I Hit The Beach And Meet Someone
There are three beaches named Kamaole (kah-mah-OH-lay) in Maui; they are creatively called Kam I, Kam II, and Kam III. Today we spent some time at Kam III, which is widely known as one of the best beaches on the entire island. The Kamaole beaches are really nice - they have a lot of grass and park with shade trees at the top, with public benches and showers and such, and then a nice long stretch of sandy beach leading into the waters.
My folks head out down to the sand, and I notice a woman on the swing set swinging away like crazy. She's got a dog tied up to the swing, and she's looking over my way every so often, checking me out. I walk over and make friends with the doggie and introduce myself to her. We chat for a while; I find out that her name is Dawn, and that she's recovering from a car accident. She's a very friendly person, and she laughs a lot.
When she gets off the swing, I notice that she's really very unkempt. Her skin looks really bad, as though she'd suffered from a lot of exposure, maybe early stages of skin cancer or something. It's a little off putting, but I kept the conversation going. It turned out that she was originally from San Francisco, and that she'd come here on vacation five years ago, and then just decided to stay - she even still has the return plane ticket and just hasn't used it. She's currently "camping" as she puts it... but I infer from her general appearance (the exposure, the condition of her clothes, and her lack of shaving), and the fact that she was hit by a car while being a pedestrian, that she is in fact homeless.
Hawaii is probably one of the best places in the world to be homeless, and there are a lot of people here that live that way. Most do it by choice, some because they are true hippies. You see a lot of single mothers dressed in natural looking clothes with one or more nearly naked children in tow, using the public showers and just walking from place to place. The tourism of the islands makes it easy for homeless folks to get sustenance from travelers and restaurants, and the weather is never too harsh to withstand.
In the end, I'm a little too weirded out to keep chatting with her, and I politely get my way out of the conversation and head towards the beach where my folks are. You really do meet an eclectic mix of people out this way...
I Become Someone Else's Hero
On the way to dinner, we stop at a newly opened cyber cafe in Kihei, the Cyberbean Cafe. Mom wants to print out an online coupon for 20 percent off entrees at the Five Palms Grille.
When we get inside, we note that all the computers are shut down. After a little commotion, we discover that their Internet connection is no longer working. I talk with one of the proprietors, hand off my business card, and get let into the back room to take a look at their server.
They have a pretty slick little setup - three PS2's in a back room with some big screen TVs, and about a half dozen Dell PCs networked to a Poweredge in the back room. The server's running Win2K; I know nothing about it, really only enough to be dangerous, so I tool around in the interface a little and look at the services and network monitor and crap like that. The DSL modem is crapped out, and that seems to be the only trouble. I suggest calling their upstream provider, and we get an automated message from Verizon saying that outages are being reported everywhere, but that if all the lights on the modem are solid, try turning it off and on again and restart the server.
We do this, and the net connection comes back with no problem. I give the guy my usual advice about calling tech support for help and picking up a Win2K administration book from Sams, IDG, or O'Reilly.
It never ceases to amaze me how powerless people feel in the face of technology. Maybe it's just the engineer mindset that sets me apart in some way - when I'm confronted with a problem, I take a methodical approach and try to solve it in pieces. Even though I knew nothing about this guy's system, I was able to just hold his hand and make him feel worlds better, and all I had to do was mess around with it a little and make a phone call to tech support.
The owner was so happy he offered to feed me and my parents dinner and give us whatever else we wanted, on the house. I didn't want to take any advantage; my work there was done, he had my card, and people on the island have long memories for this sort of kindness, so that was plenty of thanks for me. My mom, however, did log on and print out the coupon she wanted, free of charge.
I guess I'm good for something!
Last Words
I'm really going to miss the beaches the most when I leave. I've only ever wanted to go into the ocean here, where I can actually see the bottom and it's warm enough to fall asleep in. The sea water almost looks and feels clean, not black and brackish the way the Atlantic is. And the sand on most beaches is really fine, soft, and inviting.
We're in the home stretch now... leaving for home soon. I'm not looking forward much to the flight, but at least it's only two connections this time (unless they change their minds again).
Aloha!