Ok, well, it’s not my birthday yet. But my birthday is this month, and since I will be on a plane for part of my birthday and in NY for the rest of it, Holly got me my birthday present early. THANK YOU. She told me a few weeks ago that she wanted to buy me a new computer screen for my birthday. And not just a regular “borg” computer screen. She wanted to buy me a flat screen. Ooooooooh. So I researched and checked out screens and read reviews. Yesterday she gave me money and told me to go and buy whichever screen I wanted. So knowing what I wanted, I ran down to CompUSA and picked up a Viewsonic VX2025wm monitor. I brought it home and hooked it up and oh I am so happy. I like it a lot. It is sleek and makes my “office” look bigger than the 3′ x 5′ area that it is. And it looks cleaner too. I’m a happy camper. And come tomorrow, I will actually have to work on it and stop playing. lol.

Ok. It’s been almost a week since the Scottish Festival. I think my feet are starting to heal. lol. Talk about a crazy weekend. On Friday morning (June 23rd) I woke up late. That is to say, I woke up at 4:45 am as opposed to 4:00 am like I was supposed to. I gathered my things, hopped on my motorcycle and drove straight into town to the KITV broadcasting building where I met up with some bagpipers and did a spot on the early morning news to promote the festival. That was quite interesting. After practicing outside on the sidewalk we waited in the lobby for someone to call us in. While we were waiting, a lady started frantically pounding on the glass doors, trying to get it. She finally found the buzzer and buzzed into the lobby. After getting in, she preceded to tell us how we woke up the whole apartment building on the other side of the street with those noisy bagpipes. After all the steam evaporated off the top of her head, we apologized and told her we were done. Then, still frustrated, she left. Or tried to. Apparently the doors are also locked on the inside and she had just as hard time getting out as she did getting in. Ha ha. That was a good laugh. Anyway, on to the rest of the day. After the morning news, I hopped back on my motorcycle and headed deeper into Waikiki to find the company who is trying to rip me off (that is another story). After getting to their main office, I get a story that assures me they are trying to rip me off. Without any gain in that area, I left and headed for the other side of the island where I traded my motorcycle for a friends truck. Then heading back into town, I stopped in Waimanalo to load the truck full of boxes containing tarps, cups, coolers, napkins, lemonade, bowls, and many other things that you might need to run a tea tent. After loading all these things in the truck, I drove towards town again, stopping this time in Kailua to pick up a hand truck and a large ice cooler. By this time, the truck is almost overflowing and I must now go more into town to meet others at another storage area, where I am to help load and pack more boxes and coolers into another truck. I won’t mention that I didn’t know how to get there and ended up lost, so that when I finally got the right directions, I was too late and they were leaving. From here, I drove right back to Waikiki to Kapiolani Park where the games are to be held. From here its all work. Unpacking tables, chairs, boxes, coolers, and all kinds of things you might need to run a Scottish Festival. This is getting long, and the festival hasn’t even started yet. Ok, so here we go. Hours and hours have passed and it’s still Friday. By 7 pm or so, we get to the point where everything is ready to set up the next morning. Our tea tent stuff is all unpacked and rolled up like a wonton inside of our tent. Tables are set up with chairs and all the vendors areas are all layed out. I drive back to Kailua and trade the truck for the motorcycle and ride home with heavy feet.

Saturday morning it’s off to Kapiolani park. It’s the day of the Festival. Bagpipes are playing, people are gathering, lemonade, scones and shortbread is being served. But we need more ice. So I hop in the car and run off to buy 140 lbs of ice. That was fun. Then at 10:30am we head down to the changing rooms to prepare for our dancing at 11. Everything goes well. No major mess ups. As a matter of fact, I found out that my highland dancing that day brought some old lady from Scotland to tears of joy and happiness. After dancing it was back to the tea tent to sell sell sell until 1 pm when it was time to dance on the small stage. That was fun. We got some volunteers to come up on the stage and do some dancing with us. Then at 4;30, it’s time for the small stage again. This time we do a Highland demo with more volunteers. The rest of the day was all selling food and buying trinkets from the 2 vendors that were there. Have to support the vendors. At the end of the day, we packed up all our gear and made another large wonton in the tent for the next day.

Sunday, I am tired. Holly and Mary have left with Gavin and gone to the Festival for setup. I sleep another half hour and then hop on my motorcycle and drive to Kailua to pick up the truck again. I arrive at the Festival at 10:30 just in time to go down to the changing room to get ready for dancing. We do our same routine as the day before, only this time when I dance my highland, there is another dancer dancing highland with me. We all do good. Even better than day one. Sunday’s routine is very similar to Saturday’s, with an extra demo of Highland at 12:30. Then of course there is breakdown. We must do everything the opposite of Friday. All the Tea Tent stuff must get packed away in boxes and coolers and bags and labeled and put in the truck and drove back to storage. This time there is a crew of helpers for breakdown. Which is not to say there wasn’t help on Friday. The Festival was officially over at 6pm Sunday, June 25th. After all tables were piled up and the truck was loaded and unloaded, the “RSCDS break down crew” went out for dinner. I drove to the restaurant straight from unloading the truck. I was super dirty and dressed in a kilt. I always like doing that. Going out in public with my nice wool “McIntosh” kilt is awesome. Anyway, we ate at “Cafe Sistina” where all the walls are beautifully painted in the style of, you guessed it, the Sistine Chapel. The food was really good and Holly got shnockered on 3 glasses of wine. lol. After dinner, I drove back to Kailua to trade the truck for the motorcycle, and again drove home with heavy feet. A little heavier this time.

I should also note that as the RSCDS president, I got to march at the front of the opening parade for the Festival on both Sat and Sun. Those flags get heavy after a while. It’s all good though. Was very fun. The weekend was exciting and I look forward to it every year. I have so much fun.

Ok, now for the pictures.

KITV performance

Mary and Gavin had run up to the school to pick up a few things. They were gone for a little while and I got to work in peace and quiet able to really focus on things. They arrived after a little while, bursting in the door announcing that they had found trouble.

Can’t see the video above? Click here to download our video file, then launch it from your desktop.

As you can see we have acquired a new cat. Our other two cats have not tried to kill it yet (maybe because it’s a female), which is a good sign. She has long claws and beautiful shiny fur. She was abandoned up at the school where Mary works. We have not picked a name for her yet. Soon enough though.

Oh what a wonderful day. I woke up around 8am or so. I had scheduled an RSCDS meeting for 8:30 am. I whizzed through this as fast as I could, which was 2 hours. Bah. Oh well. At 11:15 or so we headed over to Haleiwa Joes to meet Mary’s boyfriend for brunch. They wanted to take me out for father’s day. Pictures below. We (I) gorged ourselves in prime rib, potato salad, omelets, haupia, sausage, eggs benedict, cupcakes, and orange juice. Holly refrained from most of this and snarfed large portions of shrimp. When we were done eating, Ron reached into his pocket and pulled out what us scotts know as a flask. Mmmmm. He poured some scotch into our empty glasses and offered a toast to the father (that’s me). It was very good scotch. Yum yum. Afterwards, we headed down into the surrounding gardens for a stroll and to just mess around.

I have to say, I can’t complain. Would you complain about being surrounded by all that luscious greenery?

After all this excitement, we went home to lounge for a few hours. I had 3 presents given to me by Mary, Holly and Gavin. The first was a delicious box of Honolulu Chocolate Factory chocolate truffles. The second was a bottle of “Pucker” and the third was a brand new Metallica t-shirt, which you can see me wearing in the following pictures.

At about 4:30 or so we decided to venture out on our next mission. Go to Gordon Biersch. Oh yeah. Holly and I went and left Mary and Gavin behind. They were too tired to venture out. When we arrived at the Aloha Tower Marketplace we did some dreaming as we walked through a beautiful store that was going out of business and had 50% off sale signs on everything. Such beautiful furniture. From there we walked around in and out of silly stores glancing at cheap jewelry. When we were let down, we headed to Gordon Biersch and got a nice little table just at the edge next to the waterfront. We decided against getting entrees and I just ordered a plate of chicken wings and some beer. We basically spent the whole time talking and reminiscing and what not. After 4 beers and the plate of chicken wings, I ordered an Apple Bread Pudding to go. We had a wonderful time. I had a great father’s day. For anyone who has not been to Gordon Biersch or Haleiwa Joes, you must come visit us so we can take you there.

This morning I awoke and watched Gavin and Holly dawdle a bit before they headed downstairs. Gavin was so beautiful with the morning light on him. Holly paused for a second to glance at herself in the mirror to be sure that she was well dressed for the day. I thought how wonderful and beautiful my family is. I am in love. I went over the rest of the day in my head for all of 5 seconds. In that time, we went house hunting, drove to the beach and swam and laid in the sun and were happy and beautiful. At the end of the 5 seconds I am still laying naked in bed about to start the day. In this moment, I am really happy.