That’s the hill I wanted.  And up I went, and then down I went, with Tasha on board.  Apparently, according to Graham, “You guys sure caught a lot of air when you went over that bump!” I don’t know about that, because we were coming down the hill backwards incredibly fast, and I couldn’t turn the damn thing around.  When we hit the bump, all I knew was there was nothing under me for a long time, and suddenly there was.  I have a bruise on my butt the size of a basketball, and I’m pretty sure I re-broke the same rib I broke a couple of years ago.  Anyway, we moved over to the semi-bunny hill  (safer  for young ones AND old bones)

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more on the next pages…

With this many fishing rods (6 in total) we have to catch something!“Did you guys see that Flying Fish?”“Maybe they are just out a little farther”Waiting…Maybe once the sun gets up they will start biting…Well, it IS a nice boat ride

After the meal there was a a show of dance and song portraying the history of the Hawaiian people.

… more luau

]]> http://www.web-bandit.com/lee/2010/05/05/lahaina-luau/feed/ 2 http://www.web-bandit.com/lee/2010/05/05/haleakala-crater/ http://www.web-bandit.com/lee/2010/05/05/haleakala-crater/#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 21:45:40 +0000 Lee http://www.web-bandit.com/lee/?p=911 More than anything, I wanted to see a volcano while I was in Hawaii.  Unfortunately, there are no live volcanoes on Maui.  I knew that before I left.  The next best thing would be to see an extinct volcano crater.

The Haleakala Highway takes you to Haleakala National Park.  It’s a narrow winding road that takes you from about a 1000 feet above sea level to a little over 10,000.  And at the top you can see the collapsed crater of a volcano.  Perfect.

Sherry was driving, and all was good until we passed a sign that said, “Turn headlights on while driving through clouds.”  Haleakala means “the land above the clouds.”  That’s when Herb began to clutch the arm rest.  White knuckled, he mentioned about every fifty feet of the climb, “We are very, very, very, friggin high.”  The rest of his conversation usually contained something like, “Do you have to drive so close to the side of the road?”

Sherry was driving perfectly.  I don’t know what would have happened if she was a little nervous about the road.  I think Herb would have simply passed out.  We finally broke through the clouds, and soon a roadside turnout appeared.  There was parking for about 20 cars along beside a steep cliff, and across the highway was another steep drop off where you could view the clouds and Park buildings way below.

Herb cautiously crawled out of the car and huddled up against the cliff on the “safe” side and with trembling hands, lit a cigarette. Sherry and I ran across the road for the view and some photos.

… onto the crater

A digital painting of the activities…

There.  Remove the curse.  Please.  Over the last two months here is what has happened… I’ve probably missed a couple…

microwave quit working – only worked on high.  Repair method – slapped it like we used to with TV’s and radios when they hummed or picture went goofy… sometimes the turntable rattles a bit now, but if you whack it again it stops.  Sometimes you just have to swear at it.

TV startup – apparently my Samsung  HiDef TV has faulty capacitors.  Repair method – replace capacitors (about 20 bucks) but try and find them – they are ordered, but I haven’t turned off the TV for a month, cause it probably won’t start again (additional electricity bill $????)

Toilet – don’t flush properly (if at all) Repair method – (none of which have worked) – plunger, sewer snake, remove and reinstall toilet, lots of swearing…

Truck oil leak – oil puddles under the truck .  Repair method – open hood and come to the obvious conclusion I have no idea where to even start looking.  Take to shop and pay the nice people $550.00 to replace a broken oil cooler pipe.

Dish Washer leak – it’s a portable, and eventually will be replaced by a built in, but in the meantime, I don’t want to do them by hand.  Anyway, it leaks where you hook it up to the faucet.  Repair method – it’s a simple washer that needs replacing.  They quit making the repair kits two years ago.  You have to buy the whole assembly for $85.00 now.  Still unresolved, but if I hook it up and unhook it about 20 times (and of course, accompanied by swearing) it will eventually stop leaking…

Computer mouse – it just started working if and when it wanted to.  I think the laser was burning out. Repair method – new mouse.  About 40 dollars ’cause I bought one with extra buttons that I have no idea do.  But it is ergonomically designed.

Computer sound card- been stupid for a long time, but I think it’s still associated with the curse somehow. It has always buzzed and had static, and was always turned almost off so I couldn’t hear the noise.  Repair method – new sound card (cheap one – $65.00) I also bought new cables for the second hard drive, because it would vanish every once in a while.  On the drive where I keep all of my music, so now that I have a sound card, I might as well have music working

Oh yeah, let me reiterate that I think my brother is a really great guy, and very wise, and really good looking (for someone his age… )

I suppose I’m tempting fate with that last little bit…

The smoking area is in the back parking lot, and you can see the street where a lot of the people park to go to the casino.  I watched a couple of older couples (does that make sense) walking to their car.  In typical senior fashion, the two men were walking side by side, and the two women trailed along three or four steps behind.  When they got to their car, the two ladies jumped into the back seat, and the two men got in the front.

It’s not their fault, because the snow removal plan is a little lacking, but it was soon obvious they were stuck.  The guys got out to push, and one of the ladies got in the front to drive.  Unfortunately, co-ordination seemed to be a stumbling block.  One of the gents went to the back of the car, the other went to the front.  And they both started to push.  Despite this marvelous effort, the car was still not moving.

In a couple of minutes, the lady wound down the window, and I imagine she told them they should both push from the same end.  The men accepted this idea, and both of them walked to the other end.  The key word is BOTH. Not one.  BOTH of them walked to the other end.

They were once again pushing against each other with all their might. and the car still wasn’t going anywhere.  I could see the woman waving her arms at the one at the front, and I’m just thinking here, telling him he should go to the back where his helper is.  I’m pretty sure there was a remark about lack of intelligence I could hear even from my viewpoint, but I’m not positive.

I was just about to walk across the street to help out (after all, there was still two free sides to the car that I could push against) when a group of teenagers came along and basically lifted the car out of the ruts.

Aw well, back to work.

Anyway, we bought a new lo-water, lo-profile model and all should have been good.  Except for the fact that it actually flushed “#1″ sort of haphazardly, and any deposit you could actually be proud of was at least a double flusher.  All of that made the lo-water, environmentally friendly feature redundant.  The only solution was a “How to Use the Plunger” poster displayed prominently on the bathroom wall.

The fact still remains, it’s a good looking, futuristic toilet. I’m sure if I could hook it up to the internet, or use a USB plug and connect it to my computer, I could download an important update that would actually make it functional.  But alas, www. toilets-R-us.com seems to be down for the moment, so I need to revert to the old fashioned plunger and sewer snake method.  Or perhaps a sledge hammer.

I’m leaning toward the sledge hammer at the moment…

A little while ago, I might have, maybe, perhaps, possibly, accidentally made fun of my brother’s new microwave and his absolute amazement that the new appliance had a popcorn button.  And a turntable.  And a coffee button.

Okay, I’m still making fun of him, but there’s  a couple of other old sayings that come to mind right now -  “You’ll get what’s coming to you,” “God will get you for that” and the ever popular “Now, what the f— ?!!!” 

Yesterday, I put some pizza in the microwave, hit the reheat button (my brother has one of those now, too) and waited my four minutes  and ten seconds for hot food.  I pulled the plate out carefully, because sometimes they can get hot and set it on the counter.  Then, as is my usual habit, and for the life of me, I don’t know why, I stuck my finger in the re-heated food to see how hot it is.  Don’t laugh, I’ve seen other people do that.  In fact I think it was in the instructions that came with microwaves (like the one my brother just replaced) back in the day.  But I digress…

Anyways, the food was still cold.  Or almost cold. If I had sat on the pizza for four minutes and ten seconds, it would be warmer than this frigid plate before me right now.

So my microwave is now just a noisy, poor imitaion of a rotating “Dessert Dispaly” (remember they had those in restaurants years ago – I could watch the banana cream pie for hours, but again I digress)

So the moral of the story is: “Cold pizza really ain’t that bad”

I guess a new microwave is on my shopping list

In the meantime, while waiting for Christmas (always a kid) I bought a new drawing tablet for my computer, because my old one was starting to skip.  Then I found a cool painting program called ArtRage that simulates real paint (well as close as you can get, with a computer anyway)

Here’s one of my humble attempts in the digital method – sorry FaceBookers – don’t know how this will show up there, you might have to click away from Facebook for a moment… (oh no! … Gasp! what if I can’t get back? AaaRGGH! what should I do? click on the view original post thing in Facebook)

Amy on the Rocks

So this is my digital painting.  If you click on the picture, you should get a bigger version.  (I think – I upgraded this blog software a while ago, and everything doesn’t work how I want it to just yet.  Another days project I guess.

In the coming days and/or weeks I hope to add some real paint stuff here too.

And for all you FaceBookers, here’s a link back to the farm. Yes, I’m poking a bit of fun at you.  Probably ’cause I just don’t get it – guess I’m just not quite into the 21s t century yet.