Almost CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Yes, less than a week away now! Can you believe how fast this year has gone by? It has just been totally amazing.

So of interest of what I found out last week on Thursday of all days, was that we had a potential government shutdown....again. I guess it was actually the 4th potential shutdown this year, but I had only heard of the other one that was in March. I personally think that the media was told not to report the dramatics of the shutdown so not to bring up the deficiencies of the US government Congress and their decision making (or lack of), but I could totally be wrong. Maybe just in the backwater fringes of the US (aka Hawaii), we don't get the news passed down to us. Anyways, the House and the Senate passed something and the US government is at least funded to the end of the year. I personally wouldn't have minded the extra time off if they didn't pass the budget extension.

Friday, I hung out with a different group of friends. We ended up going to Kakaaka Winter Wonderland and when I got there also realized that it was Eat the Streets. I guess since next week is Christmas, they decided to move Eat the Streets up one week and also put it in promo with the first weekend of the Winter Wonderland. So the Winter Wonderland, was let's just say, interesting. The synthetic ice was interesting to say the least. From the picture in the link above, you would think the rink would be a a decent size, well that was a wrong assumption for sure. It was actually pretty small. It was overall a good time with friends. I tried tacos at Eat the Streets while I was waiting for my friends. I had the taco sampler from Xtreme Tacos and then a curry taco from another truck. I put lime on the taco, but I don't think it was very good with they lime.

Saturday, I actually spent most of the day outside and with one of my roommates out at White plains beach over on Ewa side of the island. He has his mom in town and another friend and had a cook out with his friends from work. Basically it was a great time outside and away from work. 

Sunday, I went to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. The movie was actually really good for being the fourth movie in the series, and Tom Cruise being like 50+. The action was good as well and rottentomatoes.com gave it really good reviews (95%). I would highly recommend going to see the movie. I was also trying to see Sherlock Holmes (and today, I found out that my friends saw it on Friday....), so I'll see if I get around to seeing that later. 

Only two more days till I get to go back to Colorado :)

Time is flying

It's almost the end of the year! I will fill this in more tomorrow. I'll be coming back to Colorado just after Christmas. If you want to do anything, let me know.

Friday, I went out to Soul de Cuba which has amazing food. We were originally planning on going to JJ Dolan, but it was way too crowded and we weren't going to easily get a table for 9 there. There is a picture of what I had below. It was absolutely amazing. I was planning on having dessert, but I was too full, so I will have to try the dessert some other time. I will be going back there sometime.

Saturday, I had the finals for the Fall Ultimate league that I was in. It was pretty much 8 hours of playing ultimate. We won our first game, but we ended up losing our second game to the team that would end up winning it all. I was actually glad that we didn't win the second game because I don't know if my legs would have lasted another game. The final game though was pretty amazing, since they were tied until just before halftime (game to 15). After that though, my friend's team started pulling ahead with back to back scores. It was a good game. I ended up being the "official" score keeper. 

The league was having a end of season party at O'Toole's. I ended up going, and I was only planning on staying for a few years, but I ended up staying 4 hours. I did though end up talking my friend Rick into coming out. He brought some coworkers. It was also the pre-evening to his birthday, so after I left, I guess he ended up having a very fun time afterwards having a bit too many drinks. Sunday, I was going to hang out with friends, but I had to work the recording since the boss was sick and I needed to be there. It ended up working since they canceled on surfing and just had lunch instead. Lunch was a Todai's which is an all you can eat seafood and sushi buffet. If you go on your birthday, it is free for you (with proof of your birthday and at least 3 paying friends). It was a good time and all and good social time. 

I went into to study a for a few hours for my test that was today (tuesday). I also go a massage which was absolutely amazing, although I am pretty tight in a lot of the muscle groups. I think I'm going to have to get more more frequent or until things are as tense. 

One other thing, it is the rainy season here and it has been raining pretty well this last week. Also, when it rains, all traffic seems to stop and functionality of driving, well sensible driving that is. 

Let Christmas time begin!

This year just continues to fly by. Man, it's already the first full week of December, can you believe it? I sure can't. Last week was the last week I have Ultimate frisbee on Friday. Thank goodness because driving all the way across town to play at the same time as rush hour(s) traffic is just a pain. I did though talk to three people on the phone while I was in traffic. It was pretty good catching up with people. Interesting thing though when I was driving to Ultimate was that I saw 6 ambulances on the freeway. Yes, six. It was strange to see two at first, then I kept seeing them. For some reason there were a lot of people that needed ambulances Friday night. Hopefully people weren't getting too crazy pre-gaming the First Friday celebration.

We ended up winning our second game of Ultimate after losing the first. It was also interesting to find out that we were play to 13 (instead of 11) during the second game, when we were at 11. Thanks for the horrible communication of the captain. Thank goodness I only have one more week of having him as my captain, well at least for this league. He is a great player, just a horrible captain and team leader. I didn't get home until after 2300 that night as well. Needless to say, I was pretty tired by the time I got to bed. The best thing was though, the next morning, I wasn't sore at all. I must have stretched enough after playing!

Saturday, as I stated earlier, I wasn't sore at all in the morning. I ended up going into work for a few hours to study after taking an easy morning. I was going to go to Electric beach with some friends but when I got out of work, I found that they had decided to reschedule because of adverse conditions. I decided not to go back into work to study, but to instead go downtown to watch the Honolulu light parade and the lighting of the tree down in town. I didn't know that a parade could last 2 hours. Yes, 2 hours, and it wasn't even on par with the Macy's parade or other large parades. Granted it was still good for being in Hawaii. The lights for the tree were LEDs as well. I couldn't figure out where they got the tree though, they had a sound system set up, but a very bad setting. You had to be right next to the tree inorder to hear anything that they were saying. As you can see from the pictures, I was across the street from the tree. You'll also note that there is a very annoying bright light on the right side, yes, they did some bad planning on keeping that light on when the lit the tree. If only they had people thinking ahead would things be better out here for events.

I think the best "float" that I saw was the garbage disposal guys. Yes, if you look closely enough, those are Angry Birds. It was the only float that I took a picture of, so I guess it must have stuck out pretty well for me. I think the best band was the fire department's bag pipe band. All the high school bands didn't do it for me, and besides, bag pipes are amazing. 

I think though the most exciting thing that I learned this previous week that one of my good friends had accepted Christ I guess between the time I left and when I talked to him this past week. I believe it was a while ago, but I just found out this past week. It was pretty exciting and all. I'm glad that he found Christ for himself and that he came to that conclusion himself instead of myself or others just forcing religion on him. I guess we just have to remember that we Christians influence the lives of our friends around us by the things we say, the actions we do, and the things that our friends pick up that we have no idea that they are watching/looking for. I just pray that I can be a good witness to my friends at work, which sadly I have to say, most dont' care anything for religion, and especially God. I just pray that I can reach out to my friend Rick, who I have a heavy heart for right now. 

Thanksgiving

I have a lot to be thankful for and I take a lot of things for granted. For one, freedom to do what I want to do along with religious freedom. Two things that I know I take for granted. There are plenty of other things that I should be thankful for as well. Friends, family, and a job that I can go to every day. But most of all, I need to remember to be more thankful to God and what Jesus did on the Cross.

I can write about what else happened this past week, but it would just be minimal compared to what we should be thankful for every day of the year, not just one day of the year.

In a cloud

The last week was, let's just say a bit tiring. Work was pretty good, took a test, preparing for another test that is next week. That's just my life right now, test after test after test. This Friday, instead of going out to dinner with friends, I instead went to eat at my Aunt and Uncle's. I ended up having three helpings of food plus two desserts. I was pretty full. 

I also went to a memorial service for my grandmother's sister. She past away at the beginning of the month. The memorial service was very nice. It was graveside and short and a Christian ceremony which was uplifting. I hope I get to see Aunty May again someday. After the funeral, we went to have lunch which was pretty good. We only had I believe 4 courses instead of 7 which was good, since we had left overs as it was. I didn't go back to work after the funeral which was pretty nice actually.

Saturday was my very much lazy day. I didn't do much. I gave a double of platelets at the blood bank and then just went down to the mall to walk around and such. I saw some guys doing some parkour at the park across from the mall and watched them for a while. Other than that, I spend the day being very lazy which was actually very enjoyable. 

Sunday I went and hiked Mt. Ka'ala which is the highest peak on O'ahu. I actually didn't make it to the top on Sunday because we were climbing in a cloud with it raining on us and we got to a point where we didn't know where the trail went, so we decided for safety reasons, not to continue until it was better conditions to try to hike it again. The views and the scenery were amazing though. It was so green and nice on the hike, well at least at the bottom part of the hike. As you got higher, it started getting more wet since we were climbing into a cloud. I don't know much else to say about it. I'm not really wanting to write a lot this week.....sorry. 

Enjoy Thanksgiving this Thursday. Remember to be thankful for everything that has been given to you. 

 

3 Day weekend! Thank you Veterans!

Three Day weekend!!!!! Whoops, probably most of you didn't know that it was a three day weekend. All of those holidays I never knew existed at all because of Mines. And now working for the government, yes, I get to know more holidays and I get them off :D. So Veteran's Day, did you remember to thank a Veteran on Veteran's Day? The freedom we have is paid by their sacrifice, we need to remember that as a nation again and thank our heroes that are in the military. Anyways, APEC was also this week. Crazy business and all. The Asia-Pacific Economic Conference brought diplomats from all over the Asia Pacific rim. Traffic was a nightmare, still is a bit since President Obama is still on the island until tomorrow. I avoided going into town at all costs and where ever they were planning on going on the island to avoid the massive traffic backups and all. 

Thursday night, I went out with friends to Sweet Home Cafe, a very delicious hot pot place with an amazing owner that was very friendly. This little whole in the wall place was great and it was great hanging out with friends. Best thing was, being in town, there was absolutely no traffic at all, which was a blessing in itself. 

Friday, I had the day off! I wanted to go on a hike, but my friend had to work, which sucked for both of us. So instead of the one hike that I wanted to do, I did two others instead. I climbed Koko Head again, and I did it pretty fast and without stopping so much this time. I am slowly getting back into shape! Yes! The second hike I did was over in Lanikai and the slang term for the hike is Pillbox. It is a really easy hike. I don't see how the website said it would take 1 hr and 30 minutes to do the hike. It did give a fantastic view of the Windward side of the island. It turned out to be a very fantastic day, slightly windy, but gorgeous none the less. I also though about it, I should have tried kite surfing, I guess I will save that for another time. 

Friday night, I went to Boston's Pizza with my roommate. The slice of pizza is below. Yes, a slice of their pizza is a quarter of the entire pizza. It's pretty large and it is very good pizza. I had the spinach, garlic and artichoke pizza. I also helped my roommate study for the GRE by helping her with the flash cards. Doing this, I realized that I have forgotten a lot of vocab words and that the English Language has some very weird words to describe things. I think we went through about 200 vocab words that night. 

With President Obama being here for the APEC conference, Air Force One was also here. I didn't feel bad this time taking a picture since a lot of other military people were taking pictures as well over here. I have pictures of the other dignitary planes, but I dont' know if I will post them. Russia definitely had a lot of planes, and it was just interesting to see how other countries fly their presidents. Pretty much, it looks like they have a plane that is chartered for the President, except for Japan, they seem to have their own planes for the President and other important people. But China flew in an Air China plane, Philippines, in a Philippines plane, etc. Anyways, I believe most of the representatives and their parties left on Sunday or today. 

I also also remembered that my cousin got married this weekend in the Philippines, so I wish him a happy, healthy marriage. It would have been awesome if I was able to go to the wedding, but the timing wasn't good for me to go. I did however enjoy my three day weekend. I spent most of Sunday at the beach and part of Saturday. Overall, it was a very restful and relaxing weekend. 

Dub Step

Sometimes I think it is hard to remember what I did the last week, just because it seems like everything is running together all the time. Besides the fact that this year has just flown by like none other, I do have to say it has been a great year so far.

Friday I went out to Formaggio's in Kailua with some friends. It was a nice restaurant and I got the savory lamb. It was absolutely amazing. The wine special that I got was actually pretty good as well. A lighter red wine that didn't have a strong after taste kicker. The wine made it all the way from Spain as well. Even better was that our waiter didn't even card me or my friend, but he carded my other two friends that got something to drink. It was pretty amusing. Saturday, I had Ultimate again. I am sad to say that I got another blister. :( It is only the second one though and the first one at that was from the first week. That I think is pretty good actually. I also brought beers for the Black and Tans  (our frisbee team's name is Black and Tan) and I only got carded once when buying the beer. (I bought the beer from two different stores). After Ultimate, my friend Rick invited myself and a few others to his place in Kaneohe. His place is actually pretty amazing. Great view of the bay over there and right next to the freeway entrance and the marine base. The only down side to living over there is the drive, but other than that, it was a nice place. I had a good time over there, we didn't do much though, just hung out and talked, and ate food.

Sunday, after church, I went into work to study for my test that was today (Monday). I unlike most of coworkers, only stayed 3 hours. Some of them stayed 8+ hours yesterday and the same amount on Saturday. Insane I think actually. Other than that, I found that this week is just going to be horrible with traffic because of APEC coming to Hawaii. Yay for insane people rioting, protesting, and overall not contributing to society in any useful way. The Asian Pacific Economic Conference should be interesting except for the fact that they will be making the horrible traffic even worse. Oh well, a good reason to stay out of Town and Waikiki this weekend.

Also, Rick also got dub step stuck in my head all day Sunday when I was studying. I guess it wasn't the worst thing that could have been stuck in my head. I just am trying to catch up on sleep now since I didn't get a lot this past weekend.

Fun in the sun.

Last week I "finished" another section of classes. Only a few more now, then a round of tests (all day tests that is) and then it should be home free.....all theoretically of course. My instructor told us today that we are in the homestretch now, which is quite comforting actually. I know I'm weird.

Last week was Eat the Streets again, I had some good food. The theme was "Latin", which I do have to say, Hawaiian style food and Latin, don't really go all that well together. I did have some interesting food though. I only took pictures of two things I got though. I had a burrito-pizza with their "mild" green chili. I wouldn't really say that their green chili was "mild", it had a pretty good kick to it. 

The second thing I got was actually quite amazing and I was very surprised by it. I got a Hawaiian Enchilada with Kalua pork inside. Surprising, it was very healthy and not very heavy on anything. Then again, I got it from a food truck that was about healthy eating. I think that was the best deal that I got ($6) for that. I also tried blue crab and lobster stew, lobster ravioli with pesto sauce, goat tacos, chimney cake, and spicy macaroni and cheese. (I think that is all, I might have forgotten something....) It was good times with friends though and it wasn't as crowded as last month. 

I also had Ultimate games on Saturday. I showed up a bit lat this week since I was down in town with my roommates. We went to go sign our lease for our place and we went out to eat lunch after. The place we went to is JJ Dolan's, and the pizza there was pretty good and all. Overall it was a good time with the roomies. Went and played Ultimate and then afterwards went to a coworkers Halloween party at his house. It was somewhat crazy, but not too crazy. I guess last year the cops were called, this year though the cops weren't called (well at least when I was there).

Sunday, I went to church and then went to the Windward side to a beach on the marine base, Pyramid Rock Beach. It was actually a pretty fun time with friends and then also meeting roommates of my friend Rick. The beach was a good time. The lifeguards had closed the water for a while due to rough surf and bad conditions, so we buried Sean in the sand (he actually wanted to be buried). We then tossed around a frisbee till ocean was opened back up to us. After that, all bets were off since we were boogie boarding, surfing (just Rick), and body surfing. There was also a monk seal on the beach (which you have to stay away from if they are on the beach). The waves were still pretty rough though even after they opened the water back up. We had a good time though. We took a picture (sans Rick) before I left. Mega is on the far right, Sean with the hat, Bryan in the background, and Ashley on the right. I should have stayed longer, but I had already committed to going to a movie with some other friends in town. I saw 50/50 with them. Not bad of a movie actually.

As promised, these are some pictures of food from Shokudo Japanese Restaurant and Bar. The top is the Lobster Dynamite Roll and the bottom is Honey Toast. 

Can you believe October is almost gone?

This year has just flown bye. Where has it gone? So we are almost at the end of October. I guess next week technically is the last week, but who is going to remember Halloween? 

Last week I had the opportunity to shadow my boss. Well, my bosses boss boss. The head of Nuclear power at Pearl. It was a great experience. It was great to know that there is a senior manager at the shipyard that actually cares for the betterment of the shipyard and the long term stability of the shipyard. It's not all about hiring just the locals and all or just not hiring at all. He at least sees the need to continue to hire new "blood" into the shipyard since there is going to be a high retirement turnover coming up in the next few years. Not only did he care about the people aspect, but also the environment and the community basis as well. Overall, I had a great time shadowing him, and I got breakfast and lunch out of the ordeal. Pretty nice bonus I think. 

Friday, I went out with friends again to Shokudo Japanese Restaurant and Bar and then somehow got talked into going to Apartment 3 afterwards (a lounge). The dinner was a great time. There were 13 of us total that went and we just have an overall great time. The food is really good there and decently priced. If you like Japanese food, I would suggest it. Apartment 3 was....interesting. It wasn't that busy actually which was surprising. It was a good atmosphere and good times with friends. There was only 7 of us that went there after dinner. 

Saturday I had a nice relaxing day. I haven't had one of those in a long time either. It was such a blessing. Just being lazy and all. USC beat Notre Dame and then also UH won their homecoming game. I watched a bit of the UCS/ND game, but zero of the UH game. 

Sunday, I had ultimate league and we played savage. It sucked, best thing was that we only had to play 2 games instead of 3 games. We technically only had 5-6 players so we were had to borrow some players. Playing savage though is pretty horrible since you have no substitutes, but I guess you get to play more so that was a plus. I also got to hang out on the sidelines with some friends afterwards when some teams had to play a third game (makeup game from one of the weeks before). 

I will try to remember to put some pictures of the food from Friday, but I don't guarantee anything. 

Relaxing weekend

I have to admit, I'm going to be lazy this week since I don't really want to spend time writing a lot or really thinking in general. Last week was I guess normal. I went and gave blood on Friday, so that meant I got to leave after working 5 hours and get paid for the last 3 hours. Yes, pretty sweet deal I think that I get paid to go give blood. I do have to say that I think fall is slowly coming to Hawaii. The weather is getting a big cooler at night and it is starting to rain more. That's the only way I can tell that fall is here in Hawaii.

I went to dinner with friends at Spicy Ahi and BBQ Friday night. The food was actually pretty good and we had a good time. The bad thing was that we had to wait a while for a table because one of group members had to stay and watch the UH game (they lost by one point). We then went to Aiea bowl afterwards and went bowling. I had one of my worst games and the the second game was pretty good and I didn't have any alcohol like my friends. Some of my friends had some drinks and yeah they got a bit wild, nothing too bad though. It was a late night though, staying up till 1am.

Saturday, I played Ultimate. We lost two games, but won the third game. My friend Donald hurt his knee though and it seems that he might be out for a while, maybe the rest of the league, which would really suck for us and for him. My friend Rick also happened to volunteer me to take a guy and his bike down into town to UH university. Well, he didn't do it on purpose, he is just really nice and all. He felt bad though that he volunteered me. I actually didn't mind too much. I didn't have much to do the rest of the night and all. The guy that I took home, his name was Alex and he is an Urban Planner master's degree candidate at UH. Pretty interesting. He hasn't played much ultimate so we could relate on the fact that the "regulars" tend to leave us "new" people out.

Sunday, went to church, then went to study for a while at work, finally coming back and hanging out with my roommates watching Walking with the Dead. It was pretty much a laid back Sunday. I was waiting to see if my friend Rick was doing something, but he never called and all. I found out today that he went kayaking with his new roommate, but it's alright. Having a laid back Sunday was very nice. Walking with the Dead, interesting TV show that is on AMC. Although, I think the show is on the stupid side and somewhat predictable. The ending of the episode was sad though, the young kid got shot when he was going to try to pet a deer with a full rack on his head. I don't think the producers know how deer do not allow people to get too close to them. Back to the end of the episode, the deer gets show and the bullet hits the kid. Like I said, it was a sad ending.

I have also decided to talk to the people at church about relearning how to run the sound board or to see at least why they don't want me to learn. Basically find the politics behind the situation, despite how much I hate politics. I guess I will have to play some. Also, prayer still for Rick and my other friends to be open to the Gospel.

Columbus Day weekend

I don't know when it happened, but it seems that Columbus day has been renamed "Columbus Discovers Day" or "Discovers Day". I think it is to appease more people or something like that. Anyways, I get to have a three day weekend, so I should be glad about that. I think also this was the first holiday in a while that I was not working and I was actually on island. I do have to say it was great to just relax.

I guess I should start with Friday, I went to out with friends to eat at a french restaurant down on the edge of Chinatown. I guess it also spaced us that it was also First Friday down there in Chinatown. In other words, there was a lot of traffic, a lot of people, and a lot of drinking going on at the bars down there in that area of town.

So the restaurant was called Du Vin. Pretty nice restaurant and good atmosphere. I was even surprised with five people, we didn't even have to wait for a table. They had one all set up for us, which again, I was surprised by. I had the roast pork chops, which I do have to say was cooked quite excellent. We also shared for the table, baked brie and escargot. Yes, most of you probably haven't had escargot, but really it is great. I also ate some mussels for the first time, not bad actually. For dessert I had their goat cheese cheesecake. Sorry about the not so great focused picture, it was bad lighting and all. It was delicious though. I would definitely go back to that restaurant again.

We also went to watch Real Steel (movie about a robot) after dinner. I do have to say that the movie wasn't that bad. Somewhat predictable and not great on the plot, but not a horrible movie overall. After the movie, on my way back home, I got the wonderful, fortunate opportunity to go through a DUI check. The police were definitely writing up people that night. Probably due to the first Friday celebration. The cop I talked to apologized for the inconvenience of the traffic and the slow going. I think that made my night right there. 

Saturday, I played Ultimate in the league. It so happened that only our first game counted this weekend since most people were in Denver for regionals. Most of the people were like "oh man, poor people in Denver right now, it's so cold". I was like "I wish I was there right now!". I heard that I missed the first snow and all. Dang it. The second and third games was just pickup games, I played in one, then left early to have dinner with friends. I had two options.....eating with coworkers in the department or eating with friends that I started work with last year. I decided to eat with the latter. It was great, I had so much food though. We ate at Gyu-Kaku, a Japanese BBQ style restaurant and had lots and lots of food. After we went to go see Ides of March. I didn't like the movie very much. It was a slow movie, more of how politics work and the workings behind politics. I did get a very good picture of what George Clooney thinks about politics and his political stances are though. 

Sunday, I went to church and then decided to go hiking with my friend Rick and his friend Ashley on the Windward side of the island. We went hiking on the Olomana trail which starts over by the Royal Hawaiian Golf course. 

The hike wasn't that bad actually. A combination of rainforest, desert, alpine, and just windy at the top. It was great actually. The picture below is a part that reminded me of Colorado. I don't know why there was random pine trees on the trail, but there was. Also in the picture is Rick and Ashley. 

This was a part way up on the trail. You got to look out on the Windward side of the island and just see how green it is. It's pretty much green all the time on that side of the island. Lucky them getting all that rain all the time. Lots of rain, but I haven't seen many mosquitoes, thank goodness. 

So there are actually three peaks to the "mountain" range. The picture below shows the third peak from first peak (not the actual summit though). 

 So I made it to the top of the first peak and took some pictures. You can see the second peak down on the left (that green bump above the guys heads) and then the third peak out in the distance. It was quite windy up there, also quite nice to cool off. It made for a great air conditioner. Although, if you weren't used to the cold, it would make you too cold. I took some panaroma pictures as well. One with Rick in it is of the coast and the second was the side looking more towards the "mountain range" that separates the Windward side with the rest of the island. You can definitely see the green and how nice it is on that side of the island.

I think my only regret on the hike was that I didn't get to talk to Rick about religious things and of Faith and God. There will be more times though for sure. I just need to find the time to do it. I think he is open to it. I just need to keep on praying that he would be open to the Spirit. After we walked, ran, climbed down the peaks, we rewarded ourselves by going to Lanikai Juice, a great little place over in Kailua. We also got there right before it got crowded. I had the bowl with bananas and granola, Ashley had the one with the bananas and pineapple (the one with the spoon), and Rick had the final one. They were also very delicious and I would definitely go there again if I was on that side of the island. 

Lastly on this very long post, Monday. I just went and relaxed on the beach for most of the day with some friends. We also ran into a predator friend that had washed up on the beach (unfortunately he was dead). Other than that, the day was pretty uneventful. I would say that the baby shark was about 3.5-4 feet long. 

Fun times

Well, I had the great opportunity to hang out with friends this weekend, enjoy the outdoors and just enjoy and be very productive. So work is going alright, I am staying late everyday so that I can study and hopefully keep caught up with things. Electrical systems isn't really my thing at all, but I'm pushing through it. I just need to work on concentrating and using my time more effectively.

Now to the fun things, Friday evening I went to Eat the Streets down in town. It's a once a month event (last friday of the month) where there are a bunch of lunch truck type food available to try and eat. There actually was a great selection of food and I can't wait to go back for more at the end of this month. I think the most interesting thing that I saw was a Malasada burger. Yes, pretty interesting to say the least. It is hard to say what the best thing that I had though. Between the lychee pulled pork, or the ahi poki, ahh so many choices. It was great though since I went with a group of friends and we pretty much shared food, so I got to try more than one thing with the amount spent. Saturday, we decided to hike Koko Head. It was originally was going to be at 0700, but somehow we changed it to being a sunrise hike. Well I did make it up before the sunrise! It was a great hike and good times with friends. So just a few pictures....I know I have been slacking so I thought I would just fill this one with some pictures.

 

So I guess I should say who is who in the pictures, well the guy in the orange is my friend Rick, white shirt, Daniel, yellow shirt, Lauren, and grey shirt, Cate. I would have to say, it is great hanging out with everyone. I would like to say that if you could all pray for them it would be great. I had a good conversation with Rick on our way down from the hike, so it would be great if we could continue talking about God and the Bible if possible. After the hike, we went to breakfast at Koa Pancake House, which was pretty great and filling. We then headed off to the beach at Sandy's. We got pretty beat up though at Sandy's since the waves pretty much break on the shoreline. My friend Rick also hurt his shoulder so if you could pray that his shoulder would heal, that would be nice as well.

It was the second weekend of Ultimate. My hip has been hurting me so that was not very fun running on a hurt hip the entire time. We one game, but the lost the other two, although they were pretty close and we only had a few subs on our team. I also feel like my team captain isn't a very good captain at all. He doesn't lead by good example at all I feel.

Lastly, we had a guest speaker at church this Sunday. He was from Colorado, Fort Collins actually. It was a pretty good talk and a great message in how to share the gospel nice and easy and to see if you are growing in God as well. Five letters for each part. First, Growing in God. How do you know if you are growing in God.

1. Reading the Bible
2. Spending time in Prayer
3. Spending time in Worship
4. Fellowshipping with other believers
5. Witness to others

You need all of them, not just one to grow effectively. Now for the second part of sharing the Gospel. 

1. Heaven, that is a real place. 
2. Everyone has sinned and we need a savior
3. God sent His Son to be that Savior
4. Christ is that savior, the one that died for us and paid the price so that we could be saved
5. Faith in what you believe

His last illustration was that you can't have one or the other separately. We have to have both to have a strong growing relationship with God. You have one, it produces the other, and it will just strengthen the other. It is a working relationship in the end.

1 year with the Government

I have officially worked for the US Government now for 1 year. It has been interesting. I think that thing that sticks out the most is the lack of organization, communication, and the self preservation of the people in charge with no regard with the "new people"

Past two weeks.

So I didn't write a detail of what I did last week, so I guess this will be a double, that is if I can remember things that have happened.

I will just hit the highlights though, from last week, I went kayaking and hiking with my roommates. Call it a bonding experience of the sorts. We kayaked out to Chinaman's Hat on the Windward side of the island. After reaching the island, we hiked up to the top of Chinaman's Hat. It actually wasn't a bad hike at all, except that I was in sandals. I would suggest that you not do it in sandals. Other than that, there was a nice small vertical climb at the top. There is also a geographical marker that is at the top of the climb. I will work on getting some pictures up from our trip to Chinaman's Hat. After the kayak back to the beach we went to a restaurant on the Windward side of the island. I went and got some Donkey Balls (chocolate covered macadamia nuts) which are very delicious. Right before the restaurant though, we saw a tow truck backing up towards the beach and we were all confused. Well, we looked a bit closer and saw that there was a car in the ocean. Yes, you heard me right, a car in the ocean. There was an accident and a car decided to go into the ocean (maybe not by driver's choice). It was ironic though that the car went into the ocean where there were two mirrors for the blind driveway entrance, which I'm assuming was the reason for the mirrors--to prevent an accident from happening.

I have also taken 2 tests in the last two weeks. I believe I did alright, but we will see on the last one still. Cramming was never my style and you have to do that to get everything in your brain in time. I think they are just setting us up for failure and they are fine with doing that.

Last week, not much happened really of total importance. I went out with friends on Friday night at The Counter, a great gourmet hamburger place. I would highly recommend it if you come out here or if you find yourself in a state that it is also in. Their sweet potatoes fries are amazing. You can build your own burger, or just order one of their menu items or the special for the month. I also got to try their Red Velvet Cake shake. Yes, you heard me right. It was rather great, and filling at the same time.  Saturday, I went to a housewarming party that my coworkers were putting on. They had just moved into a new house (renting) and we had a good time overall. They had gotten a keg of Blue Moon, which was pretty surprising. Their house was also pretty nice. I was only going to stay an hour though, but 2.5 hours later, I found myself finally leaving.

Sunday I played in my first three games of the Fall Ultimate League. I would say, my two friends that I talked into playing with me and myself are the "newest" league members. I definitely was treated as I was a total n00b and didn't know how to play Ultimate. Granted I haven't played super competitive for some time now, but I still know how to play rather well. I just need to brush up on all of the rules that have changed since the last time I read them. Needless to say, I had a great time. We won one game, and lost the other two. We didn't lose that bad though. I attributed the last game loss to the fact that the "veterans" just started throwing it to the same people all the time, therefore the other team always knew which people to cover and which people not to cover. Classic game playing. I do have to say though, that playing roughly 4 hours of Ultimate will give you a good sign to say if you are in shape or not. I didn't do too bad, which I'm actually really surprised by. I am a bit sore though today.....I also was playing in brand new cleats, so I'm still working on breaking those in. I'm looking forward to playing 3 games a weekend, hopefully not in such hot weather though, and getting to know my friends better that I got to sign up with me as well. I also have mostly decided to play in a tournament Veteran's Day weekend (for those who don't know when that is, it is 11-11-11).

One year

So it's been one year since I moved to Hawaii. Here is a list of some observations that I have seen since.

1. If you are going into town in the morning leave before 0545 or after 0800, otherwise you will be in traffic for a while. When you are leaving work for the day, leave before 1500 or after 1900. 
2. From the above statement, traffic sucks
3. People don't know how to drive here
1. Can't merge correctly (why does all the lanes have to slow down?)
2. When there is a hill, yes let's all just slow down for the fun of it
3. When it rains, oh we don't know how to handle this "wet" weather, let's just go 10 miles an hour slower
4. Always carry cash on you, some smaller places only take cash or local checks, yes checks
5. I can actually use the checks that I have!
6. Shipping for free from Amazon, get out of here.
7. Shipping costs more than the actual item, wow didn't see that one coming
8. Biggest sports craze is UH Women's Volleyball and UH Football. We have no professional sports to root on. 
9. Tourists everywhere that make driving down in Waikiki a pain. What does the flashing hand mean again? 
10. Construction, add on a few years to a small project and you might be on through the planning stages. 
11. Finishing a road, naw, let's just leave it coned off so that we can still say that we are providing people jobs. How hard is it to pour 24" of concrete and asphalt, obviously it takes longer than a year to do that
12. Rail system? forget that, we like our traffic instead
13. Internet? what is that? Oh being connected with the rest of the world, I guess that would be a good thing. 
14. Hawaii Five-0 is does wonders for more publication for the State than what I have seen from other methods
15. "Keep the Country, Country" Yes, let's just keep the state back in the "dark ages" 
16. Unions control everything here
17. We love the money the military brings into the state, we hate all the people that the military brings here to the state
18. "Affordable housing" starts at high $300s
19. Homeless people everywhere, it's a roving city of homeless people. I know this is bad to say, but they are an eyesore in town and everywhere. 
20. All the speed limits could be raised on average 10 mph on the island
21. You can even visit Disney out here now, they have an amazing new hotel on the westside of the island
22. Everyone seems to have a 1) a Sams club membership; 2) a Costco club membership; and/or 3) can shop at the NEX
23. There are amazing hikes here, just don't go hiking by yourself
24. The rainy season is amazing, it cools everything down and makes the entire island green
25. Perpetual summer, if you love warm weather, this is tropical paradise

51 weeks

Can you believe it? I have already been living in Hawaii for 51 weeks. Wow, time does fly by. The perpetual summer though is somewhat of a down side for me, since I like having variable weather. My roommates are still amazing and we have a lot of fun together and we get a long really well. My neighbor is still amazing, although she hasn't brought over any goodies in a while. That will probably change soon. I feel like something is going to be brought over in the next few weeks.

So this last week, I finished shift work (again) last thursday (yay!) and even better, my boss gave me friday off. I was suppose to work on Sunday, but they called me off, so guess what, Three day weekend for me! Yes, that was amazing and I got to enjoy the outdoors. So it was a very relaxing weekend. I do have to admit that I haven't had a weekend in such a long time, it was difficult to come up with things to do. Now that I will should be getting weekends off on a regular basis, it will be much easier to plan things for the weekend. Saturday was pretty packed though, I ran errands in the morning, went to the beach midday to early afternoon, and then went down to Waikiki to watch part of the Red Carpet and World Premier event of Hawaii Five-0. Did you know that Hawaii Five-0 is playing in about 200 countries? I sure didn't until this weekend. I decided not to stay for the premier even though I had great seats (I know.....) The reason being was that I didn't see the end of last season, well pretty much an episode past the sixth one so I would have been totally lost. I instead went to have dinner with some friends at 9pm and then to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Well if evolution was looking for their missing links they could find it in Hollywood. :) The screen from the opposite side of Waikiki beach. It was such a beautiful day with great waves on the south shore.

I had to get a sweet panoramic shot of the people gathering with the stage in front. The red carpet was off to the right. 

As the sun started to go down, the beach became more and more crowded. I didn't realize that a lot of people flew into Honolulu for the World Premier.

While I was waiting for the stars to make it to the red carpet, I caught a sweet picture of the sunset. 

The Stars started to arrive. It was hard to see them since there was so many people standing in the way and them crowding all over. My personal opinion of the entire event was that they did a piss poor job organizing it. They had cameras correct, they had a screen correct, and they had a projector correct, but did they project the stars on the red carpet on the screen so more people could see them, NO. It was a disaster. 

The screen wasn't broken, they started projecting the "SUNSET on the BEACH" title on the the screen while the stars were still arriving. 

Before the stars took the stage, Governor Abercrombie and the Mayor gave some speeches and then a couple proclamations. If I remember right, they both proclaimed that September 19 and 20 were Hawaii Five-0 days. The proclamation for the city was somewhat disappointing since there was only one "Whereas" in the proclamation. Whoever wrote it was very subpar on the usage of the word "Whereas" and "Therefore".

Finally, on my walk to the screen, I ran across some strikers with the Hyatt Union. They are not happy with their pay and what not and were marching in front of the Hyatt Regency on Waikiki beach. Hopefully things work out between the Union and Hyatt before the huge Asian Economic Summit happens in a few months (which President Obama is rumored to be attending).