Misfiring

There’s this old guy that I always see walking around the lobby of my place. Slow-paced, seemingly always by himself. He looks like what I fear most about being older. Sometimes sitting, sometimes walking about with the help of his cane, he seemed to always have a scowl on his face. Lately though, I’ve seen him occasionally crack a smile.

I have had a great time with Katie here. It’s been great having a fellow newbie out here to explore with. Yesterday though, was a little weird. Weird bad and good. Weird up and down.

We started off the day in Pearl Harbor, at the memorial for the USS Arizona. We were a little late for our “movie” slot (the one we had to wait an hour for) and the glorified door guard got all pissy, but let us in. It was actually extremely interesting. I really didn’t know as much about that day of infamy as I should have.

Hey Mark, I think I see the old guy from the lobby.

Then we went to the beach to boogie-board, (after I missed our turn and ended up going the long way) and the beach was beautiful as usual, but really cloudy. Our fun in the sand turned into, “Crap, I’m stuck in the sand,” and by the time I got out it was raining. On our way to Eric’s place to return his car that we borrowed, we stopped at a gas station so I could find my phone and tell him we were close. After not being able to find it (disadvantage of board shorts? not enough pockets…) for 10 minutes, finally did and told him we’d be there soon. Got back on the highway, finally got to Punahou, tried to grab the phone to tell him we were there and couldn’t find it…again. After cursing myself for a while, finally tracked him down, he helped us search, and finally decided that I must have left it at the gas station. Katie and I scoot home, and I check the mail on the way in. I got a letter from wk12. I didn’t get in. After recovering from the mild heart attack caused on mere sight of the logo, we went upstairs, I got the phone number of the gas station, called them up, and asked if a phone had been turned in. Nope. I called up T-Mobile and turned off service to the phone.

We started off the day in Pearl Harbor, at the memorial for the USS Arizona. After we got our free ticket, we had an hour to kill before our tour started, so we ventured into Pearl City with just enough time to eat at Anna Miller’s—think Hawaiian Denny’s. The decor alone was worth it. We hustled back and got in just in time to catch the start of our tour. We watched a 23 minute not-as-biased-as-it-could-have-been documentary, and then boarded a little boat out to the actual memorial. It was pretty awesome. I’ve seen lots of pictures of the white building sitting on top of the water. I never realized that it was a white building sitting on top of the sunken USS Arizona. It was really quite awesome. To look around and know that these were the skies that so many soldiers and civilians cursed as it swarmed with Japanese fighters. For it to stay where it fell, as a memorial to the men who fell in and around it, as well as the 20 or so survivors of December 7th, 1941 that have been interned there upon their death, and to now be a covered like a coral reef that has always been there. Beautiful colors, with fish swimming all about…drops of oil still bubbling up as a constant reminder.

We then ventured off to Bellows, a surf break on the Northeastern side of the island. I missed the turn for H3, but it was a blessing as we took the long, scenic route around the coast of the island. Austinites think 2222 with the Pacific ocean on one side. It’s the second time I’ve done the drive, but it was just as awesome as the first. After stopping at a scenic point that included sea turtles and Cockroach Bay, the spot of the most famous on-screen kiss ever (and possibly the most unromantic name ever), we hit Bellows for some body surfing. It was cloudy, but at least it kept us from roasting. After a couple hours in the water, we hit the beach and dug a hole. Why? Because as anyone who is anyone knows, Katie loves digging holes. A lot. A lot. So we did, and it was pretty fun. We didn’t hit water, but did get lots of pretty funny pictures. Feeling somewhat bad that we desecrated this gorgeous beach, I suggested we fill in the hole.

Ha, ha, it’s kind of burying me as I fill this in.

Note to self: Don’t stand in a hole as you’re filling it.

What started off as funny, and then quickly became annoying, ended up being hilarious. I was eventually able to get out of my waist-deep tomb, and we scampered off to the car, just as it started raining. After a gorgeous drive back on H3, we stopped at the gas station to find my phone, after losing it, finding it, and losing it again, we finally got home and I checked my mail—but not before running into “the old guy.”

Hey, I think we saw you at Pearl Harbor today.

Turns out “the old guy” loves to smile if you just chat with him. Turns out, he’s an 85-year-old Russian-American survivor of Pearl Harbor. He’s out there two times a week to greet people, and when he’s not doing that, he’s a college professor teaching languages. He knows five languages. He wishes he knew seven. It was pretty awesome.

On the way back in I was flipping through my wad of mail and saw the wk12 logo. I ripped it open like a note from a cute girl, and ripped it into pieces when I got back to the apartment. I’m a packrat, but there’s no reason to dwell—this is 1-post sadness (I like the sound of that…new terminology!). In the rest of my mail I found a unexpected big check from Bank of America, and the official Moped Proof of Registration for Pinky. Sweet. I got online to check the rest of my mail, and I had something from the Chairman.


i got your phone.
long story.
does katie have a phone?
give me a call on it if you do.
if not, i’ll have it at punahou tomorrow, i guess.

ok bye

Turns out some kid found the phone and took it home with him. And then some lady that lives in the same apartment complex or something found out and took it from him, she called the last number on the phone (thanks to slowness at T-Mobile the call went through) got the Chairman, and he went over to pick it up. On the way over he called because he wanted better directions—no service on the phone. Eventually found the place, and my bimbo phone is back with the good guys. Crazy.

It’s about 5:30a now, and I got up almost 30 minutes ago cause I couldn’t sleep. I’m really bummed out about not getting wk12, but I did know just making it to the first round was going to be real hard. And I know that it really is just 1PS (see-above). I hate planning, and this crazy plan seemed to fall from the heavens when Hawaii, and Portland started coming together. I’ve been thinking, planning, drueling, craigslist-ing, and googling about it for almost two months now—I think the really frustrating part is that I invested so much emotional energy in all that, that I have no clue what I’m doing next. But the plan is gone now. And I’m getting tired. And I’m gonna go back to sleep now. And I’m gonna enjoy Katie’s last two days here. And then I’m gonna to find my ass a job…