Hawaii Day 2

As you can tell, I'm posting these after the fact. Hence the date being the 31st for the first couple posts.

We decided to take it easy since we have a good 15 more days to go... Kind of amazing how much time we're going to spend here. Haven't had a vacation like this since I was a kid. Haven't had a vacation like this ever in my adult life. I suppose it's about time.

We start the day with simple things like coffee and eggs. Pretty fantastic.


We decide to adventure around the island without any particular place to go. We pack up, make PB&J for lunch, and head out the door for adventure and find a flat tire.

Super right? Flat tire on our first full day of the trip. We have a decision to make. a) Call the road side assistance hot line, or b) fix the flat ourselves. I argue for B since we have no idea how long it would be for a person to come, plus I'm sure they would just change the tire for us instead of getting a new one. So we, and when I say we, I mean, I, start to change the flat. Good old Jeep has a full size spare, pretty handy really.



Francesca has the camera for about 30 minutes while I change the tire, and this is the only picture she's really proud of. Sorry. :-/


Once the flat was fixed we moved out for the day. Did I mention it's really windy on this side of the island?



We head out to the North Shore in search of Lost. Surprisingly we find The Others at a YMCA.



Francesca acts out a scene from one of the later episodes of Lost.



Apparently this is the beach they shot Lost on.



After this, we drove home and got caught in rush hour traffic. :)

Hawaii Day 1

We prepare the night before. Packing the bags, dropping the boys off at my new Father and Mother in-laws house. We also have my friend Frank drop by, he was our minister for the wedding. We had forgotten to sign all the paperwork to send in to the county in order to be legal. Francesca's parents are our witnesses.

We awake at 6:30 to get to the airport at 8. The taxi driver tells us a sob story about being picked on by the cops and has to pay big fines, etc. I fall for it, every time, and give him a big tip.

We hop on the plane, no issues. We leave this:



And land at this:


Quite a nice change. 50 degrees to 85 in only 5 hours.

We walk through the airport and grab a shuttle to the Avis rental agency. Through my dealing with Microsoft and all the travel I use to do for events I often rented from Avis, they've been good to me, and I rarely have any room to complain. I made the reservation about 3 months out, and chose a compact car, easy to maneuver, gas efficient, and low profile. We're dropped off at the counter and meet the Hawaiian woman who's assigned us a car. She's cordial, nothing over the top, which is the Hawaiian way. On the flight over, Francesca and I have been talking about how to play up our new status as newly weds. We've been told by people who've done this, to make a big deal about it, play the newly wed card as often as you can. So I suggest the Francesca play it here since she has such pretty eyes, and she does. Francesca says to the lady, "sooo, we just got married, do you have any specials for newly weds?" and the lady says's congratulations and that she doesn't have the power to do anything, we'd need to go inside to the "main" desk. I say, it's not that big of a deal and we're good with what we've got. She gives me a funny look and starts moving things around on her desk. She asks for ID and then says with a big smile, "row F, stall 76, and congratulations, have a great time." I say thanks so much, and head out to stall 76. This is what we find. A full size gas guzzling Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. I'm not sure if I should thank her or not at the time, but we do, its a nice treat, full size SUV for the price of a compact, not bad.


We head on out of Honolulu to the Hawaiian Princes Condos on the West coast of Oahu.

Here we see our view.


But I think it needs something:


Wait! Something is still missing:


That's better. :)

We retire for the evening an watch the sun set and the stars rise

Newer Beginings

I look at my last post from 2008. It's titled "new start." It was a new start. New Job, new single life, new dog. It was an eye opening and invigorating time for me. Little did I know what the new start had in store for me.

Over the intervening 3 years, things moved fast. I moved 3 times, had 4 different relationships, had 3 different jobs, and to cap stone it, bought a house and married a most amazing woman.

I pick up this blog now for no other reason than to catalog this new chapter in my life. I don't really intend to make common practice of blogging. I think it's a fad that's passed anyway. I think of it as more of a historical document floating in the ether of the web to be cataloged and occasionally dusted off by someone.

So let me begin by setting this scene, the one in which I enter these words. Beach side on Oahu Hawaii. Francesca dealing with a migraine in the bedroom of the condo we rented and me sitting on the deck looking out over a bay usually filled with sea turtles and locals. The crash of waves and the scream of kids doing their best to drown themselves in the surf. It's warm, 85 or so. It's always 85 here, almost like clockwork. The sun is being obstructed by low clouds, but it's still warm. Enough about the weather, I'm not that old yet.

Lets retrace the last several years. Starting with when I met Francesca.

Our Story from Nicholas Tucker on Vimeo.

Did you catch that? :) I know its fast, 6 frames a second for 6 minutes. The photos I don't have on here are of our wedding, only 10 short days ago, May 21st we exchanged vows and rings at Golden Gardens in Seattle, also the wedding anniversary of my grandmother and grandfather. A lovely and quick ceremony, we only had room for 120 people. We wanted to invite more, but the venue and common fiscal sense said we couldn't. So we didn't.



We left for Hawaii on the next Thursday, and that is where I will start this story.