Bubbles

I had a lovely day at Sans Souci/Kaimana beach today - I skipped out of work since tmorrow and Friday will be 12 hour days. I forgot to bring my damn camera (again) so I didn't get any pics of all the funny people that were entertaining me. First of all there were these 2 girls - they must have either just started college or they're almost out of HS, but either way, they were very silly. They were wearing matching bikini bottoms - those ones that say "juicy" - which was funny right from the get go... but then ALL they did was squeal about the boy they think is SOOO hot that they can quit scheming about how to get inside his room. They were so loud everything they said was echoing around the beach. They were having fun though.

The other stand out funny person was this old ~70ish man who was wearing the tight short style speedo.. with flames on it in stripes. It was great.

I'm off to Maui tomorrow at 5am... it's gonna hurt, but I'm on Maui for 2 days! kick ass.

Sunday was a Long Day!

We woke up Sunday morning and I actually felt like it would be fun to tkae the bus over to the Windward side and bike to a short hike! This was new and exciting for Dave cause I don't usually want to hike, but it just sounded good Sunday. So we got our shit together and were headed out on the bus by 11. I had my Lanikai Juice and got a Maui Taco burrito for later and we got to the Keolu Hills hike by 1 or so, maybe... anyway we were at the top at 2. It was a nice hike, but could have been superb if it hadn't been so damn hot my face felt like it was melting off and burning itself while it dripped off. I wasn't so lovely, but the view from the top was awesome! We could see all of Waimanalo Beach and all of Kailua Beach. Kick ass. And when the wind came up and blew all the swarming bugs away - I even got to cool down a little. Unfortunately, Dave accidently erased all the pics that he took up there except for the time lapse, so I don't have any of those stellar views to show off, but he took a pic from Mariners Ridge last week that shows where we were..

basically on top of the little mountain in the upper left corner where the beach juts out next to the islands.

So while I sweated off my sun block and burned my face, I felt brave enough to tell Dave that I could bike home instead of bussing. Normally, this wouldn't have really been a problem, but the combination of not enough sleep and being in the sun all day and all the weight in my back pack - cause I totally filled my camel back back up after the hike instead of leaving some room - made my back cramp up about halfway through Aina Haina.. and we bussed the rest of the way home so I could shower and PASS out!

It was a good day.

Astro bye-bye

Saturday evening we caught a ride up to the North Shore with Dagny and Brandon for Julius' going away party. Julius being the crazy German he is, this get-together had lots of fun potential. WE brought the fire twirling gear and after some dinner debaucles, finally made it to Keiki Beach (with a fine piece of carrot cake from Ted's.. yum!).

As we walked up, there was a flat pool on top of the beach formed by the waves coming up high on the sand. It was beautiful. When I walked by a bigger wave ran up the beach and pushed into it. It was super cool, but the swell was receeding and the pool slowly shrank through sunset.


Juilius and his silly roommates (I hadn't known he had silly roommates or I'd have hung out with them!) showed up not too long after us and we had a fine time talking about New Zealand adventures (one of them is a Kiwi who had another kiwi friend visiting) and how feijoas are the best things ever. Unfortuantely they all are leaving Monday =(

Me and Dagny eating

The evening became more interesting when a couple of guys came down from the vacation rentals to hang with us. It started raining and they invited us up to their deck to finish our BBQ and chill for a while.

This turned into a number of strange discussions for me, which were all started up because I told them I'm a geologist. Instantly it was global warming talk with 2 guys from socal and 1 from nyc who clearly didn't know anything about global warming. It was pretty funny, cause usually I am NOT the best person to explain anything to anybody, unless it's directions with a map or how to cook something.. but I suprised myself and did (I think) a pretty good job. I even tried to prove the validity of plate tectonics and defended not believing in Jesus without getting irritated and impatient! Go me! It was good to talk to someone who is even more scattered than me - I now have a new perspective =).

We eventually left the NS and headed back to town to finish the night at the astro house. I had some mulled mead and a sugar bomb midori drink while shooting the shit and twirling some homemade glowsticks to early 90s hip hop. good stuff.

Mostly Moved!

So all that we really have left to move is the bed and all of our food. Dave took some pics this morning of the place - I am so relieved and happy! Here 1 pic.. check his site for more - geekedout42.blogspot.com

This is The Answer

Check this out - I am listening to Democracy Now! right now and they're interviewing someone from "Yes Men" who are a group of people that impersonate corporate people and present things at conferences.. they just released a " 'Halliburton' Survival Ball" it's on the website www.halliburtoncontracts.com.

From the website...

'The SurvivaBall is designed to protect the corporate manager no matter what Mother Nature throws his or her way," said Fred Wolf, a Halliburton representative who spoke today at the Catastrophic Loss conference held at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Amelia Island, Florida. "This technology is the only rational response to abrupt climate change," he said to an attentive and appreciative audience.

"It's essentially a gated community for one," said Wolf.

Dr. Northrop Goody, the head of Halliburton's Emergency Products Development Unit, showed diagrams and videos describing the SurvivaBall's many features. "Much as amoebas link up into slime molds when threatened, SurvivaBalls also fulfill a community function. After all, people need people," noted Goody as he showed an artist's rendition of numerous SurvivaBalls linking up to form a managerial aggregate with functional differentiation, metaphorically dancing through the streets of Houston, Texas.

"The SurvivaBall builds on Halliburton's reputation as a disaster and conflict industry innovator," said Wolf. "Just as the Black Plague led to the Renaissance and the Great Deluge gave Noah a monopoly of the animals, so tomorrow's catastrophes could well lead to good - and industry must be ready to seize that good." '

Apparently, only 1 person at the conference the Yes Men infiltrated understood that they were being made fun of. the rest of the people started asking questions about whether or not the suit was effective against terrorism... awesome.

Northern Lights.. haven't seen those in a while

Today's EPOD has a kick ass northern lights pic from Norway... That is definitely one thing that Hawaii can not replace. Seeing the lights in Houghton for 5 years was awesome - especially when they would cover the whole sky and do a dance straight up like some kind of crazy ghost bird. I wanna say that I read in a previous APOD (or some crazy astronomer told me) that the green light is caused by excited nitrogen whereas the pink or reddish color that we sometimes saw is oxygen.

Still a geo-geek

Alex sent me this Nat. Geographic pic - It's in Tanzania on the rift zone.. pretty kick ass huh?