Author: elvis

missed by …that… much

elvis2 Comments

Here’s a good pic of the house I was staying in last week, on Hanalei bay, Kauai; view from the edge of the bay. I post this as a visual reference. Between the house and the vantage point from which this was taken lies the main road that runs through Hanalei and on up to […]

Here’s a good pic of the house I was staying in last week, on Hanalei bay, Kauai; view from the edge of the bay.

Hanalei Plntn-1

I post this as a visual reference. Between the house and the vantage point from which this was taken lies the main road that runs through Hanalei and on up to the very far northern drivable point.

Saturday, I want to a borthday bbq for a friend; a friend from a big gang I used to hang out with a lot, but have faded out of lately for various reasons. Old San Jose music scene people, bands with names like frontier wives, sugarbombs, exploding cadillacs, sioux nation, and a bunch of others only san jose scene people would remember.

One of these people was my pal lex.

I post this because I found out saturday, he and his lovely wife Kelly were – literally – less than a mile away from my on Hanalei Bay the entire time were were there. They drove by our house every day on that road (nearly pictured, above), ate in the same restaurants, grocery shopped in the same store. And neither of us ever knew it.

We spent satrday’s party alternately comparing recent tattoos, and lamenting the fact that fate got us that close in a place that stunning, and never crossed our paths.

Fuckin’ fate, man.

We also talked about getting our backs tattooed, something Lex and I have been talking about since we both turned fourty, *cough* years ago. Neither of us have yet started; it’s almost a race at this point though I’d ahead, since I actually have a design picked out.

In other news – there is no other news. I am hit hard with that post-vacation malaise, the lack of any interest in work or the details of real life. Back to work, back to bill-paying and errand-running and housework. Back to school for my kids (when the fuck did school switch to ending and starting in the middle of summer? When I was a kid, early june we got out, mid-september we went back. When did this stupid before-labor-day thing get started?)

I can’t really even work up energy to send email, and I’m only managing to read because I have this awesome
short story collection by Dennis LeHane; I can’t get unough focus for anything longer.

Plus there’s the Harry Potter hangover. We recently finished a marathon out-loud reading of Deathly Hallows, and how can one not feel spent after that book?

All in all, I just want to be sandy and salty and not have to come the fuck back.

The tattoos on my feet are (as expected with foot tattoos) healing slowly; these things are as irritating to heal as they are to get. I’ll post pic in a week or so when they start to look healed and are no longer flaking off like a sunburned comics page.

Monday. I think I’ll go back to bed.

pig and chicken

elvis18 Comments

The sailor’s legend goes that pigs and chickens don’t swim; they would thus be very very anxious to get out of the water if dropped in. This makes them a powerful charm against drowning, the animals desire to be out of the water helping one avoid a watery grave. Sailors, the story goes, tattooed these […]

The sailor’s legend goes that pigs and chickens don’t swim; they would thus be very very anxious to get out of the water if dropped in.

This makes them a powerful charm against drowning, the animals desire to be out of the water helping one avoid a watery grave.

Sailors, the story goes, tattooed these animals on their feet as a charm against drowning. Sailors were and are a superstitious lot, and in an era when most people could not swim, drowning was always a great fear.

I am not particularly superstitious, and I’m not afraid of the water; I swim reasonably well. Yet, given the amount of time I spend in and on the sea, the old sailor superstitions have endless appeal.

Thus – Pig and Chicken, by Uncle Tim at Blue Kauai Tattoo in Hanalei:

Read more “pig and chicken”

artist’s conception

elvis3 Comments

my new tattoos (artist’s conception by olivia, age 13). Not my favorite place to get tattooed, the feet. Tomorrow maybe, photos of the actual thing.

my new tattoos (artist’s conception by olivia, age 13).

Artists Conception

Not my favorite place to get tattooed, the feet. Tomorrow maybe, photos of the actual thing.

home already

elvis3 Comments

I sorta intended to post some pics while I was here but i forgot to pack the cable for my camera. So you know, fuck it. Pix later, when I get home. In any case, one last day on Kauai and then back to california. As always, I leave Hawaii a vague feeling of sorrow; […]

I sorta intended to post some pics while I was here but i forgot to pack the cable for my camera. So you know, fuck it. Pix later, when I get home.

In any case, one last day on Kauai and then back to california. As always, I leave Hawaii a vague feeling of sorrow; I don’t need anything from home. I could stay, giving up the mainland and not looking back.

There’s never enough time; even my kona trip last fall, when I stayed for three weeks, i left with the notion that I’d done half of what I wanted. And yet it takes only a week for me to start thinking of here as home. This trip, I stayed in two houses on two different parts of the island, dove, swam, snorkled, girl-watched, cooked, ate, hiked, took pictures; I found time to sit on the front porch of my house on hanalei bay and watch the sky change. I travel at an un-hurried pace when possible, finding time to do nothing; but this always means as may things un-done as things done.

I’m ok with that; I don’t need to finish. Travel isn’t about what you do; it’s about what you see, what you learn. If one is done, generally, one isn’t doing it right.

I do not want to go home; in my heart, I am home already.

bye bye flossie

elvis3 Comments

…and there she goes. In other news, i have three days left of my vacation. Damn, they go by fast. Remaining plans: Night dive thursday (assuming no fucked up ocean conditions left behind by flossie’s passage), tattoo on friday at Uncle Tim’s Blue Kauai Tattoo, and fly home saturday. Today, wednesday – no plans at […]

Ep092007W1

…and there she goes.

In other news, i have three days left of my vacation. Damn, they go by fast. Remaining plans: Night dive thursday (assuming no fucked up ocean conditions left behind by flossie’s passage), tattoo on friday at Uncle Tim’s Blue Kauai Tattoo, and fly home saturday. Today, wednesday – no plans at all.

Hey Flossie

elvis7 Comments

Meet hurricane Flossie: She’s a cute lil’ thing but she’s comin’ my way. Actually, not quite my way; NOAA says she’s gonna veer just south of Kauai. We’re not under a storm warning yet. Which is good ’cause my house is right there at sea level facing open ocean. The word ‘evacuation’ was used to […]

Meet hurricane Flossie:

Hey Flossie

She’s a cute lil’ thing but she’s comin’ my way.

Actually, not quite my way; NOAA says she’s gonna veer just south of Kauai. We’re not under a storm warning yet. Which is good ’cause my house is right there at sea level facing open ocean. The word ‘evacuation’ was used to today in the town I’m just north west of, if in a vague and hypothetical way.

This could turn it a more exciting vacation that originally planned. And you know, that idea doesn’t bother me at all.

room with a view

elvis7 Comments

The view from my house – Hanalei Bay, Kauai (Click to view full size). I am roughly fifty feet from the ocean.

The view from my house – Hanalei Bay, Kauai (Click to view full size).

Img 0036

I am roughly fifty feet from the ocean.

Forgotten Things

elvis4 Comments

I managed to forget a charger for my laptop when I packed to leave, so the plan to do a little writing about kauai was disrupted. Luckily I managed to dig one up. Annoying, really. One makes a simple plan and finds in foiled by a single missing part. I have nightmares like that, usually […]

I managed to forget a charger for my laptop when I packed to leave, so the plan to do a little writing about kauai was disrupted. Luckily I managed to dig one up.

Annoying, really. One makes a simple plan and finds in foiled by a single missing part. I have nightmares like that, usually about dive trips where I’ve forgotten to pack some single piece of gear that’s completely essential.

Thus on, I hope, with a bit of travel blogging. Though not tonight, due to an early-morning dive trip tomorrow.

I will admit, though, I’ve developed rather a liking this trip, for a beverage I bought only for it’s lovely label.

Sailor Jerry

Kauai bound

elvis3 Comments

In about five minutes I’ll be boarding a flight for lihue – Kauai, here I come. (posted via iPhone)

In about five minutes I’ll be boarding a flight for lihue – Kauai, here I come.

(posted via iPhone)

The Jawless Deadringer

elvis8 Comments

After a long wait and a lot of requests from customers, here’s a first look (in real life anyway) at the Deadringer jawless skull. I’ll take a better pic later, this is with phone-cam and none-too-stead mitts. Even so, the ring is a thing ‘o beauty, considerably smaller than the Classic, yet with a more […]

Myyorrick

After a long wait and a lot of requests from customers, here’s a first look (in real life anyway) at the Deadringer jawless skull.

I’ll take a better pic later, this is with phone-cam and none-too-stead mitts. Even so, the ring is a thing ‘o beauty, considerably smaller than the Classic, yet with a more primal appearance.

I think it’s fabulous.

Mark, Steven, thank you. As usual, you guys are too kind.