Holidays come and almost gone...

So Christmas has come and gone for another year. And with it has departed all the fun little activities that come with the hoiday. We all know what I'm talking about. The celebrating, cooking of 18 pound hams, mashed potatos, corn, and consuming of Hula Pie. Also included in that is the second massive dinner a couple hours later in the usual 6 million dollar house with it' hundred dollar bottles of wine and other expensive alcohls and foods. We've all been there right? Oh, wait. I think that only happens in places like Maui. So my Chistmas was interesting I guess. I cooked an awesome ham basted in brown sugar glaze and pineapples. Threw in some mashed potatos with homemae garlic seasoning, and thawed out some frozen corn. After consuming way too much of this food we all sat around for a ocuple hours then headed out to some baller house in the pineapple fields for dinner number two. Jon or Matt (can' remember who) is hooking up with the daughter of the owner or something along those lines. So she invited us up there for food and festivities. We roll in in style of course. After hanging around and snacking on cheeses, crackers and win we all head outside for dinner. Of course we consume more food than necessary once again. On top of that are countless bottles of wine. The house itself is pretty sick. Even though it is dark you can tell it is highend. Everything is in perfect order and shiny. The grass is cut like a putting green. Marble everything. It's one of those houses where you are afraid to walk around and touch things because you're not sure how much it is worth. So after a couple hours of eating someone breaks out the golf clubs and the father decides that we are all gonna take turns whacking golf balls into the pineapple fields beyond his property. At this point we have all had about a bottle of wine each and it is around 11pm. This being my first time taking a swing at a golf ball with a driver I gotta say I did pretty well. Didn't shank any balls though I did drive a ball into a tree about 50 yards straight ahead of me. The ball rebounded back and I thought someone was gonna die. After chatting with the mother for about 20 minutes I was told that she absolutely loved me. Can you believe that? We finally made it home around 1:00 and I siply passed out. Work the next morning was a little less than pleasant. I would liek to thank everyone for the christmas cards and whatnot I received over the past couple days. I will also single out the McGrails for the Barnes and Noble gift card I received from them. Nothing like spending money at the place I work. Really though, thanks veryone. I finally sent in my broken Ipod Shuffle. I bought it almost a year ago and it has not been owrking for the past 5-6 months. I called them about a week ago and was told I had 20 days left on my warrenty to send it in. So I was sent a new one a couple days ago. Has made the solo runs much more tolerable. Now if I can only do something about the intense heat and humidity we have been dealing with. Sorry everyone in Worcester who are dealing with the usual unpleasant winter. So my video was accepted by CBS for Survivor. That means I am one step closer to getting on the show. Pretty exciting. I'm gonna try and attach a link to the video here for all you out there. What I did was hike out to Black Rock, the popular cliff jumping location on the island. After explaining to the camera why I would be the perfect Survivor I simply jumped off the cliff into the water with the cmera still oing in my hand. The interesting part about it is that when I hit the water the camera simply shut off. I'm guessing from the impact. Luckily the camera turned back on about 5-10 minutes afterward. Thank God, cause I only had time for that one take.


So I finally got my bike all put together. I took it out for its first ride on Maui 2 days ago. What happens? Just under 2 miles up the road I blow the front tire. Yup, somehow that jsut seems right for me. Also, it's raining pretty damn hard on me. There I am standing with my wheel take apart, a dead tire on the ground and me holding the new tube. At this point I am not sure if I am gonna bother fixing the tire or chucking the whle bike into the woods. Then a white ford explorer pulls over and a woman gets out asking if I want a lift home. Instantly I say yes. We load my bike into the back of her truck with her 2 little children fighting over who gets to hold the "cool wheel" fo me. I climb in and we head back to my place chatting about biking and livin on Maui. Her name... Blue. Yup. Apparently jsut before she had her ids she was a semipro cyclist and had to give it up when she had her first child. Lesson to everyone out there: Children ruin dreams.

Speaking about my bike: UPS has reached an all time high for being the worst company out there. I got a call from them the other day. Finally the pictures were looked over and sent to the processing location in Texas to determine if I am getting money for the damage. Why does the woman call? Because I need to describe everything to her. Well why do I need to do this if she has all 9 pictures I sent showing the damage? Because the other people sent her 9 copies of just 1 picture. Of the undamged side of the box. At this point I am fed up with them. I have to resend all 9 pictures 1 at a time to this place. This is the 5th time I've had to do this in the past 10 days. I let this woman know this before I hang up and then call the supervisor and explain everything to him. Falures... all failures.

Other than that things are going pretty well out here in Maui. The apartment is holding together. I have been getting somewhat frustrated now and then. Living with Matt and Jon is fine. Matt is really good with cleaning up after himself which I appreciate. Jon is not too bad. He knows how I feel about messes laying around or junk building up so makes an effort when he remembers. Both do most of their eating at the Restaurant so not really an issue. But Curtis has been gettting on my nerves a little bit. I hate being that guy to have to say something but I think I will within the next couple days. He just started work and works only a couple days a week. What has been bothering me is that he leaves messes pretty much everywhere. He does not really wash his dishes. Just lets them pile up or he'll just fill the sick with soap water and let them all soak for like a day or so. He does not empty the garbage ever. He'll jsut keep piling garbage on top of garbage. And he eats mine and Jon's food. I'm not sure if on is realizing this but I have. I don't mind if he is out of something and snags some pasta or someting. Just let me know and not just laugh about it when he gets called out on it. Food is super expensive and I am definitly not made of money. It would be bad cause he does say that we can help ourselves to his food. But he has none. There is like nothing to help ourselves to. The whole "what's mine is yours" saying does not apply when you have nothing to offer.

Anyway, I just called in sick to work today because I have a killer headache. I think my allergies are going into overkill here. But now I do get to go down to the beach and swim. Plus, 2 days of in a row so pretty siked.

Time to go get my tire fixed. Everyone have a great New Year's.

Cait: I am told by Jon and Matt that I have to wear that dress shirt you bought me on New Year's Eve. Apparently it's killer and will "make girl's panties just drop." I know you needed to know that.

Snow as far as the eye can't see...

Whelp... tis the season to be jolly. Christmas is around the corner and eveyone is filled with holiday joy. Or so would seem. With anoher holiday here I am slightly homesick. I do like the colder weather of New England for Christmas.There is nothing really special going on in Maui for me this Christmas. I am working the day before and after. I am going to miss the big feast with the McGrails. Plus there will be no watching Scott hoard all his presents Christmas morning so he could have the last presents to open.

There are some grumpy people in the world I'll tell you. Also spoiled little brats you wanna just slap and tell to stop their whining. At lately I've been seeing alot of these types. Allow me to recant a few choice stories of what's been going onin hte world of Barnes and Noble.

1. I HAVE to start with this story because it is both disgusting and classic. Tonigh around 9pm I walk into the bathroom after my break. What's the first thing I notice? Yup, someone's taken a dump into the men's urinal. It' jsut right there for everyone to enjoy. Massive one too. Now the biggest issue with this is that the B&N employees are in charge of keeping the bathrooms clean thoughout the day. Each day someone is detailed the duty. I dread looking at the log book, afraid to see my name next to duty box. Thankfully it's not me so I get to go inform another worker, Troy, of the good news for him. Apparently he is not too surpirsed. This is the second nigh in a row this has happened. Either it is a homeless man or some punk kid. I'm told this happens alot. Homeless people will go in there and just trash the bathroom, not caring what they do. Everything from defiling the stalls to shooting up right at the sink. Classy.
2. I'm working for maybe 25 minutes today greeting people and asking them if they'd like to try out the nw Nook Color. I'm a pretty cheery person, smiling, polite, funny. Most people will look at it or say no thanks. But their polite. Some will just ignore me shaking their head. A few will be downright rude, assholes if you will. This one person walks in not even looking angry. I do my usual routine and am cut short halfway through it with "I'm not interested in looking at any damn electronics! Just tell me where the cookbooks are so I can buy my book." I point it out making sure to be extra cheery for him but in my head thinking "I hope the book shelf falls on him." Merry Christmas to him.
3. The best story though came shortly after that. A family comesin and I do a little demo for them. Their 15 year old daughter loves the thing. Right away it's "Oh I want this for Christmas! Get me this!" and her parents are telling her she got all her gifts in money and this trip. But she continues on getting annoyed and then mad that they are not buying her it. The father just wanders off leaving the mother to deal with it. The daughter then uses the fact that her birthday is only a month away and this can be her gift. When that doesn't work what does she say? "Mom! If I don't get this tonight I think I might start flipping out and pulling a tantrum!" Word for word her lines. The mother gets annoyed and still says no so the daughter starts whining. I'm torn. I'm standing there not knowing if I should laugh or simply slap some sense into the daughter. Cause the mother looks like she is about to. Finally the mom just walks out the door, leaving the father to deal with it. Sadly they didn't buy the Nook.
Gotta love our society.

PS: I am sooooooooo over selling these stupid Nooks. I am still like the best seller out there but it is just too boring for me. I stand in this one area for hours saying the same lines over and over. I would love to just walk aroun straightening shelves and whatnot. Chatting with the customers, anything that is not real work. I HATE being so good at my job they only want me doing it. Damn my awesomeness.

Survived my first hitchhiking experience. Had to hitch down to Maui Cycling to try and solve the issue with my bike wheel (more on that later). I walk to the bottom of my street and am standing there for a total of maybe 3 minutes when a guy pulls over and gives me a ride. Why? Cause I'm wearing my sox hat. I throw my bikein the back of his truck and we're off. He turns out to be from just outside Boton so we talk Mass for awhile. After runing errands down in Lahaina and talking bike with Maui Cycle I'm back on the highway thumbing it. This time I have to wait about 8-10 minutes but get picked up by a cyclist. He tells me he never lets a fellow biker stand out there. Apparently there are alot of cyclist hitching rides. We chat fo a bit and it turns out he lives in my area and is looking for people to bike with. His buddy is apparently a hrdcore tri guy so we exchange numbers and Jon and I now have a few guys to train with. Tomorrow I'll be doing the hitch hiking things again. Saves me gas money. That whole 4 bucks it cost to fill my tank.

So it seems like every other person I meet is from New England. I have a lady acros the way from me who lived in both Worcester and Spencer. I work with a lady who lived in Worcester in the 70's for 10 years. My neighbor with the kids that wake me up every morning around 6:30 is from Chester, New Hampshire. He used to go down into Fitchburg all the time. I work with another person who grew up in Gardner and went into Worcester all the time. I get tons of people coming into B&N asking what part of New England I'm from because of my accent. Pretty crazy shit.

So my bike. Tis is super annoying becaue I have been without a bike to ride for too long. I did borrow Jon's once last Monday but it just isn't the same. Too big for me. My front wheel of my bike was damaged when it was shipped over here. Haing insured the whole thing I didn't get too concerned. I figured I would get it looked at, they would see that they are complete idiots and I could get my new wheel. Apparently not how it works. It seems you have to have everything messed up, filed wrong, talk to 10 different offices, get ignored and threaten to take them to court to get things moving. Also, they NEVER return your calls. Never. So right now it's ben almost 3 week and I am maybe 2 steps closer to getting things settled with UPS. Tomorrow I have to call them back (for like the 20th time) and see where things stand. They were supposed to call me Friday but, big surprise, they never got back to me. I want to ride my bike!

Well, I'm almsot out of money. The whole taking forever to get into the sub system (finally in just as all the kids go on a super long XMas break) is catching up. It's not as bad as it seems yet. I am still making just enough to barely get buy. It jsut means living very frugally. I don't go out to bars very often and when I do limit myself to 1 beer. Unless others are buying. I don't buy anything really other than food. Even food I am buying only what I need to get by on. That means rice, pasta, bread, peanut butter and jelly, milk, cereal. Sometimes I'll buy bananas and a few snacks. Once in a while I'll buy meat like chicken when its on sale. Frozen veggies if I have a couple extra dollars. I workd a ton of extra hours this past couple weeks so I was able to do a little christmas shopping. I am really hoping that once the break is over that phone will be ringing for subbing spots. Otherwise it looks like I'll be selling my body for extra cash. I don't even know if there are too many areas like that in Lahaina where I could make money. Though I do seem to hit it off well with the older ladies who come into B&N.

I am enjoying it here nether the less. I love looking out at the ocean from my front lawn. The pineapple fields are awesome to run in. So long as the boars leave me alone. Saw another one today as I was running. It dashed through the tall grass off to my left. It is always perfect weather for anything outdoorsy, except sometimes running can be taxing in the heat. I am really looking forward to getting out there on my bike and exploring the coastline. People keep asking me if this is something I will be doing for multiple years. The more I think about it the more I think I may. If I can become a consistant sub in the sytem or even get a teaching job out here I would really make it a long term routine. There are only a few things in Worcester that would get me to stay there.

Survivor Update: I got an email for the casting guy last week. I have to send in a video by December 28th about myself. Right now I'm scrambling looking for a camcorder to get this done. It's mandatory for anyone who hopes to make it into the casting.

Training is going well. Knee has healed up. Running going well and getting in more ocean swims. All that's missing is the biking. Marathon is just around the corner. Feeling pretty confident right now. Have done a handful of 16-20 milers and felt pretty good on them. Still not too hapy about the 5:45 AM start though.

But I'm tired, it's midnight and I have a day off tomorrow. Thank God. Christmas cards going out tomorrow. Be on the lookout.

Goodnight Everyone and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Hikes, UPS and everything inbetween...

So it's been a little while since I last kept all those out there up to date on the comings and goings of my life. By all you I mean the 3 or 4 people who read this. But you're all very important people in my book because you take time out of your days to vicariously live my exciting life through these blogs.

SO there have been a few recent developments in my life out here in Maui. First off we have Curtis now living with us. He arrived just this past Saturday which means cheaper rent for me. Always a good thing. For those of you out there who have never had the opportunity or priviledge to meet him.... his is known as the Cape Cod Brian Beahn. He looks like a slightly smaller version of him, talks with the same voice, and all in all is brain. So this is just practice for when I move back home and need to crash at random peoples places til I ship out to the Cape again. Brian.... better have that couch ready for me. Curtis is pretty much living on our living room floor. Which is really not too bad, none of us really spend too much time in there watching tv so we're not really missing the living room.


Went hiking through the bamboo forest this past Thursday. Matt's friend Erin came out to visit on my birthday (yup sadly I'm 29 now, or as I like to say 25E). So we hiked along this winding path (barefoot mind you, i don't recommend)to reach various waterfalls along the way. It was pretty wild. There was scaling of rock walls,
making our way through bamboo forests, jumping off small cliffs into pools of water just to climb up rock walls and continue on. The sights were amazing, it felt like I was treking through the jungles of Lost. Around every corner I was expecting to see "the others" or the black smoke monster. Sadly neither showed up so we continued
along until we reach the final waterfall. After hanging out there for half an hour and I failed to climb to the top of the waterfall (I decided to quit about 1/3 the way up when I practically took a nose dive on slippery rock).
After the trek back (with aching feet) we headed out the Halleakwa (I'm sure I butchered that) and drove to the top to watch the sunset. Luckily we all remembered to to bring sweatshirts seeing as it was like 45 degrees at the top. Even colder when the wind was blowing. Did not appreciate it. Reminded me of one reason I left Worcester. I hope you all get lots of snow for a white christmas. Break out those shovels. But it was a good time. It was crazy how the temperature dropped 30-35 degrees from bottom to top. Also, 22 mile drive up it. Gonna make for some sick bikerides over the coming months.

So we get back from our adventure and there is my bike box hanging out in front of the apartment. I am instantly excited cause now I can start biking. Getting sick of the running already. After getting it inside I notice there are some pretty serious holes in the box that were not there when I left it in Worcester. They look like a fork truck just drilled its forks into the box. After taking everything out it looks like the bike is fine. After reassembling most of the bike I realize one of the spacers on the front wheel is now missing. Almost like it got pulled off the wheel. So since then I have ben on the phone ith UPS dealing ith them, trying to get them to reimburse me for the damage. Even though I have insurance on th bike it's still not that easy. I also found out that this is something you can't just have replaced on a bike. That part is not sold retail through Specialized. I am told I may have to replace the whole wheel. Yup, a 450 dollar wheel. UPS and I, yup... we're in a fight.

Other than that things are going well out here. I just found out that after a month at Barnes and Noble I'm doing a good job. I'm the top seller there of Nooks, was named employee of the Month in the sales department for November (I only worked 2 weeks of November), and I'm getting a raise and promotion. I will be one of 2 lead sellers on the floor. Comes with a whopping 75 cent raise. Oh god, all my dreams have come true. When I was being told this by my boss it was everything i could do not to just start laughing. 1. I think she really thinks this is going to be a career for me even though I had told her that I will only be part time when I start subbing (STILL WAITING FOR THAT TO START UP BY THE WAY). 2. I'm selling Electronic Readers at Barns and Noble. Whoopie! She was making it sound like the greatest job next to Neuro Surgeon.

The Nook Color is awesome though. I bought me one and love the thing. It is like owning a large ITouch. The thing can do so much and has a ton more it can possibly do. I highly recommend buying one if you get the opportunity. And Sue would love it, you can enlarge the font size so even she can read it.

On that note I am gonna call it a night. I am pretty wiped out. Lots of early mornings and late nights back to back. Its a tough life I live out here. You should all try it.

Special note to Brian Beahn: You better come out here in March. 2 reasons:
1. I miss you obviously and we can have some serious adventures out here.
B. I want to see you and Curtis next to eachother. It would be super wierd.