Happy Birthday Kevin!

Happy Birthday Kevin. Dad and I decided it would be nice to celebrate you birthday somewhere nice. So we called you from the beach in Hawaii. Sorry you weren't here with us. It was 80 degrees and sunny...

So I'm a couple posts behind on this blog. Sorry. Since the tournament began its been a bit busier for me, I'm going to to my best to catch you up now.

Dec. 18 dad an I split up. With the tournament underway and things going pretty smoothly, I told dad it would be a good day for him to check out Pearl Harbor. So we had breakfast early at Keoni's and I loaded him on the city bus. I can't speak for the rest of his day, but I am sure he can. I'll get him to add his thoughts later. From that point I came back to the room did some computer work from the balcony overlooking the ocean and Diamondhead. At about 11 we loaded in the car to get the gym set up. The game was pretty uneventful...another blowout, but my day got a bit more interesting on the way home. Rick, Greg and I loaded into Rick's rental to go back to the hotel. ON the way Rick decided he needed gas so we pulled into a station. Right in front of us at the pump was a blue full-sized van with a couple surf bums standing outside it. Little did we know what the next few minutes would hold for us. I noticed that one of the guys (who was wearing only board shorts had a dislocated finger and was all bloody. At about that same time, another one of the guys walked towards Rick and asked if he had any extra money for gas. He said they were out of gas and the battery was dead. Rick said he didn't have any cash and kept pumping. Jut them another one of the guys came running over to the others and handed them $7. He then came sprinting over to Rick with a huge smile on his face telling Rick that, "The Lord works in mysterious ways." He went on to tell Rick how much he loved the lord even though he smokes and drinks too much and does the gange once in a while. All rick could think of to say was,"The Lord loves everyone." At that point the bloody guy yelled to ask if we had any money for gas. They guy talking to Rick said we just put $7 in. I looked at the sign and that got them just over 2 gallons (not much for a gas guzzler like they were driving.)

So just about them Rick got in the car and started to back out when the friendly guy knocked on the window to see if we could give them a jump. Rick said, "I don't have and cables, with a huge smile, the gay responded with, "I do." so Rick agreed to pull around and said, "These guys are crazy!" We asked him what he and the guy were talking about at the pump and he said, "the Lord."

So we popped the hood and the guys struggled to the cables hooked up. The bloody guy was very impatient with the other two While they were untangling the cables, they were talking and bloody, who was wobbling around like he was either going to pass out or run off, yell at them to hurry. The grumpy guy started poking at his stomach and went to grab his finger sending this guy into a rage. I am not sure I can type all the things he said, but the part I could make out went something like, "You guys, just because we have gas doesn't mean we are all rainbows and butterflies here." After about 2 seconds, Smiley jumped in the van, turned the key and started the van with about 30 of reeving the engine and probably burning though $3.50 in freshly pumped gas. He jumped out, disconnected the cables and said, "God is good," with a huge smile on his face.

We drove away and laughed quite a bit of the way home about the latest edition of the Hoop N Surf saga.

We got back to the hotel, I showered and hit the pool for the last hour of sunlight. Dad and I planned to meet there when we each got done, but he still wasn't around. I tried calling him a couple times, but it went straight to voice mail. This got me wondering what was going on in his world. I have to admit, I am not sure if either of us were completely comfortable putting him on a bus to navigate Honolulu on his own and this was only starting to get me wonding where he could be. I wouldn't have thouthg too much of it, but I knew when Lisa and I went we did Pearl Harbor and the swap meet and made it back in time to got to an afternoon game. I also knew that the team that played at 1 p.m. has been to Pearl Harbor that morning and were back and had played and game and were probably on the beach by now. After all, t was after 5 p.m.

So I decided to play it cool and just wait a bit longer. He showed up a few minutes later and said the bus ride was terrible and lasted like 90 minutes.

After that we quickly got ready and met the rest of the gang at Shore Bird. After taking a quick detour, we connected with the group and snapped a couple pictures of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean before we were escorted to our table. This experience quickly became one of my favorite of all my time in Hawaii. It was one of those places where you pick you cut of meat and then season and cook it yourself. it was great, not to mention some live local music and the sun setting in as I looked across the table. Dad's comment was, "if the food is terrible at this place, it will still be a pretty good night." That summed it up, but the food was great if I do say so myself...I was the cook.

That night ended with all of us heading back to the hotel and catching a bit of the live music at the Jimmy Buffett's in our hotel.

Another great day in Paradise.