It's the boy's tenth birthday tomorrow! They gave me their last nine year old hugs and kisses tonight...

Tomorrow they're having a sleep over with some friends as well as a food fight party in the front yard. I think we're doing jello and whipped cream, and then we'll hose them off afterward. Should be fun!

N wrote a poem tonight:

9 YEAR OLD

A 9 YEAR OLD IS SMART AND SiLLY,
FUN AND ON THE RUN.
8s ARE O.K. BUT 9s ARE GREAT!!
10 WiLL BE FUN, BUT 9 is...
FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


H is performing at the Up Front Theatre tonight, as well as doing sound in the tech booth for a different show there. She's also going to be MCing three of the movies in the Cult Film Series for the Traveling Pickford Show in the beer garden at Boundary Bay. She's opening for Army of Darkness, Life of Brian, and Thelm and Louise.

I've been rehearsing with Dawn in order to play some music for a friend's wedding. Dawn plays the cello, and I'm playing guitar. We're going to be playing while the bride and groom walk up the aisle, as well as immediately after the ceremony. The music is coming together well.

I've got a couple of new blogs up, check them out:

Getting In the Mood With Good Food

Grassroots Librarian

Usabiliblog

Fund the Child: A 100% Solution - this looks like a good idea.

From The Progress Report

"EDUCATION -- TACKLING FUNDING DISPARITIES IN AMERICA'S SCHOOLS:

A new Thomas B. Fordham Institute report tackles one of the "most pressing problems in American education": the funding disparity between schools in rich and poor districts. The Education Trust reports that "36 states have a funding gap between high poverty and low poverty districts that averages almost $900 per student." Faced with current policies that "consistently fail to solve problems," the report -- which has drawn support from a bipartisan group of experts and former government officials -- concludes that the "entire financing system needs to be modernized if the problems of inequity and antiquity are to be solved." It proposes a plan for government at all levels to allocate funds to schools on a "per-student basis" according to each student's needs, and not by staffing levels or special program needs or "political jockeying," as is currently done. The funding would follow students to whichever public school they choose to attend. The proposal has received support from 75 signatories, including former Education Secretary Rod Paige and American Progress President and CEO John D. Podesta and Director of Education Policy Cynthia Brown. Sign up here to add your name to the solution."

It's my birthday today, but it didn't start off so well last night. When I got home it was to find that the bathroom sink was clogged up, and after taking apart various pipes under the sink and in the basement it still was plugged up. I finally had to resort to Drano, which fixed the problem.

H and the kids made me breakfast in bed this morning, which was really nice. I also slept in. Then I went to the cafe and had some coffee and read for about an hour. When I got home it was to find the screen door hanging off it's top hinge, so, another thing to fix. But the cordless drill wasn't recharged, so now I have to wait for that...

I was invited to the first round of interviews for the librarian position! It'll be a phone interview, which will be sort of weird as I will probably be in the same building as the interviewers when it's happening, but I understand the reasons. It's important to make the process consistent and equitable between all the candidates, and for all I know the rest of them are from out of town or state. Still, I'm pleased to have made it this far and am looking forward to the next step.

Rode home with N today from the Aikido dojo. It was slow going, about 35 minutes (it usually takes me about 12-15 minutes to get home from WWU), but it was nice to spend extra time with N.

And it was a little nerve-wracking, especially at intersections. N stayed on the sidewalk while I rode beside him on the street. It was only awkward when there was a person or something else in his way on the sidewalk. N also talked to me pretty much the whole way, which was very endearing.

H, M & S all rode to the dojo w/ N, then went to the library and rode home before us.

We're slowly working on the various stop-action episodes for N&M's movie.

S is back! It was great to see her - she was so happy - and it was great to see N&M happy to see her too.

I'm glad she's home again...

I've been working with the boys on several digital shorts that they made, mostly stop-action. We're going to author them onto a DVD later this week. They're very creative.

S has been down visiting her grandparents, and I've really been missing her, but she's coming home tomorrow!

I proposed a podcast tour of the library to the Outreach Committee - looks like it's going to happen! And Paul and I are finishing up another paper, this one based on our LOEX presentation. It should be done by the end of this week.

Meanwhile I'm trying to be patient while waiting to hear back about the librarian position I've applied for at WWU.

Oh yeah, the other night a skunk got into our chicken yard and scared a couple of the chickens right out over the fence, but no one was hurt and all is well now. Luckily the skunk didn't spray anything...

H finished her last classes of KAP this week, so now money will become tighter than ever. Time to put the boat onto Craigslist.

The Kona airport waiting area near the gates is open on all four sides, but covered on top for when it rains. The planes pull up right outside the gates and are very loud when they arrive and leave. It’s nice to be outside while waiting for your plane, especially in such a humid, hot environment, but it’s not so nice to sit here watching a DVD on my laptop and having to smell the exhaust of jet fuel. Kinda ruins the tropical vibe for me.

On Saturday night Paul and I walked around the neighborhood we’re staying in for about four square blocks. We walked in the dark, and for at least half the walk it was pouring a hard, warm rain. The houses we saw were all beautiful, each with a view of the ocean, all two or three stories high, many with wide, full sized verandas running across their second floor. Paul thinks the average price for houses around there is around 600 grand. I’m sure many were worth more than that.

I also heard some strange frogs for the first time. They sounded like birds, a high, whistling, whooping, chirping sound. I didn’t even identify them as frogs – I had to ask Paul. They didn’t sound the way I’ve come to think of frogs as sounding. I wish I could have seen what they looked like. Paul says that there are many different kinds of frogs around here.

We drove up to Volcanoes National Park today and drove around the huge Kilauea caldera and the Kilauea Iki crater. Hot steam wafted up from many vents. It looks like the surface of Mars around there. We also went to the Place of Refuge, a native Hawaiian site, and saw some tikis and green sea turtles.

We stopped at the southernmost bar in the U.S., “Shakas”, and had dinner on the way back from Black Sand Beach – a place I didn’t want to leave.

I arrived back home today, very tired after a mostly sleepless, redeye flight. I'm in zombie mode, but it's been great to see the family again. I'd sure like to get us all over to Hawaii...

Aloha! I was up at 6:30 this morning, listening to the raucous calls of the myriad birds here. It's sunny with blue skies today. Paul and I are planning on driving up to the volcano before having to head out.

Yesterday a young family with two children (3 and 18 months old) arrived to spend the night in the studio that's also available here. They're moving into the two room unit Paul and I have been using today. They've moved to Hawaii, but don't have a place to live or a job here yet! I hope it all works out OK for them.

Have I mentioned the garden here? Tom grows orchids, and has about a hundred of them nestled under a sunshade. There are also mango and banana trees, as well as tomato and kale. It sure would be cool to have our own mango and banana tree. I think you could grow just about anything here, and the season is pretty much yearlong.

Looks like I'll have a slightly shorter flight back, with less layovers, just a two hour one in Seattle. I sure hope I can sleep on the plane - I don't want to be a total zombie when I get home.

The ceviche I made turned out really great - I'll have to make more when I get back to Bellingham.

Hawaii is great - I want to come back with all of you! I think you'd really love it. It's hot and sunny, but I could get used to it, and just stay in the shade during the hottest part of the day. You guys would probably be out playing in it all the time!

I haven't gone surfing or seen a volcano, but maybe we'll drive up to the volcano today after the conference. After yesterdays conference we drove up to the North tip of the island, a place Paul's not been too, called Pololu Valley Lookout. It was amazingly beautiful. We walked down a half mile, very steep trail to a black sand beach. The waves were crashing in on a stiff offshore breeze. I hung out on the big volcanic rocks around the high-tide line while Paul jumped into the water. There were three local kids playing in the waves on boogie boards. On the way back I ran up about half the trail, but it was so hot that was all I could manage.

On the drive back we saw this huge, temple-like rock formation (there are hand-made rock walls all over the island). We stopped to check it out and ended up walking down to it. It was a Heiau. I took some pictures of it and the valley. We hung out there and watched to sun set into the ocean, which happens very fast. After sunset it also gets dark really fast, since we're near the equator and there are no mountains to prolong the event. Then we stopped at a local place and had some food, my first purchase of the day, some grilled Ono fish.

Lots of geckos around our kitchen, and Paul said he saw some small chameleons in the garden. I'm going to go look for them after sending this, then we're off to another day at the conference. Oh yeah, we saw this big, redheaded bird yesterday that startled both of us. It looked kinda like a giant kingfisher or a kookabura, but we're not sure what it was.

(Originally written on Thursday June 8th) I'll be able to better tell you about Hawaii after today I think - when I got in last night it was dark, so all I could see were some palm trees blowing in the wind.

Actually, my first stop in Hawaii was in Maui, where I had to wait for 2 hours for my next flight to Kona. There was nowhere to go, so I just stood around on an outside balcony (unfortunately this was also where all the smokers were, but I didn't feel like sitting down after doing so for 5 hours on the flight - my butt hurt!). From the balcony (it was still daylight) I was able to see these two huge, verdant peaks in the distance, not smooth like the mountains we're used to seeing, but furrowed in levels up their sides, as if they had been made in uneven layers. Many houses were nestled right up near the bottom of them. A massive, dark cloud hung between the two peaks and stretched out over them, with the sun hidden behind it and sometimes poking through. It was a beautiful scene.

The birds here are incredible! They woke me up at 6:00 this morning (I went to bed at 10:30, which was actually 1:30 in the morning for me, as Hawaii is 3 hours behind Bellingham time). I keep hearing bird calls I've never heard before - I wish I'd remembered to bring my minidisc recorder. I just saw two small sparrow-like birds hopping about in our kitchen (which is located outside), but the birds had brownish wings, pure white breasts, and startlingly red heads, red-cowled cardinals. Yesterday I saw a bird that reminded me of a starling in size, shape and song, but when it flew off had brilliant white patches on the tops of its wings. I've since found out that it was a Myna.

Paul says that the area we're in is fairly desolate, dominated by rocky lava fields where not a lot of vegetation lives. But the Hawaiian islands possess multiple climate zones, little ecological niches that vary as you move up and down in altitude. You can go from a place that gets over 100 inches of rainfall a year to one that gets 4 inches a year, but they're less than an hour apart. I'll let you know what else I see.

Yesterday was a bit of a grind - it took about 12 hours to get here, including 5 hours of layovers. Upon stepping out of the plane I was struck by the heat and humidity. It was like being in the bathroom after someone has taken a long, hot shower. But this morning is cool, for now. The conference starts today. I'll let you know how that goes too.

Oh yeah, where we're staying turns out to not actually be a condo, but the basement of a house (Tom and Gidgit are the owners). They have several properties and rent them out to travelers. The basement is really like a separate house itself. Paul and I each have our own room and bathroom, and the kitchen is outside on a covered patio.

OK, I'm going to have some tea and get ready for the day.

I have been very remiss in posting to this blog for the last few months. Ever since graduating from the iSchool I have been scrambling to get a job as a librarian, so far without success. I've applied to the community college (didn't even get an interview - a returning employee got the job), and am currently in the application process at WWU. Money is getting tight as my fellowship money runs out, and pretty soon I'll have to start paying back those student loans. But I try not to think about it too much.

Paul and I have another article out this month in Searcher, "A Failure to Communicate: Politics, Scams, and Information Flow During Hurricane Katrina". It made the cover and can be read online here.

I'm leaving for Hawaii tomorrow to present with Paul at the LOEX of the West conference "Information Literacy for a Lifetime". Our presentation is called "Letting the Grass Grow: Grassroots Information Blogs and Wikis". I'm excited and nervous about it, but not looking forward to the long plane ride and missing my family.

What else? I rode my bike in the Ski to Sea with Jittery Dog VII - a tough ride with lots of major muscle cramping, but I was able to average 20mph over the 36 miles, and I didn't throw up this year!

H's KAP performances went well, though she didn't make as much $$ as she wanted to - but her business is still fairly new.

The kids are all growing and changing every day, and I really love hanging out with them. They're great people.

OK, maybe I can manage to post here more often...