Someone back home with a legit kitchen and ingredients please try this..

It's just about Easter which means only one thing: legit Easter candy is back in the stores.  I haven't broken down and bought any yet but I've been slowly working into the mindset that I need some tasty treats like PEEPS(!!!) and Cadbury eggs and PEZ and chocolate bunnies and Reese's anythings to celebrate.  Because the Easter bunny helped Jesus rise form the dead, right?  It all makes so much sense..

Putting aside just how, exactly, the holiday has transformed over the years, let's look to what has been created in the last year or two:

Yep, brownies.  But not just any brownies.  Magic Brownies.  Brownies so magical I can't believe someone actually thought them up.  Their secret ingredient:

Yes, folks.  Cadbury Creme Brownies.

This culinary genius must have thought, "Hmmm.  I like brownies.  And I really like Cadbury Creme Eggs.  Why don't I put them together..?"

Using some pretty simple (simple because I didn't have to do it..) ingredient math our pastry chef started with six Cadbury eggs and then added additional amounts of ingredients to make everything from a normal brownie recipe balance out.  Yes, yes, I know he kept everything in grams and that the metric system is scary to a lot of folks but you can use the magic of the "internet" to convert these foreign grams into ounces and then your precious cup by cup measuring system can be used without a scale.

I would love, LOVE, to try these but I have none of the ingredients.  I'm tempted to buy everything...but then I'd be stuck with a bunch of flour and sugar and butter and salt and baking powder that I'd never use again.  So I'm calling on someone, anyone (well, someone preferably who has a bit of baking background..), back home who has all of this stuff to whip it together and tell me how it tastes.  The recipe is here and it's also available on the first page, too.  I'll be jealous, but these have just been added to my to-do list for my 5 year plan.  Knowing I'll have the joy of making these somewhere down the line will have to do for now..

When I do make them I'm going to throw in a boatload of Reese's peanut butter cup pieces, too.  Why, you ask?  Because Reese's peanut butter cups are the best thing on Earth and belong in EVERY tasty treat.  I won't melt them down.  It'll be chunks of Reese's in a Cadbury brownie base.  Wow.  Cheers.

Little things..

I worked a shift Monday (today for me, yesterday for most of you..) from noon until three pm and now I'm not working again until Thursday at 5pm.  I call this a nice, long, non-traditional weekend and I'm not mad about it.  I'm actually stoked to do, well, very little, because it's my weekend and weekends should be spent doing very little.  I worked plenty my first two weeks of real work so a week with just over twenty hours of work should be just what the doctor ordered.   It's funny because twenty hours kind of feels like full time out here because all I need is 20 hours to get my health insurance so in the whole scheme of things that's what's most important.

I feel like I NEED to make it to Wailuku in the next couple of days to get my Hawaii ID taken care of so I can feel like a legitimate resident.  I'm not going to bother to get a Hawaii driver's license because I don't want to have to turn in my Maine state.  I have too much pride in my 207 heritage to want to lose that.  And to get my license switched over I would need to take a 30 question driver's test...and that seems like way too much work when I have no interest in driving out here.  I prefer keeping it like kids' camp while I'm on the island.  A car seems like a frivolous and excessive expense out here when everything I need to get to is within 5 miles or a $2 round trip busride.  Something tells me I'm not going to go to Kahului two hundred and fifty times while I'm out here so even a $500 car seems an extreme price to pay.  I'm cheap, what can I say.

I had to fill out a self-evaluation to prepare for my 30-day review that'll take place next week.  I filled out the three page form today while I was eating my lunch and turned it in, and got $5 in Hula bucks for turning it in within 24 hours of receiving it.  The form took five minutes to fill out.  It just seems ridiculous to me that Hula Grill feels the need to bribe its employees to fill out paperwork in a timely manner.  I mean, I'm not mad at getting a couple of free drinks but at the same time I just found it funny that they'd bribe people.  It's like they treat everyone like kids.  Maybe it really is kids' camp out here..

I've been eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sangwiches recently.  I found Skippy peanut butter on super sale at the super market so it hasn't been too bad needing to buy a loaf of bread every now and again...even though a loaf of half-decent wheat bread is usually $4 out here.  I call shenanigans on that shit, but no one seems to listen to me..  So whenever I've been hungry recently I've thrown together a little snackeroo and it has made my days much brighter.  Back in college I used to call these peanut butter sangwiches bullets.

I would take a slice of bread and load one side of the slice with peanut butter and then load the other side of the slice with jelly or jam or marshmallow fluff and then fold it in half and enjoy.  Sometimes I'd get really crazy and put peanut butter on one side, jelly or jam on the other and then put fluff on it too.  They would always be really messy to eat because I'd put way too much filling in the sangwich for one slice of bread. 

 I always eat the crust around first and then I eat the middle part because it's all soft and delicious and loaded with peanut butter and jelly.  Now that I'm actually paying for my fillings I don't use quite as much filling but I still make my sangwiches with just one slice of bread and do the fold-over.  It's just more fun, and I usually have one and then go and do something and then come back a little later and have another one.  Great taste, less filling.

Bread has been a pretty hot topic for me recently because some clock knocker stole a couple of slices of my bread out of the fridge...and that shit just doesn't fly with me.  DON'T TOUCH MY SHIT, MOTHER FATHERS.  I'm hardly in the house so I can't keep tabs on my food all the time so I don't know who exactly did it but I have my suspicisons.  For the last few days I've been keeping the few refrigerated items of food (salsa, strawberry preserves, yogurt, and bread..) I have in a plastic grocery bag that I tie at the top.  It's kind of a pain in the ass but it seems to be doing the trick.  In the whole scheme of things it's only about fifty cents but at the same time I hate when people touch my stuff.  Especially food.  DON'T DO IT.  If it happens again I'll probably freak out.

This is exactly why I like living alone, though.  If I have something somewhere I know it's going to stay there when it's just me, unless I move it.  I like to do my own thing; I don't enjoy other people around to mess with my stuff and my system.  I don't stress too much when things are bought to be shared, but these fockers aren't my friends so what's mine is mine.  It's as simple as that.  I'll figure something creative out if it keeps happening.

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Also on food, Jon's friend Jackie made a pretty killer pesto pasta dinner for us tonight and her freshly prepared masterpiece reminded me that I need to start using pesto more with my pasta dishes.  It's quite a tasty treat and makes for a nice change of pace from red, heavier sauces.  The farmer's market down the road makes a delicious macadamia nut pesto and a small container would be a perfect size for a light dash with a box of pasta.  Jackie threw some tomato and avocado in as well, and it pretty much made my day.

Crank Yankers is on right now.  I haven't seen a Crank Yankers show in a long, long time.  Pretty happy about it being on right now.  Cheers.

Not having a remote pays off sometimes..

Because while I was flipping channels after work a day or two ago I found this little Nightline gem that is pretty amusing, no matter how many times you watch it:

Mrs. Coupons is clearly the better parent, as she looks for healthy foods at a steal.  Still, I can't fault the guy's logic on tuna.  If you find tuna, or anything else for that matter, on sale and you have coupons that will basically PAY YOU MONEY FOR PUTTING IT IN YOUR CART AND TAKING IT HOME (I don't think you can even call this "buying" it..), you might as well buy a garage full of the products.  Absolutely hilarious.  The guy's a flat-out genius.  I looked on his website but it seems to have a pretty solid mainland bias...it could be tricky getting off the ground out here.  I haven't seen a coupon yet, but don't worry: I'll still be keeping my eyes peeled..

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These last couple posts have been half-assed, I know.  But I really have found the videos funny.  I got distracted today trying to gauge how much it's going to cost me to make a northeast swing in July so I didn't end up making a slideshow this morning.  Please forgive me.  One of these days it'll come.  I'm off Sunday and Tuesday and Wednesday and other than trying to get a Hawaiian ID I have no plans so maybe I'll get to it then.  Then again, maybe not.  Enjoy your weekends, folks.  Cheers.

Thought this was hilarious:

I've been watching a lot of Family Guy out here.  Cheers.

Maybe I was too quick to judge Mr. Bean's plan..

I've been catching quite a bit of heat over the last couple of days form people "in the know" about this new LL Bean "Signature" line and basically I've been told I should be happy a Maine company is trying to step up and compete with the likes of yuppie clothiers and that I shouldn't worry about quality diminishing because LL Bean has always been based around selling quality products.  So I'll admit that I may, MAY be wrong...but I still hope that they keep their river driver shirts just the way they are.  The jury's still out, but hopefully it comes through positively and LL Bean can establish itself as a big-name player in the market it so desires.  Go Maine.

A lot of this heat came from yet another of J.Mac's visitors, who is originally from the 207 but has been going to school in Oregon the past couple few years.  While Jon was working a shift we grabbed some dinner and talked about LL Bean and Rouge's Gallery and Maine for a solid 30-40 minutes and we both found it pretty funny being 6000 miles from the state but still conversing at length about it.  Basically I love Maine, and I don't ever see that changing.  It was a good dinner all around, too, as I had a nice fish sangwich.  Made my day, off, really.  Didn't do a damn thing all morning, hung out at the beach in the afternoon and swam a bit, sucked down a few beers watching the sunset then had a delicious dinner and drink and good talk with good people.  Solid day off, all the way around.

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The Life of Andre The Giant

This may very well be the most comprehensive piece I've ever read on the life of a wrestler, and it was provided by a Deadspin contributer named The Masked Man.  He writes a weekly column titled "Dead Wrestler of the Week," and while it's terribly tragic that so many wrestlers have died young due to the rigors of the ring and substance use and misuse issues, I read it every week and it always takes me back to when I was little and watched all the time.

This is easily the most well done one I've read, surely due to Andre's lasting legacy on the development of professional wrestling through the 80's into the giant it was in the 90's and early 2000's.  He was pretty much the man, and hell, he still is the man today, even in death.  If you ever liked pro wrestling you'll love the read and the videos.  It'll take you back in time, man...Cheers.

Mule to my ears..

Last week I was out at my usual happy hour spot, Moose's, and it's a pretty relaxed atmosphere.  I know one of the bartenders there and she gives me one or two free drinks every time I cruise through, so more or less that's my motivation for going back.  Secondly, they have a couple TV that always have the prime time sports on and also a little TV that always has music videos on.  The audio to these videos is piped into the restaurant like normal music and it's mostly pretty killer hard-ish rock stuff.  They play a lot of Skynyrd, one time I heard Alice Cooper's "Poison," which was a S.Thomas favorite from our track locker room days and a solid classic track, basically they mix it up and play good tunes to listen to while catching an afternoon buzz.

This last time I was in there, however, I was shocked, SHOCKED, when I heard "Brighter Days" come through the speakers.  This is a Gov't Mules song and was actually the opener of the Bonnaroo set they played last summer.  This made my day.  I have never, NEVER, heard Mule on a radio or in a bar (This may not be true...I may have played a Mule track on the jukebox at the Goose...I know I've played Temple of the Dog so it's entirely possible they have Mule tracks, too, and I'm just not remembering..) or anywhere except on CD or iTunes of people who are Mule fans.  My mind was blown.  I was on the wrong side of the bar, away from the little TV and I don't believe they've ever released anything in the way of music videos, either, so while it was the studio version I have no idea what, if anything, was on the screen during the tune. Just my luck..

This was surely not what was on screen, but at any rate I saw this tune coming on as reason enough to keep sipping and ended up riding back north around 3am after that particular morning...but that's besides the point because I made it home safe and sound.

It should also be noted at this particular juncture that Moose's has a special called "Dollar Night" twice a week and later on I ended up back at Moose's for my first "Dollar Night" experience since getting here.  One word summed it up: grimey.  The drinks were watered down, there were about 10 girls and 100 guys there, and at least 20 of those guys were native Hawaiians who go out looking to get in fights with haole's(how-lee's...that's Hawaiin pigdin)...aka, me.  I walked away unscathed, of course, because I would never do anything to make a scene or cause trouble in a bar/club setting, but I only stayed about an hour before other places called.  Around close I know at least one guy got knocked unconscious...oops.  Haha.  I'm glad it only took one night to figure out this Moose's "Dollar Night" is not my cup of tea.  Id prefer not to get ounched in the face any time soon, too.  Fighting seems like too much work.

--

In other news I think I'm going to try surfing today.  J.Mac just bought a board from a Hula Grill coworker so we're going to paddle out in a little bit.  This should get pretty hairy as the waves have been pretty big out here lately.  I should be all set because I'm a pretty strong swimmer..

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In other other news Bose is a piece of shit company because I have their in-ear headphones and they have good sound quality but after extended wear their little earbuds are prone to slip off the headphones...so needless to say I've lost an earbud so now I need to try to find a place to bud new earbuds.  Fockers.  I have a little Amazon order ready to rock and roll so I'll probably just go through them.  It's more just a pain in my ass, and since i don't have the little earpiece my headphones are useless at present.  I struggle running without my funky beats going in my ears, too, so the last couple days I haven't done a whole lot on that front.  O well, I was pretty tired from working quite a bit last week so a couple days off were probably good for me.  Tonight I may try to suck it up and run but chances are I'll make it about a mile and then walk back home.  I'm WEAK.  What's nice is even when I don't do anything as far as exercise I still ride my bike a few miles a day, and I walk WAY too damn much when I'm at work.  I lead a pretty tough life.

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In other other other news when I was searching for "Brighter Days" youtube had changed its layout so I could find the box to embed the video at first so I searched around to make sure it wasn't just this particular video...and I stumbled upon this gem I had never seen before:

Utter hilarity.  I have the cartoon network out here so most evenings I fall asleep to Family Guy or King of The Hill or some of their lesser known Adult Swim sketches.  They help me unwind from all the stress.  Cheers.

Bean's Dream..

African-American Boycott of L.L. Bean Enters 80th Year

Awhile ago I stumbled across this link to an Onion story poking fun at the fact LL Bean makes clothes that are almost exclusively worn by white people.  I found it amusing but I had never really considered it to be true.  I wear it because it'sa good, Maine company that's been around for a long time and makes and sells dependable, long-lasting, quality clothing and products.  This joke, I'm sure, arises because LL Bean Headquarters is located in Maine, and, well, there aren't very many minorities up there.  Ergo, there aren't too many minorities in Bean's famous garments.  For quite awhile Bean's didn't have another retail store besides the one in Freeport, either, so really the fact they made good money before the "internet" is a testament to the high-quality products they offer.  People knew about LL Bean without seeing it in stores.  Magic, really.

I've already shared my love of Bean River Driver shirts on here, and I also wear a lot of other shwag from them, mainly because Mamacapone worked in their call center for quite some time so she'd hook it up with her discount and it was OK because I'm her son.  That's why I have a dope backpack, tent, sleeping bag, etc, and some other stellar long underwear, thermals, and the like.  For the most part anything I wear when I'm active outdoors hiking or in the cooler months involved Bean products.  I grew up in Bean's hiking boots and their signature Hunting Boots.  They are the best.  When I laid shingles in the cold River Driver shirts and Bean thermals got me through, along with a sick pair of Carharrt overalls.  I say all this because for, oh, about their first 80 or 90 years (I know the company was founded in 1912...but I'm not a numbers guy..) they more or less catered to outdoorsy folks looking for reliablity and quality.  Until now.  Bean has just released a new "signature" line aimed at younger crowds, and hopes to compete against J.Crew and some Polo stuff for the "coveted" Nantucket yuppie segment of the fashion industry.  And this shit pissed me off.  Bean makes good products that are designed to fit the working, active man and woman in their pursuits.   They should stick to what they were founded upon rather than sell out and look to change their nitche.  Makes me kind of sad, to be honest.  And I don't know for certain but I believe Matt Closson would agree with me on this.  He seems like a good, old-school Bean guy.  I'm not saying I have a problem with J.Crew or Polo or anything.  I have a bunch of J.Crew items, that I used to wear fairly often back in the day.  Hell, my linen shirts are J.Crew.  But that's my point: My linen shirts are J.Crew.  Let's just say I was never clad in linen when I was nailing shingle.

All I hope is Bean keeps this "signature" shit separate, and doesn't water down their tried and true items for the sake of this new line.  The day I can't buy a Two Layer River Driver will be the day I never head back to the big boot...

All this being said I like the craftiness of this Bates kid  (And if you've got time and want a laugh then watch the video.  I think the E-Trade baby was the director/producer.  Boston.com is a joke..).  Sounds like a dork but anyone who manages to squeeze free shit out of a company is A-OK in my book.  Well done.  When I get back to the mainland and look to do some ridiculous hike I may try to do the same thing.  Maybe the 'Pad will become a travel blog and I'll plaster LL Bean ads all over it as I walk across North America clad in Bean's finestm starting south on the AT and then seeing where I end up.  Surely that would be closer to Bean's Dream than some yuppie, "signature" line.  Cheers.

Ups, Downs, Lefts, Rights, all along the center line..

I guess I'm settled here because I've got the ups-and-downs like you read about, just the same as I would back home.  This morning I woke up feeling stellar, even though I worked until about 11 the night before.  I was pretty stoked to work again and see my schedule for this week.  Then I checked my email and saw my schedule for this week...and my hours were down a little bit so I got steamed.  Not like and end of the world steamed, but I was hoping to be able to bust ass for a month or so and make some good loot before I went on cruise control.  Now it looks like the cruising will begin for the week.

 BUT then I called Jon's roommate and picked up one of his shifts for tomorrow so everything was gravy again.

BUT THEN I was throwing my work shirt on and a button fell off because it's a cheap piece of shit and it got me steamed because the fucker cost me $32 and the button didn't last three weeks.  F-You, Cintas.  Cintas: The [shitty] Uniform People.

BUT THEN I got to work and things went pretty smoothly and it was pretty low key,which was a nice way to spend the day

BUT THEN about an hour before I was to finish ANOTHER F-ING COLORING MARKER leaked onto my shirt pocket and RUINED my shirt again.  So I had G-D red marker on my shirt for the rest of my shift, but luckily I hid it from the managers because if they had seen it they might have made me buy another shirt.  So that was a lucky break, but still made for a pretty shitty end to the day.

BUT THEN after I ate my free burger and I was walking to my bike bumming about my shitty, missing buttoned shirt I got a call from an old friend I hadn't heard from in awhile and we talked for a half hour or 40 minutes or so and I smiled quite a bit so things were back good again.  While I was yalking I was laid out on some grass staring at the West Maui moutains, which were clear.  It always makes me happy when they're clear because you can see the topography so well and I just think it looks wicked cool.  Another killer sunset made for a pretty good hour or so right there.

BUT THEN I realized I had to buy thread and a needle and a brush to scrub my shirt, which pissed me off.  But when I got to the supermarket on my way home there was a killer sale on peanut butter and bread, so I scooped up some provisions for the week and that was pretty solid, even though I still needed to buy a needle and thread and a scrub brush while I was there.

BUT THEN I got home and turned my computer on so I could see what time Crazy Heart was set to play at this week because I have Tuesday off so I thought that would be a perfect day to cruise to Kahului to finally see it...and it's no longer playing on the island.  Tuesday = ruined.  Now I'm kicking myself for being so lazy last week.  Ya, it's just a movie, but I really wanted to see it.  Nicholas: if you find another dvd bootlegger in Chinatown you'd make my day if you could find a copy and send it out.   It'd put a big, fat smile on my face.

SO NOW I have Tuesday off with nothing to do.  THE WORLD IS MY OYSTER.  I'm guessing I'll do...absolutely nothing and just lie by the beach with a book and thencruise south to Lahaina and hit up a happy hour.  Some life, eh?

Clearly I'm pretty bipolar because everything is either "THIS IS SO GREAT I LOVE IT HERE AND I'M NEVER COMING BACK," or it's "WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING BUSSING TABLES WITH A GOOD DEGREE AND GOOD EXPERIENCE IN MY BACK POCKET?"  There really is no middle ground in my brain, haha.  But as I assess times here and times at home I really feel like I'm Jerry Seinfeld in that episode where he decides he always breaks even.  Like, George loses $20 but Elaine finds $20 she forgot in a coat, etc.  Shit just balances out for him, as it generally seems to for me.  There are good days, hours, and minutes, and bad ones of each, too.  What's the point; the bad days really shouldn't be sweated on for too long, I guess.  And when the shit piles up, I'll just look at the view.  Cheers.

So I was mistaken

Today was St. Patrick's Day.  I didn't think it was on the 15th but I've never paid close attention to what day it's on...like I said before, I'm not Irish.  Sue me.  Tuesday, unfortunately, I did not compile a photo album of my trek around the island of Maui with Sam.  I had an errand I needed to run down in Lahaina Tuesday afternoon, and when I finished I figured I'd check out a happy hour and see a bartender friend...and ended up getting pretty twisted and staying up way too late.  So, it wasn't a bad day off on the whole, just sometimes things don't get done when the spirits get into me.  I hope you folks understand.  Those of you who know Sam have probably seen his pics on the Facebook so now I'm not in a huge hurry.  I'm still in a hurry, just not a huge hurry.  I need to do some research and find a better picture uploader/slideshow maker, too.  I think I'm going to quickly run out of room on the site I'm using now.  I take all my pictures in the highest resolution I can so when I look at them on big computer screens they still look swell...but I have no interest in reformatting all of the pictures just to put them on the site I'm using now so I need to venture around the "internet" and find a better program.  Also with the POS program I use now I need to upload the pictures one at a time and since I have a whole gaggle of pictures I'd prefer to not have to upload the whole gaggle one by one.  Wish me luck on my search..

Today at work I had to train a new busser.  This seemed totally stupid to me as I just started a week ago.  The managers kept asking if I had traded a shift with someone but it had been on my schedule since it came out, so basically my bosses are just kind of silly ninnies and don't pay attention to detail.  I got some promo for it so now I can pay J.Mac back for the promo dinners he hooked me up with when I first got here and when he trained me.  Share and share alike, right?  Sounds like a good way to spend an evening sometime soon.  Nothing like stuffing your face for close to free..

I didn't do a damn thing for St. Patrick's Day.  I considered going out...and then I didn't.  I got out of work, had my meal, hung out a bit, took a phone call and the next thing I knew it was 7pm and I still needed to go home and change up.  All the while I went back and forth about going out because I got pretty snookered last night and I wanted to crank out a decent run before my shifts Thursday, but the decision was made for me when it started to rain about 20 minutes after I got home.  F getting wet.  Good excuse to stay in.

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O, this is old business but kind of on the subject of last night, as I had to cruise home from Lahaina while inebriated.  Here's what I took a header into when I was coming home a couple of weeks ago:

Suffering Succotash.  That kind of sucked.  I'm hoping not to repeat it.  Still, pretty funny.

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Also wicked old, on the toots-nami front:

These came out THE DAY AFTER THE TSUNAMI WAS SUPPOSED TO HIT.  Well, played, Crazy T-Shirt stores.  I found this to be especially amusing:

Ya, I bet they're giving about fifty cents form their $20 t-shirt.  So thoughtful.  Clock knockers.  Makes me a little queasy.

O well.  Tomorrow brings two shifts, which means two free meals.  That makes me a little hungry.  Cheers.

Wait, the Ides of March is also St. Patrick's Day?

Where the hell have I been?  Beware!  Beware!  Fudge it, I'm not doing anything today.  I'm not Irish anyway, nor do I care to pretend to be Irish even for a holiday.  I'll probably need to have a beer or two but I'm not looking for some craziness; I'm feeling pretty lazy today.

Samm-O flew back off island yesterday so now my room doesn't feel like a youth hostel anymore.  We had some good fun but I got pretty worn out between quite a bit of work and a long drive around the island over his last four days here.  I ain't as good as I once was...

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O, I got paid for my training last Thursday: $194.55.  FML.  Haha.  I made a little balance transfer last week so with that little baby deposited I've got just enough dinero to pay my rent Friday and have a little icy slush on top of my new Hawaii account to get me through until I get paid for realsies in 10 days or so.  The office was really busy Saturday and Sunday as spring break just started (no big deal..) so hopefully it'll continue and I'll have a fat check to throw in to get me back standing on two legs.  No matter what I can't complain about the scenery for at least another couple of weeks now..

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It's noon here and I don't want to be inside any more so unfortunately that means no more bamboo forest pictures and no more pictures of my trip to Hana. Well, k, I can do one or two..

This was overlooking a red sand beach a little south of Hana.  We got here about an hour before sunset.  There was this couple that decided to stand in the middle of the beach right on the shoreline and suck face the whole time we were there.  Fucking tourists.  Really ruined my shots because I had to pick one side of the beach to shoot at or the other.  Seriously, I've been good about swearing on here recently but that shit really grinded my gears.

Anyways, that's a monk seal.  They're endangered.  And those fudging tourists were about even with the seal and just out of my shot to the right. Clownshoes.  In the word of J.Mac those people being there really made my pee pee soft.

See, I told you it is endangered..

They just swim onto shore every now and again,
take a nap for some hours, and then shove back off into the sea.

The sign should have also added under the illegal
part: "Make out on the shore and ruin people's pictures"

I don't think many people have
seen them so we felt pretty special..

Life was pretty good that day..

I'm not working again Tuesday so hopefully I can bang out something decent between now and then.  But then again this is my weekend so we'll see what happens.  Cheers.

I'm tuckered out..

Samm-O leaves tomorrow.  We went to Hana on Friday, which is all the way on the other side of the island.  We got up around 6:30 to catch a bus to the airport so Samm-O could rent his car, then we trekked across the gnarly Hana Highway and made a bunch of stops at some pretty cool stuff.  Once we got to Hana we had a late lunch and then cruised back along an even gnarlier road that took us along the southern coast and then back up and around to stop for a late dinner and a few beers at the Ale House in Kahului - the place I had my first beer on the island after a short leather tramp and Samm-O also had his first beer here at my recommendation when he landed and was waiting for his ride to the West Side.  Long, but good day.  IT's time to make the donuts, though, so this will have to do for the time being..

Cheers.

Forest of bamboo? Don't mind if we do..

Things haven't been too bad lately.  This is kind of a rainy morning so while Sam and I lay about listening to a little of Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers playing live I thought I could take a couple minutes to attempt to catch up a bit [Editor's Note: I wrote this around 9:00am here, then got called into work.  My first f'ing day was a call in a half hour before the shift started.  Life is hard for the new guy, especially when the new guy is broke.  I got $20 in Hula promo bucks, though.  This is like getting $40 because food there is half price.  Sam went snorkeling.  I brought home the bacon.  Sweet dinner, here we come!].  Sam's been here since Saturday, I think, and we've actually been able to do quite a bit and the weather's been more or less decent with the exception of this morning.  Jon also had a friend come who renteted a car so Sam and I have pretty much been cruising with them on the regular to see some of the sights around the island.  Since I landed I hadn't done more than go five or so miles north of where I'm living or five or so miles south of where I'm living...so much of this exploring has been new to me, as well.

Tuesday, for example, we headed east past the airport and then we continued to the east side of the island on the Hana Highway to check out a bamboo forest.  It did not disappoint.  You just kind of pull off the side of the road, hide what few valuables you brought, lock your car up, and then walk through a little porthole of bamboo onto a trail that winds all through, well, a forest of bamboo.  This walk leads to a stream and passes by waterfalls of different shapes and sizes and some other pretty killer sights.  This was capped off by a jump and a swim upstream where you climb up and find a pool with a 60 foot waterfall.  Ya, pretty crazy all around.  Then you jump and swim back downstream and foot your way back out.  The whole "hike" was done in bare feet.  Earthy, indeed.

FYI: I'm putting "hike" in quotes because my schema of hiking is still basically backpacking and overnight camping and that sort of thing.  Walking through the woods for a couple of hours is just that, walking through the woods for a couple of hours.  Out here everyone calls that hiking, and I guess it is.  Hopefully I can open up my conception of hiking while I'm here...I think that becoming more progressive in my definition of hiking would make me a better person, right?

Well, these are probably what you want to see, so here are a few snapshots from our walk on the bamboo forest hike.


Two studs in the back of a red Mustang..

Our fearless leader..

Follow the white rabbit..

Into the rabbit hole..

Tight quarters..

Until things open up just a bit..

And you reach a nice little water fall..

Fletcher's Here..

Posting may slow down for a little bit...we shall see.  I have no doubt it'll be a good time.  I'll try to bring my camera places.  Pictures are good.

Today was just another day at the office...and I don't work until Thursday.  Shucks.  Life is good today.  Cheers.

On television schedules and leprechauns..

I'm finally starting to get the hang of the whole TV things out here.  It appears that, with the exception of live events like sports and award shows and that kind of happy horseshit that the times reset on the West Coast.  So, your average nightly television shows that are on at 8pm Eastern and 7pm Central will bump and be on at 8pm West Coast time.  So, instead of being a 5 hour difference and having to catch things at 3 or 4 pm or whatever I actually only encounter a 2 hour setback.  Here the Daily Show is on at 9pm Hawaiian, for example.  So that's pretty handy.  I can watch the good TV shows and NOT EVEN HAVE TO STAY UP LATE.  I'm not sure if national affiliates are the same way, though.  I know most of the news shows are on at 10pm and not 11pm.  Maybe I'll need to do more research to get to the bottom of it.  I don't have a remote control so I really don't change the channels much once I lie down.  It's very 1960 of me.  I'm a throwback..

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Word to the wise: Don't drink and bike..

Made that mistake last night and it didn't seem to end well.  Well, in this particular case it did end well because I made it home...but most of the middle was pretty hairy.  I didn't work on Wednesday so I took a cruise down to Lahaina to hang out for the afternoon and happy hour Steve-weisers came calling.  Happy hour led to a cruise by Maui Brewing Company to see if they had the brewery open for a taste test.

Quick aside: This place is CRAZY.  I want to work there.  BADLY.  I may go in an apply.  Then drop in EVERY WEEK in hopes of landing a job there.  That'd be an OK place to work...Yeah...just OK..

They were not, however, open for a taste test but the fine gentlemen working took pity on me and my cohort and gave us a couple of dented cans to suck down.  Good folks.  So we had some Coconut Porter on a bench in front of Barnes & Noble.  Why?  Because it was a nice spot to sit and rest.  DON'T JUDGE ME - IT WAS MY DAY OFF.

As the sun was fairly close to setting as the last of the dark, deliciousy goodness slid down our pie holes it was decided cocktails on the beach were in order.  A bottle of James Beam's finest bourbon and some Coca-Cola and ice were purchased and away we went to the beach.  If you can't see where this is headed then you don't know me very well...because two hours later and about 2/3 of the bottle in my belly I realize I'm a little bit tipsy.  BOLLOCKS.  At this point I finnagled a ride north with some folks without my bike...but once I got north I decided I NEEDED to get my bike home that night, because I had to work at the ass crack of 11am Thursday.  Bourbon does funny things sometimes.  But problem solved: I hopped in with the same folks who drove me north to head back south to get my bike and ride home.  And, man: it sucks to crash your bike in the dark.  HAHA.

The wind was whipping and some hairs got in my face during the early stages of my ride so I went ahead and cleared my face...and it's funny, the next thing I knew I had done a couple of somersaults and I was lying in a sandy culvert.  Bloody toe and shins, cut up hand, bruised thigh and ego.  THE WORST.  And somewhere in that tumble I smashed my front brake and my chain fell off.  So I'm on the side of the road, disheveled, greased up, performing bike repairs on my piece of shit.  I'm ready to throw this bike in the ocean.  Yes, this time it was user error but earlier in the day my front tire went flat.  AGAIN.  And it's flat again.  THIS IS THE 6TH TIME MY TIRE HAS GONE FLAT.  MOTHER TRUCKER.

Now instead of going to Kahului tomorrow I'll be walking that sumbitch down to Lahaina to see stinky, fat, scam-artist Bob to get some new, NOT FUDGING DRY-ROTTED tires on that piece of ass to see if that does the trick.  I should get the front brake fixed, too...but that'll be a game time decision.  Long story short take my word for it and don't ride your bike after sucking down Jim Beam like it's iced tea.  Maybe I'll take my camera along to get a picture or two of the scene of the crime.  It was a short drop and a sudden stop, lemme tell ya..

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Speaking of drinks now that I started working I  get all the free drinks I want while on the clock.  Not drink drinks, but drinks that down here would be expensive to buy just for shits.  Every day I have a couple big glasses of good-ass iced tea, and a big glass of chocolate milk.  Milk is expensive down here.  Like, really expensive.  Four dollars for a half gallon expensive.  So a 16oz choc-o milk is not just a great snack - when it's free it's a great VALUE.  I'd be doing myself a disservice NOT TO have a tall, cool glass of chocolate milk every day.  A cup of coffee is a nice pick me up, too.  It all adds up, I guess.

This is especially important for the next couple of weeks because I'm pretty sure, well, more than 99% sure, that trainees don't get tipped out on their training shifts.  So right now I'm sitting on a little over 30 hours worked thus far...at $7/hr.  Zoinks!  This means I'll be picking up shifts like you read about as soon as I pass my GD test on Saturday morning.  Then I'll be having fun and making money, with aloha.  But for the time being I'm feeling like I just got kicked in the short and curlies.  I've actually tried to work hard during my training shifts...and not really for anything.  F.  Woe is me...woe. is. me.

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Question for the audience:

Today I was heading home from work and a rainbow poked up.  There are legit rainbows out here, I don't really know why.  I'm sure it has to do with the angle of the dangle being driectly proportional to the heat of the meat or maybe just it's the way the sun hits the moisture that came form the clouds, but for whatever reason there are crazy rainbows out here.  Especially this week...BECAUSE IT'S RAINED EVERY DAY THIS WEEK.

Saturday: rained.  Sunday: rained HARD.  Monday: rained.  Tuesaday: rained.  Wednesday: rained.  Today: rained. Not all day but off and on showers the last four days.  Balls.  

But today there was one of those legit rainbows I just talked about a second ago.  A rainbow that you could see start and end.  It was a continuous rainbow.  But my question is this:

In the situation of a continuous rainbow...Which end of the rainbow has the pot of gold?  

There can't be two pots of gold.  That would just be silly.  So which end is it: the north end or the south end?  It's got to be one or the other and I could really use a pot of gold right now.  If you know, let me know.  Liam, you're Irish: WHAT'S THE DEAL, BRAH?

If only they could have found this little fella in Alabama, he probably could have been a big help for me..

To paraphrase a rotund gentleman that had some notoriety before he passed on: Gimme the flute!  Gimme the flute!  Cheers.

28 Days Later..

Apparently I've been down here for a month.  I guess it feels that way...the days have kind of run together.  On one hand I've done a lot - I've gotten a job, a place to live, transportation, started getting back in shape and I feel healthy for the first time in awhile.  On the other hand, there are different fingers.  I've really only seen a little bit of Kahuliu, the city where the airport is, the first day I landed and I needed to walk to a bar to occupy time until I could get picked up, and I've cruised through some of Lahaina and seen some of the beaches just north of Lahaina around Kapalua.  Outside of my first day I've seen maybe 10 miles of Maui in a month, which seems a little lame.  It's easy to be lazy here.  Lazy may not even be the most correct word.  Just when there's a choice between riding your bike 10 miles then doing a hike, or riding your bike a half mile to go to a beautiful beach it seems the beautiful beach wins out a fair amount of the time.  So be it..

I've also been trying to be a little conservative with my spending as before I left I hadn't worked for awhile and call me a tightwad but I don't enjoy the idea of spending money I don't have.  TAKE NOTES, OBAMA & CONGRESS.  But this more or less means I haven't gone out to dinner a lot and haven't had a lot of nights out at the bar slugging brews.  This really isn't different than home where I'd go out on Thursdays and suck'em down and then go out on a regular priced night and have one or two...it's just basic economics.  Now that I started working at Hula Grill I get half priced meals and reduced drinks there and at a couple of other restaurants owned by the same company, which is just swell.

I'd like to think quite soon I'll be getting out and doing some things more.  Samm-O and one of J.Mac's friends should be coming out next week so having egasoline-powered transportation should allow me to see some new sights.  This excites me.  Some of my laziness is self-inflicted, as I genuinely enjoy reading in the sun.  If I have a good book to read then I see that as being a fine afternoon.  I justify these days by saying I'm not trying to "rush things," and I'm just taking it "one day at a time."  Which are both true - I expect to see most everything before I get off this hunk of magma.  Now that I'm working things should start coming together nicely.  It's repulsive that I'm excited about getting into a regular work routine.  No one should be this excited about going to work and wiping down tables and picking up finished plates.  Yikes..

The rain this week has been kind of shitty, too, which has provided more excuses to stay inside.  I don't want to leave my room just to get soaked.  That's lame.  If the wetaher looks like it's going to hold off Friday then I think I'm going to take a bus to Kahului to see Crazy Heart.  I wanted to see it before I left but I didn't have time when I was in Greater Boston...I had a turkey dinner with Ma and Pa to get home to that Sunday.  So that should be a nice day.  I'd like to get a wristwatch, too, as cellphones are stritcly prohibited on the floor at my office, and I'm sure I could start timing my runs, too.  There's a Wal-Mart in Kahului, too, so even though I hate the idea of Wal-Mart when I come down with a case of myfundsislow I'll go to desperate measures to get by.  I'm also just kind of interested to see if the Wal-Mart here presents an opportunity for significant savings or not.  We'll call it a field trip for research gathering purposes.

On the whole, Preparation H has been a good plan thus far.  I've got no complaints.  As March rolls into April and April into May I expect to see more and do more.  But this is defintely a very appropriate setting for one of my Grampa's favorite quotes:

What can be put off until tomorrow can be put off until the day after tomorrow.

Truer words have never been spoken.  Love you, Grampa.

--

I'm still on the Bonnaroo email list so I still get random ass emails from them concerning tickets and other things they have going on.  Most of it is crap but A couple of days ago they had a promotion going on in conjuction with Music for Action in support of a climate change bill that's in front of Congress right now. If you "send a letter" (the site does it all for you) to your Senator you can download a Best of Bonnaroo sampler with artists from the past couple of years.  There are 17 tracks and it's pretty tasty.  Gov't Mule, Phish, Jack Johnson, Wilco, Phil Lesh & Friends, O.A.R. and some others have contributed tracks.  You don't have to do the letter sending thing to get the free tracks, but to me it seemed like the right thing to do.  Go environment.  Go Music.  Go Bonnaroo.  And anything that has "Banks of the Deep End" is A-OK in my book.

Also on the subject of music festivals I'm a little steamed that this is the year Maine decided to get in on the act, with a three day event around July 4th that has The Flaming Lips as headliners.  Fuck you, Maine.  I leave and you don't get snow all month and now you get The Flaming Lips playing Dark Side of the Moon.  Have I talked about this already?  I very well might have.  But Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi are playing too, as are some other acts like Phil Lesh & Bob Weir's new band Furthur and moe. and Keller Williams.  And, hell, it's 20 minutes away.  F.  O well.  I'm over it.  But if you're in Maine with nothing to do around the 4th I'd say check it out - I've heard the Lips stage shows are wild.

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More Tsunami Hoopla

This is a song written by Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, right after a tsunami hit Indonesia and the proceeds were used for relief efforts.  Luckily, this is not what happened to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean this time around.  And hopefully it never does.

Also, take note: I was, in fact, prepared.  First days of school and first toots-nami's look about the same..

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I really don't have anything else to say, but that tsunami topic turned into kind of a drag so let me see if I can Oreo method something funny here so I can leave you with a smile.  I got here 28 days ago...and I still haven't done laundry yet.  Haven't even thought about it.  Okay, I've thought about it but I'm pretty lazy and I don't know if I have a full load of clothes yet.  My total wear: about seven shirts and five pairs of shorts.  Three pairs of boxer briefs, though two are Under Armour and must have magical properties because they're still 100% fresh and clean.  And two pairs of socks.  Well, three.  I wore a pair of socks on the plane.  Then I've had my running socks and now my work socks.  Don't judge me.  It's all good.  I may look to throw a load in one of these days.  I just want to make sure I have a full load, of course.  Going to the beach on the regular just doesn't involve all that much clothing, and the clothing you do wear can be worn over, and over, and over, and over, and over

I'm a scrub.  I'm fine with it.  Cheers.

Thanks for reading, folks

As February has now closed and March has begun I just wanted to take a quick moment to thank my friends and family who check this lil' 'Pad out every once in awhile.  February overwhelmingly drew my most visits for a month in the sixteen month-ish history of the 'Pad.  Yes, I do keep track of shit like that, first crudely with arithmetic in my head and for the past six months I've used a program developed by Google to track visits, pageviews, etc.  If you weren't already aware I have no life then I think you should be able to get the idea now.

February saw 667 visits and 1002 pageviews.  Not to shabby for some halfwit's mental dribble, if I do say so myself.

Thanks, and keep reading..

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One for the road:

This is old business but I've been meaning to get this up for awhile.  Right before I skipped town I went down to Greater Boston for a couple of days to see some folks and I went out and about with some friends from Bates.  This was the evening when I didn't realize John Harvard's was a bar.  F me.

At any rate we  had to take a cab home home, as Boston sucks and the T shuts down at midnight or some shit and the bars stay open until, well, after midnight, as far as I can ever remember when I'm down there.  In the cab on the way home we decided to order some greasy, MSG-laden Chinese food because it's just so damn good going down and sometimes it's nice to make a hung over morning the following day THAT MUCH WORSE.  We love using good judgment...NO WE DON'T.  I DEMAND IMMEDIATE GRATIFICATION.  I WANT IT NOW AND LOTS OF IT.

Anyways, Noah calls up wherever for delivery and places a serious order and due to raucous noise in the cab the person taking the order was unable to hear Noah's address clearly.  So this occurred:

Noah: Vassal St.
(Noah stares ahead, drunk focus in full effect)
Noah: No, VASSAL ST.
(Noah's still staring ahead, drunk focus still in effect)
Noah: NO, VASSAL.  V.  AS IN "VAGINA."

Realizing the error of his ways, we all laugh.  The cabbie laughed the hardest.

It was that kind of night.  Cheers.

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.