Summer fun

Highlights from my week..... I didn't have to work this weekend! I went to see Super 8, which was much better than I thought it would be. Just relaxed this weekend. Got a hold of my two friends that are having weddings in the next couple of months, one this coming weekend. Went on a scavenger hunt for a gift for my friend, I thought it would be easy, but you know it was more difficult than I thought it would have been. The swap meet is an amazing place though. I also went to a liquidation sale, which I thought was going to be pretty cool, but it ended up being such a dud. The admittance ticket of the Blaisdell Center though is quite plain and it seems like you are just paying for the fancy ticket.

So at the swapmeet, this was the most interesting thing I saw. Yes, that is some teenage guys wearing Pokemon backpacks. I couldn't miss the opportunity of capturing that on "film" 

I was also thinking about going to the state fair this weekend, since it was the last weekend that it was open. This was as close as I got to it though since my friends said it was lame. It looked pretty lame everytime I drove past it as well.

My scavenger hunt ended with the to pictures below. The first (the cross) was rather difficult to find and only one booth at the swap meet sold crosses that were of any decency. The cross is made up of rosewood and made here locally in the islands. My friend that this is for asked for a cross or something from hawaii. I found that somewhat weird, but cool at the same time since he isn't really the religious type at all. The second is self explanatory, it's just to help welcome people into their home or something like that to be put in their kitchen or above a door. Their choice really.

As a side note, learning how to program a website is harder than I thought. It's probably because I don't really like programming that much.

Design and Father's Day

I got to meet more extended family this past weekend since one of my "Uncles" had a surprise party for his mom with extended family. She turned 92 and she looks in tip top health and shape. I just hope that I can be that healthy when I get to 92.

The other thing I've been working on this week is redesigning my church's website. I have learned that web design can be get pretty tricky if you don't plan accordingly and second of all if you aren't proficient at making web sites. Well it will be a fun learning experience overall. It has been taking up most of my free time and I keep changing things. Once I get a general picture, then I will work on building the pages.

Also, on Sunday it was Father's Day. Thanks for all the dads out there, but the true Father needs to be thanked even more.

Venture on a surface ship

This week....mmm...yes, the USS Carl Vinson came into port for a few days on its way back to San Diego. I made it a point to try to get aboard and get a tour of some sorts. I accomplished my goal pretty well actually. Carriers are much larger than that of  submarine and guess what, it has a whole lot more space as well. I didn't take that many pictures :(, so next one I might be able to get some more pictures. 

CVN 70s F-18 on the flight deck. The USS Carl Vinson was also taking Tigers back to San Diego, so they had to make some more room for all the extra passengers.

I got the electrician that was giving me a tour to take a picture of me on the flight deck with the control tower in the background.

Carriers always need some planes that have expanded radar capability. It was also cool to learn that pretty much all the aircraft can fold their wings. I didn't know that the F-18s could do that, but it is possible to help save room. 

Onto other things, I had some extended family come in this weekend from the Bay Area in California. It was great seeing them and hanging out with them on Sunday. I also got to meet some more extended family that is on the island. Second cousins and more extended.....family trees can get so complicated if you think too much on them. I'm going to see if I can meet them at the USS Arizona memorial when they go before they leave later this week. 

Work related, we finally got cleared to go back into testing Saturday night! So exciting, that means things will start to pick up again. I had the chance to go back to classes, but I would rather stay on the project and learn/see things. It's alright in the end, I'm still "behind" in classes according to our training coordinator (which in my opinion does a horrible job), so one more class isn't going to kill me too much. Besides, I won't be alone in this one, there will be five others that will be behind as well. 

Hawaii also celebrated King Kamehameha day this past Friday and Saturday. The birth of the king that united the islands. There was a big lei ceremony on Friday at the statue downtown. Most of the state employees had the day off as well. So the traffic was actually pretty nice for once. On Saturday, I as going to go watch the parade, but started watching it on TV. Following the parade, there were activities that were down at Kapiolani park, which I was going try to go to before work. Well plans changed because the traffic was just absolutely horrible. Also, the parade lasted for like 3 hours. A ridiculously long, longer than the ever present Golden parades during the summer. 

lots of lightning

So last week, I got a two day weekend which was very nice since I hadn't had a real "weekend" in about a month. I got a second weekend this past weekend which was pretty sweet. I went and saw X-Men: First Class with some friends. I would have to say that it wasn't the best that it could have been...actually quite poor on the wowness of the movie. Other than work though, I haven't been doing very much. I did end up meeting Keano on Saturday because the first two attempts were a bust (Thursday, Keano slept in, Friday it was storming like mad). Saturday, well interesting thing. We wanted to eat at Eggs N Things, but it was crowded (I guess it's pretty popular) so we ended up going to the Crepe House down in Waikiki. The other interesting thing that happened this weekend down in Waikiki was the Honolulu Pride Parade. Interesting indeed.

Thunderstorms. They are one things that I really enjoy for one thing. The thing though is, I don't necessarily like being woken up at 0500 by the thunder. In Colorado, we normally don't get thunderstorms till the evening or afternoon which is really nice. Here though in Hawaii, it can be all over the place. The last weekend, we had them in the morning, in the afternoon, and also in the evening. I believe on Friday, the thunder that I know of started at 0500 and lasted till about 1100. Yeah, six hours of thunder and rain. The thunder actually shook the walls and the windows of my place, it was pretty sweet actually when you think about it. Since, I'm at work I cannot actually post any pictures or a movie, so when I get back to my place and remember, I will post a movie and hopefully some pictures.

I might expand on this later (as in tomorrow) if I get around to it....