Go ‘Bows!

Last night the CSU Fullerton Titans were in town for some baseball against the mighty ‘BOWS. But the ‘Bows aren’t so mighty this year at 8-27. The Titans were ranked #4 in the nation, so we went to watch expecting a blowout. But the ‘Bows won a thrilling game, 4-3! We scored our winning RBI on a checked swing in the 8th inning. I wanted to attend the rest of the series this weekend but my wife declined, however maybe we can go on Sunday. GO BOWS! I was trying to taunt the opposing team by yelling “Fullerton is a commuter campus!”. I think that threw them off their game.

Update: The ‘Bows didn’t score another run the rest of the series.

Nice Argentinian meteor over the weekend

Love the concert footage. That was some seriously terrible music.

softball, my boy patrick

The faculty lost to the grad students in extra innings of the annual softball game which took place this afternoon. I took a line drive off my right hand, which I decided to use for defense instead of the glove on my left hand. Also I had an inside-the-park home run, which a less optimistic person would describe as a bloop single followed by three consecutive errors.

We were playing pitch-to-your-own-team softball. I pitched much of the game, and when it got competitive in the third inning I starting throwing high and inside to our right-handed hitters because the grad students had a massive defensive liability at 3rd base and left field. Those ground balls down the third base line just rolled right through. Do I feel bad about this? No.

London Marathon tonight/tomorrow morning. I think my boy Patrick is going to pull out the win and better his own WR. I just call him Patrick now since we’re best buds.

Update: Patrick had an off day, he probably needs to do some more training stints in Hawaii. Also there’s this

 

The Valley Isle, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean.

My wife’s parents visited last week and over the weekend we went out to Maui aka The Valley Isle. Picture here.

We drove out to Hana (my new thing is panorama portraits, you have to hold very still):

and spent a couple of nights in a fine B&B with ocean views.

The ocean view not only included ocean (the Pacific Ocean to be precise), but spinner dolphins and breaching whales! Pretty spectacular. T & I went for a run down the highway, which was not so great, until a kind Prius driver direct us to a mowed-grass running trail. It meandered through the hills and forest, over bridges, and through unfenced cow pasture. I had a run-in with Cow #282 who thought I was trying to steal her baby cow (it was kind of like this). There were coconut trees and I managed to get into this coconut with only a little bit of blood:

Probably my favorite meal was the wood-fired pizza, run by this guy and served on banana-tree leaves:

We drove out past Hana, by waterfalls:

and to Charles Lindbergh’s rather hidden grave:

near an old church on the east side of Maui:

I have only a couple pictures from the Seven Sacred Pools

because our visit was the same time this horrible thing happened.

Leaving Hana, we drove around the southeast side of the island. The narrow windy road was between gorgeous tropical rainforest and the beach, and then all of a sudden the tropical forest turned to dry forest. It seemingly happened in a half-mile. We drove by this horse and colt. The momma horse scared off three wild pigs that got a little too close:

We also spotted my favorite Hawaiian animal, the glorious pueo! Aka Hawaiian Owl, who hunts during the day because he’s Hawaiian and can do whatever he wants.

Much to my excitement, we had time to visit upcountry Maui and glorious Makawao which was everything I thought it would be.

The whales were a little shy during a whale-watching trip, but it was nonetheless a nice boat ride between the islands:

Our hotel in Napili was on a westward facing beach so the sunset was outstanding. I swam in the ocean right after sunset; I heard a sound right next to me that I thought was another swimmer — but! it was a gigantic sea turtle sticking his big, beaked head out of the water in between munching algae.

On the flight home we had a nice view of the Maui + Big Island volcanoes, some more active than others, which I have labeled here.

Waipio Valley, Big Island

We briefly walked the beach of Waipio Valley on the Big Island more than a year ago on our way to Waimanu Valley.

This time we hiked up into the valley, along the stream:

The road ended where the river took over. There were taro patches and beautiful waterfalls — probably a nice place to live if you like the rain and a ridiculously steep drive out of the valley. It took us 20min to walk up the hill and it felt like a tempo run.

This gecko bid us our Waipio Valley adieu.

I don’t know where Imma gonna go when the volcano blow

Thanks to my aunt’s Christmas gift, we went out to Kalapana on Big Island to see the lava. It was a two mile hike out there, or crinkly cracking fresh lava flows.

It was like glass — fun to walk over but you don’t really want to fall. We could see the steam rising from the ocean entry from more than a mile away, and vents of gas on the hillside where lava was currently flowing underground.

Our guide sang a chant to Pele when we arrived at the surface flow:

You could feel the heat from the lava from several yards away, and the ground all around was steaming (a little bit disconcerting).

Then, as we were watching, a spout of lava erupted from the top of the volcanic ledge over the sea:

We could see the lava entering the ocean, and floating steaming rocks in the shore break:

After sunset the lava was even more dramatic:

We walked back in the dark with flashlights and nobody fell. I think this is one of the only places on Earth where it’s possible to get so close to lava, to freshly made earth. It was pretty awesome!

our manta ray dive video

That’s us at 7:05.

Us and the Manta Rays