And also because I just completely forgot that my last journal entry was a "will post details soon" filler entry.
>.>
<.<
ahem
So, ten day vacation to Maui. Was fantastic. Way too lazy to write it all up now, not that I remember details so I'll just copy/paste from my LJ.

We stayed on Maui the whole ten days and did just about everything there is to do there. That's an exaggeration since we didn't rent those ATVs and explore the desert mountain area and we didn't try surfing. But other than that... God, now I have to remember shit...We dove once, surprisingly, but it was an amazing dive. We saw like, everything.

We also took this snorkel trip thingy in which we went on these air filled pontoon boats to the...southern tip, I think and saw the most recent lava flows. And by recent, I mean 1790 was the latest and another one like, hundreds of years earlier and neither of them had much of ANY vegetation yet. By the way, the coolest part of Hawai'i are the lava flows. Volcanoes are the shit, yo. Anyway, we saw huge volcano caves and bruised our thighs flying all over the boat in the rough ocean waves going 30MPH which doesn't seem like much but in a boat, especially a tiny one, it is. A tiny one with no actual seats, by the way. Or real hand holds, etc. We saw a HUGE pod of spinner dolphins which were pretty much amazing. They played with us for a bit, swimming off the bow as we went. Then we snorkeled at a place called "Turtle Town" at which we saw a shit ton of turtles, of course. I almost ran into one, actually which would have just royally sucked since it's Ten grand to touch one even accidentally. And if course they don't help being dead blind directly ahead of them. But they're not scared of us. The one I almost ran into stayed a foot away from me until he decided to go back under the ridge he came from. From Turtle Town we went to...oh, I don't remember the name of the island but it was a little crescent island not far from Maui that actually used to be part of Maui before erosion and is now a bird reserve/killer snorkel site. We snorkeled on the outer side which our captain said was the best snorkeling ever but I was more or less unimpressed. And by that time fucking freezing. And I was in a nice, warm dive shirt. Anyway, we did see some pretty cool schools of fish there and a shark like, sixty feet below us. The shark spotting scared about half the other people back to the boat. They're all wimps. After snorkeling we went around the island where we saw a small pod of bottle nose dolphins which were having fun jumping out of the water and being just generally dolphin like and adorable and awesome. It was a really cool snorkel trip. I'd do it again.

This is in no particular order, by the way. I'm writing it as I remember it. We drove to a place called Io Valley one day and that was a gorgeous place. Everything on the whole island, especially the drive to Hana would have been better had we been there during the wet season when all the waterfalls were, uh, falling, but it was still beautiful. we also just drove up and down the coast looking for good beaches and snorkel spots since we have our own snorkel gear. OH! I got stung by an invisible jellyfish the first day and that really sucked. But only for like, fifteen minutes.

I finally talked my parents into trying the volcano sunrise one morning when it looked like clear skies. Which meant I got up at like, 4am to go out and try to see if the black sky had any clouds or not. I decided it didn't and we drove up the ten thousand foot mountain. Largest shield volcano in the world. Haleakala was pretty awesome. Unfortunately, Hawai'i being Hawai'i and all tropical and shit, we didn't pack warm clothes and 10k feet at 5am is really cold. So we were freezing but the sunrise was beautiful. Afterwords my dad took a nap in the car as Mom and I attempted to climb down the "crater" It's not really a crater anymore. The crater eroded away and now all you get is a basin with cinder cones. The cinder cones get craters though. Anyway, we got tired and were terrified of the thought of climbing back out so we turned around at...2/3rds down, I think. We were so close to the first cinder cone too!!! I wish we'd kept going but jeez it took us forever to climb back up. Low oxygen levels and strenuous activities don't mix, yo. I love volcanoes. It was awesome.

Another day we drove to Hana! Hana is on the other side of this volcano of theirs. It's like, 53 miles from Kahului or something and it takes 2-4 hours to get there depending on how many stops you make along the way. There were 50-some ONE LANE bridges and it was the curviest thing since the circle. That road puts to shame ANY other coastal highway. It was amazing though. So gorgeous. Rain forest after rain forest after bamboo forest after waterfall after rain forest. An amazing drive. I swam in a waterfall pool. It was cold. But awesome. There are a lot of stray kitties on Maui. Also chickens. I have to admit, crowing is the last sound I expect to hear coming from a rain forest. It was amusing though. Unfortunately the road was closed towards the end before we could get to the really good stuff so we turned around and I was bitten by a horse. >.< Bad luck with animals on this trip.

One day we drove to the southern end of the island to the 1790 A'a lava flow. It was cool and jeez that kind of lava is NOT something you want to walk barefoot on. I had flip flops. They weren't TOO much better but it was still exciting. So much desolate land, yet still so pretty and amazing. Also amazing is is how much faith in humanity I lost on this trip. I can't believe what litterbugs we are!! Also how entitled and stupid tourists are. I try not to be a tourist when I'm a tourist. There was so much variety on this island. Rain forests, bamboo forests, water falls, CACTI! DESERTS! Mountains, valleys, cities, villages, completely dry and desolate land and places on the mountain that are almost perpetually in fog and rain.

The sun was very hot. I've never been somewhere where twenty minutes in the sun and I NEED to cool off. Thank god for that conveniently place ocean, yo. I feel like I'm forgetting stuff. I probably am. Oh well. It was an amazing trip and well worth the DAY LONG plane trip.


Summer was boring, cold and disappointing. Big surprise there. MN sucks. It's over now though as of, like, yesterday. We were at least reaching 70ish daily but now it's like fall came and beat summer up and took its lunch money. Frost on the car this morning. Thank god I'm not in Duluth. Speaking of, I'm not in Duluth this year. I'm living at home and attending a local college to fix my GPA for cheap. Exceedingly cheap compared to the relatively cheap UMD. But it's all out of my pocket because I'm a stupid fuck up and got a few Fs.

I work at Radioshack. Which is mostly nice. I really prefer it to working in a restaurant. But it's corperate America and so there's all these quotas and shit and it's performance based pay and there's a bunch of pressure to sell cell phones and "big ticket items". Way too much pressure for minimum wage + performance based commission which hardly anyone at the Stillwater store ever reaches because we just don't get enough business.

Also, I thoroughly enjoy having a full time job. Even though I owe my mother $2500 or so, she's not a loan shark so she'll let me have a life while I pay her back. Which is good because I need new contacts. And I need to buy christmas presents and shit. And I need to save up for my uber exciting road trip to Boston in the summer. Not to mention the wedding presents and bachelorette parties presents that go along with that road trip....this will kill my checkings account but it WILL BE WORTH IT!

Uhhhh, I finally have texting! That's exciting given NONE OF MY FRIENDS ANSWER THEIR DAMN PHONES. >.<

My cat of 18 years, Mike, died while I was doing inventory at work...that was fun to come home to....at 1am. Mom waited up to tell me though which was nice of her but not REALLY an option since I would have just found him somewhere if she hadn't waited up. Left him in the box in the living room I would have looked in the box. Put him in the garage, well, I go in the garage when I get home every night anyway to check on my five chickens (new additions to the family, we want a constant supply of eggs.). Ummmm, oh
really sad. Good times. One wee later, there are two kittens int he alley behind radioshack.

Apparently lazy, cheap jack asses dump their animals at petco which is nearby only petco doesn't take cats...So I took them home to give to the humain society. Of course, it costs money to drop off animals. And they don't take strays so we looked into animal control which isn't a no-kill shelter and I said hell no to that so I talked Mom and Dad into letting me keep them so now I have two kittens I named Bailey (fierce huntress) and Chaska (push-over people cat). And now Harry hates me. They're not getting along at all. Also, kittens hate the dog and are scared of my rooster. Also, they like to climb trees then get scared when the dog comes around even though they're thirty feet up and they fall. AND DANA HAS A HEART ATTACK.

Even though one of them took a huge shit pie on my beautiful new rug, I think I'm not mad at them anymore. Mostly because Bailey's been adorable in the morning.

Oh, there's probably more to say but who's going to read a journal this long anyway so why add more?