Billion-dollar oops

Not only do we have a great view of Pearl Harbor, we currently have front-row seats to the effort to free a guided-missile cruiser stuck on on a reef just offshore. (Picture taken from the house.)

Saturday mornings...

I'm fortunate one of the senseis from Karate for Christ (now called Savior Martial Arts) transferred here with the Navy about the time we came here with the Air Force. It's a blessing to be able to continue the same program. The Poock family (who we met through work) is giving it a try now, which encouraged Nathan and Matthew to take another shot at it this morning.

It's kind of weird being the teaching assistant. But it's a good weird. Melvin and I have been working, just the two of us, on Saturdays since November. That's really helped me with some technique. Hopefully everyone else enjoyed today enough that we'll keep having a growing group!

Lt. Dan Band

We took the boys to see Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band, who kicked off their 2009 USO tour at Hickam AFB. Lots of classic rock music... including Sweet Home Alabama (that alone made it worth the trip...).

Sorry for the blurry picture... yours truly isn't so skilled at photography yet that I can deal with zoom lens and weird lighting at the same time. ;)

Bowling for family time

Now granted, we had the bumpers up so we could all bowl on one lane, but it was pretty cool to watch Matthew get a strike on his very first frame. He and Michael ended up with the high scores of the day, and Nathan wasn't very far behind. (Nathan was visibly excited when I finished the 10th frame a couple pins behind him... "I beat Dad!")

Spotlight on Hawaii

I never get tired of seeing this effect as the sun bursts through clouds.

Extending the ohana

I'm blessed to work with a lot of friendly, interesting people here. Tracey is a reservist associated with our office. Her other job is with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. (She's the one who first told us about Waimea Valley.) We finally got our schedules together so she could have dinner with the family.

We didn't mean to make her 'sing for her supper,' but the first thing she did when Matthew showed her the ukulele he bought (with his own saved money!) was to tune it and show him a few things. (Thanks, Tracey!). We had a good time recounting and comparing family memories... but then, since she's a sister in Christ we're already part of the same one!

Home away from home

This is for everyone who wants to see where I (Don) spend at lot of MY time... (click to enlarge)

Here's the history part: the headquarters I work in was a barracks on Hickam when the Dec. 7, 1941 attack occurred. The Air Force has preserved the battle damage in the interior courtyard as a monument to those who fell that day...

What troubles me is this pock-marked wall is the exterior of our public affairs offices. Do you think they're trying to tell us we're expendable???

Estudiando Espanol

We had a bit of a glitch continuing on with Rosetta Stone at the start of the school year, and it fell by the wayside for a bit with Michael and Nathan. We finally just started the whole system over again (can't hurt). Matthew, meanwhile, decided he REALLY likes taking Spanish lessons on the computer. The interface is pretty easy for him, and he likes it enough he's asked Mom for permission to work on it more than once in a day. Quite a few new words en Espanol added to the vocabulary this week...

There's worse things he could be doing!

Happy (belated) New Year!

OK, the new computer is up and running, and MAN is it easier to work video on this thing. Six gigs of RAM will do that, I suppose.

At any rate, now you can see and hear for yourselves what we did on New Year's Eve. The video's about 10 minutes... if you don't want to watch the whole thing, at least skip about halfway through. The fireworks started early that evening, and were pretty constant -- this clip is from around midnight when they reached a rapid crescendo all across the island. Oh... and they continued until about 1 am or later. These people like their explosions!

Changing horses

I tried. I really did. I shot over 15 minutes of video of the spectacular New Years Eve fireworks here on Oahu (see previous post). But all of the sudden, our computer refused to talk to our camera anymore, and I couldn't get it posted to share (you really have to see it to believe it).

I guess computers have "dog years," too. After five and a half years of being a reliable workhorse, I suppose I can forgive the VAIO for starting to act goofy at the most inconvenient times. I spent New Year's Day trying to nurse it back to health, but it doesn't want to run in the fast lane anymore.

Just as a cranky old racehorse can get put out to pasture, so can a computer. We brought home a new one tonight -- 6 times the RAM, 10 times the hard disk space. (Insert geeky victory dance here.) This is the last blog post to be written on the old machine--as I type, I'm already pulling data off it to a portable drive. The mantle is passing hands...

Since there's still life left in the VAIO, just not for high-end apps like photo and video work, it's going to a not-so-quiet retirement as a gaming machine for the kids. THAT'LL teach it!

Happy New Year!

Tonight I think we've seen more fireworks than the last 10 years combined. Little known tidbit about Hawaiians: they LOVE things that go 'boom.' So much so, that two days ago coworkers were warning me about the heavy blanket of cordite smoke that would be hanging over the island tonight. They said every New Years and 4th of July local authorities are concerned about people with asthma and other respiratory problems. I figured they were exaggerating for the new guy.

I was wrong.

From our back deck, we can see a 3/4 view of the southern coast of Oahu. From horizon to horizon, there were shells going off. It was was the closest thing to a city under heavy bombardment I ever hope to experience. Right after sunset, the sky was clear and the moon and Jupiter were very bright in the sky. We had some friends over, and by the time we'd let our kids light their itty-bitty firecrackers and sparklers, you couldn't see a single star for the haze that drifted over southern Oahu. Never seen anything like it, and I can't IMAGINE how much was spent on all the explosives that are still going off as I type this. I tried my best to get some photos, but none do it justice. So just enjoy this one I found posted on a Hawaiian website.

No snow, but lotsa water...

Yes, Virginia, there IS a rainy season in Hawaii... and we're in it! We've had several deluge days, although the locals say it still doesn't compare to last year, when a multi-year drought ended with 41 straight days of rain (averaging an inch or more a day). Apparently some folks were starting to look for gopher wood before that streak ended. (Although, given Hawaii's abundance of these, you'd think people would remember a certain promise...)

We lost power (again) last night for several hours. Naturally the rest of the world took note... but only because the Chosen One is vacationing here. It's nice to know he wasn't inconvenienced much.

Not that we're complaining. Even soggy--and infested with politicians--Hawaii is still, well, Hawaii.

Let'r rip(stik)

Nathan's pretty happy with what he got for Christmas. He oughta be... he picked it out in November, then spent a month allegedly trying to forget he was getting it! ;)











We ended up combining a couple of his favorite things... next thing I know, he's dribbling a soccer ball from the Ripstik... making tight turns and even slapping it with his back foot a couple times. I think we'll be doing that drill some more...

Have yourself a techy little Christmas...

Now that we're spending holidays a few thousand miles from everybody else the next few years, an investment in some modern gadgetry appeared in order. We should have spent the money for this a long time ago!

Expensive Christmas ornament

The Navy brought in more decoration, just in time for Christmas...
(It's really a sea-based X-band radar vessel, but hey, it looks like a tree ornament...)

No White Christmas here! :)

We went with our friends back to Hanauma Bay for some more sand and snorkling. Lots of interesting fish out this time, and Nathan and I found an eel, too. The reef isn't in very deep water -- at times you have to be careful not to scrape over the top of it. This time, both Nathan and Matthew trusted me enough to hold hands and float over to the edge of the reef, where the water's about 9-12 feet deep. That's where the really interesting stuff is, though Nathan was disappointed we still didn't see a turtle.

And of course, there was the obligatory rearranging of beach sand...

Christmas visit

This week we're enjoying some time visiting with friends from a couple assignments back. We met Michael and Adrianna in Maryland. They were stationed in Hawaii when Michael was in the Air Force, and they're taking the kids around to all the places they used to go.

Lighter side of the Navy

Lisa and I are enjoying the occasional date night, now that Mr. Michael seems to be able to look after his brothers for brief stints. For our latest inexpensive outing, we took an evening boat tour of Pearl Harbor, where the emphasis was on all the Christmas lighting the Navy ships put up. This is apparently an annual competition, though some of the crews seemed more into it than others.

One of these days, I'm going to figure out night photography. But until then... (click to enlarge)










We also passed the Arizona Memorial that evening, and I was impressed with the quiet dignity it has at night.

Sounds of the Season

Enjoy!

Dreaming of Christmas

Matthew couldn't keep his eyes open the night we put up decorations. Guess he became the first present. Who knew bubble wrap made such a good blanket?