Old Diamondhead

My favorite thing to do every morning is to check out the Honolulu Advertiser's daily photo diary of Hawaii's history. They post old pictures of the islands, such as the railroad picture I posted awhile back. Today, there was a picture of Diamondhead, looking down Kalakaua Avenue, which, today, is lined with high rise hotels:

1898:


Today:








Inspiration from the book, Arizona Then and Now. Happy Wednesday!

The best way to beat the summer heat!

Everyone knows by now that I am a super-nerd and I enjoy things like making ice cream by utilizing the freezing power of liquid nitrogen (-195.8ºC). Last Friday, I finally convinced the lab to do it. Tina, our microscopy lab manager, braved the terrible Honolulu traffic and bought our ingredients: heavy cream, half and half, sugar, strawberries, vanilla, and cocoa. The recipe is easy: take half as much cream as milk or half and half, add 1c sugar and 8 tbsp vanilla per every gallon. Add fruit or cocoa and mix well. Then slowly, add liquid nitrogen (5 x the amount of ice cream you want to make or until you can't stir the ice cream anymore), as shown above by Tyler (Kim's boyfriend), Kim (Tina's daughter), Tina, and Lisa (the astrobiologist who uses the microscopes). It took about a minute to have homemade ice cream and boy was it delicious! Here's what the strawberry looked like:

And here are happy Anna and Kyle eating it:
It was easily some of the tastiest ice cream I have ever had, although next time I think I would use half and half and milk instead of heavy cream, because it was a bit, well, heavy. If you have access to LN, I highly recommend doing this before the summer is over. Ai ā hewa ka waha (eat until the mouth can have no more)!

I need a pied piper...

I recently read that Western Oahu was having a mice problem, but now apparently the mice have migrated south and Diamondhead is inundated. Well, at least my house is. Kyle found the mouse about three weeks ago, and I didn't believe it existed until a week ago, when it scampered right under my nose in the cupboard where we keep the trash. I told my landlords last week and they claimed they had never seen mice in the house. Interesting story, until my sister found mice traps in the cupboard. So someone who lived in the house before us also had this problem.

So, on Saturday, I set out to catch the mouse. The traps in the cupboard were the type that are just sticky pads that the mice runs across and adheres to, thus ensnaring the poor bastard. "No poison", it proclaims! Well, that sounded great so I set one out behind the trash can. Not two minutes later, Gaffney perks up, we start to hear squeals! We caught him! Then, the horror ensues. What do you do with a mouse that is caught to a big sticky pad? I won't fill you in on the details, but let's just say it was not pretty and I was terribly sad about the whole ordeal. I had cats growing up, so I never had to deal with this before. Am I getting weaker as I age?

Anyway, I had pretty much gotten over it by Sunday, but then something happened. I was sitting around doing work, when Gaffney suddenly perked up her ears and ran to the cupboard. I laughed at her, saying, "Oh, there's nothing there." Just to make her happy, I opened the cupboard and suddenly another mouse runs across the trash can! I tell you, it's a plague! Two mice in one weekend! I couldn't bare to use the sticky pads again, so I set up an elaborate booby trap system and blocked off the holes it normally goes through. I fear that I will have to trap it soon, but I think I will use a good old fashion trap this time. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Goodbye, KK!

Sadness. My sister leaves today. We have had a really great time partying all around Oahu, but today she leaves me to go back to DC.

Here are some pictures from our adventures. Shown on the left: Katy at the Halona blow hole, although the blow hole itself is on the opposite side of this lookout.


The waves on Wednesday, when this picture was taken, were up to 8'. The eastern winds were gusting up to 50mph which causes some pretty erratic swells, making for some awesome smashing of waves against these volcanic rocks. This is the newest part of Oahu, so there is no reef to protect the cliffs here.

And here's a picture of me climbing down to the cove by the blowhole:

That's all for now. I am going to Waimanalo to play frisbee beach league after dropping Katy off at the airport. Back to da grind, bruddah.

We like to live in expensive places...

Hey y'all. I have been incognito this week due to my sister, Katy's visit. I will post pictures later (as well as Big Island pics that are still on Kyle's camera which is currently somewhere on a beach on the east coast).

Anywho, in some random news, it turns out that Forbes ranked Tucson #7 in the list of the most overpriced places in the United States. Tucson?!? I mean, I know that the housing costs have increased drastically in the last few years, but come on? Overpriced? I would die for Tucson prices again, given my current #4 ranking on the list. Check out Honolulu's median home price of $625k compared to Tucson's measly $250k! Maybe the prices really gone up that much in the six months I have been gone? Help me understand!