Day 5 & 6 were the conference days, and I also worked during both days, so that’s why I’m putting them together.  Working from Hawaii is really not as rough as it sounds though, so don’t worry.

So Monday morning, aka Day 5, I got up bright and early to help with the conference registration.  We were also passing out Agathon Group mugs, so that was my main responsibility.  I was also told to tell people about the party that night that we were hosting.  So it was a “Morgan, go talk to people” type of job, which you all probably realize I don’t really mind.

I helped setup the conference table, which was of course inside of all kinds of open air architecture, like I mentioned before.  Here are a couple pics of what it looked like from or near my spot at the registration table.

Yeah, it was rough.

So eventually I had lunch with everyone, and then took off to go work elsewhere.  However, I wasn’t sure exactly where I’d find reliable internet, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to stay close to the guys at the conference, so I decided to work from the lobby of the hotel, which looked like this:

Yep, that’s the lobby.  I worked next to an indoor waterfall.

So it was a rough spot to work from.

After the first day of the conference wrapped up, it was time for the Agathon Group hosted after party at a bar across the street called Tiki’s (with free food and drink, no less, and not just for me!).

The location of Tiki’s is absolutely amazing, as it overlooks Waikiki beach.  Our party happened to start right at sunset.

(you can click on that one for the bigger image)

It’s also apparently customary for Tiki’s staff to blow the conch horn (or whatever you can it) at sunset

All of us got delightfuly tanked at the party, and talked to a lot of cool people from the conference.  Ron said something that I totally agree with which was that he’d never been to a tech conference with so many socially adept people.  It was refreshing.

The next morning (Day 6), Ron and I decided to join the Aloha on Rails run, which was a (you guessed it) run that started at the nearby starbucks and went for 4.5 miles.  Ron is in far better shape than I am, and turns out, everyone that showed up was too.  So I made it about 2 miles and stopped and looked at the ocean for a while.  It was a run around Diamond Head (that big mountain that I could see from my hotel room balcony), and unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera/phone, as I was entirely covered in sweat (which would soon become a them of this trip).

Since I got done with my part of the run early, and I actually had no reason to be at the conference everyone else was going to, I decided to go for a little swim in the ocean (why not, it’s right there).  So all in all that was a refreshing and exhilirating (if not a little exhausting) way to start the day.  It’s hard for me to imagine why most of the inhabitants of Hawaii don’t do the same (maybe you’d just get tired of it, I suppose).

I also decided to have breakfast in the restaurant in the lobby of the hotel, which happens to sit on the beach, and offered a lovely view of the ocean.

Eventually, after working during the day, I ended up at what ended up being my favorite coffeeshop (Island Vintage Coffee).  The coffee there is 100% Kona, and is amazing.  They also have wifi, and just happened to have a little balcony that I could sit on while working

Well while I was working, in this little courtyard started up a dance/martial arts show.  So I had to take pictures of that as well.

You can’t tell from any of those pictures, but these kids could do some of the craziest flips I’ve ever seen.

Eventually I stopped working and met up with everyone.  The conference was techincally over at this part, but everyone was still staying for another day, so we all had dinner together.  We at at Cheesecake Factory, which we knew would make Alan roll his eyes, as we could eat that anywhere.

Meal aside, Luke brought his lovely wife Mandi and adorable child Clair along with on the trip.  Clair was very shy, especially of the big loud guy with the crazy hair, but I was able to get a couple pictures anyway

SO cute.

After dinner I took a cab to an open mic that Alan had informed me of (I had packed a guitar with me afterall, I may as well use it).  So I headed to a place called On Stage, which is like the Red Line Tap of Honolulu (for you Chicago folks), except nowhere near the talent leve of RLT.

The music was quite mediocre, but the bartender was great, people gave me great feedback, and a couple old Hawaiian dudes bought me beers all night.  Highlight of the night was when one older guy remarked “you know who would do that one song of yours really well?  Nickelback!”  I died a little inside.  But overall it was a good time.

This guy was the Honolulu version of Cliffy Time.

Eventually it wrapped up and I took a cab back to the hotel, where I needed to get to bed right away, as early the next morning, Joel, Ron, and I were planning on hiking Diamond Head, that mountain that had been staring at us since we got there.  Oh it was go time.

We didn’t do a whole lot on day 4, other than complain about our amazingly sunburnt backs.  However, I mentioned in the previous post that Rachel took some pictures on an underwater camera while we were snorkeling.  She sent us the pictures, and here were my favorites from that:

That’s Alan.

That’s me and Alan.  I love how serious Alan looks.

This is the sea turtle we saw!

and that’s him running away

Peter

Ron

This was the big rainbow fish guy I mentioned in the previous post

and this was his super bright friend I also mentioned.

So yeah, snorkeling was pretty amazing.

So on Day 4, I woke up at about 7:30am so that I could watch football (which seems so ridiculous to me).  It would take me 3 years living here to get use to the time difference.

At 9, Ron, Alan, and I all headed to a Ruby on Rails Tutorial as part of the Aloha on Rails conference (one of the reasons we were out here in the first place)

The tutorial was in a strip mall a little ways from our hotel (but very close to Morton’s, where we ate dinner the night before).  I took a couple pictures there:

Yep, that’s Obama surfing on the Wave of Hope.

That’s Alan & Ron at the tutorial.  It was quite interesting, but would be very boring for those of you who don’t care about Ruby on Rails.  I will say I watched the Bears win via ESPN gamecast during the beginning portion of this, as well as watched both my fantasy teams win.

That lasted pretty much all day, but eventually we all met up for dinner at Dave and Buster’s, where we also proceeded to play games the rest of the night.  Here’s a little highlight from that:

That’s Toshi (Alan’s son) and I playing a game where you have to shoot spiders.  Toshi was telling me all about it during dinner.  We didn’t do so hot, though I had my game face on, as you can tell.  Also, shout out to Bless You Boys (my shirt).

During dinner, before games, Peter and Rachel had to take off to fly back to LA *tear*.  They were a blast to hang out with, and it’s so bizarre to know your co-workers pretty well, obviously work with them all the time, and yet so rarely interact with them face to face.  For me especially, it’s always a very meaningful time for me, so it was so good to see everyone, even if it was just a couple days in Peter and Rachel’s case.

I was due at the conference the next morning at 7am to help with registration, so after the jam packed first few days here, I collapsed.  Luckily it was back at the hotel in the bed that the collapsing happened.

One thing I completely forgot to mention about Day 2 was that when we go back from dinner, we decided to go for a late night swim.  The beaches in Hawaii do not close, and are all public property, so we needed little convincing.  Peter, Rachel, Joel, Ron, and I all threw on our suits and went for a swim under a full moon, with the full view of downtown Honolulu.  Needless to say, it was incredible, but since it was also wet, I did not bring my phone/camera, so I have no pictures.  Can’t believe I forgot to include that part.

Disclaimer, for those of you who said you hated me after seeing the Day 2 pictures, you’re gonna entirely loathe me after these ones.

So Day 3 started off early, 6:30am to be precise.  However, we were getting up that early to go snorkeling, something I’ve never done.  And not just that, but we were going snorkeling in Hanauma Bay.  You will see many man pictures below.

On the way there, we picked up some Hawaiian doughnuts called Masaladas, which were amazingly delicious (I failed to get pictures ).  Then we headed out to Hanauma Bay.

One thing I’ve learned about Hawaiian the language is that you separate almost every vowel.  For example Hanauma is pronounced Hana’uma (with a long u), and also Hawaii is pronounced Hawai’i (or Havai’i if you’re trying to really pretend like you’re Havai’ian).

Regardless of how you pronounce it, it was incredible.  We watched a brief video about conserving the environment and not destroying the naturaly beauty blah blah.  I shotgun’d a Coors Light, tossed it in the ocean, and headed down.

This is my little wink to Corinne, although I don’t know if she even checks my site.

So that’s where we snorkeled.  The darker parts is the coral, and that’s where all the cool stuff is (though it’s also the parts tha can cut you and such, but that’s the risk you take), like the brightest fish I’ve ever seen, and even a Sea Turtle!  My favorite (other than the turtle) was a huge rainbow colored fish that I followed for a while, and he had a little buddy with him that was pink and green, and possibly the brightest colored thing I’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately, I had no way to take pictures underwater, so I wasn’t able to get pictures of the fish, but if you want to see the fish we were looking at, Patty (Alan’s housemate) had an underwater camera with her, and took these:

http://www.ritari.org/gallery/hawaii_hanauma?page=1

Here’s my favorite from that batch:

That’s me, Peter, and Rachel.  Rachel (and I using her camera) took some pictures as well, and when she sends them over, I’ll post them as well.

So eventually we had a delightful little lunch, snorkeled some more, and then took off.

That’s Peter, the CTO of our company.  Notice the sunglasses in those last two pics.  Buddy!

So after leaving Hanauma Bay, Alan was leading us back to the hotel, but mentioned we could take the “scenic route” if we so desired.  We so desired.  Here’s some pictures I got on the drive.

This kind of crap was all OVER the place on this scenic drive Alan took us on.  And if you look close in that one, you’ll see people down there swimming in that.  It looked like fun, but fun that could relatively easily kill you.

Even when it’s cloudy, it’s amazing.

Eventually we made it to this little spot called the Pali Lookout, which is where one Hawaiian army one a battle by pushing another Hawaiian army off the cliff (this was 200 or so years ago).  It’s about the windiest place you can go (so I loved it).

That’s Alan, our wonderful CEO and tour guide.

And that’s Peter, my sunglasses buddy and CTO.

I don’t know what this was, but it was carved into the rock, and looked cool.

Those were wild chickens that were just wandering around.

Eventually we made it back to the hotel, where a few people crashed, but Ron and I decided to walk to a coffee shop (which was a much further walk than I really realized).

That night we had our super fancy once a year Agathon dinner at Morton’s Steak House.  I’m an idiot and do not have pictures from that night, but hopefully other Agathon guys took pictures and will help a brother out.  Since we all work remotely, there’s not really any office fees and a lot of the day to day expenses are also saved.  So what Peter and Alan have done for years instead is to have a super fancy dinner, ordering things we would never normally get to order, eating a ridiculous amount of expensive wonderful food, along with lovely bottles of wine and booze of other varieties as well.

Along with that, we treat it like a business meeting and we talk business.  So we talked about all the work we’ve done in the last year, where we are as a company, and where we’d like to go.  Luckily I work with some pretty great people, so not only is it a productive evening with very rare face to face time with my coworkers, but it’s a blast as well.  The highlight was definitely the porterhouse steak that Peter and Joel split that looked like it was about the size of a cow.  Amazing food, steaks larger than you can imagine, productive work time, and fun chatting with people I consider co-workers and friends.

It was about this time that I realized that putting on Peter’s spf 4 that he brought (yes, that is the number ’4′) as I wanted to really get some good sun was a huge mistake.  This mistake had also turned me into an entirely self-heating entity.

That’s me attempting to capture the massive sunburn I had.

So the combination of alcohol, massive amount of food, a massive sunburn on my back (it’s no secret which side of you faces the sun while you snorkel), and just overall exhaustion hit a breaking point by the end of the evening, and we were all ready to call it quits.

That’s all of us standing around like zombies waiting for our cab to arrive.

Overall it was an incredible but exhausting day.  I like being in this company, and I hope they keep bringing me to Hawaii (provided my back is healed by the time I come back).

Day 2 was somewhat uneventful, though since I was surrounded by mountains and ocean and overall beautiful-ness, I still took a bunch of pictures.

We worked the first part of the day, and then headed to the airport to pick up the rest of Agathon Group.  I was like a dog in a car window on the way there, snapping pictures and staring.

On the way, we drove past the State building

Even the govt buildings are amazing.  For example, the outside of this building was designed to look like it was being held up by trees, while the inside is designed like the inside of a volcano.  Maybe the state building in Chicago should be designed like it’s being held up by crime money, and the inside could be designed like a snow storm.  That would at least make it kinda cool.

After picking up everyone, we headed over to the hotel to check in.  The hotel we’re staying at (the New Otani) is situated on Waikiki beach.  So all those songs and movies and such… yep, that’s where we’re staying.  And these pictures will likely make you all pretty jealous.

If you look at those pictures in that order, that is looking from left to right off of the balcony of the room I’m staying in.  Not an ocean view, so yeah, I’m really roughing it with the scenery.

The inside of the hotel is kind of designed like the inside of a volcano as well (not sure if that’s intentional).  Directly above that is open roof.  There’s so much open air architecture here, it’s like you never really go inside (because why would you).

This is the restaurant in the back of the lobby of the hotel.  Yes that’s the beach, and yes that’s downtown Honolulu in the background.

Originally Ron and I were supposed to room together, but since Ron sleeps like an infant, and I snore like a city bus, Joel and I are rooming together now instead (he also snores quite loud.  We’re having a contest).

That’s the view from Ron’s room.  Jerk. (Joel and Ron are in this picture)  Also, this is what is directly behind our hotel:

for the record, it’s difficult to find a shot of the beach without some dude laying on it.

So after checking into the hotel, we headed over to get some lunch at a burger place called Teddy’s (one of the largest burgers I’ve ever eaten, and it was amazing).  On the way, I snapped one more picture

I also bought a new pair of shades while walking around.

You’ll find out in later pictures, but Peter and I unknowingly bought the exact same shades.

Eventually later that night we got toasted…… I mean, had dinner at a place called Yard House that had somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 beers on tap, most of which we needed to sample.  We walked there and back, and got to walk through most of Waikiki, which was fun.  One thing I noticed was that there was a Burberry store on the walk.  Who’s buying anything from Burberry while they’re in Hawaii?

After a day in Hawaii, I have to say that the huge time difference is really hard to get used to.  For example, the Blackhawks game that was played in Helsinki actually started (live) at 6am in Hawaii.  The football games on Sunday will begin at 7am.  I never thought I would need to set an alarm to catch the Bears game.  It would take me 3 years living here to get used to that kind of thing.

After dinner we headed back and hopped into bed, as we needed to get up to go snorkeling the next morning at 6:30am.  Since I’m about two days behind, I’ll give you a little sneak peak.  It was an amazing day.

For those of you who don’t know, the company I work for (Agathon Group) made a wonderful and excellent decision to bring all of us out to Hawaii for a work trip and conference.  Since I work from wherever there’s an internet connection, I thought “why on Earth would I go to Hawaii for only 4 days?  Let’s go for a month!”  I eventually settled on 10 days.

So we woke up crazy early on October 1st, 2009, and hit the road to head to O’hare.  Clearly there’s nothing exciting to tell at this point, so I’ll just skip ahead.

We had a layover in Salt Lake City, which is quite a lovely city, and flying into Salt Lake is even more lovely.

That’s Ron (my flying buddy) next to the window.

The city is surrounded by mountains, so it’s quite beautiful anywhere you look.

And while in the airport, I did visit the designated smoker’s area

which is about the saddest looking place in the world.  Nothing will make you want to quit like this room.

And as per my usual, when we took back off, I took pictures (I love flying).

That little lake in the distance is a perfect circle.  I thought that was neat

That is San Francisco, and I linked to the full size image, as you can see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate in that picture.

Once you pass San Fran, it’s actually quite a boring flight, as it turns out that the Pacific Ocean is quite big.  And while I kept hoping to glance out and see an island like in Lost, I never saw anything very interesting.  I guess I would just have to wait to get to the island where they filmed Lost.

Upon taking off, Ron and I noticed that we had our own personal touch screen TVs in front of us (well, it was really hard not to notice this).  Not only that, but these TVs were filled with wonderful movies that we could watch at any point on this flight for free.  Amazing, we thought.  So we started up Land of the Lost, and after being interrupted by 15 solid minutes of off and on announcements, our movie began.  We got maybe 15 minutes into the movie, when we heard an announcment that they were going to be restarting the system.  Seemed weird since everything appeared to be working fine, but whatever, we’ll just pick the movie back up where we left off.

We watched a linux bootup screen (Ron took a picture.  We’re kind of nerds), and when the system finally came back up, there were no movies.  No TV shows.  No hopes and dreams.  After about 4 more attempts to reboot the system, movies still failed to return.  Luckily we had laptops with entertainment, but we were still quite disappointed (especially when we heard all the stories later from everyone else who had working movies).

Couple quick airline observations (as I’m prone to do – “what’s the dealy with airline food?”):

- There was a no smoking sign above an ashtray near the bathroom.  I realize this observation isn’t new, but what I’m wondering is, it’s been a LONG time since smoking has been allowed in airplanes.  How, have we not remodeled the inside of this plane at some point in that time and removed the ashtray?  Why is that still there?

- When I went into the smallest bathroom I have ever been in (even by airplane standards), I noticed a little light-up sign that showed me where the exit was.  This is the one place in the world where I am absolutely positive how to get out.

Finally we arrived in Hawaii (about 40 or 50 degrees warmer than Chicago), and just to remind us that we’re in Hawaii, to get to the terminal from our gate, we’re required to walk outside, and immediately the song “Hawaii” by The Beach Boys popped into my head, and has not left since.

This is inside the airport, mind you.

We were greeted by Alan and his son Toshi, and were promptly laid (I think I’m spelling that right).  Another bizarre thing at this point was the fact that we had been traveling all day, and it wasn’t even 3pm yet.  At this point, I lost all sense of what time was, and just decided to stay up and hang out until about 10pm, when I promptly collapsed.

And as a constant reminder that we were in fact in Hawaii, here’s the view from Alan’s balcony

I can certainly think of worse things to see when you look outside.

Aloha indeed.