I feel old

Episode 1:

Watching my boys pulling the vitamins out of the bottle of Flintstones and asking, "Who is this one Mommy?" My boys don't know who the characters are in the Flintstones???

Episode 2:

We have an old FM radio in our office to provide some background noise. Today I was walking through the office and heard "Stand" by R.E.M. on the radio. It'd been a while since I had heard the song, and I started enthusiastically singing along. When it dawned on me that I was the only one in the office singing along with the radio, a sudden horrible thought occurred to me. I have a young lieutenant who works for me (he's been in the Navy a little over 2 years, so he's probably about 23 years old, so he was probably born about 1985).

I turned and asked him, "Do you know who sang this song?"

LTJG: "Uhhhh... wasn't this like some one-hit-wonder band?"

Me: "AAAAARRRRRRRRGH!!!!"

Dude...

It's

R

E

M

for cryin' out loud!

Pfft! One hit wonder...

It's the End of the World (as We Know It)?

Losing My Religion?

Orange Crush?

I am Superman?

The One I Love?

Harborcoat?

Pretty Persuasion?

Radio Free Europe?

Driver 8?

Man on the Moon?

Everybody Hurts?

Then again... I was just browsing the REM videos on YouTube. Between the fact that there is an REM performance on the Johnny Carson show and seeing the clothes people in the audience were wearing in some of the other videos, it quickly became apparent that this is probably just a generational difference and I shouldn't hold it against my young lieutenant.

Big Island - Part 3

Observation du jour.

Giving a 7 year old and a 4 year old each their own package of Tic Tacs at the beginning of a 4 hour car ride and telling them not to eat them all is sort of like dumping an entire container of fish food in the fish tank and telling the fish not to eat it all at once.

Music in my head.

Yesterday, as we drove through the volcanic desolation coming south on Rt. 11 away from the volcano, I kept getting the song "Wasteland" by the Mission U.K. stuck in my head.

We spent almost the entire day at the pool today. ES and I took a break in the middle to rent a "peek-a-boo" kayak (with a window in the bottom to see the fish) and went kayaking in the bay for half an hour. It was really cool, but not very conducive to getting photographs of what you saw. After we saw something cool, it would swim out of our field of view before we could aim the camera. We did see two sea turtles, a bunch of tropical fish and coral though.

ES watching the fish through the window.

The view between my legs.

ES's picture of Daddy
(see me paddling in the reflection in my sunglasses)

Like father like son.
ES's self-portrait.

Anyway, getting back to my "music in my head" topic... The sky has been hazy and gray all day from the vog, although it's been sunny (YB's rosey red cheeks can attest to that). So today's song running through my head was 10,000 Maniacs, "Like the Weather." "The color of the sky as far as I can see, is coal gray..."

Another Awesome Dinner: Cafe Pesto

For dinner tonight we went to the Cafe Pesto about 20 minutes up the road in Kawaihae. This was another one of those restaurants LW picked out because it had good reviews in both the Hawaii The Big Island Revealed book and the Frommer's Hawaii with Kids book. It also had EXCELLENT reviews on TripAdvisor (like an average 4.5 stars out of 5 from 23 user reviews - that's pretty unusual).

We weren't disappointed. The food was all excellent, the service was friendly and professional, and the atmosphere was really nice. The prices were surprisingly low considering all the fancy little frills - details like the red rose on the table, the lace doily under the dessert plate, etc. In fact, this was the LEAST expensive dinner we've had since we arrived on the Big Island, and in terms of food quality and service it was on par with the Hilo Bay Cafe our first night.

The decorations in the restaurant were quite the conversation pieces, too. One wall had some really beautiful paintings of Hawaiian scenery (with really big dollar values written on little tiny price tags attached to the painting). The wall behind us had a whole series of nicely framed photographs of Elvis. Most of them were of Elvis in his younger years when he looked somewhat "normal." The one right behind our table was from 1973 with him in the white jacket with the big collar and the gem stones all over and the HUGE rings on all his fingers. ES asked us why he had so many big rings. How does one explain the terms "ostentatious" or "gaudy" to a 7-year old?


The ONLY complaint I came up with for Cafe Pesto was in the restroom. They had one of those artsy-fartsy new sinks with a big stone bowl on top of the counter that was absolutely impossible for anyone under the age of about 13 to reach inside. I had to lift ES up so he could wash his hands.


BTW - I was informed by my family that I embarass them when I take pictures of the food at dinner, so I had to keep the camera hidden away tonight. They didn't say anything about not taking pictures in the bathroom though.

Tomorrow's agenda: Get up early and head out on a snorkeling cruise and to see the Captain Cook monument.

Things we missed on vacation...

Things we missed while we were on vacation... (in no particular order of importance).

- KLOVE. Riding in the car yesterday, it was so refreshing to have KLOVE on the radio again. One of the first songs I heard in the car on the way to go scuba diving was Mercy Me "Here with Me." KLOVE was on a roll yesterday and just kept playing one song after another that made me want to turn the volume up on my radio.

- Spicy toothpaste. Normally, at home, YB uses a training toothpaste and ES uses regular toothpaste. While we were on vacation, we just used ES's tube of regular toothpaste. YB called it the "spicy toothpaste" and took a big slurp of water after each brush past his teeth. Wednesday night getting the boys ready for bed, YB was SO excited to have HIS toothpaste back and not use the "spicy toothpaste" anymore.

- Traffic on H-1 and Kam Highway. Oh wait... no, I didn't miss that. In fact, I totally forgot about it and didn't take it into consideration at all when buying our plane tickets home. In other words, I didn't think about the fact that if our plane landed at 4:30, then it was going to take us like an hour to drive home in the rush hour traffic.

- The Neighborhood Kids. Man... when we drove down our street, it was like a ghost town. I half expected to see a tumble-weed go barreling across our driveway as we pulled up to our house. Human reflexes could not push the buttons on a stopwatch fast enough to measure the time in between me putting the car in park and the doors flying open and the boys' feet hitting the ground. They ran across the street and started ringing the doorbells. It was as if there had been some sort of large-scale game of hide-n-go-seek, and they just announced "olly-olly-oxen-free" on a bull-horn. The kids came out of the woodwork. Within moments our front yards were total chaos with screaming playing children running in and out of our house and the house across the street.

Aside: I've reached a new phase in life. I have un-learned the conditioned response of going to the door when the doorbell rings. I was telling LW the other day that I think it would be interesting to hook up a monitoring device that would measure how often and how many times per day our doorbell rings. I doubt it's anything less than a dozen times a day, and it's never for me or LW. LW chastises me for not even getting out of my chair when the doorbell rings. I just figure why bother? We live in Navy housing with a gate guard controlling access (well... as long as you smile and wave and look like you belong , you're good to go, right?). On those rare occasions it's not for the boys, then they tell us. Then I'll get off my butt and go to the door.

Anyway, returning to my original line of thought...

- DVR. If we ever go on a trip longer than a few days, we definitely need to bring DVD's of the boys' favorite shows off the DVR. They're so used to just picking up the remote control and turning on their favorite shows whenever they want. Every time we walked into our hotel room on vacation, they would turn the TV on and say, "I want to watch ________" and we would have to explain to them that ________ wasn't ON at that particular day and time. They just didn't get that. "Why noooooot? Just use the remote!"

- Now LW and I are catching up on our favorite shows that recorded while we were gone. LW was just watching Dancing with the Stars and I had a total flashback...

Teleportation Song: Kylie Minogue "Can't Get You Out of My Head." Suddenly, I'm back on deployment in Westpac, in a dance club in Brisbane, Australia. Most of the wardroom and chiefs' quarters are there and wearing our summer whites because we were invited out to this welcome to Australia social function. Some gorgeous blond Australian girl got the Eng and I to make fools of ourselves dancing up on one of those raised platforms in the middle of the dance floor. (We were just a novelty to draw attention to her - her boyfriend stayed close by watching us like hawks). I think the rest of the town heard all the U.S. Navy guys were going to THIS dance club and decided to join us. It was PACKED. I don't think any of us could have bought a drink that night. It was like we were celebrities!

- Crocs. Another one bites the dust... We were in one of the souvenir shops in Maui and saw these cute little decorative pins that are designed to poke into the holes of Crocs. The boys thought they were really cool and wanted to get some. Keep in mind at this point only YB had Crocs. So after we got back home, LW now had to take ES to get his very own pair of Crocs so that he could attach his new decorative pins to them. Take a wild guess what color Crocs ES picked out. Those of you who know him know that his favorite colors are yellow and orange.

Here he is in his new outfit (he wasn't cooperating with my requests for him to get dressed until I asked if he wanted to wear his new shirt from Maui).

ES in his new Maui T-shirt and Crocs.

This is the gecko pin ES chose for his Crocs.
(He picked out a yellow gecko of course...)

p.s. I went back and added a few photos to my last post from one of the other guys that went scuba diving with us yesterday.

Two Videos to Share...

Friends and family have sent me a few interesting videos in the past couple of days.

Note: First, scroll down and click PAUSE on my blog music so that you can hear the sound that goes with the video.

This one is gross, and I'm going to remember it every time we ever stay in another hotel again...




This one is pretty neat / cool / funny / enjoyable to watch...

Another Substantial Change in Home Entertainment

We went shopping today...

In Best Buy, I had one of those life-changing experiences. I can think of two times in my lifetime that I've experienced something as mind-boggling as this (in the category of computers, electronics, and technology).

The first time was in like 1993 when I got to use a computer with a SoundBlaster card for the first time. A friend showed me the game Castle Wolfenstein - the first FPS (First-Person Shooter) type game I had ever seen. Instead of the standard PC "beep" noise, it was actually making real lifelike sounds like the German guards' voices yelling, "HALT!" I was in awe and HAD to get a SoundBlaster card for my computer. Now we just accept that as the norm. EVERY computer has a super-whamodyne sound system these days. Who in their right mind would buy a computer WITHOUT a sound system built in?

The second time was in 1995 when I went over to my friend Vince's room in the Susse Chalet in Groton during SOBC (Submarine Officers Basic Course). Vince had one of those new "surround sound" systems. In order to demonstrate it for me, he turned on True Lies, and I was blown away by the all-encompassing sound that made me feel like I was IN the movie. The other really good sampler was Jurassic Park with a sub-woofer so you could feel the tyranosaurus rex's foot stomps reverberate up through your legs and through your chest cavity. I think it was less than a week later that Vince took me to Lechmere and I bought my very own surround-sound stereo system.

My experience today was on-par with those previous two revelations in modern technology. They had on display an HD DVD player showing Night at the Museum on an HD screen.
O... M... G... I was getting dizzy watching it. It didn't feel like I was watching a screen. It felt like I was in a playhouse watching a LIVE performance. The boys and I were totally mesmerized and couldn't be pulled away. I mean, I've seen HDTV's on display before, but they've always got some pretty picture of mountains or flowers or something off the discovery channel that looks cool, but I couldn't really say off the top of my head if it was any better than what I see on other TVs. Seeing this, a really cool movie that I had seen before, I could TELL the difference.

Excuse me while I go wipe the drool off my chin...

We didn't make any impulse purchases today (LW was with me in the store, so she managed to break the hypnotic trance and lead us away from the TVs), but now we're comparing the reviews on Consumer Reports and evaluating if the finances can support.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Oh, and an update to my blog music... At least two of you (I think that makes a simple majority of the regular readers of my blog) were unhappy with my music always being the same. So I changed my blog music to "random" mode and added a bunch more songs to the list. I hope you enjoy the change of pace.

BTW - WELCOME HOME JOHN!!! Or should I say, Bienvenue à la maison! John had to move his family from one foreign country (where at least they spoke English) to another foreign country (where they don't speak English), and then promptly left his wife and son there while he went to a 3-month school back in DC. Glad you made it back home safe and sound. I know J and Q missed you tremendously, and Q must be bouncing off the walls to have you home. Now STOP READING MY BLOG and go get your wife a cup of coffee! (I'm assuming you're reading this in the morning your time - if not, go get her a glass of wine instead).

Teleportation Songs

What are your teleportation songs? You know... Those songs that when you hear them, your mind instantly jumps to another time and place. It's like hearing that song opens up a wormhole and you travel back through time to a previous episode of your life. You may not even be able to sit and pick them out of your brain. You may not even realize that the link exists in your memory until you hear the song come on the radio.

What made me think of it was the song "Wonderwall" by Oasis, mentioned on Sam's blog. That song instantly takes me to Groton, Connecticut and the beginning of my JO tour. It's autumn. The leaves are beautiful shades of orange and red and yellow, and they swirl up behind my car as I drive the curved roads through Mystic. There's a bite in the air as the chill of winter approaches. After growing up in summertime year round in San Diego, I absolutely loved the changing seasons in New England. That's a feel-good, happy link for me.

The most recent song to burn a permanent teleportation link my memory was "Say It Right" by Nelly Furtado. Gosh, I can't believe it hasn't even been a year since the accident yet. It seems like so very long ago because so much has happened since then. But when I hear that song, I'm suddenly in Rota, Spain, and the visions and sensations flood my memory like it was yesterday. We spent three emotional weeks languishing in Rota in January 2007 while the JAGMAN and Safety Investigations were conducted for the accident that claimed the lives of two MSP sailors on December 29th. Yes, I was on board the MSP that day. I had just reported aboard. It was my first underway, so I had no official duties and was just an observer during that maneuvering watch. I felt helplessly terrified to watch it all happen with my own eyes and totally powerless to stop it. (Random aside comment: Isn't it odd how when you wake up on the morning of the worst day of your life, you have NO idea that it's going to be the worst day of your life? You'd think you would feel some sort of premonition that something was about to go terribly wrong and change your life forever). In any case, the AFRS radio station in Rota played that Nelly Furtado song at least once an hour, so every time I got in my little teenie-tiny rental car to go out to dinner or back to my BOQ room, that song was always there.

I hope I'm not opening a can-of-worms by bringing up the MSP accident. I had to stop reading bubblehead's blog for a while after the accident. It took a lot of self-restraint not to lash out at some of the people who posted comments there. Neither lashing out at them nor repressing my urge to lash out at them were going to help bring the episode to closure, so I had to just stop reading the comments and focus my energies elsewhere.

Wow. What a tangent, eh? When I sat down to start writing this blog post, I had no idea where it would take me. So, getting back to my original topic... I know there are other songs out there that have strong memory-links for me - some good, some bad... It's hard to just think of them without the link being activated by actually hearing the song (or reading the name of the song in someone else's blog as the case may be).