My First, First Friday

So like the title says, this weekend was "first fridays" as first friday of the month. So on these fridays in downtown Honolulu there are all sorts of cool and crazy things that happen. All these art galleries open up, people start performing street skits, poetry readings, wine tastings, and all that kind of really cool stuff. It also happened to be Chris' friend's birthday... Frank. Anyway after work Jess and I caught the bus to downtown where we met up with Chris and Frank and their friends... Jess and I also met our first person from NC here. She is from Concord and her name is Brittany. She works with Frank and goes out with some Navy diver guy who gets to dive on the USS Arizona at special times and said maybe I could go if he can get me clearance. Holy crap that would be amazing... so Jess and I get there right when happy hour is ending at this place called Indigo's. We hang out for just a bit and then leave and go to this really cool bar, Bar35. It was awesome and it had this outdoor patio where we all chilled most of the time under this cool tree and it was just a really chill and cool place. They had christmas lights up in the tree and all that kinda cool stuff. They had alot of Hawaiian beers I hadn't tried before so I sampled a few of those! Pretty much just drank beers there with my friends, drank a few too many and went home after that barfed in the drive way after the fun taxi ride with Jess and went to bed. Ha ha!

The next day Jess and I went with Frank - from the above story and we all went Boogie boarding at Waikiki. We went to the Waikiki Pier and even jumped off of it into some coral. Then we swam to the right of it and started catching big ass waves. We were even able to catch a few waves that got us over a sea wall, even though I ran into the wall a few times thinking I was going to clear it. Had a really cool time and boogie boarded all day, went and go some Wellbento - not sure how to explain this if you haven't eaten at a plate lunch place here in Hawaii... but its a plate lunch, but healthy for you made out of Tofu, Temphe and stuff like that - organic and vegetarian stuff because I found out later that Frank was a vegetarian which is really cool. We grubbed out on Wellbento went home and chilled out and went out again to Waikiki but ended up leaving early because it was kinda lame and Jess lost her phone and that sucked.

Then Sunday Jess and I cleaned the house and it rained alot, we made everything look nice in the house and did wash and all that good stuff. We wanted to go to the beach but were babysitting dogs and talking to people on the phone, esp skyping with the parentals. But later that afternoon we hung out with our friend Jonathon who took us to Makapuu's again and this time Jess came. I got into the water and into the waves right away but Jess was having trouble getting in because the waves are so big and they were knocking her suit off and knocking her down. So she went and chilled on the beach. I went out and got passed the monsters and rode a big wave all the way back to shore and then go Jess to come try to get back out with me. She eventually made her way out with my help and Jon's help, but we got her out. Once you get out its easy, but getting passed the breakers is hard! We rode waves til dark when the sharks come out and caught a wave in and that was it. Jon's Benz runs on bio-diseal which is like veggie oil instead of diseal fuel. He is big into conservation and optimization of enviroment, growing your own food, etc. He is really cool! Anyway we come back eat pizza and pass out and that was my night.

The next day was spent on the beach at Waikiki and chillin enjoying my day off of work. Columbus day is a Hawaiian holiday which rules! But yeah that was all I did. I did get a rice cooker from Linds and now that I have that I can have cooked hot steamy rice whenever I want it. This is cool because now I can cook some good ass chicken mix it with rice and veggies and bam I have a good meal. Yeeeeah! Thanks Linds... Jon and Fan said I am now officially Asian!

So thats about it other than work today was pretty lame. Ive been working on a huge mail merge database and its nuts. Other than that im passing out... finally took pics of the fish tank! Its a bowfront 35gal! African Cichlids and I have a pair of electric yellow haps that just mated and I have about 5 baby fish that are getting bigger daily and now swim around the tank. They hide in the coral head but come out to eat flakes... really cool to watch them grow. Night!

Big Waves

So its been a while since ive updated this and I figured it was a good time to def. get my ass in gear and write something on this blog. So there has been a lot of things that have gone on since the last time I wrote. Yeah thats about a month now that I have been absent from writing what I am doing and that just won't cut it anymore. I am going to take time to update this thing even if I don't really want to. But I am. Its going to be like excercise... no one wants to do situps and shit but they do it, well not really but im going to try. Ok... so recap since getting a job.

First in my job... I am being trained to do something totally different than I was hired to do. Its crazy. Its entertaining and its a very relaxed atmosphere unless your bank is being audited by OTS and things get kinda hectic... you are put in charge of managing a huge database, your kicking ass and then the violations your bank gets are retracted and you and your team of new friends and co-workers helped to save the bank alot of money... its pretty cool.

Linds came and visited and we had a complete blast! I was able to get a few days off of work that overlapped into a weekend and it worked out perfectly. We had a great time with many trips to the North Shore - Sunset Beach, Sharks Cove, and Waimea Bay. We had an awesome time snorkeling and checking out awesome fish at Shark's Cove and Waimea Bay... and we ate the best coconut shrimp that ive had in a while on Sunset Beach. We also checked out Waimea Falls and it was a pretty cool area I hadn't been. We also had a crazy night where we went with some of my friends to a club named Lotus and had a complete blast. It was so much fun and the drinks before hand reminded me of a special time when Linds got me wasted at a bar at the airport coming back from Marco's Island Fl... ha ha ha :) We kept getting these rum and cokes and they were so good - they were perfect and then bam im sitting on a plane trying not to barf! LOL So yeah it was so awesome to have Linds here and I wish I could convince her to move out here... but she has to work and blah blah blah... so I guess thats a maybe?

Anyway ive also been doing alot of activities... Going out and boogie boarding alot and learning to catch different types of waves. Its so weird trying to catch waves here, or just to me obviously because im so used to NC waves. Our waves on the east coast come at you, you get in them and bam... your riding the wave no problemo... And thats the only way ive ever known. But now, its different! TOTALLY DIFFERENT! You have to watch the waves and you have to learn the bitches! You also have to catch them far in advanced or be prepared to be in the exact spot where they are about to break. They are sneaky, BIG, did i mention BIIIIG! Deadly, and sooooooo much fun to ride on! That it makes it all the worth while to get your ass out there and ride them!

I went to this place Makapuu's with my friends Fan, Son, Chris, and Frank. I work with Fan and Chris at the bank and they are my boys! Anyway... They took me to this place where the waves were HUUUGE! Ive never been in waves that big in my life! It was so awesome and crazy I couldn't believe it! First I was the dumb white boy. After receiving about 100 lectures about how dangerous and strong the tide and the rocks and blah blah blah. I decided fuck that I can do this shit... and ran out there only to get my ass pounded over and over and over and over by these huge ass waves. I couldn't even get past the breakers and it was a 5 steps forward 100 steps back kinda deals. I mean these waves were like huge angry fists! They would come after me with a set of like 10 right hooks and by this time I was so exhausted I was like whoa man... I can't get past these things. I come back to shore and sit on a rock and watch the waves and notice a place where they weren't smashing people like me. I was getting what felt like being put in a washing machine, spun around, slammed into the sand for what felt like forever under water... just being held there swashing all around and not knowing which way is up because this wave was so big that it just crushed your little white ass under its 30 foot glory!

So yeah... I eventually beat the breakers, got out there, rode some monster waves and had such a blast I couldn't get over it. Its insane to ride a wave as long as you can here! I can catch a wave and cut in and out and back and forth and ride it all the way back to the beach if i want... its so awesome! I have even been getting Jess to go out and do it with me. Trying to teach her how to ride the waves here too and we are getting better. We went to Waikiki and caught some fun waves this past Saturday. It was so much fun and we were catching waves that went straight at a sea wall. The waves were big enough that when they hit the sea wall they would create something like a reverb wave. It would come back out at you. So there were several times when waves would come in big sets like 4 one after another. If you caught the middle waves of the set you could come down the wave into one of those reverbs and jump it like a ramp and catch air! My friend Frank and I were also able to actually clear the sea wall. Needless to say we are having a blast boogie boarding and this can only mean one thing. As soon as I get a surf board its on!!!

Anyway... im tired so im going to bed. Peeeace