Monthly Archives: February 2005

Hawaii Vacation — Day 7

We drove around top (west) of island today.

Steve wanted to take a look at some of the surfing (not that he was going to surf, of course) and see what kind of pictures he could get.

Unfortunately, the really good waves are further east, going towards Paia and Hana.

It was a fairly nice drive though.

One thing you have to know about Maui you don’t drive anywhere fast. Partially because there’s a lot of traffic and partially because the roads aren’t really laid out that well. For instance: If you are driving in the up country, near the Tedeschi Winery, it’s only a few miles from Wilea … but since there’s no road that goes that way, you have to drive all the way to Kahalui before you can double back. It’s about 30 miles and an hours drive to go the 3 miles.

Since it’s Friday, and Stargate is on, we decided to eat in tonight Costco has some really good looking ahi tuna that we cooked on the condo grill. Ginny and I learned a really good (and easy) technique for cooking Ahi Tuna on the grill that works quite well.

We marinated the tuna for about 30 minutes in some asian flavored salad dressing, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and other bits. We pre-heated the grill to as hot it could get and cook the steaks for 90 seconds on each side. They usually come out quite nicely browned on the outside and rare on the inside.

Then we watched Stargates SG-1 & Atlantis and the new Battlestar Galactica.

Such an exciting Friday, eh?

Hawaii Vacation — Day 4

Yesterday we went on a whale watching cruise. We saw a lot of whales, some of them coming really close to the boat we were on.

All three of us were busy snapping pictures and trying to stay balanced. Unfortunately this caused us all to have to brace ourselves with just our muscles, and this ended up hurting us a bit. We didn’t find out it hurt, however, until today.

Today was pretty exciting and not in the good sense.

We decided to go back up to Haleakala to do some hiking and see what the crater and summit look like when it’s warmer.

We did not; however, check the gas gauge before we left we only had about 1/3 of a tank left. We got up to the top without a problem, but going down was a bit dicey. Basically we ended up coasting half the way down which isn’t bad on a bike, but in a car it’s kind of ‘sporty’. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the gas gauge on empty and the transmission in neutral.

After getting gas, we went out to see a slack key guitar concert done by a local consortium of musicians. It’s held at the Ritz Carleton hotel. The tickets were kind of pricey, but the music was excellent. There were two guitar players (host and guest), plus a young ukulele player, and two hula demonstrations. It was obviously a smallish operation, as the guy who collected the tickets at the door was also the ukulele player. I think he was also the nephew of the host.

Hawaii Vacation — Day 3

Didn’t write anything yesterday, we were kind of running around a lot.

We arrived on Saturday without a problem. As mentioned before, the flight was pretty bumpy the landing was quite rough, but everyone walked away from it.

Took a long time to get our luggage, but everything arrived safe and sound.

There was a long line at the car rental place, so Ginny walked over to the Budget counter and asked if they had anything available. Turns out they did, and we got a better rate than our original reservation. We even got upgraded to a full size car. Car turned out to be a Chevy Impala which is kind of a boat.

Once squared away on with the car, we drove over to the condo and checked in.

The condos are quite nice. Steve’s even has a cable modem! He’s going to sign up for a week of service later. His wireless signal doesn’t reach into our condo, unfortunately.

We had a quick bite to eat at Maui Taco and ate at Kamaole Beach 2, then walked along the beach and took a few pictures.

We stayed and watched the sunset and then went back t the condo and crashed.

The next day, we woke up REALLY early (3am) to drive up to the crater of Haleakala to see the sunrise. Oh my god was it cold!

I mean really cold Chicago cold. I brought my jacket that’s fairly windproof, but it wasn’t up to the task. I should have brought the shell too.

Got a bunch of nice pictures and then took a leisurely drive down. We stopped at Kula Lodge for breakfast. I had a taste for macadamia nut pancakes, which they had, so I ordered (so did Steve & Ginny). Really yummy.

As we were still screwed up on the time zone, we came back to the condo and took a ‘nap’. After the nap, we for a walk on the boardwalk in Wilea. As we parked relatively near the hotel we’re staying at for the last two days, we put in a reservation for the Luau on that Friday. We walked along the boardwalk a bit and stopped for lunch at one of the hotels. After lunch, we headed back to the car.

We then went to Costco and Safeway to pick up some staples and stuff for a very light dinner (poke, lomi lomi, and some salad).

We took a walk down to the beach after dinner and watched the sunset again.

It’s now Monday, and we got back from a (fairly) early morning snorkel. Steve had wanted to go out earlier, but it didn’t quite happen that way.

We had a few problems getting ourselves in gear, but finally did. Went down to Kamaole park 3 (near the condo we stayed at 4 years ago) and went into the water. The surf was quite rough, so it was a challenge. Finally got in and started paddling around. I didn’t see many fish, but I think I saw a turtle and I DID hear some whales.

Came back to the condo to clean up and wake up.

It’s now about 10:45 and Steve’s here, relaxing on the recliner. We’re going to figure out what we want to do the rest of the day.

Hawaii Vacation — Day 1

Well, here we go on our 6th vacation to Maui Hawaii.

Yes, we’ve been there (here) a lot, but I really enjoy it. As I often tell people, it’s got the best of everything … it is a beautiful tropical paradise with just about all the comforts of home. Heck, there’s even a Costco. And for shopping we can go to Safeway where our Dominick’s fresh value card works (which I totally forgot on my key ring, which is at home … oh well, we can use our phone number).

Ginny and I are traveling with Steve … He’s fun to travel with and has a keen sense of adventure. He does tend to get obsessive about things though. Of course, if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be Steve.

I’m rather disappointed that Steve’s girlfriend Ruth couldn’t make it. I understand the reason … she’s newly in the independent contractor world and really can’t afford to say NO to a contract (she’s a contract trainer). It’s kind of sad, though, that Steve doesn’t have anyone to share Hawaii with (other than Ginny and I).

We’ll have a lot of fun anyway … That’s mandatory.

Right now we’re enroute … according to the air-traffic control channel we’ve just been handed off to Salt Lake City control. That’s about half way across the country. About two hours until we are feet wet (over water), and then it’s another 5 hours. That’s the only thing I don’t like about travel to Hawaii, it’s a 9 hour flight. Add to that we’re in coach (as usual), so we’re kind crammed in here.

This trip we don’t have any hard & fast plans … other than few items. We’re going up to Haleakala tomorrow morning, while we’re still working on central time … so we can wake up real early and go see the sunrise (more on Haleakala later). Other than that, we’ll be in Kehie for 10 days, then Hana for 2 (more on Hana later), then back in Wilea for the last two days.

I really wish we could afford property in Maui. If my MKS options are ever worth something, I think that’s what we are going to invest in. Get a nice two bedroom condo on the beach, rent it out for 50 weeks of the year, stay in it for the other two. Then, when we retire, we have a place to move to (or sell and use the proceeds to buy a different place).

Regarding Hana … every time we’ve gone to Hana before (it’s a very very long drive, along a two lane highway), we’ve gone only for the day. We usually leave somewhat early (8-9 am, early for us), drive the 3-4 hour trip, noodle around for a few hours, and then drive back.
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New spam trick – use an ISP

According to the SpamHaus Project–a U.K.-based antispam compiler of blacklists that block 8 billion messages a day–a new piece of malicious software has been created that takes over a PC. This “zombie” computer is then used to send spam via the mail server of that PC’s Internet service provider. This means the junk mail appears to come from the ISP, making it very hard for an antispam blacklist to block it.

Zombie trick expected to send spam sky-high | CNET News.com

I was afraid something like this was going to happen.

Looks like authenticated mail relaying is going to be mandatory, even inside a network.

The only IP address that will be legitimate for unauthenticated relaying is 127.0.0.1 (localhost) and the mail servers own addresses.

Agnostic

I was watching a rerun of CSI last night and saw a great dialog at the end of the show where the lead character (Gill Grissom, played by William Petersen) and a a guest star (Father Powell, played by Dylan Baker) had a rather interesting exchange …

Father Powell:You don’t believe?
Grissom: In religion. I believe in God, in science, in Sunday supper. I don’t believe in rules that tell me how I should live.
Father Powell: Even if they’re handed down by God?
Grissom: How many crusades were fought in the name of God? How many people died because of someone’s religion?
Father Powell: Fanaticism, not religion.
Grissom: Semantics. They’re still dead.

CSI: Alter Boys

This kind of sums up my feelings on religion and why I call myself an Agnostic.

With a few exceptions, I really can’t understand why most people would want to associated themselves with any organized religion… with all the clergy abuse and murder-in-the-name-of-god problems in the world.

That said, I also believe it is absolutely fine for anyone to worship (or not) in the way they choose (just so long as nobody gets hurt).

But, hey, that’s just me. Your mileage may vary.