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When I awoke, my heart was pounding. I gasped in great lung fulls of air as if I had just broken the surface of water after a near fatal dive. My eyes searched around the room in the dim light. An ominous shape of a man at the foot of my bed gave my heart a start. I nearly cried out, but realized in time it was merely a haphazard pile of clothes. Finding nothing amiss, I let my head plop back onto the pillow. That little episode did little to reduce my anxiety and quell my beating heart.

It had to be done, or we wouldn't have done it. Or at least, we would have done it many months later in a more prepared and thorough manner with electric engines. However, sometimes reality isn't so kind. Keehi Marine Center had issued us a notice to vacate our slip, citing a dubious "no reason", and giving us about 30 days.

The orange was pure ambrosia in my mouth. Any scurvy in my body didn't stand a chance. Of course, only having been on the ocean for a few hours, scurvy was not very likely to settle in. That'd take several weeks at least. I was more concerned with keeping hydrated and a reasonably filled stomach which were good measures against seasickness. I'd never gotten seasick before, and I wasn't looking forward to ever experiencing it.

A couple miles off the coast, we were puttering along slowly at a few knots, perhaps as much as 5 knots but I doubt it. Eric put on so much of my SPF 35 sunblock that he looked like a mime. Getting tired of continually correcting the steering, I set the steering brake and sat down, periodically making course adjustments. Occasionally I'd have Eric go down to check the bilge. The bilges were completely dry until we were a couple miles off the coast, of course. By then there was a little trickle of water down there. Nah, we couldn't have a leak. Still, I'd have to look into it.

Our first big hurdle was getting out of the slip. This entailed fending off from two boats and the dock. We had to swing the bow out far enough so that when we did engage the motor we could turn away safely from the other boats and enter the water ways that led to the channel. Meanwhile, in the background the radio squawked something unintelligible about military exercises and to "steer clear" of some geographic coordinates which I hoped weren't on our path. Someone around Hilo was also in distress and the Coast Guard was requesting assisting vessels. It promised to be an interesting day.

I really didn't want to do it. I wanted to hire a professional to tow our boat. Eric wanted to use our other boat, Tropic Moon, to tow Tempo over to Ala Wai. Fearing that we might lose two boats in the move, I argued strongly in favor of either towing, or going with my outboard motor mount idea. Eventually my side prevailed, as we had only two volunteer friends arrive to help move the boat. Just in case, I loaded on board some extra flares, throwable life preservers, and a man-overboard array. I'm sure this inspired confidence in my crew.

An ancient axiom in life is: If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape; if it doesn't move and it should, use WD-40. In getting our Columbia 36 boat "Tempo" ready for the move to Ala Wai, I used an ample amount of each. Our boat wasn't really ready to move, but our window of opportunity was quickly decreasing. We'd been given a 7 day window from the Ala Wai harbor to move into a temporary slip. Failing that, we had less than a week to move from Keehi Marine Center which had ordered us to vacate for the dubious "no reason." And so, I set out to ready Tempo for the move incurring great expense, moving safety supplies from Tropic Moon, and borrowing a 5hp outboard motor from a friend. I made sure we had plenty of duct tape and WD-40 on board.

Why do we have dreams? What are these flashes of ideas, seemingly disconnected visions of the past, present, and future. Some people believe that dreams are merely random bits from memory, flashed in our mind's eye during sleep. Other people ascribe great meaning and predictions based upon our dreams. Being a computer scientist, I ascribe to another idea.

I may not be the greatest philosopher to ever have lived, but I've recognized a few things in my short stay thus far here on earth. People are wholly unable to be content in their lives. There is an internal desire to strive for something, anything really. During ones formative years one will latch onto some goal, and make it their own. Sometimes it is as simple as striving to make one person happy on this planet. For others it may be a grand vision of change that will not be attained in that one person's lifetime. And so, here is my list of 10 uncomfortable truths one might recognize in life.

At first glance, I figured the heavyset woman wearing the faded, dirty, and yet flowery XXXL dress (possibly a muumu) to be homeless. She was sitting askew on the bus bench with kind of a dazed expression on her face. When a couple passing tourist guys happened by, the woman sprang to life and said to them, "I'll buy your water for a dollar!" and waved some money at them. The guy with the bottle replied after looking at his half-filled water bottle, "You can buy a new bottle for a dollar." The woman then told them she didn't want to leave the bus stop. Being kind, the guy just gave her the water bottle without payment and went on his merry way. Freshly watered, the lady then began her tirade.