Hawaii – Have A Pic

Years – Picture Summary 2002

2002, BlahG, Hawaii, Summary, Years No Responses »

Jan 012003

My Picture Summary Of 2002

Hawaii

The first time I went to Hawaii in 95 or 96, we stayed at a small ‘resort’ near the fish pond in Kaneohe. Driving on Kamehameha Highway just by there, we saw this house up on the hill, and Tim said, “you won’t get me that house!”

Well, in early 2002, an email popped up about a new listing in that area, and the address matched. Well, we got the house.

The first think about this house, The Driveway to get to it. It was really steep, really. You would drive up it really fast and take a sharp hairpin turn to the left without hitting the hill or going off the edge, then hope nobody was at the top parked in the way. If you couldn’t make it up, it meant you had to back down. The problem with backing down was all you could see in the mirror was the ocean, nothing to guide you. I could barely get my small pickup up the hill and the tires would spin on the corner, so i took it in and had the differential re-geared, and the darn thing was faster and got better milage!

The house had bad Termite damage. The bottom floor which was like a small apartment was in really bad shape. A couple of the main beams were hollow and had to be replaced. Gutting that floor was first.

This house was strangely laid out, which I liked, but it was also very big. It had incredible views! Its the “you are looking for a house to experience hawaii” house.

We moved in at the beginning of March, and began the major reconstruction of fixing it from a cool house to an amazing house. At the same time having many friends come and stay, that had to put up with the construction.

By the end of October the stresses of all the construction and figuring out the Tims allergies were not good at all in hawaii, I stopped drinking on October 20. The doctor gave me a prescription of what was supposed to be lorazapam, but the pharmacy read the script wrong and gave me a different pill. Turned out to be one for seizures instead, but this was something that I did not figure out until a few months into 2003 after leaving hawaii. The pill did actually help on quitting, but I would not recommend this way of doing it.

The house was getting close to finished near the end of the year, but we knew what had to finish it to leave. Something I didn’t really want to do. But around the time the neighbor of the empty lot next door was coming to look to build a mansion to sell, he was from florida, and the ugly house that is next door that blocks the view and wind that nobody has still bought after all these years shows it. It was the right decision, I still miss the place, as a great memory in my life, with a lot of great friends and visitors around to scare on the driveway, or amaze with the views from the deck.

Years – Picture Summary 2001

2001, BlahG, California, Hawaii, Summary, USA, Years No Responses »

Jan 012002

My Picture Best Of 2001
San Francisco and Hawaii

This is a gallery of a few of the pictures from that year.

Although there are a couple of pictures from the end of 2000 when first getting the good digital nikon, here is a summary what happened in 2001.

At the end of 2000 we took a trip to hawaii on Christmas. Sitting on the deck at Will (who worked for me at the time) and Anita on the North shore, the waves crashing and the relaxation made for the idea of, lets move here! The next days were looking at a few houses and finding one that seemed great, peaked ceiling, lots of land, a way bigger version of the condo in San Francisco. Lots of rooms.

We put an offer in on the house and it was excepted. Flew back to San Francisco and on 3/1/2001 headed for the island. Purchased some patio furniture to live on, and waited for the furniture to come in the big steel box.

When you move to hawaii, a lot of people want to come visit. During the year my parents, my sister and her daughter, my other sister, her husband and 2 kids (each kid getting an extra week) and lisa and corey.. had great fun, always having dinner parties and lots of bon fires at the neighbors joe and luana’s place. We had all the best neighbors, Bob and May up the street and Scott and Marianne bought the house directly across.

The house had needed some work and a beam in the lower floor had to be replaced because of some Termite damage which made a big mess of my office. The back yard was a completely overgrown with ferns that were 5 feet tall. You would cut them down and they would come right back.

The banana trees were great, best bananas I’ve ever had. Planting a garden became difficult because wild boar would come up in mass and eat it all once it started growing so some hunters had to come in.

It was definitely a great year working from there, but had an outbreak of the shingles which still give me pain today.

Of couse things changed in the world when I flew back for work on september 10th. Because of the time change I couldn’t sleep so I was watching TV as the planes hit the towers . It was quite scary to be sitting in san francisco with everyone you know in bed asleep, wondering what was going to be hit there. I was only supposed to be there for 2 days, but was stuck a week. When finally able to fly back to hawaii I got off the plane and instead of being greeted with a lei, there were military with machine guns.

But life did go on from there with many many changes.