Ku'u Home O Kahalu'u

We have landed in da country.

Leased a place on Kane'ohe Bay steps away from the ocean and a launching spot for paddleboards. My brother and I have paddled out a number of times; the last couple we free-dove the drop-off, carrying spears and looking for edible targets. No dinner yet. But amazing to see all of the life out there; no trip has not included at least a half-dozen turtles and a couple of big porcupine fish, not to mention the thousands of brightly-colored reef fish, small and large.

Can't wait to share the new home with our old friends.

Aloha!

Nalu Hele Mai



Here come the waves...



 

Poi Pig Tacos, Late Night Surf, Mountain Biking, and Mantras

Home from work after four yesterday and not in the mood for a pau hana surf session, I arrived to an apartment that smelled like an imu. Proud of my kalua pig skills, I looked forward to chowing on some ono local kine grinds!








I named my slow cooker "imu" to add some old Hawaiian flavor to my culinary island adventures.












I ate a couple of homemade poi pig tacos, watched a couple of episodes of Netflix's "Orange is the New Black," and lay around.

Around nine I decided to go catch some waves at the Wall. When the tide's higher, I walk out to the end of the pier, toss the sponge out, and jump off the end, timing it to hit the water as a waves swells into the wall, and landing in a seated position, fins out, so my entry is shallow.

That technique has served me well, except for the time I was a little left of my usual entry and caught some reef square in my left butt cheek; it was the meaty part, so just bruised for a while and in a spot that I was only reminded of when seated in the bathroom. Enough on that.

As soon as I recovered the sponge and paddled ten feet a wave swelled up and I turned and dropped under a little curtain of lip. Short and fun and I was paddling back out.

I know the spot, so could orient myself by the pier behind me and the "No Surfboards" buoys outside. I caught a half-dozen waves total, with nobody out but me. It may be more fun with more moon. Tonight  the moon angle was right, out to sea and low, but the cloud cover dimmed it so much I was left without much vision of what was coming.

I hung in the spot I saw the waves I wanted breaking and spun and dropped in quick, with only enough time for maybe two strong kicks and I was launched.

Short session, but more waves than I sometimes catch in twice the time with crowds around forcing me to be more picky at what waves I choose.

If you've known me long enough, you've heard me talk about mountain biking and the rock in the trail. If you don't, well, you're in luck, 'cause I love telling that story.

I used to ride Surveyor's Ridge out near Parkdale, Oregon, every summer. I'd do anywhere from 20 to 35 miles, as a loop from Toll Bridge Campground. There's a spot up there where I was heading South on a sidehill, sloping from above to my left, down to my right. It was a narrow single-track across an open grassy hill and midway along there was a rock on the uphill side of the trail that protruded halfway across the trail.

My first time I came across it, I stared at that rock, thinking, "I don't want to go there." So, if you know bikes at all, your wheel goes where you look. So, bang. Hit it.

Next time, I looked at the rock, then looked where I wanted to go and focused on my desired path. No bang. And away I rode.

Life lesson learned. Now to apply it.

As Kris and I struggle to move away from the obstruction in our lives, we are looking for a path to focus on.

When I paddle out on a big wave day, I have to duck through a few waves and sometimes get hit with a big set on the head in the impact zone; lucky timing.

I know I have to pop up, center on the board, and focus on the horizon, and scratch like hell to get out where I want to be.

Kris and I need a mantra.

VOGGY Breakdown

My eyes started itching about four days ago, just about the time the trades shut down. Kinda puffy, and teary, they itched worse in the ocean and then Tuesday, sitting in the office, I started feeling dizzy and then nauseous. Yesterday it was worse and I went home. Same today.

The VOG got me.

Surf got a little bump Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday night. I got a bunch of fun ones on the long board at Publics and Queens. Then went out last night and had fun at Walls.

Oh, yes. I still surf when I'm sick. It's healing, my friends.

So, I've been working out this story about my kids and our new life and I'm going to take it off line for the time being and work on it in a longer form. Feel free to comment or send me your feedback. It'll be healing work and good for us all to do it.

For now, back to the fun stuff.

I've been slack about writing about surfing. I've thought about it a bit the past couple of weeks and come to the conclusion that when I got here in April, I was so happy to be back in warm tropical waves, that each wave I caught, each turn I carved, every drop-in, bottom turn, kick-out offered me a special peak moment that experienced in it's entirety, fully, as a student.

Then a couple of big South swells came through and I got the rush that always has drawn me to this surfing thing more than any other reason.

The big wave experience.

Speed.

Adrenaline.

A full-body immersion in mother nature and powers greater than myself.

I knew the first time I slid down the face of an overhead wave that this was something I wanted to do again and again and for the rest of my life. When I caught a 20+ footer in Hanalei and got held down for three waves before making out to the channel, I was less discouraged than I was challenged and touched spiritually. This was the first time in my life that something had grabbed hold of me and held me down and left me with no control.

As I tumbled it came clear to me that I couldn't even move my had to my face if I tried. The ocean had me in a complete embrace of rolling warm salty water. I'd returned to the womb and had no voice in the world I was immersed within. Eventually, I surrendered the struggle and my ego quieted. I accepted my fate and waited to see the outcome.

When I was able to figure out up I stroked to the surface, marked the channel and swam clear of the impact zone.

I needed that.

Facts Shmacts

Yada yada yada, but what's the story? That's what is so hard about all of this. When you're in a bind with a mentally ill person, what do you do? Especially someone who's illness is built around narratives and plot lines and archetypes?

That's what I mean about clinging to what I know to be true. I can look at this extended family that my children belong to and I can see the importance of each involved person. I can also see the narrative lines that the GEM takes and exploits.

The fact is that she tried to orchestrate an arrest of myself and my wife for what she called 'custodial interference.' We had a disagreement about when and where the kids where supposed to be exchanged and how daycare was supposed to be handled. Rather than work it out and find a way to compromise, the GEM called the Beaverton police department and pretended to not know where her child was. This despite the fact that she had already called the school and had been told that the kid was picked up by her father.

She then called me and left angry messages ordering me to bring Aoibhinn to her.

The police called me and discussed what was happening. The cop was a bit on the confrontational side. I told him I had A and I planned on getting her back to her mom as soon as I could find out where she was and arrange the drop-off. (It turned out that the GEM had rushed to the daycare and picked up M while I was sitting upstairs with A.)

I also told the cop that nine months previous, the GEM had decided she wanted to keep the kids for a weekend in the summer and rather than swap with me, she just kept them and didn't return them to me on Tuesday. I called her a couple of times and tried to get them back, even asking her if I should call the police. Her response made it clear she already looked into the consequences of keeping the kids on my time. She said, "Go ahead. Call the cops. It's a civil matter and they won't do anything."

So, cop on the phone hangs up. He calls back a half-hour later and I tell him I'm on the way to drop A at her mom's house. He says, "Yeah, well good luck. She's on the other line right now with my sergeant trying to get him to write me up."

I'd like to say something glib, make a flip comment here, but this is a mental illness. As I am becoming more aware of what I'm dealing with it's becoming more real. Just like I wouldn't expect a man on crutches to manage a trip up a staircase, I'm becoming more aware that this mental illness is not something that can be treated by expecting normal social functioning.

Yet, it is causing harm to everyone else in this blended family. The children are least aware and most at risk.

So, what? What now?

I won't ever lose

What do you do when you're confronted with someone who has spent eight years grabbing every possible negative narrative strand and whipping everyone in their orbit with it? The outrage and frustration is overwhelming at times and compounded by the fact that our natural instinct as humans is to want these things to heal themselves with time, as we've been told they will.

So we wait and we take it. Attack after attack. I know the truth. I know what reality is, and that's the strand I have to hang on to with both hands.

Tightly.

At the other end is this angry, hurting person trying to shake me free and off into a groundless orbit, like a beach ball at a Padres game. Hanging on to this narrative thread, knowing that I love these little girls that I give them something they need. I've moved away from that unstable, abusive arena, hoping for quality time, over quantity. The Oregon legal system did my kids wrong. I know I'm the parent who is the best choice to have kept this family together. Given the reins, I would have steered us along and things would be smooth and easy. I have no desire to displace the girls' mother. I love them and I see their need for their mom. In fact, I see it even more clearly through the fog she creates, ironically. I can see the girls' being slowly and steadily co-opted as their mother actively campaigns to force me out of their lives and paint me as a villain at every step.

I've not forgotten that her closest friends didn't understand why she had taken this path and that they couldn't even stop her from attempting this violent coup, forcing me to the sidelines and attempting to drive a wedge into our relationship.

I know her one honest moment was her confession that she was afraid the girls would love a step-mother more than her. That's a normal fear. It's completely unfounded in this case.

And yet here she is, maniuplating every person, every action, everything to create this widening physical gulf.

Go ahead, build a massive gap. I do not fear I will be replaced. I love those girls immensely. They know who I am. I have a place in their lives I won't ever lose.

GEM Explodes

After seven months of living out of the RV at the horse farm we were ready for change. We looked at our options. We thought about living across the river in rural Clark County; we looked all around Western Washington County; we considered Spokane; and even a commute from out in the gorge.

Then I started getting calls from Hawaii.

Kris and I were married in Hawaii and the kids came along for the wedding. I lived here in 2004 for a few months while working on a project for the Hawaiian Islands Blue Cross/Blue Shield organization. I love it here and Kris always wanted to live on an island.

Why did we consider moving away? The kids were at a different place developmentally than they had been when we put this parenting plan into place. That coupled with the GEM's worsening personality disorder led the three counselors we worked with--Kris's, mine, and the children's--to  the conclusion that the best thing for us to do would be to withdraw from the fifty-fifty arrangement and try and stay in the kids' lives from a distance.

In early April of last year (2012), we missed a payment at the kids after-school program. They sent a note home to Sarah's house saying that A couldn't come back until the payment was made. I went and got A from school the next day and took her over to the after-school location. In the meantime, the GEM rushed early from work, grabbed M from downstairs in the building I was in and raced home and called the police telling them that A was missing.

The cops called me. The weird thing is, the year before, in the summer, the GEM decided she wanted the girls for a particular weekend. Rather than work it out with me, she just didn't return the kids to me on Tuesday and kept them for an extra week.

When I called and asked her to return the kids, she refused and when I asked what I should do; should I call the cops? She told me that I could go ahead and call the cops, but this was a civil matter and they wouldn't do anything about it.

Now here she was trying to get the police to arrest me for custodial interference. I told the cop that called me that this was a civil matter, as I'd learned from her the previous summer. He called back a half-hour later and said the GEM was on the phone with his sergeant trying to get him written up.

By the time we got over to the GEM's house to drop A off, she must have been in a frenzy. She came stomping down the middle of the street, straight at our pickup and grabbed Kris's door handle, opening the door as we slowly drove past. She did the same with the back door, where A was sitting, and then punched the side of the pickup bed.

We drove up to the top of the cul-de-sac and A jumped out, saying, "I'm outta here!" She ran past her mom who was headed straight for Kris.

Screaming yelling threatening nonsense ensued. We handled well and left.

Fathering

As the sun's light faded behind the deep blue-green silhouette of the Oregon Coast Range, I looked down the hill to A and M, playing with friends just met in the excited, cautious way kids naturally do when in a new situation.

This is our new life. I don't know where it's going, but it couldn't stay there. We've embraced change and launched ourselves into a future of indeterminate place and time. I realize that the kids are at a different place developmentally, than they've ever been. No longer fully dependent on us, they have begun to be excited about their friends and their social lives, learning how they fit in and what pleasures there are in being an individual.

When A was born on the last day of November, I was in the room and excited to greet her; as well as stressed since her birth didn't go smoothly. The doctor thought she was trying to come up 'sunny side up' and spent a lot of time trying to get her flipped over. Eventually, when she arrived, she was a three on the Apgar chart and a team of nurses standing by was able to quickly get her up to a seven. Nonetheless, she spent the first couple of days in the baby ICU.

I spent most of time in with her, trying to maintain skin contact with the tiny little new arrival. She seemed hearty to me and that has been the truth of her life. She's a competitive, driven little kid. She does well in school and has been a solid athlete in every sport she's tried.

I am her father, if not completely, and I may not ever know. Most important to me is that I love her and I can see the positive qualities I've helped build in her. She knows me and knows she is supported in this world by a man who will always be there to protect her and champion her.

Vagabonds

When Kris was young she told her family she was going to live on an island someday. Her father scoffed at her, spitting out, “No you’re not! You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I’ve known her long enough now to realize that she dreams about how to make more of her life, but she also activates those dreams.

She’s not a fly-by-night, run-off-on-a-whim sort; she will focus herself on a goal and keep moving toward it. I love that about her. I think it takes a lot of faith and optimism to follow a long path to a worthy goal. I very much appreciate orbiting Kris’s bright star; the faith I’ve struggled to maintain in my life is stoked by her steady, soft, determined drive.

Kris and I always talked about what we should do, where we should go, how we wanted to live. We kicked around ideas about next week, next month, next year, and our golden years. We worked out a long-term plan to sail around the world; spending an entire Saturday in an office with a whiteboard and sticky notes, planning our future and putting it all into a spreadsheet.

Over the past seven years, we have traveled a couple of times a year over to Wyoming to spend time with Kris’s aunt, uncle, and cousins on their ranch near Centennial. We rode Harleys over there a few times, traveling two-lane back roads through beautiful Western vistas. On one trip we even took a look at Centennial’s historic hotel, with an eye toward buying it; trying to imagine if living and working there was a thing that we could do. We finally decided to rent out our house and move out to the country and look for a home that we could rent or buy that would allow us to increase our animal herd.

At New Year’s Eve on the ranch in Wyoming, Kris’s cousin had offered to send that new little filly over to Oregon for Kris and the girls to raise. That seemed to be the activator for us and we made the move out to the country six months later. We upgraded our RV and pickup to allow us to live comfortably with the girls having their own beds and room. And we relocated to the farm where Juno was being boarded.

The first day as vagabonds was a bit of a stress. With Kris having absconded to Eugene to work the Olympic Track and Field Trials for Nike, I was left alone to load up the rig and drive out to the horse farm and plug in. After getting setup and plugged in, I was able to sit back and relax for a moment and realize that everything was going to be okay. It was the longest day of the year and the weather was perfect. The girls stayed outside until nearly 10 pm, playing with the other kids at the farm and riding horses in the outdoor arena. It was a well-needed idyllic counterpoint to a very stressful week.

Aloha

Kris and I have been advised to drop off of Facebook for a while. We will still post on our blogs and answer email and phone. Please stay in touch. We are very happy with our new life direction and each of you KNOWS how much we enjoy sharing our happiness with you, since you, of course!, know how much we enjoy sharing in your lives!

Aloha nui loa! We look forward to our shared Mai Tais in paradise!

Band of Horses

It was a hard decision when it came to the moment we had to make it, but we turned on a dime—maybe a quarter—and started into action making the move from Portland to Honolulu.

The biggest challenge has been moving all our farm animals off to new homes. And the hardest part of that was telling the kids what we were doing and how we were going to do it. Aoíbhinn came up to me in February and told me how happy she was to have Juno as her horse and how lucky she felt. She said, “I just realized today, dad, that not many people have a horse of their own. I’m pretty lucky.”

That moment was a good one and I love that she was so openly appreciative of this gift in her life. She was a joy to watch as she came home every day, changed into her barn clothes, pulled on her boots, and strode off to do her horsey chores.

When we picked Juno up in Wyoming, she was a wild little seven-month old filly. To get her in the trailer, it took three of us in a narrow chute and two attempts. The Oregon vet who worked with her when she arrived was truly surprised at her transformation a year later when she came out to do some work on her. That wild, skittish little filly had evolved into a sweetnuzzler. I have no doubt that transformation was all of the love and attention she got at that barn and Aoíbhinn was at the center of it; spending her time learning from the older girls as they worked their horses and showed her the ways; and then putting in hours and hours working Juno, playing with her, and grooming her.

I get it now: the love of a little girl for her horse. I’ve been lucky enough to see it up close. I know now why my wife wanted to create her own life on a farm and surround herself with those animals. What started out with a dog, then a cat, grew through a couple of pygmy goats and into a full-fledged goose, horse extravaganza outside Gaston, Oregon.

We spent over nine months living out there, me commuting to Vancouver the whole time; forty-plus miles each direction. It took us more than a half-hour to get from the kids’ school to home each night and we’d do it again in the morning to get them to school on time.

I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.

GEM FU

This one may be a bit intimate; if you read this blog and enjoy the lighter side of living in Hawaii, or the fun of catching waves on O'ahu, you might skip this one.

I've been listening to Marc Maron for a few years now. If you haven't already, check out his podcast WTF. He interviews just about every contemporary comedian and the time he spends with each of his guests offers close intimate looks at the inside lives and motivations of some people we see from a distance; maybe a distance we don't recognize when we are laughing at somebody's schtick on a stage.

I'm also a fan of Teri Gross's Fresh Air radio show. She similarly cracks open people we see in People, or wherever, on a regular basis.

So, this morning, I'm listening to Gross interview Maron, which of course offers me omphaloskeptic levels of meta-introspection and it affects me in a righteous way. Life is a real thing going on all the time and we experience it on a daily level, with some distance, or, if we are lucky, we experience it in a deeper way for brief moments.

So, this is where I take a left turn.

I love my children. I have been blessed to know four beautiful struggling humans, who each have a joy within them that I experience regularly. Not daily, not like I'd like. But I have been able to experience intimately the individuals they are.

Okay, so enough prelude. I've been struggling for a while now. I asked Kris to marry me on a surprise trip to San Francisco just over seven years ago. I knew a co-worker of her's and was able to arrange to have her sent to the City for a supposed work trip, and I met her at the airport there and surprised her with a ring and a proposal.

We had a wonderful weekend, which we both look back on with many fond memories.

However, we have to keep a separation when we look back on that moment, because the woman I dated and had my two youngest children with (referred to here as the GEM) got the news from a former co-worker (who we'll call the motiveless malignant) on Monday, when we returned to Portland, that Kris was happily engaged. The GEM got Kris's number and called her directly and left a VM in which she tried to derail our happiness.

Since then, it's been a constant struggle to keep the GEM at a distance, while trying to keep close to A & M and be the best father I could be for them.

I want to be clear at this point that this post, this telling of what's going on is not meant to be an FU to the GEM. I'm certain there are elements of FU in this telling, because I'm human. I'm not Jesus. I'm flawed, but I also have been able to recognize that this struggle the GEM continuously foists on us, is a chance for me to evolve as a human in my brief lucky chance to experience life on this planet.

Even labeling her The GEM is sort of an FU. It is an acronym for green-eyed monster. Not long after Kris and I got married, M was having nightmares about a green-eyed monster. Kris created a label for a spray bottle that looked very professional and contained some lavender essence in water and was called Green-eyed Monster Spray.

Each night we would spray under M's bed and in the closets and around her bed so she could go to sleep in peace, knowing the monster spray was vigilantly protecting her through the night.

We sprayed our own bed one night when we had had nightmares ourselves about the GEM's latest escapades.

So, that's me owning up to my FU behind calling her the GEM; it's a way of dehumanizing her and pushing her away.

But I want to reiterate that I don't want to tell this story for the FU reason. I have avoided writing this down for two reasons. First is I don't think FU gets anybody anywhere and second is my fear that my children would stumble across my words at an age where they weren't quite ready to come to terms with the fact that their mother has a severe personality disorder.

So, why write it out now?

Good question. One I'm going to work on answering.

Second south swell of the season

I spent about two-and-a-half hours outside at Publics; caught three big bombs with lots of carving and lonnnnng rides. Very fun.

A little sponger mayhem on the inside

magical healing powers from the sea

The recent South swell arrived last Thursday and is just now fading a bit. The surf is still good, and town has been fun, but it has worn me out! I couldn't resist and went every day until yesterday. My first couple months here were a nice slow break-in for this more serious swell and the overhead waves it brought.

Two weeks ago I got in on some great Makapu'u and Sandy's, taking a bodyboard over there three days in a row. I caught some great big walls to carve up on the sponge and got in some more strenuous paddling than I've had to do on my evening sessions at Walls and Queens.

Most of this swell was spent at Publics and Castles. Publics was fun when the second reef started to break and then we had a few days where some big stuff woke up Castles. My best day out there involved only about eight people, three of us took our pick of the waves we wanted, rode 300-400 feet, and paddled back out to do it again.

On Tuesday I surfed Castles and then paddled all the way across outer Waikiki bay to Pops. I rode a couple of small inside waves there and paddled back in at Canoes. I'm finally getting fit enough to have some fun out there. It feels good.

After six straight days of surf I was too tired last night and called it early.

Feels good to be out in the water. Magical ocean healing powers can cleanse just about anything the world subjects you to.

Aloha!

'Iolani Palace

Once a month locals get into 'Iolani Palace for free. I decided to ride the bus over and take the tour despite still struggling with the horrible head cold.

It's a worthwhile experience to tour the palace; done in a style that's been labeled American Florentine. Built by King Kalakaua in the late eighteenth century, the building is loaded with the history of that era of transition from an independent, democratically-elected kingdom, to a US territory. Although, sadly, much of the original furnishings were disbursed to the four winds when the robber barrons of the era staged their coup, overthrew the monarchy, and took possession of the palace to establish themselves as the new regime.

Honolulu Headcold

Felt a little under the weather most of yesterday at work. I left around 2:30 and started walking home. The closer I got to home, the worse I felt.

By the time I got home I had a full-blown head cold. Ugh.

Stayed in; no surf and rested. I still ate fine, but my head felt like it might explode.

I slept poorly and around 2:30 the pain in my face from overpacked sinuses was so bad I had to go get something to help.

So, had to navigate 2:30a Kuhio St, which is loaded with hookers and drunks at that point of the night.

I managed to survive the gauntlet; got a box of sudafed; and by 3:30 was back in bed and starting to feel some relief.

Took dose 2 this morning. My nose is running like derby-day.

I surfed the wall for about a half-hour. Very low tide and pretty small kine waves. The last one I caught, I was able to connect all the way to the inside and stand up at the beach. Always a good day when you finish without having to paddle back in. :)

Lunchtime Stroll - Diamond Head Way

 Took another lunchtime walk. This time I went Diamond Head way and checked out the Capitol, Iolani Palace, and some other sites.



St Andrew's



Washington Place

Eternal Flame, September 11 Memorial



Father D and the Capitol building



Central mural on State Capitol rotunda

Inside our funky state capitol building



Queen Lili. She's always hanging around here; keeping an eye on those politicians




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ua_Mau_ke_Ea_o_ka_'%C4%80ina_i_ka_Pono





Shady spot for keiki to watch the birds




Queen's Guards bunkhouse



Looking away from the Queen's Guards fort

Me taking a picture of people taking a picture

Nani

Recurring role on Hawai'i Five-0

Walking back to HT



HECO



Ali'iolani Hale

Hawaiian Telcom

Downtown Honolulu Stroll

Took a stroll at lunchtime today.

Fort Street Mall, near Hotel St.

Crossing King St.

Plumeria threatening to fall on my head

Lovely architecture

Aloha Tower in distance

Nice lobby waterfall creation

Chinatown entrance

Wall Joy, Lei Day, Crazy Pineapple Kissers, and a Hula for You

Monday and Tuesday were both fun nights at the Wall. Last night had a happy, laughing crowd, including a large group of islanders with sponges, paipos, a longboard, and a shortboard. Lots of trading around on vehicles between their crew and lots of good-natured teasing, "Oh, you too fat to catch that wave!"

"Uncle, where you learn to get off 'em lie dat? That move is pretty smoove! The one where you look like you fallin' in da watah!"

I rode a half-dozen or so, getting some big carves, spinning at the ends of rides, and getting a good workout on the paddle back out. The longer the ride in, the more work to get out.

Also, this wave runs straight into a wall and physics tells us for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction (Yankee homer, Boston tears, for example). So, lots of great colliding waves as one is headed in and the rebound is headed back out. Most of the energy is spent straight up into the air. If you time it right, you can either jump over the bump of the outgoing wave and get good air horizontally, or you can smack up the lip and get some good vertical.

I managed a couple of the horizontal types, flying 6-8 feet across the ocean surface before landing again.

Today's Lei Day. You mainlanders got your May Day, and we have to do something with all the dang flowers around here, they dropping on the ground everywhere, I telling you!

So we make leis and give 'em to each other.

My company added the crazy aloha shirt contest to the day and we had some fun.

This guy was the winner and he showed his appreciation by kissing his pineapple trophy.

Anytime somebody starts playing some local style music, if anyone has every danced to the song, they get up and dance for the crowd. It's a great Hawaiian tradition and one of my favorite things about living here. Everyone always shows their appreciation for a dancer!



Redux, Sunrise Jewelry, a Hat, and a Friend of Cyril's

I sorta mailed in the post yesterday. My weekend was quite full and very fun and I may have been in a state of all-surfed-out-edness that made me a little lazy.

One of the highlights was hanging out with Jackie and Freddie. Jackie is a friend of Kris's from way back, who it turns out also worked with my little sister at a PR firm in Portland. She's a very sweet, lovely woman and her beau Freddie is a good man, too. After my early morning session at Sandys I drove around the corner and checked Makapu'u and then up to Kailua, where Freddie lives.

I wandered into town and found the Farmer's market going on. I was early, but folks setting up were all super friendly. In the course of about an hour-and-a-half I got invited to a dairy on the leeward side, ate a killer carnitas breakfast burrito, drank a great cup of coffee, and talked story with a North Shore surfer and his mom. That last guy is the one who is sellin the sunrise shell jewelry. He's buddies with Jamie O'Brien and most of the other kids from the surf magazines. Check them out here: http://www.sunriseshellshawaii.com/about.html.

They go out and dive for the shells off jetskis. Pretty cool stuff. They also have developed their own process for creating rings, that's worth checking out.

After all of that fun, I wandered off to the I Love Kailua Town Party, up a block on Kailua Rd. The town shut down the street and everybody came out to walk around, eat food, buy stuff, watch some hula dancers, and listen to some music. Who knew the Air Force has a band called The USAF Band of the Pacific. That must be pretty good duty.



I was able to meet up with a co-worker and his wife and share a beer on the lanai at the Whole Foods Market. I had a killer kobe beef burger at a place down the street. And I had my first shave ice since coming home, from a truck at the end of the street.

I don't get out in the middle of the day much, since I'm usually plugging away at work from seven to five. I realized this fact a couple of weekends ago when I went for a surf around noon and had to hoof it across the street to the shady side, since my bare feet started to singe on the hot street. It was one of those a-ha moments, where I realized I've been walking to surf in either the early morning or late afternoon, times when the street hasn't had that direct tropical sun applied for a while.

The other thing I noticed that day was that the part of my chin that slopes away from my face, angled upward, got nice and pink, since it was at a perfect sun-facing angle. Gotta load up extra sunblock on that spot.

Anyway, all of these factors added up to me looking for a hat and eventually picking up this straw beauty for $12 at Macy's.

Uh, the musubi was extra. This hat may not look like much, but when it's on, it's enough coverage for a small family to walk down the street together in shade.

After all of the fun in town, I went over and met up with J and F at Freddies place near the beach. He's a recently retired construction business owner and he built his house himself. It's a beautiful place and full of fun customizations, including a waterfall and lava-tube slide. Freddie's longtime friend Kirby came over with his wife Allie and we swam, ate some poke, and talked story for a couple of hours. I told them how I've been going to see Cyril Pahinui on Wednesday's over at the Outriger Reef and Kirby told me to tell Cyril, "Kirby says, 'Hi.'"

Small island, my friends.

Aloha nui loa!



Sandys, Kailua

Hey bloggy blog thing. Went to Sandy Beach Park yesterday and surfed for 1 1/2 hrs. Fun!

Big, pitchy waves with fast drops and faster walls. This place has a reputation for injurying people and it's pretty easy to see why. The inside stuff comes at you like anywhere else and as you paddle to catch it the wave pitches itself up very high, very fast. I had to keep making decisions right up until the last second. I pulled out of a few when I was looking down 6+ feet at a shallow bottom and no place way to get there except through the air.

I caught a few, however, and they were the most thrilling waves I've been on since I got back here.

Afterward I drove over to Kailua, stopping at Makapu'u to take this shot.

I stopped at the Kailua Farmer's Market to see this guy's sunrise seashells after eating a killer breakfast burrito with carnitas.

Then I checked out this party

Where I really loved this guy's art.

And I like this flower.

Great weekend! Can't wait to see my wife in nine days.

Aloha!

Cramps! Best wave! Conner!

Drank some beers last night listening to music and paid the price this morning when my calves cramped up on the last wave I tried to catch. Yeah, guess why it was the last one ....

Best waves I've seen all month. Light trades, so surface was pretty smooth. First wave I caught was the longest of the day; hell, longest in a couple of years. Rode it from out near the buoys that mark the no-hardboard section all the way into the pier; plenty of big carving turns and speed all the way through.

New song from Conner! I slapped a couple of pictures in it so I could load on YouTube. Great song from the boy!

http://youtu.be/suFHfwW1IRc

And here:

lunchjackson.bandcamp.com/album/unfinished

Tiki's of the Night

No surf on Thursday. Big flat high tide and a beautiful huge moon rising early.

The trades came back last night and it felt wonderful to open the windows and let 'em blow all around the house. My bedroom window faces right at the ENE trade and it opens up about five-by-five.

I went to Tiki's Grill and Bar to catch some music and there's great painted carving on the wall, titled Tikis of the Night. The light was hitting kinda cool through the slats of the lanai cover.

For $10,000 you can buy this for me for my half-century b-day coming up in two weeks.

Surfing Fitness, Ki Ho'alu, and Manoa Mist

The fading South swell still offered a couple of nice walls to surf last night. I was in the water for only about a half-hour, but worked hard the whole time, paddling for waves, surfing into the pier and paddling-kicking out for another. I can feel myself getting more fit. It's easier to get back out to the spot I want to be in for the next set of waves and I recover much more quickly once I'm out there.

Last night I actually caught waves right as I paddled out, rather than letting them go and catching my breath instead. :)

I hurried home, cleaned up and headed to the Outrigger Reef to catch the Cyril Pahinui set at 6p.

That's Jeff Ahoy on the steel guitar and Peter Moon Jr. backing up Cyril.

It was a beautiful night. Even a little Manoa Mist that got lost in Waikiki couldn't dampen the fun. You can see the menu I held over my head in one of these vids.

Manoa mist is what they call the little foggy spray of rain that drifts around every evening on the UH campus, just up the hill from my end of Waikiki. It's not even enough to make the baseball players give up.

Aloha!

My Xiphoid Process is Protruding

... but that doesn't mean I'm NOT happy to see you.

Poor to Fair, thigh high to chest high, said the surf report. I didn't get out until pretty late, again on the sponge at the wall. I've been avoiding the hard boards for a while because my xiphoid process is sore.

A mix of short and longer period spells gave us a couple of decent sets; much less chop than on Monday. I caught a couple of very fun waves, big drop and nice walls to carve. On a couple of them I was able to pull a big bottom turn and smack off the lip.

I stayed out until the sun was touching the horizon and was the last guy out there. A nice end to the day.

After I walked home I soaked in the jacuzzi for ten mins before a cooling dip in the pool.

Early to bed and now I can blog at 1:30 am. ;)

Happy April 23rd birthdays to Wm Shakespeare, and Veronica and Colin O'Shea.

Aloha!

Victory-at-Sea! Local Grinds, and Local Legend

Hit the waves for a little more than an hour last night. It was super choppy out there. Onshore winds all afternoon and a mix of swells all crossing each other up, made for my hardest working session of the new era in Hawaii.

I forgot how much work it can be to surf. I've had it pretty easy the past few weeks, with smallish swells and light winds. Yesterday was fun, I caught a couple of shoulder-high waves, with nice drops and big carving turns, but not too sustained, before a cross-swell would mess it up, or the wind chop, or the reflection from the waves bouncing back. Whatevahs, the paddle out after each wave was a workout; multiple duck-dives to get through whitewater and breaking waves.

When you get a super-choppy, super crossed-up, hard paddling day, the surf reporters used to call it Victory-at-Sea conditions. So named, for the old WW2 newsreels of the same title that would show little naval ships bouncing around like corks in the North Atlantic prior to recapping the latest efforts of the US Navy.

Good thing I ate all of this stuff to sustain my energy.

Breakfast!

Lunch!

That is my own home-made brown rice, with a hunk of 3-cheese and garlic bread from Great Harvest, and a cup of pipikaula (Hawaiian-style dried beef) from Foodland.

So, after that, got home, showered, skype'd Kris and then it was off to catch Sean Na'auao! Outrigger Reef has the best music line-up, with Hawaiian Legends playing every night. I missed the first set, but the second set kicked of with about eight straight Hawaiian songs accompanying hula dancers. If you haven't spent much time over here, you might think this is a formal sort of thing, but those people aren't getting paid. They are doing it for the love.

Very special to see local people get up and do a dance to great music from a local legend. Fish and Poi! I'm a big boy!

Aloha!