Holy Crow!

My bad! Looks like we fell off the edge of the blogosphere. A whole lot has transpired in the past few months for sure. I started a job in May, lost it in September due to funding, I traveled to Guam and Saipan for business for a month, Kuma is still good, Lindsey's job is great, went to Amanda (our Peace Corps sitemate) and Josef's wedding near Chicago, visited Lindsey's family earlier this summer, and have gone swimming a lot.


It was great to be able to spend some time in Minnesota this past summer. We ended up spending a little less than a week and we were able to celebrate Derek's graduation and see a lot of the extended family. We had some great weather up at the lake, and then it became classically freezing and Lindsey and I almost went into hypothermia.


We then flew from Duluth over to Chicago, were we stayed with our good friends Mat and Karen for one night, and then headed over to Woodstock on the train. We were the classic wedding crashers who promised to stay in a tent in the yard (too lazy to set it up). It was such a fantastic, beautiful wedding and we were both so glad to make it. There were also a lot of my Peace Corps group members there as well (shown in the picture) so it was great to catch up with all of them.


Amanda and Josef had been living in Burma, where they attended this incredible hot air balloon festival, which gave them this amazing idea. There were about 100 of these balloons that had a small candle inside of them, which inflated the balloon, and then it took off. It was simply gorgeous. A really incredible, memorable wedding.


I started a job in May with a company doing disaster planning course development and training and in August I was lucky enough to travel to Guam and Saipan for a total of 3 weeks to help co-teach some courses. This picture is from the inside of the remains of a Japanese pillbox that still sits on a rocky outcropping on one of the beaches in Guam. There were some incredible ruins and reminders of the WWII history


This was in the southern tip of Guam and I guess Magellan landed here about two months before he was later killed in the Philippines (courtesy of Wikipedia, it turns out Magellan named Guam the Island of Sails because there were so many boats...and changed the name to Island of Thieves a few days later because some of their smaller boats went missing). It was a really beautiful island and actually felt bigger than I thought it would. Some quick notes of interest: cock-fighting is legal and hugely popular, the Navy is moving a huge base from Okinawa to Guam, the local raw beef that is "cooked" in lemon juice was amazing, it's only a 3 hour flight from Japan, and there are basically no birds because the Brown Tree Snake has literally overrun the island.
Off to Saipan! Saipan is an island that is part of the Marianas chain (Guam is a few hundred miles south of Saipan) and is part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas. Saipan has a much stronger indigenous culture than Guam and also felt incredibly small. The local residents whom we were teaching were incredibly friendly and we ended up going to a few of their local BBQ's. Also, I had a blast exploring some of the local WWII sites here as well. This picture is of the last Japanese gun emplacement on the island that is still intact, in its original site. It was an eerie place to visit in a remote part on the southern tip of the island.


The park ranger at the National Park museum near my hotel told me about some of the lesser known/visited sites. One of them was this pile of bombs! All of this unexploded ordinance was just put in a pill and left to rot, it was pretty hard to find, but an incredible place to explore. The whole beach area was just covered with rust and shrapnel. I was informed that standing and/or jumping on the bomb pile was not advised.


This was one of the BBQ's that we attended and I wish I could remember this fellows name. He is related to the famous voyageur Mau who basically saved the form of traditional pacific navigation. It's a fascinating read on ol' Wikipedia if you have the time. Anyway, this guy was showing us the model of a boat that he actually built and has sailed around Micronesia. The longest trip he had done was around 500 miles, all with traditional navigation methods, incredible. He was the kindest, most friendly soul and was very concerned about the island's youth letting their history and culture fade away.


I finally got back home after abou 4 weeks on the road, and Lindsey and I spent last weekend hiking around Volcano National Park! It was super nice. We then went to the beach, out to dinner, and had a good old time. Love my wife!


Lindsey and I standing in front of the sulfur pits at the park...mmm! So glad to be home, but just this week I also found out that funding ran out for my job! Shit! So, I've got one more week of work and them it's back to the job search. I've applied for about four positions here already and two of them are actually related to Planning, which is promising. So, we'll see what happens, but my stint as a world traveling businessman is over for the time being, and right after my Hyatt Gold car arrived in the mail!

We're a little late in getting these posts up...but here are some pictures from our visit from Mat and Karen, our Peace Corps buddies. They visited for a week about two weeks ago now and we had an awesome time. They were blessed with some great weather the whole trip and we saw a bunch of the island with them.


We stayed for a long weekend over in Kona before they left. It was great to just relax at a super nice beach, do some swimming and enjoy the pools.


Enjoying a little relaxation.

We did a little hike through the National Park which was really fun. It just figures that it was a free day...which annoys me because we own an annual pass.

Interpretive volcano dance.

Cool shot by Binzer showing the beach and another one of the island's volcanoes.

We drove all through Puna and stopped at a beach to check out the surf.

Recreation of a classic Binzer/Mat/Trine shot from Peace Corps.

Would the visit have been complete without a little hot pot? This restaurant just opened in Hilo and it's super awesome...can't wait to go again.

Sushi, white wine, ping pong, pools, beach, cribbage, perfect.

The Aystas' Are Coming!

We were a little slow on the whole picture uploading thing, but here are some pictures from the Aysta's trip! It was a really great time. I can't believe how much stuff we we're able to do in the time that they were here. After the second day, I think Paul and Beck had already driven on every major road on the island (which is fairly impressive). Lindsey had to work a lot during the week, but Paul and Beck rented a place literally two minutes from our house up in the rainforest, so we were able to see them a lot. We hit up the Volcano Park, Waipio Valley, secret Kona beaches, made Paul eat poke (cubes of hawaiian raw fish), Indian, and Thai food, and lots of other stuff.

Just this week, it seems we have added a new member to the family, Kuma (bear in Japanese). Lindsey was driving to work and passed this dog crossing the road and continued on her way, but then on the drive home some 10 hours later, the dog was still in the same spot wandering around on the highway. Lindsey stopped and was finally able to get him in the car. He was pretty clearly abandoned because he's a bit older, but he's really sweet. We took him to the vet and he has deteriorating vision, some arthritis, a skin condition (which we're treating), and he's pretty timid. But, he does like to go for walks and stick his head out the window. We're just taking it one day at a time and seeing if he's a good fit, but with him being so old, he wouldn't have much of a chance at the Humane Society. So, it looks like we have a dog!


Right after Paul and Becky left, we had some big thunderstorms and received a lot of snow on Mauna Kea. I wish it had been a little clearer out...


We took a wagon ride in Waipio Valley, the end of the road heading up the coast.


There are probably 5 million pictures of this same shot on the internet.

At church I've been working with the youth group to start a band and we performed for our first time this past week. Most of the kids are Tongans and they are all pretty fun to work with.

They sang Oh Happy Day, just like at our wedding.

We went to the tidepools down in Puna, which were really awesome. There are all of these little pools with fish and corral and you can just spend hours exploring.


The road down to Waipio Valley was pretty wicked, the steepest grade was 39%.

While we were at the volcano, there was a small rock fall that put up a plume of ash...pretty awesome.

Here we are over on the Kohala Beaches

We drove the Saddle Rd. over to the beach one day and everyone was blown away by how cold and windy it was. Paul is clearly not too excited.

Down in the valley.

Tsunami, 10K in Kona, and Roller Derby

We had a pretty eventful past week, with the Tsunami warning and all. On that day, Lindsey and I felt our first earthquake at about 8pm, right when we saw the news about the Japanese earthquake. It was crazy to watch the breaking news from Japan and feel this impending doom about a tsunami on the way. The sirens started going on right away and continued every hour throughout the night. Then, at 11pm, we felt an even bigger earthquake as we were going to sleep, a 4.5 (completely unrelated to the Japanese one), which put us on edge even more.

While nothing at all happened on the Hilo side of the island, in Kona, water came into the stores and damaged a lot of property. One house was swept out into the bay and a lot of debris and garbage was pulled into the ocean. Yet, it was of course nothing like Japan experienced.

Here we are down at Hilo Bay for an early morning stroll and snack. Beautiful clear day.


We tend to stroll the shore and collect sea glass. Lindsey uses it for her parents programs that occur once a month at her work.


Some of the canoe teams practicing in the morning.


Last night we went to a roller derby match. The event was completely sold out and completely befuddling. Lindsey and I understood it all by the end, but still didn't really understand why there were so many people there, or why some fans were so passionate. The most interesting part of the night for me was after the conclusion of the national anthem, when the Hawaiian state anthem was sung. The song used to be the Hawaiian national anthem (pre-US Marine invasion) and it was really beautiful. It was pretty moving how everyone sang along and knew all the words.


A shot of the auditorium.


We drove over to Kona on Saturday for Lindsey to run a 10K at the Kona Brewery. It sure gets hot over there! It was a beautiful day and a really nice drive around the island.


Race getting started


Yay! Good job babe! She even won* a basil plant!
*participated

Honolulu & Aunt Eleanor

Well, this post has been a long time coming. We've been pretty busy over the last month or so. We house sat for more than a week for some friends outside of town, went to Honolulu for the weekend, and my Great Aunt Eleanor is here visiting. Lots going on! Pictures will be totally out of order because I'm kinda lazy and going to bed.

Here's Lindsey and I on Waikiki beach at night, but I guess we could be just about anywhere... It was fun visiting Oahu for a long weekend to actually experience some city living again. Always good to have a wide array of restaurants to choose from.


We also went over to Kailua, which is on the other side of Oahu, just for the day. The beaches over there are actually way better than Waikiki and there are not that many people.


Here's me and Aunt Eleanor over at the turtle beach. El flew in to town this past Friday and we've been taken her around to all the Hilo sights. It's been a lot of fun just hanging out and hearing about family history. El has also been to Hawaii about 8 different times
, so she knows her way around better than us!


One of my fantasies is to restore historic theaters in small towns...and there's a good one up the coast from us in this little tourist town.


We stopped and got some Kona coffee ice cream and Lindsey got a rainbow ice shave. Hit the spot pretty well on this really hot day.


It's always nice to have visitors because it actually pushes you to do things. We went over to the Mehana Brewery right here in Hilo and did some sampling, then it was off to get Big Island burgers.


We stopped over at the Hilo Chocolate...Store? Factory?...well, the chocolate is super good and you get free samples.


Whoa! back to Honolulu. This is a shot of the high rises right near Waikiki.


Another shot of the beach at Kailua, on Oahu. After this, we had a great lunch at a cute little local place right across the street, then had to catch the bus back to Honolulu to fly home.


While we house sat, we also took care of two sheep and two dogs. I also spent some time battling mice. It was quite the country experience, but it was fun to have a big house to ourselves and also be up in the higher, cooler elevation.


In Honolulu, we went to the Chinatown, but all of the shops were closed...bummer. But, we did stumble upon this great Chinese restaurant and ordered a few of the classic dishes we used to eat weekly in China. It was nice to have some bad Chinese beer, great food, and banter in Chinese with the staff.


Last but not least, the obligatory shot of Diamond Head near Waikiki.