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). 

Wedding

So some of you might know that I went back to Colorado/Kansas for a wedding this past weekend. The wedding itself was amazing. All the work that went into it and the love that the family had for the married couple was just amazing. I do have to say, I don't think I will be going back to Hugoton, KS anytime soon though. It's a great little town to grow up in, but not much to do for entertainment and activities. There is one stoplight and no Walmart or Target. So, I don't know by today's standards if it counts as a "town". Overall, though the place is very family oriented and has a great community. 

I flew into Denver on Thursday, and then headed down to Kansas with my friend Jeff, the groom. Thank goodness he was keen on driving pretty much the entire way since I was pretty tired. I had worked Tuesday night, went to bed and then was at work Wednesday morning at 0600. It was pretty rough, and the fact that airplane seats are the most comfortable to sleep in. If I ever get the chance to sleep international business or international first class, I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to coach. I helped set up Thursday night and then went Friday night after the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner to finish up the reception place. The place was pretty lame before we finished decorating, but after definitely looks much better after we have finished. 

The wedding was amazing. It was the second Catholic wedding I have gone to this summer. The first though, wasn't a "full" Catholic wedding (as in there was no Mass that went with the ceremony). It was interesting, as an attendant, we did a lot of standing up and walking, more than most "traditional" weddings. I'm not complaining too much, I didn't have to stand the whole time so that was good in itself. Father Coy that led the ceremony was interesting during the rehearsal, in that he just rushed us and was pretty much on the scatter brain side. He was also interesting since he is of Vietnamese heritage, but also speaks "English" and Spanish. Spanish is the one that threw me off. After the wedding, we went into the party bus to take some pictures around town after finishing up the pictures at the church. 

At the reception, Jeff and Teresa asked me earlier if I would be willing to say the prayer for the dinner after the wedding, so I ended up saying the prayer for the food was served. The food was amazing, all hand made by family and friends. The beef brisket was just amazing. Also, the watermelon from Jeff's family's farm was great. Yellow melon is really sweet and takes as good as the normal watermelons that we normally see and eat. The wedding cake was also pretty amazing. I got a picture of the cake and the Bride and Groom in the background. The flower girls dresses also matched the cake, which I didn't notice until later in the night. I also finally got to see cake on the groom's face. I did not get a chance to get a picture of it though :(, but the wedding photographer did and others as well.  

The cake was amazing. Each layer was a different type of cake. 

Earlier in the week, on base, the ES Esmeralda came into port. This was I believe Tuesday night that they were having a huge party on the boat. I stopped by to see what the boat was called and looked it up later online. It is a naval vessel that is still in service by the Chilean Navy as a training vessel and frequents Pearl Harbor every so often. It was pretty interesting since you don't see many old style naval vessels anymore. The USS Ronald Reagan also came into port along with her task group force for a few days last weekend on it's way to her home port. I didn't get a chance to take any pictures of the carrier this time since I was leaving to go to Colorado. I will just have to wait till the next one to see if I can get aboard again.