Developing Usable Experiences

A long trip, royal arrival

November 2nd, 2007 12:37 pm —  192 views

I’m sitting in my room at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. W. and I were up at 5:30 (Hawaii time). This was after going to bed around 10:00 PM (3:30 AM our time). The trip went pretty good. We were on three different planes.

It was daylight out and pretty clear when we were flying over the U.S. and I got some pretty good pictures. I’ve already taken a ton but none of where we are staying as it was dark when we got here.

Speaking of our arrival. The woman we were travelling with is the one that has arranged and coordinated the User Conference that is the reason we are here in the first place. When we got off the plane, someone was holding her name. From thereafter we were treated like royalty. We picked up our luggage, a giant Hawaiian man loaded it into our waiting Lincoln Navigator and whisked us off to our hotel.

When we pulled up to the hotel, a number of people were waiting for us. Two people from the hotel gave orders to bag carriers then took us to our room. To get there we got into a boat that runs around the entire village. This took us to the Palace Tower where our rooms were located. Let me tell you, this place is crazy nice.

The sun is starting to come up and I have the slider open to the outside. There are all kinds of birds making noise and I can hear the ocean off to the right.

In the distance is a looming moutain. Probably a volcano but I haven’t learned for sure yet. We are gearing up to head out and start touring the place.

Image: I took this picture from the plane, zooming in to this huge mountain jutting above the clouds as we were descending to the airport in Portland Oregon. This mountain was amazing. I don’t know what it is yet (Mt. Ranier?) but looking out the plane window, seeing only clouds, then suddenly there is a mountain just about even with the plane. It was kind of freaky.

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Comments

3 Responses to “A long trip, royal arrival”

  1. Heidi on November 2nd, 2007 3:57 pm

    Spike,

    Hope you and Wendy enjoy your trip! Take some time just for the two of you! Maybe some hula lessons?

  2. Spike on November 10th, 2007 11:03 pm

    Speaking of hula, W. told me today that she got called on stage during the company Luau to do hula with the Hawaiian hula girls. I got the sense she didn’t have much fun with it. But in the spirit of being a good sport, I’m betting she did her best.

    I happen to know that W. has some skills working a hula-hoop but they must not be similar enough to warrant transferability.

  3. Spike on November 19th, 2007 7:58 pm

    Slight correction here. I learned later (photo evidence doesn’t lie) that W. didn’t get up on stage with hula girls…it was all hula men!

    She was caught on camera dancing with guys decked out in big muscles, cocoa tans, wearing grass skirts. What in the hell?!? And with me a 1/4 world away?!?

    I suppose maybe I should get me a grass skirt.

    Actually, she was good sport about being put into an embarrassing situation but stepped up and took one for the team. Muscles schmuscles. I have one or two. Somewhere.

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