IMR: Entries: 2001: August: 12 — Sunday, August 12, 2001

Ticket to Ride In nine hours, I'll be fussing with a silly white tassel.   Lunch with Tony and friends on Thursday at 8 1/2. Rikard heads off to South America, then Thunderbird. Cathy Williams, Yale student and Tori Amos fan. Amy Boatright digs Pink Floyd and "scruffy" guys. Grandma joins us on a Katie pickup run. A Sunday afternoon at the Mililani Waena playground. Katie gets the whole place all to herself. The new camera! Testing with my office view... ...zoomed in by a factor of ten... ...and then digitally fudged to twenty. Costumes! Jen spends her birthday cash on Katie. Of course, she's never leaving the house in this. At Ala Moana, the new camera earns its keep. I graduate today, at least ceremonially. (Christy warns me to not stop rubbing my rabbit's foot until I actually have the slip of paper in my grubby little hands.) I don't think I'm nervous, but then again, I can't sleep. Instead I'm up watching a hairy, kind of sad-looking Al Gore on CNN. Friends, family and coworkers are humoring me, some planning to show up at the arena, some planning to show up at lunch, and a brave few expecting to be at both. Just now — feeling positively silly — I tried on the funny hat and the robe. Now I know I need to practice more with the former, as I can't keep it straight on my huge head, and the latter should have been laundered — it's scratchy as heck. But I know which loading dock to report to and when, and I've filled out my little name pronunciation card. I hope a local soul is at the mic for my Hawaiian name's sake. Nine years and several thousands of dollars (a good percentage going to the UH parking office) have come down to this: indicating my skin color so The Picture Man of Hawai`i can identify me and mail me a pitch to buy 8-by-10 glossy photos of me shaking (presumably) UH President Evan Dobelle's hand. (Which I've already done twice, actually. He visited our office a couple of weeks ago. My boss told him I was graduating, and he asked my boss, "You giving him a raise?" I like him.) I have to say, though, that apart from getting a new line to add to my resumé, the biggest thrill has come from random surveys, forms, and product registration cards. Finally I can check "Completed College," instead of "Some College" or even worse, simply "High School." With the wife and the child under age 13, I'm now a full-fledged demographic data point. Yay! Well, I'd also like to be able to check the household income box that says, "$100,000 or more," but I'll take what I can get. On Thursday, coworker Steve came down to my office, gripped my by the shoulder, and said, "So, what, cuz, you going Hong Kong?" It was phrased like a question, but probably wasn't, exactly. So... I'm going Hong Kong. In a couple of weeks. Steve and my boss are attending a special administrative meeting there, and I'm going along for support (probably PowerPoint, photocopies and podium placement). Slightly short notice, true. Jen was a bit non-plussed, especially given the fact that Katie's preschool shuts down for that same week. (Mom, fortunately, will again rescue us in the KatieCare™ department.) But, it's an intriguing and somewhat encouraging development. I can't suck that bad if I'm worth roundtrip international airfare. Of course, I might've been picked 'cause no one else wanted to go, but I just won't think about that. I loved Hong Kong, and just seeing the skyline again will make the jetlag worthwhile. I might even get to visit Sharon, one of our office's more far-flung survivors. Also on Thursday, I was able to hook up with Tony and Rikard for a long-planned but oft-delayed lunch. Tony was finishing up his legal internship at a local law firm, and Rikard — after a year on the recruiting staff of Hawaii Pacific University — was heading off to Thunderbird to get his international MBA. We'd been working downtown all summer, but it was only the week before Rikard was leaving town that we managed to get together. Joining us were two of Tony's fellow interns, Cathy Williams and Amy Boatright. We went to a hole-in-the-wall Italian place on Bishop Street called "8 1/2," where we were capably served by a young man who was no older than ten. We talked ourselves breathless. Altogether, our conversation topics ranged from Ivy League university budgets to Hawaii's famed goverment corruption to the to the pain of wearing pantyhose. It was nice to be in the company of industrious folks with big plans. Lobbying in D.C., traveling to South America, changing the world and collecting a fair chunk of change — I expect them all to do well. More and more these days, I find myself content to enjoy the rush of ambition vicariously. Either I've found modest enlightenment, or I've gotten prematurely old and lazy. Katie came down with a stomach flu this week. At first I thought it was my cooking, but her school and her doctor reported something was going around. In the middle of the night — early Thursday morning — she threw up. Several times. While of course Jen and I were distressed, I was also impressed. Before the sun came up, Katie had already learned to recognize when trouble was coming, and could wobble over to the bathroom early enough to spare our carpet and bedsheets. She was a serious trooper — neither Jen nor I can keep things that together when our stomachs revolt. Jen took a sick day to take care of her. Yesterday it was my turn to stay home, although I also took her to the doctor. Nothing serious, doc said, so go with the usual. A diet of bread and crackers, flat 7-Up and water, and no dairy products. (Withholding ice cream was tough.) Although we prematurely declared her well on Thursday — taking her out to Zippy's only to have her "return" the first sips of water she'd taken, much to Jen's chagrin — I think she finally beat it. She ate well today, and was again her normal, laughing, running, chattering self. And from the experience, she has a new sympathy card to play. "I think I'm sick, my tummy hurts," she says. "Medicine will make it all better." Then, of course, she asks for the ice cream. My new camera arrived on Monday, though given the above I haven't had much time to really play with it. First impressions? Damn it's big. It's design isn't exactly subtle. (Especially compared to my little Eyemodule, with which it now makes a nice balance.) But it feels like a serious camera... definitely one that's a bit beyond my ability to fully exploit it, for now. It can use standard 49mm lenses and filters, and features manual this and custom that — to do what I need to do, though, I skip most of the options on the crowded control menu. (I did play with aperture and depth-of-field, though, netting this great shot.) It uses SmartMedia cards instead of CompactFlash, which will take some getting used to (they seem so flimsy), and I don't like the default JPEG settings — a little too compressed, to the point where Eyemodule image file sizes are larger! Easier on my storage quota, perhaps, but at least I can see the difference in image quality. But I look forward to growing into it, and even at its idiot-proof settings, it's impressive. It's key selling point is the zoom lens, and the image stabilization gyros, which are too much fun for words. It also does QuickTime movies with sound. At 2.2 megapixels — the same as my old Casio — it won't give me huge, sharp and shiny prints, but its brings me a comfortable margin of overkill when it comes to the web. To keep this camera from walking away, I asked the folks at Francis Camera for advice, and they recommended an ugly bag (check) and engraving. I went to the engraving shop in Sears, as they suggested, where I was told it would cost $50 to set up, plus an additional charge per letter. The guy there also acted as if he'd never seen a digital camera before, his claim to fame being a giant mug he made for Governor Cayetano. So I went into the tool department and bought a little engraver of my own for $20. And after tagging my new camera, I tagged just about every other piece of electronics in my home. I took a gamble and figured I'd have my e-mail address longer than my phone number. I hope I'll never have to put that to the test.

Comments So what, brah... what model camera you wen' get, li'dat?!? I like know!!! —Lani (August 12, 2001 8:05 AM) Prematurely old and lazy is good. Welcome to the club. I am the resident Old Maid, and I'm only Jen's age. —NemesisVex (August 12, 2001 9:00 AM) Good to hear that your shutter finger is once again clicking. At The Sports Authority register line a couple of days ago, I found some labels made by a company called StuffBak. They act as an intermediary between finders and owners. You also might want to check 'em out: www.stuffbak.com. —Keith (August 12, 2001 5:46 PM) E kala mai! Comments have been disabled due to overwhelming abuse by spammers. Please click through to any of the video hosting services linked above to leave a public response, or feel free to send an e-mail. Mahalo! < August 04 · August · August 13 > © 1997-2008 Ryan Kawailani Ozawa · E-Mail: imr@lightfantastic.org · Created: 13 November 1997 · Last Modified: 14 January 2008