Aloha!

So, I've been sent on another business trip to Hawai'i.  OK, so big deal.  It's not all fun in the sun and relaxation in a tropical paradise.  No really, it's really not.  I'm not kidding.  Oh, whatever, believe what you want.

This trip is all the buzz back at the office.  Everyone seems to have heard about the program that has sent people to Hawai'i.  "Oooh, now that must be a really tough assignment." [Insert sarcasm here.]  It's kind of ironic that one of our smaller programs is getting so much attention from so many people in the office.  I hear several may be attempting to discover "legitimate" business reasons to come join the traveling team to meet with customers, etc., especially the etc.

Seriously, it's not all it's cracked up to be.  Sure we do get a little bit of time to enjoy the sites, sounds, and especially tastes of Hawai'i.  But there are serious down-sides to it too.  Take our schedule, for example.  This week we meet at the hotel resort at 1 AM to begin our travel to the work sites.  The travel time on Maui from the hotels in Kihei to the summit of Haleakala is about 90 minutes.  I'm currently on the Big Island.  Our travel time from the resort at Waikoloa to the NOAA facility near the top of Mauna Loa is closer to 110 minutes.  Then we work at the site for about 6 to 8 hours; our time is limited on the sites because our customer is worried about long-term exposure to high-altitude conditions.  So we do our experiments and collect our data, and turn around and go back down the mountain.  So basically half of our 24-hour day is spent at work, during not-so-enjoyable hours of the day, and a third of that time is spent traveling.  And please note that it is not necessarily pleasant travel.  It's mostly motion-sickening winding switchback roads.  Here on the Big Island, it's also a very rough, pothole-filled road much of the way.  Right now, I also don't have a car.  So for any personal time remaining, I'm mostly limited to the locations within walking distance in the Waikoloa Beach Resort, which is about 20 miles away from anything else of significance on the island.

The worst part about it is how much I miss my family while I'm here.  Sure, my co-workers, other contractors, and the customers are all really pleasant people to live and work with.  But being away from my spouse and children for four weeks is definitely no picnic, neither for me, nor for them.

That said, there are still some really neat things about the trip.  This is my second time doing this for the company.  Last time, I got to bring Rae out for a few days before we started our work.  We stayed on Oahu and visited the Polynesian Cultural Center, the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, and other neat sites.  But it was really sad to send Rae off on one plane towards home while I got on another flight towards work on Maui.  But I've also been able to see a fair amount of the islands of Maui and Hawai'i.  The road to Hana is really beautiful.  And seeing live volcanic activity in action at the Hawai'i Volcanos National Park was really amazing.  I've really enjoyed visiting the La'ie Temple and the Kona Temple too.  Yes, the food in Hawai'i is really delicious too, when we get a chance to enjoy it.  Most restaurants have limited lunch and dinner hours that don't match well with our work schedule.  Much of the time they are only open when we need to be sleeping to get ready for an early start the next morning.

In case you are interested, we are testing a faster-than-broadband Internet-like connection.  I was a lead developer of the networking software for this product.  We are testing our network connections between the two mountain tops.  I have been told these two volcanos are the only two such sites at a great distance from each other, but still within line-of-sight of each other anywhere in the USA; hence the reason for this location.  What we are working on is really cool technology and actually one of the most exciting parts of this trip for me.

Here are some more pictures of my trip this year.