One door closes, another opens

I am getting ready to head to the airport for my flight to Wisconsin. I will be home tomorrow (Sat) until Sunday the 30th. I hope I get to see everyone!!

I just got back from Sam Choy's Breakfast, Lunch and Crab. Heidi took us out for dinner, we ordered a bottle of wine and we all had snowcrab legs. Very good dinner and we got caught up as Heidi just returned from Minnesota last night...crazy stories she had.

We also made it to the North Shore to see the sunset yesterday. It was great, we sat at the beach and watched the sun slowly go down over the Pacific then we proceeded to Haleiwa for dinner at a steak and shrimp shack, Holy Smokes. Very good food, cool atmosphere...

The week is going well so far....

Starting on Friday night, Alexis decided to give me my birthday present. She had purchased a beautiful hand made 'pink' birthday card and also bought me a DVD The Horse Whisperer . I had been wanting it for a while so I was happy and watched it that same night. Saturday we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner with a few friends and then off to Nashville Waikiki. We ended up dancing and having a great time. An older gentleman came up to the four of us girls and was chatting. He wanted to dance and told us how pretty we were. We were nice but told him we weren't interested in dancing so he walked away. No more than a minute later he was back in front of us. He asked us if we smoked and then used the Hawaiian word for 'pot'. We all shook our heads and said NO. All of a sudden a gentleman tapped him on the shoulder and pulled out his badge. The second gentleman was a ATF agent, he was there undercover with his partner. It was crazy. Later Alexis chatted with him a bit and found out that the older man was trying to pass Oregano off as 'pot'. Very strange....

Today was my birthday surprise....after sleeping in ealry this afternoon Alexis gave me a birthday lei and we were off to my surprise. Along the way she told me where we were going because she wasn't sure how to get there....we were going to the Kauloa Ranch for the movie set tour. Once we got there to check in another one of our friends was there, Lynn. Alexis had invited a few people to surprise me at the ranch. But things didn't work out that way. Still it was great we were like tourists taking pictures and laughing. We saw sights from tons of movies.... 50 First Dates, Pearl Harbor, Mighty Joe Young, Windtalkers, Godzilla, and Jurassic Park plus some sights from LOST. It was pretty cool.....

Not a bad early birthday weekend.... this week also seems to be loading up with things to do. Hopefully tomorrow we will be going to the North Shore for the sunset, Tuesday to dinner at Sam Choy's and Wednesday country line dance lessons at Nashville. Thursday I will pack and Friday I am on a plane home.....

Well this has been a interesting week so far. Nothing too eventful. I had a bad day yesterday. Work pissed me off....ok pin pointing the problem more was the people I work with really angered me. But today was better and I actually did homework tonight for my online class. Im proud about that...as I am usually a big procrastinator. I feel the rest of the week will be good.

Now the only thing weighing on my mind is what to do about classes in the fall. I may rearrange the ones I am scheduled for and take one I really didn't want to this fall. It seems I need to take my core courses before the final classes (hard to explain), even though I could get special permission to take the class concurrently next semester.....ahh....decisions.....

Well I am here to report another brush with fame. After work last night we went to see a steel drum duo at the Hawaiian Art Museum and then walked home. I must admit we didn't take our normal route...but in the same breath, we didn't g out of our way either. We strolled down past Da Kine Bail Bonds and there he was..... normally you look into the office and you see the cardboard cut-out of Duane "the DOG" Chapman but not this time.... he was moving and mere feet from the door. It was pretty cool...but Alexis and I couldn't get too excited because there was someone walking closely behind us. Plus it looked like he was really working, there were lots of people in there and a limo parked outside.

So we hustled home changed and fought the traffic of First Friday for a drive by Da Kine just in case we saw any action. But no, nothing was happening and the limo was gone.

Overall we are very excited about it.... but next time we are going to try for a picture with him...

What a happy 4th of July! I slept in, watched a movie with Heidi and then went to a bar-b-que at a European's house. What a way to celebrate our Independence. It was a great time, I had the best steak every and my first brat on the island. The funny thing is I was actually invited to another bar-b-que being hosted by another group of Europeans. I guess any reason to get together with friends is good.

After the bar-b-que I came back home and got Alexis (she had been studying for a midterm...who gives a midterm the day after a holiday..gosh). We proceeded back to the happiest place on earth...BAYFEST. Again we had free admittance for working the HPU booth. We took some pictures and listened to some good music..... Trick Pony and .38 Special were performing. We had a great spot dead center to watch the performance. And we even made some new friends......

Overall...it was a great 4th of July. The fireworks had nothing on Rhythm and Booms but then again... R&B doesn't take place on a military base with all these soldiers around. It was amazing... I was PROUD to be an AMERICAN!

Chris Cagle



It's the 4th of July holiday weekend and I have had a lot of fun so far. I signed Alexis and I up to volunteer at BAYFEST. Bayfest is a five day event on the Marine Corps Base Hawaii to support the navy and marines. There is live music, a carnival, an expo hall with companies info, beer tents and military vesicles you could go inside. So volunteering for the HPU booth was great. We went to Bayfest on Saturday night to see Chris Cagle (our first day of free admittance). We then went back yesterday to work at the HPU booth (we got some free goodies from HPU and UH) and we watched part of the STAIND concert. We are actually going back for another free admittance on Tomorrow to see Trick Pony and .38 special......should be fun.