Bad blogger. No soup for you, one year!

OK. So I obviously made it back to to land of easy internet access, but then I got lazy. Apparently, I spent enough time in Hawaii to catch a case of the "paradise paralysis" that afflicts most people who live there. I keep meaning to post something, but then it would be, "Hey, I can always do it later." A week and a half later -- pathetic. I can't say it's the worst problem to have, though, at least not for us poor souls afflicted with it. People who have to deal with us, well...

Anyway, I'm back in the land of normal working and not being sick and toddlers underfoot and whatnot. I have to say that between being ill and the monsoon rains, this wasn't my favorite trip to Hawaii, but it beats having a day job, I guess.

I missed mentioning Valentine's Day too. I remembered it at home, which I guess is the important part. I used to see it as a cheesy Hallmark day, but Franny and I took it back for ourselves the day nine years ago when she said "Yes." It's still cheesy, but now it's our own special brand of cheesy. The Mizz got a valentine from his cousin with a couple stickers in it. He thought that was great, and keeps mentioning that "I got a card from Baby J." (I'm curious how long his cousin, who is less than a year younger, will continue to be "Baby J.") I feel kind of bad that a card didn't go the other way too, but the Mizz is lucky "he" remembered to get his mother a card.

One other Mizz note. He's brilliant. I was gone just long enough to notice a marked improvement in his speech. He's hardly completely clear or anything, but it's noticeably better than when I left. Plus, he now understands the concept of zero. If he has one thing, and you take it away, he knows that he has zero now. In hundreds of years of civilization, the Romans never even figured that one out, although they might have him beat with the roads and aqueducts and empires and such.

Gotta build an ark

Greeting from the Big Island. It's soggy to say the least. It's not a surprise that it rains in Hilo in the winter. It's kind of annoying that it's trying to set some kind of record while we're here. We had another epic downpour today, flash floods and all, despite the predicitons that the storm was moving out to sea and things should be quieting down. They're worse at predicting weather here than in Portland, which is kind of weak as it is. I'm aware of the technological limits, but I figure the paid professionals should be able to do at least as well as the tourists looking out their hotel windows. Just sayin'.

Yesterday, we took a drive up the northeast coast of the island just to see something different. We also saw Rainbow Falls right in Hilo, which was very impressive given all the water on the island right now.

We did get up to see the volcano today, including some dry spells so we didn't have to see the whole thing through rain-streaked windows. Even in the rain, it's still very impressive. There is no vantage point on the ground to see the current lava flow. It's over a ridge and is only visible safely from the air. However, the rain soaks into the older flows and the still-hot tube that was carrying lava last year was an obvious steak of steam down the side of the mountain. The stil-hot older flows are the reason it's not safe to view the current active area. It's all fun and games until somebody breaks through the crust and vaporizes in a molten rock puddle.

Incidentally, I once again had to pay for internet access. I'm sitting in Starbucks right now for $10/24 hours of service. Anywhere else, I'd feel totally ripped off, but there doesn't seem to be free access anywhere on this island, so I take what I can get. Even the hotel wants to charge you for plugging into the wall.

Also, congratulations to the Giants. You can tell the kind of fan I am these days. The game had just started when we got on the plane Sunday, and we forgot about it until dinner last night. We had to ask a waitress who won. Very sad. Very disconnected.

Back in action in aloha land

I gave up writing this week for a while. I felt awful and since nobody wants to hear someone just complaining about being sick, I just decided to keep quiet, since feeling awful was pretty much all I was thinking about. To paraphrase all mothers, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Or the governator, "You whine like a girly-man."

Anyway, I've pretty much gotten over whatever it was, although it made for a long couple weeks. Last night I actually went out wandering around Waikiki for a while, and even enjoyed some Cold Stone Creamery.

Other than feeling crappy, I've had a decent stay here. It's been a bit rainy, as is more or less normal this time of year, but other than that, it's been okay. The hotel I got put up in this time is pretty nice; a lot nicer than the Super 8's and such that I normally travel to. I also did pretty good on the car. My boss reserved a compact car, in the hopes that they would be out and have to upgrade me. However, they had several Toyota Yaris's, which wouldn't remotely hold two people's stuff. So I had to upgrade, and the next step up that was available was a full size, which in this case, means a brand new (244 miles) bright red Dodge Charger. I like this car. The only downside is that this island is maybe 30 miles across and choked with traffic, so I haven't really opened it up much. But it's still fun. I could get used to this car. I like it a lot better than the Chrylser 300 we rented that's basically the same thing with different styling. I'm not sure what exactly is different, but this one handles much better and seems to have more kick. I wish Franny had been here for that. She's been waiting to drive one of these for ages.

Waikiki is a trip. The area is pretty much entirely dedicated to tourists. There is a long strip of mainly high-end shops and really nice hotels. Along the strip, there are a number of regular street performers looking for tips. There're the silver guy, a bronze cowboy guy, two different gold guys (one of which wasn't even trying), a robot, a rastaman with a steel drum, a regular stoned guy with plastic buckets, a seriously tarted-up psychic with prominently displayed cleavage, a couple magicians, some missionaries being ignored, a spray paint artist who was wearing a respirator while everyone around him sucked noxious fumes, a group of capoeira performers, and someone calling himself "The Basketball Guy". I don't really know what he did. He was dressed in orange and black and there were several basketballs on the ground, but he just pretty much wandered around the sidewalk in a circle dancing like a mental patient. There are some back streets of not-quite-as-high-end shops and other hotels. Lots of restaurants and souvenier shops and convenience stores and nightclubs and, for some reason, indoor gun ranges. There's a public golf course right behind Waikiki that claims to be the busiest course in the world. I can't verify that claim, but it's had people on it every time I've looked out my window. Waikiki is is oppresively touristy as far as I'm concerned. When I come over here, it's interesting to wander through the mayhem once, and then I'm done. Yesterday was it. It was mildly amusing, but later in the evening, when the prostitutes came out and inquired into my need for "company," I figured I had seen enough and it was time to get out of here. So today I leave.

The best part about it is that Franny is on her way here right now. I'm meeting her at the airport and we're flying to Hilo for a few days of vacation. Without the Mizz. I miss him a ton, but my folks are sitting for a few days so Franny and I can get some much-needed alone time. It's been almost three years and I'm guessing after the second one, it's going to be even tougher.

I know that complaining about the weather is not usually interesting, but Hilo's going to be a bit soggy, even by Hawaii standards. I expected showers here and there, given that we're here during the wet season, but the last week's been extreme for the state. Everybody got excited Tuesday because there was snow on three different volcanos: Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on the Big Island, which is normal, and Haleakala on Maui, which is not. Yesterday, they had epic rains on much of the Big Island. Hilo had 11 inches of rain and there were several major roads closed due to flooding, although it looks like not the ones near our hotel. Another place on the island had over 17 inches of rain yesterday. It's even rained some in the Kona area, which doesn't happen all that much. The entire Hawaiian island chain is under a flash flood watch through today. How's that for timing your vacation? It's supposed to lighten up tomorrow to a more normal level, but I'm not really holding my breath. Oh, well. We'll have a rental car. If there's a sunny spot on the island, we'll find it. And even if there's not, we'll still sleep in tomorrow morning, which will be nice regardless.

Hello from O'ahu this time

I've moved on to Honolulu. Actually we got here last night. Yesterday was way too long and I felt awful. I never checked, but I'm pretty sure I had a fever by the time I went to sleep. Sooooo, no update yesterday.

Today was better. I think I'm on the downhill side of this cold finally. I had to work today, but I don't feel near as beat up as I did last night.

Tomorrow's a day off and I intend to sleep as much as I need to feel better. It's not exactly a good use of paradise, but I'm going to be here a while and it won't be much fun like this.

On a good note, the weather looks like it should be pretty good for the rest of the week. I can handle that.

Aloha

Since I don't have the internet, you get a delayed action blog post. Actually, I do sort of have the internet. The hotel finally installed wireless internet, but in an evil twist, you have to pay separately for it, far too much, in my opinion. So delayed it is.

1/21/08: I made it to Hawaii today. The flight from Portland was fine, and a good day to leave too. It was somewhere near freezing when I left and the temperature was set to drop throughout the day, including freakishly low wind chills.

I unintentionally spent the day as a guide. My coworker hadn't flown in quite some time, so I got to shepherd him through the vagaries of self-check kiosks and post-9/11 security. Then I spent the flight to Honolulu with a woman who claimed it was her first real flight, whatever that means. At the least, it means that she didn't understand much about airplanes or what the beeps meant, what the flight attendants were talking about, or how to work her seatbelt. She was quite friendly though, and although she didn't let me sleep or read, she was pleasant enough to talk to and the conversation helped pass the time. (For the record, she was older than my folks. Don't get any ideas.) Then on the flight to Kona, I sat next to a guy who had never been to Hawaii before and was fascinated by Diamond Head, the various islands, the sparsity of those islands, and the volcanoes. He sounded extremely Japanese, but he said he was from Las Vegas. He is a sushi chef and is moving to Kona for three months to help a friend of his open a restaurant.

Plus, we saw whales from the plane. I always heard they were big, but they looked like ants to me.

James and I went to a second floor open-air bar called Lulu's for dinner. Rick and I had gone there last year, and we had added a dollar to the collection of signed bills stapled to the walls and ceilings. I distinctly remember standing on the bar (overlooking the street) to reach the ceiling to staple it up (they didn't mind), but we couldn't find it anywhere. Oh, well.

1/22/08: Despite being in Hawaii, today was mainly boring, what with all the working and such. Saw some lava. The weather was fine, I guess, but we were inside for most of it.

I did learn more about the big ocean water pipe I found last year. I found someone who could give me a more complete description of what they are doing there. It turns out they have several big pipes bringing up seawater for different uses. They do grow the Maine lobsters, but they also grow several other things, including shellfish, algae, and seahorses, 'cuz hey, we need more seahorses. The factory bottling expensive Japanese health water is still there and actually has its own pipe, and is currently the only use of the water that is really making money. I also found out about another use of the water. The water from 3000 feet down comes up about 40 degrees. They also have a pipe that brings water from about 70 feet down which runs around 75 degrees. Somehow they harness the temperature differential to make energy. I have no idea how much of that energy is used to pump water 3000 feet up the side of an underwater volcano. I assume there must be some extra, or they wouldn't bother doing it, but nobody I worked with knew much about it.

Other than that, it was pretty much just working. I did see a gecko and some mongooses (mongeese?), but no whales today.

1/23/08: We finished work in Kona this morning. Kona has the traffic problems of a much larger place. The problem is that, for some reason, they seem to lack any traffic planning. Everything is build as cul-de-sacs or neighborhoods built off the one main road through the area. This means that everyone in the area has to use that one road to get anywhere else. The state is widening a portion of it, but the never ending construction is actually causing even more trouble for the time being. I'm not sure how the locals deal with it.

We drove across the island to Hilo this afternoon and into the Hilo rain. It isn't always raining in Hilo (We had great weather last year.) but it's more likely here than in Kona. We got settled in and ate dinner at a place that seemed to be filled only with locals. I like that.

1/24/08: I'm on the internet for real this time. I had to break down and pay so I could get plane tickets. So while, I'm here, I'll check in with the world.

Today was a long day. Better weather though. Sunny most of the day. Among other things, I visited the volcano today, although I was working and never actually saw it. I did find that the eruption has changed significantly since last year. At that time, the lava was flowing entirely through a tube and exiting underwater, making lots of steam, but not being directly visible. However, in the meantime, there was an earthquake that collapsed the tube and the lava started flowing above ground again, but in a different area. Unfortunately, however, I will only be able to see this lava if I learn how to fly. It is in the middle of previous lava flows, which are much too dangerous to walk on. This is the same unstable new ground that collapsed to cause the earthquake.

Before I headed up that way, the radio stations kept playing civil defense messages, a sort of non-emergency emergency broadcast. It was detailing the lava flows that are potentially endangering a particular neighborhood. It kept saying that only residents are allowed in the neighborhood and that all remaining residents have been informed. However, at the volcano, I found out that the neighborhood was completely surrounded by miles of lava something like 20 years ago. "All remaining residents" turns out to be one apparently very stubborn guy. He used to have to walk to and from his house, but apparently he recently got some sort of ATV that can get over much of the lava.

On a low note, my entire trip so far has been marred by a cold. I kind of thought/hoped that warm moist air might help, but no luck. Too bad.

We're off to Honolulu tomorrow for another long week. Talk to you there.

Yet another whirlwind week

I've been a tad busy this week. It started with a quick overnight trip to Bend to clean up some work left from a couple months ago. And I do mean quick. Not even time to say hi to my aunt. (Hi, Becky.) January isn't really the best time to go to Bend. It's fine to BE in Bend, what with the skiing just outside of town, but GOING to Bend, at least from Portland, can be interesting. All directions go over mountains, which get snow every time it rains in Portland. That's a lot. Getting to Bend wasn't actually too bad, but coming home over the Santiam Pass could have been better. At least the sun was out. I can only imagine the icy mess that was there a couple hours after I passed through.

If anyone catches the timestamp on this post, I'm up way too late again. I tend to get too wired to sleep before I have to leave on a work trip, which of course makes getting up early to get on the road that much worse, so I worry about that, and can't sleep, and the cycle of wired continues.

Anyway, I leave tomorrow for a trip to Hawaii. I know. Nobody has much sympathy for me, but as much as I'd rather be working in Hawaii for an extended trip than in Idaho (sorry Idaho), I'd still rather be with my family than in Hawaii. It's going to be busy, but if you have to travel, you could do worse.

The biggest drawback for the next few days is that we'll be staying in the last two hotels in the country that don't have internet access. I don't know what that's about. I'll have to poke my head back into the internet next weekend to clear out the e-mountain of e-mail that will certainly be waiting for me. Most of it will be useless, but maybe you'll send me something. I imagine it will be something like, "Oh, poor Dave. Stuck in paradise with no connection to the outside world. Shut up. Nobody wants to hear you whine between Mai Tais." Yeah, probably something along those lines.

What's new in Idaho?

Saturday, I moved from Pocatello up the road an hour to Idaho Falls. On the way, I stopped at a rest stop that had a sign for a point of geological interest. Turns out it was Hell's Half Acre. Unlike Eastern Oregon's entire canyon, Hell couldn't afford as much in Eastern Idaho. It was actually an area of fairly recent lava flow (4000 years old) that was only lightly covered in soil and vegetation. It was fun to see lava in the middle of Idaho and an interesting stop on a day when I wasn't in a hurry. It was also fun to know that even here, they use the term pahoehoe. What did white people call ropy lava before they found Hawaii?

Had I known how close I was to Craters of the Moon, I would have gone there instead, but I didn't know it was so close until Sunday, and by then I was working. Maybe next time out here.

When I was working on Sunday in Rexburg, I had some time to kill at lunch so I took a ride around town. It took about 9 minutes total. Anyway, I found that they had a BYU campus, and everyone was on the way to the temple. I've seen Mormons before, nothing special there. It just amused me to realize that the entire campus was going to church at the same time. At every other college I've ever been to, the Sunday exodus usually involved a bunch of people with their shirts inside out stumbling home squinting and holding their heads. Not quite the same thing.

I'm in potato land up here. Further down the Snake River Valley, there are also sugar beets, cattle and corn, but up here, it's pretty much just spuds. The place I was working on Monday was in Dubois. (Doo-boys, not Doo-bwah, what are you, foreign? Seriously, that's how they say it.) Dubois had exactly two places to eat. On one side of the road was the Exxon food mart, but on the other side was the Phillips 66 food mart. 66 was much bigger, but not as good as you'd expect. Potato processing plants are interesting. Most food processors work very seasonally, but potatoes can be stored almost a year, so they can be done anytime. Fresh french fries and hash browns all year round. That might mean more if most everything wasn't either dried or frozen before it left the plants.

Today I was working for the nukes at the Idaho National Lab. During the cold war, that place was making bomb parts, but I don't know what they are doing these days. Mainly cleaning up and closing building it looks like, but I'm sure there's something else that I wasn't invited to. Driving out there, you can see the Three Buttes. They're three huge cinder cones that grew up out of an otherwise flat landscape. It was pretty cloudy today though, so I'm guessing it would have been cooler on the weekend when it was sunny and 70 degrees.

It's supposed to snow tonight. 4-8 inches. It snowed a little this afternoon, but then went back to rain. But it's been getting colder all day and should be down below freezing tonight, so we'll see what happens. I'll still probably be able to get around, but the guy working with me was supposed to get over the mountains into Wyoming tonight, and I'm wondering how far he got or whether he'll make it back tomorrow if he did get there.

It's late. I was tired when I got back to the room this evening and took a nap. For 3 hours. So now I'm awake at the wrong time. But morning will still come, so I should at least try to sleep. We'll see how that works out.

A Couple More Hawaii Pics

I was sitting on a jetty in front of the Hale Koa hotel and this was about the best sunset I got to see. January is just not the time for the best sunset-viewing weather. I did like the sun coming through the clouds though. Franny calls these God rays.

I had a tough time getting myself lined up with Diamond Head. This was the best I came up with. I'm sure everyone is sorry for me that I was there by myself. (Would have been better with company though...)

Promised Pics of Hawaii (1 month late)

Here goes nothing. Can Dave post a picture? How about 5?

Some sort of natural lava arch. I just liked it.

The beginning of many miles of lava that crossed Chain of Craters Road in the last 20 odd years. 10 or 20 miles down the road it also covered an entire town. Not crazy fast like the movies. No, these poor people had to watch their town covered and destroyed in slow motion. Apparently some people have started to rebuild above their old houses, even though it just a thick layer of rock. As one local put it, that's where you build if that happens to be the only pile of rocks that you own. I guess if you had beach front property, you made out like a bandit, what with all the new rocks in your front yard.

This is where the lava was actually entering the ocean on the day we were there. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to walk out to it. Apparently it's quite a fireworks show at night.

I saw a lot of postcards that appeared to have posed pictures kind of like this, but as far I could tell, this was the real thing. I was standing on about 6 or 8 feet of lava that had crossed the road and trapped a sign. I was impressed that I could read this one. Another sign that might have been a speed limit sign had all of the black paint burned (melted/boiled?) off and was just white.

Here I was standing in the crater if Kilauea looking down into the caldera, or maybe vice-versa. Anyway it was steaming all around us and it struck me as odd that I was standing around playing tourist in the crater of an active volcano. Not active like Mt. Hood is technically active. This one is currently dumping molten lava into the ocean. What a strange place for a photo op.

Update from the Islands

I wanted to pass along an update about my trip. I'm a few days behind on this. Oh, well. Don't start this unless you have some time. I went a little Tutu.

Flew to San Francisco, flew to Honolulu, flew to Kona. Aloha Airlines is awesome. They put us on an earlier flight to Kona without even blinking. The Kona airport is a very cool little island airport. Mostly open air with only roofed waiting areas. The only walls were to separate secure areas from heathens. There was a statue of a couple of island women holding leis or whatever. I remember that statue from when we lived in Hawaii, but I can't for the life of me remember whether I was actually there or just saw it on a postcard or something. It was a long time ago.

Kona was pretty cool, although touristy. They also had a ridiculous amount of traffic for a place that didn't appear to have anywhere to go. We tried to go to Southern Most Point after work one day, but we didn't get very far before we just gave up.

One morning eating breakfast at the Lava Cafe, we happened to see a bunch of humback whales playing around, spouting and breaching and such. My first humback whales, and at breakfast no less.

I couldn't believe one of the places I worked. There is a four foot diameter pipe running about 3000 feet deep into the ocean, bringing up exteremely cold seawater. They use it to grow things like lobsters and oysters and such that normally live in much colder areas. Pretty cool idea. That place I could believe, but apparently they have some extra water. So, another company takes that water, desalinates it, puts it in bottles, and ships it to Japan. Apparently the Japanese do not have so much in the way of truth-in-advertising, and they sell this stuff for something like $7 as health water. As one woman put it, in Japan they have a plant that takes water from 1000 feet down, so our water is about three times as pure. I'm in the wrong business.

The place we stayed in Kona reminded me of our house when we lived in Hawaii. Cinderblock walls, louvered windows, and no insulation between rooms. The landscaping was nice though. It claimed to be the only hotel chain in the world owned and operated by a Hawaiian family.

The trip across the Big Island was interesting. Oahu has the H1, H2, and H3 -- full-on interstate highways (yes, on an island). The Big Island has a curvy two-lane road full of potholes. Nice views of the volcanos though.

I liked Hilo. It was not very touristy, more of a regular city full of regular people doing regular things, but with a Hawaiian flavor.

We got to work at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Very cool. On the way up, we drove through the vog -- volcanic fog. It was actually a pretty obnoxious odor, but you don't get to do that every day. After we got done working, we wandered through the park and went to see the lava. We saw where the lava crossed the road and got to climb across it for a while. We could see in the distance where it was flowing into the ocean out of the lava tubes, but we didn't have time to go out to it. Maybe next time.

Flew to Honolulu, early again, and we've been there ever since. Too many tourists for my taste and it costs too much to eat, but still beautiful stuff to see. No good Waikiki sunsets yet -- too cloudy. Work's winding down. Good thing too; it's time to go home. I miss Franny and the Mizz.

Please welcome Dave to the blogosphere

Gotta have a first post I suppose. Aloha from Waikiki. Mahalo for reading.