first day back in Kona... nice to get away from the "city" life. my friend is getting married and I'm his best man. that requires me to give a speech. in all honesty, I'm terrible at public speaking so this 5 day "vacation" is really just 4 days of anxiety and then 1 day of fun (day after the wedding). hahaha, jus' kidding... kind of.
at least the food is good and the weather is nice! happy aloha Friday!
while flying to the Big Island today, I got to take a quick picture of Oahu's south shore. how many spots can you name in this picture? I know I can only name the ones in Ala Moana Park. hahaha, yes, n00b status.
First off, if you're from Hilo, it's called "Ice Shave". I don't know what this "Shave Ice" business is all about...
But anyway, if you're ever in Kailua, you gotta try Island Snow. I'm not saying it's better than Matsumoto's or Waiola's, but it's pretty good. Even Barack Obama samples it when he's here on vacation!
The line was out the door and a little around the corner when we first got there, so we decided to eat some pizza at Bob's next door. After we were pau, we checked back and the line was only a few people out the door, so we made our move.
We got large strawberry & vanilla (me) and li hing mui, pina colada, lilikoi with a snowcap (my wife). Ice cream is already included in all of the orders so that's a bonus! Definitely hits the spot after a nice day at the beach!!!
Ok, so being born & raised in Hilo means that I've never gone to the 50th State Fair before. It's true... 30 years and I've never been, until yesterday! Yup, my wife and I decided to go and check it out. Not because it's super special, but more to say that I've done it. It's basically the same as the Hilo County Fair (minus the rain) and the Del Mar Fair (in San Diego). Rides, games, foods that make your ass fat, that kind of thing. Haha!
We spent $20 on games and all we won was a stupid banana. Oh well, there's always next year!
Today was the maiden voyage for the WAVESTORM.
I went down for the usual dawn patrol surf, with 1-2' waves and some light trades. First off, there's 2 things you need to know about the Wavestorm:
WAVESTORM.
I always wanted one of these boards, but assumed they were a little expensive...
nope, $115! plus, lifetime warranty if you buy through Costco. surfed with a friend yesterday and he did laps around me with his Wavestorm. I was convinced I needed to try one.
my wife surprised me today and bought me one of these foam beauties. be ready, I'm bussing it out soon! auuuuraaaaiii!
another fun morning went down at the "secret" spot. hahaha! waves were definitely hard to come by, but it was still a good time with the CDP regulars. Dean got a cool shot of me for the CDP blog on a fun inside wave!
This my old faithful 8'10" Paddle Surf Hawaii Hull Ripper. This might be the 1st generation of Hull Rippers (I think it might be on the 2nd or 3rd now), but da buggah still works cherry!! I wish I could afford another one of the "new" templates, but that'll have to wait for a while.
mahalos Dean!!
Zippy's for dinner! what's the specials??? what the....
Looks like "their server is down" according to the manager. Looks like the developer didn't think about error handling too much. Hey, maybe they need a few good application developers! Haha
good friends, good weather, good surf, good times. everyday should begin like this. happy almost-Friday!
I got my first tattoo when I was 20 and in college. Nothing crazy, just a polynesian designed honu on my back. I told myself maybe I'd get another one later....
Then 2 years ago, I got my Japanese side family crest and my dad's Hawaiian side aumakua designed and tattooed on the outside of my left leg. But really all along, I wanted to finish up my lower left leg all the way around.
7 months ago was that day. I did not know pain until I tattooed the rest of my leg. You would think the shin would hurt the most. No, right above the ankle and down the back of the calf was super intense! Only hurts when it happening, but this took 3 1/2 hours. I guess there's a nerve that runs down the back of your leg...? I dunno, bugga was mean.
I can't say I'm NEVER getting another though. Muahahahaha!!!
tattoo by Che Pilago at Moku Nui, Kona, HI.
I saw this earlier today and I'm still cracking up.
First off, competitive adult kickball. Yes, it's real. Secondly, how genuinely pissed the losing team gets is hilarious. Any adult who does something competitively or has a child who plays sports can all attest: we ALL have the inner child within that HATES LOSING. Even if it is competitive adult kickball :)
Here it is, in it's full glory - 8th inning overtime. The real action starts at 40 seconds.
"OOOOHHH SHIIIT!" hahahahaha!!!
Just under 12k miles in 9.5 months and so far the gas mileage has been pretty good.
Usually if I take the car to work, I'll average ~40mpg going into town and ~32mpg coming back to Kailua (mostly due to stop and go traffic in town). When my wife takes it (Kailua to Waipio), she'll get ~42mpg depending on how heavy the right foot is feeling. haha!
Recently, we've been making lots of drives out to Kapolei/Makakilo in search of our permanent residence. Since I remembered this time around, I took a picture of the reported consumption: 43.6mpg!
Typically, we can get in the mid-40's going 60-65mph across the H3 and H1 to Kapolei. I've even seen low-40's going 70... hehe.
I guess the only better vehicle would be an all electric, but I have yet to see a nice, stylish electric vehicle. Hybrids still use gas so I don't really get how one would be "going green", not to mention that the batteries are not exactly easy to dispose.
I'll take my clean diesel TDI all day over ANY hybrid, period. Suck on my clean diesel air, Prius :)
I've been lucky enough to meet and become friends with a bunch of the "Courts" regulars. I usually try to get a surf session in every morning during the week before work (yes, it's nice to work close by and have flexible hours).
There's a morning crew dubbed "Courts Dawn Patrol" and it's pretty much the regulars who come out between 5am (yes, 5am!) and surf til 8am. One of the first people I met my first time out at Courts when I moved to Oahu last year was Dean Nakamaru... super cool guy and a straight up ripper on a stand-up and longboard. he runs the CDP blog with daily overviews of the weekday surf sessions and a mean food blog on the weekends. check it out:
http://courtsdawnpatrol.typepad.com/blog/
anyway, I'm not sure what the point of this post was, but check out Dean's blog and pray for surf. mahaloz for the sticker Dean! good way to cap off a fun surf session and aloha Friday... cheeee!!!
did you miss the once-in-our-lifetime transit of Venus? we were lucky enough to see it! this rare occurence isn't going to happen for another 105 years. to put that into perspective, if you had a child today, and your child had a child in 25 years, your grandchild will be 80 the next time Venus makes another transit. CRAZY!!!
These images really put our world into perspective since Venus is an Earth-sized planet. We're just a tiny speck. I took some screenshots from NASA's website, one of a very excited scientist, and a sweet full-size picture from space.com.
decided to have a breakfast date with my wife this morning at Cinnamon's. surprisingly, the wait was only 5 minutes and our food came out quick. when we left it, the calvary came in cause that buggah was PACKED! lucky for us we was early :)
if you're planning on going there, expect a wait, but it'll be worth it. everyone swears by the guava chiffon and red velvet pancakes. we went with the red velvet and it was like a mouth orgasm. buggah was MEAN!!!
hit um up:
Cinnamon's Restaurant
315 Uluniu St., Kailua, HI 96734
www.cinnamonsrestaurant.com
cheeee, our favorite place to stop for a little dessert. they have several diffferent flavors and choke toppings to get you all fired up and give you some extra cushions on the waistband area.
I'm a boring strawberry, vanilla, with strawberry popping balls kinda guy. pretty lame, but damn tasty!
