At Ala Moana Shopping Center in Honolulu, there are three great surf shops that I love; Island Snow, Hawaiian Island Creations and Town and Country Surf Hawaii.

HIC and T&C have been around since I was in high school, and Island Snow is relatively new. The stores carry the latest in surf, skateboarding and snow board fashions, as well as equipment and accessories for the various sports.

While in Honolulu, I saw so many people carrying "DaKine backpacks", I just had to have one. They looked so trendy there, and even my chiropractor today told me I had a really cool looking backpack. Check the site out, DaKine.

Da Kine is hawaiian pidgin english for the phrase, "the thing" or "that sort of thing". People say "you know the da kine", then they would go on to explian what "da kine" really means. It's like a catch all phrase, like "whatever".

Anyway, so I bought a "varial" pack, which can be found under Skate packs. Like supposedly, if I had a skateboard I could attach my skateboard to my backpack. Like whatever. It was the cutest, coolest looking and most reasonally priced backpack in the store.

Another idea for a new story from read a book on greek and roman mythology.

Apollo, roman and greek god of the Sun. Also manifested in Egypt as Amen-Ra, god of the sun. Although Apollo/Amen-Ra don't exist, their spirit lives on. Didn't Star Trek find some planet where Apollo lived? My cousin is a serious trekkie, who just had the logo of Star Trek tatooed on her leg and attends the convention in LA every year.

Apollo keeps track of all his followers in their various incarnations. The story takes place in modern day. A dark aspect of Apollo takes over the family of one of his priestesses, and causes havoc and health problems. Apollo uses human bodies to experience life, but the use of a human's body causes harm to the person health and their mind. Apollo can only be banished by an ancient greek exorcism ritual, and the young people in the family travel to Greece to learn how to exorcise Apollo from their family. But of course, he's a god and he's not going to leave without a fight.

Someone in the comments was asking if I had come up with new story ideas, and I did.

While on vacation, I was reading about "devas" or nature spirits. This the name for gods or goddesses who rule over things, usually nature type stuff.

Story idea # 1
Title - Living in the Glass

A story about a woman who is married to the deva (god) of glass and light transmission. The deva of glass and light transmission rules the world of light tranmission. The deva of glass and light transmission has the ability to steal souls of spirit who use light to transmit themselves. Think of the transporter from Star Trek. That's a form of light transmission.

Story Idea # 2
Title - Lady of the Tiger

A story about a woman married to the deva of the saber toothed tiger. Through marriage, she acquires the tiger's ability to sense danger and predators. But the deva of the saber tooth tiger is cruel, he lives in darkness and not in the light. The deva of the saber tooth tiger takes over an unsuspecting tiger and has the tiger kill people. The life of the lady of the tiger is spent avoiding curses put on them by the angry people and other natural tiger predators.

The first day back at work is always difficult.

I typed my password in and I couldn't log into the system. I was on on hold with the IT help desk before I remembered that windows xp is case sensitive and the first letter of my password is capitalized. DUH!!!

After reading a ton of email, I had two conference calls to attend and an analysis to put together. I know I shouldn't complain. At least I came home to a job and I'm busy at work and not looking over my shoulder wondering if I'll get canned.

Open enrollment happened while I was away on vacation, so I had to call HR to get some forms faxed to me. Luckily, I was only two days past the deadline. I wanted to change my health plan to a cheaper version. The company ended up changing insurance carriers, so new beneficiary forms had to be filled out by everyone.

I know about these things now since I've had to deal with they dying stuff at my grandmother's funeral.

Note to everyone. Put all your important papers in one place and mark it clearly. When you die, it will make things much easier for your family or whoever will be going through your stuff.

Cleaning out my grandmother's house made me realize very clearly that when you die, you don't take your stuff with you. Someone will have to throw it all out or sell your things. The less stuff the better. It's all going to end up at a charity, in someone else's house, or most of the time in the trash. Get rid of it now and save your family the pain of throwing your junk out after you die.