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!