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.