a couple of years ago i bought a little black journal in nyc. i had needed to write when i got it. it was before my online journal days. i brought it with me on my trip to cr. i wrote a lot while i was away. a lot of it is banal, but i've transcribed it, for my own documentation purposes. i haven't censored much of it.

i didn't take that many pics, but here's the first set.

i decided in late december that i would need a vacation after my visit home to chicago for the holidays. don't get me wrong. i love seeing my family, but it's not really what i'd call a vacation.

so against my usual prudent, puritanical work ethic and judgement, i decided that i needed to take a break to hawaii just 9 days after i had taken time off from work to go to chicago.

it was the best decision i have made in a long time.

i should stop for a sec and give a little background about why i even thought about going to kauai. my friend rick, who i met through mutual friends, was going to be working there for a few weeks with one of his former residents. rick is an orthopedic surgeon and clinical professor at ucsf. his former resident, david, asked him to help out as one of the other surgeons was recuperating from neck surgery, which i learned was common among surgeons. i guess it makes sense. anyway, rick had a place to stay and a car, and suggested i visit. i took him up on his offer.

i had an 84 page document that i was supposed to read on my trip there. i spent some of the time on the plane doing this, but got bored, quickly. i did finish it by the end of the trip, and i guess that's all that matters.

day 1

i arrived in kauai's lihue airport shortly after 12.30 pm local time. rick greeted me with a fragrant flower lei (although he was later disappointed to learn that it was not the offical lei of hawaii) and took me to the plantation hale, where we were staying, which is just a few miles from the airport in a little town called kapaa. the plantation hale is literally a 30 second walk to the beach, and like many of the beaches in kauai, fairly deserted.

rick suggested that i go to the beach near the marriott resort, which is also key for its proximity to duke's, 'an island bar'. within 40 minutes, i was at the beach, getting a tan.

my view

rick was supposed to meet before 5, so at 4.30, i had decided that i had enough sun and got a drink at duke's barefoot bar. after a mai tai and two martinis on an empty stomach, a conversation with patrick, skydiver who had moved to kauai about 8 yrs (?) ago later, which ended with an invitation to hike with him and some of his buddies, rick showed up. then david and little sasha came for dinner. sasha is the CUTEST boy i have seen in a long while.

day 2
after some sun time in the morning, i picked rick up from the hospital and we were off on our first adventure.

we headed to poipu beach, which is well known for its surf. we stopped at spouting horn, a geyser. i thought it would be great to videotape it as the sound was fantastic. but when would i ever watch it? pictures will suffice.
we headed over to the beach house, a restaurant that rick had been to and enjoyed. it had an amazing view...		and fantastic kafir lime martinis.