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.