Cruisin in his 5.0

In a world full of people, only some want to fly/isn't that crazy?
-Seal

Just taking a break right now. Finished up a day full of cat makes hand, cat loses hand and then cat makes nut, busting all yokels in the process. Made two boats on the river after flopping sets, getting raised by straights on the turn. Also flopped a straight and then made a straight flush on the river, getting plenty of action in the process.

Went running, still is a pain starting back up again but I think all the biking helped strengthen my legs. Have way more endurance than I should. Plus it's fun to run in new running shoes.

Am so glad the weekend is here, I'm kind of getting over a cold that I'm pretty sure I got from someone seated next to me on the plane. Happened to me going outbound on the last Vegas trip and this time to A.C. Oh, well.

Mark arrived OK in Hawaii, found out that broadband cards do work there and bought one. His desktop computer arrived as well. And he's living in housing provided (temporarily) for him and driving a rental Mustang. In Hawaii of all places!

Talking to him has brought back lots of stuff about Hawaii that you know pretty much when your entire family is from a place, ala Bourne Identity (pidgin as a second language, LOL).

I've never thought of living there, though. It's mainly a retreat for me, a place 4,000 miles away you can disappear in a farmhouse, in a redwood forest, on a volcano, amid growing numbers of tourists and traffic.

It's a place that contains some of the most spectacular things I've ever seen in my life, lava flowing into the ocean two feet away from you, creating dramatic steam and knowledge of the danger -- if the hardened crust you're standing on ever collapsed, you'd be so fucked.

And places that are retrospective for me -- the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor and the Pali Highway Tunnel, which I ran to on a 14-mile whim after hearing my uncle's brothers once did it in high school. And on the Big Island, the place where Capt. James Cook was stoned to death when the locals found out he was less than a god. It's always impressed upon me that you might end up somewhere you'd never expect, such as on a foreign island far from home, outside a hotel in Memphis, on a street in Iraq. Nothing is guaranteed.

The good thing about having friends who live where your retreats are is that it's more likely you'll retreat more often. I'd like to eat again in those great Japanese restaurants on Waikiki, re-read the inspiring mosaic mural depicting the Pacific's great World War II battles at Punchbowl, basically the Arlington National Cemetery of the West. To walk through that strange redwood forest high on a mountainside in Maui, to eat a plate lunch on the shore of Hana Bay and to see another million-dollar sunset from my grandparents' home in Maui.

Can poker wait? I hope so.