Jim Fixx foreshadowing

I've given up on a car here, so I'm biking everywhere. I make sure to bike at least once a day, sometimes twice. When I'm working it usually is a 5 minute downhill bike to work and a 20 minute uphill bike home. I arrive sweating and out of breathe and I love it.
On my days off I usually try to run some errands. The last couple of days this has meant riding out to the mall. It's a nice ride, a bit dicey at times because there isn't always a bike lane and there is often obstacles, but it feels good to soak up the sun and get the fresh air.

As part of my exercise routine I try to go swimming in our pool at least twice a week, and go to the beach at least once a week. Even if I don't spend much time in the water it's a good workout for my whole body. Water provides resistance in every direction. Usually getting to the beach is a workout in itself.

Today I biked out to the mall and bought a battery charger then downtown to grab my first pair of flippers and a body board, on the way I bought Teflon spray for my bike chain. Then I biked home. I'm about to head out again to see a movie.

When I was in Sweden and all the way up until my parents divorced I rode my bike everywhere. I was in pretty good shape, I could do tricks on my bike and was quite nimble. I'd forgotten how much I love riding bikes and it's really nice that this has been just another benefit of moving here.
We don't have a scale, so I don't know how much weight I've lost, but I've lost 2 inches off my waist since arriving.

The last few times in my life I remember being in good shape were:

1. at The Mountain, before I was smoking, I was walking up and down the mountain twice, sometimes thrice a day. I was probably 14

2. My senior year of HS I lifted weights every day in gym. No cardio, but supreme upper body strength.

3. The first summer I spent with my dad in Spain. I walked no <5 hours / day.

4. The 4 hellish months I worked at ASR. I worked 12-15 hours/day trucking boxes of cable up 4 flights of stairs and doing the army crawl under houses.

5. Here. Now. Hawaii.

Links

1. An interesting way of managing your desktop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWe-TIy2Lbs

It seems like an interesting idea, but does not really explain how to manage large directories of files. My guess is that it would also require a hefty video card to support this kind of manipulation and rendering it so smoothly.


2. The Best.info is a battle of choices regarding the best things in life. Run by Xkcd. He also made the Cutest, the Funniest and the Fairest. I suggest them all and his wikipus entry.

3. Cat proof your computer with this cute app. http://www.bitboost.com/pawsense/

4. I should've used the above app, because this post was published early thanks to a kitten that had too much to drink.

Grinding it out

You are reading the blog of the new CEO, CFO and CIO of the Forget Me Nots Co. I also have a bank account at the First Hawaiian bank.

This afternoon I climbed up and jumped off the waterfall behind our house. Shown here:

From Kaiulani

It doesn't look that big, it's only 10 or 12 ft. above water level, but it took me ten minutes staring down at the water to work up the courage to do it. Once I leapt and saw the water rushing up at me my joy with this island has reached a new high.

After that I had a piece of Kahlua cream pie and another glass of wine.

My boss's wife wanted to move somewhere else. He responded: "Find me somewhere better and we'll move tomorrow."
I'm feeling the same way. The rest of the world should know, Hawaii is wonderful. It's reasonable to move here as long as you have a plan. The Hawaiian way of life won't make you rich, but your quality of life will rise.

My cousin Andrew, before I left, asked me why doesn't everyone move to Hawaii? At the time I guessed it had something to do with money or perhaps hostility with the locals. Neither of these are the case. The lifestyle here is slowed down, no one is in a rush to do much of anything. I still hear people wishing each other happy new year 22 days after it's begun. Everyone here is nice. Everyone gives the right of way. I've come across several children in strollers alone, their parents walked off for a few minutes to pay the check, and no one bothers them.

I'm not sure why everyone doesn't move here.

Grandfathered in

My grandfather has a Wikipus entry!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Fuller

Internets

Back online. We've been here almost two weeks and it finally got installed today. Haven't been able to do any speeds tests but that would silly right now. Both Hobbes and I are downloading and catching up on everything we've missed out on. The two weeks before we left we were most in Florida or on the road so to have a chance to actually sit down and cruise the net is a long time coming.
The downtime I spent reading the help files for several of the programs I installed prior to leaving (how exciting). Because Google is really big on integration of their services, I can now publish photos on the web via Picasa. So my photos will be hosted here: http://picasaweb.google.com/bazuzi/
I will probably update the pics as often as this blog.


Currently Spinning: Bassline Pressure-mixed by Mj Cole\01 Wind Ya Neck In , Bucci Bag (A Cappella).mp3

RAMstein

Today I was working on a computer, Windows reported as having 192mb of ram, an odd number to have but that didn't bother me. I opened up the case to find one 512 and another 128 installed. I upgraded the 128 to another 512. System still reported 192mb. Odd.

Luckily, I happened to be editing the boot.ini file to remove an erroneous entry from the last windows install. hmmm, what's this here? at the end of the entry I find an option:
/maxmem=192

a quick Google finds this MS page, written by SysInternals. It explains the options you can use int he boot.ini file.

This option, as it would seem, limits Windows to 192mb of ram regardless of how much is installed. Delete this option and Lo! 1gb of ram. Quite a difference.

Don't nag me about the entertainment level of my posts.

Work will set you free

Work sucks. Not this job in particular, but working for other people is no fun. Ideally, I would own the business I'm working for now. It's simple, fun and relaxed.
I've been out of work for about 7 months while I was in Seattle taking care of little Bazuzis. It's hard getting used to it again even if my job allows me breaks whenever I want and no pressure. And seriously, how whiny can I really be? I'm doing this in Hawaii.

Suck it up.

What'd you want? a cookie?

I've found employment. Arrived on the 9th, hired on the 15th.

It's a local net cafe that does repairs and upgrades. Because of the small town and the friendly nature of everyone here this job is like having all of my friends and family come over with a broken Internet. Make my Win95 with 32mb of ram on a modem go faster. Fix my 8 year old dot matrix.
I don't mind. It gives me a chance to work with computers again, the boss is laid back and the atmosphere is chill. There's air conditioning for my furnace.
I think it'll also help a little bit with social networking. I'm meeting some top players in the town, retired senator anyone?


This post sucks. I'm hired.

Aloha bitches

Just to let you know, I've started another blog, this one revolving around moving to Hawaii and more specifically Hilo.
It can be found here:
http://mahalobitches.blogspot.com/

because alohabitches.blogspot.com was taken :(

Edit Alohabitches.blogspot.com is kinda cool.

How To: move to HI

Step 1. Spend 5 of the 6 months before leaving on the other side of the country, not planning and not being able to take your pets to the vet for their blood tests that require 4 months before leaving.

Step 2. Spend the 4 of the 7 weeks before leaving playing computer games and kind of packing but not really.

Step 3. 2 weeks before moving, go to Florida for a week of camp and let your car break down. Spend 4 days waiting for it to get fixed before finding a ride home.

Step 4. Spend the last 5 days you have visiting friends and family and not packing.