Bike, Mastered

Have not taken many photos recently so had not done a post in a while. In the meantime Rylan has been steadily improving his bike riding skills. By weekend 3 he was riding non-stop for as long as he wanted, not falling over unless he ran out of energy. I would set up cones for him to navigate and he quickly was doing the slalom courses I set up. But that was all on flat ground. It seems after all that time of steady peddling he forgot how to use his brake; so the first time we lead him down a hill of any magnitude it was not pretty. The first time he picked up speed down a hill he didn’t know what to do and just ramped off the sidewalk into the grass and went over the handlebars – no big damage thanks to the fact he had his helmet on correctly (if it had been further back on his head like many people wear their helmets his face would have been messed up). It has taken some time to get him over that first downhill experience, but he seems to have it figured out now. Now all I have to do is find more suitable hills for him to practice on. In the search for good hills we have gone to UH, first on Saturday morning and then Monday afternoon. Have a few videos of him practicing Monday afternoon below. The videos show him weaving his way through a loop where he goes down a ramp (hill) into the art building, meanders through the various columns and such, then peddles up the hill on the ewa side of the building to do it all again. He does use his brakes well now as he goes down the ramp. The longer video shows the entire loop, starting at the bottom of the hill.

On Sunday we did this circuit probably 15 times and on Monday we did it another 15 or so. Sunday we continued down to HIG and Sakamoto and did more hills and various routes. That area is perfect when there is no one around, like on a Saturday or Sunday morning. On Saturday he rode essentially non-stop for 1.5 hours, at which point he crashed due to exhaustion and got a good scrap on his elbow, but that was quickly forgotten.

We will keep working on the bike riding and razor-scooter riding and try to get him back to swimming again soon.

Bike, Second Weekend

So, we worked hard on the bicycle with Rylan this weekend. This video is probably his best ride. By Sunday, the day this was shot, he was able to ride as long as he wanted and go in the general direction he wanted to go. Still I have to get him started, but not much, and be there to catch him at the end (most of the time).

We also did Chinese New Years down in Chinatown this weekend. Always a great time. Happy Near Year again everyone.

Bike First Try

Well, it was easy to talk Rylan into taking the training wheels off his bike, but it wasn't so easy to get him to really make a solid effort to ride the bike. This is just the first try though, so hopefully next time he puts forth more effort. Still, good stuff to remember, so here it is.

This is down at the elementary school in our neighborhood. Seems like a lot of people learn to ride bikes there. There were two others that seemed to have very recently made the leap to riding without training wheels and had come to practice some more. The pavement is a little rough though, so any wipeout can result in abrasions. He came away unscathed this time though. Here is Rylan and Mom working on it.

MLK Peacock Flat Camping

Went camping with the MLK crew for the holiday weekend. Luckly both Joni and I got a holiday day for this one and didn't have to take time off work (unusual I do not get holidays like this it seems, next one for me isn't until Memorial Day I think). Anyway, the MLK crew has been doing adventures on the MLK weekend for many years now. Somehow we had the good fortune of getting invited this year. The crew stayed on Oahu this year and so we just drove up to the North Shore and headed into the mountains - a state campground known as Peacock Flats at an elevation of roughly 1,700 feet. Here are some photos of the trip.

This is the entrance gate down at Farrington Highway. Luckly for us, MLK master organizer Michael Constantinedes is a forester for the DLNR and was able to (a) get us reservations at the campground, and (b) get a key to the gate so we could just drive up the paved road rather than bump over the 4WD road that starts on the West Side.

Our first day up there we did a hike (1.35 miles each way) up to the ridge between the North Shore and the West Side. Ate lunch looking down into Makua Valley.

One the way down back to camp the boys took a break and Joni caught them with the camera.

Was also Rylan's 4th birthday during the MLK trip. Camping on your birthday with your best friend - he seemed to love it. I like this shot because you can see his best friend Liko in the left corner trying to blow the candles too.

One tradition of the MLK group is doing a puzzle during the holiday. Everyone got caught up in it at one time or another. This is taken on the last night and we were able to finish it up the next morning before packing up.

Here I am with our tent. Up this high the forest is different than the typical dry forest down near the beach - nice Norfolk pines to cushion the ground. There was also a nice big grass-covered clearing off to the right of the photo where others put their tents and we had our meals and such.

NYE on Kauai

Heike, Jim, and Lucas visited Kauai for New Years Eve. Joni, Rylan, and I flew over and joined them for a nice long weekend. They had a nice place in Hanalei (north shore) rented for the week and we just moved right on in with them, bring along all our leftovers from Christmas (Jim and Heike probably don't want any turkey for awhile now). The kids hit it off immediately and got along well throughout the weekend; it seems that as long as their ages are reasonably close in this phase of childhood any two boys will get along well. With all the vacation-time activities available they were not about to get bored either. It was a constant beach trip with some fireworks, cake, and playground thrown in. The adults also managed well as everyone seemed to have the same priority: surf. Joni called it our best surf trip ever because we didn't have to travel very far, the waves kept coming, she got to surf with Laird Hamilton, the kids were able to come along and have fun, and the weather was good. We surfed a number of spots including at least four spots in Hanalei Bay (Pinetrees, the point, the bowl, and the point on the left side), Anani Beach, and Kalihiwai Beach. Not being local I don't know the traditional names of the places we surfed, but they all had their good points. Surfing on Kauai's north shore is a lot different than Oahu's north shore though - Kauai seems to be dominated by long boards and SUPs while Oahu seems to be dominated by shorter boards.

Anyway, here are some photos from the trip. First is the Rylan and Lucas reunion on the beach when we arrived, instant joy. Rylan is standing in a hole, he isn't that much shorter than Lucas. This is Hanalei Beach right near the rental house.

The first night we were there was New Years Eve. Not a big deal in relatively sparsely populated Hanalei - we were asleep before midnight and were not jolted awake by people going crazy at midnight.

New Years Day is Jim's birthday, so the day started with cake for breakfast. The kids helped mix, bake, and decorate the cake the night before and enjoyed anything that had to do with the cake.

This is following a nice surf at Anini Beach, very near Hanalei. The kids enjoyed surfing in the sandy-bottom shallows here. The adults enjoyed the "A"-frame peaks off shore.

Here are Jim, Heike, and Lucas on the grounds of the St. Regis hotel that overlooks Hanalei Bay. Things were too expensive to hang around too long, but the view is nice.

The next day had huge surf so we looked around and settled in Kalihiwai. Great beach but not much in the surf department. There were a number of tow-in teams off shore but the swell wasn't wrapping in to the beach very well. The kids and everyone enjoyed the time at the beautiful beach though.


We did go out for dinner one night. Food was bad, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. Here is the entire gang at the table.

Family Shots

During the festivities we managed some family photos. Here they are.

This is the entire crew at the house for Christmas Day Dinner. Many other friends came over too and we all had a great time.

All the Fernandez girls together.

All the Fernandez grandkids together.

And here are the boys.

Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas everyone. We have a great Christmas at the Hayes house. Fernandez grandparents staying at the house and many other people visiting. Here are some photos of the event.

Christmas eve Rylan wrote his name and left some goodies for Santa. Well, Joni wrote his name and then he traced it so that Santa knew who's house he was visiting.

When we woke up we found evidence that Santa has stopped and enjoyed himself (not sure why this one came out rotated?).


Then it was onto the good stuff. First the stockings were checked.


One of the first presents to open, after having a nice bacon and egg breakfast, was the truck. Good to have a truck to put other toys in. Thanks to Fernandez grandparents.


Others heard Rylan really enjoys having dinosaurs around. Here Rylan throws caution and boxes to the wind looking for any dino lost in the peanuts.


More Dinosaurs! Awesome. Thanks.


Piggy banks are a great too. Especially hand painted ones that you can then fly around with proper sound effects. Concentrating on the sound effects here. Thanks.


Here is one of Dad's presents. Wait, is this for Dad or son? The remote controled speed boat. Rylan sees these on the ponds in Ala Moana Park and thinks I would enjoy driving one. Maybe he will enjoy it too? We shall see.

Rylan Swim

Rylan has graduated from swim class. He took the Infant Swim Resource program for about six weeks. They had classes in Aina Haina and Joni took him there every morning for a 10 minute session in the pool with the ISR instructor. For weeks it seemed we were just torturing our Baby Rylan. In the end he made a dramatic improvement and now swims well – well for a 22 month old anyway, its not like he is going to set any world records yet. As a graduation test they threw him in the pool with his clothes on; he had to make it back to the edge of the pool unaided. No problem. This is a video of us a few weeks later at the Palolo Valley pool. Based on the number of views on You Tube maybe a bunch of you have watched this already, but here it is again…


What you don’t see in the video is how well he can float on his back. He does that thing where he flips over to catch a breath of air as he swims. Once he started to get tired he spends more and more time on his back catching his breath. This video shows a short rest, he can float on his back for minutes at a time (never tested how long he can sustain it). He uses these swimming skills to get away from us and avoid soap during his bath. When the soap comes out he get as much of his body under the water as he can to avoid the cleaning – which is odd because he likes being clean. When he lies on his back his ears are well under water – he likes this because of the way things sound, he will start singing and yelling just to hear how it sounds underwater.

The only problem with swimming at the city pools is that they don’t allow jumping in from the side, which is one of Rylan’s favorite things to do. We typically do it a few time and see how long we can get away with it before the life guard comes over and scolds us.

Had another first this weekend with Rylan. At least it seemed like a first – he played pretend. He handed me imaginary items at the dinner table. It started by him handing me his plastic animals one at a time, then when he ran out of those, he paused and then just pretended to pick up something with his fingers and hand it off to me. I would put the imaginary thing away and he would reach for another and give it to me. This went on for some time and he asked for them back after awhile. I would pretend to give them back and then he would get all excited. He has done a few other things like this since then that seems to indicate a new part of his brain becoming active. Always entertaining.

At the same dinner table, in a diner in Kihei, Maui the day after Thanksgiving, Rylan would only eat fries if I stuck them on the sword of his Indiana Jones-like plastic swashbuckler action figure. He calls the action figure Daddy. He would stick the loaded sword in his mouth and eat the fries like that. What ever it takes to get food into him. Maybe he will eat enough to grow hair some day.

Animals

Long time no post. As usual for this year, work has been hectic. Put together a group of photos taken in August and September with Rylan visiting animals. The first one is from the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki where they have a number of relatively exotic animals, including a penguin:


His favorite animal is a cow. He can't get enough Mooooooo. Here Rylan visits a cow at the Honolulu zoo (I think that's where it is):


On Kauai we ate at an old restaraunt in Lihue/Puhi for Jodie and Ron's wedding that had a horse ride through the old plantation. Didn't go on the ride but Rylan and I got to feed the horse:


And our favorite animal, the rooster:

Actually, as you can tell from Rylan's face, roosters are not our favorite. A rooster moved into our nice quiet neighborhood about a month ago or so. He took up residence in a tree across the street and woke us up every morning at 5am and again at 6am. This was when I was traveling for the TMT project and was always very tired. I wanted to deep fry that rooster every morning. I was not alone, all the neighbors felt the same way about the rooster, but no one seemed to have an answer.

So I borrowed Jayden’s airsoft gun and scouted out that rooster’s roost. Joni, Joel, and I put on our camo outfits and drew a bead on that rooster. I hit him square with the gun but he flew off with Joni giving chase. The bird took shelter under a bush down the street. I couldn’t get the gun ready to fire again so I took out the machete and took a swing at him. But he had too much life left in him and he ran off at the last moment before the blade severed his head from his body.

The whole neighborhood rejoiced that next morning though because the rooster did not sound off at 5am. For a few days all was quiet and everyone hoped that the rooster had suffered a fatal blow and crawled off and passed away after I hit him with the airsoft gun.

There was not a peaceful third morning though. The rooster was back. He moved to the other side of the house and decided 4:30, 5:30, and 6:10am were more appropriate times to sound off. This inspired neighbor Hector to get involved in the hunt and I obtained a more powerful pellet gun from Michael. Hector and I would prowl around various back yards before the sun came up searching for that damn rooster. The rooster would always take off just before we could draw a bead on him and take a shot. He was one smart rooster: as soon as we got near he would stop crowing, as soon as we pointed the gun in his direction he would take flight, and every night he would change his roost just enough so we couldn’t find him.

A couple times I did get a shot off and hit him. Each time he would get quiet for a few days again. But he always came back. Now it seems like he has slowly faded away. I made one last shot at him that hurt him, a few days later neighbor Bob got his hands on him but couldn’t get a good grip, and a few other run ins seem to have taught him to keep his big beak shut. I still think he will come back and haunt us so we continue to maintain a trap borrowed from North Shore Michael in another neighbor’s back yard. The hunt continues…

Memorial Day

For Memorial Day I worked around the house most of the day and got out the American flag from my Grandfather Hayes' funeral a few years back. He served in North Africa and Europe during WWII. He was a railroad guy so I don't think he ever saw the front lines, but was right behind it. When he passed away a few years ago he was placed in the Massachusetts National Cemetery in a military funeral. This is actually the first time we flew the flag. It was hard to find a place for it because it is so big; the only place it worked was the hooks I have for hanging Christmas lights outside. Guess we need to invest in a flag pole for next year. Anyway, the flag is still a beautiful thing and this one has a special significance for us. Felt good to finally fly it, if only for a day. Still my reluctance to be overly patriotic remains. If presidential candidates and their wives get in trouble for this then I guess I can too. Here are the photos from the holiday afternoon.

This was the entire family gathered for the holiday. I didn't consiously pick the got karma shirt when I woke up in the morning but consiously left it on for the photos.

This one worked out well. It uses the other prop for the photo shoot - the gas can on the wall in the background. Rylan did his job and started to march.

Rylan with Joni, being very American.

Unrelated to Memorial Day but a nice shot form the morning after the holiday.

Detect a Leak

So being on the Sierra Club (SC) Executive Committee has a few perks, or rather responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to attend certain events and be a face for SC. I volunteered to do this for the Detect-a-Leak Week event. Detect a leak week is something the Honolulu Board of Water Supply started and SC has supported for a number of years. The idea is to raise awareness and get people to fix leaking faucets and such to save water. O‘ahu has a fairly tight water budget. Being a small volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific we can’t just import water from the Colorado River. So conservation is a good thing and SC supports conservation and the proper management of watershed areas to promote groundwater recharge. We have some desalination pilot projects but nothing too big. It seems too expensive to do large scale desalination, especially when conservation can solve many/all of our problems. Funny thing is that there are these businesses the sell desalinated deep ocean sea water. They are located at and get their deep cold sea water from the National Energy Laboratory of Hawai‘i Authority (NELHA), desalinate it and then sell it in Japan.

SC also supports transit, but doesn’t talk about it too much. I think the rest of the SC Executive Committee see transit as sort of a double edged sword and want to avoid being too supportive of the project or the Mayor. Obviously I like the project and thing SC should support it, regardless of how they feel about the mayor on other issues. It took a long time to get the Executive Committee to agree that I could speak at a pro-rail rally, provided I just identify myself as a SC member, not an Executive Committee member. So I spoke at the rally and gave the SC spiel and whooped up the crowd. Actually, I didn’t do too much whooping because right after me they had a few local radio DJs come up and take care of that.

Anyway here are a few photos from the Detect-a-Leak Week ceremonies – the political photo-ops.

Here I am with the City Council. My representative is the woman (Ann Kobayashi) behind and to the right of me. She is running for mayor now and orchestrated her announcement to run for major in such as way as only one guy, her friend apparently (Duke Bainum), was able to submit paperwork to run to replace her. The guy most people wanted to run (Kirk Caldwell) did not get his paper work in on time so we do not have a choice in the election. Silly.

So here we are with the major. The "we" is the Board of Water Supply people and representatives from other organizations and business supporting the Detect-a-Leak event. The major is the tall guy in the middle.

The Pang-Cordero Wedding

We went to a wedding between Joni's high school friend Jodie Pang and surfer friend Ron Cordero. It was a great event and seemed to go off without a hitch - no sprinklers going off and soaking everyone, or someone forgetting the ring, or anything like that. One weekend the actually ceremony was performed on a small and relatively under utilized Kauai beach with a small lunch party at a restaurant after the ceremony. Actually, come to think of it, there was a little altercation on Kauai because a home owner along the beach where the ceremony was performed got pissed because he didn't want us walking over his property as we went from the beach to our cars. Didn't seem to be a big deal to me but he was insistent and called the police. It was an odd situation but seemed to be over before the police arrived. There has been a lot of news recently about weddings on the beach and how permits are necessary. This situation seemed to illustrate why permits for such things are probably not such a bad idea – provided the permit considers the beach access question.

The following weekend was a bigger party on Oahu. The photos below are from the Oahu party at a golf course on the windward side on August 19, 2008.

Val Loh took this shot, and the others. Nice to have a professional on hand.

Rylan was running around with the other kids. Of cource the outdoors was the biggest attraction for the kids and Rylan was always trying to get out. Him and his snot nose aching for release. Another thing he learned at the party was what microphones are for. He made his own announcements a few times during the Oahu party and since then has always begged to get at the microphone when ever he sees one.

Playing peak-a-boo under mom's dress.

Point Panic

It has been some time since we got around the posting anything. Sorry to people that had built up some expectations that we would continue at the pace we started. Probably don’t need to say that I’ve been really busy, primarily with work. But I have managed to sneak away a few times here and there to catch a wave or two. The surf this summer continue to be much better than the last few summers. Unfortunately I’ve been too busy to get the board to the beach very often. Here are a few shots of me at Point Panic bodysurfing – something I can do on the bike ride to the office in the morning or at lunch, or anytime I can sneak away for that matter. Everyone once in a while things just pile up to the point you got to run away to the ocean, I'm sure you understand. More posts coming soon (I hope).


Those first two are same wave back on June 5. This guy James takes photos every day, either at Sandy's or Point Panic. He puts the photos up on Shutterfly so you can check them out if you see him on the beach. This last photo is from August 17.

Demas-Hahn Wedding

Monday, May 12, 2008 was the big day for Joni's cousin Myra Hahn and long time man Chris Demas. Joni helped prepare for the wedding and was a bridesmaid. It was a great time out at Paradise Cove Luau in Ko Olina. I guess something has to go wrong at every wedding, and this one was no exception. Things were humming along just as they should until, just before dinner started, the sprinklers came on and soaked anyone already sitting down and half the dinner tables. Luckily the Hayes' were outside the strike zone. The place had to move and reset the tables once they figured out how to turn the sprinklers off. It seemed to turn out ok in the end because the bridal party got free drinks after that. Here are some photos:

This is the happily married family.


Here we have all the Fernandez children together. All were part of the wedding and Joel even sang a song to open the ceremony.


The next generation of Fernandez were on hand too (except the eldest, Jordan).


We were all looking good but didn't take many photos of ourselves so this is the best we got. My bad posture while trying to hold Rylan and my appetizer plate in one hand and hide my wine glass with the other hand makes me look fat. My new haircut didn't make up for all that. Joni looks great though.


Rylan was made to pose with other babies at the party of course. He got a good look at the future here.

Mothers Day

Back on May 11, we celebrated mothers day with the rest of America. It took some work because so many people were in town for the big wedding the next day. Joni, Rylan, and I went down the street to Waiole Tea House for breakfast and had a nice meal there without having to cook anything.

After that we walked home and visited the neighbors, including Rylan’s surrogate grandma, grandma Venegas and auntie Christa. Rylan brought them plumeria flowers. In the end Rylan made grandma Venegas help him down the stairs because he is practicing going up and down stairs without having to sit down on each step. He is getting good at that. In fact he is becoming a good climber in general - he can go up all the ladders at the park without assistance. Most of those are the half-rainbow shape with small round rungs that kids can climb to reach platforms and slides. It is unnerving to watch sometime because toward the end when the ladders become more horizontal he has both hands and one foot on the same rung for a moment.

Anyway, that is about all we did for mother's day. After the morning activities our attention turned back to the wedding - Joni participated in the rehearsal and I managed the bbq following the rehearsal. Here is a shot of grandma Venegas with Rylan:

Ixoras that are fragrant

My Ixora odorata has finally started to really flower. It is a beautiful plant with a great sweet fragrance that fills the air near it. For comparison I've included some of the other fragrant ixoras I have in the yard.

This is the prize Ixora odorata. It has very long flower stems and takes some time to open up, but is worth the wait. This is a native of Madagascar, or so I've been told. Besides the great fragrence, the leaves are a big beautiful green. All these ixoras can get fairly big so I need to prune them after they flower.


This is Ixora fragrans according to the people I bought it from. The fragrence is not nearly as nice as the odorata but nicer than the finlaysonlanum. The flowers bunch up to create a snowball like look but when they die they don't fall off; therefore, the bush is sort of ugly unless you go clip all the dead flowers off. The leaves are also not the best.


And finally the Ixora finlaysonlanum or something like that. It has many of the same problems as the fragrans but I think the fragrence is even more sour.