Tuesday, April 20, 2010

It's been a week, eh?

WHOA!  WHERE HAVE I BEEN?!  WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING?!  WHERE HAS MY LIFE BEEN GOING?!  HOW CAN YOU ALL BE HANDLING MY LACK OF POSTING SO WELL?!?!?!!?

As usual I haven't been doing much of a damn thing.  My bike got YET ANOTHER flat tire a couple of days ago so I've been having to take the bus down to work and then haggle a ride back from fellow employees because I'm too lazy to patch it up.  Today I'm planning to walk it down to Jonny's place so I can use another one of his patches to try to get it back on the up and up.  I'm not going to fix it today, just leave it down there so I can fix it sometime down the line.  II sure as shit don't want a car out here but all these god damn flat tires really ruin my buzz.  It's entirely possible that I really should break down and buy, get this, NEW tires instead of still messing around with used pieces of shit, but, damn, I don't want to spend twenty dollars on new tires!  This just proves once again how much of a cheap ass I am.  K: I resolve to buy new tires when I get paid on Thursday.  I resolve to buy new tires when I get paid on Thursday.  I resolve to buy new tires when I get paid on Thursday.....

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The ESPN NFL schedule release show is on right now.  I can't believe they actually televise this.  There are like seven people involved, plus four NFL players/coaches as guests.  It lasts an hour.  The season doesn't start for over four months.  HOW IS THIS COMPELLING TELEVISION?!

I do like how the NFL this year made all Week 17 games division match-ups.  Just another clever way for the league to try to keep teams from resting people.  I don't really see how it would make a difference, as if two teams in a division are separated by a game going into week 17 then both teams are going to have to try to win anyways.  I know Trey Wingo is the NFL Countdown guy, like, THE guy, but he HAS to get a little tired of needing to make all this shit sound interesting.  "It's March.  THE DRAFT IS ONLY SIX WEEKS AWAY.  I CAN'T CONTAIN MYSELF!"  What, you're excited about the NFL Draft, that's now a month and a half away?  No, no you're not.

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O, this is good.  I forgot my camera, but I had a fabulous dinner last week.  Many of you New England folks have probably heard of the Flatbread Company.  They have locations in Portland, North Conway, Portsmouth, and a couple of other places in Assachusetts.  Well, they also have a location on Maui that they just opened up a couple of years ago, which made me respect the Flatbread founders even more.  "Yeah, umm, all of our locations are in the northeast and it kind of gets cold there in the winter...where can we put another one that'll be warm all year round?  Maui?  Yeah, that'll work.."  Well played, Flatbread owners.

I am a huge Flatbread fan.  The flatbread pizzas I used to make back home were inspired by the tasty treats I'd pick up down in Portland and in North Conway.  Hell, there were times when I'd drive to Portland to just go to Flatbread for dinner.  That seems very silly, but to me it's well worth it.  Liam and I would always stop at Flatbread in North Conway when we'd cruise back from hikes in the White Mountains.  I'd always have two beers and usually feel a little buzz because I'd be tired and dehydrated from getting up early and walking around all day.  But man, they have tasty treats.

ANYWAYS I told you that story to bring up that I made it to Flatbread last week.  It's on the other side of the island so it was a fun adventure to get there, too.  And as always there was some semi-silliness involved.  This Flatbread dinner could technically be described as a date, because I went with a young woman, but I'd say it was more a friendly dinner.  She lives on that side so it was no sweat for her, but I had to take two buses to get across, haha.  We had the veggie special and I don't really remember what was on that...it was just OK I guess, but we also had the Kapula pork flatbread which was killer.  It had a bunch of tender pulled pork and pineapple chunks on it, with a nice sweet BBQ sauce.  WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO.  Scrumptious.  While the treats were island-influenced, I almost felt like I was back in Maine during the whole dinner.  It's safe to say there will be plenty more flatbreads in my future.

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While I was away from home on that adventure I stopped in the Maui county seat so that I could get a Hawaii state ID.  It's called a Kama'aina, or local ID out here and it gets you discounts at a lot of places because most shops mark up goods to take advantage of the tourists.  So I wanted to get a local ID because 10-25% off at a lot of places sounds better to me than paying full price.  I brought all of my hoopla: birth certificate, passport, social security card, and headed to the Governor's Liaison's office to get my paperwork filled out and my picture taken.

And this place was just like the BMV back home.  Two workers processing papers at a snail's pace, while many people waited "patiently" for long periods of time.  And their hours were kind of funny, too: 9am-noon, then there was an hour lunch break, and the office reopened from 1pm-2:30pm.  And they closed at 2:30pm sharp.  If you weren't seen, then you had to come back the next day.  Miss when your name is called?  Sign in again at the back of the line.  Maui-time, indeed.  I lucked out because six people were late getting back from lunch so they all lost their spots in line.  And I'm fairly certain that was the only reason I made it in because I didn't get out until around 2:15pm, and I think there were only four people who went in before me after 1pm. To sum: the place was a joke.

 To continue, I had all my paperwork filled out and I had a bank statement with my address on it and I went up to get it all taken care of...and when I set all my stuff down in front of the paper-pusher I was told that a bank statement was not an acceptable form of address verification.  Made.  My.  Day.  Truth be told I had read this on the wall prior to me going forward but in situations such as these I enjoy pleading ignorance.  Didn't quite work in this case, but what followed was kind of amusing:

Gentleman behind the counter: We can't accept a bank statement.
Me: Oh, really?  Well, this is all that I have.
Gentleman: Do you have a rental agreement?
Me: No.
Gentleman: No gas or water bill, or anything like that?
Me: No, I just rent a room at this address and it's all-inclusive.
Gentleman: Well, do you have a pay stub on you?
Me: No, like I said before, the bank statement is all that I have.

Here I think he's going to tell me I'll need to come back another time, which I was more or less expecting as I walked up to the counter.  But, actually, things just got silly:

Gentleman: Well, do you have a license or ID from another state?
Me: Well, yeah, I do.  I have a Maine Driver's license.
Gentleman:  O, that's fine then.  Just give me that and I can use that address.

So...I got my kama'aina ID...with a Maine address on it.  How bizarre is that?  To me it just seems bootleg.  I haven't tried using it yet...but I feel like sometime in the next month or so I'll be making it back over with a pay stub to get an ACTUAL Hawaii ID.  I didn't travel six thousand miles to still "reside" at my parents house.  That's just silly.
See, I can't make this shit up.  Cheers.

1 comment:

  1. It took me 3 tries to get my license renewed recently. Those places are brutal. I can't understand how you could possibly have a maine address on a hawaiian ID. Hilarious story.

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