Kelly and I went up to Dayton on Friday so that Kelly could run the Air Force Marathon Half-Marathon (13.1 miles). The race was on Saturday, and Kelly did really well, completing the race in just under 2 hours — a real improvement over her miniMarathon time of 2 hours 12 minutes (and vastly improved over her 2 hour 45 minute time in the 2003 miniMarathon). The course was very hilly, but Kelly has been training with lots of hills, and really kicked some ass! Me, on the other hand, was around for moral support only. We did, however take in the Air Force Museum after the race, and it too was awesome.

We took many pictures:

View the 2004.09.18 Air Force Marathon gallery.

This weekend, I competed in my first-ever sailplane competition. The competition was held in Lexington, Kentucky by the Bluegrass Soaring Society. The 2004 Mid-American Soaring Championships was held for the 28th year, this year at beautiful Jacobson Park on the east-side of Lexington.

I’m currently working towards my League of Silent Flight Level II certification, and I need 6 contests to complete that level. The contest spanned both Saturday and Sunday, and I had a plane that could compete in two different levels — both “Unlimited Sportsman” and “RES” (Rudder/Elevator/Spoiler). My first day, Saturday went pretty well for my first contest. I ended up 5th out of 9 in Unlimited Sportsman and 9th out of 16 in RES. Sunday, however, was a different story all together. I was again competing in two classes, and while the clouds were very low early in the morning (around 600 feet), I took my chances and went up for my first RES flight. The flight went pretty well, and I got 6:49 out of 8 minutes for the flight and an 84 out of 100 for my landing points. Then I said “Hey! Let’s shoot for one of my Sportsman class flights!” Feeling all heady with my earlier flight, I brought it back to the line. I plugged the battery in, switched on my transmitter, and with fellow LASS-mate Gordy ready to time me, I sent it up the winch. Pretty good! A little too left, okay now it’s way left, push it back right, okay good! Left again? What the hell? No response! NOOOOOO! It nosed in about 50 yards from the winch, so hard that the nose was in about 6 inches, and the very sturdy fuselage and tail were shattered. One wing was completely snapped in half, and the other sustained minor damage.
I hauled it back to the pits, and after investigating a possible radio-frequency conflict, I figured out the issue was actually with a battery cable. It would seem that a lot of jostling and pulling in and out of this cable caused a weak connection in the wire, as it would cut power at the slightest touch.

But not to fear — I came back with my 2-meter Spirit and finished out the rest of the day (4 flights), managing to get 9:58 out of 10 minutes on both flights and 91 out of 100 on two flights, with the other two being rather unimpressive. Overall, I think I finished DFL in the Sportsman class, but considering I killed one of my planes and got a zero in the first round, not so bad.

So aside from the calamity, I had a blast! Lots of fun. You can see photos of the contest here: 2004 Mid-American Championship gallery at LouisvilleSoaring.org

Today is the 35th anniversary of the successful Apollo 11 moon landing. In honor, I suggest you check out this kick-ass full-screen Quicktime panorama of the moon and the Apollo landing craft.

There are still some conspiracy folks questioning “Was it faked?” but there are heaps of evidence that say “it was it real!” I think I’d have to side with the “NOT FAKED” camp on this one. Mostly because the science is there, and maybe just a bit because Buzz Aldrin throws a mean left-hook.

NASA has a nice gallery of Apollo 11 photos, and you should check them out. After that, why don’t you take a look to the heavens this evening (link to Louisville-specific data at Heavens-Above.com), and wonder what it must have been like to be there on the moon.

Charlie, Geoff and I did a little geocaching today at lunch with much better results than yesterday.

We hit 3 for 3 today. First up was Turn Where ? Was: Sams Club — the first in a Louisville-themed collection of caches where you are guided by the age-old method of “Do you remember where (some long-gone landmark USED to be) was?”. For example, the old White Castle on Bardstown Road, Shillito’s, The Sams Club… etc. The second was Camo 826 in the heart of the industrial park. The last was Charley the Cat, next to J-Town’s Little League park, Skyview. Down by the train track where the cache was, I think we may have interrupted a pair of locals in some sort of naughty business as when we approached they high-tailed it out of there blanket in hand. Charlie took some very nice photos indeed, and you can check them out in my geocaching gallery

Charlie and I hit some geocaches today during our lunch break! Turns out there are quite a few within walking distance from our workplace, and two of them were right across the street on Papa John’s beautiful coroporate campus. We didn’t find the first (titled “Better Pizza 2”), but we did find the second (titled “Papa’s Paradise”). A nice little jaunt on a not-so-hot day.

Geocaching is a pseudo-sport where people hide little treasures called “caches”, record their longitude and latitude with the help of GPS receiver, and then using the Geocaching website, they list their new cache for all to see. Prospective geocachers go to the site, search for local caches, get the longitude and latitude and then commence to searching. Some caches are tiny film canisters (like the ones we found today) some are coffee cans, some are for swapping old ties. Write your name in the log and move on!

A conversation between Jackson and I today:

ben: have you ever wanted to chase tornadoes?
jackson: shit yeah.
ben: as have i
ben: but for the time being, here is your vicarious link.
ben: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/33345

This would serve as a good point to remind my faithful readers of my “themes” options you can find at the bottom of any page. One of which is the “tornado” theme — in honor of the season.

This morning, we met Gary and Mayumi in the lobby of our hotel and headed out to Perry’s Smorgy to get some breakfast. As this is our last day, we will certainly miss Smorgy and all that it gave us for the low low price of $5.95 for an all-you-can eat buffet. After breakfast, we headed down to Kuhio Beach to be taught the ancient are of surfing ($25 a head — not terrible). The statue of Duke Kahanamoku greeted us with open arms, and after a brief introduction to our surfboards (this is my surfboard, there are many like it, but this one is mine), we headed into the ocean. Much to our surprise(s), none of us was completely horrible — the surfing is the easy part! The swimming through the waves is what is tough! Wow! Even Kelly, the practicing swimmer was getting tired. Nonetheless, we all had an absolute ball, and we were tired and happy at the end of the hour. There was a photographer in the water snapping our photos, and your could get them on the CD for a bit of cash at the end of your “ride”. Mine and Kelly’s photos were uninspired, but Gary and Mayumi had some good shots taken and so they had a CD made. Hopefully they’ll get on the web here soon. Gary and I sat around chewing the fat about our respective home country baseball leagues while Mayumi and Kelly slept and baked (respectively) on the beach. Gary, Kelly and I took one last sojourn into the sea before bidding it adieu. I faced south, took a handful of sand with one wave washing ashore, scrubbed my hands together, and with the next wave rinsed them clean. My way of a handshake with the sea, to show respect. We bid our fond farewells with Gary and Mayumi, made a stop at an ABC store for some last-minute gifts and a sea kelp musubi (rice ball), and headed back to the hotel. That’s where I am right now — in about an hour, we check out. In 4 hours, we board a flight home to Louisville. I’m sad to have to go.

P.S. Photos from Polynesian Center will be up tomorrow, and we didn’t have a chance to take photos at the beach today.

Today, Chuck, Danna, Tom, Kelly and I went to the Polynesian Cultural Center — a sprawling cultural “theme” park, sorta like that place at Walt Disney World where all the countries are represented in their own little villages, except that the villages here represent different countries in “Polynesia”. Fiji, Hawaii, French Polynesia, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga and the Marqueses all have their individual villages with great, lively demonstrations, games and handicrafts. It is pretty much an all-day affair starting at noon, demostrations, IMAX movies and pagaents filling out the day until at 5 PM, you have a luau buffett with a song and dance show going on at the same time. Then, at 7 PM the big hoopla happens — the “Horizons” show. This is a great big orchestrated show involving a cast of 100, colorful costumes, an erupting volcano and plenty of fire. It was quite a fantastic show, and a great way to cap off a fun, interesting, and educational day.

First off, the Hawaii – Day Six gallery is up.

Today we slept in a little bit and headed down to our favorite breakfast buffet — Perry’s Smorgy Restaurant. However, as soon as Kelly saw how beautiful and sunny it was outside, we decided to change into our beach gear before going. We only had about 45 minutes on the beach before heading back to our room to get dressed for the wedding.

It should be noted that mid-western / Southern-style “church clothes” are not conducive to comfort in the island climate. My black slacks, shoes and blazer were woefully thick and hot, not to mention completely out of character with the rest of the the whole city. The walk down to Chuck and Danna’s hotel wasn’t terrible, but oh, just wait — it gets better.

As I walk up the steps of the Queen Kapiolani Hotel, I notice that there seems to be quite a draft. In my pants. I remembered quickly why I had not worn these pants in such a long time — they were the ones that split on me during Chuck and Danna’s wedding some 3 years ago! Luckily, Tom came through with an extra pair of black slacks, and I quickly changed and thanked Tom quite a bit! We headed out to the Gloria Diamond Chapel…

Kelly and I had assumed we were driving to the chapel — but we really didn’t know how far away it was from their hotel, and we didn’t have a map. The party instead started out on foot. The map we had was woefully small and only the most crucial streets were labelled. We left the hotel at 11:37 with the wedding at noon, and after over-shooting the chapel followed by head-scratching and reorienting, we were finally back on track. Oh, yes, I must mention — IT WAS HOT. Kelly had some dress heels on, and I had the aforementioned slacks on. Everyone was sweating by the time we got to the chapel (a mere 5 minutes late).

We were greeted by the bilingual (more Japanese than English) greeter / wedding commandant woman from the “wedding company”. She instructed us in short, clipped sentences and suggestive hand-motions and eventually we all fell in place. I didn’t care for standing out in the sun for five minutes lined up waiting to go into the chapel — but really, after that walk standing still was A-OK number one fine with me.

The service was short and sweet and done in both English and Japanese. The opening song was Ave Maria, and the closing song was something in Japanese. The service reminded me a bit of Methodist or Lutheran or something lightly Catholic. The following act in this tightly orchestrated play (Aren’t all weddings like this? Ceremony, photo-op, photo-op, dress rearrangement, photo-op, confusion, photo-op, speech, food, food, Electric Slide) was a “shower of rose petals” followed in quick sucession by the champagne toast and cutting of the cake, and a brief photo op by a large curtain-style fountain. We were then herded into and locked inside of the main dining room.

I should say that I have never eaten anywhere were there were more forks than fingers on your hand. We had four forks (five including the dessert fork), and frankly I didn’t know what to expect, but assumed that we work our way from the outside in. I knew we were in for some culinary treat for sure!

Before all that, though, there was an opportunity for the party involved to give some speeches. Gary went first (in English) and thanked everyone who travelled all this way to come, Roger and Jane Koybayashi (the man who lei’d me the night before), and both his and Mayumi’s parents. Mayumi said her speech in Japanese, so I can’t really tell you what she said, but by the reactions of the Japanese speakers at the table, it was a true tearjerker.

Ryoichi Taki, the father of the bride spoke next — first in Japanese and secondly in English. He noted (loudly) that he does not speak English, and had been up all night practicing his speech. He said that Gary was a bit quiet and shy and that he felt that because of this, Gary was already a little bit Japanese. He also thanked all those in the wedding party, and then sang the opening lines to Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” in English. It was quite endearing! As he sat and comically wiped his brow, we gave him a round of applause.

And then, oh my brothers, there was a meal like no other I had seen before! A seven-course meal with foie gras, salmon and tuna poke (poh-kay), scallop soup, mahi mahi filets, pork chops, cake, coconut sherbet (frozen coconut pudding, I’m told), and Hawaiian coffee. I should say that while I’ve never had foie gras (duck liver pate’) before — I wasn’t about to turn down the chance to try it. Surprisingly it was quite good, but not necessarily the sort of thing that I’d eat on a regular basis. The entire meal was very good, and very well presented. I enjoyed the mixing of French, Hawaiian and Japanese cuisines quite a bit.

After the dinner, we “vacated the premises” as Gary put it, and while Gary and family went to take photos on Hale Koa beach, Kelly and I retired to our rooms for a while. We intend to hit the Ala Moana Center again today with Chuck, Danna, Mayumi and Gary and then eat at the all-you-can eat Japanese seafood restaurant, Todai. Tomorrow is the Polynesian Cultural Center tour/luau, and Thursday we plan on getting a little surfing in before we head home later in the day!

Update: Greetings from the Ala Moana Mac Store! Honk honk!

First off, it should be noted that the Hawaii: Day Five gallery is now ready for business. We met Gary, Mayumi, Chuck, Danna, Tom, Sue and Jim at Duke’s Waikiki for a breakfast buffet, and then split for the beach as Chuck, Danna and Tom headed for the Waikiki Zoo, and Gary and Mayumi had a meeting with the “wedding company”.

Later on we met up with Gary, Mayumi, Chuck, Danna and Tom at the Hale Koa hotel and hit the beach again! We rented some sea-going kayaks, and later built a great sandcastle on the beach.

Later tonight, we eat at San Sei — a reputably great steak and sushi house for the pre-wedding meal! I shall eat my weight in raw fish! More later!!

Update: Well, the dinner at San Sei was quite nice, with some of the best sushi I’ve ever had. Highlights included the Japanese members of our party (Shin, Etsuko, and the Taki’s) ordered green and oolong tea, and the restaurant brought out *canned* green and oolong tea. Gary said this was the equivalent of the Bristol (or any decent restaurant) bringing out canned Minute Maid orange juice when you asked for a glass of OJ.

Further update: Oh yeah — I forgot to mention that during our outing with the kayaks, Gary and I got tangled up riding a wave back and we both flipped over into the sea! Normally not such a bad thing, but the area where we were was a very shallow reef-like area, with some spots having rocks poking out of the surf! Yeesh. Well, we both managed to get back on board, and paddled back into shore to exchange with Kelly and Mayumi. Kelly had a great time on the kayak, and we even spotted some giant sea turtles! Chuck followed a manta ray around out near the breakers, too.

The sandcastle was great fun — four grown men (and eventually Kelly) digging in the sand, offering up their own sand engineering tips. Eventually we had a large compound built around our central tower. I taught everyone how to make drip castles, and we festooned our creation with shells and drip-towers. I said to Gary — “In honor of your wedding, we present thee with this magnamous affront to God!” — and then it was swept into the sea.