It would make Sunday School more interesting, anyway

Ridin' with the Big Dog! Thanks, Mum and Dad!

My Mum and Dad got me (and my brother) the Sirius S50 that I'd been wanting. I just got it hooked up in my car, and it works great! We're going to take a little ride now to check it out.

Passed over again!

Maybe next year will finally be my year.

Listening to "Theorycast (Enhanced) - Dec. 21, 2005" by Ryan & Jen from the album ABC's LOST: The (Enhanced) Transmission

We're home

Everything is fine, but we're pretty tired after the flight.

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say

when your language doesn't have the sounds R, S, or T. Or the letter C.

Diamond Head

We walked up to the top of Diamond Head Crater today -- it is 1.6 miles round trip. I remembered nearly dying in 2003 trying to get to the top. This time, it was not a problem at all. In fact, I couldn't believe that the hike was so short! Pictures are uploading, slowly.

This is our last full day in Hawaii ... tonight, we'll have an XMas eve feast at the Village Steak and Seafood restaurant in our hotel.

Yesterday, we had an "Exploration in Chocolate" spa day, where Laurel and I both got massages and then got scrubbed down with a chocolate-based scrub! We smelled like candy bars. Later that night, we saw the King's Jubilee, which was basically just an excuse to charge folks $12 to see fireworks.

Tomorrow, we'll still be in the hotel but are leaving for the airport around 8:30 p.m., so the bulk of Xmas night will be spent in the air. During the day, I'm going to try to be a beach bum as long as possible!

Wear sunscreen

After days of seeing men and women in their 40s and up with skin like leather, even Dave relented and wore some SPF 50. Because, really, what's the point of keeping your bikini figure if you're going to look like that?

Overheard waiting for breakfast the other day: "this hotel has been around since at least 1968, Kennedy visited here." Said by someone who was definitely around in 1963.

Vog!

We learned a new word today - vog. According to the weather report, there was some in Honolulu yesterday. It just looked like haze to me. It was still clearer than it was in Seattle all week.

Rub a dub dub, 64 people in a sub

We went on a submarine adventure today! In addition to being in the Hawaii photo set on Flickr, today's pix are also tagged as "Submarine" for easy viewing. The sub took 64 people down to about 110 feet undersea for 45 minutes, at a cost of $100 / each -- and I actually think it was worth it. See if you can spot the shark and turtles in the photos. Note that the airplane and shipwreck were, shall we say, "magic of Disney" (the sub company planted them down there as artifical reefs to attract sea life), but the sub was real, unlike 20000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Waterworld

A couple of water-related movies I took with my Sony DSC-T1 in its waterproof housing on the first day here (just forgot to post them till now):

• The waves
• Underwater drifting

Mahalo!

Thanks, Vicki and Bill, for the fruit basket - YUM!

Underwater camera

I got a waterproof housing for my Sony DSC-T1 camera before the trip, and finally got to try it out today in the ocean. I'm posting the results to my Flickr page, where of course I'll also post the rest of our trip pix as we take them (Laurel has her camera, too!) The biggest problem I'm noticing so far with the underwater camera is the lack of things to take pictures of underwater ;-)

We're in Hawaii!

Finally. It's hot here! We got in so late (it is almost midnight local as I type this) that all we did was unpack our bags and crack open a can of honor-bar peanuts. Tomorrow the adventure begins!

GEEKS

We went by Best Buy in Bellevue today to get a gift for someone, and there was a line of folks camping out in front of the store for XBOX 360s ... As Laurel said, "I guess it makes more sense than camping out to see 'Star Wars.'"

No XBOX for me!

Just got this mail (I had asked for the order to be canceled anyway):

Unfortunately, without our permission or knowledge, someone determined a method to view product pages of unavailable products via our URL link format. This link was then distributed on several web sites and message boards. The Xbox 360 Premium Bundle ($399.99) you ordered yesterday was not publicly listed for sale or available on GameStop.com, including on our search and Xbox 360 pages. We are taking steps to identify this individual and will work to ensure this does not occur again.

As this product is unavailable and was not intended for sale, we must regretfully cancel your order. Along with our sincere apologies for this unfortunate incident, please accept the attached GameStop.com coupon good for $5.00 off any purchase of $25.00 or more.

You know ... they should just honor the orders anyway. They have Xbox systems in stock, but they insist on selling unreasonable "bundles" instead of just the system.

Bait and switch?

I just checked my xbox360 order, and it is now marked "back ordered" even though the original order status was "ships in 24 hours." Maybe that doesn't mean anything, but we'll see ... I asked them to cancel the order if it doesn't actually ship on time. I had a feeling this wasn't going to go well when the original xbox360 ordering page disappeared after my first visit ...

Buy this book!

Programming MapPoint in .NET by Chandu Thota ... hot off the presses!

XBOX360: On the way!

I subscribed to an XBOX360 alerting site, and it finally came up with one that was the normal price and not some over-inflated bundle. One-day shipping was $9.99. So I got it ... hopefully it will actually arrive before our trip!

Forget the Nano ...

Tonight on the Daily Show, Howard Stern was flashing this around but didn't mention it explicitly -- The Sirius S50.

I had heard about this, but didn't know it was available yet!

I'm thinking that if all the people who would normally give me separate presents got together and gave me this instead, I might place a one-year hold on my "presents to the ceiling" policy.

More Gervais

My brother ("Mike") pointed me to some more great Gervais audio. It's older and harder to download it all, but worth it!

Man, I'm cured!

Today, I put the "man" in "manicure." Since I'm a nail-biter and generally fidgetty with my hands, I guess I couldn't expect a miracle, but things are generally better. You should have a manicure regularly, although if I were to stay on my current schedule, I'd only be due for another one at age 74.

Finally, an actually good Podcast

It took me a really long time to warm up to the British version of "The Office" (and although I watch the US version, it just plain is nowhere near as good), I eventually got to really appreciate Rick Gervais. And his show on HBO, "Extras," is incredible.

So it didn't take much convincing to get me to listen to his Podcast.

Like other Gervais projects, he's redefined the typical format while perfectly defining the archetype of a situation, in this case, the "two smart guys ripping on a dumb guy" genre ...

Absolutely hilarious!

Listening to "The Ricky Gervais Show - Episode 1" by Ricky Gervais from the album The Ricky Gervais Show

Local Live is live

Check out this view of Safeco Field, for example. You can see individual players on the field!

Tomorrow, the world goes to the birds, and you'll LOVE IT

Windows Local Live (aka Virtual Earth) goes all "Bird's Eye" in big cities tomorrow. That news was leaked today and they told us it was OK to go ahead and blog. But you'll have to wait till tomorrow to get the URL from me (since it won't work outside Microsoft until tomorrow). The big new feature, Bird's Eye, is a stunning new viewing perspective on local maps ... here's a sneak preview (two different views of our house -- you'll be able to see sections of major cities from north, south, east, and west!) ... oh well, blogger is having a problem uploading images right now, so you'll just have to wait ...

Another day in Hawaii, sort of

Laurel pointed out that my plan for Hawaii fell a bit short. We're leaving at 10:30 p.m. on Christmas Day. But we check out of the hotel on Christmas morning. I didn't think this was a big deal, as we could just check our bags and fend for ourselves all day, but as she pointed out, not much will be open on XMas! So we added (after several emails, phone calls, and even faxes) one more day to our hotel stay. That means we can relax all day on Christmas and just check out right before the flight. Feels bad to waste the money now, but I'm sure we'll be happy on that day when it comes ...