Chris Moss Online

This blog has featured many rants relating to the frustrations of securing reasonable seats to good concerts. And here’s another.

This past weekend, I traveled to the humble Borough of Haddonfield, NJ to help my friend Issac and his parents, Tim and Kate, move into their new house. They moved up from St. Pete a few months ago, rented a house to get a feel for the area, and just bought a home there. All their stuff had to be moved about a mile and a half and I was the only one with superhuman moving skills available to help. Actually, I’m always happy to help on a project like this – mainly because I’ve moved so much in my life that I know how rotten it is to move yourself – especially awkward pieces of furniture on stairs.

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This past week I traveled to Charleston, SC for business. Charleston is a wonderful city. I have only been there on two previous occasions, the first time was about 20 years ago on a trip with my parents, and then a year ago on business.

Charleston is one of the oldest cities in the country, being originally settled around 1670. The city has a lot of southern charm and beautiful architecture. The neighborhoods in the oldest part on “the peninsula” remind me of those of the French Quarter and Garden District in New Orleans. The homes are colonial style and they also use a lot of decorative wrought-iron. I spent Wednesday and Thursday evenings walking around the city and along the waterfront and Battery Park. I really enjoyed walking around the area and soaking up the atmosphere – a warm evening with people milling about and the smells from the great area restaurants coalescing around the beautiful homes and gardens.
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James and I were in Hawaii for 10 days with my parents from May 17 through May 26. We visited Oahu, Kauai and Maui for 3 days each, with an extra day in Maui. This entry is sort of an overview of the whole trip and my thoughts on Hawaii – particularly as it compares to other places that I have visited. Later on, I will post more details about exactly what we did on each of the islands (which will be more of a travelogue/journal entry for myself). I love going back through these posts and reading the details of what I did on various trips.

The trip overall was fantastic. We had a great time and everything went off very smoothly. Only James had ever been to Hawaii at all before, and I knew basically nothing of the geography of Hawaii other than that Honolulu was on the island of Oahu. We had put quite a lot of effort into researching what we wanted to do and see, and planning the logistics of our trip. We were very pleased that the execution went off without a hitch. I don’t think we could second-guess any of the decisions we made about which islands to visit and for how long, and in which areas of each island to stay. However, having visited and stayed there, I would probably choose slightly different locations to stay (for a variety of reasons).

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So my family is on vacation in Hawaii. My dad lost some prescription medicine, which he originally had filled at the Wal-Mart back home in Gilmer, TX. He called the local Wal-Mart here on Kauai, and asked if they could refill it for him. They could, they said. Good. But, they needed HIM to provide them with the phone number to the Wal-Mart in Gilmer. What kind of bizarre world is it that Wal-Mart employees live in when they even think that way?

Six weeks from now, James and I will be in Hawaii with my parents for a 9 day vacation and adventure. I finally finished booking our accommodations today, and here is where we will be staying:

Oahu – Waikiki – Ilikai

Kauai – Princeville – Private Home

Maui – Haiku – “StarWind Cottage”

I can’t wait! Here are some of the things I hope to do:

Waikiki Beach
Pearl Harbor
Dole Pineapple Plantation
Oahu’s North Shore

Na Pali Coast
Ke’e Beach
Kalalau Trail

The Road to Hana
Halealaka Bicycle Tour (down the volcano)

FlightMemory.com is a site that lets you enter all the data from your previous airline flights. It produces a cool map drawing lines between all the cities you have flown. It also aggregates all the miles you’ve flown and produces interesting statistics, such as the number of times you have circumnavigated the Earth, your total flight miles in terms of trips to the moon or to the sun. There are some other neat things as well.

To see my personal flight history (which is incomplete as of this date) click on the banner below: