time is on my side

This very day last year I was in Dublin, Ireland with a great group of friends. Lizzie, Bill, Chaz, Geeble and myself flew from Philadelphia to Dublin and met up with Jim Stem (who was on leave from Iraq), Sull (she flew over from philly as well) and Michelle, Courtney and Dove (they were all studying abroad in Rome).









Twas a long flight to Ireland, but when we finally got there we were all itching for a Guinness. After meeting up with each other, some of us having not seen a friend, let alone a large group of friends for over 5 months and the others for just a few, it was a nice little reunion, and it was only obvious that we should go to a pub immediately... Even if it was 9:30 in the morning. And to the pub we went. First round was on Bildo. It was something he's always talked about long before any of us realized we'd be meeting up at a pub in Ireland. He always promised he would buy the first round of beers for whoever was with him on his first trip to the mother land.

I was two or three beers in when I did my first shot of Jameson and Jimmy Boy decided to violently shake me. It was 10:30AM, Friday morning, on the 16th of November in 2007 when I first puked my guts up in Ireland. All I remember thinking was "Well, that's just great." Next thing I knew I was drinking another Guinness to cure my illness.

The first couple of days in Dublin are still a blur. I remember visiting the Guinness Brewery and the Jameson Distillery. The distillery was where I got to hang out with my two true loves.










My best friend & sister, Michelle, and my companion & cheer-me-upper, Jameson Irish Whiskey.

When walking upon the "gates of heaven" we all stood back to allow Bildo have his moment of glory. It was as if Christ himself appeared.







Bildo dropped to his knees and kissed the ground in front of him. He truly was experiencing his version of heaven on earth.




One thing Michelle & I always talked about is how we'd eventually go our separate ways in life. No matter where we ended up we always thought it would be super cool to meet up in Dublin for a cold pint. We finally made a dream come true. And we didn't just meet up for one cold pint... we had a trail of cold pints waiting for us!

There's more to this story, so, stay tuned.

big me to talk about it

Well, it's been quite some time. Apologies to those who like reading this to pass those boring moments during your days.


Phillies finally won! 2008 World Champions! I'm not sad that I'm so far from home either. Think about it... in twenty years when I'm telling my kids about my first World Series I get to say that I was living in Hawaii. I think that's pretty awesome.

In other awesome news, Obama! I'm pretty stoked to be able to say I voted for the first black president of the united states. Sorry McCain:















I originally took off 3 days of work because I was going to try to fly home for the series, but that didn't work out as planned. I ended up having a great long weekend here though. We did some major grillin', watched the Phillies win, lose & win win win, drank some beers and relaxed.

Last Monday was supposed to be Dan's last day on Maui for a good while. I figured with him out of the house I'd get to cook Erik a nice dinner, only Dan ended up crashing it! It was really no big deal. I actually offered him to crash it. Besides, look how delicious everything ended up looking:

I started dinner with a fresh salad with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, & peppers. And I cooked chicken parmesan. I made my own sauce with a bunch of veggies & garlic. Everything turned out perfectly. As you can see, Dan was happy:

Erik totally ruined dinner because he had gotten bit by a small doggie earlier that afternoon. Apparently his boo-boo hurt so much he wanted the doctor to look at it that night. Luckily for him, Hawaii is free of rabies.

On Tuesday Erik & I drove the back roads to Lahaina. We stopped to check out this crazy blowhole. Every time the ocean crashed into the shore it looked like a geiser was shooting out of the ground. It was really cool looking. We didn't bring a camera down to get a shot though. We also saw this huge giraffe!

Erik has more pictures on his camera, but he hasn't uploaded them yet.


In other events, my manager and I wanted to split a burger from Jack In The Box because they're so huge. Unfortunately we didn't have a knife to cut it. However, when you mix my brain cells with Maile's braincells this is what you get:


I've been working 9 days straight as of right now & I'm really tired. Oh, before I go, I know some of you are wondering who Erik is and what he looks like. He's an alcoholic pilot & he looks like this:

i'll stick around and learn from all that came from it

QUICK UPDATE!

Rainbows are still awesome. Especially when you see them from beginning to end like this one:












I'm the only customer service agent that hangs out at the hangars with the mechanics. It's only cause my roommate is the Director of Maintenance for our airline & I usually wait around to get a lift home. I have lots of fun when I'm over there and I don't know why. Anyways, here are Sam & Kris putting the new logo on our aircraft (Tsunami 4) as seen in the following photo. Pacific Wings has two newer airlines up on the mainland. In New Mexico we have New Mexico Airlines & in Georgia we have Georgia Skies. Tsunami 4 is going to Georgia Skies obviously.


Last Sunday a few of us from work went to Erik's house for a pool/bbq day. Stacey brought her daughter Rylee and I hung out in the pool with Rylee.


We all had a fun & relaxing day.




Last night I went out to dinner with Erik & then we went to Mama's Fish House for some drinks. This place is amazing & super expensive, but probably totally worth every penny. All I had was a drink called the "Relaxer" and it tasted like a chocolate milkshake miracle with coconut shavings. I can only imagine what the food tastes like.

In other news, Phillies won Game 1 of the series. I should be home for this, but I'm kind of feeling like they might lose if I go home. I just can't believe the first time I leave Philly & my favorite sports team finally makes it to the series with an excellent chance of winning the whole thing.

every thing we did was wrong but we did it anyway

At work we've switched our BBQ days to Monday...it just works better with everyone's schedule. We also switched beaches. We now go over to Kanaha Beach Park which is a lot closer to the airport & way easier for all of us to get to. It's more of a park where we hang out. There's picnic benches and water faucets for hoses and such. If you walk about 50 feet into the trees it'll open up to the beach & ocean. The trees are really neat looking. Standing very tall & looking similar to palm trees (only with longer leaves drooping over each other & giving off a gloomy feel) it almost feels like you're in another part of the world. Not like Maui doesn't already succeed in that! My manager has two little boys & my co-worker Stacey has a little girl. They call these woods the Dinosaur Forest. Every Monday I bring all three kids back there and we run around looking at "dinosaur bones," (photo #1) and we look at "dinosaur foot prints" which is actually just a butt print from the chickens cooling off in the shade. We'll also find the occasional 'lost sandal' which obviously means that person was dinosaur lunch.

As you can tell, I like my Mondays at the Dinosaur Forest.

This past weekend was pretty fun. Friday night I just had a couple drinks at a local bar with a friend from work. Saturday we grilled, drank lots of beer & played beer pong all night. We then went swimming in the ocean at about 1:30am, worked up an appetite and went to Denny's at like 2:30am.

Sunday a friend (Erik's a pilot at work) and I went hiking up in Waihe'e Valley. I've never been up to Waihe'e before, but I've heard about the swinging bridges (photo #2) and was pretty interested in checking it out. We had a little hike before going swimming in a little pool of water. At the pool there was a huge banyan tree (photo #3) that I wanted to climb...so I climbed up the roots towards the top. In the middle of the tree was a huge hole that dropped down to the water about 12 feet below. The hole was super wide at the top, but narrowed down as it went towards the bottom. How do I know that? Oh, well, because I fell down that hole and scraped the skin off the left side of my body between my ass and my shoulder. Yep. I wasn't in pain, but I was more shocked that I almost plunged to my death. Not really my death, but you know.

TRIVIA: The Banyan Tree is a tree that is frequently seen on the tv show LOST.

After my near-death experience (Grandmom, I'm only exaggerating!), we continued on our hike towards another pool of water with a dam creating a small waterfall (photo #4) . We jumped off the left side of the dam into the water fall. The water is maybe 12-15 feet deep right and the current from the waterfall really pulls you under. The background drop for right where we were at that dam was just beautiful. Looking back really far you can see a huge waterfall that's said to be about 400something feet (photo #5) . It doesn't look quite as magnificent from where we were standing, but I imagine being up and close is a surreal experience.

After our adventures up in Waihe'e, Erik & I went to a sushi bar. I've eaten sushi before, but never like this. It's sort of like a conveyor belt zipping past you with differents plates of sushi for your own pickings. I don't know what the hell I was eating last night, but everything tasted good. Even the thing I ate with tentacles & the fish that still had eyeballs. I love that I'm not a picky eater. Another pilot from work, David & his girlfriend Melissa met up with us at the sushi bar. We all went to an arcade called the Fun Factory afterwards. We won lots of tickets and gave them to some little kid.

Today is Columbus Day. Columbus bypassed Hawaii though so they don't celebrate. Instead it's called Discoverer's Day. More of a recognition to James Cook who found the coordinates to the islands & told the world about the existance of the hawaiians. All city & state offices do not regard either Columbus/Discoverer's Day as an official holiday; therefore, all offices are open as if it were a regular Monday. However, federal offices are closed because, well, believe it or not, Hawaii is still a state in the US of A.

sweet smell before the rain

I'm alive.


Friday night there was a 49 year old's birthday party. Classic rock, Jameson's & lots of people. I wasn't impressed & I would have been more satisfied laying around on my couch watching scrubs reruns.

Saturday I watched the Phillies give up a game to the Brewers. I then tried explaining baseball to my filipino roommate. She still didn't get it. I don't see how baseball is a hard sport to understand. Saturday night I went to the Maui County Fair with a friend. He never had funnel cake before & I made him try it. Obviously, he loved it. We played a bunch of games and he won some prizes while I lost a lot. We also went on a couple rides before realizing we're old and get nauseous on all the cool rides. So we pulled the safe card and kept going on the swings.

Sunday morning I woke up at 6:30AM. Phils came on at 7AM so I was drinking coffee & bailey's & watching the game while waiting to be picked up for a Hana roadtrip. The road to Hana has been making me sick to my stomache lately, but it's worth it. I went up with a few friends from work, Andrew, Erik & Andrew's brother Phil. We went exploring in the caves and found more air pockets, but none of us had enough gear to actually go explore more. Next time we'll bring more flashlights, masks & maybe some tanks to breathe under water.

All in all, it was a really great weekend.

fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round

GO PHILS!


This weekend is going to be wild & crazy. If I don't update by Monday it means I didn't survive. I wish Jackie was here for this weekend.

too deep now to ever swim against the current

Today is the last day of September of 2008. I don't have much to say right now.

I've been out of commission again with something I've never had before. It feels like my chest is caving in...sort of making it hard to breathe. On top of that I had a migraine for a straight week. Thankfully I woke up yesterday without the raging pain in my head, but still the weird feeling in my chest.

Here are some pictures I've been promising:

This was girls night in Lahaina.



Here we are drinking...


...and deciding what to eat!


Lauren's going away party & the bungalow.


I didn't need to shove the cake in her face cause, well, she did it herself.


Me & my homegirrrrl, Lauren!


Alyssa sporting her demon face & me being oblivious to demon face.


"COME ON BABY, DO THE LOCOMOTION!"