Go, Shorty. It's your Birthday

This might be better suited to my friend John's blog (it's about "how to get rich"), but here's a little list of things that you can get for free on your birthday. That's right. I said free!

Actually, I'm not sure if all of these are valid in Hawaii, as we seem to get ripped all the time, but they're worth a try (for whatever of these places you can frequent in Hawaii).

Without further ado, here's a link to the list from "Hey it's free" (and I believe it's updated regularly).

Aren't We Getting Too Old for this Sort of Thing?

Last night we took our friend Ted out to dinner. I know, I know, his birthday was in June and although we already went out once for his birthday the guy is so special we went out with him again. The place he chose was a small sushi restaurant, Kats Sushi.

They have all-you-can-eat-sushi for a very reasonable price (a little over $20/person) but there are some rules involved. First, only once order per person at a time (but that one person can order for the whole table) and second, you need to eat everything (including the rice). Anything not eaten will be charged to you. And, of course, being the competitive guys we are, we had to see who could eat the most sushi. So what did we eat? I'll let the pictures show you.

One one side of the table were the two Mikes, Kawakami and Worden

On the other side were the three Japanese guys (well, Kawakami was one the other side)

Round 1: maguro, hamachi, sake and unagi

Here's what I mean by everyone can order one type of sushi for the whole table. We all picked a different nigiri and they brought our five orders of it.

Round 1 concluded: hotategai rolls

Round 2: hokkigai and tako

Round 2 continued: spicy ahi and spicy salmon rolls

Round 2 concluded: spicy unagi rolls

About this time in our meal, we started keeping track of what we ordered so that we could make sure we got the most sushi for our dollar. We wanted to make sure we ate more than the cost of the buffet. Somewhere during this round I think we made our goal.

Here's the birthday boy enjoying another piece of sushi

Round 3: ebi

Round 3 continued: ikura and Hawaiian (ahi, shiso leaves and sprouts) rolls

Ikura is possibly my least favorite type of sushi. I only ate because everyone else was eating it. Ikura are fish eggs. When you're eating them they literally burst in your mouth. By burst, I mean they explode with a salty, fishy taste. Yuck. Good thing I'm a team player (and I didn't want to lose).

Round 3 concluded: spicy hamachi and salmon skin rolls

Here are the first two to drop

At the end of the third round the two Mikes threw in the towel. I wonder how they knew to sit together so they could quit together. Actually, Mike Kawakami never even made it out of the third round. That one lonely roll you see in the picture above is his. Ted ended up eating it.

John was the first on the Japanese side to drop out



Round 4: maguro and sake

We started round 4 with three competitors left. Notice there are only four pieces of maguro above? John quit after the salmon. We'll give him credit for completing half of the fourth round.

The last two standing

Ted and I actually had another order of saba nigiri but I forgot to take a picture. Overall, I think Ted came out the victor since he did eat Mike Kawakami's uneaten roll.

Final counts:

Ted: 19 pieces of nigiri and 9 rolls
Scott: 19/8
John: 16/8
Mike W: 14/8
Mike K: 14/7

My impression of the sushi was okay. It wasn't the best or worst I've ever eaten. The fish was good but the rice seemed a little mushy and heavily packed. It also tasted to heavily of vinegar for my liking. Plus, they make you order only one at a time and the night we went there was only one sushi chef so sometimes we had to wait a good 5-7 minutes before the next order appeared. When you're trying to eat as much as you possibly can those precious minutes only help you to get full. Of course for $20 it was a good deal and I would definitely eat there again.

We Got the Beat

So here we are in July already. Man, where did our year go? We're past the halfway point and I've only blogged like 4 times this whole year (and one post was about what I wanted for my birthday). It's not that I don't have things going on in my life or that my life has suddenly gotten very boring, rather my life has gotten busier and I think I've gotten lazier.

But last Saturday night we had a big shindig we called "We Got the Beat". It was a celebration of the 80's where everyone was encouraged to dress up, dance and sing along to a karaoke machine.

Here's what welcomed the party goers

The party planning committee (Matt's MiniChurch) did a phenomenal job in planning and executing the party. Matt and Lauren planned out the snacks, the games and everything in between. They even had a set up and break down crew to do everything.

The best part of the night was the clothes! I couldn't believe the number of people that actually came in costume. I would say around 90% of the people who came dressed up in one form or another. Ignite, our ministry, never ceases to amaze me.

Short and shorter

Ernest (on the left) arrived first in his short, risque shorts. I think he was going for some sort of Village People look. Not to be outdone, Michael showed up as Tom Cruise in Risky Business (which is funny because his daughter Haley kind of looks like Suri, Tom Cruise's daughter).

Even Haley got into the swing of things

A little later, Michael changed into something a little more Dirty Dancing-esque.

Caelly (left), Lauren (center) and Irene (right) share a song

When I asked Caelly what she was going to wear, she said "I don't know, something 80's-ish." I asked her how she knew it was 80's-ish and she replied, "My mom said it was 80's." Five minutes later, I asked Irene the same question and oddly enough, she gave me the exact same answer! She said, "My mom said it was 80's!"

And of course, what's a party without dancing? I can honestly say that I never saw so many good moves all in one place! Here's a video mashup of some of the better moves.

To view the rest of the pictures click here.