My Family's Coming For Christmas.....

....and I have to make room in the frig. So I just polished off the Cookie Dough ice cream. Oh, did I mention I had to make room in the freezer too?

What, My Money Isn't Good Enough For You?????

First it was Verizon never calling me back when the phone I wanted to buy was out of stock. So I spent my money at KMart.

Then, it was MidPac Auto never calling me back (after three requests) when I asked them to split the quote on body work for my car.

Now, it's MIdas. When they did my front brakes last Saturday they discovered I needed a new master cylinder. So they tried three different ones and none of them fit. They said they would probably call me on Monday to let me know it had come in. They never called. I called them on Thursday. They said they would check on it and call me back. I haven't heard from them.

Am I the only one who has this problem? Is everyone doing so well they don't need my business? I don't understand. Used to be you could actually get service.

Big Surf on the North Shore of Oahu...

Check out these pictures:

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Dec/16/ln/photos.html

This is the view of the Makaleha mountains looking north from my driveway. (I cheated - I had to look on a map to find the name of this mountain range. If I was still living on Oahu I could say the Koolau's or the Waianae mountain range without even having to think about it).

Because I was born & raised on Oahu I'm used to directions like ewa, diamond head, mauka & makai. When I first moved to Kauai I had no idea which way was east, west, north or south. I was totally discombobulated. After 5 years of being here I've gotten oriented. I can say westbound, eastbound, etc. But it still seems weird. Sometimes I want to say going ewa on Kuhio Hwy. Only no one here would understand what I meant. Cause there's no place called Ewa on Kauai. In a way it's like being on the mainland. And with the number of haoles on this island sometimes I think I am on the mainland. (Even though I'm haole, I gotta remind you people, BIG difference between mainland haole & local haole).

So, anyway, the camera phone is the coolest. I wonder how night photos would look. Cuz it has a flash so I'll have to take some night pictures and see how they come out.

Winter On Kauai.....



Salt Pond yesterday. Taken with my camera phone. Only the photo needs to be flipped horizontally. We spent about 3 hours here yesterday. You couldn't have asked for more perfect weather. I didn't go in the water here but we went for a walk at Pakala's afterwards and found a spot with a nice sandy bottom. The water was cold but perfectly clear. As we walked back I found two big cowry shells that the surf had just washed in. Don't worry - there was no animal living inside either of them. If there had been I would have thrown them back in the water. It was such a beautiful day I didn't want it to ever end. We've had about three weeks of windy, wet weather and it was time for a beach day.

This morning dawned perfectly clear. Not a cloud in the sky. Unfortunately Monday = work, so no beach today.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

I just traded in my old phone for a camera phone. Here's a test shot of my front door.

You Can Get What You Want.....

....just click the Secret Santa button over there on the right.

Don't Ask Me How....

but I fixed my computer.

I was on the computer last Sunday and got a strange error message and before I could write it down my computer rebooted itself. When it came back up it thought I still had Earthlink instead of Road Runner. So I called Oceanic and they walked me through the setup of my internet & email connection.

And it seems to work fine now. I did lose a bunch of stuff but that's okay. And I had to buy Norton AntiVirus 2005 to replace the older version I lost but I like the way it works.

So I'm back up and running.

Bad News, Good News.....

Sadly, me coworkers dog died today. Her boyfriend got home from work this afternoon and found the dog had choked to death. Apparently the dog groomer didn't attach her leash to her choke collar properly. She left work early because she was upset and her boyfriend was beside himself. I feel so bad. Their dog was such a sweetie. She went hiking with us a couple years ago and was so energetic and playful. This is the second dog of theirs that has died. Their previous dog was hit by a car.

In other animal news my neighbor's lost their puppy last night. I heard her on the radio this morning reporting a lost dog. Then when I got home tonight I heard them talking to the puppy so it looks like she was found and returned to them.

My son left for Honolulu this morning to participate in the Special Olympics Bowling Competition. I hope he'll be okay. He's with a much larger group than when he was in school. He does much better when he gets more one-on-one support. I'm just hoping that he comes home with everything in his suitcase that he took with him.

So my weekend is totally free. I think I'll vacuum tomorrow morning and surprise my son by putting up the Christmas tree. He's been showing me his Santa wish list at least three times a night and asking when the tree is going up. He'll be really excited to see it when he walks in the door.

Time for me to get the dishes washed and hit the sack........