Eric’s Ephemera

There are much larger concerns in the world, so I realize how silly the following is in certain contexts. Still ...

I wonder how long it will take for the necessary online collaboration to line up and give us what most of us want: an easy way to keep tasks, calendars, contacts, and email organized and connected on multiple platforms. You know, so you don't have to create a separate task when an email comes in that involves something "to do" ... or create a separate calendar entry for tasks with due dates so it will show up on all the places you access your calendar ... or keep birthdays and anniversaries tied to both the contact and the calendar (and maybe the to-do list) ... and be able to access all of that through one interface (or a reasonable number of mobile apps).

Just wondering.

As is, I keep dates on Google Calendar, tasks on Toodledo (so they'll sync with my iPhone through an app that isn't network-dependent), contacts in Google (but without calendar connections yet), and email living in a separate world entirely. And I'll only mention the far-off dream about being able to connect contacts, events, and media in some meaningfully useful way.

I mean, I love many of the "new" toys and tools that keep popping up, but I don't get why no one has figured out how to get these basics working well together. Not even the "dead simple" cult of Mac has figured this one out, judging by the critiques of MobileMe. And as cool as Google Wave looks, it still doesn't look like the answer.

Can you tell I've been upgrading my iPhone this morning?

</rant>

I've finally uploaded most of the pictures from the Hawaii trip (here's the Flickr collection). I didn't get a chance to update much while we were there because we were doing something all day, back for a quick crash and shower, then out to see the sights at night, then to bed kinda early to get ready for the next day. But here's a brief recap of the trip:

Monday, May 11th
Landed at 4pm after 13+ hours of flying and layovers. Checked into the hotel, went to the mall next door for some food (pretty awesome outdoor mall), and kept ourselves awake as long as we could. Which turned out to be 9pm Honolulu time.

Tuesday, May 12th
Went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Good but overpriced. Ran into a co-worker there and talked about plans for the trip. She recommended the Expedia desk for ideas and help with planning, so we stopped there after for some ideas. The person there was very helpful, and after half an hour we had planned and booked the entire week.

Back in the room, I spent the rest of the morning working through business emails and reviewing the curriculum for the upcoming training. In the afternoon, we went down to the Ala Moana beach park to rest and swim. [pics]

Setup for the training was at 6pm, and after that a number of the training team members went out for dinner at a Japanese buffet.

Wednesday, May 13th
First day of training, from 8am to 5pm. After the training, a few of the training team members went to the Shorebird in Waikiki for dinner. (All the Waikiki pics from various nights are here.) Beautiful location right on the beach, and you grill your own meat. Neat twist, great food, fun night.

Thursday, May 14th
Second day of training, but a half day. By 1pm, we were done, and the entire training team went to Germaine's Luau later that night. A bit hokey, but still lots of fun ... and it included a Hawaiian buffet and some free drinks! [pics]

Friday, May 15th
We made plans to visit Kualoa Ranch on the other side of the island that day. We started with a tour of the surrounding jungle in Swiss 6-wheel Pinzgauer's. Very fast, very bumpy, and very fun. The scenery was amazing, of course, and the guide made some good and cheesey guide jokes, but also knew his local lore, flora, and fauna. We also got to see some of the sets for Jurassic Park, Mighty Joe Young, Tears of the Sun, and Lost (including that creek they're always drinking from). After that, horseback riding through similar terrain. I enjoyed it, but Thuraya's horse was a bit slow and stubborn. Ironically, she's the trained rider. I just kind of sat there and enjoyed the view. [pics]

That night, we wandered around Waikiki and wound up getting dinner at a roof-top Tiki bar.

Saturday, May 16th
We spent the day on the Kai Oli'Oli ("fun in the water"), the boat used by Ocean Joy cruises. They took us up the East coast of the island, doing some dolphin watching along the way, and then let us snorkel off shore for about an hour. Lots of fish and coral, but no dolphins or sea turtles. Still a good time. Thuraya was nervous at first (thinking that sharks would find us and eat us), but settled in quickly and enjoyed it. [pics]

That night, we celebrated her birthday early at Ocean House, a really excellent restaurant next door to the Shorebird. They were all out of the dessert Thuraya wanted, though, so we vowed to return another night. Instead, we got ate more gelato and wandered around Waikiki again.

Sunday, May 17th
The day I was most looking forward to, and my favorite. We booked with Hawaii Shark Encounters, who took us out on a boat three miles off the north shore and let us climb into a cage to watch sharks swim around us. The sharks are drawn there by crabbing boats that often throw chum into the water, so when the shark boats show up, so do the sharks thinking they're the crab boats. Works out well for everyone. We got about 20 minutes in the cage. I could have stayed for hours. I was impressed that Thuraya actually got in, given her fear of sharks, but she did and loved it. [pics]

Later in the afternoon, we went parasailing off Ala Moana beach. The water was rough by then, and the banging boat did not make for a smooth take-off or landing. Still, once we were in the air, all was smooth and the view was fantastic, if too short. After about 5 minutes, we were pulled back in to watch a few poor girls on the boat with us loose their lunches over the side. [pics ... don't worry, no puking]

Monday, May 18th
We spent the day kayaking with a Twogood Kayaks guide. We left from Kailua beach and paddled out to Na Mokulua, two islands off the shore. Once there, we ate some lunch on the beach, climbed around on the rocks, and did a little snorkeling. The surf was rough again, so landing and launching were a challenge, particularly in the tandem sea-kayaks we had. But I'm proud to say we caught air at least once and didn't tip over. [pics]

Our last meal in Hawaii was at Duke's, named in honor of the father of modern surfing, Duke Kahanamoku (who wore his pants really high on his waist with all the other guys of his day). Food was just OK, but the atmosphere was great and there's really no room to complain about beach-side dining.

Tuesday, May 19th
Our flight left Hawaii at 12:30pm Honolulu time and landed at Washington Dulles at 6:30am EST on Wednesday morning, which meant we had to stay awake for about 36 hours. Small price to pay for a great trip.

WEDNESDAY: After a full day of training, the training team went to dinner at the Shorebird, which sits right on the beach in Waikiki. You grill your own meat over a huge grill and garnish with the many choices from the salad bar. It was a delicious meal at a beautiful setting. Afterwards: gelato.

TUESDAY: We spent the afternoon of the first day at the Ala Moana Beach Park across the street from the hotel.

MONDAY: We were down in North Carolina visiting my family for Mother’s Day, so on Sunday we had to drive from there back to Richmond to get bigger suitcases and repack everything. Then, we had to drive up to Woodbridge because it was $150 cheaper per ticket to fly out of Dulles than it was to fly out of Richmond.

By the time we left Richmond, it was midnight. Ten minutes outside of Richmond, we hit traffic. Apparently, they decided to close 95 down to one lane for some construction. It took me an hour to go 10 miles. We finally pulled into Woodbridge at 3:00 in the morning, leaving about an hour for sleep before we had to get ready to catch the morning flight out of Dulles.

We flew from Dulles to San Francisco, a 5 1/2 hour flight, and then from San Francisco to Honolulu, a 5 hour flight, struggling the whole time to stay awake so our clocks wouldn’t be too horribly off when we finally arrived.

When we landed at Honolulu, it was 5:00 pm … not late enough to sleep yet. We checked into the hotel (a little underwhelmed with the small size and rooftop view of our room) and headed to the outdoor mall next to the hotel to find a little food. Finally, around 9:00 pm, we returned to the room and allowed ourselves to pass out. We felt pretty horrible and weren’t sure if we’d be happy with our hotel in the morning, but we were in Honolulu, so there really wasn’t much room to complain. And yes, everything looked much better after some sleep.

My parents came to visit during the Easter weekend. We had a great lunch with the whole family on my mother's side, hosted at my cousin's beautiful new home. We spent most of the rest of the weekend playing games, but did venture out to Belle Isle one afternoon. I was surprised by my mother's willingness to cross the bridge to the island. She's usually terrified of heights, so the last thing I expected her to do was walk across a bridge suspended high over the James River that sways with the wind. Good job, Mom!