Is it the 11th Commandment that the vacations must go by so fast? Seriously, it barely felt like we were there a week and then it was over. Needless to say, we have a great time and were able to do most of what we were hoping to do. In short we dove six dive sites including two sites at Lanai: No-Name Paradise and the Second Cathedral.

Day1: Our trip started with arriving at in Maui around 1:00p on Friday afternoon. After getting our bags and rental car we headed south to Wailea to the Marriott Resort & Spa where we were treated a great suite with two balconies over looking the ocean. During the afternoon we headed just south of Wailea to the Lava Shores at Ahihi Bay. The setting was great for pictures, but the lighting due to the large cloud lingering above us made capturing the shot against the bright ocean damn near impossible. After enuring the rough roads out to the park, we headed back to teh resort to tour the beach and lounge at the salt-water pool. Later that evening we headed up into the shops at Wailea at ate at the Cheeseburger in Paradise, which was surprisingly good considering how touristy it appeared.

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Day 2: Taking an opportunity to sleep in a bit, which means we awoke around 6:00a because that it is 9:00a PST, we headed over to the Longhi’s Restaurant in the same shops from the night before. All I have to say was the french toast good, the potatoes good, the juice good! We didn’t have to check-out until 11:00a, and when you wake up at 6:00a that leaves you plenty of time for snorkeling. Natalie and I heading down to the point and got in a good 90 minutes of swimming before having to head back. We checked out of the hotel and headed back to OGG to pick up Dan, Sarah, and Katie as they were set to arrive soon.

Day 3: Spend most of the day chilling at the resort or diving.

Day 4:

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Starting the morning by grabbing some more tanks and heading to Mala Ramp for one of the most amazing dives we have ever gone on. We were treated to sharks, turtles, noodle people, and more fish than I could possibly keep track of. Later that day we toured the town, and ate once again at Cheeseburger. That night we ended up playing one of the most die-head games of Gloom ever! Might have gone better if it was not for all the Mai Tais, thanks Dan!

Day 5: Decided to head back to Wailea for the day to do some shopping and of course more diving. Some of the wet weather was coming down from the North Shore, so it was nice to escape a bit to the better weather of the South (well as south as you can get on a small island). We wrapped up the day with a 2 1/2 hour whale watching trip that was incredible. We witnessed a group of males competing for a single female, who herself was with a young calf. Seemed like the female was generally uninterested in the males, but they were quite content to beat themselves up over her.

Day 6: Oh yeah, boat dive day!!!! This year we took a boat dive to Lanai, despite all the warnings about it being a very rough ride. It was a bit rough, but really nothing to be concerned over. We started the dive at Nowhere site which was a massive reef formation just 40 feet down. It featured a few little crevasses and an abundance of life. Our second dive was at the 2nd Cathedral which is a huge rock formation, allowed for some extensive cavern diving. The caverns were home to many fishes, and reef formations.

Day 7: The road to Haha. . .was very wet. The bad weather finally stopped teasing us and went for all its glory. The trip was quite wet, ask Dan. But nonetheless we toured a few falls, and made it to Hana only to discover that there really were no good restaurants there. Since some people we dying of hunger, we had to head but on the mostly-single-lane road to town. This was too bad, Hana was quite beautiful despite the weather, I did wish we could have spent more time there.

Day 8: Time to head home. If we weren’t depressed enough about that, we decided to head to our favorite kabob place only to find out that they were closing up shop due to the economy. Hell of a way to end!

The entire album can be viewed here (login required):

http://www.andyandnataliepics.com/v/andyphoto/maui2009/

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A few months ago our friends Dan and Sarah bought a cabin up in the woods as a great weekend getaway and skiing midway point. Only one problem existed: the wood shed was a rotten piece of sh**!

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Last weekend, they asked us to come up and give them a hand building out a new one. Aside from the constraints that the Forest Service imposes, the designed shed turned out pretty well. We were only able to participate on Saturday and Sunday, which means Dan is probably working like crazy over the next few days! порно со взрослыми

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Okay, so it has been a little while. . .maybe a long while. Natalie and I just got back from Origins 2009 in Columbus, OH last weekend and in short we had a great time! For those who are unfamiliar with Origins, it is a gaming fair every year that offers you the opportunity to match wits and strategies with your friends.

Origins is not a super-LAN party, but a everything-except-computers gaming fair. This was our chance to hook up with the east-coast friends who will not be able to see at Dragon*Con this year (thank you economy). We played a whole assortment of games including “Arkham Horror“, “Pandemic“, “Spirit of the Century“, and “The 3 Commandments”.

On Friday, my goal was simple: depart customer’s site in St. Louis travel to Columbus. Of course, American Airlines went out of their way to make that as difficult as possible. Departed STL for ORD with no problems or delays, however once I got in ORD I was under a false-sense of comfort with my flight was on-time. Once on the plane already to go, the captain announced that we were going to be held to allow 20 folks arriving on a late international flight make the connection. That’s cool if you are like 10 minutes or so late, but not on the order of 90 minutes! The sad part was that there were 20+ people up on the standby list for that flight and more waiting for the next flight, AA could have easily filled the sits. And much to my misfortune the 20 people we were waiting for were middle-schoolers returning from a European trip.Wish airlines extended me the same courtesies when I was running late.

Anyway, finally arrived in Columbus and headed over to the Crowne Plaza to meet up with everyone. Most of our friends were quite drained from lengthy drives to get to Columbus. We all agreed that beer was a cure for this night.

Early Saturday morning, Natalie and I set out on our first quest: locate Starbucks! After some much needed caffeine was acquired, we headed back to the convention center and joined up with everyone else. The first game was “Spirit of the Century“, which I was not able to join since we had too many people already. No matter, I am really not into games that do not have a board or screen, but let me tell you it was damn entertaining to watch. After a short lunch at the North Market, we headed back to play “Arkham Horror” for the first time. Well second, sort of. We tried previously, but after spending 2 hours to setup the game and even longer to try to understand how to play, we kinda gave up. Needless to say, playing with experienced players was extremely fun! Later that evening with headed over to a friend of Mur Lafferty for a BBQ and game of “Pandemic“. “Pandemic” is one of those games that does not take a lot of instruction, but a fair amount of strategy and team cooperation. After the BBQ we headed back to the convention center to swing by the boardroom with John and Laura to get our free game. We ended up with “The 3 Commandments” which at first looked to rank fairly high on the suck-meter. But after playing a few rounds it ended up being one of those very entertaining games that would do well at a party (better if drinks are served).

Not-so-early on Sunday morning, we met up with everyone at Max & Erma’s restaurant for a breakfast. Some of the group had to depart so afterwards, others had the opportunity to hang around for a bit. Finally around noon most everyone had to leave after visiting the Dealer’s room one last time. Natalie and I headed back up to the boardroom to play a round of “The Red Dragon Inn“, which in my opinion was not quite worth the hype (although Gog is awesome). After playing enough games to last a few months, we headed over to Comfest which happened to running that weekend and it was only a few blocks away. Both of us were quite hungry but this point so we treated ourselves to some great BBQ, visited some of the art booths, and could not avoid the people-watching (google Comfest you will understand). After Comfest, we drove over to the Columbus Zoo for the afternoon. Now the Columbus Zoo is like half-zoo and half-amusement park. We definitely regretted not bring our swimsuits, but had a great time nonetheless. The night was topped off with a visit to Schmidt’s German restaurant for dinner which included: 1L of Warsteiner, Sauerbraten, German potato salad, chocolate cream puff, and fudge. Oh yeah!

Finally, Monday morning we left the hotel and headed for home. Of course, that was not a easy as that sounded either. Thanks to the idiocy of Expedia, I couldn’t just adjust one segment of my flight for business, I had to cancel it out and then start over. Of course though we you start over you can’t get the same flight because it is full (yes even with my cancellation, the Expedia rep thought this was ridiculous as well). Needless to say, Natalie and I could not travel together the whole way back. But all was well, we had an event-less return to Portland.

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While the last episode of BSG will remain a controversy forever, love it or hate it, you probably found that having everything revealed in the last eight episodes or so was quite a bit to digest. I found a link to this picture on Twitter, and it helps sum up the history quite well. бесплатно порно букина бесплатно

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From Rush’s March 30th radio show, he expressed utter discontent over the new taxes laws going into effect in New York on citizens making over $500k a year:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_033009/content/01125108.guest.html

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Is Rush really trying to gain sympathy from his listeners who are majority male, conservative or independent, from middle- to low- income tax brackets? Please vacate New York for some place like Nebraska or South Dakota, and don’t get lost on the way.

So I was thinking the other day of places that we have dived, good and poor dives. There have been many less interesting or down-right dangerous dives, like anything Oregon Coast. But we have also been privileged to dive some the greatest dive sites on the planet, specifically the Poor Knights Islands in New Zealand. Here’s a list of great dive sites we have enjoyed in the order of awesomeness:

1. Poor Knights Islands, North Island, New Zealand
2. Molokini Crater, Maui, US
3. Kapalua Bay Beach, Maui, US
4. Breakwater Point, Monterey, CA, US
5. Edmonds Water Park, Edmonds, WA, US

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When Natalie and I moved into this house a few years ago, it was always assumed that the bathrooms would need an overhaul. They were straight out of the 80s with the vinyl molding, Formica counters, severely outdated flooring. Shortly before we got married we had completed the remodeling of the master bathroom. We swore that the guest bathroom was next.

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Well that was 4 years ago, and we finally got around to tackling the second bathroom. Progress has been much better this time around, having learned a thing or two from the first effort.

The centerpiece of the new bathroom was the new 20″ deep tub. The previous tub was so shallow I think the toilet was deeper. This tub will be surrounded with new marbleized tile and accompanied by a halogen light on a dimmer. Natalie chose the wonderful color of blue for the walls and slightly lighter color for the ceiling (not shown). The wood flooring, along with the new while moulding has done a great job of bringing the room back into the 21st century. Left for the project is replacing the ancient ceiling fan, and tiling the new tub.

A huge thanks to my father and brother for this assistance, without them I guarantee the doors would have been backwards, the tub upright, and the sink would resemble a water-fountain.

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I’m sure just about everyone wants to join me for this demand! The funny thing is that is not that I am burned out of work or can’t take it anymore. Actually, still very motivated. I am really tired of this gloomy weather! I love the weather in the northwest, having never cared for the extreme heat, but I admit after a very long winter it is time to retreat to sunnier skies! Seriously, I could use the tan! Even willing to settle for red, and that earn me some points after I get back. Looking forward to our upcoming vacation to the tropics. To help set the mood is are favorites for the previous trip.

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Stumbled across this photo the other day, behold the interior of the space shuttle in high-resolution! The first thing that terrified me was how old the technology is on-board. I suspect my iPhone probably has 10X the CPU capability of the shuttle computers. . .but the shuttle systems have never, ever failed. Hmmm. . .can’t think of a single computer platform with that kind of track record. BSOD while landed = death!

Who currently travels or has traveled as a part of their job? I am among those who are required to do a fair amount of travel for my job. While I have been fortunate recently to have received many local or west-coast opportunities, it is not uncommon to hop on the plane to fly to the east-coast or another country on a weekly basis.

As frequent traveler, there are only a few benefits of this lifestyle, the most important being the point accumulation for hotels, airfare, and car rentals. As frequent travelers you should never, ever have to pay for your vacations. Of course, like many the last thing you want to do is head to the airport for your vacation. I am more than willing to make the exception for some place tropical or European.

You are rewarded for your frequent travels by obtaining different elite levels, each one granting you more privileges and opportunities than the previous. With programs like Platinum-members, Premier-Executives, 1K members, MVP-elite, and so on. . .it is easy to start to look down upon those poor individuals who are holding a “group 4″ boarding pass or get to stay on the second floor when you are offered the 47th floor with concierge service. One needs to remember that at the start of our traveling, we too had the opportunity to guard the lavatory back in row 36. I guess it is easy to look back simply because the rewards appear to diminish as you climb the ranks. Sure there are plenty of perks, but they become less significant. Does the 47th floor really offer a better view than the 45th floor?

It hit me the other day that I have been overlooking an aspect of traveling elite-ness. As I boarded a flight to Atlanta, I noticed that I recognized one of the crew members. I had seen Jim and the rest of the crew for this flight on a few other previous flights. Now this got me thinking, what type of status do you acquire when you get on a first-name basis with TSA members? The airport coffee shop staff?

I think that this should serve as a reality check, if you know too many people (especially those that are not from your home airport), you may be traveling too much!