O'ahu

Last week I went to O'ahu with the middle school. I was frantic leading up to the trip, a week of 12 & 13 year olds! after the first day I fell right into it and had the time of my life. The only written assignment was a reflection on the activities we did, here are a few of my excerpts:

Woke up late again. My tent group was already on their way to the beach which is awesome. We chanted E Ale E* to chant out the sun which generously and magnanimously demonstrated its beauty.
This was prefaced by Auntie Ana encouraging us to observe our surroundings and how the morning can dictate how the day will play out. While her intentions were good and even some of the questions she asked were relevant and purposed, but I felt some of them did not point to any useful knowledge if answered; they were tedium. I don't remember the specifics but I remember feeling frustrated.
After a fantastic meat filled breakfast we went to Lo'i. I'm still unsure if this is an event, a verb, a location or a plant. But it involved removing invasive species so that less invasive species (Ulu) could grow. Ulu gets a fee pass in the hearts and minds here. This process was messy, I ruined brand new shoes, but I don't mind. It was well worth it; mud up to my knees working int he 'aina with our class. Giving them a chance to get dirty, use their energy and be kids. I took tonnes of pictures.
In the afternoon we went to the fish ponds. The event was soured for me by the guide mentioning "plants" after "we are working hard to remove all invasive species," referring to haoles.
My brain replied with "Hawaiians are not a different species" & "I'm not invasive." It also knows it's the same Hawaiians that were around to accept the invasive species originally, probably as a business venture or to solve some problem. No matter what, blaming me is not fair.
My heart hates it. It's unfair to expect that everything is not brown skinned is to blame. I think my sense of fairness is acute, so I will just leave the rest to "I did not like that part."

*E ala E chants in the sun, (La in Hawaiian). It helps focus the day with our group and recognize our surroundings as the paradise it is, not just a world of ipods, computers and pop music. It's about the day, the weather, clouds.

I took just shy of 1,000 pictures, 200 of which are good and usable.

productivity 2

I've done so much that I need to make another post about it. Lucky you.

1. Changed the headlamp in my moped
2. Encrypted the drive in my laptop. This way when it gets stolen they'll only get the hardware, not the data. Really the joke is on them, a 3 year old Inspiron with a wobbly screen is no gem.
3. Installed WinPE 2.0 to a flash drive. This is most useful with computers that have no optical drive, or ones that do but no Windows discs are available; when you need to run chkdsk because the machine won't boot, not even in safe mode. Most netbooks don't have optical drives and my desktop didn't for the first 3 months of its life.
4. I had a bunch of 1GB flash drives, so I created purposes for a coulpe of them for work. I made an office installer for one of them with both Mac and Windows versions of Office. 2nd drive is Lotus Notes installer for both OS flavors. This means instead of 4 CDs and a printed paper with IP address and CD keys, I know carry 2 flash drives. They also install in a fraction of the time.
5. Read World War Z
   
6. The wife drew a picture on the side of my WHS and I' in the process of spray painting it. It'll probably make most color coordinated people vomit but it's fun and I'm trying to do it using only the pain we already have. Pics when it's done.
   
7. This isn't directly related to my video card being gone, but I've started a 2600 meeting in Hilo. First meeting was in October and it wasn't until February that anyone actually showed up, but someone finally did. Now Kevin and I meet with the other regular once a months and show off and talk about different tech stuff. It's fully awesome.
8. Today I got an email from the RMA company saying they've shipped my card and it'll be returning on Monday. So the end of productivity is nigh here.