Happy holidays!

Hello! It's been a long time. In fact, I just discovered that I had two posts that I had started and never finished, but I deleted them because they were stories about local politics here, which are hilarious, but I suspect most of you are burned out on anything election-related.

Not a lot to report from the last few months. Becky and Scott came to visit. They were nice enough to invite me when they spent time in Maui, then they let me show them around Oahu for a few days. I had a great time, they were wonderful houseguests, and I was pleased by how interested in the local culture and language they were (though the language thing might be related to the fact that we were learning many new words via the bottle caps of Kona Brewing Company beer). I'll add some pictures once they forward them to me. In the meantime, there's Becky enjoying some corn on the cob at my local farmer's market.

For the first time in years, I'm actually planning to spend Christmas day with my family, so I'm very excited for that. I get to meet my nephew, see my niece that I haven't seen in over a year, and hopefully play some cards and eat some Christmas cookies. I've been feeling surprisingly in the Christmas spirit despite the delightful 78 degree weather. I've been shopping, listening to Christmas music, and am even sending a few Christmas cards. The best part of Christmas in Hawaii is that they rarely play that god awful, cloying, insufferable "Christmas Shoes" song that mainland radio stations love. Good lord, I hate that song with every fiber of my being. Also, surprisingly, we don't hear the "Mele Kalikimaka" song that often either. Who knew? With that, merry Christmas. Hope to post more in the new year.

Sea Life Park

So a few weeks ago I went to Sea Life Park, which is like a smaller, local version of Sea World. I didn't have terribly high expectations, but I had never been, I drive by it a lot, and let's face it: I'm rapidly running out of options on my 'things that I haven't done yet on Oahu' list.

It was...fine. I can totally see taking a small child with a limited attention span there, but I kind of felt like I had seen everything I needed to see in about 25 minutes. That includes the 10 minutes I watched the dolphins and the 9 minutes I watched the monk seals. It was also wicked hot that day.

Several honu in this pool. You're allowed to feed them (if you buy preapproved honu food).

One of the monk seals. I will say this - as you can see (I hope) from the picture, you're practically on the beach, this place is so close to the water. It was breezy and pretty.

He's not dead, I swear; it just looks that way. He had just moved prior to the picture.

Actually, one of the things I liked most was that there were tons of hang gliders out over the cliffs that day. I spent an inordinate time watching them. Maybe that will be the next thing to check off from my 'things to do on Oahu' list.

Australia

Many of you know I just returned from vacation where I spent 2.5 weeks in Australia. I had a lovely time, Lano was a fantastic host, and I returned relaxed and content. Details to follow.

That being said, I am a self-admitted horrible picture-taker. I have some, but mostly just of the city as I explored a lot during the day, but very few of our evenings (you know, that night at the bar, the next night at the bar, that time we went to the bar...). So if you wanted pictures with me actually in them and smiling, you're likely out of luck. If you want pictures of the pretty landscaping of the public gardens, you're in luck.

To hold you over, here's a picture of a wild koala bear I found in a tree. He's so freaking cute.

Nice views, no humpbacks

Note: I started this post on 2/18/08. Yeah, I'm not behind or anything.

So, much like my fruitless honu searches for my first several months of residence here, January and February are supposedly prime whale watching months here. Of course, I saw none. In an effort to see them, I climbed the path along Makapu'u Point (the easternmost point on the island) which is reportedly a prime whale watching destination. It was a nice walk, hot as hell for the first half because you're on the other side of the cliff from the ocean and the breeze is completely blocked, but after that, it was lovely. Did I see a single freaking whale? Knowing my luck, I think we all know the answer to that.

Incidentally, the following weekend I was at a picnic and a friend was telling me that, the previous day, he had done the Makapu'u trail as well. Then, he proceeds to tell me about all of the whales that they saw. Seriously? So I asked if he was there early in the morning (reportedly the best time to see). Answer: "No, around 3:00." Exactly the time I was there the week before. Boo.

I don't know these people, but I was a bit afraid to climb out on that cliff, so I just took a picture of them enjoying the view. Also? They're from Ohio. Look at that.

Democracy in Action

I started a post a few weeks ago, but my pictures from Makapu'u Point kept failing to upload. I got frustrated and quit. I'll try that later, but for now I'll just tell you a bit about the caucuses.

It's no secret that I'm all about civic duty and voting and the political process, but I was particularly intrigued this year because of the close race in the democratic candidate race as well as the concept of a caucus, as I had only voted in primary states in the past. (Incidentally, I believe this is now the fifth state in which I've been registered to vote). From what I had read about Iowa caucuses, I had developed this fantasy about people debating in community center rooms of folding chairs and fluorescent lights with a quick deterioration to profanity and violence. They don't have that in the boring primaries where you touch the computer screen and go on your merry way. I couldn't have been more excited.

In order to vote in the democratic caucus, you had to be a member of the Hawaii Democratic Party, something of which I'm not a big fan, but I decided to suck and up and do so. Of course, I was immediately frustrated as, when you go on the website to do so, it was full of inflammatory statements and hyperbole, pretty much saying 'let's expose McCain for the fraud that he is' and other crap. Seriously? Dude, I may not agree with his politics, but relax with the personal and petty attacks.

Anyway, I suspected a significant turnout because of A) the aforementioned close race B) the general enthusiasm for politics and this race that had already been seen in other states C) the fact that Barack Obama was born and raised here, and still has family and many supporters in the islands and D) nothing happens here and it's something to do. Apparently, though, the organizers were not smart enough to predict the attendance.

I waited in line with hundreds of other people. While I had already been registered to vote since I arrived here and registered (painfully) as a democrat for a week or so, there was no prerequisite to do so, so many people had to do one or both of those things upon arrival. Were there separate lines for those actions? Of course not. After about two hours in line, I got to the school cafeteria to find absolute mass chaos. I waited in another line to be told my district number (which, if I would have know that's what the line was for, I could have skipped, as I already knew that). Then I was directed to a picnic table with that designated number. She asked for my name and address (but not for identification). I told her both, she saw that I wasn't on the list, she asked if I was registered, I confirmed that I was, then she decided she would just use the honor system and give me the post-it note that I was to present at yet another table to actually cast a ballot. Nice. Finally, I get there to find a dozen or so people crowded around a young man throwing small pieces of paper at him. Apparently they had now run out of official ballots and we were asked to write our candidate's name on a provided scrap of legal paper and give it to the kid who was stuffing them in a manila folder. Seriously. That was it. No confirmation of who I was, that I had registered, that I was indeed a resident of that district, and, most importantly, that I was only giving him one ballot. Seriously, it was so crowded and chaotic that I feel strongly that I could have sat down and written someone's name on 50 different sheets of paper and gotten every one of them submitted as valid votes.

While I'm more inclined to categorize this as 'quaint Hawaii' rather than corrupt, I'm old school in that I feel pretty strongly that in 2008 we should have a system that carefully allows only registered voters whose ID's are checked to cast one official ballot for their candidate of choice. Not so much. My cynical self was about ten times more cynical at the conclusion of the evening. Point is? My enthusiasm for the caucus quickly deteriorated to the feeling that there were 2.5 hours of my life that I was never getting back. And there wasn't even a single fistfight as I had hoped. Can't wait to see what the November elections are like here. I'm picturing a show of hands, and then we all go out for mai tais.

The holidays and January in paradise

It's been a while. Here are just a few highlights of the past few months:

The holidays were relatively uneventful. I took call, but didn't have to work much. On Thanksgiving, I took advantage of what I suspected would be a slow day and went to the Bishop Museum. It was quiet and nice, I took my time through the exhibits, and finished with a planetarium show in which my geeky guide taught us how to navigate from here to Tahiti using only the stars. Maybe I'll try it someday.

Christmas... um, I was sick for a full two weeks. The thing is, I'm not sure it was anything but a cold, but I felt pretty awful and did my best to overdose on cough medication. A month later, and I'm still coughing. So, I'm pretty sure I spent my Christmas sleeping and watching old episodes of the Office. Then I spent the following week sleeping and watching episodes of The Wire (thanks, Walls!).

New Year's Eve, incidentally, had been described to me since my first month here. Apparently it's local tradition to shoot fireworks on New Year's Eve, and everyone and their mother participates. I was cautioned with one of those 'you have to see it to believe it' things that I quickly dismissed. Then NYE came around. Good lord. Constant fireworks from 1600 until about 0200. There was a haze of smoke over the entire island, and it's so annoying that you want to pull your hair out. I have no plans whatsoever to be in Hawaii for New Years next year. I'm serious. I hated every second of it.

After I recovered, I took advantage of January in Hawaii, which, while the coldest month here, still gave me a great snorkeling day, and a fun day trip up to the North Shore on a high surf advisory day. It was actually a lovely day, and cool as hell. Turtle Beach as seen in pictures in my previous post? Yeah, the water came up all the way to the road. There was no Turtle Beach. There were, however, seemingly thousands of people who had driven up (on the one main road) to see the waves, so it was slow moving for a while, but even then it was nice to creep along with the windows down and the water right there on the side of the road. I saw one guy out there kitesurfing and two geniuses swimming, but other than that, there wasn't a soul in the ocean that day.

A note on getting used to living here: I think I don't even notice the mountains anymore as I'm driving along, I totally take for granted that I can walk out of my front door and be sitting on a bench at the waterfront reading a book in fewer than ten minutes, and I joined everyone in complaining last week about how cold it was (the low was 65 degrees). It reminds me of a story a colleague from work told me once. She and her son (he's around 6 or 7) were walking along the beach with a friend visiting from the mainland, who stated, 'wow, this really is paradise.' The kid snaps his head around in all directions and shouts, 'where?' Yeah, we're spoiled.

For those of you who were excited by and took part in free taco day in October as advertised on this blog, I'm happy to share with you that Tuesday, February 12, is Free Pancake Day at IHOP. You're welcome.

Here are some pictures taken in January (in no particular order).

Had a random Friday off and spent the entire day reading and snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.

The view from the top of Hanauma Bay before you hike down.

The view of the sunset as I drive home...

My stop at Sunset Beach on the North Shore during one of the many winter surf advisories.

Yeah, you'd think there isn't a lot for the lifeguards to do on these days, but they get the pleasure of yelling at the people who actually think they can get near the water and not be sucked in.