good evening. what a hectic day here in hawaii. fallen trees, fallen telephone poles, blackouts around the whole island, flooding, high winds, lightning, high surf, and pretty much every advisory posted. wanted to stay home and get some work done but my internet, telephone, and cable were all out. so couldn’t get anything done except clean up. and get this, the worst isn’t over yet. more bad weather on the way. i guess it’s our rainy season here in hawaii so can’t complain because at least it’s still warm. as for surfing or diving? forget it. the ocean is dangerous and the water is dirty. going to chill for a couple more days and go for a surf somewhere. until then, kick back and relax. catch up on some work and rest. have a great evening…. by the way, buoy 1 jumped up to 26 feet, 15 seconds. yikes. huge huge surf on the way…. stay tuned…

check out these photos from the honoluluadvertiser.com. this was today in waikiki. probably one of the few days of the year that not one soul is in the water…

this is kapiolani park. now you know how strong the winds were today. nuts…

i told everybody to stay in the house. why didn’t you listen??

and last, you meet the coolest people through surfing and traveling. here we are on this island in the philippines. from left to right: indonesia, japan, philippines, and hawaii. and the trippy thing is that we all knew each other for years before we took this photo last september. this was just another freak chance that we met again. and you know what? i’ll probably meet these same guys again in some other country in the future… so when jisai-san interviewed me the other day and asked me what surfing meant to me. i told him that surfing is my life. it’s about traveling, connecting with people, and connecting with the ocean. surfing is my life and everything else just revolves around it…. if your a traveling surfer, you know exactly what i’m talking about….

good morning. gosh, last night was nuts. i thought my house was going to fly away. the winds were clocking at 50mph when i checked at 2am in the morning. there is a HIGH WIND WARNING, HIGH SURF WARNING, FLASH FLOOD WARNING, AND EVEN A SNOW BLIZZARD WARNING FOR THE BIG ISLAND. this is pretty much the worst it gets here in paradise. feel sorry for those tourists coming off the plane today. in fact, the honolulu marathon is this sunday so a lot of japanese tourists here in waikiki. hotels are full, rent-a-cars sold out, and waikiki packed. more bad weather on the way….

this is the winds as of 7:50am. wahiawa had wind gusts of 70mph and maui had gusts of 79mph. that’s typhoon strength winds. but for now, the winds are a little lighter than last night but still blowing out there. hundreds of schools closed today. all schools on the north shore, all schools on the east side, all schools on the west side, and a lot of schools in town. no electricity on the north shore in many other areas, still dangerous winds, trees on the road, and a bus got struck by lightning on the east side too.

as for the surf, check out bowls now. it gets like this only a couple of times a year. victory at sea. so the best thing to do today is stay indoors. forget the surf, forget school, and forget work. haha. just joking… as for me, i’m going to catch up on emails and maybe watch a dvd or something. i ain’t leaving my house…. have a nice day…

and last, check out this photo. this was a picture of the week. this photo was taken in indonesia. the first time i went on a boat trip to indonesia, i saw a volcano erupt right in front of my face. it was nuts. i thought that was a once in a lifetime thing but a few years after that, i saw another volcano erupt right in front of my face again. that time was in japan. i was on my way back from okinawa to tokyo and i was looking out of my window and seen the top of this mountain start to smoke. luckily i had my video camera and shot it. the people on the airplane were freaking out. that was nuts too. 2 live volcano’s? lucky….

good evening on this windy ass tuesday. gosh, it’s blowing out of the south/west and got some kite surfers out at bowls. waves came up in town but victory at sea. north shore is blown out too but somehow they finished up the contest. hawaii’s makua rothman won the contest. the wind and weather is bad and no sign of clearing up. but that’s ok because we live in hawaii and there will be many more good perfect swells coming in the next few months.

still can’t believe it only cost a quarter to call japan and talk for 5 minutes. so for all you japanese who come to hawaii, look for the nearest pay phone. that’s the call….

bowl tickets, but no flights. yeah, they are selling 17,500 sugar bowl tickets for new orleans but not enough flights to get everybody there and back. heard guys are flying to kauai and maui to make the flight to the mainland. and the prices is going up. $2500/per person. gosh, i could go to the mentawai’s for that….

looking back at okinawa. makes me want to dive again. check out those mahimahi’s in the background. such a beautiful sight….

check out this nice omilu kyle nakamoto speared the other day on the east side…. nice photo….

and check out these new vonzipper sunglasses. got my eyes on them…. i’m lucky to be sponsored by vonzipper which happens to be the hottest selling sunglasses in the world right now…..