I haven't posted for a week because I have just been so busy! On Friday Hubby, Paul, and I went to this thing called "Taste of the Range." Over 60 restaurants, agriculture groups, and restaurants had booths where they each prepared a different kind of dish. There was pork, meat, goat, cow, and all sorts of cuts that were interesting like bottom sirloin and cheek meat.

Paul and my husband brought me oyster sushi while I was waiting in line for the bar. It was great, didn't taste like seafood, and just yummy. I went to look for it again once I got inside the ballroom area where all the booths were, and I saw that they had brought me Kohala Mountain Oyster Sushi. He He He. they were clueless. So cute. (click on the link if you still don't get it).

Paul and I got up early on Saturday to surf,and I seriously got my ass kicked. I am still not cutting left or right, just sliding down the wave straight on toward the share because I am still a beginner.

Well. The waves were steep. So every time I went to stand up,my board nosedived into the water and flipped me over. I got thrashed. Every single time. I didn't get better. Or learn. I just got a gallon of water up my nose.

Later that day we went to a trivia contest where you had to run down to this big stage and give answers. When they asked the question, "Where is Salsa from." I leapt up from my seat and ran down! I knew it was a trick question, because most people think it is a dance and music rhythm developed in Latin America, but it is really New York. Hubby has given talks at the University of Toronto about the birth of salsa in NY,so I knew I was spot on. There was even a Mark Anthony and Jennifer Lopez movie that came out this summer about the birth of salsa in NY, so I not only had my hot husband to know I was right, but all of Hollywood.

So Dana goes CHARGING down to the front of the stage, I grab the mike, and I say triumphantly, "NEW YORK!"

Then the bimbo says, Sorry you are wrong,that isn't it.

So I said she was wrong, and the audience is laughing at me, so my husband comes running down and starts giving the bimbo a lecture on salsa. Then my dumb brother randomly picks a country and says, "Isn't it from Cuba." She points at him, and says, we have a winner!!!!!!!!!"

I was pissed.

While there is some controversy because Cuba wants credit for it, even though most experts say salsa was born in NY. Much of the rhythm base comes from Son and Mambo (two CUBAN rhythms), but salsa is a fusion of jazz, samba, and rhythms from PR,DR, Venezuela, and Cuba. Wikipedia can tell you all about it.

Gotta love Hawaii:)

So anyway, Paul and I went Standup Paddle Surfing today. And that was fun! I didn't get so thrashed, but Paul took a huge chunk out of his foot. You could see the veins and stuff. Eww. So my surfing partner will be out a few days, at least until it heals enough. Moral, looks dorky, but wear the booties.

Mano (Hawaiian for "shark")

I think my husband's aumakua is the mano. Why do I think this?

My husband, my brother, my father, and I went fishing yesterday for some bonding time. We were heading out of the harbor by six thirty am, and the sunrise over the mountain was just beautiful!



Unfortunately, it was pretty choppy out there, and I don't consider myself a landlubber, but I wasn't feeling too hot. We had caught a lot of live bait at about 11 in the morning, and had them out in the water, so we were going incredibly slow and the rocking had lulled my husband and me to sleep.



All of the sudden, my father woke me up with a yell,"Chucker!" I shot up and yelled back to confirm, "Chucker?" with is another term for a spearfish. He shook his head, and said, "No, Shark!"

Now, any fisherman knows, sharks are bad news. Sharks don't die. Remember, they are surivivers from the Dinosour Age. It takes a lot to kill them. We had a shark once that we shot six times in the head, and had out of the water for 3 hours (they are fish, not mammels), and it still snapped at someone as we strung it up to weigh it.

And before you shoot it 10 times in the head, you have to pull it inot the boat, which is akin to being in a small room with a tiger. Thy flip all around (they are 200 lbs of muscle) with their mouths open full of razor sharp teeth, destroying everything and hurting everyone who doesn't have the luxury of hidding up in the tower while the deckhand and captain deal with the dangerous animal.

I wasn't happy with "shark" but before we could real in the bait, it was hooked!

Hubby sat in the anglers chair and began to real. My only consolation was that the sharp teeth would pass over the line and probably cut itself loose withint the next 30 seconds.



5 minutes of the fight went by, 10 minutes, and soon, we saw the large brown animal about 10 yrds from the boat. It was still on the line!



Despite myself, I was getting excited, and I began snapping photos. Hubby had fought the shark (we could see it was a whitetip) all the way to the transom, ane we could now see he was hooked in the corner of his mouth, so his teeth counldn't cut the line short!




When we brought him too the side of the boat (Brett the deckhand was the unlucky one who had to get closest to it and hold it for pictures) the whitetip freaked out and began thrashing. His teeth cut the line, and he was gone in two seconds! Besides an 15 lbs Otado (skipjack) the day was quiet, but the shark was worth it!





So why do I think a mano is his aumakua? What mano would allow himself to get thank close to the boat for any other reason? It is the only logical explaination in my book.

Okay, surfed again with Paul this afternoon.

I promise to come up with a new subject for my blogs soon, but today, I got the crap kicked out of me by mother nature. She dominated me. But, this was the best surfing day we have had since we learned!

Started my new job and it is cold calling and sales. Makes me miss the CRM software I had at my old job because I am tyring to keep track of everything on excel and it sucks.

I have a couple minor projects that I am working on as well:
-A side business (let you know when the website goes live)
- a book/documentary. Not sure which yet, as I am mired in all the research about Hawaii's history, but I will let you know once I have a clearer vision in my head.

Gonna go up the mountainside for some of my mother's chicken soup and to finally pick up my kitties. My father has been keeping them at the house in the mountains because our apartement isn't ready for them yet(whatever that means).

honu and high tide

Paul and I went surfing this morning before work (I have a new job!). At 6:30 am, the sun hadn't come up yet, but the ocean was as warm as bathwater.



Although it was high tide, Paul and I went out anyway. Although there is more water between us and the coral that threatens to scratch me to bits when I fall off, the waves sucked. Moved too slow, and they didn't crest, so there was nothing.

We tried for an hour and a half and completely failed to catch anything (it was the waves, not us or the new boards from Costco!)

When we came in, there were honu (sea turtles) EVERYWHERE. Seems like the hightide gives them access to rocks and places they don't have access to usually, so we had to detour around them to get in. I took a couple shots.







We are going to try again around 4:30 during low tide, hope the coral doesn't scar me up:)

I just love this photo . . .

tough day in paradise

Really tough day today.

I went to Hapuna beach (see below)


And then, I played frisbee.

And then, I swam.

And then, I took a nap on the beach.

And then I had a glass of chardonay and ate pork loin with macadamia nuts.

Don't know if I will be able to handle Sunday.

Surfer Girl

So I had ahi last night and the night before. Not doing too well in getting rid of the mercury running through my veins. I did, however, buy multivitimens last night, so that is one step toward healthiness.

Yesterday I went surfing with Paul. I sucked, but I had a great time. I caught several wave bymyself, and I stood up. Today I hurt everywhere, however. Not only are my arms sore (I almsot had to ask for help taking my sweater off over my head), but my stomach muscles are soo sore. I mean, not just the typical muscles, like after you have done situps, but muscles that I didn't even know existed!

It was a blast, though, and I think next week my brother and I are going to go to Costco and buy a surfboard. There are many things you can get at Costco in Hawaii that you can't get at Costco's on the mainland, such as:

- five gallon containers of soy sauce
- ridiculous amounts of teriyaki flavored seaweed
- giant jars of lomi lomi salmon
- bulk containers of chopsticks (300 pairs to a box)

My husband and I are going to unpack all our boxes today. Hopefully that will work out the lactic acid in my arms and shoulders.

We are also going to open up our wedding gifts. I have been avoiding doing that because of the requirement of writing thank you notes, but two weeks after the wedding, and it is time. Will have a list of the coolest (and maybe the uncoolest?) wedding gifts up tomorrow.

Almost lunch here, gonna try to avoid eating ahi.

Deep Sea Fishing

Paul and Dad just caught a 300 lb Pac Blue Marlin. Very high in mercury.

My brother is pretty snazzy at making videos. He shot this with a video off a digital camera (the music is pretty cool too).

Fish and Rice

In Hawaii, 50 lbs is a small fish.

My father, being an avid fisherman, has always provided the family with plentiful quantities of otado (skipjack), ahi (yellowfin), mahi (dorado), and ono (wahoo). Fish was served a million ways: raw, seared, broiled, grilled (do I sound like forest gump?), but the one thing that never changed was that we always eat every meal with sticky white rice.

So yesterday, every meal was a different kind of tuna, and it got me thinking that as I plan to have children in a year or two, I might need to cut tuna out of my diet. 4 oz per week is already 80% of what the EPA says is a healthy dosage (if you can actually have a healthy dosage of mercury).

But what about Hawaiian fish? Could Hawaii have less mercury in its waters than lets say, Tuna out of Ecuador?

Well I finally found a study by the Hawaii Dept of Health. If I am pregnant, planning to become pregnant, or a young child I:

CAN NOT eat marlin
I can eat one serving of tuna once every two weeks
I can eat Mahi (dorado/dolphin fish) ever week

This totally crimps my style, but, if the other alternative is mercury poisoning, not much choice. Gonna go eat some rice for breakfast.

9/9/07 - The Quiet

Everyone is gone.

My cell phone hasn't rung for 12 hours, a record since the whole wedding craziness began.

Last night we said goodbye to my husband's brothers (I still get butterflies calling him that, even though it is a week today since the ceremony). Two work colleagues left as well, and my parents have gone round the island with some Kiwi friends who flew here for the wedding.

This is the first morning that we haven't been woken up by my relatives talking about their plans to visit the volcano, my great uncle making cracks about dildos (no joke), or our jet-lagged friends with no idea what to do with themselves wide awake at 5:30 am.

Although there isn't a cloud in the sky, the ocean is only steps away, and the Big Island is a fabulous hub of outdoor activity, he and I decided that we are not going to leave the house today. We might venture out of the house to Wal-Mart to put his brothers mini-discs on DVD so we can see footage of the wedding and the last week of our adventures with our closest friends around the island, but some how I don't think we will.

Goal today is to 1) get all the wedding photos up on some website (still have to make it), and 2) plan what I am gonna do with my days in Hawaii with no job.

Will let you know how I do;)