109/365 Diamondhead breaks

109/365 Diamondhead breaks
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

108/365 waxy

108/365 waxy
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

First day on the 10-2 Epoxy boards. Success!

107/365 Leonard's

107/365 Leonard's
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

106/365 Surfers at Sunset Beach

106/365 Surfers at Sunset Beach
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

105/365 Construction in Waikiki

105/365 Construction in Waikiki
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

104/365 The Spitting Cave

104/365 The Spitting Cave
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

103/365 Nephi

103/365 Nephi
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

The dude behind Learn to Surf on Kauai (808.826.7612) who got us started last January, and kept us hooked up with instruction and boards while we were on Kauai this go-around.

102/365 Mangosteens

102/365 Mangosteens
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

101/365 Aliomanu Bay

101/365 Aliomanu Bay
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

100/365 Na Pali Coast

100/365 Na Pali Coast
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

In the summer of 1990, on a trip with high school and college friends, we hiked the Kalalau trail along the Na Pali Coast of Kauai. We all made it to Hanakapi'ai beach about 2 miles in. From the beach (generally sandy that summer -- there was only a small patch of sand on the day I took this photo) there's a 2-mile side hike up the Hanakapi'ai Valley to a large waterfall and pool, but... to cut a long story short, we didn't make it, and the failed attempt resulted in a fairly treacherous return hike at dusk without flashlights. (this, before the ubiquity of the flashlights and headlamps that now typifies our hiking gear.)

We missed this hike the last time we were on Kauai because, not naming any names here, but SOMEBODY insisted that we burn the last day on a second day of surfing. Not that there was strong opposition to the contrary.

So, anyway, on this trip, we wanted to make a point of doing this hike. And we wanted to make a point of getting to the waterfall, 'cause, y'know, we dig waterfalls. And my own personal history of failure in that department.

It turned out to be a good day for hiking. It was mostly sunny, and while there were a few scattered showers, they were actually nicely refreshing. However, maybe a little more than a mile into the hike, I started noticing a certain amount of achiness in my muscles that seemed to exceed what might reasonably be associated with surfing. And the headache which I had been noticing the previous afternoon, began intensifying, coupled with the fact that I really only get headaches when I'm hungover (and it was only one beer the previous night) or when I'm sick. (uh oh.) Other things I had been noticing that morning were falling into place, and it finally dawned on me, 1-1/2 miles into a strenuous 8-mile out-and-back hike, that I had a fever and was sick as a dog. During our Hawaiian surfing vacation.

We made it to the beach, rested for a bit. The SOOTTAD tried to force me to eat. (did I mention loss-of-appetite?) And then we hiked the 2 miles back to the car, the SOOTTAD drove us back to the cottage where we were staying, and I spent the rest of the day and a good chunk of the following day either passed out or curled up in a fetal position, moaning and whimpering in bed.

So I guess I just wasn't meant to see that waterfall after all. Duly noted.

72/365 F-major-7

72/365 F-major-7
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Been playing around with my ukulele, one of the few souvenirs from our belated honeymoon in Hawaii last year.

Got a good chunk of Mood Indigo figured out, but I can't keep the whole melody in my head -- I forget sections, keep getting a bit stuck, finding myself in little closed musical loops. Eventually gave up and spent a little time tonight trying to figure out what chords I've actually been playing.

Baby, You're a Star

Poop Star
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Well, we're back.

And while it's been a great start to the new year (it's hard to imagine how a month off from work wouldn't be), I can't get too rah-rah about it at the moment because I've managed to get sick after returning to the same sleep difficulties that I was experiencing before I left for California and points west.

Eh, let me try anyway.

First off -- no sleeping troubles at all while I was away. (Going to have to let that one sink in -- I hope it doesn't have to do with the mojo of the new house. "New" being relative since we bought the house over a year ago and have lived in it for almost a year now.)

Anyway, a good visit with family and some friends (unfortunately, never enough time to see everyone), a good couple of hikes in the Mojave. And then about 2-1/2 weeks in Hawaii: 7 days on Kauai, 9 days on the big island and a little over 24 hours on Oahu.

Hawaii was awesome.

The picture at top is of this crazy plant/fungus that we found along the side of the trail on the hike we did on Kauai. (If you're interested, another view of it can be found here.) It was supposed to be one of at least two hikes, but it seems that our trip to the Islands was very much about learning how to not worry about making plans or figuring out what to do and just relaxing and having a good time. So we never did get around to hiking the Kalalau trail on the Napali coast (we ended up spending the day surfing and hitting the beaches on the eastern coast... FWIW, prioritizing the second day of surfing over the hike was the SOOTTAD's idea, not that I had any objections), but that just means that we need to figure out when we can plan our next trip back. We did do the one hike in Koke'e state Park (which was fantastic), and take the planned helicopter tour and get our spam musubi, saimin at Hamura's Saimin and burgers at Duane's Ono Charburger. Plus, lots of snorkeling, a luau and a few massages. (Oh, and surfing both days we were on Oahu -- so much for that trip to the north shore.) But a lot more chilling-on-the-beach time than I've done in innumerable years. The SOOTTAD is even sporting a savage tan, relatively speaking.

Anyway, good times. We'll hopefully have a chance to go back in the not too distant future to get that hike in and get some more surfing time. I'll try to dwell on that while I recover from this cold.

Travel Planning

We decided to punt on the deferred New Zealand honeymoon because things never did quite slow down enough for us to actually plan the trip. We're settling for two weeks and change in Hawaii tacked onto some holiday travel in California -- life could be worse.

We scored some frequent flier tickets on American, so we just needed to book the inter-island flights because we're planning on flying into Lihu'e, but out of Honolulu.

My mother pointed me to a travel search engine called Farecast which purports to track the trends in airfare prices in order to help you decide when it's a good time to buy your plane tickets. Seems like a pretty clever tool -- I had been googling for exactly that kind of information for the New Zealand trip. Unfortunately, it only seems to hit the major hubs in the major markets -- so LAX, not Burbank. O'hare, not Midway. (well, sometimes) Honolulu, not Lihue or Hilo or Kona.

But still, it did a pretty good job finding flights for us. And I thought the user interface behaved a lot better than Sidestep, a fare aggregator that the SOOTTAD often uses. The filters responded quickly and didn't make the page jump around. I also liked that it sends you to the airline website (or at least, it did for me), when it figures out that it's cheaper. As an aggregator, Sidestep would often send the SOOTTAD to some discount site like CheapTickets.com (no link because it's N/G) that she vows she will never use again because of all the headaches it created when we had to change a ticket over the summer. When she uses it now, she finds the fare and then manually goes to the airline site.

Anyway, Farecast found some good prices on Mesa Air for our island-hopping and sent me to their reservation site. Which was very considerate, except for the part where Mesa only seemed to operate within the central plains of the continental U.S. I had to poke around before I found Go! Hawaii, one of the subsidiaries of the Mesa Air group. I wandered through the Customer Care page in order to find it because I missed the direct link the first time around.

Anyway, cheap tickets. Couldn't figure out how to sign up for their membership program, but that probably isn't a big loss since I don't think I'll going to be flying there all that much. (nice thought though, huh?) Now we just have to hope that nothing funny happens to this airline or our flights between now and when we get to the islands.