ok so i'm bad at updating my blog (or blob as my mother likes to call it). This has been a consistent problem for me over the years because i just assume that you're all psychic and know what's going on in my life. But i suppose here's a small update.
I have a job!!! It's part time work as a cashier as a surf boutique called Jam's World.
http://www.jamsworld.com/jamsworld/
It's interesting to say the least and i'm sure is an acquired taste.
Long story short Steve (skip's dad) works at a camera shop across the street and totally hooked me up with an interview for this job. He knows my new manager, Amy, and when she mentioned she needed a new girl for part time work he named dropped me like Easy E drops beats. (you like that? i just came up with it ha). So i went in and interviewed but it was honestly just her explaining what i will be doing. I didnt even have to sell myself for this one.
ALSO, very exciting, I interviewed this morning at the Marriott Maui Ocean Beach Club (super swank) for a part time server position at their poolside cafe. I don't know if i got the job because there were a half dozen other applicants and i have no server experience. If he calls then i'll have 2 part time jobs which practically equals a whole job... without the schedule stability, benefits and paid time off. haha whatever makes it work in Maui!
I do have pictures on my camera that i will eventually post up here. Right now, though, i've obviously been a little busy. Skip's mom got into town last night and tonight the boys are making her dinner at their house. Repus (see below for another story) asked me to come by early and help him put things together so i'll be doing that in a minute.
Ok story! There are 3 Erics in our group. Enough erics that it was one day decided by i don't know whom that they needed nicknames so that it wouldnt get confusing. SO there's:
1. Repus - (super backwards) that lives with Skip and has wicked tats all over. Repus plays guitar extremely well and is more than happy to serenade haha.
2. Flash - is from Pennsylvania and gives hiking tours with Maui Eco-Adventures
3. Viking - by far my favorite nickname and he's a really cool guy too. I'm pretty sure he's also from Pennsylvania and also gives hiking tours with Maui Eco-Adventures. He's shy though so it's harder to get info out of him. He's also probably the nicest guy i've met out here.
Flash has offered more than once to let liz and i come along on some of the hikes, so that'll happen soon.
ummmm it rained all day today and yesterday and hopefully it'll clear up tomorrow. I only have a couple more days of not working before i go back to the daily grind and i wanna get a few more days in on my tan! I promise i'll put more pictures up soon.
UPDATE: Totally forgot to mention. Liz got her job too! She's now a full time assistant manager at Wet Seal down on Front St. I should also mention that when you stand in the doorway to the store and look out she'll be staring straight at the water. There are no buildings opposite her on that stretch of front st... just ocean wall, ocean and malakai.
Aloha!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Rainbows, Whales & Kaanapali Sunset
Aloha again! After a long day of job applications etc etc Liz and I decided to head up to Kaanapali for the sunset. On the way there we saw this.
Apparently this happens a lot on the islands. I'm more than amazed that it showed up as brilliantly on my camera as it did. Pretty spectacular rainbow.
Once we got to the beach there was a second rainbow behind one of the resorts that i got pictures of too.
Later that evening as the sun was starting to set i got a little picture happy. I thought this cloud looked like a horse... a great mighty steed of the heavens! /winny. Or a dragon breathing fire (what do dragons sound like?) ROAR!!!
I snapped this picture and then i realized there was a baby whale just going crazy out in the water.
That's when these happened!!! WOAH! from the beach i caught these!
This one's my favorite. Look at that little whale having so much fun out there! you can see it's little flipper!
Then came the color show.
This is the north star. It's so brilliant and comes out first. I could actually catch it on film with my camera. I may try to get some of the constellations on camera tonight. There are so few lights out here and we're so far from any city light saturation that the stars are so many and so bright.
I also took a video of the sunset. I uploaded it to YouTube and then posted it here for your viewing pleasure. Take a gander!
Apparently this happens a lot on the islands. I'm more than amazed that it showed up as brilliantly on my camera as it did. Pretty spectacular rainbow.
Once we got to the beach there was a second rainbow behind one of the resorts that i got pictures of too.
Later that evening as the sun was starting to set i got a little picture happy. I thought this cloud looked like a horse... a great mighty steed of the heavens! /winny. Or a dragon breathing fire (what do dragons sound like?) ROAR!!!
I snapped this picture and then i realized there was a baby whale just going crazy out in the water.
That's when these happened!!! WOAH! from the beach i caught these!
This one's my favorite. Look at that little whale having so much fun out there! you can see it's little flipper!
Then came the color show.
This is the north star. It's so brilliant and comes out first. I could actually catch it on film with my camera. I may try to get some of the constellations on camera tonight. There are so few lights out here and we're so far from any city light saturation that the stars are so many and so bright.
I also took a video of the sunset. I uploaded it to YouTube and then posted it here for your viewing pleasure. Take a gander!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Job Surveys
OK, as I indicated in my last post, I've been filling out a lot of applications lately. One of the more annoying aspects of online applications are the long psychological surveys they have you answer to determine if you're lazy, a psycho or a thief. Normally these are pretty predictable surveys. I just completed a survey for the Hyatt Hotel and it had many of the standard questions on there.
Things such as:
43. You would rather have a job where you can focus on something rather than having many different things to do. Agree or Disagree
This question is obviously to determine whether you are good at multi-tasking
47. If you put more into a job than they are willing to pay you, you are cheating yourself. Agree or Disagree
This one wants to know if you'll work hard even though they pay you crap.
48. You are often discouraged. Agree or Disagree
Are you a Debbie Downer?
41. Your mood often changes from happiness to sadness without your knowing why.
Are you manic-deppressive?
etc. etc.
Now what makes this survey more absurd than most are the following questions:
32. There are fifty hours in a day. Agree or Disagree
Wth? Factually speaking, no... that's incorrect. I disagree with that statement?
53. There are eighty days in a month.
Again... nooo, that would be incorrect. I disagree? What are they testing me on here??
57. You can count to ten. agree or disagree
WHAT?! One, Two, Four, Fifteen, Seven, Twelve, TEN! What makes this so funny is that it's taken me an hour of application to even get to this point. OF COURSE i can count to 10.
71. You can read well enough to complete this survey. agree or disagree
Damn... i was doing so well up until this question. Hahaha and it's #71 out of the survey. Don't you think that would have presented an issue back on the first page of questions?
Congratulations Hyatt... you have outdone yourself. Just Outstanding.
Things such as:
43. You would rather have a job where you can focus on something rather than having many different things to do. Agree or Disagree
This question is obviously to determine whether you are good at multi-tasking
47. If you put more into a job than they are willing to pay you, you are cheating yourself. Agree or Disagree
This one wants to know if you'll work hard even though they pay you crap.
48. You are often discouraged. Agree or Disagree
Are you a Debbie Downer?
41. Your mood often changes from happiness to sadness without your knowing why.
Are you manic-deppressive?
etc. etc.
Now what makes this survey more absurd than most are the following questions:
32. There are fifty hours in a day. Agree or Disagree
Wth? Factually speaking, no... that's incorrect. I disagree with that statement?
53. There are eighty days in a month.
Again... nooo, that would be incorrect. I disagree? What are they testing me on here??
57. You can count to ten. agree or disagree
WHAT?! One, Two, Four, Fifteen, Seven, Twelve, TEN! What makes this so funny is that it's taken me an hour of application to even get to this point. OF COURSE i can count to 10.
71. You can read well enough to complete this survey. agree or disagree
Damn... i was doing so well up until this question. Hahaha and it's #71 out of the survey. Don't you think that would have presented an issue back on the first page of questions?
Congratulations Hyatt... you have outdone yourself. Just Outstanding.
Hello
Hey again! Yesterday was a lot of fun. In the morning liz and i spent about 4 hours each on the computer submitting resumes and filling out job applications. Liz has an interview today for a manager position at Wet Seal (a clothing retail shop down on Front Stree - the main restaurant and shopping boardwalk in Lahaina Town). I've submitted applications and resumes at a bunch of different places and still havent heard back yet but it's only been a couple days. I'm not worried, life moves slower here so i just have to keep at it and keep making friends. Friend's will probably be my greatest asset when it comes to finding work. It seems to be all about who you know here. Small towns are like that, i suppose.
It was such a beautiful day though that we decided we couldnt spend the whole thing inside.
So we hopped on our bikes. Mine's the blue one.. it's a MONGOOSE rawr. Liz has the orange one. it's a GT. she's a speedracer.
And headed 2 minutes down the street to the Waihikuli Wayside Beach Park. It's a black sand beach, which is cool because i hadnt seen one yet. This one is literally right outside our neighborhood at the bottom of a giant hill. So we just glide on down to the beach.
We grabbed a table to chain our bikes to... Liz sits on things... i dunno haha. and set up our towels on the beach.
While we were sitting out there we noticed whale spouts in the distance in front of Lanai'i (another island) and i caught a few pictures. At one point a whale actually came out and breached out of the water and made a HUGE splash but i didnt catch it on camera.
It's hard to see here but there are two silver black shiny bumps at the water line near the middle of this picture. Those are whales. yeah. We see whales all the time here. Apparently it's whale season.
This got liz excited so she did a cartwheel.
As we were laying there soaking in the sun i was messing with my camera and there's this really cool setting where you can isolate one or two colors and the rest of the picture comes out black and white. So here's a couple of shots with me playing with the color setting on my camera. I think they came out really cool.
After the beach we headed up to Kaanapali (which is the resort town like 15 minutes to the north of us. Skip works at a coffee shop there and we also ran into our friend Andy. I was showing him the cool color setting on the camera and picked out the pink in his towel.
Skip told us that Steve (his dad) had some food for us down in Lahaina so we hopped back on our bikes and rode for about a half hour down into Lahaina town to the camera shop that Steve works at. On the way there the sun was setting so i stopped to take a couple pictures. From our position on the island the sun sets behind Lanai'i (An island to our west). There's also another island to our west called Malakai, but it's further north.
Steve gave us the key to his place and we went over and packed up a bunch of food and biked back to our place. Liz made Mahi Mahi tacos and then we played some rummy. I'm still not used to all the biking so i was exhausted and passed out about 10:30.
Anyway, more job applications today and then it's up to Kaanapali to watch the sunset up there.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Day 3 Toilet Bowl & Kapalua
Day 3 was a trip up the west coast towards Kapalua. We stopped at the Ritz Carlton hotel and hiked through their golf course (i'm sure they loved that) until we got to the coastline and this is what you see. 
It's total volcanic rock and it doesn't look especially impressive until you get closer in and then you can see the Toilet Bowl!
The toilet bowl is an inlet into the rock that will fill up with water and splash out and then drain down really low like a toilet being flushed. It's wicked cool.
Not the most attractive picture of me but pretty awesome none the less! The toilet bowl is spouting all over me!
View from the toilet bowl.
Then we headed further up the coast to Honalua where we saw some surfers and decided to go snorkeling. You can see in the picture below a lighter blue area on the right with the foam on the surface. That had a bunch of coral under there and we saw all sorts of fishes and even a sea turtle!! I'm not going to lie, i didnt know it was a sea turtle at first and it really kinda scared me. This big dark mass coming towards me in th water. And it was big! it was about the size of a beer keg. Very big. This is also where i'm pretty sure i lost my cell phone. You can see how i might be distracted :)
You can also see Kayakers!
Surfers!
These guys are brave. They surf the waves straight towards rocks. big waves.
In order to get to the snorkel spot you had to walk through some rainforest. Seriously, Maui has sooooo many different eco-systems. It's really exciting. Every town has a new adventure.
Lizzie B with the trees
There were also these hanging vines that were so strong that you could swing like tarazan!
Or climb up the tree on them
This is my favorite forest pic. Just so pretty and kind of tim burton-esk if it were in black and white.
It's total volcanic rock and it doesn't look especially impressive until you get closer in and then you can see the Toilet Bowl!
The toilet bowl is an inlet into the rock that will fill up with water and splash out and then drain down really low like a toilet being flushed. It's wicked cool.
Not the most attractive picture of me but pretty awesome none the less! The toilet bowl is spouting all over me!
View from the toilet bowl.
Then we headed further up the coast to Honalua where we saw some surfers and decided to go snorkeling. You can see in the picture below a lighter blue area on the right with the foam on the surface. That had a bunch of coral under there and we saw all sorts of fishes and even a sea turtle!! I'm not going to lie, i didnt know it was a sea turtle at first and it really kinda scared me. This big dark mass coming towards me in th water. And it was big! it was about the size of a beer keg. Very big. This is also where i'm pretty sure i lost my cell phone. You can see how i might be distracted :)
You can also see Kayakers!
Surfers!
These guys are brave. They surf the waves straight towards rocks. big waves.
In order to get to the snorkel spot you had to walk through some rainforest. Seriously, Maui has sooooo many different eco-systems. It's really exciting. Every town has a new adventure.
Lizzie B with the trees
There were also these hanging vines that were so strong that you could swing like tarazan!
Or climb up the tree on them
This is my favorite forest pic. Just so pretty and kind of tim burton-esk if it were in black and white.
Day 2 - Haleakala
So day two was a trip to Haleakala Mountain on the other side of the Island. There's no direct route so we pretty much had to make a big S from the west side of the island to the East.
Liz has a better idea where we're going so she drove.
I played Navigator.
This is the standard view inland from anywhere on the west side. I was trying to get a clear pic from the passenger side so i held the camera out the window haha.
Towards the center of the Island are huge sugar cane fields. That's one of Maui's biggest export crops.
On the other side of this sugar cane you can see the ocean.
We eventually got to Haleakala National Park. You can see me super excited to be there.
It had stormed the day before so it was super cloudy up on the mountain so we were literally driving through clouds on the way up.
We passed a NeNe bird just chilling right on the side of the road. We're pretty sure this is the Hawaii state bird but this hasnt been fact checked. They are also endangered... and SO cool looking! He was standing on one leg. You can also see a shiny metal tag on his leg. I'm guessing he's being tracked.
This is the view from one of the look out points on the way up. The road just serpentined it's way up the mountain... kinda scary haha. liz did a good job though.
More view from above the clouds. This is at about 8500ft up!
Liz rockin a pose on the mountain.
Self Explanatory. Also. It was SO cold.
This is SilverSword, it grows at 10,000ft in the freezing cold on rock. pretty cool.
No words. Just Wow.
Me rockin a pose in the clouds!
On the way down the clouds were clearing up so you could see all the way to the ocean on the other side of the island.
I'm a happy camper.
Liz has a better idea where we're going so she drove.
I played Navigator.
This is the standard view inland from anywhere on the west side. I was trying to get a clear pic from the passenger side so i held the camera out the window haha.
Towards the center of the Island are huge sugar cane fields. That's one of Maui's biggest export crops.
On the other side of this sugar cane you can see the ocean.
We eventually got to Haleakala National Park. You can see me super excited to be there.
It had stormed the day before so it was super cloudy up on the mountain so we were literally driving through clouds on the way up.
We passed a NeNe bird just chilling right on the side of the road. We're pretty sure this is the Hawaii state bird but this hasnt been fact checked. They are also endangered... and SO cool looking! He was standing on one leg. You can also see a shiny metal tag on his leg. I'm guessing he's being tracked.
This is the view from one of the look out points on the way up. The road just serpentined it's way up the mountain... kinda scary haha. liz did a good job though.
More view from above the clouds. This is at about 8500ft up!
Liz rockin a pose on the mountain.
Self Explanatory. Also. It was SO cold.
This is SilverSword, it grows at 10,000ft in the freezing cold on rock. pretty cool.
No words. Just Wow.
Me rockin a pose in the clouds!
On the way down the clouds were clearing up so you could see all the way to the ocean on the other side of the island.
I'm a happy camper.
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