Tsunami, eh?

Word travels fast these days.  Friday evening after work I settled down to a short news catch up while I ate a late dinner to learn Chile had an 8.8 magnitude earthquake occurred a hundred miles or so south of Santiago.  My firat thought went to S.Camps and though I still haven't gotten in touch with him as he's moved onward and eastward to Germany I hope all of the friends he made made it through safely.  The news here was much more focused on the potential threat of a tsunami moving west onto the islands which of course made sense to me because it was a local news affiliate out of Honolulu.  No worries, as a potential wave would reach here around 11am.  I could sleep until 9am or so, check the news and if things looked lousy then I could ride my bike up the hill into the pineapple fields and be well settled in by 10:30.

Saturday morning, however, did not occur as I just described.  I was wakened by my cell phone just after 6am due to a call from Jon and him asking if I wanted to get picked up and tag along with him, Josh, and Anna, Krystal, and Stephanie (no one who reads this will know who anyone but Jon is.  That's how things are going to work with my stories for a little while..).  That sounded great for once I got up later so I asked when they were headed up.  "10 minutes."  What the shit?  So I flipped on the news and CNN seemed to believe Hawaii was going to be washed away.  Weird.  Not what I heard...I understand the media is trying to get the word out but god damn, they're talking about a 10 foot wave.  1000 feet or more of elevation is a 10 minute BIKE RIDE away for me.  Why am I up right now?  But I acquiesce to their request, throw my contacts in and brush my teeth, then pack my survival bag.  It consisted of a 20oz bottle of water, my glasses, my laptop, my camera, a book, and my passport - just in case I got swept to Australia.

Just before 6:30am I'm picked up and the six of us drive north...to Honolua Bay.  Honolua Bay is on the coast and relatively high up (read: 50 or  75 ft...haha) because Jon, Josh, and I wanted to get a good view when things started to unfold.  So all this happens before 7am...with four fucking hours until the waves are supposed to make landfall.  Again, I'm not trying to belittle the good faithed effort from the media ensure people are aware of what's going on, but holy shit I don't think it takes four hours to drive AROUND Maui.  I've got a hunch we're going to be A-OK.  The real problem arose from people on the east coast watching CNN as they read their Saturday morning papers and saw that "Hawaii was going to be swept away," realizing they know people in Hawaii and wanted to inform them they were "going to be swept away."  All beginning around 8am EST...3am Hawaiian.  I'd like to take a moment here who cared enough about me to check...but waited until after 9am out here.  I commend your judgment.

The three other people with us, all yong women...let's just say their friends weren't so kind.  This is a fine line to walk but two of the girls with us were pretty nervous about this whole thing as they were rousted at 3am to frantic calls from friends and family.  Once they got the news turned on one of them had the bright idea to google "tsunami video" or some shit like that on the "internet" and some shit from fucking The Day After Tomorrow or something came up and they started a Lemony Snicketts and a half for the rest of us.

A "for instance" on how the morning went: It's 7:05am and we just arrived at Honolua Bay.  We're milling about on the rocks overlooking a nice surf break and one of the girls, Stephanie, says, complete-serious-face on, "This isn't safe.  We shouldn't be here.  Why are we here?  Why are surfers out there?  Don't they know what's coming?  What's wrong with them?  Do they have a death wish?  We shouldn't be here"...etc.  At 10:55? Yeah, I'll agree then it might be a bad idea.  But with all the hoopla four hours away?  Gimme a break.  When I kindly informed her that the wave isn't going to speed up to 3000 mph from 300 magically just for shits to fuck with those surfers  five minutes from now...she didn't seem impressed.  So I started to pile it on.  It was early...

After doing a couple other things our group swelled to about ten and we decided to head north and post up a nice spot of real estate uphill around 9:30am to make sure we were high.
Once we settled the beer started flowing like the waves were supposed to.  Why?  Because everyone was farting miserable as it was before 10am and we had all been up for significant hours.  Fack.  But this wasn't just some young-adult, throw-back-to-college mode.  95% of the people around us were sucking down beers.  Locals, tourists, twenty, seventy; it didn't matter.  A couple waves shouldn't interfere with anyone's buzz.  Believe it or not, this was the first time I caught a good buzz in the last couple of weeks.  I don't even believe it but I'm pretty sure it's true..

Much like the qaulity of this lame-ass post (I can't stand simple narration but I guess I'm not creative enough to do anything better with it..) the terror and mayhem and destruction CNN called for never quite came to fruition.  To be more accurate the only thing of significant happened is I caught a pretty heavy buzz on suds before nooon.  It was a block party uphill, everywhere around the island as far as I could tell.  Luckily some of the roads leading north were kept open because we ran out of beer around 12:30pm and that just was not acceptable.  More beers for the afternoon, some weiners, some margaritas, some swimming in a pool...then 3:30 rolls around and F, I may still have to work.  Phone call is placed...and why yes, actually, I did stll have to work.  Most everyone I was with did.  F, indeed.

Looking back Saturday turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  I had struggled a little bit on Friday, my first day, in my interactions with the guests.  More or less: I don't like talking to people.  But get some hooch in me and let's dance, folks.  I was in the zone until my bicycle ride home around 11:30pm when my head started to ache.  I chalked it up to my early wake up call rather than admitting I sobered up got hung over.

I know Marie was nervous but I thank her for taking it out on others [read: Skip, Krysta] rather than calling me all the time like what was the case with other folks.  We played it safe and made it an adventure and it was what it was.  Lucky for me this place is loaded with rich, white tourists so the news outlets got the word out.  Unlike New Orleans.  What, too soon?  This is just another good reason to collectively hate the government and the mainstream media.  Obama's from Hawaii...coincendce in the media coverage, much?  A too much?  A much too much.

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Toots-Nami Party Slideshow..

Nothing like waking up to a couple of cocks.  Scenery of nothing happening and sun-filled shenanigans are also included..

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In more current news today was a miserably wet day.  Reminded me of trying to lay shingles last June.  It pissed rain off and on all day.  Wind has been blowing like hell, with a wind advisory that looks to last for the next couple few days.  Just miserable.  Clearly mother Nature's looking to get back at me for mocking her decision to spare Hawaii from tsunamical death and destruction.  Then again, maybe Mother Nature had nothing at all to do with it...MAYBE OBAMA IS THE 2ND COMING?!?!?!

I took the 5 mile ride down to Lahaina like an idiot because Jon wanted a new pair of shoes and the ride back may have been the most miserable experience of my life.  Straight headwind at 20mph, I'd say.  Just gross.  Then I went out to get my half price dinner at six a half mile away...and got soaked again.  My room has clothes hanging off of every corner and hook I could conjure up.  The whole week looks like it could be a little shaky, according to weather.com.   Bollocks.  Wind is bad.  rain is bad.  Combine the two and it's about as cool as a wet dump in your pants.  My pisser is outside,too, so when it rains I get wet walking to the pee pee place.  Lahaina's weather is beautiful?  My ass it is...Since it's not just sunshine and rainbows and all that happy horseshit maybe it's time I just pack my things and go back to New England.  O, wait...there's snow all over the place back there?  Ummm, yeah...actually, I'll take my chances here...

I would be just a little unhappy if I flew to Hawaii for a week to watch it rain from a hotel room the whole time.  I hope it stays dry tomorrow morning...I really don't want to deal with riding to work in the rain.  I'm just going to pretend that rain is never going to happen on days that I work.  I don't exactly have...what do you call it...oh yeah: a raincoat.  No worries I suppose; nothing a trash bag can't fix.  No way in hell am I going to break down and buy a raincoat. Not necessary.

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Something to leave you with a smile:

In case you haven't heard, we were supposed to get a tsunami yesterday here.  What was today's movie on FX?  The Day After Tomorrow.  That amused me.

Twister was on, too.  I awlays find it amusing that Philp Seymore Hoffman plays such a stoner burnout in Twister and then plays the antithesis of a stoner burnout in Lewbowski, a movie about a stoner burnout.  I think I've mentioned Twister on here awhile ago but kind of like the midwest with their tornado horns they have alarms and horns out here that signal tsunami warnings.  And they are f-ing loud.

As far as warnings go the locals I've talked to said this was the most serious a warning they could remember.  The media/science scare tactics were enough to shut down mail delivery for the day, too.  It MUST have been cereal.  Cheers.