What To Expect On Kauai (from some internet site)

Location
Kauai is an island, part of the State of Hawaii and the United States. It is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Honolulu, which is on the island of Oahu.

Air Transportation
Unless you have your own boat, or are on a cruise, the only way to reach Kauai is by air. United Airlines, American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Aloha Airlines fly to the airport in Lihue on Kauai from Honolulu and various airports on the Mainland USA. There is also a small commuter plane that flies once a day from Honolulu to Princeville on the North Shore of Kauai. Flights from California directly to Honolulu or Lihue take about five hours. Please note that the Lihue Airport does not have any currency exchange services.

The Social Environment
Kauai is rural. The population is about 55,000 scattered mostly around the coast and concentrated in a few small towns. Overall, sidewalks and wheelchair ramps are very limited. It is the custom of most residents to remove their footgear when they enter a home, but not a store. There is not a great deal of evening entertainment. (no kidding! you are in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the pacific ocean and you can't drive off.)

The Physical Environment
Kauai is a tropical island, with all its implications.

Weather - at its best, a balmy 77F (25C), with blue skies, puffy white clouds, soft breezes and gentle waves. At its worst, either stormy and rainy with high waves, or very hot and humid with waves doing whatever they feel like. The weather is very changeable, and there is no guarantee of any kind for any season.
Swimming - you must always use caution, because the waves and currents are unpredictable, even on a calm day. The rules are "If in doubt, don't go out" and "If you do go out, look about." People are lost every year, either by large waves they weren't looking at or by riptides. If you should get caught in a riptide (a strong current that pulls you out to sea for up to a hundred yards or so) just go with it until it weakens and swim along the shore until you can get back in.
Wildlife - no snakes and nothing larger than wild boar, which you are unlikely to see unless you go hunting for it in the mountains. Lots of birds, and lots of insects. You are most likely to encounter mosquitoes, geckos (small lizards that often live indoors), cockroaches, spiders of various sizes, and, possibly, a centipede or two.

Information about my home island.

The tropical paradise of Kaua'i basks amidst the sparkling blue waters of the Pacific Ocean, about 20 minutes by air from Honolulu. Formed some six million years ago, the island encompasses roughly 550 miles and is the oldest and northernmost of the main Hawaiian Islands.

Here's one of the official sites: Discover Kaua'i.

Comments from the anti-semitic professor at Oxford on the Oxford University site; Comments by Professor Andrew Wilkie.

Is this anti-semitic? Outrage as Oxford bans student for being Israeli.

I spoke to my eldest aunt, who lives on Kauai, and she said my grandma will be home by the time I get to Hawaii. I think my aunt was happy to know I was coming, because she's the one who's going to be taking care of grandma since she lives nearby.

The rest of the family will see grandma at the hospital, but it's my aunt who will be the major caretaker until my uncle arrives in August to move in and take care of her. My aunt said it will be nice for her to have help and relief.

My grandma will probably freak out though because that means I'll be making her meals. She's an excellent cook, and she knows I'm not up to her skill in the kitchen. Oh well. My aunt can't really cook either, so I don't feel that bad.

I went through a Jack Benny fit trying to decide how to get home. I decided in the end to fly on Aloha, because they're partnered with United Airlines. With my airline mileage flying to Hawaii and back, I'll have enough for a free trip on United.

It would have been cheaper to go with Suntrips, and I've booked with them before and they're not that bad. But for an extra $200, I'll earn a free trip on United within the continental United Staes. Got to use up my United Airlines miles before anything else happens with them.

I'm spending 8 days on Kauai, then I'll fly to Honolulu to visit with my brother, shop and be a tourist. I have a hankering to see the Honolulu Zoo. I haven't been there since I was a kid.

This is the first time I won't be staying in a hotel on some part of my trip home. My brother told me I could stay at his house, and I said yes. He doesn't live that far from downtown Waikiki, the bus system in Honolulu is decent for a city its size, and it's only for a few nights.

I love staying in hotels, and I think I'm going to miss that part of the trip the most.

My screenwriting teacher is spending the summer surfing on the North Shore of Oahu, and I may send her an email to see if she wants to get together.

I'm relieved to have the logistics part of my trip taken care of. I bought a ticket, reserved my rental car, and even made airport shuttle reservations.

Now I have to get ready for the emotional part of my trip. I have a feeling grandma won't live past September, and this will probably be the last time I'll see her.

It makes me happy to think that I may be returning the physical love and care that she gave me growing up.

I wasn't planning to do anything on July 4th, because I'm really too emotionally raw to be with people, but a friend just called and I may end up going with her to a bull fight.

Bull fights in California? What a trip! I'm sure the PETA people are up in the arms. Here's the schedule, California Bull Fights.

There's a bull fight on July 4th somewhere in the Central Valley. My friend has been to real ones in Spain, but I've never seen one.

This is the friend I went to West Virginia with last summer, and we were reminiscing about spending last July 4th on the golf course at The Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, and watching the guards trying the keep the riff raff trash like us from getting close to the clubhouse.

I don't know though. I don't know if I'll be good company even for my friend, and we're playing it by ear since her boyfriend may want to go instead.

Part of me just wants to spend the holiday lying in bed and being by myself. Depression makes me tired and sleepy, and not very good company for anyone but myself.

I'm depressed. No doubt about it. I feel like I'm living in the land of limbo.

I can't make my flight reservations to fly home because I don't know if grandma is going to be in Honolulu or on Kauai. My family just doesn't know. And I feel bad for betting on my corporate and financial instincts, which says her healthplan will boot her out as soon as possible to save money.

I work in the business, that's how it goes. I even designed a report for my healthcare organization which listed which of our patients were in the hospitals. Every morning the nurses used the report to make sure that patients didn't stay in the hospitals any longer than they had to. The financial model was always shorter hospital stays, because hospital stays are the number one expense driver.

Still I can't be sure, so I have to wait and waiting is depressing. So I watch TV, and lie on my bed thinking about life. Or I iron clothes just to keep busy.

I can't write. Writing feels stupid in a life and death situation. Who the hell cares if I have anything to say or any stories to tell. Life is ending for god's sake.

Or I think how my biggest fear was I would lead an ordinary boring life, and maybe I'm living my greatest fear. A friend from Santa Barbara had a word for this kind of life, but I can't think about it right now because thinking takes too much effort.

I wonder where my Santa Barbara friend is now. I'm sure she's living in New York City somewhere with her PR business, living the kind of life I thought I wanted but gave up. But if I was living like my Santa Barbara friend, I would have been living in NYC when 9/11 happened, and that wouldn't have been fun either.

But TV is fun, and watching old taped TV shows are fun.

I watched Witchblade last night. The creators of that show did such an incredible job of tying everything in the show together. They have to, it's part of the plot. Now that's a cool writing trick, making tying everything together part of the story.

The story of the Witchblade is it's an object of power which endows the wearer with special powers. When someone wears the witchblade everything in their life becomes connected, there are no accidents, everything in life becomes a lesson for the witchblade wearer to learn.

I wish I had something in my life that connected everything together. Maybe then I would understand what is going on in my life right now.

My thoughts are rambling like my life. All over the place, all at once, randomly going from one incident to the next, with no purpose. Sorry about that.