honolulu skyline

honolulu skyline, originally uploaded by benjaminhyun.

Went to Hawaii for the first time and stayed at the Moana Surfrider in Waikiki. I had an amazing 5 days with my family and girlfriend.

I expected to take a lot more photos, but being caught in the middle of babysitting my niece and nephew (which I honestly love doing) and really trying to relax - photo time was really hard to come by. Well, add on top of that the fact that I loathe carrying my big camera around...it's just not a great equation for a healthy yield on photos (hence, the photo I am posting is from my hotel balcony).

My favorite place to eat? Zippy's. Gotta love the chili.

Best drink? Lavaflow. I don't care if it's a girl drink.

After too much Sushi, Korean Food, and getting in and out of a large SUV, I am VERY glad to be back despite the SoCal wildfires.

Notes for this week:

- 1 page a day
- Exercise daily (lots of indoor exercise this week due to the fires)
- stop being lame

blog buggies

IMG_6795, originally uploaded by benjaminhyun.

Can't concentrate because all I want to do right now is take pictures.

More and more, I am starting to enjoy landscape photography. I think all started after I was flipping through a "Wallpaper" magazine one day and ran across a series of photos or some buildings somewhere in Scandinavia. They were perfectly composed - never did I look at the photos and think "this is a photo of a structure." the photographer really mastered the angles to blend the photo into the landscape but still made it stand out.

I can do that all day.

Maybe tonight is one of those walk-around-with-camera nights again.

Arnie

IMG_6935, originally uploaded by benjaminhyun.

Went camping in Lake Piru, CA over the weekend. Great campground and it's less than an hour away from Los Angeles.

On Saturday Arnie rolled up in his huge RV and had some trouble fitting into his camping spot - we basically had to hoist up our tents, move a car, and shift a few things around so he could utilize our campground to get his RV in.

The guy felt so bad that he wanted to take us all out for a spin (sans Brian who knocked out) in his speed boat around the lake.

Arnie comes the 3rd weekend of every month during the warmer half of the year to hold AA meetings - he was an alcoholic at one point in his lift and started a Family Camp Group to help alcohol afflicted individuals dig themselves out of their dependencies.

He gave us a run down on the lake - it's man made, water temperature is colder near the damn because it's deepest there, and it's nice to swim near the hills. It's a small lake by his standards, but impressive in size due to it's man-made origins. The water is used to irrigate the farms in the nearby valley - avocados and strawberries.

Later at night, a group of about 60 people gathered around a camp fire and Arnie led the AA gathering. After the meeting was done - a small group of people lined up to tell Arnie about their successes so far:

"Man, there was a bottle right in front of me, and I fought it off. I really did."

"My kids are happier - I went to the park with them last week and they were really excited to come out today."

Arnie - a true American hero.