I snuck away from work for the sunrise today, big surprise no one missed me. I just got back for a walk around 4pm to pick up trash and made a mistake before leaving. Rule 1 of Hawaii: Always wear sunscreen Rule 2: If you think you don’t need sunscreen because it’s past 3pm, see Rule 1. Hopefully I have enough of a base layer that it won’t be too bad tomorrow.
I saw this lovely Sandcastle, the biggest I’ve seen yet.
And tried to grab a selfie with my full trash bag and plumeria tree to redeem the mood. Have you ever tried to take a selfie with a full trash bag and a plumeria tree in the background? If you haven’t because you would think it a crazy idea, you’re correct.
I get a few thank you’s and thumbs up when I’m doing this. Today, a lady said “It is both sad and heartwarming that I see you do that” and that’s a pretty good summation.
Dad had his hip surgery today and all went well. He was able to call me after surgery. Tomorrow he needs to be able to walk and walk up a step to go home. I am pretty confident with his ego will he will.
Last night I dreamt that I had another sub family visit us and as soon as they settled in I started balling to the wife about how hard it is to be a subwife and she basically said “Yup, suck it up”. Which is NOT her personality at all. It really truly isn’t all that awful right now, but still funny I dreamt it.
Sunrise walks are taking a hiatus while I am on backup to the backup to the backup for this manufacturing run. If they end early they’ll hopefully tell us. Otherwise, see you next week sunrise.
We had a pretty busy, but low key 4th. We started with running the Run the Runway 5k at 6:45, which is put on by the Marine Corps base by us. We ran all the way up one side of the runway and all the way back down the other. The race organizer said to “chase the ocean then chase the mountains”. Chasing the ocean was far harder because of the wind. Chasing the mountains was prettier and included a rainbow (my second sighting).
Chasing the oean
Chasing the mountains
My time was significantly better than the last one, 38 minutes vs 48. Still a long ways to go from my sub 30 minute time. I did feel like it was more my legs than my breath preventing me from running faster, which is a huge improvement. Lungs are still not back to 100% operational. I ran it with Brian and a friend Caitlyn.
We went and got breakfast from Morning Brew and I grocery shopped to make this black bean and mango salad to bring to a BBQ later. The friends hosting had it at their last BBQ and it contained peppers. My friends is allergic to nightshades, so she was really excited to try it until she realized there were some in it. As a surprise I made it again nightshade free, until I realized when we got there I had put diced jalapeños in it (ugh!). But she continually exposes herself to nightshades in low doses so she won’t become deathly allergic and they weren’t that dense in the salad so she ate it anyway and did fine.
Then Mrs. Eng came over and we went swimming in Lanikai with her pup, Hudson, who is turning 1 year in a couple weeks. He does NOT like the water. He was very hot and she was trying to work on exposing him, so in he went.
It was unfortunately on and off rain pretty much all day and very windy. It was *kinda* cold to be swimming. We didn’t stay too long. We came back and as we were cleaning up I stepped on a bee and was stung. That hurt pretty good and my toes swelled. Thankfully now it’s merely wicked itchy. After I recovered we cooked and ate pizza and after she left we took a pretty long nap.
Then we went to our friends place for the BBQ turned into fireworks watching. They are up on a hill overlooking a valley. Again it was rainy and cloudy, so thankfully we were under the roof cover but viewing the fireworks show at the Marine Corps Base was less than ideal.
Back to front Chip, Caitlyn’s leg, Dan, Jess, BrianMarine Base fireworks were hazy
This was my first crack at photographing fireworks. I understand the philosophy of being in the moment and just watching vs. trying to photograph and missing being in the moment. However, this was more about learning the technique and having some fun experimenting. I probably won’t photograph every firework, but this was a cool experiment. I improved as the night went on.
Those close fireworks were lit off from inside the neighborhood. Fireworks in Hawaii are illegal… They are in MA as well, but you need a mere adventure over the border to NH to get around that one. Word on the street is in Hawaii you make friends with guys working in the shipping yards. Brian and I aren’t enthusiastic about checking out that theory.
We slept in really late today (7:45, ha) and I am “working” this morning. I am the backup to the backup to the backup for a manufacturing run. I need to be within 5 minutes of my work computer from 2am-11am and have my phone on in case I get a call. So I am here writing and Brian left to go try to pick up the SUP we bought. By try I mean I threw out the receipt, so hopefully they acknowledge it was him who bought it, and hopefully he can get it on top of the Venza strapped ok.
I bet you couldn’t read that title without say “doo doo doo doo doo doo” after. You’re welcome.
Brian wanted me to take a picture of his new car ornament, presumably so I could post about it… he even made sure the shot I took was with the ocean in the background.
Today’s highlights included Brian buying a paddle board and having a ukulele play in Church. I bought a paddle board as well, but the woman isn’t leaving for a couple weeks and wanted to use it for a little bit longer, so I put a deposit on it.
I think this is the last post that I need to do to “catch up”.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the Arizona Memorial . It’s a “floating” memorial located between the main Island of Oahu and Ford Island and on top of the sunken USS Arizona. Ford Island is home to very high ranking Navy officials, as well other fun things like the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum and the Battleship Missouri Museum.
The only way to access Ford Island is if you have base access or travel via official museum bus via the Pearl Harbor Museum center. Brian and I had some time to kill between delivering a meal to his XO’s family who just had a baby and meeting with Ty and Megan in Honolulu, so I asked to explore Ford Island by car.
You can get a pretty neat view of the Arizona Memorial from Ford Island, especially with the mountains of Oahu in the background.
I didn’t realize the Arizona was as big, if not bigger, than the USS Missouri. It’s hard to imagine that huge of a ship sunken in water that close to shore.
To the left where you see cranes is actually the shipyard where Brian’s boat is currently.
We were just perusing, but we’ll definitely go back sometime for all the sites. Tickets are currently booking out a month in advance. I think they accomodate up to 1,000 people on a walk in basis? I don’t remember where I saw that. Also looking forward to visiting the USS Bowfin Museum (obviously). I’ve joined the Aviation Museum as a member and have heard really good things about it. I’m really loving that we can take our time to do things and wait until after tourist season. What I don’t love is it’s great weather almost every day and who wants to go to a museum in great weather? I think that there will be rainy days… so I’m told.
Brian is on duty tonight. I organized the entire master bath and cleaned the bedroom… A friend is coming over tonight to try pizza on the grill.
I told myself when I started this blog I wouldn’t make every post perfect or have the most exciting, thrilling post and pictures. So here’s a non-thrilling one I felt compelled to write.
Brian is on duty tonight, which means he is sleeping on the submarine. I joke with him that it’s my night to go out on the town and by that I mean go to the gym, beach and commissary… which I do three nights a week anyway. He is on duty 2x week for the foreseeable future. There is a really huge push to get the engineering side of the boat ready to leave shipyard, so they are all working hard on that and Brian has to pull more of the every day weight. When Brian’s orders changed from being a weps to a nav, he (and many of our submarine friends) said he wouldn’t have a lot of work to do because, well, the boat can’t navigate anywhere in the shipyard. Well, that my friends was fake news. Brian is very busy and working long hours. And when he’s not, he’s tired. It’s taking some getting used to but we’re managing. A lot of people say that at least he comes home regularly, and that is very true.
I took a two hour nap today, I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been waking up really early and not doing the best at sleeping early enough, or if I’m still recovering from COVID. After that, I mustered up the energy to go to the gym at the marine corps base and the commissary.
I get asked a bit about prices here. I get to shop on base, so that automatically makes things a bit cheaper. I am not the best person to ask about this, so the next time I get a receipt I’ll post it and you can be the judge. I spent a really long time and a ton of effort in paying off my student loan debt so that I didn’t have to penny pinch and pay attention to grocery prices. I’ve also lived in metro Boston for the last ten years. That being said, if my yogurt was $20 a tub I’d probably take notice. So today I saw this:
And I’m pretty sure that’s a bit above what I’d pay in MA or CT.
I did the thing where I wrote an essay before the recipe that is basically irrelevant to the recipe, but since this isn’t a recipe blog I think it’s fine. I did some meal prepping tonight and made pizza dough and a salad.
I haven’t made this recipe in forever, like since before dating Brian, and for no good reason at all except that maybe I got sick of it and then forgot about it. It’s very versatile and can be used as a dip/side. I learned about it from my friend Kris’s sister. I do not make claim to this recipe, and if you find it on the internet I am happy to cite it… I haven’t been able to. Also, that’s Pat the Spatula and he makes a great housewarming/Mother’s day gift.
Ingredients for the dressing:
1/3 cup veggie oil
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar (I usually use a lot less, go for your own taste)
Mix in a small sauce pan to start to dissolve the sugar. Bring to boil. Turn off heat and remove from heat.
Ingredients inside (super customizable, I like the balance of sweat and bland/starchy with this set):
Two medium green peppers, chopped
Half a red onion, chopped
White/Yellow canned corn
Garbanzo beans
Black Eyed Peas
Pinto Beans
Combine in a bowl. You should make it a day ahead to let things marinate and allow the dressing to cool. What I love: There’s very minimal prep. It’s got tons of healthy ingredients. It can be a dip or a side by itself. It lasts for ~4 days and tastes better the second day. Can easily double/adjust ingredients, hard to screw up. Most of the ingredients are easily kept in the pantry.
If you make it, please let me know what you think!
I brought my new lens with me for my sunrise walk, which zooms in really far, which is great but not for landscapes. I wanted to switch things up and I haven’t really had an opportunity to try it yet. It didn’t come out terrible, but I certainly can’t get the framing that I love.
However, I was able to zoom in to show you the amount of people you can expect at the top of the pillbox hike taking in this view. Apparently I need to work on my focus.
I will attempt the hike soon. I’ve had more trouble breathing the last few days than normal, I’m not sure why… but that’s kinda how it goes with this.
