Well, here I am in sunny, and glorious Honolulu, Hawaii!
WOO-HOO!
Flew out here on the 17th of September and immediately went into their mandatory 14 day quarantine.
Oh. My. GOD.
Stuck in a hotel room I couldn't leave. Balcony about 14 square feet (no tape measure to verify my calibrated eye measurements, but I'll wager it's close). Two beds, a microwave, a fridge, and the usual bathroom set up.
And by "stuck in a hotel room" I mean EXACTLY that. Under quarantine you're not allowed to leave.
Anyway, actually had to shift rooms a couple times. Once because the first room I was in was on the last floor to have contractor work done on it, so they moved me from the 15th floor to the 16th. No problem...at least something to do. Only took about 20 minutes anyway, because I don't pack like my wife. Got to the new room and discovered some problems there. Called the receptionist, and they moved me into the room next door.
Work during this time was telework...but I couldn't log into all the network access I needed to do all the stuff I was prepared to do, so with limited access I had to make do.
Quarantine ended and this last Friday me and the other engineer picked up our car rentals and drove to Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, blundering our way around until we found the Pass and ID office, then got ahold of our point of contact and started meeting people.
But that still had it's own issues... they can't get the other engineer's CAC to work properly, and I think mine has some problems. Getting proper computer access set up, getting our local training stuff in order, etc.
Monday we go back in and probably go to PSD to have our CACs looked at first thing.
SO...Friday afternoon after work we both enjoyed our first post-quarantine walkabout on Waikiki Beach. On 1 October they had started opening up the beaches and whatnot. There are simply not any real numbers of tourists and I'm betting Hawaii as a whole is loosing billions during all this.
Probably did about 7 or 8 miles of walking (Diamond Head is pretty awesome looking!) and finally found us a restaurant to sit down and eat at. Had a Koloa dark rum and Coke. (Nice...but the Koloa Dark didn't really stand out from any other decent dark rum).
Saturday we walked to a farmers market in Ala Moana, probably about a couple miles from our hotels. With all our walking about and coming back, probably around 8 or so miles. Then hopped into one of our cars and headed to China Walls.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, we drove past China Walls because we were both paying too much attention to all the awesome coastal sights on one side and the volcanic mountains on the other side.
So we just made a trip of it and kept driving.
Stopped at a roadside food joint and had some Poke (rhymes with "OK"). It's a local Hawaiian dish, with Japanese roots. The name means "to cut into pieces". Essentially, it's diced raw fish on rice with a sauce and may include veggies and other stuff. As Christina said "sort of like de-constructed sushi".
I like it, but I can see were people who are not into sushi or sashimi wouldn't cotton to it.
Today it was a walk to and around Diamond Head. Turns out Diamond Head wasn't one of the places opened up yet, so it turned into a hike around it, with a part of it along the beach.
And here is where things took an annoyingly painful turn.
At one point we were walking on an old slap of lava and I hit a slick spot, slipped, and took most of the weight of the fall on my right hand/wrist.
A pretty decent sprain. The part that REALLY galls me about this is the fact that it's TOTALLY screwed up my personal exercise goal I started during quarantine.
In 15 years of retirement from the Navy, I have not once felt the urge to get into any kind of formal exercise routine. The key work of "retired" being "retired", you know. I'm not unable to do exercises...I'm not in the better shape I used to be in.
So, day 2 of quarantine, I started a push up goal. It was going to be push up and sit up, but there's nothing in the room to properly anchor my feet for sit ups.
I started with two sets of 10 push ups (I could do more, but why try maxing out and suffering the aches?). Then every day I'd add 5 more. And they're inclined push ups...my legs go up on the bed to put more weight on my arms. Today was 95 push ups this morning.
Then I fell, screwed up my right wrist, and I can't do my evening set of push ups and I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back into them.
Monday morning was SUPPOSED to be 100 push ups.
Dammit.
So now I need to figure out the anchoring of my feet and shift to sit ups...same deal, start low and easy and add a fixed amount each day.
Grrrr...
BUT HEY...it's still Hawaii, right?
WOO-HOO!
Flew out here on the 17th of September and immediately went into their mandatory 14 day quarantine.
Oh. My. GOD.
Stuck in a hotel room I couldn't leave. Balcony about 14 square feet (no tape measure to verify my calibrated eye measurements, but I'll wager it's close). Two beds, a microwave, a fridge, and the usual bathroom set up.
And by "stuck in a hotel room" I mean EXACTLY that. Under quarantine you're not allowed to leave.
Anyway, actually had to shift rooms a couple times. Once because the first room I was in was on the last floor to have contractor work done on it, so they moved me from the 15th floor to the 16th. No problem...at least something to do. Only took about 20 minutes anyway, because I don't pack like my wife. Got to the new room and discovered some problems there. Called the receptionist, and they moved me into the room next door.
Work during this time was telework...but I couldn't log into all the network access I needed to do all the stuff I was prepared to do, so with limited access I had to make do.
Quarantine ended and this last Friday me and the other engineer picked up our car rentals and drove to Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, blundering our way around until we found the Pass and ID office, then got ahold of our point of contact and started meeting people.
But that still had it's own issues... they can't get the other engineer's CAC to work properly, and I think mine has some problems. Getting proper computer access set up, getting our local training stuff in order, etc.
Monday we go back in and probably go to PSD to have our CACs looked at first thing.
SO...Friday afternoon after work we both enjoyed our first post-quarantine walkabout on Waikiki Beach. On 1 October they had started opening up the beaches and whatnot. There are simply not any real numbers of tourists and I'm betting Hawaii as a whole is loosing billions during all this.
Probably did about 7 or 8 miles of walking (Diamond Head is pretty awesome looking!) and finally found us a restaurant to sit down and eat at. Had a Koloa dark rum and Coke. (Nice...but the Koloa Dark didn't really stand out from any other decent dark rum).
Saturday we walked to a farmers market in Ala Moana, probably about a couple miles from our hotels. With all our walking about and coming back, probably around 8 or so miles. Then hopped into one of our cars and headed to China Walls.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, we drove past China Walls because we were both paying too much attention to all the awesome coastal sights on one side and the volcanic mountains on the other side.
So we just made a trip of it and kept driving.
Stopped at a roadside food joint and had some Poke (rhymes with "OK"). It's a local Hawaiian dish, with Japanese roots. The name means "to cut into pieces". Essentially, it's diced raw fish on rice with a sauce and may include veggies and other stuff. As Christina said "sort of like de-constructed sushi".
I like it, but I can see were people who are not into sushi or sashimi wouldn't cotton to it.
Today it was a walk to and around Diamond Head. Turns out Diamond Head wasn't one of the places opened up yet, so it turned into a hike around it, with a part of it along the beach.
And here is where things took an annoyingly painful turn.
At one point we were walking on an old slap of lava and I hit a slick spot, slipped, and took most of the weight of the fall on my right hand/wrist.
A pretty decent sprain. The part that REALLY galls me about this is the fact that it's TOTALLY screwed up my personal exercise goal I started during quarantine.
In 15 years of retirement from the Navy, I have not once felt the urge to get into any kind of formal exercise routine. The key work of "retired" being "retired", you know. I'm not unable to do exercises...I'm not in the better shape I used to be in.
So, day 2 of quarantine, I started a push up goal. It was going to be push up and sit up, but there's nothing in the room to properly anchor my feet for sit ups.
I started with two sets of 10 push ups (I could do more, but why try maxing out and suffering the aches?). Then every day I'd add 5 more. And they're inclined push ups...my legs go up on the bed to put more weight on my arms. Today was 95 push ups this morning.
Then I fell, screwed up my right wrist, and I can't do my evening set of push ups and I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back into them.
Monday morning was SUPPOSED to be 100 push ups.
Dammit.
So now I need to figure out the anchoring of my feet and shift to sit ups...same deal, start low and easy and add a fixed amount each day.
Grrrr...
BUT HEY...it's still Hawaii, right?
