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A Typical, Atypical Day….

As an Instructional Technology Specialist at KS, I service teachers & students. So what on earth do I do in the summer? Hmm…. good question! Ha, ha. Well, let me start by saying that I am blessed to have one of the best jobs around. I work at a great school with great people & awesome kids. I also belong to a wonderful team whom I consider “family.” Another enjoyable aspect of my job is the wide variety of activities and experiences that I encounter each day. A typical day is pretty much…. atypical. Here was my schedule today:

5:00 Rise & shine. (I wake up at 4:30 during the school year.)
5:30 Done showering. Start devotions.
6:00 Read email, Twitter, & online newspapers.
6:30 Feed dad breakfast. (Usually leave at this time during the school year.)
7:00 Tris arrives for ride to school (only for volleyball tryout week.)
7:30 Starbucks. Yeah! Pike’s coffee-of-the-day is da bomb….
7:45 Drop off Tris at Keku, then go to Toshi’s to pick up a box of cone sushi.
8:00 Design & develop a wiki to host handouts & resources for teachers.
8:30 Planned visit to a co-worker’s home is cancelled.
9:00 Burn audio books to CD and meet w/ team members in my office. Coach Pono shares about his club volleyball team’s national championship. (Cool!)
10:00 Record a videotaped message to a co-worker. Played a song on my guitar, but messed up.
10:30 Start production on updated version of KES parent orientation DVD.
11:30 Lunch at Meg’s w/ Cy & Tim. Thursday’s special, the “miso-paka” (opakapaka fish.)
12:30 Assist grade 4 teacher w/ data backup, installation of fonts, & setup of Apple store account.
1:30 Started 2.0 upgrade of my iPod Touch (took forever.)
2:00 Examined new del.icio.us website, now known as “delicious” (social bookmarking site.)
2:30 Continued work on wiki site and Ning site (mashup.)
3:00 Discovered that IT has now blocked MySpace on the admin. network. How’s that??
3:30 Emailed letter to one of the organizers of the upcoming PodCamp conference.
3:45 Learned to embed different types of widgets on our particular wiki. Continued work on wiki.
4:15 Yaba-daba-doo….
5:00 Grocery shopping. Filled gas ($65 for three-quarter tank….)
6:00 Dinner of canned spaghetti. Pretty gross.
6:30 Twittered: “why does canned spaghetti taste so nasty? what on earth are they putting in it?”
7:00 Bo-cha.
7:30 Read and/or get back on the computer. Maybe check out Waikele Borders/Starbucks, which is only a block away…. (Thursday night’s minichurch now moved to Wednesday.)
11:00 Sleep.

Looking forward to a “Happy Aloha Friday” tomorrow….

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Horses in Waikele….

Really! I kid you not! There are horses just across the street from my house. There’s this huge lot behind Waikele Elementary School. We saw them today from our Sunday School classes at HCWO.

You would think you’d kinda know your immediate neighborhood after living there for 10 years….

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Shave Ice Wars….

It is often debated. “Who has the best shave ice?” Well, I was given the opportunity to find out first-hand this past Friday. Our Kamehameha Schools ESS division had its nohona cultural activity in Hale’iwa. The 90 of us stood in line at Matsumoto’s. After standing in the sun for a few minutes, I realized that I could go to Aoki’s and have a shave ice while waiting in the long Matsumoto’s line. No, I’m not a pig. I did this for the sake of research…. Anyway, I first had the Aoki’s shave ice. It was great! In fact, the locals prefer Aoki’s over Matsumoto’s. Then, I got my Matsumoto’s shave ice. Woh. There was a difference. I actually liked the Matsumoto’s a lot better. Funny, but it seemed a lot “colder.” I liked the ice better (must be the water,) and the texture (must be the blades,) and it melted slower (they must refrigerate their syrup.) They were both great, but IMHO, Matsumoto’s wins. Now this is not an exact science. I will need to replicate this experiment a few more times….

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Punahou’s Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookie….


This is my 3rd summer as a participant in the Punahou Technology Lab School. I have learned so much and have made many friends over the years. Admittedly, I especially look forward to eating their cookies each summer. They’re that good! I probably had four or five this week. (They’re pretty big….takes two hands to eat them.) Mmm….so good!

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Grillin’ & Chillin’….

….at Russell & Donna’s tonight. Had a great time catching up w/ the old college gang. Got to talk-story, enjoy fresh-brewed iced tea on a summer night, and view digital photos of New York & New Hampshire. Had the best time….

Here’s their homemade rotisserie cooking up some of the juiciest chickens. Mmm….so good….