One door closes, another opens

Saturday afternoon was a nice break from homework. One of the Communication faculty and my mentor, Penny invited a bunch of Grad students and other COM faculty to her house for a beach day and BBQ. She lives over in Kailua in a very nice neighborhood. Her house was amazing, the most beautiful I've been in since I got here. She even has a guest house, which Alexis and I briefly considered moving into...but she didn't say she was renting it. We got to her house and headed down to the beach, it was about two blocks away. We played in the water for a while with Lynn before heading back to Penny's house. We mingled a bit with students and faculty. There was a lot of gecko's running around including the one that ran onto Alexis' foot to eat a fly. Kinda creepy....

Sunday morning we woke up and went to Pacific Island Bible Church in Mililiani. It was pretty nice. We saw the group of people we went bowling with Friday night and they invited us to sit with then and then to lunch but we opted not to go as we were heading to the North Shore for shrimp and sun.

We went to the first shrimp shack that actually peeled the shrimp prior to cooking. It was a lot cleaner. Then to the beach for a bit... there was supposed to be a surf competition today but apparently the 5 foot waves weren't good enough.

Well its all over and we lived through it. We had heard that you need to arrive early to get in line for some places. he list we had mapped out included Circuit City, Best Buy, Walmart, and Home Depot. Mind you there was nothing of great importance at any of these locations, a few gifts and things for myself. Mainly I go because it is the Thanksgiving day tradition that mom and I always do. So our first stop was going to be Circuit City but the line was so incredibly long it wasn't imaginable. I later found out the first person in line was there a full 24 hours before the doors opened (this is the only Circuit City on the island). So instead we drove by Best Buy and ended p at Walmart. Walmart is open 24-hours so we were able to go inside do some shopping and then wait by the 'deals' which were wrapped in black tarps in the middle of the isles. We were waiting and made our move as the black wrap was taken off. Unfortunately we were relatively close to the portable DVD plays and things went a bit crazy. Alexis saw a women get hit in the head with a DVD player as people were throwing them. One also came very close to hitting Alexis. Needles to say, our morning wasn't starting out great... after leaving there we went to Best Buy where Alexis took our list and went inside as I was waiting to get into the parking lot. She was already standing in line before I was able to park the car. Our time at Best Buy was productive....we got a lot of good stuff. Next we did go back to Circuit City we got inside and the escalator wasn't working, the air conditioning was off, and it was packed. We did not stay as all of the deals were looking for were gone. Finally to Home Depot, not much there but I did purchase a 6.5 foot Christmas tree with lights already on it for $29.99, what a deal.

After napping and watching a couple movies Alexis had a call from Kate, she is one of the leaders of a 20 something group at Pacific Island Bible Church (she went once while I was in LA). Kate invited her to go bowling in which Alexis invited me. So what the heck...why not meet new people. So we went bowling at Schofield (the army post). It was a lot of fun and after the first game it was cosmic bowling with black lights and music. The group seems to do a lot together, camping, card night, karaoke, etc... Sunday I think we are gong to church to check it out. Alexis says it is an upbeat happy place. So it should be fun.

I cooked my first Thanksgiving feast today with the help of Alexis. It started a little rough as the 11 pound turkey I had taken out of the freezer on Monday was still a bit frozen (I could not pull the neck out with out a fight and a bit of hot water). But the bird was stuffed with homemade stuffing (which Alexis spent the past few days preparing) and it was in the oven by 9:15am. I had made the pumpkin pie the night before so we only had cheesy potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, ham and a dessert to worry about.

We had six guests come for Turkey at 1pm. They each brought an assortment of goodies including, broccoli , green bean casserole, rolls, potato salad, onion rolls, pumpkin cream cheese cake, turnovers, and wine.

It was a success, with everyone tired and full. A big thanks to mom for the mail delivered ham, everyone was impressed with it and wanted to send their appreciation.

I will be heading to bed early tonight as Black Friday shopping is tomorrow. I have plans of being up around 2:30am.....

Yehaw... yes they actually came to Hawaii to compete. Yes, they did ship bulls from the mainland. Yes, there were rodeo clowns. Overall it was a very fun time. Lynn, Alexis and I had a blast watching the cowboys. The most amusing part was when they rode 'local' bulls. See the bulls they brought with them were huge and they knew where to go once the rider was bucked off. The 'local' bulls ran around the arena trying to ram the clowns or the red barrel. After that didn't work the cowboy on the horse had to try and lasso the bull but it still fought back. It was a funny process.

I'm really sad to say that my favorite dog, Parker, has a brain tumor. He was just diagnosed today and we are unsure of what to do next. There are a few options, surgery, radiation or nothing.

For the time being, at least he is still happy and from what mom says he doesn't seem to be in much pain.

Apparently we had a Tsunami watch this morning steaming from the earthquake near Japan. There were noticeable changes to the ocean waves early in the day. I guess a 5 foot Tsunami hit the island around 9am. It caused some flooding at a few harbors throughout the islands....nothing serious.

Weird weather...

Wow LOST has been busy filming downtown a lot this week. Yesterday they set up 'Thailand' right infront of our Student Center on Fort Street Mall. I had head they were set to tape at 6pm so I decided to meet Heidi at the bar which isn't far from the shooting. I got there and within minutes I found out they were actually using the door of the bar for part of the filming. A short while later we saw a scantly clad women in red walk down the street and into the bar...following her was Matthew Fox (Jack). He came into the bar and then they both left. This happend over and over and over again. He ended up coming in and asking for the bathroom, which I directed him to (it wasn't very busy because it was hard to get into the bar with the filming outside). I would say they reshot the scene about 10 times, with Matt coming in for another bathroom break.

What a blast it was.....here is a recap

~ We stayed at a very hip (and expensive) hotel on Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood.

~ We didn't go to The Price is Right

~ We got manicures and pedicures and in walked a member of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team

~ We tried to go see a taping of George Lopez but they ran out of seats so they gave us and two extra tickets for any show VIP

~ We had dinner in our hotel and then went to the lounge in our hotel both named BOA

~ Lynn arrived at 8am on Friday

~ We went to Hollywood and saw Annette Bening get her 'star' on the walk of fame. Warren Beatty was also there.

~ We ate lunch on Robertson Ave. at the IVY.

~ Jeanine arrived at 4:30

~ We went to see a taping of the TV show According to Jim (4.5 hours long).

~ Talsha Hula danced for the crowd and shook Jim Belushi's hand (he lifted his shirt and shook his belly back)

~ We went to BOA for food and drinks again that evening

~ Saturday we went to Melrose Ave for shopping

~ We saw a crazy lady lift up her dress with nothing underneath... YUCK

~ We went to happy hour at 6pm

~ Talsha and Jeanine rode a mechanical bull

~ We got into Skybar, a celebrity hotspot that is very hard to get into. Skybar is a rooftop area over looking the city with heat lamps, beds and blankets. Very cool!!

~ We made friends, had free cocktails and hung out in the VIP reserved area.

~ Sunday we ate breakfast at Mel's diner

Overall it was a great weekend! We are already planning the next trip, we just have choose between Las Vegas or new York!!

I was walking down Fort Street Mall and found that a set was being built for a scene they will be taping today or tomorrow. A bunch of creative people and crew were around creating 'London'. In the pictures I have attached you can see the Underground behind some trees. Those trees are actually palm trees that they created covers for to make it look like a regular tree. It was pretty cool.


On another note, I am heading to LA tonight. My plane leaves at 11:25pm but before that I have a Master of Communication graduate student event (that I helped plan) to attend. It has been a busy week and I plan to enjoy myself in LA!!

Today at my office building a scene from the TV show LOST was filmed. It was pretty neat to see all of the equipment they needed to film. There were probably 20-30 crew/production staff on hand along with an assortment of extras dressed in what appeared to be winter attire. I did not see and of the stars and I'm not sure what the actually scene was but at one point I came down stairs got off the elevator and was sushed by a crew member because they were filming a the precise time. As I was walking away from the 'set' I heard someone yell "CUT." From the main level I could see people in the scene at the top of the escalator. I am including a picture of the equipment that they had outside our building. I wasn't sure I could take a picture inside with them filming.

Saturday was busy with class and shopping for my girls trip to LA. Shopping was fun... I got some really good deals on a couple pairs of shoes from Nine West, plus a few other articles of clothing. I leave on Wednesday night and return from LA on Sunday. We have lots of fun plans including going to the Price is Right and watching a taping of George Lopez. Plus much more....

Today was pretty good. I went to an honors brunch this morning, no I wasn't inducted but I was invited to attend. It was pretty interesting. It lasted well over three hours (I left early). It was at the Hale Koa Hotel in Waikiki with a wonderful brunch.

It has been an interesting week so far. Tuesday night I went to Waikiki with a few friends to check out the costumes. So the group of us went dressed as a flapper (me), an Ohio State fan (Alexis), a Miller Lite girl (Lynn) a bumblebee (Amanda) and the naked chef (Danada). There is a pretty big turnout, but nothing like Madison. There were some pretty unique costumes including a midget covered in blood with a cord attached to a woman. It was actually pretty gross. After wandering around for a bit we decided to go have a drink, we ended up at Nashville because everywhere else we went there was a cover. It was pretty nice, not too crowded. We were home at a reasonable hour.

Unfortunately I had started to get a sore throat Tuesday and it progressed. I went into work for 2 hours Wednesday and I am still home today. I really can't get used to the crazy Hawaiian weather. And to top it all off, there have been flash floods and possible 'mainland' type tornadoes.