Weather in paradise...it can suck here, too!

Aloha. So, it's been a while. There's a good reason for that. It's the rainy season here. While we may be warm and toasty in the winter in Honolulu, we are feeling a tad moldy. As the name implies, it rains during the rainy season. It doesn't just mist like it does in the summer, it really rains! A few weeks back, we got more than 11 inches of rain in one day. Then the next week we had an actual thunderstorm. They are so rare in Hawaii that this is the one and only thunderstorm I have seen since I moved here a year ago. Lightening hit the power station and the whole island was without power for 12 hours! When that happens on the mainland, they can usually borrow power from a neighboring grid. But out in the middle of the Pacific, it's not like we can toss a giant cable to our neighbors Molokai or Kauai.

It has been too cloudy to bother laying out at the beach and the water is a tad chilly for extended swimming or snorkeling (yes, the water gets chilly here in the "winter." All the tourists at the beach were complaining). We are both almost as pale as when we got here.
Also, it has been too muddy and rainy to hike, especially since it always rains more often in the mountains.

On the up side, the north shore has been getting winter swells as big as 30 feet recently. It is every psychotic surfer's dream. Unfortunately, these swells have been occurring during the week, so we haven't been able to check out these monstrous waves. We had the day off today and we would have gone to see the waves, but as I write this, it is pouring. UH closed all its campuses island-wide today because we were supposed to have 60mph winds today. I'd guess they are currently blowing around a measly 10-15 mph. Whoops! Some weatherpeople are really kicking themselves right now. We may make it tomorrow to see waves around 20 feet. That's big, but not that big.

So, to sum up, we've been doing the normal, mundane stuff like cleaning, reading, shopping, etc. while waiting for some sun. And, for all those freezing their okoles (butts) off in the extreme cold passing over the mainland this week, warm yourself with the thought that the weather in paradise can suck, too.

I'm coming home!

Aloha! Where do residents of Hawaii go on vacation? Besides Las Vegas, home to visit family! I will be in Md for 10 days starting next week to visit my family and remember how cold winter is for most of the rest of the US.
Sorry for the lack of posts. There are two conferences coming up that our employers insist we have abstracts and posters for, so we have been extremely busy preparing and analyzing data (me more so than Brian since my data comes from squrimy babies while his comes from a phantom...aka giant container of water....or from me when he volunteers me as a scanner guinea pig). Can't wait to have an actual vacation after all the recent 12 hour work days.
I plan to do some hiking before my flight to help me sleep, so I may have some more pics soon.

Back at ya, pal

This is the actual name of a well-regarded Chinese restaurant just outside of Waikiki. They should have gone with "Happy Number One Diner" or something.

Speed bag and capoeira

Aloha! Brian and I have taken some time off from sightseeing/snorkeling/hiking up mountains in paradise to try some more mundane activities (if you want to call these activities mundane!).

I recently gave speed bag a whirl since classes are offered for free at the local Y and I've been intrigued by the rhythmic sound I hear when I am there exercising. There are twenty lessons in this class and I go twice a week. I'm now into lesson 4 which is hitting the bag with double fists. It is all about timing and it is really a great arm workout. The bag itself is very light and, if you hit it just right, it takes very little effort. However, holding your arms up and hitting for an hour takes it toll and I'm pretty sweaty by the end. If you are looking to improve your coordination in a low impact fashion, then this workout is for you. By the way, don't be intimidated if you are a woman. You don't need to know how to box or hit in general and the majority of my classmates are women.

In addition, Brian and I finally tried Capoeira, a form of Brazilian dance/martial arts. It is not fighting so much as an acrobatic dance.



The "games" are performed to music and the players don't touch each other. The object of the game is not to take out your opponent, but to fake out them out. I can't even do a cartwheel (au), so I have some work to do to get up to speed. I've been practicing doing handstands against a wall.

The class starts with stretching, simple moves, moves with a partner, and then goes to cartwheels and other moves across the room alone and then with a partner. It ends with a cirlce (roda) within which the game is played. Those not playing clap and sing and several will play instruments. The songs are done in call and answer style in Portuguese.



Speaking as someone who once did kung fu and was pretty badly inured during a sparring session (in which you are NOT supposed to beat the crap out of each other), I like this dance much better.

Dave and Katie and the Kuli'ou'ou Ridge hike

Hello. Brian's friends from college, Dave and Katie, came to visit recently. We took them on a hike in the Kuli'ou'ou valley. We had a read a bit about this hike before hand and we wanted to try it because it would have a 360 view of Oahu from the top of the ridge. What we didn't notice, however, is that the hike is 5 miles round trip.
We climbed up almost 2,000 feet! The view was amazing even though we were totally exhausted. Katie and I stopped in a spot we thought was right near the top to rest. The guys said they would go the rest of the way and let us know how much further we had to go to get to the top.
Here is the view from where we stopped.

Here is Kokohead. You can't see it here, but Hanauma Bay is to the right.

The guys came back 30 minutes later and told us the top was not as close as we had thought and that it was all stairs from here on up. Needless to say, we didn't finish. Dave took some pics at the top and as soon as he sends them, I will update this post with them.

Here are Dave and Katie on the ridge.

On the way up, the forest changed several times from the typical forest in a valley, to ironwood trees, to banyan trees, to cook pines, and back to ironwood again. Every time the forest changed, we thought we were near the top. But no, it just kept going!

Here we are carefully making our way down the tree roots of some cook pines.


All in all, it was a great hike. I would like to finish it some day and now that I have a shiny new pair of hiking boots, I just may :)

New Musical Instruments

We recently acquired a Irish low whistle and a piano.


I plan on learning some Irish folk music (reels, and jigs and such) on the whistle. Note that when most people refer to a tin whistle, they mean the little ones. The low whistle is two feet long and an octave lower than the typical tin whistle. It's the instrument featured in the Titanic song "My Heart Will Go On." I will not be learning that song.

We found the piano on Craigslist for $200. It's pretty small for a piano, about 3 feet tall, which makes it a spinet. We don't quite have space for it but I really want to learn piano again. I took lessons when I was a teenager, but haven't played regularly in a decade. It's not really playable yet because it's terribly out of tune and a few keys stick. We should have it fixed up pretty soon.

The woman who sold us the piano also gave us some whimsical house decorations. Here's a pink flamingo (with a wall-eyed Apollo for scale):


Unfortunately, we can't leave it outside or it'll rust. There aren't any flamingoes in this state, except for a few in captivity at the Hilton in Waikiki. We also picked up this gecko, which lends a decidedly funky air to our living room:

New York

Aloha. I was in New York recently for a conference. The schedule was pretty grueling so I didn't get out much to see the sights. I was staying in a hotel right next door to ground zero. Ground zero is still a really big hole (if you never saw them, the twin towers took up more than a few blocks worth of real estate). A construction worker at the site said that they had just started to lay the foundation in one area.
It really is a big hole as a said before, so I didn't take any pictures.

Since I was staying in the financial district, I took a stroll down Wall street and snapped a pic of the New York Stock Exchange.


I also walked down by the Hudson through all the nice little parks. Here is the statue of liberty off in the distance.

Not far from where I snapped the above pic, I saw this sculpture.


Kids were climbing on them and the parents were taking pictures. One kid asked what they were. The parents looked uncomfortable and then the other child said they were eyeballs. The mom said "Yes, that's exactly what they are!"
I didn't see a tag with a title. I'll leave you to your imaginations.