Tuesday, June 29: More window cleaning in the morning. I think most of them are done now, a coat of Rain-X and we should be in good shape for another year. Today, the wind picked up a little and made the day perfect weather, a little overcast too.

Converted this blog to WordPress 3.0 and all seems to be working fine.

Did some afternoon research on martini making and picked up the necessary “ingredients” at the Village Market. I think drinking martinis is an acquired taste and we need more practice.

A nice and lazy day, we’re getting in the groove.

Saturday, I tihink, will be the day we explore the Visitor’s Center on Mauna Kea, should be fun!

Monday, June 28 (Day 8): Today we had our second golf lesson with Matt, our golf pro. We are working on our grip, our swing and our putting. In getting my set of clubs, our friend at the golf place in California sent ME a right handed putter with the rest of left handed set. Another call and another promise to send me the right (left) putter. We need lots of practice swinging in proper form, not necessarily hitting the ball.

We drove down to Kona to pick up a prescription for Sandy, checked out the local Target for a few essentials, did some banking and stopped by the KBC for dinner. On the way down, we stopped by the Kailua-Kona Autocare Center to see about the Subaru’s brakes and CV boots. Safeway after that and home for the evening.

Sunday, June 27 (Day 7): Today we went to Mass in Waimea with Fr. Bob. It was good to see him again. Deacon Bill was there as well, a little too wordy for me. He works too hard to come up with a sermon. We explored Waimea and went to the Hawaiian Style Cafe on the Mamalahoa Highway just before (east of) Merriman’s on the north side. It is a small place with a counter and HUGE pancakes. Good fare, interesting cheeseburger omlette for breakfast!

Went to the Farmer’s Market down by milepost 56 in the Waimea Country Club. The attendance was way down and the vendors were not too numerous, a little disappointing. We bought some bromeliads from a vendor there, they are called “Pink Quill”, beautiful but strange looking. 4 for ＄12.00!

Came home relaxed, hit some more balls on the range (closes at 4:00 p.m.) and then went to Buzz’s SandTrap restaurant down past the King’s MarketPlace. Good steak place, will try again. They have a pretty good SALAD BAR for ＄10.95. Sandy had the Prime Rib, Cowboy Style – lighly smoked on the Kaiwe wood grill and I had the New York, Peppercorn style. ＄5.00 Mai-Tai’s for 3:30 – 5:30 happy hour.

Started watching 24, the TV series, it could be addicting! on the Mac Mini via the Plex interface. I think the screen resolution of 1344 x 756 is just right to see while sitting down on the couch. Pretty cool stuff.

Saturday, June 26 (Day 6): Fix-it day, installed new towel racks, hook for our new mobile sculpture and other odds and ends around the condo. We cleaned the glass panels and floors inside and out and the easiest way is just on your hands and knees. Too much work.

Friday, June 25 (Day 5): Went to the range and “practiced” putting and hitting our 7-iron, this stuff takes some work! Friendly staff and really reasonable prices we are finding out. Practice, practice! A nice, cool overcast day to practice and we tried out Spike’s for lunch. I had the Cobb Salad and Sandy had the Roast Beef sandwich, both we delicious and we were out for about ＄30.00.

We went back to the Costco and Home Depot in Kona for a few more things before we install our new projects. I need some hooks and concrete bits for the mobile and  a level for the towel rack install. Picked up a bedroom Vizio 32″ LCD TV and the coax cable is just a few inched too short. We can save energy by re-cycling the old 20″ CRT TV and our eyes aren’t as sharp as they used to be. Should have picked up the cable at Home Depot, argh.. Costco chicken – yummy!

Came home and Sandy made here 7-layer dip for the 5:00 p.m. Friday night happy hour gathering by the pool. A nice group of folks and we picked up a few more eatery tips. “Buzz’s Sandtrap” (steak and salad bar) past the King’s Marketplace, in Waimea, the Hawaiian Style Restaurant (breakfast) and the Bakery in the KTA shopping center, the bakery on the way to Hilo on the northeast side, (I think this one is in the book).

Thursday, June 24 (Day 4): Sandy worked in the morning, I played with the Mac Mini installing the ripped movies I brought on the external drive. Installed Plex and Hulu, but didn’t bother with Boxee. It’s interface is too confusing for me and too cluttered. Great TV resolution but a little tiny to read at full 1080p, I have to play around with the resolution. After a few panic moments trying to enable sound (you have to enable it in the System Preference pane, Sound, Output and pick the Vizio TV), everything worked. The confusing thing is that the Mac tells you that the “Selected device has no output controls” leading me to believe, incorrectly, that the sound won’t work from the external display. Audio in fact works just fine, the only difference is that the computer sound icon/volume control is grayed out and no computer chirps/sounds come out on the TV. Audio is routed directly to the TV via the HDMI interface, as it is supposed to. The only sound from the computer now is the startup bong. 2 connections, TV and HDMI to the TV make connection a real snap now. Apple got this one right.

We went down to Kona to see a movie and had lunch at Don’t Mai-Tai bar. We brainstormed the idea of bringing Pat out to our place and set the plans in motion. The movie we saw was Knight and Day and I promptly fell asleep through 1/2 of it, oh well. We hit the Lowe’s, Macy’s and Safeway as well and Sandy made spaghetti for dinner. We found and purchased some nice towel racks to replace those in our bathroom and some new fixtures for the kitchen sink and our bathroom that we liked. We just have to find a handyman to install them.

We received our mobile from August Munich packed really well and safe. I am anxious to install it on the lanai.

This year I am a little slow about writing about our happenings here in Hawaii.

Wednesday, June 23 (Day 3): This was a work day for Sandy again. We also had our first golf lesson with Matt, the golf pro at the Pro Shop. We learned the grip techniques and practiced hitting a few balls. Our next lesson is on Monday, but we need to hit some balls on the range and practice puttiing before then. We need experience just with the ball and then some more fine tuning.

Lunch was at the Hawaii Calls restaurant in the Marriott down in Waikoloa. The dinner specials are still there and the roast beef sandwich was as good as last year. Our golf clubs arrived and we are anxious to give them a try.

Dinner was Ono, from the market, a fresh fish catch of the day for ＄6.99/pound. On the BBQ, it was a nice white, firm meat, excellent choice.

The Mac Mini came a day early and arrived late this afternoon!

Tuesday, June 22 (Day 2): Sandy did some early morning work. We walked to the market for the breakfast feast and came back. We did our errands down in Kona at the Home Depot, Costco, Macy’s and the Safeway store. We tried lunch at the Bite-Me cafe down in the Honokohau Harbor. They have 2.50 local fish tacos and they weren’t too bad!

We were exhausted with all the shopping and us being on the California time zone. We had to make several trips to the parking lot outside of the Fairways due to the paving activity. Dinner was just some wine and cheese and relaxation after we saw the sunset from the golf course.

Monday, June 21 (Day 1): We arrived right on time at 4:05 p.m. on Delta flight 1299 from LAX. The weather was not too bad and we made a beeline for my favorite place, the Kona Brewing Company. We had the 8.00 slice of pizza and the strawberry vinagrette dressing. It was delicious. We made it up to the Village Market for a few groceries before checking out our 2nd home.

Other than the paving coming up for tomorrow, everything is in great shape. We arrived tired but excited. It is a litle lonely without the kids, but they will be coming in August.