Wednesday: Back to work.

Which mostly involved figuring out the status of projects I didn't manage while on vacation and projects I need to get moving again, because they've been idle for too long.

I also caught my first Lickitung on Monday.

• Universities.
• Patsy Walker, Hellcat.
• Resist.
• Yet again, proof that Republicans lie about everything, and basically only want to increase misery.
• Cat vs. fish.
• Gen 2 is finally coming out.  I still have like 27 missing Pokemon, but I know I can evolve at least two or three of those.

Tuesday: Last vacation day.

Which means I need to get up and go to work tomorrow.  Yesterday we decided to do some things again, based on what we enjoyed.  The shrimp was one of the things that we wanted to do again.

Which I arranged into a heart to match the holiday.

Then we stopped off at a number of beaches on the North Shore to watch the waves.

They're pretty high today.

I was going to do a thing to estimate height and distance to the waves, based on the fraction of the distance to the horizon you see them, but it's late, and I think I have some sunburn, and I'm tired, so that's not happening today.  I'll see about doing it for tomorrow.  I think it should be degenerate in distance and height, but given the fact that you can resolve features, that should break the degeneracy.

We drove all the way until the highway ends.

Mokuleia beach is pretty isolated and quiet.

Then, a bit later, I dropped my parents off at the airport and made sure they got through security ok.  We never got dinner, so I grabbed something after that.

With a V for Valentine's day.

Or maybe it's a poorly arranged J for Julie's birthday.  In either case, fries + frosty = delicious.

• The best wedding cake topper.
• I'm glad I don't use facebook, because this is stupid.
• Stop being a jerk, goat.
• Stories.
• I missed the first half of this episode, but the part I saw was stupid.  I hate when people with special powers don't use the special powers to be special.  I hate that they just went "oh, we replaced everybody with robot doubles."  How?  Besides, evil copies is a dumb story trope.  It's lazy and has been done a million times.

Monday: History.

Since none of the palaces were open yesterday, seeing them was the plan for the day.

Iolani Palace.

Except we probably should have planned a bit more, as arriving at the palace at 11:30 meant we had to wait for the 12:15 tour.  I'm not totally sure why they have strict times for the tours, as they're entirely self guided, but I guess they probably have a reason other than crowd control.

So, side plan:

Aliiolani Hale.

Which is directly across the street from the palace, and is still the location of the Supreme Court of Hawaii.  They also have a small museum about the history of the judicial system in Hawaii.  It's pretty cool.

A courtroom as it was in 1913.

A super cool clock.

A tiny model of downtown in the late 1800s.

I liked the center sign.

So yeah, I thought it was pretty cool.  I didn't read everything, but that's how it goes sometimes.

Hale Koa, where you buy tickets for the palace, with downtown in the background.

The tour has changed since last time, if I remember correctly.  I just went back to check my blog, and I never put together a proper post for any of my previous visits.  I have sorted out the parking situation, which is good (that pink-ish building on the left in the previous picture).  In any case, when it's time for your tour, you go and pick up headphones and a player (which is basically a phone in a case), and they make you put on booties to cover your shoes so everything stays clean.  Not a problem.  Also no gum.  Whoops.

The player shows you where to go, and tells the story, and beeps when it's time to pay attention so you can see where to go again.  It also has some picture galleries to help identify portraits and things, given the room.

The staircase.

It was the first royal residence to have electric lights.  There are no switches anywhere in the palace, as the king would simply tell the lighting and electricity engineer what time he wanted particular rooms turned on or off.  Simple.

Crowns.

I took a lot of pictures to make mosaics, and then decided I didn't feel like making mosaics today.

The king's library.

The story turns upstairs, as that's where Liliuokalani was imprisoned after the overthrow.

The statehouse from the second floor windows.

I should probably visit more often than "almost never."

Touching harms artifacts.

The tour continues into the basement, but without the booties or headphones.  That's mostly jewelry and photos of the restoration process.  I didn't realize they basically had to rebuild the entire place after the state moved out in the 1960s.  I also didn't realize that some moron back then thought that putting temporary offices on the veranda was a good idea.  That was kind of a horrifying picture.

Then lunch, again at Nico's, although I didn't take any pictures.  I should remember that when I get the ahi catch of the day that I should specify "super rare," because anything else is dry and not so great.

The last thing to accomplish today was to go to Queen Emma's Summer Palace.  This has also changed tours since last time I visited.  The new docents are different than before, and apparently are doing tours based more on research than in the past.  They also have a somewhat different view of King Kalakaua than is present at Iolani Palace.  They've also switched to booties, and I think they probably need to come up with a headset tour as well.  Doing so would allow them to present a clear story based tour, as this tour was not exactly what I would call "clear" or "story based."  That's not necessarily strictly required, but being thrown a bunch of facts and dates and lineages seemingly at random isn't the best way to teach things.

This was the only picture I took.

Then we went back to Waikiki, I played Pokemon Go with the Plus for an hour or so, used up all my regular Pokeballs and caught 54 largely trash Pokemon.  After that, I returned home to watch a decent enough episode of Supergirl that ended with Mr. Mxyzptlk showing up, so I guess the writers know exactly what I'm not expecting and how to supply it.  Let me now explicitly state that I am not expecting Streaky the Supercat or Comet the Superhorse.

• Dog doesn't quite get security.
• This is a great photo, and the explanation behind it is equally great.
• Pretty Dang Weasel.
• I did not know Atsuko Nishida designed Pikachu.
• These are only available in size "S", and that explains why I have not ordered a pair of Gengar glasses from Japan.
• OMG this tonkatsu place looks delicious.  I don't think this is the same restaurant as the one I ate at the Skytree, but the setup and style look the same.
• For future easy searching, the Alameda police blotter to see what crime is happening there.  That's probably a sufficient set of words so I can find this again with the search box.

Oh, it's been twenty four days before the first person had to resign in shame from the current disaster.

Sunday: A lack of plans.

Partially due to the fact that neither of the palaces are open on Sunday.  After a few things (including getting gas, since the last two days have kind of used it), the comment of "it'd be nice just to watch the ocean" came up.  Since it was lunch time, I suggested we drive out to the Outback steakhouse in Hawaii Kai.  It's generally at least decent, and it's one of the few places on the island that's not a resort that you can go and eat and watch the ocean.  Sure, it's through a window, and across the highway, but it still stretches out forever.

I didn't actually feel like a steak though, so I went with the chicken/shrimp pasta.

It's a bit rich, but yeah, this worked fine.

And then we stopped off to take a closer look at the ocean.

 In a further development of "while we're here," Bubbies is just one light down.

Blood orange and green tea.  Blood orange ice cream.  Imagine how delicious you think that'd be, and then double it.

 One place that is open all the time is the Pali Lookout.

Since it's outside and all.

I can never figure out how parking is supposed to work.  It's $3 a car load, for non-residents only.  So I guess I don't have to pay?  How do they know?

In any case, it was a clear day, but since the wind is blowing from the wrong direction, it wasn't as cool as it usually is.

Later, I suggested stopping by Maui Brewing in the hotel, largely as a scheme to validate my parking, and partially to have some appetizers to take the place of dinner.  Since lunch was pretty big, this seemed like the best solution.

They've added dishes since last time we came.  Which was like four days ago.

 Fried goat cheese with pineapple-chili sauce and tortillas.  They make the tortillas, which means they have a bit too much flavor for the filling.  Not bad, though.

Also the same nachos from last time.

The tomatillo salsa isn't my favorite, as it's a bit sour.  In any case, things were wrong the first time, and I guess they're really sensitive to that, despite it not really being that big of a deal.  They just opened, so it's not like they've been doing this for ages.  Also: totally a good deal, as validating four hours of parking for $6 means a savings of $26.  Also also: that's a totally fucking ridiculous price for parking.

This is my recent list after dumping 17 Pokemon I didn't care to check the stats on.  I also filled up on items.  Pokemon Go Plus makes it really easy to idle play a lot, assuming you're in a location with a Pokestop and a high enough spawn rate.

• This is apparently the current work around for the crash issue I keep having.
• I still miss the idea of living in a sane world.
• I mean, that this can be a thing.
• Have I linked to this before?  Still a useful point.
• Gavin Free.
• I have been reading this saga of scissors for a month, and now it ends.
• A good boy.
• Income inequality.
• Owls.
• Spaghetti squirrel.
• Pokemon.

Saturday: It rained a lot.

Like way a lot.  Five inches at the airport.  So it probably wasn't the best idea to drive all the way across the island to have lunch at the Aulani Disney resort in Ko'Olina.  We almost died twice due to water on H-1.  That wasn't a lot of fun.

Also not a lot of fun trying to find the damn entrance to that place, which has one tiny ass sign that is half obscured by plants.  Seriously, is it that hard to make a sign that is visible?

Did I mention it was raining?

It was raining a lot.

We had to wait a while, because they're big on reservations.  Whatever.  I suspect part of it was that everyone staying at the resort also went to lunch there because of the rain.

Lilikoi splash.  It was fruity and good.

 There were a number of things that seemed like they'd be good.  I went with the lobster roll.

Why does everything have to come with ranch?  Ranch is garbage.

 It was ok, but no one can eat this sandwich.  There is too much inside stuff for that bun.  If they had cut it down by about half, it would have been reasonable.  The bacon and avocado that were on it were essential, as they added the salt and fat that were missing from the lobster.  The bun was too sweet, and I eventually just ate the guts out.

We then took a quick look at their shops.

There were Moana tsums.

 Then we went back to Waikiki.

Eventually we had more food.  A BLTA.

No.  Mayo never belongs on a BLT, this had a lot of bacon, I was hoping for leaf lettuce not this shredded shit, wow, that's a pale tomato, who the fuck cuts an avocado like that?

Then I picked up some more water for myself, and then I guess it was time for Drawful.

Half of Mount Rushmore.

Eating a pine cone.

There isn't really a plan for tomorrow, as none of the palaces are open on Sunday.  That is a weird sentence.

• I sometimes wonder if advertisements like this are intentionally placed.
• Disney princesses.
• Watch out, dog!
• The Ghibli look.
• THANK YOU.  I have been thinking about this for years.
• Sometimes there's only one thing you can do.
• I wish more Pokemon generation comparisons were like this.

Friday: Shrimp. So many shrimp.

Today's plan was to do a tour around the North Shore, and stop off at some of the food trucks.

Giovanni's.

I originally thought this was reasonably close to Kaneohe.  It is not.  It's way up in Kahuku, which is about as far north as you can get on the island.  In any case, I was concerned that we'd missed it until we saw it.  There are other food trucks there, but we didn't try any (I'm not sure how well the KBBQ truck would have gone over).  We tried the scampi (garlic butter) and lemon butter, both of which are served shell on.  This is annoying, but not really that big of a problem.  Suck off the outer layer, peal, eat the shrimp.  Both are delicious, but if I had to choose just one, I'd probably go with the lemon butter, if only because between the rice covered in garlic, and the wonder that is the rice covered in lemon juice, I would rather have the lemon rice.  It's super messy, since you're eating butter covered shrimp with your hands, but there's a place to wash afterwards, so it's not so bad.

A bit further on is Sunset Beach.

You can see (the current modern version of) the radar station that detected the Pearl Harbor attack from here.  Continuing along:

Big Wave.

Basically the same concept here.  This adds a slice of pineapple and a salad, but it's still the same.  We did garlic and spicy here.  I think the spicy is basically a sriracha sauce.  Of the two, Giovanni's is better.  I think the main reason is that there is a constant line at Giovanni's, and they have system that seems to work with that, so everything is hot and fresh and out in just a few minutes.  Big Wave was pretty quick, but it didn't keep temperature as well (possibly a wind issue), and didn't quite have the same quality.

Both are a long way to drive.

• The King of Hell Cosmos.
• Britain.
• Animal cats.
• Wait a minute.
• Squirtle cats.
• Pokemon.

Thursday: Everything hurts.

Today's plan was to go whale watching.  Unfortunately, whales wake up early, so I had to too.  Like 6am early.  I hate being awake when time shouldn't exist.  In any case, made it down to pick up everyone, made it over to park in the too-small lot, made it onto the boat.

This panorama doesn't quite do it justice, to see the entire island like that.

We chose the starboard side of the ship, which was the correct choice, as that was where the whales ended up being.  They're not easy to take pictures of, so I used the continuous mode whenever one came up.

Like this one in front of Waikiki.

Eventually I stopped taking pictures entirely, as it didn't seem totally productive.

This one in front of the airport.

By the time we got back to shore, it was lunch time.  So we drove out to Hawaii Kai.  I had a pretty decent shrimp melt, which ended up being too big to finish.  We then did a quick tour around the east side of the island.

Where you can see Lanai, Molokai, and Maui.

Eventually ending with some cheesecake as a stand alone dessert.

I also am now sunburnt, as I did not put on sunscreen like I should have, and now I will be unhappy with that decision.  I am super tired from being up since forever, and ache all over, as making sure you don't fall over on a boat is not the easiest thing ever.

• Lion.
• Captain America.
• Solely for the picture of Kero.
• Otter.
• Chernobyl.
• Ice cat.
• It's good that they got that first felony clearly out of the way before finishing the third week.

Wednesday: A solemn day.

Today started with Pearl Harbor.

And it was a nice day.

Good job, NPS.  I'm glad that this was one of the exhibits they had.

We did not go on the submarine.

We did not go to the Missouri, either.  They've raised prices, and we've seen it before.

We did go see the Arizona Memorial.

There was a quick stop at Target for some supplies for my parents, and then it was time to head to our next major destination of the day.

The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

They are renovating the cemetery, so half of the names have been removed from the Courts of the Missing.  They will be replaced, and they have computers set up with images that can be flipped through in the meantime.

The overlook is wonderful.

And then I took a wrong turn leaving the cemetery, so we went the super long way up Tantalus and back down Round Top.  Then we had dinner, I forgot to take any pictures, and then I forgot that I could get my parking validated at the restaurant.  Oh well.

I also watched an episode of Nature, and it had a section talking about squirrels, and then this happened:

Because I guess WNET has the coolest online team ever.

• Gumball is a wonderful show.
• I'm glad that Republicans are too dumb to know how to battle. (Unrelated potentially NSFW other stuff, but whatever, that's the link I'm using.)
• Squirrel.
• Some times you have to accept that some things are gifts, and one of those things is the fact that Rob Liefeld cannot draw feet.