#119 - st. patty's day

who knew green beer on st. patty's day would be so hard to find? last year mike and jeremy and keane and i went around looking for some green beer, we figured mai tai bar would be a safe bet but we got there and there was none! what's up with that? we looked around all over but finally gave up and just went to eat at bubba gumps. but it was st. patty's day and we felt defeated so we asked the waitress if she knew anywhere else we could get green beer and lucky us she was so nice she made us some green beer special.

so this year, my friend jill invited me to the block party downtown. perfect place to get some green beer right? i thought so. walking around (actually trudging through masses of drunk white people) none of the beer stands (which were like only 10 feet apart from each other) had green beer! finally we saw some girl with one so we asked her where she got it and she led us all the way through the street to the ONE stand that was making green beer.

way worth it.

pretty cool though, tons of people, kinda lame but that's how st. patty's day should be spent right? speaking of, irish girl did pretty good on american idol tonight i thought... don't know why simon didn't like it. but she was about the only one i liked, i guess i'm not a beatles fan because i thought all the songs were way crappy. the only beatles songs i know and actually like are "let it be" and "yesterday." i was surprised that no one picked "yesterday" last week. and what's up with the double theme weeks? LAME! and they proved it too because everyone was crappy tonight. only i like the irish girl and little bro (he should've sang "yesterday," i bet that would've been sweet), but since i didn't recognize his song and since it's st. patty's day i'll post irish girl. well... i didn't know her song either, but i kinda recognized it because the beginning is like the end of that lame "boyz in the hood" song... "punk ass trippin' in the dead of night.... hommie scored a key, he's gonna fly... punk ass fly." haha.

#113 - novelty

so i was feeling kinda tired and bummed this week for some reason. i thought it was just because i wasn't getting enough sleep. plus i've been more active than usual, but actually, when i am more active that's when i usually feel MORE energized, and when i don't do something active everyday that's when i get lethargic. but anyway, so i was talking to a co-worker about it and she gave me some unusual advice. at least i thought it was unusual. she told me that i need to get myself some new friends. haha! well, not that i should dump all my current friends, but she said that new and different types of social interaction keeps us energized. she said that even though i'm active in doing physical things like exercising and playing sports, she told me that i need to energize my social side. and it makes sense, in neurology the thing that keeps your mind active and healthy is regular use and exposure to new stimulation that keeps your brain adjusting to different thoughts and sensations. that process of making adjustments is what makes your brain grow, like mental exercise. maybe that's what i need.

but see, i've been trying to do it. new home. new experiences. and i have been participating in new activities (i'm playing volleyball with very different kinds of people and i just joined a tennis league with new people too), but maybe it's not enough. or maybe it just hasn't taken effect yet. my co-workers have always been telling me to "put myself out there," for a variety of reasons, finding a girl, finding new friends, establishing myself in the world (because they think i'm so young and impressionable, haha, yeah, i laugh at that). so they're probably right, right? because they're old and know more stuff than me (life-experience-wise). so i'm trying... but i guess i haven't gotten there yet.

anyway, i found these pics i took when brandi was here last week, okay, so not really "new" experiences and people, but very fun, nonetheless. this is the "after" picture of a day of surf:


lunch at en fuego in kapolei, very yummy.

and here's the point about new things, in order to do new things you've gotta let go of the old things. here's my problem: everytime i go to en fuego i get the lau lau plate, because it's good and comes with lots of different things (lau lau, brown rice, mac salad, ahi poke, lomi salmon, haupia), so whenever i go i think "why get anything else when i love eating this?" and it's not like the other things on the menu don't look appetizing, i just think, "i like the lau lau plate so much and i only come here so often so why WOULDN'T i get it?"

okay, well that's probably putting too much introspection into a lunch decision, but my point is in there somewhere. just gotta keep looking for those opportunities for new experiences, and then have enough balls to take them huh?

#112 - the beginning of the end

i got guitar hero.

no more posts for a month.

haha.

#95 - make-up weather

finally! the last week of winter break is making up for the first two weeks of crappy weather. but this week it's been all sun, sand, and surf. i've been surfing every day since the sun came out and it's been great. i'm waking up early (relatively) which is a really good thing because the clear blue skies are only lasting half a day and then when i get back home that's when the clouds roll in. no pics of the surf today, but yesterday, after a sweet day a chun's i decided to give some of those haleiwa shrimp trucks a try. there was giovanni's and hono's, but they both only had four different dishes so i went with the garlic shrimp from hono's (i've never heard of hono's before, whereas giovanni's is pretty famous, but they didn't have garlic shrimp). it was $12 and not in any way worth it. haha, well, except for the fact that i spent the day on the north shore so i'd better have gotten a shrimp plate for lunch.


today a little bit more of the same thing, weather was great, i thought the surf would be a little too big for me so i went to ali'i today. but it was perfect! clean, glassy, overhead on the sets but so clean that they were way easy to catch. and it wasn't all that crowded either, so i got to catch a lot. i even did some of that, y'know, rip a turn on the top of the crest, flick some white-water off it, and then ride back down on top of the curl... what do you call it? whatever, doing it is damn fun! i even caught a little barrel for a bit, sweet.

well, looks like surf will be up tomorrow in the "too big for me" range so i'll have to find something else to do, heck, if the weather's good again maybe i'll just go to watch the big ones, gotta savor my last two days of freedom...

PS - almost forgot! while i was sitting out in the water at ali'i today i saw some humpback whales jumping off in the distance! whoa, that's the first time i've actually seen whales (all the other times someone yelled "whale!" and i'd look and see a splash and then lie and say "oh yeah, cool, whale"). it was cool, and a great bonus to my surfing day. but i think the best bonus after a day at the beach is when you're lying in bed that night and you feel the waves rolling under you. that's the coolest! and then when you close your eyes you see those salt-water ridges rolling toward you in long walls and then feel it rise up under you... neat.

#88 - birthday karaoke

well, i was gonna post a whole bunch of pictures for our very successful karaoke night last saturday.... but they were all pretty hideous. i guess mixing dark room, with beer, with funny singing faces and open mouths doesn't make for very good picture-taking. there were actually the two best pictures of the lot. oh well, it was some good karaoke-ing anyway, like nicole said, we debuted some new songs, partied with some new people, and even got an extra couple songs thrown in past closing time, score!

thanks again for coming everyone!

ps - didn't anyone click on the "disturbing link?" i expected some reaction, haha, go ahead and click on it, it's funny too...

#68 - quick question

here's a rare opportunity to directly affect my life... are you ready? don't get too excited, it ain't that big.

next week thursday the next semester of taiko classes begins. having taken the summer session class at kcc, i think i got a pretty good feel for how the thing works. while i don't feel that i learned a whole lot about taiko or really got that much of an opportunity to play all that much (they, of course, encourage practicing outside of class, but 1) i have no drum, 2) i'm too lazy/not motivated enough to make my own practice drum, and 3) pretty much i joined the class as a "go and do and come home" kind of thing, not really wanting to make it my new lifestyle). i was hoping to meet some new friends and begin to make it a new hobby that i could carry for at least a few years, but even though i felt like the most out-going person there (which, marvel at that fact for awhile, means that i think i tried to talk to everyone in the class at least once and got about zero feedback from pretty much everyone), i didn't really meet any new friends and i don't think that going to one class a week and having that be the extent of my taiko playing would fill that hobby void. as far as taiko playing itself goes... i like it well enough, but i don't think that my interest in playing is great enough to justify driving to kcc every thursday in rush hour traffic (both going and coming home since the class is from 5:30-6:30) without the prospect of the class also being beneficial socially.

so, the decision is... do i sign up for another taiko class and hope that i get to meet more engaging people the next time around? or do i sign up for another taiko class and hope that i have so much fun playing taiko that i'll want to continue the hobby even longer? or... do i not sign up for the class, go to yoga at 24 hour instead (like i used to do on thursdays, and which is something i actually really like doing and is very good for my mental and physical well-being) and search for other venues to explore new hobby/friend possibilities?

right now i'm leaning toward the last option. any suggestions?

#60 - last day

yesterday was tourist tuesday... today, forget the damn tourist, it's local boy wednesday. i'm sure there's a better way to say that, but screw it, i don't know how. anyway, it was south shore yesterday, let's go up north today. how much nicer is it to be on the north shore than in town? man, i can't even describe. it feels nicer in my soul. haha, that's dumb, but anyway, any chance i can get to pick north shore over south i'm there. but when you're just by yourself here's much more to do on the south shores so my trips north are limited, which is actually okay because that makes them that much better. another reason why i don't get up there as much as i'd like is because the surf is mostly either 1) flat, or 2) way too big for me. haha, plus, whenever it's in that nice middle-ly range, it's way crowded. so whenever i've got a day off (that's not the weekend) i love to head up there. today i picked chun's reef: it actually was pretty crowded on shore, less crowded in the water. i don't care for surfing in a crowd, i'd rather sit off to the side and wait for the waves to come rather than sit in the line-up and fight for it. and at chun's mostly people sit to the left for the prime break and i can paddle on out to the right and catch the smaller, but still decent stuff (and then when the sets come i can get some sweet rides out there too). anyway, my philosophy on surfing goes like this: i will surf based on these factors (in order of importance):


1. weather - i accept nothing less than perfect paradise weather (okay, not really, but i think i'm a temperature wuss because i get cold very quickly when it's not sunny, especially when it's windy)


2. crowd - mostly the reason why i pick my north shore days carefully is that i really hate fighting for waves, i'm a passive guy out there and i think to myself, well, if other guys are gonna be that aggressive for the waves, then good for them, they can have it, and i can wait... because the weather is perfect (see #1) and i'm just happy to be out in the water


3. waves - based primarily on clean-ness and then on size. i'm not big on wave heights, as long as it's clean you can get ultra-fun rides. but when you've got both... nice.

so today, 1) weather was perfect... clear blue skies, just a few floatly little cotton ball clouds, 2) crowded at the prime break, but very empty for a summer day on the north shore, and 3) pretty tiny waves, but rideable, a couple of shoulder-high sets rolled in which made it a bit more exciting, but everything was clean and glassy, perfect. when you can see every single reef head underneath your board as you're sliding in on a wave, that's the stuff right there. don't get that too much at white plains. so yeah, then, even as you're just sitting out there waiting for the sets to roll in, it doesn't matter that there's nothing to ride because you're sitting out there in a crystal clear ocean moving up and down with the waves, plus, bonus because you know when you go home that night and lie in your bed, you'll feel that ocean again before you fall asleep. see? it's like nature gives you a bonus to convince you how cool surfing is, haha.
so all in all, super-fun stuff out there today. a great way to end the summer (if there ever was a good way to END summer... but that's something else). me and my board here had an awesome surf session at chun's, ended it up with some kua`aina burger and now it's back to work tomorrow... sigh, well, this is hawai`i right? i guess the next "summer" day can wait until saturday!

#56 - breakage

aah... i love the smell of freshly broken strings in the morning. okay, not really, but for some reason it's really fun when you break strings on your tennis racket... even more fun if you break it a la serena williams and smack it down into the court, but i broke mine the old fashioned way.

usually, i'm not really interested in tennis for competition, and i don't very much like playing with strangers (like, pick-up basketball or something), but for some reason i was at the courts on friday just serving and playing the backboard and this random guy asked if i wanted to hit with him for a bit. usually, i just say something like, "thanks, but i'm just practicing serving" or something and decline, but for some reason i guess i was feeling confident and i agreed. anyway, i guess i should stop being so awkward about things like that, but i guess all those D.A.R.E "stay away from strangers" things they bombarded me with in elementary school got etched in my brain somehow. anyway, the point is that the guy hit pretty hard with some wicked spin (and actually i was pretty proud of myself afterwards for hanging right with him in the rallies and little mini-games or whatever, since i never really get to compare myself with other tennis players), but then of course, hard-hitting = string busting.

but hey, that's what it's about eh? it feels pretty cool to be smacking consistently forcefully enough to break your strings. but then i had to do a rush job on the restringing to go to lessons on sunday, but thanks to that shop in pearl kai it was ready to go! yeah tennis!

ps - on a sidenote, today there was a mini-marathon of "tru calling" on the sci-fi channel today. i liked that show, it wasn't a good show, but it had a semi-interesting plot and a hottie for a star so it was a nice hour of tv during the weekdays. too bad it didn't last very long, i think they started running out of ideas so they brought on jason preistly (bad bad bad actor) and then from there on it was pretty damn crappy. but of course i'd still watch it for my weekly dose of eliza dushku (see above, re: hottie). anyway, it was kinda nice to see it back on tv, since it went off tv so quickly, but it was nice surprise.

#46 - early to rise

so, while i don't like waking up before the sun (i think that's completely against nature and should never be done by the way), it is pretty cool to change up your POV every once in awhile. it's been forever since i've been early morning fishing with my family (mostly because i don't want to wake up early on my weekends), but it was nice going out early this morning for a waimea bay fishing session and being out on the beach as the sun comes up. i was freezing my ass off before the sun finally came over the mountains, but it was pretty nice anyway.
oh, here's a turtle that i "made" (and by "made," i mean "found already made and took a picture of").
anyway, waves were up in the morning, love that waimea shorebreak yeah?

aah, beach... summertime... good stuff.

#45 - get summer started

a pretty great weekend i think. i'm already ready for summer already so i got out early on friday, had a little afternoon surf session and headed out again on saturday, then checked out that yardhouse that night (kinda overrated i think, although tons of beer on draft which was great). sunday was tennis day, plus drinks with some co-workers and then early morning fishing on monday. isn't that how all weekends should be? anwyay, here's a pic of ali'i from saturday, it was crankin on the sets, decent inbetween, pretty clean, semi-glassy. the best part is not too many people out there for a saturday afternoon and the sun was out so that made it a real nice day.
good time to sit out on the sand and watch the waves roll by...

i'm liking the beginning of summer so far.

#44 - my new hero

this guy:

#24 - kick start to spring break

whoa, long time since my last post, and TONS happened since as well... it's hard to write everything in a little blog like this (and convey the same kind of excitement that the news brought in real life), so i'll just list everything that's happened, and you can let your excitement build within you... ha.

1. last thursday and friday i went to my annual work convention at ala moana. i don't care too much for going to these things (well, just because our state convention is pretty dinky and generic), but i do like to listen to speakers who have absolutely NOTHING to do with my job. haha, okay so speech path is a very broad field, and although i work with the kiddies, my original interest in the field was adult neurogenics (like post-stroke, tbi, dementia, cancer patients, etc.). unfortunately, the demands on working life (and, consequently, non-working life) for the medical/private practice field are completely beyond my aspirations... therefore, i have compromised by getting a job where working life and non-working life are very nicely balanced. not that kids aren't interesting (because for the most part they act like either tbi or dementia patients anyway), but academically and intellectually, i LOVE neuroscience. so everytime i see my old professor at these things she asks, "when are you gonna get your ph.d. already?" and i've gotta say something like, "i'm still too close outta school, gotta decompress a bit." but really, i have absolutely no desire or ambition to get a ph.d. although studying neuroscience would kinda rock... i have no ambition for research, or writing a thesis, or anything. so i'm content to just spark up that intellectual interest whenever a neuro-kid comes along, or whenever i get to listen to a speaker like this at a convention.

so our speaker was pretty cool, he had a neat indian accent, and it was all neuroanatomy, physiology, and neuro-imaging (all of which i could listen to all day). not too practical for my working purposes... but it's all stuff i learned in grad school anyway so it's good to be able to exercise that part of my brain every year or so so that i don't forget all that great stuff. maybe one day i'll use it...

2. the BIGGEST news.... I GOT THE PLACE! i'm in total shock. those guys who reserved the townhouse unit in front of me (re: lottery post about a month ago) backed out so.... i'm moving out! it's pretty sweet, and moving very very fast... i meet with the mortgage officer, signed my sales contract, and i'm already having to look at upgrade options and kitchen cabinets and whatever. whew.. i'm glad that they won't be finished with construction until december though... because i'm not ready to move out yet, but give me another 9 months to get myself together and i'll be good to go. well, lots to think about right now, and i can't convey it all in writing, so i'll leave it at that... oh, by the way, it's unit #2704.

3. my relient k cd finally came in! woo hoo! i haven't finished listening to the whole thing yet, but i'm liking what i hear.

4. went surfing today at haleiwa, man it was frickin' freezing! but real clean, nice... and the weather was pretty good, a bit too windy, but bright clear sun and all. i'm loving this spring break thing.

ps - the pic up there is from zak noyle, it's called "waianae wall," i'm thinking that needs to go in my new place

#20 - whee

check it out! i got a wii!

this one kinda caught me by surprise, i wasn't planning on buying one, but a friend of mine had put some extras on reserve so she offered me one, and well, i just had to take it. weird because i really stopped playing video games altogether after super nintendo. i never got into playstation or game cube or whatever, i like the 2-dimension-ality of super mario, i'll take pixels over 3D views any day. but the wii is something very different so i thought i'd give it a shot. and yup, i'm completely hooked now.

i've only got one game so far (the one it came with, wii sports), but damn if it ain't fun. i do that fitness test every day. but my fave is tennis. it ain't like real tennis, some things are a bit disappointing (like you can't really hit an inside out... anything), but it's just a game so how much can you really expect? it's good enough, and plenty fun too.. by the way, my tennis "skill level" = 2135, booyah! that's pro baby.

ps - in other tennis related news... Roger lost today! what?! in the second round of the pacific life open, geez, lost to canas who came back after that like 2 year drug suspension. man, shocker... but roger will be back, and now at least roddick has a chance to win something, haha.

#4 - 53

so... not so lucky. the lottery on was saturday, i got number 53, which pretty much means in order for me to have a chance at getting a home those other 52 people ahead of me have to pass it up. well, still a little bit of chance, my number is at least low enough so i can go and put my name down as a "back-up" for one of the units. but really... how realistic is this? my only hope is that everyone's trying to get the bigger units and they won't want the 2-bedroom and then maybe i'll get lucky. well, hasn't worked so far. haha. anyway, the good news is that even though I wasn't too lucky, "someone" else was VERY lucky! So that's good, at least someone i know can take advantage of this opportunity... actually, that makes TWO people i know... hmm, grr? but well, things happen for a reason and you can't do much else besides go with the flow.

anyway, after that semi-exciting morning i was a little bummed so i decided to go surfing, for the first time in awhile because it's been frickin' freezing all the time. that plus i've gotten the thought in my head that lugging that big heavy board outside, strapping it to my car, hauling it to the ocean and back and then strapping it back on again is a real hassle. haha, it was fun. another reason why i like surfing is driving down there... it's some nice alone time out of the house, just me and the radio in my personal karaoke studio.

it was a pretty decent day, blue skies, very sunny. only thing it was hella windy = cold = choppy surf = short, mushy rides and hard to paddle. but still fun. i don't care to much for surfing at kalaeloa cause it's usually always mush, but some days it's clean and the best thing about it is that you can spread out because the waves break all along the shore. then in some places there's like a second break closer to shore so if you catch a good one you can ride it all the way in to the sand standing up. but today it was mush, that's okay though, i like surfing more for being out in the water and sun and not so much for the cut-backs or whatever, it's just nice to be out in the quiet (quiet meaning no people sounds) floating on your board in the middle of the ocean... then when a wave comes that's fun too.

but then i had to pack it all up again... grr... i kinda wish i had a short board just so's i could stuff it in my car without having to strap it all up to the top, but longboards are the bestest! minor hassle. anyway, after surfing it was time for jamba juice to get my smoothie fix. see, in college my routine every tuesday/thursday was tennis class at 8:30am, then grab a chex mix breakfast pack and eat it while walking down kapahulu (thx nicole) to waikiki, jog around kapiolani park, take some laps in the ocean around canoe's, then head back up to rainbow drive inn for a loco moco (scrambled) and then to jamba juice for a bounce back blast (which they don't make anymore, darn them), and then back to class after lunch. anway, after a year or two of doing that i developed an urge for either jamba juice or some kind of loco moco thing after everytime i went to the beach (although it kinda turned into a kua'aina thing after surfing north shore and picking up a bacon burger on the way back home).

weird. well, anyway, pop on those shades and it's off to jamba juice!

so surfing is something i'll definately take into my new life, in fact, one of the considerations about buying that home is where do i keep my longboard? a covered garage would be real nice. but there are lots of options for that i guess. oh well, better luck next time?