The Dishwasher (or C R gets job offer)

Monday

C R Albritton

Arriving back at the hotel after work Monday, I parked the car and immediately walked several blocks over to the Cheesecake Factory looking for an early dinner (supper back in Louisiana). I didn't even change clothes from work because usually the wait is from 30 to 50 minutes. Sometimes, you can slip past the long line, make your way back to the back bar and order from a stool if you don't mind eating at a bar.

Running a gauntlet of waiters and patrons I approached the bar and saw absolutely no one sitting there nor was there a bartender. It had not entered my mind that since this was Monday, the bar was closed but just as I was about to turn back, a guy rounded the bar coming from the kitchen about 4 or 5 steps in front of a tightly grouped gaggle of subordinates.

Let's stop here and set this up. The mannerisms of this guy was almost a comic version of the "Jack MacFarland" character on the Will & Grace sitcom and the way his followers waddled after him made him look as if he was really the head duck there. When he stopped, his posse, still in formation, nearly tripped over each other.

Before I could turn and dismiss myself, Mr Duck was right in my face (not hostile). With a small stack of papers in his hand, he pointed and shook them at me in time with a staccato voice saying, "I_can_use_you_right_now_I_need_a_dishwasher_just_fill_out_ these_papers_and_get_to_work!

Halfway apologetically, I said, "Nope, I was just hoping to order dinner from the bar."

Mr Duck, without missing a beat, pulled back his paper to his shoulder, arched his wrist then lightly snapped it at me as if there were an imaginary insect between us and said, "nnnnnnnnnnnnn....No!"

"Adios", I said. as I turned and went the opposite direction. His entourage let out a couple of muffled giggles, whether at him or me, it's anyone's guess. I suppose I'll never know how that job offer would have turned out.

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Dinner At Denny's

Tuesday

Sitting in Denny's on Kuhio Street, Honolulu, I scanned the menu trying to find something to eat that didn't have a bun wrapped around it. I had decided on the Grilled Seagull...er.. Chicken Salad and was patiently waiting for the waiter to get to me to take my order.

There was an older gentleman, probably in his late 70s, seated near me and was having a difficult time communicating with what was probably an eastern European waiter.

Let's call the waiter Ivan and the older patron, Walter.

Ivan: "Vhat vould jew like fah dinnah, sir?"

Walter (loudly): "What do you get with this?", pointing at a picture on the menu.

Ivan: "Dat comes vith two side otters."

Walter(loudly): I don't know what this is!"

Ivan: "Dat is a chicken fried steak, sir. Vhat vould you like fah your side otters?"

Walter(loudly): "Medium well!"

Ivan: "Vell sir, it comes vell done."

Walter (loudly): "No, I want it medium well!"

Ivan (getting a bit loud himself): "No sir, it hast to be vell done because is a hamburger steak, battered and deep fried and you need to choose two side otters!!"

Walter (loudly): "It says "STEAK"....and what is a "side otter"?"

Ivan (louder): "It's a deep fried hamburger and it comes vith mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes, cole slaw or french fries dat you choose two of!".

By now the commotion has attracted the attention of management and they shuffle poor Ivan off to probably the potato peeling machine.

The manager trainee asks Walter, "What would you like sir?" Walter points to the chicken fried steak and says, "medium well". The manager trainee says, "Yessir, that comes with mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables", nods affirmatively and takes off.

Walter sits there, shaking his head and mumbling to himself, "How can it be a steak if it's a hamburger?"

Rest In Peace Robin

Robin Theresa Parent Guedry Broussard March 14, 1955 ----- February 1, 2008

Click Here For Obituary Information

Rest in peace, Robin Broussard, rest in peace.


Robin & Gary

YEAR OF THE RAT

Ah so, Grasshopper.

February 7 begins the Chinese New Year, Year of the Rat. but Honolulu kicked it off early Friday, February 1 with Lion Dances in Chinatown.

After changing clothes at the office in Aiea, I headed back toward Honolulu & Chinatown. Already, the street department had placed "No Parking" signs along the streets, so I drove around several blocks looking for a place to park. Finding a Jaycee parking lot just off River Street, I wandered Chinatown for an hour or so checking out the stores, restaurants and the curiosities.

Vendors were beginning to set up food booths along the streets and shop owners worked toward bringing in boxes of merchandise still on the sidewalks. I bought some food in a little restaurant while waiting for something to happen.
Troupes of mostly young people gathered on the sidewalks trying to stay dry while showers of rain intermittently blew across the city.

Six O'clock came and the police began blocking off streets while more people began to thicken the sidewalks. The adage, "It's better for people to think you're stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt" came to mind, so I didn't ask what or how all this "Lion Dance" thing worked. I had assumed there was going to be some kind of Grand Marshall with a formal parade but as it turned out, groups gathered all over the area on Beretania, Hotel and River streets. Somebody said, "there's the mayor" so I figured I must be in or near something official. I turned and saw an entourage with a very tall man in the middle of it. He stood at least a head taller than the nearest Chinaman around.
Within a few minutes a lot of noise began. Trust me it was A LOT OF NOISE. Firecrackers like you have never heard being nearly drowned out by drums, cymbals and gongs sounding much like pots and pan from Mama's kitchen.
Two young men donned each of the many Lion costumes and danced in the area, amidst the smoke of the firecrackers and deafening sounds of the drums, gongs and cymbals.
The dancers went to various businesses where they frightened the evil spirits away by dancing vigorously around the firecrackers and eventually entering the business itself. I watched as they went to all the banks and several other businesses. I wondered if there was a bank around that wouldn't let them in.
Between business blessings/dances/enchantments or whatever they truly were, lions would accept gifts from individuals in the streets. They stepped up and offered gifts of money to the dancer by handing it to him through the mouth of the lion. Feeding the kitty, so to speak.

It was a very friendly and non-intimidating evening.

Saturday morning was much of the same except more food, more people and much better light.

After a couple of hours of this, it was apparent that I'd be filling up my hard drive with more and more photos.
Here's a link to a YouTube video. It is not by me.

With that in mind, I made it back to my car and had lunch. What you ask? Panda Express of course.
Ironically, it was going on the same time people in New Orleans were kicking off Mardi Gras and much safer, streetwise.
These photos are posted at http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=51473102%40N00&q=yearoftherat&m=tags or the slideshow at http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=YearOfTheRat&m=tags&w=51473102%40N00

Applications Needed

Another weekend in Honolulu endlessly wandering up and down the streets waiting with mainland visitors and Japanese tourists at street corners waiting for the lights to change, I walked along the sidewalk by the beach looking for a reason to snap a picture.

I had already found a really nice looking chopper outside a restaurant on Kuhio street and quickly snapped a shot while trying not to appear too "touristy". The hog was probably a rental but still was an attention grabber and thought of Boudreau covered up in the garage back home in 30 something degree weather.

As I arrived at the beach, I thought about maybe taking pictures of the homeless guy digging through the trash or possibly of some other social statement of life's injustices and even maybe the ever present chess players at the covered picnic tables but nothing really got my attention until I looked out across the beach.

You know, some of us do NOT have much room to talk (I'm including myself here) when it comes to physiques but for crying out loud, we DO have some idea of what's appropriate and what's not. Well, here it is. There are just some things you ought to have to fill out an application for and this is one of them. Hey, even charge a fee or license ($ 200 at least) to wear one of those things and an extra hundred bucks if your gut covers it up. What's fair is fair!

Speedo

That's just wrong on so many different levels.

Whale of a Weekend on Maui !

What a weekend! Friday afternoon, I changed into shorts and Crocs at the office and headed for the airport for a quick flight to Maui.

After a night on my friends, Don & Rachel's couch, we boarded their boat, the Maui Diamond II and headed out for Molokini Crater. It was a slow ride, watching out for and seeing whale spouts at a distance.

Arriving and mooring at the extinct volcano, we did a couple of dives with divemaster Kat and a Canadian man and his two teenage sons. Kat knows her stuff and was the first to spot things like octopus, white tip reef sharks, eels and many indigenous species of fish. Just two weeks before, Darlene had been with me out here and am sorry she was not able to witness this with me.

On the way back, we stopped a few times hoping to spot a whale up close. On the third stop, we found a mother whale, her escort and a two ton bouncing bundle of joy calf. We were all just blown away as the trio came closer and closer to the 40 foot boat. I'm sure they could have flipped us if they had wanted to but swam under us then circled the boat several times driving us all wild with our cameras. After entertaining us for probably 20 minutes, they moved on. We had been out quite a while so Captain Don brought us back in to Maalaea Harbor.

That afternoon, a few of us went on for the third dive of the day out near mile marker 14 west bound toward Lahaina. We dropped anchor into 40 foot water and soon found Manta rays all over us. At one point someone said they counted 10 in sight swimming around and over us, banking like stealth fighter planes. The largest had to have had a wing span of 10 to 12 feet across. The were almost as amazing as the whales.

I believe this had to be the most memorable dive day I've ever been on. I spent Sunday relaxing and watching people in the middle of enjoying their 3 day weekend.

Banzai Pipeline..2008 Backdoor Shootout

Saturday night, I put Ms Darlene on a plane in Honolulu headed for New Orleans. She's been with me from the get-go since flying in here on Christmas day so I'll miss having her around. She's been a jewel at finding deals on hotel rooms and reasonably priced joints to eat in. Were it not for some chain restaurants, the best food here would be the after-taste you had in your mouth from the last meal on the mainland.

She usually spent the day out on the beach and parks watching people and shopping (not much buying) while I fought traffic sometimes for an hour and a half each day to and from work. To us, the attitude, culture and ambiance of Honolulu and Oahu are entirely different from Maui.

Yesterday, we went out on the North Shore to the Banzai Pipeline and watched the 2008 Backdoor Shootout . The sand was very loose so I dug my tripod in and squeezed off a hundred or more shots. Here I was with a pretty decent camera but felt oh so small when the pros came out with those big nasty Canon lens that made mine look like a dime store cheapy.







The waves were thundering, the sun was bright and there was a modest crowd there on the beach to watch as jet skis / wave runners waited to tow the surfers if necessary.

( You can click on the pictures for a larger view )

Although the waves were not the legendary 30 footers, many were at least 20 feet.

Just when we decided to leave, Darlene looked over at the BodyGlove tent and lo and behold, David Hasselhoff was there getting his beauty struck with the local girls and they were all over him like flies a dead fish on the beach. He's the guy who was on Knight Rider and Bay Watch .

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hasselhoff - you remember the red bathing suits).







After some of the commotion eased a bit and the girls stopped accosting the man, and the Hoff sauntered down the beach to where the news and camera people were hanging out.

We left shortly after and was headed out when we ran face to face with him and Darlene thought it would be a wonderful idea to get a picture taken with him, so she hit him up as he came out the gate. He mumbled "yes" and so fired off a couple of shots of him and Ms Darlene.

The whole encounter probably lasted no more than 10 seconds and realizing Mr. Hasselhoff had more pressing things on his mind, we thanked him and dismissed ourselves as he went his way and we went ours.

That's it from this rock in the Pacific.

Happy New Year!!!.....Honolulu style

I love this time of the year, especially when you get a weekend off, work one day then get another day off (New Year's day) then work 3 more for a weekend again. Super!

Ms Darlene and I originally had 8:30 p.m. reservations at Buca Di Beppo but the more we thought about it, we decided that was a bit late to be eating so we waited for an hour (groan) at the Cheesecake Factory for a really surprisingly great meal.


After dinner, we took a stroll and sat in rocking chairs on hotel patios on the beach.

A Honolulu fireworks display was scheduled for 9:15 but we were in no mood to get into a car/traffic so we went back to the hotel room. Although we were at least a half mile from Diamond Head, we were able to see a really neat fireworks show from our window in the 15th floor.



Ooooooh.......ahhhhhhhh.........wow.


We had hoped that New Years Day would have more spectacular waves out at Banzai Pipeline but we arrived to find hardly any surfers in the water. Perhaps next week.

Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas)!

Darlene & C R Albritton

Finally out of Grand Rapids, Louisiana looked absolutely wonderful while we fretted over schedules of where, who, when and how we would all get through family days together. It was great that my Mom could come down with Darren, Donna and the kids and get together with Jared, Jaime and Henry along with Blaise and Laurie. While some had in-law family functions needing attention, others went in many directions over the weekend. Mom and I got a chance to get out and drive down to Gramercy & Lutcher on the River Road and saw the old plantations and countryside. My real intent was to show her the bonfires on the levee. Each Christmas, people on the rivers build huge bonfires to light the way for Papa Noel to find his way to the good girls and boys on Christmas Eve.Decades ago, these bonfires also helped families find their way up and down bayous and rivers as they found their way to and from midnight mass.

Most of the levee bonfires are seen near Gramercy and Lutcher, LA. While most are conical bonfires cut from local willows down behind the levee, some are more elaborate in various shapes. I've seen them shaped like the state capitol, airplanes, trucks, houses and this year, a motor home.

Adding to the confusion, I got a call from the office asking me to be in Honolulu for a while soon after Christmas. Without hesitation, Darlene asserted her desire to go too, so we booked both our flights and flew out on Christmas day, thinking it might be less hassle and crowds then. This was true to a point.

I took Darlene to the New Orleans airport early then turned back to Baton Rouge where I caught out 3 hours later. The different schedules and airlines were to put us into Honolulu within 30 minutes of each other but snow and delays in Denver let Darlene sit in a plane on the tarmac for 4 hours and making her 6 hours late.

Oh well, we're here. During the weekdays, Darlene spends time walking around downtown Honolulu and Waikiki, getting shin splints from wearing sandals.

Saturday, we took somewhat of a tour around the northshore through the towns of Mokuleia, Haleiwa the beaches of Banzai Pipeline.
Although the big waves were not here yet, there were several in the 15 foot range. Locals tell us we should be able to see the "big ones within the month if I'm still here.

Beautiful seascapes included things like Chinaman's Hat near mountains where scenes from Jurassic Park were filmed.


This is Sunday, so we'll be out and hopefully tonight I can edit a few surfer pictures.
Sometime in the next two weeks, we plan to visit the USS Arizona/Pearl Harbor Memorial.


Here's the link for all the photos on the Hawaii blog. (Click for the photo link)

We made an attempt a snorkeling at Hanauma Bay but arrived an hour prior to low tide and by the time we got through the lines the water was so low, it made for miserable swimming over the dead coral in the extinct (we hope it's extinct) volcano cone.
We decided to cash it in and gladly pay the buck apiece for a ride up on the trolley.