Pool close....open 8 o'clock

My daily routine it get up around 5:45 A.M., make myself a really sturdy cup of espresso roast coffee in a french press, watch a little local news and check my email before getting ready for the day.

As I start the day, I go down to the first floor at 7:00 A.M. to take part in a hotel's continental breakfast at the Aqua Aloha Surf.  Well, this morning I got a few minutes late start so when I arrived, the place was wrapped up with Japanese tourists and seating was pretty sparse.  With virtually no place to eat my breakfast, I headed for the pool area where I'd eaten several times before.

A pool guy was inside the gated area wiping the tables after just hosing them off.   As I reached for the gate to go inside, he looked up and said, "Pool close...open eight!"

"No sir, I am not swimming.  I just want to eat my breakfast at the tables."

 "Pool close...open eight!"

Clearly he could see I was dressed in business casuals (aloha shirt, slacks, brown leather shoes, etc.), definitely did not look like a swimmer and sorta important.  Besides, I didn't even have a towel.

"No sir, I'm not going swimming. I only want to sit at the tables," I said forcefully and reached for the gate latch again.

"Pool close...OPEN EIGHT!"

There is no argument if the one you argue with isn't speaking English and I don't know Portuguese, Micronesian or Whatever so I just gave him a blank stare, rolled my eyes and chose to eat my boiled eggs and orange slice standing.

He was simply doing his job, was effective at it and honestly, I can appreciate his boldness to stand by his instructions and not be swayed or bullied to abandon his mission. 

I mumbled, grumbled and sulked in English though.

As fate would have it...

I've had my share of great assignments and quite a few have been in Hawaii.  With that said, I figured my luck had long run out and I'd never see the islands on the company ticket ever again.  So, as fate would have it (thanks Mr. Jones) I find myself on Oahu once again.

It's not that working in San Angelo, Texas and Eunice, Louisiana wasn't some of the highlights of my life but Hawaii...?...it's what dreams are made of.

I've been here about 3 weeks and taken quite a few pictures but somehow my laptop started having issues downloading Windows 10 and I've pretty much been without a function to upload pictures with.  So without deep narratives, I present a quick photo journal of the past 3½ weeks.

After a red-eye flight to Honolulu, I found myself dealing with traffic like no other place I've been unless it was New York or the 605 in Los Angeles.  At least I got a rainbow in the deal.

 

There's not many places to stay within your budget other than downtown Waikiki, complete with zillions of tourists, street people and more traffic.

The annual Aloha Festival

 

  Raining on the parade

 

 I suppose if you're going to be homeless, this is the place. Rare is the night below 60°

 

  Life in downtown is living in a cube.  A view from my 220 square foot hotel room.

 

 My first week here, the place was swarming with tourists but over the recent week, they have thinned out a bit.

 

 Getting away from Waikiki, you can find less people

 

 Or strolling around later at night.  Here's the marina where the Ala Wai meets the harbor

 

 Looking toward Diamond Head at dusk.

  I always love a slow drive around the island.  This time it was counter clockwise.  Who knows, next week I might go for clockwise.

 

 It has been said that the best food on Hawaii is the after taste of the peanuts from the flight over.

 

 The place is synonymous with surfing so I spent last Saturday afternoon on the northeast side watching the surfers

 

 Waves crashing on the lava rocks

 

  More waves, more rocks

 

 More surfers.  He looks happy enough.

 

Later on, I'll upload my trip up to Manoa Falls.

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.