February 2007 Archives

Nine months ago today I lugged my two suitcases and two boxes through the Kahului Airport. I had finally made eight years of dreaming into a reality; I had moved to Hawaii. These past nine months have been absolutely incredible and it has literally been better than I even imagined! And so, I figured this would be a good time to finish up and post my history with Hawaii essay that I promised back in August. It’s mighty long, so I’ve broken it up into three parts… Stay tuned for parts two and three.

A month or so before I moved to Hawaii, Dave and I went out to dinner at Ya Hala. While we were waiting for our food, he asked me why I wanted to move to Hawaii so badly. I told him it was really hard to explain, and the best thing I could come up with was “I feel called to the islands.” He made a funny face (rightly so) and told me to explain further. “Well…” I said, stalling for more time. “I don’t mean it as a religious thing, like when missionaries say they feel called to a certain place… But I feel this intense yearning to be there. Like something is drawing me toward that place…” I could tell he wasn’t satisfied with my response, and how could he be? I really hadn’t explained it any further than some hokey mystic force pulling me to Hawaii.

He must have realized that he wasn’t going to get a more satisfying answer than that, so he changed gears. “Aren’t you worried that moving there will ruin Hawaii for you?” He asked. “Right now it’s special, but won’t moving there make it everyday boring stuff, and then you’ll have ruined Hawaii?” I thought about it for a second and then told him that Hawaii IS ruined for me. I explained that Hawaii isn’t just a fun vacation place that I think back on fondly. I told him, “I feel miserable whenever I think of Hawaii, because I feel such an intense desire to be there, but I haven’t been able to actually make the move.”

So what’s really the deal with me and Hawaii? Well it didn’t start with me… My dad lived on Oahu for a while back in the 70’s, working at a military gas station (while not actually in the military). He eventually moved back to Portland, married my to-be-mom, and they had a few kids (yay, I’m alive!)

My family often traveled over Christmas time, usually to somewhere nice and warm. One year, my dad decided that it was time to return to Oahu, this time with his family. His cousin had a condo in Honolulu and she was going to be gone over Christmas, so we even had a free place to stay! That trip was my first exposure to Hawaii… and I guess you can say it made a lasting impression. I vividly remember leaving Hawaii once our vacation had ended. Our plane had just taken off from the Honolulu airport, I could see Diamond Head out of the plane window, and my little kid brain was overwhelmed with emotion. Tears quietly rolled down my cheeks; I was being ripped away from a place that I never wanted to leave. My dad noticed and kind of smiled at me, and I got embarrassed and put my head under my blanket.

Every time we returned to Oahu, I felt more and more at home. I remember being there when I was 19, and I was surprised to realize that I really knew my way around Honolulu. I had walked around that city so much while I was growing up, that I no longer needed a map or directions to get around. I thought "Wow, this is my second home!" By the end of that trip, I had decided that I would move to Hawaii.

Well that was easier said than done... I got married shortly after I returned (the wedding plans were already in the works before the vacation). I worked at a dead-end job for about a year and then went back to school at MHCC. I knew that I would eventually need to transfer to a University, so maybe this was my chance to move to Hawaii?

So, I got really serious about transferring to the University of Hawaii; I looked up apartments, areas, tuition, etc. I was so excited that it was actually going to happen! But then a coworker at Tyee told me that I shouldn't go to UH. She was originally from Hawaii, and she told me that the school was going through rough times and might even lose their accreditation! Right around that same time I started finding stuff about how the University of Washington had an excellent computer science department... Sigh, I realized that the quality of the school ought to take precedent over location, which meant... so much for Hawaii.

Seattle wasn't Hawaii, but it was still a great place. I got a bachelor's degree from a well respected school, met a lot of cool people, and got a great paying job at MS! But, after four and a half years of living in Seattle, we were ready to move back home. In the autumn of 2004, we sold our house and started looking for jobs in Portland. We were still looking for jobs when Christmas rolled around, and what a Christmas it was! My whole family spent three wonderful weeks on Maui.

I was blown away with how awesome Maui was... This island seemed way more relaxed than Oahu. It was definitely more beautiful. There were lots of great beaches all relatively nearby... this place seemed like it was all of the good parts of Oahu and none of the bad! So once again my fervor for moving to Hawaii was awakened. I attended a high tech job fair while on the island and passed out a number of resumes. I was never contacted by any of the companies, but now I at least had a list of companies to contact.

We returned to Seattle after our vacation, and I continued looking for jobs on Maui with no success. Shortly after our return, Kara and I both got job offers in Portland so we moved back home in February of 2005. Being back in Portland after almost five years away was so much fun. We spent practically every spare minute hanging out with old friends just… playing! I periodically checked those Maui company websites for jobs, but usually found nothing that matched up with my skills. The discouraging results eventually caused my job search to taper off…

One year later, a new Hawaii scheme dawned on me. I was working at a very small company of three employees and I realized how integral I was to the company. I wondered if I might be able to use that leverage to talk them into letting me work remotely from Hawaii. So one night in February 2006 I sent an email to the owner suggesting the idea. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I received a favorable response the next day! Within three months of that night I took my one-way flight to Maui, and here I’ve been for the past nine months.

And? I absolutely love it. Yet I’m still unable to give a specific answer to Dave’s question of “Why?” This is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. The weather is almost always perfect. There is so much to do outdoors. People seem happier and friendlier here. Every weekend is literally a vacation in paradise. So I guess my answer is: Why not?

One of the great things about living on Maui is being able to easily visit the other islands. Almost every three day weekend, we fly over to a different island and vacation it up. We both have President's Day off on Feb. 19th, so we're off to spend three more days on the Big Island. Last time we went, we spent our time on the Kona side. This time we are spending all of our time in Volcanoes Park hoping to get some glimpses of fresh lava!

Here's the number of days we've spent on each island so far:

Kauai: 6 days
Oahu: 3 days
Lanai: 3 days
Hawaii: 3 days (soon to be 6 days)

The Day the Earth Stood Still

A classic sci-fi movie that I hadn't seen since I was a little kid. I was actually reminded of it by an event in Superman Returns that is borrowed straight from this movie. So when I saw that Netflix had it available as a "Watch Now" movie, I downloaded it. I expected to be bored by it, figuring it wouldn't stand up to my memory of it. But no, it was actually really good!

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Another Netflix "Watch Now" movie, this one a documentary about the rise and fall of Enron. This was a spectacularly engrosing film, I was both impressed and disgusted to see such diabolical scheming. And then I couldn't help but feel the stress that Skilling must have felt when the whole thing collapsed onto itself. I highly recommend this movie if you're in the mood for a documentary.

Donnie Darko: Director's Cut

This is a pretty cool/weird movie in the vein of 12 Monkeys. I had seen the original version before, but I rented it again to show it to Kara. From my memory of the original, I'd say I prefer it over the director's cut. The stuff that was added in the DC made it easier to figure out what was going on, but a lot of the material felt crammed in there and it didn't really fit... I'd say watch the original, but the director's cut is still pretty good.

This Saturday Kara and I left the house at 8am to go snorkeling at an awesome spot called the aquarium. It is a large cove in the La Perouse area that has TONS of fish and lots of neat underwater lava formations. To get there, you have to hike for about 30 minutes on a very rough lava rock trail that is hard to follow at times. The first time I snorkeled at the aquarium, I took Julie and David and we lost the trail probably 5 or more times! This time we only lost the trail one time each way… much better!

When we got to the cove, we geared up and I hopped into the water… BRRRRR!! I was in shock for like 5 minutes just trying to warm up while Kara eased herself into the water (with a wetsuit on). Kara hadn’t been to the aquarium before, so I showed her some of the cool places, like an underwater lava rock gully that is very fun to swim through. We headed out to sea a bit and swam into a rough area where the waves were crashing against the rocks and we spotted a turtle hanging out. We were probably in the water for about 45 minutes when we were ready to head back.

After we hiked back to our Jeep, we were both pretty hungry so we drove back to town and bought some Koala Moa chicken. Koala Moa is a rotisserie chicken stand that sets up in the Long’s Drugs parking lot every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday and serves some of the most delicious chicken you can imagine!! So we got our yummy lunch and drove home to eat it. It was around noon by the time we finished lunch, and we still wanted to spend some more time outside, so we took our beach chairs and towels out to our backyard and laid in the sun for a while. The sun was hot and it was sapping my energy, so I went inside and laid on the bed. Shortly after, Kara shows up and laid on the bed, and we end up taking a 3 hour nap! Getting up early to hike and snorkel is tiring work!

Once we got up from our nap, we got ready and drove out past Lahaina to the Ka’anapali Beach Hotel. I had read online that they have a free nightly hula show, and we wanted to check it out. The show started at 6pm and the seating was outside so it was a little chilly (for us wimps). We ordered hamburgers and watched the show which was pretty good. The music was very enjoyable, the dancing was ok (two dancers, not a whole lot of variety). After the show, we drove home and hung out before going to sleep.

A pretty spectacular day for Hawaiian vacation… or for a regular Saturday…

We watched Jackass Number Two last evening... Later that night as we crawled into bed:

Kara: "My tummy doesn't feel very good right now."
Me: "Is it because of Jackass?"
Kara: "I think so..."

The year 2000. I was wrapping up my time at Mt. Hood Community College and looking forward to moving to Seattle to study at the University of Washington. That summer I took an accelerated second year Spanish course where we meet for 2 hours a day, 4 days a week.

One of the assignments we had was to write a page long story that contained irony… in Spanish of course. I wrote a timeless story about a boy and his dog, and this morning I woke up with that story in my head for some reason. Below is a retelling of that story. This is from memory and in English so it won’t be exactly like the original, but it's close enough.

Once upon a time there was a boy named Billy. Billy had a dog that was his best friend. His dog’s name was Ruffy. Billy and Ruffy used to play together every day after Billy would get home from school. They would run in the field and chase each other and have a fun time until the sun would set. At night time, Billy would go inside to eat dinner, do his homework, and go to bed. Ruffy had to stay outside, so he’d bark and bark because he missed Billy. One of his neighbors hated Ruffy because he barked so much. Finally one day the neighbor had enough and he told Billy that if he didn’t keep his dog quiet, he’d shoot Ruffy!

A few days passed, each day the same as the last. Billy would go to school, come home and play with Ruffy, and then Ruffy would bark all night. Then one day when Billy came home, Ruffy was nowhere to be found. “He’s probably running in the field,” Billy thought. “He’ll come home soon enough.” When Ruffy didn’t come home that night, Billy started to worry. He wondered, "where could Ruffy be?" The next day when he got home from school and there was still no sign of Ruffy, he realized what had happened. His neighbor must have shot Ruffy!! Billy was very angry and decided to get revenge on his neighbor. Billy caught the neighbor’s cat, put it in a sack and walked down to the river. Billy threw the bag into the river and watched the bag squirm and listened to the cat’s cries.

At that moment, Billy saw the bushes moving on the other side of the river. Something was coming out of them… It was Ruffy!! Ruffy heard the cries of the cat and jumped into the river after the squirming bag. Billy called after Ruffy, but Ruffy got caught in the strong river current and was carried away and he drowned.

The End.