PixlBit

Hello once again Pixlbit nation! It has been a week, and I am back on the mainland. I spent the previous week visiting the family in Hawai’i, where I ate like a local, spent time with the family, and on my last day on the islands, went full tourist mode. I haven’t really spent any time online (shocking) other than check the social media sites. I purposely did not visit Pixlbit because it would suck me into writing a blog which I wanted to save up all my experiences in one long recap (it won’t be day to day stuff, just some highlights)

So my trip started at 5am Sunday Morning at the local “International” Airport. There is one flight to Canada, and one to Mexico per day so they can call themselves “International”. The majority of the planes here are the puddle jumpers aka commuter flights.

 

I always see these setups on Instagram, and I wanted to try it

 

This was the techy stuff I brought with me…except on the way out of the house I forgot my iPod and big headphones. Yep I thought I was going to be bored out of my mind because I don’t have my trusty music setup.

 

6am

I was sitting and waiting for my 8am flight to LAX so I started adding music/podcasts to my iPad and phone. I normally don’t use my phone as a music player so this was a bit odd for me but whatever I had music.

 

The one thing that bothered me is that the iPad likes to sync EVERYTHING when I just wanted to sync my podcasts. C’mon now Apple.

 

8am

We all found out that the airplane sitting in front of us wasn’t checked and the air conditioning was broken. My flight was going to be delayed an hour.

 

9am

The airplane still wasn’t fixed, and they brought out a backup plane…and it needed to be cooled off.

 

The broken puddle jumper

10am

We were finally able to board, and I was told that I should “run” to my next gate when I hit LAX. Problem was that my plane was taking off as we were landing at LAX. Thanks United. The next flight to the 808 was at 1pm. Blah!

 

11am

 

I had lunch in the boarding area waiting for 1pm to hurry up. Thanks to free WiFi, I watched some Archer and ate my lunch.

 

1pm

We were told that the arm that moves the landing gear door was broken and it needed to be fixed. Thanks United Airlines

 

3pm

They fixed the arm, and we finally got to board the airplane. We sat in the damn thing until 3:40 when we were told by the captain over the intercom that the mechanic didn’t sign off on the project so we had to wait in our boarding area. Funny that they happened at this time because they had an alternate 3:30 flight that was on time, and they told us about it as we were boarding. Thanks United Airlines

 

The view from my seat. I never noticed the info on the wing

5pm

We finally boarded and took off for Hawai’i. Have I mention that I already hate airports and airplanes? The one positive thing about this experience was that the TSA folks were nice. I heard so many bad stories yet these people were easily the nicest folks I encountered.

 

This was my view flying into Hawai’i. On my other flight I reserved an aisle seat but for this flight I got stuck with the window. The positive thing is that I sat with a nice older couple from Louisiana, and we talked LSU football. SportsCenter pays off because the gentleman was happy I knew about some of the Tigers.

 

I was so happy to finally see this sign on the way to baggage claim.

 

That was the beginning to my trip. I am so not a fan of airports at this point.

The rest of the trip was spent reconnecting with family, learning about what is going on with my cousins, seeing my baby sister who is now 10, and has a wicked serve in volleyball. She easily hits the ball the hardest out of everyone on the court. My pops became Volleyball dad, keeping score, and apparently he goes to all her games because he was telling me who sucks on the team. Yep middle school volleyball is serious business.

As for food, I ate as much local plate lunches as I could, and drank a ton of Fruit Punch. The South has sweet tea, and Hawai’i has fruit punch. I like to call it Kool-Aid on sugar steroids.

My pops and I went to one of his many favorite hole in the wall spots (construction workers know every food spot), and this is a place my brother and I used to go to the last time we were on the islands.

 

I had the pork cutlet with with mac salad. Instead of having rice, I had two more mac salads. I have rice everyday; I rarely get to have mac salad! Every time we went out I ate like this. It is nowhere near healthy but damn it tasted good.

The one time we stopped into a McDonalds was for breakfast the day I was leaving because my sister wanted McDonalds. The McDonalds on the islands carry rice, saimin (noodles in broth. It’s a mix of Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino foods that was popular among the plantation workers). They also had a specialty pie

 

It’s a banana pie…and it was an old school fried pie. That and a couple of hash browns is what I called a power breakfast!

 

On my last day we went full tourist mode with a stop at the stadium swapmeet

 

That’s where the Pro Bowl, and the University of Hawai’i Rainbow Warriors play. I stocked up on some shirts for my brother, bought a bunch of stickers, some cool stuff for the sister, and in the used section I bought some Lego from a nice lady

 

It was all second generation Blacktron parts, and two minifigs. I thought it was a good buy for $10. I had my dad looking for video games (apparently he already knew I had a collection) and there was nothing but sports games and a Japanese version of Cooking Mama along with a pink DS. I thought about both the game and DS but I didn’t know how long that DS was sitting or if it still worked.

 

After this trip my sister wanted to go to the beach, so we packed up the truck and headed towards the North Shore to go to the beach. My pops wanted to go spear fishing so we hit one of the beaches that isn’t full of tourists. It was a little out of the way but there were a couple of locals along with some military folks.

 

There were turtles swimming close to the shore. We saw three of them in one part of the beach so we went to a spot further down because she thought the turtles would attack her. I said not to worry because if I was in the water, and a turtle was coming, I would push her toward it, as I ran out of the water. She wasn’t too pleased.

As I stood out in the water, karma got me because what brushed up against my leg as I was making fun of my sister? Yup a big ass turtle. I freaked, got laughed at, and I started laughing after it happened.

 

This was the view of the beach while I was eating lunch and my sister decided to help my pops hold a bag for any fish he caught while spear fishing.

We got back to the house in time for me to start packing, jump into the shower, and realize I sunburned my shoulders. Yes I still haven’t realized dark skin folks like myself can still get sunburn.

 

This was me at the airport a couple of hours later. TSA was still really nice, and I got to keep my shoes on, and laptop in the bag. I had an hour before my flight so it was a little reading, and watching some video on my iPad. Oh and WTH Honolulu Airport, no free WiFi?

My flight was on time, and the only problem was a excuse the language: uber bitch who threw her bag on top of my in the overhead bin. I said you’re crushing my laptop and she basically said in a round about way “not my problem.” I move her shit to the back of the bin. At the end of the flight I took my bag and took hers down too. Not even a thank you. The nice couple next to me said don’t let her get to you, something in her life made her that way. Still, what an uber bitch.

 

This was my view during takeoff.

 

My last flight of the day was also on time as I boarded the puddle jumper and we left LAX

 

The best part about this flight other than it had 8 people, was that the flight attendant was so uninterested in the flight, she mumbled through her speech that she was reading off a paper, and sat in the first row of seats, playing with her hair, taking photos out of the window, and texting someone. Easily my favorite moment from my flights.

 

I did see a duck shaped cloud which is a distant second to uninterested flight attendant.

I didn’t play much video game wise last week, but I did sneak in some tablet gaming, and added to my collection of Mii’s but I will talk about that in another blog probably tomorrow. Oh congrats you folks on picking up Destiny. I will pick up my copy later on today, play a level, and probably go back to playing baseball. Anyways Part II of my blog will probably happen either tomorrow, or later on this week (I keep thinking it’s Monday)

 

See I have some pictures I need to talk about!

 

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris

Edit: So I just uploaded my pics...and an earthquake just happened. Thanks for the Welcome Home California!