The Tattoo

After waiting two long years for us to return to Oahu, Jon finally got the tattoo he's been wanting. I documented the process while Jon stuck it out for four hours in the chair.

The tattoo artist was Sherri at the Hawaiian Tattoo Company in Honolulu, HI.



The first step is to make a stencil of the design. Jon knew he wanted the center to be the image of Maohi, the Tahitian god of paddling, but wasn't sure what he wanted around it. Sherri took the center image and designed the outer band around it.


The first couple of needle jabs.




As the outline was getting done, it became clear that Jon is what tattoo artists refer to as "a bleeder." This means that his skin would bleed after just one pass of the needle. Most people apparently don't bleed until the second or third pass.


Halfway filled in...


...and the finished product!


And just so you can get the full sound effect, here's a short video:


See, it's like you were right there with Jon - for four hours - getting a really painful tattoo. Only you weren't there, and I think if you ask Jon, he will agree that you were having a lot better time right at this moment.

The Sharks

We're back from Hawaii! We're tan but tired. It was fun to be there again, but it's great to be home too. So far the only pictures I've had a chance to upload are from the shark cage dive (ok, really a snorkel) that we did on the north shore of Oahu.

We did this same dive on our honeymoon two years ago, and it was so much fun we decided to do it again. It's a good thing we did, because it was a completely different experience this time around. Two years ago, we were surrounded by about 30 galapagos sharks. These are medium-sized, generally non-aggressive open water sharks. This time, we had an opportunity to see three large-sized, generally very aggressive tiger sharks. Tiger sharks are notorious for causing most of the shark attacks in Hawaiian waters when they do happen (it's actually pretty rare out there). It just so happened that we timed the shark dive with the beginning of the tiger shark migration season.

Here are a few of the shark pictures. If you want to see all of them, click here.

This is the largest shark we saw - about 14 feet long. All three sharks were females.


They get pretty close, and they will often bump or bite on the cage to test it out and see if it tastes good. This is also a good photo of the tiger sharks' identifiable stripes.


I never want to see this view OUTSIDE of a cage.


This one is a little hazy, but it shows how large the shark is (14 ft) compared to the boat we took to get out there (32 ft).

Aloha from Hawaii

I've been in Hawaii for about 10 days, so I figured I should probably do a little update post. Unfortunately, my digital camera crapped out, so there won't be a lot of pictures to share at the moment. Luckily, my coworker, Jessica, is shutter-happy, so I will get all of her pics before I leave. The workdays are long and hot. The tradewinds haven't been blowing as much as normal, possibly due to Tropical Depression Cosme that passed by the islands a few days ago. It doesn't help that we spend most of our days hunched over a monitoring well in black asphalt in the beating sun. I really can't complain too much considering we are surrounded by palm trees, gorgeous flowering bushes, and amazing birds all day. The giant cockroaches and ants nests that we find in the well vaults were alarming at first, but now they are all in an average work day.

For several reasons, we can't work on the Base on the weekends, so we have packed them full of activities on the north shore of Oahu. Last weekend, Jessica, John (another coworeker), and I snorkeled, chilled on the beach, ate a ton of shave ice, sipped mai tais, and watched two amazing sunsets all in one weekend. Did I mention the enormous sea turtles? There's a beach on the north shore called Turtle Beach (how appropriate) where huge sea turtles come up onto the beach to bask in the sun. I was walking out of the water and accidentally tripped over a turtle that I thought was a huge rock. I think we have a picture of the giant bruise I'm sporting from that incident. I was actually more worried about the turtle at the time, but the ranger who was present on the beach assured me that he didn't feel a thing. One interesting fact about Turtle Beach, from the book Oahu Revealed: "Turtle Beach is a modern name. It sure beats th ancient Hawaiian name for this beach, which was Kukae'ohiki meaning excrement of the ghost crabs." I didn't see any ghost crabs. Nor did I see any of their excrement. I'm thankful for this small favor.

I was able to get one cool photo before my camera died. This was taken on our way "home" to our hotel from the Base last week:

At least we had something nice to look at during our hour-long commute!

Has anyone seen the Cabana Boy?

Shannon's parents have been visiting this past week, and while they were here, we were able to finish a bunch of house projects. Mom spent two days sewing some awesome cabana curtains for the back patio, and dad spent his time hanging ceiling fans and tinkering with random electrical projects around the house. The cabana curtains have been a long time in the making. We bought the fabric on a trip to Minneapolis in April for about 1/5 the cost of buying the curtains pre-made. This may not seem all that impressive to many of you, but when you are trying to have a relaxing BBQ on a west-facing patio in Texas on a 90-degree evening, you will understand how much these curtains come in handy.

Here are some before and after shots:

Inspiration for the patio - Crate & Barrel and some fabulous resort in Hawaii:

I also had a chance to paint some old faded Adirondack chairs that came with our house:

Inspiration for the chairs - L.L. Bean Vintage Adirondack:

They finished! (Final time - 84 hours)

Jon and Stacy arrived in Seadrift around 9:00 pm last night. It wasn't even dark yet! Luckily, Jon did not have a repeat of the "Safari Feet" from 2005, however he does have one broken rib, a few random bruises, and about 400 chigger bites. We got back to Austin at 2:30 this morning after the longest 3-hour drive ever.

Pictures from the Saltwater Barrier checkpoint (Day 4):


Almost in.



The guys are only allowed to get water and ice at each checkpoint along the way.


Jon was covered in caterpillars.

Pictures from Seadrift:


Paddling across San Antonio Bay.


The guys with their land crew: Danny, Belinda, and Marty.


I tagged along at the end.



Receiving their plaques. I am now taking bets on how long it will be before Jon gets drunk enough to give it away.

Jon and Stacy are on the river

A few people have asked me for updates on Jon and Stacy's progress in this year's Texas Water Safari. The race started on Saturday morning at 9 am. I just heard from their land captain a couple of minutes ago that they reached the Cuero checkpoint at 12:50 this afternoon. If you'd like to see a nice map of all the checkpoints, click here. Don't count on seeing their times on that website though. At this point they are near the back, and they results are only posted for the first 40 boats or so at the later checkpoints. They slept a lot last night, so their land crew thinks they will pass a bunch of others who need to sleep tonight.

Here are some pictures from the start of this year's race:

Heading for the water.


Starting gun.




Ducking under a bridge at the first low-water crossing.

Here's a good picture of the guys on Day 1 that I stole off another website:

Courtesy of Bob Brooks.

I thought some of you might find the Wikipedia entry on the Water Safari interesting:

Texas Water Safari
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Texas Water Safari, billed as the "World's Toughest Boat Race", is a trek down waterways from San Marcos, Texas to Seadrift, Texas. The primary requirement is a boat powered only by human muscle. The event was first held in 1963, and is run annually.
In 1962 Frank Brown and Bill "Big Willie" George decided to navigate from San Marcos to Corpus Christi, Texas without a motor. They wanted to share this month-long journey with others, so in 1963 they held the first Texas Water Safari.

The race is scheduled to begin on the second Saturday of June of each year, unless extremely inclement weather prevents it from being held safely. The Safari has been postponed in only two years (twice in 2004, making a total of three postponements). The total distance traveled is 262 miles. Racers must take all food and equipment needed with them, receiving only water and ice along the way.

The Safari course includes natural rivers like the San Marcos, with rapids and dams. Most boats destroyed on the course are lost in the upper river. The San Marcos River converges with the Guadalupe River and becomes wider and slower. The main dangers in the middle river are sweepers, downed trees, logjams and dams. Near the end of the course there are lakes and swamps, and it ends with a crossing of the San Antonio Bay.

There are many popular and private checkpoints along the course. Experienced support crews may jealously guard their secret checkpoints. There are 12 official checkpoints, including the finish line. Their locations are published and they are staffed with race officials. The Team Captain of each team must be present and sign off the team's time as the team leaves (teams are allowed one missed checkpoint).

Official Checkpoints:
Staples Dam
Luling 90
Zedler Mill-Luling Dam
Palmetto Park
Gonzales 183
Hochheim
Cuero 766 (Cheapside)
Cuero 236
Victoria City Park
Dupont
Tivoli
Seadrift

Participants belong to one of a number of classes. The Unlimited class is one of the best known to spectators, and is restricted only to watercraft powered only by human muscle. Attempts have been made to win in craft of unconventional form, but the records show that the best results are achieved by a well-trained team in one of the multiman canoes (the records for largest team and fastest finish time are held by nine- and six-person canoes respectively). Other classes include Tandem Unlimited (similar to unlimited, but only two entrants per boat), Solo Unlimited (one entrant), and other types defined by standard or convention.

Participants tell of frequent hallucinations in the lower river (because most boats take almost forty hours to finish, and many racers do not stop to sleep, delusions are often unavoidable). Other challenges include aggressive alligator gar, alligators, sharks (while crossing the bay), poisonous water moccasin snakes, fire ants, and mosquitoes. Participants' boats are frequently damaged along the upper river, given the technical nature of this portion of the race course. Attempts to repair boats in the field are met with varying amounts of success.

The Safari is attended, in part, by a core group of followers consisting of former competitors, family and friends. Names and stories quickly become common-knowledge and there is a rich body of lore available to anyone who takes the time to seek it out.

And the livin's easy

Summertime is upon us, and we are starting to get a taste of what we are in for over the next 4+ months. Today is supposed to be around 95 degrees and nearly 100% humidity. Nichole and Gaurav are in Singapore laughing at me right now, because I'm pretty sure that's what they live in all year round. By the way, sorry we've been MIA lately. Getting settled in the new house has been a slow process. Here's an update on some recent events as well as what we've got coming up:

April
- We bought and moved into our new house (see previous post). We have since done done some painting, had a pool party, and rearranged our furniture a hundred times. We'll try and post some "after" pictures soon.

May
- The month started off a bit stressful when Kona slipped on our new laminate floor and partially tore his ACL. I know, right? Who knew dogs had an ACL. Apparently we dodged a rather expensive bullet, because if he had torn it completely, we would be looking at a surgery in the neighborhood of $2500.
- Shannon spent a week in beautiful Kemmerer, Wyoming. Some trivia for you: Kemmerer is the Fossil Fish Capital of the World and home of the very first J.C. Penney store. There is one (decent) restaurant in town called Bootleggers. I think I have now had nearly everything on the menu. The week in Kemmerer was followed by a visit to Salt Lake City to catch up with Matt and Elisabeth. I had a great time hearing about their upcoming wedding plans and eating sushi with their fun friends. Finally a stop in Denver was in order. I had a chance to get dinner and drinks with Cristy, Deborah, Allison, Chuck, Ann, and a bunch of other friends. I didn't realize how much I missed everyone!
- Nichole and Gaurav had a beautiful baby girl on May 20th! Congratulations to the new parents! We can't wait to meet her in person someday.

June
- Jon is getting ready for his 10th (or 11th?) Texas Water Safari. The indelible Fumar Chochar Mopar is being patched up and epoxied in anticipation of this Saturday's start date. No doubt photos and a distinctly "Jon" post will appear on the blog following the race.
- Ann and Chris are engaged! Unless you Colorado people have been living under a rock, you know Chris finally bought the rock. Let the wedding emails fly (at least between Ann and Shannon, I doubt Chris and Jon will be trading opinions on gowns and bouquets for the next year).
- We will be taking a short trip to Colorado near the end of June to close on our house there. We feel sad letting it go, but we have been renting it to the buyers for 6 months, and we feel confident that they will take good care of our first home together.

July/August
- Shannon's parents are coming for week-long visit to check out the new house. The list of projects continues to grow. I think I'm the only person who's dad needs to ship his tools out ahead of time in order to complete all the crap we ask him to do for us.
- Shannon is going to Oahu for a two-week work trip. I know, it's a rough life, right? Seriously, I 'll be working hard that whole time, I swear. We are fortunate that Jon will be able to join me in August for a week-long vacation. If you want to drool over my acommodations and the scenery I can expect from my hotel room while I'm there, click here. Stay tuned for more obnoxious posts where we blatantly brag about shark dives, mai tais, and snorkeling with humuhumunukunukuapua'as.

La Casa Nueva

I know, I know, most of you have already been barraged with pictures of the house, but for posterity we're posting some of our favorites on the blog. If all goes well, we will close on April 13th. So, until you all get down here to visit us, here's a little virtual tour:


Front


Living/Dining Room from Entry


Family Room
(There's a wet bar on the right - crucial for martini-making)


Kitchen


Kitchen


Living Room from Above


Upstairs Gameroom/Loft


Gameroom Window Seat


Part of the Yard


Patio w/ the owner's dog.
(Amy - her name is Shay!)


Deck and Half of the Pool

The bedrooms and bathrooms are hard to photograph, but if you would like to see them there are a bunch more house pictures here. Yeah, sorry, I went a little shutter happy at the inspection.

There are no bathrooms at the Alamo.

Just one of the many important lessons we learned when my parents came to Austin for their very first visit. We already knew there was no basement thanks to Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. The weather was beautiful and we spent a great day in San Antonio taking in the sites. Jon discovered his new favorite quote: "You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas" -- Davy Crockett, 1835

We made a stop in San Marcos to see the spot where Jon and Stacy launch for the Texas Water Safari.

A few pictures from the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Lots of fun bars, restaurants, and shops as far as you can see.

Jon, me, and mom at the Alamo.


Kona got lots of walks in the 80 degree weather. Is this dog huge, or what?

Kona's new favorite toy - the nearly indestructable Hedgie the Hedgehog. A gift from his grandma.