Uncategorized – Page 18 – SarahRuthSeeks

Buzz’s Steakhouse

August 9, 2021 No Comments

To mark off another bucket list item we went to Buzz’s steakhouse, which is a quick 18 minute walk from our condo and (arguably) has an ocean view. We were too early for their dinner menu, but the small plates menu was satisfactory, and also nothing to write home about (but I guess still bloggable). The cocktails, on the other hand, were amazing. Brian and I started with Mai Tais. He had their original, which was essentially rum. I had the original with added pineapple juice to knock it down a bit.

I moved on to the coconut mojito (without mint. I know, defeats the essence of a mojito, but I don’t like mint in things). Brian had a beer.

I would 10/10 go again on a leisurely night with not much else to do, but I wouldn’t put it in my top restaurants to eat at. I do appreciate the laid back, beachy deco flare.

I almost forgot their other redeeming quality which was their key lime pie. It was amazing. Here are some pictures from the walk back.

I got the feeling someone was watching us…

Sign welcoming you to the neighborhood with an elderly lady enjoying the tradewinds, as she told us when we walked by

Surf boards are commonly used as mailbox stands

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Lanikai Pillbox Hike

August 8, 2021 No Comments

We live next to one of the most popular hikes in Oahu. In fact, we commonly encounter droves of people walking up our road to climb it. Imagine the sunrise view I get except ~1200 ft higher.

We haven’t gone on that hike… until today. I’ve still been having various health issues, but there’s a special occasion that pushed me to get this hike done (more on that in a later post).

The hike honestly wasn’t terrible. It has been really dry, so the biggest challenge is to not slip on loose soil.

There’s definitely some scrambling and it can get steep; but you have to slow down to scramble so you don’t really feel overly cardiovascularly challenged (except my poor lungs). I was more afraid about having to go back down and slipping. They do have ropes available at some (not all) dicey spots.

We of course couldn’t find our head lamps this morning *face palm* but managed to use our iPhones until enough first light was available. I am always practicing “composition”, and one really important component is leading lines. Leading lines are, if not already obvious, leading lines that direct your eye deeper into the photograph so it adds depth. I was trying to experiment with leading lines and the path. I did ok, but not like, WOW.

Here’s a photo dump.

Our condo is one of these.

“Three peaks” on the left (another popular hike) and enchanted lakes neighborhood in front.

The wind was doing something to my hair!

Overall, will I do it on my own, I think probably no. Would I do it if friends were out here or groups were doing it? Probably yes.

I got pretty nervous because it started to sprinkle and get really windy, and I let fear win and didn’t get up on the actual pillbox and started to go back down and sat on a ledge for a bit. I didn’t even grab a picture of it… Brian got on it. I am a little disappointed in myself, but the next time we do it I’ll have a little more confidence and hopefully get on it. It’s right on the edge of the cliff… so don’t judge.

Those are our condos in the background of this next photo. I actually think the first scramble isn’t that bad, and when I got at the top of that I almost chickened out, but I couldn’t do that to Brian today. Maybe I’ll just get there and take pictures to mix up my beach sunrise walks. I think for now my doggo greets, sea glass hunts, and low pressure morning walk is perfect.

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Kailua Thursday Farmer’s market

August 7, 2021 No Comments

I read a blog once that said if you are spending time in Kailua on a Thursday, skip any restaurant and go to the Kailua Farmer’s Market. I am here to confirm this is 100% the best recommendation.

It’s half in a parking lot, half in a parking garage and has a significant number of food/goods vendors. The lines were long but moved quickly.

I had to commit to something… so I picked a Portuguese cheese bread and three empanadas from these two vendors and a couple brownies from another. The empanadas were OUT OF THIS WORLD. I am not sure how I’m not going to get those every time.

My friend got Falafel from the middle eastern place, which I sampled and also thought was delicious.

The biggest and most disappointing part of this is there isn’t really any public seating… so next time I think I’d bring my lawn chairs and set up camp in the parking lot and enjoy the music and eat.

Instead, we took it back to my friend’s apartment, which is a short walk, and ate it on her Lanai.

But I can’t enjoy the ice cream for dessert that way! This is a Thursday must go for me now. I’m still dreaming of the empanadas.

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Easy ‘Que

August 2, 2021 No Comments

We had an easy day today due to my late night conference working. We moseyed on to Brunch around 9:30am and tried Easy ‘Que. We’ve been here for dinner and it was really good.

I had corn cakes with egg and pork with lilikoi iced tea and Brian had a burrito. Both were delicious and we’d definitely come back here. I had to try all the sauces even though I knew the molasses would be my favorite.

Brian was pleasantly surprised how good having BBQ for brunch was; it wasn’t overly BBQ-y.

I’ve mentioned there are Hei Hei’s all over Hawaii. These chickies have discovered delicious crumbs await inside the restaurant, but he better watch out.

They have a bruleed banana pudding waffle that we’ll have to return to try.

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Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum

August 2, 2021 No Comments

I am on a medicine that recommends limiting sun exposure (thanks UTI). We decided it might be a great afternoon to do something indoors. I joined the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum as a member after my friend told us it’s a really great museum. We could probably get in for free, but the member rate was great and we get tickets to share with family or friends. I think that museums could use a lot of help right now.

The museum is inside one of the original hangars that existed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. You can see bullet holes in the sides. It’s on what is called Ford Island which is only accessible with a DOD ID unless you take the shuttle from the Pearl Harbor visitor center.

I enjoyed learning more about the attack by reading the panels, but it was sometimes hard to fully understand things (I get that they can only cover so much). So I look forward to going back for a guided tour at some point. I really liked the plaques that talk about the planes story. Some of them were sold off to be re-used and made their way back to the museum. Others, like this, weren’t original but were repainted to be close. The museum person told me that they painted the propellers black to “hide” more. They do the same to submarines. 😉

It’s obviously closely related to the battleships getting hit as well, so to the right you see a piece of the Arizona. In the back is a Japanese war plane.

Here are some other planes; you’ll have to visit to hear the story behind all of them!

I’m not really sure the point of the motorcycle; we didn’t spend the whole time here and decided we didn’t have to do it all in one day, but nonetheless it was a cool picture.

The whole attack lasted two hours; I can’t imagine that. There were fun stories about Japanese getting stranded on a remote island and a couple about submarines. Overall lots of sad and heroic stories to read about.

On the outside is the old radio tower. Apparently they are working on opening this up for tours soon too! Brian wanted me to take a picture of it because it’s what he calls a “Nav Aid” (navigation). Essentially, he uses this as a visual aid to steer the submarine into port (no, submarines aren’t self driving yet).

It used to also house the fire station, so yes here’s a close up of the old truck.

Looking forward to going back for a guided tour and to check out more. There is a whole additional hangar with more planes we didn’t get to. We’ve both been feeling worn out so wanted to make a quick excursion.

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Golf lessons at Klipper

August 1, 2021 No Comments

I signed up to take golf lessons at Klipper Golf Course, the golf course on Marine Corps Base which is supposed to have the best views. I’ve only had two lessons so far and we’ve used the putting green both times which is kinda away from the ocean. The KOSC (Kbay officer spouse club) set them up and there are five of us taking them.

We were learning how to chip today, on day 1 we learned how to putt.

He told us to focus much more on our swing than where the ball was going, which makes sense. My goal is to know enough that if I were ever invited to do a tournament, play with friends, or when my parents come out here I could at least hold my own and have an idea of what I’m doing. Jon’s a great teacher! There’s a lot to the game.

I’m glad I committed to taking this, it’s been a fun Saturday morning excursion that I think will prove valuable. I don’t imagine spending a ton of money on this, it seems we’ve been spending a lot of money on hobbies as of late, but who knows. I am wearing Brian’s MIT polo because I don’t have any collared shirts. I am going to buy one just to have.

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Story time

July 31, 2021 No Comments

Backstory. I’ve made mention of my subwife friend on here a few times. She was with us at SOAC in CT, then her husband stationed in Hawaii with us now. She was renting a short term rental from another sub family in Kaneohe and recently moved to a more permanent location. Her old landlord had brought her some limes from her tree, but had too many so she shared with me.

Fast forward to Wednesday. There was an event held by the Marine Corps officer spouses club (Kaneohe Officer Spouse Club, KOSC) (all officer spouse groups tend to co-mingle and allow other branch wives to join in). It was bingo night at the O-Club (officer’s club, a restaurant on base that, in theory, only officers (and their families) and above are allowed at. I offered to bring a prize for one of the rounds, which was a glass from Tiki’s, two rum nips, a small can of orange and pineapple juice, and a lime that Caitlyn had brought me.

I entered this big, restaurant room they had reserved with three or four large tables and took a seat at what was probably the head table (the chairs and bingo ball puller person(?) was there). Two women sat near me, one next and one across. It was quickly revealed that we were all Navy wives (we somehow find each other) and the one next to me was a subwife. She had told me that I looked familiar, and I kinda brushed it off because I hadn’t really met anyone yet at any events and everyone in subs starts to look familiar. So we both sat on it. She told me she lived in Kaneohe, and had been there for a while (6+ years). Kaneohe was where my friend was renting, and her landlord had been there a while. After a long delay, my brain has been fried from work, the thought occurred to me they must know each other, so I turned to her and asked her “Do you know the Jones’?” (name changed). She look across at her friend, who is about to bust out laughing, and turns to me and says “I am the Jones’!!” and we all erupted in laughter.

A little while later, someone wins my prize and I tug on her shirt and say, “Do you know where that lime came from? Your tree!” And we laughed again.

She had been inviting my friend to Thursday night booze cruises on their boat docked at Kaneohe Yacht Club. I had brought up a conversation my friend, her husband, and I had had about their boat and if it was a sail boat or motor or what. She took this to mean I was trying to nudge at getting invited to one of these, and that wasn’t the case at all, I had truly completely forgot that was a thing. Regardless, she told me to come tomorrow (Thursday) on their boat booze cruise. And if there’s anything that’s going to make me feel at home, it’s a boat booze cruise.

I was kinda caught up in the moment, so I didn’t get any pictures of their actual boat except one, but it is a house boat of sorts. There’s a below deck with two bedrooms and two bathrooms and small living area. They have a deck and front walkabout. We took it out, “chased” the sailboats for their weekly Thursday night race, got rained on, and moseyed on back to the dock. It was SO picturesque and I really enjoyed photographing regardless of the rainy weather. This is the same bay we went to the sandbar on Saturday.

This first picture is of me on the front walkabout before it started raining. I didn’t bring a towel to wipe my lens again. Face palm.

The next set of pictures are them on their way out. Lots of sailboat pictures, it was so fun to photograph!

You can see the heavy rain we’re about to get hit with in this next one.

And on their way back in.

Brian was on duty last night and even if he wasn’t he probably wouldn’t get home early enough to come. I am so thankful he is a really supportive husband of me going out and doing things on my own. I’m harder on myself about it than he is. I almost feel a little guilty, and I also just know he’d love doing it with me. I married him because I love spending time and doing these types of things with him. I remind myself this won’t last forever.

He just got home, so we get to eat dinner!

Oh, one last thing, we caught the Marine Corps practicing search and rescue drills.

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Sarah’s Work

July 27, 2021 No Comments

I get asked a lot if I am able to work in Hawaii and what it’s like, so my intention is to shed some light on what I’m up to.

I left my job at Conformis in 2019, my last day at work was the day Brian proposed. I worked my way up from being a CAD engineer to Lead MES (Manufacturing Execution System) engineer over the course of 7 years. That role meant that I was sole owner of the manufacturing automation system; the maintenance, the projects for updates, upgrades, it was a lot. The factory worked 24/7. I didn’t have anyone else to help, and if I were to go on vacation the only way I was completely off the hook was if I was out of cell service range. There is a lot that goes into leaving a job, but it came down to no longer wanting all that stress on my shoulders, particularly for the amount of money they were paying me (70k for 24/7 availability was not enough). I also had no where to go promotion wise.

In comes NECI, which reached out to me via a recruiting company on LinkedIN. Their interview process was what really gave me confidence I was going to the right place. The interview was tough, and I knew it would take decent quality people to get through it. It also gave me the opportunity to go from working inside a facility to consulting on projects as the outside vendor, more opportunities for promotion, less 24/7 availability, and more take home… on the order of 30k more.

Two years later and I am very happy with my decision. When I was working in Cambridge, NECI opened a remote office there for me and a couple people to take advantage of. It was a five minute walk from home. Then we went remote because of COVID and I’ve been able to be remote ever since. Currently I work Hawaii hours, but I start at 7am after my sunrise walks, so it’s decently early. That’s noon EST.

It’s been working nicely with my current project, because by the time they sort out the details and hand the work over to me, I have about 6 hours of work I can get done before I hand it back to them for review. My day to day currently is working with a company called ElevateBio who partners with researchers who want to learn more about gene therapies to cure things like Alzheimers. I use a software (Syncade) that records data, shows step text, collects signatures, calculates, and does a whole host of other things through a step by step process. This used to be, and still is, done on paper in some places. So I worked on building Elevate’s process into this Syncade so that an operator can just click buttons and sign off and get calculations and data collected.

This project is coming to an end for me shortly, and I’m moving on to a project that is working with this data to present it in a manageable, readable format. I’m not entirely excited about that, it’s something I had to do at Conformis and there were a million people who had a billion views on what data should look like or what data we should be looking at, but it’s something new and data is the new “in” thing so I’m sure it’ll be valuable for my career.

They very generously offered unlimited PTO this year, so people could take some extra time after a pandemic year with so much stress, which I value tremendously and used a lot to travel from Connecticut to Hawaii. I’m hoping they keep this for another year.

In the meantime, I offered to support Conformis as a contractor. They took me up on that offer and paid me $90/hr (there’s a lesson there, somewhere). So I worked to train a new hire for them that was replacing me. For a lot of reasons this training has continued to the present time. However, after Brian telling me multiple times I work too much (particularly when I was recovering from COVID) and me just realizing it’s probably the better for the both of us, I am ending that relationship in the coming month. I also want to be able to enjoy Hawaii while we’re here. It’s one thing to work extra in gray boring Connecticut during a pandemic, and another in beautiful Hawaii. I’m not sure if I’ll miss the extra money, but I certainly won’t miss the extra stress.

I also work for TED. This originated back when I was desperately paying off my student loans. It’s really basic, I answer customer service emails (Yes, if you write into contact@ted.com, I’ll be the one answering the email if it’s the weekend. No one’s ever taken me up on that, though). It’s not usually more than 4 hours on the weekend which I fit in while watching a movie or watching football etc. They’re also really chill and don’t need me, so if I don’t work a weekend or two they are very ok with that. I also work customer service for their conferences, so this coming week I’ll be online helping out with behind the scenes stuff. They pay $15/hr. In the budget in my head, I use this to pay for way more than it can actually pay for. I’m not really sure why I do it still, but my colleagues are fun and it has certainly improved my customer service voice and ability to deal with people. They love that I’m in Hawaii because the conference is in California and I can cover the late late hours. (I start working at 5pm my time).

And finally, I’ve made a little money taking photos! Who knows where that goes.

So, yes, I still get to work while in Hawaii and it’s Hawaii hours. It can be a little lonely. I do often joke with Brian that if someone offered me a full time job teaching people to snorkel (is that even a thing?) I wouldn’t say no. I am the envy of a lot of military families to be in the position I’m in, and I try to remember that when I am looking outside at the adventures that await me.

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Gender reveal and Kaneohe Bay Sandbar

July 26, 2021 No Comments

Friends of ours are having a baby in December and invited us for gender reveal cake cutting and pontoon boat to the Kaneohe Bay Sandbar. You can rent Pontoon boats from the Marine Corps base (another reason I love them.) You need to get your license first, which I am going to a “hands on” course in a couple weeks for. There was a rainbow right as we started!

It’s a girl! (There’s a theory that submariners only have girls because they are around men all day and their bodies believe the world needs to be populated with more females. I think there’s an actual study going on about this).

Then we took the boat to the sandbar, it was low tide so some parts were uncovered. Behind me is the island Mokoli’i, aka Chinaman’s hat. I feel like I need a crash course in posing.

The dog (Kylo) had ZERO fun…

Neither did the humans

The water coloring gradient is unreal and something you just need to experience in real life, but here’s the best I could do.

Saw a hydrofoil and a bunch of turtles

There were plenty of other people who had the same idea, but this sandbar is massive so it’s like you’re not near anyone.

We rented it from 8am-12 noon. Which gives you 8:30-11:30am at the bar, and I thought that was plenty of time. I think the cost is $80. And we’re on our way back!

It was on and off rain most of the morning, but we made the most of it. It’s just kinda part of life and it’s not like we aren’t wet already anyway. The hardest thing was keeping my lens dry, which I’ll do a better job of bringing a specific lens towel next time and keeping it dry. This last picture is a bit fuzzy because of my wet lens. We can’t wait to do it again!

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Sunrise and Breakfast 24July21

July 25, 2021 No Comments

Believe it or not, prior to today Brian had never joined me on my sunrise walks. Well, he joined for his first on the worst sunrise I’ve seen so far. Ha. We have a hurricane passing us by and it’s been rainy/cloudy/windy of and on for the last week it feels.

I walked by one of the usuals that I am starting to be friendly with and said “I have a husband” and he said “good you have some adult supervision now”. I laughed. I always think of the wittiest things to say after, but I should’ve said “Shhh don’t let on to our secret sunrise parties”.

We tried a new breakfast place and got takeout. Moke’s Bread and Breakfast. I had the pancakes with an “amazing passion fruit” spread. It was delicious. Passion Fruit is known as Lilikoi here and will often be advertised as such. Brian had an omelet.

I will be back for their stuffed hashbrowns.

As for the rest of the day, Brian took three naps. I took two and fit in a golf lesson at the Marine Corps Base Klipper golf course the Marine Corps Base spouse club organized. It was a crazy week for the both of us. The first lesson was putting. It was really awesome, and I look forward to being able to play a round when my parents visit. The views are supposed to be phenomenal, but I could be un-phased because I’m so used to them by now.

We then went to church and a 10th anniversary/new hale (house warming) party after. The family is a sub family that is also Catholic and I’ve received a lot of help from her for little things during this transition. Her father is a deacon at our church. It was great to meet another sub family there as well, and I look forward to interacting with them more.