Dahlin Family

Archive for February, 2007

I sometimes get this when trying to use an inline variable but missing the ” = “. ie. <a href=”<%LinkToPage %>”>Home</a>

You’ll notice I forgot the ” = ” throwing the exception. Took me a minute to find it, but now that is the first thing I search for when I see this exception.

Should be: <a href=”<%=LinkToPage %>”>Home</a>

We finally got dumped on by the Snow Gods this past weekend.  I really had given up on them.  In anticipation of the big storm a few buddies and I planned on heading to Afton Alps Saturday.  Well, we didn’t have very good driving conditions on the way down, but the payoff was huge.  You couldn’t ask for better snowboarding conditions!  It was sweet.  We closed it down, I think we were literally the last ones to get off of the slopes.  Hit BWW’s for some wings afterwards and began the long journey home.  I ended up getting back home at 4 in the morning and got stuck right in front of my house.  Tried to get out for a few minutes then I had to run and grab a shovel.  “Well, I am out here now with the shovel, might as well do the driveway.  I sure as heck am not going to want to do it tomorrow morning.”  I ended up shoveling till about 5:30 a.m.  Shower and Bed.

I ended up getting up pretty early the next morning contemplating on heading back to the hills, but choose to sleep instead.  Pretty much a lazy day all day.  I never really care to watch the Oscars too much, but nothing else was on while  i was doing the laundry, I already watched like 4 episodes of Hogan Knows Best so I had enough of him.

The Oscars were pretty much what you expect, your typical awards show.  But man, did anyone happen to see the Special Effects Choir perform?  OMG, were they actually making all of those sounds????  I couldn’t believe how good they were.  I tried searching for a clip of that performance online tonight, but came up empty handed.  if anyone knows where one is shoot me the link.  I have to see it again.  They were soooooo good.

Weather outlook says we’re suppose to get more snow again this week.  YES, I hope we do.  Hopefully I can be out riding the board again this weekend.

Very cool.  I got my lessons today.  Sufring was so fun, I got up on my first try.  I am sure it helped that I had this big foam board, but it was still a lot of fun.  I went for 2 hours.  I don’t think I could have made it another minute more.  Talk about tiring.  Paddeling out really takes a toll on you.  I would be so tired when I got out there and then a wave would be coming and the instructor would be like, “get ready here comes another wave”.  Oh man, here we go again.  It was a lot of fun though.

Later in the day we went back to The Place of Refuge.  Probably the coolest time we’ve been here.  We were snorkeling with a school of 15 – 20 dolphins.  It was crazy!  They would be swimming right by us then dive down probbaly a 100 feet or so.  You could see them all swimming around down there and then when they would come up for air it would look like they were coming right at you.  Kind of scary, but amazing.

What an awesome day.

I have been running a few times out here, trying to keep what I have for the half marathon.  After last night I didn’t get my run in though.  Slept in till about 9:00, that is sleeping in for this vacation.  Seems like we’re all usually up by 8:00 wich is fine with me.  I would rather get up and do stuff then sleep my vacation away.
Actually Hawaii has been pretty active, it’s like a workout every day.  I love it.  I’ve managed to get a few runs in, and then you’ve got hiking and swimming all day.

We went to another famaous beach today, Captain Cook.  Well, I don’t think we were exactly there, but very close.  We brought the snuba out today.  This thing is pretty sweet, it allows 4 people to breath underwater through a tube attached to a motor that floats on top of the water.  You can get to about 30 feet deep.  I was surprised at how hard it was to stay underwater, I guess I have never really done something like this in salt water before.
It really is a different world underwater, all the fish and coral, there are so many bright colors, it truly is a sight to see.  I was beginning to think that we weren’t going to be able to take the snuba out because the water has been a bit rough so I was pretty pumped when we were able to get it out.
Some people took pics with underwater cameras, hopefully some of them turned out.

Time for bed, I have another early morning tomorrow.  Gonna try surfing.  Hang Loose….

It’s sunday and we got suckered into a timeshare presentation to get our Luau for free.  I think it was worth it though, saved us $120 and got everyone else in for a lot cheaper too.  Nope, aren’t Hawaii Club Members though.

After the presentation we went to one of the best snorkeling beaches on the island, Kalahuu.  I saw so many fish and even sea turtles.  Pretty cool, but it was pretty shallow and tons of people.  Kind of felt like I was just in an aquarium.  I liked The Place of Refuge better, it felt more real.

Late afternoon arrived, we got ready at the beach for the Luau.  So what’s a Luau, well, for me it was all you can eat food and all you can drink Budweiser!  The food was really good, except the raw fish and the beats.  The pork was awesome, actually everything else was awesome.

I guess I am not exactly sure what it was all about, they had people come in on a boat in the bay singing / chanting…  They had Hula Girls and Fire Dancers on stage, it was pretty much a Hawaiian show.  Did I mention they had all you can drink Budweiser, yeah.

We all got up early today to get a lot done.  Our first main destination was Akaka Falls.  The waterfall here was amazing, it was HUGE.

After that we headed to the Botanica Gardens, the girls liked it.

We then hit another waterfall, Rainbow Waterfalls, near the gardens.  I actually liked this waterfall better because you could get right on top of it, it was pretty sweet.  I think if we had more time we could had swam up above it too.

We then hit the Volcanoes.  The park is open 24 hours, but we wanted to see some of it before the sun went down.  Good thing we had “Sparky” to keep us on schedule.  We walked through a lava tube and saw a couple of huge craters.  The craters were huge with steam coming out of them all over, very cool.

After seeing all that quickly since there was no daylight we went to the bottom of the volcano where you can still see lava flowing into the ocean.  We wanted to see it at night so we could really see the lava glowing.  We decided to take on a 3 mile hike over lava rock to get closer to the flowing lava.  This was probably one of the most difficult hikes I have ever taken on.  Pitch black out walking over lava rock with 2 flashlights for two people.  Well, we made it.  Not sure if I would do it again, but I am glad I did it.  It was very cool to sit there and watch all of this hot lava just flowing right into the ocean.

There are so many thhings here in Hawaii that are so amazing, the waterfalls, the volcano, the valley, and the underwater world.  I am not sure if there is any other place in the world like this, you have to come here some time if you can.

Got up early this morning and went fishing.  It was a bust, I didn’t catch anything, my brother-in-law landed a small Bonito.  The $80 boat ride was nice though.

After fishing we headed down The Place of Refuge.  The water was rough, but we still managed to get in and snorkel.  It was pretty awesome.  Lots of different color coral and fish.

Ok, so I haven’t been updating my blog regularly.  I do have 5 posts that I wrote while I was in Hawaii, but no connection didn’t allow me to publish them.  Here they come…