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Kona Classic ’05 Trip Report

We decided to have a mostly-lazy day: slept in, breakfasted at Bubba’s, did a little shopping for Hawaiian shirts. Jeff was determined to find a decent Hawaiian shirt with a fish motif, and we finally found a good one: reefs along the bottom, fish everywhere, and a turtle being cleaned by tangs in the middle of the shirt – just like the photo he submitted for wide angle. I also got my first Hawaiian-print shirt (ladies sleeveless), so we were all prepared to gussie ourselves up for the Awards Banquet tonight.

Everyone began milling around the hosted bar around 6pm, and we snagged a table for our boat, plus divemaster Elaine. We were also joined by Rob, one of the Kona Aggressor captains and a friend of Tee and Dave’s from previous years, along with his girlfriend.

The first awards given were for the Reef Check categories: Reef Check had special categories (with prizes, but not the fancy blue dolphin statuette trophies) for Best Invertebrate, Best Vertebrate, and Best Reef Check Diver. Jeff won that last one! I was thrilled that we wouldn’t be going home empty-handed (even though Jeff really only came to learn and improve, I could tell he really wanted to at least place in some of the categories).

Then they got down to the serious awards. Each of the categories went by, and Jeff didn’t even get any Honorable Mentions. I could tell he was starting to be bummed, and trying not to be (since really, he didn’t expect to win anything this year).

Dave took the video contest, as usual, with a cute video set to the Beatles’ “Help” showing Dave deciding to take up scuba diving, and then totally panicking in the water. In between panic shots were all kinds of great critter shots; I hope my camera work is just HALF that steady.

The Locals Only video was won by the owner of Jack’s Diving Locker, who put together a real crowd-pleaser centered around those fancy bubble-rings that all tropical divemasters seem to be good at. He had all kinds of great bubble footage, including really fancy ones with multiple bubbles interacting with each other, and spinning off into little vortices. There were some great shots of turtles on the surface framed by a bubble ring as it rose up, and of freedivers swimming through the rings. Amazing stuff!

Incidentally, we were at the winning table – Rob had 4 trophies in front of him by now, from Macro, Wide Angle, Creative, and Topside (all fabulous photos), and John won Diver Portrait with a gorgeous shot of his wife Linda over the sailboat wreck, which was outlined by snappers hanging out in its shade. Elaine won in one of the Locals Only categories, so we had 6 blue dolphin sculptures weighing down our table – plus a pile of certificates for honorable mentions, 2nd and 3rd places, and Jeff’s Reef Check award.

Finally – drumroll please – it was time for the Best Overall categories. Jan (Jack’s divemaster) took it in the Locals Only with a fabulous cleaner-wrasse shot; we were thrilled because we adore her and her work. Kathy announced that the prize for Best Overall in the open category included a trip for two to Tahiti – and I leaned over to Jeff and whispered that he should definitely try to win next year!

Then the pros got up to introduce the winning photograph. They said that the photographer had made real improvements all week; every day, he or she had come to talk to the pros about their photos from the day, and come up with what to work on the next day. And the next day, they’d see the results of that conversation in the work, until by the end of the week the pictures had dramatically improved. (At this point, I started to hope it might be Jeff, even though I knew it was a long shot – he’d spent a lot of time working with the pros every evening.)

Marty Snyderman mentioned that it was ironic that he hadn’t seen a single turtle on this trip – and now I really started to think it might be Jeff, because the shot he submitted that all the pros had liked the most was a turtle shot. We had now reached the point where we would be disappointed if it wasn’t Jeff, even though it probably wasn’t.

But it was!

Open Category – Best Overall Image, Jeff Laity

We celebrated into the wee hours (well, midnight, when they close the bars) with Dave and Tee. Dave won a new video housing – I’m hoping I can talk him into selling one of his old ones, so I can shoot some video in Tahiti! The dratted trip will probably cost us more than it saves us, between airfare (not included) and all the photo equipment we’ll want to buy for it. It should be well worth it, though!

I sent Jeff home this morning with his pretty blue dolphin trophy (sculpted by Wyland, the guy who does all those calendar-worthy underwater paintings). He also got quite a pile of prizes donated by Body Glove, Pelican, Deep Outdoors, and others.

And as if all that wasn’t reward enough – all the first place winners will have their photos printed in the fall photo spread of Sport Diver magazine!We are very happy Laitys today.Yesterday we were about 90% sure we’d be heading back to the Kona Classic next year – now I’d say it’s a complete certainty! I hope we have as wonderful a group of boat buddies as this year, not to mention the pros who donated their time to helping everyone out. This is a truly fantastic event, and Jeff and I both had a blast. (And next year, Dave had better watch out – I plan to give him some competition in the video category!)

Check out the lucky shirt:

The last dive day of a vacation is always sort of sad. There’s such pressure on it to be a good day of diving, and in this case even more so because of the pressure to get good photographs. Jeff has been trying really hard to apply all the advice he gets from the pros at the end of each day, and has come back with better and better photos.

We piled onto the Na Pali Kai 2 for the last time with our group of buddies: Dave and Tee Husted (who loaned me the housing); Judy Bennett from New Orleans; her travel buddy Jim Squires, who teaches diving in Vermont; and John and Linda (John’s the UW photographer, but Linda foots the bill with a successful dental practice in a nice bit of gender role reversal – John used to be her office manager).

We started with a bonus dive. Some people really wanted to dive the Naked Lady again, but others didn’t want to trade in one of their long dives for it. So Jack’s gave us the option of an extra dive for $25. Easy decision. We didn’t see anything that spectacular this time around, but it was a pretty dive. I followed a big conch around on the sand for a while, and saw the bicolor anthias again. On the way down and up, Jeff practiced taking pictures of silhouettes and sunbursts.

Next we moored at Rabbi’s. We dropped down and headed towards High Rock, where a big frogfish reportedly hangs out. Apparently Jeff and I missed all the cool stuff on this dive, because everyone else came up with tales of amazing critters. We tooled around several ridges and arches, and I shot some more group-hunting action, a cute pair of tobies, and a trumpetfish. At the end of the dive, someone found an enormous moray hanging out under a ledge. It seemed to be awake, but wasn’t moving around or opening its mouth at all, so it made kind of a boring subject.After lunch, we headed back to one of our favorites for the last dive of the trip: Eel Cove. Jeff and I poked around the shallows for a while in search of the dragon moray, but didn’t find it. Both Jeff and I got shots of a rockmover wrasse in action, and I also saw some yellowtail coris wrasses shoving rocks around. We went around the corner to where the raccoon butterflies pester the sargent majors, and encountered a scene of incredible fishiness! I saw sargent majors courting, spawning dascyllus, and lots of damsels chasing away other fish. There were cleaning stations galore, and I spotted some fish I hadn’t seen yet on the trip hovering in the water column, including several pairs of pyramid butterflies. The raccoons soon materialized, and we were enveloped in clouds of ravenous butterflyfish and angry sargent majors.

Swarm of hungry Raccoon Butterflyfish:
We eventually turned around and headed back to the cove, where we still didn’t find the dragon eel, but we found a few small whitemouth morays. Jeff ran low on air and headed up, while I continued to putter around for a while in the shallows (plenty of other folks always in sight), just fish-watching and trying to film some bubbles.Now everyone settles in for an evening of touching up their photos and deciding which ones to submit to which categories, or for all-nighters putting together video. Not me; I’m definitely going to just take my time back at home this year. But maybe next year I’ll give Dave some competition!

This was just a great day of diving. Or at least, half a day of great diving. We started the morning at Turtle Pinnacle in search of turtles (what else?), and were happy to see a cloudless sky for once. Nothing beats sunshine for wide angle underwater photography!

This dive kicked serious, serious ass. Along with David Fleetham, Jeff and I were the first ones down, and we followed him right to the turtle cleaning station. One turtle was hanging out on the ground, and another was hovering in mid-water to be cleaned on all sides at once. I was drifting towards that one when I suddenly realized I was right next to another one on the ground beside me. Turtles galore! Sometimes one would be startled by all the photographers (go figure) and head for the surface – and then everyone would scramble to get silhouette shots. David was very helpful, indicating when it seemed safer to inch closer, and when I should slow down or back off. He’s got no shortage of turtle shots under his professional belt!

I spotted several peacock groupers hovering over coral heads, and began looking for their eel partner, who soon materialized. I got lots of footage as I followed him and his buddies out and over the reef, and eventually Jeff caught on and came along. I was distracted looking at a second eel when Jeff caught the first eel striking at an octopus in a hole – but I turned around in time to catch him tying himself in knots to crush the octopus, and swimming away with it while the peacock groupers tried to grab some scraps.

An ass-kicking dive indeed!

On our surface interval, we headed out to sea in search of big stuff. Instead, we found small stuff. The boat came to a halt by a red bucket floating in the water, and a different Jeff (one of the owners of Jack’s Diving Locker) jumped out to take a look. He reported back that the bucket was home to a triggerfish and dozens of juvenile something-or-others, possibly amber jacks. Everyone hopped in for a snorkel, remembering that last year’s macro winner was a picture of a frogfish on some floating trash. The triggerfish bolted, but it was fun to watch all the little fish that had made their home on the barnacle-encrusted bucket.

For our second dive, we moored by the Old Airport. We checked out this site in hopes of finding some macro critters: scorpionfish or frogfish. Apparently conditions don’t usually allow diving here, but today was calm so we checked it out. Unfortunately, we didn’t see anything very spectacular. Lots of small fish action: juvenile yellowtail coris wrasses and a juvenile rockmover. We saw several cleaning stations, and more hunting eels, but none as photogenic as on the last site. Still, we burned up all our air tooling around on the bottom. I’m loving these hour-plus dives!

We finished off our Thursday evening at the Kona Classic pizza party over at the Kona Brewery. Divers can eat; I don’t think the pizzas were ever out on the table for more than a few minutes before every scrap was picked clean. We sat with four other divers from our boat, and swapped stories about dives, pets and jobs. The evening ended with a raffle; I walked away with a PADI backpack (hey, an extra carry-on!), and Jeff snagged one of the Sport Diver baseball caps he’d been drooling over.

My foot was killing me when I first got out of bed, but it seemed to get better after some walking around – and of course, the diving seemed to help! (It probably just distracts me from the pain.) Unfortunately, once we were back on land it got progressively worse again as I walked around, and it’s ace-bandaged again as I type this. So: walking, bad; diving good. Duh.

Today we decided to head south for a change; our first stop was a dive site named Driftwood. We puttered downwards along a ridge and over a lava tube (which Jeff then went back up and over again to meet up with me). In around 70 feet of water, I spotted a pretty, multicolored potter’s angelfish. We hopped over to the other side of the ridge, where the divemaster pointed out an eel hunting with a bluefin trevally. Jeff was so focused on photographing the trevally (who wasn’t running away from us like they usually do), he didn’t notice the eel went right under him. Heading back towards the boat, we spotted a trio of male bird wrasses – first ones we’ve seen, though there’ve been plenty of females!

After the usual surface interval spent eating sandwiches and motoring miles offshore in search of big stuff (didn’t find anything today), we headed back to shore and moored at The Dome. Jeff and I kicked off the dive by poking around in the enormous cavern the site is named after, with lots of skylights to let some light in, but plenty of dark holes to peek into. We didn’t find anything spectacular, but it was a pretty area with the light trickling in and the fish swimming upside-down. We exited on the far side and looped back around past the boat, then went down along a ridge next to the sand. I filmed some goatfish feeding in the sand, and Jeff found a tiny lizardfish in a hole.

On our way back up the ridge, I spotted a bunch of jacks and goatfish hovering together over a coral head, and they didn’t spook as I inched closer – so I started looking for the eel they were out hunting with. Sure enough, one appeared, and Jeff and I watched the show for a bit.

Then Tee came over to grab us, and showed us a bunch of the other photographers gathered around a triton’s trumpet (enormous snail) eating a crown-of-thorns starfish (an invasive species that eats coral). Everyone took turns snapping pics and video of the triton’s meal, while I filmed the merry-go-round of photographers. Jeff pretty much emptied his tank (80 cubic feet as opposed to my 72), and used my octopus on our safety stop just to be safe. (First time we’ve used it, for you mothers out there who are now panicking, and he wasn’t even totally out of air; we were just being cautious.)

Triton’s Trumpet devouring a Crown of Thorns:

We spent the evening in various presentations by the photo pros: Dan talked about digital workflows and some basic Photoshop stuff (though with some tips that were new to us), and after dinner there were slideshows by Marty Snyderman, Jim Watts, and David Fleetham. Jeff and I barely had a chance all day to look at photos or footage – I’m now two days behind in logging my tapes! I guess there’s a chance I’ll catch up tomorrow, since there’s nothing scheduled between the boat dive and dinner at 7. Then again, I may just take the opportunity to nap!

I started today on the wrong foot – literally. The tricky entrance onto the boat yesterday was actually easier than today’s; the boat was even lower relative to the pier. I sat on the edge and put my left foot into a shelf below the pier, and one of the Jack’s folks pulled me across as I pushed off the ledge. But I wound up going sort of sideways because of my foot’s sideways orientation in the ledge, and my right foot twisted under me so I landed entirely on the side/top of it! Serious ouch.

It was a short ride out to the first dive, a sailboat wreck just outside the harbor known as the Naked Lady, and everyone tried to help: we wrapped my foot in an ace bandage, and put ice on it while I held it up. I decided to go ahead and try to dive; it hurt to walk, but there’s no walking underwater.

Getting into my wetsuit wasn’t a problem, but putting on my dive booty was. There’s a certain amount of foot-scrunching I do to sort of wriggle in, and it’s just that sort of foot-bending that hurts! Pulling on my fin was also a challenge; yanking back on the strap to set it around my ankle crunched up my entire foot.

Once in the water, I had no problems. Flutter kicks hurt a bit, but I’m more of a frog-kicker anyway. We headed down to the bottom and photographed schools of blue-striped snappers circling the wreck, hawaiian dascyllus mating behavior, and some bicolor anthias.

Bicolor Anthia:
Wreck of the Naked Lady:

Getting back onto the boat was a minor challenge as well. I handed up my weights first, and then slipped out of my BC so the crew could haul it on board and I only had to worry about getting my own weight up the ladder. Putting as much weight as possible on my good foot, I made it back up without incident.

Since we’d started the day with a deep dive (110 ft), and of course we all completely maxed out our bottom time, we needed an extra long surface interval. We cruised out to sea in search of big stuff (whales, dolphins, whale sharks). After lunch, we came across a pod of dolphins. The boat zipped ahead of them a bit, and then dropped us all in the water in snorkel gear – just in time to spot them swimming under us. We tried again, and this time they were cavorting in our wake just a few feet away from us – but again, once they were in, they all stayed down and just swam under. I doubt anyone got any decent photos out of it, but it was still cool to see literally hundreds of dolphins zooming by beneath us!

We did our second dive at Golden Arches, a relatively shallow site with two big ridges (with arches in them, obviously). On the way from the first to the second, we stumbled across a pair of lei triggerfish who were very upset with Jeff’s fins. He took one off and waggled it beneath the camera to get them to come close, and spent most of the dive in that position.

Lei Triggerfish:

I continued to cruise around the second ridge, observing more mating behavior – seems like all the fish are spawning this week! I hung out in the archway for a while, with a big school of blue-stripe snapper. Initially startled by my bubbles, they eventually got used to me and ignored my presence, and I just kind of chilled out and drifted back and forth with them.

Getting off the boat at the end of the day was a bit nerve-wracking, but with both Jeff and Danny (Jack’s crew) pulling me up I managed to land very lightly on my feet! Unfortunately, walking turned out to be harder than I expected. On the boat, I’d been able to get back and forth with minimal pain, but that was never more than a few steps at a time. Walking to our parked car, and then walking around Long’s Drugs in search of Ace bandages, made me wish I had a crutch!

I debated for a while over whether to go on the manta dive tonight. The smart thing to do, obviously, would be to lay off the foot for a while. But I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to film manta rays, or to try out nighttime videography (Dave was going to loan me a light). So I opted in, and thank goodness!

Jeff and I were the first ones into the water and over to the light box. There were no mantas in sight when we arrived, so Jeff settled in photographing an eel that was lurking under the rocks surrounding the manta-attracting light box. While his attention was occupied, one enormous manta swooped in from behind and over our heads, then disappeared for a while. Finally it showed up again, and Jeff paid attention. More and more divers joined us, and we wound up with two or three huge rays showing off. The eel that was hanging out in the light box suddenly took off vertically, swimming upwards through the school of fish hanging out in the light. Between the mantas and the free-swimming eel, I felt a severe sensory overload.

Andy (the divemaster) called us away for a bit to look at a devil scorpionfish on a rock, then we went back to mantas. This was my first attempt at night videography, and I had to turn off the camera sometimes to just sit back and enjoy the mantas instead of looking at the monitor. Andy called us away a second time to check out a reticulated frogfish, a tiny little red fish down in a crack (apparently quite rare). Then back to mantas.

My injured foot started to hurt after being sat on for most of an hour (while manta-watching, you kneel on the uneven ground, squashing your feet and fins beneath you), so Jeff and I started to cruise around a bit. Once again, Andy to the rescue – he pointed out an undulated moray out in the open. Jeff and I followed it around until it spotted a squirrelfish. Well, we helped it spot a squirrelfish with our dive lights. BAM, the squirrelfish was dinner – and we got it all on camera (both our cameras)!

Last year we had more mantas (eighteen), but I think this year was a better dive all-around. It was a truly great night dive!

Unfortunately, the time spent kneeling on the bottom did not do good things for my injured foot. I guess the acid test is whether it feels better tomorrow after a few hours of rest, or worse!

Today was our first day of diving with Jack’s! We were picked up at the hotel, and hopped onto the Na Pali Kai 2 at the Kailua Pier. Getting on is a bit of a trick; the boat doesn’t back up quite all the way to the pier, and is several feet below it. We made it aboard with incident, and Jeff and I were thrilled to be reunited with divemasters Greg and Jan (from our trip last year).

Our first dive was at Lone Tree Arch. We started out following the guide, Elayne, down to the dropoff, but lost her there while Jeff was photographing an eel. We stumbled across Jan, and followed her back up the slope to the arch the site is named after. It’s an enormous rock formation with a cave through the middle, full of schools of fish just drifting in the surge. I had fun watching bubbles collecting on the surface, and trying to get shots of upside-down fish, or silhouettes of the schools in the archway.

Next we watched Chris doing his Reef Check survey for a few minutes, before tooling around by another ridge. Jeff went off to photograph who-knows-what; I stayed within easy eyesight, but we weren’t anywhere near to the accepted standards of buddy distances! (At least, not in California diving – out here, dive groups don’t seem to worry so much about it, since the visibility is so great.) I found a rockmover wrasse picking up rocks and knocking them over to get at snacks underneath, and followed him around for a long time. Sometimes, other fish would catch on to what he was doing and swarm around looking for leftovers. There were also quite a few groups of yellowtail coris wrasses zipping around the reef, scrounging for meals.

After lunch, we hit Eel Cove, with Greg as our guide. He led us around the point to check out the sargent major nests. When divers get too close, the sargent majors get scared off – and schools of raccoon butterflyfish descend for a snack of sargent major eggs! It’s best for the sargent major population if you don’t hang out too long, but it’s pretty much unavoidable – and leads to some interesting photographic opportunities.

The raccoons followed us all the way back around the point, occasionally descending on the unsuspecting sargent majors until the divers passed and the little damselfish could attack the invaders in earnest. Back in the main part of the cove, we went eel hunting. We found dwarf morays, whitemouth morays, and then, the Big One: Jan spotted a dragon moray in a coral head.

I thought dive knives were going to come out. Underwater photographer feeding frenzy! Jeff managed to get a couple of turns in and walked away with some halfway decent shots. I have lots of footage of photographers (and their enormous camera rigs) crowding around the coral head, while Jan waggled her fingers in front of the eel’s hole to try to tempt him out. I do not, however, have any footage of the eel (although I did manage to get a decent look at him). Those are some weird looking little critters!

Dragon Moray Eel:

Jeff pretty much emptied his tank hovering around the dragon moray, so we headed back up to the boat. Back in town, we took Dave and Tee out to lunch at LuLu’s (the first of many meals I hope to buy them in thanks for the camera housing loan). We had a lot of fun chatting about diving, Hawaii, triplets (their daughter just had some), Los Angeles, etc.

In the evening, I usurped Jeff’s computer long enough to log my video. There is way too much of it. I need to lay off the record button a bit more underwater, to save myself time in the editing bay! Everyone’s after me to throw something together to submit on Saturday, but I just don’t see having the time to log (Jeff’s computer), import (Jeff’s computer again), burn to DVD (still stealing Jeff’s computer, which he needs to be using), copy to my computer, and edit. Aghk.

We rounded out the day hanging out with the photo pros in the editing room, where Jeff got some critiques of his photos while I updated all my logs. I foresee another early night – especially since tomorrow is a three-dive day (manta night dive)!

I love not waking up to an alarm. Still, we were up and running by 8am (probably has something to do with being in bed at 9 last night). Our goals for today: relax, do a shore dive, relax, get some food, relax, go on the Body Glove sunset cruise with the Kona Classic folks, and get to bed early.

For our shore dive, we headed down to Place of Refuge, which we dove last year. That time around, it was a Wednesday evening, and we were the only ones in the water. This time, it was a bit more crowded. There were a handful of other divers, about a dozen freedivers of various levels of skill, some kids, and lots of locals hanging out and discussing the diving.

After a quick test dunk to cool off and find out if my camera rig was buoyant or negative (it’s very slightly buoyant), we scootched down the two steps into the water and headed off. There were hundreds of hawaiian dascyllus (little black-and-white damselfish) out and about today, and after a bit of observation we realized we were seeing some spawning action. The fish milled about high in the water column, and occasionally two of them dashed vertically up towards the surface together and released a cloud of “spawn” (the polite term for it, in the world of ictheology). It was actually the sight of many clouds of spawn gunking up the water that finally tipped me off to what I was seeing.

Other highlights of this dive were a turtle fly-by (he didn’t get too close), two juvenile rockmover wrasses, some freedivers goofing around at the “Aloha” spelled out of concrete blocks, and – of course – simply learning how to use the camera. I really enjoyed it; I like the opportunity to capture fish behavior, and the housing is terrifically simple and robust.

Juvenile Rockmover Wrasse:

Getting out of the water at Place of Refuge is a wee bit tricky. The exit itself is pretty simple; there’s a rock shelf underwater that you let a wave carry you onto, and another rock shelf right at water level that you can step up onto after removing your fins. The hard part is that both those rock shelves are full of holes, and those holes each contain an urchin. There are enough people walking around on them that they stay retracted into their holes, but only just; if you bend a finger the wrong way and wind up grabbing the inside of a hole, you’re likely to get stuck! So: flat hands only, and it’s a lot easier in a wetsuit.

In the evening, we grabbed dinner at Sibu before the Body Glove cruise, neither of which was worth writing about in much detail. I would, however, like to mention the ice cream concoction I had at Hula Bean: Volcano. It’s banana ice cream mixed with strawberry, with chunks of Oreos. I’m seriously going to have to try to put this mixture together on my next trip to Cold Stone.

We had a very long day today; it started at 2:30am Hawaiian time (“only” 5:30am pacific time, that is). The plane ride wasn’t any worse than usual, aside from the incredibly squished United seats – I’d actually just forgotten how low on legroom they are, and I’m not even the kind of person that really requires that much legroom! (I do, however, require significantly more hip room than they provide.)

We landed in Kona in the afternoon to clouds and drizzle, though everyone assured us the weather had been beautiful until just now. After checking in at our hotel, the Royal Kona Resort, we drove back up the road to Bubba’s Burgers. Walking in the back way, we chuckled at some of their goofy little signs – stuff like the “eat and get out” motto that used to be plastered all over Ed Debevic’s in Beverly Hills. So when we got to the counter and saw big “Sold Out” stickers stuck next to all the hamburger-related items, at first we thought it was some sort of joke. The person at the counter said, “As you know, today’s our last day of business – so we’re out of hamburgers! We’ll understand if you go somewhere else.”

As we know? We would know this HOW? As we drove away, we double-checked – no “going out of business” signs anywhere in sight. We got our burgers across the street.

We checked in at Jack’s Diving Locker and dropped off all our gear, then made a quick dash to the grocery store for snacks and drinks before showering and heading to the opening reception for the Kona Classic.

We were greeted with goody bags full of stickers, license plate holders, towels, etc, all from the various sponsors of the Kona Classic – and some very uncomfortable plastic leis that we were all made to wear. There was free food, free booze, and a chance to meet all our fellow photographers, as well as the photo pros who would be diving alongside us. Dave showed up with the housing he’s loaning me for the week (do I owe him a favor or what?), and we got to meet his wife Tee as well.

Dave and Tee shared some of the difficulties of home ownership on the big island. On a day when someone was supposed to come paint the house, the guy never showed up. The next day, he turned up with massive bruising all over his leg. When Dave asked where he’d been, the guy told him the surf had been up, so he couldn’t come to work! Not at all unusual out here; these people have their priorities straight.

Afterwards, we went to the opening presentation (rules, some slides, more slides, a raffle, etc). There were some gorgeous presentations by the pros, and it all would have been great fun – except that we’d been up for long enough, and Jeff and I were starting to drag. We finally escaped just in time for Dave to show me how to set up the housing, before we dragged our sleepy selves to bed.

Do you ever have dreams where the people and places from your life are a bit mixed up? Like, you’re at your old high school with your college friends; or you’re in high school again and they won’t let you graduate, but for some reason you’re still working your current job?

(Is it just me?)

That’s what the Pomona College 5-year reunion felt like to me: a surreal experience, surrounded by people who I was not supposed to be surrounded by anymore. On the other hand, since it took place on campus, it also had the disconcerting effect of being as if I’d never left, and my life now is some sort of dream.

In a word: weird.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the chance to catch up with people. It’s just that I’m already “caught up” with most of the people I was really close to, anyway. I know what’s going on in the lives of Sarah and Mir, and I get occasional Amit updates. Nicki and Justin still live here in LA, and I run into some of my physics profs at Caltech from time to time. Jenica emails regularly, and I see Sabrina whenever she’s in LA.

There were dozens of people from my class at alumni weekend, and I recognized all of them – but none of them were long-term friends. Lots of close-while-we-were-in-Calculus-togehter friends, or always-ate-lunch-together-as-freshman friends, people who I’d always say hello to or feel free to sit with in the dining halls. But seeing these people 5 years later turned out to be less meaningful than I’d expected.

Maybe it’s just that a 5-year reunion is sort of a silly concept. No one’s changed enough to be interesting, but everyone’s just different enough to be slightly hard to recognize. There were two girls that I lived with freshman year (we were in the same Sponsor Group, for those of you familiar with Pomona terminology), and I would have called them fairly good friends of mine for those first few months of school. They were both at the reunion, and at first I couldn’t tell which was which! They’d switched hair styles (curly was now straight, and vice versa), and both had a super-high-energy sort of “Oh my gosh, how are you I haven’t seen you in so long” attitude. The one I remembered having freckles didn’t anymore, and vice versa. It actually took some help from Sarah and Mir (who did not actually LIVE with these people) to set me straight. It also didn’t help that the nametags (wood with stickers on it to make it look sort of like burned-in lettering) kept flipping around backwards. They actually looked disconcertingly like little gravestones.

See? Gravestones:

Two other people from my sponsor group are now married (to each other, I mean – they started dating the second week of freshman year). They are EXACTLY the same as they were as freshman. They look the same, they talk the same, they have NOT CHANGED.

Several of the, how shall I say this, more weird and annoying people in my class had also NOT CHANGED. One of these people always seems drunk, despite the fact he’s completely sober. After our first encounter with him over the weekend, I seem to recall Kris mentioning to Sarah that he seemed drunk. Indeed.

Another was one of those tragically unhappy people, who always needs a friend. Like, neeeeds a friend. She used to wander up to my dorm room, because no one on her hall was friendly. (This should have been my first clue she was needier than normal, because out of 20+ people she couldn’t find a single decent human being.) For a while, I tried to be her friend. But you know what? There are some people who are not worth the energy. I thank her for teaching me this. (I successfully avoided her at the reunion, and did not feel guilty at all.)

About two hours into the reunion, I realized I was already forgetting what everybody was up to. You can only ask so many people where they’re living / what they’re doing / if they’re married before you start to confuse the answers. However, it helped quite a lot that pretty much everyone:

• Lives in Colorado or in Northern California
• Is almost done with a PhD, OR just out of law school, OR just quitting a job to go to law school

We also noticed that lots of people brought boyfriends, but there were no husbands present. Mine certainly wasn’t; he’s way past the proving-my-love-for-you stage and was completely unwilling to suffer through such an experience. Too bad for Kris, who probably could have used the company.

The highlight of the day for me was the Glee Club concert – especially the part where we all got to go up on stage and join in with the college songs. This is especially funny, because as students, the Glee Club mostly hated the college songs. (Ok, not all of them – most of us at least liked “Over the Years.”) The only reason the Glee Club sings the dorky college songs is to make the alums happy. And sure enough – it made me extremely happy to run up there and spot all my old glee club friends, not just from my year but from the years bracketing me (those who still live in CA, anyway). Jason Hewitt, who was one of the biggest “I’m not singing these stupid college songs” grumblers while actually in the Glee Club, was one of the most enthusiastic alumni voices there.

Glee Club + Over-enthusiastic Alums:

Highlight #2 would have to be our tour of Mudd-Blaisdell, where Sarah, Mir, Amit and I all lived our Junior and Senior years. Ah, what a dorm! The lack of air conditioning, the ugly pinkish-with-a-grid-pattern carpets, the slightly-different-pink walls and trim. Alas, dear old MB has had some serious renovations. All the pink is now gray and blue, and the lucky kids who live there now have CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING. In a dorm. And wireless internet. We thought it was funny that Pomona spent years and lots of $$ rewiring all the dorms to have ethernet – and after another couple of years, it was all made obsolete thanks to wireless.

Mudd-Blaisdell Reunion:

“The Tower” (where I lived with Sarah and Mir our last year) is currently inhabited by some sophomore guys, one of whom we startled in his underwear, and they were quite willing to chat with us about Pomona, the dorm, future career plans, etc. One of them mentioned how great it was that the Tower had two showers in the bathroom. “Two whats???” We had to see for ourselves. This is a floor with only three rooms, mind you, and their own bathroom – with two showers! What decadence! We thought we were pretty lucky to have the one!

I have to say, I came out of the whole experience feeling somewhat ahead of the curve. Ok, so I don’t have a PhD, MBA, or law degree – I can live with that. I’ve already got a job I like; there’s no more school in my future, and I’m not career-hopping. I live in a city I love (despite the CRAPPY ASS real estate market), so no more where-to-live angst. Most of all, it was great to head home and get back to Jeff, who I sorely missed during the day. Surrounded by all those college people and college things, I mostly realized that I do not miss it – not ANY of it – anymore. I loved it while I was there, but four years was plenty; I’m liking the rest of life a lot better.

(Actually, I take that last bit back – I do miss the mint-chip and coffee ice cream shakes that the Coop is willing to make. Yum.)

The Suities – we haven’t really changed: