Unless your acquaintances consist of only me and Kim Jong Il, I'm probably not the friendliest person you know.  I don't really care for handshakes, I really only begrudgingly (and occasionally at that) hug the closest people to me, and please, for the love of Allah, don't kiss me.  I find a slight head nod and a healthy respect for the personal bubble to be a pretty good greeting.  But I hate to come off like some villain, a misanthrope, a monster from 300.  I really don't dislike anyone, and I never say bad things about other people, unless they're French or underachieving Major League Baseball players.  But sometimes, every now and then, I do let a little sarcasm slip.

It wasn't the fault of the surprisingly gorgeous chick directing traffic that we were all crawling along like none of us needed to get home and take a leak.  But as I sat still in traffic, something about her perpetual smile and arm waving me forward made me stare right at her and snap, "Really? I was going to put it in reverse so I could idle in line for 30 minutes again."  But I guess pretty girls are used to dealing with jerks, because she just went on smiling and directing, like a potential Miss America that just needed to practice on her wave.  Or maybe smiling is an unavoidable expression for someone making a hard hat and fluorescent vest look good, and earning $45/hr for it.  Come to think of it, maybe the traffic was her fault.

I leave you with a traffic-related joke you can tell to your passengers, if it looks like a delay is not already causing them enough pain:

A driver is stuck in a traffic jam on the highway. Nothing is moving.  Suddenly a man knocks on his window.

The driver rolls down his window and asks, "What's happening?"

"Terrorists have kidnapped the president and first lady. They're asking for a $10 million ransom. Otherwise they are going to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. We are going from car to car, taking up a collection."

The driver asks, "How much is everyone giving, on average?"

"About a gallon."

My New Hobby

Football's done, baseball is just getting started, and all this wind and cold has really hampered my diving, so I've been needing a hobby.  I tried crocheting, but the old ladies down at the center were intimidating with their advanced triple butterfly loop stitches.  Plus you had to get there real early or all the good thimbles were gone.  I thought I might just try to build some model cars, but after being closed up in my house with two and a quarter tubes of Testor's model glue I decided to switch to model rockets, which just ended in a broken window and an arson charge.  So I went to Sports Authority to pick out a good activity. Roller blades were 50% off, but the thought of 12 year old girls showing me up or guys hitting on me compelled me to leave with nothing.
I was having a hard time coming up with things to do, so I really had to think about my best assets.  That sure took a long time, but I realized my best attributes (besides holding my breath and/or destroying things) are 1.) I own a truck, and 2.) I like dirt.  That, combined with the fact that most of the dirt we used to own has slid down a cliff, logically led me to the sport of dirt hoarding, very popular in Kazakhstan.
If it doesn't sound exciting to you, then you've never driven a truck with a payload of twice it's rated capacity down the freeway.  What's even more harrowing is navigating the ungenerous alleyway where my most fertile dirt collecting grounds are found.  A moped could definitely fit down the alley.  Two could even go in opposite directions- provided that they were jousting and one would be knocked down to leave room for the other to pass.  So maneuvering the F-150 with a veritable boatload of dirt in the bed is a slip of the hand away from turning into a monster truck rally scene, with street-side chainlink fences getting trampled like a Walmart greeter on Black Friday.  And if that doesn't sound cool, consider that after loading half of Nuuanu into the bed, my truck becomes a low-rider.



One key tool to hoarding dirt is a wheelbarrow.  Now, most people know what a wheelbarrow is, but few know exactly where the word is derived from.  What it is, you see, is a barrow with wheels.  That should pretty well clear it up for most of you, but some may not be familiar with the exact definition of a barrow.  A barrow, as near as I can tell from my personal use, is an item which, despite having only a few of the most rudimentary mechanical parts, will break on a regular basis.  "Regular basis" is of course defined as inopportune times, like when it's filled with 200 pounds of dirt, or when your shin is just about to come into contact with it if it stops it's forward movement.  Given these definitions, it's a wonder that Ford hasn't come out with a whole line of them.

So far we have talked only about obtaining dirt, a barrel of fun indeed, but just getting it isn't the end of the dirt party!  It's barely the beginning.  It's only just started once you have driven your truck home, scraped the sagging bumper up the driveway, and loaded a wheelbarrow full of dirt.  At that point, the world is in the palm of your hand.  There are any number of things you could do with a truck load of dirt.  Like what, you ask?
Well, statistics show that 71% of Americans have a neighbor with an annoying little dog.  How much would you love to just wheel right up to it and with a tip of your barrow drown out its noise with 4 cubic feet of soil?

Sometimes you just smile from the joy of digging (called digger's high), but that's not the case here.  Standing on a pomeranian just feels like floating on a cloud.  Or, if you really want to feel like you're flying, why not catch some sweet air by building a ramp:

Or, just leave the dirt out and wait for the rain, at which point some of mud's natural denizens will undoubtedly spring up:

Whatever you decide, there is really only one thing you can't do with dirt, and that is build a yard out of it.  I know you want to, but first you must realistically calculate the amount of dirt you will need.  In order to do this, estimate the number of truckloads you will need, raise that number to the third power, multiply by 5, and then go look up more pictures of mud wrestling, because by the time you ever finished building a yard a new geological era will have dawned and you will find your new yard under sea level or in the middle of a volcano anyway.  Trust me, I've seen it happen:

That's about the same amount of dirt as you would find in the entire state of Iowa, and it's nowhere near a yard yet.  Anyway, enjoy your digging, because eventually will come clean up.  It's best done with a broom with a complete handle.  Here is what it would look like if you somehow broke your broom handle in half: 

The wheelbarrow has clearly been setting a bad example to the rest of the garden tools.

Flavor, Thy Name is Manju

The blog is long overdue for a pastry review.  I like to think it's because I've been eating so well.  I've even been eating a lot of spinach (Cost-Co jumbo bags- a future blog subject), albeit occasionally deep-fried.  In fact, I haven't eaten a Zippy's donut in months!  But when I considered which delectable dessert to feature, I realized I have not been suffering from lack of bakery goods.  No, if there's one thing I know, it's sweets. And one delicious morsel stands above the rest; a little guy I like to call "taro manju."  I call it that because that's how the label at the bakery identifies it.
Now, legend tells that the taro manju was invented by Shaolin monks in the twelfth century AD, after two score years of meditation and opium smoking.  However, it featured such explosively delicious sweetness and irresistible flakiness, that it was not refined until the Kung Fu master Bruce Lee used taro manju as his sole source of nourishment.  In fact, young Bruce worked as a corporate accountant, where he was paid mainly in manju, and it is from this culinary treasure that he derived his kung fu power.
Just what is this edible vault of wisdom and virtue, you ask?  The taro manju is about the size of a ping-pong ball, yet weighs about the same amount as an official PBA bowling ball.  And as for the scent, well, the scent is unlike any balls that I know of.  It is also noteworthy that the taro manju is, in fact, purple.  Purple foods, the royalty of them all, the upper echelon of edible products.  The finest grape, the red grape... purple.  Blueberries... antioxidants, tartness, and according to Wikipedia a diverse range of micronutrients... in a purple package.  Grape nerds... the blue blood of all nerds... purple.  And so, too, is the taro manju.
Bite into a taro manju and let the flaky texture of the outer layer satisfy your pallette.  Feel your ability to scissor kick increase as you reach the soft center, gooey enough to rival any candy bar Hershey has ever made.  Restrain yourself from throwing out a mantis-style chop to the jugular as you imbibe in flavor filling you with a martial aura.  Or better yet, don't resist.  You could have chosen an azuki manju, or even the lowly custard, but chop away soldier of sundries, battler of the baked goods, for from this day forward you are one with the fourth dimension of taro manju.
So it sounds good, right?  You're probably wondering how you can get one yourself.  You're probably thinking it's going to be one of those deals where you have to snatch it out of the hand of your dojo master. You could do that, but he'd probably send your eye-socket through the back of your skull with a blazing-tiger-fist-crescent-punch.  So it's best just to go to that bakery on the Diamond Head side of Maunakea Street in Chinatown.  There, you can unlock the secret of the manju, provided that you bring 90 cents.  It's buy 2 get 1 free there, so maybe grab a macaroon and pizza roll while you're at it.  That's what Chuck Norris does.

Opening Day

I discreetly listened as the two men behind me hatched their plan.  They spoke only in short, choppy sentences.  One rummaged through a dossier of sorts, until locating his target and commenting, "Yep, Pat Bailey, it says.  He was having a real nice day until we showed up."

Though they spoke in fragments only because they were shoveling fries and dumping beer down their throat, and their dossier was a roster printed off the internet, not the files of a secret agent, they still heckled that first-base coach like trained mercenaries.  Assassins in line with the many that came before them at Les Murakami Stadium.  Yep, Opening Day for 'Bows Baseball.  Spring is in the air... and so are the batted balls of our opponents.  Oregon State won 10-6, smashing a couple homers along the way.

But there were bright spots (in addition to the professional heckling you can expect from the first base lower level) from the team.  They did put up 6 runs, four of which came on a Kevin "Big Mac" McDonald grand-slam with two outs in the fourth.  Even the pitching staff, a real source of worry, had flashes of greatness.  Nate "The Great" Klein wore out the umpires right arm early on, hurling strike after strike past Beaver batters.  But eventually he wore down, which is actually the good news.  The bad news is, none of the 4 pitchers to follow would last long enough to wear down.

Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks

Superman, I Feel Ya Brother

It's not easy being Superman. I would know; I'm pretty much just like him. Sure, I can't fly, I've never thwarted a single villain (let alone Supervillain), and I definitely don't know anything about wearing tights. But more important, what we do share is the same quintessence.

Like Clark Kent, no one knows my most astounding talent. Just as he gets no credit for safeguarding humanity from evil-doers, I never get my props for catching things falling from an overstuffed freezer.

With regularity, left-over lasagna comes shooting out of our Kenmore like a comestible RPG. And with equal regularity, I make one-handed diving grabs sliding across kitchen linoleum that make Jerry Rice look like a Pop Warner flag-football player. I mean, I'm really good at it. Guaranteed, if you set up a video camera in front of my fridge, I would churn out a SportsCenter Top 10 play ever week. It's wizardry, really.

Just this morning I made a save on a bowl of tuna salad coming off the top shelf that would have dropped your jaw and made your head spin. The grab I made combined the most athletic feats from all the major sports. I picked up a finely aged specimen of turkey and rye, not knowing it was the foundation of a structure crowned with an economy-sized bowl of tuna salad. Propelled by refrigerated food's innate desire to careen across the kitchen tile, the bowl of tuna shot from the top shelf and quickly accelerated past the sound barrier. In a Matrix-esque moment of time, silence was heavy as I began my defense of the floor against the bowl with enough tuna salad to resurface the Madison Square Gardens. Still holding the turkey sandwich in my left hand, I made a block with my forearm, causing the flying saucer to skid along it like a track. It was really nothing short of the artistry you might see from the Harlem Globetrotters, but with the added danger of tuna salad. The bowl launched from my arm and hurtled to the ground like a meteor bearing down on Earth. I dropped to a knee, my other leg sprawled improbably forward like a hockey goalie. Maybe even like a hockey goalie mixed with a puma. Yeah, like if a puma was playing hockey goalie, I made the acrobatic move to head off what was going to become a tuna bomb in a matter of milliseconds. With the sweep of a hand that you would swear was that of Willy Mays circa 1957 I swiped the bowl from the air, averting impact by the closest of margins.

Then I put it back on the top shelf and wandered off to eat the sandwich. Someday someone will eat that tuna salad (or throw it away sometime this fall) and assume it has just sat there on that shelf, never blazing through the calm confines of the kitchen at Mach 1, threatening to erupt in what would no doubt become Vesuvius all over again. Never will they know this mild-mannered blogger was receiver of the refrigerator, keeper of the kitchen, All-Star-puma-goalie-fleet-footed-swift-fielding-superhero.

Lessons Learned from Great Fishermen

I've been privileged to learn the art and skill of fishing from some of the best. Most recently, I learned a lot from Joseba Kerejeta, 2008 World Champion Spearfisherman, who is as much magician as fisherman; he landed fish that most people would never find, let alone catch. I've been at the apprenticeship of fishermen who need a truck not so much to tow their boat, but to haul their tackle boxes; guys with plugs, poppers, prince nymphs, jigs with and without weed-guards, buzzbaits, crankbaits, jerkbaits, softbaits, spoons, spinners, and streamers, each in colors from fire tiger to pumpkinseed with a chartreuse tail. I've been educated by fishermen who ply the Pacific with no less fervor than Ahab himself; although their excursions are certainly more dangerous due to the amount of beer imbibed and the size and sharpness of the teeth on their prehistoric-looking prey. I owe a lot of gratitude to these guys for teaching me so many ways to catch so many types of fish. But never have I learned more about fishing, really fishing, than from the greatest fisherman I ever knew, Frank Orndorff.

Frank Orndorff is my mom's dad, my grandpa. He always told me he never caught a fish in his life, and to the best of my knowledge this was true. In fact, it doesn't surprise me at all, given his methods. Though he certainly never strained to load his tackle onto the boat, it's not that he lacked gear. Looking back on it, the problem is actually that he had a little too much gear for his way of thinking. Which is not to say he wasn't a smart man, but give Orville and Wilbur a Boeing 747 and I doubt they would have the success they had with the Wright Flyer. Had Grandpa stuck with a cane pole and a worm he might have caught a fish, but instead he took his mold-injected, wide-lipped, treble-hooked, #4 crankbait made for cunning sport fishermen with Polarized glasses and breathable jackets bedazzled with sponsor's logos, and suspended it below a bobber, a virtual guarantee not to catch fish. And it's a good thing a fish never bit this little morsel, because the knots binding up his reel were probably twice as strong as the half-hitches he used to secure his lure.

So he doesn't sound like the best fisherman you've ever heard of? Well, that would be true- if we were a bunch of Paleolithic cave-dwellers that needed to catch fish to survive. But in modern times, if you want a fish to eat you need do no more than step to the counter and say "McFish, please." And Frank Orndorff embodied that. Maybe he never caught fish, but he always had food. The night before a fishing trip, when others were oiling the bearings of their reels or honing hook-points, Grandpa packed Twinkies, cherries, and iced tea. And come the next day, when other anglers were still fiddling with line tangles and backlashes, he would be relaxing, a straw hat atop his head, a cushion under the seat of his pants, the smorgasbord in his lap. For him, it was a veritable Carnival cruise aboard that 15' aluminum skiff. Of course, he still made the perfunctory effort of tying that crawdad crankbait on his line, but even had an unsuspecting fish managed to snag itself on it, would he have known what to do? With his hands full of Hershey's chocolate, would he have even cared?

The best fisherman I ever knew passed away about five years ago. Sometimes, as I dream he lives on, under the shade of his straw hat, warmth from the sun alleviating the pain of his old, arthritic joints. Though he wouldn't hesitate to let you know how he felt about the way the bureau was cutting the grass at the park, he never really did complain about pain. So I feel free to murmur and swat at bugs, but I don't gripe about the lack of fish as I make another cast. Dreaming on, Grandpa would be relishing life's simple pleasures- sons and daughters and a porch swing, grandkids and a goldfish pond, a fresh peach in hand. I snap back to reality as my attention is captured by a bird flying across my field of vision. I reminisce about Grandpa's beloved wrens, and more about the comfort and enjoyment he derived from providing a good home for many generations of the little birds. They're always there in the dream, right by the tool shed inexorably linked to my grandpa. Reality hits, and the sun is sinking low, the food has evaporated from the cooler, and I haven't put a fish in it all day- perfect. I finish the last two cherries in my hand and reel in my line, glad to have learned from the great fisherman.

Holidays

One holiday I always look forward to is Valentine's Day. This may surprise some of you. "But you're single, not romantic, and you never go out," you're thinking. You're thinking, "Why would you like Valentine's Day? You're scrawny, dress, poorly, and your face is repulsive." Woah! Hey! That's crossing the line. Anyway, the reason I like Valentine's Day is the weather is almost always nice. I can think of some great days I've had diving in Waimanalo on Valentine's Day.

There are other holidays that I look forward to also. Memorial Day is a good one. A lot of you don't even know when that is. Unless I tell you it's baitball season, then you think, "Oooohhh, right. I love May." Memorial Day, Cinco de Mayo, ALL of Mayo. May's a good month for diving.

I'll never forget my birthday either. It comes right at the end of summer, when the water's warm, swells are low, and the tradewinds let up. I always have fish to eat on my birthday. My birthday is August 27, so those conditions often hold up right through Labor Day, another great holiday.

New Year's Eve is not necessarily my favorite holiday. It's awfully hard to get to sleep, which is important if you're going to get up New Year's morning to take advantage of the good diving weather. I can't remember how many years in a row I've gone diving Jan. 1. Probably 6 or 7. Some people just dive it every other year to take advantage of the Diamond Head area opening. But it's always a good one for a diver to mark on his or her calendar.

There are a lot more days to mark down, too. Before last week it had been years since I saw a Super Bowl; the weather at that time is just too good. And I hope they never take away Columbus Day! It's a good day for diving. Heck, what am I saying? Kwanza, Yom Kippur, Ramadan... everyday is a good one for diving.