My Macbook is definitely on the fritz. The repair guy will get his hands on it tomorrow and perhaps on Monday or so I’ll get a read on how bad the damage is. Hopefully minor…. I’m not in the mood for having to buy another computer! On the plus side, however, I have a full and complete up-to-the-minute backup so nothing will be lost. That’s one of the beauties of TimeMachine on the Apple computers.

I don’t have access to the pictures, either, when blogging from my iPad. So, this post will be picture-less. All of my photos are in the cloud, but the WordPress app on the iPad doesn’t know about the cloud.; the photos have to be physically present in the Photo Library. Perhaps that’ll get fixed sometime as cloud storage is no longer someting of the future.

We had the morning shift at the Center. One of the sister missionary companionships called last night to see if I had anything to help with ants. I do, so we stopped by their apartment on our way to the Center, sprayed around the areas where the ants are probably coming in, and put out some ant bait. Then off for a very pleasant shift at the Center. We were fairly busy all morning long with very few lulls. I was able to visit with quite a few people, take lots of photos, and do a couple of tours. The visitors today included several people from France (not as a group, just folks at different times of the morning) and a couple from Brazil. Along with those we had the pretty normal contingent of people from the US, Canada, and Japan.

We got back to our home about 3 pm. Nina made a quick trip to the store for a couple of items and then suggested that we stop by Subway, grab a couple of sandwiches, and go over to the west side of the island to watch the sunset. We had a very nice time sitting on the beach watching the sun go down. We met another couple there who had stopped briefly on their way to the Honolulu Airport to fly back to the US. They were here on a vacation as part of their thirteenth wedding anniversary celebration. They saw our name badges and came over to visit. He was from Mexico, she was from Korea, they met at BYU in Provo, and have three children. Of course we exchanged pictures and had a nice visit until they had to leave to make their check-in time for their flight.

One thing I’ve noticed about where we live: It is a very family friendly place. We see lots of people out walking on the streets in Laie. Every day several mothers pushing baby carriages or strollers come over to the Visitors’ Center to stroll around the grounds. It’s a very laid-back, comfortable small town. On the other hand, we have to remind people to lock their cars in the Center’s parking lot as we’ve had some things stolen in the past couple of weeks from unlocked cars while people were at the Center, or the Distribution Center, or at the Family History Library, or at the Temple. 

The police suggest that it’s the homeless folks who make their “home” on the beaches who are responsible. According to an article in the paper I read recently, Hawaii has a significant number of homeless people, the fourth or fifth largest homeless population in the US. I’ve no idea how these folks get here, but once here the weather and climate make it quite possible to live without a real place to live. Some locals have told me that the police are currently rousting the beach bums out. There are apparently laws about how long someone can camp on the beach. Only problem is, the only place they have to go is just further down the beach!

So, we’ve had a very pleasant day. And, we get to do it all again tomoorrow, but with differences. Tomorrow at noon the three senior couples working at the Center are getting together for lunch. That will be fun and a nice change. Then tomorrow evening we’ll have our first assignment taking tickets at the Polynesian Cultural Center and then having our dinner there afterwards. We need to be at our assigned spot by 4:30 pm and stay until 6:30 pm. After that we can go into the luau dining area and have dinner. All of the luaus at the PCC are buffet style, which I understand is the norm at all of the resorts. More on that experience tomorrow.

Tomorrow is also May Day, and of course “rabbit rabbit” day.

Life is comfortable.