Aloha! Part 1

Aloha, we just spent a few days in Hawaii on a “business” trip for the CFO.  She was going there to present at a conference and I figured that I might as well tag along.  It isn’t every day that a trip to Hawaii presents itself.  We visited the “big island” on this trip and now I really want to go visit some of the other islands so that I can compare them to each other.  I have heard that they are all a little bit different.  Having never been there before, I had visions of lush tropical rain forests, sandy beaches, big surfable waves and golden skinned locals hanging floral leis around your neck as you exited the plane.

When our plane landed on the runway, we were immediately greeted by something unexpected… a barren landscape of black lava rock.  Come to find out, the big island is the youngest of the Hawaiian islands and it is still growing.  Active lava flows add to the island every year and there are a lot of areas where the rock has not weathered and broken down enough for plants to be able to take hold.  It definitely wasn’t the green scene that I was expecting.  Nor were there  beautiful locals handing out leis outside the plane.  If you wanted a lei, there was a vending machine inside the "airport" from which you could purchase one.  By "airport" I mean a cluster of shelters without walls, not a real building.  This definitely wasn’t the beginning that I was anticipating.

 The "airport"

This big island is big, larger than the state of Connecticut (which isn’t really saying much, but you get the idea). There is a highway that circles around the outside of the island and if you drove the entire loop, you would cover over 300 miles.   (I put almost 600 miles on our rental car while we where there) There are numerous mountains that fill the center of the island and they limit the number of roads that cut across the island.  Two of the peaks on the island are over 13,000 ft. above sea level! (for reference, Mt. St. Helens is only 8,365 ft. tall)  I expected those two peaks to loom over the island, but unfortunately it was hazy every day and we never got a clear day where we could really see them.  There is an observatory with telescopes on top of one of them, but the CFO didn’t seem too excited about visiting there, so we didn’t go.  Maybe next time.  We stayed on the southwest side of the island, outside of the town Kona (home of the Ironman Triathalon).

Our "partial" ocean view room...  that tiny blue sliver between the building and the trees counts as a partial view!

I was able to keep myself occupied while the CFO was conferencing and we still had time to do some exploring together after the conference.  One afternoon we were able to squeezed in 9 holes of golf at the Kona Country Club that encircled our hotel’s property.  It was a little pricey, but it was cool to play golf 30 feet away from the ocean.  (I’m 99% sure that she had more fun driving the cart than actually playing golf)  I had some nice shots on the short par 3 holes and we managed to play all nine without losing a ball.  Finishing a round of golf with the same number of balls that you started with is a win in my book.

Someone please tell her that having a number painted on the side doesn't make it a race car.

Lava, fairways and the ocean... can it get better than that?

We also went horseback riding down in the Waipi’o Valley, which was on the northwest side of the island, about 2 hours away from our hotel.  The valley is surrounded by 1,000’-2,000’ tall cliffs and there is only one way down to the valley floor, a 0.6 mile long road that drops down 1000 feet, sometimes at a 45 degree angle.  Due to the limited access, there are only about 50 residents that called the valley floor home.

The valley below.

 

Our tour guide loaded us all into a van with four wheel drive and said, “no seat belts and leave the sliding door open.”  We all were a bit confused by that, until he followed up with “if the brakes go out on the way down, you’ll have to jump out of the van.”  Oh, great.  The van crept down the slope in first gear and shortly thereafter we pulled up to the stables for a short horse “control” 101 class.  This is what makes me a bit nervous about horses; they are big and smart, which isn't a good combination when I’m supposed to exert control over them. 

They started assigning us our horses and, wouldn’t you know, I get the horse named “Wacko.”  Not an encouraging name for someone who has almost no experience on a horse… Why couldn’t I get one named Sweetie Pie or Sugar? The CFO’s horse was “Jesse,” not nearly as threatening as Wacko.  (the more I thought about it after the trip, I think that if I ever ran a company that did horseback riding tours, I would probably give all the horses crazy names, just to freak out the tourists…  with that in mind, Wacko wasn’t so bad) 

Wacko and Jesse

The horseback ride was about 1.5 hours and we weaved through the valley gazing up at the cliffs towering above us.  Unfortunately, it hadn’t rained much recently, so there weren’t many waterfalls to see.  We were told that after a good rain, hundreds of waterfalls cascade off the cliffs and down into the valley.  There were several streams in the valley and we didn't just ride across them, we actually rode up several of them, one of which was so deep that it came up to my horse’s chest.  This deep water excursion soaked my shoes, but it was entertaining none the less.  After finishing the tour, we all piled back into the van and prayed that it would make it back up the road.  We passed several people walking up the road and I wasn’t really interested in joining them. 

Wacko went a wading...

Views from the valley

 

 

To be continued...

The Lance effect

A lot of you already know that I dabble in cycling.  I enjoy riding, but I am not what I would consider a diehard cyclist.  Yes, I wear the tight padded cycling shorts and yes, I wear cycling specific shoes that clip into the pedals and yes, I own more than one bike (and would love to add a couple more to my stable). HOWEVER, in my mind, you aren’t a diehard (male) cyclist until you shave your legs.  I assure you that a razor has never come close to my legs… Hell, I don’t even like shaving my face, I can’t imagine what a pain in the ass it is to shave two legs.  That being said, as a guy, I thank all you ladies for shaving yours… nothing seems more off putting than a woman with hairy legs.  If that makes me come off as a bit sexist, so be it.

For years, throughout the month of July, I spend at least an hour (or more) every night getting caught up on what happened in that day’s stage of the Tour de France (TDF).  I have attended (as a spectator) many bike races and I once drug the CFO up to north Georgia so we could watch the Tour de Georgia cover a mountain stage.  We drove for a couple hours, stood around in the cold for another hour or two, all to see the pack of riders pass by in a few seconds.  That was the only time that I ever saw Lance ride in person.  I was an early adopter of the yellow Livestrong bracelet, I own numerous Livestrong shirts and hats, and we even have a painting by an artist who followed Lance during the 2005 TDF and painted images from her trip.  I’m not a big “reader of books,” yet Lance’s book “Its not about the bike” is one of the 4 or 5 books that I have read since graduating from college in 1999.  (I prefer magazines… short stories and lots of pictures!)  So yes, I am a fan.

Since his admission to breaking the rules with Oprah last week, several people have asked what I think about Lance Armstrong.  It has been hard for me to come up with a decision on this, and I’m not sure that I can give a clear answer yet. 

I am a person who tries to judges things based on principal.  If you sell a crappy product and don’t stand behind it, then I’m going to fight you tooth and nail to get my money back based on principal.  I don’t steal because I don’t want others to steal from me.  I believe that if you intentionally take someone else's life, then you should die.  Yet, for some reason, this story has my mind all twisted up.

Yes, he broke the rules and cheated.  But what do you say when a majority of the other riders who raced with him also cheated?  Unfortunately, most of the top contenders from that time period have all been implicated in their own doping scandals.  In some of those years, you would have to go pretty far down the finishers list before you find someone who hasn’t been busted for it.  Does that make it right?  No, but it almost seems to me that doping was the “norm” back then so he might have still been racing against a somewhat "level" field.  However, I can almost hear my mother saying (and waving a finger at me), "just because your friends are jumping off of a bridge, does that mean that you are going to do it?"

Off the bike, he is a cancer survivor and he started an organization that provides support to people suffering from cancer and their families.  Does the good Karma from that offset the bad?  The fact of the matter is that the Livestrong organization exists and it has raised millions of dollars for a good cause.  After all of this has came to light, he stepped down and is no longer officially associated with Livestrong.  Is that enough to save it or will it fall victim and go down with his ship too??? Only time will tell, but, because of all the good it does, I hope not.

As a fan, I was definitely disappointed that this came to light.  I had hope in the fact that he had passed some 300+ tests during his reign and I really thought that he was racing clean.  Do I feel lied to and mislead?  Sure, a little bit.  Unfortunately, this seems to come with the territory when it comes to being a fan of sports.  The human body can only do so much and most athletes are looking for every possible advantage.  No matter what is done, drugs, blood transfusions and other scientific “pump me ups” are always going to be around.  He isn’t the first, and probably won’t be the last big name athlete to get busted.  Baseball, football, and even the Olympics have all had their share of drug issues in the past and probably will again.  Testing can only detect so much, however it sounds like the new “biological passport” system that they are using now might make it harder to get away with it in the future.

So, back to where I stand…  I still think it is amazing that he was able to bounce back from a 50/50 odds of dying from cancer to become competitive on the world wide cycling stage.  A lot of people would have just given up on racing and spent the rest of their second chance trying to live a “normal” life after beating back the disease.  He didn’t.  Would he have been able to do that without the assistance of doping?  Who knows.  He then took the fame that winning the TDF gave him and put it into a building up a charity that does a lot of good for others.  If more celebrities, athletes, etc. used their fame/wealth to support various causes, this world that we live in could be a totally different place.

Am I giving him a free pass?  No, but what does my opinion really mean?  He didn't put anyone else's life in danger, he didn't kill anyone... he made a bad decision to start doping and that snowballed into the chaos that we see now.  I have certainly made bad decisions before but, fortunately for me, no one knows who I am and my mistakes quietly disappear into the past.

I am certainly not going to stop cycling because of this.  Would I ask him for an autograph if I ever passed him on the street?  Yes, I absolutely would.  Will I continue to wear the Livestrong stuff that I have?  Yes, I will (once things cool down a little).  Right now, I don’t feel like getting into long, potentially heated discussions about him with random people on the street and at the gym.  In a few months, after our media and social websites have forgotten about Lance and are focused on the next big celebrity dramatic occurance, I will wear them again.  Will we keep the painting up in our extra bed room?  Yes we will.  Will I go down to the basement and dig out one of the five or six new, unopened Livestrong bracelets that I have packed away in a box?  Yes, I think I will.

Did I answer the question? I’m not sure if I really did... but, as Forrest Gump said, "That's all I have to say about that."  (For now, anyway)

The crazy facial hair tour

On Saturday, we drove an hour west to shop (no trip with the CFO can be without shopping!), go out to eat and then see the Zac Brown Band perform at the Peoria Civic Center.  I've decided that the official name of the concert tour should have been the “crazy facial hair tour.”  The first opening act was really scruffy, like 6” + long beard scruffy.  The CFO, of course, was put off by his facial hair...  but I thought he could sing really well.

 Then the second act walked on stage while the lights were dim… you could see that all 5 of them had long hair, but some were obviously dudes based on their build.  The CFO and I both thought the lead singer was a lady, until the lights came up and we were proved wrong… really wrong.  The band was all guys, the lead singer was just really skinny with long hair, so when the lights were dim he looked more like a she than a he.  His facial hair, however, took the cake.  He had what I would call “lamb chops,” but not normal lamb chops… no, no, these things were super long…  I found it quite hilarious.  They all looked like they came straight out of the 70’s, but they put on a good show.

Here is a good shot of the lead singer (the band's name is Blackberry Smoke):

 

After the openers, the Zac Brown Band came out and put on a great show, hitting most of my favorites plus they threw in a couple covers of other songs.  While you might think they would do covers of country songs, they actually went rock-n-roll.  They did an acoustic version of a Black Crowe’s song, a rocking Metallica cover (it took me straight back to the high school days!) and every UGA fan’s favorite “The devil went down to Georgia.”  I really enjoyed the show and I think it turned the CFO into a fan of the Zac Brown Band.  She wasn’t too thrilled about the idea when I initially told her that I wanted to go to the show, but she really enjoyed the performance.

Here is a shot from the show, our seats were better than the iPhone photo shows:

We had another consistent week of going to the gym; The CFO and I went every morning Monday through Thursday and again on Saturday morning.  I also went on Friday morning too... yes, I'm the over achiever.  Go me!  On Saturday, I decided to hop on the scale at the gym to see what was going on… much to my surprise; I weighed exactly the same as I did when we first joined, right down to the tenth of a pound.  What the heck?!  I was hoping to have dropped at least a couple of pounds by now… oh well.  After thinking about it some more, I have decided to go with the “muscle weighs more than fat” theory.  We are pretty sure that my stomach has slimmed down some, so I’m hoping that I just swapped some fat with (heavier) muscle.  This is exactly why we don’t have a scale in our house, not seeing any numeric change can be detrimental to motivation.  I’ll probably wait a while before stepping onto a scale again.

Damn good dog

Yes, that saying is typically reserved for UGA bulldogs (and the title of a book about the UGAs), however I thought it was also an appropriate title for this post.  After 17 years as a faithful member of our family, my sister’s dog, Allie, passed last week.  She was part beagle, part terrier of some sort… she had the loud beagle bay/howl and the seemingly never ending energy of a terrier.  She was my sister’s first “child,” keeping my sister company when she first moved out on her own.  Yes, she was a somewhat psycho/crazy dog that loved to lick, and lick, and lick, but she was  also super sweet.  When she was a puppy, she seemed to bounce when she ran, which earned the nickname of Allie-Roo, which then transitioned (at some point) to Allie-Rude. 

Allie, Christmas 2005

17 years is a long time for a dog and part of me thinks she hung on so long just to spite my brother in law.  He is not a fan of dogs, but understood that she came along with my sister.  He and Allie somehow managed to coexist under one roof, sharing my sister while pretty much ignoring each other.  Allie had some ups and downs with her health over the last couple of years and I received several phone calls saying, “Allie is on her way out,” only to find out that she bounced back a few days later and was acting “normal” again.  Each time that happened, I could almost picture her standing in their kitchen looking at my brother in law thinking, "I'm back" or “you thought you were about to get rid of me?  Ha, not so fast!”

There wasn’t much else going on here last week; we just tried to settle into 2013 by hitting the gym most days, only to then offset the workouts by going out to eat and baking sweets for a dinner party.  We went bowling with friends on Saturday night, the first time in over a year since we had bowled.  We bowled three games, divided into the CFO’s favorite teams, Guys vs. Gals.  Unfortunately for her, the Guys dominated the Gals, easily winning all three games.  Personally, my best game was the second game, when I scored a 151… not too bad considering I hadn’t played in so long.  That score ended up being the highest score out of our group for the night, go me. 

The CFO found her groove in the 3rd game and she was beating me all the way up to the last frame, where I finally reacquired my ability to hit the lead pin.  I ended the game with two strikes and a 9, which shot my score way above hers.  She was not happy (she hates to lose), which, of course, made me laugh and rub it as much as possible.

 Chocolate brownies (from scratch) topped with melted caramel and chocolate chips

Post Holiday

Happy New Year and a belated Merry Christmas to all of you.  I was fortunate enough to have the entire week of Christmas off, so we headed south for Georgia after I got off of work on Friday the 21^st.  We drove all the way to Smyrna, TN (south of Nashville) before pulling over and getting a hotel for the evening.  We continued onward to Atlanta Saturday morning and met some of my “car friends” for lunch.  It was great to see all of these guys; I still miss our monthly, first Friday of the month dinner outings.

We spent Saturday evening catching up with my parents at their house and went roaming around downtown Athens, GA on Sunday.  We had a nice lunch at The Grill, a tasty 24 hour local restaurant that seems to require every member of it's staff to have a minimum of at least 2 tattoos and or extra piercings.  As strange as the staff is, the food is really good.  We still rate their milkshakes as the best anywhere… not sure what they do, but they are really good.  We also  did some shopping, including my favorite downtown stores (the UGA apparel stores) and the CFO’s favorite jewelry store.  Much to her dismay, we didn’t make a purchase there... I already had her gifts wrapped and ready to go.  Monday was full of my family’s typical routine:  Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve (because who wants to have to cook/do dishes on Christmas day?!) and homemade donut making and decorating that evening.  NOTHING beats dad’s fresh homemade donuts!

Dad's made from scratch dinner rolls

 

Back when I was a kid (damn, I sound old!) my dad woke us up really early on Christmas morning to open gifts… he was as excited about it as we were.  This year, though, my oldest nephew (7 yrs old) insisted that any time prior to 7:30 am was too early.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH KIDS THESE DAYS?!  Who can sleep in when there are PRESENTS to open?!  Surprisingly, my dad went along with the plan and didn’t wake the house with loud, hallelujah choir music until 7:30 (yes, he cranks it up and tries to rattle the windows throughout the entire house with it).  The rest of the day was spent playing with the nephews, playing games with the adults and a little bit of relaxing.  Wednesday and Thursday followed a similar format and low activity level, although the ladies did venture out for a few after Christmas bargains.

 Play time included time with Dad's model train set up

 

 The older nephew directing train traffic

 

And the youngest refusing to allow me to take a decent photo of him

The CFO and I made the drive back in one swoop, covering the entire distance, plus stopping to eat leisurely meals for breakfast (mmm… Chick-fil-a!), lunch and dinner in around 12.5 hours.  If we hadn’t eaten inside the restaurants for each meal, we could have shaved some serious time off the trip, but we weren’t in any hurry.  She spent the next few days writing stuff for work and I tried to keep myself entertained by doing my yearly, sorting/purging/organizing of our household documents (bills) and organizing the garage.  We also managed to hit the gym 3 times to try to burn off some of the homemade cookies and donuts and other treats that were consumed the previous week.

The extents of our Christmas Decor this year... 5 wreaths. We will have to do better next year.

As per my usual habit, New Year’s Eve was uneventful…  Surprise, surprise, I’ve never been a huge New Year’s Eve party person; I’d rather stay home and avoid the crowds and the chaos.  The CFO really wants to go to Times Square for New Year’s Eve at some point… However, I’m not sure that will ever happen with me, as I can’t imagine a worse place to be.  I have no desire to stand around for hours outside, in the cold, on a street, amongst a huge group of inebriated strangers waiting to see a giant ball of lights drop for 10 seconds in order to ring in the New Year.  No thanks, I’ll take the title of “party pooper” over that.  Besides, the Chick-fil-a Bowl game is usually on that night and I would much rather watch that.

New Year ’s Day was mainly spent playing in the kitchen and sitting on the couch watching football.  Of course, I was rooting for my UGA Bulldogs and, as usual, the dawgs started out flat and were behind by one point at half time.  However, much to my delight, they came roaring back in the second half and soundly beat the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  Overall, I was quite happy with the team’s performance for the year, too bad that they came so close to being able to play for a national championship… Based on this year’s performance, I would say that our team has the potential to be a dominant force next year, unless we lose too many guys to the NFL draft.  Now I will be anxiously watching the sports headlines to see which of our junior players decide to forgo their senior to go into the draft. 

As for the kitchen, I made French onion soup for lunch and a super tender, cut it with a fork, pork tenderloin for dinner.  I thought it was the best tenderloin that I have ever prepared and the CFO agreed with that evaluation, except for disliking the fennel seeds that were in the rub recipe that I used.  Luckily, the bed of sliced apples and onions that I cooked the pork on made up for the fennel… she LOVES baked apples.  

The only problem with having a nice, long holiday vacation is the fact that you eventually have to go back to reality and get back to work…  Good thing we have one more trip coming up soon for me to look forward to!