i know i'm short, but THIS is ridiculous

Gleaming gold. Shiny Chrome.

First time seeing nephew's rig.

Goodness, that is tall.

Dole Plantation

[NOTE: these pics were taken in 2010]
When i was in Hawaii i had a few days to do non-work related things. A friend had been to Oahu a few years earlier and told me that one of her favorite places was the Dole Plantation so after the canoe surfing adventure i set out with my trusty map towards the North Shore.



it looks like botanical fire


As one might expect the grounds were breath-takingly beautiful, featuring this awesome pointy plant that i had never seen before,

and, of course, pineapples. In fact, there were so many fruit bearing plants that in the parking lot i chuckled to find this sign:

There are a number of things to explore at the plantation - store, restaurant, gardens, world's largest pineapple maze, train ride - but i arrived only two hours before they closed so i had to make a strategic plan to see as much as possible.

If you know me at all i bet that you can guess that my number one option was the train tour; i don't know what it is about little trains, but i LOVE them. 

The Pineapple Express took us on a narrated tour through the pineapple fields and grounds of the Plantation:


hello wooden cutout of a worker



hello lychee trees



hello gorgeous red soil



Did you know that pineapples grew on the ground?
Cause i thought that they grew on trees.
Nope.

They grow on short ground plants that are individually hand seeded,

then hand picked and put on one of these conveyors to be transported to shipping.

The train did a turn around in a beautifully cultivated garden where various shrubs grew in the shape of pineapples.

Also, it took us by a lovely reservoir with mountains in the distance.

hello cool looking machine that i have no idea what you do

The train tracks went right in among the plants, sometimes so close that you could reach out and touch them.

There were lots of crops besides pineapples, like the lychee trees pictured earlier, macadamia nut trees and row after row of birds of paradise.

Right by the train station is the variety garden where you can see the different types of pineapples.
Heck, i didn't even know that there were different types of pineapples.


lordy, isn't it adorable



this pink guy is so big it fell over;
no, i have no idea what variety it is

I made a stop at the nearby pond where i encountered tourist fish:

These koi are so forceful about being fed by humans that they actually come out of the water.
Yikes.

I decided it was time to hit the store which was quite randomly surrounded by peacocks and peahens.
I don't really think peacock when i think Hawaii, but okay.
After some shopping and wandering i worked up the courage to try the house specialty, a type of soft-serve called Pineapple Whip even though i am no big fan of pineapple:




if only they had these dishes i definitely would have bought a set

It was surprisingly delicious.
Here i am enjoying my cone next to a perfect little pineapple.



i'm Pineapple Pete



and whatever the female version of Pineapple Pete is called



almost five thousand miles away from home

[look Rea: one of the fabled last five Hawaii posts]

the end of an era

I have had the same cell phone for five years.
That's right, i said five years.
Isn't that like 900 in technology-years?
I love my phone.
It was a gift from dear friends and it does what i need it to do.
At least it did until yesterday morning.
The alarm went off at 5am, no problem.
It went off again at 6am, no problem.
(i was playing the early-morning laundry game, you see)
When i looked at it at 6:45 it was off and wouldn't turn back on.
...sigh
I can't complain because it lived well beyond what i assume would be its natural lifespan.
So i actually had to go get a new cell phone.
I doubt it will be as great as my old one, but i'm hopeful.


bye-bye my loyal little friend

Hot toasty love returns to the Nikiverse

Do you remember when my toaster died?
How i tried frantically to fix it, to no avail?
My $7 rebound toaster barely satisfied my toasting needs. After a year of vague disappointment, it finally gave up.
And then i had no toast.
None.
I was given a Free to a Good Home toaster oven with the caveat that it needed cleaned. No big deal, i thought. Wrong. It must have had a fire in it because even after a hard, thorough cleaning it still smoked enough to set off the alarm.
...sigh
Still no toast.
I was desperate enough to put bagels under the broiler, but that was a pain since they went from toasty to cinders in a matter of seconds.
...sigh
Then I decided that i didn't need toast.
My life is full and fine without toast.
Right?
Okay, i'll buy a new toaster.
Thus started the search for a new toaster. How many slots? What width? Toaster oven? Who has them on sale? This was not a frivolous undertaking, people.
Then, out of no-where, there was a like-new toaster oven in my hands. A Black and Decker one. A nice one. An expensive one. A FREE one.
Co-worker Stacey had inherited it from fTM Kate, but neither of them had particularly used it so Stacey was taking it Good Will. Look at it...

remember: no matter how much you love the toaster oven, don't kiss it; it's hot

I am so in love with my toaster oven that i am now toasting things that don't even need toasted.
I might have a problem. But i also have toast.

what is that and what is it doing here?

I was walking up a set of stairs that i never take to a floor that i never visit and turned on the landing to see this:

I've been assured that it is part of a weather station, but doesn't it look like some sketchy setup that a hacker did in the middle of the night to piggyback on our system? Does IT know that this is here?

oh my aching coccyx

You know that here in the Nikiverse i like to share wee nuggets of information with you that i've picked up along my daily path. I generally follow the creed Set a Good Example Whenever You Can; Otherwise, Act as A Graphic Warning.
Today's Public Service Announcement falls firmly in the latter category.
ATTENTION: Segways are much lighter than you think they are. Despite having a gyroscopic drive and boasting amazing stability, if you are going through an automatic door and said door automatically closes before you are all the way through and catches one tire, a Segway can indeed be flipped over. All the way over. Onto you.
That's bad.
Especially if said door is the main entrance of a museum and you happen to be wearing a staff uniform of said museum.
GOOD NEWS: Segways really are much lighter than you think, so it doesn't hurt too, too much when it flips and lands on you after you've hit the floor. Plus, they are light enough to easily be righted as you pop up and say I meant to do that; let me tell you a little about how gyroscopes work.
Every moment is a teaching moment here in the Nikiverse, people.

take that!

I walked by the soda machine in the hallway on my way to the elevator and thought, hmmmmmm... Something looks odd here...

Is that a plastic knife shoved in the coin slot?
Why yes; yes, it is.
I know this machine steals your dollar sometimes, but doesn't stabbing it seem a bit extreme, people?
Gosh, i hope the soda machine learned its lesson...

drive-by posting

- another reason i love my job is that after today's awesome show with a super responsive and well-behaved audience, the custodian made a point to come up to the stage to tell us how much she looks forward to us coming to her school each year
- things are going great for my booth on Saturday, but i'm about 15 hours behind schedule; does anyone know where i could acquire some more hours in a day?
- taco day in the school cafeteria either smells so bad you want to vomit or so delicious you crave Taco Bell; there is no happy medium
- middle school jazz bands should have to practice in absolutely sound-proof rooms
- i can't stop listening to 30 Second From Mars' CD This is War; i dreamed about it last night; do other people dream about music?
- i made a new faux carbonara casserole the other night and realized after it was almost done that i didn't have any crackers in the house to make a crumbly topping so i crushed up cheddar goldfish and it was delicious
- another new thing this month: i love green olives and hate black olives, but at an artists' opening i made myself try some marinated blackish olives (they were kinda black/purple/grey) and enjoyed them
- Ron gave me his old computer so that i could write some of my posts at home and save them to a thumb drive so that when i do have internet access posting will be faster; about 5 days later i tripped on the keyboard cord and ripped the plug apart; anybody know if that can be fixed?
- as much as i am enjoying the artistic endeavor of preparing a vendor booth, i miss doing long blog posts with way too many pictures

it makes me a little uncomfortable



What the freak?



Has anyone else seen the new hand driers

 that you put your hands down into,

instead of under?

Doesn't it look like something from a Stephen King short story, where some hapless malcontent finds a way to accidentally bring it alive so that it gnaws your hands off?

I'm not a fan.

this could be my ride...

...if i was rich, retired and lived in Florida. sigh

my Valentine

Isn't it adorable?
Don't you love it?
 Don't you just wanna eat it up?
Today i picked up the new team vehicle for work, a Ford Transit Connect. I can't wait to start taking it out on programming. It'll be even spiffier with graphics.
sigh...

do thwart-hogs naturally migrate or just stalk me?

When i visit my parents in Florida i try to take one day to see some friends.
This trip i figured i wouldn't be able to see David and Kaaren as David's family was coming down so i figured instead of going all the way into Orlando, I'd see if Douglas would meet me part way.
You see, i wanted to go to Dinosaur Land in Plant City (not related to Dinosaurland in Winchester, VA which i have visited). I have driven by it hundreds of time, but have never been there.
How is that possible? you ask; giant Concrete dinosaurs right off the highway and you never stopped?
I know. I know.
 But finally, finally i was going to rectify that situation, plus slide one more new thing into December.
80 miles into the journey, right before the I-4 exit from I-75 outside of Tampa, my tire blew.
YIKES!
I was in the right-hand lane cause i was getting ready to exit so i was able to safely get off of the highway. AAA came to change the tire and make sure i hadn't bent the rim or damaged anything else with a high speed blowout.
When the Nice Tow Truck Driver, Steve, went to take off the blown tire, it came off in 2 pieces:
Yes, that is the tread in one complete circle at the bottom and the inner tire at the top.
Take a look at that devastation.
Steve tested the spare and declared it sound before putting it on.
 I was all ready to carry on with the adventure once the repair was done, but there was a teeny, little voice in the back of my head, Should you really drive without a spare? What if another tire blew? What if you are in the middle of nowhere and you end up having to buy a tire? A new tire is not in your budget.
sigh... stupid, reasonable, responsible voice.
Man, i hate that voice.  Sometimes i long for the days when i drank too much and went out dancing on work nights.
As much as i wanted to see Douglas and finally, finally go to Dinosaur Land, once Steve declared the car drivable i turned around and headed home.
Well, at least i can stop at Sonic now and get some tots, i cheered myself.
You see there is a Sonic right next to Mom's park and we always get tots at least once when i visit. That is, there was a Sonic right next to my mom's. It suddenly closed overnight with no warning, about a month before i got there so i hadn't had any Sonic tots on my Florida trip yet.
 I remembered passing a sign for a Sonic a few exits earlier so i was gonna ease my disappointment with some deep fried nuggets of pressed potato joy.
Except that it was also closed!
Come on now, thwart-hog. I'm on dang vacation here, 1000 miles away from home. Why are you here, too?
At that point there was nothing to do but grab a Checkers Champ with Cheese and get myself back to mom's. To stave off the dejection i reminded myself that i had bought a new travel CD ($3 at Beall's outlet) and listened to one of my all time favorite songs -Dobie Gray's Drift Away- several times on repeat at rather high decibels. I also saw two Mr. Snuffles Magees (armadillos) along the way, which always makes me smile.
It was sad not to see Douglas, but we'll find some way to visit each other and i will find a way to get to Dinosaur Land some day.
Mark my words, thwart-hog, i will.

getting there from here

As i have said before, i live in a suburb masquerading as a small town.
I love it.
Just when all the comfort and normalcy makes you wonder if perhaps it would be more exciting to live in the city, you notice a unicyclist coming up the road across from the drugstore.
Yes, you read that correctly,
UNICYCLIST!
No joke, this guy wasn't in front of his house practicing for a talent show or performing at a kid's party.
He was utilizing a unicycle to traverse Edmondson Avenue.
Really.
And he didn't come to mess around.
Oh no.
With as much zoom as my camera has i tried to capture all of his PPE (personal protective equipment) -
You might expect the helmet and the reflective vest, but the goggles were a bit of a surprise and the gloves were downright perplexing. It's not like there are handlebars to grip or anything.
Good luck to you, unicycle-man.
Thank you for being eco-friendly.
And look out for that car.
Yes, just another day in the Nikiverse.
Thank God i always have my camera so that i can prove that i don't make this stuff up!

i wanna ride in a blimp

There is just something cool about blimps. There aren't that many of them around. It is newsworthy when you see one in the sky. Driving in to the city this morning i was so excited to see one circling downtown that i had to pull over to take the picture. I understand the design and mechanics of blimp flight, but they still feel somehow otherworldly. Or like magic. Or perhaps it is because they are from a bygone era. Whatever it is about blimps, i really, really, really want to ride on one. Could someone get on that, please?

I'm pretty sure i don't want to know...

... what sort of catastrophe turns a gas pump into a twisted wreck with all of the glass and screens shattered. I just hope that whatever it was happened while the pump was off. Caution, indeed!

keeping the team happy

If you are the leader of any group of people it behooves you to keep them happy. Most bosses can do this with monetary incentives, but i work in non-profit education so i have to use pretzels and dinosaurs. On a sunny day last month the whole team packed up into one van and drove to Lititz, PA to visit the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery Located on a quiet street in a lovely little town, my first impression was that this is the kind of place where people sweep the sidewalks. I love that. But immediately my attention was pulled toward the big honking pretzel out front and the burning need i felt to have a team photo with it. [Lindsey, Sam, Amy, Mike, Elise and Megan] After perusing the gift shop and deciding what wares we would be purchasing ( i got a hot soft pretzel and chocolate covered pretzels with peanut butter!), i paid the $3 tour fee and Marianne showed us the historic equipment used to make the dough and the ovens and giant peels then used in the first cooking step for hard pretzels. [they were then sent upstairs to dry and harden for 24 hours] We each had the chance to learn how to roll and twist a pretzel (nice job, Miss Megan) while also learning about the history and symbolism of the pretzel. Though the FDA doesn't allow people to then cook and eat their sample pretzel, we did get a certificate of completion and a fun afternoon spent with each other- it's team building! Another way i try to work on morale is to make work purchases of new equipment as fun as possible. We needed a new remote controlled thing for our show about the scientific method, so why not go with a big dinosaur, especially if he is on sale? Spike the ULTRA Dinosaur needed some assembly after undoing 90000 twist ties to get the pieces out of the box. But once he was charged up it was time to rampage! We may not get paid much, but we get paid to do this. I'm kinda in love with him.