good evening. small windy waves around the island today but expecting a solid north swell tomorrow. hopefully they can get the haleiwa pro going. besides another day of the stock market crash, nothing else going on around here. just a mellow day to get things done. and that’s just what i did….

from all the diving and surfing i’ve been doing, my cardios feel in top shape. i feel like i can paddle my surfboard or swim to molokai no problem. up until 5 years ago, i use to weight train at the gym 5x a week. i felt strong but if i swam 1 mile, i would be exhausted. i guess there’s a tradeoff. i’ve been out of the gym for a while so when i woke up this morning, i was in training mode. i grabbed the 40lbs dumbbells to warm up and it felt so dam heavy. the weights felt big today and i felt small. and when i jumped in my car to drive home, even my steering wheel felt heavy…. i’ll be hurting tomorrow for sure….

on the way back, i stopped by to fill up gas. i thought something was wrong when the pump stopped at $45.50. it usually takes $65 to fill up my tank. gas prices are down and it’s just in time. north shore season is here…. thanks gasman. and i hope the gasman is nice to the tahitians too because gas is almost $9 a gallon there. nuts…

after training hard, a good lunch is a must. i ate salted meat with luau leaves, lomi salmon, opihi, and a big bowl of poi. followed by a smoothie. i gained 8lbs in tahiti and another 5lbs today after lunch… but who cares because i’m a pretty happy guy. a happy guy with a big stomach….

check this out. ?part 2<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/b-I27PD_ylQ&hl=en&fs=1″></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/b-I27PD_ylQ&hl=en&fs=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

good morning. 7am on this windy chilly wednesday morning. waves looking small out on the north shore. don’t see anybody out anywhere. town is flat. i’m going to drive around and look for a little uncrowded wave to surf. have a nice day….

i get a lot of comments on my destination travel bag. i got this about 5 years ago and use it all the time. it’s like a mini surfboard coffin. so much things can fit in it, including my long dive fins. the only thing about this bag is that when i’m traveling, it’s so versatile that some people want to use it for a cooler, or even a fish bag. no freaking way…

these are some of the goodies i took to tahiti. after a long day diving, it goes good with a few hinano’s…

and last, i’ve been looking around the world for a jack daniel’s flask. looked all over in hawaii, in japan, in indonesia, in thailand, and in the philippines but never found one. so when toda-san and takami-san gave this present, i almost cried…. thanks so much….

and last, traveling to third world countries really wakes me up. to see some of the living conditions that some people have to endure. and the sad thing is it’s not all their fault. you can’t say, “hey, go work”, or hey “it’s your fault”. some countries governments just don’t give the poor people a chance. a lot of them are born this way, and die this way. it’s sad and there’s no end to the world homeless problem…. so if you have a roof under your head, appreciate it….