Aloha again! I have finally returned to the land of the living from the deep mental void that is the advancement exam. For those who don't know, every six months, we are required to take a three-hour exam that counts as a certain percentage toward our promotion. The problem is that with the timing of our move, I basically didn't start studying until about three weeks before the test, so I really had to hit cram time. Plus, my exam fell on the morning of 9/11, so we were told to not only allow time for parking, but also to allow time to get through the gate. I woke up at 4:00am for the test so I could have good coffee, a good breakfast, and time to really wake my brain up before the test, plus still have time to get to the exam site.
I had Stephen drive me so that parking wasn't an issue. We had a half-hour drive from Kailua, so we left at 5:15am, figuring that with extra gate-time I could at least be in by 6. Nope. We were in the parking lot, in a space, at 5:45am, and the test didn't start until 7am.
My paperwork got messed up in the course of the move, so when I finally got my worksheet that was supposed to have the number of points I've amassed from my evaluations, awards, and education, it was all blank. So when I got done with the test at 10am, I got to work on getting the paperwork I needed over to Personnel Support Detachment so I could get the points that I'm supposed to get. I'm so close to getting promoted now that I'll have to look over the final score sheet closely when it gets released in November and make sure I'm not missing any points. It could mean the difference between staying E-4 and getting bumped up to E-5.
Somebody also messed up where general military training is concerned, so instead of getting the afternoon off, we had to stick around after lunch for some training. Blech.
But that was last week, and Stephen covered for me while I slowly nurtured my injured brain cells back to health.
This week, things finally started to come together. After crabbing a bunch to my coworkers about not hearing anything about household goods or the car, one person told me to just go down to the car lot and see if they would release it. I got permission to leave work early on Wednesday, since technically PCSing is work, and the shipping company had it to us in 5 minutes.
With a half-inch of water in the trunk.
They gave us the name of the detailing place to contact, and they will cover the cost of cleaning out the trunk and the air conditioning to make sure there is no mold, because who knows how long the water has been in the trunk.
Yesterday, I got an e-mail saying that our car was ready to be picked up.
*facepalm*
Thursday was mostly a day off. The band decided to have a hail-and-farewell fiesta lunch from 11am-1pm to welcome the three newest members of the band, myself included, and say goodbye to two members who are transferring to other bands. I suggested that Stephen and I go to Hanauma Bay early in the morning and see if the fishes and the tourists were any better.
Success!
We got there at 6:45am, and it was just starting to get really crowded when we left at 9. The water was exceptionally clear and the fishies were gigantic compared to the ones we've seen anywhere else. We also saw a wider variety than we'd seen in the past. Here are a few of the highlights:
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| Big Ornate Butterflyfish |
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| Initial phase Bird Wrasse (a.k.a. juvenile) |
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| Terminal phase Bird Wrasse (adult male) |
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| Another terminal phase Bird Wrasse |
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| A Saddleback Butterflyfish and its mate. Butterflyfish are usually seen in pairs. |
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| A poignant image of a pair of Threadfin Butterflyfish |
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| This week's Honu. He was eating a lot and didn't mind our presence. |
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And to top it all off, I saw this guy actually swimming through the water before he squirmed into his hidey-hole and got all ferocious and hissy:
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| Whitemouth Moray Eel |
If you're interested in seeing more pictures of fish, Stephen took about 110, so it really wasn't worth trying to post all of them! Here is the link to Stephen's album, so click on that and see all the fishies!
Other than that, we've mostly been bumming around the beaches. Yesterday, we mostly spent time playing racquetball (Stephen), practicing (the both of us), and grocery shopping. Then it was nap-time and beach-time.
Today we caught the Browns game, which I'm still not sure is worth the 6:30am wake up time on the weekend, but at least it was disappointingly over by 10am. We thought we would try our hand at surfing, but there were no good waves.
We tried going to Hickam Beach on the Air Force side of the base, but we were quickly reminded why we didn't live in military housing. I won't say anything more about that, because none of it is nice.
So we went out near Waikiki and parked at the Hale Koa Resort, the military hotel in the heart of it all. Actually, it was really great! It was only a little crowded, and there were facilities to rent kayaks, surfboards, stand-up paddleboards, and even ridiculous ocean-going floating tricycles. There was a Mai Tai stand and a stand where I got not the best shrimp cocktail in the world, but it was shrimp cocktail nonetheless. Oh, and it had a pretty amazing view of Diamondhead Crater. We simply bummed around, bobbed in the water, sat on the beach and read books, and other relaxing stuff like that. I wouldn't mind staying there for a small stay-cation because it charges based on paygrade. Normally the garage is $37 a day, but since we're lowly E-4s, we only got charged $5. Same goes for the hotel rooms.
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| View of the beach from the Hale Koa. Who can argue? |
So that pretty much sums up our week. I guess I need to throw in a few gratuitous photos of Tikti doing his stuff. This week, it's been walking around outside in a cat harness on a leash. And apparently laying on Stephen when we have the A/C running...
And there you have it! Aloha for now and mahalo for stopping by!
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