Camping on Maui (Jaime's Perspective)

Well, we went to Maui. We booked this trip about nine months ago, and it finally happened. So we rented a VW Westfalia camper van (alohacampers.com) for a week and bummed around the island. OK, I thought it was great and I loved the trip, but I kind of got tricked into a week long camping trip - we showered at the beach. But I did really truly love it (despite the bugs and no AC).

This is a picture of Eric being BLASTED by the Nakalele Blowhole (taken by my phone). He was soaked, it was really funny. This was a few miles before we got to the Olivine Pools.

We found these Olivine Pools (mentioned above) which were little pools in the lava rock, mere feet away from the angry ocean, but really calm. This was around Kahakuloa. (Side note: the "world's best banana bread" stand around there, not so amazing- my banana bread is better.) We went swimming and here is me, wet.

This is us on our drive up to the Hosmer Gove Campground in Haleakala Nat'l Park (about 6,000 ft). It was so beautiful and we actually got a break from the heat.


When we woke up, we went to the summit of Haleakala (10,000 ft.) to see the sunrise. I would highly recommend this. It was super early, but so beautiful and totally worth the wake up (especially since I was waking up at 6:30 every day due to the time change).

Pa'ia: So I don't think we got any photos (I drew the picture below if you couldn't tell), but our favorite town on the whole island was Pa'ia. It's a funky little fun town right as you begin the Road to Hana. We had pizza at this delicious pizza place called The Flatbread Company, the best food we had on the island. I would recommend sticking with the basic pizza (but other choices are delish), and their salad is amazing. There is also an awesome beach on the west side of town by a youth center. There are decent sized waves and good surfers, etc. and the surf was especially wild when we were there.

On the road to Hana we hiked through this bamboo forest with really cool waterfalls. Yay, my cute Eric.

So here was our living arrangements. I would recommend staying in one of these for a few nights at a time and then get a hotel every third or fourth night. I don't like bugs and they seemed to get into the van during dinner time. No Thank you. But it was really awesome because you have your rental car and hotel in one, and you can just pull over and park at most beaches and camp for the night, like this beach on Ahihi Bay. And the locals think that you're local, so they're nicer.

Also, stupid wild roosters will wake you up every morning if you are camping.

Here is our view from our hotel room in Wailea - SWEET - that we stayed at our last night (my birthday) in Maui. Unfortunately, by this time, I was done with nice views and just wanted to relax in my air conditioned hotel room with TV. But we had an awesome dinner on our balcony with lots of Pineapple!!!! YUM!
This is my birthday present from Eric: A trip to Maui and a Dinosaur Tattoo. Intimidating, huh?

Also, for the record, Lahaina is overrated, but we really liked the HUGE Banyan tree that's preserved downtown. And we found a secret beach (unless you're local) with a view of Bali Hi (it wasn't really but looked similar. South Pacific, anyone? Anyone?)

Being all manly and building it myself

Spent an hour at home depot walking around measuring stuff with measuring tape WHICH I BROUGHT MYSELF AND CLIPPED TP THE OUTSIDE OF MY POCKET as to make perfectly clear that a) i knew what the crap i was doing, b) i do this all the time, and c) i mean business. Or at least attempt to give that impression and have loads of fun playing make believe.

Walked out with some lumber (not "wood"), hardware and stain, among other raw/manly odds and ends.

More on this later. I'm going to go kill an aggressive animal and eat it as a midnight snack. You just wait.

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ketchup

dear blog,
I owe you posts. All kinds of stuff has happened, i swear.

Hold me to these:

• Jaime's total surprise birthday party
• Maui amok running
• music this and that
• dog poo left of the living room floor, and it wasn't annie's fault.
  

excited? sorry for the neglect. been very busy. honest.

love,
eric

PooTrap!

Funny product = funny
Foreign accent = funny (admit it)
Horrible video production = funny

This is a triple threat.

Just the ever-repeating synthetic music and space craft sound effects accompanying the text graphics is enough to groan. But seriously, this is a perfect package of awesome.

I would never subject annie to this humiliation. But you should subject yourself to this whole video, just for kicks and giggles.

I'll let this graph entertain me until GI JOE comes out on DVD.

How to decide if you should buy a Snuggie

Prove yourself wrong. Again.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face… do the thing you think you cannot do.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

Lately I've been thinking a lot about this proven cycle: Accomplishing something I thought I couldn't do, or doing things I didn't necessarily want to do if left to my own selfish desires, can be incredibly revelatory. To the extent that I feel stupid for thinking I couldn't accomplish it before. Or lazy and selfish for not initially wanting to take the effort to do it. But any of these negative feelings are dwarfed in comparisons to the abolition of doubt, fear, and carnal selfishness such accomplishments provoke. How many times do I have to prove myself wrong to grasp the possibilities?

I can climb friggin mountains, write songs, excel at work and build things with my own two hands if I want to. Guess what? You can too.

If that's too much to swallow, start with my day-to-day philosophy: "Reach for the stars, and you won't come up with a handful of mud." (Leo Burnett)

That's safe enough, right?

Seriously, put down the duckie if you wanna play the saxophone.

There’s a saying in German: “Man kann nicht auf allen Hochzeiten tanzen.” It means “You can’t dance at all the weddings.” As much as you want to, and you may have even been invited, you can’t do it all. You’re going to have to make some sacrifices and prioritize what’s most important.

Those of you who have trouble with this principle are encouraged to watch this very important self-improvement video, produced by the fine people at Sesame Street. One of the greatest Sesame St. segments ever, i dare say.



For an extended cut with celebrities like Wynton Marsalis, Danny DeVito and Pee-wee Herman, click here.

Giant Waterslide jump.

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

of course it's real, don't be silly.

Albert Einstein

I stumbled across some Albert Einstein quotes today that I thought were worth posting. I've included my initial, random thoughts after each quote. Not until compiling them all did I realize I did a crappy job of skeptically checking all the sources to make sure they were credible, so I default to assume these are all fake and take it with a grain of salt. I’m too busy to go back and confirm each source. That said, enjoy:

"God did not create evil. Just as darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of God."

Pretty obvious statement for anyone but an atheist, but stated well nonetheless.

"I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right."

I like how Walter Mathau said this as a fictitious Einstein in the oh-so-silly 90’s romantic comedy, IQ.

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

I hate cats.

"Any fool can know. The point is to understand. "

This quote could be used well in a conversation about living by principles, rather than rules without understanding the principles behind them.

"Never memorize what you can look up"

All of a sudden I feel better about using my GPS to find a house around the corner.

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."

I can do that.

"Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"

As a songwriter, I reluctantly admit this is 100% true. I once new a girl that was so infatuated with the band Radiohead that she claimed they were they only band that made truly original songs, having no influence from any previous music. Which is just stupid.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

No, I am not a Scientologist. Yes, I have jumped up and down on Oprah’s couch.

"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."

True from music to theology to why the sky is blue (because it reflects the ocean, stop asking questions).

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."

This quote would not be so golden if it wasn’t from a man who understood crazy difficult things.