January 22nd Email

Aloha kakou,

Not much new to report. I've been on hold while I wait to see what's happening with my job. Fred and I are supposed to be working on a contract at AT&T Wireless. At the last minute there was some hangup on some of the legalese in the SOW and now we're in some weird limbotic state.

I did trade emails with the owner of the DH Dream House. She said that we would not have to be there on a calendar month. Given that, I'm inclined to move us up a little bit to maybe the 3rd week in July for 4-5 weeks. This makes things a little easier for us (Sue and I) vis-a-vis getting the kids back to school in Sept. Chris mentioned he'd like to be there earlier. Fred has some cycling events in the summer (RAMROD and Tour de Montana) and I don't know if this would help or hurt for him. Anyone else have thoughts on it?

Malama pono,
Chris P.

January 6th Email

Aloha kakou,

I've been doing some more searching, but not coming up with much. I've added a 'scenarios' tab to the spreadsheet so that we can compare different possibilities:

Scenario 1:

We stay at the 4 BR Gold Coast Jewel. If Clay, Sue, and I are there for a month and Chris is there for 4 weeks, then Liz and Rae get a bedroom and Aaron sleeps on the couch. We'd have to coordinate the kids leaving before Bruce arrives, so that he'd have a room. And Fred and/or Steve don't even get an invite. This would be a bit crowded.

*Scenario 2:

The 6 BR Diamond Head Dream house. Same assumptions on Chris, Clay, Sue, and I. We'd probably bring the kids for 2 weeks. If Bruce comes for 2 weeks and Fred/Steve come for 3 then we have a rather attractive price point in a large, gold coast location. This place is starting to book out for 2008, so we might have to make a decision sooner than we want. All in all, this is probably looking best so far.

Scenario 3:

The 5 BR Ocean Estate at Black Point. This is kind of a fall-back of scenario 2. We're paying $1,000 more for a smaller house in a nicer, but less convenient location. Surfing Black point might be interesting, but I've never been out there. Walking into town would not be an option. A car would be required.

Scenario 4:

The over-the-top 5BR Shangri-La. Even if every BR was occupied for the whole month, we'd still be looking at $130/night. If we get to this point, I'd suggest we either get condos or consider staying up on the North Shore, or out in Hawai`i Kai.

As you might have noticed, we're considering bringing the kids for 2 weeks vs 1. Hopefully this isn't an issue for anyone. If so, let me know.

Bruce, I've still got you penciled in for 10 days because that was the last I heard from you. You are obviously welcome there for as long as you want!

Steve and Fred have been tentatively mentioned and contacted, but I haven't included them on the list. As we start to gel this a little more, we'll want to pull them in to the planning process.

As I've said before, I'm leaning towards an August trip. It works best for us with the kids being out of school. It gives Chris, Bruce, and I the best chance of catching some South Swell action! And the Slack Key festival is happening then. Let me know your thoughts on the dates (Clay has already).

I've attached the latest version of the spreadsheet. Just ignore the calendar tab; that will probably come into play later when we're trying to arrange bedrooms.

Malama pono,
Chris P.

Januray 2nd Email

Ha`oli Makahiki Hou,

Pehea kakou? Maika`i paha!

Hope everyone is well. I've kicked off the new year by doing a little web-surfing, in preparation for a lot of real surfing. I've attached the spreadsheet that I'm using for tracking all this stuff. Take a look at it and check out some of the properties, see what you think.

Random thoughts:

• I really love doing this. :-)
• If 4 bedrooms is big enough then the Gold Coast Jewel may be our best bet. I've traded some emails with the owner who seems like a nice guy. It's located right between Tonggs and Graveyards, so the surfing should be sweet. Note that the price on it is the only one that has the taxes included.
  
• If we have to go larger then the DH Dream House looks the way to go. I'm guessing that it's within a couple of blocks of where Kalakaua meets DH Road.
  
• The Kahala properties look very sweet. And surfing off of Black Point would be pretty nice. They don't have the easy access of the Gold Coast, though, and would necessitate a rental car or cars, and much travel coordination. Personally, I was hoping to rely on a bus pass.
• Chris - I don't know whether you're considering a week, a month, a day. :-) More is mo bettah, brah.
• I didn't put in time in the calculator for anyone except me and Clay. As you start getting an idea of how long you'll be there, let everyone know and the numbers will get much better. :-)
  

More to come.

Malama pono,
Chris P.

A brief recap

I had every intention of continuing this blog after the vacation. I had visions of gradually moving it from being ego-centric to discussions of topical issues. Well, that didn't happen. Odd how changing jobs can throw your whole rhythmn off.

Yes, I've changed jobs. Again. I actually got the job offer and accepted it while we were in Hawai`i. I'm a consultant now. My current assignment is with a large, pink, cellular provider.

In other news:

• Sue's parents came out from Pennsylvania for a too brief visit.
• The aquarium was not happy about being left alone for 5 weeks. We lost some corals and two fish (Skooter and Henry)

More soon.

Ku`u home `o Sammamish

Aloha kakou,

We made it home on Friday evening. By Saturday I had the flu. I'll be posting more pictures and musings when I'm feeling a little better. Thanks for reading along all this time!

Malama pono,
Chris