Black Friday

I never knew why it was called Black Friday until Wednesday when the morning DJs were talking about it on the radio. They said something about that it's the day when most retail businesses go from the red to the black on their financial statements for the year. So "black" is a positive term, not a negative term. Even so, I avoid stores like the plague on this busiest shopping day of the year.

This morning, I took YS in the jogging stroller and went for a 4.5 mile run along the bike path. Wait, back-up a second: Yesterday, one of the O-gangers that came to my house mentioned they saw people already camping out in front of Best Buy on their way driving to my house. Okay, fast-forward back to today: As we passed Best Buy on the bike path today, I could not believe the crowds. Both the inner and outer parking lots were full, and they had parking lot attendants directing people to park on the grass along the side of the bike path (the bike path runs along the southern edge of the building). On our way jogging back, even the grass was full, so the parking lot attendants had shifted to direct the traffic to an empty parking lot across the bike path for some industrial company. I mean, I love Best Buy, but what was the big deal about going to Best Buy TODAY vice Wednesday or last weekend???

This was the second time in a row I didn't see any mongooses. (Aside: What's the plural of mongoose anyway? Mongooses? Mongeese?). Maybe it's just because the past two times I've run later in the morning than I normally ran in the past. Is there some Hawaiian saying for "the early mongoose gets the early bird"?

I really wanted to go hiking or snorkeling today, and the forecast called for nice weather, but there were these big billowy black clouds looming over us all morning with scattered rain showers. It's frustrating because the weather was absolutely crystal clear and gorgeous yesterday. I wish I could swap the weather yesterday for today.

Since the weather seemed unpredictable and non-conducive to our other plans, we decided to go check out the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island. The military rate was $10 to get in. What they had was nicely done, but it was a very small museum and there wasn't a lot to see. They have plans to expand into two more of the historic hangers on Ford Island, but as for now, I'm not sure it's worth the $10 admission price (I'm sure that'll go to help them complete the other two hangers though).

Mitsubishi A6M Zero ready for takeoff

Daddy explains how the fuse worked on the high-altitude bomb.
(The torpedo in the middle actually has the special wooden fins on it they designed for the attack on Pearl Harbor to prevent the torpedoes from diving into the shallow mud harbor bottom).

ES and YS enjoyed tracing our travels from one duty station to the next on a huge map on the floor (with a big mural of the Battle of Midway in the background).

ES traces the path from Japan to Pearl Harbor while I traced my last WESTPAC path from port call to port call (I think I'm standing on Okinawa there).

Shifting topics to dinnertime tonight - Will wonders never cease? Normally, ES will never eat anything green. I mean, if he's got a plate of spaghetti in front of him and sees a little SPECK of green oregano, he'll stop and squeal, "GREEEEEN STUUUUUUUFF!!!" He must have been possessed by aliens tonight though. Not only did he eat the spinach and cheese ravioli without having a conniption fit about "green stuff", he actually proclaimed that he LIKED it!