It’s been a busy 10 days. On Friday, I flew out to Oahu to pick up Gavin from granny’s house. He was there on winter break since just after Christmas. The first thing I did after getting picked up at the airport, was to drive right to the local home-brewing supply shop. Otherwise, how would I be able to bottle the beer that I brewed 2 weeks prior? 🙂 We got there at 10:30 am, and they were closed. They didn’t open until noon. So we drove a short way to Bob’s Big Boy to grab a few hamburgers. Mmmm mmmmm. Delicious. After a burger and some cheesecake, it was back to the home-brewing shop. Arriving just at noon, we went into the shop and looked around. It was a small space filled with awesome supplies. I went in looking for a bottle capper and some caps, and walked out with said items plus enough supplies to make another 5 gallons of beer. An Irish Porter to be exact. Oh yeah. I can’t wait to brew that one up. 

With the brew shop out of the way we headed home to sit and relax until going out to the Kin Wah for dinner. Oh how I love their orange chicken. 

Saturday, I had a big schedule. Fix the motorcycle, go to dance practice, and meet friends at bar. Ok it doesn’t sound like much, but fixing the motorcycle took a long time. We had to replace the batter and spark plugs. The battery was a bit trickier to get than expected. But we finally found one. With that battery and spark plugs replaced, the bike ran like a top. Hahahahaha. Yeah right. Nothing. Wouldn’t start. There it sits waiting for another visit from me. Oh well.

Dance practice went very well. I blended back in with the group very well. They’ve been practicing without me for a few weeks now. So we were all relieved that the practice went well. Burn’s Night will go well. I look forward to the scotch.

After practice, I took the time to shower and eat some dinner (thank you Mary) and then walk on over to the bar. It was very busy so I didn’t get to sing any kareoke, but that was made up for when some guy got pissed off at something an hurled a beer bottle in our direction, splashing my face with hour old beer. My first bar incident. Awww. Other than that it was great. It was so good to see my friends again. They were all there too. Coincidently, everyone decided that it was a good night to go out. The only buddy I didn’t get to see was my good drummer friend, Gabe. He was in the process of moving and was all tired and, now, far away. Next time. 

The following day was airport day. Gavin and I packed everything up and headed back out to Maui. The very next day, I got sick. My stomach was all queesy, my head hurt, my throat was sore and my nose was all crazy. Still now, my nose is all runny and stuffy at the same time. Gar.

Tuesday was a good day. Holly went up to town to pick up 4 cakes from Costco for the library’s 25th anniversary. She made it back in record time by 2 o’clock. Amazing. So I went with her to get Gavin since I had to go to the bank. Upon returning, I found out that my neighbor had 24 empty bottles that I could use for bottling my beer. So that night, despite feeling a bit crappy, I cleaned and sanitized 24 bottles, filled them with beer, and capped them with brand new bottle caps. Only another 5 days before I can refrigerate them and drink them. Of course I have to share with my neighbors. But that’s ok. The faster I drink these, the sooner I can brew my Irish Porter. Oh yeah. Beer good. I’m glad I’m finally getting into beer brewing. I’ve been waiting for this for a while. I can picture my brewery/restaurant in Lake George now. It will be a great success. All are welcome. 🙂

New Years has come and gone with no particular excitement. Gavin is off island with Granny. Holly and I sat at home and spent our day knitting and watching a 24 hour Bones marathon. It rained most of the day which put a damper on fireworks. It stopped for a brief bit at midnight just in time for the Hana town fireworks display which I heard from my couch as the ball fell on tv. I talked to my east coast friends and family at 7pm. That of course is midnight for them. I caught my best friend as the ball was dropping ringing in the new year and marking the beginning of his 30th birthday. Happy Birthday. Overall it was a good day. I miss Gavin. The house is somehow quiet without him. Even with the cats tearing back and forth and howling and growling at one another, it is somehow quiet without him. We get him back soon though. We’ve run out of chocolate for the most part, which is good. Time to get back on track. Our scale is wonky and won’t make up it’s mind if I weight 155 or 165. Stupid thing. Doesn’t matter really. It’s all muscle anyway right? 🙂 lol. My beer is all brewed up and has been fermenting for a week now. It’s pretty much ready to bottle. I just need bottles. Hmmm. I think I’ll get a bottle capper when I go to town this weekend. Then I can use all the glass beer bottles I have ready for recycling. I’d much rather have propper brown beer bottles than stupid plastic soda bottles. It doesn’t seem right. If all goes well, I’ll have a few cases of decent tasting home brewed beer to drink fairly soon. Yay.

Tomorrow is Christmas day. Mary is here for the holiday as Holly couldn’t get off work for us to go to Oahu. The air is pleasant though. Our tree has a multitude  of gifts under it. And more to come. Tonight we will feast on a beautiful roast beast with yorkshire pudding. And tomorrow we feast on meat pie. Mmmm. This will be Leif’s first Christmas and he is 3 months older than Gavin was at his first Christmas. It will be fun to watch him as he gets his new toys that he will actually play with. And Gavin of course, will have a blast opening his presents. And we will love watching them both. 

I’ve put in half a day’s work already. It is now time to lounge and drink booze and wrap more gifts. Holly will join us in just under 2 hours after she finishes putting in her full day’s work. I don’t quite know how tonight will go, but it promises to be a cuddly, peaceful, yummy evening. And then when we are all in our beds, Santa will come.

Po is here. She arrived at our house finally the day before Thanksgiving along with Holly’s mom. The day after Thanksgiving, we thought it would be a good idea to let the cats out. After a few hours Moura and Sookie were back inside. But there was no sight of Po. It wasn’t until later when Holly and I had to go to the post office that we figured out where she was. On returning from the post office, we heard distress meows coming from the jungle (I like calling it a jungle). Holly ran to see where she was and I followed. Then I realized, I can’t leave the baby in the car unattended, so I went back. But Holly and I switched positions. I wandered back into the jungle to see where the voice was coming from. After looking all around, I finally decided to look up. And there she was. Wedged between two branches of a palm tree. And she is a bit chubby so she was pretty well wedged. It took me three attempts to get her down. The first, I climbed the tree right next to her hoping I could just reach over and grab her. Climbing a palm tree is not as easy as it sounds. It’s hard. So that didn’t work. The second attempt, I climbed the the tree she was actually in. I was able to get up to her, but unable to lift her high enough to unwedge her. Mary found a ladder nearby that I could use. It wasn’t nearly tall enough, but it was that much more I didn’t have to actually climb. Just before my third attempt, Po decided to help out and got herself unstuck enough to turn around and drop down a branch right between another two branches. But she wasn’t as stuck. So on the third attempt, I climbed up to her, lifted her out from between the branches and lowered her on to my chest where she happily stayed as I slid down the tree. I re-entered the house with a cat and many red scrapes and bruises from where the tree met my skin in an unfriendly manner. I hit the shower for the second time that day, then plopped on the couch with a beer. The hero relaxes. 🙂

So it’s  holiday time at karate depot. That means shorter deadlines and lots of work. One of the things I had to do last week were some banners for one day specials. I had to do images for 4 days worth. And the night I was supposed to email them out, Sookie was in one of her crazy moods. She darted out of the bedroom, across the living room, up onto he couch, and tackled my laptop. They both flew off the stool and landed on the floor in a pounding thump. Sookie scrambled up and darted back into the bedroom. I picked up the laptop and resumed some of my work. I noticed the computer acting slow and strange. So I tried to reboot it only to find that it would not start back up again. No matter what I tried, it would not turn back on. I decided to re-install the operating system using archive and install, but I got a bunch of errors saying that it couldn’t complete the task. After a few hours, I emailed my boss about what happened and went to bed. The next morning, I tried and tried and tried, only to fail and fail and fail. So I went to the extreme. I removed all of my files via firewire and re-formatted my hard drive, writing zeros across the disk. Then I re-installed OS X. Success. Phew. It all sounds quick, but it was a whole day process. I wasn’t able to get my work until only 2 hours before the banners were supposed to go live. Kind of cutting it close. Darn cat.