Da Unoki Space

There's a bunch of us looney triathlon folks in Microsoft that are having a crazy talk email thread about water temperature in the local lakes.  There's insane folks (no offense SBR team, really) that glove/cap/fullsuit up to get in the lake as early in the year as possible to get their training in.

This thoroughly convinces me that most of you will relate to the crazies in the article below.

I grew up on the Big Island which I just returned from visiting where the ocean temperature was a perfect 69 degrees. Growing up in Hawaii, I never thought I’d grow up to be wearing a wetsuit and swimming in a lake with you crazy folks. Little did I know that there were a bunch of nut cases in the middle of paradise who took on swimming BETWEEN ISLANDS.

I was sitting on the Hawaiian airlines flight and found the in-flight magazine "Hana Hou" to actually contain one of the most fascinating articles I’ve read in a long time – The Channel Swimmers.

I've heard stories from local friends who go out fishing in the channel.  It is quite treacherous - I remember one account from a friend who said, "there's nothing like riding into the trough between the peaks of two 20' swells. The horizon disappears and all you see is water and it takes all your concentration not to soil yourself."

If you haven't guessed by now, "Lolo" in local Hawaii pidgin english (and actually a real Hawaiian word AFAIK) means "crazy".  And there are a lot of lolo pepole out there.

You know, I was never very good at playing tag.  In Hawaii we actually used to call it "chase-mastah".  I wasn't the slowest of my peers, but I was by no means the fastest and simply not the most agile. 

I guess that's carried over to the blogasphere as it's now been officially over a month since I've been tagged by alpha-mom.  Sigh.  Thanks so much Shae.

"Five things in my life that I never dreamed, when I was 25, would be in my life now."

(Ummmm... This is harder than I thought. 25 was many moons ago grasshopper.)

1. Being a "manager" at work.  I recently took a Development Manager job on a team in the Xbox Division.  I NEVER imagined there would be a day when I would not be doing hands on technical work.  I've completely gone over to the dark side.  Who's your daddy Luke?
2. Teaching kids in Sunday School that were born AFTER I graduated from High School. This was a shocking realization when I was about 29. I looked at a registration card for a first grader that had a birthdate after June of 1987.  The eighties rocked what happenend!!!
3. Having trouble finding jeans that fit. Did you know there was a point in college (at good old Purdue University) where I actually thought there was a conspiracy by all jean and dryer manufacturers to shrink all of my jeans.  Guess the jeans weren't really shrinking. I actually went shopping with Tracy for jeans today and I felt like the clueless nerd (no - not geek - nerd) with no style.  I knew I was in trouble when she giggled every time I tried something on.
4. Being on the leadership of our Church.  I was pretty much a new Christian in 1994. If you had told me about #2 above and that I would be on the leadership board of our Church, I would have certified you as officially nuts.
5. That I was actually meet someone, in our Church, that was traumatized by eating at Mun Cheung Lau in Hilo, Hawaii.   Poor alpha-mom.  She doesn't eat Chinese food to this day I believe.

That's it.  I'm sure there's more and that I could have come up with better ones.

Andy - TAG YOU'RE IT.

Well, this one is especially for Shae - alpha mom - who was scarred forever by a hole in the wall Chinese restaurant in my home town, Hilo, Hawaii.  Okay, so hole in the wall is a generous description. But hey the food was awesome and cheap if you could ignore the additional "residents" (like the one pictured to the right) crawling around the walls.  And sometimes on the floors.   And well sometimes on the tables.

I guess my bar for cuisine and ambience was a lot lower back in High School.

Anyway. There are actually great Chinese restaurants in Hilo.  And my favorite dish of all time is "Crispy Chicken with Oyster Sauce" from Lings restaurant. Oyster Chicken for short. Broke da mouth ono. Sooooo good.  The best thing about Lings is that there's a McDonalds right next to it.  So I can pick up my favorite dish and trek over to the McDonalds where the rest of the family is eating "normal" food.

So, all of you now know the fascination with my favorite local Hilo dish - Oyster Chicken. 

And you also now know the origin of my Xbox Live Gamer Tag - OysterChicken.  (And also on Battlefield2, Battlefield2142 and on Steam for counter strike and Team Fortress 2). 

So if you gamers ever get the late night munchies, remember Oyster Chicken and send OysterChicken a friend request. And watch your back and don't let the chicken frag you ;)

Our family was blessed to be able to spend three weeks with my folks who live in Hakalau on the Big Island of Hawaii.  We had a great time in spite of the rain - but we did incur one "casualty" while there.

On 12/26, we were spending the day at our favorite beach spot on the Big Island - Hapuna Beach State Park.  I was running into the ocean (envision David Hasselhoff in the opening credits of Bay Watch) and my Achilles tendon ruptured.  Ouch.  To make a long story short - we returned to Redmond and I'm recovering from surgery to repair my ruptured tendon.

But this is a blog so I think I'm supposed to talk about stuff that doesn't really matter and that will hopefully make some of you chuckle.  I learned several things about having a leg injury and about being in crutches.

1. It's amazing how quickly my leg muscle starts to atrophy.
2. Costco is a lot bigger on crutches. A LOT bigger.
3. I use half as many socks.  Good for laundry in general.
4. My foot and ankle are generally at the bottom of my body. "Duh", you say, but it becomes painfully obvious when your foot quickly swells up during recovery because of gravity.
5. Crutches were easy to get around with in the 5th grade when I weighed like 5 pounds.  Much harder now that I'm knocking on 40 and like 5000 pounds.
6. It's one of the few times a stranger will hold the door open for you, usually in the most awkward way possible.  I may have disabled a few of them with back problems.
7. All of a sudden I realized there's a general conspiracy by non-disabled people who take all of the close parking spaces near the elevator at work.  (Oh wait - that used to be me).

Sigh.  Being healthy and whole is such a blessing from God. I think that I shall not take it for granted anymore.

A more complete title for this entry should have been "Bootstrapping at the Bee".  I'm always amazed at how pervasive technology jargon has become. I don't know how many times I've cursed my PC as I sit there waiting for windows to "boot" up.  Or better yet as I wait for my beloved Battlefield 2 to boot up so I can enjoy a frag fest with friends.  I say the word without even thinking about it.  I believe my father knows what to do when I tell him to "reboot" his computer.

Well, this is my bootstrap post (finally) on my Live space. The addition of Windows Live Writer to the suite of Windows Live tools makes it pretty reasonable to maintain blog entries.  Maybe I'll make this a habit.  I hope so, but I've seen way to many stale blog articles to make me promise otherwise.

So why, "Boot at the Bee"?  Taylor was one of 3 second grade representatives from Bear Creek School at the regional spelling.  So, our family got bootstrapped into the bee in many ways. After hours and hours of practice at home, this Friday was "the day". Tracy, Taylor, and myself trekked over to West Seattle to the Shorewood Christian School, the host of the spelling bee.

Now, what is probably most interesting for you to hear about is the comedic setting.  The second grade competition had 24 participants, all of their parents, a few grandparents, some siblings, 3 judges, the spelling master, and the round keeper crammed into a class room probably designed for about... oh... 20 students total.  The officials sat at the front of the class facing the students in the first two rows of chairs, followed by 3 rows of chairs with barely enough room to scoot down the aisles for the adults.

Did I mention that I'm on crutches and in a "boot" recovering from surgery for my ruptured Achilles tendon?

And it was hot and dry in the room. With the exception of one spontaneous bloody nose (which caused us to take a break), the kids did absolutely great.  I was greatly impressed by all of them.  I think the only thing I cared about in second grade was when recess was and what I was going to do after school.  These kids were fantastic.

The parents, on the other hand, didn't fare so well.  Within a couple of rounds, you could immediately tell which parents belonged to which student.  The expressions of the few I could see (remember how crammed in we were) were absolutely to die for.  Hands clenched and squeezed spouses hands. Breaths were held.  Eyes bulged. Letters were mouthed.  And exhales of relief when the spell master said "that is correct" or looks of unconditional love and beaming pride when the inevitable "I'm sorry that's incorrect"' was uttered.

I think one day I would have to attempt to qualify to be one of the judges.  Remember, all of them are facing the students - and more importantly have a front row view looking right into the faces of the parents and loved ones.  I give kudos to all of the second grade officials for the simple fact that they were able to keep a straight face sitting right in front of the gyrations of the adults.

Taylor did great - she came in 6th out of 24. She almost made it into the top 4, all of whom received recognition and an award.  "Anthem. The band played the national anthem. Anthem" was the nemesis that tripped her up with a "um" instead of an "em".

So, back to my original point.  How pervasive is tech jargon? 

"Menu.  Cut and Paste our options on the Edit menu.  Menu"

M. E. N. U.

Aloha until next time.