Cribs Kailua, Part 2

Cribs Kailua, Part 1

So a number of people have asked about what my place looks like, exactly how small is it, can I send pictures, etc....walking back from the beach, I decided to address all these things through the magic of FlipVideo (great gift, Mom!).

Here is Part 1. It is not really that interesting.

Neither is Part 2.
But now you know.


k

Mele Kalikimaka

It was super windy on the beach today, so you can't hear me very well, but I pretty much just wanted to tell y'all merry Christmas and send you my love. Thank you all for the sweet cards and gifts and donations to the charities I listed in my earlier post. I will get thank you cards out!

k

Twas the Night Before Christmas, Pidgin Style

[courtesy of my coworker, Robbie)

Was da night bafo' Christmas,
and all ova' da place
Not even da geckos
was showin' their face.

Da stockings was hangin' on top da TV?
('Cause no mo' fireplace in Hawai'i)
Da kids stay all crashed, my old man too.
They leave all da work for you-know-who.

So me, I stay pickin' up alla their toys,
When - boom! - outside get only big noise!
I run to da window, I open 'em up,
I stick out my head and I yell, "Eh! Whassup?!"

And then, I no can ba-lieve what I seen!
Was so unreal, you know what I mean?
This fat haole guy get his reindeers in my yard!
And reindeers not housebroken, you know, as' why hard!

But nemmind, this Christmas, so I cut 'em some slack.
Plus, had uku pile presents pokin' outta his sack!
So I wait 'till he pau tie up his reindeer,
Then I yell out da window, "Huui! Brah, ova hea!"

An' I tell 'em first thing, when I open da door,
"Eh, Hemo your shoes! You going dirty my floor!"
He take off his boots, he tell, "You know who I am?"
I go, "Ho! From the smell, must be Mr. Toe Jam!"

He make mempachi eyes and he go, "Ho, ho, ho!"
By now, I stay thinking this guy kinda slow!
He look like my Tutu, but little less weight,
And his beard stay so white, mo' white than shark bait!

He stay all in red, specially his nose,
And get reindeer spit on top his nice clothes!
But him, he no care; he just smile at me,
And he start fo' put presents unda-neath da tree.

I tell 'em, "Eh, brah, no need make li'dat,
And watch where you step! You going ma-ke da cat!"
Then, out from his bag, he pull one brand new computah,
Choke video games, and one motorized scootah!

He try for fill up da Christmas socks too,
But had so much pukas, all da stuff went fall troo.
When he pau, I tell 'em, "Eh Santa, try wait!
I get plenty leftovahs, I go make you one plate!"

But he nevah like hang, he had so much fo' do;
Gotta make all them small kids' wishes come true.
So I wave 'em goodbye, and I flash 'em da shaka,
And I tell 'em, "Mele Kalikimaka!"

When he hear that, he stop and I telling you true,
He go, "Garans ball-barans! Merry Christmas to you!"

[preemptive strike: no, I probably don't know what whatever word you're wondering about means. I hoale, k brah?]

Happy Thanksgiving

My boss was kind enough to invite me to Thanksgiving brunch with his family. Afterward, I went sailing for the first time EVER!

It was fun, but I was a little bit green at the end. I saw a baby hammerhead shark in the water by the docks. Apparently Kaneohe Bay is a sanctuary for them. I also saw Gilligan's Island--like, THE island:
Here is a pic of me and the two sailors (my boss and his dad) that his lovely cousin took:
It has been a very nice Thanksgiving thus far. I am going to clean up a little and head over to the main house for my main meal with my landlady's family.

Love to you all.
k

Christmas is coming...

hard to believe! Especially when you don't experience winter in a traditional sense. Oh well, I'm not complaining, trust me.

I'd started a small wishlist on Amazon for those family members looking for little somethings to send--but my mom already bought everything on it, so take that up with her.

Seeing as how I have (or will have) all of the things I want and need, here is what I would love for Christmas, if you were planning on getting me a gift:

Please donate whatever you would have spent to one of the following charities (clicking on the name takes you directly to their online donation page):

• UNICEF
• Central Texas SPCA (your local SPCA is great, too--I am partial to CTSPCA because that is where Eevee is from)
• Emancipet
• Texas Hearing and Service Dogs
• Big Brothers Big Sisters
• A charity of your choice.

I not asking you to do this to sound good, hoping you'll send me a check too for being so...whatever. Seriously, if you send me a check, I will just send it to one of the above charities. So, choose a cause you like and save me a stamp.

I have a number of reasons I wanted to do this:

1. Like I said earlier, I already have everything I want and need.
2. I don't have room for any more stuff really.
3. I like all these charities, but I don't necessarily have the funds to make worthwhile contributions to all of them right now.
4. I worry that with the economy the way it is, people are going to cut back on their charitable giving.
5. I still haven't sent any of you thank you notes from my birthday...so...um...THANK YOU, by the way! No, but I really feel like I don't deserve to still be getting checks from all of you even though it is very, very sweet.
   

On a related note, I got a raise! So I am doing good right now. I don't need any more money or stuff.

Don't feel like you have to do anything for me, but if you were planning to, giving to a charity you like would make me really, very happy.

I have other stuff I've been meaning to blog about--these CrossFit classes I've been taking and pictures from the Pali lookout that I took over a week ago--but I am kind of wanting to veg out, so I don't know if I will get around to it tonight. We shall see.

Until later, best wishes.

k

Katy's first TV spot

Sort of. It's the first spot I've worked on all the way from the primary research phase all the way through to, well, it airing. I would say my input was minimal, but it was a huge learning experience nonetheless. Check it out: Kapi'olani TV Spot.

k

I have the nicest landlady EVER

She takes me to the private beaches on Bellows (her husband is retired military).

And bought me a shave ice on the way home (no picture--I'm bad about food pictures because I get excited and distracted about eating, and by the time I remember to take one, whatever it is is almost gone).
She even made me a dinner plate one night when I came home super late from work.
She is the coolest.

Family-Friendly Content

Here are a couple more Halloween pics, for those left out of the previous group shots:

April and Jeff, with two different takes on Labor Day.

Annika, Christmas.

Hm, well, maybe I spoke too soon on the family-friendly thing. We're kind of a boozy bunch...

...and it was a holiday...

...and the last Friday of the month (FIF)...
No, actually the alcohol is surprisingly well hidden in those pictures. Or maybe we'd just gone through most of it by then. Who knows?

I kid.

We are all very safe and responsible.

Unfortunately, I did give my boss my margarita recipe, which was no doubt the ultimate job security. Oh well.

Parking in the Porno District

So parking here is pretty redic. Honolulu was deemed the third most expensive city for both daily and monthly parking, behind New York and Boston. And that's if you can find it.

My work is cool enough to give everyone a $100 monthly parking stipend, but you are on your own to find a place. When I first got hired, I went through about eight garages and lots before I finally found a surface lot fairly close to my building with space available. Then toward the middle of last month, I arrive at my car only to find a letter under the windshield that said as of October 31, my lot would no longer be open. Swell.

The semi-good news was that the management company offered discounted rates to another one of their lots not far down the same street. I figured, hey, if it means I save about thirty bucks a month, I'm willing to walk an extra hundred yards.

Then I realize my new lot is located between this:

(Backseat Betty's Love Boutique)

and this:
(Club Moulin Rouge)

Now in all fairness, this didn't come as a total shock since I was parking up the street next to Axxxtion Video, not to mention all of the Korean hookers that come out at night between my building and the Wal-Mart. But, still, I think it's pretty hilarious.

Now, for those of you family members still reading after my obscenity-filled menehune post, worry not:

1. I have mace on my keychain.
2. I almost always arrive/leave in the daylight.
3. When I do leave after dark, my boss always drives me to my car.
4. I almost always call someone so I am on the phone while I'm walking.
5. It's a very busy area, so there are always people out walking around and whatnot (read: too many potential witnesses).
6. I feel pretty confident that nasty perverts are going to be more interested in the naked women and booze at Club Moulin Rouge than me, especially considering the area (being white, I'm not exactly their type).

Really, I'm just posting this because I told my parents the story, and I think they think I was joking that the store is called Backseat Betty's.

I rest my case.

k

Sunday on the beach

Night Walkers and Menahune

WARNING: This post contains subject matter not suitable for all audiences.

I know I have had some younger members of my extended family following my posts recently, and, while I appreciate the increased readership, this entry should be filtered out. Not only will the subject matter give young ones nightmares (it gave me nightmares), but it will undoubtedly contain a higher than usual use of expletives.

So, if you are under the age of 13 or simply do not want to be freaked out: night walkers and menahune are Hawaiian urban legends. They were simply made up by white people to exploit indigenous people or made up by indigenous people to scare away white people, depending on who you ask. Regardless, they are not real. Stop reading now.


....

For the rest of you:

NIGHT WALKERS AND MENAHUNE ARE TOTALLY FUCKING REAL.

Seriously, I am not joking at all. It is not funny.

I originally heard about night walkers and menahune from a fellow mainland transplant. We were driving through the pucas (tunnels through the mountains) and he made some remark about it taking hard working menahune to pull off building the tunnels. And I was like, wtf is a menahune? And he was like, You don't know about the menahune? And I was like, No, what, so they built these? And he was like, Not exactly...do you know about the night walkers? And I was like, No...are you totally just screwing around with me right now, because I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. But the whole time he has this super serious look on his face, and he was like, ask someone at your work to tell you about it--I'm not gonna talk about it.

So I was like, okay, that's really strange. And based on his reaction, I was like, hell, I am not going to bring this up at work because it seems like kind of a sensative subject, so I just kind of forgot about it.

Then I see a Christmas ad for Ala Moana Mall that references the menahune helping Santa build the toys and whatnot, and so I was like, oh, okay, they're like elves or something--Hawaii's version of leprechauns--not a big deal.

WRONG.

On Friday, during our little office Halloween party, someone suggests we go around and tell ghost stories. One of the founders was like, are we telling real ghost stories, like menahune? And someone answered, why do you have one?

And that's when shit got scary.

First, let me explain, this guy is way grounded and down-to-earth. Not the crazy, I-was-abducted-by-Nessie type of person. He told us he was not under the influence of anything when the incidents he experienced as an adult occurred, and that those that happened when he was a child were not just figments of his imagination. Not only that, but you could tell he was honestly affected when recounting the stories, and he eventually had to stop talking about it.

Oh, and I guess I should tell you: menahune are small, ancient, indigenous Hawaiians. Night walkers are the spirits of ancient Hawaiians.

Okay, so on to the stories:

• Growing up, the house he lived in (which his dad still lives in) was like Amityville Horror. He said he had a hard time watching the movie because it was so similar to his experiences as a child. The front door would open and rattle on its hinges, all on its own.
• He can see night walkers. Some people are predis---HOLY HELL! I JUST LOOKED OVER BECAUSE I SAW SOMETHING MOVING OUT OF THE CORNER OF MY EYE AND THERE IS A BLACK CAT AT MY DOOR WHICH I LEFT OPEN AND IT IS STARING AT ME HOLY CRAP I ALMOST JUST HAD A HEART ATTACK SHIT. Whew. Seriously, that was freaky. Shit. I hope I don't die writing this or some Ring bullshit. Damn. Okay, so anyway, not everyone can see night walkers, only some people. And some people (not necessarily the people who see them) are predisposed to night walker attacks (which we will get to momentarily). This guy at work can see night walkers, but he can't see faces. Whenever he sees them, they have their backs turned towards him. His dad and his grandmother can both see faces.
• Shortly after his mother died, he was laying in his bed when he felt the presence of two people in his room. He heard his mother's voice tell him to roll over and lay on his stomach. As he is rolling over, he said he felt the presences in the room trying to roll him the other way, back onto his back, but they failed. The next night, or some later night, same thing, except he doesn't roll over in time. He feels a presence on top of him, sitting on his chest, pushing the air out of him. He opened his eyes and saw a large, silver-haired Hawaiian man with his back towards him, and another at the foot of the bed. He said he was trapped and couldn't move and had no breath to scream for help. He just closed his eyes and prayed that they would go away, which they eventually did. He told his dad about the whole incident, and he told him that night walkers will not attack you if you are laying on your stomach, which is why his mother told him to roll over that first night.
• One day, his grandmother was walking his little brother up to the house, when a menahune charged at his little brother, sending him flying through the air and leaving him minorly injured. His little brother never saw anything, because he doesn't have the sight, but his grandmother saw the menahune clearly and finally insisted they have a Kahuna come out to the house.
• The Kahuna finds seven ancient Hawaiian graves on their property. He digs holes beside each one and tells them to fill each hole with a traditional Hawaiian feast every day for a week. They did, and the night walkers stopped coming in the house.
• The Kahuna also told them that the wall running along their property had been built specifically to keep the menahune off the property, and they can never tear it down. If they sell the house, they have to tell the new buyers not to tear it down either. On the other side of the wall is the menahune's path to their water source (a nearby waterfall) and without that wall to keep them at bay, they will start coming into the house and they will wreak all kinds of havoc and likely make the inhabitants sick.

That's where his stories stopped. But other people had more:

• Apparently, the Safeway in Kaneohe didn't have a Kahuna come out before they started construction (HUGE no-no around here). They build right over the path of the night walkers. A different coworker of mine had a friend who worked there, and he said they had to stop restocking the aisles at night because the night walkers would come through and destroy everything running through the area of the store where their path was. If they left a pallet out, it would end up strewn everywhere. So, no more night stocking.
• Same kind of thing in Maui, when a hotel (I think Hilton) started construction without having a Kahuna out first. All kinds of weird shit starts happening, materials get destroyed, workers are getting sick and injured at an alarmingly high rate, etc. So they go ahead and bring a Kahuna out and he says, yeah, you're building on a menahune path. This shit is so for real, an international chain redesigns their multi-million dollar resort around it. They not only built in a different area, they built a walled path just for the menahune. Seriously, it's there, you can go see it.

So, lessons:

• Sleep on your stomach when staying in Hawaii to avoid night walker attacks.
• Always have a Kahuna out before starting construction or demolition in Hawaii.
• Always have a traditional blessing when living/working somewhere new in Hawaii.

I dare you not to have bad dreams about this crap.

You're welcome.

Happy Halloween!

So, the rule this year at the office was you had to dress up or you buy everyone ice cream. The theme was holidays. Here are some preliminary pics:

Back row: me-Texas Independence Day (represent!), Brad-Boy's Day (Japanese holiday, I think), Amy-May Day, April-Labor Day, Darin-Easter (complete with candy!). Front row: Zee-Election Day, Brandon-April Fool's, Susan-Christmas

I am a terrible blogger, I know...

So, nothing really that fascinating has been happening culturally lately, which I guess is good. I have been super duper busy with work lately, hence the lack of postings. My recent trip home has pointed out a few things I always forget to post about:

1. Gas is obscenely expensive. Really, you're better off not asking.

2. Same goes for groceries.

3. Yeah, they kind of hate white people here.

4. You know how bottles and whatnot have "HI Cash Refund" on the side? Well, to encourage recycling, they charge you that money in addition to the cost of whatever it is when you buy it at the grocery store, that way you have to go recycle to get that money back.

5. They are super, super big on recycling.

6. Roads are always under construction because the saltwater corrodes all of the pipes and everything like nobody's business.

7. Yeah, there are sharks sometimes, but they shut down the beaches after sightings.

8. No, I haven't seen Obama when he's been here, but apparently he stays very near where I live.

9. Haven't seen any LOSTfolk either.

10. They really do eat a lot of Spam.

Ten is a nice number, plus, that's all I can think of for now. And I don't have to feel guilty about going all of October without posting. Yay for me!

k

Oh!

11. The weather is always the same. Always. They say it's getting cooler and rainier, but I think it's psychobabble nonsense to cope with the fact that there are no seasons here because I can tell no difference at all. De-nial.

I almost moved back to Texas last night.

So, I've mentioned to some of you: ninety percent of the time I love it here. The remainder, I [adult word] hate Hawaii. It might only be, like, five percent of the time, but the extremosity of the hate that I feel when I feel it is such that I am forced to bastardize words and write convoluted sentences to express it.

Last night was a prime example. Today is F----It-Friday at work, and I am in charge this month. I decided to make it Tex-Mex themed--margaritas, guacamole, and queso (con carne and vegetarian). Do you know how many grocery stores I had to go to before I found Velveeta? Three. After practically running through Don Quijote at 7:50--nothing stays open past 8, which is also awesome--I finally found it. They had maybe eight boxes. Not like they were out, I mean, that's how much they keep stocked. When I checked out, the girl at the register was like, is this stuff any good?

I mean, seriously. This is freaking America. Baseball, apple pie, VELVEETA. Right? Right?!

Even after three different stores, I was unable to find Jimmy Dean Sausage. For real. The closest I came was some brand of "breakfast links," so I just cut off the casings and broke them up. I was livid. It's the principle of the matter.

Just to get it out of my system:
People suck at driving.
Every road is under construction all the time.
People stand at the cross walk and press the button over and over and over and over and over and over until it changes, as if it won't otherwise or that they are somehow making it change faster.
People really suck at driving.
There is nowhere to park anywhere ever.
People also suck at walking.

--this concludes my ranting and use of absolutes, for now--

Work Update

Semi-exciting news on Friday: my CD told me that he's going to start bringing me along to client meetings so I can start forming relationships with them. Which can only lead to me having me own accounts. Which would be awesome. But I'm trying not to get too ahead of myself. It's still pretty exciting though.

That's all for now, bedtime for bonzos. I will try to be more consistent and less flurry-like in the future, key word being try.

<3
k

Wild(and not-so wild)life Update

Remember that dog I mentioned seeing roaming around near my building, the one with the green ears? I saw him again! And now he's purple! Apparently he lives at one of the eleventeen nail salons in the neighborhood (statement of fact, not a racial thing). At least I'm assuming he lives there, I saw him through the window as I was walking by. Maybe he was just having a fill done or something, I don't know; he does seem fairly high maintenance.

Speaking of dogs, I was driving home in the rain on the Pali, I had just come through the pukas (holes, in this case tunnels), it was getting dark, and I see something moving in the narrow strip of median--that is one ugly dog--and it's freaking huge--then I drive closer--it's a giant wild pig! With two baby (not-so little) pigs! Aah! Those things are scary lookin, man. I would not mess with them.

Other roadside wildlife sitings: a mongoose on the way to the gym in Kaneohe, chasing its tail! I swear. I would have thought maybe it had gone crazy from rabies if they had rabies here. Maybe it went crazy from something else, I don't know. But I watched him while I sat the light, just chasing his tail. Weird. I think the mongoose are pretty cool looking, like I would probably try to make a pet out of one given the opportunity. But the people who live here have a serious beef with the mongeese--apparently they were brought here for the express purpose of killing the rats in the sugar plantations. The mongooses and the rats, however, do not keep the same schedule; the rats are nocturnal, the mongeese are not, giving them very little hunting opportunity. So that didn't go so well, and now mongooses are like squirrels are on the mainland, and some people seem to be pretty touchy about the whole subject.

Moving on, there is a group of chickens that lives off the side of the highway right as you come into Honolulu off of the Pali. Most mornings they're out there, just pecking away, seemingly oblivious to the throng of belligerent morning rush-hour drivers, bumper to bumper mere feet away from them. It never fails to make me chuckle. I mean, seriously. Chickens. On the side of the highway. How is that not funny? I am dying to get a picture, but it's going to be tricky, given that the crux of the hilarity lies in the fact that it's morning rush hour traffic. We'll see.

Food Update

Because it wouldn't be me without one.

So, did I mention manapua in an earlier post? A good blogger would go back and check, alas I am not. In case I didn't a manapua is Korean, I believe, but they are very big here as is most Asian food. It is a fairly sweet chopped pork mixture stuffed inside a fluffy, doughy ball. It looks like this on the outside:


And this on the inside:

They're pretty dang good. Think Pillsbury meets sloppy joe (only not as sloppy and more of a sweet flavor than a bar-b-q one). They're a popular thing for clients to bring to meetings. Another thing we get a lot of are malsadas. They're like doughnuts but without the hole in the middle and very heavily coated in sugar. Sooo good. Clients bring us a lot of food. And I always eat it. Which is why I've been needing to go to the gym instead of just doing it for recreation--too many office goodies.

So at our last office social hour, we were talking about food, and somehow fried pickles managed to bring themselves into the conversation. How could they not, right? As many of you know, I am one of the world's foremost fried pickle aficionados, so I was immediately enlivened by the turn in conversation. Come to find out, no one here knows about fried pickles! It is a totally foreign concept! Agh! So I set about educating the group, explaining the different cuts, coatings, dipping sauces (ketchup mixed with ranch IS the best, don't care how gross anyone else says it is). It was quite the cultural exchange.

Also, I went to Whole Foods on Friday. They just opened Hawaii's first here on Oahu this past Wednesday. It made me fairly homesick, although they have so much local stuff, it didn't even really seem much like Whole Foods in Texas (not to mention it's like a tenth of the size). I did, however, eat chicken tamales, which were not nearly as good as Pedro's from Lubbock, but still the closest thing to a taste os Texas as I've gotten down here.

And I'm ending on that note before I get more homesick. Go eat some Tex-Mex for me!

It doesn't suck.

So, I've been neglectful with the blog lately, partly because I've been busy, but also because I've been a bit homesick and a little down on Hawaii. Not that I'm unhappy here, it's just tremendously different, and I still don't really feel at home or acclimated. But then I happen across views like this, and all of the things I whine about seem pretty irrelevant.

These were taken in Lanikai, not far from where I live in Kailua. I was giving a friend a lift that morning and showed up early, so I hopped out of the car next to the nearby country club and took a few pictures while I waited.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I am going to videotape my drive to work in the morning to post up here. Doesn't sound exciting, I know, but it is so tremendously beautiful. Seriously. Every morning, I drive to work and think how lucky I am to be alive and living here. Words can't do it justice. It's like it shouldn't even be real. And even though I stress sometimes--living on a tiny island in the middle of the freaking ocean among a culture so different it might as well be a foreign country--being reminded of the bigger picture like that first thing everyday seems pretty worth it.

Da Kine

Ever observant, my parents asked what adding "-kine" in my previous blog post meant.

Because I am incapable of explaining it myself, here is what Wikipedia has to say (I was pretty close, just not articulate enough):

"Da kine" is a word in Hawaiian Pidgin, derived from "the kind", that usually functions grammatically as a placeholder name (compare to English "whatsit" and "whatchamacallit"), but can also take the role of a verb, adjective, or adverb. Unlike other placeholder names in English, however, which usually refer specifically to a device (e.g. "gizmo" or "widget"), person (e.g. "so-and-so"), or place (e.g. "Anytown, USA"), "da kine" is general in usage and could refer to anything from a person to an abstract concept. It can be used to refer to something nonspecific, or given enough context (especially when used in conversation between native speakers of the dialect, see Pragmatics) to something very specific. As such, it appears to be unique among English dialects, at least in its centrality to everyday speech.

"Da kine" is probably the most identifying characteristic of spoken Pidgin. The humorous illustrated dictionary Pidgin to Da Max defines "da kine" as:

DA KINE (da KINE) Da kine is the keystone of pidgin. You can use it anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Very convenient. What would we do without DA KINE? "Ey, I no can da kine if you no like da kine, too!"

Trever Cralle's Surfin'Ary lists da kine as "the word you use when you don't use the word."

It also happens to be one of the most frustratingly difficult aspects of Pidgin for non-native speakers to understand. While reports that native speakers of Pidgin can be unforgiving of amateurs may exaggerate, some Hawaiians get a certain pleasure from using the word to non-native speakers.

According to the article Going Native on Oahu by Steve Barth, "[da kine] can mean virtually anything, the salad dressing, a phone number, your uncle Lewellyn. It doesn't strictly even have to be a thing. It doesn't matter how obscure the reference either. A kamaaina will always intuitively know what you mean." While such a claim is often made, in practice it should be remembered that "da kine" is used as shorthand when it is likely the listener will understand what is meant from context (or a combination of context and body language), so that this type of claim is not necessarily as amazing as it might first seem.

Kama'aina means local, btw.

Stay tuned for a picture of Manapua, wildlife news, and shockingly shocking rich point I uncovered yesterday (not-so-shocking hint: it has to do with food.).

k

Hawaiian Word of the Day

manini: adj; small.

The client made some manini-kine changes to the copy.

So my culturalization continues.

A couple more pics

I forget what this is called, but it's some kind of Asian/Hawaiian treat--dried plums seasoned in this salty/sweet coating. It was...interesting. It wasn't terrible, but I'm not exactly eager to have another one. (The photography is Nirja-inspired, btw...haha)
Bah! A segway cop! He gave this guy a ticket when I was headed home from work the other day, and there were two other SegCops on the other side of the street. [Side note: they must have a quota system here, because at the end of the month, there are cops everywhere you turn--but I hadn't seen one like this before!]

Birthday Fun

The office crew at Macaroni Grill for lunch.

Yay!

My phone is fixed. It was semi-painful, I'm not gonna lie, but there's no point in agonizing over details: it's done! So call away!!

Love you all!
k

2 Bothersome Things

1. Everyone refers to flip-flops as slippers.

2. I just realized this morning, while watching a chicken cross the road--seriously--that there are no squirrels here. I have never lived anywhere where there aren't squirrels, and even though it took me this long to notice their absence, I have to say I don't like it one bit. For some reason, I feel very uncomfortable with the knowledge I'm living in a squirrelless environment. Hmm.

The good, the meh, and the ugly.

The Good:
I saw the end of a rainbow today. For real. It was cool. No leprechauns. No pots of gold. Cool nonetheless.

The Meh:
My agency did not get that new client we pitched. In my opinion, it's probably a good thing. Who wants to deal with that? But it is sad after all of the hard work everyone put into it, and people at the office were a little disheartened today. Meh.

The Ugly:
Time of death: 7:21 pm Hawaii time. RIP, my iPhone. I have absolutely no clue what is going on with it. On Friday, it started being weird, turning on and off without any sort of prompt from me. I reset it, and that seemed to solve the problem. Until yesterday, when it started doing the same thing, only, like, every five freaking minutes. I sucked its brains out and restored the factory settings, and it seemed okay. Until this afternoon.

UGH. I've done everything on the freaking troubleshooting website, so I'm going to take it into the Apple Store tomorrow during my lunch hour or after work, because luckily it's not far from my office. My guess is, they are probably going to tell me it's my fault and I have to buy a new one. Balls.

If that's the case, I may just cancel my service and get a local number here. There's a company here called Mobi, it provides really cheap service, but only works on the island (like Criket).

I guess I kind of need to figure out if I plan on staying here long(er) term; I don't know, I'm putting way to much thought into this right now--the point is, if you try to call me, you probably won't be able to reach me until further notice. Unfortunate timing, hopefully I can get the issue resolved by my birthday so I can receive all of your warm wishes, but we'll see.

Anyhow, sorry for the inconvenience! Thanks for reading my rant! I will keep you all updated as to whether my 512 number is restored or if I get a new Hawaii number. Until then, feel free to email!

Yours phonelessly,
k

Sorry, Trust Me

Man. I really wish I had some interesting news for y'all. It is S-L-O-W going right now. Brandon, one of the AEs (account executives), told me it's usually like this around this time. Advertisers have just spent a bunch of money on their summer promos and are gearing up to start the big holiday push in the fall, since it comes earlier and earlier every year. So basically, nobody wants to spend any money right now. Which means I have nothing to do but gchat and blog and blogstalk and facebookcreep and complain about how bored I am.

Honestly, I feel kind of bad. I am a total waste of resources for the company right now. I got paid for an entire day's work having accomplished the following: writing new headlines for an ad that the client didn't even ask for, Windexing the glass table in the breakroom, and drinking a cup and a half of coffee. I'd be tempted to talk to my boss about only coming in four days a week or something, to make better use of everyone's time, but we're supposed to hear back about this new business pitch any minute now--for the past week. And if we get it, we are going to be swamped right off the bat. So it's the old hurry-up-and-wait game.

It's very frustrating, because we had kind of assumed they would make their decision week before last. When they didn't, they promised us it would be by the end of last week. When they called on Friday, they said it would be first thing this week, presumably today. Come to find out, they called back and left a message on Saturday saying they were in the middle of deciding which PR firm to hire as well, so now it's "the earlier part" of this week. So, if we're lucky, maybe by Thursday we should know something. Keep your fingers crossed!

Everyone at work says I should enjoy the downtime while it lasts. No, thank you. I don't know how to be bored. It makes me irritable. And then I blog these cranky posts instead of the amusing and joyful illustrated posts of yore. Grrr... I am not liking this client already. I almost hate to think how things would be if they decide to work with us.

Funniest thing I have to share (and it's not much, so don't get excited):
I decided to walk a few blocks over to Starbucks, mainly because sitting in the office was driving me crazy and giving me hypothermia (people here are wild about their AC even though they don't really need it that much, in a Texan's opinion). This lady, who was, shall we say, not the most well-put-together-looking individual and probably did not stay as thin as she was through diet and exercise, jaywalks very close to a couple of oncoming cars. Well, one of the AEs had walked over with me and he saw this and says, "Did you see that lady jaywalk? Man, those cars almost hit her." And then we realize there's a cop standing right behind us, because he takes off sprinting (in reality, huffing and puffing) after her. The lady started trying to kind of run too, and it was like a race between an out of shape cop and a rundown crackhead. Ha. I don't know, this is sounding like one of those things you probably had to be there to appreciate, but it was fairly entertaining.

And I'll save you the suspense: the cop caught her.

Eight more minutes until quitting time. Here's to better posts in the future.

Cheers.
k

Happy Admissions Day!

It is a holiday here today, Admissions Day--yay!

But I still have to work--boo.

Admissions Day is the third Friday in August, a celebration of Hawaii becoming a state in 1959. A lot of people must have the day off, because there was so little traffic this morning, I actually checked my phone on the way in to make sure it wasn't Saturday. Seriously, I made it into work thirty minutes faster than usual. It was weird.

Work has been a little slow lately, and I have a feeling it is going to be painfully slow today because of the holiday. Oh well. I'm not, shall we say, highly motivated to work, seeing as I just got my first paycheck and the dirtywording government took all my damn money. Ugh. Like I'm ever going to see that Social Security. Being a grown up sucks. Now I know what everyone's been whining about. Lame.

Okay, sorry, got that out of my system.

I've been practicing my Hawaiian in my spare time at work. I found this website that is supposed to help with pronunciation, and I sit at my desk and practice under my breath. Occasionally, I'll test myself on the art director who sits at the cubicle behind mine.
"Hey, Robbie--that street over here, is it Ke'eaumoku?"
"You mean this one over here? Ke'eaumoku?"
Son of a... "Yeah, thanks." Not only can I still not pronounce it right, I pointed in the wrong direction. The multifaceted joys of relocation.

Since I seem to be in the mood to complain today, I'm going to cut it short, run over and deposit my smaller-than-I-anticipated-because-of-the-no-good-federal-government check, and take a picture of some yellow fire trucks to share later because the fire station is right across the street from my bank.

Aloha.

k

Because I keep forgetting to mention it in other posts:

Fire trucks here are yellow. Yellow! I thought that was funny. I will try to get a picture.

A lesson in focus groups:

Okay, let me start off with a disclaimer: I have heard stories of people in the ad industry losing their jobs for talking about client/campaign info on their personal blogs that only their friends and family read. Seriously. Granted, the only cases I've heard of have been related to major clients in major markets, but still, it's not worth the risk to divulge too much information. With that said, all I will say about the focus groups last night is that we were trying to find out more about people's feelings regarding the health care and medical industry.

Now for the good stuff. Here are the reasons I loved the focus group so much, and why I drew the porn analogy (I will allow you to figure out any parallels for yourself in order to keep this post PG):

one) The voyeuristic aspect. It sounds sick, but it is really fun. Here you are, sitting behind a one-way mirror, watching everything these people do and hearing everything they say, and they will never have any clue who you are. Not only that, but you're holding a packet that contains their names, where they live, how much money they make, how old they are, how many kids they have, what they do for a living, etc, etc. It's a rather perverse feeling of power, but that does't make it any less cool.

two) The sociological synthesizing. Before the groups would come in, I would study their demographic info and try to guess who was who. Then, following Brad's lead, I started to notice patterns about people: the people who sit in the back left are kind of the trouble makers, the people who take the everything pizza are self-centered, etc. It was so much fun.

three) The crap you never expect to hear come out of people's mouths. It is a writer's goldmine, because it is the kind of stuff you would never think to make up. Here is an inside tip: if a writer overhears you say something particularly insane, inane, or otherwise off the wall, odds are they are going to write it down in hopes of being able to whip it out and take credit for it in the future. An example: during discussion, one woman said, "Well, that just opens up bottled worms..."

Part of the study includes reading people statements and asking for their reactions to those statements. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Statement: There is nothing more important than saving the life of a child.
Man: Mmm...whatever.

Statement: Because Hawaii's population is growing at a faster rate than ever before, we need [these health care and medical services] now more than ever.
Woman: All that tells me is that more women need to be on birth control. And men, too, I guess.

Yes, that happened. Those people do exist. And, interestingly enough, they seem to have the most money. Draw your own conclusions.

Now, to address the rich points. One of the painful communications courses I took to fulfill my degree requirements dealt with what my professor referred to as "rich points." Without all of the PC-ness, that basically translates to this: whenever you come across something in a culture or another person that would never even occur to you as being a perspective/point of view, that is a rich point.

Example: There is only one place on the island that sells corn dogs, and they're not even called corn dogs, they're "hot dogs on a stick." Coming from a land of deep fried, battered foods and things on sticks, it would never occur to me that a mall would be known statewide for having a corn dog stand. That is a rich point.

Other rich points I gathered from last night's focus group:

-- People here have no understanding of specialty hospitals. It is a completely foreign concept. When the subject of children's hospitals, cancer hospitals, heart hospitals, women's hospitals, etc. would come up, people were totally confused. And since you're not there to educate them, there was no expaining it; they just spun thier wheels and fed off each other's misinformation.

"So if a man goes into a women's hospital, they won't treat him? Don't they have to? Like if it's an emergency?"

"Why would you go to a hospital if you don't live there? Like if you got sick on vacation or something?"

"Can't you just use all of the same equiptment on kids you do on grown ups? I mean maybe you need a couple of different things, but it's all the same stuff. It shouldn't make a difference."

It was baffling. Because they lack specialty hospitals here, people just expect to be able to take their entire family to the same hospital no matter what their medical needs are. It does not even occur to them that, hey, if you turn out to have some abnormal cancer/disease/trauma, you might need to go to a special place for that, and that place probably isn't right down the street.

-- It is not at all uncommon for multiple generations to live under one roof here. One man lived with his parents, his wife, his two daughters, and his grandma. Another lived with his wife, his daughter and her husband and kids, and his other daughter. I asked Brad, my CD, about this, and he said it's not uncommon at all, in fact, it's pretty much the norm for people who were born on the island. They would think it would be weird for family members to live apart.

-- This one didn't come from the focus group, but it's something an AE brought to my attention: we're on an island. It's always been an island. And there's only so much room for dead bodies....

Last thing, because I have to go clean the breakroom for a client walk-through:

Jason the Plumber. He was in the focus group last night, and he is now my write-in choice for Election Day. If he ran the country, the world would be a better place.

Gotta run.
k

Porn for writers, rich points, and Jason the Plumber '08

That slow afternoon was totally worth it. The focus groups this evening were priceless. I would have gone even if it wasn't part of my job. In fact, I even thought of quitting my job and trying to get hired as a focus group analyst; except I realized I really just want to watch, not analyze, so maybe I will see if the research company will let me hang around behind the one-way mirror during my free time.

Alas, I am too tired to go into details tonight, but I already wrote this nice little intro and teaser of a title, so ponder that until I get some rest and come back for more, k?

k

Slow work day.

Hello all.

It is a very slow day at work. I don't really have anything to do until this focus group observation at 4:45. And then that lasts til 9:15--blah. But there's free dinner and apparently an abundance of M&Ms. So that's good...

I don't have much interesting news...I saw a dog running around on my way to work. It was a poodle, mostly white, but its ears and tail were dyed bright green. I tried to get it to come over to me so I could look at its tags but it was being very aloof. So I left it alone. People here are surprisingly lax with their dogs, but even more surprising is that most all of the dogs are well behaved anyway. Fergie and Eevee will need to get on board with that when I bring them down here. Or else I will dye their ears and tails bright green....

k

So Lina doesn't upgrade to a ninja punch:

I am making a special effort to update my blog tonight, even though I am kind of tired from having to go into work today.

It's okay though, because it was actually pretty fun and we had an AMAAAAAZING two-hour lunch. We went to this Japanese place, Shokudo. Everything was insane-delicious, but this pretty much sums it up: Honey toast = heaven. Here is a picture of it in all its devistatingly-mouth-watering-melt-in-your-mouth-oh-my-God-
I-could-eat-this-for-the-rest-of-my-life-goodness:


I had intentionally reminded everyone at the table to remind me to take a picture of my food so I could post it on my blog, but naturally I got over-eager and distracted once it arrived, and had already started to deflower it when Robbie reminded me. So it was originally prettier. But you can still tell how GIGANTIC it is by comparing it to Brad in the background. It is essentially toasted Japanese bread with ice cream, butter, cinnamon, and honey. Somebody kill me while I'm happy.

I had other food to talk about, but nothing that can follow that act, so y'all will just have to let that soak in and wait for the rest on another day.

Besides honey toast and the lack of daylight savings time, I discovered another reason I was destined to come here: constrictive billboard laws. YES!!! For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to here me rant about daylight savings time and/or billboards, I have a passionate agenda against both. If I had to choose, I would have to say I have billboards more. So, I was elated to hear you can't even so much as have vending machines face the street.

And, yes, I am in advertising.

Sorry for the short post, but I am really wanting to go chill in front of a movie. BTW, watched Waitress last night--very cute and quirky, worth the rental.

Love to all.
k

Things I've learned about Hawaii this week

I remembered the other annoying (and also surprising) thing. There is no Target here. Wal-Mart? Yes. K-Mart? Check. Sam's? Yep. Costco? Uh-huh. Alas, no Target. And I still have a gift card I need you use...

On a related note, I learned something interesting (this is not the only interesting thing I've learned, however, more HI tidbits to follow): some of the stores here, like Apple and Nike, are the highest grossing locations anywhere. At first, I was like, nah, how can that be? But it's all the insane-rich, mostly Japanese, tourists. Interesting. [note: I am taking this on the word of the person who told me, I have not actually confirmed this]

Other factoids:

The Hawaiian language only consists of twelve letters.

The Hawaiian word for "tiny fish" is: humuhumunukunukuapua'a. Big word for little fish.

Michelle Wie's (probably old) dentist's office is(was) in my building. She is also apparently very, very tall, which I never knew.

Meat Jun is, from my understanding, the Hawaiian/Korean version of steak fingers. I plan on trying it on Monday and will report back.


In other news, I got two spam emails today that I was really, really tempted to open. Their subject lines read:

John McCain eats a bug.

and

Children admit to being little shits - Video

I'm not sure which I wanted to see more. But I fought the urge after realizing infecting the company's computer after less than a week there in hopes of seeing a politician imbibe insects or kids denigrating themselves would not be the best decision. Probably.

k

Pictures, Tangents, and Rants

As promised, here is a picture of my car (a week after the fact, I know). It is too cute! Every morning when I'm leaving for work I have to smile. It is a very happy car. All it needs is a few accessories and a surf board on top. Even if it turns out I suck at surfing.

Here is a picture of a gecko that got stuck under the dish rack in my kitchen sink. I couldn't catch him, so I laid a towel along the counter and into the sink and herded him over to it so he would have something to get traction on to make his way out.


And, I'm (almost) official at work! I have my own extension and I'm on everyone's little phone cards. Now all I need are my own keys and personalized company business cards.


Now, I know pretty much all I've talked about so far is how great things are here. A few of you have asked me if there's anything I don't like. The answer is yes. More specifically:

1. Sudden downpours with zero warning. I learned this the hard way on my very first day of work walking to my building. Without an umbrella. It made me very unhappy.

2. National commercials for chains we do not have here. Sonic, your banana split shake looks delicious. Your website informs me there is no sonic location within 1000 miles of me. So thank you for that.

3. Valid only at participating locations. This means NOT valid in Hawaii. We do not have $5 foot long subs at Subway or Quiznos. We do not have 79 cent tacos at TBell. It's pretty lame.

4. Not so much a complaint, but something that I've had to adjust to and is also fast food related: almost NO drive thrus. I've seen two: Arby's and McDonald's. Jack in th Box might be, I haven't really looked that closely. But most places, even if it is a big chain and it is free standing and there is room for one, do not have drive thrus. I realize now how much driving thru I did in Austin: food, banking, coffee, prescriptions, dry cleaning. None o that here.

5. Mainlanders calling me at 5-6 AM. Sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks. Sucks.

Hm, seems like there was something else, but I can't think of it.

Oh, I was very proud of myself this morning: A Japanese tourist asked me for directions to Wal-Mart and I was actually able to tell her! I was happy not only that I now know the area well enough to direct her, but also that I give off the appearance of someone who looks like they know where they are.

Work is going well. It is pretty crazy because we have a big pitch for a big bank coming up, as well as a "secret" client that only like four people in the office know about. I am not one of those people. I do feel a little out of place sometimes, partly because I'm still new, also because the next youngest person there is thirty-one. But everyone in the office is really nice and--based on the fact that "F*** It Friday" is this week--fun.

k

Now for the other things...

So this will be kind of a potpourri of pictures and stories that have happened since my last post.

I drove around somewhat aimlessly on Wednesday; I feel like that's one of the best ways to learn a new city, just kind of venture out and see where everything is first hand. Anyhow, I ended up driving downtown, then up through Hawaii Kai, by Hanauma Bay, and Waimanalo Bay, all on th east side of the island. And it's a good thing I am writing this, because I butcher the pronunciation of the Hawaiian language and am getting increasingly frustrated about it. People at work will ask me stuff like where something is and I'll try to pronounce a street name with like eight vowels and a k and an l and three of the vowels are u and they're all in a row, and when I can't say it they laugh at the haole (how-lee, white person. I know that one...). Ugh. It's embarrassing. I'm trying to learn though.

Anyhow, here are some of the pictures I took on my drive:
This is one of my favorite things about Hawaii: you'll be stopped at an intersection, and a breeze comes through, and all of these beautifully colored petals come blowing down from the trees onto the street. It's a nice moment in the middle of the crazy-ass driving that happens in Honolulu.

I love, love, love these trees. Mom, I'm sure you can tell me what they are. They are so vivid and vibrant and they just pop against the backdrop of the city.

Diamondhead. Kind of a lame picture, but it's there.

North of Hanauma Bay. The road I was on is breathtaking to drive, which makes it really dangerous. Tourists (and me) are trying to look out at the ocean and take pictures, while the locals become irate that they're driving so slow, and all of this is happening on a winding two-lane road on the edge of cliff above the ocean. Bad combination.


This is near Waimanalo Bay. I'm pretty sure I saw this place on an episode of Intervention, and I'm guessing Dog has probably filmed in the area as well. I know this kind of situation isn't unique to Hawaii, but it is startling to see the juxtaposition of a hellhole in the middle of paradise. One minute you are looking at some of the most picturesque beach in the world, and then you come around the corner to see this. It catches you off guard.

Now, back to the house:
This is the best picture I've been able to get of Osito. I have learned he's a little bit camera shy. I've also learned he's not just Pomeranian, but also Papillon, which I can totally see now.

Here is Chiquita, formerly known as Lani. She and Osito were in my place when I took these pictures, because they've learned that when they get kicked out of the main house into the backyard, they can come to my back door, which connects to the backyard, and whine until I buckle and let them in. Anyway, I folded up my boxes and bubble wrap that I had my stuff shipped in and slid them under the bed since I wasn't sure how long I'd be staying. Chiquita crawled under the four inch gap between my bed and the floor and made herself a bubble wrap nest. She is awfully cute.

Here is one of the outdoor geckos. He is missing part of his tail, so he must have had a run-in with something. They are much bigger and braver than the indoor geckos, and not nearly as pretty. But the indoor geckos are very quick and skittish, so I haven't been able to get any pictures of them yet.

One last wildlife story: Y'all remember that cockroach from my very first post? Well, I was washing my face when out of the corner of my eye, I saw his big bad brother cockroach. I squealed. This was the biggest freaking bug I have ever seen in my life. It was right next to my brand new bar of Dove, and I swear to you, he was every bit as long. I was freaking out trying to find something in the bathroom BIG enough to smash him with. It turns out that was the toilet paper stand. I smashed him several times with it and haven't moved it since. I'm scared to now, in case he's under there playing possum.

k

First things first....

My internet connection has been out, so I wasn't able to update and let y'all know that I actually started work yesterday, not Wednesday. Things were crazy around the agency and my boss called me to tell me to wait a couple of days to come in. That said, let me tell you about my first day:

Everyone at the office is super sweet. There are about 13 other people working in the office. They gave me a beautiful lei and were all very warm and welcoming. After filling out tax, legal, and health insurance papers, I got a tour of the office and a rundown of how things work. Then I got my first assignment, which is to create a template ad for AIG Hawaii when they do charitable sponsorships. I worked on that for an hour or so, and then I went with an Account Executive to an editing session for an AIG Hawaii TV spot. That was pretty interesting, because I have never worked on TV before. Then the clients came in, made a couple of suggestions, and approved it. Then we headed back to the office for a little while. All in all, it was a pretty good first day.

This is my little workspace. I think it's pretty nice. It makes me feel legit and grown up (in kind of a weird way).

This is the view from the creative side of the office. Not bad.

Today has been awesome.

Really. I'm looking at my clock and thinking, wow, it's only 4:44, but today really cannot get much better. I should probably just go to bed. But in reality, I plan on grilling burgers later for dinner and maybe going to the beach for a bit. Life is rough.

But back to why today is so great:

1. I accepted the job at HMS advertising. They are paying me pretty darn well, giving me really good benefits, providing me with my own iMac to work on there, and best of all, in a few months, they are going to give me my own accounts to start working on. As in I will be in charge of them. That's ridiculous. I am a little nervous but also excited. It's a bit like the first day of school.

2. I am getting my Element tomorrow. I realize that doesn't have a lot to do with today, but it contributes to my excitement factor, so I am counting it.

3. I spent a good portion of the afternoon playing with Lani. The electricity was turned off in Kailua because they were doing some sort of construction work (apparently turning off the entire town's electricity for DOT maintenance is only odd to me. But after the initial WTF?, you kind of think, I'm in Hawaii, what do I need to be inside using electricity for anyway?) So Lani and I played in my little garden area. She entertained me more than I entertained her. She was getting tired of me harassing her after a while, I think.

She figured out she could lick the condensation off of my cup, and then seemed to think, wow, if the outside is this good, the inside must be great!

So she kept trying to knock my cup over. But it was cute. How can you get mad at something that looks like that?! She is really smart for being only seven weeks old.

4. I had a delicious Lanikai Juice this afternoon. I ate it before I remembered I was going to take a picture of it to post. They're just that good. Oh well, it will give me an excuse to go get another one sometime soon.

That's all for now. I start work on Wednesday, by the way. Love to everyone.

k

Aloha!

Yes, I moved to Hawaii. Yes, I know it's crazy. But it's done, so get over it and be happy. :)

I figured this would be the easiest way to stay in touch with everyone, given the logistical challenges of timezones and such. And you can check in when you feel like it as opposed to me blindsiding you with jealousy-inducing pictures and stories. Ha ha. And for those of you who know Nirja, I totally copied this idea from her, so I've got to give credit where it's due.

I am living in a little studio attached to the most wonderful family's house. Liliani, my landlady, feels like a second mom. She is so sweet and accommodating. Her sons have also been very helpful, carrying my boxes in for me, offering to teach me to surf, setting up my internet, etc. I am definitely feeling the Ohana spirit. Oh, and there are two little dogs: Osito, a 3 year old Pom who knows all sorts of tricks, and Lani, a 6 week old Chihuahua who just arrived TODAY! They are certainly no replacement for Fergie and Eevee, but they are fun to have around. I will have to get pictures of them sometime soon. Speaking of pictures, here are pictures from the beach, just a couple of blocks from where I live, taken after I arrived Monday afternoon.



This little boy was so cute watching his two older sisters learn how to "surf" on their boogie boards. He ran around naked in the water later. Also cute.

This is taken facing back towards where I live. The house you can see is not the one I'm living in. My house is the third house in from the beach (ugh, SO terrible... ;) ).

Here's a picture of a rainbow I took with my phone on Tuesday--I don't know if you can see it or not, but it was the first rainbow I had seen in a long time and I wanted to capture it.

Speaking of capturing, I have yet to capture a picture of what Lilian refers to as "my roommates." By that she means geckos. They are everywhere! I have only seen two in my place, but they are really cool looking and all different colors. They hang around everywhere in the garden outside my door. I kinda wanna catch one, but I don't want to scare them away. After all, they are the main bug patrol for the place.

Speaking of bugs (this is all flowing together so nicely--I didn't even plan it), everyone has warned me about how huge the bugs get here, but I started to think they were all putting me on because I hadn't seen ANY bugs--until tonight. Let me tell you, what they lack in numbers, they make up for in size. Check out this guy:

Don't freak--the place I am living is very nice and super clean, but leaving the doors and windows open most of the day invites in some unwelcome guests. But I had to get a picture of the first Hawaii-sized bug I'd seen (also the first one I killed).

As far as practical matters go, I had an interview with an ad agency on Wednesday for a junior copywriting position. The creative director called me back this afternoon and said they're interested, and we are meeting again on Monday to discuss "the nuts and bolts." I am undecided as to whether or not I will take it. It doesn't seem like the place where I could do work I would want to add to my portfolio. But they are pitching me their stuff on Monday, so I will keep an open mind until then. I'm working on finding a car and some back-up employment options, so y'all try not to worry about me too much--it's all under control!

That's all for now. I hope all of you are well! I love and miss you all. Mahalo for all of the warm wishes I received before I left and for those that have been relayed to me by my mom.

k