Merry Christmas to all!
See you in 2010!
Another discovery from Uncle N. Enjoy ...
Okay, so I drink a LOT of diet soda. According to Men's Health Magazine, drinking a LOT of diet soda is really a bad idea as it can lead to loss of calcium in bones and other bad things. Here's the thing though ... I don't drink. I don't smoke. I swear, but not to excess. I try very hard to be nice to my mom. I figure that I need at least one vice that is bad for me that I allow myself to enjoy. Okay ... In all honesty, I eat WAY FRIGGIN' too much processed food and preserved meat, but I figure I deserve at least TWO vices that are bad for me but make me happy.
Anyway, upon getting to Hawaii one of the first things I have to do is go to Costco to buy a huge brick of Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi. This time around I couldn't make it to Costco in time so I bought a twelve pack from Walmart and here's the thing ... Who even knew that there is such a thing as Caffeine Free REGULAR Pepsi??? I've never seen such a thing.
In any case I discovered today, that I was drinking a LOT of extra calories in the form of regular soda instead of diet. I was a really fat kid (I'm talking 5'11", 220lbs, and a size 38" waist when I graduated from high school vs. 6'2", 175lbs, and size 33" now) so thank goodness I caught the extra calories before it went on too long ... If you were heavy as a kid, there is always a fat kid waiting to take over your body even if you've been a healthy weight for many years.
One of the nicest of my family's holiday traditions is that we have annual gathering with the extended family. My paternal grandmother, my Popo in Chinese, hosted the gathering every year. Cousins, aunts, uncles, and family friends returned from college or their lives on the Mainland and the local relatives came from across O'ahu for the gathering. Over the years, the gathering moved from my Popo's tiny home to various restaurants around Honolulu. When my Popo passed away, we learned that one of the things she did was to put aside funds in a trust that could be used to continue to host our family Christmas gatherings. My father, who was the middle of three siblings, passed away many years ago, so our family gatherings are now hosted by his siblings--my aunt and uncle.
For the past few years, our Christmas celebration has been held at the Halekulani Hotel, the only five star hotel on O'ahu. The food and the service are always absolutely wonderful. It is the perfect Hawaii mix of casual elegance where you get amazing food and service with a multi-million dollar view while wearing an aloha shirt and open toed sandals, but truly the best part is getting to see all of my cousins and aunts and uncles.
I know that lots of people find their family gatherings a chore and honestly as a younger man I often didn't value chance to get together with my family as much as I should have, but I have to say that it has become one of the most enjoyable parts of my visits home. I truly love the chance to sit around and catch up with everyone and I think that it must make my Popo happy to know that we continue to gather and enjoy each others' company.
I have no way of knowing, but after all of these years I suspect that Popo's original fund is long gone and my Uncle and Aunt host it in Popo's memory, but either way, it is a really wonderful tradition and is part of what makes Hawaii continue to be the place that I call home even though I live and work (and now own a home) in Lala Land.
Merry Christmas, Popo!
S/O and I finally own our new home! After what must be some kind of a world record three-and-a-half month escrow and a lot of drama our deed finally recorded on Friday--just in time for us to pack up and leave for our annual pilgrimage home to Hawaii. It is a relief and a wonderful way to celebrate the holidays. S/O and I won't be exchanging gifts this year as our house is our gift to each other ... And for the next thirty years as well.
Because the weather was bad and for a variety of scheduling issues with work (I was leaving the house before sunrise and getting back after dark) I don't have any good pictures of the house as it looks now, but here's one from before it was done.
After a lot of stress, I do have to say I love my house so far! I can't believe it is mine!!!
The only good thing about the snow storm is I had no plans to leave the house today. But with my luck, it won't be sufficiently melted by Monday morning and I'll slip and slide to work . . .
Hi folks. Remember how I said we had solved our bathing problems with purchasing a doll for Lou to wash (the lovely Teresa)? Well, if you laughed at that idea you were RIGHT to do so. She took a bath for the following four nights without complaint then stopped again. So now we only give Lorelei a bath when she is getting a little ripe. It's so strange. Once she is in the tub for about a minute she calms down and enjoys the bath as usual but getting her IN the tub involves screaming, running away, hysterical crying, crumpling in a heap on the floor, thrashing about, all the toddler moves. So we decided it's not worth the stress most nights and she probably doesn't need a daily bath in the winter, when she isn't getting muddy or dirty or sweaty.
So anyhow, how was your week? We played the singing ornament game a thousand times.
We also had a whole bunch of snow over the weekend, which has sadly melted away.
Last night I went out to the local Target to pick up some toys to for our school's annual winter toy drive. We usually have an abundance of toys for very young children and things that a fourth or fifth grade girl might like, but we often don't seem to have many toys that a fourth or fifth grade boy might enjoy. With that in mind I picked up an NFL junior sized football and a really nice Frisbee. Upon checkout, my tab was about 30% higher than I had expected as the football was ringing up for $19.99 rather than the $9.99 listed on the shelf sign (As you can see from the picture here I, apparently, had the wrong product, but I totally promise that I didn't do it on purpose and I really thought that, I had the sale item!!!). The clerk called for a price check and we waited and waited and nobody came. Finally, after I told her that it was for a toy drive, she went ahead and quietly rang it up for $9.99 and quietly wished me a happy holiday. She was really great!
Since I was already parked, I wandered across the parking lot to the Ross Dress for Less store. Now, as a bargain hunting (that would be "cheap") kind of guy I LOVE Ross, but they sure do have a rather upside down business model. I've never been a fan of the house slipper set at all (basically they are hideous), but I have come to discover that hardwood and tile flooring is very cold during the winter months. Anyway, I found these house slippers that I decided I needed for the low, low price of $7.99 and I got in line. I was about the fifth person in the first come, first served purchasing line. There were three clerks ringing up purchases and one clerk taking returns from a separate line. After a while, two of the purchasing clerks were pulled to put stock that had been returned back on the shelves. This left one clerk doing purchases and one clerk taking returns. The purchasing line, at that point, grew to easily be twenty customers long. Now, I know that part of the reason I can buy house slippers for $7.99 is that I'm going to have to forgo top flight customer service, but it just seems that on the most basic level of business during these tough economic times shouldn't you make it as easy as possible for people to actually spend money in your store? The model that, that particular Ross store was employing was having people return merchandise at the same rate that they were selling it. I just didn't get the point ... Though my house slippers are quite comfy so I'm not complaining TOO much ...
Finally, I got back to my truck and as I pulled out of the parking lot a slow motion blur of sirens and flashing lights moved by and ... IT WAS SANTA!!! Santa was on a trailer being towed by a big black D.A.R.E truck being escorted by police cruisers in front and back. It made me smile and I though, "Oh how cute ..."
The traffic, reluctant to pass the flashing lights of the police cruisers, followed behind in a big parade. Honestly, it was kind of fun to be part of the Santa parade, but then a third siren could be heard and everybody got confused as hell. Flashing lights came up behind our mini parade and the driver honked his very loud fire department horn, but the other drivers in our parade apparently thought that it was just the end of the procession so they neither pulled over nor would pass the Santa escorts so, effectively, we all just blocked the road. What turned out to be a real fire truck and ambulance responding to a real emergency ended up having to drive up the street against traffic on the divided roadway to get to their emergency all because Santa was being towed by a D.A.R.E truck. Bah humbug ...
Anyway, I'm sure that's pretty boring, but it's really quiet and quite boring here in the library as we tick the seconds away before we start our winter break at 3:05pm this afternoon!!! Yahoo!!!!!!!
This is an amazing talk by Clay Shirky who is a media consultant and professor in the Interactive Technologies program at NYU. It should be required watching for every teacher in the world.
