Manai'a Explorations
HC SVNT DRACONES

I almost forgot my best story. So everything in Hawaii is more expensive and more difficult. When I moved here a year ago, I could not find a place to live. I was meeting landlords and offering them money on the spot and they would not rent to me. Everybody wanted to rent to females or gay men. Heterosexual men are too negligent and destructive to rental properties. I see their point. Anyway, I wound up renting a crummy one bedroom apartment for $1600 a month with all sorts of conditions - I have to steam clean the carpets, get rid of all the furniture and drapes that came with the apartment, etc. Basically the landlord gets not only my rent money, but all sorts of free work out of me as well. So I called the Salvation Army a week ago and scheduled them to come by on Saturday and take all the furniture that was in the apartment. I made arrangements with the building manager to put padding up in the elevator. Saturday morning, I hauled all the furniture down to the lobby and waited for ...

Well, I started writing a brief autobiography to start off this blog, but autobiographies are difficult, because you wind up reflecting on the past and before you know it, lots of time has gone by and you are adrift in your thoughts. At least that is what has happened to me. And I don’t want this blog to be a self-indulgent, self-absorbed, whining review of past grievances. I’ve done plenty of that and while looking in the rear view mirror certainly has its cathartic benefits, I am tired of it and ready to move forward. I want this blog to be about exploration, present and future. But still, I do want to define the point of departure, so I shall continue to work on my autobiography. -------------------- So I am training for the Tucson Marathon and I am ramping up my weekly mileage and I am exhausted. It is bloody hot and humid in Honopupu, so I have been running around the Ala Wai canal at night after swim practice. One of these nights I am going to take my camera down to the canal an...

You know, a month ago when I made the decision to leave Hawaii and return to Tucson, I was very happy with that decision. Now I am a bit conflicted. I spent a year in Hawaii trying to find community, but Honolulu is very cliquish and I never really found a community of very compatible folks. Well right after I made that decision, I met the social butterfly, paddler and swimmer Ellen who has quite a community of very nice and interesting friends. So I’ve spent the last week having great fun swimming and socializing with some really fun, nice people including Cosmopolitan’s most eligible bachelor in California and numerous paddler and triathlete babes with big muscles. Ellen is a nurse practitioner in the Navy and she is being deployed to Kuwait for six months. She leaves tomorrow, so today she and I went for a goodbye swim from Kaimana to Duke’s. We went way out to deep, clear blue water and we were bucking a pretty stiff current. Way out there, far from the chaos of Waikiki, a bale of...

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