The tournament is underway

It seems like we've been a long time already and today we finally began what we came here for all along. The 2009 Hoop N Surf is underway. A 98-49 blowout was not exactly the most exciting way to start things, but from our end the game wen t pretty smoothly.

For the home team, Chaminade, things were not quite so rosy. The SilverSwards arrived to the gym 48 minutes before the game was scheduled to start. The other team had already been warming up for nearly 45 minutes! In fact, the Drury coach came up to me and asked if they had the right day! Anyway, things got worse for CU. Once they got there, their coach realized she forgot the uniforms at the school. Luckily the school is just a few miles down the road. So like the Bad News Bears, the team took the court for pre-game warm ups in street clothes. The coach returned 13 minutes before 1 p.m. and wisked the ladies off the court to change. After they left I overheard her telling her assistant that she got pulled over for speeding on her way back from the school. She got a ticket for speeding. That was just a sign of things to come as they would get beat by nearly 50 points to a pretty good Drury team.

Enough about the games...

Dad and I started our day by sleeping in a bit. Then we went to Keoni's for breakfast. I have to admit it was a great breakfast for $3.95. I'd have to list it as the best bargin on Waikiki. we got two eggs to pancakes and two pieces of bacon and paid less for both of us that we did for one of our grand slams yesterday.

We had plan to go to the beach for a hour or so after breakfast, but it took a bit longer than we thought it would and so we opted for the hotel room so I could get prepared for the games. It turned out to be a good choice as I had some computer issues that needed some time to get taken care of. We got a quick ride to the gym with Rick and helped Greg finish getting things set up. After the game we packed up stopped for a Acei smoothie, got a quick tour of some of Honolulu's residential area while we were bringing Cindy, a local ref, to her mom's house and got back to the hotel about 3:30 p.m. It seemed weird being done for the day by 4:00 but I'll take it.

We decided to try to get a bit more sun before it was too late so Dad took a walk along the beach and got almost down to the zoo and I hit the pool and hot tub until after 5. Then we showered up, and had a great dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Dad had a Hawaiian BBQ pork sandwich and I had a huge burger. We of course ordered cheesecake before we left and then hit the streets to do some shopping and to check out the international market. The highlight of day may have been something we stumbled across by accident. We walked up on a street performer who was doing spray paint art. We happened to walk up just as he was getting ready to start his first show of the night. This was something to see. In his own words, "He loved to dance, he loved to paint and he loved to juggle." So if you could imagine a a 40-something native of Hawaii doing a dance/painting show set to techno music mixed with a lipsync contest you might get the drift. i'll add that he has lights strung all over this tent he was in and had controls for thos under his canvas, so he kept reaching under there and turning them off and on to make them blink with the music when we wasn't trying to get the crowd to clap along. Apparently it took him 18 years to "teach himself how to paint like this in him mom and dad's garage. My guess is that he still lives with them and routinely practices his show in front of a mirror in their basement. In fairness to him, after about 900 layers of spray paint and come carving with a fork and a spatula, the paintings came out pretty nice and he ended the show with a bit of a gospel message set to I can only image. It was pretty entertaining. Kind of reminded me of some of Chris's shows for company back a few years. Did I mention that I was selected out of the crowd to shake a spray paint can along with the music to help with the beat? Well I was and I got a banana strawberry lifesaver sucker for it. He used the wrapper from the sucker to make the flowers in a painting. There is a good chance I am going to take what I learned tonight with me back to Bemidji. I think there is some money in it for me. And besides, I like music, I like to dance, I like to sing in the shower and I have used spry paint before.

After our stroll around Waikiki, we hit the hay early, but not before eating our cheesecake while watching the news in bed. There is just something about being on vacation that gives you the authority to eat in bed. Its especially good when you have Oreo cheesecake. Dad has some sort of brownie fudge cheesecake. Needless to say we went to bed satisfied of another day in Hawaii.

More games for me tomorrow and dad is planning to go to Pearl Harbor. Maybe I let him make a posting of his adventures navigating the city buses to Pearl Harbor and back. I am sure he'll have some stories not to mention getting his thoughts on the exhibit on "paper" while there are still fresh.

Mahalo for reading. We miss you all. All three of you reading this.