"Hello!
My friend,are you busy recently?I found a nice website,I think you will be interested in the products in it.So I am writing this letter to introduce it to you.This is a website about electronical products,and it has many kinds of products..."

Almost a year ago now, my hotmail account was infiltrated by some malware that sent out the above spam to everyone in my address book. This led to some annoying cluttering of everyone's inboxes, not to mention a need to tighten up my web security. On the other hand, a few friends I hadn't connected with in a while took advantage of the unexpected email to drop me a line. Among them were Art and Kay, who I met while touring Egypt and Jordan in November of 2007 (you can read all about those adventures in the archived blogs).

When I was finalizing my travel plans for this week's conference, I followed up on Kay's suggestion to let them know if I'm ever in Hawaii. I didn't hear back, but figured that people get pretty busy and I didn't give all that much notice.

Then this morning, on my last day on Oahu, I get an email from Kay. Turns out the email address I used gets checked about every 2 months or so, but she just happened to be doing that chore the night before. After frantically responding to my original email and getting no quick response (I hardly bother with hotmail anymore myself), she managed to track down my school contact and finally get through.

A few more hours of delay and we probably would have missed the opportunity to see one another. Instead, I was lucky enough to be treated to a great afternoon catching up with friends and experiencing parts of the island only a local would know to point out (the Pali's ferocious winds and feral chickens, Obama's highschool, pineapples, papaya, and SPAM! - and no, I don't mean more of the broken english email variety).

Whenever I travel, I try to keep an eye out for vandalism and graffiti. I find that the subtle differences in these can reveal important features of a place.

A few years back, my line of work took me out to Fort Irwin, where a lot of US soldiers have trained prior to and between rotations to Iraq. I read something scrawled in one of the port-o-potties there that I won't soon forget:

"If I owned Iraq and hell, I'd sell Iraq and live in hell."

I'm sure a lot of people have compared Iraq to hell; probably no fewer equate Hawaii with heaven. Arriving at Honolulu airport, I noticed some scribbles on the taxi stand:

"Fear God. Fear no mon."

Nice to see the island spirit shines through even in serious graffiti.

Oh, what I won't go through in the name of science...



Taken just outside the hotel where I was attending a conference this week.