There Is No "Hotel Waikiki"

Long live Hotel Waikiki

Click this picture.

Couple of quick facts you should know upfront, before we begin...

Ron and I live 5,000 miles apart.
He has never given me his address.
I've never been to Honolulu (or left the mainland) before.
Ron is totally cool.

I can name plenty of other people who would freak out (not in the fun way, either) about the thing I just did, but Ron took it all better than I could've hoped for. Oh - and thank you for not thinking I am a stalker, Ron. This fun little idea really could've gotten rather messy.

Whew...

In an unprecedented act of preparedness, I started planning a trip about a year ago. I had it all sewn up about ten months in advance, and that left me plenty of time to think about it all and make sure I didn't book something insufferable. "Maybe that ain't a good hotel." "Maybe this town is boring." That sort of thing.

Somewhere along the way, I'll admit it, I typed in "Hotel Waikiki" thinking maybe I'd overlooked the obvious. I got a lot of results for hotels in Waikiki, but I didn't get an actual Hotel Waikiki. I did find a blog (can I call it a "blog"?) by that name and, hell, I just enjoy the crap out of it. I don't follow more than about three of these so-called "blogs", but this one is at the top of my list. I like to know what's goin' on there 50% of the way to the other side of the Earth, and I like the way he tells it. I've been following his blog for about a year, I guess. I'm amused that he lives someplace sunny and warm, and he finds it quaint that I live in Antfuckingarctica (if you'll allow me the incestuous tmesis.)

The day before my visit to Waikiki, I took a photo at my local beach and posted it here. About 24 hours later, I stood on the beach at Waikiki and took a photo of the landscape, while holding that photo of my local beach. The resultant photograph is a work I call "Turd in a Punchbowl".

Then (and I remind you that we live 5,000 miles apart and have never actually met) I took the photo and one other from this blournal (that I posted a while back) over to where I thought Ron's house was so I could put them somewhere on/in his motorcycle.

I found his house on the first try. Gotta admit, that was pretty exciting for me. I had a strong idea of where it was, but if I was wrong Honolulu was going to get real big real quick. I had high hopes for pulling this off, but I hadn't much even held out the possibility of failure. When I turned the corner of the first building I tried and saw the motorcycle... the grin was ear to ear. I tucked the photos in a flap on his motorcycle cover and got the hell out of there before he saw me messing with it.

I'd say Ron was appropriately blown away by it all, so the whole experience remains perfectly intact. I'm gonna count this as one of the cooler things I've ever done.

I thought about explaining exactly how I found the place (I can't explain how I found it on the first try, but most all of my vacation seemed to work out just like that) but then I thought better of it. If enough of you rabid "NOT a Blog" fans decide to try your own hand at it, well poor Ron could end up with a whole lot of crappy pictures if you know what I mean. I'd like to say that I just used my brain and leave it at that.

No, Ron, I don't work for the National Security Agency. I also work alone.
That wasn't my beach chair.
I don't like the snow any more than you.

Hope that explains it.