Up and Atom! Flying with Paradise Air

June 12, 2015 Comments Off read Attractions, Hawaii, Pacific, The Great Outdoors, Travel, USA, West

I have always wanted to fly. Whenever someone asks that “what superpower would you choose if you could have any superpower” question, my answer is always flight. Hands down. Immediately. No question. Keep your invisibility, keep your laser eyes, keep your ability to spontaneously generate a puppy from thin air (but stay close, because sharing is caring, especially when it comes to puppies). I want to fly. I don’t care that I’d probably get sucked into a jet engine or shot down by the military, I want to fly. I don’t know if it’s a short person thing or a can’t-even-jump-that-high fat person thing, but breaking the bonds of the earth to go soaring in the sky is the dream. Sadly, due to the lack of wings and hollow bones and, you know, not being an actual freaking bird, my options are mostly limited to gimmicky rollercoasters and closing my eyes in front of a really large fan. So when I heard about Paradise Air‘s powered hanglider flight lessons, it was a foregone conclusion that I absolutely, positively must try it.

Just like going for a worm, you have to be an early bird to fly a powered hanglider. Tom and Denise, the owners and operators, like to get the first flight in the air just prior to sunrise. Not only is there less air traffic, but the skies are calmer as well, which makes for a better overall flight experience. After you arrive at the tiny airstrip on Oahu’s north shore in the black of night and sign a waiver (all the best activities start with waivers), they outfit you with a flight suit, a helmet, and gloves, and it’s off to the races. When you’re comfortable in the air, you’re taught how to steer, as well as how the whole shebang works and the various safety features, including that it’s a hang glider and you could glide your ass to land if you really got into trouble. Having last flown a plane with a rocket parachute safety feature, I was not at all worried. I don’t think I would have been worried, regardless–I’m not afraid of flying, what with it being The Dream and all. Sure, it’s unnatural for humans to fly, and yes, gravity would probably like to rip us all from the clouds in an equal-but-opposite-reaction death hug, but for whatever reason, that knowledge doesn’t bug me. Put my face in the water and it’s heart pounding panic attack time, but strap me to whatever sky contraption you want and I’ll be fine. Unless you somehow manage to put my face in water while I’m in the air. You monster.

I think flying in a powered hanglider is as close as I’ll ever come to achieving The Dream. Not only can you twist and turn in the air like a bird, but you can feel the wind whipping at your cheeks, the sun on your face, and you can see the wide sky all around you. We saw a geyser of water erupting from the ground with a cloud of birds wheeling around it and we did the same. The sun blazed forth over the horizon, illuminating the water and setting the clouds alight. The water was so clear, I could see the reefs snarling toward the shore. And we four occupants of the hang gliders were the only ones to see any of it from the skies. They belonged to us alone. The wind may not have been the only thing I felt on my cheek that morning.

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Stuff I Do When I’m Not Here

June 10, 2015 Comments Off read Books, Masticating With Mellzah, Movies, TV

On my nightstand/in my kindle:

I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son by Kent Russell – I loved this book. I read an excerpt, Mithridates of Fond du Lac, on a recommendation by my friend Felix, and was so hooked by Kent’s style that I immediately bought the book. Whether the subject is the gathering of the juggalos, Tom Savini’s school of makeup, or a man who is attempting to become immune to all snake venom, Kent captures them with interest, respect, and care, not mockery, in a fashion similar to another book I loved, Horsemen of the Esophagus: Competitive Eating and the Big Fat American Dream by Jason Fagone.

The Pirates! In an Adventure with the Romantics by Gideon Defoe – The Pirates! series holds a special place in my heart, and this new adventure with Charles Babbage, Mary Shelley, and Lord Byron is a perfect addition. I cried with suppressed laughter more than once, choking it back so as not to irritate everyone on the plane. Have an excerpt from an argument the Pirate Captain is having with a Swiss banker: The Pirate Captain tossed his beard about and waved his arms. ‘Oh, it’s all becoming clear to me! Shall I tell you what the problem is? It’s that you don’t know what it is to live and laugh and love and run a man through! You’ve never tasted the salty air on your tongue or waved heartily at a mermaid! It would be impolite to call you a shrivelled little bean counter who wouldn’t know drama if it kissed you on the mouth, but nonetheless – I’m afraid that’s exactly what you are. You people have no flair, no romance, no sense of adventure! Everything’s just numbers for you! Well, you can’t reduce passion and flair and eating ham to numbers, sir! Good day to you!’

The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive) by Brandon Sanderson – Jason is a huge Brandon Sanderson fan, and he convinced me to try The Way of Kings. It starts off a little iffy, but it didn’t take long for me to get sucked in, and the book later revisits those earlier chapters from a different perspective and by then, you understand what’s going on and it’s much more gripping. By the last quarter of the book, I was saying “What? WHAT?! OH SHIT” about every five minutes and seconds after finishing it, I bought the second book, Words of Radiance, which I’m now plowing through at record speed.

On my TV/movie screen:

Grace & Frankie – I enjoyed the first season of this show but didn’t love it. The acting is phenomenal, but the writing is sitcomm-y and sort of obvious.

Mad Max: Fury Road – I actually was not excited about going to see this from the trailer. But I fucking loved it. LOVED. IT. I would like a war rig for traffic jams, please.

Mad Max – How did something as great as Fury Road come from something so bad? I fell asleep. Twice.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron – I really wanted to love this movie, but it was just OK. I’d listen to James Spader read the phone book, enthralled, so Ultron is not the problem here. The whole thing just came off formulaic, low-stakes, and sadly, a bit boring. I read this post about the movie’s problems later and couldn’t agree more.

Poltergeist – It was a nice homage to the original, but like so many horror movies, suffers from the ubiquitous jump scares. There’s no horror, no existential dread in that style of movie, and that’s a huge shortcoming.

Maleficent – Hated it. I feel it could have had a variety of different subtitles. Maleficent: Portrait of a Stalker. Maleficent: Cottage Creeper. Maleficent: 90 Minutes of Filler.

Man with the Iron Fists 2 – I couldn’t make it twenty minutes into this movie, it was so godawful. I’ll admit to enjoying the first movie, but it didn’t exactly call for a sequel, especially not a straight-to-video sequel.

Game of Thrones Season 5 – I’m loving and I’m hating the show this season. It probably doesn’t help that they’re drawing from my least favorite book in the series, but the substantial deviations they’ve made from the book are occasionally frustrating and upsetting. I’m not going to really get into it here so as to avoid spoilers for those who are not yet caught up with the show.

House of Cards – I’ve watched a few episodes and so far I hate it. Unless the showrunners are winking at the audience and making a show about about a guy who thinks he’s a puppetmaster but isn’t nearly as smart as he thinks he is, I just don’t get it.

Jurassic World – I’m going to see this on Friday and I am so damn excited. Jurassic Park came out at an age when I was primed for dinosaur based adventure, and this one looks like an actually good sequel. I may have shed a tear the first time I saw the trailer.

In my kitchen:

I’m keeping up with my “try at least one new recipe a week” goal (smashing it, actually). It’s been a great way to try new ingredients, use parts of a plant that I might not otherwise (like carrot tops), make the most of what’s been growing in my garden, and increase my low-carb repertoire. Here’s some stuff I’ve been cooking recently: Bora Bora fireballs, velvety carrot soup with carrot top pesto, easy thai shrimp soup, and low carb meatballs. Tonight I’m making asparagus, leek, and green garlic soup!

On the project docket:

I bought a beautiful desk on Craiglist that I’m refinishing; once I’m done with that, I’ll move it upstairs and do some furniture rearranging, which I’m sure thrills Jason to no end. “Help me carry this desk to upstairs to this room and then we can move the desk that was already in there to another room and take the furniture that was in there downstairs.” It’s the endless shuffle of the never-quite-satisfied. I’m also working to finish up a couple of house project loose ends so I can start the new stuff that interests me more. I’ve also been making progress on Jason’s Halloween costume because if I’m going to make two detailed outfits to wear absolutely nowhere, damn it, I need as much time as I can get. Plus I’m out in the garden more often than not lately. Sometimes weeding, sometimes grazing, sometimes battling wasps. You know, the usual.

Iolani Palace: The Only Royal Palace in the United States

June 8, 2015 Comments Off read Attractions, Everything is Terrible, Hawaii, Pacific, Travel, USA, West

How dare these people spelling-shame the king like that?

Iolani Palace is gorgeous, full of history, and its restoration is a testament to the dedication and artisanship of the people who devoted their time to the project. Unfortunately, the tour experience is less well-designed.

When I arrived, I parked on the street outside; this turns out to be the wrong place as you’re supposed to park inside the gates. The parking lot signs inside the gates indicate that you need to have a government pass or pay or you’ll be towed–the woman working at the gift shop insisted that it was free to park for everyone. The hours for self-guided and docent-led tours vary wildly from day to day which means that if you specifically want to take one type of tour or the other, you need to plan your day around your visit. As it turned out, on the date and time of my visit, they were only having the more expensive docent-led tours. After I ponied up, I was directed to go watch a video about the history of the palace and its royalty, but the video was timed as such that I had to leave before it was over in order to make my tour time, which would be such an easy thing to fix considering they know exactly how long the film is and exactly when each tour group leaves. And then there was the docent.

The quality of every docent tour is dependent on the quality of the docent and in a deeply unfortunate turn of events, I hated mine almost immediately, which is rare for me. If someone wants to talk about something they know and are passionate about, I want to hear it. I always want to hear it. I’ll stand there and listen and suck it all in like a sponge. I loathed this woman. Deeply. And the feeling appeared to be mutual. She talked down to the people in the tour group. She yelled at Jason when the back of his shirt brushed against the wall for “leaning on the wall”. She yelled at me for walking out of a room in front of her when she’d just asked us to proceed back out into the hallway. Wildly inconsistent, sometimes she did have us leave the room before her, toying with us like the world’s pettiest tyrant. She talked about the bus system on Oahu and how her job pays for her bus pass. She talked about current politics. She talked about personal interactions she’d had with other tour groups. When we chanced to happen by another tour group, I was incensed to discover that group was actually getting to learn something rather than being scolded like puppies who piddled on the rug.

So much happened here: It had electricity and telephones before the White House! The monarchy was crippled and later overthrown in a massive betrayal by the Queen’s foreign advisers! The Queen was imprisoned in one of its rooms! It was turned into a government building, all of its exquisite and rare koa wood was completely painted over, the place got riddled with termites, and it was almost razed! The furnishings were all sold and had to be reacquired piecemeal and restored to its original condition! So tell people about that, because if they’re visiting this site, they should know what’s been done to Iolani Palace, what’s been done to the monarchs who resided there, what’s been done to Hawaii. This is the site to impress upon people those weighty histories. As it stands, I learned more from five minutes of video than I did in the entirety of my tour, which is a sad shame. So maybe save the bus pass talk for bunko night.