Hawaii Trip Recap: Day Three- Maui

Day 3 of my Hawaiian adventure began with our ship arriving on the beautiful island of Maui. We were able to spend two days on Maui, and boy did we make the best of it.

Here me, Ty, Nika, and Shalane wait at the port for the rest of our party to arrive.

We went to a singles ward in some Hawaiian town. The parents got all of us kids to pose together in our church clothes! (L-R) Shalane, Nika, me, Bria, Amanda, Chyanne, Sage, Chalis, Colton, and Ty in the middle.

...and a close-up too!

After church we decided to hit up the beach. For some reason, I decided that a blue polo shirt was my best choice for beach wear. Really, Cody, really?

This was my view from my beachside towel. This picture does not do the real thing justice. Not even close.

That night, we were treated to a special Polynesian dance show on our cruise ship. Similar to the show at the PCC, we saw dances from Hawaii, Fiji, Somoa, New Zealand, and Tonga. The dancers were very entertaining and loved to use volunteers from the audience...

...including this guy. He was chosen to hula dance with this cross-dressing hula beauty. After the show, he came up and talked to our group (you'll see why in a minute). He became one of our cruise ship buddies and we shared a touching man-hug on the day our cruise ended. No lie. Me and this guy right here hugged it out.

At the conclusion of the show, the dancers each brought up a lucky person to learn and perform the hula. Chalis and Colton were called up and here they are learning the dance. They gave us literally thirty seconds to learn it. I say us because I got called up too.

Chalis stole the show by "pulling a crunk" and taking the hula to a whole different level.

Now for me.

I was selected by the hottest of all the girls performing. Instead of using all my charm and skills and rocking her world, I froze.

She tried her best to show me what to do. It wasn't any use. I couldn't do a thing.

When I had my moment in the spotlight, I got low to the ground and did an impersonation of either a surfer or a bald eagle. Either way, I don't think you could call it the hula.

Hook shot!

As my partner (I never learned her name cuz I was just too darn nervous) led me back to my seat, my face said it all: I sucked.

But a really hot scantily-clad girl grabbed my hand and danced with me for two whole minutes! Sweet!

Hawaii Trip Recap: Day Two- Pearl Harbor & Bon Voyage

My last post was a little short and uninformative. Since we got home, I have been pretty much depleted of all energy. (Blame it on jet-lag, lack of sleep, or the amazing amounts of fun I had) That shouldn't be a problem anymore after I slept through all my classes today and just totally relaxed to recover from the vacation. I live a hard life. So from now on, you get to see what I see, live what I lived, experience what I experienced! On to day 2!

My dad and I began the day by visiting Pearl Harbor. It was a pretty surreal experience, for sure. Here I am sitting on some sort of gun-thing. (See, I learned tons!) Some random guy came up to us and spent a good five minutes explaining how this was the best gun ever made.

Here is a submarine that you could walk through. We didn't.

Is this a bomb or like a little baby plane? My friend, I just don't know.

The long white structure on the right side is the USS Arizona Memorial, which is built directly above a battleship sunk during the attack. On the left is the USS Missouri, another battleship that was in the harbor during the attack.

Inside the memorial are the names of the over 1,000 members of the Navy and Marines who were killed in the USS Arizona. Most of the bodies were never recovered. At the bottom left, there is a smaller list of Pearl Harbor survivors who choose to be buried in the Arizona. Being in this room, I felt such a strong peace and gratitude toward all of these brave men and women.

Part of the Arizona that can be seen from the Memorial. After the ship was attacked it took less than nine minutes for it to sink.

There are similar markers like this one that show were all the U.S. ships were during the attack.

It is impossible to see it in this picture, but there is still oil leaking to the surface from the ship. Every thirty seconds or so, we could see a decent amount of oil bubble up. The crazy thing is that the ship sunk over 68 years ago! Wow.

After Pearl Harbor, we loaded ourselves and our things into our home for the next seven days, the NCL Pride of America. Isn't she a beaut?

We were met by our director, Doug. This is a terrible picture but I could not leave him out. He was a gem.

I took a few pictures of Honolulu.

My brother and I marked our departure by playing a intense game of giant chess. I was the white pieces and he was the black pieces. As you can tell, I kicked his butt. That is what big brothers are for. He consoled himself by cozying up to my queen. How cute.

Hawaii Trip Recap: Day One- Oahu

250 min for $100 (.40 per min) 100 min for $55 (.55 per min)

Pay as You Go: $0.75 per minute

That right there was the price for internet on our Hawaiian cruise ship and the reason why I haven't posted on the blog for more than a week. But, never fear, I took a plethora of pictures and I am excited to share them all with you. To spread out the joy and wonderment, I will split things up by days. Starting with Day One...

Here is the (almost) entire group posing for the first of many group photos. My sister Shalane lives in Hawaii and just met us down there for all the fun and festivities. She also was able to stay in Hawaii when the rest of us came home to freezing butt-cold Utah. What a snob. (jk Shay. I'm just bitter.)

We started off our trip with a five hour flight from Salt Lake City to Honolulu. Nika and I busted out our red to mark the occasion.

Bria did what she does best. Strut the stuff.

Ty did what he does best. Look weird.

We hit up the show @ the PCC.

Great Job PCCers!

The highlight of the show was the fire dancers. They were great. Here's a clip:

Not a bad day, but the fun was only beginning.

It's The Weekend

Vampire Weekend's new album Contra comes out today. Here they are in Juan's Basement, via pitchfork.tv, performing White Sky.

Green Day

Today was my first day back to school. (In reality, it was the second official day) Some of my technical writing buddies and I decided it would be fun to mark the occasion of our first capstone class by wearing green.

Why green, you ask? I don't know, Mr. Questionhead. Why not?

Everybody Slap Chop Tonight

It's no secret that Paper Badge is a fan of the Slap Chop. Unfortunately, I have never been able to integrate this love into my dance parties. Until now.



Stop having boring tuna. Stop having a boring life.

Regis Must Be Spinning In His Grave...

Song of the Week: Freelance Whales- "Starring"

Let The Quogging Begin!

Before I get my quog on, I would like to introduce you to the newest member of the Paper Badge family:

That's right, folks, I am the proud owner of a brand new computer! (contooter) If you take a good look at the picture above you will notice that my new computer is seated on top of a familiar frenemy. Only a few months after I re-hauled my Mac, it died right before finals week. Thanks, buddy! So my mom was gracious enough to get me a Dell Studio laptop for Christmas. (Thanks, Mom!)

Right now, I am referring to him as the Mean Green Hornet, but I expect that nickname to evolve into something shorter. It's working like a dream so far. Let's keep our fingers crossed that my computer problems don't jump across the Mac-PC spectrum.

Hey 2010, How You Doin?

All things considered, 2009 was a below-average year seasoned with a few sporadic events of delicious bliss. It was a lot like my trip to Arby's on Thursday. I ordered three junior Roast Beefs and a small curly fry off the dollar menu. I had high hopes for this meal, I really did. But, let me tell you one thing, my friends, the junior Roast Beef is NOT a smaller equally tasty version of the regular roast beef. I'm pretty sure they use a different slab of beef of those sandwiches. Arby sauce couldn't even help that much. But...I still had the curly fries and allthough they were sparse, they tasted amazing. After the dud that was 2008, last year was supposed to be great. I ended up with some great memories, but overall I don't know that I accomplished much. I expected more out of 2009, but the curly fries were definitely few and far between.

So here comes 2010. Brand new year. Brand new decade.

Do I have great, big plans for 2010? Kinda. But, I'm not getting my hopes up either. I won't muddle your minds with most of my resolutions but I will tell you one: Quality Blogging. Quogging.