Last Weekend

I went to the Honolulu Academy of Arts to see these guys:






From a Honolulu Academy of Arts handout:

"This mandala, the sacred abode of Avalokiteshvara, is being created by the Venerable Dhondup Tsering and the Venerable Losang Jinpa of Dzindu Monastery in Eastern Tibet... Mandalas are divine palaces with their resident gods and goddesses that are contemplated in meditation and realized in sacred rituals. Each object in the palace has significance... This mandala contains the palace of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddhist god of love and aloha, known as Chenrei-zee in Tibetan, Kuanyin in Chinese, and Kannon in Japanese...Dyed marble powder is laid by hand in the detailed pattern of the mandala. The monks use metal funnels called chak-pur to place millions of colored particles to make these elaborate patterns."

It was extremely fun and cool. The above view is from a postcard. Here is the scene we actually saw:

Early to bed Early to rise Was meant for those Old fashioned guys Who didn't use BURMA-SHAVE

Like many people, I ~do~ like eBay. One of my favorite cosmetics and skincare sellers, whom I've been buying from for 7 years, ever since I lived in Barrow, Alaska, is this guy: Dave Basavich.
Dave lives in New Jersey, and his eBay store is here.
Dave's son Dan has become a highly successful professional pool player, winning tournaments in almost all 50 states. Dan was featured in the Valentine's Day, 2005, issue of Sports Illustrated.
Here Dan is on the August 2004 issue of Billiards Digest:



Dan goes by the way cool moniker of "Kid Delicious." :-)

Oh, and they may be making a movie about him soon. *bg*

Back Home

On the plane back to Honolulu, I sat next to a retired guy from the Cook Islands (Rarotonga), who said that he owned the only American-made car on the island and that this made passing quite difficult, as everybody else owns British-drive cars, because they drive on the left, like New Zealand. He also said that driving the same way around the island all the time made his car go out of alignment, so he had to remember to drive the other way around the island, occasionally. Not sure about the veracity of that one, but it makes a good story.

It's great to be back where the sun is shining and everybody's wearing slippers (cheap plastic thongs, standard Hawaiian footwear). And you hear pidgin. And the weather forecast includes *really good* North Shore surf.

At work, I find a bag of anime videos on my chair, as a Welcome Home present.