I went to Roc-Fest (sic) this past Sunday. Sara Burdett is moving up to the region formerly known as South-Central, Metro-Heights. It's funny because I know a lot of people up there already. Sara, meet Sara. Sara, Sara.
Hm, so much has happened and I haven't felt like blogging much. I will have to get back to it later this week probably. The eAssist contract I'm doing right now is sapping all of my free time...
Ben just asked Claire to be his girlfriend on Thursday night. Nick, James and I went up there to celebrate with them. Here we are at BJ's grabbing a bite to eat afterwards.
Well I'm back now. I think I'm fully recovered. Everything here is probably going to be pretty mixed up chronologically because I have pictures from different sources and also more to develop. All of the photos are here if anyone is interested; I'll post just the highlights here.
This is Jason getting patted down at LAX. Carly and I jumped on the opportunity to make a spectacle of this. As soon as I took this picture though, the officials there were not too pleased. They starting homing in on us but finally just told us to move outside the holding area. Yes sir; thank you, sir.
This was not exactly our view from the hotel room, but just across the hall. Top floor, baby.
On Monday (the 16th) we visited the USS Arizona Memorial. I learned that the Arizona was the place chosen to commemorate those that died in the attack on Pearl Harbor because when it sank, over half of its crew was lost. It suffered the most casualties of any ship in the harbor. In fact they decided not to raise the sunken ship; instead they decided to let the sunken hulk be the tomb for those who died in it. One really interesting thing I saw there was that some who had survived the attack later chose to be interred with their shipmates after they died.
A museum was there as well; unfortunately it was terribly crowded and had no air conditioning, so we decided not to go.
On Tuesday, we visited the Dole Plantation. In it is a maze where you are supposed to find six colored stands; each stand has a stencil of a different fruit which you can trace on your ticket. We wandered around for quite a bit. It started to feel like a reality show after a while.
Not exactly record time, but hey, we finished. (Hint: there's a map on the back of the ticket.)
Later that night I went to the Honolulu church's midweek service. Surprisingly, I knew one of the brothers there, at least by name. I had talked to Dino several years ago, when Kevin was just trying to get his bearings in San Diego. It was really cool to touch base with him. Also, I saw Joe there, and chatted with him after the service. It was a pretty simple lesson, led by a brother named Tui, who apparently knows Guillermo pretty well. Too bad there was no singing, though.
On Wednesday, Carly and Jason and I decided to behave with reckless abandon and get tattoos. It took us each about two excruciating minutes for the tattoo artist at the Polynesian Cultural Center to apply them. Probably the most dangerous part was making sure to look away while he delicately sprayed the ink, so as not to get any paint in our eyes. Carly had a butterfly done; Jason, a gecko. Mine was certainly the most manly choice of the three — a dragon. Unfortunately you can't see much of them in this photo.
Overall the PCC was probably the most interesting part of the trip. Each part of the Polynesian islands is represented. We were able to see Samoa, Marquis, and Fiji, if I remember correctly. Samoa's representatives had the most personality. Later we realized that it's a very well-rehearsed routine; it's very entertaining nonetheless.
The luau was very well done, and the food was incredible. It is interesting to note that the song they performed as thanks before the meal was the same melody used in "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow" in our song book. The show at the end was very good too. I especially liked the song performed a cappella. And of course the fire show was very good; in fact the main performer was the same guy who ran the Samoan show.
Carly and Jason had a lot of fun snorkeling on Thursday at Shark's Cove.
I think I got a week's worth of salt intake.
Jennifer and I had lunch on Saturday. It was cool to finally meet her after playing phone tag a few times. We had a good talk; interestingly enough, she's read Boundaries. She is reading Search for Significance right now, which I will look into myself when I get the chance.
And this concludes Aloha 2004!
The following is an embellishment of true events. Concerning the stewardess, her actual words were, "Can you sit here? You need to be at least 15 years old in order to operate the emergency exit." Today I saved a boy's life. He was on the end of a jedi (jetty) and he was swept over by a large wave. I yelled, "Grab my hand!" and he did! "Hold on, don't you let go!" And just as I pulled him up, another large wave swept in and he was saved. Luckily he wasn't eaten by the shark swimming just off the jetty. That same shark attacked Vic and bit him on the foot. Fortunately Vic is wily and the shark only got a piece of his shoe, which shows the battle scar. That's the end of my embellishment.Tim's version:
Although I wasn't actually there to witness any of this, these are the facts as I know them to be. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental. As hurricane Charlie swept overhead, creating 15-ft. swells, there in the distance was standing a young boy. Suddenly he was totally engulfed by water surrounded by ferocious man-eating sharks. As his life perilously ebbed away, Jason saw him from a distance. He ran out there — walking on water, so we thought — he grabbed the kid by his nappy dreads, lifted him up out of the water, swung him around his head twice, beating the sharks back. He then ran to shore, thus saving the child's life. The End.P.S. I forgot to mention that Carly stole a blanket from the airplane, thus fulfilling her role as a rulez breaker.
We had Sara's birthday party at the place last night. It was a lot of fun. There were just enough people there to have some decent conversations.
Alyson did a really good job decorating the place. Poor thing had to take a nap earlier today because she was so wiped out with everything.
After the party Sara and I caught up with everything. Her latest idea is to go to Jerusalem in June. Crazy, I tell ya! She'll want to take the GRE so that she can go to school there. The biggest thing she worries about being in a church of only seven people is them hearing her sing. So we're going to work on voice lessons too. Sometimes, all I can do is *shrug*. Get this, when she wanted to leave, I had to drive her to her car — she didn't want to walk into the party alone so she had Beth meet her a few streets away. Huh? Anyway, it's so good to have her back.
Afterwards I talked to Faith on the phone for a bit; sounds like she had a pretty tough day. Or month. It was good to be able to be there for her.
It's interesting that when she asked me if I was excited to go to Hawaii, I realized that I haven't even really thought about it. This week has been so busy, and I've had to try to cram so much into it before I leave, that I'm figuring it will almost be anti-climatic to all of a sudden spend a week relaxing with only two, or four other people I know. Right now all I can imagine is doing a whole bunch of nothing. It's nice to think that there are so many people for me to spend time with. Especially considering that I didn't feel that way not that long ago.
Well I'm starting to feel the wane of my enthusiasm for this narcissistic art of blogging. Or maybe it's just that I've had too busy of a week.
This weekend was Jon and Dung's wedding. It was a very beautiful service, and everyone looked so happy. It was really cool that Steve was one of the officiating ministers too, as he just came back from his year of ministering in Japan. It was pretty much the first time I've heard him speak since he left, and I was having flashbacks.
Steve also preached this morning, which I felt went really well. What was particularly moving was that there were actually some people here from the Tokyo church; they happened to be in town so Steve had them share a bit at the end of service. They were so humble and respectful in that way that I will dare to say is characteristic of Japanese people and the quality I find the most admirable.
Actually I was pleasantly surprised how the service went, considering that pretty much all of the song-leaders were either sick or incapacitated or otherwise unavailable. Luckily enough Richard and Nick were there.
There's a show on Michael and the rest of the Jacksons on VH1 right now. I think there's another show on LaToya at some point too. That whole family makes me so sad.
Nick and I have hung out quite a bit this weekend. On Friday night we went out to dinner and ran into Eric and Rebecca at Ki-Ku-Ya. Faith joined us later on for coffee and then we worked on some singing after that. Nick was part of the great turnout to ultimate frisbee on Saturday too. We had some two-and-a-half hours worth of rugged athleticism. Good stuff.
One neat thing that happened this weekend was during our household quiet-time. I shared a bit from a book I'm reading, The Different Drum, specifically a part about true community and how it differs from from what we typically call community. We got through two of the four "stages" that groups go through: pseudocommunity, and chaos. What was really encouraging for me was that while Carlos was praying, he prayed about the household and how it was probably the closest thing he had to true community — a place where people can be themselves, where we work conflicts out even through seemingly difficult issues. I was really encouraged. As for the last two stages — well, that will have to wait for another blog.
