Farrah and I took a quick trip to Hawaii last week, from the 9th to the 13th.  We were meeting vendors and looking at other items to use for the wedding. Boy, it’s only a couple more months away!!!

We took off on Friday night and landed in nice humid Honolulu.  The first thing I noticed when we got our rental car were the gas prices they were charging.  If you wanted the car rental company to fill up the tank, it was $3.15/gallon.  If you didn’t choose that option and they still had to fill it up, it would be $4.63!  The average they posted for the island that day was $3.33!  Boy, I thought prices were bad here!?!?  By the time we left regular gas prices jumped to $3.60/gallon to as high as $3.99/gallon depending on what island you were on.  Crazy.

We arrived at auntie’s house greeted by everyone.  A yummy dinner of ahi poki and beef stew and I was off to bed.  Farrah stayed up with Ann and auntie gossiping, and with the time change only got 3 hours sleep.  Funny thing is she wasn’t that tired the next day.

We ran errands here and there, meeting our vendors the following days.  Most of the meetings were very positive, so it looks like everything is moving forward very well.  We did manage to eat at several good places.  We had very good malasadas at “Leonard Jr’s Hot Malasadas & Espresso”; kim chee fried rice with two eggs sunny-side up for breakfast at the “Kapiolani Coffee Shop” (Roger had the Oxtail Soup); and another visit to [Kua’aina] for a burger.  Yum!  We didn’t make it to the North Shore or to Zippy’s, or even the mall!  Later this year will hit those places though.

On Tuesday it was Tiana’s birthday (and Tessie’s as well).  We celebrated Tiana’s birthday at auntie’s house that night.  The big party was still going on when Farrah and I left.  I managed to take about 100+ photos before I left the party though.  The excitement didn’t end there as we ran into problems in the check-in line.  It seems our frozen goods weren’t packed to the airline’s specifications.  A call to the house brought Roger and Francis running to the rescue.  We managed to board the plane with about 20 minutes to spare.

The flight back was a little bumpy, but very quick.  We parked at [ParkSFO] for the first time, since I had a two-day free coupon.  It was pretty convenient and I think cheaper than parking in the long-term lot.

Overall, we accomplished a lot on the trip and got to enjoy a mini-vacation as well.

Taking Pictures

This was my first use of the DSLR on a vacation, along with the [Wolverine FlashPac] to download photos.  It was very nice experience using both on the trip.  I shot about 3GB worth of photos and downloaded most to the hard drive without problems. I was a little worried if they were actually on the hard drive, since it doesn’t have a screen.  But when I loaded it on the computer, I didn’t have a problem accessing the files.  Whew!

I got a lot of good shots of Tiana (mostly) and others at the party.  I think, no I know, I relied too much on the auto focus again.  I need to go to manual focus as some of my shots were off the mark and I wasn’t pleased with the results.  Practice.  Practice.  Practice.

The Photos Gallery

The photo gallery is back up!  Yeah!!!  Ok, so here’s what you need to do because there was a database problem.  First off, the photo gallery is [accessible here] or by the side link that says [Photos @ Janella.com].  You will notice that some of the albums are public.  For the private type albums that are public, you cannot view the full photo unless you are logged in.  Clicking on the photos will only make it look like the thumbnail.  All photos are about 640X480.  The login link is at that bottom.

Ok, so the database with passwords got corrupt.  This means you will need to go through the steps to reset your password by clicking the recover password link.  Enter your username and it will send an email to the email address I have on file.  Follow the link in the email sent.

If you have any problems getting a new password, let me know either by email or by phone, ok?  As always, if you see a photo of yourself or someone you know and don’t think it should be up, please send me an email and let me know what photo. I’ll take it down.  Cool?

Ok, that’s enough writing for now.  I’m sure I’ll make more changes to the Photo Gallery in the coming months, as well as the site.

The photos below are posted on my Flickr album.  You can see all the photos in the new [Photo Gallery] mentioned above.

Pooltime

This photo always makes me smile.  She’s actually posing for the camera!

Gaze

I like this shot I taken front of the blowhole of the inflatable whale.