Hawaii Nei

by Anton Zuiker on January 8, 2022

It’s been a few weeks since we returned from a thoroughly enjoyable (if you ignore the constant worry of COVID-19) family vacation on O’ahu. I started to write this blog post as soon as we were back home in Chapel Hill, but I just never got around to finishing it amid the return to work, the tasks and details related to a driveway project, selling this house, and building a new house.

Here’s a recap of the vacation:

My father’s apartment was empty while he and Dot are on St. Croix for the winter, so Erin and I used our United Airlines miles for tickets to Honolulu. With Makiki as home base, we used dad’s car to travel the island and enjoy activities on every side of the island: surf lessons for the kids at Waikiki, açaí bowls at Sunset Beach and souvenir shopping in Haleiwa, whale watching off the stunning Waianae coast, Christmas Day on Kailua Beach and then climbing down to Halona Cove (the setting for that famous beach scene in From Here to Eternity).

I lived on O’ahu nearly 30 years ago, and I was able to explore much of the Hawaiian islands with dad and my brothers, as part of a hiking club, and when friends visited — Erin and I went to Hana, Maui, and my work took me to the top of Mauna Kea. On this trip I got to see parts of O’ahu I hadn’t seen before, including Makaha and Mokuleia beaches, and a hike to Allen Davis Beach. Our friends Blaine Rogers and Becky Delafield live in Kaimuki, and they took us on that hike, which started with a resting Hawaiian monk seal on Sandy Beach.

Blaine and Becky were good friends when we first moved to North Carolina. On 9/11, we huddled together in front of our small television, and after that traumatic day we gathered with other grad-school friends on Wednesday evenings to watch The West Wing. Blaine and I went hiking and biking, listened to music, and took little Anna driving for her nap time. I met Blaine and Becky for dinner when I was back in Honolulu for the marathon in 2014, but we hadn’t kept up since. I regret that, because our time with them last month reminded me how fun, generous, smart, and likable they are.

“I don’t want to leave,” said each of the kids as we packed up and prepared for our flight home. I felt the same way. What a gift it had been to spend the holidays on Oahu, outside together and with friends. What a special place.

Drumbeat

by Anton Zuiker on October 14, 2021

For the last few months, I’ve been a tester for Drummer, the new outliner for scripting and blogging that Dave Winer has developed. I enjoy blogging with Drummer. I’ve called my blog Tamtam Nius, and here’s my recent ode to the tool and another post about what it’s like to write with Drummer.

I’ll be blogging there, and here, and Micro.blog, and eventually will figure out how to coordinate all this.

Advancement

by Anton Zuiker on October 8, 2021

At work, a promotion: I’ve been moved up a level and am now a research communications project manager.

Which means I have to update my resume.

I’m grateful to my managers for advocating for me, and giving me engaging and rewarding work.

A healthy résumé

by Anton Zuiker on August 31, 2021

Nine months into my job at the Duke Clinical Research Institute, I’m happy and enjoying the work. I hope to be at DCRI for years to come. Still, I’ve always believed it’s important to keep an up-to-date résumé handy so I can show my career path and respond quickly to new opportunities.

Here’s where I currently list my professional details:

And for fun, here’s a version of my résumé from 1994. I was returning to the Mainland after two enjoyable years in Hawaii, where I had a great first job as a writer for Hawaii Medical Service Association (Lisa Baxa was my first manager, and Bill Harby was an important writing mentor who edited my Mauna Kea feature and Keck Observatory essay). I was feeling creative, and fashioned my résumé in the form of a nutritional label. I don’t remember actually sending it as part of a job application, but I had fun making it.

Ringing in 25

by Anton Zuiker on August 15, 2021

When I was ready to ask Erin to marry me, soon after I returned to Cleveland from my time in Hawaii and she had graduated from John Carroll University, I went in search of a ring. Problem was, I had hardly any money and there was no way I could give her a flashy diamond-and-gold ring. But mine wasn’t the big-rock style anyway, so I went to a craft fair at one of the private schools on Cleveland’s east side, and I stopped at the table of a jewelry artisan who’d made a delicate ring with a speck of a diamond. I paid a few hundred dollars and was ready to propose: on a drive south to Hilton Head to meet up with her family, Erin and I pitched a tent for a few hours of sleep in a campground in Virginia. In the morning, I asked Erin to spread a white sheet over the picnic table so we could eat our bagels and yogurt. On the sheet, in my crude handwriting: “Erin, will you marry me?”—the ring tied with a ribbon in place of the dot in the question mark.

She said yes, and every day since then (actually, since the very first day I met her in 1991), my existence has been better because of Erin. Because of her, our life together has been rich and rewarding and full of love and adventure. Even the table coverings are better.

Erin and I celebrated 25 years of marriage this past week, with dinner at Hawthorne and Wood and an overnight in the Siena Hotel in Chapel Hill (a momentary illusion of Tuscany, but some day we’ll go for real). In a way, we’ve been celebrating for months; earlier this year, she suggested we needed to update our wedding rings. She found a stunning yellow diamond set in a white gold band and a matching band with a row of smaller diamonds. At the same shop, I picked out a thicker white-gold band to replace my thin yellow-gold band. We love our rings. We love each other.

I do miss my old ring. I often slipped it off my finger and looked to the inside of the band, where this was inscribed: ‘As you wish. 8-10-96.’ But now I twirl the new ring around my finger and I think, twenty-five and counting.

Erin, I love you. Thank you for wearing that simple ring, and holding my hand, and making a life with me for a quarter century.

A remarkable end to vacation

by Anton Zuiker on July 20, 2021

The family vacation on St. Croix came to a close yesterday, the afternoon flight giving time in the morning for me drive into Frederiksted to conduct an interview at Polly’s at the Pier (I’m working on an alumni profile for Duke Magazine). Then I returned for a last 30 minutes to string up my hammock under the sea grape trees at Sprat Hall Beach. It is my favorite place, and I savored the moment.

We packed up the car, shuttled the family and my father to Rainbow Beach, ate lunch (mahi tacos with the spicy aioli), shuttled dad back to the house, and then headed to the airport.

We were early and quick through TSA, so sat in the steamy STX concourse-under-construction calmly reading our books even when the flight was delayed so technicians could apply supertape to a running light damaged by a bird strike on the incoming flight, but eventually we were away from an amazing week on island. We landed in Charlotte late at night, and still had a two-hour drive home to Chapel Hill.

I was driving and couldn’t find any music I could enjoy and that would keep me awake and let the others sleep. Then I remembered that Dave Winer had posted a link to Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People podcast and the episode featuring his conversation with Dave. I drove on, wide awake as I listened to Dave and Guy. Even though I’ve been following him for 20 years, I learned yet more detail about Dave’s development of outlining, blogging, RSS, and podcasting.

When the episode was finished, Erin — who I thought had been sleeping — spoke up: “That was interesting.” We talked softly about Facebook and my American Tobacco Trail and NYC biking adventures with Dave for the last 10 miles until we were home. Quickly everyone fell into their beds. I closed my eyes, observed how the dead silence inside our solid brick house was so different than the last week’s sleeping with the constant sounds of St. Croix — chirping tree frogs and barking dogs through the night and doves and roosters at dawn — coming through the louvered windows, and I fell asleep, the motion memory of that hammock near the Caribbean Sea gently putting me to sleep.

***

See my Wan Smol Blog for photos and short posts from the vacation. A longer post to come here in Zuiker Chronicles in the next day or two.

Hawk's Landing update

by Anton Zuiker on July 5, 2021

In March, I introduced Hawk’s Landing, the name for the nine acres of land that we were listing on the commercial market. Now, a few months later, we haven’t found anyone to partner in the limited way we hoped (just a few houses up in these beautiful woods), so we’ve let the listing expire. Instead, we are pursuing a single buyer for our current house, and we’re proceeding with plans to build a new house — designed by our architect friend Kevin Anderson — for our family in the back corner. Stay tuned.

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