Back to the Old Grind

That was a great trip but all good things must come to an end. I'm back at work for 4 days now, I think I finally am back on schedule. Not dragging from jet lag any more.

The last 3 days in Hawaii I spent zooming around the island catching pictures of anything I thought worthy, and all the beaches I could sqeeze in, for my dad's website that he wants to create one day. I got to experiment with my new camera in different situations. I wanted to get some surfer shots but the sea was just rough enough that there weren't many surfers out. I had hoped to find some at a place referred to by the surfers as "infinities", because of the long ride. But the waves there were too small!

I got to Shipwreck Beach, next to Poipu, where the cliff is that Dane jumped off a couple years ago, Makawehi Point. I finally found the surfers! The water was too rough for the cliff jumpers but I was really aiming to find the surfers. They put on a good show and I got some awesome shots. I was very pleased that they came out as good as they did for my first try at that kind of action photography.

So I don't know what my next trip will hold, maybe it'll be Maui and Molokai, for more pictures for dad's website. And maybe that'll be just later this year. 2 trips in one year! We'll see.

A Strange Phenomenon

Here I am in paradise, on the beautiful island of Kauai to be precise. The trade winds. The beaches. The birds & flowers. All the sights, sounds and smells to enjoy. And yet, where do I find myself for hours every day? In front of my computer!

I am attempting to get to the beach on a daily basis. I have the sunburn to prove it. I am also helping my parents with some home repairs. Yet, I end up on the computer.

Another relative visiting from New Zealand came in on Tuesday. And what was in her suitcase? Her laptop!

My parents each have their own computer. My dad sits at his all day every day, creating websites, researching Hawaiiana & his geneology. Mom googles some things and emails quite a few friends and family often.

Seems like this new lifestyle is becoming worldwide and a permanent part of each of our lives. Even when we're on vacation.

I guess it's not worth it to try to escape. Computers are here to stay, get used to it.

BTW, did I mention - I LOVE MY LAPTOP!!

The Saga of Stumpy

After all these years it appears that not all of you know the story of my Mom's amazing pet finch, Stumpy. I shall have to remedy that straightaway (I've been visiting with a relative from Australia, UK / NZ)

Years ago my mom saw a cat in her backyard, she was trying to chase it away and it dropped something from its mouth. She went to check what it was and it was a grey, featherless baby bird, probably fresh from the egg.

It was alive and undamaged so she decided she had to hand feed it, to keep it alive, or at least to give it the best chance she could. So she called me and told me her dilemma, knowing that I had the recipe for feeding baby birds (btw, canned dog food or meat baby food, spinach or baby vegs & peanut butter, pureed together & fed with a needleless syringe). She began caring for him and all was going well. She kept him in a kleenex box lined with soft fluff and fed him continually, even taking him to the kingdom hall with her and keeping him in the restroom. Then she had to go to California to take care of her dad and left the birdy in my care. I thought "Great - he can die while I'm taking care of him!" Well, he didn't, he just kept eating and growing.

He just kept on that way, tough little bird. But he began to have problems with his feet, they kept getting infections and bleeding. Mom was afraid to take him to the vet for fear that they'd tell her that he was a wild animal and needed something more than she could give him, hence removing him from her care and possibly "destroying" him "for his own good" ("he won't be able to care for himself in the wild"). So she treated him as best she could but he did lose one foot in the process and became at that point - "Stumpy".

So Stumpy became a real pet. The cat knew not to mess with the little birdy. And he loved Mom so much, she would stick her pinky in the cage and he would chirp and peck excitedly.

Well, they decided to move to Hawaii about 5 years ago. That meant he'd have to have clearance to be brought into the state. She found a sympathetic vet who called him a "canary" and did all the necessary processes to get the OK for the move. (after years of being unable to identify what he is I finally found a picture of the exact same bird - a house finch, I didn't know they sing so beautifully)

When mom finally took off for Hawaii she had packed up the house and stuck it all on a boat, as well as the car. Then she, the cat and Stumpy got clearance to get on the plane, the cat would ride in the assigned pet area in the cargo but Stumpy would be allowed in the cabin with Mom. Until she got to the gate, then they said the bird would have to go in the pet area as well. She did her usual insistent bit and got them to allow the bird in the cabin as she was promised when making the arrangements. Kinda sounds like Sylvester & Tweetie with their little old lady, huh?

So Stumpy made the big move to Hawaii. He has been living outside his cage, free in the house most of the time he's been here in the islands. There have been a few close calls, at least twice he got stuck in piles of junk for days and was found and rescued and survived, hungry, dehydrated, but OK. Then he had a bad eye infection that a vet had to repair, he got through that well also. At that time Mom was informed that he'd already far exceeded his life expectancy. Next month he'll be 9, another year past his expected time on this earth.

With him flying free in the house, they currently live in a "bird cage" but neither seem to mind too much, it's worth it for a one-in-a-million pet like Stumpy.

A Beach and a Beer

Well, here I am on my annual trip to Hawaii to visit with and help my folks.

When they picked me up I was informed that we had a funeral to attend the next day, an uncle of my dad's whom I never met. He was 100 and his 94 year old wife died in November. So we visited with some family and ate some local grub. It was a fairly fun fun-eral. While dad was schmoozing with family mom and I went to the graveyard to see if we could find dad's grandma's grave. She died in '74 just before we moved back to the mainland. It was such a beautiful cemetary. We couldn't find the grave but dad walked right to it when he got there. We actually walked right past it. I even got a picture of it without realizing!

The next day, Sunday, Dad was giving the talk on the opposite side of the island, in Kekaha, near Waimea. It was a good talk on marriage. He mentioned things both mom and I have done, the congregation felt like they knew us by the time the talk was over. A couple, the Drivers, invited us out to lunch at a local diner. The food was good and filling. We had a nice visit with them over good food.

On the way home we stopped in the Kukui Grove shopping area. I went to Macy's to see if I could find a swimsuit that suited me better than anything I could find at Kohl's, Sears, etc. I did finally find one. But, of course, it cost $100. I went ahead and applied for a credit card and got the 15% off, so it ended up costing only (only!) $85. The folks were at Home Depot getting the supplies to install the glass vessel sink I brought on the plane. But the salesman was giving them not quite the correct information. I helped them pick the right stuff and we've been working on it ever since.

This morning we got started on all the projects to get their bathroom finished. We had to finish installing a wall, hang a mirror, paint the cabinet that the sink will sit on, paint a medicine cabinet to also hang on the wall & rewire & hang a lamp. Then we can proceed with the plumbing for the sink and install the faucet and drain. Whew! We made a lot of headway. Actually mom did most of it, I touched up some paint outside that I hit with white paint last year when I sprayed the eaves. Then I cleaned some of theier glass "walls" out on their lanai.

Each afternoon I've attempted to go to the beach to catch some rays. But over the wknd we were so busy we didn't get home til after 4 so there wasn't much sun left. I did my best. Took my beer and sat on the beach. Today I went to the beach earlier, about 3:15 but the clouds were rather thick. Just wandered around and took pictures.

Tomorrow my brother's mother-in-law may be coming in from Reno. She lives in New Zealand with Hik and Kris but was visiting a friend in Reno before coming here. She may not make it, they may send her home due to some homeland security issue, her "overstaying" her last visit. Anyway, we'll find out tonight whether she's coming here or going straight home to NZ.

Hopefully I can start working on a real tan tomorrow, even if I have to just lay in the yard here at the folks' place.

I refuse to go home white.

Photo Class

Finally got myself into a photography class. 2 friends joined me, we're going to Green River Community College Wednesday nights 7 - 9 PM for 8 weeks. The teacher is not very organized but he is teaching us stuff. Each week we have homework. The first week we were to just bring in 5 shots at the 50mm setting, that's about normal, no zooming. I was in Leavenworth with the kids that wknd so I took shots in and around Leavenworth. The next week we had to bring in a motion shot, either stop motion, blur or pan. You see my blur shot, I think it came out pretty good. The next week we brought in a picture from a famous photographer and critiqued it. Then we brought in a shot which we aimed for good composition and the class critiqued it. There, above, is the peacock shot I used for that assignment. Again, I thought it came out pretty good. This week we have to do a portrait where we create and control the lighting. I used the computer monitor for the lighting and took shots of Dane and Keith. Our final assignment is a theme assignment. We're to bring in 3 - 5 shots around a common theme using all the techniques we've learned and write an artist statement about it. I'm thinking of going to the dog pound, the poor miserable overpopulated creatures have always been close to my heart, it's just natural that I include them somehow. I have to do some research in my camera manual to see how to do a couple of the things the teacher showed us, I can see that they'll come in handy regularly so I need to learn how to do them. I'll miss the last class, I'll be in Hawaii. But I can see that the classes will probably help improve my skills. It's about time I took this class!!

Another new Grandson!!

Congratualations Denny and Heather!

Hunter James was born 7:50 the morning of November 8 and weighed 9 pounds and was 20.25 inches long, he's a bowling ball, or a butterball, whatever. He's very definitely a Sizemore and a workmate says he looks like a cabbage patch baby.

He definitely has the Sizemore mouth and just look at those cheeks! He's done very well, no problems and has a ravenous appetite (duh). He was, in everyone's opinion at least a couple weeks late, thus the large size. Everything is squished, nose, toes, and he has large hands, not the cute tiny newborn hands. And a full head of BROWN hair (like mama).

Camping Somewhere other than Lily Lake

Well, after our long, wet, wild winter a lot of roads were flooded out in and around Mt Rainier and one of them turned out to be the road to our Lily Lake. Keith went out with his dad and found the road gated and when they explored they found water flowing over it in one place at least. So now we have to find out who to contact to see about getting the repair nearer the top of the list so we can go back to our 19 year tradition.

In the meantime we had to find a different place to go. Kevin and Shirley found a spot near Lake Chelan a few years ago so we decided to try that spot. It was a long drive, 3.5 - 4 hours, about 200 miles one way (LL is only 100 miles). So Rach couldn't convince Tony to go, since he already wasn't liking the idea of camping anywhere. But Denny and Heather and Kevin's family all wanted to go, even if it was only for 24 hours or less.

My drive out was eventful. I have hauled my little paddle boat on top of my car for years but we hit some wind next to the Columbia River near Entiat that was a lot stronger than anything I've experienced up til now. So when the boat was airborne and felt like it would lift the car right off the road one rope broke. I got off the road and we re tied everything and took off again. The wind continued to blow and the boat was airborn again when the thing it was tied to, the handle, just broke and the boat went flying right over the car. I drove over the rope and then watched in the rear view mirror while our little fun boat was dragged behind the car just a few feet before the rear handle broke and it slid off the road into the ditch. Fortunately half of our group was in a car following me (at a distance) so no other cars were involved. We stopped and checked everything out, the boat had a little road rash and the cover was a little torn but was otherwise fine. So I backed up to retrieve the rope and found it had wrapped around the rotor. We had to jack up the car and remove the tire to be able to wrestle the rope out. The shoulder was narrow so the friend doing the work was sticking out in the road so I told the other 2 useless bodies to go down the road and make sure the traffic moved away so he wouldn't get hit. They turned it into a dance and were taking videos of it. Soon we were back on our way again, this time I tied the boat down in the middle, throught the windows so it wouldn't become airborn any more. The rest of the drive went fine, we were only about 25 miles from camp.

So we found the camp but couldn't see any "awesome" site as Kevin described it. We threw up a tent and split up, one group drove around looking for something else and the other group went into the paddle boat to look for a jumping off spot with a camp site near it. We found the spot but it was a little hard to get to but we did it anyway, I drove my car down a nasty dirt road and scratched up the sides and determined I wouldn't move it again until we were leaving. It was so windy I didn't even dare try to start a fire. There actually was a fire burning a few miles away and we had lots of smoke and ash falling on our spot. So we all hit the hay pretty early.

The next day was warm and beautiful so we spent pretty much the whole day laying on floatation devices on the lake getting varying degrees of sunburn. In the evening another friend of Dane's showed up and we had a fire but my other boys didn't get there so I was by myself.

Saturday morning was pretty dull, the 4 kids now spent all their time together, driving to town a lot and I was left alone at camp - boring. I brought a book so I did some reading and then actually took a nap. When I woke up I decided to sweep out the tent, it was dirty when we set it up. While I was sleeping I heard some new voices and - hurray!! - it was Denny and his doggy Gage, pregnant Heather was still on her way from the car. He brought his quad so we went back to the car and unloaded and set up their camp. He got a new tent and it was HUGE!!! Probably about 8 x 16 and you can put up a wall and have a screened in patio-like section, all screen on one end. But HUGE!!! I told him he should bring it to Lily Lake and we can all sleep together. A couple hours later Kevin's family showed up. They set up camp and little boys played in the dirt. We did the usual camp stuff. Kevin and Denny made a project of breaking up the firewood and ended up using the quad to try to break the larger pieces, couple of numb-heads, very definitely brothers. Kevin threw a fishing line out at dusk and had bats hitting the line, they flew real low through camp too. The kids tried to find a hiking trail a few miles away and the driver was a typical 20 year old guy in a junk car and was driving 45 MPH on the dirt road and finally broke a sway bar but managed to get the car back 20 miles to camp. Then he had to find some phone service so he could call his daddy and ask him to come out with the trailer to take his broken car home, a 400 mile round trip. That evening it began to rain very lightly so in the morning when the little boys woke up I'm sure Shirley simply had had enough and didn't even want the boys to be out playing in what was now MUD so they packed up and left first thing. We all took our time breaking camp and I was the last one out. But as I was trying to get back out that nasty dirt road I got stuck and finally had to have Denny pull me out.

I sure hope Lily Lake is available again next year but if not, at least we're educated as to this other spot which could really be nice without all the excitement of this year.