thurs. mar. 29 2001.
on a flight out from san jose at 5 and in honolulu by 8pm. the warmth of the air and a fresh floral smell say aloha... 
like some celestial hand, with a gigantic aerosol potpourri can has gone to town over the island. decide to take the local bus into town. its a long wait, there are mostly hawaians and samoans on the bus. the tourists all rent cars or take tour shuttles into town. check into the executive center hotel downtown honolulu. there is a msg. from jeff martin, old friend, ex-alias user, surfer, weeder, deadhead, santa barbarian. too late for dinner but we go see 'the mexican'. i make it through the first five minutes. jeff has a wife now... maria jose, brazillian flower girl, organic food and health expert. she makes us ginger lemongrass tea at their 32 floor apt. with a spectacular view of the honolulu harbour, pier and airport runway. you can spit off jeff's balcony and clock random pineapple printed tourists on the cruise ships docked below. i am here to talk to square about a project. jeff has just been laid off from square with the completion of a project, the movie 'final fantasy'. fri. is spent cycling honolulu. leave around 11 a.m. with jeff's bike, a decent hybrid and ride out past the spring break soaked beaches of waikiki to diamond head and beyond. in waikiki a woman comes up and asks me if i am lost and can she help me. i say no, i am not lost because i am not really looking for anything. it was nice of her to ask though so feeling obliged i ask if she can recommend a place where i might find an exotic tropical drink with an umbrella sticking out of it. she says shorebird on the beach at the outrigger reef hotel. now i have a goal and a mission. trouble. run out of gears riding up some diamondhead hill to a great outlook. there is much beauty here but its incomplete and its frustrating when you believe  you know what it is. rehydrate on the way back with a maitai at the hard rock cafe by the big building with the statue of father damien of the lepers outside it. struggling with this n-sided patch problem that i want to build a continuous curve network radiating from the center for. the guy at the counter next to me leans over my doodled napkin and says, you into spiders bro, i like scorpians myself. he has a ginormous scorpion tattooed from elbow to wrist. he is a tattoo artist and thought i was too. we talk about everything from mathematical symbols to celtic knots to mokos. back around 6. jeff needs the bike. jeff hides his cigarettes from the wife in the bike saddle bag. he is the only person i know who gets rid of telltale evidence of having smoked a cigarette from his wife by washing his hands and then smoking a bowl to mask the cigarette smoke off his breath. meet mundell and some other square animator dweebs and then dinner at this fantastic place called indigo. check out of the hotel sat. and into jeff's office room. its a great propellorheading setup. do some of that. jeff's commute until recently was four floors on an elevator. we do a little walk around the nuuanu valley, snorkel murky waters in lanikai and go to some neighborhood fresh fruit juice bar to get fixed for gazpacho burps for the rest of the evening. square party in the evening around  diamondhead, sushi dinner in waikiki, jacuzzi feet dipping. then jeff says we must blade down ala moana to waikiki. i say ok. then he says quietly that blading is just the code word to get away to a gentlemans club. i say ok but i would rather see the sights and sounds of the city if thats ok. in the parking lot i suggest why dont we ride the 15 floors down the parking chute on blades first. its a real rush. that sets the mood for a good skate and we first go out to the pier where a band is playing classic rock requests. then on to waikiki. icecreams by the kerb watching the nightlife and then jeff still wants to go to club deja-vu. i am pleasantly surprised on three accounts. they let us in barefoot into what seems like a fairly classy joint, there seem to be as many women as guys in what is clearly a 'gentlemans club' and the women on stage are like a cross between mary lou retton, martha graham and marilyn monroe. take a cab back. sun. starts out slow. bodyboarding, swimming and skillfully avoiding hare krishnas in waimanolo. great drive out past the pali outlook somewhere. quite happy to meander along with the moments and whichever way jeff's boat of a stationwagon turns, bootleg jerry garcia noodling away in the background. dinner and hawaiian tunes, hula dancers against the sunset at the fanciest of waikiki hotels, the halekilani. bump into bob bennett of all people. small world. fall asleep by the pool. the world turns a little slower in the tropics. mon. starts with a hike out to a botanical garden, walk through china town and a trek along some trails in the nuuanu valley. talk shop with square in the afternoon. come evening jeff takes the long way round, up tantalus road, a hike with flashlights into pitch black bamboo forest with light rain and gale force winds, the clashing bamboo, whistling winds and dogs barking in the distance makes for a horror movie soundtrack. then maria jose says, lets go jeff, they kill people here for money. so we hightail it back to the car. 10pm and i am back at the airport. seemed like all of spring break waikiki made it onto that plane. 6am and i deplane in san jose to watch executives in their corporate swag queue up for their morning fix of starbucks before being herded onto l.a. commuter shuttles.