Hiccup

I had previously made mention that on our vacation we had run into some difficulties while travelling. This is the story of one of them.

On our flight from Oahu to the Big Island we had gone through the security screening most of the way. My wife, with all her titanium, doesn't get around too well for long distances found at most airports, so she gets wheelchair service, and we usually have a pretty quick go through. At the bag X Ray machine a TSA agent pulls my son aside and begins searching one of his bags. he locates the jar of Suavecito that he had in his carry on bag and pulls it out. "Can't take THAT on in your carry on bag, son!!!" You have two choices, go back to the airline counter and check your bag, or place your pomade in the trash can right there!!! Well, here's a quandary!!! Suavecito comes out with seasonal scented pomades, and this I believe was the Spring edition, with hints of dark rum. I'm pretty sure it was under $15 originally, and it's $25 to check a bag, so pretty easy math. However, being a seasonal thing, might not be able to get a replacement, and he really likes the scent. We start heading back to ticketing, and I'm looking up on my phone to see if it's still available, and nope, it's not. OK, it's looking like it's going to be a nearly $40 jar of pomade. Got back to the ticketing desk and tell them our tale of woe, and they say, don't worry, we've got this!!! Ended up not being out the extra $25 or the jar of Suavecito!!! So, it took a little longer and more legwork, but all's well that ends well!!! Funny thing, our first flight from the mainland they didn't catch it. To be sure, it was in our checked bag on the flight back!!!

Oh, and I've got to gush a little bit about the airline we took, Hawaiian. Not only did they waive the bag fee, but so far as I know, they are the last carrier to provide an in-flight meal. Something else cool they have, instead of having an in flight movie as previous flights I've taken, they have an app you can download to your device, and there's a veritable smorgasbord of shows and movies you can stream in flight!!! I got to watch "Isn't it Romantic" on the flight out because Rebel Wilson is awesome, and "The Lego Movie: The Second Part" on the flight back, but I think I fell asleep a little during that one.

The Best Part

Upon being home from vacation, I asked my wife and my son what their favorite part of the trip was.

My wife said her favorite thing was our jaunt over to Kailua beach. Just like the sand there, it was pretty fine.

It was also an interesting part of the trip, as the boy stayed back at the hotel. We'd gone to lunch, and he'd had a turkey sandwich, and he claimed the tryptophan was putting him to sleep. Also, there was a Goodwill store a block over, so we'd gone there and done some shopping, and he was bored for that. Found myself an orange T-shirt from a local radio station (although, not the one The Woody Show is on there) and a vintage looking Hawaii Pan Am shirt.

There was a sign that there were man 'o wars (men 'o war???) in the water, but fortunately we didn't see or encounter any. We splashed about in the water for a bit. It was fairly excellent!!!

My sons' favorite part was the Dole Whip at the Pineapple Plantation. Yeah, it was pretty good, too!!! Funny thing, he follows Menace on Instagram, and shortly before we went Menace had posted a picture of the Dole Whip!!!

The Plantation has a train that takes you on a tour of the grounds, and we went on that. Don't our outfits go with the background foliage???

It wasn't the only area with them there, but we saw a few roosters.

Out in the the entrance to our lodging there was an outrigger canoe. Probably because it's called the Outrigger Waikiki Beach. The second morning we were there, I asked my son if he wanted to go jump in the ocean when we first got up. We swam for a while. They rent the aqua trikes on the beach there, and we were looking at doing that, but never got to it. They had them at the resort we stayed at on the Big Island, too, but we spent hardly any time there and missed out on them there, too. One evening, when we got back, they boy and I went down to the pool and swam for a bit. It is a pretty good pool, fully tiled. They have a bar with a live acoustic trio playing there, doing old standards in a somewhat Hawaiian style. When we were drying off to head up, I recognized the tune they were playing as Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World". I called that to the boy's attention, and he was berating the style they were doing it in. He began doing his Satchmo impersonation of the song. The funny part, and he wasn't aware until we'd left the area, it appeared that a woman fairly close to us was recording the song on her phone, so hopefully she's got him berating and vocalizing on her recording!!!

Over on the Big Island, we'd set out for the Volcano park. In a logistical misstep, our lodging was about a half hour north of the Kailua-Kona airport, which is north of Kailua-Kona, which is where most of the action on that side of the island is. Anyway, we drove down that way, then around the south end to the Volcano park.

We got to the Volcano park, and apparently they are doing an anniversary special and letting people in for free, so that was nice. A good amount of the park is inaccessible due to recent eruptions and volcanic activity. Got to see a lot of sulfur and steam vents, anyway. The lava tube was off limits.

On the return trip, it routed us through the middle of the island, through Hilo and then between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. There was a lot of cloud cover as we were heading out, but about half an hour before we were back at our lodging, I pulled off to the side of the road to see what it was like. It was clear and fully dark in the area, and it was as many stars as we'd ever seen!!! I can see why they have some of the best telescopes in the world there!!! I messed with the settings on my phones' camera, and tried bracing it on the roof of the car, but it was quite windy, and this was as good as I could get. The photograph in my head is far better.

13 Shots: Sea and Land

Back from this year's vacation!!! We went to Hawaii again, this time for a few days on Oahu and a few on the Big Island. I took a lot of good pictures, so here's a sampling.

First up is from the first morning. Waikiki beach, just outside of the hotel we were staying at there. It literally had steps out directly onto the beach!!!

Next up is a couple of shots from Kailua beach on the West side of the island. I'd heard it was picked as one of the world's most beautiful beaches, so I decided to make that a stop. It truly was.

Fine, powdery sand, warm water, and surrounded by towering ironwood trees. Only thing, since it was Hawaii, it was raining on and off while we were there. A lot of it was just a little drizzle, blowing in sideways from the onshore breeze.

The next couple of shots are from Diamond Head. All the times I've been to Oahu, I've never been there before. It's a nice hike, with a great view!!!

I would have liked to have stayed somewhere not in Honolulu, but in typical fashion I booked late, and most everything else was not available. You can see, it's a lot like any other metropolitan area.

On over to the Big Island!!! This was on the evening we arrived there. On the way from the airport to our lodging, there was a scenic overlook point, and we pulled in just before the sun was setting!!!

The Big Island has a lot of areas of the black lava rock. We pulled off on the way to visit Volcanoes Park.

That was just as we were getting to the East side of the island.

The next day, we had headed up to the Northern area of the island, in search of a barbecue place, that turned out to be a guy who sets up his trailer there on Thursday nights. Sad trombone. Anyway, on the way back, we pulled off on one of the side roads marked coastal access. Not really beachy, but it was cool nonetheless.

Looked like you could possibly launch a boat there, or could have at some point anyway. In the second picture, you can see some yellow in the water, those were yellow tang.

Finally, we went to a beach just north of our lodging. It is called 49 Black Sand Beach, and the name is why we headed there. It was a really nice beach, but the sand wasn't all that black. It was more like pepper, some black, a lot of light to white grains. In the first shot, you can see Maui across the channel from it!!!

There is a lot of broken up lava stones in the water, and off to the sides. Given enough time, the sand will be more black.

Hopefully, there will be more from our adventures to follow!!!

A Strange Creature

Here's a little something I've been wanting to do for a while. I'd shot some video on the Road to Hana in Maui when we were on our vacation there. The clips were a bit on the short side, so along with a bit of narration, I've edited them into a somewhat cohesive little movie. Sorry about the crappy audio, but I think you'll get the idea!!!

Ready For Random???

Ready or not, here it comes!!! I've gone through a few of my old pictures and found a few that need shared. A couple from our Hawaii vacation, and a few from way back on the 4th of July!!! Maybe one or two others thrown in, too.



One of the guys I work with sometimes buys a tortilla from the cafeteria to go with his lunch. He's Asian. They charge him $.75 for a tortilla. One of the other guys, who is Mexican, they only charge $.25 for a tortilla. I would totally bust them if they tried that on me!!!



I don't think I made mention, but when we last went to Magic Mountain, they had the Sky Tower open!!! The first time it's been open since we've been going. A low key ride, but it has a great view.

Had a bit of a spooky day a couple weeks back. When I got my schedule, it had me listed as at a meeting for an hour in the morning, and ended the day with me as an extra. And, it was on a Thursday, the day that is their traditional day to let people go. Turned out OK though.



They've made a bunch of shift changes at work. Most have not affected me. They started by eliminating the middle, 8:30 shift, and moved the 7:30 shift lunch break later to 12:45, and the afternoon break to later, too. Most of the middle shift people went to the late shift, but a few went to the early shift. The reasoning is that more of our work is coming in late in the day, what with the interwebs, and we've been much busier in the evenings. Starting this week, they moved the early shift from 7:30 to 8:00. This has made for the first change that's affected me, they've moved afternoon break time from 4:00 to 4:30.



I notice diesel fuel has jumped in price. On Monday I topped Janice off, and where diesel had been running $.25 to $.30 less a gallon than gasoline, it was only six cents less this time. I decided that at that price difference I'd be better off driving Baby. Filled her up this morning, and now diesel is four cents more than gasoline!!! I suspect market manipulation.


Remember the story of Ronald the ray gun??? They didn't work out, for some reason. Haven't had those for seven or eight months now. Now they've got a set of all new ones, that have a screen on the back side and do a lot more. So far, they don't work, either.



I was watching live when Letterman cracked his joke about A-Rod knocking up Sarah Palin's daughter. I got it, and LOL'ed right off. I liked Sarah Palin OK during the campaign, but, come on!!! Take a joke!!!

Two hours and 45 minutes between lunch and break makes it so I have to piss badly by the time I get to break. Provided I don't have to sneak away early to do so.



My wife messed up her knee a couple weeks back. It had rained, and she needed to sweep the water out where the roof had leaked at her work. Right after that, she needed to go into the walk in freezer, in her still moist shoes. One of her shoes froze to the floor, and she yanked on it to try and pop it loose. Unfortunately it was her knee, not her shoe that popped.



At the very south end of the bins at work, there's a large piece of equipment. Behind a glass panel, it has a digital display that almost always reads "512". A few feet past this is a large water standpipe, marked with "P.T. 42". Both pretty cool.


One of my co-workers was trial testing one of the new ray guns. A stock keeper saw it and said, "What's that, a Wii controller???" Made me LOL. The least popular Wii game, Wii bin filling!!!



They asked me to come in for the 8:00 shift today. The sunrise on the way in almost made it worth it having gotten up earlier than I like to. Strangely enough, right as I was getting into work, there was a thick fog bank over the whole area.



That's a nice thing about having the selection of cars I have. If one type of fuel gets more expensive, I can just drive the other one!!!

I see no reason that oil should be over $70 per barrel, much less the $80 that it now is. We've got low demand, surplus supplies, and refineries are running well short of capacity. In the 50's is where it should be.



I suspect that they wanted to eliminate the 7:30 shift, but that because that is the most popular shift, they eliminate the 8:30, then move the 7:30 later and later!!!

"No Swimming"

That's what the signs all said.



Looking at the actual falls, Rainbow Falls in Hilo, that seems like very good advice!!!



However, walking just a little ways up the slope (I swear, the path was part of the path the Bradys took to return that unlucky idol) and there are many tempting areas to swim, with calm water and excellent rocks to jump in off!!!



The mountain water is somewhat cooler than the ocean water, but very refreshing.



We spent the better part of the afternoon of our last day doing just that. Stayed a bit longer that I had intended (I was on vacation, I had no timepiece with me!!!) and we missed out on touring the Manua Loa macadamia nut factory. Oh well...



One of these shots is the older boy and I climbing the roots of the immense Banyan tree with the rope swing tied to it.



The last shot of the previous post has the boy jumping in with his feet just hitting the water from this part. It also has the towers we jumped into the ocean repeatedly from. That wasn't us in that shot (it was taken from our hotel balcony), we didn't get any of us actually jumping in.

Honolulu

On the way home from our second island stay, we had to fly through the airport on Oahu. We never saw any of it except the airport and from the window of the plane. Here's a little video I shot on my netbook of the younger doing his version of the Hallelujah chorus. He'd been doing it for a while, and at the end you can hear the older's exasperation!!!