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Arizona Lou

Blog Archive 2010 Dec

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Note: While not kiteboarding, I plan to update my blog infrequently, or when something special happens.

Wed 12/1 – I called a local radio finance talk show and got on the air. On his show, Wayne Kandas was talking about Brazil and how neat it would be to go. Of course I had to chime in and brag about the neat kiteboarding there. I even got to plug my website and doubled my average number of visitors for the day.

Fri 12/3 – Saw my allergist for a lung function test. Naturally I blew above the chart in every respect; spent an unprecedented $26 at Goodwill on 4 classic books, 2 squishy pillows, 1 gym bag and 1 picture frame for my granddaughter.

Sat 12/4 – This evening the ham community had their annual Christmas dinner and gift exchange. It was fun and entertaining as usual. At first I was disappointed that I got stuck at a smaller table with only about 6 of us. That turned out to be a good thing, as we got better acquainted with each other and had some pretty neat discussions.

Sun 12/5 – Projected my budget and checking account through March, 2011. Just want to be certain I have enough to cover things like property taxes that need to be paid in February; Raked the landscaping granite front and back. Looks nice now.

Mon 12/6 – My repaired Asus EeePc 900HA netbook computer arrived today. They replaced the motherboard, the key board and the power supply. Fortunately all my data was still there, as the hard drive had not been touched. Unfortunately the data was a month old, so I spent most of the afternoon loading updates from the 16gb SD card that I had been using with my Toshiba laptop while the netbook was out for repair.

Tue 12/7 – George (brother in Mesa, AZ) and I had a nice phone visit this evening. He is revising one of his books (Lincoln's Ghost), studying for his lead role in a Christmas play, and is considering an invitation to become an elder in his church.

Wed 12/8 – Today my Vacation Countdown shows three days until I leave for Hawaii, so you know what I'm doing: getting ready.
- The file drawer in which I keep my land folders is getting pretty full, so I purged some old folders of out-dated flight instruction and aviation paperwork.
- At Gangplank this evening, thanks to some help from Brandon and after being unsuccessful for about 9 months working on it by myself, I got a spell checker to work in Notepad++. That is the text editor that I use for the HTML code on my web pages.

Thu 12/9 – I measured my muscles this morning. I used to do it every week, then every month and recently, every several years. I wanted to do it to see if there would be any difference with my changed work-out plan. For years I have been working out in a gym seven days a week, heavy with each muscle set twice a week. At Mark's suggestion at LA Fitness, starting last week, I changed to heavy workouts three consecutive days, getting around to each muscle group only once a week. Then four days of no gym except for one day of a light full-body workout. Today was my heavy arms work day at Bally's Fitness. On the way I shipped four packages and picked up Mildred for her chair aerobics class there at Bally's.

Fri 12/10 – Packed, packed and repacked again my two big kite equipment bags. Had to do some sophisticated shuffling to get in the bare kiting and necessities that can't be in carry-on, to get the two bags at 49.2 lb (.8 lb shy if the 50 lb limit).

Sat 12/11 – Downloaded my checking info so I'll have it on my computer when I get around to resolving the account; mailed my 20 Christmas cards this evening; went to LA Fitness gym; got my eeePc9xp backed up; to bed about midnight

Sun 12/12 – Up @ 5am to eat breakfast, do a few final things and then to Sky Harbor Airport, courtesy of Mike, my neighbor. The 6-hour flight to Honolulu, Hawaii was from 8am to 11:20 pm (HI is three hours earlier than AZ) was picked up by Bobby Bluehouse and Maria; spending the night with them in their lovely beach-side home on Laie Bay. I don't think I ever saw such perfect waves as out their rear picture windows.
- Had quite a bit of rain this afternoon and my two big kite equipment bags were out in it on the top of the van. I found that the bags are NOT waterproof. If fact most of the things in the bags were wet, but not soaked, and had to be laid out to dry, which does not happen overnight here with Hawaiian humidity.

Mon 12/13 - Slept in this morning to make up for yesterday and the time zone change. Did exercises with Bobby, starting out with an IndoFLO Balance Cushion with an IndoFLO deck on top, then the deck on top of an IndoFLO roller. With a little help from Bobby and a little help from being on carpet, I had some balancing success for my first time seriously trying. I didn't get around to Bobby's high/low touches on the IndoFLO board, though.


- This evening near sunset we drove to Hukilau Beach for my first real
SUP
Stand-Up Paddle boarding
experience. I had tried it on OBX last summer on glassy smooth water. Today I made a wobbly unstable splashy wet spectacle of myself until Bobby gave me some pointers (wider stance; paddle to get a little speed for stability). Then I was able to stay up without falling in the water, although it wasn't very graceful. I DID survive the waves - gentle and about 18" high.
- Before bed I read a little from The Perfect Storm and Bobby and I puzzled over various weather sources and the lousy winds forecast for the next week, I resolved my checking account.

Tue 12/14 - This morning Bobby, Maria and I packed their van with kiting and
SUP
Stand-Up Paddle boarding
equipment, ready for almost anything. The wind did not materialize at Hukilau beach on Laie Bay near Big Joe's house and it was time to pick up Eric and Patty at the airport. After we delivered them to their house, we drove back to Hukilau beach on Laie Bay near Big Joe's house where there was barely enough wind to put up our big kites. I had the best run of all with my 14 m Cabrinha Contra and Naish Custom Fish 5’2” x 17.5” surfboard WITH the footstraps. I was making my first jibe when I crashed my kite hard, tore the canopy front-to-back in two places, swam in and wrapped up the tangled mess. Including the swim-in I was out 38 minutes, went .89 miles and had a maximum speed of 15.0 mph. Bobby introduced me to Big Joe, who went out with Bobby's 16 m kite and his own 10' surf board. There was not enough wind power to stay upwind.

Wed 12/15 - Bobby knocked on my bedroom door at 5:40 this morning so we could go out and hopefully catch some wind at Hukilau beach on Laie Bay near Big Joe's house. It wasn't happening there so we ate out at the Hukilau Cafe, a little but busy local neighborhood cafe and then went to our Hukilau beach
SUP
Stand-Up Paddle boarding
location. I went out
SUP
Stand-Up Paddle boarding
for a little over three hours until 11:30am. I actually did a lot better and was more relaxed than Monday. Bobby walked up the beach and put up his 16 m kite and did some pretty good riding, but did not have enough power to stay upwind. In the mean time Maria did a little shopping.
- I took a long early-afternoon nap then Maria fixed a nutritious and delicious salad and John and Olina arrived for several days along with her parents, Vaslaf and Olga. What a happy group! At Big Joe's invitation Bobby went kiteboarding at Hukilau beach on Laie Bay near Big Joe's house in marginal wind, entertaining everyone a half mile distant here at the house, as we could see Big Joe's and Bobby's kites both in the air and when they got down in the water due to lack of wind. I caught up on this blog and organized some videos for my TRIPS web page. This evening everyone except Vaslaf and I went to a Mormon Christmas Party.

Thu 12/16 No wind today so went
SUP
Stand-Up Paddle boarding
at 10:30 from Hukilau Beach: 34 minutes; 1.06 miles traveled; .3 miles fartherst from shore; max speed 4.8 mph going downwind with the waves; min. speed 1.5 mph backward stopped into the wind and against the waves.

Fri 12/17 - No wind? How about surf lessons from one of the best surf schools in the world. Brian Suratt, the owner of Uncle Bryan's Sunset Suratt Surf Academy gave Bobby and me personal attention and his best instructor, Chris Marcher. After analyzing the waves around the island, Bryan had determined that the best conditions were on the North Shore at Sunset Beach. It was unbelievable with smooth waves combined with flat water for paddling out. You can see a couple videos of the result (me surfing!) on my Trips page. I actually shared waves with Gerry Lopez and Uncle Bryan, famous surfers. Both were on
SUP
.
Stand-Up Paddle boards

Sat 12/18 - Bobby and I loaded our kite gear into his Chrysler Town and Country minivan so we would have it handy if we found wind. We did not, so went to Hukilau Beach for about an hour of
SUP
.
Stand-Up Paddle boarding
I went closer to the waves out by Bob's Rock and the second photo in the Hawaii section of my TRIPS web page proves it. Later I got my 14m Contra lines untangled from Tuesdays kite crash. It went a lot quicker than I expected. It pays to be a little organized when recovering from a crash.

Sun 12/19 - Bobby woke me up by knocking on my room door at 6:30 in the morning, after, yesterday, I had asked him not to. I expressed my displeasure, an interesting "discussion" ensued and then I went back to bed to catch up on some sleep.
- Later we went
SUP
,
Stand-Up Paddle boarding
only this time at Temple Gardens. I was ready to experience some white water and the breaking waves were only .2 miles off shore rather than the .7 miles where we had gone previously at Hukilau, about half a mile northwest of Temple Gardens. Boy, did I have my hands full! The waves were BIG (for me), and I actually survived some of them while standing up on the board; others on my knees while some really big ones tossed me around. I got thrown (actually I fell) off my board about 21 times, had to swim after my paddle once and actually rode about three waves on my way back in to shore. All right! I rode the waves on my knees instead of standing up on the board, but I DID catch the waves. I ventured only .6 miles from shore but covered a distance of 3.34 miles in 1:06 hours and had a maximum speed of 14.6 mph on a wave. I hitch hiked home with my board and paddle because Bobby had driven off without a word. What was he thinking? It made me wonder if he intentionally set me up.
- On my website this evening I got some of my Hawaii surfing and
SUP
,
Stand-Up Paddling
pictures and videos videos up. You've got to see the second video, surfing, where I am the last one standing after everyone else gets spit out by a wave! The video only takes 25 seconds. Also I rerouted some links on 18 of my web pages. Bobby provided us house guests with a nice folding table and chair for our rooms so now I am now conveniently working from my bedroom with a nice window view out front.

Mon 12/20 - It rained all day and the ocean was heavy with waves crashing over Bob's Island and Lizard Island, 30-foot high rock islands off shore, in Bobby's "back yard." I got some awesome videos and stills.
- My wayward ways seem to be catching up with me. Today I found that my insurance premiums will be increased by $268 per year for the next three years. That is also the cost of my speeding fine (11-15 mph over the 45 mph speed limit in Star Valley, AZ back on Jul 9, 2009) which occurrence just got reported to Amica Insurance. I spent some time answering Bobby's emails. Although we are in the same house, he has decided he does not want to talk to me.

Tue 12/21 - This afternoon Bobby, Maria and I went to Hukilau beach on Laie Bay near Big Joe's house and carried our low-wind kiteboarding gear (big kites) down to the water. Not very good winds were forecast and that was correct. I didn't get any kites out of the bag, Bobby did and managed to get his BIG 16 meter kite in the air for about 20 seconds.
- Big Joe arrived at the beach and he and I decided to go
SUP
,
Stand-Up Paddling
on his equipment since Bobby did not seem to want me to use his that was on top of his van and could not tell me what his plans were. Joe geve me some helpful pointers and and we stayed out about an hour. Conditions were much taimer than Sunday and I felt much more comfortable standing up as I attempted to ride the waves. I never did catch one, learned to switch my feet to surfing stanse when riding a wave, how to paddle more effectively (with shorter strokes), how to fall flat (to avoid shallow coral) and did not even fall too many times. After our
SUP
,
Stand-Up Paddling
session Melissa, his wife took me to Food Land where I got 4x6 prints for my post card project. Then Big Joe picked me up and took me "home" to Bobby's house. I could have walked, but it was about to rain and I didn't want to get my pictures (or me) wet. I appreciate your help, Joe and Melissa!
- I spent tne evening making, writing and addressing the picture post cards.

Wed 12/22 - I actually got bored today with not much going on wind-wise or otherwise. Reading The Perfect Storm, I got the helicopter crew rescued from the raging sea, did some online research for stuff and really made progress with the Bolivia Highway of Death project I am working on for my Stupidity web page. I got an array of 19 hover thumbnails to trigger the big picture similar to that my home page. Toward evening I did a walk/jog out to Lanie Point and then down to Food Land for a total of maybe 1.5 miles.

Thu 12/23 - Big Joe phoned me this morning to go
SUP
Stand-Up Paddleboarding
since there was no wind. We both invited Bobby to join us but he was not interested. I do not believe Bobby and Maria are very happy campers, which is sad. Any way, Joe picked me up at a little before 10 am and we paddled for 2:45 hours. He helped me again with hints and tips which helped me improve from last time. I rode a few waves a ways without falling off the board. Joe demonstrated catching waves (he's pretty good!). and we both had fun. Joe and Melissa, his wive, sure are nice people.
- Meanwhile Bobby and Maria drove about 25 miles to Haleiwa where they BOTH did
SUP
Stand-Up Paddling
on the river there. Maria hasn't fallen yet in her
SUP
Stand-Up Paddling
career. Disgusting, isn't it!?
- This evening, Bobby informed me that he did not plan to take me to the airport for my flight back to Phoenix. I guess there was a misunderstanding. Also, since I am on a roll with the Bolivia Highway of Death project for my website I completed the tedious chore of resizing all 20 files for the thumbnails.

Fri 12/24 - This morning I took Joe, Melissa and their three kids out for breakfast. What fun! Also I proposed a $100 challenge to Joe if he wants to set and meet a weight-loss goal. Speaking with him, I sensed that he might be interested. If not, that's fine too.
- In the afternoon I walked almost a mile down to Big Joe's house at Highway 83 and Lanihuli St. I went out solo on his
SUP
Stand-Up Paddle board
(thank you, Joe) but only for about 45 minutes since he was not around to spur me on and since I did not want to encounter more coral so close to my flight back to Phoenix. My last wave was awesome. I rode it from way out all the way to right up onto the beach! I was on my knees instead of standing, but it still was pretty cool for me. Next time I come here, I bring booties.
- This evening I did the final packing of my big equipment bags.

Christmas Day Sat 12/25 - Up this morning, packed my carry-on bags and Joe picked me up outside Bobby's gate for the trip to the airport, as I had been unable to make other arrangements. I had to pay only the normal $55 for two pieces of checked luggage, since Bobby taught me how to classify its contents. Hawaiian Airlines will be refunding $145 of erroneous over-charges for the flight from Phoenix to Honolulu. I certainly feel a lot better about Hawaiian Airlines now and can recommend them. The flight back to Phoenix took about six hours and we got in early at about 11:30pm Phoenix time. By the time I got home on the SuperShuttle it was about 1am.

Sun 12/26 - Catching up on Christmas dinners: To George & Cindy's this evening with just the tree of us. We had an excellent, calm visit and played Senior Moment, a new game that tasks the memory. I can't believe I won!

Mon 12/27 - Up this morning to head two hours northeast for the Payson McDonald's for a mostly Hayes/Hanovich gathering. Bernadette, Becky, Rose Anne and Anne's family were all there The kids had fun in the McDonald's Playland. Then, later Robby introduced Rose Anne and me to Geocaching where you find a hidden object, knowing only the description and GPS coordinates. Catie found the first one, an 9-inch can about four inches in diameter. When you find one, you sign the roster, log it in on your iPhone and, in the case the larger ones like this one, you take some small token or toy in exchange for one you lave. Robby found the second one, a capsule about as big as your thumb. He also found the third one, a camouflaged pill bottle hanging by a tree branch.

Tue 12/28 - Went to Dr Dwivedi about my left thumb, which seems to be infected by the cortical. An x-ray showed nothing and the word is for me to quit messing with it and let it heal. I had already debrided it a couple times. She gave me a prescription for an antibiotic if I felt I needed it.
- This afternoon I drove way out to the west valley and signed the closing papers for the 10 acres of raw desert land I am selling. I'll add a little to the down payment I am receiving and restore my emergency fund.
- This evening I had a couple of ocular anomalies, what I believe are ocular migraines.

Wed 12/29 - Spending money today. I understand how spending can be therapeutic, although I have planned these purchases for over a month. Ordered a replacement battery for my eeePc netbook computer and a Granite super-featured automobile battery charger.
- In the drudgery department, I applied pre-emergence spray for weeds. It has to be activated with at least a half inch of rain. That is where the drudgery comes in - unless rain is forecast, which it is for the next couple of days.
- My sinuses started running like mad this evening - unusual for the winter.

Thu 12/30 - Downloaded two weeks of podcasts for my favorite talk show hosts so I will be busy catching up with them for the next week or so.

Fri 12/31 - For about the last week, my HTC Touch Diamond Cell phone has started spontaneously playing unwanted music from its sample music library. I have not figured how to prevent it or to delete the songs. All I have been able to do is to go to the music player screen and press pause (gerr)!

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