are approaching farm status. I think I will talk to the roommies about getting a horse. What could be nicer than greeting the sun on the beach; shirtless and riding bareback on a sickly horse while the fake hair of my mullet wig blows in the trade winds? Go ahead, try to picture that without being overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. It's not possible.

Bed Frames and Fireworks

All in all, this 4th of July weekend was one of the most relaxing weekends I have had in a while. At the onset, I had some really big plans, but in the end I wound up not really doing anything besides sleeping and enjoying the beach.

At the onset of the weekend, I was going to build a bed frame for my new, gigantic bed. I have been drawing up plans (in 3-D!) for the past week or so and I finally settled on a design I liked. I even went the extra mile and figured out how to do the whole thing Amish style: no hardware, just wood joints held together by gravity and friction (i.e. I was designing a deathtrap, potentially my own tomb). On Thursday I went to pick out the wood. After looking at the different types, I decided on cherry. It was between that and a type of African mahogany called sepelle. The sepelle was a bit too dark and reddish with a narrow and stringy texture, but the cherry had a nice light tone with curvy patterns. It was a bit pricey at $8.50 per board foot, but certainly not the most expensive. It would have been nice to make the frame out of koa, which is native to Hawaii, but at $33 per board foot, I was looking at about $2500 just in wood. Like I was saying before, cherry is nice.

The place I went to did not have the best selection of wood, but in Hawaii you can't really expect to have the pick of the litter when it comes to anything imported. Another thing about Hawaii is that since there are so few places to get anything done, businesses don't have to practice the "customer first" style of operation. Everything here closes at ridiculously early times and nothing is open on the weekend. With that being said, I wanted to be sure to get all of the wood taken care of this past Thursday.

Of course, they didn't have all of the wood I needed. I was going to use meranti for the interior, which is still a hardwood, but much cheaper than cherry. While that was the plan, they were out of the sizes I needed, so that was strike one. Strike two was when all of the 8/4 cherry boards I needed were 10' instead of 8'. That would mean buying an extra $50 in scrap wood. Strike three was the customer service. I got there at 2:30pm and they closed at 4:00pm. I spent a long time trying to find out which wood I wanted to use and picking out all of the right sizes of everything. Once I figured out that they didn't have what I needed (about 3:40), I went in the office to talk to someone in sales. The guys I were talking to earlier in the afternoon were gone and the other guy wasn't about to help me at all. His opening line was, "we close at 4:00 and I'm not staying one minute after." Let's just say it was downhill from there and I didn't end up buying any wood. Not because I wasn't willing to purchase it, mind you, but because he didn't want to go through the trouble of tallying my bill. When we reached that point there were only 10 minutes of work left in the day, so my mistake, I guess.


For part of the weekend I was thinking that I didn't really need a bed frame. It would be time consuming and expensive and after next weekend I will have plans for just about every weekend up to when I go back to the mainland the last week of August. I ended up changing my mind about not needing a bed frame at 3:55 this morning. I awoke to my arm slapping the back of my leg and and me jumping out of bed before I was even awake. Something large and heavy bit me. I'm still not sure what, but the bite mark, as you can see from the photo below, is about 1/2 inch across and it drew blood. After I was bitten I turned on all of the lights, grabbed a flashlight and a bat, and tried to find and kill whatever it was. When I grabbed my sheets and threw them up, something plopped out and scurried under my white shelf before I could get a good look. It could have been a giant spider, but I really can't say for sure. What I do know is that I didn't find it and I'm pretty sure I do need a method of getting my bed off the floor in order to avoid future (tonight?) attacks. The good news is that there was no poison involved. It stung for a little bit, but I went to sleep on my couch in the manroom and didn't feel it when I woke up 5 hours later.


Other than that, it has been a slow weekend. I went to a friend's place for a 4th of July bar-b-que, watched some fireworks from the beach, I cleaned my car and motorcycle, and I have slept a lot. I have been working my way down on the sleep: 14 hours on the first night, then 12, 10, and hopefully 8 tonight. I'm thinking about going to an Everclear and Live concert tonight, but I don't know if I have the energy to fight the crowds. Relaxing on the beach can be so draining.

Sharks!

Things have been busy here in Hawaii. I am still not completely moved into my new place, but I am getting there. This past Wednesday, we had the first TV-on-DVD night in the indoor/outdoor room (henceforth known as: manspace). I set up all of my furniture and my entertainment system in the previously unused space and I must say that it was well suited for some Battlestar Galactica. I would go as far to say it is the most frakkin' awesome room I have ever had.


Despite having a lot to do and not much time to do it, I still appreciate the fact that I live in Hawaii and should never take that for granted. That being said, I took half of the Saturday before last to spend some time at the sand bar with some friends. One of those friends was Jeanne. If you reference back to the Lanai post in February, she was the lady that picked Dan and me up when we were backpacking on Lanai. She was in town this past week for a teacher's conference, so Dan and I hung out with her a couple of nights. After Dan left for the mainland, she stayed in his place.


On Saturday, Jeanne came out to the sand bar with us. Well, it was her idea that we go in the first place. She lived on Oahu about 30 years ago and wanted to see how the bay changed. She said that 30 years ago, it was completely dead. No coral would grow, it was full of garbage and sewage, and the water was polluted and murky. Happily that is no longer the case. People got together and decided that the bay was worth saving and now it is full of life. It's a bit ironic, but I saw more sea life this week than ever before. We saw about a dozen turtles on the way out and back, as well as some things I had never seen at the sand bar in the past: a Portuguese man-o-war and hammerhead sharks.


This past Friday I went out to the sand bar for an overnighter with Tomollie. We were supposed to have more people, but everyone backed out, so it was just me and a married couple. I know what you are thinking, "Hollie must have felt awkward being the only girl." She did ok. It wasn't too awkward. Also, keeping with the sharks theme, Tomollie said that a shark fin with a black tip followed me when I was swimming from the pier to my mooring ball to get my boat. I have my doubts, but they swear by it.


The sand bar on Saturday morning was huge. After some breakfast and brushing of the teeth, we walked around looking at the coral (which usually isn't exposed) and crabs. Following that we played football on the sand. Usually there is not enough sand to actually go long and blow out your arm, but since it was a very low tide, we had about 100m x 800m to play with. Needless to say, we couldn't cover that whole ground, but we definitely tried. It was a lot of fun and, surprisingly, my arm isn't even sore today.

Today involved more moving. I keep thinking that I have "one more trip," but that has been going on for about two weeks. I swear my junk is multiplying behind my back. I have no choice but to get it out this week. Friday is our no-kidding last day. I figure I will spend Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday cleaning. I only have one more trip worth of stuff to move...

Lastly, my bed has arrived. Since I spent my economic relief check on a laptop made in China, I thought it would be a good idea to buy something else that I needed: a California king memory foam mattress. It is something that I have wanted for some time and now that I have a bigger room, I figure it was a good time to pull the trigger on that purchase. Plus, it was on sale, so all of the stars were aligned and I placed my order after only a few minutes of online shopping. The place I bought it from, Bed In a Box, was having a sale, and they have free shipping (unfortunately I found out when I placed my order that free shipping only applies to the lower 48. Shipping to Hawaii is rarely free. In this case it was $260. I suppose it's the price one has to pay when living on the most isolated land mass on earth.) At any rate, I slept on the bed for the first time last night and it was pretty comfortable. Tonight should be even better since the foam has had the recommend amount of time to get to it's intended shape. Something worth mentioning is that my feet still hang off when I sleep on my stomach. The difference between the California king and the full size is that now only my toes hang off instead of halfway to my knees. At least it's forward progress.

Ice Cream Social

The summer is in full swing already. These past two weeks, I have spent a lot of time out and about. A friend of mine I met in China came out to a work retreat here in Hawaii a few days early. The last time I saw her was in DC about 3 years ago. We had a pretty good time, but she was here and gone in a weekend. The one "Hawaii" thing we got to do was the sandbar (guess who's suggestion that was? Mine.).

We also had a few parties downtown and in Waikiki to attend. I drank way too much last weekend, so I am going to aim for not drinking for the rest of the summer. Will I make it? Probably not. I have been learning how to brew beer, so I'm going to need to taste the end product. Tasting the beer you helped brew is one thing, but bar hopping is another. I called all-time DD for the rest of the summer, until Josh's wedding on Labor Day weekend, so hopefully that will prevent a repeat of last weekend.

Today we met up for an ice cream social at my Lanikai place. We were seeing Danny and Dani off on their way to the east coast. It was a good time. Not as many people showed up as I was expecting, so we ended up having over a half-gallon of ice cream for each person. I called it quits after 3 bowls and a root beer float. Probably still too much.

We have coconuts, papayas, and limes in the yard. Delicious coconut milk is only a stones throw away (unless they fall off on their own, they you can just pick them up off the ground).

The yard is really a big highlight for me. Not only is it big enough to throw a baseball, have an $80 inflatable pool, and hold a large bar-b-que, but it also has fun flowers.

I also can't complain about being steps away from Lanikai Beach.

Last, but not least, here is a two-cent tour. The house is a bit messy, but you get the picture. I have a lot of big items to move, but all of the small stuff is boxed up. I just need some ideas on how to get a couch into a Honda.