We Have a Winner!!!

So I RSVP'd about a week ago that I'd be going to my work (Turtle Bay) Christmas party. There was going to be good catered food, the theme was casino night, and on the invitation it said, "Dress to Impress." I had my eye on this girl Jansen that I've met a few times that I wanted to ask out. She's super cute, only about 4'11", filipino, and has an amazing smile. So I asked her out and she said "yes", that's a refreshing response, different from the normal ones I've been hearing lately. I decided to wear my 3-piece suit that I bought at a pentecostal thrift store in Burlington, NC for $5. I picked her up, took some awkward pre-prom style pictures before we left her house and then headed up to Waimea Valley where our party was being held.

So we both got pretty excited about the whole "dress to impress" thing and when we showed up to the party we got a little bit nervous, thinking that we might have gone a little overboard. We saw some people in shorts and blue jeans but it didn't matter, we were looking good and we were going to have a good time regardless. Right when we show up they gave us a little gift bag with a few little goodies, the best one was this box of mint chocolates that are to die for. They taste like heavenly, velvety goodness. That's all I can say about them. While we waited to be seated they had some pupus out, shrimp and chicken wings. I was starving so I think that anything would have tasted divine, but I'm pretty sure that these things were bomb to begin with.
So we took out seats and even took our turn posing for a professional photographer who was invited to come. I don't have those pictures back yet, I'll post them when I get them. And then we went through the buffet line. Man Turtle Bay doesn't hold out, this food was good. I think that I can give an unbiased opinion now because I'm not as extremely hungry as I was before thanks to the appetizers.


While we were sitting down finishing up our meals my boss came around and passed out the fake money that we would be gambling with and a raffle ticket for each person. We were given $300 (fake) each and the point was to make as much money as you could because every $100 bought you another raffle ticket and they had some pretty good prizes.
So we go up stairs and they had 3 or four tables going. I don't really understand craps too well so I decided to go for blackjack, a simple enough game. Well to make a long story short I only played with $200 and I increased that to $1,200. Pretty good don't you think? But at the same time it does put the thought in my head..."I could do this with real money and make the easiest, fastest money ever." But that's just bad news, I probably played differently because I knew that it wasn't real money.
So we cashed in our chips for raffle tickets and took a seat to wait for the numbers. They explained the rules which were that they had 3 main prizes that they were going to wait until the end to raffle them off. The rest was first come, first served. They would raffle a ticket and you would simply pick off the table what you wanted. They had a lot of things: a bunch of oakley sunglasses, a nintendo wii, 4 rounds of golf at another really nice golf club, 4-night stays at some nice resorts, a big tool set, just to name a few. (Oh just a side note, right before they started the raffle I was named the chip leader of the night, boo-yah baby.) So they start with the raffle and guess whose number got called first, that's right mine. So I go up there and start looking at what I want to choose. Now I have a question to throw out there, have you ever been to a restaurant that has a huge menu and the more choices that you have makes the choice even that much harder? Well this is how it was for me. And they didn't wait for me, they continued and called the next raffle. The 2nd guy quickly grabbed the nintendo wii, I went for the oakley sunglasses because there's this pair that I've really wanted for a long time, worth $180. I didn't see them amongst the selection so I kept looking. And then I saw it, exactly what I wanted. THE IPOD TOUCH....BOOYAH to the 19th power baby. So I grab it and found out that it came with a shirt too. I walk back to my seat stoked on my newly aquired gift. I sit down and start examining it and.....guess what.....its not an ipod touch, its an ipod touch case. NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! You've got to be kidding me. I had first choice over everything and I chose the ipod case when I don't even have an ipod to cover. That's right I was that guy, I was one of the only sober people at the party at that point and I was the one who botched the first pick of the raffle. That's like choosing choosing 3 free oil changes when I don't even have a car. I attempted to go up and explain that I couldn't read it well enough and pleaded for them to let me exchange it. Instead of sympathy I was given mockery. They decided to announce my choice to the whole party. Just shoot me now. And to make it worse I wasn't able to redeem myself with another choice, none of my other raffle tickets were chosen. I just had one chance and I blew it.

Afterwards I went to the Oakley rep, who had donated the case and the shirt (which was a size XXL) and I traded them in for credit towards those sunglasses that I wanted. So I ended up getting the sunglasses that I wanted but I had to pay some for them. Only $60 for a $180 dollar pair though, so I can justify that purchase.
The rest of the night was fun. Jansen is a really fun date.


We danced by ourselves on the dance floor but were later joined by some of my buzzed fellow employees. So besides the fact that I may have acquired possibly the greatest regret story of my life, besides that it was a great night. Good food, good games, fun dancing, great date, and even a good-night kiss. It's my story, I end it on then note that I choose.

Reaching the breaking point.

So what's the tell-tale sign that too much is too much? Considering what just happened to me, I think I may have found what my tell-tale sign is.

So it's 7:30 on a Thursday evening, the week before finals and I just returned to the library sure to be spending the rest of the night here (well they close at midnight so I guess until then). I needed to take a quiz online for my Operations Management class for chapter 17. So I open up the quiz, get my text book out of my back pack, open up to chapter 17, read the first question, and then started looking for the answer. I started getting frustrated thinking to myself, "great this is going to be one of those quizzes that has all the answers cleverly hidden in the text." No joke after about 15 minutes I was still on question number 1 having no luck finding the answer or even some of the same key words that were in the question.

Then it clicked, I'm looking in the wrong book. Now it makes perfect sense, that's why the answer to the 'Operations Management' question isn't found in chapter 17 of my 'international economics book. Just shoot me now.










Can you tell the difference? Of course you can, because they state which books they are on the darn cover. That's 15 minutes that I won't be getting back.

Mele Kalikimaka

Well its official, I'm not coming home for Christmas. This will be my first Christmas spent here in Hawaii. Every other year I've gone back to the mainland and shared every else's Christmas, someone else's home, someone else's family, someone else's decorations, and someone else's tree. But not this year, this will kinda be my own first Christmas. This weekend I'm going to go buy a tree and I was thinking that I don't have anything to put on it. That's where all of you (I say all of you like there's a lot of people that actually read my blog, there aren't) come in. So what I'm asking is for a Christmas tree ornament from you guys. I don't really want store bought, I prefer homemade. So the more popsicle sticks, construction paper, elmer's glue, and glitter the better. I want a personalized tree. When people come over I want to show them all my ornaments from my family. I'm going to get the tree this weekend so if you find some extra time for a little art project that would be awesome. I'll even pay you back for shipping. I love you guys and am really excited for my first Hawaiian Christmas and my first very own Christmas tree. Mele Kalikimaka.
P.S. Here's my address:
55-220 Kulanui St.#1789
Laie, HI 96762

L. Tom Perry....ALOOOOOOOOOOOHA!

About a month ago they made an announement in church that L. Tom Perry and President Monson were coming to Hawaii for a Regional Conference. Its always exciting to hear a prophet or an apostle speak in person. They also announced that they would have a priesthood choir sing at the conference. And since it was a Regional Conference basically all the members in the state of hawaii would be coming to this. So to sing in the choir meant that I would have a guaranteed seat up front.
About a week before the confernce we found out that President Monson's wife fell down and hurt herself pretty bad and that he would be attending to her and therefore would not be coming to Hawaii. A lot of people were bummed but at the same time we were still excited to be having L. Tom Perry come.
I was kind of nervous that being in the choir would draw too much attention to me, well specifically the beard. I thought that in the end they would make me shave it, but I played my cards right and I'm still sporting it. In the choir we sang two songs, "How Great Thou Art" and "Beautiful Savior," two songs that are now on my list of favorites.
Minutes before the conference started and everyone was seated waiting for it to start Elder Perry turned around and looked at all of us in the choir. He got up from his seat, walked over to our choir director, who is also a student, and said, "Music is the most important part of all church meetings, and it's all relying on you." I already told you this was minutes before we started, as if we weren't nervous enough already.
I got over the nerves fairly quickly when we started singing, actually when my neighbor started singing. They organized us according to height, so of course I was up in the front along with mainly Asians and Philipinos. I don't think the guy next to me hit the right note even once. Right before when we practiced a little bit I realized that that was going to be the case so I helped him out and told him to sing his parts in "piano", which means softly. I still heard him but it didn't bring us down, it atleast put a smile on my face.
After the conference when I was walking out I was stopped right before the front doors. They had started clearing a path for Elder Perry so that he could leave and be on time for his flight out. He was shaking hands on his way out and it looked like I was in line to shake his hand as well. When he got to me he shook my hand and then suddenly he grabbed the back of my neck, shook me around a little bit, and said, "look at this group, this group can change the world." That's the second apostles hand that I've shaken but the first time that my whole body was shaken by one.

I'm in the Money, I'm in the Money

So I've been working at the golf course for about 8 months now. Just recently we had the biggest shotgun tournament of the year, the Oakley Invitational. Basically all the Oakley reps, surf/skate shops that sell Oakley, and even a few sponsored by Oakley were present, like Bruce Irons.
The thing with shotgun tournaments is that everyone leaves the club house at the same time which isn't too bad. Takes a bit of prep work but not too crazy. But the hard part is when they ALL come in at the same time. At turtle bay we have two full courses, the Arnold Palmer and the George Fazio. And for this tournament we had 4 to 5 carts per hole, yes all 36 of them. Do the math, thats around 162 carts coming in all at the same time. The first challenge is preventing cloggage, we don't want to replicate rush hour traffic at the golf course. Keep 'em moving, get the patrons off the cart without kicking them off, clean up the trash, re-stock the carts with pencils, score cards, tees, and waters, wash 'em, and plug 'em in.
After the mad rush Oakley set up a large tent with catered food with live music and raffle. I bought a ten dollar raffle ticket in hopes that I would win the $1200 Oakley watch, but I had no such luck. As I was taking the walk of shame back to the car I noticed some paper money on the ground. I picked it up and whose face did I see? Its all about the Benjamins baby. That's right I didn't win the raffle but I did find myself a one-hundred dollar bill. I'm never that guy that finds money at the movie theatre or at the county fair. I'm usually the guy who finds a quarter on the sidewalk and then finds out that its been superglued there. Not this time. Now its my turn, boo-yah!