Davids vs. Goliath

This cruise ship's horn woke me up today. I went out on the lanai to see why all the commotion? The ship was coming into Kailua Bay just as participants in a fishing tournamend were heading out. At least 50 fishing boats were charging toward the giant cruise ship. It was more entertaining than this morning's newspaper.

Hey Tommy, that doesn't smell like mud!

For Father's Day my dad didn't want a present, he just wanted a Jeep ride. So we went up to Mana Road in Waimea. The road stretches 44 miles from Waimea around Mauna Kea and empties out on the Summit Road a few miles below Onizuka Center. We started in Waimea and only went half way, then turned around. And that's disappointing, because the upper half of the road is the bumpy part, the ride was just getting fun!

I turned on the air conditioning Monday and PEEE-YUUU! The smell of the poop wafted in through the vents. After a 1 1/2 hour wash job I'm still finding remnants of cow pies in the nooks and crannies of the undercarriage.

Let's Go Racin'

Denise knew I'd want to participate in the adult pinewood derby at her church. I'm still bitter about my girl scouting days. The boys built race cars and went camping, the girls stitched sit-upons- ridiculous square things you hang around your waist so if you have to sit down in the great outdoors your okole doesn't get dirty. But we never went outdoors so what the heck was the point?

Back to the topic at hand, the pinewood derby was a blast. This Cub Scout tradition is simple enough, build a car made of pine within certain measurement and weight guidelines, then see who's is fastest. They race down a grooved aluminum track. There's even software designed for pinewood derby, complete with electronic timing devices.

My car was a simple wedge design. I shaped the wood with a belt sander, spray painted red and blue stripes and named her Liberty. I dripped melted fishing weights into holes drilled in the back to increase weight.

Here's Liberty next to the General Lee and others. She placed 14th overall with 61 cars competing, and averaged 187 miles per hour (that's to scale with the size of the cars and track)

Trucks are for Girls



Danielle and Sarah show off their matching trucks. A few of us in the marketing industry (that's for you Dianne) invaded the Brew Pub Friday. Danielle and I work for West Hawaii Today, Kathy is a rep for Big Island Weekly, and Sarah sells advertising for Oceanic Time Warner.

Wet Okole Product Review

I put Wet Okole seat covers on my Jeep about a year ago, see the old blog post here:

http://alhauber.blogspot.com/2006/05/wet-okoles-are-installed-i-can-see-why.html

These really expensive neoprene seat covers are custom made to fit your car' seats. Okole means butt in Hawaiian and purpose of the covers is to protect the seats from salty, wet butts. They look great and fit perfectly but they don't do much to protect the seats. I removed the covers and discovered salt stained seats. Salty water has been seeping through the seams of the covers and sitting on my car seats for a whole year.

Salt stains on my driver's side seat:

Carharts & Cabella's

For a minute, I forgot I was in Hawaii. We went down to Manuka State Park to shoot guns and two guys showed up with a truckload of guns & ammo. They even had their own custom made steel targets. Everything about them said "midwestern America," where there's a Cabella's catalog in every mail box and the state uniform is made by Carharts.

They let us shoot several of their guns. The .45 semi-automatic pistol was my favorite. Bullets made music when they hit different sized steel targets. We also shot up some diet Cokes with a deer rifle and then we did some trap shooting. I used to be a lot better at it than I am now. I've been out of Indiana too long.

Chris aims at the close target with his .22 pistol. We also shot up some Diet Cokes that were by the farther, circled target with his deer rifle. I took out a can on my first attempt.

Shooting up the metal targets...pretty, pretty music.

What school you wen grad, brah?

It was graduation weekend here in Kona, and that's quite the event. You've never attended a graduation until you've been to a Hawaiian high school ceremony. The whole town turns out to support the graduates, and the lei are piled on so high it's a miracle the students can even see through the flowers.

We had our own graduation ceremony in church today for our Theology 301 class. Pastor even made everyone hum Pomp & Circumstance, it's just like him to try to embarrass us. We even got lei- all 12 of the lei they handed out were Kirstina's leftovers from her high school graduation the night before! I'm pretty bummed the class is over- but it was an awesome 9 months. I learned so much! I considered bombing the final so I could take the class again next year. Instead I worked hard and got a 98%! I ended up with the highest grade in the class, and that's not a familiar position for me to be in.

Now that the class is over I need a new project. I'm going to make an attempt at reading the Bible in its entirety within the next year. Maybe I'll even post updates to let folks know how that's going. Don't count on success. Last time I tried to read the Bible in a year I did finish- but it took me a bit over two years to do it.

An official document:

Down the Tube

Jim and I spent Memorial Day exploring a lava tube. It's a few miles past the entrance to Volcanoes Nat'l Park, makai of the 23 mile marker.

We were a bit nervous about being in the cave and considered turning back more than once. I was afraid our adventure would become a little more then we bargained for as we climbed over several piles of rubble inside the cave. (and I mentally recalled the 4.7 earthquake they had in Volcano the previous week.) But we continued onward as curiosity got the best of us. I'd say we went a good mile into the cave. The book says the cave goes 1.5 miles, but we turned around when crawling became necessary. We didn't dress properly. If you go I recommend jeans and gloves. And don't forget extra flashlight batteries!

There were some pretty amazing features in the cave like a long "horse trough" filled with pahoehoe lava, and stalactite-like, curly-Q lava hanging from the top of the cave.

This is where we finally turned around

My favorite section of the cave:


Weird curly-Q stalactites:

The horse trough:

Ethanol Update

I went through my whole tank of ethanol driving entirely on the highway. I got 15 miles to the gallon, no better than I get on gas with 10% ethanol added. I'm sure I'll try it again, as it's hard to asess from one tank of gas- there are a lot of factors that determine gas mileage.

I have to agree with Baron. We need an alternative fuel source- one that's not as environmentally harmful and will decrease our dependence on foreign oil. But I'm not sure ethanol is the answer.