Aloha again from sunny Waikiki, dear readers! Just wanted to check in, make you all a little jealous (kidding!), and generally say hello and all.

We’ve been here in Hawaii for almost a month and I’m not sick of it yet. ;) Our first two weeks were on the Big Island, which I really enjoyed. The main reason for that? VOLCANOES. I spent a good chunk of my teenage years wanting to be a volcanologist, and even though I ended up with an MA in English instead (not even close!), I’m still fascinated by volcanoes. So, as you can imagine, it was a big freaking deal to me to get to stand on Kilauea and watch the gas plume rise out of Halema’uma’u crater. SO COOL. Stargazing on top of Mauna Kea was pretty damned awesome, too.

We’re finishing up our two weeks on Oahu, and will be leaving for Maui on Thursday. I’m excited to report that this afternoon, I’ll be going on a Lost tour. We’re going to be driven around in a Hummer to see a bunch of filming locations. I’m imagining stops like, “And here is the log that Hurley rested on in episode blah blah blah,” but we’ll get to see the big valley where they jump started the Dharma van (which is also the valley in the gallimimus-running-from-t-rex scene in Jurassic Park). I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures and imagine Sawyer standing in those places with his shirt off. Maybe I’ll even photoshop him in for you.

In bookish news, I just finished reading Anne Bishop’s Belladonna (see my review of Sebastian here) and hope to have a review written soon. I’m currently in the middle of Yippee Ki-Yay Moviegoer! by Vern, one of Ain’t It Cool News’s movie reviewers, and I will definitely have a review of that for you all as soon as I finish it up. I’ve got to say, it’s making me want to write more movie reviews, heh.

Hope everyone’s enjoying their summer and reading like maniacs! I will leave you with a pic of me and a Dharma Beer, taken at Daniel Dae Kim’s hamburger restaurant in Kalaha. :D