We've just come back from a wonderful week on the Big Island of Hawai'i, spending most of our vacation in the south Kona area around Kealakekua. Unfortunately, we were so greedy for sun on the first clear day that we stayed on the beach too long and got ourselves sunburned, despite our best efforts with the sunscreen—not lobster style, but enough to keep us out of the water for a few days. Fortunately, our friends Alex and Shannon, who just happened to be also visiting from Portland, staying just ten miles down the road from our place, were up for a trip to the rainy side of the island to see what the volcano's up to. After checking out the crater, we drove around to the east side of the lava fields to see if we could hike out to where the lava is flowing into the sea. We didn't make it (we walked a couple miles and the steam never got any closer) but we did take lots of photos of the pahoehoe.

A list of words that Mike Monteiro is much too smart and hip to ever use, and wants you to know it:

http://www.listable.org/show/words-it-is-not-ok-to-ever-say

But why stop there?

http://www.listable.org/show/more-words-it-is-not-okay-to-ever-say

I haven't checked my old posts to see, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if I have a nearly identical post to this one from last year at this time, or the year before. I woke up yesterday, and for the first time in months I felt like me again, not an automaton just going through the motions. There were things I actually wanted to do, and not just to pass the day until I could go back to sleep.

It looks like we're getting our sucker spring now, the week of sunny weather that fools us into believing we won't have another 4 months of grey skies. I got some work done on the boat for the first time this year: finally got around to finishing the plywood forms for the bulkheads and starting to glue them together. And I put flashing on the shed where the plastic siding vibrates when the wind picks up. (I don't know if it's been driving the neighbors in the condo behind us crazy, but I'm embarrassed every time I hear it.) And I cleaned up the yard a bit, and I did other asorted productive stuff. What's caught me completely by surprise, though, is how easy this was--it didn't take a huge amount of will power to get up off my ass, I just woke up and there it was. Like it's supposed to be. Like I'm me again.

So that's why--one of the reasons why--I haven't written here for a while. Another is, of course, Twitter. When you can jot crap down 140 characters at a time to an audience of friends and random weirdos, it relieves a lot of the feeling-like-you're-in-touch need that this format serves. I aim to write more here, in time, but I should probably have more to talk about first.

Another reason (or excuse) occurred to me recently: that I'm spending so much time writing code these days that my brain just isn't set up for words. When I've tried to blarble on like this, I go back over and over it, tweaking the words and changing the punctuation as if I were trying to make it parsable by some imaginary but very strict English language compiler. I'll try to target the non-existent human audience instead.

And another is that I always try too hard to come up with a witty conclusion. Not this time! Ha!

Last weekend Molly and I went out to Sturgeon Lake on Sauvie Island to launch the new canoe, a fairly simple stitch-and-glue build that nevertheless took a ridiculous amount of sanding. The result of all that sanding is a very attractive little canoe (if you overlook all the places in the fiberglass that didn't quite come clear). We had a bit of an adventure before we could float the boat, though: First, we get to Sturgeon Lake and find a mud flat. We were there a few weekends before in the dory with Molly's mom and there was enough water to float, though I did dredge up mud with the oars a number of times and it felt like the boat was dragging in places. I'm not sure if the river level's gone down or we just caught low tide. So we head back to the general store to ask about another place to drop the canoe and about half a mile out the engine just stops. It turns over fine, but won't start up. I try all the tricks I knew for getting it started, and no luck. Finally, I call my Dad to ask about problems they've had with the Landcruiser in the past--I remember it always had problems with vapor lock. He runs me through all of the things I tried, still no luck, then he has me open the hood and check for spark. Molly turns the key, and no spark in the cap, but a big spark over on the side: the cap had fallen off the coil. Plug it back in, and it starts right up. Now I know how the ignition works!

The guy at the store directs us to the north side of the island, and we put in at McNary Lake and start paddling out. The canoe is very shaky, like the first canoe I built, and Molly suggests that we're too high in the boat. We beach and I unscrew her seat: much better. After a while, I take my seat out, too. I'll glue new stringers in just above the chine and see how that does. We're weaving all over the place and I worry that it's somehow a design flaw in the boat, but I realize we've got a tailwind pushing the stern around; on the way back it's much better, even pulling against the wind.

 

That first canoe never got another chance, unfortunately--maybe I just needed to lower the seats. Still, it made a nice planter:

We've been back for a week now, and easily settling back in to work and home. It's still not quite summer here, but the weekend should be nice--the first of many nice weekends, we hope. If not, we'll just pack up the car and head back to Austin. (I joke!) The drive back was much like the drive down: a lot of sitting in the car, watching scenery go by. Plenty of scenery, though--we drove through Santa Fe, Arches, Death Valley, and Yosemite along the way. I may write more about our Austin adventure later, or maybe not. In the mean time--or in stead--here's my photos from Arches:

A couple weekends ago Laura and I swam the Capitol 2K, as we did last year. And just like last year, I got third place in my division. But it was a very different race this year—not just because it was my second time instead of my first, or because I have better goggles and could actually see what was going on around me. Here's some interesting (okay, interesting to me..) comparisons in the results:

• The divisions were split in half: last year, I was 30-39, this year 30-34. There were 14 swimmers in mens' 30-39 last year; 11 in the 30-34 group this year.
• Overall, there were fewer swimmers. Attendance was down about 10%.
• Also, not many returns from last year. Of the names I looked up, only about a quarter of the swimmers this year did the race last year.
• Those that did, however, swam about 2 minutes faster than last year. (The weather was much better, for one..)
• I was only around 30 seconds faster.
• Last year there was a gap of a few minutes between the guy ahead of me in my division and over a minute behind me. This year, second was 16 seconds ahead and fourth was 13 seconds behind.

I think this will motivate me to get in better shape for next year, and to remember to keep pushing harder. Just a little bit faster and I can get second place. Just a little bit slower and I don't get another cool little plaque to put on my desk.

So, after a month lost in Carlsbad Caverns, we've finally arrived in Austin!

No, not really. We've been here on West Annie Street for three weeks now, though it seems longer than that. Or maybe shorter.. No, three weeks: that's about right. Long enough to settle down, fall into a routine, and for the wide-eyed gasping novelty to wear off. But not nearly enough to do many of the things we'd planned. If the story opens with us driving out and establishing a home here, this is the end of the first act. Tomorrow I get back behind the wheel and drive to New Orleans, where Molly's been for the last week. That's always been the midpoint of our adventure: 'Nawlins, then drive back Saturday and I swim the Cap 2K again on Sunday. After that, another few weeks before the calendar tells us we have to fly back to Portland for a bit, return to Austin, then drive back home.

I'd like to be back home, off the calendar. But I might like having two homes, too.

A comparison:

I'm writing this from the Motel 6 in Carlsbad, New Mexico. We did the walking tour at the Caverns yesterday, and here's the proof. Today Scott and Kaki and I will be touring Spider Cave; Molly and Sky and Egan are off at Slaughter Canyon right now. And tomorrow night we'll be in Austin!

So where were we? The 16th? The rest of the trip was uneventful, in a good way. No more scary food, no getting lost or kicked out of the country. On Sunday, Cabel and Steve headed back to the states, leaving Mike and me to fend for ourselves. We did some sightseeing, bought presents for everyone back home, took it easy—a nice break from the constant running around at the beginning of the trip. The flight back was similarly uninteresting: We took off, eight hours later we landed. I've been feeling listless and tired since we got back, and I can't tell if it's recoil from a week running around constantly engaged, jet lag, or the miserable weather here.



Next Monday we're leaving for Austin, driving south through California, across Arizona and New Mexico, through the sage and brush of West Texas, into the rolling Hill Country that still feels like home.