aloha oy!: August 2008

Okay, where to start?? Let's start at the rental car agency, where they upgraded me to a convertible (the HaoleMobile from that moment forth). Red Chrysler Sebring. You'll meet her in a moment. So my first stop is picking up Heather at a sushi joint where she has already befriended a young man. (She flew in an hour before I did.) I broke up the happy couple to get us both to Kailua, where Corinna graciously hosted us in her mom's house.

This is a random family taking a souvenir shot at Lanikai "Beach" on Oahu at high tide.

Luckily Krina, being all local and stuff, knew that if we just kept walking we would find some sand. That's her and Heather strolling t'wards the briny blue. Quite different from the feel of our Big Island beaches, that's for sure.

I set up my poster that evening with the help of some generous Velcro-toting co-presenters, then we had a mai tai (what else?) and some dinner at a beachfront bar in Waikiki, and headed back to Kailua for a good night's sleep before Presentation Day at the Hawaii Conservation Conference.

I can't show you my top-secret poster presentation (rules rules rules) but I will tell you that it was well-received. This year's conference theme was "The Year Of The Reef" and Sylvia Earle was there so I'm lucky I got any play at all. (She's the one who put the fear of God in me about eating sushi, btw.)

Okay, so I moved to my swank $84/night hotel near Diamond Head (close to the beach! a bargain, actually. Look, I could see the ocean from my room... kind of, if I leaned out over the lanai). I couldn't bear another city-locked Ala Moana hotel after last year, so I chose beachfront property. Enjoyed another day of conference (even though it was rather depressing to hear about the state of the ocean these days, people did try to keep it positive and focus on what can still be done to preserve what we have left), picked Grant up, and after one more night in the ghetto, moved to the slightly more upscale Moana Surfrider hotel in Waikiki.

And here is the new view from the new hotel room.

No neck-craning necessary. But the service was TERRIBLE. Okay, at checkin they gave us leis and cold drinks and cold cloths for our sweaty brows. But after that? Fuhgeddaboudit. Housekeeping knocked 3 times when we had the do not disturb thingy up, failed to clean our room on the first day, and was generally unresponsive to all our requests. But yeah the view rocked and the bed was huge and comfy. :)

And here's Grant in the Haolemobile. He kept saying "Okay, get out of our way" and "Get out of our way, we don't know where we're going". He makes quite a good haole, actually. I got to meet his folks, who live in Pearl City and are very nice. They invited me for Thanksgiving! I think I passed the test. Or maybe G bribed them, I donno.

We hit First Friday in Chinatown and saw this theater, where I think Tom Waits should seriously consider playing on his next tour.