Aerial Photo

This is an aerial shot of our jobsite. I want to put some arrows pointing to different things, but I don't know how to do that. If you are really interested, you can click on the picture to see it at full size and then follow along with what I have written below.

I have zoomed-in on the area directly to the left of the building. This is where I work every day.

This is the area just down and a little to the right of the building. This is where the North Tower will be built. It will be almost identical to the South Tower.

The area in between the two towers and the road will be filled with townhouses. When I go to the beach I usually go to the one at our site. Most of the time it is pretty empty. I live on the street at the bottom of the big picture (the one that runs left to right). It takes about 10 minutes to walk to the job-site property. Currently, I get to our office by the highway (running top to bottom). I circle almost the entire site and enter on the opposite side. In January our office will move to the entrance at the bottom of the picture. I will ride my bike to work when that happens. That's a quick update. Hope you have enjoyed following along.

It rained hard last week. Really hard.

The road to Hana

Well, my friend Jason Azbill moved in with me this week. It's been pretty fun so far.

We decided to spend a Saturday driving to Hana. For those of you who don't know, Hana is on the other side of the island from me. There are a lot of myths about the roads. I have heard that it violates your rental agreement to go there because of the roads. I've heard you can drive there, but you have to take the same road back (instead of circling the mountain) because the rest of the road is un-drivable. There are other "myths" as well. I just remember doing the drive when I was here with my family and it wasn't that bad.

Jason and I decided to take the most difficult route possible because I still have a rental car to beat up. We decided to drive down the Western coast and to circle the mountain in a counter-clockwise direction. Some maps (like the one above) show a dotted line road from the coastal area connecting to the road around the mountain.

We drove down the coast. When we got to the end of the road we went off-road for a while. After about half an hour we finally got to a hill that the car couldn't get up (it's not even 4-wheel drive). Finally, we accepted the fact that we would have to use regular roads. Back-tracking took another hour or so. Counter-clockwise from the North coast around seemed the best course.

The drive was great. It is on the rain forest side of the island, cut into cliffs. For pictures see:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Dave.G.Burke/DriveToHana . During the drive, we discovered that there was a relay race from the valley to Hana. It was a pretty crazy sight to see. We were in the jungle with pouring rain. We passed a runner every minute or so. Plus, each team had a support van driving on the road, stopping, dropping off people and picking others up. It seemed fun though.

Hana was a nice town. If I could get a job working online, Hana is where I would like to live. The countryside is so beautiful.

After some time in Hana we decided to continue our loop. We drove south and west for another hour or so. I included some pictures of a waterfall that was on the way. Eventually we came to a bridge, and it was CLOSED! There had been no signs beforehand to let us know. We ended up having to drive back out on the same road which we had used coming in. That detour cost us another 3 hours or so.

On the way back I stopped at a fruit stand to ask about the bridge. The hippies there said it has been closed since November. My coworkers told me that there had been an earthquake in that same month. They said that the bridge was probably fine (it looked fine), but the government closed it instead of checking it or taking chances on it. Isn't that crazy? But I'm finding that that's Hawaii.

The Job

I'm going to write a little about my job. I am the Project Coordinator for a project being built on Maui. I should be here for three years. We will construct two condo towers with 84 townhouses spread around the towers. If you want more detailed information about the project you can visit this website: http://www.honuakai.com/
I was originally hired for the North Tower which should start in a month or so. Until then I am getting my feet wet by helping out on the South Tower which began construction last September. On Friday I went on a site walk of the ST. You can find pictures of that walk here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Dave.G.Burke/JobSite
I am really enjoying work. My co-workers are great. I may blog about them in the future. I enjoy the work as well. I am really learning a lot about the project. I also visited a model apartment (used as a selling tool - like a model home) and loved it. I will go back and take pictures to post.
I feel that I should also include some "hilarious mishaps". This week I cut my foot on a rock in the ocean. It wasn't that bad. More painful was when a bug flew into my eye. It got stuck under my lower eyelid and either bit or stung me. By the time I got it out it was already dead, which was sad because I wanted to kill it. It didn't really affect my vision or anything. It just really hurt. Stupid bug.

Arrival

For those of you who don't know, I graduated from BYU in April. I interviewed with and was hired by a company called Ledcor. I will be their project coordinator working on a project building two ten-story condo towers and 84 townhouses. We join our hero a couple of days after arrival.
Well, I'm here in Maui. It was not a smooth ride. I missed my connecting flight, the airline lost my bags and the electricity wasn't turned on when I got to my apartment. The next morning I locked myself out of my apartment and had to wait a couple of hours for the day manager to arrive. Luckily I live within walking distance from a beach. Once I got back into my apartment I was able to straighten everything out.
My apartment is ok. It is a one bedroom with a nice balcony. However, it was decorated by a woman, for a woman. She really liked the color purple. I shipped my camera cord, so I may not be able to post pictures for 3-4 weeks.
The location of my apartment is perfect. As I mentioned, I can walk to the beach in two minutes. There is a farmer's market at about the same distance. I could (but I haven't) walk to work in about 15 minutes. My job site is on a really nice beach and I have gone swimming after work every day so far.
I am really enjoying work. On Friday I will have a tour of the project so I will take pictures and write a blog about my job then.