and a Happy New Year!

By and large, I like Hawaii.  I have a few hangups, which are the same as everyone else's: traffic, parking, and the cost of living.  I think that the benefits far outweigh the setbacks.  Even after New Years, when I discovered my very least favorite thing about Hawaii: F-ing New Year's.

On New Year's eve, this place turns into a war zone.  Before the sun even goes down, there are loud bangs from every direction.  The noise intensifies until midnight, when it slowly tapers off.

I'm not talking about a municipal firecracker show.  There weren't folks shooting off bottle rockets and those fireworks that whizz around on the ground in their yards.  These were high caliber fireworks being shot from every direction.  They were exploding outside of my third floor window because people were shooting them from the driveway below.  And in the dog park behind the complex.  And in the courtyard in the middle of the complex.  Not to mention from the balconies of the complex next door, from their parking lot, and, as I discovered this morning, from the fire hydrants on our sidewalks.  We later read in the news that a stray bullet penetrated a home in Honolulu.  I appreciate fireworks as much as the next person, but give me a break!  Ridiculous.  I later discovered that the big fireworks are illegal unless a permit is purchased, but I guess so many people violate that rule that it's not enforceable.  Maybe we will spend next New Year's on the base.  Apparently, they don't allow fireworks.

Complete jackassery...