Things did not go especially well for me today.

It all started this morning when I woke up and realized that I had packed my reading glasses instead of my glasses glasses for my trip to Spokane. Blind as a bat, I stumbled to my suitcase for a fresh pair of disposable contact lenses only to find... nothing.

My worst travel nightmare had just come true.

I was sure I had packed a bunch of lenses, but they were nowhere to be found. This meant I was, for all intents and purposes, blind. I would be unable to drive. Unable to work. Unable to do much of anything. About all I could do was call my office back home and have some lenses FedExed to me, then sit in my hotel for another day waiting for them to arrive.

Disaster.

How in the hell could this have happened? I travel professionally! I am way past this kind of amateurish bullshit!

Except I have been working day and night for the past two weeks and am completely exhausted both mentally and physically. Something eventually had to give and, unfortunately, this was it.

So what do I do now?

The only thing I could do... completely disassemble all my possessions. Unpack every last item from every last piece of everything I had. Sometimes I stick a spare lens somewhere "just in case," and now was the time to hope against hope that a stray contact would somehow be found. And it was. At the bottom of my suitcase rattling around with an old camera memory card.

Half-blind would have to be good enough.

But luck favors the foolish, and I managed to find another stray lens tucked in my notebook pocket after I got to work.

So it's all good, right?

Of course not. Work was extended another day. And while I had extra clothes packed "just in case"... I was fresh out of lenses. Which meant I had to go buy a lens case and some saline so I could re-use my only pair. All I can hope is that I don't accidentally drop one down the sink or something.

But it wasn't all bad news today. I did get to have the best pizza on planet earth...

That just about makes up for everything.

Even when the power adapter for my laptop blew out.

The flight from Chicago last night was relatively uneventful. My connecting flight out of Minneapolis had some kind of seat-map fiasco that caused a bunch of drama, but I was oblivious to it all because I was focused on playing Ticket to Ride and listening to Foster the People's new album, Torches.

The drive home over the mountains this morning, however, was a drama-fest of epic proportions. There was driving rain, road construction, car accidents, traffic jams, and never-ending dumbassery that lasted three hours and fifteen minutes. A full hour longer than usual.

Now that it's all over, I just want to sleep.

And ride a unicorn.

When you walk through downtown Chicago, there's yellow banners on the streetlights saying "GODO GOOD" along with giant banners on buildings... and I even saw a metal "GODO GOOD" sculpture in a sidewalk planter. It's all part of an urban art installation that's a collaboration between artist Kay Rosen, the Chicago Loop Alliance, and the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago...

What's a "Gohdoh?" OH... that's supposed to be GO DO!

An unfortunate font choice... all I see is GOOO GOOO!

As an art installation, I think it's kind of boring and obvious, but I do like the overall message behind it, which is encouraging Chicagoans to do 100,000 good deeds by summer (which you can read about at their website).

The only problem is that I'm a cynical bastard at heart. So every time I see all those banners, there's just one thought that goes through my head. How awesome would it be to hijack the installation to at least try to make things a little more interesting...

DERP DERP DERP!

It's just as fun as it sounds!

This would at least make people feel good.

Meh. I just think this sounds funny.

It's what he does.

Our country's only hope, really.

It's 2:30am and my brain is mooshy... if you can think of a better hijack with your fresh brain, feel free to leave it in the comments...

There's something profoundly sad about being in an amazing city like Chicago and having to be stuck indoors working all day long. Even though the weather outside was pretty crappy.

Though I did manage to escape for an hour so that I could have falafel for lunch at a place that Farnsworth recommended last night called BenjYehuda (which, as Mr. Shiny points out, is undoubtedly named after the famous Ben Yudea Street in Jerusalem). It was fantastic falafel to be sure... BUT, it was the greasy bag of super-crispy fries that made this a lunch to be reckoned with...

As I mentioned, the weather during my lunch hour was pretty crappy. Cold, windy, misty, and a little rainy all at the same time. This made for a miserable walk to the falafel shop from the L-stop, and an interesting conversation as I waited for the crosswalk signal to change...

STRANGER: Geez, man, where's your coat?
ME: Eh, I don't need a coat when I'm walking.
STRANGER: Well, you're stopped now! Are you crazy?
ME: Maybe. But what about that guy across the street? He's in a short-sleeve shirt.
STRANGER: Yeah, but he looks cold like he's supposed to. You don't. That's crazy.

No more crazy than any other pedestrian in Chicago, I'd argue.

Mostly because you have to be crazy to be a pedestrian in Chicago in the first place.

Yesterday on our way back from the candy show, the shuttle bus had to make a detour because a woman was laying in the middle of the street. Presumably because she had been hit by a car. I was not the least bit surprised after I was nearly killed while crossing the street five years ago... the drivers here can get pretty dangerous. I didn't see anything about it in the morning paper, so hopefully the woman was okay.

Anyway...

After work it was time for dinner at my favorite pizzaria in Chicago, PIZANO'S! They have a thin-and-crispy buttercrust pizza to die for. As usual, I ate too much, and am now a little bit miserable. Which is no fun when I've got another 4-5 hours of work to do.

Especially when I'd rather be going to the opening night premiere of The Hangover 2. Sure it looks like it's going to be more of the same, but The Hangover was one of my favorite comedies in a long time, so I'm okay with that.

Alas, back to work I go...

My day in pictures...

Yes. They are real. They are delicious.

"Hey Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today!"

So shark extreme I just can't stand it.

Of all the times to be a vegetarian...

Just don't put it in the microwave.

BODDINGTONS!!! (oblique Friends reference).

Not my photo. Not my inappropriate dessert.

As I was driving over the mountains to the airport, I got a call from Bad Robert asking if I was going to be around this weekend since he was planning on coming into town. "Nope, sorry, I'm off to Chicago today," I said. "Chicago?" Robert replied. "I hope you're not staying in any hotels while you're there!" Not able to figure out where he was going with this, I decided to just ask him. "Of course I'm staying at a hotel! Why shouldn't I stay in a hotel?" After an uncomfortably long pause, he said "Oh... nothin'... I just saw on the news where hotels are having all kinds of bed bug infestation problems."

So...

Any guesses as to what I've been thinking about as I type this from my hotel bed?

That's all I need... yet another excuse to not sleep.

I swear, I can FEEL the little bastards crawling all over me.

Help.

I flew out of Honolulu last night at 9:30pm and arrived back in The States at 6:30am this morning. I think I got a short nap in there somewhere, but most of my time was spent watching iTunes episodes of my favorite new television show... Happy Endings... even though I've already seen all of them a dozen times. The show is so good that I just can't help myself.

The lack of sleep wouldn't have been a big deal if I didn't have a three-hour drive home followed by a five hours of work. Alas, I did have a three-hour drive home followed by five hours of work, which meant I spent most of my day being mostly-dead.

And, now that I am home and fully-dead, it's time to put the blog away and go to bed.

A second day of bullets for double damage!

Today's bullets will be fired from Part Three of my "Get to Know an Island" series: OAHU EDITION! Since yesterday was spent exploring the Leeward side of the island, today I decided to head East and take a look at the Windward region of the island...

   
• Nu'uanu Pali Lookout. I had just been here two years ago but, since it was along the way, I decided to stop again. This is actually a pretty gruesome place... it's where King Kamehameha the 1st and his army drove a bunch of their enemies off a cliff into this here valley...

It's a lot nicer when the weather is good, but I was still glad I stopped.

   
• Kailua Beach State Park. And here it is... the best beach I've seen on all of Oahu: Kailua Beach. It's absolutely stunning, and on-par with my favorite Maui beaches. The surf seems fairly mild, which is why a bunch of para-surfers and wind-surfers were out and about...

The sand is powder-fine and beautiful...

The park is in a residential area, which is kind of a nice surprise. The lack of hotels and resorts means that the beach isn't completely overrun like Waikiki. I'm guessing it's pretty crowded on the weekends, but on this Monday morning there wasn't a lot of people there. All I know is that if I wanted some beach-time when visiting Oahu, it would be Kailua and nearby Lanikai Beach all the way.

   
• Makapuʻu. Across from Oahu's "Sea Life Park" (where you can swim with dolphins and stuff), there's a strip of rocky beach that's a great place to look for crabs, fish, and other critters that call the place home. Typical of Hawaii weather, I was able to look North and see a rain storm moving in...

Then look South and see sunshine...

It was kind of nice to see blue skies, because it's been on-again-off-again raining my entire trip.

   
• Halona Blowhole. And so now I've finally seen a blowhole. This is a geological formation where a sea cave has an opening above it. When waves flood the cave, water is blown out of the hole. Hence the name...

The volume of water that can shoot up is huge and makes a big impression in person. But in photos it's the smaller plumes that look more interesting.

   
• Lanai Lookout. I'm guessing the reason that this place is called "Lanai Lookout" is because you can see the island of Lanai from here. This seems odd, as I would expect that Molokai would be in the way... but whatever. I didn't see anything. Except interesting land formations and some pigeons chilling out and watching the waves...

   
• Hanauma Bay. This is the only place other than Pearl Harbor and Nu'uanu Pali that I've been to in Oahu outside of Honolulu/Waikiki on one of my previous trips. If you like to snorkel, this is an amazing place to do it...

Unfortunately the bay has been ravaged by the masses of tourists who flock here. I'm surprised that the damage hasn't ruined the place completely, but there's still an abundance of marine life to be found. Park rangers are trying their best to educate people about how to minimize their impact, but the thousands of people who show up every day (except Tuesday) do take their toll. I worry that eventually they'll have to close down popular places like this in order to let nature recover a bit, but I suppose that's better than the alternative.

   
• Diamond Head State Park. This is a very nice park, but parking is crazy. Even on a Monday afternoon. Cars are piled everywhere, so eventually I just waited for somebody to leave and got a spot next to the Amelia Earhart memorial that's there...

A lot of surfing going on...

And here's the lighthouse I was looking down upon from the top of Diamond Head two days ago...

   
• Puka! Since I had a late 9:00pm flight, there was time for one last dinner in Waikiki. Despite having eaten there three times already, I could think of only one place I wanted to go... PUKA DOG!!

Despite the $7 price tag, it remains my favorite meal on the island. Soooo good and a fitting finale to my trip.

   
Annnnnd... that's it for my trip to Hawaii. I am really glad I took the time to explore Oahu and see some of the many great things the island has to offer. Unfortunately, one thing it doesn't offer is free wi-fi at Honolulu International Airport, so I'm afraid this entry won't be posted until I get home. Stupid airport.

Hope all the mothers out there had a great Mother's Day.

Today's bullets will be fired from Part Two of my "Get to Know an Island" series: OAHU EDITION! Since yesterday was spent exploring the North Shore and Central Valley, today I decided to head West and take a look at the Leeward region of the island...

   
• End of the Road. Rather than having to continuously cross back and forth across Highway 93, I decided to head all the way to the end of the road, then stop at all the spots I wanted to see on the way back. And when I say "end of the road," I mean that literally. The pavement stops and, though a dirt road with craters in it goes on around the point, it's pretty much inaccessible unless you've got a really tough 4-wheel drive rig (which I didn't)...

   
• How I Roll. And what rig DID I end up with? A KIA Soul. It's not a bad ride, per se, but it does have one horrible flaw that can make it a terrifying thing to drive. MASSIVE FUCKING BLIND SPOTS IN THE BACK CORNERS! So not exaggerating here...

Yes, you've got mirrors, but if you want to confirm that there's nobody sneaking up behind you in your mirror's blind-spot, you can't. I guess those giant hamsters that they use to advertise the Soul on television must drive using The Force or something.

   
• Kaena Point State Park. Anyway... at the end of the road is Kaena Point State Park, which is actually a very nice place to visit. There's a beautiful aqua-colored tidal pool there...

And a pretty sweet beach...

   
• Kane'ana Cave. About two miles outside of the park, there's a giant cave you can wander into. When I visited, there was a hot dog stand across the street...

It's not very deep... but it is pretty darn big.

   
• Beach Culture. I stopped at a few different beaches along the West Coast of Oahu. Many of them were absolutely beautiful. As I understand it, the waves get pretty insane during the winter months, but things were fairly calm today...

   
• Pearl Harbor Historic Sites. On my way back to Waikiki, I decided to stop at Pearl Harbor to see the new visitor center there. When I was here last time, they were just starting construction, and I decided to make a donation. They ended up putting my money to good use, because the new center is just beautiful...

If you ever make it to Honolulu and have even a passing interest in history, this is a must-see.

   
• USS Bowfin. As I arrived around 4:00, there was only an hour until closing time. This meant there was no chance of visiting the USS Arizona Memorial... or the Missouri... or the film center. This didn't bother me, because I've already been through them more than a couple times (and with much better weather!). But I didn't want to leave without doing something, so I toured the USS Bowfin Sub Museum and Park. The submarine itself has been beautifully restored, and has a very cool steampunk look about it on the inside...

   
Annnnd... that was enough for today.

Except a stop at Ala Moana Center so I could visit their awesome food court and get me some falafel. As expected, it was totally delicious and worth the wait.

Honolulu is just a big city like most big cities except it has a really excellent location.

If you're into big cities then you really can't do much better in Hawaii than here, and I recommend it highly as a place to eat, shop, play, and (if you're lucky) work. The problem is that a big city is not really what people want to see when they visit beautiful Hawaii. Myself included. For this reason, I avoid Honolulu like the plague. I'd much, much rather spend my time just about anywhere except here. This usually means I end up on my favorite island, Maui, or taking side-trips to Kauai or The Big Island of Hawaii. I only come to Honolulu when work brings me here or I am changing planes or something.

Except...

For a very long time I had been treating the entire island of Oahu as if it were Honolulu.

All that changed one year when a colleague drove me to Oahu's East Shore for dinner and I was shocked to see that after you get outside of Honolulu, it's an entirely different world. Oahu is just as beautiful and amazing as the other islands... it just happens to have a big city on it.

So this trip I decided to not bail on Oahu the minute my work was over. Instead, I decided to stay here a few days and explore a bit.

And what better place to start than iconic Diamond Head?

It was a nice cool overcast day... perfect for hiking up Diamond Head!

These cool thistle-like things were everywhere.

Looking down at Honolulu from the top.

The websites I looked at for Diamond Head had me worried to hike it with my messed-up back, but it was actually a pretty easy hike. I rewarded myself with a bag of fresh-cut pineapple spears when I made it back down to the visitor center...

Yes, it was insanely delicious, just as you'd expect.

Almost as cool as Diamond Head itself is how you get into the crater through a tunnel bored into the side...

It reminds me of the Big-Foot alien's tunnel on The Six Million Dollar Man!

After that, it was time for fresh-n-hot malasadas at World-Famous Leonard's Bakery...

Kind of a Portuguese version of a doughnut... but without a hole.

After stuffing my face with malasadas and getting sugar all over my rental car, I was going to go find a comic book shop for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, but decided to consult Gowalla to see if there were any cool spots to visit. First on the list? Beautiful Byodo-In Temple...

The rainy weather actually made for a prettier visit with the fog in the mountains.

Then I decided to continue driving around Oahu's North Shore. Here I stopped at a number of different lookouts and beaches, with one of the more interesting being Chinaman's Hat Island...

The island is that blip on the right-hand side there.

A better view of Chinaman's Hat.

Despite being fairly close together, the many beaches each seem to have their own personality...

One of the more famous stops was "Sunset Beach" which was fairly empty now but, during the Winter, is overflowing with surfers. That's when some of the biggest and best waves on earth arrive...

Eventually I got tired of beaches and made my way to world-famous Matsumoto's General Store... one of the best places on the island to get a shave-ice treat...

I got "The Hawaiian" which had a colorful variety of tropical syrups on top.

The shave-ice wasn't enough cold sugar for me, so I stopped off at the Dole Plantation for a Pineapple Whip. If I were hungrier, I would have got for the Pineapple Whip Float, which is drenched with delicious Dole pineapple juice...

Even though it was still fairly early in the afternoon, I was getting tired and decided to head back to my hotel for a nap. But then I saw The Bishop Museum was on the way, so I had to stop and take a look. It's a beautiful, beautiful museum which does a great job of documenting Hawaiian history...

The Bishop Museum is SHARK EXTREME!!!

Once back in my room, I suddenly realized I was hungry. Since I was dead-tired I thought I might just order in room service, but decided I couldn't resist the urge to have yet another Puka Dog! This time I downshifted to "Spicy" garlic-lemon sauce instead of "Hot" because I wanted the Maui Sweet Onion Relish to shine through. This made a good thing even better...

Delicious Puka Relishes on tap!

   
And now... I'm done. Time to kick back and read a few blogs before bedtime. All-in-all it was a pretty great day. Despite the off-again-on-again rainy weather, Oahu treated me pretty well, and I'm glad I took the time to get to know her a little better. Hopefully tomorrow will be just a fruitful.