Remember the internet before CSS?  Set the dial to 1996 and crank up the flux capacitor for the worst web design advice ever.  Here’s a sample: “If you want people to read [your web pages], don’t [use standard HTML constructs]. They take away your typographic control. Specify your own font sizes when you want a size change.”  To a nongeek, let me just say that reading this statement is tantamount to reading “When running with scissors, make sure they are always pointed up.  Otherwise, if you fall, you might stab yourself in the thigh.”

Starting today, I’m planning on making my blog posts at regular intervals.  The plan right now is to make posts on Mondays and Thursdays.  If this ends up being too much, I may occasionally drop Thursdays.  I guess we’ll see what happens.

Over the weekend I had some free time so I wrote up some code to give me a lot of statistics about my site.  Think of this as Google Zeitgeist, only not as interesting, fun, or cool.  Here are some of my findings:

• Posts made on Monday receive the most comments.  Tuesday was a close second.  So I decided Monday would be a good day to begin making posts regularly.  As I suspected, weekend posts averaged significantly fewer comments (just one per post).  Note: does not include posts made before the comments feature was added to the site.

• 94% of comments are made within three days of the post.  So making a post on Thursday shouldn’t steal the thunder from the Monday post.  Also notice that over half of comments made (53%) are made within the first 24 hours.

• Most of you are reading my blog at work.  It’s okay, I won’t tell your boss.  90% of comments are made Monday-Friday, and 71% of comments are made from 8:00am to 5:00pm.  Look at the hour-of-day stats: isn’t that about as close to a Gaussian distribution as you can hope to get for such a small data set??

• I haven’t had much of a pattern in making posts.  Sunday is the only day when I make significantly fewer posts than any other day.  I also tend to make a lot of posts just before bed (..and also a lot at work..).  :)

• Kip’s mean time between posts is 5.47 days, or 1.28 posts per week.  Sorry, no graphs for that.

• Stephanie’s mean time between posts is 16.70 days, or 0.42 posts per week.

Some notes on the data:

• All statistics include posts made by both myself and Stephanie.

• Comments that I made to my own posts were disregarded.

• Data size for all posts:  n = 111

• Data size for posts since comments feature was added:  n = 32

• Data size for all comments (excluding my own comments):  n = 82

• Statistics were collected 2006.05.13, around 2:00 PM.

If you have some kind of statistics fetish, or if you want to independently verify my findings, or if you just have a lot of free time on your hands, you can view the raw data here.  It’s formatted (tab-delimited) to be pasted in Excel, not to look pretty.

This was a question I pondered last night as Grand Wizards Of The Aryan Brotherhood Hawthorne Heights walked onto the stage at Cricket Arena.  They were wearing all white, which I guess is to promote the Ohioan race?  It just made me think “how cute, they wore matching rock band costumes!  And it’s not even Halloween!”  Oh, and when they came out, they had three guitarists, not counting the bass.  And while I’m sure that talented artists could do some impressive things with three electric guitars simultaneously turned up to eleven, I didn’t hear anything of the sort last night.  I mean.. seriously.. three electric guitars??  Other bands have successfully rocked out with a violin or a piano.  How about two bassists?  I can’t think of any band that’s ever done that, and a good bass player can do things much more interesting than just playing the root note of every chord.  Or what about a rock band with a flute player?  All I’m saying is that there are much more interesting ways to use a fifth member of a band than to give him another guitar.  To be fair, I had a pessimistic attitude going into their set, since I only know one of their songs (“Ohio Is For Lovers”) that I don’t like (I mean, the chorus doesn’t make sense- “you know you do you kill me well, you like it too and I can tell”).  Then halfway through the set, he told everyone to take out their cell phones and light the place up.  After that song, he told us all to text “HH” to some number, at which point I leaned over to Garrison said “I think we’re too old to be here.”  Now I can identify with senior citizens who are told that all they need to do to get medicare is to log on to this URL follow the hyperlinks to the appropriate form.

Maybe I’m getting too old to identify with songs that all the depressed and angst-filled teenagers like so much.  I’m just not at a point in my life where I’m concerned with questions like “What am I going to do when I graduate?”, “Will I ever find love?”, “Why do my parents hate me?”, “Why don’t I have a cool cell phone?”, “How can I get more friends on MySpace?”, or <insert typically generic teenage moaning here>.  I mean, I’m happy with my marriage, I have a good job, and being a geek isn’t a Bad Thing like it was in high school.  What I’m trying to say is that I’m not really wanting or waiting on anything right now, the way I was when I was let’s say 15-to-21-ish.  Not that I think I’m somehow more enlightened than any other human being.  I’m really just saying my interest in music in general (and rock in particular) is on a decline because I just don’t identify with the lyrics as strongly as I used to.

So anyway, after Hawthorne Heights, The All-American Rejects came out and put on a pretty good (albeit short) set, and then Fall Out Boy played a better-than-expected show (I like their CD, but they were so terrible on SNL that I was afraid I wouldn’t like them live).  But this post wasn’t about them, it was about the thoughts that were running through my head as I was watching five preppy kids from Ohio pretend to be a rock band while thousands of fifteen-year-olds screamed along and took low-res pictures with their cell phones, presumably to put them up on MySpace today.

I don’t want for anything that I don’t have, all that I want is waiting for me there

Last week as I was driving across the barren expanse they call Central Florida, I stuck in a CD I burned a few years ago which I entitled “A Few Of My Favorite Things.”  This was burned back when I thought of a mix CD as A Work Of Art, the tracks of which had to be carefully and methodically laid out.  Well anyway I was pleased to see how many of those songs had withstood the test of time (albeit only two years).  So I’m gonna list the songs, what they’re about, what they mean to me, and my favorite lyrics from them.  And please note that I am not insinuating that the music I listened to when I was 15-21 years old is somehow The Best Music.  That is a mentality that can lead an otherwise intelligent, rational man to utter a phrase like “Metallica was the last good band” (someone I used to work with actually said that to me, and he wasn’t making a joke).  Without further ado, I’ll begin my long post.

1. Better Than Ezra - Desperately Wanting:  I’m honestly not sure what this song is about, but I know it’s one of my favorite songs ever.  He is obviously recollecting “better times.”  My best guess is that it’s about a childhood friend that died or got separated from him.  Either way, I think he’s talking about someone he was close to and how they both dreamed of better lives, but it didn’t work out for his friend.  Or maybe I’m completely wrong.  Any better Ezrites out there can feel free to correct me as to what he desperately wanted.

I remember running through the wet grass
And falling a step behind
Both of us never tiring
Desperately wanting

2. Linkin Park - My December:  A pretty depressing song about loneliness.  In fact, Jason once told me it made him want to kill himself back when I had it in my AIM profile.  He’s still alive, so he must have been exaggerating.  It’s a shame this song was a B-side, but I can see how they didn’t think it fit in with Hybrid Theory.  It saw some light on their remix album, but I prefer the B-side version.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s Linkin Park’s best song.  Somewhere in the neural network of my brain, this song is linked with this picture--hearing the song makes me think of that picture, and vice versa.

And I’d give it all away, just to have somewhere to go to
Give it all away, to have someone to come home to
This is my December, these are my snow covered dreams
This is me pretending this is all I need

3. No Doubt - Don’t Speak:  Before Gwen Stefani decided to pretend she was a sex symbol, she was in No Doubt and they made some pretty decent music.  Don’t Speak is the culmination of that; a song that (as I recall) is about her and one of the guys in the band having a relationship and then breaking up.  If I’m wrong about that, well then it’s clearly about a relationship ending, which I think we can all agree is generally not A Fun Thing.

You and me, we used to be together, everyday together.. always
I really feel that I’m losing my best friend
I can’t believe this could be the end
It looks as though you’re letting go
And if it’s real well I don’t want to know

4. Foo Fighters - Everlong (acoustic version):  I specify the acoustic version of this song, because it’s a hojillion times more powerful in that version.  I think this song is about how you might feel at the beginning of love, when everything seems perfect but you’re afraid you might do something to screw it up.

And I wonder, when I sing along with you, if everything could ever feel this real forever?
If anything could ever be this good again?
The only thing I’ll ever ask of you-
You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when

5. Third Eye Blind - Motorcycle Drive-By:  My interest in this song took a while to develop.  It’s tucked in at the end of the album, and for that reason I never realized what a good song this was until two years after I bought the album, after I had ripped all my albums to MP3s and was able to listen to them in no particular order.  I was surprised to find that I had overlooked this really great song for so long.  It’s another one about falling out of love, but on a less depressing note.  More of a “this is over, it was great while it lasted, yeah things are gonna suck for a while, but it’s time to move on, and things will get better soon” kind of feeling.

You smile and say the world it doesn’t fit with you
I don’t believe you--you’re so serene--careening through the universe, your axis on a tilt,
You’re guiltless and free, I hope you take a piece of me with you
And there are things I’d like to do that you don’t believe in
I would like to build something, but you’ll never see it happen
And there’s this burning, like there’s always been
I’ve never been so alone, and I’ve.. never been so alive

6. The Smashing Pumpkins - Muzzle:  I made it a point to not include two songs from the same group, and obviously that meant I could only include one Smashing Pumpkins song.  I think when both lyrics and music are factored in, this has to be one of the absolute best songs Billy Corgan ever wrote.  I think Thru The Eyes Of Ruby would be in second.  And while Mayonaise (sic) historically holds the Kip’s Favorite Song Ever title, the lyrics just aren’t all that awesome.  To me, this song is about realizing that the world as a whole pretty much sucks, but having hope that everything is going to be all right in the end.  Later, I decided it was also about looking back at the way you felt about Life The Universe And Everything when you were sixteenish, and realizing things were never all that bad.  Since I couldn’t pick just one excerpt from the lyrics, I’m gonna quote two parts of the song.

In my mind as I was floating far above the clouds
Some children laughed I’d fall for certain,
For thinking that I’d last
Forever...
But I knew exactly where I was

And then these lyrics are from the end of the song:

And the world is drawn into your hands
And the world is etched upon your heart
And the world, so hard to understand
Is the world you can’t live without

7. Our Lady Peace - Thief:  A song about watching a loved one suffer and slowly die from a terminal illness.  The closest experience to this in my life thus far is what we went through with August last year, but that was hardly the same thing.  Raine does an excellent job of conveying his emotions through this song.  Especially if you’ve ever seen the video with the heavy heavy rain in slow motion.

I can’t see the thief that lives inside your head
But I can be some courage at the side of your bed
I don’t know what’s happening and I can’t pretend
But I can be your, be your... I’m here
It’s a long, long get away

8. SR-71 - Alive:  A song about a woman finally working up the courage to leave an abusive relationship.  Mitch said this song was about a friend of the band.  Although I myself have never been exposed to an abusive relationship, I still find this song pretty moving.

She won’t talk about it, she’s made up her mind
But as the front door shuts behind her she whispers, “give me a sign.”
And feels the power of the engine as she climbs to sixty-five
Every piston sounds like freedom, every white line says goodbye
She’ll find strength in her anger and the truth in his lies
When the last scar finally fades she’ll have a new life

9. The Nixons - Sister:  I like this song, but not that much, so I’m not sure why it ended up in this mix.  It seems a little random.  Anyway, it’s a song about the guy’s sister, and there are probably more circumstances to it which I would fail to relate appropriately.  I never even had a sister, making it extra strange that this song ended up here.  Oh well.  No need to quote this one really.

10. Jars Of Clay - Love Song For A Savior:  As most of you probably know, I am what some might consider an actively religious person (depending upon your basis for comparison, and the connotation of the word “religious” in your personal vocabulary).  So it shouldn’t shock you that a Christian song ended up in the mix.  Jars Of Clay was labeled “Christian Rock,” but the only song that label could really apply to is Flood, as the other songs aren’t really what most would call “rock.”  In fact, this song is by far the prettiest one on my CD.

He’s more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on her lips
Someday she’ll trust him and learn how to see him
Someday he’ll call her and she will come running
And fall in his arms and the tears will fall down and she’ll pray,
“I want to fall in love with you”

What I’ve just posted really contains only the “primary” group of songs on my CD.  I’d list some of the “secondary” group, but I’ve already spent way too much time on this post and you’re probably about tired of reading it (assuming you’ve even made it this far) so I’ll end it here.

I’m the first kid to write of hearts, lies, and friends

I never really care much when the Earth once again passes through an arbitrarily chosen point in space relative to the sun.  And the ensuing celebration of our ability to count backwards from ten immediately before counting one number higher has never really done much for me.  So it should come as no surprise to the reader that I do not care to resolve things simply because I have to buy a new calendar.  There’s nothing wrong with you if you do make such resolutions.  It just means that I’m better than you.  That’s a sarcastic joke.  I’m not sure if everyone will pick up on that without asterisks. ***.

Now, one thing that I do tend to do at this time of year is reflect on events that are related to one another only because the most significant digits in their date happen to be the same number.

March 3:  Developed a method to overcome static electricity.  Although that method seemed like too much work and I have started using Jake’s method:  bang metal stuff with your knuckles or elbow, since you don’t have very many nerve endings there to feel the shock.
April 2:  I got married.  2005 will most likely be the only year I’ll be able to say that.  So I’d say that’s pretty important.
April 3-10:  Honeymoon in Hawai’i.  The most amazing place I’ve ever been.  I’m jealous of the Lostaways, who get paid a ton of money to live and work there.  I probably won’t be back for a very very long time, if ever.
May 28:  Almost got in a fight at Carowinds.  Fortunately, we survived.
July 27:  Made a difference ...by using large cutting tools.
August 6:  We got a puppy!  It was Stephanie’s first pet ever (fish don’t count), and my first pet that was actually mine and not my parents.
September 2:  Revealed my volleyball skills.  Turns out, I’m not too good.
September 12:  We lost August.  That was definitely a growing experience.  I didn’t realize just how attached to that little puppy I had become. :(
October 4:  We got a new dog.  Punky will never replace August, but we love her just the same.
November 14:  Brought free speech to the internet.  By giving you the ability to comment on my blog posts, I empowered you in a way never before possible.  Al Gore probably never thought the internet would turn into a medium for open communication and sharing of ideas back when he invented it.
December 16:  Sustained a leg wound in The War On Christmas.  Okay I made that one up.
December 24:  Found out that I am going to be an uncle soon.  Stephanie’s older sister Emily is expecting!  If age were measured in generations rather than years, I guess this would signify that I’m about to turn one, and Steph’s parents are about to turn two.

PS: If year is a nonprimitive type with overloaded operators, ++year is more efficient than year++.  That’s also true for primitives if you’re using a terrible compiler.  :)

Saturday, as we were bringing August back from Newton, I realized that it was seven years (to the day) since the first concert I went to.  Which got me reminiscing about concerts, and I thought that would be something interesting to put in my blog.  So here are the concerts I’ve been to that stand out the most (in no particular order):

The Smashing Pumpkins - August 6, 1998 - Oven’s Auditorium, Charlotte:  I was sixteen and this was my first concert.  It was cool that we got fourth row seats, even if they were off to a side.  If it had happened today I don’t know if I would have thought it was such an awesome show, since I am not quite as infatuated with any band as much as I was with The Smashing Pumpkins when I was a teenager (and I doubt I ever will be).

The Smashing Pumpkins - May 2, 2000 - War Memorial Auditorium, Greensboro:  I’m mentioning the two Smashing Pumpkins shows first only because they are the first to come to mind.  And no, I didn’t need to dig up my t-shirts to remember when and where these shows were.  This show was better than the other SP show, but we had much worse seats and the ushers were jerks (they told us to sit down--at a rock show!).  They closed the show with my favorite song (Mayonaise).

Our Lady Peace with American Hi-Fi - April(?), 2001 - Cat’s Cradle, Chapel Hill:  This show really stands out in my mind because I had one of those moments where it felt like Raine Maida was speaking directly to me.  It was during “Are You Sad?” actually..  it was during one of those relationship-turning-bad times..

Athenaeum - 2000-2004 - Raleigh/Chapel Hill/Winston-Salem/Charlotte:  We saw Athenaeum dozens of times during college.. those shows will always have a special place in my memories.  If any single show stands out in my mind, it was the one at Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem, sometime during Christmas break of 2003-2004 I think.  I believe that was also the bass player’s last show with the band.

Thursday - late July/early August, 2004 - The Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh (I think):  One of the best shows I’ve been to, hands down.  I don’t remember any one thing that made it so great.. there was just lots of energy.  My inability to describe how awesome it was is really downplaying it.. so just trust me, it was awesome.

Blink 182 - ? - Alltel Pavilion, Raleigh:  We saw Blink twice here (or maybe one show was in Charlotte?), once during the “Take Off Your Pants And Jacket” tour, with New Found Glory, Midtown, and Mest; and once during the “MTV Pop Disaster” tour (or something like that), with Green Day and Jimmy Eat World.  Both times they put on great shows.  Definitely the funniest concerts I’ve ever been to.  Nothing beats a giant flaming F-word for pure comedic value.  If you’ve ever heard any of their live CD, you’ll know what I mean.  Unfortunately, New Found Glory was the only one of the other bands with them that was any good.  Not that I don’t like Green Day and Jimmy Eat World.  But I didn’t like either of them live.  And the guy in Mest took off his pants and walked around in his underwear.  That wasn’t so cool.

SR-71 - October, 2002 - Dorton Arena, Raleigh:  Almost forgot one of the best!  This show was at the State Fair, in a pretty small arena.  Everyone was sitting on floor seats, but there were about as many people there as you usually have in a club show, so Mitch very quickly told everyone to just come up closer and stand in front of the stage.  So we had the intimacy of a club with the acoustics of an arena, which worked very well.  It was just SR-71, no crappy opening band to sit through.  You could tell the band was enjoying the show, which made it even better.  I remember Mitch saying it was the longest set they had played in years, I think over two hours long.  If I really had to rank the concerts I’ve been to, I think I might give this one the number one spot.

Jimi Hendrix - August, 1969 - Woodstock, NY:  Just making sure you’re awake.

This has turned into quite a long post.  I’ve been working on it during spare moments at work since yesterday.  If you actually read all of this, congratulations.  Originally I was going to list some concerts that I felt most let down by, but I think I’ll save that for another post.

Ah, nostalgia

I’m babysitting a few compiles right now, so I’ve got a few minutes to kill..  This weekend Stephanie and I finally got around to watching the wedding video, which turned out pretty great.  We did realize one thing that we might have changed:  after The Important People had left the church (by which I mean the people who were either on stage or in the first row or two), the music just kinda stopped and there was an uneasy silence for a few minutes before everyone started talking.  The other thing is that we made people wait way too long at the reception before we came out there.  This was due to: 1) The photographer taking about fifty “one more shot” photos; 2) Stephanie’s dress needing to be rebustled (which ended up taking something like thirty minutes).  So we’re sorry about all that.  Otherwise, people seemed to have a good time, at least in front of the camera.

The compiler just spit out an error saying “1 future error(s) were detected and suppressed.”  The compiler can tell the future!

In other news, I now have Vonage.  Unlimited calls to the US and Canada for $25/month (came out to something like $27.xx with those stupid taxes).  This means we no longer have to wait until after 9pm to make long distance calls.  Which is good since pretty much all of our calls are long distance.  If you’re thinking about getting it, you get a better deal if you do it at BestBuy.  We were just there to buy a new phone, because we wanted a cordless phone one with two handsets but one base.  You see, I can’t sleep without a phone in the bedroom.  You have to have one in case there’s a phone call at four in the morning.  And calls at 4am are never good news but never news that you want to delay till morning either.  We also have nice features like Call Waiting, Call Return, Three-Way Call, and Caller ID, all for no extra cost.

So anyway, we’re looking at phones and the guy asks us who we have for phone service and I say “BellSouth” and he’s like “How much are you paying?” “Twenty-five dollars a month” “Really?  That’s low”  “We don’t have a long distance carrier, we use cell phones and calling cards for that”.  Then he starts talking about Vonage, which I had already been looking into, and he says that we can get $20 off our phone if we sign up for Vonage (that’s $20 instantly, not a rebate).  And you can transfer your existing number for free.  There’s no BS “set up” fee for someone at Vonage to click on a button.  The only thing is you have to buy the adapter, which is essentially a Linksys router with two phone jacks on the back of it.  We decided to get the 802.11g wireless router instead of the regular one, because when I get a laptop it’ll be nice.  And I can use my PDA with it right now.  So if you’re curious, the router was $130 with a $10, $20, and $50 rebate (bringing the actual cost down to $50, which is pretty reasonable I thought).

My biggest concern is that if I’m maxing out my bandwidth I won’t get a very clear phone signal.  I’m planning on testing that out soon.  But so far it’s been very clear, definitely much better than any cell phone I’ve ever talked on.

Oh and I am soon ridding myself of my cell phone.  I hate talking on it, and I have no real need for one now.  We’re keeping Stephanie’s, and I live within walking distance of work (not that I do walk, but if I had car trouble I could).  And otherwise I’ll either be with Stephanie, at the apartment or at work.  If not, I’ll just take Stephanie’s phone with me.  It’s a nice system.

Compiling on UNIX takes forever!  I’m gonna get back to work, I thought after fifteen minutes these compiles would be done but I guess not.

Well the honeymoon in Hawai’i is now over.  It was lots of fun and we did lots of stuff.  Since everyone is going to ask me what all we did, I’m blogging the trip and all the events that others may want to read about.  Pictures will come later.

Saturday
We get married on the same day that the Pope dies.  Doesn’t really have so much to do with the honeymoon but I thought I’d mention it.  The ceremony went off pretty much without a hitch as far as we’re concerned.  Certainly way better than those kinds of things could have gone.

Sunday
Daylight Saving Time begins (stupid missing hour).  We have to get up at what feels like four in the morning.  See my previous post for more on that.  So we’re up well before the sun and board an airplane headed for San Francisco.  This is about a five and a half hour flight, in an Airbus A320.  Our single-serving friend for this flight was a guy going back home who works for a public relations company (firm?).  They do lots of PR for San Francisco area (i.e. Silicon Valley) companies, including some video game developers.  He’d been to GDC and was excited about going to E3 and apparently has developer’s versions of all the major consoles and he can get copies of games still in development sometimes.  So that was pretty cool.

After a short wait in San Francisco, we boarded a flight to Kailua Kona, Hawai’i.  This flight was on a Boeing 757.  For future reference, the Airbus A320 was much more comfortable (it’s amazing how much an extra inch or two between you and the seat in front of you can make).  So that was another five and a half hours, but seemed like twenty because all you could look at was ocean.  As the plane is landing we see this pretty ugly black ash field that we’re pretty much landing in.  Picture a fireplace (wood not gas) after a huge fire.  It was something like that.  We were like “where are the palm trees...”.  Turns out you have to go about ten miles south of the airport and you’re in super tropical paradise land.  Scattered all over the island are ashy looking places (volcanic rock actually.. it takes a few thousand years for the lava rock to get eroded enough and covered with enough dirt for plants to grow on it).

When we get to the resort it is only four in the afternoon but we think it’s ten o’clock and I’ve never traveled more than one time zone away so that was really new to me.  Oh before I go on I should mention the airport.  This airport had a very open architecture.  By which I mean, it didn’t really have walls.  Birds would fly through.  Since it never really gets below 60 degrees there (that’s in a really bad cold snap) and they only get about 20 inches of rain a year, they can get away with that.  Really made up for the first impression given by the land around the runway (they did landscape the terminals of course).  Speaking of the weather, every afternoon if you would look mauka (toward the mountain) you would see these heavy, gray looking rain clouds, but if you would look makai (toward the ocean), the skies would be clear, and it would never rain (it kinda misted a few days).  Once the clouds come over the mountain they’ve had all their rain squeezed out of them on the rain forest side, leaving the dry side of the island.. dry.

Anyway, due to jet lag, we ended that day by falling asleep about the same time as the sun, about six thirty.

Monday
We woke up super early (at like five thirty) and went out and watched the sun rise over the mountain.  Well actually it was taking too long so we ended up going back inside before it actually rose.  We pretty much got up before six o’clock and went to bed before nine all but the last two days of our trip.  Anyway we went to an island orientation thing at the resort that had free food and we met lots of nice people.  Next we went swimming at Kahalu’u Bay, and decided we needed to rent snorkeling equipment to really enjoy it.  Now, a word about the beaches in Hawai’i:  they are not really anything like the beaches in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida that I am accustomed to.  For one thing, you’re on a mountain in Hawai’i, even though most of it is submerged, so the coastline is pretty steep for the most part.  No continental shelf, so to speak.  And most of that coastline is made of rocks or reefs.  There are not that many beaches as far as stretches of sand are concerned, and where there are they are not the six mile long stretches I’m used to.  On the other hand, the water is less salty and a lot cleaner.  I was actually able to open my eyes under this water, something I wouldn’t dare to attempt off the North Carolina coast.  Plus, you could be in water up to your neck and still see your feet.  That being said, I learned very quickly that reefs and lava rocks are really sharp when I made a cut about an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide in the bottom of my right foot.  Fortunately, most of what was cut was that thick skin on the bottom of your foot so it wasn’t too terribly bad (which I suppose is why you have such thick skin there anyway..).

So after doctoring my foot, we went to a lu’au type thing at the resort (not quite a lu’au because there was no pig cooked in a pit, just light refreshments).  Everyone learned a hula (yes, even Hawaiian men did hula dances.. they just aren’t as sexy so it’s probably not quite as familiar to you).  I guess that was most of that day.

Tuesday
Stephanie got up early and went to a short sarong-tying class at the resort while I went to rent snorkeling equipment.  Turns out that they have to fit the masks and fins to your face and feet (I was accustomed to the Wal-Mart variety of masks and fins that are one size fits [some]).  So I had to go get Stephanie and bring her down there, but it was just down the street from the resort so that was okay.  The people at Miller’s Snorkel And Surf were very nice people.  In fact the only people we met on our whole trip who weren’t really nice and friendly were other tourists.

Next we headed north about thirty miles to go on a helicopter ride with Blue Hawaiian Helicopters.  We got to see Kohala Mountain valleys and waterfalls, which were really pretty and we got some great pictures and video.  However, neither of us feels the need to go on a helicopter ride again.  By the end we were just waiting for it to be over with because we were getting pretty sick.

After that, we headed up the road a little further to Hapuna Beach, voted #1 in the world by some travel magazine last year (I’ve been told).  Very pretty beach, we did some snorkeling but this was a beach that was actually not all that rocky or reefy, so there wasn’t much to see.  But the beach was really nice.  Another thing I’m not used to is getting out of the ocean and not having the place I’m staying at right there, so I can rinse off but still feel sticky all day until I get back to the resort to take a shower.

Anyway we next headed to Waimea.  This town is also called Kamuela because there are three Waimea’s in Hawai’i and the post office wasn’t cool with that so they made the one on Big Island go by Kamuela, but it was still marked on the map and on my signs as Waimea so that’s what I’ll call it from here on out.  It wasn’t a very touristy town, up higher on the mountain so it was pretty cool and damp.  There were lots of little shops there and we looked in several of them but didn’t really find anything we wanted to buy.  Then as we were leaving I spotted a music shop and decided I’d go in there to see if they had ukuleles.  I had been planning on getting one as a souvenir while I was there, since they are pretty cheap as far as musical instruments go.  We got to talking with Paul, the shop owner, and it turns out he is from the same town as Stephanie (Coffeyville, Kansas; population: 11,021).  As an interesting aside if you just go to Google Maps and zoom in almost all the way, Coffeyville is the town the map is centered on.  Anyway he was a really nice guy (like I said, the only rude people there were other tourists) and I said I wanted a cheap ukulele and he obliged, giving me one that the school kids use there (lots more fun than a recorder I’m sure).  So after we get back to the resort and I start trying to play it, I find that the intonation is terrible on it.  More on that later.

Wednesday
We intentionally didn’t plan too much this day to get a break.  We decided to go back to Kahalu’u Bay (where I cut my foot on Monday) since we now had snorkeling equipment.  When we got there, there was a sea turtle just hanging out on the beach (which was really cool).  When we got out in the water we saw all these fish that we had no idea were even there on Monday.  I even saw an octopus!  He was blended into the rocks until I got close to him, them all of a sudden the “rock” jumped up and sped away, leaving a trail of ink in my face.  Scared me because I didn’t even know he was there in the first place!  When we got out of the water I saw another guy with a bloody knee and elbow, and a kid with a bloody foot, so apparently I’m not the only idiot who underestimates how sharp rocks and reefs can be.

Next we decided to go back to Waimea to see Paul again so that I could spend a little more money on a nicer ukulele.  I got one that actually had proper intonation and he didn’t have any problem with that.  Not much else to say about that trip..

When we got back to Kailua Kona we decided we would eat out that night, and we went to the Kona Inn Restaurant.  If you ever go there, I’d highly recommend it.  Especially at sunset.  It’s another one of those places that doesn’t have walls on one side of the building.  In this case, the west side, that overlooks the ocean where the sun sets.  It was a really nice place to eat and the food was great.  I had Hawaiian Chicken and Steph had the Scampi & Calamari.  It was a little pricey but I can’t complain too much.

Thursday
This was the day for our trip to O’ahu.  That’s the island that Honolulu is in (and eighty percent of the people in Hawai’i).  We went to see the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor (since you really can’t go to Hawai’i and not go there).  It was a really nice thing to see, except that it was hindered by post-nine-eleven security restrictions.  Almost as bad as the Statue of Liberty, except they weren’t making people take off their belts.  And while the memorial was free to see, you couldn’t bring any bags with you, and you had to pay three dollars for a locker thing to store them in while you went out to the memorial.

After that we headed over to Waikiki and decided to go see the Honolulu Zoo.  It wasn’t exactly the best zoo I’ve ever been to.  But like the sign said, it was the best zoo for 2300 miles!  All in all it was a kind of rushed day because of the traffic in Honolulu, and we’re both glad we opted for a stay on Big Island instead of O’ahu.

Friday
Day started with an awful timeshare presentation that we had to attend.  Not quite as bad as I had expected but still they were pushing pretty hard for me to spend money that I simply don’t have or foresee having in the near future.  After that we headed off on the two and a half hour drive to Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.  On the way we stopped at the Punalu’u Black Sands Beach for a picnic and some swimming.  This place was really really cool.  I had never seen a black sands beach before (they don’t have them in North Carolina, obviously).  There are all these cool formations where lava has poured into the ocean there not too long ago (the black sand is actually eroded lava rock that fell into the ocean and washed back up there).  You’ll have to check out the pictures whenever I get around to posting them.  The beach is also a place where sea turtles like to hang out.  A wave nearly threw one into my face at one point!  There was definitely no snorkeling here (too many waves), but it was amazing.

Once we were done there we made our way on up to the currently erupting volcano.  If you’re picturing something like a second grade science experiment you’re a little off, and if you’re picturing something like Mount St. Helens or Pompeii you’re also a little off.  In Hawai’i, it’s more like a slow and steady flow that occasionally changes where it is flowing out of.  The current eruption has been going on continuously since 1983.  So anyway when you get to the end of the road that is now covered by lava rock (I got a great picture of a speed limit sign that was swallowed by lava rock) you have to hike for about two and a half hours to where the lava is at right now, and that hike is over extremely uneven lava rock and there’s not really a trail.  We ended up getting there just before sunset and I think I got some great pictures and video of the lava pools.  If you ever go, I’d suggest bringing marshmallows and some sticks.  Everyone there was like “I wish I had thought to do that.”  As far as I know there are no regulations against it (but I could be wrong).  We didn’t get to see any lava pouring into the ocean, but at least we got to see it as the sun set.. after dark it glows orange and it is really cool.  I don’t think my camera could quite capture the orange color correctly though.  But then when we were about to leave it started raining, and it was already pretty cool and windy (this isn’t the desert side of the island).  And that volcanic rock gets very slippery when wet, as a cut on Stephanie’s leg and my elbow can attest to.  Fortunately we got flashlights, because once the sun is down it is pitch black out there.

As an aside, I should mention that all of the street lights on the Big Island are yellow.  Part of an effort to reduce light pollution for all the telescopes on top of the mountain (which was still slightly snow-capped).  No businesses are allowed to have lit signs (not even the Wal-Mart!) and there are regulations about all kinds of other lights I’m sure.

Back to the volcano- after the long wet cold and dark walk back to the car, we had to drive two and a half hours back to the condo which was really really difficult because I was really close to falling asleep.  Oh and there was a sign that read “Donkey Balls Factory Outlet” on the way but I didn’t snag a picture of it and I’m kicking myself for it now.  Apparently “donkey balls” are chocolate covered macadamia nuts.

Saturday
Last day.  I’m getting tired of typing all this so I’ll be a little more brief (that’s the plan anyway).  I wrote up an outline for this blog post last night during a three hour layover in San Francisco.

Anyway, Saturday morning we went on a snorkeling trip with Dolphin Discoveries.  This was really fun.  First we went to Kealakua Bay (which we were told is a top 20 snorkeling location in the world and the best in Hawai’i).  I can’t really describe it very well, but we bought a waterproof funsaver camera so I’ll eventually get those pictures online.  Next they took us over to Honaunau Bay (a.k.a. Turtle Bay).  This place had lots of sea turtles.  They come to this bay to get cleaned: these little yellow fish will come up and eat the algae off of the turtles’ shells.  It was pretty neat, and it was a huge reef area.  At one point I got pictures of three turtles together.  Can’t wait to see how they turn out (since you can’t really preview on a non-digital camera).

Finally for our last excursion of the honeymoon we went on a sunset horseback ride on the Kohala mountain (the oldest volcano on the island and hence the smoothest and most green) with Paniolo Adventures.  This was another really pretty sight, and I got a few great pictures of the sunset.  The only problem was that it got pretty cold when the sun went down, and it was misty the whole time, which didn’t feel so great (I didn’t expect to be cold so many nights in Hawai’i!).  But overall I’d still recommend it.

Sunday
Flight home.  Left at noon.  Yadda yadda yadda got back to Charlotte at 7:30 Monday morning.

Pictures coming soon!

It’s time for a post that doesn’t read like a diary entry.  Today’s post will discuss technology trends that Kip double-plus uncalled.

First up, cell phones with cameras.  When I was working for a cell phone company in 2002, they were just starting to put cameras on their phones.  They even told me that in Japan, Korea, and western Europe (whose cell phone markets are about 3, 3, and 2 years ahead of America, respectively) cameras on cell phones were a big deal.  I still thought “why would anyone want a camera on their phone??”  Apparently I didn’t anticipate the number of people in the toddler-to-preteen age bracket that would get cell phones.  Now those people can appreciate something as useless as a camera on a phone.  Don’t get me started on the Weekly Jamster Plan and their stupid commercials.

Next, we have MP3 players.  Back before the turn of the century (by which I mean--incorrectly--the turn from 1999-2000), MP3’s were still difficult to come by.  I didn’t anticipate how easily attainable they’d become.  I thought “a portable MP3 player might be useful to a few geeks but most people won’t bother to figure them out.”  Wrong again.  I also thought they were too expensive and that something like a Discman that played MP3 cd’s would be a much cheaper alternative.  That also didn’t really catch on (except in car stereos).

Another big one is the Java programming language.  I just didn’t think people would put up with the lagging performance, and I thought Swing GUI’s were teh suck.  Well Swing got a little prettier (if you know what you’re doing anyway) and computers got a lot more RAM.  With a ton of RAM, Java works great.  If you’re into OOP, it’s also much easier to program in than.. say.. C++.  At least, I like it more (even though I claimed otherwise for years).

Now lets talk about Zip Drives.  I thought that these things were gonna be huge.  I thought almost every computer purchased after like 2001 or so would come standard with one.  I know I got one for my PC I got in 2000.  Unfortunately, CD-R drives proved a lot cheaper, and now thumb drives are faster and cheaper than zip drives and require no special hardware (assuming USB is available of course).  I can’t honestly think of a situation where a zip drive would be the appropriate solution for a storage problem.  The one in my computer is now a vestigial organ: it remains in place but is not connected to anything, having been sacrificed to allow room for a DVD-ROM, a CD-R, and two hard drives.

Okay that’s all.  The moral of the story is don’t conduct stock market trades based upon Kip’s assessment of a company or product’s future level of success.  That having been said, I will leave you with a prediction: ordering perishable food off the internet will not catch on.  We’ll find out in a few years I suppose.

Well the year 2004 is over and 2005 is now here.  2004 has been a pretty big year for me--I graduated college, got my first real job, moved to a new city, lived alone for the first time, and most importantly, got engaged to Stephanie.  Now 2005 looks to be a big year for me as well, with a wedding coming up in April followed by a week in Hawai’i. :)  Then I get to be a newlywed, which according to MTV means that cameras watch whenever you eat tuna.  Or something like that.

So other things that I’ve been up to during the Christmas break include watching the first two The Lord of the Rings movies (Special Extended Editions of course), in preparation for watching the four-hours-and-ten-minutes-long The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King: Special Extended Edition.  I don’t think I’ll manage to do it in one night.

My parents decided to get me a radar detector for my birthday, as I seem to have trouble slowing my car down as evidenced by three speeding tickets in four years.  Right now I think I’m actually driving slower with it there, just because it would be really embarrassing to get a ticket immediately after getting a radar detector.

The other day Stephanie and I got engagement photos taken at Glamour Shots, and I am very ashamed to say as a heterosexual male that this is not the first time I’ve been to that place.. although this time was not nearly as obnoxious as the other time I was there.  It was very weird.. for starters, the lady taking the pictures was like five-foot-one and probably weighed about seventy-five pounds, and she had to keep standing on this chair to take pictures at eye level, then she’d get down and fling the chair about three feet to the side to get another angle and climb back onto it.  It looked like she was doing step aerobics or something.  Then there were some strange poses, she was like “Kip you’re going to like this one.  I want you to sit like this” and she sits on a stool-type thing facing to the side with her legs together, then she gets up and I’m like “okay” and sit down.  Then she says to Stephanie “Now you sit on his lap” and she’s like “okay” and starts to sit and the lady’s like “no, facing each other” and we’re like “...okay..”  So we do that, and she’s like “Get closer!  You aren’t close enough, get closer to each other!  You look like you’re afraid the other is going to bite!”  And I’m thinking “maybe we signed up for the wrong type of pictures... we’re going to give these to our parents here!”  As it turned out, the pictures she took like that were only of our faces.  Then we got to purchasing the pictures, and I knew what to expect.  Even though we had a coupon for a free sitting and a free 8x10, you still have to pay a bunch of money.  Technically we could have walked out with just one 8x10, but we wanted a picture to give each of our parents.  And if you want more than one picture, the cheapest you’re getting out of there for is $200.  But the way the pricing scheme is set up, you can pay $210 for two pictures, or $200 for five pictures.  Of course the first price we were quoted was something like $750 and we just kinda laughed.  If we wanted any pictures in greyscale or sepia, they charge you ten dollars to hit that button in Photoshop.  What I would have really liked them to do is let me go online and download the super-high resolution digital image that they mess with in Photoshop (considering that you can get like two foot tall prints, they must be at least five megapixel to look decent).  Of course they won’t let you do that, because they own the copyright on the pictures.  It’s probably illegal to scan the pictures and make duplicates of any of them, but I’m going to do it anyway.  Take that copyright whores!  Speaking of digital images, I got a digital camera for Christmas (like that one but just 4 megapixel) and I’ll probably add some kind of photos section to my website when I get time.  I also got a huge memory card (512 MB) so that I can take lots of pictures in Hawai’i, which can hold about 250 images at 4 megapixel.  My cousin said that the guy at Best Buy told him that the number of megapixels doesn’t really mean anything.  That’s like saying the weight of your car doesn’t affect your gas mileage.

I think I’ve written enough for now.  If you want a good look back on 2004, you should check out Maddox’s The eleven worst songs of 2004.  You may not want to do so if you are at work though...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah
    ~Bono