Foxy and I Shut Down the Ranch

In Molokai we stayed at the Lodge on Molokai Ranch. We got there Friday and as I poked my head in the bar for a second I heard someone call my name. I turned back expecting a devoted fan on vacation but sure enough it was Matt Fox of all people. He too was staying at the Ranch in their Beach Village. Sure we thought there was some chance that we'd end up staying at the same place if we ever visited Molokai because there aren't a lot of choices there. But we were pretty shocked to be there at the same time. In fact another member of our crew happened to be staying there as well. It was funny because the island was so small we'd run into each other the entire weekend. We'd be going up the hike and they'd be coming down. We'd be going into a parking lot as they were leaving. By the way at the Ranch instead of stop signs they have these:

Last week Thursday I found out from the guy on our crew that the Ranch was closing. By the time I was in hair and make-up Foxy told me the place had actually already closed. (Man! It only took minutes.) As it turns out the closing of the Ranch has something to do with the signs we saw EVERYWHERE that were against developing La-au Point. 

It just feels so weird knowing it's closed when we were just there. I mean what's going to happen to cats? We named them Dummy 

and Orngie. (He was orange.)

 And we would give them food off of our plates. Until some kid totally told on us to his parents. What a narc!

Forgotten Fruit

Upon arriving on Molokai we stopped in town for snacks to have during our stay. We bought this strange fruit on impulse at a natural food store. 

Here's what it looks like when you cut it in half. 

Inside the fruit is super sweet like the softest pear sprinkled with brown sugar.

 But the seeds were extremely hard. 

No clue what it was called. 

Not Phallic Rock

But I took a picture of it anyway.

It looked like it was part of a set. 

As Promised

This is Phallic Rock. 

It's supposed to make women fertile.

Hold on a second...

Manly Man Shows

Man do I love shows featuring men doing mean jobs. As I write this I'm watching Ax Men the latest in these shows where I see "green horns" that are a thousand time tougher than I'll ever be. (Thank goodness for showbiz.) One of the sickest loggers in this show is Jay Browning who lost his hand at the THUMB...

 and REFUSED TO CASH HIS WORKER'S COMP CHECKS.  

The show keeps threatening that someone is going to die or something. So in way it's like LOST.These men are fearless in the woods. The chop and cut with the sickest precision and they can walk across a fallen tree like it's nothing. 

I on the other hand am not so confident striding through the trees.

 

Yeah. Climbing up to take that picture was the easy part.

 

Not depicted was me crouching down on my hands and knees to get down. 

Deadliest Catch comes back in about two weeks. It's the original and still my favorite. I've already set my DVR to record the reruns that are going to be leading me up to the premiere. 

And man when is Ice Road Truckers coming back?!

The Least Favorite Bread in Moloka'i

On our hike to "Phallic Rock" (I'll save that story for later) I met a local woman who told us we had to try two things before we left Moloka'i:

We had to drink a "Mocha Mama" (check)

And try Moloka'i Bread.  

Moloka'i Bread I believed refered to the sweet bread from Kanemitsu's Bakery. 

(Later I heard about a thing they call "Molokai Hot Bread" which is also at the bakery and may have been what she meant.)

We drove to Kaunakakai and went into the bakery. There were tons of blue bags of bread on the counter. All of which had names on them. These were pre-orders. I got the feeling that coming here on Easter may have been a mistake. But what could we do? We were going home today. 

But I didn't know how heart-breaking it would be to be standing behind the person who got the LAST LOAF OF SWEET BREAD! 

Damn! 

I was in shock. 

I just had to leave. Getting anything other than the bread I had my heart set on would be "chasing." 

So we decided to drive as far away as we could. It would have been so much easier if they had run out an hour ago. Even fifteen minutes ago. But the lady in front of us? I started running through everything that slowed me down that day by just a minute. "Maybe if I didn't make that U-turn to park..." 

So we ended up driving all the way to Halawa Valley. Which was spectacular and got our minds off of things. 

Well what really got our minds off of it was fearing for our lives. The road to Halawa is quite precarious and becomes only one lane at the scariest parts. But then it was time to head back to the airport to make our flight. (Or so we thought, little did we know that our flight was going to be delayed for over an hour.) 

We passed through Kaunakakai one last time and we just HAD to try something from that bakery. So my girlfriend went in and bought the last bag of bread they had. 

This bag, it was sandwich rolls basically, was the last item in the whole bakery. The "lemon filled" in the Kanemitsu "donut box." And well...

Look I'm not going to review a bakery based on their hot dog buns. And now that I know they serve it hot at night, I guess I'm going have to plan another trip. 

Uh Boss? You're starting to scare me

Hey when did Disney get  into the produce business? I showed up at my grocery store to find Enchanted on the bags of apples and then the Toy Story bunch too. 

Is this really necessary? Does the mouse need his hand in EVERY pocket? 

"Coming soon from the corporation that brought you apples: Wall-E the story of a cute little robot who finds love. Don't miss the scene where he adorably eats an apple." 

Weekend in Moloka'i

Spent the last weekend relaxing in Moloka'i. I expect like Kauai it will be a great source for blogging. 

Saw many things including this apple crisp shaped like the island. 

Say goodbye to the old me.

Five years ago I rolled out of the bed and went to the DMV to renew my driver's license. I took the test, paid a fee and then they sent me to the line where you get your picture taken. 

Oops! I forgot about that part. And there I was in the shirt I slept in the night before and BIB OVERALLS. Thus the smile: 

But the last time I was in LA I finally renewed and I got to take a fresh new picture. Tah-dah!

I'm just kidding this is me at my root canal last week. 

See about a month ago I cracked a tooth on a piece of unpopped popcorn. So I made an appointment with a dentist. I went in thinking that I'd get my tooth fixed. This was not the case. I ended up going in for just a "consultation" where they determined that my tooth was indeed cracked and would have to be fixed. Which we then schedule for the following week. 

Then I decided to have them work on my whole mouth. Which involved another appointment just for consultation. Geez! And THEN yet another appointment to start on the right half of my mouth. During that appointment it turned out I needed a root canal because I had "caricus exposure" whatever that is. So my dentist made an appointment with a root canal specialist. So I mentally prepared myself for a root canal and went to the appointment. 

Sure enough it was ANOTHER CONSULT. Every dental appointment I made this month turned out to be two appointments, each with their own co-pay of varying amounts. But I did get my root canal and I'm kind of suffering tonight for it. It really hit me last Sunday the post root canal pain that comes about three days later. Here's me immediately after with my numb mouth. I couldn't keep my lip in. 

Awwwww how sweet!

And it's not even Valentine's Day. (Hey did I mention I'm scared of spiders.)

Mighty Mo

I really own a lot of crap. And I keep buying more which drives my girlfriend pretty nuts. Whenever I visit a museum or attraction I feel I HAVE to buy something from the gift shop. I need to preserve the memory somehow. I never really know what I'm going to get I just wander around the store until the item presents itself. 

This is one of my favorites: 

It's a plush battleship. That's right "plush" and "battleship" together at last. It's essentially a DOLL of the U.S.S. Missouri also known as The Mighty Mo.

I love this toy mainly for it's randomness. My hope is for one day my kid will snuggle up to a battleship when he goes to sleep at night. That the battleship will somehow become his "binky" or "wubby" or his "My-Mo" perhaps. 

Mystery Revealed!

I've often walked by the Salt Pork in the super market. And I've looked at the package and wondered what the heck it was. The only time I had actually heard of salt pork is in that "chowder chowder" song from Carousel. (That's right the musical I ain't afraid to say it.)

Then I saw Jamie Oliver use it to add flavor to brussel sprouts so I bought some out of curiosity. What was it? What part of the pig does it come from? Well I discovered immediately that it was a hunk of pork belly. Pork belly is something I recognize because I hear it all of the time when they talk about stock trading. I always guessed it was a figure of speech used by traders. You know like bull markets. 

And pork bellies. 

And I knew it was Anthony Bourdain's favorite part of a pig... to eat. It might be yours too because this is apparently where Americans get their bacon. I find this a little bit shocking because the whole reason I know that salt pork comes from the pig's belly is because mine had a NIPPLE ON IT!

Now I don't know if you ever got an egg with blood in it. Or saw a claw in a chicken wing. Let me tell you this is a HUNDRED TIMES WORSE. 

We found it both disgusting and hilarious at the same time. So naturally, we took pictures with it.

By the way I can't agree with Bourdain.

 I much prefer snout.

 Just kidding. Enjoy your BLTs.

Happy St. Pat's

I (obviously) wanted to write this yesterday, but I fell asleep on the couch. Which consequently, is why I'm awake at 5am on a day off. Hope you all had a fun and safe day/weekend/both depending on when you celebrated. And I hope you broke out the Pogues and Waterboys cds or MP3s to give them another spin. I had me the standard St. Patrick's Day lunch:

I discovered something fishy by the way. See this bottle of Guinness Extra Stout? 

Notice that on the neck it says, "Imported?" Now notice along the bottom of the label it says, "St. James Gate Dublin?" That's in Ireland right? So we're supposed to assume this came from Ireland. But if you read the fine print, you'll discover that it's actually imported from CANADA. 

They aren't making any claims that are untrue. It is imported. And they can really put any place names on the label. There are no words like "from" on the front so no one is technically lying here.

Not only that but I also discovered my "picante sauce" came from New York City. NEW YORK!

Yikes!

I have played a few video games in my day. And I do enjoy the scary ones. But nothing in "The Suffering" or "Doom III" has scared me more than Hurley from "Via Domus."

The best part was running into the engine and it blowing up. (But it's a shame it didn't suck me in before it exploded.)

My "patch"

Well, I guess I could always comb it over.

(Also by the way, I gave up on the foot pads. Haven't worn one in weeks.)

Laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes

I should really grow up.

http://www.smellypoop.com/facts_about_poop.php

Look at this

See how comfortable she looks? You would never guess that she pooped on this blanket not two months ago.

Bugs

Just returned from a short trip to the mainland. And as we were coming into the house a GIANT moth flew in. 

I was feeling very "Dom" so I photographed it while my girlfriend was screaming for me to kill it. This last shot was just so you could see how Mothra it was. By "was" doesn't mean I killed it. I actually lured it out of the house with a flashlight. 

Then the next morning saw one of these. It's kinda like an earwig without the pincers. I have no idea what this bug is. But man he makes my finger look HUGE!