Wednesday Feb 27
Leave work early and arrive at HNL interisland terminals. 4:15PM in the middle of work week finds easy parking in the interisland structure. No lines at all at check-in or security. Arrive at Hawaiian Airlines’ boarding area. The sun is dipping down and creating “god” beams in the sky. I am heading to Hilo, Hawaii for an install at the Hilo Hawaiian hotel. The flight is uneventful, the unflight mag is same from a few weeks ago, I’ve already read about the night surfing with Fabio’s co-worker, about the guy in Volcano growing wasabi. We arrive and I step out of the aircraft and my first thought is, was Hilo always stinky?
I remember the humidity, and now that I think about it, Hilo did always have something of a funk to it, aided by the vog that is a bit more present this evening. Thankfully it’s evening in February so it’s cool, even a little nippy. Not the hot humid Green Hell that I remember from my mountain bike racing days here. My manager/co-worker picks me up and after a brief stop at Jamba Juice (which I don’t frequent much, seeing as it’s closely tied to Starbucks) take the brief drive to the hotel. It’s conveniently not even ten minutes from airport.
We have to wait until the restaurant closes before we can do the install of the new equipment, so we have dinner there. The food is decent, I have the cioppino which is not bad. Scallops are the small sized ones, but are plentiful, the shrimp are average count sized, white fish is white fish, mussels actually not overpowering, and there’s half snow crab sitting across the plate. The doneness of everything is on upperside of done, I’d prefer it to be less, but it’s acceptable. I wasn’t expecting the crab, and it’s quite a mess to eat. It’s a half in shell, compounded by being in the soupy broth. It’s all fairly tasty, although the advertised spicy broth is pretty devoid of any heat. I don’t finish the broth, it’s got a good amount of garlic and I don’t want to poison my coworker with the potential aftermath. After dinner, we’ve still got a few hours to wait, so after finishing some prep work we cruise in the room. I find Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai on the telly, cool! You know, I can’t say I recall ever seeing this film, which I should be ashamed to say! It’s a good film and really is a classic. Unfortunately it was already in the middle when I found it, and we had to leave to do the install before it finished. Dang!
Nothing much interesting to say about the install. It goes well. Takes a few hours. When done, we head back to the room. The convenient thing with doing an install at a hotel is that we’ll be staying at the same hotel. No travel time involved. Ward, my manager/co-worker mentions that the previous night he went to the second room being used for training sessions because the shower head broke in our room. Hm. Back at our room, I take a look at the shower. Looks like it’s been fixed. I jump in, and try fiddling with the spigot/shower switch, doesn’t seem to move. Hm, guess I’ll turn on the water, maybe it need pressure to hold the valve or something. I’m hit with a pray of cold water. Gah! I was not expecting that! I turn the knob toward H. If I’m not mistaken, H stands for Hot. And C for cold, right? Right? Brrr. I go to swivel the head away so it won’t spray on me while I wait for the water to heat up. Wah! The head flops down into a useless position, aiming the spray at the corner of the shower curtain. Damn it! I grab the head & swivel it up, but it just flops right back down, again spraying water all over the place. I turn off the water. WTF? I look at the head, the bolt for the pivot is totally loose. I curse. I’m wet and cold, my tools are in the training room, and the floor of the bathroom is wet. I wipe off, but on pants, and stand and think for a minute. I go and get my wallet and take a penny out. It fits in the slot for the pivot bolt and works to tighten it. Sheesh. I turn the shower on and stand outside to wait for the water to warm up. Warm up. Warm up, dammit! WTF, again! I’m not camping, I don’t want to take a cold shower! What’s the use of having a brain, opposable thumbs, creating technology, and burning fossil fuels if you can’t take a hot shower?! On a whim, I turn the knob in the other direction. Ah, I see, whoever installed this shower must come from some country where C stands for hot! Sheesh. Finally have a satisfactory shower.
Turn on telly and switch channels hoping to catch Mythbusters. Instead find Smash Lab which is a weak attempt to capitalize on the success of Mythbusters. They even have a female on the cast, but I’m sorry, I find the show to be super weak. I’m tired anyway, and after watching Alton Brown explain about peppers, I go to sleep.
Thursday Feb 28
Co-worker is up early and tells me I can cruise while he goes to check on the system. I do get moving a little later and go out to find him. Everything is running ok. I help him load the old equipment which he goes to drop off to have shipped back to our office. In the meantime I hang out at the hotel. I make myself available, but I also don’t stand by in the immediate vicinity of the terminals. They’ve been instructed to go to their managers first for assistance, using us only if they’re stumped. It’s actually good practice for them. I hangout outside on the balcony. There’s a good view of Mauna Kea, and true to it’s name, it is capped with white. I gaze longingly at the snow from a bunch of weeks backs storms that by now is sure to be a rocky slushy mess. Ah well. My co-worker get’s back and I drop him off at the airport. I’ll be staying another day. I grab a quickie lunch at Cafe 100. Since their claim is to be the originator of the Loco Moco, I have a fried rice Loco. It’s pretty good, but man, I’m getting old. That kind of stuff just sits in my gut feeling heavy.
After getting back to the hotel and getting through the lunch shift, I have a few hours to kill before starting up for dinner. I debate whether to go drive out to catch some sights. But it’s going to be a long day and I don’t want to tire myself out. I could take a nap, but since I’m here, I decide to head into Hilo town. It’s been a long time. I take a drive to Hilo Bike Hub. Nice to see they’re still around and seem to be doing alright. Unfortnately “Big” Chris is not in, but I talk to the cool dude (Andy, I think?) who originally hails from AK, so naturally I ask him about boarding in Alaska. Resort/lift wise, he said there’s pretty much only two areas, Alyeska being the major one. Going in mid season, he said powder is almost guaranteed. Terrain is steep. Upper area all black/double black diamonds. Not much trees. Grooming only on main run. Did some more jaw jackin’, Chris never showed and I had to head back. I drove through Baydrive, saw Reubens. Damn, won’t have a chance to eat there. Look for supermarket. Finally find the KTA. It’s kinda ghetto. This KTA is tiny. Grab a box o PopTarts, a cup of yogurt, a bottle of Ginger Ale, and a bag of plastic spoons. Breakfast of champions!
The dinner shift goes well, but there’s some issues with the figures coming out of the register so I’ll have to meet with some of their other staff at 5AM tomorrow. Ugh, I’m so happy I’m staying at the hotel.
Friday Feb 29
I hear Roy’s ILPNV. Geezus, it’s early. Second alarm goes off…. Finally look at clock. Oh crap, it’s 4:45! I roll myself out of bed and stumble to the sink and hurriedly wash my face, manage to shave, and change. I get out to the front desk, I shure hope I don’t look too hellish. I stare at the paper work and the numbers just kind of dance before my eyes without really sinking into my brain. I get the jist of things. I make some adjustments to the system. Unfortunately I can’t get it all done before they start up operations, so I end up making adjustments on the fly, which can be troublesome. In between moments I manage to run back to the room and pound some Poptarts and the yogurt and take a breather. A lifesaver. More adjustments. Things finally look settled and I can relax. My flight’s at 1:30, almost 3 hours from now. I pack my stuff and relax for a bit. Gotta pound the Ginger Ale, it’s annoying how you can’t take drinks through security anymore. I decide I’ll go to the airport early. I figure all the Hawaii airports are run by the same concessions, so like Maui and Kauai I should be able to get a Guinness on tap. Little did I realize that this is Hilo we’re talking about. I arrive to find the bar closed, the adjoining “restaurant” is limited menu, and no Guinness. They have other beers, but I don’t want to waste airport price on anything else. I settle for a seven dollar bacon cheeseburger, which actually is ok, I’ve had much worse burgers. No fries included though. Curses, foiled in my expectation of a nice Guinness.
Flight back home is packed full, mostly locals. I quickly pass out, missing on my chance for the freebie juice. The landing was a little unnerving with the large amount of throttle jockying of the pilot, but he sets it down softly. We taxi for what seems an inordinately long time. I couldn’t see where we landed, I’m seated in the back with a perfect view of the engine covering. Pilot guns the engine quite a few more times along the way. He must enjoy the sound or something. Eventually we make it to the terminal, with another long wait for the jetway, I’m finally out of there. It’s been a long day, good to be home.
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