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Hawaii Day One
So I am kind of sick about talking about our Hawaii vacation. Everybody I run across wants to know all about it. That is probably the main reason I have put off blogging about it. I should probably start blogging about it while it’s all fresh in my head, not just for you to read, but for me to look back upon.Hawaii is probably the first vacation spot that I have been to that I really want to go back to some time. The weather there is perfect. I’m not a big fan of hot weather, and was a little worried it would be too hot for me. There always seemed to be a nice little breeze, and never once was I ever really hot.
One downside is it’s so far away. It took 14 hours to get there, but surprisingly, it didn’t seem to take that long, probably because we kept turning our clocks back at each layover. We had two one hour layovers, one in Denver, and one in San Francisco. One hour layovers are basically nothing. Once you find your gate, find the bathroom, and find a place to sit, it’s about time to board the plane. I thought having the two layovers was rather nice. It was nice to get out and stretch our legs, and pee in a normal bathroom. I have actually never been in a airplane bathroom before. Plus now I can say I have been to California. Just spent a hour at the airport, but I have now been to California.
We left at 6:00 AM and fourteen hours later it was 3:00 PM in Hawaii. We knew the sunsets early there, but were planning on hitting the beach before that. The traffic and parking in Honolulu was crazy. I am glad we were smart and didn’t bother renting a car. We were two blocks from the beach, and all of our activities picked us up in from of our hotel.
Our hotel wasn’t the nicest in the world, but it worked for us. It was in a great location, and we were hardly ever there anyway. It was clean, had a comfortable bed, and was reasonable priced.
Right after we checked into our room we hit the beach, and walked along the beachfront looking for something to eat. It was kind of annoying walking the beachfront. So many people trying to push stuff on you. We only did the walk once, and didn’t find anyplace interesting to eat, so we just went back and ate at our hotel. It was worst meal of our vacation. I had mahi-mahi, and the wife had chicken, and neither of us really liked it. It was a long day, so we just ate what we could and went back to our room to crash.
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links for 2010-08-04
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Not All Fairs Are Lame
I have always thought fair concerts were pretty lame. Never once have I heard of a band I wanted to see play at a fair. I guess I was wrong. Weezer and Motion City Soundtrack recently played the Ohio State Fair. I so wish I was close enough to Ohio to have gone. Scott Heiesl, who is an editor for AP Mag, went and posted a few videos. They aren’t the best quality, but sure makes me sad that I couldn’t be there.
It’s been two years since I have see Motion City Soundtrack, but have no fear, last week I bought tickets to see them in October with Saves The Day, and Say Anything. How cool will that be? I can’t wait.
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links for 2010-07-28
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Hawaii Tech Update
I have been meaning to blog about our Hawaii vacation, but I have been busy catching up on everything I missed while I was gone. This isn’t that post either.
This post is mostly about the technology of our vacation. I saw my first iPad and iPhones it the wild. I was kind of amazed at how many people have iPhones. I guess that’s what happens in states that you can buy them.
I renting a mifi for my internet access over there. It was cheaper than the hotel’s internet, and I could take it with me. For the most part it worked really well. I did run into the “unlimited” cap problem once though, and had to watch my usage for the rest of the week. Companies should not be allowed to advertize “unlimited” when it clearly isn’t. In the documentation it clearly stated that I have “unlimited” bandwidth as long as I don’t download or stream videos. So I made sure not to stream or download video, and after just one day having iTunes open and downloading my podcasts, I got an email saying I was way over the “unlimited” limit. So for the rest of the week I limited my podcast downloads. In Honolulu my speeds were decent. Slower than what I am use to, but usable. In Hilo speeds were miserable, but for the most part were were out doing stuff, so I didn’t matter too much. It would have sucked it I really needed to use the internet a lot there.
When we got home we were one iPod short of what we left with. The wife left her Nano on the plane. That kind of sucked, but she still has her Touch and Mini, so she will survive. People that clean planes must get all kinds of goodies.
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Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense
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links for 2010-07-18
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10 Year Anniversary in Hawaii
Hello from Hawaii. Actually I am not is Hawaii as I type this, but I should be in Hawaii when it posts.
Today is out 10 year anniversary. It’s crazy that we have been married 10 years already, but even crazier when I think about how long I have known my wife. She was 13, and I was 16 when we first met in 1991. We met about a year after my Mom moved the family from a small northern Minnesota town, to a small town in central Minnesota. She was the cute little neighbor girl that I wanted to go out with from day one. She felt the same about me.
We were both to shy to ask each other out. We became good friends and hung out a lot, but it took five years before we actually started dating. After she graduated high school she took a month trip to Poland to be a teaching assistant with one of her teachers. When she was there she missed me more than her boyfriend. That’s when she knew.
It was probably a day or two after she got back when one of our mutual friends just said, “You know you two like each other, just go out.”
So that day she broke it off with her boyfriend, and I broke it off with the girlfriend I had then, and that was it. My girlfriend and her boyfriend we actually kind of expecting it. It was like everybody else knew we were meant to be before we did. That was in 1996.
We then dated until we were both done with college, and finally got married in 2000. So while she has been my wife for 10 years, she has been my best friend for 19. That’s well over half my life.
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links for 2010-07-08
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Off to Hawaii
We are all packed and ready to head off to the airport on our way to Hawaii. We got the Wife’s cousin staying here to keep and eye on the house, and keep the pets fed. It should be a fun time, but a week is going to be a long time to be away from home. I like being at home.
It’s crazy the amount of technology two people need to take with them on vacation. We have:
- Camera
- 4 disposable water cameras for snorkeling
- Kodak Zi8 video camera
- Two laptops
- 4 iPods (The wife and I each have a touch for apps and internet and another one for music)
- 2 Blackberries
- My iPad
- Our GPS
- and a rented MiFi to share internet to all our devices
It’s going to be a long plane ride, but with my iPad and Audiobooks I have more than enough to keep me busy. In fact I really wouldn’t mind a longer flight. The Wife is another story. I am sure she will be bored out of her mind.
The thing I will probably miss is Twitter. I may find time to post from time to time, but I wont be able to read and keep up with it. Normally I keep up with my Twitter stream during my waking hours pretty easily. It’s going to bug me a bit not being on top of everything, and knowing what’s going on, but I guess that’s what a vacation is for; to get away from it all — or at least most — of it for a while.
My blog will probably be a little quiet for the week. I might use Posterous to post some pictures if I have time, but I plan on being pretty busy just having fun.
