I'm going to steal the format for this from my wife who usually writes a narrative and then embeds links to the pictures in the story. The pictures were taken with two disposable Kodaks and I have tried to clean them up but there is only so much you can do with bad source material.

I left for Boston on Monday, March 24th to stay with my sister at her apartment on the outskirts of Boston. After finally locating the place thanks to her standing on her porch and guiding me in I settled in for a quick night and an early start - 4:30 a.m. to catch a 7:00 a.m. flight. I set out for Chelsea to park the car, got lost, righted myself and ran into the Chelsea bridge being up for the first time in memory but eventually reached Pre Flight Parking who got me to the airport in plenty of time for my flight. I hit Dallas at 10:30 CST and waited an hour for the flight, dealt with a crisis at work, and was on my 8 hour flight to Honolulu by 11:45 a.m. We hit Honolulu by 3:30 p.m. Honolulu time (9:30 EST) and I was at the Ala Moana hotel by 4:30 p.m. If you have not been to Hawaii, it is expensive. $15 for an airport shuttle (better than the $40 cab ride).

Anyway, after settling in I took stock of my surroundings (hotel 1, 2, 3). I noticed the exceptionally large crane (a good 40 stories tall) plus a lot of strange looking buildings. I was right next to a huge mall accessible from the hotel (floor 2) which had a vegetarian health food place - way cool if a tad expensive ($8 for a sandwich). I procured the spoons my mother wanted and then managed to stay up until 9:30 p.m. before falling asleep and promptly woke up at 4:30 a.m. I registered for the American Counseling Association National Conference (my reason for being there), decided I would pass on the $150 Pre-Conference Learning Institutes and decided to check out the Ala Moana State Park, not far from Waikiki Beach. The first thing that grabbed my attention were the cool looking trees that looked like they had vines hanging from them but were in fact part of the tree (Tree 1, 2, 3). The park was pretty cool although there were a lot of homeless people camped out there. I took many beach shots and grabbed some sand and I believe a piece of bleached coral for my wife. The views were incredible. To my right was downtown Honolulu (Beach 1, 2). Although difficult to make out, a little left of center in the background where the mountain range ends there is a cruise ship the size of a small hotel - in fact it is parked right next to the hotel. The airport shuttle drove past it on my way in - it was 20 stories high! I'm not used to that sort of size! To my left was the ocean - I tried to get a shot of the incredibly large cargo ship but that was beyond the camera's ability - you can just make it out on the horizon in the second shot (Beach 3, 4). The water was warm like bath water. Some of the last shots I got of the beach were from the other side where I may have been looking at Diamond Head but the hotel with the rainbow motif was pretty snazzy too (Mountain Peak 1, 2). There is another 40-story crane in the first shot as well. I got a few fun shots of the park - there was a canal that ran along the outside of the park and some people were feeding the fishes - I got a picture of the frenzy but you can't really see the fishes (bad fish shot). I also got this picture of a guy feeding the birds who also acted as a resting place for them (bird dude shot).

The next day was my Pearl Harbor trip where I took the rest of my pictures. We started out at 6:00 a.m. - no problem for me as I was up at 3:30 solving a crisis at school and was done with that by 5:30 a.m.! We got a tour of downtown Hawaii which consisted of driving past cool buildings and hearing our tour guide say "and now we're passing...." We arrived at the Arizona Memorial building by 7:15 a.m. and the line already snaked around the lawn. It took ten minutes of line moving to get my first shot (sign). Once inside we were handed tickets and had some time to look around the inside - it was pretty small considering the size of the crowds waiting to get in but it was tastefully done (inside shot). The building then opened up into a garden with a path that allowed for some cool photos. First up was the straight view of the Arizona Memorial with the Missouri right next to it (Garden 1) then the path twisted to a foyer that held a 3-d relief of Pearl Harbor (Pearl Harbor 1) which lay next to a circle of pillars which was a monument to all of the military personnel except for the Arizona that were lost that day (Monument 1). The path then circled back to the building and gave a good view of the U.S.S. Bowfin, a diesel sub built after the attack and dubbed 'the Avenger' (Bowfin). There was a cool museum (though very small) where I forgot to use my flash and blew two pictures of a torpedo remnant and a propeller from a Japanese Zero (This really is a propeller - the top blade). After getting Dad some mementos we lined up for the movie right next to a number of plaques recovered from the battleships (Sign shot).

After the movie they hauled us into the boat for the ride to the Arizona Memorial. I got some nice photos of the Ford Bridge (the only way to Ford Island and the Missouri) (Ford Bridge 1, 2, 3, 4). Obviously, I thought the bridge looked cool but in shot 2 there is a white concrete slab that marks the position of the Nevada on the day of the attack (there were numerous others marking the position of the battleships, destroyers and cruisers that were hit that day). In shot 3 you can make out the Bowfin if you look hard enough. They did not allow us to stand in the boat and take shots and they did not allow us to stand on the dock of the memorial and take pictures so my first photo of the memorial was the entrance where on the left were flags from the various military branches and on the right was this shot of six of the eight flags from the battleships (Flags). If you have never been to the memorial, it straddles the remains of the Arizona. There are parts of the ship above water and you can see a lot of it underwater. Parts of the ship are still leaking oil 67 years later. Here are some pictures of a gun turret and a smokestack (1, 2, 3). I was able to get a shot of the Missouri (1) as well. Here are some photos of various visible parts of the ship as well some slightly submerged parts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). The first picture is actually the remains of a gun turret not a picture of the Missouri - you can just see two parallel pieces of steel above the water. At the end of the memorial was a smaller room like the entrance only with the names of the 1,500 men who were lost (1). What was cool was a smaller plaque to the bottom left of the wall that had the names of the survivors of the attack who had chosen to be buried with the crewmates on the Arizona. I then took a picture of the entire memorial from that vantage point and managed not to get my thumb in the way (1). Before the boat left I was able to get a quick photo of the memorial from the outside (1).

Once we were back at the building we got on a bus and headed to Ford Island to see the U.S.S. Missouri. Along the way we passed the airfield that was bombed in the attack. The hangars were still in their original condition - their windows were blown out by the explosion from the Arizona. There is an aviation museum that was not on my tour that some others went to. We passed the new memorial for the 435 sailors from the Oklahoma who were lost when the ship capsized from torpedo hits (1). Although a blurry shot, each white pole represents a crewman.

I had almost run out of film but I did get a few pictures of the Missouri. It's a big ship (big ship 1, 2, 3). I got one more shot of the Arizona Memorial before I could let my fixation go - mainly because the mountain range in the back was way cool (1). Here's a shot from the bow looking down the length of the ship (bow shot) - to the left past the huge guns of 18 in thick steel plating on a slightly elevated deck is the spot where the Japanese signed their unconditional surrender to the Allied Forces - it's in the pink part of the picture. This is a picture of the actual spot (spot). The last picture that was worth anything was a picture of the backwards flag that had some importance but I forget what it was (flag).

I got back that day at about 3:30 p.m. or so and went to my conference. I spent Friday diligently at the conference as well and then went to the opening party where they charged outrageous amounts of money for beverages. Saturday saw me leaving Honolulu at 12:45 p.m. and despite a 5 hour ride and an absolutely silly movie with Freddie Highmore and Robin Williams called August Rush (which had cool Michael Hedges music in it), arriving on San Francisco at 8:30 p.m. where I found an airport restaurant that served veggie burgers. San Francisco rocks and not just because of the Mermen! After three hours I boarded a plane for Boston at 11:45 p.m., watched a better movie called Becoming Jane and landed in Boston 5 hours later at 7:30 a.m. Two hours later I was at my parent's house having survived my trip. From there a two hour drive to the Samoset to pretend to lead at our state conference. I don't ever recommend anyone trying to attend two conference at opposite ends of the United States.